User talk:Rkihara/Archive 02

ISFDB Moderator e-mail

I don't have your e-mail handy but would like to add you to the isfdb.moderators followed by at gmail.com mail distribution account. It's very low traffic and mainly gets used when ISFDB is down or when people get blocked out of ISFDB. If you don't mind being added to the distribution then please contact me via http://marc.kupper.googlepages.com/contact and I'll add you to the gmail account's forwarding rules. Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:23, 21 Feb 2008 (CST)

Masters of the Universe

Have changed my issues to serial also. Wonder if we should credit them as they are actually credited in the mags - Author Unknown & Author Unborn. That would make it clearer that the stories are credited that way. Both could then be designated as pseudonyms for "unknown".--swfritter 17:02, 29 Feb 2008 (CST)

It took me a while to look into this, with the ISFDB magazine entries disappearing. "Unknown" as by "Author Unknown" and "Author Unborn" seems a little confusing, maybe a note needs to be added. Also, with two different pseudonyms, it seems the ISFDB's logic will split the (serial) in half. We should probably give the installments series tags to keep the parts together.--Rkihara 10:56, 2 Mar 2008 (CST)

Contento/Miller made Author Unborn a pseudonym of Author Unknown in order to group the entries together although they did not categorize it as a serial. Of course, that creates a problem if the actual author is ever determined. If we credit Author Unknown and Author Unborn as pseudonyms of 'unknown' they will be grouped together although kind of buried. Leaving it as a serial if fine with me in any case. Since you had the most number of entries in the series (5 to 3 I think) I will leave it to you.--swfritter 16:34, 2 Mar 2008 (CST)

recent edit

I think your recent edit put a lot of stuff into the 'Red Planet" section that did not belong there -- which section did that come from? -DES ^Talk 10:56, 1 Mar 2008 (CST)

Very strange. I don't know how that got there. I recall that discussion, but I haven't looked at it in weeks.--Rkihara 11:28, 1 Mar 2008 (CST)

Looking around a bit, it's a duplicate of the tail end of the first discussion in the list. I'll edit it out.--Rkihara 11:34, 1 Mar 2008 (CST)

Amazing Stories 1957

There are a number of stories from the April issue that do not have defined lengths. Same with June. Also "Police Your Planet" is in the database (wrongly I am pretty sure but original has never been verified) as by del Rey. When I did the review for Imagination I listed it as by del Rey and made a notation that the book being reviewed was credited to van Lihn. Will not matter once we can link reviews directly to titles. August: illustration on page 85 - Llewellyn?. October Javlyn is Budrys, made change - also assigned Ray Palmer as a pseudonym for Raymond A. Palmer. November - Banister is incorrectly listed as Bannister in the review column (I now have a copy of this issue) - made the change. Also added mag title and month to 'Or So You Say' columns.--swfritter 20:26, 7 Mar 2008 (CST)

Fixed. Looked up "Police your Planet" on ABE, all later issues are credited to del Rey. I haven't reviewed your entries yet, thought I'd wait until we finished.--Rkihara 10:33, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

Amazing finish up

January thru July 1958, except April for me. April, August - December 1958 for you? 1959 for me, 1960 for you? Or I can do both 1959 and 1960 - I have all the issues and I would like to get this one wrapped up.--swfritter 20:35, 7 Mar 2008 (CST)

That's fine. We can sprint to the finish.--Rkihara 21:53, 7 Mar 2008 (CST)

Just checked, missing April, August, October, and December '58, I have Aug. and Oct. I could do most of '59, since I'm only missing May, Oct, and Nov. Missing Jan. and June 1960--Rkihara 10:48, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

OK. Check the Google spreadsheet. I will do the ones with my initials in bold. The second half of 1960 we can decide on when we get there.--swfritter 14:50, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

Oops! Figured it was okay to start on the 1960's, so I entered Feb. '60, while waiting for your response.--Rkihara 15:44, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

No Problem. 1960 is part of the 1950's - blame it on the people who decided not to have a year zero. Also realized that I don't have copy of April 1958 - and I can't find one on the internet. Also, starting with the May 1958 issue the title is Amazing Science Fiction Stories and does not change back again until October 1960. I am undecided whether the essay column qualifier for those issues should be the longer title or just 'Amazing Stories' - I am going for the shorter version for now. Using 'Analog' on all the columns for that mag made sense to me because there were so many verbose permutations of the title.--swfritter 16:41, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

Missing March '58 too, although it may turn up later. It could be misfiled, as when I had fewer issues of both Fantastic and Amazing they were boxed together.--Rkihara 14:55, 11 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Little Green Men have been at our collections. There are probably clues to their hiding places in some of the stories. Will do that one.--swfritter 10:50, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

The Winterbotham story in the March issue was a word-counter's nightmare. About half way through the story the font is reduced in size and the line count goes from 45 to 51. Finally figured it to be a Complete Novel. Some of the other long pieces in 1958 also had reduced font sizes but usually for the entire story.--swfritter 15:00, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Amazing - Goldsmith/Lobsenz era & editorials

When I did Fantastic there were numerous editorials attributed to Goldsmith although they were signed NL (Norman M. Lobsenz) who was the Editorial Director. The same may be true for Amazing. I think there was a team approach to editing the magazines especially since Goldsmith had virtually no knowledge of sf when she was first hired. Also - since the word "Editorial" does not appear on the the title pages for the editorials it should not be used in the titles. That will make it consistent with the Analog editorial series. Putting the editorials into the Amazing Stories editorial series will make it clear that they are editorials.--swfritter 14:52, 11 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Removed "Editorial," for the affected issues, though I see it is titled "Editorial" in the Feb. '59 issue, and is attributed on Lobsenz. Re: Fantastic, are you saying that Goldsmith was credited, in say, the table of contents, while Lobsenz was credited on the editorial page? If that's the case, do you give credit to both?--Rkihara 15:16, 11 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Goldsmith was not credited at all in the mags - but in The ISFDb. I think that whoever entered the data did not have access to the mags and assumed that she had written the editorials. It looks like the editorial titles in 1959 are similar to those in Fantastic - no title, just "Editorial". By the way, it looks like you are traveling this weekend (please don't tell me you have tickets to NCAA regionals). Is it alright if I work on the remaining Amazing Stories issues (during commercial breaks) while you are gone?--swfritter 10:49, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Sure, go ahead and work on the remaining Amazing Stories. I know you're anxious to finish. The ISFDB outage turned my attention back to home projects that I've been neglecting, so I may be spending less time here when I get back. I still have a room to re-floor and paint, not to mention a kitchen remodel.--Rkihara 23:56, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

If, Galaxy, F&SF - the 50's

I know you have been working in this area - mostly I think before you verified titles. They look to be in great shape and my next plan of attack is to do the six Bibliographic Tasks for them. Are there any you want to verify? I don't want it to look like I am taking credit for someone else's work if I verify them. The 50's mags are going to be in great shape by the time summer rolls around.--swfritter 10:55, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Yes, that's fine, verify any that you want. I've worked about 80% of all three mags, but I don't have any proprietary feelings about them. My current project is to verify F&SF to the present, but I left the fifties open, since you've been cleaning up all of the magazine publications in that decade. I feel that the verification is more accurate if someone other than the person entering the data does the verification. The only reason we might want to mark off areas is to keep from tripping over each other. As far as credit goes, I feel it's a group effort. I do think we need to rework the verification system to allow for secondary and maybe tertiary verifiers. As it is now, I tend to jump over previously verified pubs when verifying a run, unless an editor/moderator has given me explicit permission to modify their previous entries en masse. Unlike books, it would be easy to fill up a person's talk page with notifications of changes to their verified pubs when verifying a run of magazines.

If we do allow for multiple verifications, it would be good to have the ability to revert to the last verified version.

I'll be gone this week, since I'm taking advantage of the Easter weekend to visit with my niece, who I haven't seen for about fifteen years. I'll also be gone for about a week in April attending the Windy City Pulp Collector's convention.--Rkihara 20:56, 18 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Amazing finished through 1960 (except April 1958)

If you would be so kind as to take a look for any glaring inadequacies. Hope you had a fun weekend. Let me know if you have any small gaps that need to be filled in the areas where you are now working. Perhaps we should have have a magazine project page in order to co-ordinate the various ongoing projects. Then we can concentrate on individually working in areas where only one person may have the pubs. Since the 50's stuff is in fairly decent shape I may spend part of my time on my relatively small collection of pulps. If you spot a couple of copies of the April 1958 issue of Amazing Stories or a copy of February 1959 (#41) issue of Future snap 'em up and I will be forever grateful.--swfritter 15:40, 24 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Charles G. Sheffield?

We don't normally give him a "G.", is it really there in the review here? If so, do you know what it stands for? BLongley 16:34, 24 Mar 2008 (CDT)

The "G." is really there. I don't know what it stands for.--Rkihara 20:57, 24 Mar 2008 (CDT)

OK, as I'm getting very wary of tackling Magazines, I'll leave it up to you to adjust the magazine review to match the book, or create the variant, or which ever way people want to go now. I've left Charles G. as a pseudonym for now so we don't have an empty author, but the "Titles" link won't reveal anything useful with just that. BLongley 13:44, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

From Help: Book Author - The author of the work being reviewed. If the review uses a non-canonical name which is already recorded in the ISFDB as a pseudonym or alternate name of the canonical name for this author, simply enter the version of the author's name used in the review. If the review uses a version of the author's name which differs from any of the versions of this author's name known to the ISFDB, but which still serves to unambiguously identify the book (e.g. if the review has a misprint, or abbreviates the author's name), then enter a corrected name, but make a note in the notes field for the publication that the author's name was spelled incorrectly, and give the form of the name actually used in the review.--swfritter 14:15, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

As is, the review will not link to the book lexically. The same is true for titles - they should match what exists and then document in pub where review resides. This, of course, will change when we can explicitly link reviews to titles.--swfritter 14:15, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

I think the explicit link is still some way off. :-/ I don't think we have even agreed that it should be to a Title rather than a Pub - I've seen reviews that are of the HC and TP versions of the same book, so the elusive "edition" idea would be needed. And other editors here are trying to establish whether reviews are of the "original", "abridged", "revised", "restored", or "expanded" versions - I suspect this will be one of the ongoing problems as people become more reluctant to revise their past work due to a new requirement, and people's good work gets stamped on - this is why I try to avoid changing Magazine entries and point out things to active editors in that area instead. BLongley 20:16, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

In the meantime, my creating the pseudonym fixes my major concern (that people may may come across a "Charles G. Sheffield" Name entry which leads to NOTHING useful). I'm not actually too worried if the book doesn't link to all the reviews - I use reviews to find missing authors/titles/books, so if we have the book and author already (as we do in this case) I don't mind if it doesn't link BACK so much. If people want the links to work both ways then yes, the review needs adjusting, and so will the notes for the magazine, but I'll leave that up to the people that care about the magazine: I'm just happy if we have the book. BLongley 20:16, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

The Help could do with some clarification as it seems to assume the Author is the only thing that could vary, and in practice we've got more variations of Title - especially for books in a series. The amount of work needed to remove a prefix like "Star Trek" from reviews to get them to match a title which has had the prefix removed and replaced with a Series entry for the title is just too immense though. (In the sense that I don't want to do it unless I can use pure SQL, and only Al can do that.) BLongley 20:16, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

I mentioned in passing that the same logic applies to titles and Help also reflects that. My preference is to link to titles. I want to be able to track down all the reviews for a title because most of them will be valid even if they are for different editions. The ideal would be to link to both title and edition.--swfritter 20:34, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Took the "G" out of Charles G. Sheffield, as I could not find this variant of his name associated with SF.--Rkihara 11:00, 29 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1953-54

Added cover illos where missing.

06-07/53 - Illustration for "Restricted Area" possibly by Greisha Dotzenko from illo on p. 35. Cartoon on p.62.

08-09/53 - Cartoon p. 160.

10-11/53 - Cartoon p. 86.

12/53 - 01/54 - Cartoons on p. 20, 56, 68.

03/54 - I think the both the title and the portfolio were split, so I think it should be titled "The Two Lives of Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo in War . . . and in Peace.". The page no. for "The Double Spy" should be p. 22. Cartoons on p. 68, and p. 81.

09/54 - Cartoon on p. 23, not p. 26.

11/54 - Illo for "Lorlei of Chaos" by Barth. "The Gone Dogs" appears to be a novelette.--Rkihara 23:52, 25 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Fixed. Documented each page of the portfolio as a unique illustration. "The Gone Dogs" calculates to about 6500 words based on a sample of six lines from twelve different pages. Contento/Miller classifies it as a novelette but the font is fairly large and there are only 41 lines per page.--swfritter 15:42, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1955-56

1955 - Okay.

01/56 - ". . . Or So You Say" missing date and magazine.

02/56 - illus. for "Call Him Colossus" and "Better Change Your Mind by Beecham. "This Way Out" uncredited(?).

04/56 - "Solander's Radio Tomb," story on p. 76, art on p. 77. Illus. for "The Day Time Stopped Moving," p. 84, by Beecham.

07/56 - Cartoon p. 95.

08/56 - "Beast with Seven Tails" starts on p. 8. Cartoon on p. 104.

09/56 - Note should read A Wor(l)d Called Crimson" is (continued) on pages 105 through 130. Cartoon p. 105.

11/56 - Llewellen needs capitalization illust. p. 105. Cartoon on p. 130. Fixed: Llewellyn was misspelled. I don't have a page 130!!! or 129 for that matter. Looks like somebody may have re-glued the cover and lost it in the process. Please update from your copy. Looks like another mag goes back on my want list.--swfritter 16:16, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Cartoon on p. 130 entered.--Rkihara 17:57, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Thanks.--swfritter 19:35, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1957-58

Added links to cover illustrations where missing.--Rkihara 10:36, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Unable to check 01/57. amd 03/57, rest of 1957 issues okay.--Rkihara 11:32, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

I am sure all the ones you couldn't check are perfect.--swfritter 16:17, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

05/58 - Cartoon p. 47, number should be .553.

Fixed.--swfritter 19:34, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Unable to check 01, 03, 04, 08, 10, 12 - 1958, all other 1958 issues okay.--Rkihara 17:49, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Welker or Walker?

Is it Gaylord Welker or Walker here? BLongley 16:43, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Thanks for the heads up, it's Welker. Fixed.--Rkihara 16:52, 27 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1959

Added links to cover illustrations where missing.

03/59 - Short essay on Jules Verne medal, p. 144.

07/59 - Not marked verified.

09/59 - Illust. for "First Love" on p. 9 not listed.

11/59 - Month abbreviated in title block.

Unable to check 05, 10, 11 -1959--Rkihara 10:35, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Fixed. Thanks.--swfritter 14:36, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1960

04/60 - "Remembering" on p. 100.

10/60 - Cartoon/illustration for editorial on p. 6-7. Should be Vol 34, No 10.

11/60 - Should be Vol 34, No 11. "And Some Were Savages" starts on p. 112.--Rkihara 16:21, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Unable to check 01/60, and 06/60--Rkihara 16:32, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Fantastic Feb. 1955

Words run together in cartoon on p. 53.

I'll start checking the Amazing pulp issues tomorrow.--Rkihara 16:21, 28 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Fixed. Feel free to fix any typos, wrong page numbers or add missing data to any of my verified pubs. As per the conversation above - I think I have documented in the notes of the pubs any differences between review titles and names that I had to make in order to get the reviews to match lexically. And I know some of them likely don't match anymore because of changes made to the title of the book. I would like to be notified about any pseudonym or story length considerations. If verifications are going well. Usually 3 or 4 little things on each issue but I don't know for sure which ones you worked on so I can't deluge you with notifications.--swfritter 14:54, 29 Mar 2008 (CDT)

I'm thinking of proposing changes in the notification rules for verified magazines. It seems to me that correcting typos, page numbers, and adding missing data, as you mentioned above should need no notification. I'm inclined to leave out quizzes, acrostics, crossword puzzles, and other things of a like nature, but I wouldn't dispute someone putting them back in. Right now as I'm entering and verifying issues of F&SF, I'm jumping over previously verified pubs, as I'd spend as much time in notifications as making entries. Even in cases where I have explicit permission to change the pub without notification, or the moderator has been long inactive, I find it easier to bypass the pub and come back later.--Rkihara 13:10, 30 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Okay, I'll make the small corrections.

Almost everybody has a different idea about what they want to be notified about. I was considering suggesting that all significant errors and changes be documented in the Bibliographic Comments page for a pub. As far as changes to pubs which have been verified by inactive editors - I don't sweat them. I make the changes, and if they are significant, make a notation in the inactive editor's page - even if they don't come back again the modification has been documented.--swfritter 16:08, 30 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1951

01-06/1951 checked.

03/51 - Author of "Atomic Ostrich," p. 69, Bernard Lytle in index, but Bernard Lythe on first page of story. Lytle appears to be the correct spelling, as he appears once more in the April issue.--Rkihara 13:10, 30 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Fixed pending further extensive research . . .--swfritter 18:13, 31 Mar 2008 (CDT)

07-12/1951 checked.

Found possible author for two pseudonyms.

