ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard/Archive 08

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This archive includes discussions from April - December 2009.

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If you are blocked out of ISFDB

ISFDB and many other wiki systems are getting attacked by spam robots. We are trying to slow down the damage by blocking out the spammers but that also results in regular users/editors sometimes getting blocked from editing wiki pages too. If you are blocked out one of the moderators needs remove the "autoblock" from Special:Ipblocklist. This should happen within a few hours but you can also contact the moderators via e-mail using the address isfdb.moderators followed by @gmail.com to see if anyone is able to remove the block. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:50, 21 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Vampire Hunter D submissions

Just a note that Fixer has submitted 14 Vampire Hunter D books by Hideyuki Kikuchi. As Kraang reports, these are "real novels" (albeit illustrated ones) and he will approve/clean them up shortly. Ahasuerus 23:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Carnacki

Two edits for the same pub. [[1]] The second one has the correct image, please reject the first!! Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Change comma-separated SFBC Elric titles to use colons?

Light dawned on Marblehead this morning, and I realized that while I had corrected the title of THLRCSGPRT1986 from The Elric Saga, Part I to The Elric Saga, Part One based on the title pages ("Part I" is only on the cover and spine), I left the comma. It looks like the help is telling me this should be The Elric Saga: Part One. I did even worse with THLRCSGPRT0000, leaving it The Elric Saga, Part II when the title page is using "Part Two". So I will go back and fix that. A couple of questions: Is colon the right thing to do here? And what, if anything, should I do about the titles 343061 and 977214 and the other two, unverified pubs (the 1st SFBC printings of each reissue), leave them be or change them according to whatever I ought to be doing with the pubs I have with perhaps a note that the reissue was the source? Thanks. --MartyD 00:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

My standard (and I don't know if the help pages establish such) is that subtitles should be preceded by a colon, even if there is no colon present on the title page. What makes an obvious subtitle, and not something as ubiquitous as "A novel", or "A fantasy"? That can be subjective. "Part One" or "Volume Three", I would consider part of the title, but I personally don't add any series indication as some people do, e.g. <The Dragon in the Sword: Being the Third and Final Story in the History of John Daker, The Eternal Champion (which is exactly how it's printed on the Ace hardcover's title page.) Anything that follows a title in smaller type or a different font might be consider a subtitle, thus requiring a colon. Now if the title page actually said The Elric Saga, Part One (with a comma) I'd record it exactly as that. But if its The Elric Saga over Part One in different type face then I'd use a colon.

If you have the only pub under the title record, then go ahead and change the title of the title record. If there are others, I'd leave them alone, or if verified, contact the verifier. I would NOT create a variant based on a subtitle. A lot of editors do, but, again, that's subjective. (Unless someone can point out somewhere in the help pages that specifically deals with the creation of variants based on subtitles.) MHHutchins 22:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It's THE ELRIC SAGA over Part One (and Part Two). For the titles, each has one other pub under it, that being the earlier issue (i.e., the one with the 4-digit catalog number, without the leading zero). Neither of those is verified or has notes (looks like they might have come from Locus1, which is using the comma and the Roman numeral). I will fix the entries corresponding to my copies and leave everything else alone unless anyone thinks I should to otherwise. --MartyD 00:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Epilogue against Epilogue

I will make a submission to unmerge the Epilogue of Tales of the Flying Mountains from the story Epilogue by Poul Anderson. These are two completely different stories (In Tales of the Flying Mountains the epilogue has 3 pages, the story Epilogue has 47 pages in The Book of Poul Anderson). If the unmerge is verified, I will rename the story to "Epilogue (Tales of the Flying Mountains)", as it should have been from the beginning. Thanks Willem H. 17:35, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, unmerge approved. BLongley 18:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I submitted the title change. After approval I will merge the four. Willem H. 19:38, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, all 4 title changes approved. (One would have done, you could merge the other three without making them look identical first - but you might get a new Mod that wasn't following this discussion, so possibly it's better this way. In an ideal world we'd have lots of mods providing 24/7 cover in a real-time chat-room or something. In the real world, you're stuck with me for the moment it seems. :-/ ) BLongley 20:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. This should do it. Willem H. 20:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately the latest (last?) edit gets "Error: record 995334 is not valid". I'm afraid I'll have to pass this to next active Mod, I need sleep. BLongley 20:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to add the page number for the story again (It got lost somewhere), but I think I was too quick. In merging the four resulting stories I probably deleted this one. I will make a note on Bluesman's talkpage (he verified this pub. Can somebody reject my submission for that change? Thanks Willem H. 22:08, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Please do not reject the two other submissions, for this pub and that one. I noticed Dcarson of the change. Thanks Willem H. 22:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Weird Heroes 8

This is a copy of the message I left on Scott Latham's talkpage. It seems he hasn't been seen on the wiki for a long time. Is it ok for me to edit the story, or should someone else do this?

In this verified pub the story Savage Shadow is attributed to Walter B. Gibson. I think this is wrong, and it should be Philip José Farmer. The story is reprinted in the collection Pearls from Peoria, Locus1 agrees, Both Farmer websites The International Bibliography and The Official Farmer Home Page list the story as by Farmer. I will submit a copy of this note on the moderator noticeboard, and ask if it's ok to change this. Greetings Willem H. 18:48, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Er - that publication record DOESN'T say "Savage Shadow" is by "Walter B. Gibson", it says it's by "Maxwell Grant". Do you have evidence that it's credited differently? If not, but Farmer wrote it, then it's the pseudonym set-up that's incomplete and "Maxwell Grant" should be a pseudonym of Farmer as well as Gibson. There may be nothing wrong with the publication. BLongley 19:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right of course. What is the smart thing to do? On first sight I would edit the canonicaltitle, and change Gibson to Farmer. It looks like the easiest way unless something explodes then. Help??? Willem H. 20:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Make "Maxwell Grant" a pseudonym of Philip Jose Farmer. Than change the author of this record to Farmer and then merge it with the current Farmer record. That way the credited author in Weird Heroes 8 remains as the pub states, but it will change the actual author to Farmer. MHHutchins 20:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The first submission is done. Willem H. 20:57, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

That was quick! Willem H. 20:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixer improvements

The following improvements have been made to Fixer's logic:

• Books marked as "westerns" are now automatically rejected
• Books scheduled to appear in 2010 are now automatically suspended
• Books marked as "Abandoned" by Amazon UK are now automatically suspended
• Books with "Manga" in the title are now automatically suspended
• 999 and 555 ISBNs are always suspended
• Fixer now uses ISBN-13 for books published in 2008 and later
• Made the author field mandatory. It now uses "uncredited" instead of leaving it blank.

Admittedly, there are a few books that are both westerns and SF -- they even have time traveling western romances these days! -- but the vast majority of what Amazon.com labels westerns and SF are just plain westerns. Once we enter everything else that Amazon.com has, we can go back and re-examine these "rejects", but for ignoring anything that says "western" in the subject line seems to be more productive.

Please let me know if you find anything else in Fixer's submissions that can be automated. Now that the backups have been stabilized, I may have more free time to work on the bot. Ahasuerus 21:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Inactive moderators

As per our discussion on ISFDB Talk: Policy last year, I have added a section on moderators to ISFDB:Policy. I have also removed User:Grendelkhan's, User:Mike Christie's and User:JVjr's (all unavailable since 2007) bureaucrat and moderator flags and updated the list of moderators at the top of this page. User:PortForlorn, who helped with testing in 2006, was demoderatorized last year, so I removed him/her from the list of inactive moderators as well. Ahasuerus 14:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Let us all hope that they are just too busy reading books. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Back Cover artist as cover artist?

I have this submission on hold. Normally (at least in magazines) back cover art is treated as interiorart and given a page number of 'bc'. I think this entry will actually create two coverart records (something I didn't know until yesterday) so perhaps it is ok? Which leaves the problem of truly collaborative coverart.--swfritter 23:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Unmerge on Space Family Stone - Rolling Stones

Please cancel my unmerge.. I included two and only intended to split out the 1969 version - Thanks Kevin 17:17, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Will do. Luckily I put this on hold while I was trying to determine what the result what be.--swfritter 17:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I was moving the 1969 title out, so I could merge it with the proper variant an mistakenly included the 73 which is already properly varianted to the Heinlein without the A pseudonym. Kevin 18:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Shadows With Eyes

[[2]]Three submissions: reject the first two! Finally got it right the third try.... ~Bill, --Bluesman 02:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Mis-linked titles?

I found this Poe poem with a "Serials" list of this To Arkon! Perry Rhodan title, in turn listing just this Perry Rhodan #30 pub. Neither title lists the other as a variant, nor does the Poe title show up in the pub's content list. Can someone explain what's going on and, if I can fix it, point me in the right direction or, if I can't fix it, do the fixing? Nothing's using the Poe title, so it's probably otherwise safe to delete it (and I can recreate it -- I'm working on the censored titles anyway) if that is easiest. Thanks. --MartyD 18:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a very simple but technical answer to that. "_" is a SQL wildcard character for a single character. Somewhere in the ISFDB software "To ______" is being compared with "To Arkon!" and it's a perfect match. Don't worry about it. There is no real link - "Serial" versions of titles get displayed whenever there's a title match, it doesn't even check the authors are the same. BLongley 19:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The misleading link to the serial from the Poe title will probably go away if you shorten the title by 1 "_"... unless there is a specific word that is being masked by the number of underscores. - Just a thought. Kevin 19:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that would stop it matching "To Arkon!" but would make it match "To Arkon" and any other five-letter word following "To ". Serial linking is a known bug we live with, and working around it doesn't seem worthwhile for now. Just my opinion though, and I'm off to sleep soon, so won't argue the point. Actually there's another - "to sleep" would match. ;-) BLongley 21:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a software guy, frequently on the other side of simple but technical answers. That it is a dynamic query instead of an ID-based link didn't occur to me. I am putting parenthetical first-line portions in these underscored titles, so that should take care of it. Thanks. --MartyD 22:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

We used to have a fair number of these so called "lexical matches", but all the other ones were replaced with ID-based links in 2006-2008. Serials were on Al's list of things to fix and he was working on them (and on the Award Editor) when his ISFDB time plummeted last year. Hopefully, it will still be at the top of his list when he returns... Ahasuerus 23:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Prefatory Note (The Martian Chronicles)

I made a (very wrong) submission to make this a variant of that. I should have merged the two of course. Black out or something. I believe the submission was put on hold. Please reject it. Thanks Willem H. 19:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. MHHutchins 19:29, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit / Pillar of Fire

In adding a clone for my edition of The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit I noticed that the stories (plays) in this collection are treated different from those in Pillar of Fire. Both are collections of three plays by Ray Bradbury, based on short stories of the same name. I think the solution from Pillar of Fire is the right one (It gives the name of the story followed by (play)). I would love to do the same to The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, but this will affect a number of verified pubs. I'll start with my own (3rd) printing when the cloning is accepted and import the contents from there in the other editions (and notify the verifiers of course). Any objections? Willem H. 19:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Your submission brought this to my attention. I've already started on the other pubs of this title. If you can change your copy, I'll do the rest and then we can merge the new titles. I've added (play) after the titles as in "The Veldt (play)". Import from my corrected copy here. Remember to drop the duplicate introduction. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I see you hadn't read my note before proceeding. No problem, we'll just have to merge. But I see you didn't add (play) after the new titles... Do you want me to accept this submission? MHHutchins 19:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes please. I'll let you do the merge, so no bad things will happen. Thanks Willem H. 19:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

New Bureaucrats?

No Offense (or ill luck) to Ahasuerus‎, but I noticed when reviewing the Special:Log/rights that we are now down to one active Bureaucrat in the last 9 months since Al became generally unavailable. Would it be impolite of me to suggest that one perhaps two of the more senior Mods, be promoted, so that in the event Ahasuerus‎ became unavailable without notice, we would have 'continuity' of operations? - Thanks Kevin 05:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's certainly true that all long term projects need to have a way to handle contributor attrition due to burnout, RL commitments, death, incapacitation, senility, etc. However, the only thing that we need Bureaucrats for around here is moderatorizing after a vote, a fairly mechanical process unless there are extraordinary circumstances involved. If I become unavailable, then the lack of a functioning Bureaucrat will be a rather minor issue, easily rectified with a few keystrokes, especially when you consider that Al will need to redo the backups. Ahasuerus 06:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

There is also the fact that only a bureaucrat can close a nomination per rule 4 of Moderator_Qualifications#Becoming_a_moderator. As of today, you are the only person who can decide on a new moderator. (The fact that you nominated me, and I didn't bring this up until after the nomination was closed is a moot point that no-one should pay attention to - haha ). What I want to be up front about is that with only a single active bureaucrat, only a single person is deciding on new moderators. Kevin 06:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, anyone can nominate an editor for moderatorship, although typically only moderators are in a position to tell whether an editor is ready for self-sufficiency because only moderators can see other editors' submissions. Granted, only bureaucrats can close nominations because they are the only ones who can set the moderator flag on an account, but if I become unavailable, then contacting Al and having him install a new bureaucrat will be trivial compared to the amount of time that it will take Al to redo the way the backups are handled since I maintain the S3 infrastructure. We have revamped that process 3 times in the last 3 years and it was never fun... Ahasuerus 06:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Kevin - while a bureaucrat is the one that actually pushes the button to promote (or demote) someone the decision on if someone should be a moderator is a community affair. If the thing under Ahasuerus' bed were to materialize and rust his joints then ISFDB would continue to function until Al can appoint someone else. Some housekeeping, such as uploading software changes, database backups, etc. may get behind.

You do have a good point though. Someone else reminded me of that yesterday at another place I volunteer at. I happened to be the holder of the "keys to the kingdom" with one backup person but she's no longer active. In response, I wrote up a list of accounts, passwords, and how-to-login notes and gave copies to key people. The thinking there is at least the organization is not totally dead in the water should I vanish. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Cover URLs

One thing that we have found frustrating over the years is that Amazon (and other external) URLs can disappear unexpectedly. Just to be on the safe side, I have downloaded the 55,552 images that we currently point to and saved them to DVD. I am not sure how much it will help since it's not clear that it would be OK to upload them to the Wiki and link directly to them, but at least it's something.

In the meantime, I have examined our URLs and found that 1,144 Amazon URLs end with "_A*_.jpg" and "_S*_.jpg". It would be easy to ask Fixer to create 1,144 submissions correcting these URLs, but do we have volunteer moderators to approve/check these submissions? (Assuming ca. 100 submissions per run.)Ahasuerus 19:34, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Since it should just be a matter of approving the submission, then looking at the record to see if the image is OK, I have no problem with going through them in between other submissions. (Even though I place cover images rather low in my personal set of priorities.) MHHutchins 20:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps give us a notice ahead of time when they are coming through. I usually spend a couple of hours a day somewhere between 10am and 2pm Pacific time but could adjust my editing time to as late as 5pm.--swfritter 21:29, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm on board Kevin 00:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, the first batch of URL corrections has been submitted. It turns out that there are more URL permutations, mostly of the harmless variety, than I realized, but nothing that Fixer can't handle. Also, Amazon UK's seemingly inexhaustible supply of Gollancz books has been finally exhausted; the last 24 were submitted less than an hour ago. Have fun with them while Fixer is working on his next devious scheme! Ahasuerus 01:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Gollancz finished. They're quite easy once you learn to spot the ones that never appeared, being published by Orion or Millennium or Vista or some alternative. BLongley 19:02, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Approving and improving Fixer's submissions

(Copying the discussion to the Moderator noticeboard) Ahasuerus 23:23, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Something like this pub makes me question how thoroughly moderators are researching when accepting submissions by Fixer. The dates of the title record were changed to 1992-05-18 as well (I just changed it back to 1995-04-00). Going to OCLC would have revealed no records for this ISBN. Abebooks shows only three listings (amazingly small for a McCaffrey title), and a Google search comes back with 15 hits, all from websites feeding off Amazon's bad listing. A simple search on Locus1 would have given info that the first edition was in 1995. I would not have accepted this submission, and wonder how many other bad pubs have slipped by. Would any moderators who work on Fixer's submissions want to explain their methods of acceptance? Or am I wasting my time and should rubber-stamp all of Fixer's submissions? MHHutchins 18:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, please don't rubber-stamp them all! A simple look at the link provided often gives a "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock." message and no "Available from these sellers." links. That should be a big warning that this is vapourware and shouldn't be allowed in. (Or allowed in but immediately changed to 8888-00-00, if we want to indicate an ISBN has been "used up".) Maybe Fixer can spot those though and improve the submissions? BLongley 19:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The other thing that's easy to check is that if the title is going to be auto-merged, click that link and look to see if we already have that title in that format at about that date, for a similar publisher or imprint. A lot of the latest Gollancz submissions were for Gollancz vapourware that appeared under a different imprint. Some never actually appeared in that format, due to the publisher changeovers around the turn of the century. I wouldn't expect Fixer to know those though. Not all Mods either: but for those familiar with a publisher, it should be easy (for instance) to spot the hc, tp and pb version from the same overall publisher: I know I've used that knowledge to assign tp or pb classifications to the unknown bindings. BLongley 19:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know what other mods are doing. But I'd prefer they 'fess up themselves rather than go look at the Recent Integrations list and comparing with the Recent Rejects list - there should be some rejects for almost every Fixer run there has ever been. Although I appreciate I should probably put more effort into explaining my rejects at times. BLongley 19:41, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixer's submissions clearly need more TLC than regular human-generated submissions, in part because the Web API doesn't do much validation of the incoming data (e.g. it lets you create submissions without Authors) and in part because Fixer's data comes from potentially unreliable sources like Amazon. At one point I was going to create a new section about bot submissions and add it to the Moderator Help page, but I got sidetracked by everything else going on. Any volunteers? :)

Also, I am actively investigating a number of other ways in which Fixer can help, e.g. by filling in page counts and similar data elements from the Library of Congress and possibly even using the newly open "xISBN" gateway at OCLC, but we need to make sure that all moderators understand the ramifications of careless approvals before we can start processing more Fixer submissions. Perhaps we should move or copy this discussions to the Moderator Noticeboard? Ahasuerus 02:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

King David's Spaceships

Big Problems. I am having trouble and changed the contents line and date. The Problem is the book is entered under "A Spaceship for the King", but as my notes explain it is a very revised retitled edition. It should have been under the variant title that it uses not the DAW and magazine title. So warning. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

What I should have done is unmerge title, then what? Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:42, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

You should have first unmerged the pub from it's current title record, then update the pub. Even though the function is called "Unmerge Title" you're actually unmerging a pub record from a title record. When you unmerge a pub, in the process, the system creates a new title record for it. Then that new title record should be updated and merged with the appropriate matching title record (in this case, the variant titled King David's Spaceship.) You should not have changed the name of the title reference record because that changed the title reference record for all pub's linked to it. You changed the name of the title record for A Spaceship for the King to King David's Spaceship. That made it a variant of itself (King David's Spaceship is a variant of King David's Spaceship.) I'll accept the submission because of the new information that you added to the pub, but I'll have to go back and correct the title records for the other pubs involved. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Remember don't change any content record or title reference record (which appears in the contents of novels, but not in collections) unless you mean to change every pub that is linked to that record. MHHutchins 15:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Clay's Arc

I made a wrong submission for the number of pages for this pub. Corrected this with a second submission. Please reject the first. Thanks Willem H. 19:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

This seemed to be no problem. Thanks Willem H. 19:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Fractal Mode

Is it ok to delete this pub? It is identical to my pub, except for the price ($4.99 against $5.99). Mine has a full number line, so I'm pretty sure it's the first printing. I think the wrong information came from Locus. Thanks Willem H. 20:34, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the first pub was probably from Locus1. Go ahead and delete it, but place a note in your record that Locus1 gives the incorrect price of $4.99 for this printing. It's not likely that the price actually came down (anything rarely does!) MHHutchins 21:00, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Submissions made. Thanks Willem H. 21:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it's possible that the publisher changed the price mid-printing and Locus' copy came from the first batch. As far as prices coming down goes, the deflation of the 1930s had a noticeable impact on the publishing business: magazine prices generally declined during the Great Depression. Ahasuerus 21:58, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

And I recall, now that you bring it up, it was quite common for UK hardcover reprints to be priced at a fraction of the first editions (OCLC actually notes them as the "cheap edition"). MHHutchins 22:06, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that! Yes, back in the early part of the 20th century, before the rise of the paperbacks, there were US and UK publishers/imprints specializing in cheap hardcover reprints. I have quite a few of them and the quality varies from "acceptable" to "awful". Ahasuerus 22:21, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

John Grant

Would it be possible, please, to move my entry from a form of my real name that I never use (Paul le Page Barnett), which anyway has been rendered here corruptly (it should be "le" not "Le"), to the name under which I've written most of my books and under which I've won two Hugos, a World Fantasy Award, etc., etc.?

That name is John Grant.

It might make sense to add also an ancillary page or a cross-reference or something for Paul Barnett (the only form of my given name I ever use) because I've written some relevant books using it.

The offending page is http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Paul%20Le%20Page%20Barnett. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Realthog (talk • contribs) .

Well, I did get the easy part done - changing Le to le. I will wait for others to chime in but the pseudonym reassignment would be consistent with our standards for determining a canonical name. There would be a certain amount of work involved in changing the attributions and we also have an unresolved software issue concerning the data that appears after the "Used These Alternate Names" section at the top of the page. Once pseudonyms are assigned there they cannot be unassigned. Pseudonym assignments for titles are done on an individual basis so they can be fixed.--swfritter 00:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The name is fixed but the page header still displays "Le" instead of "le", I guess he'll be half pleased or not! :-0 Kraang 01:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been a "known issue" for a couple of years. Unfortunately, there is no automated way of reversing a canonical name and a pseudonym and it takes a fair amount of work to break that many variant title relationships manually and then delete the (current) parent title records, but it certainly needs to be done. Do we have volunteers? :) Ahasuerus 02:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

And what about Dean Koontz, the author formerly known as Dean R. Koontz. What do we do when more than half of his titles are credited without the middle initial? And what about Edgar Allan Poe. During his lifetime nearly all of his works were credited to Edgar A. Poe. Allan was the last name of his estranged step-father and Edgar used only the A. on purpose. The man who got the rights to Poe's works after he died was one of his biggest enemies and probably used the Allan in his credits as spiteful revenge. I will gladly take care of John Grant's page if somebody else will take care of Koontz and Poe.--swfritter 03:11, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way; the Le is a result of the above link. If you use this link http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Paul%20le%20Page%20Barnett it displays correctly. The page header is carried over from the link.--swfritter 03:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

How bizarre!! "Volunteers?" Sorry I'm only halfway through the bad data from 2004, then I'm onto 2005 which should be less work after I'm done with 2004.Kraang 03:29, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this case really as bad as all that? Since nothing has been published under the birth name, At least we only have to break the pseudonym relationship and unvariant everything. At least there is no requirement to then re-variant it the other way. (Or am I mis-imagining things?) Kevin 04:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm still wet behind the ears here so someone check me on the steps...

