User talk:Fixer/Archive/2014

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Requests

Hi Fixer! Nice improvements lately! Two requests, one of which might not be so easy:

  • Samhain Publishing, Ltd. -> Samhain Publishing, if you'd be so kind. --MartyD 15:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
"Child's play!", says Fixer. Ahasuerus 18:02, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
  • There was a "Kindle Worlds"-published ebook that came through with no price and no B&N reference (in the new batch). Amazon did have a perfectly good $1.99, though. I'm wondering if it might be best to grab Amazon's price and stomp it with B&N's if available, rather than relying on B&N as the sole supplier (if that's what happened, of course).

Thank you for your indulgent consideration. Keep up the good work. --MartyD 15:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

This, OTOH, is somewhat problematic -- see my latest post on the Rules page about the preferred order of "list price" checks. In this case there is an added twist: "Kindle Worlds" is presumably an Amazon imprint, so there is no "list price" per se (nor is it listed by Amazon) and the edition is not available elsewhere. Thus the latest version of the "look-up hierarchy" should look something like:
  • the Amazon API
  • Amazon's "list price", if displayed
  • B&N's "list price", if displayed (which it invariably is for B&N-listed ebooks)
  • Amazon's "Kindle price" -- make sure to document the fact that it's not a "list price" in Notes
Although undoubtedly doable, this raises certain "real-time lookups" vs. "nightly processing" issues (which already exist with the current implementation), but I'll chat with Fixer and we'll see what we can do... Ahasuerus 18:02, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
Not a big deal, and probably a rare occurrence. I just noticed the missing price, went to the details, and saw it there for $1.99, which looked "normal" enough, so I added it. I go look at the details anyway, so hardly any extra effort was involved. Figured I'd mention it while noticing. --MartyD 20:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Gateway

A couple of pubs in the recent batch came through having "Gateway" as publisher. Look Inside shows a Gateway logo over www.sfgateway.com, which reveals this to be an imprint of Orion, matching our existing "Gateway / Orion". I don't know if that's too subtle to have come out right, but I figured I'd mention it. Thanks. --MartyD 13:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I saw it the other night, but I was too tired to do anything about it. The catch is that "SF Gateway" is, as its Web site explains, "an initiative of the Orion Publishing Group, home to the UK's oldest science fiction publisher, Gollancz" and there is some ambiguity as to whether its books have always been published as by "Gateway / Orion" or as by "Gateway / Gollancz". For example, to quote our Notes re: "SF Gateway Omnibus", "Based on Amazon UK's publication data, it would appear that this publication series moved from Gollancz to Gateway/Orion, a related imprint, as of January 2014. Further confirmation is needed."
For now, I will go ahead and change Fixer's logic to submit all "Gateway" books as "Gateway / Orion". Ahasuerus 15:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Kindle price discrepancy

According to the Amazon listing, the ebook for The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything by McDonald is priced at $9.99, not the $11.99 as shown in the submission. How do we resolve this? Mhhutchins 03:28, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

There's a dollar difference in this submission as well. Mhhutchins 03:30, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

And 99 cents difference in this one. To be honest, I'm just about ready to give up on entering any ebook records. There's nothing definitive about this format. Almost every field we're entering and verifying could change tomorrow without any notice whatever. I'm beginning to ask what's the point of giving any information at all other than that there was an ebook edition of this title. Now go and figure out the publisher, price, and ISBN on your own. Mhhutchins 03:34, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The discrepancy is due to the fact that B&N always shows the list price (even if it offers a discount) while 9 times out of 10 Amazon simply says "Kindle price" without specifying the list price. That's why I had to enhance Fixer to get B&N's prices for ebooks rather than use Amazon. It took forever and a day, but we finally have them :) Ahasuerus 03:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Aha! That makes sense. Still we're assuming that the B&N stated list price is the publisher's list price for the title, and not for the Nook edition. Mhhutchins 03:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I was concerned about that as well. However, after checking half a dozen publisher sites, I couldn't find a single case where B&N's "list price" would be different. And, of course, we specify the source of the price data in the Note field as our second line of defense. Ahasuerus 04:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
And it seems odd that we're using Amazon and the Kindle version as the source of the other data even giving its ASIN and ignoring B&N's catalog number. Oh well...just another reason to hate ebooks even more. Mhhutchins 03:43, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Doesn't B&N use ISBN-13s as catalog IDs (when available)? The only reason we note ASINs for e-books is that Amazon makes it hard(er) to look them up by ISBN-13. Ahasuerus 04:04, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I see that B&N uses "work IDs" in their URLs. However, I don't think they are displayed anywhere else. Ahasuerus 04:23, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
B&N is more likely to use the publisher's ISBN than Amazon for ebooks, but I've seen many cases in which they only give a BN ID in place of the ISBN. Perhaps because the publisher hasn't assign an ISBN? Mhhutchins 07:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Oh right, I remember it now. Sorry, memory is the second thing to go... Ahasuerus 14:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
In any case, I applaud your effort to make sense of ebooks and in finding the best source for the various data fields. Mhhutchins 07:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I do what I can :) The next step would be to find a reliable source of price data for UK e-books. At one point I identified a few candidates, but they all had their problems. Ahasuerus 14:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Harper Voyager (UK)

