User talk:LawDagstine

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Welcome!

Hello, LawDagstine, 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! John Scifibones 14:20, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

A Few Questions

Welcome. Your early collection Death of the Common Writer, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?155897, has no contents and online info is scant. Would you happen to have a copy so you can let us know story titles/page numbers/cover artist or anything else that can be entered here? Is the cover on Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Common-Writer-Lawrence-Dagstine/dp/141344900X, the right one for that edition? Also, the main photo on your Amazon page, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lawrence-Dagstine/e/B001K8UG5K, is an "S" image which doesn't work too well on this site but there are 2 others; would you prefer the one with glasses or the one without and holding a baby? --Username (talk) 11:39, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

Author Tags

Regarding your moderator note on this submission: Tags are an optional system for our users. Users are able to apply tags to individual works. The tags listed on an author's page are a sum of all the tags applied to the author's works. If you want to tag your works, you are welcome to. The "paranormal romance" tag was applied to The French Nobleman of Neptune. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:10, 17 December 2023 (EST)

Publication Additions

I processed your various New Publication submissions. They had a number of issues so it turned out to be easier to reject them and create new submissions. The issues were:

  • The publication author for an anthology should be the editor(s). The content section should list the story titles and their authors.
  • Titles should be as they appear on the title page.
  • The ISBN field is for the ISBN. The Amazon ASIN should be be included in the external IDs section.
  • We create separate records for different formats. Hardcover, trade, ebook, etc. should all be separate pubs.
  • The ISFDB uses a specific set of values for the format. Paperback ('pb') is used for the mass market paperback size. Anything larger than that is listed as a trade papernack ('tp').
  • Synopsis should be short, neutrally worded descriptions. If you are quoting a book blurb or product description, you need to provide the source for the blurb with the quote. So for example, 'Per back cover, "This book..."'.

The entered pubs are: Witch Wizard Warlock, Alien Dimensions Space Fiction Short Stories Anthology Series #24. I Cast You Out!: Stories of Possession, Invasion: The The Dark Side of Technology: Volume 2, Flashes of Nightmare, Classics ReMixed, Uchronia: An Anthology of Alternate Histories & Alternate Worlds, Quarantine: Dark Lockdown Tales

We appreciate your submission & hope you will continue to contribute. ISFDB has some conventions that need learning so please check out the help links in the welcome message above. And let us know if you have any questions (ISFDB:Help desk is a good resource for asking). -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:51, 23 December 2023 (EST)

Murder on Her Mind & Suspense Unimagined

Regarding this submission and this submission: Are these two books both speculative fiction as defined by ISFDB? In other words, are they science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural horror? The descriptions make them sound non-supernatural horror. If they are mixed genre that is fine, but we would want at least some genre to include these. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:54, 23 December 2023 (EST)

As there has not be a response, I have had to reject the submissions based on the product descriptions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:42, 6 January 2024 (EST)

Apocalyptales: Judgment Day

Regarding this submission. I had to create a new submission to enter the information as this submission contained too many incorrect items, so it was easier to create a new one rather than fixing it after approval (see the new one here). Please note the following:

  • When entering an anthology, the "Author" is the editor of the anthology. In this case, you had yourself entered as the editor, which was clearly incorrect based on the cover of the anthology.
  • When entering a synopsis for the anthology, please do not include reviews and lists of contributors. Contributors, along with the titles of their stories, should be entered in the Contents section. This makes sure the individual stories are added to those authors' entries on ISFDB.

