User talk:Jmaloney

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Welcome!

Hello, Jmaloney, 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 16:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The Screwtape Letters

Your submission to add a January 1946 printing of this title has been placed on hold. The database has a record for the 1943 Macmillan first edition. What is your source for the 1946 printing? If you have a copy of the book, I'll accept the submission and ask that you do a primary verification of the record. (Help link here). If you don't have a copy, you should record your source of the data in the record's note field. According to this OCLC record the book was reprinted in December 1946 with "some alterations". Could your book be that edition, or was it a reprinting of the first edition? Please respond to this message by clicking on the [edit] link to the right of it, compose your response in the dialogue box that opens, end the message with four tildes (~~~~), and click "Save Page". Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 16:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your welcome. Yes, I entered the data from my copy of the book. I assume it's a reprinting of the first Macmillan edition. On the title page it shows Macmillan 1946. On the back of the title page it lists twelve reprintings, the first being March 1943 and the last being January 1946.
Usually my old books have lost their dust jackets, but this one is intact, albeit a bit tattered. I have scanned it and plan to upload the image when I work on the listing again later. I will also perform a primary verification after the record has been approved. I have read many isfdb help pages, wiki pages, and faq pages, and I have asked questions on the help desk page. I have edited, added, and verified records since I joined. I'm new here, but I'm learning. Jmaloney 17:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
As one of the few new editors who "found" the wiki pages within a day of your first submission, you are to be congratulated. You'll find a lot of information in the help pages, but the best way to learn how to edit the database is to follow the basic guidelines found on this page and then submit, submit, submit. The more you submit, the easier it becomes, and the moderators will step you through any of the more complicated procedures, such as adding content records, and the merging and varianting of titles. It won't take long before you're a pro...if you're persistent. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 17:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
When you have a chance, update the record to indicate the printing data, so that any future editors will know if their copy matches your record. Also please do a primary verification. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I was going to do a primary verification after I finished entering data for this book. Next I was going to explore to see if there's a way to include an image of the back cover. The back cover shows a drawing with the caption "His Infernal Excellency, Mr. Screwtape, as imagined by the author, C. S. Lewis." I think that would be good to show but I haven't seen where to put it yet. It seems like you're in a hurry for me to do the primary verification. Is there a need for haste? Also, I don't understand what additional printing data you want me to enter. Isn't the year of 1946-01-00 sufficient to show that it's a January 1946 printing? Are you asking me to list the twelve reprint dates in the note?Jmaloney 21:17, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I just performed the primary verification. I saw no place to include an image of the back cover. If I could upload it without replacing the existing image, I could include a link to the back cover in the note field. Would that be acceptable? Desirable? Jmaloney 21:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
[after an edit conflict] Response to your first question: You can do a direct upload of an image file to the Wiki, and then link the image in the record's note field. But you should know that there are extra steps that must be taken when you do these direct uploads (from this page). You have to create a unique file name, and you have to add the Fair Use license tags to each image. These are done automatically when you upload from the publication record. If you plan on doing this let me know and I can step you through it.
Response to your second question: There's no rush to do a primary verification, but it does help the moderator know that he doesn't have to question or research your data. When you update any record that's been verified, moderators are warned that the submission changes a verified record. If you do not wish to do a primary verification (there are some responsibilities in doing so), you should record in the note field that you're working from the book-in-hand.
Response to your third question: No, you don't have to list all of the printing dates (some editors, bless their anal-retentive hearts, will do this). You should record the portion of the statement that applies for this publication. For example: "Twelfth Printing: January 1946". I like to place quotes around statements taken directly from a book, but there's no standard about how it should be stated in the notes.
BTW "1946-01-00" in the ISFDB date field indicates the publication date. Books may also indicate the printing date as well, which are not necessarily the same as the publication date, but in most cases we use the printing date in the publication field, especially for later printings. I have a book that contains the statement: "Published February 15, 2008 / Second Printing, February 2008". So the first edition, first printing of this title is dated "2008-02-15" while the first edition, second printing is dated "2008-02-00". This is an extreme case, of course. Very few books go into a second printing before they're actually "published". Mhhutchins 21:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
You said there are responsibilities associated with doing a primary verification. I have successfully shed most responsibilities from my life. :-) Please elaborate.
Third item above. I added a note about reprints to my publication The Screwtape Letters.Jmaloney 20:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding pubs to titles vs. adding "New Novel"s

