User talk:Jayembee

Important! This editor is no longer actively participating and is unlikely to respond to messages left here. If this user is the sole verifier of a publication record, please: post only notices on the user's talk page concerning the addition of images and notes post inquiries regarding any other changes to the verified record at the Moderator noticeboard Otherwise, please post notices and inquiries only on the talk pages of the other primary verifiers.

Welcome!

Hello, Jayembee, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Help pages
• What the ISFDB Wiki is for
• ISFDB FAQ
• Help:Screen:EditPub#General contents - Warning and a note on how to update a publication's contents
• Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DESiegel60 (talk • contribs) .

Thanks for the welcome. I'm still feeling my way around this, as it's my first attempt at Wiki-type contributions. I hope I'm not creating too much work for the editors by making several changes to a given title. Sometimes, something doesn't occur to me making one edit, until I notice a similar circumstance in another entry. And if I appear to be rambling here, I'm just trying to see how this talk-page stuff works. Jayembee 01:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

No worries, there is no denying that there is a learning curve involved! Ahasuerus 03:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem, everyone does that. Happy to check all your submissions. -DES ^Talk 11:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

A Feast for Crows

I added to Your verified publication of A Feast for Crows interior art entries for the Maps and Crests you had mentioned in the pub notes. Thank you for your contribution. -DES ^Talk 13:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The Armageddon Rag

I see that you want to change the date on this publication of The Armageddon Rag from "1983-10-00" to "1983-11-00". That isn't a huge change, but that publication had been verified by User:Mhhutchins, which should mean that he checked the data, including the date. What is your source for the changed date? Also, it us usual here to notify a verifier when adding data to a pub that he or she has verified, as i did above, and to ask before making significant changes.

This change is on hold, pending your response. -DES ^Talk 13:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I see you resubmitted this change, with an added note of explanation. The note of explanation is nice. i have consulted the verifier, see his talk page.

Please note that when a submission is queried or held, the easier way to respond is right on this wiki page. You do have to log into the wiki software separately from the main ISFDB, but your username and password are the same -- they use the same security table. posting on the wiki allows discussion between editors, including moderators. -DES ^Talk 23:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Mike has approved and further edited your second submission. The result is here. I have therefore rejected the first one, lest it overwrite the second. Thanks for the info. -DES ^Talk 12:09, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Songs the Dead Men Sing

Thank you for offering data to fill out our record of Songs the Dead Men Sing.

I have a question about your edit. You changed the contents entry for "Introduction (Songs the Dead Men Sing)" to "George R. R. Martin, Dark Harbinger". Is that the actual title of the introductory essay by Algis Budrys? If it is, fine. If not, the edit needs to be clarifed a bit.

Please respond so we can get thsi edit approved. -DES ^Talk 16:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is the actual title of the introduction. Jayembee 01:42, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Edit approved. Thanks. Glad that you found us. -DES ^Talk 11:28, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Weird Romance

Thank you very much for the data on Weird Romance. A note for the future: in the "author" fields please enter only the author's name, as it appears on the title page of the book, story, or other work (See Help:Screen:EditPub for more on this.) Creating an author such as "Alan Menken (Music)" or "Alan Brennert (Book and Original Story)" would create separate pages under those names, whereas we want all the works on the Alan Menken and Alan Brennert pages. when co-authors have distinct roles, as they do here, this can and should be mentioned in the notes, as you have done, bit not in the author field.

I am making the needed corrections. Please check the result here and make any further corrections that are needed. Also, please feel free to verify the books once your edits are approved, if you have the actual physical publications at hand. See Help:How to verify data. -DES ^Talk 17:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI

Several minor points:

