User:Fixer/Public/Instructions

This page contains instructions for submitting ISBNs from the Fixer/Public page.

Process

Create two Wiki sub-pages of the User:Fixer/Public page. The first page will be your "work" page. It should use your user name as the sub-page name. For example, if your username is Test123, create sub-page User:Fixer/Public/Test123. The second page will be where you will keep the ISBNs that you rejected. It should be a sub-page of your "work" page, e.g. User:Fixer/Public/Test123/Rejected. Link to the "rejected" page from your "work" page.
Add a link to your newly created "work" page to the Editor Sub-pages section at the bottom of this Wiki page.
Copy the ISBNs that you want to work on (and their associated data) to the "work" page that you have just created.
Remove the copied ISBNs from the original Wiki page. This will ensure that another editor won't try to create duplicate submissions for the same ISBNs.
Research the ISBNs on your "work" page and create submissions for them.
Once your submissions have been approved, delete the processed data from your "work" page.
If you determine that some ISBNs were never published or are ineligible for inclusion in the ISFDB database as per ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition, move them from your "work" page to your "rejected" page. Add the reason for the rejection.
If you find that you don't have the time to work on the ISBNs on your "work" page, move them back to the Wiki pages which they were originally copied from. That way other editors will be able to take them over.

Adding Notes

Note that you can add notes to the main ISBN lists (e.g. "deferred until 2019"), but do not add new ISBNs to them. These lists are created via a semi-automated process which marks them as "to be processed manually" in Fixer's internal database. If you add an ISBN manually here, it won't be marked in Fixer's internal database and Fixer may try to create a duplicate submission.

General Issues with Fixer's records

For issues related to:

book eligibility
book existence
data quality

see Help:How to work with Records Built by Robots.

Avoiding Data Duplication

As explained in the "Avoiding Data Duplication" section of Help:How to work with Records Built by Robots, occasionally it turns out that a Fixer-built record is a duplicate of an existing publication record in the ISFDB. For this reason it's always best to check the ISFDB database first. If the record is already on file but is missing some of the data found by Fixer, create an Edit Publication submission and add the newly found data.

Choosing the Submission Type for New Books

If the ISFDB doesn't have other editions of the same book, use New Publication. If the ISFDB already has at least one other publication of the book:

Novels: You can use either AddPub or ClonePub. ClonePub is preferred if the new record includes the same Contents titles or cover artist(s) as the one already on file.
Chapbooks, collections, omnibus, anthologies, magazines and fanzines: Use ClonePub. If the existing publication doesn't have Contents titles, it's best to add them to the existing publication first, wait for the submission to be approved and then clone. Make sure the Contents titles use the first date of their publication.

Publication and Title Dates

If the ISFDB has other editions of the book on file and the date of the newly identified publication is earlier than the date of the title record, make sure to update the title date.

ASINs

For ebooks, make sure to add the ASIN to the record.

Multiple Publications for the Same Title

When processing multiple Fixer records for the same book, it is best to create one submission, wait for approval and then clone the new publication record. Submit the publication with the earliest publication date first.

Submitting Other Editions

If you have identified other editions of a book found by Fixer, you can create additional submissions.

Submissions for editions without an ISBN -- either from the pre-ISBN era or ebooks without ISBNs -- have to be created manually. For books with ISBNs, you can post a request on User Talk:Fixer to create preliminary Fixer-built records for the identified ISBNs. Note that it's more efficient to post a single request for a list of ISBNs instead of multiple requests for individual ISBNs.

Adding External Identifiers

If you have found external identifiers (OCLC, LCCN, DNB, etc) for a Fixer record, you can add them to the submission. However, make sure that the identifiers match the publication being submitted.