ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard/Archive 29

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Expanded archive listing

Ellison's Hornbook

Hello at some point in the next 20 odd days (oer thereabouts depending on vagaries of the US postal service to the UK) I will be getting a "presentation copy" of this wich comes as a set with this. My question is how to verify ? --Mavmaramis 14:18, 1 January 2021 (EST)

Could you explain what you mean by "how to verify" (or what you see as the problem(s) with verification)? --MartyD 08:08, 2 January 2021 (EST)

The notes make mention of the limitation (765 copies) and states that 750 were numbered and "the remainder were presentation copies not offered for sale." so if I verify it might simply appear that I have one of the 750 numbered copies as opposed to one of the 15 presentation copies unless I make a specific note to that effect. That's what I mean by "how to verify ?" Rtrace has PVd it, assume one of the 750 numbered copies, but he doesn't say which version he has. --Mavmaramis 17:03, 2 January 2021 (EST)

I suggest you compare your presentation copy with the record that's there (on the assumption the record is for a numbered copy). If it's the same, except for lack of number, then PV it and maybe add a note that a PV presentation copy's information matches the record. If something is different, then maybe we'd need another record, explicitly for the presentation copy, and cross-notes. --MartyD 12:10, 4 January 2021 (EST)

Le Voile de lances: Sharakhaï

I recently added this pub since I could not find it on the website. I listed the title as Le Voile de lances, but I think it is actually Le Voile de lances: Sharakhaï

It's 13 digit ISBN number is 9781473203075 The original US title is A Vail of Tears. Still working on how all this works aardvark7 17:09, 3 January 2021 (EST)

Patrick Tilley

Patrick Tilley, famed British science fiction writer, and author of the celebrated novel 'Mission'fade out sadly passed away on Monday, 25th May, 2020 is this true? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jimsim (talk • contribs) .

That's what this Facebook page claims, but I haven't been able to find anything official. Ahasuerus 12:35, 9 January 2021 (EST)

Our friends at SFE3 were able to find a semi-official announcement of his death, so I have updated his ISFDB record. Thanks for reporting it! Ahasuerus 11:26, 14 January 2021 (EST)

Goodreads Choice Awards: missing non-genre categories

Just going through the (nominally) non-genre categories in this year's Goodreads Choice Awards, there are several books that are in ISFDB that were nominees in some of these categories. e.g.

• Mystery & Thriller: Home Before Dark came 2nd in the category, and The Devil and the Dark Water was 9th
• Historical: Utopia Avenue in 13th place
• Poetry: The Girl and the Goddess in 7th place

Given that ISFDB already has some of the non-genre categories like Best Fiction, would it be OK to have the aforementioned 3 added as well? (As far as I can tell, there isn't functionality for a regular editor to be able to do this.) Whilst I wouldn't expect these categories to include many ISFDB-eligible works, it would surely be preferable to have any such nominations of ISFDB-eligible works recorded here?

(NB: for those who aren't familiar with these awards, 75% of the nominees are pre-selected by Goodreads using some opaque criteria - cynically I suspect they are engineered to try to maximize user engagement across as many categories as possible - which is why you get a number of genre(ish) works showing up in the non-genre categories, such as The Testaments appearing in Best Fiction rather than Best SF last year.)

Thanks. ErsatzCulture 14:17, 9 January 2021 (EST)

Done! Ahasuerus 14:28, 9 January 2021 (EST)

Thank you! ErsatzCulture 15:22, 9 January 2021 (EST)

Capek's R.U.R.

Hello Mods. Once again I have been contacted by a non ISFDB member in regards to this publication. Specifically the cover artwork. Research conducted (not by me) finds that it is a composite imgae. The contact has stated this: "Francis Bruguière (photo); Lee Simonson (inset poster art)" - further stating that, in respect of the photo, "originals exist at NYPL". A public citation for the poster appears on a Wikisource webpage here however the source of the photo at NYPL is still being investigated by a 3rd party. Is that sufficient evidence to edit the cover art credit and add a note or would you prefer to wait for a citation for the NYPL image as well ? --Mavmaramis 12:55, 13 January 2021 (EST)

Well - the photographer does not get a credit as an artist anyway (they get added to the notes). So add Simonson and add a note both in the coverart record and in the publication is probably the best we can do. Annie 16:00, 15 January 2021 (EST)

Thanks Annie. --Mavmaramis 02:00, 16 January 2021 (EST)

Pebble in the Sky

Hello I've come across a puzzle - or at least appears to be somthing of a quandry. There appears to be two 1974 Sphere editions both 3rd printings but with different cover art and different prices. One being this with the Peter Elson cover; the other being this with the Eddie Jones cover. Obviously, given the different artwork they're easily distinguishable but do you think this is another case of "reprinted without updating the copyright page; old stock was used with the new cover" ? --Mavmaramis 15:27, 15 January 2021 (EST)

See the statement here. Except that we have a 1971 one and no 1972 one... so something is definitely weird with the Sphere reprints. And £0.65 feels too expensive for 1974. So I suspect you may be right. You own both, right? Add some notes about all that? Annie 15:56, 15 January 2021 (EST)

Yes I own both versions so I'll add a note. Thanks. --Mavmaramis 01:27, 16 January 2021 (EST)

Are these out of copyright?

I wasn't aware of magazines published in the 1970s being out of copyright. Dave888 has been adding links to full magazine scans for some magazines from a site called Luminist.org. Examples: [1], [2]. Should we be allowing this? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:14, 15 January 2021 (EST)

Their archives page specifically states, "This collection may contain copyrighted material which has not been specifically authorized for our use." They seem to be claiming this is done under fair use, which seems a bit of stretch to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:18, 15 January 2021 (EST)

The Trigan Empire

Hello Moda.In regards to this publication. Annie (on 27 October 2020) stated on my talk page that is is "technically not eligible" as it is entirely graphic format (Collection of comics "Tales of the Trigan Empire") and that she would be "proposing it to be deleted." This has not happened (as yet). Since there are only two editions (the Hamlyn and Chartwell) - I'm the sole PV for the Hamlyn edition and Teddybear (who is no longer active) is the sole PV for that edition I have no objections to the deletion of this publication (by whoemever). --Mavmaramis 03:46, 17 January 2021 (EST)

Art of Vicente Segrelles

Hello Mods me again. I discovered (purely by chance via ABE dealer listings) that this publication is (in the words of the two dealer listings on ABE) an "ultra rare English softback Translation". My copy gives no indation of this rarity so can anyone shed any light on the matter please ? --Mavmaramis 07:01, 17 January 2021 (EST)

Dealers often use wording like that, sometimes to justify charging a higher price. Whether it actually is rare doesn't really matter unless it was a limited run or something like that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:24, 18 January 2021 (EST)

Yes the issue being I don't actually know id it was a "limited print run" as yu say or merely dealer listing hype. --Mavmaramis 09:56, 19 January 2021 (EST)

WEIRD TALES ISSUE NOT IN ISFDB

Weird Tales [#359.wfc, October 2011] (Nth Dimension Media, 50pp, ebook) Billed as a “Special Preview Issue”, this short item was made available to the attendees at the recent World Fantasy Con. The Wrath of Stan · Meg Oppenberg · ss More than Mercy · Jean Pavia · ss To Be a Star · Parke Godwin · ss The Waters of Sorrow (Parallel Earth: Age of Steam) · Tanith Lee · ss Sherlock Holmes and the Gift of Freedom · Christian Endres · ss; subtitled “Holmes in Wonderland”.; translated from the German.

The above info is from philsp.com. This was apparently Meg Oppenberg's only genre story since she doesn't appear on ISFDB. "Jean Pavia" is actually Jean Paiva, who was a horror writer who died in 1989. Marvin Kaye had a bunch of her unpublished stories which he's been publishing in his various anthologies and magazines for many years. The Godwin story was actually reprinted in a later issue of Weird Tales. The Lee story was reprinted as "The Waters of Sorrow" in one of her collections. The Endres story may be part of a series since his ISFDB page lists a bunch of other Holmes stories. So all of this involves creating a new record for Oppenberg, fixing Pavia's name, merging Godwin's story, creating a title variant for Lee's story, and figuring out where Endres' story fits in with all his other Sherlock Holmes titles. I don't have the patience, but if anyone thinks this issue belongs on ISFDB, feel free.--Username 08:55, 17 January 2021 (EST)

It's been added. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:22, 18 January 2021 (EST)

WHISPERS AND SHADOWS

OK, guys, I did lots of detective work for this rare 2001 (unpublished?) anthology edited by Jack Fisher which has been sitting empty since I started using ISFDB years ago except for 1 or 2 stories. Through checking bibliographies online (or, in a couple of cases, bibliographies that only exist on ancient websites found at Archive.org) I have pieced together most of the contents here, possibly the only place on the web that lists all the contents in one place. HOWEVER, 3 stories still elude me. One is by Henrik Johnsson, who apparently ran a website called The Classic Horror & Fantasy in the early days of the internet, but info about his story in this book or a personal website for him seem non-existent. The other stories are by Gary Braunbeck and Jeff Vandermeer, both famous authors, but their bibliographies don't mention this book at all. Can anyone help complete this damned book by identifying these titles?--Username 19:50, 18 January 2021 (EST)

YES! I noticed there was a review for this book on locusmag.com, but it's nowhere to be found on Google. Typing the link into archive.org brought up the review, [3], which talked about ALL THE STORIES in the book! Turns out the contents have been available for close to 20 years! And contents entered on ISFDB by me previously were almost exactly right except for a missing letter in Parks' story; funny that she misspelled her own story on her old website! Turns out the Braunbeck and VanderMeer stories were reprints that have appeared in many other places, but the Johnsson story has been laying unknown since 2002! A copy of the book is still needed to enter page #'s, but otherwise this book is complete. Another winner from --Username 17:40, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Suspiciously similar art by the same artist

Hello Mods. Not my own discovery but someone noticed the distinct similarity between these two Chris Foss pieces. Moonbeast and The Bloodstar Conspiracy. I'd like to add a note to the cover art titles to that effect if that's alright. --Mavmaramis 10:55, 19 January 2021 (EST)

There appears to already be a note in Moonbeast and in the other one's parent to point out that these are very similar so if you find something under a new name to be careful where you variant it but if you want to expand it, go ahead. Annie 12:25, 19 January 2021 (EST)

Alrighty looks like it's been covered already. No further action needed. --Mavmaramis 16:51, 19 January 2021 (EST)

change to price of canadian edition of phule's company

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?441443 Verified by bluesman, no longer participating. Price is $4.95 not 4.75. Enlargement of cover photo confirms. gzuckier 16:51, 19 January 2021 (EST)

Thanks for this one! I changed the entry accordingly. Stonecreek 03:30, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Slight cockup

I uploaded this cover art before realising I don't have the 2000 edition. And yes my 2003 reprint is green. Would a kind mod revert it back please and thatk you. --Mavmaramis 13:26, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Done. Stonecreek 13:28, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Than you. Apologies for the error. --Mavmaramis 16:11, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Charles Waugh works

This is Charles G. Waugh. I have more books with fantastic content to submit, but, coming from the cars with running boards generation, I have no idea how to do it. If a live person gets in touch with me at kittyman@peoplepc.com, I will send back the titles, tables of content, and brief descriptions of appropriate stories. If someone sends me an address, I will send a copy of each of my recent books so they can be verified. Since a lot of work goes into my anthologies, I'm sure I have a number of items you currently do not have listed. appropriate recent works are:

• 2019
  • THE GIANT OMNIBUS OF 3,302 ORIGINAL DAFFYNITIONS (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2019). Co-edited with Joe Leff. (several sections relate to sf/fantasy/horror)
    • examples: Cinderella's Moral: There is victory in de feet. Goldrush Vampire Attacks: Yukon Count on me.
  • WEIRD TRAILS (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2019). Co-edited with Cynthia Ward. (supernatural westerns)
• 2020
  • DAMNED YANKEES (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2020). Co-edited with Rick Hautula. (new England Horror Stories)
  • HUMANOID HORRORS (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2020). Co-edited with Jon Schlenker and Jeff Linscott.
  • WORLD'S BEST PIRATE STORIES (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2020). Co-edited with Alex Miller. (one supernatural story)
• 2021
  • EGYPTIAN BIZARRE (Pueblo, CO: SamTeddy Publishing, 2021). Co-edited with Jon Schlenker and Jeffery Linscott.

And at least 8 to 10 more appropriate theme anthologies will appear this year. Charles —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dr. Charles G. Waugh (talk • contribs) . 20:31, 21 January 2021 (EST)

I'm happy to help you out. I'll send you an email. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:46, 22 January 2021 (EST)

The Hugo Winners: Volume 4

Hello Mods. Regarding this. I was looking up this title and noted it states "Second half of The Hugo Winners: Volume 4 anthology". It took me quite some time to find the first half being this title. This isn't noted under the Anthology listing. Would the easiest way to link the tow halves to make a variant for each title (of the full Anthology) ? --Mavmaramis 12:00, 24 January 2021 (EST)

Moderator

So I've been fixing and adding issues of Fang, and discovered previous editor didn't include a co-author, Ron Moody, of 1 of the stories, "Satan Stone". I added his name but I wasn't clear or moderator wasn't. The way it looks now is that it was a variant title of a story originally written by Pusillo alone when it's actually by 2 separate authors. Nothing showed up under Ron Moody when I searched his record. When I made another edit to explain this, moderator just added Language: English to Moody's record. That's happened a few times before. So could some other moderator fix this? Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem right to me. --Username 11:01, 25 January 2021 (EST)

Yep, well spotted. I 'think' the issue was caused by the fact that the co-author Ron Moody was only added to the variant record, and not also to the parent record, screwing up the way the database displays the titles on the author's summary page. I have fixed it, have a look on Ron Moody's page, and here: Fang #3, 1992. Let us know if this is not what you wanted. MagicUnk 14:45, 26 January 2021 (EST)

A Pad in the Straw

Hello my friends. So this Christopher Woodforde collection was recently extensively fixed up by me, correcting several story titles, adding page #'s to the original 1952 edition, correcting date of and adding cover artist to the paperback reprint, etc. I think all is correct now, but there's 1 problem. When I replaced the paperback cover with a nicer one, it said the image URL was already on file. It turns out that's because someone recently entered a record for an author named "John Woodforde" [4] and had entered this book in 2 editions, using the same image I did for one of them, hence the "already on file" note. Since the author's real name is clearly on the book covers, I have no idea what to think. What do you think? Is this really necessary? --Username 19:00, 27 January 2021 (EST)

No idea why it was entered as John, but I've fixed it and merged all the duplicates. You can see them here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:02, 27 January 2021 (EST)

Something strange

So I was looking at this publication. Something funny is going on with the ISBN. Looking it up on ISBN search (and Abe) one gets this book. Something entirely different. Although ABE dealer listing for the Ellsion volume do give the ISBN as 1-880325-07-1 but when you click on the ISBN (for the dealer listing here it shows you the Alan Moore book. --Mavmaramis 05:10, 28 January 2021 (EST)