Is it possible to program Fixer to give the publisher as "Harper Voyager (UK)" for all records attributed to "Harper Voyager" with ISBNs starting with "978-0-00-"? Titles are published separately within each region (some titles published by the UK division are published by another publisher in the US, and vice versa.) I try to keep my eye on them, but sometimes I forget and get a backlog of records that have to be fixed. Tonight I repaired a half-dozen or so before I thought to ask if this could be done before the records get into the database. Look at the records listed here to see how there's an obvious separation between the US and UK division. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:04, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

The easiest thing to do would be to change the submission logic to use "Harper Voyager (UK)" when submitting a UK-originated ISBN. Would that take care of the problem? Ahasuerus 06:16, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
It would take care of more than 90% of the problem. Occasionally I'v seen records for US editions that got their information from Amazon.co.uk with the odd UK prices, e.g. £16.07, which were available in the UK as imports. Those I can manually fix if you change the logic to what you suggest. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:54, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, the "wrong side of the Atlantic" problem! :-) Actually, it's two separate problems for the price of one:
  • Sometimes, when an ISBN is canceled by the publisher, Amazon removes the record from the primary store but not from the other (UK, .ca, .fr, .de, etc) stores. When this happens, an "odd" price like £16.07 is a good indication that the ISBN has been canceled.
  • There is an apparent bug in the Amazon.com API (i.e. the interface used by Fixer) which is not present in the Amazon UK API. For regular "dead wood" books, ISBNs and ASINs are the same, so in theory you should be able to query the Amazon API for "asin=0860078035" or "isbn=0860078035" and get the same results either way. However, in at least 1% of all cases Amazon.com doesn't return anything in response to the "isbn=0860078035" form of the query. Amazon UK, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have this problem, so all that Fixer gets back is the UK record with the UK price. A few days ago I figured out what was happening, so I changed Fixer's logic to use ASINs for paper books and it appears to have solved the problem.
Anyway, I have adjusted Fixer's logic as per the discussion above, which should hopefully take care of this issue. Ahasuerus 17:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Gateway / Orion