08/51 - "Death by Degrees" Rog Phillips for "unknown as by Robert Arnette"

03/53 - "Time Trap" by Rog Phillips for "unknown as by Mallory Storm"

I didn't make the changes, as I got the impression you wanted to authenticate attributions for pseudonyms. Reference Rog Phillips Bibliography by E. T. Kemp--Rkihara 13:00, 2 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I generally make a very thorough search but also I like to hear about new sources. Very interesting that one of the entries is

• Aug 1947 So Shall Ye Reap! (n) [complete novel] [serial]

Also, there is only one story listed for Mystic Magazine when Phillips had a number of stories there under various pseudonyms. Those issues were added to our database in the last month. Be interesting if they suddenly show up in the Phillips online bibliography. Might also be interesting to look at one of our old backups.--swfritter 19:24, 2 Apr 2008 (CDT)

I have to confess to ignorance about the significance of the Aug. 1947 story. I rechecked it to be sure, but it was published as by Rog Phillips.--Rkihara 10:03, 3 Apr 2008 (CDT)

It's the classification as [complete novel] [serial]. Not exactly a standard reference - I have never seen it anywhere but here where the primary use is to match serials to novels. Which means we are probably one of his sources. I loaded up the August backup to see if the above stories might have at that time had the same pseudonym data listed above with the concern that he might have gotten the data from us. Not true - at least as far back as August. Unlike the Silverberg and Garrett sites the information seems to come from secondary sources rather than primary sources.--swfritter 16:14, 3 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Okay, I get it. I figured since Phillip's was Kemp's godfather, that he had inside information. On the subject of bibliographies, I've also been using the special F&SF author issues to check for authorship by Harlan Ellison (July 1977), and Robert Silverberg (April 1974).--Rkihara 17:25, 3 Apr 2008 (CDT)

As soon as Contento/Miller come out with a newer version I want to check that then I will probably contact Kemp with the information I have on Mystic and find out what his sources are - some of which quite likely depend on more or less reliable primary sources. Documentation of pseudonym information is so badly documented by most sources, including here, that much of it is suspect.--swfritter 18:08, 3 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Ecclesiastes

I see you approved Lorenzr's deletion: "2008-03-31 16:23:35 952007 - PubDelete Lorenzr Rkihara Ecclesiastes: The Canon Pocket Bible Ser"

I agree we probably don't want to argue over whether the Bible is Speculative Fiction, but I remember massaging that title so that we'd at least have the Essay from Doris Lessing (who I believe does qualify as belonging here), even though I had to correct it from being a book ENTIRELY by her. :-/ At the moment, the Essay is now a stray title - is this deliberate, and we'll be seeing a clean-up of such NONGENRE essays, or was this unintentional? (I know this is borderline "Rules of Acquisition" stuff, but it needs to be either in or out, and at the moment it's only half-way out.) BLongley 16:46, 31 Mar 2008 (CDT)

It seemed like a no-brainer at the time. I hardly imagined that someone would write an introduction to a book of the Bible. If we take it out, that would leave a small hole in Lessing's bibliography. If we leave it it in, then that book of Bible should be entered for consistency. Then as you implied, someone might take offense at the Bible being listed in a database of Speculative Fiction. This is worse than being on jury duty <g>. I'm inclined to take it out, but I don't have any strong feelings about it.--Rkihara 17:40, 31 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Just delete the essay then - I won't rat on you. ;-) If a Bible fanatic turns up they'll probably start with us recording "Genesis" in inappropriate ways (and hopefully will give up before they get to all the "Revelations" rip-offs), and if a Lessing fanatic turns up they'll have bigger issues too - just sweep it under the carpet for now. BLongley 18:00, 31 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Approved your submissions

Sorry, Rkihara. I readily admit to a momentary lapse in memory, or early onset Alzheimer's. :) MHHutchins 21:45, 31 Mar 2008 (CDT)

No problem, it saved me some effort.--Rkihara 01:11, 1 Apr 2008 (CDT)

"The Crib Circuit"

When you get a chance, could you please double check if "The Crib Circuit" in your verified The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1969 capitalized the first word the way it was done in subsequent reprints? Also, is there a leading "The" in "Voyage of the "Deborah Pratt" in your verified The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1963 as indicated in the F&SF index and the other two Title records that we have for this story? TIA! Ahasuerus 21:32, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

F&SF, 11/69 - The capitalization of this title is a little complicated, as it's listed as "The Crib Circuit" in the index, while the whole title is capitalized on the first page, i.e. "THE CRIB CIRCUIT." Within the story it's an acronym for "Cryolysis Revival Investigation Board," and written with all caps. "The CRIB Circuit would seem to be more consistent with its use in the story.

F&SF, 03/63 - The index lists it as "Voyage of the Deborah Pratt," while the title as printed on the first page of the story is "The Voyage of the Deborah Pratt.--Rkihara 22:05, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Thanks, I'll update/merge the affected Title records and add notes throughout. Ahasuerus 23:14, 4 Apr 2008 (CDT)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1962

Could you please check if Avram Davidson's review of Joseph Payne Brennan's Nine Horrors and a Dream in your verified The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1962 really spells his middle name "Pain"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 12:04, 10 Apr 2008 (CDT)

It's Payne. Correction entered. Thanks!--Rkihara 17:56, 10 Apr 2008 (CDT)

Excellent, thanks! Ahasuerus 18:21, 10 Apr 2008 (CDT)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1982

Could you please check this pub for me and tell me if the story by Connie Willis is titled "Mail Order Clone", or "Mail-Order Clone". (Notice the hyphen in the second choice.) Thank you. CoachPaul 18:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It's "Mail Order Clone" without the hyphen in the index and on the title page of the story.--Rkihara 18:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Since this magazine was the first publication of this story, I have made the story without the hyphen the Parent, and the one with the hyphen the variant.CoachPaul 22:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That SEEMS a good guideline, and it certainly doesn't matter when it's one verified pub on each side, but does it work after many reprints? For example, we're still waiting for a verified sighting of The Magic White Suit but have plenty for The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. So long as I can find one from the other I'm not too bothered, but setting the canonical title to the earliest published version can (a) take it out of ISFDB's usual remit of SF-oriented publications and (b) sometimes makes the display of the title more long-winded than necessary in FAR more publications than the first - although it could also be argued that we ought to display variant titles more often than we do. Displaying all four variations of All you Zombies might make us less pernickety about punctuation... I'm sure I gave up on some irregularities after seeing those! ;-) BLongley 23:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm not trying to be prescriptive here, just pointing out that I don't think we HAVE a rule that says First Publication is canonical. Nor that "most used" is canonical. I'm sure we have titles where the Author suffered a bad first Editorially-imposed publication title and was glad to get the rights back so he could use his planned title again: but I know I've recently read where Asimov agreed that a magazine title was better than the planned one, so used it in future. BLongley 23:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm waffling again - signs that I should go sleep - I just want to point out that the first rule of ISFDB is that there are no rules. Or that you don't mention ISFDB. Or that if it's your first time on ISFDB, you have to fight. Or something. I'm pretty sure "No Poofters!" was an MPFC rule rather than ISFDB. But I'm pretty sure "First used title" ISN'T a rule. Unless we want it to be. BLongley 23:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

My preference is to normally use the one with the most "Verified" results when it comes down to either spelling or punctuation. Since it was a tie there, I went with the earliest one. As for your Bradbury example above, even if we did find an earlier Verified version of "The Magic White Suit", I would go with the other title if I were the one doing the editing as it is the better known title. If we have too many "knit-pickey" rules that we get bogged down with then working on the DB becomes a chore instead of a love. More often then not, I choose what "feels" right to me. Then later if I find out that there was a rule that I didn't know about and didn't apply, I'll fix it then.CoachPaul 00:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Editors and how they deal with hyphens is a sore topic with me. I've been around the bush with them with my own published papers. I work in a specialized field and compound adjectives that would be hyphenated by an English teacher are never done so by specialists writing in the field, to do so would put two or three dozen on a page and make the paper harder to read. I don't have a problem with experienced technical editors, but they're always hiring English majors who have no technical background as editors. I once wrote a paper that an editor added hundreds of hyphens to, which I told him to remove after showing him published examples on the same subject. After I approved it, he put them all back in without telling me, and it was published that way. His excuse was that his superior would think he was incompetent if he didn't. After an angry confrontation with him, I wrote a letter to his supervisor who assured me it wouldn't happen again. The point of this tirade is that I'm sure editors insert or remove hyphens (and punctuation) at their whim and that it's probably impossible to know what the author intended. I can imagine the fight that William Faulkner had with his editor over the 4-5 page sentence in one of his novels.--Rkihara 18:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Many, perhaps most, SF writers have similar stories to tell about English majors who try to correct technical aspects of SF stories/novels instead of doing useful things like checking continuity. For example, Lawrence Watt-Evans once had a problem with nautical terms and Keith Laumer went ballistic when an editor changed "despatch" (a variant spelling that happens to be dominant in the diplomatic world) to "dispatch" in a Retief story. Ahasuerus 20:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Despatch/Dispatch is an excellent example of a way to annoy people by changing the spelling! Also a good example of the way that spellings change over time within our own subsets of English, and sub-sub-sets by profession. My Grandfather was honoured to be "mentioned in despatches" (he was actually a "despatch rider" that carried the military communications referred to as "despatches" at the time). In those days a list of "Dispatches" would mean a list of people assassinated. So while both refer to "sending something away" the difference between papers and people was important, and now the approved spellings have changed you can REALLY misunderstand historical documents... :-/ BLongley 23:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

But I digress (as usual). CoachPaul - "most verified" is probably what I'd go for too. I might wait a little longer before a decision, and bug the verifiers a bit first just to make sure. And lean towards Book titles for punctuation differences over Magazine titles in the long run - I'm pretty sure there's generally more Book Reprints than Magazine Reprints (indeed, magazine reprints seem to have a whole new set of problems, as my (few) attempts at new UK Magazine entries show). But punctuation differences are something I'm happy to lose - ISFDB already distorts some quotation marks, and the prospect of changing thousands of "..." to " . . ." hasn't encouraged much activity: we've got problems with M-dashes and N-Dashes or whatever everyone else calls them: frankly I don't care until it at least gets to the stage of a missing leading definite or indefinite article. And only then because I sometimes wonder if it was a missing "A" or a missing "The". BLongley 23:02, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Before I saw this conversation I edited this issue of If and noted why I did not go with the title as listed on the title page. Sometimes it is graphic decisions that determine the presentation of the title - especially in the magazines.--swfritter 23:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

You're probably safe there. R.A. Lafferty in a memoir regarding his history with "If" listed that story with a hyphen, though if you're paranoid you might think an editor was responsible.--Rkihara 05:45, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Secondary Check: Amazing Stories 1952-53 (Pulp issues)

01/53 - "Marching Under Fluid" changed to "Machining Under Fluid."

02/53 - Index credits Frank "Novarro" instead of "Navarro," maybe editorial typo, but two issues of Fantastic Adventures have covers attributed to "Novarro."

03/53 - No pseudonym for Gars/Garo.

This completes my secondary check of all of the fifties Amazing Stories.--Rkihara 17:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed Novarro/Navarro - most likely the same guy but need to be sure. Gars/Garo - I think the Emsh book said Gars for sure and based upon style and signatures Garo is most assuredly Emsh also. Assigned Gars as a pseudonym of Emsh.--swfritter 20:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I put a Bibliographic Tasks matrix on Amazing Stories and documented that they are complete for 1951-1960.--swfritter 23:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

F&SF July 1962 book review

Bernard Jaffe's "Chemistry Creates a New Life" is reviewed but I think the title is a misprint and should have been "Chemistry Creates a New World" which is reviewed in the Sep 1962 If. A search through Worldcat and Abebooks finds only the second title.--swfritter 23:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

No such book seems to exist. I'll put in a note and and change the title. I'll delete the pub it's linked to also.--Rkihara 04:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Modified pub entry to reflect correct title, as it matches up with the WorldCat entry. Left in the price although it may not be correct.--Rkihara 04:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Although the other title sounds like it might be good for a novel. I'm up to the 1963 issues of If and they are looking good.--swfritter 21:48, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Review in June 1952 Amazing Stories

Is it Travellers in Space or Travelers in Space. Everywhere I look, except ISFDb, it is the latter. It's possible our entry for the book is wrong. Two other reviews list 'Travelers'.--swfritter 01:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

It's "Travelers." I've made the correction.--Rkihara 02:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Contento is the only one who has 'travellers'. Worldcat and abebooks have 'travelers' plus we have three verified reviews. Verification Requests time.--swfritter 19:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Our data for most 1940s-1950s anthologies originally came from Contento, so we probably inherited his error. I don't have this anthology in my collection, but there is a decent chance someone will... Ahasuerus 19:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Chqanges to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1965

Just an FYI that I changed the spelling of "The Struggle in Space • Alexander Beliaev • book review by Fritz Leiber" and added an explanatory note to the publication. Beliaev's bibliography is a nightmare, so Leiber's misspelling is not particularly surprising :-\ Ahasuerus 05:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I rechecked this issue and Fritz Leiber correctly reviewed the author as Alexandr Beliaev. I didn't notice that someone had previously altered the author's name when I verified this pub. Do you want to fix this or should I?--Rkihara 01:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see! Since you have the issue handy (mine is a little difficult to get to at the moment), could you please go ahead and change it? Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Note fixed.--Rkihara 21:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Back from convention?

Hope you had fun and found some rare magazines. I made a ISFDB:Community_Portal#Magazine_Projects_Page that we create a project page to co-ordinate projects and also discuss issues that pertain only to magazines.--swfritter 21:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Got back Sunday and came down with a cold on Tuesday. It seems that every time that I go off on a trip I catch something. I bought maybe thirty magazines, some Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder, upgrades for some of my thirties and forties Astoundings, and Beyond Fantasy Fiction. A lot of amazing stuff was for sale there (no pun intended), for example, copies of Astounding dated 1930 that looked brand new, white pages, bright glossy covers, no tears in the overhangs, etc. I was also looking for original art and I managed to find an affordable painting by Kelly Freas. Other than Freas, there was a lot of art by Emsh, Powers, Valigursky, and Paul. All priced way over my budget <sigh>. The art show had maybe two dozen paintings by Emsh on display.

A Magazine Projects Page sounds like a good idea. I've been staying away from areas that I know people are working in to avoid collisions.--Rkihara 23:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

1950's Planet Stories might be something we can do another Amazing type project on. The prices for even the later issues are high - although I am tempted to get 'em while I can. They may be impossible to find before too long. Some of the old Captain Futures are going for $500 and I don't think people are buying them because they want to read them.--swfritter 21:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm only missing four issues of Planet Stories from the fifties, so that's doable. I'll look for fills if we decide to do Planet next. I should have asked if you wanted anything in particular before I went to the pulp show. I may go to Pulpcon in late July, so I'll contact you if I decide to go. Planet stories from the fifties in FN- condition were going as low as $20-$25 the Windy City show. I don't collect "Captain Future," but $500 seems over the top. Bob Madle's catalog #26 lists Winter 1940 (#1) for $100 in VG, and $150 in NF, and $200 in Fine, if available.--Rkihara 00:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Careful, folks. Do I need to remind you what happened after the comic book bubble of the late 1980s/early 1990s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_book_collecting#The_speculator_boom)?.. Ahasuerus 05:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think most of us here are collectors and not speculators. Comics are still going for ridiculous prices, while old magazines can be purchased in "fine" condition all the way back to 1955 or so for slightly more than a new magazine costs today. Only the rarer pulps reach prices over a hundred dollars, while many far more recent comics sell for several times that. In any case, unless magazines and pulps are suddenly discovered as collectibles, prices will probably go slowly down over the years as the collectors die off. Unlike the attendance at SF and comic conventions, there are very few people in their twenties, and I didn't see any in their teens, unless they came with their parents. I would be surprised if the average age of the collectors attending Windy City was less than 40 years of age.