It seems that one more time something has happened that shouldn't have happened: an ISBN was used two times for unrelated editions. There are a few examples even within the database (for the ISBN might have been used on an unspeculative (non-genre) title. Christian Stonecreek 05:21, 28 January 2021 (EST)

Alrighty thanks Christan. So I wasn't going mad then. --Mavmaramis 10:46, 28 January 2021 (EST)

Juan Gimenez

Re this publication. I purhased a copy of this volume plus a copy of The Fourth Power. Both of these are graphic novels. Should the Starr Conspiracy not be deleted ?? Also the Juan Gimenez listed as author should be this Juan Gimenez - i.e. the same author as him --Mavmaramis 13:22, 28 January 2021 (EST)

Yes, it should. Want to submit the deletion request? Annie 13:39, 28 January 2021 (EST)

Deletion request submitted for this and for the two editions of The Trigan Empire. --Mavmaramis 14:48, 28 January 2021 (EST)

What now to do with the reviews for these titles?--Dirk P Broer 06:20, 31 January 2021 (EST)

They should be replaced with essays of the form "Review of TITLE by AUTHOR (graphic novel)". Review of ineligible publications are entered as essays. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:17, 31 January 2021 (EST)

Straczynski

Hell-o. So Demon Night by J. Michael Straczynski has covers on ISFDB for all eds. except the Sphere reprint ([5]). There is an awful cover photo on Amazon which has been copied on many other sites, that looks like someone shone a spotlight on it, so you can barely see the art. Oddly, while doing a Google image search the same cover popped up looking perfectly clear and legible ([6]). It's from Goodreads and thus can't be used here, but the important thing is the cover credits the book to JM Straczynski unlike all other eds. which use his full name, including 3 foreign eds. which are on Goodreads but not on ISFDB. Whether the Sphere ed. uses his full name on the title page is unknown unless someone can check a physical copy. --Username 11:07, 30 January 2021 (EST)

I grabbed the image from Goodreads and uploaded it here. If we can find one without the handwritten price on the top right, that will be even better. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:56, 1 February 2021 (EST)

Robin Brown

Hello Mods. Once again alerted by a 3rd party regarding this aurhor. I have been made aware of a dealer listing for When the Wood Became the Trees along with another in the same series "A Forest Is a Long Time Growing" 1967. Both are about a near future racial conflict in Rhodesia. Both titles not present under author's biblipography. And no I don't have access to physical copies of either publication. Don't shoot me I'm only the messanger (again). --Mavmaramis 11:23, 1 February 2021 (EST)

change to contents of starquake

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?436708 Verified by bluesman, no longer participating. Added listing for Technical Appendix, which is more of a scientific essay explaining the science rather than fiction. Already an entry for it in the http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?33031 edition. gzuckier 00:09, 2 February 2021 (EST)

C. D. Pamely

Hell-o. So I tried fixing Pamely's record for [7], stating in my edit that the artist credited was not in any way associated with the very rare original 1926 edition but rather did the artwork for a rare 1998 reprint, [8]. He signed the book and everything. The moderator who rejected my edit said he did so because Worldcat's record for this book includes Fletcher's name. Leaving aside the fact that Worldcat is a gigantic site with countless pages that have incorrect info on them, it seems obvious that whichever editor added Fletcher's name to ISFDB just copied from Worldcat without double-checking other sources like I do. So whoever reads this, Fletcher's name should be removed from Pamely's record (and maybe added to a new record for the Caliban reprint). All hail --Username 10:40, 2 February 2021 (EST)

I've unrejected the edit. I'd highly recommend that you add a note on the publication record explaining why you believe the Worldcat record to be in error. Otherwise, someone coming across this may add the artwork back. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:56, 2 February 2021 (EST)

I just went ahead and put together a quick new record for the 1998 reprint with a link in the "note to moderator section" to a page that explains that the artwork was done for the new edition. The Worldcat record is definitely in error. --Username 21:24, 2 February 2021 (EST)

Quayle

Hell-o. So I did an edit recently for the original hc of Lamia, [9], which explained that the cover art credited to MATHEW Quayle was wrong, since a beautiful illustration on the back cover clearly showed his signature as MATTHEW Quayle. Moderator approved my edit with a note explaining the name discrepancy, but this same artist also did the art for the original 1988 hc of Demon Night, [10], of which a section was reused for the ibooks reprint's cover. He's credited as MATHEW Quayle on ISFDB, so I searched on Google Books and a search inside the ibooks edition, [11], for the word "Quayle" brought up 1 hit, which was from the back cover and stated the cover art's copyright 1983 by MATTHEW Quayle. So I suppose the artist's name should be corrected like it was with Lamia, but what about that date? --Username 18:04, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Land Leviathan more opinions

If one or two of y'all could pop in here and offer an opinion, that would be helpful. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:05, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Done. Looks like a Quarter Books book to me quite honestly - posted an explanation on why over in the thread. Hope that helps. Annie 18:16, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks! All fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:05, 3 February 2021 (EST)

I will add it to my list to track down the PVs for the few other books that seem to suffer from the same malady so we can move them if needed (and in the process we may learn more about this whole mess) - just when I think that I know what to expect from the old books and something like that shows up. :) Annie 20:18, 3 February 2021 (EST)

Modifying the welcome template

We seem to have a lot of problems with new editors not knowing how to post on Wiki even though they can edit the DB - people are used to Single Sign On these days so having to login again seems to be a bit counterintuitive. So should we add a sentence in our Welcome template to tell a new editor how they can edit the Wiki (aka - you need to login here again using the same credentials)? Any proposals on exact wording (I will try to come up with a wording tomorrow if noone wants to tackle that). Annie 21:17, 5 February 2021 (EST)

I think that's a good idea. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:10, 8 February 2021 (EST)

If you're going to make changes re. login docs, it might also be worth explicitly noting that you can get logged out of the wiki whilst still be logged into the main site - this has sometimes caused me momentary confusion when switching between the two sites. (Are they using different cookies with different expiry times perhaps?) Assuming that that isn't just some weirdness with my browser (Vivaldi) that no-one else suffers... ErsatzCulture 17:43, 8 February 2021 (EST)

This is just for the "welcome" message (this one on your page), not the login docs (do we have any?) -- we cannot add everything in there but as long as people know there are two logins, they can figure out the rest... or we can add it on help pages.

And nope - it happens to me all the time (the different timing). I just login again and keep going ;) Annie 17:50, 8 February 2021 (EST)

There are these pages that can be modified as needed. There are a lot of them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:58, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Julia Verlinger graphic adaption

I picked up a paperbck copy of Retroworld which seems to be an adaption of Les Voies d'Almagiel and Horlemonde in two halves sub-titled "The Ways Of Almagiel" and "The Hydras of Argolide." Given that a graphic adaption of Downward to the Earth from the same publisher is included can a moderator tell me if the above graphic adaption qualifies for inclusion ? --Mavmaramis 09:40, 6 February 2021 (EST)

I would not have approved "Downward to the Earth" either - Silverberg had nothing to do with the adaptation so the "over the treshold" overriding the "no graphic novels" does not apply... A GN where one of our authors provides the words (think Gaiman) is a different story but this is a bit different. But wait for other opinions as well - that seems to be one of those grey areas where we really need to decide what we want to do because different editors have different opinions... Annie 16:25, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks Annie. I suspect that in these four cases they are merely adaptions for which the authors had no involvemnet. Also see Night and the Enemy; The Stars My Destination and Empire. If someone decides they shouldn't be included then I have no objections to their removal. --Mavmaramis 01:43, 9 February 2021 (EST)

I think Empire and Night and the Enemy both had active involvement from the original authors. Perhaps its time to re-visit the criteria for excluding graphic content. The Science Fiction Graphic Novel publication series would clearly be in scope if they weren't "graphic". While I understand we don't want to fill the database with graphic novels, speculative fiction adaptations may be an area we can allow. TAWeiss 09:56, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Feel free to open a R&S discussion on that but as the rules stand now, "Comic books, manga, and graphic novels" are specifically excluded from the definition of "speculative fiction" and the only way for non-speculative fiction to be added is if it comes from the above threshold (point 4) exception or as part of a genre magazine/publication. If the authors are involved and they are considered the authors for the book and they are above the threshold, we are good under the current rules. If they are not - we need to qualify what is allowed. I'd be happy to be able to add some of my GN/comics collection... :) Annie 10:22, 10 February 2021 (EST)

I Apologize, Part 3

When I added this fanzine I forgot to add several major pieces of data. If accepted, I will correct this submission and add the proper information. MLB 22:31, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Done. And no need to apologize :) Two things to add while you are editing anyway: an explanation on the usage of "el" instead of "El" (we regularize titles unless we have a reason not to - in which case notes are mandatory) and a link to the webzine :) Annie 09:40, 11 February 2021 (EST)

Just saw this, these are on my list. "el" is exactly how it is spelled on the website. Just following the publisher's directions. MLB 20:07, 14 February 2021 (EST)

Name change: "Francis O'Connell" to "Sean Francis O'Connell"

This artist record appears to exist based on a single Dune cover, which in turn seems to be from information in an issue of Locus. I have a copy of Dune with that cover, which credits "Sean Francis O'Connell", as does my copy of this pub of Dune Messiah, which is currently lacking an artist credit.

Googling for "dune francis o'connell" finds several references to Sean Francis O'Connell, but the only ones to the Sean-less name seem to be based on the ISFDB record. As such, this feels like something that doesn't merit an alternative name record, but maybe just changing value in the canonical name field, and adding a note about the Sean-less version? Anyone able to do the honours?

(No worries if the consensus is that this should instead be modelled as two separate author records.) ErsatzCulture 11:17, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Book at hand beats secondary sources. If you have the same edition, different printing, fix it and note where the exact credit is from and the discrepancy with the initial source. If it is just the same art but different edition/publisher though, we will variant until we prove that the artist is credited differently. Annie 13:10, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Ever feeling like you're having one of those days?

Trying a different search on "hodder dune o'connell" finds a *third* version of this artist's name: "Sean O'Connell". e.g. tor.com, publisher's site via Google Cache, because the "real" page now serves a Wordpress error".

As yet, I've yet to find any official online presence for this artist that might indicate what their preferred name is.

Looks like doing variants and lots of notes is going to be the safest bet... ErsatzCulture 13:37, 13 February 2021 (EST)

There is one more thing in play here - for artist credits from secondary sources, there is also a rule or at least a practice (I’ll try to find it later) to use canonical names if we are not sure how the source credits and its policies. So if this is in play here, that may mean just notes. :) Always fun, isn’t it? Just document whatever you add doing - if it ever needs changing, it is much easier if we know why it was done that way. Annie 13:55, 13 February 2021 (EST)

Fantasy & Science Fiction

I recently had to look something up, and found that the The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction's site hasn't been updated in eight months. I hope that I'm not being presumptuous in asking if anybody could update this. I would, but I haven't even seen a copy in over ten years. And I'm already looking after five magazines (Analog, Asimov's, Alfred Hitchcock's, Ellery Queen's, and Kaleidotrope), plus I'm looking at updating Beneath Ceaseless Skies if I get the time. So, someone needs to do it. MLB 20:38, 14 February 2021 (EST)

It is not the only one that have fallen behind - a few of the editors who used to work magazines are not around anymore so we are a bit behind... I will see what I can do over the weekend -- I have all the issues on my kindle, just need to work through them... :) Annie 14:49, 17 February 2021 (EST)

How do I do this correctly??

Hopefully this is the proper place to ask this question. I recently found a full scan of the Conan the Invincible book with art by Ron Walotsky. I went to the uploads page and uploaded the file with name CNNTINV1982Full.jpg. I did not replace the current link not knowing if that was proper or not. Moderator Dirk P Broer rejected it saying "It makes no sense to upload covers into digital limbo". OK so what should I have done?? I still have the original file. aardvark7 13:45, 17 February 2021 (EST)

Go to the book you have the cover for. Use the upload link there to add your image. If the path to the new image is different from what is now in the field in the publication, update the link in the image field of the book :)

• One note - if the book has verifiers, let them know about the new cover, regardless if you edit the field (especially if you do not). If the new image is better than the old ones, it will stay. If someone disagrees, reverting to the old one is easy. Annie 14:47, 17 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the info! One more dumb question. How do I contact a verifier? aardvark7 22:12, 17 February 2021 (EST)

Click on their name to get to their user page - the table with verifications shows the last activity in the last column - while notifying everyone is good, the active verifiers are crucial: someone that had not been here since 2010 is very unlikely to resurface; someone that had been here in the last year might :). Then go to the Talk page (the second tab). Use the plus sign to start a new thread/message (the same way you started this one here) :) Annie 23:04, 17 February 2021 (EST)

Replaced cover

Replaced the cover of the 1982 Tor version of Conan the Invincible with a full view version. Link www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/b/bf/CNNTINV1982Full.jpg aardvark7 12:42, 18 February 2021 (EST)

This book? And you did not follow the instructions I explained above... :) Please do NOT just add the image somewhere in a random place in the wiki. Instead when uploading cover ALWAYS use the "Upload new cover scan" link in the book. That creates predictable names, avoids collisions and makes sure that the cover is actually archived properly (as it is in a predictable place). It also means that the various covers for the same book are on the same history list (until we delete the older ones) - allowing to recover if a mistake happen...