Is it possible to prioritize the Fixer queue to give preference to the ebooks published over the past few years by Orion under their Gateway imprint. I've entered Michael Bishop's publications, and I see that Fixer has added E. C. Tubb's dozens of titles. But there are tons of classic SF works being reprinted under this program, and they seem, at least to me, to be more important than the recent Fixer submissions adding recent ebook publications. Of course, new readers of new works by new authors would disagree with that! I'd be willing to moderate them (as I've done since you've added ebooks to Fixer's queue.) If you're not able to do this, I'd understand. Mhhutchins 17:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It's certainly possible, but Fixer is still working on procuring UK prices from Pickabook and Amazon UK. I expect that the process will finish in mid-April, at which point processing UK-originated ebooks will become easier.
BTW, speaking of E. C. Tubb, we may still be missing a few of his "recent" books. Wikipedia lists a number of "trunk" titles which appeared in the 1990s/2000s. They also list a few recent reprints which appeared under different titles, sometimes in revised form. Ahasuerus 17:56, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
If I were interested at all in Tubb's work, I'd jump on that, but right now, I'll leave that to someone who is more interested in seeing that his ISFDB bibliography is complete and up-to-date. BTW, if the prices for the Gateway releases aren't available in April, I'd be willing to get them from the publisher's website, which is very good at providing data. As long as Fixer can get the main information, I can do the rest. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:01, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Hm, I am seeing "E-Book £P.O.R" ("price on request") in the price field, e.g. Tide of Death and Hell's Pavement. Have you had better luck? Ahasuerus 18:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
That's something new! It wasn't there when I was entering the Bishop ebooks using data from Orion's website. I know that most of these ebooks are region-protected, so they can't be sold outside of the UK. Could they be using our ISP address to detect our location and not allowing us to see the list price of these ebooks? Mhhutchins 20:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Sure, it's possible. These pages are dynamically generated and the generation process can easily say "If your IP address indicates that you live in a different region, we won't sell you this item or show a different price or ...". I guess we can ask our UK- and continental Europe-based editors to check. Ahasuerus 20:47, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I've noticed I see "P.O.R." wherever I am, in the UK or elsewhere. At the Orion/Gateway site if you click on a title's "Buy" button you get three options: Apple's iBooks, Amazon's Kindle, or other devices, and your browser then gets sent to one of those choices which often have different prices (Amazon's are often discounted). In February while in the UK I went through this process when adding Delany's The Einstein Intersection, and in this case sourced the rather more reliable price from iBooks. PeteYoung 23:30, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
When I click on "Buy" on the Orion website, and choose Amazon, I get the message "Kindle titles for your country are not available at Amazon.co.uk. Please shop for Kindle titles at Amazon.com." But when I choose Apple, I'm sent to the iTunes store where it gives me a price. Now whether I can buy it is another matter. Mhhutchins 23:53, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Let's try a random Tubb title and see where the links take us:
So it looks like Google Play is the only one that is misleading in this case and everyone else agrees that the price is £1.99. I'll check The Einstein Intersection next... Ahasuerus 00:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
The Einstein Intersection, ISBN 9780575119185:
So it looks like Waterstones, WH Smith, txtr, and ReaderStore/Sony may be viable sources. Ahasuerus 00:30, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

(unindent) If you are in the US and have chosen to view a title on Amazon or iBooks/iTunes or Barnes & Noble, do you see your price displayed in dollars, ie. the currency of your billing account at Amazon or Apple or Barnes & Noble (assuming you are logged in)? PeteYoung 00:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I have seen it done by some UK-based Web sites, but I am not sure Amazon.com and B&N let you specify your preferred currency. Perhaps they always display the price in dollars and let banks/credit cards figure out what the current exchange rate it? Ahasuerus 01:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

This would be a streamlining of the buying process, as a UK currency price is redundant to a US buyer and vice versa. This would explain better the "£P.O.R." at the Gateway/Orion site, because you are not actually buying the e-book from the Gateway/Orion website itself. PeteYoung 00:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

It's possible, but there may be another reason as well. If the price at WH Smith is £2.99 while the Amazon UK price is £2.48 (and can change at any time), perhaps the publisher finds it more prudent not to display the list price to avoid confusing potential customers? Ahasuerus 01:47, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

(Which further raises the question, is there an actual fixed currency or price attached to an e-book when marketed this way?) PeteYoung 00:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

It would appear that ebooks do have "list prices" -- or at least Amazon.com/B&N/Amazon UK recognize their existence -- but for some reason Amazon doesn't display them alongside their discounted prices. Which is strange because they make it a point to show list prices for paper book in order to demonstrate how much money you save by shopping at Amazon. "List price $16.99, our price $10.49, you save $6.50 or over 38% of the list price!" Ahasuerus 01:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Where we display a price for Gateway/Orion's E.C. Tubb e-books (and the majority have none), most are listed in US dollars (e.g.), and only one I can find is in UK pounds. Now that Gateway are not actually listing a price at their website, this raises the question of should we have a default currency for Gateway's titles in this situation, or are we comfortable with the rather inexact variety? Personally, I think there may be room for improvement. PeteYoung 00:59, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

The Tubb ebooks which are in priced US dollars were price-sourced from B&N. They are among those titles which are available in both the US and the UK. In these cases, if we can determine the UK retail price, I think that it should supersede the B&N price because Gateway is a UK imprint (even though Orion has a US-based division, it hasn't used the Gateway imprint in the US). The B&N price can then be added to the Note field. This will then inform the database user that this publication was available in both the US and the UK. This follows the current convention of providing the Canadian price in the Note field for publications from US publishers when the book was also sold in Canada. Mhhutchins 01:52, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Series data in titles