• The binding code for a hardcover book is "hc", for trade paperback use "tp", for mass-market paperback use "pb". See Help:Screen:EditPub#PubFormat for more information on this field.
• We only enter non-SF works for authors with significant SF work, just how much constitutes significance is a case-by-case question, but there is no doubt in my mind that Alan Brennert qualifies. However, when such a work is entered here, we mark it as of type "NONGENRE". This is done by waiting until the initial entry is approved, then going back to the title record for the work, clicking "Edit Title Data", changing the type from NOVEL (or COLLECTION or whatever) to NONGENRE. Then click "Submit data". I have done this on the two non-genre works by Brennert that I approved.
• When editing based on data from Amazon, we generally omit the actual day of publication that Amazon lists: this is notoriously inaccurate. Leaving a note indicating the source of the data is a very good idea, please do continue to do so.
• For new records, avoid using the form "City:Publisher" in the publisher field. List the publisher only. if the city is or might be significant, list it in the notes, or make sure that the publisher record already lists it. Discussion about how to handle existing records with publisher names in this form is in progress, for now, don't worry about changing any such existing names. See Help:Screen:EditPub#Publisher and various discussions on the Rules and standards discussions‎ page.
• Country prefixes, such as "Canada: General Publishing" are also discouraged in new records. Use just "General Publishing" or "General Publishing (Canada)" if the distinction seems important, if if there is another "General Publishing" elsewhere that might be confused.
• I notice that a number of your submissions are by Canadian publishers, which is great. Are they priced in Canadian dollars? If so, please list the prices as, say "C$13.95", rather than "$13.195". If they are priced in US dollars, just use $. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 23:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your contributions. -DES ^Talk 17:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Exxoneration

You submitted this with an ISBN of "671-80368-9" which cannot be a valid ISBN, as it has only 9 digits. Based on a search at OCLC Fiction Finder, the proper ISBN appears to be "0-671-80368-9". Please check what is actually on your book. -DES ^Talk 05:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I checked, and the publisher does indeed leave off the initial "0-" on both the spine and copyright page. Jayembee 01:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Well, this book was published in the mid-1970 when the paperback industry was transitioning from SBNs to ISBNs, so sometimes the leading 0 was present and sometimes it was not. The advantage to entering a full ISBN (when it can be unambiguously derived from the SBN) in the ISFDB is that it makes it possible to search for the book at Amazon, B&N, Powell, Worldcat and other sites that are linked from the Publication Listing screen. However, if it's not possible or practical to convert the SBN to an ISBN, then we need to enter the pound sign (#) in front of the SBN so that the software doesn't try to use it as an ISBN. Ahasuerus 04:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I have added a note to the pub, explaining the SBN/ISBN difference in this case. Please check that I have the facts correct. -DES ^Talk 11:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Interior art

I approved your update to Portraits of His Children but see you have the note

• Jacket and six interior illustrations by Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn.

You already did the cover art credit. You credit interior artwork from within the publication-edit mode where you click [Add Title] and add a new line that would look like

• Page #: blank (leave blank if the artwork is on several pages. If it's on one page then note the page #)
• Title: Portraits of His Children (publication title or if the illustration is for one story in a magazine, collection, or anthology then use the story name)
• Date: blank (you can leave this blank and it'll copy the date from the publication)
• Entry Type: INTERIORART
• Length: - (leave at "-")
• Author1: Ron Lindahn
• Author2: Val Lakey Lindahn. -Marc Kupper|talk 23:12, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't initially sure how interior art credits were dealt with. There appears to be some inconsistency about whether they are listed as a single lump, or listed individually with page numbers, and with the same titles as the stories they illustrate. Thanks for the help. Jayembee 01:54, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

There is indeed inconsistency on this matter. Some editors prefer to enter every illustration individually, in which case they are entitled "Story name[1]" "Story name[2]" etc, unless there are actual titles or captions in the publication (as there sometimes are. This is perhaps more common when entering magazines, but it is not required for either books or magazines. The entering editor may judge whether the additional info gained is worth the time and trouble. Often it is not, sometimes it is, and some editors are more completist than others. -DES ^Talk 11:35, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Binary Star #4: Legacy/The Janus Equation

I modified you your update to Binary Star #4: Legacy/The Janus Equation wanted to change the author in the Contents section. Please see Help:Screen:EditPub#General contents and Help:How to change a story in a collection.

In this case what I did was I approved the update but then ... oops - I see Ahasuerus did not see I had this on hold and and probably is doing what I planned on doing. I'll leave a note with him.

