User talk:Biggewarner

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Welcome!

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

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Mhhutchins 23:29, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Russell's The Prince of Darkness

Your submission to add a record for this title was accepted, but several changes had to be made in order for it to comply with ISFDB standards. Those are explained in the links of the Welcome section at the top of this page. If you have any further questions, please ask them on the ISFDB:Help_desk. These are the changes that were made:

  1. Publisher changed to "Sphere", which is the ISFDB designation for the publisher
  2. Binding was changed from "Book" to "pb", which is what we call softcover books that are 18 cm or less
  3. The "#" was added to the catalog number, which we do in this field to distinguish catalog numbers from ISBNs
  4. There can only be one price in the Price field. If there is more than one price stated in the book, record the additional ones in the "Note" field.
  5. You should use standard English capitalization for titles, which omits the capitalization of certain small words like "a", "and", "of", and "the". (Other words are listed on the Help page for record entry. Bookmark this page if you plan to continue adding records to the database.)

Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 23:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I forgot to add: you must give the source for your data in the "Note" field of the record. Unless you're working from a book-in-hand, in which case you say that in the "Note to Moderator" field. Once the record is in the database, you should go back to it, and do a Primary Verification of the record (instructions in the Welcome section above.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Further research has shown that there is an ISBN stated in this pub: 0-7221-7548-5. I've replaced the catalog number with this number. I've also placed a link to the OCLC record in the Note field which confirms much of the data in the record. Mhhutchins 23:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

A question: I was unable to find any reference to the story you entered as "The Exploits". Could this be the group title for two stories "The Black Elixir" and "The Long Night"? If so on which page does each story begin? Thanks for checking. To respond to this message, click on the "[edit]" link to the right, type in your message at the bottom of the dialog box that opens. At the end enter four tildes (~~~~) which sign and date the message, and then click the button "Save Page". You must be logged-in to the ISFDB wiki, using the same user name and password which you used to log in to the database. Mhhutchins 00:04, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

"The Black Elixir" and "The Long Night" are both contained under the title "The Exploits Of Argo". "The Black Elixir" begins on page 17 and "The Long Night" begins on page 18. Biggewarner 00:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I actually just realized I had listed that story as "The Exploits". The correct title is "The Exploits of Argo". I'm not sure if I can change the listing myself, but it should be corrected. Biggewarner 04:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I have corrected the title, just needs to be approved. However I don't know the proper way of listing the details regarding "Black Elixir" and "Long Night" and so I will leave that to you, if any info does in fact need to be changed. Biggewarner 04:23, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
The ISFDB doesn't handle group titles very elegantly. I'll have to remove it and create content records for each of the two stories. BTW, you should enter a colon (:) before the start of each response, adding one to the number of the previous response. This will indent it and make it easier to read the "conversation". Thanks for responding. I'm happy to see you found your user talk page. Sometimes it takes months for a new editor to find it (and sometimes never, especially when they don't provide an email address for us to contact them.) Thanks again. Mhhutchins 04:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Kersh's Sad Road to the Sea

I'm holding the submission to add a record for this collection to the database, because I'm uncertain of the genre of these stories. If they are not speculative fiction, the collection is not eligible for the database. If you've read the stories, please let me know why there should be a record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Further research has shown that most major references for SF literature do not include this Kersh collection. Reginald, Tuck, and Contento all fail to list it. There may be a few spec-fic stories in the collection, but not enough for it to qualify as a sf publication. I'll hold the submission until you can respond to this message. Mhhutchins 00:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that. There are certain stories containing sf material and/or horror material, but counted as a whole I suppose it can't really be considered a collection of science-fiction stories. Sorry my mistake. Biggewarner 00:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
The only reason I added this collection is because I saw that "The Horrible Dummy and Other Stories" is included, and in my opinion both these collections contain about the same amount of SF stories. Biggewarner 00:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I'll look into that collection and see about removing any non-spec-fic stories from the db. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Mhhutchins 04:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

All Souls’ Night

I changed the publisher from 'Macmillian And Co.' to 'Macmillan and Co.' (suspecting two typos): if this was a mistake, please resubmit.

And you don't have to state 'Physical copy of book on-hand' in the notes, so I deleted that part: please just primary verify the publication - that way you'll be informed about changes or additions to the book (or put that statement into the 'Note to the moderator').