Is it possible to have Fixer remove the parenthetical series data in the title fields of the records that it gets from Amazon? It obviously knows the correct title, otherwise it wouldn't be able to use the "Add Pub to This Title" function when creating these records. In most cases, I go back and remove it from the title field of the pub record, but it really slows me down. I guess I could just let it go, but my OCD just won't let me. :) Mhhutchins 01:39, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Sure, it's possible to have Fixer remove the parenthetical series data and I agree that it would help speed up the approval process, but there are times when this information can be valuable. For example, consider the submission which you currently have on hold, The One Safe Place: Free Preview - The First 6 Chapters plus Bonus Material. If "Free Preview - The First 6 Chapters plus Bonus Material" had been in parentheses and if Fixer had removed it, there would have been no easy way of telling that there was anything unusual about this title. In addition, there are times when our pre-existing record has no series information and Fixer's data raises a red flag. Also, just earlier today I noticed that one of Fixer's AddPubs had a different series name in parentheses vis a vis what we had on file. A little digging revealed that the series name had been changed when the books were re-issued.
So the question then is to strip or not to strip? :) Ahasuerus 02:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
BTW, keep in mind that although Fixer is pretty good at finding the right title record when deciding whether an ISBN should be submitted as a NewPub or an AddPub, he is not perfect. For example, he originally submitted My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: The SeaQuel as an AddPub linked to My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish. It happens at least a dozen times per submission cycle and it's something that I always check when handling AddPubs. Ahasuerus 02:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I'd already praised Fixer's matching ability (see below), well before you made this response. The question remains: does the benefit of removing parenthetical series data outweigh the possibility of there being an occasional mismatch? I think it does. And as it's the moderator's duty to accept or reject these submissions, the human factor is an important part of uncovering these false matches. If that weren't true, don't you think it would just save time and effort to accept them without moderation? (That was rhetorical, because I'm sure you wouldn't.) BTW, in all of the cases you give as examples of what would have otherwise been a false match, none of them used parentheses to provide the data that proved them to be unique works. Mhhutchins 02:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I am afraid I wasn't very clear. I was making two separate points: one about the series data in parentheses and the other about Fixer's matching ability.
The first point was that the series data can be occasionally useful along the lines of "Hey, it looks like this title belongs to a series!" or "It would appear that the series name has been changed and we may need to expand our series record". Admittedly, these are fairly low probability/low added value scenarios, so I can see how the advantages of speeding up the approval process would outweigh the disadvantages of losing this additional data.
The second point was that Fixer's matching logic is not infallible, but I don't recall it failing in a way where the presence of parenthetical information would help identify the problem. Almost invariably, the problem is with colons and the way the publisher chooses to use them. Basically, Fixer expects the "Title: Series" format, so if the publisher uses the "Series: Title" format instead and if the name of the series is the same as the title of the first book in the series (which happens fairly often), Fixer assumes that he needs to associate the new pub with the title record of the first book in the series.
Anyway, Fixer is too modest to thank you for praising his matching ability in person, so I will do it for him :-) Ahasuerus 03:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I've not made my case so clear as well. First, these are all "AddPub" submissions. This means that Fixer has already matched the title field of the publication with the title field of a title record. It must have already decided that the parenthetical data is unnecessary because in practically every Fixer "AddPub" submission which I've handled, it has chosen to disregard it and matches to a title record which doesn't have the parenthetical data. If Fixer has already made the decision that these are clearly matches, wouldn't it logically follow that the data in the parentheses is no longer necessary to create a record for a publication under that title record? In the 24 Fixer submissions currently in the queue, 9 of them have parenthetical data in the title. Every one of them is series data, and every title record to which Fixer has added one of these pubs already contains series data that matches the parenthetical data. So that can't be used as a reason to retain the data. Maybe it's not a scientifically large enough study, but I think it goes to show that the saving of time and effort in not having to remove that data is well worth the chance that an occasional mismatch gets through. After all, when the time arrives for a future editor to do a primary verification of that record, if the parenthetical data remains in the pub's title field, the first thing he'll have to do is remove it. I understand that keeping the parenthetical data in "NewPub" submissions helps the moderator to place titles into series. But here we're talking about "AddPub" submissions. I rest my case. Mhhutchins 03:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
The scenario that I had in mind was an AddPub submission where the associated title record is currently not in a series, but should be and the parenthetical may help spot the fact that it's missing. Granted, it's not a common occurrence, but it's been known to happen. On balance, though, I think you are right -- it's so rare that the benefits of removing the "tail" outweigh the benefits of keeping it. Ahasuerus 04:42, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
How about a compromise of removing it if the matched title is in a series matching the parenthetical text? Amazon reports pub series information parenthetically, not just title series, and then it's useful to have. --MartyD 12:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, yes, publication series! That's a very good point, I forgot all about them. Ahasuerus 18:06, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I recommend always removing it from the title field, but recording it in the moderator notes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, that's one way to do it, but do approving moderators actually read Fixer's moderator notes? In most cases they are limited to an Amazon-provided list of subjects, which is all but useless when processing AddPubs. Ahasuerus 18:06, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