So let's try this again? Go to the book and upload the file where it belongs - then the path will not need changing and we won't lose the cover one day due to a mistake... :) Annie 14:02, 18 February 2021 (EST)

Dark Regions/Weird Wild West

[12] was entered years ago, yet there's another empty record with bad info, [13]. However, it contains a review that the full entry doesn't have, so maybe that should be moved to proper record and empty record deleted. --Username 23:33, 19 February 2021 (EST)

This is a bit tricky. EDITOR records are special cases because of how we organize yearly records so they do not get linked to reviews. May need to convert the review to an essay and connect via the notes. Let me think on the best way to untangle this. Annie 15:53, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Satan's Mistress

Can someone put the 1982 edition of this book, [14], with all the other editions? Previous editor added #2 to title making ISFDB think it was a separate book. I fixed that and tried to put with other editions under Downward to Darkness 1 but every time it's approved something else is wrong. I entered my 1978 copy's info also, so all other editions should be after that one, but as of now there are 2 separate entries for this book. --Username 15:41, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Done. Annie 15:47, 24 February 2021 (EST)

I Apologize, Part 4

I've been working on the magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies and I screwed up a bunch of entries. I'm trying to correct them. I blame multiple issues with identical covers, an identical format, a website which has a different publishing date than Amazon (a week later), no dates on the cover images, fighting a kidney infection, and idiocy on my part. I've done this before, y'know, none of which is an excuse. But, it just goes to show that nobody should ever trust me to even get near a moderator's job. Sorry! MLB 22:59, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Oh, by-the-way, this magazine is listed as a ebook, but shouldn't it be listed as a webzine? MLB 23:00, 24 February 2021 (EST)

It is both - it is distributed as an ebook and it is also a webzine. So if you are adding the ebook version from Amazon, it should be ebook. If you are adding the webzine version, it should be a webzine. We want both formats technically. :) Annie 23:23, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Right! That helped. Now my brain hurts, I need a drink, and I need to lie down. MLB 04:48, 25 February 2021 (EST)

I've tried adding both right now, we'll see how that works out. MLB 00:58, 28 February 2021 (EST)

Ghost Story cover

So there's a Pocket Books edition of Peter Straub's Ghost Story with the words "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE!" in the upper left but incredibly out of the many covers for this novel on ISFDB, including several Pocket editions, none have that cover. The Amazon page, [15], says November 1981 which makes sense because that's the year the movie was released, but the ISBN is already taken on ISFDB with a cover that doesn't match this one. Cool finding new info for a guy as famous as Peter Straub, but where does this cover belong? --Username 12:49, 27 February 2021 (EST)

Best Black Magic Stories

[16] has a 1963 paper edition just added by me, but someone previously entered a 1960 paper edition which I think is wrong because it has the same cover as the hard edition. Cross' anthology Best Horror Stories also had a paper edition a few years later with the same style of cover, so I think the 1960 tp edition of Black Magic should be deleted. --Username 08:54, 28 February 2021 (EST)

I think you're right and will delete the 1960 tp publication: this seems to have been entered solely on OCLC's guess of '[1960]' as year of publication; but in the early 1960s a tp edition within the same year as the hc one would have been very uncommon. Thanks for finding it. Stonecreek 11:51, 3 March 2021 (EST)

Correct covers

So I found the tp cover of Acquainted With the Night. It was sideways but still perfectly clear and the color was brighter than the faded hc edition on ISFDB. It was rejected because moderator said he found a better one on Fantlab. Problem is that's the hc which is obvious from some of the pictures showing the book itself. I wrote a note explaining this and asked for the tp cover to be unrejected and entered on ISFDB. The same moderator rejected that with a note, "I think the rejected one was terrible", and not using my cover. So I'd like this cover, [17], added to ISFDB as the tp cover, unless someone has their own copy they can upload the cover from. Otherwise, the cover that's under tp now doesn't belong because it's for the hc. --Username 11:41, 3 March 2021 (EST)

Retitled story

I found a copy of Best British Horror 2015 (ed. Johnny Mains) on archive.org and used it to fix the ISFDB record. The pages were not entered and turns out the total # of pages was much higher on ISFDB than the actual book, 1 story entered in contents was not actually in the book, a reprint of a story by the recently deceased Graham Joyce was not entered at all, etc. It's much better now, but there's still a problem; a story by Simon Kurt Unsworth, "Private Ambulance", was already entered on ISFDB by me when I entered the missing contents for Best New Horror #26 recently. It was retitled "The Night Run" in that book, with a note in the copyrights saying it was originally published under the other name in Noir. Noir is here on ISFDB, [18], but with missing contents. So I don't know if I should bother changing the title in the Mains anthology since "The Night Run" seems to be the preferred title when the story was reprinted. --Username 12:32, 3 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the catch! But yes, if the titles are different, we index both of them: we go by the printed title (and printed author's name) at the beginning of an item (here: a story), all other variants stated elsewhere in a publication (for example cover, table of contents, or back cover) are irrelevant, as are earlier, later or 'preferred' (canonical) titles. So, yes, please, do the fixing. We do encourage you to do it! Stonecreek 13:07, 3 March 2021 (EST)

Abusive Regularization

Please, can Stonecreek refrain his/her "regularizations" like this one, I've specifically entering the book as "Le seigneur des anneaux: Livre II: La communauté de l'anneau" because it's in fact the second half of the first "novel" of the trilogy ("La communauté de l'anneau" in french), exactly what was done for the first half of the first "novel". The result is now simply pure bullshit as it now seems that this book has exactly the same content as the whole first "novel". Such modifications by an editor that knows zilch about the subject and who operates behind my back without discussion/notification are particularly annoying.
I'll let him/her clean up his mess.AlainLeBris 10:46, 5 March 2021 (EST)

If it's only a part of the original novel, it's up to the notes (for the publication and/or the title) to emphasize this. We overcame quite a long time ago to not use the series title as part of the title proper (and that came up exactly because of this title series).

And while we're at it: please give the translator - at least for the title, but it's also welcome for a given publication - since different translations constitute different titles: so it's quite mandatory to know which title the entry is dealing with. Stonecreek 11:16, 5 March 2021 (EST)

I have done just that for the title: it's better if you'd add the information to the publications also. Stonecreek 11:29, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Let's be a bit careful here; not having the series title is an informal rule only (not documented (yet) afaik), and is overruled in any case by the rule that says title and subtitle are to be separated by a colon. Hence, since Livre II: La communauté de L'anneau is a subtitle, let them be. There's no harm done, is much clearer to the casual (and not-so-casual) browser, and I don't really see the value of being overzealous in removing series titles from titles in the first place, especially not where they make sense as in this case.

Another reason to have these subtitles in this case is to ensure no merging can happen by accident. If I didn't look too closely, I'd be merging the three titles into one, and that would really be a mess - it has happened before, so... MagicUnk 11:55, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Not including the series in the title is a documented standard. See "Subtitles" under Template:PublicationFields:Title. That said, the standard assumes series where books have different titles. Keeping something to disambiguate books with the same title makes sense. We typically use Book # (or Livre # in this case) in these situations. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:55, 6 March 2021 (EST)

That's right. Based on prior experience, we may need to clarify the Help text to account for series whose constituent works share the same title. We have had cases of editors becoming confused by the current Help wording when entering titles like Succubus Lord 12 or Der Totengräbersohn: Buch 1. Ahasuerus 10:09, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Another thing to consider is the fact that, as of 2 months ago, the ISFDB software supports Edit History for all record types. Granted, it's not comprehensive because certain types of submissions can't be linked (or displayed) for technical reasons. Still, in many cases Edit History lets editors identify those who have worked on the about-to-be-changed data in the past. We may want to update Help to let editors know that this functionality is available and should be used to discuss proposed changes or at least notify other editors about the change(s). It would be a rather significant change, so we would want to consider the wording and the implications carefully. Ahasuerus 10:09, 6 March 2021 (EST)

This last possibilty shouldn't happen per title notes.

I didn't think of the possibilty of 'Livre I: ...' / 'Livre II: ...'. Of course, that can be done. Stonecreek 12:59, 5 March 2021 (EST)

And this would have not escalated if you had bothered to talk to the editor (who is also the verifier here) and a VERY new editor before changing their data with no explanation when you approved their submission and then silently changed it. Part of working editors' submissions is actually coaching and working with them - and that is crucially important when dealing with new editors. Which you know very well - but chose not to do here for some reason...

And in this case, removing any modifier is going to cause confusion (regardless if you add notes or not) - split novels using the full name for a part of the novel are better off left with an identifier that actually shows what they are IMO. Plus it makes it clearer to a browsing user what is going on - policies are great but when they impede understanding and cause confusion, we have a problem. Annie 14:40, 5 March 2021 (EST)

(unindent) Stonecreek, last year we agreed that you wouldn't be working on other editors' submissions. A few months later I noticed that you were still doing it, at which point you re-committed to only working on self-moderation.

Checking the database now, I see that you have processed 107 submissions by other editors since 2021-01-01, including multiple submissions by AlainLeBris like this one. Please explain. Ahasuerus 18:25, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Well, I thought that it'd would help to lighten the very long chain of submissions by approving obvious ones that are perfectly okay. Stonecreek 00:03, 6 March 2021 (EST)

The intent is laudable, but that's not what our agreement said. Please abide by it.

Also, I have created FR 1401, Add support for "self-moderation only", which should help address this issue in the software. The functionality has been requested in the past and, once implemented, should give us more options going forward. I hope to have it implemented later this month. Ahasuerus 10:28, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Abusive merging

While we're at it, can Dirk P. Broer cease to merge the two records of the cover of "La planète des singes", it's the THIRD time that I umerge them and that he/she re-merges them. As I've explained at leat twice in my unmerge submissions, the 1981 cover is credited to M. Laverdet and the 1984 cover is credited to Laverdet, both should be kept separate and varianted individually to the Marcel Laverdet record. All this is of course donne without questionning me and probably without noticing my messages to moderators. Such blindness is quite tiring. AlainLeBris 10:54, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Yeah, this should not have happened a second time :( I will ping Dirk - the History of titles is relatively new and sometimes the editors who had been here longer forget they have it now.

I've unmerged, changed the name and varianted the new record (and pseudonymed the new artist name version). Please check if they look ok now or if more changes are needed. Annie 11:21, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Each and every time this creeps up at 'Alternate Names with Canonical Titles', upon which the record in question is merged with the canonical. There is no intentional abusive merging, but perhaps faulty varianting. AlainLeBris has a habit of creating empty cover records and asking for the deletion of the populated ones too. Seems to me that in this case a simple name change was so much better than the unmerging that took place.--Dirk P Broer 11:35, 5 March 2021 (EST)

You're too shallow in your analysis. To change the credit of one out of two items of a merged record need an unmerging then an update of the detached record then a varianting (a three step process as taking the delete/update/variant route). Note that my edits routinely take more than two days to be processed and that I've tried quite often to explain the things to you like in my SECOND try but it seems that you're not ready to take the pain to reserch your subject and that you're content to think that a contributor may be stupid enough to submit thrice the same edits.

As for deleting populated records, you'd better have a look at the Edit Histories that'll show you that I targeted "empty" records for deletion but that you merged those empty records (before processing my submissions) with the populated ones and kept the ex-empty identifier instead of the populated one so my aim was thrown out because of your actions. That's not "a faulty method of entering variants" (as you wrote), just sloppy moderation. I'm surely ignorant but not as much as trying to delete populated records.AlainLeBris 13:40, 7 March 2021 (EST)

And it is perfectly okay to have art under the canonical name subsumized (= merged). The rules for art are a bit different than for texts. We credit by signature to the canonical, we credit miscredited art to the canonical and we even credit by pure knowledge: if we know a piece of art is by a certain artist but is uncredited, it's possible to don't index 'uncredited', but the canonical name (and that is mandatory for cover art). And an abbreviation like 'Laverdet' or 'M. Laverdet' can also directly be credited to the canonical name. (Proper pseudonyms like Edward Miller are a different case, though). Stonecreek 12:56, 5 March 2021 (EST)

No, it is not even remotely OK to use a canonical name when the credit is IN the book. Both books are verified and the verifier (of both) is trying to fix the books they hold in their hands. A check of the two cover records would have uncovered that and having them merged back again 3 times means that noone looked at the history at all. Annie 14:10, 5 March 2021 (EST)

Not the case here though -- a name change would have changed it in both books; an Add/Remove title would have worked but new editors may not think of it. I do not see anything on AlainLeBris's page where he had been advised and coached in how to fix such cases (if he does it so often that you recognize the name, I expect you reached out to him to assist them in understanding how the system work?) and he is a very new editor so still finding his way around the DB. If I see the same title creeping up in the same report multiple times, I would try to track down why - you either have an inexperienced editor on your hands (who needs some help) or something else is going on. Or you will keep need to fix it 100 more times which is losing everyone's time. Annie 14:18, 5 March 2021 (EST)

With name change in this case I mean a request to a moderator to change the name for the specific publication where the name should be different from what it is in the database.--Dirk P Broer 13:38, 8 March 2021 (EST)

Like he did here and here and here? All unmerges had moderator notes explaining why they were needed. An editor cannot do much more than that. If the moderator who approves an unmerge chooses to assist and fix one of the new titles or even create the variants needed, that is fine. But it is not mandatory and often letting an editor do the complete chain on a long update is useful -- so they understand how the whole system works. An editor can ask for a moderator to finish something in the notes (which is what you are saying I think?) but in such cases I am very likely to go to the editor and see if we can get them to be a bit more independent instead of asking a moderator to finish the edits. And even if they ask, it may still be missed -- we all miss things.

Unless you are saying that editors should just leave messages on the CS board/inside of moderator notes and leave any multi-steps processes to moderators and moderators should be the only ones doing some of these steps... And if that is the case, I am vehemently against such an idea - editors will never learn how the system works until they use it (and abuse it) multiple times in the semi-safe manner of moderated submissions. :) Annie 18:02, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Shroud

Added cover for this issue, [19], saw Jaq Greenspon, one of the authors in it, tried to enter info back in 2015 (as Captainjaq) when it came out, didn't know how to do it right, moderator rejected his cover, told him to try again, but he obviously never uploaded a suitable cover. Now that I've entered a cover I notice subtitle of magazine is different than cover and judging by online photos seems to have changed several times over Shroud's history, So anyone who's familiar with this mag may want to look into it and clean up if they can. --Username 19:01, 6 March 2021 (EST)

Stonecreek's moderator flag suspended; Moderator list cleaned up

Stonecreek has been self-moderating for the last year. The latest discussion on his Talk page uncovered a problem with understanding the ISFDB data entry rules. The problem potentially affects 9263 (and possibly more) of his submissions and will require a significant amount of work to review and clean up. While the process is ongoing, Stonecreek's moderator flag has been suspended. It will be reviewed once the work has been completed and software support for a "self-moderator only" flag has been added.

I have also updated Template:Moderator-availability‎, moved currently inactive moderators to the "Currently unavailable section" and removed Bluesman, who hasn't been a moderator since 2018. Ahasuerus 11:20, 7 March 2021 (EST)

Naturally, I disagree: the assumed mistakes were for setting notes of 'First printing'. But when we know an entry for any possible printing (including the first) of a given edition would look the same as the one we have in the database (or has a definitive printing statement), it is meaningful to denominate 'ours' as the first: this way we have the first printing in the db, and any further printing of that year will be listed after it, we have it clear that a possible further printing of that year will have to be added, and we have the general information visible that we go as deep as the level of printing in ISFDB. And if you refer to the possibility that the cover image might differ for a different printing: well, without a primary verifier or a dependable source for it, we don't even know if the image we display does represent the edition (or the specific printing). Stonecreek 12:47, 7 March 2021 (EST)

Template:PublicationFields:PubNote says:

• If there is no printing information beyond the edition date, and no specific "first printing" statement, it is likely that this is a first printing, and you can put "Appears to be first printing of 1974 Puffin edition."

If you think that this data entry standard should be changed, you can start a discussion on the Rules and Standards page. Until the rules are changed, this is the standard that editors should use and moderators should enforce.

When using data from secondary sources, we record what they state. If we make additional statements about the publication -- such as "First printing" -- which are not in the secondary sources, we need to explain that it's derived data and how it was derived from secondary sources, e.g.:

• Data from Lulu. The Lulu publication date (2006-09-18) is a year later than the magazine date, so this is most likely not the first publication of this issue.

