User talk:JVjr/Pre-spam

This is archive. Don't edit, go to the main talk page.

Archive of older discussions: User talk:JVjr/Pre-moderatorship

"Voyage of the Star Wolf"

When I want to make a variant of [1] you rejected it. When I want to merge the titles you rejected it and make a variant. What have I done wrong? Rudam 08:07, 22 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The MakeVariant you submitted (sorry, not currently available to non-moderators) looked like this:

Column	Current Title [Record #542697]	Proposed Parent (New)
Title	The Voyage of the Star Wolf	The Voyage of the Star Wolf
Year	1990-00-00	1990-00-00
TitleType	NOVEL	NOVEL
Authors	David Gerrold	David Gerrold

while the one I did was:

Column	Current Title [Record #542697]	Proposed Parent (Exists)
Title	Voyage of the Star Wolf	The Voyage of the Star Wolf
Year	1990-11-00	1990-00-00
TitleType	NOVEL	NOVEL
Authors	David Gerrold	David Gerrold

See Help:Screen:MakeVariant: the proper process was go to 542697, click "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" and then just put "458" in the very first input field "Parent #" and click on the first "Submit!" button just below it. You apparently did something else using the second part of the form, intended for cases "If the parent title does not exist...", which happen very rarely now. Perhaps you put the # in correctly, but then didn't notice you were mis-clicking on the wrong "Submit!" button at the bottom? --JVjr 11:02, 23 Apr 2007 (CDT)

You're right! I remember that I click on the lower second button to submit. My fault!

I've make later a variant of another title and use the first button to submit and that was verified as correct.

Thanks for your detailed answer Rudam 12:09, 23 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Re: Introdution to The Best From Fantasy...5Th series

Hi, i had a look and have corrected my spelling mistake, and have added a note to better explain about the intro. :-)Kraang 19:58, 1 May 2007 (CDT)

[Pending edits of more complicated issues]

I just approved one of your pub-deletes [2] by accident. Hopefully you did not have it parked in the queue for a reason. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:05, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

No, this was just one of the last two edits I submitted before I had to go offline, and didn't have any more time for approving them.

Although my other hanging edits are the case that after submitting them I got second thoughts, or wasn't sure in the first place, and instead of spending time starting a discussion I hoped that another moderator would look at them and either approve them, or voice a complaint :-) --JVjr 13:47, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

re: The hanging edits. I believe it would be best for you to start wiki pages to let people know you do want attention put on the edits and more important, to explain what research you have done so that others don't spend time reinventing the wheel. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

The Green Girl

With submission http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_merge.cgi?557177 you want to merge two a SHORTFICTION with a NOVEL for The Green Girl by Jack_Williamson with the final result being a Novel though with a storylen of nv (novelette). The title records for this title are

• 113371 The Green Girl (Part 1 of 2) SERIAL appearance in Amazing Stories, March 1930
• 113372 The Green Girl (Part 2 of 2) SERIAL appearance in Amazing Stories, April 1930
• 3505 The Green Girl SERIAL - no publications
• 472331 The Green Girl SHORTFICTION - appears in one collection, The Metal Man and Others: The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume 1 (1999)

Just looking at that I'd approve the merge but change title record 3505 so that it's a shortfiction as the story has not appeared as a standalone novel or as part of a dos-a-dos.

Further research:

• Abebooks does find a novel [3] and so ignore my previous comment about approving the merge... Here's a constructed pub-entry for the novel based on the Abebook listings.
  • title: The Green Girl (An Avon Fantasy Novel #2)
  • Author: Jack Williamson
  • Date: 1950-00-00
  • Publisher: Avon Books, New York
  • Pages: 125 (listed by 8 sellers)
  • Binding: pb
  • Catalog: B0007EMI9A (this is the Amazon ASIN as the publication's Catalog # is unknown)
  • Images at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007EMI9A
    • [4] - the best
    • [5] - cute title note - see the Amazon images page.
    • [6] - the back along with a cute title note
    • Too bad ISFDB does not support multiple images as it's nice to have the back. In looking at the back I wonder if that's why the story is in a 1999 collection. The price must either be not stated or on the spine. It's also not clear where in the book it says "Avon fantasy novels #2" though multiple Abebook sellers mention this.
  • Publication notes:
    • ISFDB record constructed from about 20 Abebooks seller listings and thus may not be reliable.
    • The cover price is not visible on the front or back cover but may be on the spine.
    • The cover says "Complete and unabridged" implying it's the same text as what appeared in the 1930 magazine serial.
    • One seller says "Originally published in a 1930 volume of Amazing Stories" though it's not clear if that's a statement in the publication or something the seller knows from other sources.
    • The cover artist is unknown and may not be stated as none of the Abebook sellers mention it.
    • Multiple Abebook sellers plus Amazon mention the book is "An Avon Fantasy Novel #2" but that text is not visible on the front or back cover though it may be in the round logo in the upper/left corner of the front cover.
• Locus has
  • http://www.locusmag.com/index/yr1999/t15.html#A1970 - Contents for the collect ISFDB already has The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume One: The Metal Man and Others and also mentions the magazine appearance as Amazing Mar 1930 (+1)
  • http://www.locusmag.com/index/yr1999/s78.html#A3357.11 - Williamson biblio - does not mention the Avon appearance.
• Contento did not index this - No surprise there as he does anthologies.
• Fantastic Fiction has a page [7] and lists the Avon publication along with an Amazon link for it.