It's the collector in me that tempts me to buy a copy of Astounding Stories in VF condition for $150 (I didn't), not the potential as an investment. I doubt that there were any speculators at Windy City, and that makes it such a great happening. I remember sitting in the con hospitality room while one of the convention goers was showing off his prize acquisition, a pristine copy of Weird Tales. I don't collect this title, but it was awesome to look at, and we were all impressed. I recounted this to the local comic store owner, who said that he remembers times like this at ComiCon, but he said those days are long gone. I think we're safe for a few more years at least.--Rkihara 06:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I for one am not a specualtor at all, nor primarily a collector, I am a reader. I do like seeing the classic illos that the older magazines have, and that reprints rarely include, and I have sentimential attachments to some magazines that I bought wen they came out, but in general I would as soon buy a facsimiale edition as an original, and nearly as soon buy an anthology containign the stories I have interst in as I would copies of the magazines in which they were originally published. For a book, unless there are textual differences, i don't generally care what edition i have -- when i have a first edition, it is usually because I bought it when it came out, or because that was what was on sale when i wanted to buy a reading copy, used. I don't object to collectiors, but I don't think I fully understand them, and I am sure not one. (But for a "non-collector" I do have a lot of books, enough that i now have to think about getting rid of some when i buy new ones.) Still i am glad collectors exist, they help keep alive a market for used books that lets me find reading copies of stuff I want. OTOH, sometimes they run up the prices beyond what I think any sensible person would pay -- I recall that before it was reprinted, I could not find a copy of Adventures in Unhistory offered at less than $500, which was a bit more than 10 times my upper limit. I grabbed the reprint as soon as it came out. Anyway, i hope you enjoyed the convention very much. -DES ^Talk 14:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I did enjoy the convention, thank you. I would argue that collectors of textual material are usually readers of the same. Using myself as an example, I can claim to have read through at least half the material in my collection. As to why people collect things, I don't think anyone knows. I've certainly wondered about it myself, and I'm sure all collectors do in their more reflective moments. Several years ago there was sociologist posting in some of collector's newsgroups who was trying to put together a study of why people collect things. I've always wondered if he completed his study and what his conclusions were.--Rkihara 17:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh I agree that book and magazine collectors, and other collectors of the written word, are generally also readers (although there are old book collectors who value an edition more if the pages are uncut, thus proving that no one has ever read it). What I meant by "reader" was a person who cares more about the content than the edition or format, who would not pay any more for a first edition than for a 25th, provided it had a readable copy. But both styles have their place, and few people are pure exponents of either style anyway. I do have books i have never read, but pretty much always because I bought them with the intention of reading them, and somehow never got to them. I think that I have read 95% of the books I own -- not counting reference works that I have consulted, but not read per se -- but then I'm probably one of the few people who has read right through a volume of the Uniform Commercial Code, annotated (discarded by a law office that once shared a building with my job). -DES ^Talk 18:46, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I fall - definitely not speculator, although I hang on to anything that may be of value. (I spotted the Comics bubble coming just from the sheer amount of dross being published, and gave up - there's still six cases of comics that I've hauled around from house to house since the 1980s though, of which 50% are probably more valuable than than when I bought them, and 50% valueless). I'm pretty sure I'm not a pure reader anymore - the collection started as I was reading 8-10 books a week while commuting, and hated letting go of them afterwards. It grew as my income allowed me to buy more books than I could read at the time - I used to have one small 3-shelf bookcase by my bed for the To-Be-Read pile, but gave up on that and my To-Be-Read is now mixed in with all the others. (Anything I'm still keeping is now either To-Be-Read or To-Be-Re-Read - although the only way I can see myself finding time to do such is to win the lottery and retire very early, while suddenly acquiring an aversion to bibliography.) I'm still acquiring 8-10 books a week for keeping, and as summer's arrived I'm back to acquiring the 10p Car-Boot-Sale bargains where I'll improve my reading copy or just acquire another data-point for ISFDB - for instance, on Sunday I came back with SEVEN carrier-bags of books acquired with mere pocket-change, no bank-notes involved. (Although the Two-Pound coin might make the definition of "pocket-change" a bit suspect.) I AM trying to divest myself of certain titles I think I'll never read - "Read It, Swap It" helps a bit but results in OTHER books arriving - but as I'm trying to swap BFBs for the smaller, older titles I used to enjoy my shelf-space should improve. ISFDB does encourage me to go buy books for research purposes alone though - this is not necessarily a good thing. BLongley 23:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I try to limit myself to a max of about $10 per mag which is why I have held off on Planet Stories. The only exception is the last few missing issues from a run which I will pay unmentionable prices using all kinds of tortured logic for justifying the purchase. When I don't have a complete run of a magazine I have to reorganize my collection every time I merge my new acquisitions. Definitely don't consider my collection an investment. That term would have applied to the comics I sold more than 30 years ago for $800. Estimated value now - $40,000. Of course, they might have suffered the same fate as my lp collection which was substantially damaged by a burst water heater. My magazine collection was luckily saved from a flooding basement a few years before that. By the way, could anyone explain to me why I had so many Leo Sayer albums?--swfritter 21:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I would be surprised if any of our active editors were hoarding old magazine just to resell them at a profit later -- the ISFDB doesn't seem to be the kind of place that would attract speculators :-) Having said that, even if speculation/investment is the last thing on your mind, it's easy to be persuaded by the age old "Get it while you can still afford it!" argument. That's why it's important to remember what all too often happens to "The price can only go up!" collectibles.

As far as collecting goes, there are different breeds of collectors and different paths to collecting, but there are also some patterns that one runs into over and over again. Many SF aficionados start as "readers", i.e. people who only care about the letters between the covers, but end up on the proverbial slippery slope due to completism. If you are interested in a particular writer, you very quickly realize that even Big Names Authors like Heinlein have an occasional unreprinted story (usually for a reason) and you have to go to the original magazines to find them. And if you are interested in a Kuttner or a Silverberg, well, you have your work cut out for you. Later, as you accumulate more and more magazines, you realize that they often contain treasure troves of unreprinted stories, editorials, essays, artwork, fan letters -- even ads! -- that are central to the history of the genre and can't be found anywhere else. And they are pretty cheap too! Then you realize that you already own 70% of all Mindblowing Stories issues, so you might as well get the other 30%. Then... Well, I am sure you can see where this is going :-\ Ahasuerus 03:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

You forgot about condition, half of the 70% are in crap condition and you have to replace them with fine plus copies. You then realize that these replacements are better than the other half of the 70% that you thought were good enough to keep and you replace these to and since you can't handle these pristine copies(in third party graded holders) you keep all the old ones to read. You then discover that the last 10% of the pristine copies have been bought by speculators and to complete your collection they charge you 20 times what they where worth before anybody cared about condition. One thing to keep in mind is that most collecting is driven by nostalgia and this generations nostalgia is not the same as the next generations. A dealer that I've known for thirty years described it this way to me "It starts out as grapes, turns into wine and then becomes vinegar."Kraang 04:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

1950 Planet Stories I own

v5 # 8, September 1952"
v5 #10, January 1953"
v5 #11, March 1953"
v5 #12, May 1953"
v6 # 1, July 1953"
v6 # 2, September 1953"
v6 # 4, January 1954"
v6 # 6, May 1954"
v6 #10, Spring 1955"

Since you have a substantially greater selection than I do I am going to leave this project to you if you are interested. If I have any of the issues you don't have I can do those. Let me know if there are any issues that neither of us have and I will look out for them. I have started doing more comprehensive data entry with the pulps and obscure titles than the mainstream digests because there is less likelihood that someone with access to these titles will add data in the future. I have started adding multiple pieces of artwork per story. Currently a display issue but probably not as bad with Planet as Amazing. I have also started adding letters by significant names. Letters are debatable so I have a little debate with myself about individual letters and I quite often win. But those matters are totally up to you.--swfritter 22:11, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You've got two of my missing issues, May, and September 1953. I'm presently hopping back and forth between Amazing, Astounding, and F&SF, so it'll be a while before I could get to Planet. For now, I'm only entering the first piece of artwork for each story, and will continue to do so for consistency with my previous work. I'm not likely to go back just to add the extra illustrations, but might if there was additional other content to add. I'm always tempted to enter the letters, and it seems the fanzine reviews would be useful to bibliographers trying to catalog some of the huge collections (>100,000 items) that have recently been donated to libraries. If we do add the letters, we should list all instead of trying to cherry pick them. I do think the extra data would make things so crowded that we'd have to go to a two-column format, maybe splitting off the stories from the departments, and adding a section for artwork.--Rkihara 14:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

No big rush. I've got plenty to do. What are the other two you don't have? When I get through my collection I intend to begin on another more comprehensive pass - probably starting in January of 2009. Hopefully by that time there will be software support for multiple review types other than books and also for letters. If not we may have to do the thing that drove me nuts as a programmer - tweaking the system by entering the data in a creative manner. Even if the display issues aren't resolved at this site there are likely others who will find creative solutions. Might be time for me to learn a little Python and Java.--swfritter 18:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Where's our Ebay commission?

Look at this Ebay ad. See anything familiar in the bottom part of the ad?--swfritter 15:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, they even cut and pasted the hyperlinks along with the text.--Rkihara 16:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess we should give them the 100% discount for advertising our site.--swfritter 17:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

When I cut and paste the contents of my Magazines, Anthologies, and Collections into my LibraryThing pages, the hyperlinks don't show up. I wonder why they do on the eBay site?CoachPaul 02:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Copy from the source page, not the web browser page. In Firefox, hit Control+U. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, go to View, then source. MHHutchins 02:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the attribution to us as required by our Creative Commons Attribution License. Maybe someone should have a quiet word with the seller and get us some PROPER advertising? BLongley 17:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course, by adding the hyperlinks to isfdb there is kind of an implicit acknowledgment. The really important data they left out was the verifiers of the magazines.--swfritter 19:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to mention that to the seller too. Al doesn't have an Ebay account, and I can't recall whether I still have one or not. BLongley 17:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Change to verified pub Amazing Stories July 1952

Changed artist to Lawrence from Lawrence Sterne Stevens. He was usually credited as Lawrence, and I think very often uncredited, because he had a reputation to maintain for his other artwork. Could you also check the February and May 1952 issues?--swfritter 22:18, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Fixed.--Rkihara 05:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I changed all the Famous Fantastic Mysteries too; although I don't have all the issues credited to Lawrence Sterne Stevens the ones that I do have are credited to Lawrence.--swfritter 19:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Three Songs for Enigmatic Lovers

You've verified The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1974, which contains "Three Songs for Enigmatic Lovers" by Brian (possible-middle-initial-W-but-that's-not-why-I'm-asking) Aldiss. Does it indicate in any way that there are three sub-titles, namely "A One-Man Expedition Through Life", "The Taste of Shrapnel" and "Forty Million Miles from the Nearest Blonde"? I'm tempted to add that to the Title notes, but if it's not in the magazine version then I'll make it clear that it's Pub-level. Brian does seem to be the leading example of how to mess up us bibliographers with entire trilogies in a short story: even if "Enigma" gives us a bit of a warning. :-( BLongley 22:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Just checked. The story is split into three titled parts of two-to-three pages each, in the order you listed above. The story is credited to Brian W. Aldiss in both index and on the title page. I personally wouldn't make a note about the subsections, but feel free to do so. Are the section headings actually given as sub-titles in your pub? Incidentally, the preceding story in that issue, "Space Shoes of the Gods" by John Sladek, also contains titled sections.--Rkihara 05:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It's an unusual entry in that all four titles are listed at the beginning, the overall title in larger type, then they're repeated at the beginning of the relevant sections. It seems that someone really wanted them noticed. BLongley 17:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've got "Space Shoes of the Gods" too, I'll have a look at that later. I know that pub already got messy due to "Fifteen Utopias" though. BLongley 17:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I ran into a similar situation reecently with "Stories of Lough Guir" and "Ghost Stories of Chapelizod", and I settled for title level notes. Someone else ran inmto this with Distant Friends and Others, where a combination of notes and a sereis was used. I've seen other cases. I think that case-by-case decisons will be called for. -DES ^Talk 19:07, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, three stories is a small problem in comparison. Have a look at this and see where we eventually gave up on the "exactly as stated" rule for authors. There could be 18 extra variant authors from the last few pages alone! Yes, case-by-case decisions are needed, but even when it harms no one else it can be really off-putting when there's THAT much detail. BLongley 22:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2006

I was working on Charles E. Carryl's bibliography and noticed that F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre's review of Davy and the Goblin; or, What Followed Reading "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" listed Carryl's name as "Charles Edward Carryl". Could you please double check that MacIntyre really used the full middle name and not the middle initial? We also seem to have a problem with the review appearing twice on the Title page after I linked it to the reviewed title, but that's something for Al to look into. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I rechecked the issue, and the full name was used in the review. The reviews in "Curiosities" are usually long forgotten books and authors, and so I think the reviewers are more likely to use the full legal name, rather than the canonical name. The original review is replicated online at here on the F&SF web page.--Rkihara 01:17, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll see if I can link it properly and create a pseudonym association. Ahasuerus 02:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

After a few unmerges and additional massaging, everything looks good, although at some point we will presumably want to add another half dozen editions from OCLC. Ahasuerus 02:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Stories, September 1940

Just curious if there are really two "Riddles of Science: Is there a Death Ray?" essays in your verified Amazing Stories, September 1940 on page 69 or if one of them may be interior art? Thanks! Ahasuerus 00:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. Sewell may have done both essay and art, but only the artwork is signed, no other credits.--Rkihara 04:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Planet Stories continued

Just within the last couple of weeks a bunch of reasonably priced ($5 to $18) issues of Planet Stories popped up on ebay. Combined shipping was a bonus. So now I have all but two 50's issues and my plans are to enter those after I get through with Startling Stories in the next couple of days. I think I can process what few miscellaneous zines remain from the 50's in pretty short order then on to bibliographic tasks for the already well edited 50's majors - Galaxy, F&SF, and Astounding.--swfritter 19:51, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've decided to work on through with Amazing Stories, 1961 up, which will keep me occupied for another month or two. Let me know you want to do a team effort with Planet, otherwise they're all yours.--Rkihara 20:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Planet Stories is my top priority so I will forge ahead with that. When working on Amazing you may want to look at my work on Fantastic from the same period; there will be many similarities. It would be nice if we could make them as consistent as possible. Let me know if there is anything from Fantastic that could be done differently to facilitate that goal; more than likely you may also spot some of my errors there. If there are any issues you don't have I can help there. During the process you should also be able to verify that the six bibliographic tasks have been accomplished for the run you are working on.--swfritter 22:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I can do the secondary checking for Fantastic between the data entry for Amazing. I have 86% of the issues, so I can check most of them. If I find any errors do you want to fix them yourself, or should I fix them? I've already noticed that some stories and illustrations have appeared in both magazines. A good way to save money, but I'd be annoyed if I'd been subscribing to both. Since they were sister magazines after some date, it would be good for them to be consistent with each other.--Rkihara 02:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Those reprint issues from the late 60's are kind of annoying. A definite drop in professionalism. I think Fantastic is in pretty good shape but if you notice something that is clearly wrong while working on Amazing go ahead and change it and let me know.--swfritter 19:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've compared your entries for Fantastic with mine for Amazing, and they're pretty much alike, except for your listing of Sam Moskowitz's intros to the reprints. I'm still thinking about that, as a lot of magazine editors write intros to stories. The Moskowitz intros are much longer than usual, so maybe they deserved a separate listing. Also Galactic Central has a large catalog of cover images for Fantastic, which you might like to add in.--Rkihara 19:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Some of the intros are as much as a page and they provide valuable information for researchers. Many of the reprints are fairly significant from an sf history perspective. You might also notice that I gave the reprinted interior artwork from many of the 66-70 issues the date of their original publication. You will probably recognize some of them from earlier issues and I only spot-checked a few of them. I did not merge them - I think that would require absolute verification and there is the additional problem of multiple pieces of artwork for a given story not all of which may be included with the reprint. I also merged some of the cartoons - pretty easy to match them based on the captions. Classifying them as interior art is somewhat of a compromise as they are somewhere in between art and very short fiction.--swfritter 21:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been dating the reprint artwork per original publication and checking some of them against my back issues. I'm about convinced to include the Moskowitz intros, but maybe we should set some criteria for including these, such as length, and so on. For consistency it seems that we should treat the page numbering of the intro like we treat illustrations that appear on the first page of the story. Then there's F&SF which always prints an intro to a story, on average about 1/5 of a page, but sometimes these have been over a page long, especially stories reprinted in the fifties.--Rkihara 02:25, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Judging by some pros' and fans' reaction to Moskowitz' essays, they may have to be filed under "fiction" :) Ahasuerus 03:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd heard he was pretty sloppy with his facts. I'll have to browse the letters column and see if there are any objections to his essays. I suppose someone has to be a first historian like Herodotus, before you can have a Thucydides.--Rkihara 17:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

In many cases he is also the last historian. I can't remember how I treated the page numbers but I think your are right about the page numbers. It would seem to cause less confusion if the page number of the story is the same as the table of contents. Of course, that could cause the essay to appear sequentially after the story in same way the artwork sometimes appears before the story if the page numbers are the same. It would be nice if we had more control of the sequence in this and many other cases. I certainly think the essays are more valuable than some of those 1/4 page uncredited essays that we document.--swfritter 17:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Finished off my 50's issues of Planet Stories today. I do not have the July 1952 issue ($100 then $50 the last times on ebay) or the November 1953 issue ($50 the last time on ebay) so if you have them feel free to fix them up. Pretty easy. No book reviews, miscellaneous columns, cartoons, or filler. Letters? Guess that's up to you. I hope that my proposal is an acceptable compromise. How's Amazing going? Missing any issues? Guess one of my next tasks should be a secondary verification.--swfritter 20:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I have both of those Planet issues, so I can do the fill-in. I think those eBay prices are way too high, maybe $40 in Fine condition. I bought a half-dozen from the late forties in "Near Fine" condition for $30/ea at the pulp show, ~$25/ea, after quantity discount. I'm up to 1968 in Amazing, those reprints are a real hassle. Missing in Amazing, Feb. 1961, March and May 1969, March 1970, Nov. 1979, Jan. 1981, March and June 1982. and Jan. 1987. April and Oct. 1993, and July 2000. I'm sure they're going to need a secondary check, I'm still finding errors on casual inspection.

