User talk:Fixer/Archive/2014-2018
Missed work by a major sf author from a major publisher
James Morrow's Galapagos Regained. Maybe because Amazon categorized it as "Books > Travel > South America > Ecuador & Galapagos Islands". Don't you just love computer software? (Sorry don't mean to make fun of your cousin, Fixer.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mhhutchins (talk • contribs) .
- Admittedly, Fixer's coverage of Ecuador & Galapagos Islands is sadly lacking :-( It's not all bad news, though. Amazon's employees occasionally go back and add SF subjects to recent(ish) books, at which point Fixer adds newly-SFalized ISBNs to one of his queues. Ahasuerus 00:56, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Chapbook
Hello, I've moderated quite a lot of submissions that were typed NOVEL but were in fact CHAPBOOKS (I accepted each sub, changed it to CHAPBOOK, added the corresponding fiction content and then merged it with the already existing SHORTFICTION record). It was a batch of titles released by ChiZine (Shearman, DiFillipo, Tremblay, Heuler, etc.) that were a kind of piecemeal divison of their previous COLLECTIONs. Is it eventually possible to automatize this process as the given length (generally less than 50 pages) put clearly the fiction content in the short story category? Hauck 10:01, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
- It's been on my list of things to do for some time. CHAPBOOKs seem to be getting popular these days because e-books have made them feasible, so let me see if I can adjust Fixer real quick. (Of course, it won't be perfect since COLLECTIONs, ANTHOLOGYs and NONFICTION can be very short.) Ahasuerus 16:17, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
- Nice. Thanks. Hauck 16:32, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
[The] Mysterious Press
Hi Fixer. I just came across a 2016 ebook submitted with publisher "Mysterious Press", when it should have been "The Mysterious Press" (a hardcopy edition picked up earlier was properly attributed). It looks to me like any recent pub should be "The Mysterious Press". Thanks, and keep up the good work. --MartyD 02:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- I hear and obey! (As per this note, "[The Mysterious Press] Formerly an imprint of Warner Books as "Mysterious Press", its name was acquired by Otto Penzler in 2011 (without the back titles) and became an imprint of Grove/Atlantic".) Fixer 14:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- Oddly, Fixer's response doesn't appear in "Recent Changes". Anti-robot discrimination! Ahasuerus 14:49, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- I have removed Fixer's "Bot" flag, which seems to be doing more harm than good, for now. Ahasuerus 14:50, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- The bot flag is designed for MediaWiki access, e.g., via the MediaWiki API (which we have at http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/api.php ). We could create another permission/flag for our own purposes with regard to the ISFDB web API (which seems to currently be secured by a hard coded user list and LicenseKey access). Uzume 18:28, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Parragon's new name
Parragon changed their name officially from "Parragon Book Service Ltd." to just Parragon awhile back. I just submitted a publisher change to reconnect the 5 books you added lately under the old name to all the books already filed under the new one. The Publisher record already explains the name change. So if you have a table somewhere for normalization, this one needs tweaking :) Annie 02:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
- Fixer says "Thanks, will do!" while munching on a particularly juicy ISBN. Ahasuerus 03:07, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
The Watcher's Tale
Hello dear Fixer. I've rejected quite a bunch of submissions like this one as it seems to me that the proposed "new" publication is in fact the same as this one. It has the same title, author, publication date, publisher and ASIN. Only the price is different (usually it's $0.99 vs $1.00) and the fact that the submission has an ISBN. So facing with numerous similar cases I supposed that it was the same "book" (just with actualized data and a higher price) and updated the existing one and rejecting the submission. Do you (or your invisible master) think that my reasoning is correct? Hauck 07:15, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
- That's right, they are indeed the same publications. You were right to merge their data.
- The underlying problem is twofold. On the one hand, Amazon doesn't display e-books' ISBNs, so human editors have no choice but to reate ISBN-less publication records and put ASINs in Notes. On the other hand, Fixer can see e-book ISBNs (courtesy of Amazon's behind the scenes magic), but he has no way of telling that the book is already in the database without its ISBN.