1. Change 1 Review from Paul le Page Barnett to John Grant
2. Check all 71 Paul le Page Barnett titles for reviews linking to canonical records
   1. Link those reviews to the as published variant of John Grant, and just note any reviews on the 2 psuedonyms to relink later
   2. Also note any reviews foolish enough to have Paul le Page Barnett listed as the author
3. Set Parent title for all 65 John Grant titles to '0'
4. Change author of all 65 John Grant titles to JohnTemp Grant
   1. Repeat Above for 4 Paul Barnett and 2 Eve Devereux titles; and change names to TempName2 and TempName3
5. Delete all 71 titles under Paul le Page Barnett (And at this point none of them should have a pub under them).
6. Barnett, Paul le Page is now evaporated
7. Change all 71 titles authors back to 'non-temp' name.
8. Re variant the 6 titles under Paul and Eve
9. Make Paul and Eve Psued. of John Grant.

Did I leave anything out? Kevin 04:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes - fixing the Series. Still, changing all John Grant title authors and pub authors to JohnTemp Grant should break the variant links anyway, you don't have to set parent to 0. And you can also save a lot of steps with direct Author Edits - you don't have to change the Temp names back title by title. BLongley 12:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I only found 9 reviews with reviewee as "Paul le Page Barnett" so I've linked those to the "John Grant" versions. One small step done. BLongley 13:47, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like we do have a volunteer. One thing we may want to do is make a screen shot of the biblio page before proceeding.--swfritter 14:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent Idea. I just did a screengrab after removing a second John Grant who published before this John Grant was born. Kevin 15:06, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

All series information has now been duplicated to the John Grant titles, and all short fiction has been inspected for hidden series information. I did find however (when disambiguating the early John) that changing the authors name on the title of a piece of short fiction 'did not' break the variant relationship. Kevin 15:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Eve and Paul have been moved to Temps. Kevin 15:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. See John Grant (1949-), Paul Barnett, and Eve Devereux. 280 Edits, and 280 approvals. That was definitely a learning experience... 'not that bad' I said... Hah! - Later - Kevin 18:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Cover artist credit problem: bug or what?

I was updating this pub when I noticed that the cover artist credit for the trade paperback edition was different from the same cover for the hardcover edition. It's credited to Thomas Canty in the hc and Tom Canty in the tp, so I updated the tp record (it orignally had Thomas Canty). When I went to create the variant, it appeared on Tom Canty's page, but had disappeared from Thomas Canty's page AND from the credits of the hardcover edition. If the two had been merged I would have expected to see both now appearing on the Tom Canty page when I updated the tp edition, but why would the credit disappear entirely from the hardcover edition? I'm not going to attempt any corrective measures until more moderators have had the chance to see it and figure out how it may have happened. MHHutchins 16:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Possibly not related except by coverart weirdness; I had a case where a co-artist had been added at the coverart record level. I can't specifically remember how it displayed in the pub but I remember it was odd. I finally ended up disappearing all the coverart information and starting over again.--swfritter 17:08, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

It does look like a bug. I just tested a similar edit, and it deleted the title before deleting the pub content record: then it created a new title and one new pub_content record. I suspect there's a stray pub_content record hanging around for the old title now. Not good. BLongley 21:05, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Collected Zelazny editions again

Can somebody help me with this discussion? It seems the editor is not happy with the way I entered the first two collections, Threshold and Power & Light. I'll be more than happy to credit him with the "A Word from Zelazny" sections, but then, I would not have treated them as individual pieces if this had been clear to me from the beginning. Like with the "Notes" sections there would have been one entry for all sections, and a note about this. My proposal would be to delete all the "A Word from Zelazny" entries, and replace them by one entry credited to Zelazny and Kovacs, but I don't think it is my decision. Please shed some light on this. Thanks Willem H. 11:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Because you have the actual books, created the records and verified them, and can see how the pieces are actually credited in the books themselves, we'll let you decide how the records are presented. By that same token, Kovacs is free to submit changes, just like any other ISFDB editor. The point I'm trying to make is that if the pieces are not credited in the books, then authorship should be changed to "uncredited". If it is inferred in the books that Kovacs compiled, edited, arranged, or even wrote them from whole cloth, we can create variant records. If any other moderator sees a more diplomatic approach to the situation please chime in. Isn't it lovely when books are explicit in crediting who wrote what and a bibliographic head-ache when they don't? MHHutchins 17:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It was laudably ambitious to document the entries in the first place. Now that they are in there I think you should consider leaving them in. Help has this to say about story introductions: "If they occur in a collection or anthology with a single editor, they can usually be safely attributed to the editor. In an anthology (or collection) with multiple editors, such introductions (if they are being entered into the database) should be attributed to "uncredited" if there is no clear indication of who actually wrote them." If there is a single editor for the collection that might seem to indicate you are justified in attributing the essays to him. The discussion on your page didn't help much and I don't own the book but I think you should also take into account the fact that you have a primary source in the person of the book's editor. I don't think it's necessary to ponder each individual piece; they should all be credited the same with the possible exception of cases where Zelazny is the sole voice. Using the title "A Word from Zelazny" certainly gives the impression that Zelazny is the author. --swfritter 19:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been pondering about this, and it came to me tonight, that the best way would be to let Ckovacs do the editing himself. I'll place a message on his talk page, and drop my primary verification of the books in favour of a transient verification. Then Ckovacs can take over the primary and make the neccesary changes. Thanks, Willem H. 13:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I've been entirely misunderstood. I had posted a detailed message on Willem's talk page, and I've replied to his query to me on the my talk page. All that I was questioning was why the "A Word from Zelazny" sections have been attributed the way they've been, because they were not and could not have been written by Zelazny. I have no interest or desire to take over primary editings or verifications etc; I was drawn here when I noticed the odd, puzzling way those sections had been entered. From my viewpoint it is a combination of amusing and irritating to have someone tell me that there is no evidence that I wrote what I did in those books. There go a few hundreds of hours of work out into nothingness, uncredited... I specifically did not plaster my name all through the books because no one wanted that; the acknowledgments section at the back was considered sufficient to make clear who did what in an unobtrusive manner. This shouldn't be a headache for a bibliographer if the acknowledgments section is actually read; that's what it's for. Ckovacs 01:42, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Two basic questions and hopefully should be able to resolve this: Should the essays be credited to Kovacs alone or Kovacs and Zelazny? Since there are multiple editors should we assign the author as uncredited and use the pseudonym process to credit the author(s)? 1) If it weren't for the fact the pieces are titled "A Word from Zelazny" I probably would have credited them to Kovacs alone but given the inclusion of Zelazny's name in the titles I think it might look a little odd if we don't also credit Zelazny. 2) I think we now have a "clear indication" as to authorship so I don't think we need to use the pseudonym process. Satisfactory to all?--swfritter 15:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Based on this dicussion I think the best thing to do is to credit Kovacs and Zelazny as co-authors. It's also a solution I would be comfortable with. If a majority agrees, I'll do the editing (and take over the primary verification again). Thanks Willem H. 19:58, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

In that case, the only question that would remain is whether or not to use uncredited as the author and apply the pseudonym. Is the copyright statement enough internal evidence for a "clear indication"? Should we take into account communications from the book editor? I would say yes.--swfritter 17:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

As I see it, the copyright statement is not clear ("'... And Call Me Roger': The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, Part 1" and story notes ©2009 by Christopher S. Kovacs, MD") "story notes" meaning both the "notes" and the "A Word from Zelazny" sections which I find confusing. I don't think we need to use the uncredited / pseudonym solution. I'll add a note to the publications about this. Thanks for all the support. Willem H. 09:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Changes approved. I might note that co-author names will not always appear in the same order. This is a software issue and the ISFDB editor has no way of controlling the order in which the names appear. I know it was your respect for Roger Zelazny and the excellent manner in which his works are presented and documented in these volumes that led you to enter the data in such detail in the first place.--swfritter 15:35, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The (piecemeal) Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe

These are going to be going in piecemeal, with partial contents. I promise to complete them, but I don't have enough time at any one sitting to do a whole volume. --MartyD 11:21, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Feature Request 1969512: Moderator: Show the new image on Proposed Publication Update

Is this what people wanted? Old and New versions of the image?

BLongley 20:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. When are we going to see these changes? MHHutchins 22:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe Ahasuerus now has the ability to update the live server's code, so it's just a matter of convincing him of when it's safe to do so. And which updates to apply. At the moment I'm committing changes module-by-module but it's not always very clear which need to go together - I've added similar modification notes on the modules that I believe go together to accomplish each fix/improvement, but there's already a bit of a backlog: e.g. fixing "ANDNOT" searches is on top of another change. This one is an independent change but it's to a library module used in lots of places so needs a LOT of testing. BLongley 23:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I have some time off work so shall attempt to document what I've done a bit better and allow people to look at smaller sections rather than be offered the overall "Bill uses this now, I like that, hate that, wouldn't have done that" package. BLongley 23:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Bill, if you were in the states, I would send you a nice bottle of Bourbon!. That's fantastic! Kevin 03:19, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Feature 1969497 Moderator: Add pub info to Proposed Publication Update

It seems easy to do a partial fix for this, i.e. add a link to the existing publication: I guess this is mostly for Remove Titles which have no pub info on the display:

Might as well add a link for Add titles and other updates too.

Any others that particularly need links? I'll look into adding other info about the existing pub later, there's not much in the actual submission though so I'd have to go fetch it. BLongley 15:41, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Amazing! Moderators actually get to see what pub is being updated! Can't wait to see all your changes go into effect. MHHutchins 17:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Next you'll be wanting warnings about Make Pseudonym for already present pseudonyms:

BLongley 19:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Please stop. You've got me salivating! MHHutchins 20:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've stopped. We need to settle down so Ahasuerus can be sure he's deploying a stable set of code-changes. More testers still welcome! BLongley 00:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

What is needed to become a tester? -DES ^Talk 01:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

A computer, some instructions, and a lot of patience. BLongley 05:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

And probably not your primary computer. Apache freezes my system every time I load internet explorer. I am running Windows 7 RC1 on a laptop and trying to implement an ISFDB environment on that might be a true adventure.--swfritter 13:27, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't help with Windows 7. I'm surprised Apache causes a problem, that's the one component I've always got working easily. I have 3 versions installed for various reasons, and they're all simple. Or is it just whatever version of IE that comes with Windows 7 that has problems with Apache? IE6 on Windows XP has always coped with Apache for me. MySQL took a lot of patience to get to work though. Still, I got all that working before my local ISFDB attempts and the later sticking point was Python 2.5 (works) whereas my previous ActivePython 2.6 didn't. (I can't recall why I had 2.6 anyway, so no loss there.) Cygwin was fairly easy and I got into testing mode with the current instructions. Developer access was a bit more of a pain and I went totally off track with those instructions - but those are not needed for tester access. BLongley 22:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to try to help anyone with specific Windows set-up problems, although my Vista experience is very limited and my Windows 7 experience is nil. Still, there is not much to the environment that is particularly sensitive to system variations. Leave a note on User_Talk:MartyD or send me some email if you need help. We are checking the changes into CVS, so they are there for testers to fetch and try out. And as Bill says, more testers definitely welcome. --MartyD 00:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I expected Windows 7 to be a bit of a dodgy but Apache also seems to lock lock up my XP system when I run internet explorer 8. I am going to start using Windows 7 a little more when editing. Perhaps these will help in addressing compatibility issues (theirs and ours) before it is released, possibly before Christmas. It is so much better than Vista.--swfritter 17:40, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Not to be a cynic, but if I were going to start looking for a culprit and had to choose between IE and Apache, Apache would be my third choice. I can tell you I have been running Apache on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 for over nine years now with no real problems (except for console log-out killing the Apache service back in the early days). I do know the default Apache configuration won't work right in the Vista world because that doesn't like log files going into Program Files; I assume that aspect is the same in 2008 and probably carries into Windows 7. --MartyD 18:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I just found IE6 locking up. Fixed by changing "Listen 80" to "Listen 127.0.0.1:80" in conf/httpd. BLongley 12:02, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

That seems to imply that something is attaching some process to port 80 on the external IP Address, and the IE Process is the loser when both the unknown process and IE try to use it? - That's odd. Are you running a local proxy service or local firewall? Kevin 12:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

No proxy, Zonealarm as local firewall but there's nothing in its logs. It just seemed to be the same problem as swfritter is having so I thought I'd mention it. BLongley 12:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Help with a Fixer submission

this submisison is a near dup of SPCKMSTDTD1970, but the ISBN is quite different. Neither OCLC, nor ISBNDB.COM list anything with ISBN 0553107976, nor do any of the listed editions of Spock Must Die! have an ISBN at all like this. (The LOC and Melvyl catalogs list only a few editions of this book -- fewer than we already have on file -- and are thus not a basis for judging editions nonexistant). I am unsure whether to reject this as a dup with a fantasy ISBN, or accept it. -DES ^Talk 14:21, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

There are 12 copies for sale at Abe Books UK (Also at Abe books US, but the UK link I clicked first. Also see This item for sale with a cover image. Google is your friend. I say accept it. Kevin 14:27, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Accepted. -DES ^Talk 14:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be 1970, and it wouldn't be "Battam" Books. (That ISBN range wasn't being used by Bantam in 1970.) Some of the Abebooks.com dealers date it as the 14th printing in 1977 of the Bantam Books edition. In any case, I would have suggested correcting the publisher's name and zeroing out the date. MHHutchins 15:02, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree, the more trustworthy descriptions suggest a printing somewhere between 10 and 14, approx 1977. This page suggests it can't be later than 1985 as the cover changed that year. BLongley 15:10, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Pub corrected, see 290084. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 16:15, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Verification Reference List

There's been a request to add Bleiler78 and some support for adding a few more "Primary" options (maybe "Primary transient" options too). Editing such is a bit non-standard - no XML to be approved later, for instance, just direct updates. Frankly, it looks like a bit of a bodge - the reference_id is pretty much irrelevant, you verify by the position in the list for instance. So although you might think Currey is reference 13 and Transient is 17, you're actually updating verifications with numbers 11 and 12. It works for the moment.

So it really needs a total rework, but I could bodge it a bit further and allow Mods to edit the reference list to grant the current wishes:

I'm really unhappy with the bodge, but I'm really unhappy with the current code anyway. We could put this in temporarily and remove it once we've got the current entries fixed and the desired additions made though. Or can someone fix it properly any time soon? BLongley 22:38, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

While I know many of us are looking forward to a future feature of 'I own this' with unlimited duplications between editors, this seems like a fine temporary upgrade. Many of our more collectible titles already have a primary and a 2nd primary hiding as a transient. Could we perhaps go with a Primary4 as well? Thanks Kevin 23:18, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Nothing against moderators, but I'd think changing the reference list should be a more restricted action. It should be static, and a change of contents should be a "major" event. It seems like an interim solution of having someone do the database inserts/updates to expand the list would be sufficient, without implementing a UI for it. --MartyD 23:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The UI is there. I can understand why it shouldn't be though. If someone can do plain updates, then "update reference set reference_id = 11 where reference_id = 13" and "update reference set reference_id = 12 where reference_id = 17" would be a good start. Freeze those and the inserts can be done in a similar manner when we agree what we need, and freeze those too later. Once they've been used though, it'd be a major pain to change any. BLongley 00:05, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I had suggested an addition of OCLC as a verification source. This was discussed and indeed it was when i attempted to implement it that I discovered that the current UI for editing this table is broken. I agree that additions to the list should not be made undiscussed, but the mods are a small enough group that I see no need to restrict additions beyond an agreement, not enforced by software, not to make additions without consensus.

I would welcome the additions suggested above, I hope I need hardly say.-DES ^Talk 01:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

When I reviewed the associated Python code, it looked like some scripts (I don't recall which ones, unfortunately) were making invalid assumptions about the meaning of certain fields. It may be safer to fix the logic first to avoid creating structural problems. Ahasuerus 03:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

mod/editrefs.py and mod/submitref.py are working with the index rather than the reference_id. Which works when they're in step, but doesn't now we have gaps. Correcting reference ids 13 and 17 would bring us back into line, but we'd get out of step adding the next reference as reference_id is not specified in the insert, it uses an auto-increment. My bodge works by using the reference_ids you specify to update those rows, and clears up strays - so you could change 13 and 17 to 11 and 12 to insert new 11 and 12, and blank out 13 and 17 to get them removed. Then add new 13, 14, 15, 16 for Bleiler78, OCLC, extra Primary Verifications, etc. BLongley 08:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The proper fix means looking at edit/verify.py and edit/submitver.py as well - but we will still need to fix the two odd reference_ids. (Or update all verifications made with non-existent ids 11 and 12, but it's simpler to correct the references.) BLongley 08:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

So despite the reference_id, Currey verifications use 11 as the id (vs. 13) and Transient verifications use 12 as the id (vs. 17). Or at least, we hope that's what all of those are (and we have no way to tell). It does seem updating the two rows in the reference table is easiest. It also doesn't seem like there's any real harm in taking advantage of what they're currently doing; if we fix the scripts (which we should), the new entries should continue to work as-is. --MartyD 10:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Title Unmerge

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to find out exactly which pubs are being unmerged? Of course, you can use "dumpxml.cgi", but would you prefer hyperlinks?

BLongley 15:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Wonderful. Now you're taking all the work out of being a moderator. :) No kidding, that's a great idea. (I think there was a feature request for it at one time.) Now you have to tell me about the dumpxml.cgi trick! MHHutchins 19:18, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The dumpxml trick? When you see one or more vague publications being unmerged from a title with lots of them, you're looking at a URL in the address bar that ends "cgi-bin/mod/tv_unmerge.cgi?nnnnnnn". Just change the "tv_unmerge" bit to "dumpxml", i.e. "cgi-bin/mod/dumpxml.cgi?nnnnnnn" and you'll see the raw data. Look for the <PubRecord>xxxxxx</PubRecord> entries and the xxxxxx are the relevant pub IDs that you can plug into "/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?xxxxxx" lookups. BLongley 20:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the dumpxml trick works for a lot of submission types. E.g. for Remove Titles from this Pub (see proposed fix above) changing tv_remove.cgi to dumpxml.cgi reveals <Record>xxxxxx</Record> for the publication affected and possibly multiple <TitleRecord>yyyyyy</TitleRecord>s for the titles affected. You just have to know your XML. BLongley 20:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the lesson. I don't know much about XML but I think I'll be able to find the pub records in all of the gobbledy-gook. :) MHHutchins 03:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Display of pseudonymously reviewed books

[THIS RECORD WAS FIXED SO THE PROBLEM I DESCRIBE NO LONGER EXISTs. BUT JUST BE AWARE THAT THE BUG STILL PERSISTS.] I thought this problem had been corrected, or I may have just overlooked any previous instances. For example, look at this review. The author of the book under review isn't displayed in that parent record, but it is in the variant record (the record showing the actual pub credits.) It is correctly displayed in the pub record, but on the parent author's summary page the author of the book under review isn't displayed (look for the title The Seven Towers under reviews.) MHHutchins 14:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes: there's a fault in Make Variant that doesn't copy over the reviewed author. You can see it in the submission - there's only 4 fields in the data. Looks fixable, but there's loads of already-broken reviews. BLongley 15:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I went back and added the book's author, so it's displaying correctly now. There must be hundreds of similar records. Should we run a script to find them or let them go until the original kink is fixed, and then correct all of them? MHHutchins 16:21, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

There's just over a thousand at the moment. It shouldn't be too hard to write a script to fix them, if each has an associated record with the reviewed author present. BLongley 17:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, it seems there's not always an associated record. Some reviews have missing authors for other reasons: e.g. look at the ones in this. BLongley 17:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Could this pub just be missing the book authors from the start? There's no pseudonyms involved here, and there are more than few reviews with different reviewers that are missing authors. This could just be an incomplete record, and looking at the notes might confirm it. MHHutchins 19:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that thy are not missing so much as oddly entered. Each review appers to have an actual title (not just "review of XXX") and that title includes the author of the work reviewed. For example Discovering the Earth in Earthsea: Ursula K. Le Guin's Tales from Earthsea appears to be a review of a book by Ursula K. Le Guin, not of a critical book about Le Guin with an unstated author. The same pattern appears to be followed in all the reviews in this pub. -DES ^Talk 20:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah ha. Good catch. Now it makes sense. MHHutchins 21:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's a separate (smaller) category of missing book authors to look at. Also see "I Don't Know About Art" Reviewer: Scott Phillips. BLongley 21:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Because it appears in separate issues, that looks like a review column instead of a review of a book. MHHutchins 21:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Argentus 8 Needs a look too. BLongley 21:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I left a note on the submitter's talk page about the missing info on the reviews in that pub. It was Steven H no period Silver. No response. I think we pissed him off. MHHutchins 21:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Quite possible: my Klingon Diplomatic Corps training doesn't seem to work with humans, and my time at the Q'ronos Charm School was wasted. Perhaps we could expand the H to "Hissy-Fit" and see if he comes back to complain? ;-) BLongley 21:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Klaatu I am not. If we end up removing webzines it could get even worse because he has entries in both Helix and SF Site. If we at least keep those I was thinking about being diplomatic and entering other issues of Argentus; they are available as PDF's.--swfritter 15:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

We have Bug 1743292 recorded at Sourceforge for this (Was EditBug:10104 here) and I've just submitted a fix for the original problem. On to the fix data script. BLongley 19:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Fix data script logged - not sure if it can be used in that format, might have to create a Python wrapper for it or something. BLongley 20:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Caribbean Crisis

Submitted a new pub under the pseudonym "Desmond Reid (Moorcock)" only to find it exists as a variant yet doesn't show up under the pseudonym. Not sure why that is but please reject the submission. ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

The pub wouldn't show up on the "Desmond Reid" summary page because a variant was created making Moorcock the parent title. It does show up on Moorcock's summary page. You can find the title of pubs that have been moved from a pseudonymous author's summary page by clicking on "Titles" in the tool menu. Here's the titles list for "Desmond Reid". MHHutchins 04:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I handled the submissions and fixed the variant title. It had been originally entered under Moorcocks's name.

Fixer is really getting ambitious

Even doing magazines from the 50's!--swfritter 13:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if Amazon assigns ISBNs to old magazines, Fixer is not always in a position to tell that it ain't so :-( Any suggestions re: which data elements Fixer could check in order to auto-reject these records? Just reject anything earlier than, say, 1966? Ahasuerus 14:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Old magazines seem to end up as paperbacks in Amazon. Another example but without an ISBN and there are others. I would hope the use of ISBN's is rare and probably not intentional and probably not done by Amazon but rather by a partner. I assume Fixer's main purpose is to add current and future pubs rather than once and future pubs. Is it reasonable and possible to exclude used pubs? or are we still trying to track some of these down? If so 1966 does seem like a reasonable year. Things were a lot simpler before then.--swfritter 15:42, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

When the original data imports occurred -- in December 2008 for Amazon.com and March 2009 for Amazon.UK -- Fixer grabbed all records that Amazon sent to it in response to requests for SF-related Browse Nodes and Subjects. Although one type of requests was limited to books published in 1959 and later, otherwise there were no date limits imposed since Amazon's historical data can be surprisingly useful, sometimes containing books that are very hard to find by other means. Having said that, at this time Fixer is only creating submissions for books with ISBNs, so I will ask him to refrain from creating submissions for pre-1966 records. There will be another cleanup pass for ISBN-less books at some point.