Ebay can be a little weird. Some of the Planet Stories I got in decent condition were only $5 and I noticed last week that someone paid $80 for V1N1 of Fantasy Book which is available at multiple sites fro less than $40.--swfritter 16:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

On entering letters; I've decided to hold off until entering them becomes standard, then I'll go back through all my issues again. I sort of think that if you enter some, you should enter all. I been reading the recent discussion on letters, and it seems to me that attempts at cherry picking letters will leave a lot of fruit on the branches. I had no idea why some of the letters that had been entered in the earlier issues of Amazing were there. I'm sure the editor had his reasons to include those and leave others out. I didn't have enough knowledge to know why.--Rkihara 23:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I think a lot of the letters from older magazines were listed in the secondary sources that the data was entered from. I am currently only entering letters by significant authors but if I make another pass through the mags I would like to enter them all. But I may not do that unless we also do fanzine reviews. I do not want to make another pass through for them if they are later deemed acceptable.--swfritter 16:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

If you've got some of the later issues of Amazing, maybe we could both work on finishing it off. At the rate I'm moving, it's going to take another couple of months.--Rkihara 03:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I have most everything through 1980 plus some of the slicks. My subscriptions to two of the slicks died with the suspensions of the magazine. I finally ended up swapping the value of the last one for some books in Paizo's Planet Stories book series. You can now imagine how burnt out I was after doing the complete run of Fantastic. The same with If where I am still working on the series dregs - Pohl would have to sign himself as The Editor for the editorials and letter columns. First I have to pseudonym then series - remembering to do the titles by canonical author. As soon as I get done with that I will start secondary verification.--swfritter 16:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Circulation #s for Fantastic'

I think they start in 1962. If you are going to verify the 60's issues perhaps you could post the issue and circulation numbers on the Wiki page for the mag. I am going to get started on 1960's Amazing and will do the same.--swfritter 22:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

There was one in the January 1961 issue of Amazing and they may have started sooner than that.--swfritter 00:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I've already started looking for them. I entered one (page no.) for Amazing, I'll have to go back and replace it with the circulation number."--Rkihara 16:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I put the 1961 number on the wiki. This might be only temporary until we decide on the best way of handling them. It might be an idea to start a page where we start listing the numbers for the magazines in a central place.--swfritter 22:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing secondary verification

". . . Or So You Say" is credited in the ISFDb to "The Editor" in the first few issues of 1961. Since they are not signed at all shouldn't they be uncredited? This could be of some minor significance in Amazing because it was team edited.--swfritter 00:16, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Ooops! I may have done more than a few.--Rkihara 16:45, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I will go ahead and change them as I continue on.--swfritter 20:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

1961 - The cover artists for January & February were not as credited (Valigursky; Summers). Art for Devolution was not added for April issue - this was the first sf magazine I ever bought. There were a few interior art pieces that had the wrong page number. Sep - Tongues of the Moon at only 28 pages was listed as a novella. There were a couple pieces of artwork that had [bc] appended to the title but this seemed a bit redundant since that is also entered in the page number field.--swfritter 22:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I appended [bc] to the title to distinguish the art on the bc, from the interior art when searching. Without that, a search brings up identical titles, which someone may try to merge.--Rkihara 23:14, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

As it finally dawned on me last night. Should have queried you first. Would it be better to use the standard we normally use for multiple pieces of artwork per story? - it looks a little unusual otherwise. I know you don't like doing multiple art and I have not added any to the issues on which I am doing secondary verification. Fantastic should probably be done the same way. Also forget, "I, Robot" in April ish is by Otto Binder only as per Day and Contento.--swfritter 16:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't dislike entering multiple works of art. I'm just a creature of habit, and when I started inputting data we hadn't started entering multiple works. I'm also a little compulsive (I guess you have to be to be an editor) and if I started entering multiple works of art in the middle of a run, I'd feel compelled to go back to the beginning to make it uniform. On the other hand, if someone else has entered or enters multiple pieces of art in a run I'm working on, it doesn't bother or compel me in the slightest. It's fine with me if you want to enter multiples during secondary verification. It's been tugging at the back of my mind for a while, but I've managed to ignore the urge. I thought "square brackets [ ]" appended at the end was the standard for multiple works, or do you mean putting numbers in instead of "bc?" I thought that using numbers that would cause some confusion, since the back cover is the only multiple I enter in the pub listing. If you enter multiples, numbering the back cover illustration shouldn't be a problem.

Image uploads here at the ISFDB are still up in the air, so I've contacted Phil Stephensen-Payne at Galactic Central, and I've arranged to upload some of the missing images from his visual catalog. I know that's not one of your priorities, but the missing images from Fantastic and Amazing should appear there sooner or later.--Rkihara 17:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking of doing numbers but that wouldn't work unless the interior artwork was done that way - giving the back cover the highest number in the sequence for a story. If that makes sense, I will go ahead and do 1961 that way and any more in my verification run. This is something I should have thought of when doing with Fantastic. This is definitely something I should have asked about first. Errors, additions, and entries contrary to standards are fair game but this was a conscious editor's choice. Not doing cover images was probably motivated in the same way for me as interiorart for you. But now that I've started doing them I will probably get obsessive. I just wish we could link to high quality interiors - the Fantastic Novels Magazine I just did had six beautiful Finlay illos.--swfritter 17:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. I'm not particularly sensitive about having knowledgeable people edit my work. Since you were my mentor, I'm strongly inclined to defer to your judgment. Until I started editing here, I had no idea how much art some of these artists made. The volume of work is staggering. Virgil Finlay, and Emsh come to mind. The artist had to read the story, visualize a scene, then painstakingly paint or draw it. Finlay's style of drawing must have been especially laborious, yet he was able to create over 2600 works during his lifetime.

On interior images, it's reasonably easy to take a magazine apart for scanning. I've been hand binding some of my extras, so I've had a bit of experience with disassembling magazines. If the magazine is bound in stapled signatures, then you can carefully straighten out and pull the staples. All the pages can then be removed, except for the outer pages of the signatures, which are glued to the cover. Those pages can be removed in various ways, using chemicals, or most of the times just heat. If you're lucky, those pages will not have the illustrations you're interested in. You can then flat scan the ones you're interested in. The magazine can then be reassembled and the staples put back in, after careful alignment of the holes.--Rkihara 21:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

It actually looks like using [bc] does work better and I will use that method. The main reason for doing so is that the entries appear to sort on the author's biblio page in the same order as they appear in the magazine. That would mean a bc piece with a numerical offset would appear there out of order. So, as Bones of the TV series of the same name said to a throughly discredited mentor in an episode last night, "It appears that the student has surpassed the mentor."--swfritter 17:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

And I quick look tells me I wasn't doing multiple art for Fantastic. I can't remember now when I started doing that. With the exception of Galaxy, F&SF, and Astounding I am almost through with my 50's titles so it will soon be time to make another pass. I am dreading looking at some of my earlier work.--swfritter 18:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic covers

Inserted all the ones that Galactic Central so that any that are missing they probably don't have. There are a lot missing towards the end. Also, the May 1974 issue appears to be named as though it were the March 1975 issue. I did not attach it and since you are in contact with them you may want to let them know.--swfritter 18:38, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll notify them about that issue when I do my next upload. The situation with Amazing is about the same, I think over half of the issues past 1970 are missing, though it's pretty much complete up to that date. I'm trying to scan about a dozen a day, so I'll be working on Amazing for a while. I'll switch to Fantastic later. If there's a missing issue of Fantastic that you want scanned and uploaded, let me know. I didn't ask when Phil might post the images, so it could be a while before they appear.--Rkihara 18:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

George Tucker in your verified pub

I've changed author's name George_Tucker to George_Tucker_(active_21_c.) in your verified Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 2004 as we have two authors having this name. --Roglo 20:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verfication 1962

April - Did you leave Breadfruit vignette as shortfiction on purpose? - actually something I wish I had done with vignettes. The review for "All the Traps of Earth" links to the short story instead of the collection as do two other reviews. Same thing happened to me today when I entered a review for "Who Goes There?".--swfritter 18:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Ummm, no. I'm always slightly stumped when I encounter things like this. I probably meant to check how the "Feghoots," were categorized and forgot.--Rkihara

May - Cover artist Schelling without the L. Artwork for "The Stars, My Brothers" starts on 6.--swfritter 19:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Nov - Schelling without an L. again.--swfritter 20:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Dec - Changed "Measureless to Man" to a novelette - it is no more than 14k words. These are going really quick. I can do a dozen of them in an hour so if I do them a dozen a day I should be catching up with you fairly quickly.--swfritter 20:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm entering them at about a half-dozen a day, so you will catch up soon. Scanning images for Galactic Central has slowed me down a bit. Looks like they're missing about 80 images up through 1986 (I've uploaded about 40 to date), and maybe 85% of the images from there to 2005.--Rkihara 20:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verfication 1963

• May - Changed "Jobo" to Novelette from Novella - about 15k words.
• June - "The Encounter" was listed as page 90 (TOC error) when it should have been page 88.
• July - Added Poul Anderson's name to the editorial as it is mostly comprised of a letter he wrote.
• Aug - Changed Disch's short story (3 pages) from shortfiction to short story which is also the way the variant title is entered. Did you consider this a vignette?
• Sep - Review for "A Gun for a Dinosaur" links to shortfiction as do two other reviews.
• Nov - "The Weather in Space" had a date of 1963-00-00.
• Dec - The review for "Counterfeit Man" links to shortfiction as does one other review. In this and the previous case the reviewer did not list the full title of the collection.--swfritter 20:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Anything that's tagged "shortfiction" is an oversight on my part. I seem to be partially blind to those.--Rkihara 23:42, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

F&SF July 2003

I have changed 'Al Muchaud' to Al Michaud in your verified F&SF, July 2003 p. 126 (after checking my copy). --Roglo 20:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verfication 1964

• Jan - that was a lot of work. Verified back in 2006 when other were blazing the path to a much smoother roadway.
• Apr - Changed "Prisoner in Orbit" to novelette. Only 24 digest pages.
• Jun - Changed "The Sphinx" to novelette. No more than 12k words.
• Jul - Changed "Placement Test" to novelette. Only 25 digest pages. Changed "A Game of Unchance" to novelette. Only 20 digest pages!! and probably is closer to the boundary between short story and novelette. None of the merged instances in books are longer than 23 pages.
• Aug - Changed "Honeyearthers" to novelette. No more than 13k words. Robert Weisinger - changed to Mort. "Furnace of the Blue Flame" - artwork on 67 not 66. Changed "Zelerinda" to novelette. About 14k words. Added "Orphans of the Sky" review.
• Sep - Changed "Shadow of the Worm" to novelette. Only about 14k words. Added review for "Tales of Three Planets".
• Nov - "Beyond the Farthest Star" linked to shortfiction.
• Dec - Changed "Quest of the Golden Grille" to novelette. Only about 30 pages. Added review for "The Wanderer".--swfritter 21:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Could someone please verify my spelling of verification?--swfritter 21:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like I may have marked more than a couple of novelettes as novellas, I wonder if I might have confused the page count for pulps with digests?--Rkihara 02:32, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking. There were a couple of 40 page stories that I left as novellas although they are likely borderline cases.--swfritter 15:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1964

• Jan - Changed "Blue Boy", a little over 30 pages, to novelette. Artwork for same was essay. Looks an awful lot like Emsh to me although his cover work looks an awful lot like Freas.

• Oct - Changed cover artist Frank Kelly Freas to Kelly Freas.--swfritter 17:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

"The Club House" (Amazing Stories)

"The Club House" changed to "The Clubhouse" in the Nov. 1969 issue, on the title page, while retaining "The Club House" in the Table of Contents, until the Oct. 1974 issue. I was reluctant to change the title over, as it's been "The Club House" since the late forties. Any suggestions?--Rkihara 05:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

If all of the titles in the revived column are the same it might make sense to list as they are on the title page but it is not a big deal.--swfritter 16:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Merging artwork Amazing February 1966

Are you sure we want to do this, presuming you did so? This can really get messy if there are multiple pieces of artwork and not all of them are reproduced when reprinted. I found examples in Fantastic where not all of the pieces of artwork are reproduced. In order to merge the specific pieces of art I would have had to find a way to link the artwork for "Story Name [3]" from the first issue with "Story Name [2]" from the second issue which means they could not be merged but rather I would have had to make one a variant title of the other. Also, sometimes the art is chopped up in subsequent appearances. Another problem is author names. A piece of artwork might be credited to Leo Ramon Summers in it's first appearance and to only Summers in it's second which would require accommodating variant author credits. Merging also requires ownership of the mags with both appearances in order to compare the art. Which is why I made the pro-active entry in newpub help that "The multiple pieces of artwork should not be merged." I did this in order to promote discussion before we implemented a standard. The only place where it has made complete sense so far is the later issues of If which have exactly duplicate contents in the U.S. and U.K. editions and should arguably not have been entered as separate It looks like it is going to be another week before the fires let up and I can help tpubs.--swfritter 18:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I did merge the art. I can see that's a problem with multiple entries. I do own most of the pubs in which the stories were first published, as my collection of Amazing is about 85% complete from 1927. I checked the back issues at random to confirm that the correct art was being reproduced. I also have a good memory for art, and I remembered seeing most of them from having entered the data from the earlier issues. You're right in that sometimes not all of the art was used and sometimes it was cropped. I used the artist's names as originally published, even if they were identified otherwise in the reprint, as I considered the first publication to be the primary reference. I can see your point, but in general, is it any different than using the most complete name given for an artist in a pub? For example, if it's credited to "Summers" but signed "L. R. Summers," or credited to "Summers" on the title page, but the table of contents non-specifically lists "Leo Ramon Summers" as one of the illustrators. Merging seemed to be the only solution to the proliferation of art with the same title, artist, and date of origination, and which was essentially identical in most cases with the originally published image. Maybe we could tag the art as "Title (reprint)[no]?"

I'll go back and un-merge the art, if you feel that was not the correct thing to do.--Rkihara 20:12, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This is similar to the canonical name issue. It would have been better in that case to have waited until physically verified data was in the system before deciding on canonical names. That's why I decided not to go any further than putting the original date of the artwork - and in a few cases that was a bit of a guess. Luckily the reprinting of interior artwork with a story is very uncommon. Since you have ripped the lid off of a can of worms for which the lid had only been loosened this might be the time to develop a standard. With your collection of Amazing Stories you are in a unique position to do so. I might note that the issue of merging cover illustrations should probably be considered a somewhat separate and less complicated issue since multiple artwork is not involved and covers can often be compared via scans. Meanwhile I am once again sucking in smoke from wildfires. I live only five miles from where the recent major conflagration in Paradise started and lightning a couple of days has touched off more fires. So I will probably be taking it easy the next couple of days. --swfritter 13:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Seems like the whole state's on fire. No fires near me, but the air is really hazy from all the smoke. On the art, maybe it would serve to label the reprints as I suggested in the earlier paragraph, e.g., "The Tree Burners of Mars (Reprint)[2]." That would serve to differentiate it from the original printing and take care of the multiples, and we could also tag the story in the same manner, in case it was re-edited in the reprinting. In general, the procedure for handling reprints is pretty vague. You may remember this earlier discussion about an H. G. Wells reprint. In this case, the reprint was given the publication date of the reprinting, rather than the date of its first printing. By that standard, all reprints should be re-dated to the date of reprinting, yet that has only been done for a handful of serials. Most reprints in a pub can be identified only by the difference in date between it and the rest of the content. I wonder if it might be clearer to label "all" reprints in this manner, "Title (reprint:pub:reprint date)," e.g., "The Tree Burners of Mars (Reprint: Spectacular Stories: 1927)," with the canonical or first printing date entered into the date field. This approach would also allow us to search out reprints, which we're not able to do now. Just my two-bits.--Rkihara 18:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be enough to just put (Reprint). If we use the date of the reprint pub as the date of the reprint art then the year would be necessary otherwise it might be a bit redundant. We could just leave it up to the editor to decide how much detail they want to put in; the only restriction being that "(reprint" + :editor verbiage + ")" be used in the title.--swfritter 21:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Modifying the titles of artwork to indicate that they are reprints is probably not something that would require updating policy. It is already a common practice to modify titles to make them unique. I think our major concern should be doing Amazing and Fantastic in a consistent manner.--swfritter 14:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

We'll have to unmerge the ones that were merged, enter the modified title, then do a "remove title." Do we reconnect them as "variants?" I think we should also consider doing this for the stories too.--Rkihara 15:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

If a story is reprinted, with no significant change in content, and with no change in indicated author or title, I see no reason to create a variant. If ther is a change in author or title or both, but no change in content, i see no reson for a (revised) title. I see no reason for ever having a (Reprint) title on a story. In my view that is why we have multiple publication records for a given title, to indicate reprints.