(unindent) How about the following approach: remove the parenthetical data if and only if it matches the name of the series associated with the main ("reference") title in the pub? Ahasuerus 00:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

That's a good start. I'd be all for it. Mhhutchins 05:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree it's a good start. Though given Amazon's propensity to add things like leading "The"s and trailing "Novel"s, I think quite a few are still going to show up. As for moderators not reading the notes, some aren't bothering with the information in the title either and are leaving them as submitted. I think it's likely moderator's who care will use it from either location and for those that don't care, having it in the title field only clutters the database. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
True, there are numerous permutations like ": A Broken Magic Novel", ": A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood", "(The Ghost Seer Series)", etc. I'll see if I can tweak Fixer's logic to identify and zap them. Ahasuerus 04:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Mismatched "Add Pub" and preview publications

Looking at this submission, I see that Fixer incorrectly matched this preview publication with the complete novel. This is exceedingly rare, as I've found Fixer matches to be accurate 99.99% of the time. So really no problem there.

My real concern is whether we should add such records to the database. These previews are probably more common than one might think. (Knowing next to nothing about ebooks, I can't swear to that.) I can see a similarity between them and those innocuous excepts stuck in the back of paperbacks to fill out the page count, and one could argue for including them because of their similarity. I see both as just cluttering an author's summary page with a lot of useless "data" (and I hate these excepts being placed into title series, but that's for another rant on another day!)

So should there be a discussion about this on the rules & standards page? Or would I just be wasting my time trying to fight off what me be inevitable? Mhhutchins 02:09, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I have been mulling this issue over for the last few weeks. For now, I am limiting Fixer's ebook submissions to AddPubs since they are easier to handle, but pretty soon I will start including NewPubs in the mix and this will become a bigger problem.
In general, we do enter cheap/free promotional books which contain the first few chapters of a novel, e.g. The First Part of Book One of The Wheel of Time. In the past there were very few books/series so popular that publishers found it cost-effective to do something like that, hence the effort to catalog them was trivial. However, the advent of ebooks changed the math dramatically and I have been seeing more and more of these "free previews" over the last couple of years, e.g. Reckless (Free Preview).
The thing that gives me pause is that although the number of "free previews" has grown, they seem to have plateaued at a manageable level. I suspect that publishers have found other marketing techniques -- like offering free e-novellas and short stories set in the same universe (or even the first novel in the series) for free -- to be more effective. If we could be sure that free previews were guaranteed to stay at the current manageable level, I would support including them. However, there is no way of telling what publishers may do next. If we start listing them and then publishers decide that free previews are cost-effective after all, we may be stuck with an unmanageable volume of submissions and that would be a Bad Thing (tm).
In other words, I think we need to have a broader discussion before we go one way or the other. Ahasuerus 02:48, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
I have copied this to start a discussion on the Rules and Standards page. Mhhutchins 16:40, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:07, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Strange prices on ebooks from HarperCollins UK