Running a simple search of Fixer's database, I find 22 records with the words "Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine" in the title and 11 of them have ISBNs, including 9 pre-1967 records. So much for data quality... Ahasuerus 01:21, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixer updated to auto-suspend books/magazines with ISBNs published prior to 1966. Ahasuerus 01:34, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The Platypus of Doom and Other Nihilists

It looks like my submission of a change to this pub has been put on hold, but there is no message on my talk page about this. It's probably because I deleted the note about this being one of the Harlan Ellison Discovery Series. I deleted this, because it's not. The Arthur Byron Cover book in this series is Autumn Angels. If there's another reason, I'd love to hear it. Thanks Willem H. 08:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

It is currently held by User:Kraang, I don't know why, but the note seems the only change submitted. -DES ^Talk 14:26, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because you also removed "Edited, and with an introduction, by Harlan Ellison." If there is an introduction, it should have its own content record. Maybe Kraang placed it on hold to tell you that and it slipped his mind. Did you remove the entire note because there is also no introduction? MHHutchins 14:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

No mind slippage yet, had to get to my store the punters get cranky if I'm 5 seconds late.Kraang 01:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

That was part of the note about the Harlan Ellison Discovery Series. There is no introduction in this pub (Autumn Angels should have one of course), and no editor mentioned. Willem H. 14:53, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I had a question about the change(put on hold to deal with later) and left it on his page before I found this post.Kraang 01:37, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

And it appears this answers my questions.Kraang 01:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Masters of the Vortex- manipulation to clarify some publisher misprints

Morning! This is my page where the problem is stated to me. [3] . Simply put three printings with March 1970 as printing date but small differences that point out which is before which (whom). There is a 1970 #T-2230 which precedes the next two same copyright page printings. I am moving the presumed 'cloned' data to that spot since it keeps the 'visual and price' precedence of the printing order. I also moved the cover art image. That entry then becomes the 'true' third printing (notes adjusted by me slightly to point this out). Just submitted. This new entry makes this. [4] . The first misprint of the third printing. Since it retains cover, price format with price change and it's new number sequence is lower than the next. This. [5] . Which has the same price, 95¢, new ISBN and new cover image which further printings used. Sorry for confusion. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:24, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Submissions approved, but now there are, I think, two identical records (#T-2230 for $0.75). MHHutchins 14:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Correct. I submitted a deletion of the original 'clone' and leave the other to Don Erikson. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

RlCalvin has apparently not found his wiki

I have four of their submissions on hold and will try to fix them up.--swfritter 15:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

And continuing. I am going to leave these on hold. Perhaps if the submissions don't go through immediately there will be more exploration of the reason why on the editor's part. If others want to leave the submissions on hold I can handle them all later.--swfritter 16:04, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Two more issues and we should find if (s)he's entering them from the online issues or has dead-tree versions. I have some dead-tree issues from the Stableford collection but they've not been a priority for me so far: but some recent issues have led me to discover missing books, so there is some value there. One thing I discovered fixing the first few is that it's easy to forget that the EDITOR record needs dates fixing separately from the magazine content dates, which were mostly a quick copy'n'paste fix. BLongley 23:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixer submisison of Pao: Vaporware

The Languages of Pao

I was about to reject this as apparently vaporware. Several online sellers have the same listing as amazon, but none has a copy for sale. No ISBNDB, OCLC, or LOC listing. No locus listing, publisher not listed there.

But then I realized that Lightyear seems to specialize in Limited editions, or at least has issued several, and it is just possible for a limited ed not to be for sale anywhere on line nor in any library that reports to OCLC or the LOC.

Any suggestions for how to confirm the existance or vaporouisity of this edition? -DES ^Talk 21:19, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, a scan of all known Z39.50-complian Canadian, Australia, NZ and "major US" libraries didn't find anything and The Jack Vance Archive is unaware of this edition (although it hasn't been updated regularly in years.) Ahasuerus 21:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I've left a few submissions recently as they're outside my experience - what on earth are the "BTH" prefixed "Random House Value Publishing" entries for instance? My plea for Fixer to stop doing German entries was due to the headaches involved in other David Eddings submissions - but Peter F. Hamilton was probably worse, I've approved those as obviously existing but don't have the skills to put all the new titles under English titles. (The Germans may have chopped the tomes into different sections than any other country.) I suggest we put a time-limit on leaving Fixer submissions though: if we haven't found a German-reader or Lightpress expert or "BTH" explainer or something in a few days we should clear them off the queue. And I'd tend to reject Bot submissions rather than approve them by default. (I haven't rejected the "From Hell" and "Miracleman" yet, nor approved the "V from Vendetta" as they're Held by another mod, but I've made my views clear on those elsewhere and will happily take those over if asked.) BLongley 23:33, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

"Bth" appears to be a typo for "The" on the part of either Amazon or the publisher, and at least the first of these I checked on seems to be vaporware also -- many online salwes sites have it listed in their directory, but have no copies for sale, or copies turn out to be of a different printing, mostly the earlier first edition. No entry in OCLL nor the LOC, nothing in Lotus1. I'm about to reject it. -DES ^Talk 17:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Moderator overload?

How are we doing in terms of submission processing given all the development work going on right now? Some exchanges on Talk pages seem to suggest that we are struggling a bit since some mods are busy coding/testing and others are busy with real life issues (the nerve!) Should I stop Fixer submissions for a while? Do we have moderators who would be able to spend more time on the submission queue while the development process is being sorted out? (Of course, we all need a little sanity time now and then too.) Ahasuerus 01:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I generally ignore the fixer queue unless I'm in the mood to massage random topic books. As for the live person submitted queue, I have only been stepping in when I notice it's building up for a while with no other moderator participation. (I also admit that I have been cherry picking and leaving some questionable ones for the more experienced mods to shepherd through the process). I also usually prioritize 'our usual suspects' who are fully participating in the wiki over those 'new' and 'rare' editors submissions, in order to keep the workflow err well, flowing. (Shrug). As long as we keep up with the active editors and we can stem the tide when a new user submits a bunch of stuff that's needs massaging, is it a problem to leave fixer submissions idling in the queue? Kevin 02:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the number of Fixer submissions in the queue is more or less self-regulating since I only create new ones when the last batch has been processed (give or take a few stragglers.) I just don't want to put additional pressure on other moderators if they are already working overtime. Ahasuerus 05:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I would say suspend. I have generally focused on moderating submissions that are in my primary field of knowledge, magazines. Since there weren't very many being entered I figured my time was better spent trying to fill in the gaps rather than moderating submissions of types that I was less familiar with. Right now my plate is full with the RLCalvin submissions which Bill was doing some work on; similar cases are more likely to arise with reduced moderator time from the programming staff.--swfritter 13:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will suspend Fixer's nefarious activities until the software development process has been sorted out and we have a better understanding of what our moderator availability will be like. Ahasuerus 18:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I have been doing a number of fixer submisisons, and will tackle them as i have time and ability, but will not do ones not in English for lack of fluency iin other languages. -DES ^Talk 19:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I started a discussion of Fixer's foreign language submissions over on Fixer's Talk page the other day. There are a few things to consider, but we may have a solution in the works. Ahasuerus 19:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Vanishing Tower

There is a submission for a new pub under this title. Please reject it as the pub should have gone under the title "The Sleeping Sorceress". All the data is correct except the title. --Bluesman 19:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 19:45, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The Best of Fredric Brown

I have made some submissions that will affect both editions of The Best of Fredric Brown The book club edition and the Ballantine edition. They will probably be put on hold for some explanation, so here it is. I own the Ballantine paperback. ISFDB has two introductory essays by Robert Bloch in both pubs. In fact there is only one. The title page has it as "Introduction: A Brown Study". I changed this one to Introduction: A Brown Study ((The Best of Fredric Brown) and deleted the second from both pubs. I'm off to bed now, and will look at the result tomorrow. Thanks Willem H. 22:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Two "new" pubs

Two Binder submissions: The Three Eternals and Where eternity Ends. Please reject both as I found them under much different years in the shortfiction. Apologies! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:27, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 04:35, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek Reader III

There is a submission that will change the month from Jan to Aug. Please reject it as I mistakenly was looking at the Reader IV. Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 02:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Rejected by Kraang a few kiloseconds ago. Ahasuerus 02:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearing the queue

If I Were King of the Forest, I would...

1. Accept. It's a duplicate. The verifiers have to come to a compromise.
2. Accept. There should only be one catalog number in this field. Others should be in the notes field.
3. Reject. Obviously removing a date and placing it in the series field is incorrect.
4. Accept. This is a collection of comic books, which is presented as a graphic novel. Moore's reputation in the speculative fiction field warrants this being in the db.
5. Accept. See 4.
6. Accept. See 4.
7. Reject. If the editor can't provide a secondary source for new information, the original verifier has the right to reject the changes.
8. Reject. Was this a test, Kevin? Or was the submission corrupted by a subsequent change in the record?

MHHutchins 05:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with MHHutchins on 1-3 and 7. i don't have strong feelings about 4-6, and I would want to hear from Kevin on 8. -DES ^Talk 05:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Would agree with Mike on most but not 4-6, these should be rejected.Kraang 13:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I kept 4-6 in the queue as graphic novel examples to facilitate the discussion. I think by now we all know what the issues are, so they can be processed to clear up the queue. Since there is no consensus yet and the RoA still say that we exclude graphic novels, I will reject the submissions for now. If we decide to include them, I will ask Fixer to resubmit all of the Alan Moore titles, which will find a lot more than just these 3. I'll also post on the Rules page about a compromise approach that we may want to consider. Ahasuerus 19:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can't see what the numbers refer to now, but I guess current 1 (Century Rain) and current 3 (Revolt in 2100) are 1 and 7 in the above list. I'm happy if 1 is approved, but disagree that it's up to me and Kraang to resolve, it's a fundamental rules and standards discussion over what "Used for anything significantly larger than a paperback" means, and everybody else is ducking that issue. "Revolt in 2100" I can wait on for the submitter to find his source, but if others can't wait then I'd let it through and add a note. I'm not sure which graphic novels were left, but I'd reject collections of comic books and would have approved "V for Vendetta" as a NOVEL Award winner we record. Was that one of them? BLongley

On Century Rain: Do I correctly understand that there are two records that everyone agrees refer to the same physical pub, but one verifier has described this pub as a pb and another as a tp? Was there a discusson on the rules and standards page? Was there one somewhere else? Can someone point me to it? I'll be happy to wade in rather than duck.

On Revolt in 2100 I don't see any harm in letting this wait a while -- I recall having subs of mine wait for months when I was new. Failing that, a note would do, i suppose. -DES ^Talk 21:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My take - (I would have accepted V for Vendetta). Century Rain reject then change the one pub to TP. I don't care where you keep it, it's bigger than a PB, and it has a soft cover. Genesis 5 appears to be an improved record, Accept it. Revolt in 2100, Remind the editor.. he provided documentation for every other cover art submission that got held.. this one probably fell through the cracks. I rejected my held submission... it was an example edit for 'Can't remove from high numbered contents'. Kevin 22:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit to Whispers #6-7, June 1975

Please reject my edit to Whispers #6-7, June 1975'. I was looking at a bug and edited in the wrong environment. Sorry, I won't let it happen again. Thanks. --MartyD 12:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Rejected, and thanks for looking at the bug I reported. -DES ^Talk 13:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Star Stalker

Submitted two edits for [this]. Please reject the first as I read the wrong note in Currey and put in the wrong info in the notes. The second submission is correct. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The first had already been accepted, but the second should have overwritten the first. Please check to see if the info is correct. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You are quite correct, the second one won! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Someone Should Remove the Moderator Flag From My Account

I seem to have lost all time and interest in participating in this project currently. Since I haven't even edited a record in months, I should probably have the "Moderator" flag removed from my account. Thank you and good luck. CoachPaul 00:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for all the work that you've done, Paul, and good luck with your other projects! I have adjusted the moderator list (which needed to be cleaned up anyway) and will adjust your account shortly. If and when the bibliographic bug bites you again (and you never know!), you know where to find us and you will always be welcome! :-) Ahasuerus 02:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Likely duplicate pub?

Do we have any way to tell where LSTSTNDBLS1997 - Last Stand: Bolos 4 came from? I believe it is a less accurate version of LSTSTNDMJN1997, which has clearly been touched by human hands, and looks like maybe it came from some sort of pre-release announcement robotic entry. I was going to clean up the title, but it looks to me like a candidate for deletion, as the ISBN and year are consistent with the more detailed entry (there is a page number discrepancy). I have the Dec 1998 2nd Baen printing, which only lists the March 1997 printing, and has the same 418 page count. Thanks. --MartyD 21:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

A bad page count typically suggests an automated Amazon.com import since Amazon's page counts are usually off. Since the more detailed pub is a superset of the suspect pub, we can delete the latter safely. Ahasuerus 22:20, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Blu[sic]beard's Daughter

I misspelled the title in this new pub submission (dropped the 'e'). Can either correct it after acceptance or re-do the submission....? ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Approved and fixed. Ahasuerus 01:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Armageddon 2419

Submitted a 'new' pub only to find it in the series instead of under the title alone. Please reject. When search was done for the series the title only came up with the short story publications. Something needs linking here. ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Chris J approved this, you'll have to find it and delete it I'm afraid. BLongley 11:27, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The Compleat Boucher

I submitted edits to make two Anthony Boucher stories variant titles ("The Public Eye" of "Public Eye" and "The Secret of the House" of "Secret of the House". Please reject these, they should be merged instead. Only the contents page of The Compleat Boucher adds the "the". The copyright page and the stories themselves have the right titles. I'll add a note to the publication. Thanks Willem H. 11:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. BLongley 11:10, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've submitted the merge. Willem H. 11:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Apology from Fixer

As some of you have seen by now, Fixer got carried away earlier this evening and submitted every SF book from Mundania Press instead of stopping after the first 30 books. He feels bad about it and says he is very sorry. He will go to bed without a (real) supper tonight, that's for sure! Ahasuerus 04:24, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Fixer has finished submitting Mundania Press. The last 16 publications had to be created based on Amazon UK's data since Amazon.com didn't list them correctly for various reasons, so the price field will need to be changed to dollars post-approval. Ahasuerus 21:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Fortunately Fixer didn't find them all, and was possibly surprisingly good in not submitting too much non-Spec-Fic. Still, I seem to have worked on those, and the consequences, from 02:32:42 to 16:22:56. (I could have worked on more, but I draw the the line at ebook-only pubs (not of interest to me) and if I end up at "Ellora's Cave" I bail out.) Still, there's a dozen or two more authors in the database now. BLongley 22:13, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

You kn mow, you didn't have to do them all. i did a couple last night, and was going to do some more this am (US ET) but you had gobbled them all. Again I started to do a couple of the new ones this eve, but by the time I finished preliminary checks and clicked "approve" ready for further edits, I got "Submission not in a New state". Not that I object, but you could have had more hands to share the labor if you Had asked, or even just waited. I'll also be glad to do any ebook-only pubs in such dumps. -DES ^Talk 23:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Most of the remainder are left with re-edits from me, as although it's easy to correct some of the Fixer mistakes like prices and authors, some may actually be out of ROA-scope, and "Phaze Books" might be a better imprint than "Mundania". Feel free to have a look and advise, I'm not going to rework them any more tonight. BLongley 23:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I did find at least one OCLC listing that credited "Phaze books" -- wasn't sure if it was another edition or what. When I'm doing Fixer submissions, i usually check the amazon listing and an OCLC or ABE to try to guard against vaporware and out-of-scope stuff. But everyone to his own way of working. Thanks for labouring on these. -DES ^Talk 23:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

According to their Web page, "Phaze is the erotic romance imprint of Mundania Press". Their catalog (which is somewhat unsafe for work) has a number of SF categories and spot checking other categories finds even more SF stuff. I've added them to our small-but-growing list of SF romance/erotica publishers. Ahasuerus 23:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I see that they have several Piers Anthony titles -- what a suprise. -DES ^Talk 00:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Piers Anthony lent the company some start up money (I found after a little digging). I suspected as much when I saw that they were publishing some of his odder and more specialty titles... combined with the name of the publisher itself.

An Exchange of Gifts

I've just entered [1182593], & I hesitate to self-approve this one. It's lent to me; the lender bought it, used, in March of 1996. (Don't you love it when people record that kind of thing?) It lacks a dust jacket (which I'm guessing it originally had). There's an SFBC edition (same publisher, the entry says), which I cloned to create this, which lists a cover artist; I cleared that field as I don't have a dust jacket. The SFBC entry also lists a month of publication (but doesn't say how this was determined); this copy has only a year (1995) on the title page, so I just used the year. My experience in entering this kind of book is rather thin (most of you know I've dealt mostly with magazines), so I'd prefer to get some feedback. (It'll be in my possession for at least some months, I think, but not permanently.) Thanks for any aid anyone wants to give me. -- Dave (davecat) 18:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I did some online research:

• I found what is probably a more recent edition on the publisher's site here, no page count given.
• biblio.com confirms the existence of this book with this title and ISBN, having a DJ, and a pub date of 1995. One seller there has a "first edition" dated 1991, they say, and gives a cover art credit to Pat Morrissey. One seller confirms 92 pages.
• PaperBack Swap shows a cover image, says "Publication Date: 6/1995" and confirms 92 pages.
• [http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard&action=edit&section=127 Alibris confirms the cover image, shows several copies available, but one seller shows the publisher as "Roc"
• Amazon shows the pub date as (June 1995). confirms the cover art more or less, and shows several other editions.
• OCLC/First Search gives OCLC: 32634783 and LCCN: 96-109520 and pretty much confirms your proposed record. it also says "1st Ed."

I wouldn't hesitate to approve a newbie's submisison in this state with this much backup, nor to create a submisison myself from this data, even without a book-in-hand. I would probably add the LCCN and OCLC numbers to the notes. I might well download a cover image from one of the sellers, (the amazon one is poor in this case) and upload it. I might or might not credit Morrissey for the cover -- If she was also the credited artist on the SFBC edition i probably would, but I might compare style a bit, or see if she has a web site that shows her work.

That said you are free to do as you see fit, but I don't see serious problems here. Your note in the submisison seems to describe the book-in-hand.

Hope all this helps -DES ^Talk 21:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! It does indeed. The publisher's web page you cited is for the trade PB; but one of the Related Items links was for the HB, which I think it said was first edition. (Hmph. When I went to look again, it showed different Related Items, not including that one.) I think I'll approve it as it stands, then. -- Dave (davecat) 21:41, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

PC overheating, may affect availability

I've disassembled and reassembled my PC to remove certain amounts of dust, hair, and other fan-blocking things, but one fan is completely dead. I'm not going to let it be "always on" until this is sorted. (I don't love the smell of overheated video cards in the morning - it might turn into something more life-threatening - so availability may go down another notch.) BLongley 22:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Careful, Bill, you don't want to end up like that famous SF/horror actress and a fellow smoker, Maria Ouspenskaya... Ahasuerus 00:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Her computer blew up? Given the size of a 1949 computer, I can imagine that probably take out a few bystanders. ;-) BLongley 19:26, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I've fitted a new fan and system temperature seems to be holding at 35 degrees again for now, but while buying the fan I noticed an end-of-line sale on Asus Eee boxes, so I'll be picking one of those up tomorrow to play with. I keep wondering why I have this big tower system when higher-specced computers can now fit into a handbag. (Not that I have a handbag, but the girl who sold me it claims it could fit into hers.) BLongley 19:26, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Still 35 degrees, looking good. Not going to risk unattended service just yet though, so goodly nightitude to all. BLongley 22:21, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Old PC stable at 35 again, but as this seems to be down to one new fan and it hit 50 without it this does seem a rather worrying single point of failure. New PC is remarkably quiet, small and seemingly low maintenance but it will take me some time to set it up with the necessary software. (No more coding from me for a while yet.) BLongley 20:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Pending edits

The new addition to this is perfect!!! Knowing who is holding what is a great idea! There are two of mine being held. Mr. Longley is ill, so that one can wait, and if I remember correctly that one might involve a combining of two verifications of the same pub with two records???? The other one I re-submitted and that edit has been accepted, so the original can be deleted/rejected. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not ill as such anymore, just feeling every one of my three-score-years-and-ten. (Which is annoying, as I haven't lived them all yet.) You're right, it's a "which verification do we want" issue, both verified by mods, and although you're supporting mine over Kraang's I keep hoping that some other mod will make the final decision. (Someone will eventually wonder what an empty submission queue looks like and clear it, I'm sure.) BLongley 19:37, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You want an executive decision (By the Mod who has never seen an empty submission list)? There is no such thing as a Tall Paperback. There is no such thing as a Deep Paperback. There is Paperback, Trade Paperback, and Hardcover. And to be doubly impartial, I don't even recall who was on which side... just what the two sides were. If it's larger then the paperback dimensions, and does not have hardback boards bound with it, then it's either a Trade paperback, a Pamphlet, or one of the Many magazine formats. End of discussion. Kevin 00:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to agree with Kevin on that one, and that is the literal reading of the current help, IIRC. -DES ^Talk 02:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

However, grocery stores in the US are now sellign some books in a "reading format" basically a tall (1-2 in extra) MMPB, priced and marketed like a MMPB. So far I haven't seen any sciecne fiction in this format, but there probably has been some paranormal romance and light horror. WE may have to deal with this format in due course. -DES ^Talk 02:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Glad you like the change, that's one of mine. Now, back to working out how to transfer all my HOLDs to other Moderators... ;-) BLongley 19:37, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Pyr is producing these, here's one I just bought[6] and it's 7 3/8 inches high by 4 inches. If this is now a tp what do we call this earlier printing[7] which is definitely a tp? You'll note that I've verified this as a "pb" and not a "tp".Kraang 03:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Your example of what you have done is in fact the source and basis for this discussion. You've verified a publication that does not meet the standards described here. (shrug). (Begin friendly rant) If it's larger than a paperback in any dimension... (Height, Depth, or even the 4th dimension) if it exceeds these dimensions, then it is not a 'pb', it is a 'tp'. 'tp' is a Non-exclusive club, and does not describe a particular size or shape, only describing 'everything else' that is not 'pb'. If you would like to propose a new term, can succinctly describe it so it is easily understandable, and can identify a short brief 2-3 letter code which distinctly identifies it within the database.... Go for it. If you cannot, or will not, please don't abuse or misuse the other terms accepted by the community at large.. (End friendly rant). (Shrug). (Begin humorous, yet perhaps poignant closing). I'm not the one saying, 'Look at the Emperors pretty new clothes' (end humor). (shrug). My only involvement is a desire to clear up this embarrassing, and long running disagreement. I offered a thoroughly unbiased assessment, tempered by the sands of time and reflection. I can do no more (Well I could just go accept the deletion, but that would be rude - Which, I imagine, is also why no-one else has yet accepted it). Kevin 04:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like there may be three separate questions here. The first one is what the current standard is. The second one is what we want the standard to be going forward as the industry continues to change (shame on them!) The third one is what to do with this submission while the first two questions are being addressed.