Artwork is somewhat different. It often does not have a distinctive title except for the title of the work it is illustrating. It is possible for the smae artist to do different art for the same story at different times. Thus when art is reprinted there needs to be soem way of makign this clear. My inclination would have been to merge identical artwork under the same title (cover or interiorart) record, with multiple associated publication records, and leave different artwork under different title records, perhaps with a distinguishing indicator, possibly the date of publication. But it may be that that is not workable, as people entering a work of art have no easy way to check if another record for a different publication of the same art exists. But it seems to me that the scheme in which the title record of every reprinted work of art would be marked as such has not been thought through. In particular, our courrent handling of the multiple coverart records for books often reprinted with identical art should be improved. I realize that magazines are only rarely reprined, unlike books. But ideally our magazine solution should generalize well to a book solution. -DES ^Talk 15:58, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem with the stories - their merges are according to standards. For right now the simplest solution is unmerge without creating variants and then modify the titles to indicate that the art is reprinted. There are far too many complications involved in creating a comprehensive policy that will result in a substantial amount of work with very little of value in return. If we mark the titles now we can always go back and find the entries if we can eventually develop a workable plan. The ideal plan will be a policy that will not deter editors from modifying pubs because they don't own all the issues in which a particular piece of artwork might have been printed. The coverart issue is much simpler to resolve and need not be complicated by trying to find a common policy.--swfritter 19:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I've no problem with marking just the art as a reprint, but we should take the opportunity to examine the analogous situation with reprinted stories. Right now we re-date republished serials, and serialized versions of published novels just on the suspicion that they were re-edited, and whole novels published in magazines are marked as "serials," instead of novels for the same reason. Short stories skip by, and all republications under a hard cover are generally assumed to be canonical. The book group that I belong to has been surprised more than once to find that well known stories and plays can exist in three or four substantially different variations. Some of the stories republished in Amazing seemed in my memory to be much shorter than the original, and possibly should have been re-dated by the rule we use for longer works. If we merge a re-dated work, the merge will force a date change, removing the distinction, if we don't, then we have two nearly identical entries that some editor will decide to merge anyway. Marking reprinted stories as "reprints" would also allow researchers to ferret out the reprint history of a magazine, though that's probably of no use to most users.--Rkihara 21:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I see your point. We are probably not doing enough to find and mark as such revised versions of fiction, whether stories, serials, or novels published separately. On the other hand, a policy that would automatically assume that all reprints are also revisions would IMO be a cure worse than the problem -- in the majority of cases (once out of magazines and into collections or separate pubs I think it is the vast majority of cases) the stories are either identical or only very slightly revised (although there are more revisions than one would think. look at the detailed notes of the Vance Integral Edition for an example, as they tried to track down and compare pretty nearly every published edition of each work, plus manuscript versions when these had been saved -- in a few cases they wound up including multiple versions of the "same" story in different volumes of their edition, under variant titles). On the gripping hand, without actual texts to compare, or introductions or authors notes that indicate when an edition has been revised, it is very hard to reliably know when text changes have been made. In any case this is getting a little off the subject of art merges. -DES ^Talk 22:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)That takes us back full circle. I started by merging both art and story as if they were identical with the first publication, although I knew in some cases that the art wasn't and suspected that in many cases the story had also been edited. That seemed to be the path with the fewest complications. If we now mark just the art in a reprint, we are automatically assuming all reprinted art has been revised, and that the story hasn't, which is inconsistent. I am in a position to actually check both, but would rather not expend that much effort. I suppose that we could proceed from the argument that all reprinted art has been modified from the rescaling to a digest from a bedsheet/pulp. In the dozen or so instances that I checked, the loss of detail and tonality was striking.--Rkihara 22:59, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That might be enough to support a general assumption of change, at least in this set of publications. Would it be worth checking a couple of representative texts to see whether a general assumption of change is justified? I think that we have been tending to assume no change in texts except serials unless there is evidence brought to light to show change, while for art I think we have been tending to assume difference unless someone checks and reprots identity. Perhaps this should be discussed on Rules and Standards? Again? -DES ^Talk 23:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Note that in my view if the editing of the storyu is limited to fixing typographic and grammatical errors, and simialr copy-editing, I would not think it worth creating a (revised) version in the db, and if a versioin is not revised, i see no reason (for text) to do a (reprinted). For art there may be reasons to mark entries as (reprinted) even if it is not revised as such. -DES ^Talk 23:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Not entering multiple pieces of artwork for a story results in a single credit for all the artwork in a story. Once such a credit is merged it makes it very difficult for an editor to enter multiple pieces of artwork for only one of those issues; I now consider the artwork to be valuable in and of itself and prefer entering a title for each individual piece. To really do job right each individual piece of artwork would have to me merged with any reprinted piece that is substantially the same or made a variant if it is substantially different. To much work for me. I had actually considered the merge solution when I was working on Fantastic and spent a fair amount of time trying to find an acceptable way to implement a method; I eventually made the no artwork merge change to Help and notified everyone of that change because I realized that any solution was going to be fairly complicated. A solution would have to allow editors to enter as little or as much data as they wished. Any such initiative would have resulted a protracted discussion which probably never would have been resolved. Which did not mean the subject was not open to further discussion. I have gone out my way to find compromise solutions for a number of issues but this is a case where a big warning sign was required.--swfritter 18:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the term "reprint" is fairly neutral as far as indicating whether a work is significantly different from the original. If I am reading a "reprinted" story I make no such assumption. To my mind the same logic holds true for artwork.--swfritter 18:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If everyone agrees, I'm going to go back and unmerge the art that I had merged and tag them with as "reprints, " e.g., "The Tree Burners of Mars (Reprint)."--Rkihara 18:58, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no objections to doing that with the art, particularly as the art was of significantly different quality, if I understand your comments above correctly. I would take issue if the same thing were done with the stories, but I don't think you are proposing that. -DES ^Talk 19:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll be glad to help out. Let me know if there is a range of issues I can work on. I probably should have foreseen that something like this was going to happen and suggested a similar method but tunnel vision seems be an occupational (or I guess recreational since we aren't being paid) hazard. In the (probably very) long run there are potential software resolutions and it will be easy to find the data. I just need to keep reminding myself that un-merging the title also wipes out pub page numbers.--swfritter 16:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. Maybe we could work alternate years? I could start with 1961.--Rkihara 18:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Trial Run; unmerged art for 1961-03,04,05,07. labeled "reprint" (lower case). Comments?--Rkihara 22:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Works for me. I will try to get some done tomorrow. You might want to leave a brief notice at Community Portal in case somebody who is not watching this conversation has some major objection.--swfritter 00:22, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) I've added some Gahan Wilson cartoons to this pub as they're already in the ISFDB. Should they be merged or suffixed? BLongley 21:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I think merging cartoons will not cause any problems.--Rkihara 02:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, done. BLongley 11:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I have done a number of them. Not a multiple artwork per story issues.--swfritter 13:23, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The no caption cartoons are obviously a little problematic since there are no caption to compare.--swfritter 14:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

1962 - Done. I will try to do a year per day. Annoying how the title of the story is replaced by the the title of the magazine and every bit of data except the artist is lost on an unmerge.--swfritter 15:18, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

1964 - No problems. I will continue my secondary verification of 1966 and check for more while I am doing that.--swfritter 18:02, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I've finished the odd years, and I'm working backwards on the even years.--Rkihara 20:47, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind doing the even year art during my secondary verification. And keep thinking about any other long range solutions. The ideas bouncing around in my subconscious all involve a substantial amount of fix-up work and result in inelegant solutions.--swfritter 21:03, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1966

• Feb - The Paul artwork for "The Runaway Skyscraper" is more than likely from the 1926 occurrence of the story in "Amazing Stories". Did not change. The Morey is probably not from "Weird Tales" and might be from 1934 - the story has that copyright date and the earliest Morley in the database is 1930 - this might be a case where 0000-00-00 date makes sense - although I don't like using such dates since they are invalid in other applications.

Changed the dates for the artwork of the above to their first Amazing Stories appearances.--swfritter 18:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• April - "Beast of the Island": Case in point per merging - multiple pieces of artwork and I have no way of checking the original. So I am going to stop here today until I hear from you. Bibliography can be fun!! but not always.--swfritter 18:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Wallace G. West on the title page. Wonderful - Paul portfolio an and artwork that somebody else also merged - a triple merge.--swfritter 18:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• December - Another Otto only Binder story.--swfritter 19:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1967

• February - Two days running starts on p 4 (not 6). TOC in error. Added artwork for Methuselah, Ltd (which is also a reprint); the physically verified title in both appearances is actually "Ltd." Added artwork for James story - also reprint.

• April - Mendoza cartoon is more than likely a reprint - probably from about 1953 but it looks like the original was never entered. Might possibly want to change date to 0000-00-00.

• June - Cartoon on page 58. When I added the original I used the text of the poster as the caption - modified and merged. Harry Harrison's 11 1/2 year son also reviews "Tarnsman of Gor" (he loved it!!!). Do you think he should also be added as a reviewer? No artist at all should be entered if the cover is uncredited.

On uncredited artists: I see that's the way the rules are written, but maybe we should revisit this? Entering no artist if the cover is uncredited is inconsistent with how we enter interior art. In the latter case the database will not take a blank author field. Entering no artist also leaves the uninitiated to think we missed this.--Rkihara 20:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've kind of wondered about that myself - possibly a technical reason I don't know about? I had to change a whole bunch of these where I did the same thing.--swfritter 16:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Oct - Cover artist is listed as Emsh but no actual credit. Contento says this a reprint of a Perry Rhodan cover and Ashley does not credit Emsh.

• Dec - removed uncredited as cover artist. "An Unusual Case": credited the translator in the story title notes.--swfritter 15:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1968

• Feb - Removed uncredited as cover artist and documented in notes - I guess one good reason for leaving this field blank is that and unnecessary title record for coverart is not created. Added Leroy Tanner as co-author of book review essay. Odd , and a little suspicious, that the paid circulation was the same two years in a row.--swfritter 18:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Apr/Jun - Should we take out one the wiki links? April and June both lead to the same title - I just spent 10 minutes looking for the April issue before I moved on to the June issue and noticed. Might be just as confusing to someone else. I infer from Help that we should go with the June date since the June cover date implies that the release of the issue was delayed.

You may remember discussion that went on about this. Originally there was no June link and before I started entering the magazine, I created one assuming it was a magazine that had been missed. As you noted, this issue has been assigned an April publication in most references. You had a couple of suggestions that I implemented before adding the link. I thought that making two table entries tied to one pub might be less confusing, obviously not.--Rkihara 18:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess I didn't remember or it didn't dawn on me the practical effects. You could put the same text in the wiki link as in the issue although that would have the effect of stretching out the grid just for that one issue. Or you could put a non-linked entry for one of the months with an asterisk and put a note at the bottom of the wiki.--swfritter 18:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, at least I was finally forced to organize my Amazing collection. Just by chance the last issue in one box was the last Ziff-Davis issue so I did not have to mix them with any of those obnoxious Ultimate pubs.--swfritter 23:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC

They get worse. I've just started on the issues edited by Omar Gohagen (Elinor Mavor) after Ted White left. The drop in the quality of the magazine is quite noticeable. It would be interesting to read an authoritative history of Amazing and find out what went on behind the scenes.--Rkihara 02:49, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

• Sep - Cover is actually titled "Great Nebula in Andromida". [Sic]ed it.

• Nov - Atheling, Jr. is a Blish pseudonym. Assigned reviews. Added Science of Man essay.--swfritter 18:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1969

• Jan - Stover article page 119 instead of 190. Made pseudonym attribution of Blish for Atheling, Jr. Interesting that Blish is credited in the table of contents. Also added Malzberg and Panshin as authors of book review essay. Also left the cover artist as untitled in case you want to pursue that issue.

• Mar & May - Nice little surprises - I guess you don't have these. Reprinted artwork with misspelling of artist's name. Pulp artwork that was on left and right page or one page put printed so you have to turn page to see the second half - I will find out soon - it appeared in an issue of Fantastic Adventures for which I will soon be doing the 50's issues. Blish signs one of his reviews with his name and Atheling, Jr. for the other two. What fun.

• July - Pseudonymed Atheling. Matched up and merged cartoons. The caption for one was entered incorrectly in the original - the other uses text on a poster as the caption in the original.

• Aug - Charly - perhaps should be "Charly (movie review)"? Atheling, Jr. again - and once again Blish does a review under his own name and his pseudonym???

• Nov - If the cover is not specifically listed as illustrating a story should we make some kind of indication of same?--swfritter 18:37, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed a later issue where "story behind the cover" is listed with the story as it is here so it's OK.--swfritter 16:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1970

• Mar - Wish this was in your collection. Seven different book reviewers including Greg Benford. Changed all the existing Greg Benford entries in the system to be pseudonyms of Gregory Benford so 14 names show up in the book review essay entry. Somebody put a couple of the "Science in Science Fiction" entries in a series under Greg Benford. Took those out of the series because the series needs to be supplied under the author's canonical name. Don't know if you planned on putting these in a series but there was at least one other regular column with a similar title. Interesting notation in the book review column that John Norman is a pseudonym of Michael Crichton but don't see support evidence anywhere else.

• May - Another Otto only Binder.

• Nov - Science in Science in Fiction had wrong page number. Oh, and if you want a little break there are still the July 1952 and November 1953 issues of Planet Stories that I don't have. These go really quick because there are few editorial entries. Getting these done will finish up the Bibliographic Tasks for the 50's for this mag.--swfritter 17:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll do those today.--Rkihara 17:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Done.--Rkihara 21:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!!! Once I get the 27 issues of Fantastic Adventures from 1951 to 1953 updated we will have verified entries for virtually all the secondary mags from the 50's. Of the titles listed in Ashley, we will be missing only Fear! (2 issues), Jungle Stories (10), Monster Parade(4), Monsters and Things (1), Mysterious Traveler (5), Sheena (1), Shock (3), Shock Tales (1), Suspense Magazine (4), Suspense Tales (1), Ten-Story Fantasy (1), Tops in Science Fiction (2), Weird Tales (23), and one issue of Fantastic Science Fiction. Many of these titles are hard-to-find/expensive and only the last four of true sf/fantasy significance.--swfritter 15:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1971

• Jan - Added artwork for Soul Affrighted.

• Mar - Credited illo for Soul A Girl Like You to Mike Kaluta as editorially credited - illo is signed only Kaluta. Who knows what his canonical name is going to be. He is in the system under six different names.--swfritter 16:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1972

Mar - Get With the Program has no '!' on the title page or footers of the story only the TOC. Added record review as essay.

May - Story credited to Haldeman rather than Haldeman, II. "The Science in Science Fiction" - you credit only Book and the TOC lists only him although the title page also lists Benford. Are you assuming that Benford's name is included on the title page because it is part of reprinted header? I think there was another case where I added his name; my change was noted so I can change that back if it makes sense. Did not change this one - in fact went back and added a note to indicate why Book should be considered the only author. Also changed the other entry which was verified elsewhere.

Leaving Benford off was oversight. I use the TOC for the initial data entry, then page through the book making any necessary alterations. Benford and Book both worked at my place of employment, although they left before I started work there. The issues edited by (Omar Gohagen)/Elinor Mavor are going to need a real good check. Half of the entries do not appear in the TOC, and there's more (minor) stuff in those, than in the fifties pulps we did.--Rkihara 16:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The Book only might be right - in the other case there was actually an editorial note stating that Benford was the only author and I changed that back and documented the error in the story title page. I am missing some of the semi-pro issues and am likely to pretend that I am missing them all.--swfritter 16:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

On Benford again, I have a nagging memory (false?), that the columns were either signed only by Book or there was some indicator that one or the other had not worked on the column. Book left for a job on the East Coast which complicated things, and Benford took a professorship in Southern California, while this column was running.--Rkihara 16:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sep - Added illo for Lifeboat. If your CA air is as bad down there as it is here I think it's time to buy some Oxygen tanks - and this is not the peak fire season. Record 110 degree heat for the next week - and what next - a brownout?--swfritter 14:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I drove down to Stockton to visit my mother yesterday, and the smoke in the Big Valley was worse. My house has a built-in electrostatic air cleaner, and my car also has a passive electrostat filter with an activated carbon layer, so as long as I'm inside either I don't notice it. I wonder how much of the burnable estate has burned off in the last 10 years? It seems to me that these fires will reduce the accumulated fuel load to a safe level sooner or later.--Rkihara 16:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If we ever have another rainy season we will then have landslides. The trees are so dried out that one of my neighbor's tree limbs snapped off (no wind - that's another story) and nearly hit my pickup.--swfritter 16:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1973

• Jan - I am supposed to have a copy but not sure where it is.

• Mar - Geo. Alex Effinger instead of George. Thomas F. Monteleone on TOC but no middle initial on title page of story.

• Jun - Thanks for note on Young story. --swfritter 14:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1974

• Apr - John T. Swanson II - should it be John T. Swanson, II? Always looks weird to me when done that way - did not change. Review for Three Trips in Time and Space - should it be linked to this pub?

• Jun - Swanson II again.--swfritter 16:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

It looked strange to me too, but I figured the magazine editor would have put the comma in unless the author insisted. I've just finished with 1982, missing two issues. The issues edited by Elinor Mavor (Omar Gohagen) were a real task to enter, and I'm glad to be leaving them behind.--Rkihara 18:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Help says "This should be regularized if they are not presented this way in the publication. E.g. "Sam Merwin Jr" should be entered as "Sam Merwin, Jr."; similarly, it's "Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D."; or "Frederick C. Durant, III"." I think there is a Swanson, II entry already out there.--swfritter 21:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm the person that adjusted "Ph. D." to "Ph.D." in that help page to match what we actually DO, so beware, it's not THAT much of a canonical decision. I don't actually own any pubs credited that way, I just adjusted the help - he's 'E. E. "Doc" Smith' here mostly. After another year of editing, I'm reconsidering things like "Sir" prefixes - as you tend to have published a LOT before you get a knighthood, my hope is mostly that they die or stop writing before we have to switch canonical names around. But I suspect people are being lazy in recording exact name anyway, see previous posts on "Dean Koontz". (Has had no "R" for years according to my evidence.) BLongley 00:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I just reviewed that again. It's good thing for us that "e.e. cummings" wrote poetry and not science fiction.--Rkihara 22:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Author edits can sort that out quickly if the regularisation rules allow. (Or if you ignore them.) I've used those occasionally for various "MacXxxx"s names - should we capitalise the letter after the "Mac" (or "Mc") or not? Several Clans would be upset if we got it wrong. Well, if reading ISFDB was a more common Scottish pastime. BLongley 00:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) One, more serious, question - why are people using "Amazing Stories" for 1974 overall when every issue that year is "Amazing Science Fiction"? It's making the searches for magazines difficult, even for me: a new user is going to be seriously confused. BLongley 00:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a complicated issue. We generally title individual issues as identified as in the TOC which lists the official name of the magazine, even though the cover title does not match. The 1974 issues are identified as "Amazing Stories" in the TOC through April, then simply "Amazing" through Feb. 1979, when it becomes "Amazing Stories Again. The 1974 covers are titled "Amazing Science Fiction," which matches neither title given in the TOC. The identification in the TOC takes precedence over the cover, so we should change the later 1974 issues to "Amazing" (that slipped by me). This will probably compound the confusion.--Rkihara 04:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

A canonical title field would be nice and some Google-like logic to the searches but until those can be implemented it is probably easier to use the magazine wiki pages.--swfritter 16:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

For searching, Google itself is now quite useful since we moved hosts and removed the robots file. Just add "site:www.isfdb.org" to your search. BLongley 18:03, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1975

• Mar - "They've Got Some Hungry Women There" has an ellipsis the title page of the story and the footers - changed.

• Nov - "What He Wanted" is listed as a short story in the TOC but at nearly 30 pages I think it can safely be classified as a novlette - changed. All the 1975 issues follow the pattern of Amazing in the small print on TOC, Amazing Science Fiction Stories large print TOC, and "Amazing Science Fiction" (which Contento uses) on the cover and spine. Help does gives some wiggle room but clearly prioritizes the small print title information.--swfritter 18:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1976

• Jan - Stephen E. Fabian not just Stephen for cover art. "Everything You Wanted" illo by Comiskey and not Staton.