Ahasuerus 13:50, 7 March 2021 (EST)

A couple of Paul Wests could do with name cleanup

Paul West (1931-) was actually born in 1930, and has a year of death (presumably these were altered and added respectively to the database after the record was created), so the parenthesized bit might be better as "(1930-2015)" ?

Paul West (?-) also has birth and death years (maybe not known at time of entry), so the parenthesized bit would be better as "(1871-1918)".

I assume these are only like they are due to oversight, rather than stuff depending on the names as-is, given that all the URLs use numeric IDs? ErsatzCulture 17:27, 9 March 2021 (EST)

The dates were added long after the author names were created and noone thought to sort them out. Fixed. We usually add only the birth year these days but that works as well ;) Thanks for finding them! Annie 17:35, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Savage Heroes

Bunch of different PV's for [20]; this, [21], says original British ed. was 1975, not 1977, and this, [22], says American ed. is June 1980. I don't own any copies so I can't verify anything, I just thought I'd leave this info here for those who have copies so they can figure it out. --Username 23:58, 9 March 2021 (EST)

1 of the photos here, [23], shows a bit of the copyright page where you can see 1975, so there's a missing original edition on ISFDB. I've seen W.H. Allen online, so it was probably a hardcover. --Username 00:04, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Well, there's no trace of an earlier publication to be found with Amazon or OCLC / WorldCat: there's only a copyright statement for 1975, which per se only is an indicator (apparently in this case for a belated publication), and W. H. Allen is the copyright owner because the publisher Star is owned by this house. Be careful: a copyright statement for a given year doesn't mean that there has to be a publication in that year! Stonecreek 01:42, 10 March 2021 (EST)

And for the US edition: The month for the tp edition was taken from the April issue of Locus, which seems more reliable. Stonecreek 05:36, 10 March 2021 (EST)

A handful of Parry's anthologies have hardcover W.H. Allen editions, so there may well be a prior Savage Heroes edition; 1 photo on Fantlab for the Taplinger edition shows a review copy with a clear "Publication date: June 30, 1980" so Locus' date is questionable. --Username 09:57, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Well, it might be possible that the hardcover edition was published after the tp one, but that should have been noted in Locus - maybe in a later issue (and would pose a more singular example). If you like, change the pub. date of the hc edition with giving the source. Stonecreek 12:31, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Without an actual trace for a prior publication (OCLC really should have it, and somebody would like to sell it), it really seems the other way round: a hc edition might have been planned for 1975 or early 1976 but was cancelled a short time before the publication. Stonecreek 12:35, 10 March 2021 (EST)

Colmore

[24] seems redundant. Should that pseud. record just be made part of Colmore's record? --Username 10:38, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Depends on how it was credited in the book - it looks as a misunderstanding of our pseudonym system. I will ask the editor who added it and work with them on that. :) Annie 14:16, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Open Legs

A nermansbooks.com search for title "Open Legs" by Shana Rae, [25], says 1971, not 1977, and also says it was illustrated by Kate Greenaway, who died 120 years ago according to ISFDB, so maybe they used old illustrations unless there was another Kate Greenaway, and has an ISBN, 0425175405, which other Bee-Line books don't on ISFDB except for this one, [26], which is from 1976 and has a higher ISBN # than Open Legs which makes me believe Open Legs is much earlier than 1977. Just documenting all this info so when someone finds a copy of Open Legs and looks inside and sees it says 1971 the year can be changed here. --Username 14:05, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Add this information to the title record, not here. If someone finds the version, they won't check if we MAY have something about it on the Wiki. All research for a specific title should be added to the title itself. Thanks! Annie 14:18, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Author Merge Request

Hi. I inadvertently created an alternate name for an author, where there is none. The correct, canonical name is "Ayana R. Abdallah", and the incorrect alternate name is "Ayana Abdallah". All of the works by this author are in the 2011 "Sense of Wonder" by Leigh Ronald Grossman, and all should be by "Ayana R. Abdallah". The Help page notes that an Author Merge can only be performed by a moderator. Thanks.Dave888 17:28, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Done. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks.Dave888 18:34, 13 March 2021 (EST)

"New editor" warnings added to submission review pages

As per FR 1305, all moderator review pages have been modified to display the words "New editor with [number of edits] Wiki edits" for submissions created by editors with less than 20 Wiki edits. Ahasuerus 17:13, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

Awesome! Thanks for that. :) Annie 19:10, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

The Harlot Killer

Noticed this anthology had no page #'s entered, entered them from picclick.com copy, changed price to $0.35 based on cover, submitted edit, then looked at cover on ISFDB and realized it said $0.25, so I don't know if it's a second printing or what since I can't find anywhere else that has a photo of that $0.35 cover, so disregard my price change, or someone who has a copy can check and see if it has a price of $0.35 and see what printing it is so it can be entered as such. --Username 11:18, 19 March 2021 (EDT)

Redundant Ackerman

[27]; I corrected a few things and added a link to the complete book on archive.org, but later I noticed there's another edition with no PV that seems redundant. Should the bit of info in the notes be moved to the PV'd edition and redundant edition deleted? --Username 18:58, 19 March 2021 (EDT)

Yes, that would be good! Please move ahead! Stonecreek 01:46, 20 March 2021 (EDT)

And you're welcome to ask me any questions about it. I'm the PV on one of the editions. I got the book directly from Ackerman himself. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:56, 22 March 2021 (EDT)

submission typo

I mis-entered Walter Wangerin's name with my submission for Dragon #70. Sorry for the confusion. TAWeiss 22:54, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Approved. You can now fix it and you will need to link the review manually (the automated linking happens only during the initial creation of the review). Let me know if you need any assistance. Annie 23:08, 23 March 2021 (EDT)

Missing "THE"

Added cover to [28]'s The English Gothic Cinema (Equinox / Avon), but there's a record for English Gothic Cinema with a link to Worldcat that seems like it belongs with the full-titled version, so maybe that incomplete title should be deleted and Worldcat link moved to British edition of full title. --Username 16:48, 24 March 2021 (EDT)

Roberta Lannes

I linked 2 names, the above and Roberta Lannes-Sealey, and moderator accepted but then wrote a comment that they're not the same person, which made no sense. I added 2 comments of my own verifying they are the same person, since she married a man named Sealey; [29]. This was all quite a while ago, and I just randomly thought of it tonight and couldn't believe it was still there after all this time. So can someone remove this unnecessary comment? --Username 02:01, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

That comment was written 2017, well before your submission, and by a user who is no longer active. We no longer use the Author: wiki pages. I have deleted the page. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:27, 4 April 2021 (EDT)

Author Merge Request - Sonja Fritsche

Hi. I inadvertently created an alternate name for an author, where there is none. The correct, canonical name is "Sonja Fritzsche", and the incorrect alternate name is "Sonja Fritsche", as was created for the "Science Fiction in Western Europe (Sense of Wonder)" essay in Grossman's "Sense of Wonder". The Help page notes that an Author Merge can only be performed by a moderator. My thanks to DirkP for catching this. Thanks for your help.Dave888 13:17, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

You do not need a merge for that - as Sonja Fritsche has a single title, just edit her name inside of that title and that is all that is needed. :) I did that now. Merges are useful if you have a LOT of titles so you do not need to update them all. One or two? just update the titles. Annie 13:20, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

I did not know that. Thanks like usual. I will take note of this for the future.Dave888 13:22, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

"Empty Containers" cleanup reports updated

As per FR 1404, our two "Empty Containers" cleanup reports (Magazines and Anthologies/Collections) have been updated. After clicking "Ignore", you are now redirected back to the same page that you were on as opposed to the main cleanup report page. If the resulting Web page has no records, a message and a link which lets you go back to the main report are displayed. Ahasuerus 14:30, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

Dell problems

[30] says TP and nearly $15 price but cover is a $3.95 PB. Don't know if cover should be replaced with TP cover (if there is one) or info changed to PB and $3.95. I've been going through Dell's books and adding/fixing stuff and noticed there's a lot of confusion about format, missing covers, etc. Others should take a look and see what they can do to verify things. --Username 16:57, 27 March 2021 (EDT)

ALERT!

Moderators, this is USERNAME. I'd like to draw attention to my recent Elvisland entry on Community Portal, and the unsigned, undated spammish reply I got shortly afterwards. Might be nothing, or might be something. Thoughts? --Username 21:34, 27 March 2021 (EDT)

Just seems to be an enthusiastic user who is not familiar with how the wiki works. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:11, 28 March 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, just someone unfamiliar with how to post a new comment (not related to yours). No biggie. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:10, 29 March 2021 (EDT)

Hasty rejection

Can Dirk P. Broer please take some time to review (really review) the submissions before rejecting them with stupid reasons (in this case "already done", not really!). I've submitted this unmerge as a first step with explanations in order to end in a situation like this one with the newly titled collection (here "Prélude à l'éternité") varianted to the "Le livre d'or de la Science-Fiction: Isaac Asimov". To achieve this (after a cloning), I first had to separate the two titles by an unmerge, then variant the result. It's quite annoying to see my work rejected by someone that does not seem to read what I take some pain to explain. Note that that this is not the first time.AlainLeBris 10:58, 30 March 2021 (EDT)

Unrejected and approved. Adding moderator notes on all steps when doing things like that is useful -- mistakes happen even with them but they help. You can fix the now ejected title. Annie 11:47, 30 March 2021 (EDT)

Carousel

The parade of "adult" novels never ends, and my latest fight is with American Art Enterprises, which had a line of books in the early 80's under the Carousel imprint. Hilariously, whoever entered them on ISFDB mixed up some of them with books by a British CHILDREN"S book publisher in the 70's also named Carousel. I'm doing my usual great job fixing/adding info, but this, [31], I thought I'd ask about here. The first record is redundant and should be deleted, right? If so, do so. --Username 23:54, 30 March 2021 (EDT)

Fotonovel

[32]; I added cover to Love at First Bite, ISBN was in Catalog ID section, I moved it, it gave bad checksum, Amazon pages don't seem to have any ISBN so I can fix it; Lord of the Rings had same problem but that had an ISBN on Amazon which was different by 1 # so I entered it and now it's fine; 2 Body Snatchers books are redundant, 1 should probably be deleted; 1 has a previous editor's note about bad ISBN. So someone should take a look. --Username 00:30, 31 March 2021 (EDT)

Cover artist found?

[33] is unclear about who did the cover, but Jean Targete, who has MANY credits on ISFDB, did another Diamond Books cover, so I think it might be she. --Username 12:45, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

I have a suggestion

I'm not the first, and I won't be the last, but I have entered a number of plays and screenplays on this site. So, might I suggest a separate category other than "short fiction"? This way they won't be confused with short stories, novellas, or even novels of the same names. MLB 18:18, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) -- I have moved the discussion to the Community Portal since it affects all editors. I have also split it in two: one for plays/screenplays and one for excerpts. Ahasuerus 13:40, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

Aickman

[34]; I did a pretty major add/fix for Robert Aickman books and noticed there was a Robert Fordyce Aickman who contributed to a rare 1952 British anthology and sure enough it's the same person because that's Aickman's full name. I noted in my edit varianting the names the Fordyce entry should probably be an essay, and sure enough there's an essay by Robert Aickman with same title included in a 2015 collection. So I varianted the titles, but there's a yellow "mismatch" because 1 says essay and 1 says shortfiction. So someone should clear that up before approving my edit and maybe take a look at the 1952 anthology and find out which are fact and which are fiction if possible. --Username 18:58, 1 April 2021 (EDT)

Post-2007 books with ISBN-10 only

This 2011 book has only an ISBN-10 (it sometimes happens on some french "straight" reprints of pre-2007 titles). Knowing this fact, I've entered the data "as is on the book" as the help is, in this case, not very helpful (the question Should or should not an ISBN-10 be converted to ISBN-13? is not ansewered). Alas, a moderator took the liberty to simply delete the offending ISBN (with the note "2-905158-75-1 = 10-digit ISBN for a post-2007 publication" as if i'm ignorant or not able to see the big yellow warning on submission). Apart from being not very contributor-friendly, this leads to a net loss of information, as, after this moderator brillant intervention, the ISBN present on the book is completely lost in either form (note that my note "ISBN = only ISBN-10 on book" have been left!). AlainLeBris 03:59, 4 April 2021 (EDT)

It should have been left alone so I restored it back. Even if it was the wrong format and needed conversion, it should have been just converted to ISBN13. But there are books that do not carry ISBN13 long after the cutover indeed. I would have expanded the note to point out the oddity and not just noted it in passing in the notes quite honestly (especially the part about French publishers doing straight reprints like that) but the note is there. Annie 04:10, 4 April 2021 (EDT)

Covers

I'd like to know if it's possible to add a cover from any website if you do it a certain way. Often I find a cover on some obscure ancient archived site not found anywhere on the current web and can't add it here because it's not on the list of approved sites. I know people add scans here; are they all from their own personal copies or are they getting them from elsewhere? If it IS possible, I'd like a clear explanation here on the procedure to add covers from non-approved sites. --Username 12:23, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

Editors can upload cover scans of publications which they do not own to the ISFDB Wiki and then link ISFDB records to them. However, the details are somewhat complicated -- please see Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki, especially the "Licensing" section, which explains which tags to use for which types of scans.

Note that Template:Cover Image Data says "This resolution is significantly reduced, and could not plausibly be used to make publishable copies of the original." Also, the Wiki software won't let you upload very large scans, so you may need to shrink them. Ahasuerus 16:20, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

So when I tried uploading an image months ago I didn't really know how to do it, but I think I actually had it right and was just confused by the confusing page I got, so I wrote a note to moderator and he did it (an image for the Dreamhaven edition of Dennis Etchison's The Death Artist, an explicit cover I remembered clearly from when I borrowed it back in 2000 from a PUBLIC LIBRARY). This time I tried with an image of the rare 1967 Doubleday edition of John Lymington's Night Spiders, which can't be found on any of the usual ISFDB-approved sites and is often confused with the cover for Lymington's 1964 British collection also titled Night Spiders. So I downloaded the image as a JPEG to my desktop off a FLICKR page, largest dimension was 608 so it was shrunk slightly after I uploaded it here which apparently happens automatically if the image is too large, and it seemed to be accepted and is now awaiting approval. So these past 3-4 months that I've been an editor I could have been uploading images from anywhere and didn't know? Jesus Christ. Why is there an approved list of sites if that's the case? --Username 17:55, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

The usual internet issue - bandwidth. If you upload it here, when we show it (and it will be shown any time you open the publication/title), we are using the data package our hosting allows us to use. When you deep link into someone else's site, you use theirs. A lot of hosting providers charge based on the traffic of the site (usually in tiers, sometimes with overages after the first time you go over). So when a somewhat big site like ours deep links to a small site somewhere, we can run their bill very high very quickly. And when an unauthorized site deep links too much, bigger sites tend to black-list you. So we only deep link (aka use a direct link) only when the site owner gives us permissions. It is basic internet etiquette. Annie 18:17, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

And in case you are wondering why we would not simply bring all covers in house, the answer is “size”. We have a limit both in dimension and in the size in bytes. Some of our sources do not. So you can host a much better quality image there and link to it from here. Annie 22:54, 5 April 2021 (EDT)

Redundant Four Square

[35]; Four Square edition has limited info, but the Souvenir Press edition has a cover which says "A Souvenir Press / Four Square book", so the Four Square on ISFDB is redundant and is the only 1 of the many 1967 Four Square books on ISFDB without price info, so can probably be deleted. --Username 12:48, 6 April 2021 (EDT)

Pending edits

Is it possible for someone to approve this submission and that one in order for me to finish my work and to shelve the books? Thx. AlainLeBris 10:42, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Done. I have left a question on your Talk page. Ahasuerus 11:32, 8 April 2021 (EDT)

Removing Bankrupt Publisher and Titles

Hello! My page currently has listed a 2017 chapbook entry for "Wizard - Sitting." This publisher has since gone bankrupt and I would appreciate if the entry could be taken off my page. Is this possible? Thanks! BrandonCrilly 12:41, 9 April 2021 (EDT)BrandonCrilly

We are a bibliography, not a store. If it was ever published, it will stay in the list. If anything, it is probably the most interesting part of the bibliography. Annie 12:53, 9 April 2021 (EDT)

That's right. To quote ISFDB:Policy#Data_Deletion_Policy:

• Like other major bibliographic sites, the ISFDB doesn't delete publications/titles that are known to have been published.