Personally, I don't mind making the book a "tp", but the first two questions seem to be something that we will need to discuss on the Rules and Standards page. And please, let's keep the temperature of the discussion down or else Bill's computer may melt after all. Ahasuerus 04:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

/me (Throws Ice on the fire) The above was intended to be jovial and in good nature (ribbing if you will). Please take it as such, regardless of my poor delivery. Kevin 04:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"tp" height starts at 7.5 inches mine is 7 3/8 inches. The help page give no guidance on books between 7 and 7.5 inches, so I guess your right we do need a new "term". Copied from above (rant)"If you cannot, or will not, please don't abuse or misuse the other terms accepted by the community at large.." (begin insane rant) Does this mean I'm on notice? If I stand accused of submitting false data then it should be put before my fellow moderators and I will submit to their judgment and except any punishment handed down.(end insane rant)Kraang 04:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hm, do we have any wet noodles left after the last time? Ahasuerus 18:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Kraang - I apologize. I was trying to be funny (and failed completely) in order to prompt a solution. I Failed Miserably. I have proposed one possible solution at Rules_and_standards_discussions#Paperback_sizes_and_codes. Please accept my apology and let us know what you would like to see. Kevin 23:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

No apologies necessary(all sins forgiven) but you better keep a low profile for a couple of day so I can get in touch with Dr. Knuckles and Prof. Pain. :-)Kraang 00:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Hah! - Thanks :) Kevin 01:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) the current help is pretty clear I think: it says "Trade paperback. Used for anything significantly larger than a paperback. 7.5" x 5" is a common size, but there exist many variant sizes larger than this..." and "Paperback. Typically 7" x 4.25"; low-height paperbacks such as Ace Books from the fifties are about half an inch shorter" I don't think that says that 7.5 in is the minimum height for a TP. When using OCLC or other library records that give measurements in cm, I have been assuming that 19cm is probably a tp, and 19.5 or higher surely is. (n.b. 7 in = 17.78 cm, which will be reported as 18. 7 3/4 in = 19.685 cm, probably reported as 20) However, It used to be the case (at least in the US market) that a height significantly over 7 in was associated with different (and higher quality) binding techniques, significantly higher price points, and a different distributions system. None of that is true for the "tall" pbs we are now seeing. we may want to create an "opb" (oversized paperback) for these cases, or we may want to stick to "anything larger than pb is tp" which for height probably means anything over 7 1/4 or 18.5 cm would be tp. That should be considered away form these particular books I think. -DES ^Talk 11:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding Pyr how will users of this data base distinguish between the Trade Edition "tp" and the MMPB "tp"(your catagory). The price is different but there's no indication of size difference. This would also apply to Orbit and Gollancz. They both have a Hardcover, Trade Edition and a MMPB but we turn their three catagories into two "hc" and "tp" how is this useful?Kraang 12:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

See Rules and standards discussions#Paperback sizes and codes where I have raised the general issue of what the standards should be going forward. -DES ^Talk 14:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) Which still leaves the one submission that has already been re-submitted and approved, so could the "Genesis Five" submission please be rejected? Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

As requested. Cheers - Kevin 05:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect holds on German editons of English nonfiction titles?

Please take a look at Sub 1184107, [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/cv_new.cgi?1184122 Sub 1184122}, This wiki thread, and this thread.

Was I t\right that there was a problem with these submissions, or is this simply the usually hidden title record being displayed because of the foreign-language name? or what? Advice sought. -DES ^Talk 20:41, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

There should be no problems in accepting either of the submissions. The pub records will be placed under the English-titled title record. I would question that Clarke is credited as a co-author of Geheimnisvolle Welten (Arthur Clarke's Mysterious World (Clarke only wrote the introductions.) Accepting the submission will not actually give Clarke author credit as the title record only shows the two other collaborators (Simon Welfare and John Fairley). MHHutchins 21:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Display bug?

Look at how the ISBN is listed for the pub in this title record and compare it with how it's listed in the pub record. Is it just a display bug or is there something hidden in the record that causes this anomaly? Thanks. MHHutchins

The ISBN is stored with hyphens (or at least is so shown when one tries to edit the pub -- I think that is supposed to display the raw stored form), which is probably sub-optimal, but doesn't usually cause a display problem such as this as far as I know. No weird characters seem to be in the stored form. When a copy the text from the editor pane and paste it into a text editor that shows exact character codes, no weird alternate codes are present. My guess is a bug in the routine that hyphenates the ISBN for title-level display. -DES ^Talk 18:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely a bug. I've noticed a couple of places not expecting a stored, valid ISBN to be hyphenated. Curious thing is it is stored with ISBN-10, yet the display is trying to do ISBN-13 (no doubt because three hyphens + 10 = 13 characters). --MartyD 20:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Bug 2814984 created and assigned to Marty, our resident ISBN expert :) Ahasuerus 05:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I added a fix for bug #2814984 a few days ago, and it is scheduled for the next patch release. In addition, the problem pub is an example of a case where searching by ISBN does not work (try ISBN search for Search for 0-671-65526-4 or 0671655264) due to the way the ISBN is stored. This is the subject of bug #2804769. I've just added a fix for that, too. Not yet assigned to a patch release. --MartyD 11:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Of Earth Foretold

Bluesman drew my attention to this pub. I verified it myself, completely missing the fact that the book has two stories. I'm in good company, even Tuck made the same mistake. The note about the story is from Bluesman. My problem is, technically this should become a collection (ok, it is a judgment call, I vote for collection) containing the "novel" Of Earth Foretold, (which would have been a novella if it hadn't been half of an ace double) and the novelette The Aztec Plan.(the same goes for the other Digit printing of course). But, it is now a novel. Am I right when I

1. Unmerge the titles
2. Change the two "Of Earth Foretold" pubs to collections
3. Add the Aztec Plan to the contents
4. Merge them again

Or am I missing something? Not 100% yet, help Willem H. 21:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You could do it that way. However there is precedent for a NOVEL publication including a single "bonus story" see this pub of The Misenchanted Sword, and note that other pubs do not include the story. The help explicitly permits this. -DES ^Talk 22:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

My personal pref would be to change "Of Earth Foretold" to a novella, and make the "double" a collection too, but the consensus seems to be against that. -DES ^Talk 22:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I saw that one when roaming the help pages. I have several David Brin novels with an additional story, but they are all short (or very short) stories. In this case, the "bonus story" is half the length of the novel, so making this a collection seemed like a better idea. Willem H. 08:03, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

That's a judgment call, and a not unreasonable one. The above steps are correct for that result. Note that when merging the two new "Of Earth Foretold" back to the old one, you will need to use the "titles" link on the author's page, or use advanced search -- "dup candidates" doesn't show titles marked as variants, and the title you want to merge to will be so marked. Note also that you will be creating new title records for "Aztec Plan" which must also be merged. -DES ^Talk 12:02, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Editor's missing voted-for title

This is a follow-up to HellCold's Help Desk submission ISFDB:Help_desk#My_Votes_page_has_an_error. I looked at the Apr-2007 back-up, and I can see the missing title in question was John Grisham's The Client, for which there were quite a few pubs listed at the time. I suspect the whole thing was removed as non-spec-fict/inappropriate, although the back-ups don't have the submission history for me to be able to tell. I searched the Wiki but didn't find anything that looked like an applicable discussion, either.

Since I have no knowledge of what actually happened, and deleting editors' data is a sensitive area, I thought it would be good if a moderator (preferably one who recalls the history) provided an "official" explanation of what happened to the title this editor voted for. If you'd rather I did it, just explaining the facts and giving a "what happened to that title was before my time" and a guess about the title's being "out", let me know. --MartyD 11:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I recall, relatively early in my time here, doing a number of deletes on non-SF works from popular authors. I don't specifically recall doing The Client or Grisham. I do know that, having read them, if I saw any of Grisham's novels on here, i would delete it as not SF without discussion unless it was primary verified. If it were, I would notify the verifier, and maybe discuss briefly, but still delete, unless there were some reason not that I can't currently think of. -DES ^Talk 11:56, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

See ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive11#John_Grisham for the discussion. BLongley 17:46, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Charles Lindley / Lord Halifax oddball title manipulations coming

I noticed in Sir Charles Lindley's bibliography that the entries for Lord Halifax's Ghost Book and for Further Stories from Lord Halifax's Ghost Book end up using also as by, when they should be only as by. As best I have been able to determine, both variants of each title are present in Lord Halifax's Complete Ghost Book. At least, that's what Merge tells me. After some experimenting with a local copy, I found I can fix it by:

1. undo the variant relationships
2. merge, keeping "Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax" as the author
3. make new parent titles with "Sir Charles Lindley yadda yadda" as author.

These edits coming soon to a queue near you. I figured a warning would be helpful. If there was an easier way for me to achieve the same result, let me know. Thanks. --MartyD 18:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixer's Exploits

Fixer's last run found a whole bunch of German translations of Brian Lumley's work. Unfortunately, they are not easy to reconcile with English language originals, in part because German editions come out in 2 or even more volumes per novel. This is getting to be more time-consuming than it's worth, so from now on Fixer-generated submissions will be reviewed by humans before they are sent to the ISFDB. Ahasuerus 20:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I was beginning to wonder whether Fixer was tapping into one of those parallel universes where Germany won the Second World War, and German was the default language of Amazon UK. (OK, I don't think any book has yet combined the two. Amazon isn't mentioned in many books I've seen.) BLongley 21:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Fixer is submitting a high proportion of foreign language editions is a good sign since it suggests that we have many/most English language editions on file :) Ahasuerus 21:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I work with many Germans at a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary, but bibliographically the data isn't great and should come from Amazon.DE in preference - if we have people that can deal with it. I haven't persuaded any of my German colleagues to help us though. Nor the Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, Bangladeshi, French... we have some Russians coming over in a week or two, maybe they'll be more interested? BLongley 21:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

There are good Russian language bibliographies on the internet, but we really need to beef up our foreign language support before we start tapping into them. It shouldn't be that hard to do once we set up user preferences, but Unicode, as we know all too well, is a royal pain... Ahasuerus 21:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

When I do come across a Russian specialist site, it often looks better than ours. Maybe not so protective of copyright. I don't particularly want to add all the Cyrillic titles, but if they identify English titles better than we do, they're worth looking at. Noosfere almost made me want to restart French studies again - I did three years in Junior School, another three in Secondary School, and still can't comprehend the spoken language. The written one I could maybe deal with, on the basis that I still do a little better than Google translations. But there's still so much English left to do... BLongley 22:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Star Trek: The Animated Series

Alan Dean Foster wrote ten Star Trel Log books that were published by Ballantine Books from 1974 to 1978, with some omnibus reprints later. Each book consisted of three adaptations of scripts from the Animated series. ISFDB knows them as this series, which is a subseries of Star Trek: The Original Series. This is obviously wrong, and I would like to change it to a new subseries of the Star Trek Universe, called Star Trek: The Animated Series, and change the name of the sub-subseries from "Star Trek Ballantine Books (1974-1978)" to "Star Trek Log". This will affect only some of my own verified pubs, and some of Bill Longley's (I'll notify him if he doesn't respond here). Any objections / other suggestions? Thanks Willem H. 12:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I've no problem with that. They're obviously not just Ballantine books as I have Corgi editions, and yes, the Animated series is distinct from the Original Series although there were far more regular characters in common than any other Star trek spin-offs. I usually get tired of reshuffling Star Trek series very quickly: e.g. there's several Crossover series that need reworking, somebody tried to put each book into the relevant TV series rather than keep the entries for each crossover series together, which I think is pointless (surely you want to find the other books that complete the reading series, nobody would read just a Voyager/DS9/TOS/Next Gen part of the overall story?). But it looks daunting at times. (Oh, and the Pocket and Bantam series names are misleading too... "Pocket" is almost as often "Titan", and most "Bantam" ST books have a "Corgi" - although the latter are both "Transworld" which might be a reasonable overall title.) Aaargh, now I'm boring myself! BLongley 18:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Is the link to talk page for new submissions working?

Davecat's comments remind me - the big "Your submission must be approved by a moderator before it enters the database" message has been live for a while, with the link to talk page - is it actually encouraging people to talk? It's only on new pub submissions so far, and if it's off-putting we should probably remove it, if it's working we should roll it out further. If no effect noticed - I'd roll it out a bit further till we get some comments. BLongley 21:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Ironically, the more time I spend on making suggested improvements to the code the less likely I am to actually notice if they have any effect, so I guess I'm looking at the non-coding/testing moderators for their views on the effects. And we can possibly poll the new communicative editors to see how they found their talk-pages, this isn't a mod-only issue but I thought I'd start it here. BLongley 21:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that we have any editors who started communicating since this was rolled out, nor any editors who have been submitting since then but have remained uncommunicative. I hope it is rolled out to all submission types asap, particularly the more common ones such as publication update. -DES ^Talk 21:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Pub Updates and Clones would be the next on my list, but I'd welcome comments on any other sorts of submissions that Mods really wish the editor would talk about. BLongley 22:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

My view is that it ought to be on every type of submisison asap, but the types of submisison most likely to be made by relatively new editors should be at the top of the list. i suspect that pub update and author update are the most common edits by new editors, but that is just a guess. Still i see no particular virtue in waiting provided that ther is no adverse interaction with other development in progress. -DES ^Talk 22:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Markwood hasn't found his talk page yet, but he's only been submitting updates. Perhaps it's time to roll out the notice for at least pub update submissions. MHHutchins 05:05, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, will see what I can do tonight. BLongley 18:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes submitted for pub edits, title edits, pub and title deletions, remove titles, make variant (either kind), clones, author edits, link reviews and series changes. Let me know what I've missed. BLongley 20:28, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've put in the nav bar link to the talk page, with "new" indicator and highlighting, but it hasn't been scheduled for deployment yet. That may help in cases where post-submission page does not (yet) have a notice calling it out. --MartyD 18:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the "New" Indicator (hate the colour though). Hopefully you or I will get some response as to whether it's working. I don't think I can yet develop a solution where people that refuse to use the wiki can be traced back to a physical location where a LART could be applied, but given time and major abuse of some other systems, it would be possible... BLongley 22:54, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure most people just don't know to look. NOW, though, there's no excuse. BTW, the color is MediaWiki's for the "you have new messages". Easy to change to something else. --MartyD 23:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) See User talk:Skippytech#How did you find the wiki? for one new editor's statement that the My Messages link worked. -DES ^Talk 23:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Problem magazine update

I have Submission 1193292 on hold. It is an update to Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, May 1976 and there are some problems with it. It also seesm to be the first submission by a new editor. I wopuld like soem advice from soemone more experienced with magazines, and particualrly Analog.

Possible problems I have noticed:

• Essay title "How to Move the Earth" changed to "Science Fact - How to Move the Earth" -- do we include things like "Science Fact" in essay titles?
• Story Title "This, Too, We Reconcile" changed to "This, Too, We Reconcile1976-05-00" -- an obvious click error
• Editorial credited to "The Editor" and with type EDITOR -- I know the type is an error, but is it severe enough to require rejection of the entire submission, or can it be fixed after approval? And I recall some discussion of the use of "The Editor" when signign analog editorials, but I don't recall the agreed convention.
• "The Reference Library" (a review column) with type REVIEW rather than ESSAY
• Two identical book review records, for "The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, Part 1, 1926 - 1935", possibly one was supposed to be for part II, or possibly it was just a cut&paste error.

Still, this guy is adding page numbers and book reviews, we don't want to scare him off.

If anyone feels like grabbing this submission, go ahead. if not, i will proceed, but would like advice about the convention issues mentioned above ("The Editor" and "Science Fact") and the severity of the EDITOR record issue. -DES ^Talk 02:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Gasp. I didn't realize there were Analogs with such bare contents waiting to be filled in. I would offer to pinch hit, but I imagine a regular magazine mod could walk through the process much faster and with more eloquence. Kevin 03:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

City of the Dead

I made two submissions to make the last of the Paul McAuley stories (City of the Dead) a variant of a Paul J. McAuley story. Please reject the first, it is wrong. Thanks Willem H. 17:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Already rejected I see. Thanks Willem H. 19:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Debt of Bones

I have submitted the Gollancz edition of Terry Goodkind's Debt of Bones as a chapbook, and just found out that it already exists as a novel. I think my submission should be rejected, but I also don't think the story should be a novel. It's slightly revised from the Legend novella (stated in the book), but on first sight (I compared a few pages) I can't find any difference. Also, it's not longer (maybe a few words) than the novella, and in my opinion doesn't qualify as a novel. Any thoughts? Willem H. 19:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Held while people discuss. I think the chapbook is right, the existing Novel has the cover but otherwise adds nothing yours doesn't have. Converting either will involve adding the novella, or creating a novella for the revised version. Is it worth a variant for the shortfiction, in your opinion? BLongley 19:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

(Of course) I think the way I entered the book is the right way (as a chapbook, where the novella is a variant of the Legend novella). The variant for the shortfiction already exists here, my submission was made by way of 'adding a publication to this title'. I don't think the revisions to the story justify adding a new variant. Are there other suggestions? Willem H. 13:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I would accept the submission, and merge the titles, to result in a chapterbook containing a novella, that is a variant of the novella in Legands, and no novel title remaining. the publications here would become chapterbook publications. No one seems to be arguing for retaining the novel, can we agree on this? -DES ^Talk 19:45, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Novel gone, chapterbooks created, but I don't trust 0-765-35159-5, 0-765-35161-7, 0-765-35162-5. Any views on those? BLongley 21:59, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

0-765-35159-5 is apparently the ISBN for a floor display -- one of those cardboard things with ads and pockets for copies of the book -- pre-filled with copies of the book. According to Powells.com and bookfinder4u.com, stores could order such a display via this ISBN. No record of it in OCLC, Amazon.com, ABE, nor ISBNDB.com -DES ^Talk 23:07, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

The same seems to be true for 0-765-35161-7: Powells.com reports: "Binding: Floor Display - Filled", as does www.ecampus.com ("Format: Display") and www.biggerbooks.com. -DES ^Talk 23:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

0-765-35162-5 is called a "mixed prepack" with "Format: Display" by www.ecampus.com, and Powell's calls it the same, with "Binding: Floor Display - Filled" -DES ^Talk 23:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we can delete all three of these "publications". -DES ^Talk 23:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Possible problem with BookScan images

I've been checking the new images on my verified pb and so far all the BookScan ones are broken[8]. I thought the site was down but that's not it. These are resent links, have they changed something at BookScan or are they being blocked?Kraang 01:21, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The Bookscans website must be on a new server. What was once "www.ballantine.bookscans.com/images/ballantine345.jpg" is now "bookscans.fatcow.com/Publishers/ballantine/images/ballantine345.jpg". It looks like a simple change to add the new server part of the URL, but is it possible to create a mass change for all links to Bookscans? MHHutchins 01:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

There are 405 "bookscans" Pubs in the last backup file, including "www.dell.bookscans.com", "www.gm.bookscans.com", "www.berkley.bookscans.com", etc, so an automated conversion would be useful, assuming we can figure out how each URL mutated. Ahasuerus 03:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The pattern above appears to have been the same for all images. Only two elements of the original URL remain: (PUBLISHER) and (IMAGEFILE.jpg). So "www.(PUBLISHER).bookscans.com/images/(IMAGEFILE.jpg)" has become "bookscans.fatcow.com/Publishers/(PUBLISHER)/images/(IMAGEFILE.jpg)". I've noticed that not all of the files have been removed from the old URL. For example this one (which we currently link to) has been copied to the new URL here, but the old one hasn't been removed yet. I'd suggest changing all links to the new URL, because there's no way of knowing how long the images with the old URL will remain. MHHutchins 13:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Another website change that affected us was AOL closing down its "Hometown" service. I think I've found all the authors that were using it though. BLongley 19:35, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I've had a play with this search script:

select p.pub_tag
, REPLACE(p.pub_frontimage,'www.pyramid.bookscans.com/images','bookscans.com/Publishers/pyramid/images') 
from pubs p
where p.pub_frontimage like '%pyramid.bookscans.com%'

and it worked for "ballantine", "berkley", "dell" and "avon" as well as "pyramid". There's a few too many for me to do alone happily, and could be scripted publisher by publisher fairly safely, I think. If Ahasuerus doesn't want to do mass updates then I could post the list for manual fixes after the next backup - several have been fixed already. BLongley 19:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, there's a few "Images-later" Dells that wouldn't be picked up. Not a large number though, can be left for manual fixing. BLongley 19:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, we can do a mass change since the logic is straightforward and the risk is pretty low. If you upload it to Sourceforge, I'll add it to the next patch. Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:10, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I thought I'd clean up a few smaller (in terms of the number of scans from there we use) publishers first (done cardinal, penguin, pennant, pop, monarch, crest, pb so far) but ran across this, where the other side of an Ace double was only in the notes. So I'm now inclined to make it a small project instead, so people can read the notes for other links like that. And it's quite fun looking at all those old covers anyway. The "replace" SQL is still valid if people don't want to manipulate the URLs manually though, so feel free to go ahead without me: "ballantine" and "berkley" are the big two that I would certainly get bored of before I finish, but pyramid, bantam and dell might be worth a look too. BLongley 19:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm definitely favouring manual approvals now. "www.perma.bookscans.com/images/permaM3058.JPG" should have moved to "bookscans.com/Publishers/perma/images/permaM3058.JPG" but actually went to ""bookscans.com/Publishers/perma/images/perma3058.JPG". Still, even if a direct script is unwise based on this evidence (although broken link to slightly less broken is really no harm), it should be possible to give it to a bot like Data Thief or Fixer or Dissembler and automate part of it. BLongley 21:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I've done all the ones detectable in last week's backup, but I think this week's backup was taken just before I finished: "bantam", ballantine" and "berkley" still show as incomplete although I'm pretty sure I checked all 172 on Saturday. However, the code to credit bookscans.com still needs fixing. BLongley 18:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Author Updates

I know I've been leaving a lot on the approval queue recently, that's because I keep finding them when I work on an obscure Magazine or Anthology and come across barely-represented, or entirely new, Authors. At the weekend I think it was because I was working on "Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine" and diverged into "Orb Speculative Fiction" (and yes, I've left those in a mess - feel free to regularise and Wikify such data) and came across lots of Australian Authors. Or Authors published in Australia, at least. I frankly can't recall why the latest set reached the queue, but I'm sure it made sense at the time. (If anyone can tell me what I was thinking, please let me know. I don't follow my own train of thought while I'm thinking it, let alone days later.) BLongley 22:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I leave stuff there because it reminds me of another tangent I could (should?) research: there are author bibliographies to be found, or pseudonyms, or maybe I've found the wrong author: but if such a backlog bothers people, feel free to approve/reject such edits and either undertake the research yourself, or remind me I was going to do so (I tend to not bother pursuing such if it's "Horror" or "Paranormal Romance" though), or point it at somebody that might be interested. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, sometimes I bite things that I'll never bite off totally. I think they're usually useful updates, but may not be to everybody's taste - so feel free to do stuff to them. I know Mods normally leave other Mods edits alone, but I'm not protective over these. BLongley 22:44, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

At least you leave a trail occasionally. I've wandered off the path so many times that I never make my way back to the cottage. (Now a GPS that can help me with that problem I'd be interested in buying!) MHHutchins 13:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Death in Winter

Just submitted an edit for [this]. Please reject it as I did not realize I have this edition and the image and particularly the notes will change. ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Ghost Dance - multiple submissions

Mouse stuck and submitted SIX times!!! Please reject all but the last one as it's the only REAL one.... Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. MHHutchins 20:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Lifeline

Submission/edit for [this], please reject!!! Took all the data from the wrong pub!! Good thing this is the last one for the day..... apologies! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Rejected two edits for that pub title. Both appeared to be inputting the same core information so I assumed they were both wrong. Cheers Kevin 05:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Guess I should have been more specific..... only the first one was wrong. will re-submit. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 14:11, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Escape on Venus -- needs merging with the 1974 entry

Sorry, But BitDancer verified this with commentary and I added image/notation/Foreword. My adds, his ver need merging with this. [9]. or something. If my adds approved I will delete the not verified and add it's information to the BitDancer ver. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I accepted the additions you made to BitDancer's verified pub, and I'm going to date it as January 1974, noting the source is Locus. Then I'll delete the dated one that is unverified. Thanks for the heads-up. MHHutchins 20:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Appreciate the correction, but you did it great for me!. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Stone issue - Psuedonym Psedonym Pseudonym!!!!