The Binary Star books are also complicated in that that are a hybrid double / anthology / omnibus. You may be interested in Rules and standards discussions#Doubles again which is a long, meandering, and I believe inconclusive, discussion about these. -Marc Kupper|talk 23:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Binary Star #4

Please note that we already have the Binary Star series cataloged as anthologies under James R. Frenkel. I have copied all new data that you have submitted for Binary Star No. 4 and deleted the new publication so that we don't end up with duplicates. Also, please note that, as per Help:Screen:NewNovel:

• Books. For a book, use the title page to get the title. This is typically the page with the copyright information on the back. Don't use the title on the cover, spine, or page running heads.

so in this case the correct title is Binary Star No. 4 as opposed to Binary Star #4. Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see Marc's note now! Apparently we were working the submission queue at the same time and collided mid-flight :( Ahasuerus 23:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Similarly, I have incorporated the Interior Art information into Binary Star No. 3 and rejected the rest of the submission. Please do let us know when you find this Wiki :) Ahasuerus 23:58, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

There does seem to be an inconsistency here. I noticed that the first four Binary Stars were entered as anthologies by Frenkel, but the fifth was entered as an omnibus under the two authors' names. Section 3.2 of the FAQ says that the dos-a-dos books are entered as omnibuses. While the Binaries aren't, strictly speaking, dos-a-dos books, they seem to me to be pretty much the same thing in basic concept. But I'll defer to you guys on this. Jayembee 02:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

That's a very good point. As a matter of fact, we were discussing the Binary Star series a few weeks ago -- see the link provided by Marc above -- and these very issues came up, so Marc experimented with the 5th volume by converting it to an Omnibus and adding an Essay fro Frenkel to see if it would look better. No consensus was reached, so we may want to make them consistent to avoid confusion in the future. Ahasuerus 03:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

As for the book title, I'm of two minds. My gut feeling is to use the title as it appears on the title and/or copyright page (there are books where the title is slightly different on the spine, the cover, the title page, AND the copyright page...). On the other hand, I've become more inclined to use the title as it appears on the cover, as that is usually how someone first sees the title. Again, I'll defer to you folks. Jayembee 02:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

This is something that librarians struggle with on a daily basis, so they have come up with special fields for alternate titles. Our database design is not nearly as sophisticated as what most library systems sport and we have only one field for titles, so very early in the game (1995 or so) we had to pick a gold standard and we went with the title page. Any other versions of the title get recorded in the Notes field, which, as I am sure you have noticed by now, is our dumping grounds for anything that doesn't fit neatly in our regular fields. Ahasuerus 03:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

What this really tells me is that I should probably stick to the simpler entries for now, until I get more time here under my belt. Jayembee 02:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Ideally, our editing software would be more intuitive and user-friendly and the editing process would be streamlined. Unfortunately, we have only one part-time programmer, Al, who often disappears for weeks and months at a time due to other commitments (the nerve!) so we have come up with somewhat laborious and complex workarounds. In the end, it all works, but it can take a while to master. I would say that it takes a few thousand submissions in different areas to become entirely confident with the interface unless you deal with database design issues at your day job.

Actually, the editing software IS fairly intuitive and user-friendly. I'm of the type that learns best by just diving in and picking it up as I go along, rather than reading instructions first. Most of the time, this approach works fine. Other times...not so much. The process here is fairly easy and intuitive. What's not intuitive are some of the specifics of how some things are handled, which I can only pick up by looking at other entries and seeing how it's been done there. The trouble comes when I see one entry, and how things are specified, and think to myself, "OK, that makes sense," then later come across a different entry which does things slightly differently, which seems to make more sense, and I want to go back and modify a previous edit. Jayembee 04:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

P.S. Just to clarify our terminology, an "editor" is anyone who submits edits. A "moderator" is an editor who can approve his own (or her own, although we don't have any active female editors for some reason) and other editors' edits. An "administrator" is someone who can turn regular editors into moderators, which we only do based on consensus (see Moderator Qualifications). Ahasuerus 03:50, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Joanne/a Burger

Answered on my Talk page. Ahasuerus 17:38, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Jayembee 03:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Visions from the Edge

Visions from the Edge approved and the INTERIORART record changed from "Interior Illustrations" to "Visions from the Edge: An Anthology of Atlantic Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy". As per Help:Screen:NewPub:

• Artwork. Interior art should have the same title as the fiction or essay it is associated with.