Ahasuerus 13:33, 9 April 2021 (EDT)

J.-C. Chaumette / Jean-Christophe Chaumette

It may now be time to reverse the canonical/pseudonym relation for this author as most of the titles are now under the "full" name. They were, as usual, erroneously entered based on secondary sources. I may able to tackle this task but, considering the present serious bottleneck at moderation level, it may takes weeks before completion. AlainLeBris 05:32, 11 April 2021 (EDT)

I'm starting the process. AlainLeBris 02:19, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Just as a hint - the fastest way to do that for a title is to merge the variant and the parent, being careful to leave the parent ID empty. That does not leave the old parents behind and needing to be deleted manually once the variants are broken and is a one step process per title - so you do not need to wait for approval so you can submit a next update. Annie 02:38, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Note that this book is also as by "Jean-Christophe Chaumette" on title page. AlainLeBris 03:07, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Bottleneck at moderation level

Let me state first that I'm percfectly aware of the constraints of a volunteer-only organization with a moderated contribution system. I still wish to draw your attention on the present situation. Nowadays my submissions (and I suppose other's) takes routinely between three and four days to be approved. As I nearly only enter new publications in the db, this means at least two (and more likely three due to my mistakes) submissions to arrive at a correct record (which sums up to more than a week). Note that I spare you the complicated ones like this collection which is far from being complete. This proves to be quite frustrating for me, with stacks of books everywhere on my desktop that I cannot shelve because my work on them is not finished and the eventual need to plunge back into "closed" subjects. I have no miracle solution but wish to alert you to a certain weariness. AlainLeBris 04:32, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Yes, we all are seeing the queue. :) It is somewhat of a perfect storm at the moment: a few editors with a lot of updates and very low quality submissions (which require a lot of additional work and further delay everything), the spring coming in (so people spend less time in front of computers) and a few missing moderators from the usual ones who work the queue (some burned out (hopefully just temporarily) at least partially because of the first issue). And once the weather is good enough, weekends tend to be hard. Add to that the fact that some moderators are not comfortable working non-English titles and... it can get a bit complicated.

I tend to crawl through the list most days to catch all of the known contributors who tend to follow up and new editors (because if your first edit takes a week, chances are that we are going to lose you). Unfortunately the day job can get a bit too busy to be able to do it reliably.

However, if yours get delayed again, considering that you are working off the books and they are piling up on your desk, feel free to ping me on my page and I will try to get to them as soon as possible (time difference being what it is, I will see if I can get your dailies done while you are offline). I tend to be around a lot - sometimes with limited time so I do not work the queue... Annie 10:27, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Well, I hope that I'm not one of those low-quality editors. But, I too am finding a sense of frustration in waiting so long to have basic edits okayed. In a recent case, it took almost a month to update one author's page. I tend to lean towards new authors, and then keeping their pages updated, and adding new anthologies. I'd like to update the whole 2020 year of the webzine of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, plus adding the last five "Best Ofs", but putting aside a whole month, or more, is a bit daunting, especially since I've been in the hospital several times in the last year and I don't know if would be able to complete such a product in such a way that is required. However, what with the pandemic going around I also realize that submissions are probably going up with more people staying at home. Other than fast-tracking a few new moderators, I too have no easy answers. It's all volunteer work after all. MLB 21:51, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

It is very difficult when many submissions require anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to research, fix up, and communicate with submitter and/or verifiers about. If I have only 1 hour a day to contribute, I can get maybe a couple of submissions processed. Woo hoo! --MartyD 08:20, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

If it'd be allowed, I'd offer my help (again). I know that my impatience did get the better part of me, but this April has taught ma to be patient by having to wait for the approvals. I'd either only concentrate on correcting my faults & 'my' publications or if there'd be more allowed I'll definitely not reject any submissions or 'better' others without communication.

I have gone wrong in not recognizing or even hurting some peoples feelings. Christian Stonecreek 08:22, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

OK, let's give it a try. Last week I changed the software to support "self-approval" -- see ISFDB:Community_Portal#Self-approval_support. It was a fairly significant change and you are now the first editor to test it on the live server. Self-approvers should be able to approve and reject their own submissions. Please give it a try and let me know if you run into any issues. Ahasuerus 20:20, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for the opportunity. So far, it works perfect! It would somehow be preferable if it'd be possible to ignore publications in the clean-up reports, especially multi-language ones, like this, and the ones from the 'First printing' list, like that one (I'm done with the first bunch, beginning with numbers and 'A...', as well as a few beginning with 'B...'. Christian Stonecreek 10:41, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

From a purely technical perspective, it wouldn't be that hard to change the way cleanup reports work to allow self-approvers to use the "Ignore" functionality. However, that would be out of the scope of what self-approvers are normally expected to do. Perhaps we could add another user level flag, but I'll have to think about it. Ahasuerus 14:15, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Second set of eyes needed: Paycheck et autres récits

This book states that the translator is Hélène Collon. Both BNF and Noosfere give her credit only for revisions/harmonization and a bibliography of her translations, prepared by her does not contain it. With the French titles, the revised/harmonized translations had usually been merged as close enough to be the same. Unfortunately the PV is missing. What I plan to do:

• Add a note in the publication, explaining the Hélène Collon credit and using BNF, Noosfere and the bibliography as references (And a date so it is clear it is post PV)
• Approve the merges I am holding which will give the titles their translators (here is one of them).
• Edit them all to add that the translation was revised/harmonized by Hélène Collon for the 2004 edition.

Thoughts? Concerns? Anyone sees any issues in the proposed plan. Annie 20:14, 12 April 2021 (EDT)

Seems to me to be the sensible thing to do in this case. Christian Stonecreek 08:08, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

I concur. --MartyD 08:15, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

Thank you, guys! Annie 15:58, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

After chancing on a copy of "Paycheck", I can confirm that the translations are only given as being revised by Collon.AlainLeBris 11:41, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! Annie 11:42, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Publisher Imprints

A question regarding publisher imprints arouse in the course of completing work on the Saga of Recluce series. GlennMcG was asking which if any of the hc's carried the Tor Fantasy vs Tor Imprint. I didn't continue the related Help desk thread Here because that was a question on editing pubs not in hand. My question is what is the moderator consensus? Do you want the pub records changed in cases where Tor Fantasy is the imprint. I have no preference, will do whatever you think is best for the ISFDB. Tor's use of the Fantasy imprint seems entirely arbitrary. What about other Publishers? Ace vs Ace Science Fiction, Daw vs Daw Science fiction, etc. I'm asking because I am just starting to verify my collection, only want to do it once. John Scifibones 11:08, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Used arbitrary or not, we record what the books are saying when we can. See this for more details. So in the case of imprints, if it is used on the statement of publication, I'd use the imprint. Plus it makes up for an interesting piece of data to see how Tor had (mis)used its imprints. :) Annie 11:53, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

The statement "publisher and imprint support is in the process of being improved, and a process of determining canonical names for publishers and imprints is in progress." has been there since 2008. Any progress? ../Doug H 16:02, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

From the looks of it, that specific project was abandoned a few years later... and now it is in the "editors decide" stage and we just keep them consistent. That page needs rewriting :) Annie 16:04, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Do we accept this kind of information?

Hello fellow moderators. I have this submission on hold, as both URLs link to a webpage that tells the story of how an author was duped by that publisher. Do we accept this kind of information? Thanks! MagicUnk 16:07, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

I would reject this - we are a bibliography site, we are not here to take sides in publishers/authors disputes. The links on the publisher site should contain (as impartial as possible) information about the publisher, not author grievances about them. Annie 17:06, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

I added those 2 links because they were specific to Commonwealth, but this, https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/cases/#Commonwealth, states that thousands of authors sued them and they went bankrupt. It's not a single author's grievance. I think it's important to show why exact dates, covers, and other info are so hard to find for this publisher. I've added informative links on ISFDB that have been accepted for several other shady individuals and publishers so it's nothing new. --Username 17:14, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

And THIS link would be acceptable IMO. There is a difference between informational link and an author grievances essay. One is factual. The other is biased especially when it is one-sided.

As for what had been accepted before - are you saying that links similar to these two (personal essays where authors complain about publishers or other authors) had been approved before? If so, we may need to review all the links you had added to clean these up. Annie 17:24, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

I'm very pleased that SFWA link will be approved; also, the only 2 others I can remember were for David Byron [36], where as I recall 1 moderator didn't want to add it but another moderator did some searching online and decided to add my link and 1 of his own, so I think those are OK, being complaints from multiple sources. However, the other 1, Ghostwriter Publications, [37], has 1 Wordpress link by a single author so that can be deleted, but the other link, also from Wordpress, which I believe was a super-long page with lots of authors chiming in, now has a mysterious "no longer available" page even though it was added just a few months ago, so I guess that can be deleted, too, and hopefully I can find a working page to add later. Future links in this vein will avoid single complaints and include general ones. --Username 18:09, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for posting the details! :) Annie 18:21, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for the input. Original submission rejected, and SFWA link added. Regards, MagicUnk 06:04, 16 April 2021 (EDT)

Adding a New Series: The Moment Universe Stories

Hello. Is this the right place to ask that a group of four current items be marked as a series? The four items are all by John Kessel:

• “Some Like It Cold” (1995)
• “The Miracle of Ivar Avenue” (1996)
• Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997)
• “It’s All True” (2003)

In an introduction to a 2011 edition of Corrupting Dr. Nice, Kessel wrote: For those of you who may be interested, I have written three other time travel stories, set in the same universe as Corrupting Dr. Nice, that are decidedly not comedies. They explore the noir side of the equation I’ve set forth here. All three star my amoral “fixer” character Detlev Gruber, who appears in a small role in Dr. Nice as an employee of Rosethrush’s media conglomerate. These stories are “Some Like It Cold,” “The Miracle of Ivar Avenue,” and “It’s All True,” which I hope to present as an e-book in the near future.

In an interview with Locus Kessel himself uses the term Moment Universes to describe the stories, so I propose creating a new ITTDB series for these four items, perhaps using the series name Moment Universes Stories.

P.S. If I remember right, Kessel wrote all four of the stories in less than twelve parsecs. --Main 19:05, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Sure, that is a reasonable basis to make a series for them. You can do that yourself. Edit the titles, giving each the same series name. Once the submissions have been approved, a Title Series record will have been created. You can then edit that to record some of these additional details for posterity. If you need help, just ask. --MartyD 18:54, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, MartyD. I’ll add that series name now to those four and submit them. --Main 19:05, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

I approved the 4 edits but changed the series from "Moment Universes" to Moment Universe. Considering that they are not connected, I would not have ordered them with a series number - numbers imply that they are connected and should be really read in order. If you added the numbers so they get ordered based on when they were published, they will show up like that based on their dates if you do not number them anyway :) . Would you like to remove the numbering (and add the notes on the series page explaining where the series comes from)? :) Annie 20:03, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. I would like to campaign for a change back to the plural name Moment Universes. For me, the phrase “Moment Universe” suggests that there is only one of them, but there are many. In Corrupting Dr. Nice for example, we are told “From here the more daring can visit virgin MOment Universes at any time from 100 B.C.E. through 200 C.E., . . .” And in “The Miracle of Ivar Avenue,” we learn that “137.04 Moment Universes are packed into every second.” I will delete the numbers from the series page now (thanks for the explanation), and request a change to the title in my notes to the moderator (likely you :) ). I’ll also add notes about John Kessel’s comments. Thanks again! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Main (talk • contribs) .

Renamed again. Your title of this thread threw me off a bit - sorry :) Annie 20:52, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

Thanks again, Annie! That was a sort of typo in the title for me: I’d intended to write it in the plural! Now, back to watching Back to the Future for me. --Main 22:16, 14 April 2021 (EDT)

ISFDB FAQ updated with a "connection not secure" explanation

The ISFDB FAQ has been updated -- ISFDB:FAQ#Why_do_browsers_say_that_the_connection_to_ISFDB_is_not_secure.3F -- since we have received multiple queries about the "Connection is not secure" message/mouseover over the last few months. Please feel free to link to it if you see this issue come up again. Ahasuerus 12:52, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Miss Pickerell on the Moon

Hello. I own this 1965 edition of Miss Pickerell on the Moon, and I checked that it is the same edition according to the notes with the listing. I plan to verify its information, but first I have two questions:

1. The current ISFDB listing lists the book as containing sixteen “short stories,” but they are not short stories, they are chapters of the novel (they are labeled as such, and the story is a continuous novel, not a collection of stories). Should I delete the “length” (as short story) when I submit my submission? Or should I ask the moderator to delete the chapter listings altogether?

2. The book is listed as 142 pages, and indeed the final page of the novel is numbered as 142. But that page is followed by two more pages: a blank page and a page “About the authors and the artist.” Should I change the page count to 144 and add an explanatory note? Or should I add this page as an essay with the title “About the authors and the artist” and the page number of 144?

Many thanks. --Michael Main 21:54, 15 April 2021 (EDT)

Hi. Here are some answers:

1. Yes, in fact, the record is inconsistent -- it's typed NOVEL but then has been given shortstory contents (so it should have been COLLECTION). What you can do is Remove Titles From This Pub with a note to the moderator that these are chapters, not separate stories. You could also note they should be deleted once removed, to remind the moderator to do that. The software won't let you delete a title that is included as contents elsewhere, so the deletions will need to wait, and it will be easier for a moderator to do them at that point. Also submit any other fix-ups to the publication record, ignoring the contents that will be removed.
2. This falls under a combination of the Edit Pub help's Contents included with exceptions (2nd bullet) and Pages (3rd sub-bullet) sections. If you deem the "About the Authors and the Artist" section of "substantial length and quality" (think more than just a typical brief-bio paragraph or two), then you could add it to the contents as an ESSAY, you would make the page numbering be 142+[2], and you would use "[144]" for its page number (see "Pages without a page number" in Edit Pub help's Page section). If you deem the "About the Authors and the Artist" section to be unworthy of inclusion, then the page count should be just "142", and if you want to you can cite the piece's existence and location in the pub notes.