This relates to the previous submission for The Screwtape Letters, but I thought it warranted its own discussion. If you look at the summary page for C. S. Lewis, you'll find that there are now two title records for The Screwtape Letters. One dated 1942, and the other dated 1946. The latter is the one that was created when you added the January 1946 printing of the Macmillan edition. This was caused because you used the "Add New Novel" function, instead of going to the pre-existing title record for the book you're entering. (If there is no pre-existing title record, you would have been right to use the "Add New Novel" function.) Once you're at the title record, click on the link "Add Publication to This Title" under the Editing Tools menu. Keep this in mind when adding future publications. These two title records will have to be merged in order for all publications of the title to be listed under one title record. Would you like to learn how to merge titles? It's quite easy and will be necessary to know if you plan on sticking around awhile. Just let me know and I can step you through it. Or you can go to this help page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh man! One would think I hadn't spent a few days reading help pages and the wiki before I even created an account here. I'm sorry. That's embarrassing. I need to check the several books I've worked on and make sure I didn't make the same mistake elsewhere. Thanks for pointing out the "Add Publication to This Title" menu link. I simply searched for the fiction title "The Screwtape Letters", chose the 1942 entry from the two shown, and examined the publications bibliography http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?4225. I saw my 1946 Macmillan was not listed and obviously chose the wrong menu item on the left to add it. I bet that error happens frequently. The way the data is structured is not apparent to a newcomer. Is this error something you should have caught before approving the new entry? I read the merging help and followed the process using the advanced search. I got to the conflict-resolution screen, but didn't want to assume the default radio buttons selected were the correct ones, especially for the language (blank instead of English), so I aborted the process. If you'll verify that 1942, blank for language, and the Wikipedia choice that has an address are the three correct choices then I'll go back and perform the merge. Thanks.
I appreciate all your help. I want to get back to several items in the previous talk section, but they'll have to wait. Maybe I'll get back to it later in the weekend. Jmaloney 00:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Don't be embarrassed - you're doing very well. And often a newcomer points out errors in our help or inconsistencies in our practices - I would go so far as to say that nobody here understands everything now, things have changed a lot since it became a communal effort rather than a 1 or 2 person effort, and software improvements have led to a lot of procedural changes that may not be well-explained yet. So do question things, or ask for improvements. BLongley 04:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the encouragement. So far everyone I've encountered here has been kind and helpful. I am also impressed with how quickly my submissions are acted on by moderators. Please let me know if answering inside a thread as I'm doing here is okay or if I should answer at the end. It's not clear on the Wiki conventions help page.Jmaloney 19:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
It's OK by me. When a thread gets too long, people might skip to the end with an "unindent": and a reply in an old thread may get lost. But as you say, it's not clear. BLongley 20:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
And I'm glad to hear you feel that we are responding quickly, that isn't always the case. I do try and prioritise Human-submitted entries over the automatically submitted "Daisy Meadows" titles, but there's no guarantee that there will be a Mod "on duty" at any particular time. BLongley 20:22, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
As to conflict-resolution during merges, you're right to not assume the default radio buttons selected were the correct ones. I used to think I could fix that a bit that so that the earliest title was always the default, which is usually correct: but the language "blank instead of English" would become an incorrect default (we want to set more languages specifically rather than assume everything is English). Generally the earliest date is best, keep any series info or title parent, allow "English" rather than blank but don't merge specified different languages. I bail out when Story Lengths differ as there are cases when some shortfiction is expanded or reduced, and variants by story length are one of the things we have not really set rules for. (Especially when a translation takes it above or below one of the cut-off points for short story, novelette or novella.) If in doubt, ask! The worst you can get is conflicting answers which show we need to sort something out. BLongley 04:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
[after edit conflict with Blongley] I should have caught it at the time of the submission. Moderators can see if you're adding a pub to an existing title or creating a new one, and I missed that. I'm going to be gone for the next two days also, so if you have any further questions, and want a quicker response ask at the help desk. If not, I will be able to respond on this page on Monday. And yes, please continue with the submission to merge the titles. If you're unsure of the choices when it comes to conflict resolution, the rule of thumb is to leave all data that doesn't conflict, and choose the earlier of the dates. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I had no problem merging the 1942 and 1946 entries for The Screwtape Letters. I chose English over blank.Jmaloney 19:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Shardik

The cover artist credit for this record comes from the book club edition which had the same cover. Can you check the back flap of the dustjacket to see if Minor is credited there? Thanks for checking. I also created content records for the interior art based on your notes. Mhhutchins 20:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I see no credit of Minor on the jacket. Thanks for dealing with the interior artists. I'm not comfortable with those entries yet. Jmaloney 20:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I will update the record for the trade edition to indicate the source for the cover credit. Mhhutchins 21:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