D'oh! Right. As it is, I have a few other changes to submit to the contents, including another story that was missing from the hc entry that I cloned and forgot to put in before submitting. Jayembee 13:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

I have a few other submissions on hold, but have to run now and will comment on them later in the day. By the way, is my recollection correct that you were an active poster on the sf-lovers Usenet group/mailing list in the late 1980s-early 1990s? With a penchant for bibliography, of all things? :) Ahasuerus 12:56, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Your recollection is correct. I knew that I had made the grade when Saul Jaffe parodied me in one of his April Fool's issues of the digest. :-) Jayembee 13:20, 4 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

FWIW, you were still fondly remembered on Usenet in 1994-1995. I often posted "on demand bibliographies" on rec.arts.sf.written during that time and a couple of people asked me if I was Jerry Boyajian in disguise :) Once the Web took off, it seemed to make more sense to concentrate on permanent hyper-linked bibliographies, which eventually led to the creation of the ISFDB. It's a small world... Ahasuerus 20:39, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure there are worse fates than being mistaken for me, but probably not many. Jayembee 19:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Dream of Danger

Dream of Danger approved, "Romance novel featuring a female psychic detective" moved to the Synopsis field at the Title level. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, there us no way to submit Title level data when using "New Publication" forms. It has to be either entered after the original submission has been approved or entered in the Notes field and then moved from the Publication record to the Title record manually. Ahasuerus 17:46, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The Altered I

The Altered I has been approved, but if you go to the Title record for this Collection, click on "Diff Publications" and then run "diff" for the two editions, you will notice that the Berkley Windhover edition has an additional story, "The Eye Altering (II)" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Could you please double check your Norstrilia Press copy to see if "The Eye Altering (II)" appeared in it as well? TIA!

Nope, not in the Norstrilia Press edition. Jayembee 19:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Re: your Note that "All items by Philippa C. Maddern are as by Pip Maddern on both stories and contents page", what we want to do in this case is to change all Maddern Titles in this collection from "Philippa C. Maddern" to "Pip Maddern" and then set them up as Variant Titles for "Philippa C. Maddern". We will also want to create a pseudonym association between the two Author records. (Parenthetically, the main reason that we want to capture all Author/Title information exactly as it is appears on title pages is not that we are anal (not that there is anything wrong with that (naturally)), but rather to make life easier for users who come across, say, "Pip Maddern" and think "Hm, I wonder what else this person has written?")

Please be forewarned that changing Contents level data is currently more involved (and confusing) than it needs to be. There is a trick to it -- please see Help:How to change a story in a collection for details. If the Help text makes sense and you don't have any follow-up questions, feel free to use The Altered I as a guinea pig :) Ahasuerus 20:18, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Jayembee 19:36, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Nine Visions: A Book of Fantasies

As far as Nine Visions goes, the submission attempted to replace three pre-existing stories ("The One Hundred and First Miracle", "Unworthy of the Angel" and "Vocation") with Andrea LaSonde Melrose's introduction and two other stories and then re-enter the original stories separately. That would have had far-reaching consequences, so I had to reject the submission and re-enter the data in a different way.

That was definitely my fault. I figured it would be easier for me to fill in the contents if I had everything listed in the proper order. I didn't realize that the those first three items would try to be overwritten because of that. Sorry about that. Jayembee 19:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Not a problem! The ISFDB learning curve is fairly steep, so mistakes are to be expected. Ahasuerus 22:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The underlying problem here is that editing Title records in the Contents section of a Publication changes the data in the Titles table. Think of it this way: there are two tables in the database, one for Publications and one for Titles. Each record in the Publication table points to one or more records in the Titles table, e.g. a Collection Publication may point to 1 Collection Title and 10 story Titles in the Title Table. Conversely, each record in the Title table (novel, story, essay, collection, etc) may have a number of Publication records pointing to it. When you are editing the Contents section of a Publication, you are modifying the data in the Title table. To use "Unworthy of the Angel" as an example, it happens to be record #51226 in the Title table and has 7 Publications pointing to it. If you had changed this record's author to "Calvin Miller" and its title to "The Aqueduct", all 7 publications would be affected by the change since all 7 Publications would be still pointing to record #51226 in the Title table. Therefore it's very important to tread careful when changing anything in the Contents section and use the add/remove/merge mechanism described in Help as linked earlier. See, I said it's not as simple as it looks! :)

P.S. The updated anthology record is here, but could you please double check the spelling of Joanne Greenberg/Greenburg's name in Notes vs. Contents? Also, is Hilary Andrewes' name really spelled that way? Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for catching the Greenberg/burg. It's definitely with an "e". I'll change the notes. And Hilary Andrewes really does spell it that way. Incidentally, each story in the book is preceded by an almost-full-page introduction by (presumably) the editor. I wouldn't imagine they'd be entered if they were just one or two paragraphs ahead of the story, but would these be worth adding to the contents? And if so, would it be proper to enter them as uncredited rather than assuming they're by the editor? Also, there's an almost-eight-page "About the Authors" section. Should I add that, as well? (Oh, and sorry it took all this time to get back to you. This past week was a crazy week.) Jayembee 19:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