- This has become more of an issue lately since more of our editors have been working on entering ebooks from online sources like Amazon. The solution is to add support for "third party identifiers" like ASINs and LCCN, which will make it easier for Fixer to work with ISBN-less pubs. It will also let us clean up the ISBN-less pubs that we already have on file. It will be my next project once I finish Fixer's monthly cycle. Ahasuerus 16:07, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Fedogan and Bremer Publishing LLC
Hi Fixer, can you start replacing "Fedogan and Bremer Publishing LLC" with "Fedogan & Bremer". Thanks! Annie 15:30, 28 June 2017 (EDT)
- Done! Ahasuerus 15:47, 28 June 2017 (EDT)
- And "Haverhill House Publishing" should be replaced with "Haverhill House" in your submissions :) Annie 15:56, 28 June 2017 (EDT)
- Done. Ahasuerus 16:08, 28 June 2017 (EDT)
Publisher: Gylphi Limited
Dear robot, can you please standardize "Gylphi Limited" to "Gylphi" when you meet it next time? We have a lot of their books. Thanks! Annie 20:23, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
- Indubitably! Fixer 20:31, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
ISBN for Clase Nocturna
Hey Fixer, I was looking at this submission, and I need your help to tell me if what you did is right. Amazon shows me no ISBN. The Look Inside, however, shows an ISBN of 84-88966-89-X, which I have to think is probably for the 2002 first edition or the 2004 Spanish edition, not a 2014 e-book. Any thoughts on the matter? As always, keep up the good work! --MartyD 07:29, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- That's odd. Amazon doesn't display ISBNs for ebooks, but when I use their Look Inside, I see:
- ISBN: 978-84-9018-464-6
- Epub realizado por La Factoria de Ideas Servicios editoriales [etc]
- on the copyright page. I wonder if we are looking at the same record? Ahasuerus 08:05, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- I just realized that you wrote Clase Nocturna, but the linked submission is for Un coro de niños enfermos, which may explain the difference. Ahasuerus 08:08, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- Oh, I see. Well, the good news is that the Fixer-submitted ISBN, which was originally returned by the main Amazon API, matches what you get when you do a manual search on "9788490185940". Unfortunately, I don't know why the ISBN printed on the copyright page is different. I guess it may have been a data entry error (copy and paste?) when the publisher entered the ISBN into the Amazon database. Or perhaps they forgot to change the ISBN on the copyright page?.. Ahasuerus 21:30, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- Ok, thanks. Google Books shows the same copyright page with the ISBN-10. I think despite the fact that it's 2014, I'm going to put in the ISBN 10 with a note. --MartyD 22:08, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- I mean I'm going to keep Fixer's ISBN and record the info about the ISBN-10 in the notes. --MartyD 22:11, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
- Sounds like a plan! Ahasuerus 22:22, 29 April 2018 (EDT)
Publishe conversion
Hello Fixer,
When adding books, can you please start converting "Digital Horror Fiction, an imprint of Digital Fiction Publishing Corp." to "Digital Horror Fiction / Digital Fiction Publishing". Thanks! Annie 16:20, 2 May 2018 (EDT)
- Done. Sorry about the delay, I missed the original request. Ahasuerus 10:06, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
Other Side Books
Hey Fixer, I don't know if this one's a little too subtle, but here goes anyway.... I just dealt with a submission having a blank publisher that turned out to be published by Other Side Books. We have one other pub from that publisher. I notice the ISBNs both start 978-1-980729. Also, these both came through from Amazon.com, but the publisher is actually in the UK, so we got some wonky prices ($9.49 and $12.20 vs. £6.99 and £8.99). I don't know how much you can read into ISBNs, but I figured I'd mention it in case there's something clever you could do. Keep up the good work! --MartyD 09:17, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
- Fixer should be able to distinguish between Amazon.com and Amazon UK based on the ISBN. Unfortunately, Fixer's ability to get data directly from Amazon UK is rather limited at the moment. The changes that Amazon made to their API last year had a disproportionate impact on the UK side due to the way we do things :(
- I guess a more general palliative solution would be to:
- teach Fixer which ISBNs blocks are assigned to which country
- add a Moderator Notes warning if the currency in the Price field doesn't match the country as determined by the ISBN block.
- Ahasuerus 10:18, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
- What's Fixer implemented in? Something like that sounds like it would/could benefit from the same sort of ISBN group categorization we'd want to do for country-level reporting.... --MartyD 20:50, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
- It's a hodgepodge of technologies and third party products. I started developing Fixer in 2008, i.e. before I had a working Python environment or any serious knowledge of MySQL. I was experimenting with different technologies at the time, so I used them to cobble things together. I wasn't expecting it to be more than a prototype, especially considering the fact that Al already had another functioning robot. And then Fixer grew. And grew. And grew some more.