If you need more help, just ask. BTW, a good place to ask these kinds of questions is the Help desk, where you'll reach a broader audience and may get a quicker response. --MartyD 08:00, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Many thanks, Marty, for these answers and for the pointers to help screens and the Help Desk! I'll get started on the corrections today (and I won't submit the bio, which is pretty much boilerplate). --Michael Main 11:16, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Tom Clancy title record without a publication

Hey fellow mods, while researching a proposed edit to the non-genre/technothriller The Hunt for Red October title record, I noticed we don't have any publication records associated with it, despite the title's Prometheus award nomination. On the other hand, we have publication records for the equivalently non-genre/technothriller The Sum of All Fears, which was reviewed in some genre magazines. If the title is "in" due to the award nomination, aren't publications of that title also therefor "in", just as in the "in"-due-to-review case? --MartyD 08:09, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

I'm not a "fellow mod", but isn't The Silence of the Lambs a precedent for award noms/wins not necessarily meaning that pubs are eligible? (I'm aware there are a bunch of gothic/psychological horrors that were in awards, but don't have pubs, this one has a note that explicitly calls out that it shouldn't get pubs added despite the awards.) ErsatzCulture 08:18, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

This discussion belongs more on Community Portal or Rules and standards as content decisions are not limited to moderators' opinions. Our project scope does not state anything about awards making a non-genre work eligible. The title only approach is a good compromise. Also, works are not automatically in because of reviews. In the early days, all reviews were entered as reviews, but we changed our policies and non-genre reviews are supposed to be entered as essays (see here for more information). -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:55, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Ah, duh. Not enough coffee. Forgot about the non-genre reviews as essays bit (guess I must not care for it much; pesky subconscious). Anyway, thanks, that's what I was looking for -- I wasn't trying to open a debate about whether it should be in or out. --MartyD 10:05, 18 April 2021 (EDT)

Dangerous Visions

Hello Mods. I picked up a copy of this and note that it states gutter codes are printed on page 544. My copy definately has "Book Club Edition" at bottom of front flap and the number 1179 on the rear flap but alas page 544 has no code at all. Is there anywhere else within the book a gutter code might have been printed ? --Mavmaramis 12:15, 19 April 2021 (EDT)

Zinsser Implant

This book, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?294196, was added more than 10 years ago and was last worked on in 2018 according to Edit History. There was no cover, month was wrong, cover artist was missing, and there was a long note about why there's no ISBN. I added cover and artist, fixed month, and added ISBN, but as mentioned in the note it gives a bad checksum even though it's printed twice in the actual book which is on archive.org (and has been since 2010). So moderator will need to take a look and do whatever they do when there's a bad checksum. --Username 22:51, 20 April 2021 (EDT)

4970541, the number of the edit concerning this book, was just rejected with a note reading "The ISBN is bad". I'm not entering all the info again, so when somebody figures out what the good one is, un-reject my edit if possible or just use my info minus the bad ISBN. --Username 22:14, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

I see there was a heated discussion about bad ISBNs further down, and previous editor already left a note for this book about the bad ISBN, so I'm just going to add an edit with all my info but leaving out the ISBN. --Username 11:08, 25 April 2021 (EDT)

Novel or short story?

Been adding covers to Chester Drum mystery novels and this, www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?192712, stopped me short. It's listed as a short but the title in the Hitchcock anthology is a full novel, something common in older Hitchcock anthologies. Can't make sense of what the notes mean, but I think the short story in the other anthology is what they're referring to. So separating them is probably necessary, and maybe a new record for the novel itself with the cover included. PV of Hitchcock is long-gone, so I'm just mentioning it here. --Username 18:42, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

Ronald Curran anthology

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?32893; 3 editions on ISFDB, but it's really 2, because editor entered 2nd entry on the page with the wrong date (the original edition's 1979 date) but the right date (1989) in the notes, although he did enter what seems to be the full contents with their page numbers. Next entry's editor did enter the right date where it belongs but didn't seem to have the full contents and just entered whatever he could find online. So the original edition's OK but 1 of the later editions is probably unnecessary. The PV is marked as Transient so he may not have access anymore; I'll ask him if he can correct the date. --Username 20:58, 21 April 2021 (EDT)

He corrected the date and redundant edition was deleted. --Username 23:53, 22 April 2021 (EDT)

Rejected Edit

This submission was rejected with the comment "ISBN is wrong - bad checksum. You changed the last digit from 4 to 5; since the 4 was accepted, the 5 cannot be correct.". I wish to make two comments :
1) I perfectly know that the ISBN is wrong as I'm able to see the big yellow warning, that's why I added in the note "ISBN as entered". But the fact cannot be escaped that the ISBN printed on the book is the one that I've corrected. As there seems to be divergent strategies regarding such cases (enter the ISBN as on the book, enter the corrected ISBN, deport the false ISBN in the Catalog ID field), it may be interesting to cover this case in the help pages and not reject at first sight such submissions.
2) The whole of my submission was rejected, leaving the record as it was and thus deleting all the correct data and rending my work useless. Perhaps would it have been wiser to accept the submission and -eventually- to modify the offending field (or just put the submission on hold and contact me). Such waste of my time is not very contributor-friendly.AlainLeBris 05:27, 23 April 2021 (EDT)

Do not despair, not all's lost, as a rejected submission can be easily unrejected. Contact Bob on his talk page, and ask him to do so - I'm sure he doesn't mind. MagicUnk 12:28, 23 April 2021 (EDT)

I'd be glad to unreject the submission if I knew how. Never had to do that before. I'll figure that out, but it may take some time. As to the ISBN, DON'T KNOWINGLY SUBMIT A BAD ISBN. If the ISBN in the book is wrong, and you know it, you can put the bad ISBN in the notes. You could certainly have checked the ISBN to see if it is correct. Always use the correct ISBN if you know it.Bob 10:37, 25 April 2021 (EDT)

O.K., I unrejected your submission. Go ahead and fix it. Bob 11:59, 25 April 2021 (EDT)

Accepted the unrejected submission, and corrected the ISBN + notes. Have a look MagicUnk 14:50, 26 April 2021 (EDT)

Green Rust

This, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?310845, has a slightly different date than this, https://archive.org/details/greenrust00walliala, but more importantly a much different page count. No PV but edit history shows 3 different people worked on it over the years, so I mention it in case anyone knows more; Wallace's bibliography is so complicated it's possible this was an abridgement of the original edition. --Username 11:53, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

Borderlands 2 or II?

Added Fantlab's cover to this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?5280, and noticed the title was Borderlands 2 in all the photos but it was entered on ISFDB as II unlike the other editions; also, the page numbers for the stories are different. No PV for this edition so I'll leave it here; it's a major anthology so it would be nice to have it correctly entered. --Username 15:59, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

Novel or series?

This author, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?8738, has a Find Your Fate series entry named Operation: Robot Assassin but also a book of the same title listed as a novel. I added cover to the novel and then noticed the series entry had the same cover, so the novel entry is unnecessary. PV of the novel is no longer active, so I'll leave it here in case anyone thinks novel should be deleted. --Username 23:56, 24 April 2021 (EDT)

How Many Falcon Presses?

I was adding info to Drake's Hush-a-by Baby and noticed that the publisher page, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?2168, seems like a mix of several Falcons. I doubt the original British publisher took 20 years off and then decided to publish a 6-page Frazetta work, and the Wilson and Chambers books have American prices, and who knows if they're the same, either. So if anyone knows more, there it is. --Username 03:09, 25 April 2021 (EDT)

Bad ISBN

Made an edit, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?4974950, fixed prior editor's incorrect price and page count and moved the ISBN from Catalog ID to its right spot, and after I submitted it I got "bad checksum". So moderator will need to look at it. --Username 17:40, 28 April 2021 (EDT)

Per the Internet Archive scan, that is the number printed on the dust jacket and copyright page. I will take care of it. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:00, 28 April 2021 (EDT)

Aliens titles

I fixed a 90's Aliens book because it had the trademark symbol as part of the title, and moderator also removed Aliens from the title and just left the name of the book, which is standard for series books, but then I noticed the cover credit and the review for the book still had the full title; looking at this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1278, reveals that previous editors sometimes added TM to titles and covers and reviews, with differences depending on which edition it is, so someone should decide on a standard for these books because some are correct and some aren't. --Username 10:37, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

The "TM" should never be a part of the title. None of the volumes in that series list (as far as I could tell) have it as part of the title. Are there specific titles or publications you've found with it? If so, pelase list them individually so we can see which ones you're seeing. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:40, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2116, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?213273, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?281464, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2102, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?133891, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?281465, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2106, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?23143, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?97341, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?251922, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?251924, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?286531. --Username 13:40, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

Aha, so a bunch of publications have that. Feel free to correct. A lot of them have the series as part of the publication title, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:38, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

A simple Advanced Search for titles with ™ gives 114 titles. I didn't try publications, series, etc. ../Doug H 17:05, 29 April 2021 (EDT)

I have submitted the first batch of edits to get rid of the ™ in titles and pubs. 4977546 to 4977707. If a moderator will process them, I can run the search again to see what I missed. John Scifibones 15:38, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

I have placed these submissions on hold. There is a difference between removing it from a series and removing it from where the author intended it to be part of the title. Individual titles typically cannot be trademarked. Authors will often add the TM as an intentional part of the title and not an actual trademark symbol. Care needs to be used and not just a blanket removal. I plan on accepting only those that are clear series trademarks and rejecting anything ambiguous or clearly part of the title. If there is debate over a specific one, the recommendation for removal should be brought up at the Community Portal for discussion. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

M.D. or M. D.?

Made Cliff Patton a variant of Cliff Patton, M.D,; he wrote 2 Zebra books in 1980-1981 and dropped the M.D. for the 2nd one. When I created the variant it said new author because I added a space after the first period in M.D. I deleted the space and now it's OK, but I checked and there's over 100 M.D.'s with no space but also 39 M. D.'s with the space, most of which are initials in names but I count 7 that are doctors. I believe ISFDB's policy is to add the space but is it better to do that for 100+ entries or just delete the space for the 7 that have it? --Username 00:13, 1 May 2021 (EDT)

We do not put spaces in suffixes. See Ranks, suffixes, prefixes at Template:TitleFields:Author and the examples at the bottom of Template:AuthorFields:CanonicalName. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:50, 1 May 2021 (EDT)

Gulliver

I corrected a misspelled word in the note here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?3980, and noticed the first 4 books published in the 1940's are British while the much later books are American, so probably 2 different publishing imprints. --Username 14:37, 1 May 2021 (EDT)

Satanic Confusion

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1140528; it's not a novel, it's nonfiction because it says true story on cover, but if so should it be here at all? --Username 16:53, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

Deleted. Thanks for pointing it out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2021 (EDT)

Peake Confusion

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=sunday+books&type=All+Titles; 1 edition is called a novel and the other a collection; 1 credits Moorcock alone and the other credits him and Mervyn Peake. Only one of these books has a PV and they are a very infrequent visitor these days, so I'll just leave this here if anyone knows what the correct thing is to do with all of these; maybe one of the English editions is unnecessary. Also, the cover isn't credited on ISFDB but looks like Peake's work, and this, https://www.peakestudies.com/CentenaryEvents.html, mentions the title of Moorcock's story is "Captain Crackers", which appears nowhere in his record here. --Username 11:41, 4 May 2021 (EDT)

Which Wood?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=christopher+wood&type=Name; (artist) and (II) seem to have something in common. --Username 15:34, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

Futura or Orbit?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?38461; cover for 1985 Futura has an Orbit logo in bottom right, and there's a 1986 Orbit / Futura with no cover but the same price and ISBN, so maybe cover belongs there instead. --Username 15:48, 5 May 2021 (EDT)

The Other Passenger

Fantlab has a copy of the original 1944 John Westhouse British edition of this John Keir Cross collection (although in typical Fantlab fashion the last 2 photos are clearly from the Lippincott edition because copyright page says America and flap says $2.75), so I added page numbers. However, "Miss Thing and the Surrealists" is on ISFDB without the 's' at the end. It's spelled with the 's' on contents page, colour plates page, and title page of Westhouse edition, so that's how it was originally spelled. Also, "Music When Soft Voices Die" is spelled with a comma after Music on contents page and colour plates page but not on title page, and title page adds '...' to the end. I see American HC and PB have PV's but not the Canadian edition, although it has the same page count as American HC so probably just reproduces American contents, too. The recent Valancourt edition has a Kindle so I looked inside on Amazon and they spell it as Surrealist but other title is given as "Music, When Soft Voices Die..." adding both the comma and the 3 dots at the end, so not like either version in the Westhouse edition. So it's a mess that someone here may be able to figure out. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?790601 --Username 11:25, 7 May 2021 (EDT)

Publisher change

This publisher should be changed to "André Martel" by a moderator as this action seems to be moderator only. Such surprising hurdles for contributors are becoming quite tiring as is the obligatory delay for the approving of any contribution that seem to be impossible to brought under less that two or three days. AlainLeBris 10:58, 8 May 2021 (EDT)

Done. As there was only a single pub under this publisher, you could have changed it in the edit you submitted for the pub. Editing the publisher record is only needed when changing multiple books at once (or there is data on the publisher record that we don't want to loose - since editing the pub record will deleting the exiting record and create a new one). By the way, you could have also combined this title edit with the pub edit as well. If a title is only in a single pub, the values are editable in the pub record. If you prefer to do them separately, that's fine, but you can save yourself a little time if you wish. As for approvals, this is a volunteer database and we're currently in a bit of a lull with moderators. Activity levels vary due to real life stuff. And hopefully a number of our newer editors will stay around long enough to gain enough experience and become moderators themselves. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:47, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

Adding to an existing anthology

The Long List Anthology: Volume 6. I have found information on this book at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Long-List-Anthology-Stories-Nomination/dp/B08N9H87T8/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but I am not sure how to add it; New pub, add pub to this title, add a variant to this title. HELP! aardvark7 20:57, 8 May 2021 (EDT)

You would use "Add New Anthology" as we do not currently have this anthology in the database. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:36, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

You have volumes 1 through 5 editor David Steffen aardvark7 11:59, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

Yes, but not Volume 6. Each volume is a different publication. They are tied together under the same series. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:14, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

OK Thanks. aardvark7 15:46, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

One additional question before I play, Amazon lists the paperback as Independently published, What do I put in. I was told when the publisher is listed as CreateSpace to use the author. Goodreads only shows the Kindle edition. Amazon also lists the Kindle version, but I have never entered one before. Sorry for all the questions. aardvark7 16:12, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

Per the Amazon Look Inside, the publisher is Diabolical Plots. We use the author name when there is not a publisher statement. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:44, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

Mission to Universe

Question: for the 1965 Berkley edition of Mission to Universe by Gordon R. Dickson where Spacecow is listed as the last primary verifier, Heritage Auctions lists the cover artist as Jerry Dodwil. (https://fineart.ha.com/itm/paintings/jerry-dodwil-american-20th-century-mission-to-universe-paperback-cover-1965-mixed-media-on-board-18-x-10-inches-457-x-254/a/8000-71230.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Auction-Archive-ThisAuction-120115)

Is it ok to add this information and add to the Pub notes listing Heritage Auctions as the source?