You can learn more about entering anthologies here. Please let me know if you have any questions. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:22, 19 March 2024 (EDT)

Withersin 3.3, January 2010

Regarding this submission, I had to reject your submission and enter it separately as the submission had a number of issues:

  • When entering magazines, please enter the actual editor for that issue, not yourself (unless you are the editor), in the Author field. See here for more details.
  • The volume number goes in either the title (as in this case: Withersin 3.3, January 2010) or in the Notes field. The volume number does not go in the Series field (which should have "Withersin", in this case). You can learn more about entering magazines and other periodicals by reviewing the "Magazines" bullet point here.
  • The Web Pages field (for the title) and the Pub Web Page field when entering a publication should point to a page about the specific issue rather than to the general site for the magazine.
  • The ISSN does not belong in the Catalog ID field (learn more about the Catalog ID field here). The ISSN should be included in a note on the series page (example here).
  • Please be sure to enter the price as given on the cover, and be sure to enter the currency symbol. In this submission, you entered "20.00", which did not match the $8.00 cover price visible in the cover image. You can see more about entering price information here.
  • When entering a cover image URL, we can only link to sites that have explicitly given ISFDB permission to "hotlink" to them (see here for details). If you want to include an image from a site that has not given ISFDB explicit permission, you must instead upload the image to ISFDB.

I know ISFDB has a steep learning curve (I remember when I first started submitting updates here), but I'm willing to help you out if you'd like to learn. Submitting new information the correct way makes things easier for everyone and greatly reduces the amount of work that needs to be done and makes sure the database contains accurate information. If you have any questions about anything above (or anything else here), please let me know either here or on my user talk page (link in my signature).

Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:58, 19 March 2024 (EDT)

Additional submissions

Because the information was entered almost completely incorrectly, I had to reject these submissions:

I've also placed the remaining submissions on hold so I can work through them with you. Thanks for your patience while I do that.

As I mentioned above, I'm willing to help you learn the ropes here, but you need to work with me by making sure the information you submit is more accurate. Please let me know how I can help you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:08, 19 March 2024 (EDT)