You are quite right, it's somewhat subjective, but Help:Screen:NewPub provides general guidelines:

• Story introductions. In some cases, anthologies or collections include introductions (or, less often, afterwords) to individual works. If these are short and amount to blurbs, they should not be indexed separately. When they amount to critical essays or otherwise have significant content, they should be included. This is always a judgment call. Such story introductions are often unsigned and untitled. If they occur in a single-author collection without a separate editor, they can usually be safely attributed to the author. 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 untitled, such items should be listed as "Story (Introduction)" (where "Story" represents the title of the story being introduced) or some similar form. In borderline cases, signed intros are more worthy of inclusion than ones which would need to be attributed to "uncredited".

Unfortunately, the nature of the beast is such that it's hard to come up with immutable rules in all areas, but at least it keeps us busy arguing about borderline cases :) Ahasuerus 22:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

West of the Sun

This. [1] . In verifing my copy I found this cover. [2] . Added it to record. If this is not right ring me. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I've approved Dragoondelight's update to West of the Sun. If the image is wrong then please let us know. Also, Dragoondelight changed the starting page # for the story from blank to 11. I assume this is one of those publications where they have a bunch of unnumbered pages with the title page, copyright notice, etc. and if you counted back you'd find that the first physical page is page 1. -Marc Kupper|talk 01:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The image is correct. As for the starting page of the story, you are correct in your assumption. The only question is what one considers the first page of the story. The novel is broken up into three sections: "Part One: A.D. 2056", "Part Two: The Year One", and "Part Three: The Year Ten", all listed on a contents page. The first actual story page of Part One is indeed on page 11, but it's preceded by a title page for that part on the unnumbered page 9 (likewise for the other two parts). The table of contents gives each part's title page as the page on which that part starts. So, should the novel be considered as starting on page 9 or page 11? Jayembee 19:47, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

In the case that you describe I would start it on page 9 if entering a page at all, but when a novel has no other contents -- no essays, intros, or bonus stories -- to enter, i don't always bother to enter a starting page number, as there doesn't seem much value to the data. But there is surely no harm in doing so. -DES ^Talk 20:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I rarely add a starting page number for a novel, although it might be useful if people are determining "true lengths" for novels from page-counts. Unlike Magazines you can be fairly sure that a page-count for a book entry is fairly derivable from start page-number to page-number of next entry, although the "title page", "blank page", "true start page" makes them variable by at least 2 pages and possibly more if we're ignoring snippets of introductory text as well. So I don't quibble over whether we're referring to a title page for an entry or the start of the text two pages later. I do get wary when admitting a novel is under a hundred pages of text overall as I'm aware that's when the Chapbook police might arrive. BLongley 22:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The Vanguard of Venus

Your note to this says "Author's surname was misspelled "Barlett" on cover and title page." In this case, where the title page carries "Barlett" , although this is known to be an error, what we want to do is record the novel under the name "Barlett", then set it up as a variant of a record under the name "Bartlett". The correct name should be the parent in the variant relationship. The we should also set up as a pseudonym. That way, anyone finding another copy of this and considering whether to enter it (or just looking for what the ISFDB has on the author) who searches on "Barlett" will find the pseudonym record, and anyone who sees the title in a bibliography page will see "as by Barlett" without needing to go to the publication level. Also, if other publications were under the correct name, than can be entered under the proper title record.

I have made these changes, and also altered the note for increased clarity in the circumstances. Please take a look at the title record, and at Landell Bartlett and Landell Barlett to see the results. If I have made any errors in the process, please correct them or let me know what they are. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 21:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's tricky, as there are three places where the author's name appears. The cover, the title page (which is essentially just a reproduction of the cover... or vice versa :-)), and the first page of the story itself. On the story itself, his name is spelled correctly. I don't know if that makes a difference to how you think it should be listed. Perhaps I should've written the note to indicate that his name was spelled correctly on the story. Incidentally, I should make another change to the entry, as "booklet" should probably be "chapbook", and the story should be more properly be flagged as a novelette, given its length. I tend to be antsy about attributing length designations, as the dividing lines tend to differ from person to person, but the Miller & Contento Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index calls it a novelette, and that's good enough for me. Jayembee 22:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

In general, we follow the version on the title page, for both title and author. This is an odd case. An extra note describing exactly what name is where would not hurt, if you care to make one.