I have sent this same basic information/request to Spacecow aardvark7 15:56, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

That should be Jerome Podwil (a.k.a. Jerry Podwil), based on style as well as signature. Another goof at Heritage Auctions. And please when you add a cover artist or other information, also add the source of your information. Thanks! Horzel 11:06, 25 July 2021 (EDT)

Art?

Weird one here; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?272816. I thought it strange a pulpy SF novel would be reprinted by an ARTS COUNCIL, so I checked the ISBN online and got this; https://www.amazon.com/Time-Change-Mcintosh/dp/0728708043. So this was a mistake with no PV that's been on ISFDB since 2010 and now moderators can decide what to do with it. --Username 22:19, 9 May 2021 (EDT)

Strange indeed -- because if you click on the 'look inside' link the McIntosh novel is displayed (but is does look like an erroneous edit). Stonecreek 08:53, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

While verifying this pub, I faced a conundrum. We show Pastwatch as a series and this is the only published title. If we leave it a series, I should remove "Pastwatch" from the title record and all the pubs. Alternatively, we could treat it as a standalone, leaving Pastwatch as the title and The Redemption of Christopher Columbus as a subtitle. What do you think? John Scifibones13:09, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

It has an unpublished book in the series, too. Also, Card has stated he is planning to write two more books in the series (including the one we have listed), but he hasn't given a timeline. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:29, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

So continue to treat as a series and make the necessary edits? John Scifibones 13:43, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

Yup. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:05, 10 May 2021 (EDT)

Linking book reviews to books

Can a moderator link the reviews of Horrorstory, Volume 5, in Fear, April 1990, The Room, by Michael Grey (I), in Fear, September '90, and The Servants of Twilight, in Fear, July '91, to their respective books? Thanks. --Rosab618 14:33, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Done. You can submit these yourself by going to the review entry, clicking "Link Review to Title", and entering the link to the title record of the reviewed work (so for this review you would have entered this URL). Hope that helps. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:57, 11 May 2021 (EDT)

Got it, thanks!--Rosab618 18:46, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

John Cameron

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?183813; did some stuff for the editions of Astrologer and noticed there's some very old art that clearly is by a different guy with same name, so moderator may want to add (artist) to that person to differ him from the 1970's writer. --Username 18:27, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, done. Stonecreek 00:12, 14 May 2021 (EDT)

Reviews of magazines

Hi, I have a few questions. In the August 1991 issue of Fear, there's a review of the Spring 1991 issue of Fantasy Tales (the review is titled only "Fantasy Tales"). When I submitted the review in Fear, I titled it "Fantasy Tales, Spring 1991." When my additions were approved, the moderator BiomassBob hadn't linked the review to Fantasy Tales 1991. So I went back and changed the title of the review to Fantasy Tales V12n6, Spring 1991. He rejected it, saying: "Putting the volume and number of the 'Fantasy Tales' magazine is just messy. Magazines are usually titled by their dates, not their Vxny. Witness 'Fury [sic], August 1991'. No #32."

Then I tried to link the review to the magazine. This time it was rejected by Rtrace, who said: "Reviews of magazines are not eligible to be entered as the review type. The review should be converted to an essay." But there is already a review linked to Fantasy Tales 1991, and it's titled with the volume and number. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1795221

So who's right?--Rosab618 20:57, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

The policy is in this template:

"Reviews of media products (films, TV shows, games, music and dramatized recordings), stage productions, magazines and fanzines (regardless of their genre), and books that are not eligible for inclusion in the database (graphic novels, nongenre novels by authors that are below the threshold, nonassociational nonfiction works), should not be entered into the "Reviews" section of the data entry form. A record should be created in the "Regular Titles" section typed as ESSAY."

I suspect that part of the reason is that magazine and fanzine title records are not for individual issues, but are instead for all issues published for a given year (with the same editor). Personally, I'd have no problem with linking reviews to the composite title record for periodicals, but we'd need to have a discussion about changing the policy first in the Rules and standards discussions page. The other review should also should have been entered as an essay by the existing standards. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:43, 13 May 2021 (EDT)

Author's Note (2061: Odyssey Three)

While verifying 2061: Odyssey Three I noticed that the Author's Note (2061: Odyssey Three) is dated 1987-04-00. While that is indeed the date which the note is dated in the book, my understanding is, we date these as of first publication. However, 2061: Treća odiseja has a publication date in 1987. Will I be able to change the Author's Note date to 1988 even though it appears in a publication currently showing an earlier publication date? John Scifibones 14:39, 15 May 2021 (EDT)

Correct, we date based on publication, not on when written. For translated works, we date the canonical title based on the first date it appeared in the author's language even if the translated work appeared first. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:05, 15 May 2021 (EDT)

Pendragon?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?30900; note says not to be confused with the Welsh publisher, but that's what happened. The 70's pubs are American, 2007 and later are Welsh. --Username 16:59, 17 May 2021 (EDT)

Fixed. Thanks -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:00, 22 May 2021 (EDT)

ISBN for Au-delà de l'infini

As per this thread, the ISBN for this book has been deleted beforehand without consulting me (the ISBN has been entered as on book itslef). I've provided the necessary information but o this day, nothing has been done about it. AlainLeBris 01:56, 19 May 2021 (EDT)

I believe it has been discussed elsewhere, but ISBN's have to be entered not as in the book, but corrected - with a note added explaining the printing error. This is the standard practice to which (as far as I know) all editors and moderators adhere. So, you can submit an edit with the corrected ISBN, and notes if you wish. Regards, MagicUnk 13:23, 20 May 2021 (EDT)

I would also add the wrong ISBN as a "Catalog ID" in such cases (corrected one in the ISBN field, as printed in the Catalog ID one, note about why we have both in the notes) - that allows it to be searched for and visible in a title list for example. That happened automatically when we moved to two fields btw - we used to add a # before the wrong one/any catalog ID and then when the fields were split, these values went into the new field. Annie 14:15, 21 May 2021 (EDT)

"elsewhere"? Thanks for such precise data. "standard practice"? Where is it documented? Someone already tried the "standard practice" routine on me (the "standard practice" that said that some non-english series' titles are to be also given in english). In fact, I stictly don't mind if the ISBN is entered or not. I do not delete it, so it's no more my concern as I've unverified the publication. AlainLeBris 05:28, 22 May 2021 (EDT)

The help does not address what to do with an incorrect ISBN; it only covers a couple of common cases (SBN, [I]SBN + trailing price, multiple ISBNs), where it specifies what to use for the ISBN and how to document what was done in the notes. The section on Catalog ID also makes no mention of using the field for anything other than a publisher's catalogue number. If we are expecting contributors to do something specific with an incorrect ISBN -- and there are two variations of that: an ISBN for a different publication and a "bad"/broken/malformed ISBN -- we should update the help to cover those situations. --MartyD 10:13, 22 May 2021 (EDT)

King Hilton

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?285893; editor notes Hilton's story has the wrong name and title but includes them and the correct ones in the same record; that seemed odd, so I'm just mentioning it in case it needs fixing; PV is no longer active. --Username 22:26, 23 May 2021 (EDT)

The doublette obviously wasn't removed from the publication record (which I now did). Thanks for spotting this. Stonecreek 01:02, 24 May 2021 (EDT)

Cover Confusion

I uploaded new cover for Midnight Hour by Donald Bacon, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?31944, since it was 1 of those dumb gatefold covers and the old cover didn't show the actual cover with title and author, but after I replaced it in the wiki I added it to an edit and it was submitted, awaiting approval, yet when I checked covers for books published by publisher that year my cover is already there. So in the future if I replace a cover with another one do I need to add it to an edit or just replace it in the wiki and move on? --Username 19:52, 24 May 2021 (EDT)

If you are just replacing the ISFDB cover file and the correct URL is already in the field in the book, you do not need to submit an edit. However - if the book has PVs, they need to be notified (and this is even more important than usual as this change will not show up in their "Changed PV" lists. Annie 19:56, 24 May 2021 (EDT)

OK. I just replaced old cover for Viking's 1927 edition of Leonard Cline's The Dark Chamber, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?294401, which wasn't really the cover but the design on front of book itself, and since it has no PV I deleted my edit. --Username 20:14, 24 May 2021 (EDT)

Grouping magazines by year

Would a moderator please group the Fangoria magazines by year? Can only moderators do that? Thanks.--Rosab618 02:55, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

Anyone can do it, but it is a two step edit. First you need to change the title and date of any EDITOR record for the year to "Fangoria - XXXX" where XXXX is the year. You should also remove the month from the date replacing it with "00". After that edit is approved you need to merge it with the other records for that year by the same Editors. This is most easily done by going to the Editor's bibliography page and using the "Show All Titles" tool. After that, select the record changed in the prior step with the other EDITOR records for the same year and click merge. Select the Title for the year and the date without a month and submit the edit. I've merged the 1989 records and it looks like someone has already done the first step for 1990. I'll leave the rest for you if you'd like to try it yourself. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 04:53, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this at all. How do I find an EDITOR record to change? Can you break this down for me further?--Rosab618 14:36, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

Happy to. The EDITOR record is created for either magazines or fanzines. If you look at the publication record for any given issue (e.g. The June 1990 issue) You'll see the screen split into 4 boxes. At the top of the second box, the one with the contents, there will be a line labeled "Editor Title:" The first link takes you to the EDITOR record that we're talking about. The other links take you to the magazine series and the the author bibliography for the editor. You can also find the EDITOR titles by viewing the magazine as a series (here) or from the author's bibliography (here, listed under Magazine Editor Series). The author's bibliography is probably where you'll want to go since that's where you would do the merge as described above using the "Show All Titles" tool. When you do that, the records you'll want to merge are all listed with type EDITOR. Let me know if there is anything else that I can expand on. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 15:56, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

I think I've got it now, thanks!--Rosab618 22:32, 25 May 2021 (EDT)

Predator Editor

https://kathrynmeyergriffith.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/dinosaur-v-survivors-is-selling-like-hotcakes/; I was adding/fixing info for Nineties books published by notorious Zebra and this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?283893, has a note saying it can't be found online; the site linked above explains why, so maybe mods will decide to delete this record or mark it as unpublished, etc. --Username 13:26, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

I've marked it as "unpublished" with additional details and a link to the revised version that was finally published years later. Thanks for catching that! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:02, 26 May 2021 (EDT)

Criteria for inclusion of web-only published works

I just discovered ISFDB today while researching sources for an application I'm developing to facilitate authorship and reading of fiction works published on the web.

ISFDB seems to be a phenomenal resource and I will definitely be looking at ways to include it as an aid to users of the application.

While searching, I found that one story I am particularly fond of is not listed, the completed web serial Worm Wikipedia link by John C McCrea (Wildbow).

I looked at the ISFDB:Policy page, and I understand that in general, works published solely on the web are excluded unless explicitly listed in the Inclusion criteria. The relevant inclusion criteria would be:

 Online publications available exclusively as a Web page, but only if:
   published by a market which makes the author eligible for SFWA membership (listed here), OR
   shortlisted for a major award

It seems the first criteria is not a fit because the work has only been officially published on the author's Wordpress site. Frankly, at 1.6 million words, it is unlikely to be published as a single work in any written form, and while the author has been approached by several publishers regarding adapting it to a series, those talks have not gone anywhere to date.

I could not find any details on what exactly constitutes a "major award". I tried searching the ISFDB discussion pages for any references to Worm, McCrea, and Wildbow but haven't found any, so I sincerely apologize if this has already been brought up in the past.

If you review the Wikipedia link above, you'll see that the work does have a fair bit of notoriety. This includes high ranking on Goodreads, reviews and endorsements by authors and publishers who are listed on this site, and a long term top ten ranking on TopWebFiction.

So, my request for information is as follows:

1. Have there been any discussions in the recent past about possible changes to the ISFDB Policy regarding web-only published works?
2. If not, could there potentially be interest in discussion criteria to allow such works based on their notoriety, completeness and availability, etc?
3. What exactly are the "major award"s that potentially make a work eligible, and how does one determine if a work was "shortlisted" for such an award?

Deinspanjer 09:39, 27 May 2021 (EDT)

Betty M. Owen Anthology

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1011839; archive.org has the 1969 printing which was the only 1 without a cover on ISFDB; I added it, then noticed the 1972 printing has the same cover, which is obviously wrong. Editor wrote long note about price and spine and whatnot but he or someone else uploaded earlier cover to the wiki. If it was an Amazon link I would just delete it and leave a note saying correct cover needs to be found, as I've done several times before, but since I can't delete a wiki image I'll mention it here so mods can decide what to do. Also of note is this, https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/5484295-stories-of-the-supernatural, which has a cover with an ISBN on left side but says 1967 which is wrong because it would be a later date than other editions on ISFDB with no ISBN. Typing that ISBN into Google Images (with or without dashes) brings up only Goodreads and nothing else. SPOOKY. --Username 20:47, 1 June 2021 (EDT)

Oz

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?4996914; this was a pain finding a copy that wasn't price-clipped and then after I submitted my edit it said bad checksum for the ISBN. Before someone rejects it can anyone take a look? Typing ISBN into Google Images does bring up some pages with the book's cover so it seems to be valid somewhere. --Username 18:28, 2 June 2021 (EDT)

Rudam fixed ISBN and approved my edit. --Username 15:33, 6 June 2021 (EDT)

Terry Mixon ebook pub date help

I'm starting to work through Terry Mixon's ebook publications using my personal copies to update the notes and then verify the publications. I'd like some guidance regarding the pub dates. The copyright pages for each of his most recent three books all have "Digital Edition date" entries on them. Those dates are later by several days than the current record dates which are originally from Amazon.com (and still match the current Amazon.com book info). Should I be using the "Digital Edition date" from the copyright page or the Amazon.com dates? For example, Imperial Recruit shows the pub date as 2021-03-09 but the copyright page shows "Digital edition date: 3/18/2021". Phil 17:53, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

As per Template:PublicationFields:Date:

• For books, to identify the publication date, try to find a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001"; the copyright date is often misleading, since works can be reprinted.

so in this case I would use the "digital edition date" stated on the copyright page, update Notes with the source of the data and optionally add "According to Amazon.com's record as of 2021-06-04, this edition was put on sale on 2021-03-09" to Notes.