SFBC ed. of A Case of Conscience

I accepted the submission to update this record. When you get a chance please do a primary verification of the record. Also, can you confirm that the cover artist's name is misspelled in the book's credit? If it's given as "Wurtz", you should change the record's credit. Another thing, can you check to see if your copy has a gutter code and record that code in the note field? The gutter code is usually located on or near the last page of text and is in the form of a letter and two numbers. A secondary source gives the code as "M38". Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 20:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The jacket says "JANNY WURTZ" as my note says. From Janny Wurts - Summary Bibliography I saw that "Wurtz" was an alternate spelling of the person's legal name. On the publication editor screen I didn't see what made "Janny Wurts" in the Artist1 field a link to her bibliography. I don't understand how that works and didn't want to break the link. I'll change it as you requested. Jmaloney 21:09, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I've accepted the change. Now all you have to do is to make this record into a variant of the author's true name. Click on this title record, and then go down under the Editing Tools menu to "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work", and click on it. ON the next screen, go down to the Author1 field and change the name to the correct spelling "Janny Wurts" and then submit. That's all you have to do to create a variant. Mhhutchins 21:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Done. Jmaloney 21:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Whitman ed., of Wells' War of the Worlds

I accepted the submission to add this new edition before noticing that a very similar one is already in the database. Could your book be the same as this one? Mhhutchins 19:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

They're the same. I'm sorry. I searched the War of the Worlds bibliography page a few days ago and saw that my Whitman copy wasn't listed. Either I missed it or the coincidence that it was added in the interim by someone else surprises me. I should have checked again today. What should I do?Jmaloney 19:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I submitted a deletion of my duplicate entry.Jmaloney 20:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the other record was submitted on January 31, 2012. The submission to delete your entry was accepted. Please feel free to update the current record with any further information and do a primary verification. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
How do I add Shannon Stirnweis as the interior artist on The War of the Worlds? The title page says "Illustrated by SHANNON STIRNWEIS" and there are numerous illustrations in the book. I have searched for and read pages referencing interior art on the ISFDB site, but I haven't found how to make the entry. Thanks.Jmaloney 21:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Go to the pub record and click "Edit This Pub" under the Editing Tools menu. On the next screen, go down to the Content section and click the "Add Title" button. A set of fields will open up each time you click this button, so you can add as many content titles as necessary. In the case of interior art, and in a book that has numerous illustrations, all you have to do is create one record. Leave the Page field blank; give the title of the book in the Title field; leave the Date field blank (the system will automatically date all titles the same as the pub); in the drop-down menu under Entry Type choose "INTERIORART"; leave the Length field blank; in the Author1 field enter the artist's name as credited on the book's title page, unless it's only credited somewhere else in the book. Then submit. Mhhutchins 22:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Done. Thank you. Jmaloney 22:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Making a variant record for Stowaway to the Moon

The submission adding Stowaway to the Moon was accepted. You stated in the note to the moderator:

I have the book. I don't know the process for handling the discrepancy between "William R. Shelton" in the book and "William Roy Shelton" in ISFDB.

As long as you've entered the book exactly as credited on the book's title page, you don't have to worry about how the ISFDB handles a pseudonym or canonical name until after the record is created. In this case, now that the pub record is in the database, you go to the newly created title record (here) and click on the "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" link under the Editing Tools menu. On the next page, you change the name in the Author1 field to "William Roy Shelton" and then submit. You're not changing the way the book is credited. You're creating a variant record of the title giving credit to the author's canonical name. I'll await your submission. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. It seems counter-intuitive to me to create a parent record after a child record rather than the other way around. Your instructions give me a place I can refer back to in the future. Thanks.Jmaloney 21:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
It may seem counter-intuitive for new editors, I grant you that. In most cases, pseudonymous works never get published under the real author's name. You can't add a title record until you've added a pub record (well, there's a work-around for that but it should not be done by new editors until they have a better understanding of the database's structure). So most of the time you have to create a record of the pseudonymous work first, then make its title record into a variant under the real author's name (we call it the canonical name). We're not creating a pub record under the real name only a title record so that it will appear on the real author's summary page. You may not have noticed, but until you made it into a variant record, Stowaway to the Moon only appeared on the William R. Shelton summary page. Now it's on the William Roy Shelton summary page. It may seem arcane for now, but if you hang around longer, you'll develop a greater understanding of the database's design. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. BTW I asked another question in the previous section, which you may have missed since it's not at the bottom of my talk page. Jmaloney 22:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Adding images to primary verified pubs

It is ISFDB etiquette to leave a message on the talk page of the editor who has primary verified a record. Moderators usually accept it without question, but the verifier should have the opportunity to look at the image and make sure that it matches his copy. If you have a copy of the book, you can also do a primary verification (in the Primary2 or later position). This time I'll leave a message for the verifier of this record. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 20:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I left a similar message for the primary verifier of Time Scout. Jmaloney 21:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