Conclusion:

• Reject the merge and instead update title 472331 so that it is "The Green Girl (Complete Novel)" of type SERIAL. I suspect it is the complete novel though it uses 98 pages in the collection while the Avon novel is 125 pages. The magazines don't have page numbers.
• Add the Avon publication to title 3505.
• That will get the story displayed under novels and the three appearances (novel, collection, and magazine) will appear together.

I attempted to find a table of contents for the magazines to get the page numbers.

• http://hycyber.com/SF/amazing_na.html calls it "The Green Girl (Part I), March, 1930." and "The Green Girl (Conclusion), April, 1930." In other words, it may be titled "(Conclusion)" in the magazine and not "(Part 2 of 2)" though other pages use (2/2).
• I could not locate a contents list with page numbers but then did not inspect all 700 web pages...

Marc Kupper (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

It so happens that I have this edition in my collection, so I should be able to verify it circa May 25. It sports one of the more lurid US covers and it has always been my guess that it was an attempt to test whether the US paperback market would like that kind of pulpish art. Presumably it didn't, which is why post-1950 US paperback were generally more subdued. As an aside, 1950s UK paperback covers tended to be significantly more lurid and some of them are quite collectible now :) Ahasuerus 20:45, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the research. I wasn't doubting the existence of the 1950 book, but the separation of the 1999 reprint. Clute/Nicholls mentions the title thrice, always as "The Green Girl (1930 AMZ; 1950)"; supposing it is reliable (of which I wasn't completely sure, although they otherwise seem very diligent about noting revision/expansion for book publication or even more complicated publication histories), there should be only one version in existence, which was my reason for merging the two entries. I suppose that by today's standards it is novella-length, but as it had a separate book publication, it should be listed among novels (I kept the shortfiction length field - by the way, the "nv" means "novella"; yeah, I also hate having an abbreviating system that is not only different from Contento/Locus, but clashes with it - on purpose to show this limited length, though admittedly elaborating on all this in a Note would be better).

But as for your suggested solution, having a SERIAL within a collection seems rather strange to me. Template:TitleFields:EntryType says "Use for an entry that would otherwise be either SHORTFICTION or NOVEL, but which is being serialized. Include "(Part 1 of 3)" etc in the title of the work". There are, by extension, some SERIALs in one part where there was a "Complete Novel in One Issue!". But applying it even for an ex post book reprint in one piece seems unprecedented and unwarranted to me. I've seen a lot of collections containing a novel, so don't see any reason why not use it here as well. But I admit that my experience with bibliographic rules in complicated cases is minimal. --JVjr 03:59, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

I agree it's irritating that ISFDB uses different abbreviation codes than Contento/Locus - I mix them up all the time and wished ISFDB supported vi / vignette.

I have tried in vain to get a better understanding of exactly what the rules are regarding SERIAL and for it seems to be a gray area that allows for some fudging as I'm suggesting here. The reason I suggested making the collection appearance a SERIAL "(complete novel)" is then the author's bibliography will look very nice with both the part 1, part 2, and complete novel instances all tucked in under the novel and it will also be clear that these are the same story and not revised/expanded as may be assumed were one instance of the title be up in Novels and the other down in Shortfiction. The label for all of the serials will be something like "Magazine/Anthology appearances" - a collection is sort of like an Anthology.

As you noted it would work to merge the novel and shortfiction into one record (making it type novel) meaning the collection will contain a novel much like omnibus listings. I tend to not do this myself as I like the type Novel titles to only contain type novel and omnibus publication records where serial or shortfiction title records would contain collections and anthologies. It's a presonal preference thing and I have gone against the grain in both directions at times. As far as I know, there seem to be no hard and fast rules about this and the only thing to avoid is to have a type X title record referencing a type X publication as then ISFDB will treat it as a title-reference. I ran into this latter thing recently where I had a publication that was both an omnibus of previously printed collections plus it collected additional short stories. I decided to call it a collection in ISFDB as the author already had the other collections and using "collection" would get this one listed in a good spot in the bibliography but it meant I could not reference the previous collection titles directly. It ended up working out fine with a publication note explaining what was happening plus that there were introductions that had the previous collection's titles meaning you could see the sub-collection titles in the ISFDB table of contents. The basic rule I use is "Can someone else understand what here?" Marc Kupper (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Paradise and Iron

In http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_delete.cgi?557201 you want to delete title 3489 Paradise and Iron (1930) by Miles J. Breuer, M.D. with the note "publess dup of novella."