• Jun - Stephen E. again. The various title listings are as in 1975.--swfritter 16:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1977

• Mar - My copy has the cigarette ad so I will change the notes to be consistent with previous entries. Glad you explained the "Anabis" issue.

• Jul - Talmadge Powell on the TOC but correctly as Talmage Powell, who had these other stories, on the title page of the story. Changed cover credit from Stephen to Steve Fabian.

• Oct - Steve Fabian again. "Never So Lost" is "Never So Lost . . ." - thankfully not reprinted. I think it's pretty obvious that the mag is officially going down the tubes.--swfritter 16:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1978

• Jan - Steve instead of Stephen Fabian cover attribution.

• May - Fabian again. Looks like some interesting material on the Amazing Gernsback bankruptcy.

• Aug - More Fabian. Charles De Vet only on the title page of the story - V. De Vet on the TOC. Added comment to notes but will leave it to you to make decision on which name to use.

• Nov - Another De Vet story with the same issue. Did the same as above.--swfritter 16:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1979

• May - Gave date of 1928 to Paul illo for Well's story - since this ran as a serial I am not sure which issue it appeared in - perhaps you can dig your issues out. "Eternal Wall" shortfiction to interiorart. Sad to see the end of the Ted White days. Don't think any other pro editor ever had as much enthusiasm or dedication. Also did some clean-up work for August 1979 - and will do November 1979 which I assume you don't own - either that or you want to share the pain of doing this dreadful issues.--swfritter 17:44, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll check into the illustration, but it may be a while. I generally skip over previously verified pubs, and anything that is untouched is an issue I don't have. If Mavor/Gohagen had edited more than a couple of years, I would have quit on Amazing. It was like trying to make sense of something that had passed through a shredder. I certainly wouldn't inflict this on anyone if I could help it. To be fair, Elinor probably had to publish the magazine under trying conditions. With budget and other constraints, she had a gallon bucket to fill and only two quarts of material, so she probably had to top it off with floor sweepings. I didn't know much about Ted White as an editor, until I started entering these issues, as I stopped reading Amazing regularly in 1965, when they went to reprints. By the time Ted White took over, I'd almost stopped reading it entirely. I was impressed by what I saw when I entered these issues, and I plan to go back through them when I have the time.--Rkihara 20:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Verification 1980

• Feb - Added artwork for Time Cycle.

• May - I don't own this issue and somebody else has verified it. Circulation figures if you own it?

I have the issue. I'll do a secondary on it and add the circulation figures.--Rkihara 02:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Done.--Rkihara 16:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• Nov - Review is of Omnibus - link to that? This is where my digest collection ends. I have a few of the slicks from the 90's but am not exactly sure where I have them stored.--swfritter 18:19, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping to see your comments on the 1981-82 issues, as they were the most difficult magazines I have ever indexed. I've never seen the like in any other magazine. I'll be able to finish off Amazing, as I have almost all of the remaining magazines through 2005. After that I'm going to take a long vacation.--Rkihara 16:16, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess now I'm glad I don't own them. I almost totally stopped reading sf from about 1981 to 1995 and I don't really think I missed much as elf and gnome fiction along with Star-Blechh! and other media tie-in fiction became dominant. I'm going to spend a little more time reading. Almost a third of the way through the sf mags from 1953. Thankfully no more pulp Amazing Stories issues and I cringe every time another issue of Other Worlds comes up on my reading list. The proportion of readable fiction is actually much higher than I expected - achieving at least Sturgeon Rule Standards.--swfritter 20:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Astounding, November 1944 / Killdozer!

Can you double-check the credit for this issue's cover art? It was used as the cover for the Sturgeon collection Killdozer! which credits Paul Orban as the artist. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I rechecked my issue. The TOC credits the cover to Timmins. The interior illustrations for the story are credited to Orban.--Rkihara 22:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

So the credit for the collection's cover art must be wrong. Any suggestions on how to handle this? I hate to create a variant for such an obvious error. Maybe I should just change the credit and record the mistake in the notes? MHHutchins 02:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I've seen some illustrations where the signature doesn't match the credit, but attribution errors are uncommon. There is an indistinct signature(?) above the man's shoulder in the illustration, but it can't be matched to either artist. I would follow your last suggestion, changing the credit and making a note.--Rkihara 07:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Both Day and Ashley credit Timmins. They are usually very good at picking up attribution errors which are often corrected in the letter column of a subsequent issue. Also, could find no evidence that Timmins is a pseudonym for Orban.--swfritter 15:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

T. O'Conor Stone?

There's a couple of editorials in pubs you verified that don't look right... BLongley 16:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just back from a vacation trip. I'll take care of it.--Rkihara 02:31, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for the heads up.--Rkihara 14:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Circulation figures 1982 & 1983

Looks like you don't have June 1982 where they probably appeared. Any figures for 1983?--swfritter 16:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Just back from vacation. I'll have to check 1983. There are some years that I could find no circulation figures for, and I went through all the issues page-by-page.--Rkihara 02:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

If you need circulation figures for any of the major magazines they were published annually in Locus. Let me know if there's any particular years you're looking for. MHHutchins 04:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll take you up on that. We need the average paid circulation for 1982, and 1983. Also 1968 if available, since there is some doubt about the published figure for this year. Thanks!--Rkihara 14:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

1968 Average Circulation (per issue) for Amazing: 38,551 (Source: Locus #155, February 12, 1974)

1982 Paid Circulation for Amazing: 11,500 (Source: Locus #265, February 1983)

1983 Paid Circulation for Amazing: 11,286 (Source: Locus #277, February 1984)

Hope this helps. MHHutchins 00:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I forgot that the published figures are for the previous year, so I should have asked for 1967, and 1981. Sorry about that.--Rkihara 02:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem.

1967 Average Circulation (per issue) for Amazing: 40,343 (Source: Locus #155, February 12, 1974)

1981 Paid Circulation for Amazing: 17,784 (Source: Locus #265, February 1983)

It appears that you're missing the figures for 1969 which was 34,791 according to Locus #155, February 12, 1974. BTW, this is the earlier issue that I have with the circulation numbers. It includes the years 1967-1973. MHHutchins 03:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again!--Rkihara 04:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Amazing title for the 70's

Any idea you want to go on the run that has Amazing Science Fiction (cover & spine), Amazing Science Fiction Stories (large print on TOC) and Amazing (tiny print TOC)?--swfritter 16:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The name in fine print is probably more correct, and conforms to our rules, though I think using the title as printed on the cover might be less confusing.--Rkihara 15:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This being the isfdb, the place where nobody can agree about anything, I was hoping you would say Amazing Science Fiction Stories. I like it because it has 'Stories' in it. Also, that is the form Contento uses - although it is not uncommon for his data in this area to be inconsistent with ours. Amazing just seems to generic. Amazing Science Fiction seems good to me along with info in notes. It looks like a little more than 20 issues are involved - June 1974 thru February 1979. If you are still on a much earned vacation I can make the changes. --swfritter 17:28, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any strong feelings about which title we use, so any of the above is fine with me. I'll take you up on making the changes, as I'm ramping down on the ISFDB. Too many things neglected over the past year, such as my kitchen remodel, plumbing upgrade, and so on. After I finish the secondary checks for Fantastic, and enter the last of the Amazing issues, I plan to disappear for a while.--Rkihara 21:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll probably go with Amazing Science Fiction Stories to be consistent with other sources although it's basically a razor's edge decision. I'm trying to ration my isfdb time. I need to do some cosmetic fixes to my house so I can sell it before the value drops even further.--swfritter 18:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Philip M. Fisher or Philip M. Fisher, Jr.?

In the September 1935 issue of Astounding. Most of the initial data from secondary sources was entered as by Jr. but much of what I have been able to verify is without the Jr.--swfritter 16:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

You're correct. The index and title page show Philip M. Fisher without "Jr." I've made the correction.--Rkihara 17:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Glad there was someone to verify it so a variant did not have to be undone.--swfritter 18:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

F&SF, Feb 1973

Can you verify in this issue that the author of "Da Capo" is David Garnett or David S. Garnett? Thanks. MHHutchins 19:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Same situation in this issue. I'm trying to determine when Garnett dropped his middle initial. MHHutchins 19:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. It was David S. Garnett in both cases. I've made the corrections to the magazines, duplicating the entry, then removing the former from the pubs. Should I make David S. Garnett a pseudonym?--Rkihara 20:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Changes to verified pub Amazing Stories June 1939

Made these changes: Added individual essays for author bios including one for the wonderful Ed Earl Repp. Added "Science Quiz". Added a couple of letters. One of three pre-50's Amazing Stories in my collection. Wish I had all the Shaver mysteries.--swfritter 15:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to make the additions. I left out the "Science Quizzes," games, crossword puzzles, and the like when I passed through, as that seemed to be the consensus at that time. We seem to be shifting towards an all inclusive policy, so I may have to revisit some of these magazines later. I also left out hundreds of letters by well known authors/fans, although I let letters entered by other editors remain. If we ever establish firm rules for letters, I'll go back and make the entries.--Rkihara 17:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I think entering quizzes and such gives an impression of the atmosphere of the magazine. There are some items that I consider to be necessary and others that are up to the editor. The bios in this case are pretty minimal but it is kind of interesting to see biographical entries for two different pseudonyms of Fearn.--swfritter 14:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Change to verified pub Amazing Stories November 1950

Alexander Blade is listed as the author of "The Devil in a Box" in the TOC but Vance is listed on the title page of the story. The pseudonym attribution is still correct according to Rock.--swfritter 16:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Eando Binder in Amazing

As part of my project of synchronizing variant title dates with their parent I am also cleaning up the Eando Binder pseudonym assignments based upon the information in Day which I will later verify against Contento. Beginning in 1939 Otto was the sole user of the pseudonym. This includes the Adam Link stories which appeared in Amazing. I am most assuredly not looking forward to doing variant title updates in the Ray Palmer issues - their a zillion stories with house pseudonyms.--swfritter 18:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

F&SF February 1977

Added the quiz and puzzle (last 2 items in the TOC) to the contents. Thx, rbh (Bob) 00:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Quizzes and puzzles are on my exclusion list, but feel free to enter them.--Rkihara 03:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Serendipity strikes Astounding

How quickly and how far are you going to be updating Astounding? You may note I have made your life a little bit easier with some of the issues you are working on. A couple of my projects are to add month data to mags and also to synchronize variant title dates and it is a lot easier to do on a mag by mag basis before more data has been entered; so I am going to try do the Astoundings before you get to them - my process is almost semi-automated. I usually do a couple of years a day. If you have any gaps you may catch up with me but otherwise it should speed up your project without creating edit collisions. How was the vacation?--swfritter 16:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm updating Astounding two or three issues a day on the average. My collection is pretty complete from 1940 to 2000, but I plan to stop around 1950, as there are a lot of other people working that period on up. After that, I'll be tapering off my time on the ISFDB even more to pursue other interests. I did notice that you were filling in the month data. I thought that was preparatory to your filling in the rest of data, as I've been doing the same a year at a time. This is a bit tedious so I appreciate your help with that

I had a very relaxing vacation. I drove up I-5 with some friends to Portland, staying part of a week there, then up to Seattle, for week. On the way back we drove down the coastal highways, arriving home after two weeks. Next year I'll be going to the Windy City Pulp convention again, either by plane or car. I haven't decided yet--Rkihara 19:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

There has not been much work done on Astounding for the early 50's. I was hoping someone would do some work in that area - absolutely no Virgil Finlay artwork at all. After they butchered one cover he never worked for them again. After I get through with my small assortment of pre-50's Thrilling Wonder Stories I am going to go through Galaxy. Looks like a pretty thorough job has been done on Galaxy (some by you?) and that should go pretty quickly.

I usually drive the coastal highways going north. Going south you are on the ocean side of the road and there are some might steep drop-offs.--swfritter 15:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick survey, and it looks like most of the activity with Astounding/Analog is happening from 1960 up, so I'll continue on until 1955 or 1960. I filled in a large portion of Galaxy, but this was before I felt comfortable verifying magazines. I'm sure they could use another pass. In "Emshwiller: Infinity x2" they mentioned that Ed blew his cork the first time one of his paintings was altered. I've had a chance to see dozens of Emshwiller's paintings up close it's evident that an enormous amount of work went into these. There's a level of detail, and a richness of color, that I don't think is reproducible on even a bedsheet sized cover. This is especially noticeable when the publication is displayed next to the original painting. In Ed's case, he negotiated the return of all of his artwork unaltered after it was used.

The coastal drop-offs did look pretty scary. No chance of survival if you went over the edge. I'm a bit used to driving near drop-offs like that, since I drove for twenty years over mountain roads to my workplace, and workplace itself had similar drop-offs on site. About a dozen years ago a couple of our employees drove off the road, but managed to leap free before the vehicle hit the bottom of a canyon (~300 ft). Although they survived, they were too severely injured to return to work.--Rkihara 16:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Great. You will find a couple of pulp Astounding's that I did - I only have three and only about 10 pre-50's digests. Once the 50's Astounding's, Galaxy's, and F&SF's (which I know you did a lot of work on) have been verified that will result in virtually all of the 50's magazines being in a Verified state - probably before the end of this year.

My scariest drive ever - Pacheco Pass at night in January in the fog.--swfritter 17:37, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Astounding countdown

I have started processing Astounding from December 1960 downwards. Should go fairly quickly since a number of those from the later years have been verified. So eventually we should meet in the middle since you appear to be sailing through 1942. One issue comes to mind. In some cases the author of the editorials is left as the The Editor and in others John W. Campbell, Jr. has been assigned as a pseudonym. Help suggests that there has to be external evidence for doing so but in this case I think assigning Campbell is substantially more justified than it is with any other mags. The biggest problem is that many of "The Editor" records have been placed in a series and would have to be removed from the series. The other two editors who have been busy in this area have not been all that active lately. But perhaps we will hear from them and get some input. In the meantime I am not adding the editorials the I am entering to the series.--swfritter 16:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you've started from the other end, as I'm limiting my time to a couple of hours a day unless I'm otherwise free. At the rate I'm going, it would have taken months to reach 1960. I'm almost done with 1943. I had to backtrack to 1942, since my bedsheets were stored separately from my pulp and digest Astoundings. When I started, editor credits were split about 1:2 between "The Editor" and Campbell. Since I had to pick one or the other, I've been assigning editor credits as signed, so many that were attributed to Campbell, were changed to "The Editor" or "uncredited." That includes "In Times to Come," and "The Analytical Laboratory." I've been placing all Editorial listings into the series "Editorial (Astounding)," regardless of the editor.--Rkihara 18:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I am doing the same but have not placed mine in a series yet. I know there are some discussions to dig through about "The Editor" being a pseudonym for Campbell in this case. But it looks like some editors came to multiple inconsistent conclusions which must eventually be reconciled - which means the series information will need to be swapped from one title to the other. It doesn't really matter much about assigning a pseudonym on the other columns since there is little authorial content. I am through with my pulps - quite cumbersome to leaf through the untrimmed edges. I have also noted that many of the cover artist attributions are not as credited in the pubs but as entered from secondary sources - in many cases the verifiers have not noticed - something I have been guilty of on many occasions. Kind of interesting that Cambpell seems to have changed the editor credit from Campbell, Jr. to Campbell when the title changed names.--swfritter 15:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

A slight change of subject. Editing Astounding has inspired me to thumb through the relevant years of the John W. Campbell letters as I enter data. The first letter in the book, written in 1938 to L. Ron Hubbard, has an interesting datum. Campbell claimed that the magazine had a paid circulation, excluding news stand sales, of 350,000. An impressive number if not an exaggeration.--Rkihara 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall the exact numbers, but the fact that every magazine publisher and his brother wanted to launch a new SF mag in 1938-1941 seems to suggest that the pie was getting bigger and everybody wanted a slice or three :) Ahasuerus 16:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone has made a detailed study of why magazine circulation collapsed in general. The number of new books published every month indicates that people are reading more than ever, yet magazines are an endangered species. The circulation figures for current SF magazines are downright depressing. F&SF and Analog now have paid subscriptions between 20k to 30k. Even general interest magazines are losing subscribers.--Rkihara 17:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that single author collections are also getting less popular, which may be indicative of a general shift away from short fiction to (increasingly long) novels, trilogies, mega-series, etc. Although theme anthologies were quite popular for a number of years, an apparent counter-example, I wonder if the shared theme makes them read more like "a book about Sherlock Holmes in Orbit", in other words more like a novel than a bunch of stories? Ahasuerus 17:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't recall ever subscribing to an SF magazine. I've subscribed to some computer ones in the past: but even when I did regularly buy certain SF magazines I never took out a subscription. I guess I always suspected they were not going to live long enough to fulfill their obligations, or that they were SF news magazines that if I missed an issue it wouldn't matter. (I wouldn't mind having such now, but it's a bit late.) Looking at what I did today (needing some material to read on a train journey to London for the first time in ages) I just picked an interesting-looking book out of my collection ("Dangerous Vegetables" if anyone cares) rather than assume I could buy an "Analog" or suchlike at the station. I used to return with a "Locus" or "Vector" or "Interzone", but I didn't actually feel inspired enough to go look at Forbidden Planet, and Fantasy Centre would have meant me dealing with rush-hour commuters if I'd gone that far out of the way - and I was already feeling enough worry about travelling the same route as the 7/7 bombers on the same day of the week as that event. :-( BLongley 21:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Still, back on topic, I don't buy SF magazines now as they're not easily available: I don't subscribe to any as I have no recent examples of whether they're any good. I don't buy SF books on the off-chance at stations as anthologies (where I might find a few good new (to me) authors) are not generally available and if I knew the Author was good I'd have had it from Amazon already. It's a vicious circle. BLongley 21:15, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Navigating from issue-to-issue is much more cumbersome than need be. To go from January to February, you need to back up to the listing then click on the entry. There should be a easy way to move back-and-forth between issues. I've brought it up once before, but it got little response. Has this been discussed before? I've given some thought of putting links to adjacent issues into the Notes as I edit the magazines.--Rkihara 16:52, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

