User talk:Pagadan

Welcome!

Hello, Pagadan, 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
• FAQ

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Ahasuerus 18:45, 20 Nov 2006 (CST)

Initial Feedback

Joy, glad to see you made it here after all this time. I've approved two of your submissions. Two notes:

1. Please don't use the typographic convention of kerning author initials. For instance, "D.K. McCutchen" should be "D. K. McCutchen", or "G.W. Thomas" should be "G. W. Thomas". There was already a "G. W. Thomas" in the database, and the kerning in your entry created a completely new author for "G.W. Thomas". I've merged the two together.
2. For Paberbacks, use the abbreviation "pb". (see Help:Screen:NewPub).

Otherwise, these entries looked great! Alvonruff 18:53, 22 Dec 2006 (CST)

Two questions about your last two submissions

Can you tell me more about the two submissions you recently submitted? It appears several of these are website publications -- we're not currently accepting anything that is not permanent enough to still be there in a few years. That is, we'll take ebook releases that you can download, and CDs with etexts on them but currently we don't take website publications. Can you tell me a bit more about these publications?

The other question is about "Working Writer". Can you tell me about this? If it's a magazine, the type should probably be MAGAZINE rather than NONFICTION; the format would be "Digest" or "Pulp" or whatever size it is. There's a list at Help:Screen:NewPub. I've gone ahead and approved that one, and will change the type to MAGAZINE, and the type of your contribution to ESSAY. NONFICTION is for books that are wholly non-fiction. I will also change the format to be blank as I don't know the magazine size; and I'll move the date to the magazine title as that's the usual approach.

Hope that helps. Let me know about the website publications and I'll see what I can do about integrating them if they qualify. Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 20:31, 25 Dec 2006 (CST)

Rejected ezines

Pagadan, I'm afraid we don't include ezines in the ISFDB, so I'm going to reject at least one of your submissions. The others that are on hold may well also be rejected too. I apologize that our policy wasn't clear on this -- your submissions actually started a debate about whether or not we should take ezines and web publications. Ultimately we decided we can't, for now at least -- the problem is that what we index on a website may be changed or may not even be there after some period of time. Since we are really nothing but a big index, that's a problem for us. Anyway, I'm sorry that you spent time on those for no benefit, and I wanted to make sure you knew why so you don't waste any more of your time. Thanks for contributing; and please leave me a note on my talk page if you have any questions. Mike Christie (talk) 20:10, 26 Dec 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the info re ezines.

Pagadan 19:02, 2 Jan 2007 (CST)Joy

Month dates on magazines

I see you've removed a couple of month and year dates from magazines; I'm approving them, but wanted to let you know that if they really are magazines of that date, then the convention we're using is to include the month and year in the title. If they are dated magazines, you can just change them back to e.g. "Romancing the Skyze, September 2001" instead of "Romancing the Skyze".

Thanks -- Mike Christie (talk) 16:52, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

(Joy, via email): Sorry! I saw one with the month in the title and one without, so I decided to remove the month because I thought it was a mistake made by zipping through submissions. Yes, it's a dated magazine.

ISBNs and Amazon reviews

Hi, Pagadan! A couple of points re: your last few submissions, which have been now incorporated in the ISFDB. First, when entering an ISBN, there is no need to have the letters "ISBN" added. The 10 digit number is all we need. Adding the letters messes things for the software. Second, the Note field is to be used, as per the Help files, for:

A note specific to this particular publication. These notes should be permanent comments that reflect something indisputable about a Publication, e.g. a mis-spelled title on the contents page.

Please do not add reviews to this field. Once the submission has been approved, you can find the newly created record in the ISFDB, pull it up via "Edit Title Data" and add synopsis data in the Synopsis field. We don't support user reviews at this time, only user voting. Also, please keep in mind that we respect copyright and only Publisher-provided or user-written Synopsis data is acceptable. A cut-and-paste of somebody else's text may be in violation of that person's copyright. Thanks! Ahasuerus 20:13, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

(Joy, via email): Sorry! Got it. No reviews or ISBN letters. I was thinking of plot info for readers, but I see I shouldn't have done it. I get carried away by cut & paste. And I was uncertain about the ISBN. I shouldn't have done it, I see now. Alvonruff 18:50, 2 Jan 2007 (CST)

Working Writer?

Anotehr quick question: Were the Working Writer essays that you submitted earlier about SF? The reason I am asking is that the magazine itself appears to be a general purpose magazine about writing, not a genre magazine. At this point we only list items that appeared in non-genre magazines (from Nature to Playboy) if they were "of" or about speculative fiction. Could you please clarify? Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:36, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

(Joy responds via email): Yes, Working Writer is a general writing mag. My writing articles often have a SF slant, but the decision is yours. (I'd have to look at the articles.) And Romancing the Skyze is mostly general romance with the occasional SF/fantasy/paranormal story. Alvonruff 18:48, 2 Jan 2007 (CST)

Tales of the Talisman Volume VI, Issue 1

This publication is already in the database, [here], though it's missing most of the contents. You can add them to the existing record. I noticed that you had only added nine items in the contents section and three of the five reviews. At the bottom of the nine sets of fields that show in the default editing window there is a tab "Add Title" that you can click on as many times as you need to add all of the contents, same at the bottom of the review section. Fortunately, the Amazon "Look-Inside" feature has a full table of contents, even showing the interior artwork, so I could add all those if you like. However, the reviews are not shown individually, just as a section so could you at least add those? Thanks, and welcome back! --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Tales of the Talisman

Bluesman,

I added everything, but apparently it got lost! That might have happened when I went back to Submit again because the first one didn't take. Drat! Now it looks like I have to start over since I don't even see the number of stories and reviews that you said I had. Whimper.

Bill,

If you could add the interior artwork, I'd appreciate it, but if not, just tell me.

On the third try, I think I've got The Tales of the Talisman issue submitted. This time I copied the info so I could email it if necessary!

Corrections: Westfield should be on page 73: and the review of The Legend of Sigrid and Gudrun should be on page 92, and maybe I should have added Christopher Tolkien as editor...

When I found that there was already a pub record for the magazine, I rejected your very first edit, as it would have created a new record, not updated the existing one. I should have mentioned that. Apologies! I can add the interior art, no problem. When you are editing on your talk page there is a string of 'tabs' above the edit window. The second last one [looks like just a squiggle] is the time/date/user name signature tab. Helps to know when a reply was posted. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:49, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

WomanScapes

Are all of the stories in this anthology speculative fiction? Mhhutchins 05:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I'm pretty sure. I'd have to reread the whole book... "women living in other realities." "...tales about other worlds, mythical creatures, visitors from other planets, heroes from the past, and contemporary women dealing with strange events."

Detour Trail

According to the synopsis for this novel, it doesn't appear to be speculative fiction, and would not be eligible for the database. Is there any spec-fic or fantasy elements in the story? Mhhutchins 05:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

No. Drat. My first novel, and it turns out to be a western. I thought it'd be all right to have it listed. Sniffle.

Joy