Re this discussion. Pleas hold all submissions related to this issue. The artist as credited should not be changed. This is a psuedonym situation.--swfritter 13:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I accidentally let this one and will change the credit back to Dave Stone.--swfritter 13:56, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Badge of Infamy

A blind spot, or not enough coffee this morning..... submitted a new pub when [this] is already in the database. Please reject and I'll add the image/etc to the existing pub. Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 18:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

"Moderator warnings" column in the approval screen?

The submission approval screen generally displays one column for new records (mostly pubs) and two columns for changed records (pubs, titles, authors, etc). How about adding an extra column for "moderator warnings"? It could be used to show potential problems with the submission, e.g.

• Changes to Contents Titles which will affect multiple Publications (a perennial favorite)
• Double spaces and missing spaces (e.g. "X.Y.Author") in Author names
• Irregular page numbers, e.g. "120 & 156"
• Merges of different title types, e.g. Essay and Collection
• More to be added as we identify recurring issues

Would this be useful? Ahasuerus 19:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

This would make moderating entirely too easy, and I am totally against it...NOT! My only question is "How long do we have to wait?" MHHutchins 20:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

We have half a dozen changes sitting in the queue at the moment, so they will need to be deployed first, probably some time tonight. Once they are out of the way, I can start working on this feature. Unless we have other volunteers, that is? Ahasuerus 20:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Deployment of r2009-14 looks OK to me, they're all improvements, if not final solutions. BLongley 23:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)I think it would be useful. But note that merges display one column per merged title, and I have done 4-way merges in the recent past. And of course any of those may be appropriate in particular cases. -DES ^Talk 20:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, that's a good point. We allow up to 20 Titles per merge, so the new column may be hard to see when merging 4+ Titles at a time. Hopefully, it will be a rare occurrence. Ahasuerus 20:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, please be sure that "Irregular page numbers" does not flag normal but unusual formats, such as "xiv + 254", "487+[5]", "xxi+[5]+218+[7]+213", or "unpaginated". These are all correct, and should not, IMO, be flagged. -DES ^Talk 20:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure how we will handle the page count field yet, but perhaps it will be easier to check for characters that are not allowed, e.g. ampersands? Ahasuerus 20:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what would be easiest to code, but I think the only clearly valid characters are 0-9, "+", "i", "v", "x", "l" "c", "[", "]", <space>, and the specific string "unpaginated". By the way, a display change so that if the contents of this field is the string "unpaginated", it does not display as "unpaginatedpp" would be nice. Probably a separate issue, but while I'm thinking of it... -DES ^Talk 20:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

There might be some confusion here: e.g. "xiv + 254" is fine for a publication, it is not for a content page number. Odd things in content page numbers can lead to decidedly nasty things that make us use "hardreject". BLongley 22:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I surely thought this was talking about the "Pages" field that holds page count. In the page number field on a content item, we support digits, lower case letters for roman numerals, and lower case letters for a few special codes, like "bp". Anthign else is probably invalid, i would think. -DES ^Talk 15:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Would this go along with a warning for changes to transient-Primary verified pubs, Primary2-5 verified pubs, and perhaps secondary verified pubs? -DES ^Talk 20:03, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sure, we could do it at the same time, it's not that hard to do. Ahasuerus 20:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Great! -DES ^Talk 20:27, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Puts on forward looking hat and looks forward to it. (Yes, I'm feeling a bit punny) Kevin 21:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

All look good ideas, but I'd separate them. And does it have to be a "column"? I suspect some of the things that get past Mods are when an edit looks harmless at first glance, and it's only when you get 2 or 3 pages down that you realise that they didn't just add a page-number, they changed the content title too. It would be nice, but I suspect a much bigger change, to have a few rows of warnings at the top of the page. This could be in addition to column warnings, although I'd prefer Mods do check every part of an edit and not rely on the header warnings. BLongley 22:43, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

An interesting idea, but probably a follow-up effort after implementing the "warning column" FR and (hopefully) learning some lessons in the process. Feature Request 2830022, "Add a "Moderator warnings" column to the approval screen" created and assigned to me. We'll see what I can come up with over the weekend... Ahasuerus 01:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

On reading this, I'm inclined to think that putting warnings into one or more rows across the top might be better. The existing columns are based on the number of fields in the submisison type -- the number of warnings will not likely match that. So make a separate table, either just one row per active warning, or or, one row per supported warning with an "Ok" "Problem!" for each, or something of the sort. Just a suggestions, any implementation of such warnings would be a plus. -DES ^Talk 14:56, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, folks, not much progress on this front since Thursday. I spent most of the weekend re-implementing Roglo's misplaced fixes to the Advanced Search, coding changes to eliminate double quotes in Author names and testing Marty's Serial changes. I hope to wrap up the quotes issue in the next couple of days and then concentrate on Moderator Warnings. Ahasuerus 03:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Submission by User:Rycke

I have held this submission, because I would like a mod to see this note before approving it. But I would like to have advice from another mod, or to turn it over. there are at least two issues.

1. There are two editor records. I'm not sure if this is normal for a co-edited magazine, or if this means the editor did something odd. I would like the advice of a moderator more experienced with magazine entries, or if you prefer, take this submission over.
2. The cover image is hosted by "http://69fop.com" which isn't on our image whitelist.
3. I just realized, this is an "ezine" that isn't on our current webzine whitelist, so it is probably out unless we intend to add to the whitelist.

Any comments are welcome. -DES ^Talk 16:30, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

There shouldn't be any EDITOR records visible on initial entry, the software will create them from the Authors field. So "Miranda Foreman" would get a credit too. I think the EDITOR entries are probably "editorial" ESSAYs. BLongley 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. -DES ^Talk 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, too. I was confused by this for quite a while when I started entering (magazines), & entered several that way I think. -- Dave (davecat) 21:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Tag of "69fop, fiction, horror, fantasy, slipstream, paranoia, speculative" is not what we want - we just want a publication Tag like "FLVRSFPRN2009" which we'd get anyway if Rycke left it blank. BLongley 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I missed that, and should have spotted it -- oviously a confusion with our title tag system. -DES ^Talk 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A URL ending "GhoulTophatGoateebySteveCartwright.html" obviously isn't of an image file. BLongley 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

It is possible for an HTML file to include nothing but an image, but quite unusual. In this case i can't tell, because you must log in with a password to the site to get to that URL. -DES ^Talk 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't need to. That "image" URL works fine for me, but it's to a page containing the image, among other things, not of the image itself, which is here. BLongley 20:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"0000-00-00" content dates for a 2009-00-00 publication should be "2009-00-00", or earlier if a reprint. BLongley 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I actually favor the use of "0000-00-00" dates on reprinted items in many cases, but I know we disagree on this. -DES ^Talk 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree it's not an ezine we currently support. BLongley 19:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Well shall I explain to the user why this is being rejected, or does someone else want to do it? Or does anyone think we should add this to the list of supported ezines? -DES ^Talk 19:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The current policy: "downloadable e-zines (periodicals in electronic format) which have been assigned an industry standard registration identifier (ISSN or ISBN) or have a history of containing reliably stable contents. Copying live webzine pages from the internet to a local computer does not qualify an ezine as downloadable" as written by Swfritter in March 2009, appears to be somewhat contradictory in that an e-zine shouldn't have unstable contents whether or not it has an ISSN or ISBN. I thought an e-zine was compiled and released without the changing of contents, such as a webzine might do. Is an e-zine a distinct immutable work, such as an e-book, or has the ever-changing technology of electronic publishing done another number with my head? MHHutchins

It looks to me, from what I can see at this site, that in this case at least "ezine" is just another word for "webzine". In the policy quoted above, i take it that the thought was that if someone went to the trouble and expense of securing an ISBN or ISSN they were more likely to keep their work stable. Whether that is a valid assumption might be debated. It appears that this webzine does have a concept of "issue", but it has just released "Vol 1 Issue #1" which it dates as "August/September 2009". Obviously not a long track record yet. In the "About" page the editors state: "Originally launched as a small press 'zine in August of 1996, 69FoP imploded during its 13th issue, sometime in 1999....We managed to publish exactly 13 issues over three years. The 13th issue did see print, but never sported the postage necessary to find its way to its various homes throughout the world" They also say "69FoP gives first consideration to short stories originally served up in small press 'zines prior to the turn of the century, though we will take a bite of anything published in any periodical through 2004. We will also accept original fiction, but if it's good enough to submit to 69FoP, it should be good enough to put out to the paying markets first." It appears that they ask for donations but do not change. -DES ^Talk 22:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

If it's a "webzine", and not a "downloadable e-zine", then it's definitely out. If we can't put up professional stories for paying markets like Tor.com, then surely we're not going to consider a non-paying webzine such as this. Feel free to direct the submitter to the rules and standards page if they want to discuss the matter. MHHutchins 01:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

An aside... Tor's stories are downloadable. Index away. Kevin 04:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I never saw that download link, always read them directly from the webpage. ('Cause I don't have a device to read them away from the computer, without printing them out!) But it occurs to me that these are not e-zines, but individual stories, downloaded separately, and not packaged and dated with others (which would have made them an e-zine, I believe) I guess they should be considered free e-books, just like the Project Gutenberg stories. (I'd ask what do others of you think of that suggestion, but I'm afraid of taking another trip down that road, if you know what I mean?) MHHutchins 05:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I have entered them as free individual ebooks (ala gutenberg) in the past and would support doing it again. Kevin 05:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Allowing stories posted on blogs makes even less sense then allowing webzines.--swfritter 17:27, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

If I am following this correctly, free stories on personal blogs 'do not' establish their publications, even though it has been for years. Thus, the short stories of Tim Jones (UK), fanfiction, shown on the blog, and no longer available, would not be entered, even though he wrote them and presently re-wrote them into paper publications with new titles. Thus we can not show the history of their development even though the 'free versions' certainly are available to those who dig them out. My conscience, the little one, was bothering me. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:09, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no problems with title notes explaining prior web publication and alternative titles, I do have a problem with entering new data for stuff that just isn't there any more, or won't be soon. There are plenty of authors that currently list all their prior publications (in any format) on biblio pages of their own websites (one of the reasons I've made a special effort to capture those URLs - so we can grab the data while it lasts) but I've found that many of the references are to dead websites, and even when they republish the work on their own site, their own site may go dead. A lot of younger authors are abandoning their "dot com" sites in favour of Blogger or Livejournal or something equally transient, though. (It's cheaper.) I wouldn't link to Tor.com either - given the stability of publisher URLs printed on physical books in the last dot com boom for instance, I'd only give it a 5% chance of being available in 5 years, and the chances of links to content remaining stable are near zero. I'd actually bet real money on it, but I suspect I won't be around to collect, or that you won't, or that this site will have moved again and the record of the bet will be lost... BLongley 20:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect you are overly pessimistic. As for this site, the last time it moved, th4e wiki moved also, completely intact. I would expect the same if we move again, that's what backups are for. As for Tor.com, I have no way to know for sure, but there site has, i think, been stable for several years at least. Baen's site has had stable links to content for over 10 years now IIRC. You are right that many personal sites of individual writers are likely to be transient, IMO, although a number of more established writers have had sites stable for 5 years or more. With your general thesis "I do have a problem with entering new data for stuff that just isn't there any more, or won't be soon." I fully agree. -DES ^Talk 21:54, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)I think I agree more with Bill than DES, but frankly we are all in agreement that we need some hard core storage, which we are all in some doubt of or printed media. We all want the credit and history, but the lackadaisical storage methods of others is not in our control, nor can we store it for them. In support of Bill's Tor statement, Baen makes available lot's of free material on a limited time basis. I downloaded some on Tom Godwin, but all that material has been removed and a new download created which is 'different' and thus they have shown they are capable of curtailing their data downloads. If they no longer maintain the original download, and do not print it, then it effectively has become lost. I am most positive that their deletion means you can not exchange, etc that material and anything beyond personal use is 'forbotten'. Thus Baen is using the free items to evaluate the market for them and their download products are not necessarily permanent. Of course this is not as bad as the Amazon kindle debacle, but even that points to definite problems recording even the best of internet material from well known sources. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Nowickj

Any ideas on how to get his/her attention? The ISFDB software changes don't seem to have accomplished it, maybe something on the Wiki side would. (Recent activity is in Upload Log.) BLongley 21:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Nowickj doesn't seem to have taken any wiki actions aside from uploading images, but s/he does seem to have noticed posts made on User talk:Nowickj. At least, s/he is no longer downsizing images after upload; s/he is adding license tags to uploaded images; s/he seems to have mastered getting the Image URL for uploaded images correct. I haven't seen any submissions with introductions after s/he was told about how to handle them.

User:Nowickj must be logged into the wiki to upload images. Therefore, s/he must have had the "you have messages" banner displayed, and it is hard to see how anyone could miss that. But the wiki software only requires that you view your messages, it does not require any response.

What message do you want User:Nowickj's attention for? -DES ^Talk 22:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I emailed him from the contact link on his page, and he responded that he was aware of the talk page, and mentioned that he wasn't sure how to remove messages once he'd made the suggested changes (which he has on at least one of my messages.) I wrote back that he didn't need to remove the messages and it was best to keep them there for future reference. Also told him that it would be a good idea to let the poster know that his message had been read. MHHutchins 22:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

That makes sense. I/we should probably come up with a better "ISFDB Wiki customs" page than Help:Editing and put it in the welcome message. -DES ^Talk 22:20, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

What do people think of Help:Conventions as a draft? -DES ^Talk 00:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Help:Conventions is fine but a thought in looking at it in light of this thread is to call the sections "Your user page", "Your talk page", etc. and then to add "User talk pages for other ISFDB editors." That way we can link to conventions from {{Welcome}} and when someone clicks they see a page addressed to them rather than a remote 3rd party writing style.--Marc Kupper|talk 04:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

We could do it that way if you like, although i generally prefer to avoid "your" & "you" formulations in help pages, and the "User talk pages for other ISFDB editors." would be largely redundant with "Your talk page" I would think. -DES ^Talk 14:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That's fine - While I have not seen people having much difficulty with understanding the current help I was still thinking about to connect with people so that they would be more likely to use the conventions. In terms of talk pages and the editor that started this thread it may that we need to add code to message editors. For example, many mailing lists have silent lurkers and those people may not want to conduct conversations on a talk page but would be receptive for a message system that was more like e-mail. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW - I ran across a Wikipedia editor who is rather infamous for sometimes hundreds of edits per day for the past several years. 99.99% of the edits are marked minor (including moving articles) and 99.9% of them don't use an edit summary. In all the years of editing he or she has never edited a talk page but clearly knows their way around wikitext. I suspect it's an editor that got banned and came back with a new name and an edit pattern that is just under the level that merits a block. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

We surely don't want to encourage that, but it is rare even on Wikipedia. Do you think we need something in the conventiosn page about when to use the "minor" flag? -DES ^Talk 14:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems like a minor detail. :-) While it is a convention I suspect including it on the instruction page about wiki editing is likely enough. On WP it seems people get the hang of it pretty quickly. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:49, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Lucas Book

Submitted a new pub for Star Wars without realizing it was ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster. Reject it, please! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Coverart for Non-Genre magazines

(discussion moved to Rules and standards discussions)

The Thing in the Crypt

My submission for this title will probably raise some eyebrows. The author change has a reason of course. The story is stated as written by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp in my copy of the 1974 Sphere edition. The verified editions of Conan, except the 1974 Sphere edition, already have the story as by Carter & De Camp. After (if...) my submission is accepted I will merge the two titles. Thanks Willem H. 09:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Quarles

I entered the first printing of Poe's The Raven using the pseudonym in the pub, "__ Quarles" (using underscores instead of the emdashes used in the pub, as was agreed to do for the corresponding "omission" situation in titles). Unfortunately, that seems to have yielded an inaccessible author. Searching for "quarles" and "%quarles%" finds nothing. Searching on "the raven" shows it, but then clicking on the __ Quarles link reports the same author-not-found.

Anybody have any words of experience/wisdom about that behavior?

In the meantime, I am going to edit the title and the occurrence in the pub to just use "Quarles". Coming soon to a queue near you. If I should do something else, just let me know what. Thanks. --MartyD 09:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I have seen this behavior before, but I assume that underscores cause problems in Author names just like double quotes do. We'll probably need to take a look into it at the software level, but for now the changes have been approved. Ahasuerus 13:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Using "%" or "_" in any field is probably going to cause problems somewhere. They are wildcard characters, and we don't do particularly well at distinguishing a real usage from an intended wildcard usage. :-( BLongley 21:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

This discussion and this one are relevant. -DES ^Talk 21:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks DES - nice short referenced articles! :-) (I'm still suffering wiki-overload.) BLongley 20:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The simple solution is to tell people not to use these two characters for "real" data, but in an ideal system we'd treat them properly. We currently have an intermediate system where we have a lot of "LIKE" searches which will use wildcards if they're found - and I can't see that being fixed soon. BLongley 20:00, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I am trying to keep wiki posts shorter, and less frequent. Where do you think we should tell people not to use these, for now? In the "special characters" section of Help:Screen:EditPub perhaps? -DES ^Talk 20:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say we should tell people not to use them. MartyD is probably a better person to advise on when a better system could/will arrive - I'm not tackling that any time soon. BLongley 20:38, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

There are quite a few things that need to happen in the searching area, including a complete rewrite of the Advanced Search that Al planned at one point. However, it's not at the top of the list of priorities, so we may want to add a simple note to Help along the lines of "Don't use underscores in Author names until we fix it (some day)". Ahasuerus 21:57, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Two 'new' pubs

One Grave Too Many; The Same Lie Twice. Please reject both as they are in the DB already. Can't see the forest for the trees.... ~Bill, --Bluesman 02:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. -DES ^Talk 02:09, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Crossing the Bounndaries

If I got here in time, please reject my edit to this pub. First not enough n's now too many. Hope to get it right on the third try --Rtrace 02:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

No need for that, I approved the submission and edited the title back to one "n". I also fixed the title record.Kraang 02:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks --Rtrace 02:33, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Effinger Series - Error in my Submission

I just submitted a title update for Effinger, adding a title to a new series then noticed the series existed already under another name. Reject the first edit if you come across it. Jonschaper 03:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Error on the Check for Amazon Images page

Just spotted an error on this page: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Feature:90144_Check_for_and_use_Amazon_images

The 'large' example actually has a 'small' URL, i.e. the S in the .jpg filename should be an L. ApeMind 18:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Corrected. That page was written back in 2007, and since then we've discovered that Amazon's ZZZZZZZ.jpg images aren't as stable as we'd like. You'll find hundreds of broken links because they've been pulled by Amazon. It's usually easy to find a link to the more stable image. For example that same image has this URL http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FBJ23K1NL.jpg. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Couple of questions then: how exactly did you find that URL and how do you know it's stable (is there a page where this is explained somewhere?) and also should we, as DES says on that page, be uploading covers to ISFDB so we're sure anyway? ApeMind 19:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, uploading it to our Wiki would be the most secure way to do it. I'm not sure how we came to the conclusion that the ZZZZZZZ.jpg images weren't reliable other than the fact that they seemed to disappear! Maybe another editor would have more knowledge about Amazon images. I found the other URL by doing a search on Amazon. And again, I can't explain how but files at "ecx.images-amazon.com/images" tend to hang around longer. Who knows, maybe someday they'll start disappearing! MHHutchins 19:33, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears that the Amazon ZZZZZZ images key off the ISBN, and link to whatever the most recent image amazon has for that ISBN. (I think Amazon documented this on a help page for sites wanting to link to their images.) If the ISBN goes out of print, the ZZZZZZ image will often redirect to nowhere. Once an amazon sales page (with an image) is displayed, you can right-click the image and choose "copy image location" (or get the image URL out of properties) This will lead to an amazon image URL that does NOT include ZZZZZZ. There is no proof that I know of that such images are stable, but we don't seem to have any documented cases of their breaking or (worse yet) changing to a different image, whereas we have lots of known examples of the ZZZZZZ URLs doing one or the other.