Is this where I reply? I'm new to this and coding. My knowledge is limited to very, very basic html. [User: LawDagstine|
Yes. You can sign your messages by placing a space followed by four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comments. This will add your signature, which makes it clear who wrote something. It's generally good to use colons (:) to indent your comments if they are replying to someone else. You can see that in this section where I added a colon to the beginning of your question and then used two colons to reply to you. To keep indenting, just use one more colon than the person to whom you are replying. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:14, 20 March 2024 (EDT)
Okay. You said you would help me go through the remaining magazines/short story collections/genre publications one by one, each at a time, while showing a newbie the ropes? LawDagstine (talk) 21:29, 20 March 2024 (EDT)
Yes. I will have time to do that a little later today, probably. In the meantime, you can look at the two above and see where things are supposed to go. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:49, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
I will try to enter Cosmic Contact again of the two you mentioned (which is science fiction/speculative fiction). As for hotlinks to pics, I will try to use the photos on my website (Wordpress Files at www.lawrencedagstine.com). As it is my site, I have permission to the pic. Unless there is a place I can upload images direct from my Desktop. The Cosmic Contact will be an entirely new entry from scratch this time.LawDagstine (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Under the Cosmic Contact Author name I entered the editor of the anthology (because he created the book and his name appears on the cover). The image hotlinked was from my own website (permission granted). It said give a url to a website of some kind where thhe book can be found, so I gave the Lulu link as it is a url of some kind. Let me know if I am on the right track here.LawDagstine (talk) 13:20, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Almost. In the contents, you needed to enter your story that was in it rather than the name of the anthology and the editor. I've fixed this for you, and you can see it here. If you have a copy of it, we'd love for you to edit the publication and add all of the other stories, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:28, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Here's a guide on determining of a SHORTFICTION entry is a short story, novelette, or novella. If known, this information should be included, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:34, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
If you wish to upload them to ISFDB, you can follow the directions at Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki. Be sure to read through them carefully as there are a number of things you must do (like size limitations and so on) for it to be acceptable here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:22, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
I'm going to try the RISE Stories of the Undead now. Let me know when you have time if this one is done correctly. Unfortunately, I don't have a contributor copy to the last entry, Cosmic Contact, so the TOC would either be what's on Lulu or perhaps on Goodreads. If I can't resize correctly, I will use my wordpress files on my homepage again (for RISE).LawDagstine (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
So I was able to enter the twenty authors names who appeared in RISE. But I don't know if you're supposed to add them all under one content heading. Author 1, Author 2, Author 3, or do individual lines for each. I don't know the names of their stories, because the book came into print and went out of print and off Amazon soon thereafter. My short story was called AFTERLIFE CHILD. If memory serves me correct, the price was $19.99. Some of the information came from Wicked Shadow Press wix site (homepage). There might be story names or further information pertaining to this anthology on Goodreads. Let me know how I did.LawDagstine (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Okay, Rise was entered mostly correctly. I made the following corrections:
  • I had to change the content entry so it listed your story. Each story in an anthology should be entered separately.
  • General links to publisher websites (meaning links that aren't to a page specifically about a title or publication) shouldn't be placed on a publication or title entry.
  • Unless it's an acronym (or a few other very specific instances), we standardize the capitalization for titles. See the "Case" bullet point at Help:Screen:NewPub#Title.
Hope that helps! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:22, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Here's the link to the publication now. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:24, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Let me know when you have time what's next. For example, the short story collection "Fresh Blood: Tales from the Speculative Graveyard" was available from 2009 to 2010 or 2011 abouts. The publisher was Sam's Dot Publishing, the editor was Tyree Campbell. But Sam's Dot Publishing went out of business or sold its venture soon after Fresh Blood's release. The print version went out of print. However, I have a few copies of the print version on hand still. Therefore I also have the table of contents of stories, the pages that they start on, the story names, and the author name has Lawrence R Dagstine on the cover (this time with an R as the middle intitial). I have it in print. But it is not available any longer in print on the entire Internet or probably secondary market either due to what I mentioned here.LawDagstine (talk) 06:01, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
Just an additional note. The adminastrator from before, a couple of months ago, asked me if I had a picture I could upload to DEATH OF THE COMMON WRITER. He had also told me about adding the correct tags. That admin was JaTondre? Now that I am SLOWLY getting the hang of the system. I went ahead and added the CORRECT (100% correct genre tags to the short stories already listed. These are guaranteed accurate. I also uploaded from my OWN desktop folder the cover to DEATH OF THE COMMON WRITER. Which was a science fiction/speculative fiction story collection from 2004. This picture is ALSO 100% accurate. Just wanted to give you the heads up.LawDagstine (talk) 08:12, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
Good job uploading the image. It was a little too large (the largest dimension must be 600px or smaller, and the file must be 150k or less in filesize - see here), so I resized it and uploaded the corrected version. Now you need to add it to the publication. You can do that as follows:
  • Go to the page for the cover image and click on the image. This will take you to the actual cover image file.
  • Copy the full URL from the address bar.
  • Go to the page for the publication and click the Edit link at the top right.
  • Paste the copied URL into the Image URL field.
  • Add a moderator note that you are adding the uploaded cover image and submit the change.
Once you've done that, any moderator can review the submission and approve it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:38, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
To moderator. I don't know if I put this here. I added a resized (less than 200KB) image of DEATH OF THE COMMON WRITER to the correct short story collection. This was my own image from my own desktop. So I have permission and give permission to link it, obviously.
What next?LawDagstine (talk) 16:46, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
I don't see any pending submissions, or any new versions of the cover image. Please do the following:
  • Go to the page for the cover image and click on the image. This will take you to the actual cover image file.
  • Copy the full URL from the address bar.
  • Go to the page for the publication and click the Edit link at the top right.
  • Paste the copied URL into the Image URL field.
  • Add a moderator note that you are adding the uploaded cover image and submit the change.
Once you've done that, I can approve the submission. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:57, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
Note to moderator: I'm getting around to entering the correct image for my 2004 collection, Death of the Common Writer. It is under Larence R. Dagstine (middle initial R here). Try now.LawDagstine (talk) 18:42, 22 March 2024 (EDT)
Entered, Death of the Common Writer scan for approval. Let me know if something else from the back-up pile needs to be done over from scratch. Or only corrected in certain areas.LawDagstine (talk) 01:52, 27 March 2024 (EDT)
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