SFBC ed. of Barrayar

Your copy is the same as this record. The data for that record came from Locus1 (date and price), and the note about no ISBN must be wrong. So I've moved the notes from your submission and updated the current record. Please feel free to update it with any further data and do a primary verification of the record. Mhhutchins 18:55, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for straightening that out. I did the verification. I had already scanned my cover for uploading. Should I replace the Amazon cover with my own? Jmaloney 19:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, please. We never know when Amazon could prevent us from linking to their images, so upload and replace the cover image when you get a chance. Mhhutchins
Done. Thanks. Jmaloney 04:56, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguating generic titles

I've changed the title of the author's note in this record to "Author's Note (Millennium)". Generic titles should be disambiguated, as pointed out on this help page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for making the correction and thanks for telling me you added "(Millennium)" manually. I wrongly thought the system would add the book's title in parentheses.Jmaloney 03:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Page numbers for contents

If the first pages of the stories in this publication are unnumbered, it is ISFDB policy to count forward (or backward) from the nearest numbered page, and enter that number in the pub record. (Book designers frequently omit the page number from stories' title pages.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

As mentioned in the previous topic, you'll have to manually disambiguate the two generic content titles (Introduction and Contributor Bios). I have removed the miscredited/mistitled titles from the pub record. A question: are you entering the contents' author credit and story titles from each of their title pages and not from the contents page? It is ISFDB policy to record from title pages. Mhhutchins 22:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

One last thing: the date of the Introduction defaulted to "unknown" because it wasn't entered in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Even so, it should be the same date as the publication (2010-09-01). We don't use the date the work was written, but the date the work was first published. Mhhutchins 22:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I have disambiguated the Introduction and Contributor Bios. I'm sorry I forgot you explained that to me in Feb. of 2012.
I was curious about Kelli Dunlap vs Kelli Owen. I found Kelli Owen's web site and see that she prefaces her bibliography with "Remember, the older items will be as Kelli Dunlap, rather than Kelli Owen." I don't know if her name change occurred before or after publication of the original Dark Futures in 2010.
I was also curious about the discrepancy between the titles "Virtual Babies" and "A Stone Cast into Stillness". I found the following on the author's web site, "To pull back the curtain on my creative process, I have a story which sold (which I’ll announce later) that had the working title “Virtual Babies.” Shock of all shocks, it’s about virtual babies. Eventually the title became “A Stone Cast into Stillness”, but my editor has been beating me to death with my working title."
Regarding page numbers. I calculated them and bracketed them following the instructions on Help:ScreenEditPub which says, "[##] Any page for which a number is derived by counting, possibly from a previously or subsequently numbered page, but the page carries no actual page number, should be listed in [brackets]." If that instruction is not correct the help screen should be corrected. I'll remove the brackets if you want me to. Jmaloney 00:55, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
That help page should be clarified. It should refer to paging contents in an unpaginated publication only. I bring it to the attention of the group and then correct the instructions. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. In this case, please use the method I describe. About the discrepancies between some of the stories' titles and credits, the original data must have come from preliminary data. That's why we encourage editors to do primary verification of records, which indicates they've confirmed the data against the actual publication. Don't worry about changing records based on Amazon data or other secondary sources. If you've got the book in your hand, there's no question that its data trumps anything stated in a non-verified record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I forgot to mention, I did enter the titles from the first page of each story rather than from the contents. There's one discrepancy I didn't address. The actual title of one story has a typographical error. The first page of the story has the title "The Monstery of the Seven Hands", but the story's text and title at the top of each page show that it should be "The Monastery of the Seven Hands". Jmaloney 01:02, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Even if it's obviously a typo, it is ISFDB policy to record the title as it is given on the story's title page. After making the correction, record the fact that the title is a typo in the Note fields of both the pub record and the story's title record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
One more thing: you've given the page number of the Introduction as "[viii]". Are any of the 8 pages preceding the first numbered page given Roman numerals? If so, change the page count field to "viii+268" and remove the brackets from the Introduction's starting page. If not, you should use "[8]" to indicate that the work begins on the last of the eight unnumbered pages. In other words, the record should be consistent in how the unnumbered pages are presented. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:28, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. I also added a note saying that the introduction is shown as on page viii in the table of contents. The first numbered page, 2, is the second page of the first story. Jmaloney 14:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Empty World

I kept all of your notes for this book, but I have updated them from my copy. MLB 21:51, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Second Foundation

Hi, I've imported content for your verified copy of Second Foundation.--Dirk P Broer 20:31, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Foundation and Empire

Hi, I've imported content for your verified copy of Foundation and Empire.--Dirk P Broer 00:45, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Foundation

Hello,

Imported content for your PV'ed Foundation. If you still have the book handy, would you mind adding the pages to the record (after the moderators approve the import). Thanks! Anniemod 00:02, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters

You were primary verifier of the US first edition. My copy has the correct month of publication on the cover (0272, February 1972) on the front flap, so I have submitted an edit to the record. Hifrommike65 4:44, 4 May 2017 (CDT)

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