Thanks for the submission, anyway! Stonecreek 09:51, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, my mistake regarding the publisher. Just a quick question: I was told to include the source of my info for new entries, and if I had a book myself, to include that information in the "Notes To The Moderator" section. So should I have said I had my own copy in that section instead of in "Notes", or is it not required that I give that information anywhere? Thanks. Biggewarner 16:35, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Enter data about the book in the "Note" field. Enter data about the submission in the "Note to Moderator". The distinction is not that subtle. For example, your letting us know you have the book (in the "Note to Moderator" field) relieves the moderator of the duty of having to research your data. Users don't need to know you have the book, but doing a Primary Verification of the record tells users that the data is from the primary source (the book itself). If you do not have the book, you will tell the moderator (and every user who looks at the record) the source of your data in order for them to determine the integrity of your data. Mhhutchins 03:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
I wonder if you can tell me - Why don't the corresponding titles from "All Souls' Night" match with their counterparts from "Tarnhelm: Best Supernatural etc."? What I mean is, the story "The Little Ghost" is one of the stories that both collections share, however they seem to be counted as different stories. Must they be identical in every way in order to be counted as the same? Do they both need to be counted as short stories instead of novelettes, and do they both need to have the same date of publication? Biggewarner 16:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Also, I'm really having trouble with this indenting business. I thought that for my second response, I put two semicolons before my first words, and for my third response, three semicolons, and so-on. But that doesn't seem to be doing it. Biggewarner 16:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Colons, not semi-colons. And you only need to increase indentation when you're responding to a paragraph. BLongley 19:54, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
To answer your question: when a title is entered into the database using the "new" function (i.e. "Add New Novel", "Add New Collection") the system considers each title (the title of the publication and the title of any contents) as a new title. It is then necessary for the editor to manually merge the "new" title with any matching title that already exists in the database. This can be avoided if there is another publication record in the database with the same contents. You could "clone" the record and the content titles would be automatically merged. There are some other ways to avoid this as well (e.g. importing contents) but that's somewhat advanced for new editors. The first step is to learn how to merge titles. On this help page are links to the most common editing tasks. It would be a good idea to bookmark this page if you plan to continue adding new records and updating existing database records. On that list is the task How to merge titles. In this situation go to the author's summary page here, and click on the link "Check for Duplicate Titles" under the Editing Tools menu. On the next page you'll find records that have identically matching titles, but they may not necessarily be the same work. Beside each matching set of titles there are checkboxes under the "Merge" column. Check the boxes of the works that are identical and click on "Merge Selected Titles". (You can only merge one set at a time.) There may be discrepancies between the two works which will have to be reconciled. The dates may be different, the length may differ, or any number of fields may differ as well. Once the differences are reconciled, submit the merge and a moderator will determine if these two records should be merged. Mhhutchins 02:08, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Russell's The Book of Hell

I accepted the submission adding this record to the database, but have a few questions. Sphere is a UK publisher, but you give the price in Australia dollars (which should be entered as "A$3.95"). Was there no UK price printed on the book? You gave in the synopsis field that there are four stories and one play. Which one is a play? Only short stories give a designated length: ss, nt, nv. Other forms of short fiction should be left as "unlengthed". Also, something you'll learn if you continue contributing: all generically titled works should be disambiguated to avoid accidental merges of identically titled records. We parenthetically add the title of the container (the collection, anthology, novel) to the title of the generic work. In this pub, the foreword should be titled "Foreword (The Book of Hell)". I await your response and the update to fix the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:32, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Research shows that "Dorian Black" is an unfilmed screenplay. I've removed the "novella" designation that you gave it and added a note to the title record. Mhhutchins 03:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I gave the Australian price because I didn't know how to enter the symbol for "pound". Stupid, I know, but I'm not really an editor, just a bibliophile. I didn't know whether or not it mattered which country's currency was used. So I'm sorry for all the mistakes, I'm unfamiliar with pretty much everything here. I have been reading the guidelines and help-pages so hopefully I won't need so much guidance in the future.
Anyway, the price is - 1.10 (pounds) - for UK. And yes, "Dorian Black" is the screenplay. Thanks for the info. Biggewarner 03:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
No one expects new editors to come on knowing everything about data entry. It's something you'll gradually learn. The more you enter, the faster you'll learn. So don't beat yourself up for the little things. I can assure you that there are still editors who don't know how to enter the symbol for the British pound. BTW, it can be entered by holding the ALT key and entering 0163 on the number keypad (the set of number keys on the right side of most keyboards, don't use the numbers at the top of the keyboard). I'll correct the field and add the Australian price in the Note field. This is where you add all the other prices that are printed on the book. Please do a primary verification of the record when you get a chance. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
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