Since Amazon.co.uk wont' give me ebook prices, I'm just allowing these Fixer submissions to go through, even though they're rather odd. Mhhutchins 05:22, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Poking around I see that W. H. Smith, Waterstones.com, and txtr all agree with Pickabook that the price of "Erin Hunter"'s Twilight is £4.69, so Amazon UK's £3.75 is an outlier. But yes, some UK prices look rather strange. Perhaps something to do with their VAT system? As Amazon UK says, "Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT", which, as far as I can tell, is 20%. Ahasuerus 05:53, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
For this, it picked up £17.99 from Pickabook. Amazon has that as the "print list price", and Pickabook lists it as the price for the hardcover having a different ISBN. I changed it to Amazon's advertised £6.02, although that is stated to include VAT. Removing the VAT comes to an equally odd £5.02. (Apple has the iBook for £8.99). --MartyD 11:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
It got a similar wrong-edition price (£16.98) from Pickabook for this. I'm sure there will be more, I won't bother you with them. It looks like the problem comes when Pickabook does not actually have the book; then it's giving the hc list price, but apparently for reference and not as an item price. --MartyD 11:12, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
Ouch! It looks like Pickabook is not as reliable as I thought :-( Checking W. H. Smith, Waterstones.com and Sony's readerstore, I see that they list Dark Wolf at £8.99. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Thanks for identifying the problem! Ahasuerus 15:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The Queen of Zamba

The submission I have on hold came through as a New Pub instead of as an Add Pub to The Queen of Zamba. Not a big deal, but I thought you might want to look at it before anything happened to it. --MartyD 02:39, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I suspect it's because there are two identical titles in the db by the same author, one a NOVEL and the other a COLLECTION, and Fixer wisely chose to let a human make the decision about which one the new title should be merged with. Mhhutchins 03:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Looking inside the ebook, it includes the novella "Perpetual Motion" so it should be merged with the COLLECTION title. Mhhutchins 03:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly it! Fixer can be surprisingly cautious for a five-year-old :-) Parenthetically, I have been trying to limit Fixer's Gateway submissions to AddPubs for now, but The Queen of Zamba slipped through the cracks. Ahasuerus 03:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
There's been several more, which I've merged with the correct title. This one, for example, for the same reason as above. As long as the moderator is alert, there should be no problem with NewPubs. In any case, they're all going very well. Mhhutchins 04:32, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, I was half-alert, anyway. Missed that. Thanks, and yes, they've been very good. --MartyD 10:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
No, you were on very high alert. :) Someone less alert would have accepted the submission without question, leaving a dangling duplicate title record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Vintage Books v. Vintage (UK)

Is it possible to train Fixer to enter books published in the UK as "Vintage (UK)"? Their ISBNs start with 978-0-09, while the US publisher ("Vintage Books") has ISBNs starting with 978-0-307, and 978-0-345 (and one oddball: 978-0-8041). Thanks if you can. Mhhutchins 00:56, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Fixer tries to stay away from ISBN-based rules because ISBN ranges can be tricky and somewhat unpredictable, but I have changed the logic to use "Vintage (UK)" for UK-originated books. Ahasuerus 02:07, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Works for me. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:09, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Could Fixer Change These Publishers.

Could Fixer change these publishers -

  • Momentum to Momentum / Pan Macmillan Australia,
  • Golden Apple, Wallasey to Golden Apple