• I see that title 55127 exists as a shortfiction the story is in a 1930 issue of Amazing.
• It's not on Locus, Contento, nor Abebooks
• I then tried bookfinder - I usually don't use this site as it's slow - Sorry, we found no matching results at this time.
• Google for Breuer "Paradise and Iron" finds 30 pages. Oddly, the two hits for ISFDB are the very LAST items in the list.
• It is on http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/timeline1930.html under "Important Books Published in this Decade"
• It is on http://www.erblist.com/erbmania/tangor/responds.html though it's unclear if he's referring to a novel or short story.
• It is on http://www.allsf.net/HistoireSF/E2guerres.htm as a significant work for 1930.
• http://libraryasp.tamu.edu/cushing/collectn/lit/science/sci-fi/texfan.htm - An ISFDB neighbor only found it in Amazing.

In looking at the 30 pages Google found this story is regarded as a classic but oddly, it's never been reprinted. I'd suspect you are safe in deleting the ISFDB record for the novel though let's wait for Ahasuerus to tell us he has the novel in his collection. :-) Marc Kupper (talk) 00:06, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Breuer was a pulp heavyweight circa 1930 and helped launch Jack Williamson's career, so it's entirely possible that some fan or semi-pro place reptinted one of his better known stories in the 1930s or 1940s. Their reprints were generally of poor quality (pamphlets more than books, really) and the few remaining copies can be hard to find outside of private collections. Even my relatively respectable collection has fewer than a dozen, I would guess.

The best place to check for these elusive books are Tuck, Currey, Reginald-1 and similar specialized references. Clute/Nicholls, although by no means comprehensive, is not a bad place to start. Ahasuerus 01:35, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Clute (personally) writes of Breuer:

His solo work has not been collected in book form, which makes it difficult now to find such stories as [...] "Paradise and Iron" (1930 AMZ Quarterly), a novel which strikes an early (for US GENRE SF) warning note about the perils of the UTOPIAN technological fix. His only works to have reached book form are The Girl from Mars (1929 chap) with Jack WILLIAMSON and The Birth of a New Republic (1930 AMZ Quarterly; 1981 chap, but at 2000 words per page), also with Williamson, on whom MJB had a formative influence

So it seems certain to me that there is only one textual version, so ISFDB should have only one entry for it, and by today's standard it is rather a novella than a novel. --JVjr 03:59, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

JVjr - though I put your two submissions on hold as an indicator that they are under discussion you are free to approve/reject them based on what's been brought up here. I don't have copies of any of the print references such as Tuck, Currey, etc. Something that seems useful would be to add a title note to the shortfiction that appears the story has never been reprinted. It's too bad titles don't have wiki bibliography pages otherwise we could just copy/paste this discussion right onto that page. Maybe it can be put on Author:Miles_J._Breuer,_M.D. and a link to that added to the title-notes. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:11, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Sounds like a plan! I will check Tuck/Reginald around May 25 as well. Ahasuerus 17:50, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Lester del Rey's Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year

I'm sorry, when I put your edit of this on hold I didn't realize that you were a Moderator too since I am a new Mod, and you haven't been around much in the last two or so months that I've been most active here. The reason that I did put the edit on hold though, can be found at ISFDB:Help desk#Title: Best Science_Fiction_Stories of_the_Year by Lester_del_Rey. Ahasuerus and I were supposed to get back around to cleaning it up a few weeks back, but we all get busy doing other things and sometimes forget. Once again, I appologize for stepping on your edit. CoachPaul 10:31, 10 Jul 2007 (CDT)

"Magazineshttp:/www.politics.ie/wiki/index.php?title=Labour Party"

I see your comment when deleting this protection was "(with all due respect, I think such a crazy URL after just one hit can't be counted "common target" and it's better not to burden the wiki DB with it)" - how do you count it as "one hit"? I've deleted it three times, Ahasuerus has deleted it twice... BLongley 12:15, 13 Aug 2007 (CDT)

The spammer seems to hit the pages about once a month and so even if it's the first time a page gets spammed I'm dealing with it as a "common" spam target as I know that spammer account will be back. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:01, 14 Aug 2007 (CDT)

You're right, I acted too fast - I just saw that it was freshly created and didn't investigate the deleted edits, sorry. Still, when I did it turned out that it was all repeated efforts of a single account, so blocking the offender should suffice. I really think that it's enough having to lock lots of real talk pages due to the spam as it is, and keeping even such mistaken age names is too much. If there were concerted efforts by several accounts, perhaps; but I don't think it's gone so far yet. --JVjr 05:14, 14 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Blocking the offender does not work well for us because the current version of MediaWiki behind the current version of TAMU's network infrastructure causes user blocks to randomly block many editors and moderators. The only time I employ user blocks is if the spammer account is hitting a non-moderator's user or user-talk page, or a moderator's talk page. This can still trigger random blocking of editors/moderators but they don't seem to happen often enough to be bothersome. The reason for blocking the spams to weird page names is to keep the Recent changes page under control. All of this will become a non-issue once Al becomes available again. Marc Kupper (talk) 12:53, 14 Aug 2007 (CDT)