It is always ok to upload an image to our wiki instead (as long as you are reasonably sure it is the right image), but sometimes an editor doesn't want to take that trouble, particularly for an image without a known artist. An editor is free to upload, or not. Last time I saw a count, we linked to something like 55,000 amazon images, and had a bit more than 6,000 images uploaded to the wiki. -DES ^Talk 22:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Analog June 1981

I pressed enter when trying to backspace. Reject the submission if there is a risk of database errors, or let it go through and I'll make the corrections. Tpi 16:17, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

There seemed no danger of database problems, so i approved it for you to correct as needed. -DES ^Talk 16:26, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters

Just added my 1986 (Grafton) copy of the above as a new novel, but probably shouldn't have done that as there is also a 1993 Lightyear Press publication in the db and now there are two entries for the same novel :-/ Should I have cloned it to make my 1986 Grafton entry? ApeMind 20:01, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

On a second note, is it even a novel? My version has 123 pages, and is advertised on the cover as "the classic Hugo Award winning novel", but it won the Hugo for best short story...! ApeMind 20:03, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Just answered this on your talk page - I'd call it a Novel, albeit a short one, but it's technically a Novella. We are avoiding civil war by reimplementing "CHAPTERBOOK" support for such titles we argue about. I missed the Lightyear Press edition - that should be a Chapterbook for now if it's the same text as most of the others. Nobody has verified that, but I know people are using the Vance Integral Editions to decide a lot of stuff. BLongley 20:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

David Brin: The River of Time

Just added page numbers for the 1987 Bantam edition of this title and noticed that the story Stage of Memory is additionally credited to "Daniel Brin". There's no mention of a Daniel Brin anywhere in my copy, and this is the only credit Daniel Brin has in the db. I strongly suspect it's erroneous, but can't be 100% certain. ApeMind 22:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The dual author version has been verified, and Locus lists it that way too. If yours has a single-author version, add that and remove the dual-author one from your pub. You might want to compare the two to see if Daniel's contributions have been removed, but I suspect it's just a translation error. BLongley 17:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I understand now what's going on with this: Daniel Brin is not directly credited for this story (not in the copyright acknowledgements, contents or story itself), however the 'Author's Notes' that follow the story contain the following paragraph: "It was Dan's idea to do a story about a memory drug. This is his story as much as mine". That's where the credit comes from. Phew! ApeMind 22:04, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That's not enough evidence to give Daniel credit in the ISFDB record. He has to be credited on the title page of the story itself. I wonder if he's credited explicitly in the other pubs? MHHutchins 22:52, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Brian Aldiss: Barefoot in the Head

I have a 1971 Corgi copy of this novel which corresponds in all respects to this entry, except one: the ISBN is different. Should create a new clone or is the existing record likely to have the wrong isbn? ApeMind 22:11, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Overwrite the ISBN for that pub. The one on there now is for the Faber hardcover edition of the same title. MHHutchins 22:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

My submission to mearge "Clansman of Fear" and "Clansmen of Fear" by Henry Hasse

Hi, please reject this for now. I noticed after I hit submit that the cover scan for Science Fiction Adventures lists it as "Clansmen of Fear". I'll try to see which is a correct title or if there is a variant. Jonschaper 04:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this until I'd accepted the merge. I checked out the NESFA index which has both titles "Clansmen", so I'll just edit the merged record to that name. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers Jonschaper 05:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible Deep-linking

I have noticed that whenever I attempt to visit the Issac Asimov author page [10] my browser warns me that there is some sort of deep-linking from the website www.brownsteins.net, which is probably malicious. I thought I ought to bring this to someone's attention.--JosHil 00:41, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be his picture (http://www.brownsteins.net/Ulpan/Images/Isaac%20Asimov.jpg), which is indeed deep-linked. --MartyD 01:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed for now. I can supply an author-picture scan from the back of "Through a Glass, Clearly" or some other source if people really want to know what Isaac Asimov looked like - but then we might as well supply several pictures on the "Biography" or "Bibliographic Comments" page and give a better overall view. Personally, I quite like to NOT know what the authors look like at times. BLongley 19:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

While i will add an author image anytime I have one available. In this case there are three images in the Wikipedia article (which we already link to). One is declared freely available by the Library of Congress, one because it is a work of the US Federal Government, and hence not copyrightable, and one (a painting by Rowena Morrill) has been released under a GFDL license. We can upload a copy of any of these to our wiki and link to it in perfect legal safety. -DES ^Talk 22:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I uploaded and linked the Rowena Morrill GFDL image. -DES ^Talk 21:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a nice image, but isn't it a bit too small when displayed on the Summary page? Ahasuerus 21:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The full size version was over 450kb, this is 200 odd. I'll be glad to upload the full size (600 pixel) version if you want. -DES ^Talk 22:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that it's a full body portrait, so it's hard to see the face. Do we happen to have something a little more face-centric? :) Ahasuerus 22:39, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There are lots of pics of Asimov available, this is one of the few that i know of that happens to be under a free license. -DES ^Talk 23:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh well, better an enthroned Asimov than no Asimov :) Ahasuerus 23:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you like the 600 pixel version? -DES ^Talk 23:47, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

But won't the picture be reduced in size to fit on the Summary page regardless of the size of the original? My only concern is that it would be nice to see his face a little better and I don't think that a higher resolution will help as long as all we have is a full body portrait. Oh well, not a big deal, I am sure he would forgive us :-) Ahasuerus 00:13, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

imports of merged title -- Fruiting Bodies + The Man Who Felt Pain

Sorry, I just submitted a merge of "The Man Who Felt Pain", followed by content imports from one pub of Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi into two others, forgetting that "The Man Who Felt Pain" is in that content list. No coffee yet this morning. If someone sees this in time, perhaps you could accept the imports first, then the merge? If not, that's ok: reject the imports if/when they fail and I'll redo them. Thanks. --MartyD 10:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Done, but please note that one of the updated Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi pubs has a defunct Amazon link. Ahasuerus 12:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, couldn't edit it while importing and wasn't brave enough to submit a second edit until after the import was approved. --MartyD 13:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Quantum Science Fiction Special

Discovered the omnibus Quantum Science Fiction Special contains two such titles (35989 and 480951). Looks like I have to change the type of one of the titles first, so as to be able to remove it and then delete it. Mostly just FYI, since the type change will be odd. That seemed marginally better than changing the pub type. If there was a more appropriate way to do this, let me know. Thanks. --MartyD 10:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I have removed and deleted the resulting Essay Title, so we should be all set. There is a Feature Request to change the behavior of the Remove Title screen so that it would display all Titles in the pub, including the titles whose type matches the type of the pub. There are no dependencies for this FR, so it can be implemented in the foreseeable future. Ahasuerus 15:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge of The Chrysanthemum Spirit

If someone sees this in time, please reject the merge of "The Chrysanthemum Spirit" I just submitted. I need to do some more research on it. Thanks. --MartyD 10:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid the merge has been approved, so we will need to unmerge the title. Ahasuerus 15:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It's ok, I did the research over lunch. It was just a question of which date, and I've submitted a correction for that along with copious notes. :-) --MartyD 16:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Clearing the queue redux

Is there a chance that we can have some progress in clearing some of the submissions, especially those that have been held for more than a month? I have a couple from the last few days that are awaiting verifier responses, but am willing to dig through boxes to pull out the magazines to order to clear the submissions. As Swfritter today points out here some submitters have been patiently waiting. That list is really starting to bug me, especially when I have to scroll down after every single approval to get to the next submission. My OCD thanks you. :-) MHHutchins 16:26, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I have dealt with several that I had on hold, and will deal with others in the next day or so. I have asked for a response from an editor in one case. In the mean time, press "end" instead of scrolling. -DES ^Talk 21:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean remove my hand from the mouse? You'd have to pry it from my cold dead fingers! :) MHHutchins 21:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Use the other hand :) -DES ^Talk 22:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't allow my left hand to go anywhere past the center of the keyboard. It knows it's place, and it stays there. One time it touched the "H" key, the house started shaking and fire came down from the heavens. It has learned never to do that again. I'll need to train my right thumb to stretch over to the "End" key. Then you'll be to blame for my six inch thumb. MHHutchins 23:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) The queue is much reduced at this point. Most really old submissions are gone. I hope your obsessions are not bothering you as much :) -DES ^Talk 22:49, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I never know how the OCD is gonna manifest itself. That freaking bug-eyed peach is starting to get on my nerves again. (I thought those banners were suppose to rotate, or do I only notice it when the peach comes round?) Time get out the duct tape to cover up the top quarter of my monitor. No, wait! I forgot about the "End" button. MHHutchins 23:12, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The bug-eyed peach does appear to be stuck. I thought it was supposed to be daily changes now? BLongley 17:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a nightly job that rotates the images at 1am server time. Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 17:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There was a bug in the code that prevented it from going from the last image (#11) back to the first one (#2) when it reached #11. Fixed now. The bug-eyed peach can take a well deserved 10 day vacation after all that hard work. Ahasuerus 18:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I find the farting steel pig far less objectionable. BLongley 19:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

XML Parse Error now in queue

this submission has badly formed XML. The XML appears to end in mid-tag according to the dumpxml script. I presume we will eventually need to hard-reject this, but I have left it alone in case examination can help figure out what caused the problem.

The submission was by User:ErnestoVeg for "I Romanzi di Urania #18". -DES ^Talk 15:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I checked the submission record in the database and it does abruptly stop in the middle. I am not sure what may have caused it, but it's an Italian publication with some Unicode characters in Notes, so it's possible that it messed up the submission generation logic.

Also, we don't record foreign language translations of short fiction at this time, so Ernesto may want to set this book aside until we beef up foreign language support. Once we have User preferences and user-selected languages, we will have to go back and re-enter all of his recently entered Serials in Italian, which is OK since they are basically our test cases, but re-entering short fiction would be even more work and it's hard to figure out what the Italian titles are based on Notes. Ahasuerus 15:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Ernesto may have noticed a problem, because he made another submission for the same issue, which went through OK. Concerning short fiction, I've made him aware of the db's non-support of translated short fiction. He's entering them under the English titles so that they can be merged. In some cases he's noted the translated titles in the notes, but I see he didn't in this case. MHHutchins 18:37, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not that big a deal, it's just that, unlike Serials, which can be changed quickly, it will take a fair amount of work to unmerge/change all Italian translations of English language short stories once we add foreign language support. Ahasuerus 19:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Would this be happening anytime soon? If so, we can ask him to hold off adding any more records until that time. I agree it's going to be a chore to change them once the support is here. That's why I've not added foreign-language editions that are referenced in Tuck. It's like the quandary that arises about purchasing new technology. You know it's going to get cheaper and better soon. And while you're waiting for that soon, you're missing out on the benefits that are currently there. (Read "new technology" as "HDTV" and "you" as "I".) MHHutchins 20:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that my availability remains high, I am 95% sure that it will be done by the end of the year (65% by November). Also see my last post on the Community Portal about changing Edit Pub, which may speed up the process of unmerging/changing Shortfiction titles. Ahasuerus 20:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

[unindent]As many mods that were going to see it have had the chance by now. Did we ever figure out what caused the error? Is it OK to reject it now? Thanks. MHHutchins 04:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It can be rejected. We should still be able to look at it via dumpxml in future. The way it breaks in mid-tag makes me think it's a transmission failure that led to an incomplete submission rather than an ISFDB bug. BLongley 17:51, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Either that or something went drastically wrong during the submission generation process, but I don't think there is enough information in the submission to determine what it was, so might as well reject it (and copy any relevant data to Ernesto's Talk page.) Ahasuerus 18:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

All the info was captured in a subsequent submission. This could have been submitted during one of those nightly reboots (about 3AM my time, don't ask me what I'm doing up at 3AM!). I'll reject the submission. MHHutchins 19:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

White and Bischoff's Forbidden World series

Hi, I've noticed that for some reason the two stories currently listed as part of the Forbidden World series are listed on both authors' pages separately under two identical headings. See http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Ted_White and http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?David%20Bischoff The series listing itself includes both titles: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?25912

Before noting this I submitted edits to add "Breaking Point" (written solo by Ted White under the name William C. Johnstone -- confirmed in Ted White's intro notes for "A World of One's Own") to the series, so I don't know how that will turn out. Jonschaper 01:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

At one point the Series editing software allowed you to create series records with identical names, which resulted in all kinds of problems. We have since fixed the editing bug, but we still have some duplicate series names on file (which reminds me that we need to find and fix them). For now, I have changed one of the series to "Forbidden World1" and we can move its record to "Forbidden World" and then delete the other series. Some title records may need to be merged after the fact. Ahasuerus 01:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Easily found:

select series_title, count(*) from series group by series_title having count(*) > 1

I've fixed "Mysteries of History", "O'Keefe" and "The Tales of Annwn", and someone else can do "to be reused", "Delete this series - child" and "Delete this series - standalone". BLongley 18:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Ahasuerus 17:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Major surgery to inactive editor's verified pub

Hi. This is a request for some advice/guidance. I've come across THBSTTMTRV2004, which is verified by editor Gloinson, whose last Wiki contribution was in December, 2008. This entry has several problems. An authorship was wrong, a title ("3 Rms, Good Vue") is misspelled, the pub date is wrong (Locus has it March, 2004; Amazon has what was probably the announced date: February 24, 2004). I can make the changes and leave a note on his page, but I'm wondering about the propriety of leaving his verification for something modified so substantially. Is it appropriate to remove his verification and leave a note to that effect on his talk page? I don't have the pub, so I'm not in a position to take over his verification. Thanks. --MartyD 01:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

This help page gives pretty clear instructions. 9+ months of inactivity means you can take over the verification. I say go for it. MHHutchins 03:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the last part where you're unable to take over the verification. In that case, leave a note about the changes on his talk page, make the changes in the record, explaining the changes in the record's note field, citing all the sources for the divergent info, and that should cover all the bases. I'll approve the submission. MHHutchins 03:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

We can unverify the primary, although I believe it will still trigger the warning about being a verified pub to mods. (I don't think the verification gets removed, just gets changed in status.) If Gloinson seems to have been a poor verifier (and I think most of us were in our early days), we can post a list for review. I think most of us like to keep such early mistakes private though. BLongley 19:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I did as Michael suggested and added notes to the entry about the original info, the changes, and the sources behind them; and I left Gloinson a detailed note, too, in case he returns. I wasn't trying to find fault with anything he did. I was just trying to cope with the fact that asking questions wouldn't elicit responses and so wouldn't help the situation. At the same time, I didn't want it to look like he had verified any of the potential mistakes in my allegedly better information.... --MartyD 19:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting a "name and shame" policy or such, but it's perfectly possible to create lists of early verifications by verifier - I think most of us would like to review our own before such become public. All my Magazine verifications should be questioned I think, for instance. When the verifier has gone missing, someone else might like to review all of such if the interests overlap. That can be kept private though too. "Etiquette" question, I guess. BLongley 20:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Please reject my edit to Hal Clement's Introduction to "Lecture Demonstration"

It might not be a reprint of his previously published intro but a new one. Jonschaper 02:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 03:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Chronicles of Narnia

CHRNCLSFNR2004 contains two OMNIBUS titles (31338 and 1016103. I am going to change the latter title's type temporarily to COLLECTION so I can remove it from that pub. It looks to me like the two titles should be merged anyway, which I will submit after that removal goes through. --MartyD 11:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Approved. Ahasuerus 12:09, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Submitted the removal and the restoration of the Omnibus type. Will look at whether to merge later. --MartyD 13:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Upload new cover scan

I have just noticed that at the end of all my edits today, the words 'Upload new cover scan' appears under Bibliographic Comments. (see The Conan Chronicles by Robert Jordan). Could someone fix or tell me what's happened. Thanks. --Chris J 02:44, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

See this announcement :) Ahasuerus 02:47, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

One Against Herculum / Secret of the Lost Race

Two edits for this pub, please ignore/reject the first, an accidental "return" instead of "shift". ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 04:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

1233333

Submission number 1233333 was just approved. Getting up here :) -DES ^Talk 00:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

And Phileas got the magic 1234567. I knew it was close last night, but couldn't stay up any longer. BLongley 17:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I just claimed # 1242424. -DES ^Talk 19:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

We should either watch the numbers more, or recheck some of them. For instance, I just noticed I passed 4,000 Primary verifications but this week I've actually been unverifying (well, moving to Primary Transient) lots of books as I try to declutter. And Bluesman has just passed 17,000 which seems to suggest he might catch Don Erikson and Ahasuerus for "biggest collection" even if they get around to doing a verification pass. Ah well, they're only numbers. Even if they might affect my insurance premiums. BLongley 20:31, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Baleful Beasts

Three edits, second one is a clone with an incorrect ISBN which the third corrects. Please reject the second one only (has reference to Library binding) and an incorrect ISBN of 0-528-20811-9. Correct ISBn is 0-528-80211-9 which is in the third edit. Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 04:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Pubupdates

I made a number of submissions for coverart, before realizing the links were wrong. Please reject the following, I made new submissions for these. Thanks Willem H. 14:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

2009-09-28 08:26:18 PubUpdate Adventures in Time and Space -

2009-09-28 08:32:15 PubUpdate Analog 4 -

2009-09-28 08:36:55 PubUpdate And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire and -

2009-09-28 08:39:05 PubUpdate Before the Golden Age -

2009-09-28 08:42:50 PubUpdate The Best from Fantasy and Science Fictio -

2009-09-28 08:46:08 PubUpdate The Best Science Fiction Stories -

2009-09-28 08:49:52 PubUpdate Inter Ice Age 4 -

2009-09-28 08:59:22 PubUpdate Horsemen from Nowhere -

Done. MHHutchins 16:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Webzines

Please note my entry about Flurb on this talkpage.--swfritter 19:17, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Please ignore

Please ignore My 1st try at entering a clone of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness 2nd printing as I found more info after doing it.Don Erikson 17:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

First submisison rejected, 2nd accepted. -DES ^Talk 19:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Le Ronde des Esprits

Someone out there is desperately trying to make sense of my edit to make Le Ronde des Esprits into a variant of Brown Girl in the Ring. Well, read this and know more. Willem H. 20:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Approved. -DES ^Talk 20:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Translated titles are not made into variants, unless the first appearance was not in English. Otherwise, they should be merged into the parent title record, although the pub title remains as published. See here. MHHutchins 21:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW, that help page should be "How to enter foreign language editions". (Editions published in England are "foreign editions" to Americans.) Could someone with more Wiki experience than me please change the title and any reference that may be linked to it? I'm afraid I'd botch it up. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It should probably be "Non-English" rather than "foreign". (And written by someone that doesn't separate American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand etc dialects any further than known spelling differences.) BLongley 21:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, it's worth reminding Mods as there's another example today - En 2112 as an Esperanto variant of the English title. That was simultaneously published though, so might just be the wrong way round. But if I'm going to have to struggle for hours over 12 German titles in the Space 1999 series, I'd like us to all be working the same way. BLongley 21:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

En 2112 is a short story, not a novel. First written in English and translated into Esperanto which is not a foreign language but a universal language. The Esperanto version was later translated back into English for re-publication.--swfritter 14:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I think as far as our help is concerned "a foreign language" should be read as "any language other than English", and Esperanto is surely other than English. As to "universal language" Esperanto was that in intent, but has hardly become universal in practice so far. -DES ^Talk 14:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed as to "any language other than English". Universally ignored is a more accurate description of Esperanto; William Shatner gave one of his typically bad performances in one of the few Esperanto movies.--swfritter 15:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I can only recall Harry Harrison as being an advocate of Esperanto in the SF world. I probably own more books written in Klingon though. BLongley 22:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

That reminds me to post about the planned enhanced support for other languages... Ahasuerus 22:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I've moved the page (it's quite easy, there is a move tab) to Help:How to enter foreign language editions. If there is a consensus that it should be "non-English" instead, I'll move it again. ~Ron --Rtrace 22:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Aha! I see it now, in the sidebar set of links. (My skin, Cologne Blue, uses links instead of tabs. I prefer this skin because the cream background is easier on the eyes.) Thanks. MHHutchins 22:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I should definitely quit editing tonight as I'm suddenly reading Mike's "blue skin" comments as a physical description and don't want to be editing against "Dr Manhattan". ;-) BLongley 22:41, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Merging interiorart records

I know it's documented somewhere in the help pages that warns against merging interiorart records for various reasons. (Unless an editor can physically verify both publications, it's not a good idea.) I know it's here, but I can't find it using the search. Does anyone recall where this could be hiding? I'm holding a couple of submissions which wants to merge title records for interiorart. MHHutchins 05:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

New Pubs - Entry Type: INTERIORART. Unless somebody can come up with a methodology for merging such, it would be nice if it could be restricted programatically.--swfritter 13:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

A common but not universal practice has been to enter reprinted artwork with "(reprint)" appended to the title but with the original date of the artwork.--swfritter 13:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we've been overly reluctant about such merges. When reprinted art is essentially the same, even if it might be different in minor details, I would favor merging it, just as we merge versions of texts that have minor grammatical changes. -DES ^Talk 13:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There are three different standards for entering interior art. A) One entry on the page where the story begins, B) one entry on the first page where artwork appears (no matter how many pieces of art there are), and C) one entry for each piece of artwork. If a method B is used for one pub and method C for another then you would have to merge multiple pieces of art from one pub with one piece of art from the other pub - something which can't be done. The editor would need to have both pubs, enter the multiple artwork for both and physically verify that the artwork is identical. In some cases not all the art is reprinted or is reprinted in a different order so the artwork for "Story Title [2]" in pub A might be the same as the artwork for "Story Title [3]" in pub B. If we could start all over again it would have been better to have had one artwork entry per story with a methodology for indicating how many pieces of art there are for the story - I think that train has left the station.--swfritter 14:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, but where both entries have used method A, at least, a merge seems safe. For novels I often see only a single entry for interior art for the entire novel, with no page listed, or else specific titles such as "Map of Fantasyland". Those ought to be fairly safe to merge with interior art with matching titles, I would think. -DES ^Talk 14:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Once you start merging interiorart editors will see those as examples of how to do interiorart and start merging in inappropriate situations. Now that we have some programmers available I would rather see a software solution. One entry for interiorart but with a method of indicating how many pieces of associated artwork there are for a title in a pub. Biggest hassle - removing and deleting existing interiorart entries and possibly loosing page number data. If we had a "Remove AND delete orphan interiorart titles from a pub" that would substantially reduce the amount of effort needed to process a pub. Having a single entry would also substantially reduce the display clutter. There are some editors who do not enter multiple interior art specifically because of the clutter issue. As to the page numbers - that's a loss I can live with if we cannot figure out a simple solution for retaining them.--swfritter 19:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect we can improve things. Maybe we should start with NOVEL types first and see if that works, before allowing such on MAGAZINE types? Or encourage a cleanup of COVERART first? I suspect we can merge, for instance, several of Lin Carter's maps of Gondwane, but even similarly-named maps may not actually be the same - I seem to recall some series where the "map of the world" grew as the series progressed. But I've never liked maps at the beginning of books anyway, and try to avoid looking at them, especially when they give away the path of the protagonists. "The Shire to Mount Doom and back" is a bit of a spoiler, for instance. BLongley 20:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

This and this were approved by mistake?--swfritter 13:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I approved the first as the evidence is strong that they're the same (compare the pages for each of the two issues in which it appears.) I now see that the second merge is problematic. I approved the merge when I saw that most of the other art records in this magazine had already been merged with previous art records (look at "Down to Earth", "The Yes-Men of Venus", "The Fastest Draw", and "Cully".) This issue reprinted stories pulled directly from the pages of pre-Ultimate issues of Amazing and Fantastic. The problem I can see now is that the three pieces of "The Days of Perky Pat" are titled differently in the 1968 issue than that of the 1963 issue. I'll unmerge the records and let you and Ahasuerus (who verified the 1968) decide if the titles of the three pieces should be reconciled. Sorry for the mixup. MHHutchins 16:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Merging artwork, cover or interior, is messy. Luckily the bulk of the interior artwork problems are related to Amazing/Fantastic reprints and are otherwise rarely a problem. To my mind the artwork, as compared to the stories, is just not important enough to work up schemes for merging.--swfritter 18:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Artist "Adkins" - pseudonym or canonical name