Using odd binding designations is often not a great idea, as it reduces consistency, but there is sometimes no option. We do have a pub type "CHAPTERBOOK" (a misspelling of chapbook) for exactly this situation, but the implementation is currently less than optimal. I would probably use it in such a case, but some other long-term editors would not. In theory at least, the ISFDB uses the same length standards as the Hugo awards process does, so a Novella is "A work whose length is greater than 17,500 words and less than or equal to 40,000", and a Novelette is "A work whose length is greater than 7,500 words and less than or equal to 17,500 words". See Help:Screen:EditPub#Length on this. I tend to stick fairly strictly to the word lengths, but some editors here prefer to list any work that has appeared in separate book form as a novel. There is a continuing dispute on this point.

Thanks for your response, and I hope this is helpful. -DES ^Talk 22:24, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll modify the note, and change the publication type and story designation. "Booklet" and "novel" were the way the original record read. Jayembee 23:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

I see. Thanks. Note that CHAPTERBOOK, if you choose to use it, is available only as a publication type, not a title type -- i stated this incorrectly above, fixed now. -DES ^Talk 23:52, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Just made the corrections. Changed "novel" to "chapterbook" in the pub type, and "novel" to "novelette" in the contents entry. Changed "booklet" to "pamphlet" (which is the most appropriate of the formats in the help page), and changed the publisher. Also made the notes about the author's name (hopefully) clearer. Jayembee 00:02, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

I approved it. looks good to me. Thanks. -DES ^Talk 00:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

City of Brass and Other Simon Ark Stories

I approved this, but i noticed your note giving the original publication data on several stories. This is a good thing. You can, if you wish, go further and create actual ISFDB records for those puiblications, see Help:Entering non-genre magazines for more details. -DES ^Talk 22:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

In related news, I have approved the addition of The Quests of Simon Ark and changed the author of "A Simon Ark Checklist" from "(uncredited)" to simply "uncredited". If you go to the Edward D. Hoch bibliography page, you will see that we now have a number of duplicate Title records for individual stories, so feel free to run the "Dup Candidates" tool in the navbar on the left and merge them as needed. Good practice :) Ahasuerus 23:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll give that a shot. Thanks. Jayembee 00:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

See Help:How to merge titles#How to merge titles (Find duplicates method) for soime guidance, if you like. -DES ^Talk 00:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you needed the help page or not, all the merges look good and I have approved all that were in the queue to date. -DES ^Talk 00:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I did glance over the help page to make sure I was resolving conflicts correctly (it appears that I put in the wrong date on one of the stories in one of the collections). Thanks for the tips. Jayembee 00:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

P.S. Also, is "Introduction (The Quests of Simon Ark)" in The Quests of Simon Ark really short fiction or is it an essay? Ahasuerus 23:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Argh! No, it's an essay. Thanks for the catch. I also need to add a series designation to these. Jayembee 00:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

Speaking of series designations, I see that the three collections are under a "Simon Ark" series header. I assume that you modified the title data for those. I was going to do so with the individual stories. But I have a couple of questions on that score.

First, there are at least 39 stories in the series (as of the checklist in The Quests of Simon Ark), whereas there are probably only a dozen or so in the collections I added, and maybe a few more in the list of short fiction in Hoch's summary bibliography. Would I be correct in assuming that I "skip over" the numbers of the stories in the series that aren't in the database? For example, the first 5 stories in the series are in the database, #s 6 & 7 are not, and 8 is. So I'd flag the stories in the database as 1,2,3,4,5, and 8. Correct?

Our software automatically displays all series entries in publication order unless overriden by explicitly assigned numbers, so numbering is only really important if there is more than one series Title published in the same month or, if the month is not recorded, in the same year. For example, see the first two series, Arwen and Atlantean, on Marion Zimmer Bradley's Summary Bibliography page -- they are confusing since the books appeared in the same year and no numbers have been assigned so far.