--Chris J 23:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Done! Ahasuerus 01:19, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I encountered the following publishers that had to be tweaked from Fixer's submissions:
  • Mirador instead of Mirador Publishing
  • Magnetic Lion Productions Ltd instead of Magnetic Lion Productions
  • Rocket Science Productions instead of Rocket Science Productions, LLC
  • Holly Lisle: OneMoreWord Books instead of Holly Lisle
  • Agency Editions, Inc. instead of Agency Editions
  • Bedlam Press (An Imprint of Necro Publications) instead of Bedlam Press
Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 02:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
All done, thanks! Ahasuerus 19:02, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Two more
  • Dancing Lemur Press LLC instead of Dancing Lemur Press
  • Kiersten Fay Productions instead of Kiersten Fay (though perhaps the unknown name one is a better as publisher name?)
Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 00:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Done! Ahasuerus 01:14, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
And one last one for tonight.
  • Rowohlt Verlag instead of Rowohlt
Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 02:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Done, thanks! Ahasuerus 02:31, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Two more
  • Gallery Books/Karen Hunter Publishing instead of Gallery Books / Karen Hunter Publishing
  • Janus Publishing instead of Janus Publishing Co
Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 02:15, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Done + folded "Janus Publishing Co" into "Janus Publishing Company". Ahasuerus 02:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Actually "Gallery Books / Karen Hunter Publishing" is incorrect. Based on ISFDB standards this would indicate that Gallery Books is an imprint of Karen Hunter. Not true (it's a division of Simon & Schuster.) Use the "Look Inside" of this Amazon listing and you'll see this was published as a joint venture between the two companies. So it should be entered as "Gallery Books & Karen Hunter Publishing". Mhhutchins 03:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I've no objection. I was only noting what we already had vs what Fixer submitted. A side question is whether Karen Hunter Publishing alone should be folded in. We have one publication under that publisher with a 2008 date. However, Amazon has that book as forthcoming next year under the "Gallery Books/Karen Hunter Publishing". However Amazon looks like they've got a copy available in their marketplace and our date appears to be from Worldcat which lists Karen Hunter only. I'm inclined to stick with the Worldcat record and leave the publisher as already indicated. Regardless, I'll link and do the Worldcat verification. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 14:08, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
I agree, That single pub record should remain as just "Karen Hunter Publishing" since it doesn't appear to show Gallery or any other publisher at all, according to all of the secondary sources. I've changed the name of the publisher of the jointly published works to "Gallery Books & Karen Hunter Publishing". Mhhutchins 14:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I have adjusted Fixer's logic accordingly. There is an FR to allow associating multiple publishers with one pub, but until then... Ahasuerus 21:55, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
One more
  • Sarah Crichton Books instead of Sarah Crichton Books / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Thanks --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 14:08, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Done. Ahasuerus 21:55, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Another publisher change request for Fixer

Although the Amazon listings give the publisher as "Walker Childrens" and Fixer changes that to Walker Books for Young Readers, the actual publisher is Walker Books / Bloomsbury USA which is the ISFDB designation for the imprint which was created when the US division of Bloomsbury bought Walker & Co. in 2012. It continues to use the ISBN range 978-0-8027-XXXX-X from the Walker & Co. years. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:19, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

One other request: could Fixer enter books from Putnam as G. P. Putnam's Sons? Although some editors continue to use "Putnam" because of the shortened name appears on spines, the publisher name given on title pages is always G. P. Putnam's Sons. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Done and done. Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Faber and Faber

Three that should be coming through as Faber and Faber:

  • Faber & Faber Fiction
  • Faber Finds - We've got it as a pub series, which matches what I see on look inside. I've seen Fixer submit other pub series, but not sure of how the logic works.
  • Faber & Faber Children's Books

Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:30, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

All done, thanks. And yes, Fixer can populate the Publication Series field based on titles, publishers, etc. Ahasuerus 18:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Strange submission in the queue

Check it out. Mhhutchins 04:56, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Wow! I didn't know Fixer did hard drugs! :-) Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 05:00, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
OK, the display problem has been fixed. The underlying problem was due to the fact that Fixer's database had title record 1257324 on file. Fixer specified 1257324 as the title record to merge this pub to, but in the meantime 1257324 had been merged with another title, so the resulting submission was invalid. I'll go ahead and enter the e-book's data manually since I can see the body of the "bad" submission using the database viewer. Fun stuff! :-) Ahasuerus 05:21, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

NYR Children's Collection

Not sure how often this one occurs, but Amazon's "NYR Children's Collection" should be entered as a publisher of "New York Review of Books" with a pub series of "New York Review Children's Collection". -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:02, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Done -- Fixer was aware of "NYRB Children's Collection", but didn't know about "NYR Children's Collection" :) Ahasuerus 16:02, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

My Little Pony

Re this submission: Do we really need to go there? Mhhutchins 02:02, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I know very little about the My Little Pony universe, but according to Wikipedia the TV series is about "the land of Equestria, populated by varieties of ponies (including variants of Pegasus and unicorn), along with numbers of other sentient and non-sentient creatures ... more adventurous stories involving creatures like dragons and hydras". Dragons, unicorns, Pegasi and hydras put it fairly solidly in the fantasy territory, which is presumably why we have nine My Little Ponies books listed. Would you agree? Ahasuerus 04:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
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