User talk:HugoReader

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Welcome!

Hello, HugoReader, 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! MagicUnk 14:26, 31 August 2020 (EDT)

Dark Benediction

I had to reject this edit. 251217 is the first printing. 352440 is the second printing (as stated in the pub notes). We have separate records for different printings. It is not unknown for publishers to make changes between printings. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:14, 2 September 2020 (EDT)

Higher, Further, Faster

Hello. I have your submission on hold for a moment, as I was wondering if you own this publication? If so, could you confirm that the last page of the novel is numbered 249? From your notes I couldn't determine if the last page of the novel is numbered or not. If it happens that the last page of the novel is not numbered, we do not record the actual last printed page number, but last printed page plus one - see the rules on page numbering here and examples here for further clarification on how to record page numbers. Relevant part states It is fairly common for the last page (or more) of text in a book to be unnumbered. In this case, count forward to the last page of text and use that as the publication's page count. For example, if a novel ends on the unnumbered page after page 244, enter the page count as "245" with an explanatory note about the unnumbered last page.
Also, if there is contents beyond the last page of the novel, record the last numbered page, and do state in the notes what page the novel actually ends.
In addition, if you own the book, and you've used your copy to expand the notes, you can remove the statement 'Data from Amazon.com as of 2018-12-24' (as now all the data is coming from a copy of the actual book, not from Amazon.com anymore) - excepted perhaps the date? If the date is still coming from Amazon, state 'Date from Amazon.com as of 2018-12-24'. Also, do verify the publication record if you own the physical book. This way you confirm that yes, the data is accurate per the book (which data from secondary sources such as Amazon often is not). Thanks, and again welcome! (you can reply here by pressing the edit at the right next to the title)
Oh, and as editing the ISFDB needs some getting used to, do not hesitate to ask questions over at the help desk or community portal. MagicUnk 09:05, 6 September 2020 (EDT)

Hello thanks for answering on my talk page. However, that is not really needed as I (and other moderators alike) do monitor talk pages where we post messages. And your reply is very clear, thank you! :)
Concerning the edit, there was not really a need to reject it, as I would have accepted it, and the small update to the notes could be easily made in a consecutive edit (good to keep in mind for next time :).
And no need to be afraid to do something wrong - after all, we moderators will catch these, and will let you know on your talk page. As for verifying publications, this is almost a no-brainer. If you have the book, check the data that's already in the database, correct anything that's not right or is missing, and primary verify. Again, easy to rectify if an error has been made. God knows I make errors all the time, we're only human after all. Enjoy editing the ISFDB! We do welcome anyone that likes to help out. Regards, MagicUnk 15:58, 7 September 2020 (EDT)
Understood, thanks for clarifying. I was unsure if it was okay to submit many small corrections: it is extra work for the moderators after all. I will still try to minimize how many times I do it
In the meantime, could I ask you what is considered a CHAPBOOK? There is this paperback Heroes' Journey. IMHO, it is exactly the same as the Captain Marvel novels I just verified. The main difference is that it is a paperback and slightly thinner (and had a poster inside). Even the note on the only content item calls it a novel. What does it mean that it hs been recorded as a CHAPBOOK? HugoReader 17:51, 7 September 2020 (EDT)
A chapbook is a book that contains a single piece of fiction (with some additions allowed) which is shorter than a novel (which we define as a text that has at least 40K words). So most juvenile novels and all novellas/novelettes published on their own are chapbooks. Sometimes we get the wrong type and need to convert so if the texts you verify are under 40K words, they technically need conversion. A lot of publishers call these shorter works novels (especially in the YA and children markets), we are trying to make decisions based on length only). Hope that makes some sense (and welcome on board). :) Annie 18:00, 7 September 2020 (EDT)
Thanks for explaining. Though I am not sure I am up to counting words :) HugoReader 16:36, 11 September 2020 (EDT)
Approximate :) And google help a lot :) Any modern novel under 150 pages is suspect and some publishers are known to have even higher cut-offs. Classic reprints on the other hand (and mass market paperbacks) tend to have their fonts and lines a lot more compactly set - so the cutt-off is lower). If you work/see a lot of books from the same publisher, you will start seeing the patterns. :) The usual way to count is to open a page, do counts per line and do some calculations, allowing or half pages and what's not. When it is too close to call, just use common sense (based on the publisher and author sometimes). If we get it wrong, sooner or later it will get corrected. Annie 17:07, 11 September 2020 (EDT)
Thanks for the tips. 150-page cut-off is a good ballpark to start with. On the other hand, don't fix it if it ain't broke. If somebody made it a CHAPBOOK and there is a plausible explanation, I don't need to second-guess them. I think there is more value in correcting real mistakes and adding new books (I know at least two that are missing). With apologies, I'm gonna choose my battles in favor of not battling. Time is finite; books are not (I would have to worry about counting for the new books anyways). HugoReader 10:40, 14 September 2020 (EDT)
No worries at all :) It is always a team effort - my notes were more to give you an idea of how to do some basic counting than to ask you to do changes to existing books :). Thanks for all the updates! :) Annie 11:26, 14 September 2020 (EDT)

Beginning

Hello again! I've accepted your submission, but had to make a few changes:

  • 'The Cosmic Quest' is not a publication series, but is a title series (if you click on the title and display the title record, you'll see it's already there). The distinction is that a publication series is a series published by a publication company, and can therefore be comprised of books of different authors, with no joint story theme. Whereas title series are intended as bringing together works content-wise. I've therefore removed the pub series info you've added again.
  • The novel starting on unnumbered page 1 (because that's what you mean to say by entering it as [1], I guess?): as long as the first page, whether it is numbered or not and is part of a contiguous page count, we record it just as 1. Sadly, there are many deviations from this rule, as it's not always very clear what one needs to do in specific cases (a rules clarification is in order imo, but that's a discussion for another day :). You may wish to add a note into the notes field stating that the first page of the novel is unnumbered, but that's generally not done - but up to you to decide to add it or not.
  • Forewords, if they are in-universe/part of the story, are also recorded in the contents section of the publication record as SHORTFICTION, with (title) between brackets as a disambiguator. Disambiguating common titles are especially useful if an author has written many Forewords - adding the title makes the distinction obvious (and will prevent accidental merging as well). I've added a note about the in-universe nature, and added it for you. [do note that Forewords that are not in-universe, but are otherwise significant enough, are added to the Contents section too, but recorded as ESSAY]
  • A small thing, but try to keep as much original secondary data as possible, especially if they have been obtained from a transient source, and as long as it makes sense, of course. So, you can keep the original date source at 2018-09-27, and update the notes as Date 2018-04-03 as per amazon.com as of 2018-09-27. Date reconfirmed as per amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com as of 2020-09-07. And it's recommended to use our standard date format yyyy-mm-dd, but ultimately it's up to you what you prefer. Hope that makes sense?
  • Per your notes to moderator you mentioned an INTERIORART illustration on unnumbered pages preceding the novel. We record these as well. Feel free to add an INTERIORART record to the Contents section. If it's not credited on or in the pub, it's attributed to 'uncredited'.

Have a look here, and let me know if you like it like this! MagicUnk 07:23, 9 September 2020 (EDT)

Thanks a lot for clearing up my submission. I will try to keep in mind the distinction between a title and publication series. Also acknowledgment on keeping secondary transient data. As for the interior art (on page [3]), it is not much to write about. Essentially, it would have been a blank page separating the foreword from the novel proper, but instead it is filled with a black-and-white image of three infinity stones. I wouldn't add such a trivial thing to the Contents. I'll go ahead and primary verify it then. HugoReader 20:07, 11 September 2020 (EDT)

Aftermath

Hello once more! For Aftermath, I've made the following adjustments:

  • Removed 'The Cosmic Quest' as pub series - same reason as above.
  • Same as above for starting page number of the novel proper.
  • Same as above on retaining data from (transient) sources.
  • If the only word before p.1 is 'Prologue', no need to record that. If you do, though, best to also update the notes field to explain (we generally do not, but you'd basically have to copy over the notes you made in the Note to Moderators field if you would). I've removed the 1 page count from the Number of pages field, and added your note to the Notes field.
  • You made a note on the Acknowledgements following the novel. We do not record Acknowledgements in the Contents section, but we encourage to record that information in the notes. So in this case, something along the lines of 'Novel ends on p.214. Then there are "Acknowledgments" on (unnumbered) p. 215 and (numbered) p. 216, followed by one page 'About the Author' ' (I've added that to the notes - have a look).

In addition, you've added a new COVERART title. Doing it this way will require a subsequent merge operation to join identical records togther. So two edits are needed: one to add the record, the other to merge two identical title records. A better way to add this cover art (that already exists elsewhere) is to use the Import function. That way you'd be able to import the already existing title recorded from the ebook edition in one go. Only one edit needed instead of two. :)
By the way. It is by no means mandatory to be that thorough - but we like to be as precise as we can, so I hope you don't mind :) Have a look and let me know if it's OK like this! (if it's not, do not hesitate to comment by replying to this message, submit corrections, or both :). Oh, and you can primary verify a pub record upfront. No need to wait for all submissions to be approved. Regards, MagicUnk 07:48, 9 September 2020 (EDT)

Again, thanks for correcting and explaining. A special thanks for telling me about the import function. I was sure there must be a better way than creating something new and merging it but simply could not find it.
Now about the date. I was not able to find any source on November 20, and was already going to ask Willem H about a source for his edit (maybe I still should). But hear me out: I think the November 20 date should be updated to November 27. After you put in the note including both the original information and the current one, I realized one thing: the November 20 date was recorded on September 27, in other words, before the book was actually published. Therefore, the only source ISFDB currently has for November 20 is a prospective rather than the actual publication date. Given that Bowker (the only ISBN-issuing authority in the US) records both editions of this book as published on November 27, 2018 in their booksinprint.com database, I think it is safe to conclude that the publication date was planned for November 20 but was moved by a week. To the best of my knowledge no post-publication source claims otherwise.
The reason I am so insistent on November 27 is that the current state of ISFDB is rather inconsistent: there are two books with this novel published on November 27 but the novel itself is supposedly published on November 20. What do you think about this conjecture? HugoReader 20:35, 11 September 2020 (EDT)
That is an entirely plausible explanation of why these two dates are different - I'd even dare say that it is spot on :). That's also the reason why I accepted your date update. Generally speaking, editors do not tend to keep old information. That is fine for data corrctions for which there is an undisputed source (such as the book itself). However, since we cannot be 100% sure whether the publication date had been exactly that (however likely) I feel it is best to keep that older information, hence my earlier suggestion to incorporate it into the notes. Regards, MagicUnk 06:16, 16 September 2020 (EDT)

The Heroes' Journey

About this edit - I left instructions on how to in the rejection message but in case you are not checking these: This edit will leave the book in a really bad shape - with no titles inside. Instead of removing, convert the novel record into a collection one. Edit the type here to change the title type and once approved, edit the two books which contain it and change their types as well. Annie 15:16, 17 September 2020 (EDT)

Peter and Ned's Ultimate Travel Journal

As far as I can see, the pub record is perfectly fine now. Even the INTERIORART :) If you'd have further questions, it is much better to ask them over at the help desk, instead of in the Note to Moderators field. Regards, MagicUnk 16:03, 26 September 2020 (EDT) MagicUnk 16:03, 26 September 2020 (EDT)

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