I'm holding a submission which wants to make Adkins into a pseudonym of Dan Adkins. It's likely they're the same person, but does anyone who's familiar with his work (mainly in the magazines of the 1960s) have an opinion about which should be the canonical name. A overwhelming majority of the work was credited simply as "Adkins". Can anyone say whether this was a personal choice or an editorial one? MHHutchins 05:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Does it matter much whether it was a personal choice or not? Assuming that they are in fact the same person, if "Adkins" was how that person was mostly known to readers during his active period, wouldn't that be the canonical name, personal choice or not? -DES ^Talk 05:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It would only not matter if the work appeared under one name. In this case, personal choice should be considered because the work appeared under both names. Some editors choose to credit only last names regardless of how the artist felt (or how much the readers knew him.) An editor's choice shouldn't guide our choice of canonical name or pseudonym. That's why I particularly asked those who are familiar with the magazines in which the work appeared what their opinion is. Maybe readers of the magazine might have known the artist's full name regardless of how the editor chose to credit him. (Consider Jack Gaughan: almost always credited as "Gaughan" in the UPD magazines, most readers knew him by his full name.) I would hope that the preference of an artist (in the all-encompassing meaning that includes writers) as to how his work is credited should matter. That doesn't mean it should be the only factor. MHHutchins 06:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Artist canonical names - this is one of those issues that we have been avoiding for a long time. Artists should be treated in a different manner than authors. I agree with Mhhutchins arguments. As long as a significant number of works were assigned by the artist's full name then the full name should be used as the canonical name. The credits in this case reach that threshold. Although it takes more work to assign works assigned to Adkins as pseudonymous works of Dan Adkins, that is the correct choice. Luckily, there is not a huge amount of art by Adkins. Because of the way cover artists were initially entered from secondary sources it is a very good idea to physically check the pubs to make sure before making the assignment. In this case that is probably not necessary because there are few covers and they are in pubs that have been verified by fairly reliable editors. I might also note that Dan Adkins had a very recognizable style.--swfritter 13:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a preference, but artists could really benefit from a "Make all Titles associated with this Author name into VTs of another Author name" option in the navbar. We may want to check that the Author record in question doesn't have Pseudonyms pointing to it, but otherwise it shouldn't be very difficult to implement. The code that creates VTs already re-points grandchildren Titles correctly, so we would simply use it for every Title associated with the Author. The only prerequisite that I can think of is to implement the automatic reassigning of Series information to the canonical Title when a VT is created, which we need to do anyway. Ahasuerus 16:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I could script a search for "All titles in a series that are under a pseudonym rather than the canonical author" easily, except that we have pseudonyms set up for "authors" such as Anonymous and Uncredited (but not for Various thankfully). If it's OK to remove those (just at the author level, not on individual pubs) then it becomes far simpler. BLongley 19:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There is an outstanding Feature Request to disable "VTs in Series". Cleaning up the existing data will be a part of it, but we will also need to disallow adding Series info to VTs in Edit Title and implement the change to the Make VT screen that I mentioned above. Unfortunately, I am very busy this week, but I will try to clean up a few of the accumulated things over the weekend. Ahasuerus 20:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Talking of cleanups, I've tried cleaning up pseudonyms of themselves tonight, but can't understand why Neil Bryand is still here. Any ideas? It doesn't seem to be because of a review. BLongley 20:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Also Yann Minh. BLongley 21:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

And how come Lladoow Shevshenko has two pseudonyms when we only have one title here? BLongley 21:06, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There have been a few scenarios that could lead to orphan Author records, e.g. when the software errored out half way through filing. The safe way to check if the Author record is a true orphan is to add a fake title to it and then delete it. This will force the standard "empty Author cleanup" checks to be performed and the record will be deleted if it is truly an orphan. Ahasuerus 22:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, fixed, and fixed. BLongley 21:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The Dying Earth serialised in one part?

Is there a "(Complete Collection)" suffix for things like this? BLongley 21:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I've accepted a couple of these. Here's one I remember. Think of the magazine like an omnibus that includes a collection. There will be a content record for the collection (its title record) along with records for each of the stories. I'm not sure if your question was tongue-in-cheek (my discernment of such on the internet is quite weak), but I don't think the qualifying suffix is necessary. MHHutchins 04:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Slightly tongue-in-cheek maybe, but I really am unsure of whether the Magazine Mods have devised a standard for such. And this is a title that has won NOVEL awards, so might reignite a debate. (Which is why I just lobbed the bibliographical hand-grenade in here and went out to buy more books in the meantime. Glad to see there have been no casualties during my absence.) BLongley 19:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and accepted the submission. MHHutchins 15:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

The Air Trust-- pending statement: XML parse error

Morning! I glanced at the pending list and saw the above message. Feel free to delete if helpful, but would appreciate why it evoked this response. Can redo with no problem. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The XML looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?> <IsfdbSubmission> <PubUpdate> <Record>257362</Record> <Submitter>Dragoondelight</Submitter> <Subject>The Air Trust</Subject> <Note><ul><li>Hyperion reprint edition 1976. [This Publication Record]. <li>No printing month or printing number line in book. <li>Published in 1915 by Phil Wagner, St. Louis, Mo. <li>Copyright 1915 by Phil Wagner <li>LCC# 75-28854. <li>"Illustrations by John Sloan" on title page. Illustrations with captioning and signature not found. On pages 2 (actual count), others not numbered inserted between pages 24-25, 120-121, 192-193, 272-273, and 320-321. <li>No pricing in book. <li>No dust jacket, as issued. <li>Photographic reprint of the 1915 Phil Wagner edition. <li><b>Foreword</b> ends with George Allan England (over) Boston, Mass., November 1, 1915. Portions of this is used as a description of the novel in other printings. <li>Data from an ad in Locus #205.</ul></Note> <Content> <ContentTitle> <Record>9979</Record> <cPage>15</cPage> </ContentTitle> <ContentTitle> <Record>861544</Record> <cPage>2</cPage> </ContentTitle> <ContentTitle> <cTitle>Foreword (The Air Trust)</cTitle> <cAuthors>George Allan England</cAuthors> <cDate>1915-00-00</cDate> <cPage>&</cPage> <cType>ESSAY</cType> </ContentTitle> </Content> </PubUpdate> </IsfdbSubmission>

The only thing that looks really odd to me is the "<cPage>&</cPage>". Is it possible that you mis-typed the page number for "Foreword (The Air Trust)" as "&"? I'm not sure why this would cause such a problem, but it might I suppose. Or there might be a problem I'm not spotting. Any let's hold off at least until one of the active developers sees this and comments. -DES ^Talk 15:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) By the way, I'm confused about the phrase "Illustrations with captioning and signature not found." Does this mean that a secondary source said there were illustrations with captions and signatures, but none were found? Or does it mean that illustrations were present, but captions and signatures were missing? Or that illustrations with captions were present, but without visible signatures? If you resubmit (as I suspect you will eventually need to) you might want to re-word this note. -DES ^Talk 15:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

How timely! Ampersands reportedly cause problems when entered in the Page field, but I was unable to recreate the problem when I ran a few tests last week. Now we have a perfect guinea pig! :) Ahasuerus 15:19, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

IT was the & instead of a 7, but what use it is to recreate it I can not imagine. Thanks for the intel. Corrections made. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

In general it is easier to fix bugs when you can recreate them reliably, and thus can test possible fixes. -DES ^Talk 15:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

The big revelation was that ampersands only cause errors when used in "Page Number" fields in the "Content" section, not in the "Page Count" field at the Pub level :) Ahasuerus 19:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Bug fixed in the last patch. Ahasuerus 17:15, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Gerald Quinn: Submission Galassia # 37

Sorry: Gerald Quinn is a mistake: read Gerard Quinn--ErnestoVeg 08:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. BLongley 11:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Martian Quest: The Early Bracket pulpUpdate Please reject

Morning! Made a mistake and did an edit instead of clone. So please reject. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 17:24, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Night's Yawning Peal

I cloned when I should have edited, and there is a better way of to handle it anyway. Please reject my clone of this pub. Thanks. ~Ron

C. Cáesar / Curt Caesar in Cronache del futuro

Some submission were accepted with C. Cáesar, other C. Cáesar was modified in canonical name Curt Caesar. This magazine is very inaccurate and the variant are many. I've no problem to use canonical name, of course--ErnestoVeg 16:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If "Curt Caesar" has been made the canonical name do the following:

1. When the covers are credited to "C. Cáesar", create a variant.
   
2. When the covers are not credited, but are signed "C. Cáesar", give "Curt Caesar" as the cover artist, with a note that the credit came from the signature.
3. When the covers are not credited, and are not signed, but you know from a secondary source that Caesar was the artist, give "Curt Caesar" the credit, and give the source in the notes field.

MHHutchins 17:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

For Cronache del futuro #10 (and others where the artist is not credited but a signature is visible) see rule 2 above. MHHutchins 17:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Lord Darcy - trying to import but ?

Morning! I am getting a 'New Pub' result when I import to Lord Darcy SFBC. Since Export read the same way on my 'Pending List'. Can someone check and determine that it added contents and did not clone Lord Darcy?. My paranoia is running rampant here! Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I accepted your submission and it looks OK. Funny thing about importing is that your pending list and the moderators' queue both report the submission as a "New Pub" when it actually isn't. This threw me off the first couple of times that I saw it, but I've gotten used to it. It would be nice to change the software to show on both lists "Import Contents" or even "Clone Contents", which is how the submission is titled once opened by the moderator. MHHutchins 14:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'll investigate it tonight. Ahasuerus 18:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, fixing this problem would be surprisingly non-trivial. I'll create a bug report and it will be addressed at some point, but probably not right away. Ahasuerus 00:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

No hurry. Most moderators are probably aware of the mis-titling. I just didn't want non-mod editors to become confused about it. (Even though many have not reached the point where they're importing contents.) Thanks. MHHutchins 00:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Appreciated very Muchly! Export to clones, but Import adds, but without showing total contents when doing so. Most odd and confusing, but probably highly entangled programing. Thanks, very much. Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as Ahasuerus points out above, non-trivially entangled. :) MHHutchins 00:16, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Advance notice of probable unavailability

I've just learned tonight that the owners need my current home back while they knock bits of this house together with the neighbouring one. This might go easily, as in when the family moved me across the road to another house they owned (no moval fees whatsoever!) or difficultly (as in I have to go find a new landlord - there's no chance of me buying outright in the time given). Hopefully I'll get to a desirable state ("quiet residence, one bedroom, huge number of library rooms") in the long run but I suspect that's not going to happen quickly. BLongley 22:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Good luck with the move! As they say in the military, "three moves equal one fire", so watch out for little "moving accidents" that can quickly downsize your collection. Ahasuerus 23:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

They've had the fire now - all the trees in the back garden have been chopped down and burnt. Seasonal time to do it, I suppose. BLongley 23:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, I've started packing - observant moderators might have seen me revisit Abbey, Adams, Aldiss and Anderson today, and I've got one box packed now, out of the thirty I bought. I'm going to have to pick up speed though, that hasn't actually cleared the first shelf of the first bookcase. But those were some of my earliest verifications, so "Poul" might go faster on shelf two than "Kevin J. " did on shelf one, I think I revisited Poul more recently. And Anthony, Asimov, Asprin, Banks and Bear all look like people I've revisited comparatively recently, so that'll be one bookcase down - but I think I need to stop re-checking each book as I pack it, and wait for the UN-packing. BLongley 23:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I've given up on the notion that once a book or magazine has been verified, it can safely be "put away". It seems to be an on-going process (or a work-in-progress that will never be entirely completed.) I agree it might be better to do your re-checking when you're un-packing. I can't say how many times I've had to "un-pack" a book that was safely "put away". Good luck with the move. Hope you have enough friends to help you. On my last move, I had more than a few implore me to never move again or that it would be a true test of our friendship. (And that was twenty-four years ago. Can you imagine how many books have been added to the pile since then?) MHHutchins 00:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The Best of Harry Harrison

I just submitted a change to The Best of Harry Harrison, adding the author's introduction, but noticed too late it was already there. Please reject this (first) edit. I submitted a new one for the notes. Thanks, Willem H. 13:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 14:40, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

A request from Jacques Hamon

Jacques Hamon writes me:

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Jacques Hamon [mailto:jacqueshamon commercial_at free dot fr] 
Sent:	Saturday, October 24, 2009 12:01 PM
To:	vegetti_inc@virgilio.it
Subject:	RE: Mises à jour/new updates
Importance:	High

Ernesto,

ISFDB has created several banners  specific to pulps and SF magazines. I would like very much to borrow, if possible, some banners for my website. Could you give me the name and mail address of the right person  to contact about this request.

Thank you very much.
Jacques

Can anyone contact Jacques?--ErnestoVeg 13:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Does he mean the Banners as recorded here? If so, Al von Ruff created most but one was created by Phileas. Al has provided some templates if anyone wants to create their own. And I wouldn't mind a few more here either, like Mike Hutchins I get disturbed by the "bug-eyed peach" every so often. BLongley 00:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Permission to link to The Trash Collector

I've received permission (via email) from the owner of The Trash Collector to link to images on his site. They're small, but he's got quite the collection of them. Anyway, please let me know what steps to take to document and record his permission. I thought I saw instructions somewhere, but I can't find them (just how to ask for permission, not what to go once it's granted). Thanks. --MartyD 23:44, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we've agreed on a process for recording the permissions, but forwarding the permission granted email to the ISFDB Moderators group email address may help. I know I've saved several such just in case. BLongley 23:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

ISFDB:Image linking permissions#Sample request for permission says "Please copy your response to isfdb.moderators@gmail.com so that the ISFDB as an organization can preserve a record of it." -DES ^Talk 01:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be a vendor site -- a quite extensive one, it seems. But how stable are these links? If he sells a given book, does the image stay up at the same URL? if not, we might do better to copy and upload to our own server. -DES ^Talk 01:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point to keep in mind, but since we already have his permission, I went ahead and updated the display logic in case any editors decide to link to the site anyway. It should be installed on the live server in the next 30 minutes or so. Ahasuerus 02:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

How stable are the images on this site? If he sells the book does he remove the image from the server? Some questions that need to be answered before linking to the images. (I personally wouldn't choose to link to them as they're thumbnail size and not worth the effort. It might discourage someone from scanning a better image from their own copy.) Thanks. MHHutchins 16:16, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Capricorn Games

Submitted an edit for [this] with note about an added story. Reject!! Right note, wrong pub..... then just shoot me, please! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. Well, the first part of the request anyway :) Ahasuerus 04:32, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Baxter - Manifold (Unmerge and re-merge variants)

The title names of the Manifold series currently stick to the American titles. The preceding British editions used slightly different titles e.g. Time or Time: Manifold 1 instead of Manifold: Time. As I said here I'd like to change this. Unmerge the American pubs and re-merge them to Manifold: Time. Then I'd rename the "base"-title to Time: Manifold 1 or Time and make Manifold: Time a variant title of this. Before you have to reject those submissions I rather bring this up here. Any objections or other thoughts on this? Thanks. -- Phileas 15:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd just call them "Time", "Space" and "Origin" and let the individual publications add the series info (if needed - and I suspect it isn't) to the publication title in whichever way is most appropriate for that publication. No variants necessary. I can only provide evidence from my copy of "Phase Space", which really does refer to the previous titles that simply. (And categorises some other short stories as being in that universe, which I've added.) BLongley 22:02, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm holding the submissions to change the title records to the simplified name, but want to make sure that the titles that were given for the American pub records remain as recorded. I agree with Bill that we should not create variants. The title records will remain in the Manifold series, and the pub records will remain under the new parent title record without variant. If you agree, I'll proceed to accept the submissions. If you feel unmerging and variant creation is necessary for the American pubs, then we need to bring the verifiers of those pubs into the discussion. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Since the titles are somehow similar I also agree that variants aren't necessary. It's less work also. I'm not going to change any of the American pubs if that is what you concerns. The only thing I'm planning to do is to correct and verify the British Voyager pubs that I have. -- Phileas 17:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Submission accepted. MHHutchins 17:51, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Did you intend on changing the title records back to the original titles (as "Manifold: xxxx")? The submissions I just accepted did just that. MHHutchins 19:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually no. Is it possible that the title data was rolled back because I started editing those three pubs associated with the titles before the title change had been approved? Sounds strange, but who knows (I certainly not ;) ). Even the publication year of the title "Space" is back to 2001 instead of 2000. Shall I try again? -- Phileas 19:24, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] I'm not sure how that happened. Since a recent software change, you can't change a pub's title reference record from a pub update unless it's the only pub associated with that title record. Your last three submissions all had a change in the title reference record. Try again, but this time just do an edit of the title records, fixing the dates if needed. After doing a little research myself, I strongly agree that "Manifold" should not be part of the title record. Thanks. MHHutchins It just struck me how this may have happened. You updated the pubs before the title record change submissions were accepted. When the pub updates were accepted the submissions may have reverted back to the original title records. That's my only explanation. In the future, it might be best to wait until edits for title records are accepted before making submissions to change the associated pub records. Sounds like a bug that we didn't have before. Any software guy reading this please join the discussion. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Chronologically it happened like this: title update submission->started pub editing->title changes approved->pub update submission -- next time I'll wait when editing such connected stuff. Thank you. -- Phileas 19:38, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

As a "Software Guy" I was confused myself - and it's no fault of the editor, nor of the moderator. When you make a submission, the software can only check against the current state of the data. But as the software doesn't let you make immediate changes, requiring approval of each edit, the data can change in the meantime and what the moderator sees might be a little nonsensical. I can't see an easy way of enforcing data-changes in order - I freely admit I do try and approve "easy edits" first when trying to clear the queue, and may not always spot cross-edits - but there is a balance we obviously haven't quite got to yet. Still, if we spot things as fast as this, no major worry. BLongley 23:00, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Please reject my edit of Albert A. Neutzel

As above Jonschaper 04:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I cna't find any such edit in the pending cache, nor in the recent approved edits, nor in the recent rejected edits. Are you sure you cklicked "submit data"? Anyway, it appears that there is no Albert A. Neutzel in the author lists at this time. -DES ^Talk 04:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Note, i moved this here from the talk page. -DES ^Talk 04:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd accepted the change from Neutzel to Neutzell before I saw this message. I'll revert the change. MHHutchins 04:46, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I see what you were trying to do (I think). The artist's name should be Nuetzell. Because the one pub in which the spelling of "Neutzel" occurs is not verified, I went ahead and changed it to the "Nuetzell". Was this your intention? MHHutchins 04:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Your submission and the subsequent business got me researching the artist and it's come to my attention that his name is Al Nuetzel. Here's a webpage maintained by his son that reprints the article written by the son that appeared in Vertex (the ISFDB record of which began this whole business). It appears that he only added the extra "l" in his signature to "balance the 'N'", so any credits for "Nuetzell" are incorrect if they are based solely on the signature. I'll try to figure out which records will need to turned into a variant...once I determine the canonical name of the artist. Currently there's "Albert A. Nuetzell", "Albert Nuetzell", and just "Nuetzell", as well as "Albert Augustus Nuetzel" and "Albert Nuetzel". I'll first see if any of his work is in verified pubs. MHHutchins 05:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thorns

Submitted an edit for the Walker edition of Silverberg's "Thorns" using data from OCLC but then discovered they had the ISBN from the british Rapp & Whiting edition so the edit is worthless. Please reject and I'll re-do it. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, missed this notice. Subsequent submissions fixed the problem. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Moderator Help could do with updating

The Moderator Help Guide is a bit out of date after recent software improvements. Can I ask everyone to review it and suggest improvements? (I'll be glad to get my name off the first example screenshot for instance, I wasn't as bad an Editor as all those HELDs suggest, was I?) BLongley 20:12, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Still looks like it needs an update... BLongley 19:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Colonial Survey

Colonial Survey is listed as NOVEL. It would be a COLLECTION, according with Tuck and with Contento.--ErnestoVeg 08:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to make the change, particularly if you have a list of contents. -DES ^Talk 15:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a fix-up novel. Contento's and Tuck's emphasis was on identifying collections and anthologies, so they listed books as collections even when the original stories were later re-written to create fix-up novels. As the Title level note explains, "Originally published as 4 separate unrelated novelettes, which were rewritten for book publication, including merging the four protagonists in one man, Bordman of "Sand Doom". Two chapter titles in the resulting novel correspond to the original story titles ("Sand Doom" and "The Swamp Was Upside Down") while "Critical Difference" appears as "Solar Constant" and the Hugo award winning "Exploration Team" appears as "Combat Team". " Ahasuerus 16:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I've seen the note. How to do?--ErnestoVeg 19:04, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything that we need to do at this point. It's a fix-up novel and it is currently listed as a NOVEL, so everything appears to be in order. There have been requests to create a new type of title for "fix-ups", but nothing has been done about it yet (perhaps we could use the "storylen" field?), so for now we enter fix-ups as novels. Ahasuerus 19:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I would not go quite as far as that, it is a case-by-case judgment call, IMO. If the stories are still fairly separate, a conversion to collection may be warranted. But we currently have no special type for such cases, it is either COLLECTION or NOVEL. -DES ^Talk 21:25, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

One improvement might be to make the titles in the title notes link to the Novelettes. And the Novelettes could link to the Novels they're contributing to. But the software support is absent for fix-ups, and will be for a long time yet I suspect. But please don't let us go down to introducing Chapter-titles as variants of Novelettes in the meantime. BLongley 22:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that would be a bad idea in general -- indeed I can't think of a case where it would be a good idea, although no doubt one will occur now that i have said that. When and if we fully implement "Based on" that will/would handle fix-ups fully, but that is not a minor change. In the mean time, links in notes may be useful. Even mentions in notes allow a user to copy to the search box and find the components that way. -DES ^Talk 22:58, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

An example might be Quest for the Future . Anyone that thinks they can fix fix-ups might well be best directed to the inventor of such. :-( BLongley 23:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

One problem with "links in Notes" is that they become defunct when Titles are merged. They will also stop working if and when we are forced to move from "isfdb.org" to another domain. We have no plans to change domains at this time, but you never know when you may fall victim to cyber-squatters or other issues.