I should also mention that there is a fairly long history of paper books being made available to the public some days -- or even a few weeks -- prior to the official "publication date". Originally, it was in part due to the fact that early (think 1950s) "mass market paperbacks" piggy backed on the distribution channels used by pulp magazines. In the world of pulp magazine publishing, the month stated on the cover was almost invariably after the month the magazine issue was made available to the public. Thus a mass market paperback with "January 1959" on the copyright page may have been put on the racks in late December 1958.

We use what's stated within the publication in part because there is no easy way of telling when the book was put on sale by various publishers. Also, if we discover that there was a significant delay between the publication date stated within the book and the actual distribution date -- which has been known to happen -- we document what we know in Notes.

Of course, when we get our data from a third party like Amazon or Goodreads, all we have is the data that they display, which is one reason why we always try to state where the data came from in Notes. We add "as of YYYY-MM-DD" because third party records, e.g. Amazon's, can change over time.

Hope this helps! Ahasuerus 18:18, 4 June 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! That's what I thought but wanted to make sure. Phil 11:42, 5 June 2021 (EDT)

Ghost Box

PV for both Ghost Box records, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?202811, used "&" in publisher's name for 1 record but "and" in the other, which makes them separate on ISFDB. Since PV no longer responds, I just thought I'd mention it here if anyone cares to choose 1 or the other so they're both by the same publisher. --Username 22:54, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

Merged under Hingston & Olsen Publishers as per their website. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2021 (EDT)

Goudsward Anthology

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?673807; I corrected a few errors in this anthology's ISFDB record; Citro's story is actually non-fiction, Thaxter's story is actually a poem (it's online so I added a link), and Morgven is actually Morven. It has a PV, Goudsward, which was the editor of the book, but he only made a few edits on ISFDB and then nothing since 2018, the last of which was for this book. So if anyone has a copy and can double-check to see if anything else needs fixing; also, there's a slim possibility that name WAS spelled Morgven in this book, that Citro wrote a brand-new version of his non-fiction piece and turned it into fiction, and that Thaxter wrote a short story with same title as her poem. Very unlikely all, but you never know. --Username 11:52, 7 June 2021 (EDT)

Nearly 2 months later and I found a copy on Richarddalbyslibrary.com. It confirmed Citro's work came from a non-fiction book, Thaxter's work is a poem, and it is spelled Morven; there were also a few other new things that I added/fixed. However, a story and the story's author were both spelled incorrectly, and the few page #'s that were entered were partially wrong, so it still would be good to get a print copy to see everything (someone left a note about 1 of the authors being spelled wrong in contents but right inside the book). --Username 01:32, 31 July 2021 (EDT)

Stephen or Steve?

I just made an edit fixing title of Stephen King's first story from 1965 under its 1966 retitling, "Half World of Terror", adding a dash between the first 2 words as it is on the title page of the zine where it appeared. I also noticed his name is "Steve King", so I changed that, too, and then saw there's 1 other Steve King on ISFDB who wrote a POD novel decades later, so I put a (I) after his name to separate them. I think after name change is accepted that the story needs to be made a variant with Stephen King as the parent, right? --Username 11:41, 8 June 2021 (EDT)

That's right, it will need to be turned into a variant under "Stephen King".

Re: the use of "(I)" to disambiguate the two name records, as per Help:How to separate two authors with the same name, professions and date ranges are our preferred disambiguators, but in this case we know so little about the other "Steve King" that "(I)" is probably the best that we can do. Ahasuerus 16:10, 8 June 2021 (EDT)

All done. Ahasuerus 16:50, 8 June 2021 (EDT)

Stop Staring At Me

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?558225; I was surprised to see both old paperback editions for Wisteria Cottage on ISFDB had no covers since a new edition was recently released by Valancourt, so I found both on bookscans.com; however, I nearly missed the Dell edition because ISFDB editor entered the ID wrong. Only reason I found it is because I typed publisher, title and last name on Google and the same cover is on Amazon. Thing is that the extensive notes mention the date was derived from the ID, but is it the right date since the ID was wrong, or did editor know the correct ID but just typed it wrong? I'm glad I didn't give up on finding the cover because it is hilarious. --Username 01:14, 10 June 2021 (EDT)

Death of an Editor

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Robertreginald; was reading some of his long interesting notes on his board and then checked his record and found out why they stopped in October 2013, because he died in November 2013. Several people were still leaving him notes years later saying they added covers and stuff like that, so I'm wondering if there's a procedure to let editors know someone died so they don't keep leaving notes for someone who's never going to respond. There is a "no longer actively participating" message at top of his board, but that's it. --Username 19:35, 10 June 2021 (EDT)

I've updated their talk page with a new template. Hopefully that works. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:50, 10 June 2021 (EDT)

Deceased editor template

I've created a {{Deceased user}} template that can be used to tag the user talk pages of deceased editors. You can see how to use it on the talk page of the template. And thanks to JLaTondre for tweaking the color. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:13, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

And thanks to Username for suggesting it. --Username 19:22, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Image up;oading

Every time I try to upload a image (and yes they are 600 pixes on largest dimension) i get the following : Error creating thumbnail: /var/www/html/wiki//bin/ulimit4.sh: line 4: /usr/local/bin/convert: No such file or directory. Any idea what's going on ? --Mavmaramis 08:02, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

The ISFDB server does not have /usr/local/bin/convert installed on it. There are circumstances, even if the image is at the 600 pixel limit, when the wiki wants to create a thumbnail and you will see the error. It only impacts the Image: wiki page and the image can still be used on the publication. Click the "Full resolution" below the error box to get to the URL to copy for use in the pub. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:15, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

Alright thanks. The two images I uploaded now seem to show (I editied the uploader from the original to myself.) --Mavmaramis 14:24, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

Mummy

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=nosidy&type=All+Titles; editor of A Mummy Omnibus has a board on ISFDB (as jpirish) where he entered basic info in 2017 for his book, "Hauck" corrected several mistakes and asked him to enter contents, and that was that; he hasn't responded since. However, an abridged edition is also on ISFDB and edit history shows several mods worked on it and entered contents. The story by Suffling has a variant title, and I can't find any online shots of contents page, so if anyone has a copy either it's a variant and date needs changing or it's not and should be merged, I think. --Username 11:50, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

Usually if it started with Fixer, the base record came from Amazon. I don't know if that is true here, but see this and the Look Inside. --MartyD 12:32, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

It's Dr. in the Look Inside, but the edition entered here is a trade paperback. If I find a copy of that and it's Dr., should date be changed to date of anthology and title made a variant of the original 1896 title? --Username 17:01, 13 June 2021 (EDT)

Yes, that's the current practice. BTW, I see an email address in the Look Inside. You could try sending Irish mail and ask how it's titled on the interior. BUT... I think I figured out it's only "Dr. Nosidy" in the TOC and is "Doctor Nosidy" in the interior. In the paperback Look Inside, search for Nosidy, and you'll get three hits: the TOC (for which it shows the text) and pp. 103 and 105 (for which it does not show the text). Repeat with "Dr. Nosidy" and get one hit (TOC); repeat again with "Doctor Nosidy" and get two hits (pp. 103 and 105). So I'd be inclined to merge the two into Doctor Nosidy and note for the Amazon-sourced record that Look Inside shows "Dr. Nosidy" in the TOC but searching inside the book suggests it is "Doctor Nosidy" on the title page. IMO, it looks like the use of "Dr." in the TOC was layout-driven (I think "Doctor" would have required the line to wrap). --MartyD 15:45, 14 June 2021 (EDT)

Done. --Username 12:30, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

Open Library

openlibrary.org offline for maintenance; broken cover images in my edits and other editors', too, I'm sure. Something about a power outage; no word when they'll be back. --Username 12:29, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

They're back; I wonder if they made any improvements. --Username 22:47, 15 June 2021 (EDT)

Grouping Fangoria mags by year

In 1986, David Everitt edited the first issue of the year, and David McDonnell edited the rest. In 1987, McDonnell edited the first three issues of the year, and then Anthony Timpone took over. How can I group the 1986 and 1987 issues together? Should I change the EDITOR name to "Editors of Fangoria", or is there a better way? Thanks, Rosa--Rosab618 18:10, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

That's what the series is for :) You set the same series in all of the EDITORS and they are grouped on the series/magazine page (which apparently is already there. Annie 18:11, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

PS: If there are missing ones, all you need to do is to add the series :) Annie 18:43, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

Yes, they're already on the same series page. But how can I unite the 1987 issues under one heading: "Fangoria - 1987"?--Rosab618 22:16, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

Sorry, this ain't possible: when there are diferent editors the titles are different, and thus can't be subsumized under just one title. Hope that helps to understand. Christian Stonecreek 23:36, 16 June 2021 (EDT)

As an aside, the Issue Grid view of a series is a good way to get a snapshot of all magazine issues organized as one table. Ahasuerus 10:52, 17 June 2021 (EDT)

Username Error

Mods, can you delete this, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:GRCBQLFZLJ1989.jpg. After edit was done, I checked fantasticfiction.com and cover image was right there. It doesn't show up when I searched Google Images for some reason, so I downloaded image from abebooks.com, which looks exactly the same. I should have checked FF first. --Username 23:59, 19 June 2021 (EDT)

Since the external image you added was exactly the same as the one you uploaded, I used the uploaded version. Deleting it doesn't buy us anything. The deleted version would still take up space do to how the wiki works. Let me know if I misunderstood something. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:03, 20 June 2021 (EDT)

gary => Gary

The canonical name of this author should be capitalized (my mistake). AlainLeBris 03:38, 20 June 2021 (EDT)

Author record no longer exists, so can't update. MagicUnk 12:33, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Raphael => Raphaël

The canonical first name for this author should be changed to Raphaël. AlainLeBris 05:14, 20 June 2021 (EDT)

Are you sure the artist's name is printed as Raphaël, and not Raphael on or in the publications in question (because that's what we record as canonical name)? Can you clarify the source of your request? Thanks! MagicUnk 12:35, 22 June 2021 (EDT)

Yes I'm sure (if not I wouldn't have made this request), it's "Raphaël" on this pub, as the guy's a Frenchman, the "Raphaël" spelling is perfectly logical. AlainLeBris 02:21, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Updated. MagicUnk 13:20, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

I Apologize, Part 5

Ever have one of those projects? Somehow an easy listing like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #332 has turned into a mess, bleeding into this listing. I hope I got it straightened out now, and I apologize for the trouble. MLB 13:27, 21 June 2021 (EDT)

Gerard => Gérard

The first name of this artist should be changed from Gerard to Gérard (see here.AlainLeBris 02:24, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Updated. MagicUnk 13:27, 23 June 2021 (EDT)

Stormqueen!

Cover of this has an image with a £1.50 price printed on the back - which should be the cover for the previous edition with the correct £1.50 price. --Mavmaramis 07:37, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Interior Art

Hello, everyone. I haven't had much to do with art until now. In the first issues of Fangoria, there was a feature called "Fantasticart", about individual fantasy artists. Featured artists so far include Don Maitz, Carl Lundgren, Michael Hague, and Dennis Anderson. Sometimes it was the first publication of the art, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes the art appeared under a different title earlier or later. For example, "Check Out the Sunset" by Don Maitz was a <a href=http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?556805>book cover</a>, before being published under its original title. For another example, "Lady and her Pet" was first published in Fangoria #1, before becoming a book cover in 1982. Does that make the appearance in Fangoria the parent? How do I connect each illustration to other appearances? Thanks.--Rosab618 14:45, 25 June 2021 (EDT)

Can anyone help?--Rosab618 12:27, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

Answered at ISFDB:Help desk#Interior Art. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

Katherine McLean Missing Man

Hello. Could anyone tell me about this book. This Orbit edition doesn't appear in the listing so I have no clue what the ISBN is and the internet is no help. --Mavmaramis 06:01, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

Well, with no other information (ISBN, year etc.) it's hard to tell if this edition was published at all. Note also that the price is for the art, not for the book (for me, it looks like a work done by Chris Foss). Christian Stonecreek 13:17, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

A Google image search returns no others results. That would give credence that it was never published. Otherwise it would likely have shown up on some book sellers site. As for the artist, Colin Hay and Chris Foss have some covers with very similar styles. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:34, 26 June 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. The book is on Colin Hay's website so the artwork is by him. --Mavmaramis 12:12, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

MrCee

I recently was looking something up and noticed that MrCee has not been an active editor since 2013. Shouldn't one of those non-active banners be put on his page? MLB 13:26, 27 June 2021 (EDT)

H. R. F. Keating

This author's entry here is missing two publcations.
A Long Walk to Wimbledon, Macmillan, 1979. review
The String Man, Heinemann, 1971.
Both these books listed in Clute/Nicholls --Mavmaramis 00:50, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

Headscratcher

So I come across a book on Amazon called "New Territories of the Imagination" illustrated by Jurgen Ziewe here. Listing has ISBN as 1850284075 which is the ISBN of this book. Internet book listings for the Ziewe book also has the ISBN as 1850284075. Ziewie isn't on ISFDB nor is the book which is why, when I ordered it, I got the Garlands book instead. Not entirely sure writing to the successor of Paper Tiger will be helpful. Any detectives out there who own a copy or know the correct ISBN ? --Mavmaramis 12:30, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

https://www.amazon.com/New-Territories-Nigel-Suckling/dp/0879518111. --Username 13:04, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

Harlan Ellison's Ghost

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?529361; info from sf-encyclopedia.com: "His name, along with those of Arthur Byron Cover and Martin Harry Greenberg, was associated with a purported 1987 anthology from St Martin's Press titled «Best of the New Wave» or «Harlan Ellison Presents the Best of the New Wave»; this, though allotted an ISBN, is a never-published ghost title." --Username 16:09, 28 June 2021 (EDT)

Updated! Thanks for catching that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:49, 30 June 2021 (EDT)

T(h)om(as) Baum

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1078420; I added cover to Thomas Baum record because it has more info, so I don't know if Tom Baum is needed anymore, but there is a note about Reginald1 in that record. --Username 10:55, 29 June 2021 (EDT)

7 or VII?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?153051; I was adding covers to Sidgwick & Jackson books and Lampton's book had none for that edition or Doubleday's; I added Doubleday but when I looked at Sidgwick I noticed the page count was entered oddly, and that "7" should probably be "vii", assuming it should be there at all, as old SF novels don't usually have prefatory material unless they were reprinted in a special edition with intro by the author or whatever. Having never seen PV's name before, I went to his page and read a long angry rant about why he doesn't participate anymore. So if anyone else thinks number should be changed to vii or deleted, or just left the way it is, it's there. --Username 14:14, 30 June 2021 (EDT)

Submission review pages centralized

The software behind our submission review pages, i.e. the Web pages where you can "Approve" or "Reject" a submission, has been consolidated. If you examine the displayed URL, it will always end with "/mod/submission_review.cgi?<submission number>" from now on. If you encounter any irregularities or unexpected behavior, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 20:23, 30 June 2021 (EDT)