Also, we don't always have the Title dates set up quite right, e.g. Hoch's Computer Investigation Bureau books were listed out of order earlier today because the Title date of The Transvection Machine was set to the date of a later printing, so it appeared after The Fellowship of the HAND. As long as the Title dates are correct, though, everything should appear in publication order. There are occasional situations where the publication order is not what we want to display, e.g. in cases of delayed publication, first publication in another country, etc, and then assigning series numbers becomes more important and more complicated. Ahasuerus 03:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that series need to be modified a bit, too. One of the short stories in Hoch's SumBib, "Computer Cops", is actually the first story (and the only piece of short fiction) in the series. Jayembee 03:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Having said that, it's advisable to have novel entries numbered since it's typically more important to read related novels (as opposed to related short stories) in order. Besides, it's not always easy to assign series numbers to stories, which are often separate from the main sequence, especially these days.

One way to avoid some of these complications would be to use the same numbering scheme as the one used by the series' publisher -- it might also make it easier for our users -- but it's not always possible since authors and publishers have been known to reshuffle series numbers, e.g. see the way Robert E. Howard's and Michael Moorcock's series have been reprinted over the years. In addition, our series numbers are integers, so there is no easy way to record numbers like "17.1" (yes, some publishers are just plain evil!). Ahasuerus 03:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Second, the three collections are flagged 1,2,&3. If I assign numbers to the stories in the series, will that cause a conflict with the collections? Would I need to remove the numbers from the collections' title data? Jayembee 00:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

Series numbers apply to all Titles in the series, be they stories, novels, or collections, so there would be a conflict. One way to handle this would be to remove the numbers from the 3 collection Titles. Another way would be to create a sub-series for the three collections. Overall, series numbering is fairly subjective and as long as the end result is intuitive for the end users, all is good :)

One thing to keep in mind is that our software behaves slightly differently when generating the Summary Page compared to its behavior on other pages. This is due to the fact that the Summary Page code is the most up to date one and the other pages are slightly behind. When they behave differently, the Summary Page reflects the current "state of the art". Such as it is :) Ahasuerus 02:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The above is, I think, correct in describing our software -- Ahasuerus knows it rather better than i do. There is the issue that a series's internal order often differs form the publication order -- for a good example look at the series Barrayar, note the dates of the numbered items. Also, IMO, seeing those numbers makes the order look more intentional, or even official, which if there is an agreed order, IMO is the better way for things to be, even if the order is exactly the same as the publication order that the software would otherwise deliver. But others might not feel the same way on that. -DES ^Talk 03:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You could create two separate series, one for the stories, and one for the collections, if the numbering of each is important, but that has the disadvantage that a display of the series contents would not include both the collections and the stories. Otherwise, a single series supports only a single set of series numbers, but may include any amount of un-numbered works as well. In most series the numbered elements are book-length, either novels or collections, and individual stories are left unnumbered, but that is in no sense a rule. If in this case there is a well established order to the stories, that is more important to most users than any order to the collections, it might be best to number the stories and leave the collections unnumbered. On the other hand, if there is a set of collections, perhaps including ones not yet entered, that contain all the stories, and that have a clear order, numbering those might be better. I don't know this series, so I can't really judge.

And if there are stories in the series with no ISFDB records yet, does the checklist provide enough data to create at least stub entries for the missing ones? If so, that would be a good thing to do. -DES ^Talk 02:27, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the checklist gives the dates for all the magazine appearances (with one exception, which is in the database, all first appeared in mystery magazines; at least a couple are in the database because of anthology appearances). I also have a more detailed Hoch bibliography published in the mid-70s in the mystery fanzine The Armchair Detective. So I can create records for all of the Simon Ark stories. Jayembee 03:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)Jayembee

Excellent! Ahasuerus 03:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

If you are willing to take the time and trouble, that would be a good thing. -DES ^Talk 03:19, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Fantasms: A Bibliography of the Literature of Jack Vance

I added a cover scan to your verified pub FNTSMSBBLG1978. --Rtrace 05:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Change to your verified pub The Vanguard of Venus

I added a little to the notes. This was a subscription bonus. Nobody's Amazing Stories collection is complete without this.--swfritter 01:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Horrors and Unpleasantries

I added a cover scan to your verified pub HRRRSNDNPB1982. Thanks. --Rtrace 20:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Songs the Dead Men Sing [2]

Added a cover image to [[3]]--Bluesman 01:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Tesseracts