- That said, I agree that Fixer should reuse the same ISBN categorization system which we discussed earlier. Fixer's database includes a massaged mirror of the main ISFDB tables, so it shouldn't be too hard. Ahasuerus 22:10, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
- Anyway, this is not hugely important. Wonky prices are a clear enough indicator. --MartyD 20:50, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
- Unfortunately, not all "bad" prices are wonky. For example, Titan Books sells the same mass market paperbacks (with the same ISBNs) in the UK and in the US. The UK price is typically £7.99 while the US price can be as high as $14.95. When Fixer uses Amazon.com to create a submission for a Titan Books pb, the approving moderator may not realize that he or she needs to check Amazon UK to get the UK price and possibly other data elements, e.g. the publication date. There are many catches like this one, which is why I have been hesitant to submit the bulk of NewPubs on Fixer's behalf. Ahasuerus 22:01, 18 May 2018 (EDT)
Publisher conversion
Hello Fixer,
Can you please start converting "Dark Helix Press Inc" to "Dark Helix Press" when you submit books? I know that you are busy with a very juicy ISBN just now but it will be appreciated :) Thanks! Annie 17:27, 19 June 2018 (EDT)
- And "Little Island Books" should be "Little Island". Annie 18:28, 19 June 2018 (EDT)
- Done. 54 ISBNs moved to a "Public" sub-page. Fixer 19:32, 21 June 2018 (EDT)
- Do you have a page where someone can request a list for an author/publisher yet? Annie 19:40, 21 June 2018 (EDT)
- Not yet. I figure we'll do it after we finalize the process, finish the documentation, and open everything to the "public". One disaster at a time! Ahasuerus 19:51, 21 June 2018 (EDT)
Recent Clocktower ebook additions / prices
I'm working my way through pub updates that are adding ISBNs for a bunch of Clocktower Books ebooks whose notes claim they were added on 2018-10-08. The ISBNs seem fine. :-) But I'm noticing Amazon's current price, only a few days later, is the standard-looking $2.99, while the original submissions have oddball prices like $3.24, $3.33, etc. I'm updating as I notice and/or think of it, but I figured I'd mention it. These don't look like they would have been pre-releases, so I'm not sure what might have been up. --MartyD 12:42, 13 October 2018 (EDT)
- First, a little background. These ISBN-less Clocktower Books ebooks were added by a human editor ca. 2018-10-08. Since humans, weak creatures that they are, have no easy way of telling that an e-book listed by Amazon has an ISBN, Fixer chimes in and adds the missing ISBNs once he gets the latest weekly backup. However, he doesn't change human-entered prices.
- The problem here was apparently caused by the fact that Amazon.com can display different prices depending on your IP address. A $2.99 book may have its price displayed as "3.00"" or "$3.33" if your IP address is outside of the US. A few months ago I queried a European editor about this issue and he confirmed that he was seeing a higher price. Do we know if the editor who added these pubs was/is outside of the US? Ahasuerus 18:08, 13 October 2018 (EDT)
- Ah. I didn't look. Thanks for the explanation. If it isn't something Fixer was doing, then no worries. I wonder, though, given knowledge of that behavior, might Fixer consider capturing a price (along with the ISBN) while he (or she -- don't mean to be sexist) is at it? --MartyD 07:17, 14 October 2018 (EDT)
- Fixer already tries to capture Amazon's prices, which he (Fixer tells me that he is a "he" -- at least as far as limited human understanding can grasp AI identities) then uses to build submissions. Unfortunately, it's not always a straightforward process. Amazon's API returns list prices for paper books but not for ebooks, presumably for competitive reasons. Fixer has special processes for determining e-book prices, but they are less reliable, in part due to timing issues. You may have seen Fixer-crafted notes which said things like "Data from Amazon.com as of 2014-07-10. Price from B&N as of 2014-12-23."
- That said, I could ask Fixer to check e-book prices in his internal database against the prices in the main ISFDB database. Depending on the number of discrepancies, it may be feasible to create submissions that would adjust e-prices. We'll want to be careful not to overdo it, though, because displayed prices can change over time. Ahasuerus 10:49, 14 October 2018 (EDT)