As I have stated elsewhere I don't like the use of HTML mark-up language in the notes since it will make the data irrelevant and difficult to process/format if it is adapted to other software implementations. I am not sure if enough other people would find it useful to justify implementing it in another way. Although there is a way to make invisible comments that will allow us to designate an isfdb specific area. See this notice that the comments do not show up.--swfritter 18:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In general I agree with you about HTML in the notes section. I've been removing most HTML when I find it. I do feel that we need to streamline navigation between issues though. I think I need a little more explanation about what you mean by using invisible comments to make an isfdb specific area. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know what the benefits of this would be. Does this relate to your previous comment about other software implementations?--Rkihara 19:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

It would document areas of the notes that do not contain data that is useful anywhere but in the isfdb environment. For instance, I have a written a standalone program that allows some primitive access to author bibliographies. In order to process the notes I would have to strip off the HTML. If there was a section marker for data I can't use I would not have to worry about processing it.--swfritter 21:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I get it. If that would take care of your objections, I should float the idea of inserting "forward - backwards" HTML links into the notes by "Rules and Standards," unless you have serious objections. It would be nice to have it written into the application, but putting in the links would only take a minute or so.--Rkihara 22:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

My objections to HTML in notes are mostly based on badly-formed HTML sometimes getting through and causing display oddities, or worse still, totally unapproveable and unrejectable submissions. Fortunately Moderators CAN cope with such now but I don't want us to have to get used to doing that often. Unfortunately, some of our moderators are the biggest users of HTML in notes and it's the cloning of such that encourages less-clued editors to try it. Maybe if a "well-formed HTML" check could be added to the Notes fields it would be acceptable, but frankly the amount of bad stuff that we can accept is totally unacceptable on a general security basis. Fortunately, I think it's likely that stealing ISFDB login details for use on other sites is probably not going to get anywhere - but if you use the same ISFDB username/password for your online banking sites, I'd really suggest you change that practice. BLongley 19:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I routinely use br and ul/li tags in the notes field, and occasionally use italics tags. I invariably use an HTML link when creating a record for a project gutenberg publication, and sometimes for other ebooks. I sometimes use a link when inserting an OCLC record number. That is the only HTML I use in the note field, but i would object to any of it being removed. -DES ^Talk 21:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I have not removed any HTML from a verified pub. If a pub is unverified, then I may remove some, but not necessarily all of it. In my opinion, there has been some downright ugly applications of HTML formatting. Less is more!--Rkihara 22:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Would you care to be more specific about the kinds of HTML you have seen used and dislike or think "ugly"? Do any of the HTML constructs I mentioned above fall within the category you object to? And note, I do regularly use these on entries I have created from secondary sources, and so cannot verify. This would particularly apply to OCLC links. -DES ^Talk 04:44, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't edit many books, so HTML in notes used for books are untouched by me. Ugly is an aesthetic judgment, so it's hard to describe. Think of notes done in all caps, or looking like a ransom note. I deal mostly with magazines where it's important for the notes to be uniform across the edits, which may not apply to books. Imagine tabbing through a year's worth of notes in a magazine; January is in all caps, February has all entries in a numbered list, March is bulleted, April has line breaks that seem to have no logic, and all the combination's of such, ad infinitum. It looks pretty unprofessional doesn't it? Using less formatting gives all notes a more uniform look, especially since there is no stylistic guide for entering notes. I don't have a problem with the proper use of underlining, italics, bold, and hyperlinks that are on subject. I usually remove lists (li), bullets, and line breaks (br), but not always. Swfritter has advanced another reason above for minimal HTML. For these reasons, I feel we should minimize the use of HTML, until we have developed a standard.--Rkihara 07:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I consider unverified pubs to be fair game. I've entered over a 1000 pubs that I didn't verify, and as far as I'm concerned anyone who has something to add can make any edits they want and/or verify them.--Rkihara 07:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Science Fact series

A lot of the articles in Analog show up in the Science Fact (Analog) series. These articles actually appear in the TOC under that department heading. Do you know when this TOC practice starts? Should we do the same thing for Astounding? Where this becomes most valuable is on the author biblio pages.--swfritter 18:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I took a quick check, the articles appear to be in the TOC under the general heading of "articles" right up to 1959. We could group these under "Science Article (Astounding)," and maybe "Pseudo Science Article (Astounding)" to include the Hieronymous Machine, Dean Drive, and so forth (8>).--Rkihara 21:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep, you are right - Science Fact begins with the January 1960 issue which I just processed. Might make more sense to categorize the Pseudo Science Article articles as shortfiction. I probably would not have used the Science Fact series if it had not been used already. Don't know about the "Science Article" series although it certainly looks good on the author page. The main problem we might run into is if the article is in another series already - highly unlikely since you are doing most of the work in the early issues. If nobody objects I'm all for it. Might as well do it while I'm there. I have and orphan series that I just renamed. If nobody objects...--swfritter 16:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seriesed any of the science articles in Astounding to date. We might want to put the science articles into a blanket series, rather than generating a new series every time the department is renamed. I was only half kidding about a Pseudo-Science series, since Astounding/Analog was full of them. I don't think we should classify them as fiction, since Campbell, or whoever wrote them was dead serious. I think it is possible to nest series, though I haven't tried it, so we might be able to make the Astounding and Analog series subsets of a blanket series.--Rkihara 17:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I was 99% kidding since I knew you weren't serious. Nested series are a problem since it is impossible to control the order in which the sub-series appear. So essays form 1950 might appear before essays from 1940. Blanket Science Fact series sounds good too. You have a much better idea of how the science articles are categorized in the earlier issues. Just grabbed a 2005 issue - and Science Fact is still being used so that is probably good for everything from 1960 on.--swfritter 17:52, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

The only other question about "Articles" is whether or not they can all be classified as "Science Fact" articles. Perhaps we should make the decision after we have had a chance to look at the issues.--swfritter 15:25, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless my humor detector has gone dead again, I haven't run across any non-science articles. We would be doing future researchers a favor by separating out the pseudo- and fringe-science articles, since Campbell's interest in these topics is something that SF historians always come back to (not to mention the Palmer/Shaver connection). Another thing we need to document are the "Symbols" or icons, that Campbell had drawn in the upper left corner of the cover art, starting in the forties issues. I don't think I've ever seen a full listing. We should probably series these, and it's not clear how credit them. Probably sketched by Campbell, and drawn by another artist uncredited.--Rkihara 16:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

See the December 1959 issue. The article "How to Write Science Faction" is actually about tech-writing and could only marginally be considered a science fact article. Are the articles in the transition issues from the pre-Campbell to the Campbell era Astounding all science fact? When is someone going to reprint the Shaver mystery - at least in ebook format? The stuff by Shaver I have read is actually kind of interesting.--swfritter 17:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Big mistake by me!

I recently entered a new novel & author which you moderated, but I screwed up royally by misspelling the authors name for another that already has an entry. The book is THE DREAMERS and I entered the author as Roger Maxwell but it is Roger Manvell. The Maxwell entery needs to be removed.Don Erikson 19:40, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. Changed author and merged titles. I'm surprised that you're not a moderator yet, since you've been here longer than I have. Is this something that you prefer not to do?--Rkihara 20:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

"The Containment of Calpel V"

I see that Malzberg's "The Containment of Calpel V" is listed twice in Amazing Stories, March 1981, once on page 106 and then again on page 108. I wonder if the second one was supposed to be an INTERIORART entry? Ahasuerus 21:14, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. The listing on p.106 is a TOC error, and was removed. The correct page number is 108. I'll leave a comment in the notes. I probably duplicated the entry during verification, when I didn't see the story in its expected place. The story has no illustrations.--Rkihara 21:39, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Duplicate title zapped, entropy reduced :) Ahasuerus 21:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

AnLabs - separate essays for each month

When there are AnLabs for two separate issues I have been entering separate essay entries for each month. As I mentioned to Davecat, entering one essay sort of makes it look like there is a bi-monthly issue. Any thoughts?--swfritter 15:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been entering them together, but I don't have a strong preference. This brings up a tangential issue, with all of the stuff we're entering now, the listings are getting a bloated look. I wonder if the default display for magazines should be "Concise?" I also think the button labeling should be more prominent, or obvious, as I didn't know it was there until it was pointed out to me. Maybe something like "Show all Content." At the very least we should indent the "Artwork," since this lies at a subsidiary level, i.e., within the story/article, as the reviews do.--Rkihara 16:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If you could start entering them as separate essays that would be great. I can track them down and fix them even if I don't have the mags.--swfritter 18:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I've already started, and I'll go back and fix my previous entries. There's only a handful, so that won't take long.--Rkihara 18:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Another thought, if the artwork is indented like the reviews, then indentation could be used a condition to determine the relative position of the listing, and set both in the proper order, i.e., an indented item with a page number matching that of an article would be set in the programming to follow after.--Rkihara 16:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Agree about the bloat and wish there were some way to indicate order of things that are on the same page and indent the art. What would be nice is a) a button and b) persistence - if you say concise then all subsequent displays would display that way. Can't imagine it any time soon, though.--swfritter 18:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

A button would be good, maybe next to the "Content" header, that way no one can miss it. It didn't occur to me before, but with the "Nav Bar," persistence is a "must." The indentation might be pretty quick, Al implemented that in a couple of days for the reviews.--Rkihara 18:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I summarized this discussion about possible features and posted it to the ISFDB Feature List as feature 90165. Considering the backlog, it's not likely to happen soon, but wanted to get it in. I wonder if I should add a request for the insertion of the "Nav Bar" through programming?--Rkihara 18:04, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the "Nav Bar" or something similar is a feature that has been discussed. I would like to something similar to pop-up calenders along with the back-forward. I would think display features will probably be of secondary priority to data-related features.--swfritter 15:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

NavBar - Please use your time machine

And go back to two years ago so we can implement this before I start editing all those magazines. Any more problems? It is so cool to edit a mag and then move to the next issue without having to go the grid.--swfritter 16:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I wish I could, or at least to when I started editing magazines, now I'll have to go back through the issues at least for Astounding, if not Amazing, and F&SF, and load the links. I wonder if we could enlist some of the moderators working on magazines in this effort?--Rkihara 16:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like mostly you and me right now. I worked on a few tiny bugs that would not have affected Astounding but would like a couple of days to make sure everything is OK and mention something in a central forum. Looks like you and I are the most active mag editors right now - and I am only doing three mags a day plus some other repetitive work.--swfritter 17:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm in the same editing mode you are, two-to-three magazines a day and repetitive stuff, though I usually have a full day available on the weekend. After a bit over a year on the ISFDB, I feel the need to re-engage with the real world.--Rkihara 18:18, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I thought this was the real world. For right now I think the main place we need the NavBar is in area where we are working. If something is instituted at the programming level the existing note entries will have to be modified.--swfritter 15:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Ellipsis Overload!!!

The art director in the late 50's and maybe earlier had a tendency to throw ellipsis helter-skelter into the titles, often times connecting two parts of a title that are spread over two pages. In many other cases both the TOC, the headers, and in some cases numerous reprints do not have them. In at least one case I am fairly certain that an editor added ellipsis to a story which changed the data for three or four other pubs. Davecat ignored such extraneous title modifications. I would say, at least for Astounding, that if the TOC and footer titles do not have ellipsis then they do not belong. Astounding was not a slapdash production like so many other mags and the TOC and footer entries more than likely represent editor intent.--swfritter 18:57, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

No overload with ellipsis in the forties, but I'll keep a look out, and keep your comments in mind.--Rkihara 16:20, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Help pretty much supports this approach. I have actually at times been a little too rigid in using the title page entry. See text I have put in bolds.--swfritter 17:19, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

From Help: For short stories, essays and poems, take the title from the heading on the page where the work begins, rather than from the table of contents, if there is one. This distinction is not too important, and if you know that one form of the title is the usual one (e.g. the contents page has "Night Fall" but the story heading is "Nightfall") then use the one you know is standard. You can also choose to use the table of contents version where the story heading gives a non-standard presentation of the title form--e.g. if the table of contents says "Bell, Book and Candle" and the story header says "Bell, Book & Candle", you can use the former. If both the table of contents and the story title agree, though, the form given should be used, even if it is different from the standard.

The Reference Library

When you start getting to them. The ones I have been doing and the later ones have titles. I am entering them, an example. Of course, this sort of makes entering the issue and month sort of redundant since the primary reason for doing so is to make the title unique. Also, a common error when entering reviews is to only enter the titled reviews. The intro section often has books that should be entered - many of them have more extensive reviews than found in section where the books are titled.--swfritter 17:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Campbell/The Editor

Have you been following this discussion? Had expected some input. Looks like many of "The Editor" entries placed in series have been done previously. I think the section of Help concerning this issue needs to a little less restrictive.--swfritter 17:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been following it to see where it's heading, but have no opinions to contribute. I've been entering all essays as signed, so I've had to change John W. Campbell, Jr., to "The Editor" in most issues. If it's decided that "The Editor" becomes a pseudonym for Campbell, then it's easy enough to implement. A programming change to allow us to append a question mark to Author's name that the authorship is assumed, e.g., "John W. Campbell, Jr. (?) as by the editor?," might be good solution. I do agree that Campbell probably wrote all of the editorials, and most of the science essays. As I work my way up the issues, it's interesting to note that Campbell would sign an occasional essay that (I assume) he thought was important. On a related subject, as per our discussion on the subject, I'm now entering cover artist as signed, and going back through some of the earlier issues to make corrections.

The biggest hassle will be taking "The Editor" titles out of the editorial series so that the Campbell variant titles can be placed in the series. The pseudonym process inherently creates the assumption that there is some degree of possibility that the attribution is in error - especially when the author is "The Editor". If we were absolutely 101% positive of authorship an argument could be made for just plugging Campbell's name in there.--swfritter 15:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been wondering what happened to Astounding and other magazine's files? A lot of material has been donated to libraries by authors, but I've never heard of magazines donating their editorial and other records. I wonder if Campbell's editorial records are archived somewhere? It would be interesting to sort through that stuff if it still exists. We'd be able to identify authors of uncredited essays, obscure artists, and one-time authors, and so on.--Rkihara 18:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

They might conceivably be in the hands of the current publisher. There are Campbell letters in print.--swfritter 15:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I have Vol. 1 of the collected letters, but these were letters that Campbell sent, not those that he received. I suppose incoming letters addressed to Campbell are presumed to be his property and may be part of the estate. Other than Campbell's private files, Perry A. Chapdelaine credits several people for gathering up the letters, and to Conde Nast for access to unidentified files, so the publisher has preserved some material. In the F&SF bulletin board, Gordon van Gelder has made mention of occasional items that date back to the founding of the magazine, so he may retain all of the records. F&SF may be unique, since it has been held by "family" of relatives and associates over the years. The situation is probably different with magazines that underwent several changes of publishers. At pulp shows I hear stories of magazines dumping paintings and drawings by the pallet load into dumpsters, and I imagine a lot of files were also tossed.--Rkihara 17:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

For right now I would not place any editorials in the series (many of them are already in a series) and I wouldn't change the existing entries. No matter what the final decision, there will have to be some clean-up work. Once we get the NavBar data in it will be easier to do.--swfritter 16:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Moderating User:Jayembee

User:Jayembee is new, and has apparently not found the wiki yet, or at least has not posted. See User talk:Jayembee S/he has been posting otherwise perfectly acceptable entries, using such binding types as "hardcover" and "trade paperback" rather than "hc" and "tp" I have been re-editing these after approving them. I just corrected one that you had approved. You might want to keep an eye out for this on Jayembee's submissions in future. -DES ^Talk 23:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, I missed that.--Rkihara 02:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Essay vs. Shortfiction in Amazing

I have found two short fiction pieces in your verified Amazings that appear to be essays: "The Interstellar Connection (Amazing Stories, August 1980)" in Amazing Stories, August 1980 and "Letters (Amazing Stories, January 1993)" in Amazing Stories, January 1993. Could you please double check when you get a chance? TIA! Ahasuerus 18:26, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification! Fixed.--Rkihara 19:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Frog Price

Is the poem really called that in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1987? We have a "Frog Prince" elsewhere. BLongley 22:36, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification, it's "The Frog Prince." Entry fixed, though with my warped sense of humor I prefer the latter.--Rkihara 07:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

I know what you mean - I've heard phrases like "What's that got to do with the price of Frog's legs?" enough that I couldn't be sure it wasn't deliberate. I've no idea what the plot would be though. BLongley 13:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

"A man walked into a bar . . ."--swfritter 23:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

If we're going for the cliches, then "No sir, I always walk this way" or "Hop over the bar then" should enter into it. "But a talking frog is cool!" is probably one of my favourite variants, though that's supposed to be a Frog Princess. "Bucket of Frogs" seems to be another standard phrase I've never understood, but I've never understood this planet anyway. BLongley 23:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Astounding - getting close to done

See you are at the end of '51 - I have just completed the last three issues of '53. How about I stop at the January 1953 issue and you can have 1952? Then comes clean-up time for the editorials.--swfritter 23:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, a couple of days should do it.--Rkihara 00:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting future of the sf mag site

From Mediashift. One more day and my Astounding task is over.--swfritter 01:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

A little depressing, I started reading F&SF, and Analog in 1962, and Asimov's from the second year of publication. I gave up on Analog in the late seventies, due to a drop in the quality of the writing and never returned, despite the fact that they got started getting their act together in the late eighties. I think the problem is that there are no entry level magazines to attract a younger generation. I started reading adult science fiction around the age of nine. It wasn't easy, I had to pass on a lot of books, and the ones I read had so many strange words that I spent as much time reading the Webster's Collegiate dictionary. If I were nine years old now, or even fifteen, the fiction published today in SF magazines would be barely comprehensible to me. There's not much there for a young reader, stories that extrapolate cutting edge physics and mathematics. I have a degree in electrical engineering, and I find some of these stories difficult. I think that's why fantasy is more popular than science fiction, since it doesn't require specialized knowledge to understand.