Added a cover image and month of publication, from Locus1, to[[4]]--Bluesman 03:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Sandkings

Can you put the gutter code in the notes for [this] publication? Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 22:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Titan

Scanned in a cover image and added notes to [this] ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Millennium

I added the author's note and notes to this verified pub. Thanks, --Willem H. 19:30, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Also added a coverscan. --Willem H. 18:39, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Also added the LCCN link and rephrased the OCLC link. --Marc Kupper|talk 04:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The Ophiuchi Hotline

I added notes and publication series to this verified pub. Thanks, --Willem H. 19:53, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Wizard

I added a cover scan to this verified pub. Thanks, --Willem H. 18:40, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Windhaven, George R. R. Martin & Lisa Tuttle

I've added "About the Authors" to your verified publication. They're short, at about half a page, but have actual biographical interest. I've also added an Internal Art credit for Gale Burnick, who did 5 pages of maps. Chavey 05:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Cumulative Paperback Index, 1939-1959

Robertreginald has added a publication month and additional notes to your verified Cumulative Paperback Index, 1939-1959. --MartyD 13:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

SF Bibliographies

I changed the date on your verified copy of SF Bibliographies based on the note. I also removed the portion of the note regarding there being a hardback printing of this title. Chalker & Owings states the first was only printed as a trade paperback and this is confirmed at the Advent archive. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 02:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A Feast for Crows cover image

I replaced the default Amazon cover image with an actual cover scan for A Feast of Crows, and turned the notes into a list to make it look nice. AndonSage 16:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

PKD, a Philip K. Dick bibliography

I'm filling in information on the revised edition of PKD, a Philip K. Dick bibliography and the Afterword is credited to Dick, although he had passed away by the time this edition was published. I noticed that you were the primary verifier for the hc version of the first edition, and was curious if there was any mention of the source of the afterword mentioned there; the Copyright info page lists © 1970 , 1981 for the Afterword, so presumably it is not original to the first edition either. Thanks Albinoflea 18:29, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Fantasms: A Bibliography of the Literature of Jack Vance

Replaced the amazon scan for your verified here. Hauck 15:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Clifford D. Simak: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography

Modified your entry for your verified here. Hauck 15:44, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

A Key to Fredric Brown's Wonderland

Added scan for your verified here. Hauck 07:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

SF Published in 1973

Added scan to your verified here and 1972 also, and 1971. Hauck 13:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Index - Wells

Added cover scan to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?266868.SFJuggler 08:34, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The Complete Robert Bloch - Larson

Added cover scan to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?274414.SFJuggler 20:11, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

de Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography

In cooperation with the verifier of the tpb edition, I changed the ISBN to agree with that in the book. The one you verified was the ISBN for the tpb. Bob 15:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The Great Keinplatz Experiment and Other Stories

I've made several changes to Doyle's The Great Keinplatz Experiment and Other Stories. I would have asked in advance, but since you haven't contributed in a while, I'm not expecting a response. Should you return, please let me know if I've made any false conclusions:

• I've changed the name of the author to "A. Conan Doyle". The Worldcat record has his name in that form (under responsibility), which is my reason for making the change.
• I've changed the binding from digest to hc. Reginald1 specifically states a cloth binding.
• I've added Globe Library based on your comments and the Worldcat record.
• I've expanded the notes mainly in terms of noting secondary sources.

Please feel free to contact me if you return and find problems with my changes. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Aust'n SF hc (Van Ikin)

Hi, I've added an image & added some points to the note [5]. --clarkmci / j_clark 00:59, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Amber Dreams

Added cover scan to Amber Dreams.SFJuggler 05:03, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Shudder Pulps

Added cover scan to Shudder Pulps. Vornoff 00:27, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Buckaroo Banzai

Added cover scan and notes to Buckaroo Banzai. Also corrected author attribution per your notes.SFJuggler 17:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

The Quests of Simon Ark cover image

Added a link to an Amazon image to your verified The Quests of Simon Ark. --MartyD 10:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

The Californios

Added a cover scan to The Californios. MOHearn 13:32, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

R-A-M Random Access Messages of the Computer Age

Found an image URL for this pub. --Zapp 14:59, 11 December 2017 (EST)

Vanguard of Venus

Added a cover scan for Vanguard of Venus and a note on the coupon used to send away for it. MOHearn 11:44, 20 March 2019 (EDT)