When dealing with stories that were substantially rewritten for novel publication but remained in the same universe -- as was the case with Colonial Survey -- the easiest thing to do is to put them in a series along with the novel, which is what was done in this case. Unfortunately, the series approach doesn't work very well for stories that were originally set in different universes, but were later rewritten to create a new novel, something that van Vogt did a number of times in the 1950's. Ahasuerus 23:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[After edit conflict:] e.g. see the fix-up that Bill linked above :) Ahasuerus 23:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

"The Stairs in the Crypt" and "Riders Beyond the Sunrise" in Lost Worlds

In case it will allow you to bypass hold and move directly on to approve or reject: I submitted merges of "The Stairs in the Crypt" and also "Riders Beyond the Sunrise", both from Lost Worlds, verified by an inactive editor. The merges change the authorship from Lin Carter alone to Carter + Smith / Howard, respectively, and the dates from 1980 to the original pub dates based on this Google Books scan of the 2008 reprint, showing the dual-authorship credits and corroborating contents list in the Wikipedia entry for the 1980 DAW book. --MartyD 11:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Discard First submission update Avenging Goddess

The correct CatalogID is #SN86 and the publication is a magazine--ErnestoVeg 19:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Discarded. BLongley 20:02, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Badger Books

This publisher is divided in three parts: Badger, Badger Books, Badger Supernatural. I think would be better to uniformate.--ErnestoVeg 19:08, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia suggests that Badger SF and Badger Supernatural might be a useful separation, but I can support regularising "Badger Books" into whichever of these two is most appropriate. However, it describes some of the publications you'd like to call Magazines as Anthologies, and "Supernatural Specials" confuse further. There's not a major difference to us if there was only ever one printing, but if any of them were reprinted (as many of Fanthorpe's books were) then "Magazine" is far harder to support here. BLongley 20:13, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

IMHO, this is arguable. A Publisher is a Publisher. The choice to use the term magazine is not mine. Contento lists Badger Supernatural in his Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index althought says: "Supernatural Stories / Out of This World ; This series started out as anthologies in an ambiguously magazine-like format. <cut>"; Tuck lists SN in Magazine section of vol. 3 and in Paperback section with a note about the strangeness of this magazine. A similar note is found in Monthly Terrors. In ISFDB is listed SN under imprint Badger as magazines (also the numbers with only a novel) and as "collection" in Badger Supernatural. In Badger Books now remains only few items (two, SN16 and SN20 are double submission). Other doubles in Badger Supernatural--ErnestoVeg 00:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

They will probably form two "Publisher Series" once we have them. For now, we can go either way, although some of these "anthologies" were actually single author Fanthorpe collections with all stories appearing pseudonymously. Ahasuerus 23:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

I see it as one publisher "Badger Books" with a novel series 1-118 and the "Supernatural Stories 1-105"(Magazine/collection/anthology), I know what the feature story is but what's the rest. There are also Supernatural Specials which are single stories only as part of Supernatural Stories 1-105. Look at this image gallery[11].Kraang 02:55, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

The Badger Books Wikipedia article states that "Supernatural tales (SN-1 to SN-109). Most of these books were written by Lionel Fanthorpe under a variety of pseudonyms. Unlike the other series (which are all novels), the SN books started out as anthologies of short stories. Novels started to appear as "Supernatural Specials" with issues 29, 32 and 35, and then all the even-numbered issues from SN-40 onwards." This helps identify the novels in the series, but finding Content level data for anthologies may be a challenge. Ahasuerus 03:01, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

A list of the content of Supernatural Stories is available in Monthly Terrors by Parnell and Ashley, Greenwood Press, 1985 pp. 204-209 and in CD version of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index: 1890-2005 by Stephen T. Miller & William G. Contento (updated May 11, 2006); if you agree, I can enter these data. The attribution of the stories is a problem, but we have many source where these attribution were made. Wikipedia entry is not useful for our scope. A complete list of the magazine, with covers, is in: Galactic Central-Supernatural Stories--ErnestoVeg 07:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm revising Badger. As the majority of the volumes are listed in Badger I'll correct the publisher to make this uniform.--ErnestoVeg 08:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

SF85 and SF86

I've made some confusion. #SF85 that I've changed in #SN85 is a duplicate, now. The correct entry exists. Must be deleted #SF86 that I've changed in #SN86, must be mantained! Would be transformed in MAGAZINE type. Sorry.--ErnestoVeg 19:30, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Discarded. We can try again later. BLongley 20:03, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Changes to HOLD/UNHOLD in the moderator queue

The following changes were introduced in patch r2009-52:

1. Moderators can now UNHOLD submissions that they have on hold. When viewing a submission held by you, the "HOLD" option is replaced with "UNHOLD".
2. When a moderator puts a submission on HOLD, other moderators are no longer given the option to Approve/Reject the submission. At this time, the only way to process a submission held by another moderator is to Hard Reject it. If this proves troublesome, we will revisit the issues.
3. If a moderator tries to approve or reject a submission that was put on HOLD while he was reviewing it, he will receive an error message.
4. It's still possible to put approved/rejected submissions on hold if you have the moderator review screen up when the submission is rejected/approved. I will change this behavior shortly.

Since this change required adjustments to 29 program modules, there is a higher than usual chance that something went awry. Please post reports of any issues here. Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:02, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Item 4 above has been corrected in patch r2009-53. All features are "go" (hopefully). Ahasuerus 23:50, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Unable to update a publication with FF

When I' try to update, I received this error page: <type 'exceptions.IndexError'> Python 2.5: /usr/bin/python Sun Nov 1 11:09:53 2009

A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/submitpub.cgi in ()
  80 
  81         new = pubs(db)
  82         new.cgi2obj()
  83         
  84         old = pubs(db)

new = <pubClass.pubs instance at 0x832218c>, new.cgi2obj = <bound method pubs.cgi2obj of <pubClass.pubs instance at 0x832218c>>

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/pubClass.py in cgi2obj(self=<pubClass.pubs instance at 0x832218c>)
 810                                         if int(newTitle.id) > 0:
 811                                                 oldTitle = titleEntry()
 812                                                 title_data = getTitle(newTitle.id)
 813                                                 oldTitle.setTitle(title_data[TITLE_TITLE])
 814                                                 oldTitle.setID(newTitle.id)

title_data = (1053408L, 'Gamma #1', None, None, None, None, None, '1965-10-00', None, 'EDITOR', None, 0L, 0L, None, 0L, 0L), global getTitle = <function getTitle at 0xb784fdbc>, newTitle = <pubClass.titleEntry instance at 0x82cee4c>, newTitle.id = 1053412

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/pubClass.py in getTitle(title_id=1053412)
  29         result = db.store_result()
  30         record = result.fetch_row()
  31         return record[0]
  32 
  33 def getPageNumber(title_id, pub_id):

record = ()

<type 'exceptions.IndexError'>: tuple index out of range --ErnestoVeg 17:16, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

What where you trying to do to the publication? BLongley 17:58, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the title (id 1053412) doesn't exist. In the code snippet above, line 813 isn't checking that line 812 found anything. --MartyD 18:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I tried a few different kinds of edits to recreate the problem, but everything seems to work. Title 1053412 no longer exists in the database, so it may not be possible to recreate the issue any more. Do you happen to remember the exact sequence of events that led to this error? Ahasuerus 23:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what happened. I was tryng to update an existing publication. FF fails many time with the same error. I close FF and retray. The problem persisted. I made the update the publication with Chrome without problems. Another time an update with FF fails, but at the second tentative all goes well.--ErnestoVeg 13:45, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps one of the titles in Gamma #1 got deleted (e.g., was merged away) while you were editing? A moderator's approving a previous submission could cause that. If FF remembers your edit with the error and resubmits it for you, you would see the same behavior again and again, while when you switched to Chrome you are now in a browser session that does not remember anything and so is working with the new set of content titles. --MartyD 18:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

The next time I'll list also what I'm making. The Strange is that with the change of the browser the same opration performs well.--ErnestoVeg 23:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Cancel this entry please

Please cancel my latest edit of "14 Great Tales of ESP". I mixed two printing and will redo later. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Don Erikson (talk • contribs) .

Done. Ahasuerus 23:24, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Badger SF5

The title of Publication is Operation Satellite, the author is W. H. Fear. Sorry.--ErnestoVeg 13:41, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

SF5 seems to be OK, but the SF9 submission had the author and the title transposed, which was corrected after approval. Do they look OK now? (There may be other related submissions in the queue that I haven't gotten to yet.) Ahasuerus 16:42, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The queue was very long...--ErnestoVeg 23:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Yup, we had a lot of submissions today and Michael, our most active moderator, is on vacation this week. Ahasuerus 05:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

And I really shouldn't be here. Should be packing books, viewing new potential home/library, etc. BLongley 22:09, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Badger Books - Part 2

I've finished to enter the data and I've update with page count all the publications. --ErnestoVeg 23:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :-) Ahasuerus 05:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

As the editor, according with Contento, after #63 editor is uncredited. So the 1962 issues are or uncredited or edited by John S. Manning. I'm not able to separate the general title. --ErnestoVeg 23:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

As per Help:Screen:NewPub, "If the work is not credited at all, use "uncredited", with a lower case "u". This applies to editorship of anthologies that are not credited. ... If there is external evidence (such as a collection of editorials from a magazine, making it clear who the author was) that identifies the author, then you can add a variant title to that item, using the real name. This will attach the work to the true author's bibliography, without giving incorrect data about what is actually in the source publication." There is much more on that page about entering uncredited works. Ahasuerus 05:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably I was not clear: I refer to this Supernatural Stories where the 1962 is listed as by uncredit but contains also magazines credited to Manning see. I suppose that the way is to make a variant, but I'm not sure about the procedure. The help don't help.--ErnestoVeg 12:13, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Since some 1962 issues explicitly list Manning as the editor and others are uncredited, we need to create two 1962 EDITOR records, one for Manning and one for "uncredited". The "uncredited" EDITOR record is then turned into a variant title for Manning. I have made the changes, so everything should look OK at this point.

By the way, was Manning also the uncredited editor of all subsequent (1963-1966) issues? If so, we will need to create variant titles for all 1963-1966 "uncredited" EDITOR records as well. Ahasuerus 20:38, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably, yes. But my secondary source, Contento(zine), limit the credit until #63. There was another people that works in this little publisher house, and probably edit the last numbers, but I don't remember where I've found the info. Parnell (at the beginning) and Tuck are vague in credit editorship. If I retrieve the info I come back on argument--ErnestoVeg 22:19, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Another thing: many pseudonyms are used by two or more writer. How is possible the right attribution?--ErnestoVeg 23:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a three step process. First, enter the story as it appears in the physical publication -- I believe in this case all publications and stories have been submitted and approved. Next, create Variant Titles for the known pseudonymous stories -- see Help:Screen:MakeVariant for details. Finally, if the pseudonym is currently not linked to the right author name, follow the instructions in Help:Screen:MakePseudonym. Note that the same name can be set up as a pseudonym for many authors, which is what usually happens when dealing with house names, e.g. see Alexander Blade. Ahasuerus 05:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Badger Books - Part 3

Although usually listed under Badger, This Second Earth #SS1 is a Cobra imprint. In the same way, the Badger published in 1954 and 1955, have not the badger on cover: the Publisher is, as a matter of fact, John Spencer & Co. These books were originally submitted to ISFDB as "Badger" or "Badger Supernatural" or "Badger Books"--ErnestoVeg 10:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

First tentative

Please discard my first submission of: 2009-11-04 06:47:40 MakeVariant The Grip of Time Unending. Thanks--ErnestoVeg 12:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 15:13, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks--ErnestoVeg 16:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

City of Baraboo

This title is listed as a collection, but I think it should be a fix-up novel. In my copy the only evidence that short fiction is involved is on the copyright page: "Portions of this work have appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and Asimov's SF Adventure Magazine". The bibliography on the author's website states "SF episodic novel, Berkley/Putnam, 1980". None of the contents exactly matches a previously published story. The book is probably made up of Starshow, The: John O'Hara's Last Show on Earth combined with Follow the Red Wagons (strange title) and The Book of Baraboo, but unfortunately I can't compare the two. On the side, Contento doesn't list it as a collection and the book is presented as a novel. Any objections to changing the type? Thanks, Willem H. 14:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a fix-up to me! Ahasuerus 17:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Submitted the change. Willem H. 20:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Next Submission" link?

Would it be useful to add a "Next Submission" link to the post-approval screen so that moderators could navigate directly to the next submission in the queue? Ahasuerus 20:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes. But there's lots of things still to do to make moderating easier. E.g. On a "Proposed Title Merge Submission", allow a quick drill-down to each title. On "Proposed Title Deletion Submission", add a link to the title so we can see if it's a variant that should have publications under it, but that have been entered under the wrong title. Generally lots more links needed all over the place, not just after the submission has been accepted. BLongley 19:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And [View This Title] as well as [View This Pub] option after a new publication is accepted.... 20:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, FR 2894958 has been created. Clearly, more links to pubs/titles/authors are needed, but a "Next Submission" link is more of a procedural issue, so I figured I should check first. Ahasuerus 01:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I should record my frustrations a bit more often, even if they're things I may fix myself when I get back to development, but as it's still a little pain reconfiguring my local ISFDB from "can run scripts that ISFDB doesn't offer" to "can run a local ISFDB and develop and test stuff" after each update I haven't bothered for a while. I shouldn't even be editing really, but as I pack books I keep finding the smaller oddities between big-name authors I know I've covered. And ISFDB editing is a nice break from heavy lifting - but I must get back to such, I've only just cleared the first bookcase in 3 evenings, there's 16 more to do and the new house could be available in 6 days.... BLongley 21:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Please ignore

Please ignore my latest edit of Elwood's TOMORROW: NEW WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION. I claimed that a story did not appear in this printing but on closer inspection my copy is missing a signature that perfectly matched the story length & position in the book.Don Erikson 18:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I've let it through but removed the note. You can add the missing page number here. BLongley 19:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

That does make more sense...there , done. Don Erikson 01:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Gamma #16

Please correct my submission of 2009-11-09 08:25:15 in Gamma #15. Thanks|--ErnestoVeg 14:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. MHHutchins 17:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Gamma #18

Sorry. A Handful of Stars (Complete Novel) as by Poul Anderson, of course.--ErnestoVeg 16:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Corrected, but a question. Is this the novella of the same name published in 1959, or the expanded version retitled We Claim These Stars! (1959 book publication) which was later retitled Hunters of the Sky Cave in the 1965 collection Agent of the Terran Empire? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:42, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please note that, according with Contento (printed an web edition) , the title in Agent of the Terran Empire is A Handful of Stars; I see now that Chilton edition was verified by Ahasuerus on 2008-10-29 21:42:21; also the Tuck report Hunters of the Sky Cave. The original title of the novel, in Gamma #18, is wrongly reported as Agent of the Terran Empire (as I've noted) and the original title was taken from Contento. The Italian translation is about 145 standard pages that fit with the 125 pages of the novel. Italian edition was clearly taken from Chilton edition of 1965. As Ahasuerus verified the book, I think we must change my entry to Hunters of the Sky Cave.--ErnestoVeg 14:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The length would indicate the expanded version. I'll change the title to Hunters... and make it a variant of that title's parent record We Claim These Stars!. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Herminie Templeton title merges + pub deletion, followed by title edits

It looks like a New Pub collection (Darby O'Gill and the Good People) I submitted was approved twice concurrently, creating a duplicate pub and duplicating all of the titles in it. I've double-checked and submitted the merges and a deletion of one of the two pubs. I'm going to submit some edits to the titles that will be surviving -- please approve the merges before those edits, so the merges don't stomp the new dates and notes. Thanks! --MartyD 11:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

That's an anomaly. I've never known that a submission could be approved by two moderators creating two records. Now if they approve it within the same nanosecond...maybe! There's only one record of a new pub of this title on the integrations list: [2009-11-12 21:22:06 - 1263520 - NewPub - MartyD - Kraang - Darby O’Gill and the Good People]. I think the system hiccuped and created two records. Anyway, I've approved the Herminie submissions. Let me know if any have stomped over any others. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps a browser thought the connection timed out and "helpfully" re-submitted the approval, which then went through. Or maybe double-click is accepted on the button. I would have thought two entries would show up in recent edits, but obviously not. I will see if I can reproduce the behavior and do something to prevent future occurrences. I probably can at least make the server-side processing check that the submission being approved has not already been approved. --MartyD 17:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The first thing that the approval code does is check whether the submission is still "N"ew as opposed to "R"ejected or "I"integrated -- see the body of "NotApprovable" at the bottom of isfdblib.py. Having said that, we have seen very occasional "double approvals", which we have been unable to account for. I suspect that Mike is right about it being a timing issue. If true, we need to establish some kind of lock for the duration of the approval process, but more research is indicated. Ahasuerus 18:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Bug in unmerging coverart title records

I recently accepted a submission which unmerged a coverart title record because it was the same title by the same artist, but was not the same artwork. When it was unmerged, the system changed the name from "Cover: Man from Mundania" to simply Man from Mundania. I'm assuming this is a bug. MHHutchins 16:46, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I will investigate later tonight. Ahasuerus 18:48, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I have reviewed the code and I am not sure if it's doing the right thing. Here is where it takes the values of various fields when building the new Title record after unmerging a Publication from a Title:

• Authors: the old Title record
• Title: the old Title record for Shortfiction, Publication record otherwise
• Date: Publication record
• Title Type: the old Title record

I will change the logic to grab the title from the old Title record if the Title type is 'COVERART', but we may want to consider other changes as well. Ahasuerus 03:07, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Also linked the submission review screen to the Title record and fixed the header in the post-approval page. Ahasuerus 03:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing this so quickly. Let me see what other work I can find for you. :-) MHHutchins 05:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Survival Margin

I think this pub and this one are identical, and the second should be deleted. Trouble is, it is verified by Scott Latham (who doesn't respond) so if I submitted the delete all alarm bells would ring. It's safer if one of you does the deed. Thanks, Willem H. 22:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the second is under the wrong title anyway, so needs fixing. The first is verified by a Moderator, so perhaps Bluesman would care to do the necessary? If not, I'm happy to explain correct use of variants again. BLongley 22:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Both records point back to the same title but in different ways. Being abysmal when it comes to variants, what makes the one correct and the other not? I can't recall the particulars of the record with my verification on it but if I had seen the one of Scott's I'd have simply added to it. That may be the better way to go, transfer the data as both Willem and I could easily transfer the verifications. Doing that, what would need to be done to "correct" Scott's pub record? ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Compare and .

The title and title reference should match (image on right). When they mismatch, it's a sign that it's under the wrong title. BLongley 19:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

To correct Scott's pub, you'd unmerge it from "The Darkest of Nights" and merge the resulting new title with "Survival Margin" - but as it's a duplicate, I'd just delete it. But try and put it under the right title first if you want the practice. BLongley 19:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 02:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I only verified (primary2) the complete and correct entry, and would have submitted the delete of the duplicate if it had not been verified. Asked Bluesman to look into this. Willem H. 09:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Another fine mess

I stumbled upon (well... reached my Anne McCaffrey collection and was a bit surprised) a nicely messed up title, Nerilka's Story & The Coelura. It's supposed to be a collection, but the publications associated with it vary from a novel that should i.m.o. be a chapterbook (four of the Nerlika's Story entries), a collection that i.m.o. is a collection, but should be an omnibus because the two stories are called novels instead of novella's), a real collection that calls the stories shortfiction, and a very special one called a novel, with the collection as contents. I would like to change both Nerilka's story and The Coelura to novella's, have the separate publications as chapterbooks and the collections as real collections. This will take a lot of unmerging, editing and remerging though (and waiting for approval of each edit), so if there is an easy way to do this I would gladly hear about it. I've drawn the Bill's (Longley and Bluesman) here, because their verified pubs are involved. Willem H. 21:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Now look what you've started!!! LOL!! Coelura as novella/chapterbook is perfect. Nerilka's Story is borderline but it would make all the combo books into collections without having to throw in an Omnibus or two. As for the editing waits, I can be 'on-call' and approve quickly if we just agree on a time-frame (though someone better versed in the process might be better??) . ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

One of the lengthists can do the wordcounts, I'm sure. I suspect they're both shortfiction and my book is a collection of two novellas, or maybe a novella and a novelette. The "Locus Poll Award, Best SF Novel" nomination for Nerilka's Story deserves some investigation too - is that one of the awards that allows a novella published standalone to be counted as a novel? BLongley 22:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't find detailed rules, but in 1987 there was a separate Novella category that Nerilka's Story wasn't in. BLongley 19:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I did a rough wordcount for "Nerlika's Story". In my pub there are approximately 8 words per line. There are 30 lines per full page, and some 168 full pages of text. That makes the story a little over 40.000 words, and a novel according to the rules (I had serious doubts about this). This makes things easier I think. A short novel and a novella still make a collection i.m.o., and "Nerlika's Story" can be the fifth novel in the "Dragonriders of Pern" series again. If no one objects I will submit the first edits tomorrow. Willem H. 21:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

My copy is now a mile away in my new home, so I'm not going to be counting words anytime soon. I'm still here at my old place, packing the kitchen contents before they demolish it, with only a box of "Vector"s to keep me amused in my breaks. BLongley 22:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

In Italian edition there are 158 pages, with an average 420 words per page. Usually Italian traslations are a 20% longer than English originals, but this is ever a novel.--ErnestoVeg 07:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

All the edits are done. The result is a collection, a novel and a novella. Thanks for the input, Willem H. 14:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Mr. George and Other Odd Persons and When Graveyards Yawn

Belmot edition Mr. George and Other Odd Persons and Tandem edition When Graveyards Yawn are credited to August Derleth, thus the attribution to Stephen Grendon is an error. I've tried a two steps submission, instead to clone the collection: first enter the container (COLLECTION) and second, after approval, import content. But the content was automatically cloned with "wrong" author name. --ErnestoVeg 07:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we had no publication with correctly attributed Title records, so importing was impossible. I ended up entering the Derleth versions of the Titles manually, removing the Grendon versions and then merging the newly created Derleth titles with the pre-exisitng ones. Once that was done, I imported the stories from the Belmont version into the Tandem version and removed the Grendon titles. It looks like everything has been cleaned up now. Ahasuerus 04:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I leave a message to Scott Latham on the same argument, without reply.--ErnestoVeg 07:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid Scott has been inactive on the Wiki side for a very long time. Ahasuerus 04:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

As many editors were involved I don't dare to work directly. Now all perform well. A very good job. Thanks!--ErnestoVeg 08:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The Man Who Saw Through Heaven

Under this title The Man Who Saw Through Heaven are listed 3 editions of The Best Stories of Wilbur Daniel Steele; according with Tuck, the 1946 edition lacks the short story "The Man Who Saw Through Heaven". It exists a collection The Man Who Saw Through Heaven with 12 stories, published in 1926 by Harper. See: Tuck, vol. 2, pp. 406, 2nd column, first row.--ErnestoVeg 12:46, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

These 3 pubs were seriously messed up internally (each pub had 2 identical Collection Titles!), but I think I have straightened it out.

I checked Tuck and he does list "The Man Who Saw Through Heaven" as a story in The Best Stories of Wilbur Daniel Steele (Doubleday, 1946) -- it's the 10th story listed -- so either we have slightly different versions of Tuck or there is something else going on. Ahasuerus 03:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Also in my Tuck is the tenth story, but I don't know how to order properly without have number page. I've then added the story at the end. Altought, I refer to the collection The Man Who Saw Through Heaven where the story is at first place :-). The story was missed from ISFDB content, not in Tuck. Sorry!--ErnestoVeg 08:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Titles are now linked in the Merge Titles approval screen

Titles are now linked in the Merge Titles approval screen to make investigating cover merges easier. Also added a space between the User page link and the user's Talk page link in the New Submissions screen. Ahasuerus 02:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Good move, it's one of those things that I was going to get around to when I get coding time again. Thanks! BLongley 00:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)