I don't even think there is an online YA magazine. A very healthy category bookwise - but mostly novels. TV and movies have pretty much replaced short fiction for the younger reader. I buy the magazines to help keep them alive but only read the essays - even the book reviews are of little use since I am only interested in about 1 in 20 titles; not so much a matter of the quality of the books as quantity. A definite comfort level reading the old magazines.--swfritter 22:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll be a little longer finishing, I hit a speed bump, in that my main computer went down for serious hardware problems. I had to reconfigure an old laptop to get back online, but I should be done by the end of the week.--Rkihara 07:16, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I have been very lucky with my computers but I used to be able to replace them every two years when I was working - my old notebook is so memory starved I can't run it with the virus checker running. Added navbars to remaining titles so that should speed you up.--swfritter 22:07, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

A service tech confirmed that my desktop computer is toast. I'd hoped it would run for another two years. The sad part is that I thought I had defective or poorly seated ram, but I really had bad memory slots. Swapping and reseating the memory fatally damaged the slots. If I hadn't touched the machine, it'd still be running with the occasional malfunction. The laptop I'm using now is almost a decade old, and runs at a "snail's pace" in comparison to the desktop machine.

Black Friday!!!If the economy has left you with any money. Got any good rice and bean recipes?--swfritter 19:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for filling in the Nav Bars. If it's not too much trouble, could you also generate a set of Nav Bars for Astounding from 1930 up. I'm working backwards through my old entries and adding illustrations and Nav Bars, but will soon hit the beginning of your first set. Should we do a verification run on the fifties F&SF next? I filled in a lot of the data, except for previously verified pubs earlier, so this should be relatively easy, especially since only a handful have interior illustrations.--Rkihara 17:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Nav Bars should be in Google Docs. Have already started on F&SF from issue 1. Book reviews are the biggest task. Assume you know about the official bibliography. It looks like all the data for the Nav Bar is valid; I will generate a list. Plan?--swfritter 19:10, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Amazing Stories, Winter 1999

FYI, an ISSN has been added to your verified Amazing Stories, Winter 1999. Ahasuerus 19:15, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

F&SF Data Entry Overdrive

Looks like you are cranking through them. I am in four-a-day vacation mode. If it weren't for having to read the entire book columns in order to verify which books are actually being reviewed it would be going a lot faster. That task was actually pretty enjoyable with Astounding; the reviews in F&SF are remarkably useless. Do you have a complete run for the 50's and 60's? I do - and in fact have a complete run of the magazine - that's the only reason I have a subscription to the physical version. After this I intend to work on Galaxy and then probably back to the rest of F&SF.--swfritter 21:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

The seventies were easy, mostly just entering the Nav Bars, since I had already verified many of those. I did give each magazine a quick second look, but it went pretty fast down to 1961. It helped a lot that during those years F&SF was not prone to stuffing the magazine with odds and ends. I averaged two corrections per year for magazines I had already verified. Half of the sixties book reviews had the books listed or clearly denoted, so they were also easy to check. I know what you mean about the Boucher and McComas reviews, they're written in a conversational style and they often return to the same book months after the initial review. Verification of 1961 down will proceed much more slowly, as I'm re-editing the thirties Astoundings in parallel.

I have a complete run of magazines too, minus a half dozen or so after 2000. I haven't subscribed since they stopped using wrappers. As a collector I'm annoyed by the glued-on labels and the dings in transit. If they still had a manila envelope option I might subscribe again.

Probably difficult to find at the newsstand. Condition is not a huge issue for me especially since the more recent issues are not likely to be collectible in my lifetime.--swfritter 19:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you notice how stable the circulation figures from 1961 through 1970 were? Over that ten year period it hovered around fifty thousand.--Rkihara 00:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The magazines were still quite viable in the 60's. I think Ziff-Davis sabotaged and murdered Amazing Stories because it had other more profitable magazines. The 70's are another story.--swfritter 19:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Artwork for It Could Be Anything

When you get a chance, would you check your copy of Amazing Stories, January 1963, regarding artwork for It Could Be Anything? Compare, if you will, the HTML version to be seen at Project Gutenberg #26782. I see, in that, four illustrations. The last of them is almost certainly the one in the magazine as "It Could Be Anything [bc]"; but I'm wondering why the magazine listing gives only two others. (All four in the PG edition seem appropriate to this story.)
My entry of the PG edition is here. Thanks. -- Dave (davecat) 17:41, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

There are four total as in your PG listing, but the first illustration (the mask) looks like one of the pieces of filler art that are used to fill up empty space. Usually they appear at the end, sometimes in the middle. These are not cataloged as a rule, since they're used over and over again. One clue is that between the title and the illustration (2"x2"), there is about a third of a column of text on the page. The second illustration takes the whole next page, and that's the one I counted, which should have been listed on p.25, not p.24. I've also noticed on Gutenberg that sometimes when an illustration spans two pages, it's split, making an extra illustration in the PG version. It's been a while since I passed through Amazing, but I'm almost certain the excluded art was one of the filler pieces.--Rkihara 21:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not advocating following Gutenberg on illustrations in general! In addition to the splitting of illustrations (usually but not always where broken by the gutter) in ways that kind of destroy the meaning of a drawing, they do fairly often include the filler art.
My question was about this specific one, on two grounds: First, it's signed with Finlay's initials, & he was the illustrator; second, the theatrical mask fit with the content of the story in a fairly obvious way. I don't have enough of Amazing (practically none in fact) to know whether this is indeed one of their standard fillers, or whether their fillers were ever signed. Astounding/Analog almost never had signatures on the filler art; I think I may recall one that was. (And Analog mostly dropped the use of drawings as filler in this way, fairly early IIRC.)
I'm not sure what to do in this case, so will be lazy & leave things as they are. Should you want to see the PG done differently on this matter, don't let my having verified the thing slow you down; but I'd appreciate something in the notes about that first illustration if you change it. (When PG has included end-of-story standard filler drawings & I've recognized them as such, I haven't included them, but I think I've usually noted their presence.)
Thanks! -- Dave (davecat) 15:55, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll scan through the magazines on both sides of this date and look for a repeat of that illustration. One year to each side should do it. If I don't find another one, I'll include it. Signed fillers are not that uncommon in some magazines. Emsh signed all of his in F&SF, and Dold and others signed many in Astounding. In the case of Dold, I think they were initially used to illustrate a story, then were recycled. I don't plan to edit any project Gutenberg entries, though if the art was one-to-one, this would be one case where we could merge the art without confusion.--Rkihara 18:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I was not able to find another occurrence of that illustration after looking one year on each side of that January issue. It appears to be unique, so I've entered it. I also found three more illustrations by Finlay that were similar in layout, each with a small illustration at the beginning of a story, with a facing full page illustration. Maybe the art director was experimenting with the layout? These have also been entered. Thanks for the notice!--Rkihara 03:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Astounding Editorials

I think it is safe to assume that there is a consensus that the editorials signed "The Editor" when Campbell was editor should be made pseudonymous with Campbell, Jr. as the canonical author. There are also a few pre-50s editorials during that time that are listed as uncredited Example. Am I safe in assuming that that Campbell should be the canonical author for these? Once that is resolved I'm on to the onerous task of removing titles authored by The Editor from the series, making Campbell the canonical author for the editorials, and then adding the canonical authored titles to the series. At least 400 repetitive edits.--swfritter 22:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's okay to assume that the uncredited editorials were by "The Editor," or JWCjr. I made a similar assumption when I assigned authorship of "Brass Tacks" to "The Editor," instead of "uncredited." If we make "The Editor" a pseudonym of Campbell, then I think we should assign Brass Tacks to Campbell too.--Rkihara 07:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely & have said so before. I do agree that it's possible that some of the comments were by Kay Tarrant or others, but it seems pretty clear to me that Campbell was responsible for most of them.
There is a slight asymmetry between the two, however, in that the editorials are mostly signed "The Editor" (which is what swfritter specifically referred to), whereas no such attribution is made to the comments on the letters or to the Brass Tacks column as a whole. In this case I don't think that's a big issue; the comments, both in content & in style, mostly announce whom they're by, loud & clear.
I wouldn't put AnLab or In Times to Come in quite the same category, though they're generally signed "The Editor" too & often sound pretty Campbellian. -- Dave (davecat) 15:39, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The most recent discussion was specifically about the authorship of the editorials. The letter column issue should probably be discussed in a broader forum. Attributing the canonical authorship to Campbell, Jr. for Brass Tacks is fine by me although I think "uncredited" is more accurate; I entered them that way and most after 1950 are entered that way. It will also require that "uncredited" and "The Editor" attributed titles will have to be removed from series and the Campbell canonical author titles added to the series after they have gone through the pseudonym process.--swfritter 20:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

If we were to start doing this, the editpub help should be revised. I'm not sure what we'd want to replace the current wording with. -- Dave (davecat) 22:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

For the most part this a special case. I am currently working on 50's F&SF where many of the review columns are signed "The Editors". The reviews themselves are so brief as to be useless - most barely qualify by our standards. The Campbell material is substantially more significant and it is of importance that they be identified as his. If any change is made to Help it should be to suggest that an editor consensus can be used override the standard.--swfritter 23:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

It occurred to me that the easiest approach would be to change the name of the Editorial series from "Editorial (Astounding)" to "Editorial: Campbell (Astounding)." Then the attribution wouldn't need to be changed, and a lot less work would be needed. Only a small number of editorials would need to be moved to "Editorial (Astounding)" or maybe "Editorial: F. Orlin Tremaine (Astounding)," etc. Besides that, entering "The Editor" as a pseudonym for Campbell would increase the database entropy.--Rkihara 07:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

If we did it that way the editorials would not show up on the Campbell's author bibliographical page which is where most people go. I have started cleaning up data starting from author biblio pages making sure that the parent title data is correct. One definition of entropy: "The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity." Sounds like an interesting goal. I'll just keep at the Campbell editorials.--swfritter 21:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Editorials attributed to Campbell

Are the editorials in this issue and this issue actually credited to Campbell and not The Editor?--swfritter 02:35, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Feb. 1939 is credited to Campbell, and July 1941 to The Editor. I'm leaving the latter alone, since you're planning to rework the credits.--Rkihara 03:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why he signed only the one. I wonder if he thought of it more as an article. There are a few cases in the 50's where he has short articles in addition to the editorial.--swfritter 21:07, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The subject matter was the completion of his first year as editor, and the launch of Astounding's sister magazine, "Unknown." It was signed John W. Campbell, Jr., Editor. I think he signed it because he was enumerating the major accomplishments of his first year, and signing as "The Editor" only would seem like false modesty.--Rkihara 23:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

F&SF - December 1956 is the last issue in my storage box

So it looks like a good place for me to end - about two more days. I have been pretty lax about extensively double-checking book reviews and I have not entered a number of illustrations that might be construed as as non-captioned cartoons. It really is kind of boring entering mags without illustrations - although F&SF did have some 1954 issues where they experimented with the concept. The latest issue has the circulation figures and they are only slightly down - but this could be a bad year for everybody. Looks like the Locus s-f mags cd index has been updated through 2006.--swfritter 22:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm at July 1957, so I'll meet up with you tomorrow. Can't blame you for zipping through the reviews, my eyes glaze over when I check them and I have to go back and look again. The circulation figures are distressing, since the major part of my SF reading comes from the magazines--Rkihara 00:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

All done. Particularly annoying towards the last of 1956. Sometimes the book review column was credited to Anthony Boucher and sometimes to The Editor. Might be an indication that Boucher did not do all the book reviews. Now on to Galaxy - illustrations to break up the monotony and a better, more readable book review section - looks like mostly clean-up, multiple artwork and standardization work. You wouldn't happen to have any of the 1994-1995 revival issues? When they can be found they are quite expensive.--swfritter 23:38, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Change to your verified pub F&SF October 1979

Took the roman numeral Sequence number off Ferdinand Feghoot and place the right date in the parent title. I had already done this for the 5/56 issue and realized I had changed it in three other places. Checked the later issue of F&SF and it does not have the qualifier either so left both the parent and variant title without it. Since it is the only one without a number it is still unique and also makes it clearer that they probably did not expect there would be so many sequels.--swfritter 23:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Changes to verified pubThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1991

I am changing all the "/" to "-" in the bi-monthly issues - including the dates in the columns. Don't know if I will find any more of your verified pubs but I will not notify you of the others.--swfritter 23:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Astounding, July 1937

Can you double-check to see if "Seeker of To-morrow" in this issue is credited to "Leslie J. Johnson" or "Leslie T. Johnson"? Donald Day gives the credit to "T.", even though it may have been a misprint. Mike Ashley gives his full name as "Leslie Joseph Johnson" in his history of the SF magazines (Part 2). Thanks. MHHutchins 17:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It was listed as Leslie (T.) Johnson on both the title page and the TOC. I had left it as Leslie (J.) Johnson, and left a note in the comments, as the majority of pubs listed it with the middle initial "J." I've just changed it back to "T." as listed, and will leave a note that there is some controversy about the middle initial.--Rkihara 20:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Astounding, April 1938

When you get a chance, could you see if the story by de Camp in this issue is titled "Hyperpelosity" or "Hyperpilosity"? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The TOC lists it as "Hyperpelosity," while the title page has it as "Hyperpilosity." It's also spelled "Hyperpilosity" within the story and on the page header, so I'm assuming the latter is correct for now. I've made the changes to this pub, but I've noticed that the majority of the pubs in this database have used the former spelling, so the correct title is still uncertain until someone checks those.--Rkihara 20:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

E. B. Cole = Everett B. Cole

Just a note to let you know that a couple of verified issues of Astounding from the early 50s were affected when I made E. B. Cole a pseudonym of Everett B. Cole. Confirmed by the presence of the stories in a novel published in 1961 as by "Everett". Thanks. MHHutchins 17:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Astounding December 1950

I came upon this strange situation and hoped you would be able to check out the issue itself. The essay by Cox is a variant of itself. Could someone have changed the published byline back to the canonical author's name? Maybe "Arthur Jean Cox"? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Same situation in the August 1950 issue. And I just saw there are summary pages for "Arthur J. Cox" and "Arthur Jean Cox". Could they be two different writers? MHHutchins 17:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I've taken care of both instances. Not sure how those names become variants of themselves. In the case of the Astounding issues, the name might have been entered as Arthur Jean Cox, and I may have changed it to Arthur J. Cox as entered in pub, and didn't notice that it had been entered as a variant. The references I have say they're the same person.--Rkihara 18:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

"Fear Therapy & Incontinence"

Could you please check whether "Fear Therapy & Incontinence" is credited to "Ray Brown" or "R. D. Brown" on the title page of your verified Amazing Stories, November 1980? Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The credit is a little complicated. The TOC credits "Ray Brown," the title page "R. D. Brown," and the mini-bio at the end of the story identifies the author as "Ray Brown." It's my practice to use the most complete form of the author's/artist's name found in the pub for the credit, e.g., if I find "Emsh," "Ed Emsh," and "Edward Emshwiller," credited in the same pub, I would use the latter to identify all occurrences. I used Ray Brown, but to be consistent, I should have merged the two and used "Ray D. Brown." Feel free to change it to what you feel is appropriate.--Rkihara 06:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Anyone with a copy in their hands will have the same data available so they should be able to figure it out although the disparities should be documented. The problem with artists is that in many cases we have determined a canonical that may be incorrect or we have not determined one at all. I usually do the credits on a story by story basis - so I would credit Emsh and Emshwiller if they were credited differently that way on two different stories - and, of course, there is always the case where the same artist signs the art for the same story in different ways or only signs one piece of multiple artwork for the same story. I use the best credit in all such instances.--swfritter 20:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, that works for interior art, but surely we want to use the title page as opposed to the table of contents as the source of fiction attribution as per our standard guidelines? Using techniques like merging "Ray Brown" with "R. D. Brown" to create "Ray D. Brown" can have particularly far reaching effects since it would create an Author record that doesn't exist anywhere else. In extreme cases, it would make searches for "R. D. Brown" and "Ray Brown" return no results. Ahasuerus 04:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I misspoke a bit and need to clarify the situation. I enter the author's name as listed on the title page 99.9% of the time. There are only a few instances where I didn't; where the author has two stories in a pub, but the credit on the title pages are slightly different, e.g., one credit with first initial and last name, and the other with the first and last names spelled out. The other occasions are like the pub in question, in which the author has used a more complete version of his/her name in either the lead-in, or the afterword/bio. It seemed that since the author had identified himself/herself in the context of the story that the fuller version should be used. In retrospect that was probably not a good thing to do.--Rkihara 07:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

And then there are wonderful cases as documented in the notes in this pub. Luckily, in this case the bogus credit is not on the the title page so the editor had some discretion. I think the note and the very wise decision are Ron's. In the rare case like this where the editor has multiple options, and one is the canonical, that is definitely the right choice.--swfritter 19:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I remember entering that. It seemed a little wrong to create a variant for a joke.--Rkihara 16:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Whew, glad we are on the same page! Talk about fear therapy :) Ahasuerus 23:11, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Okies, variant title set up and magazine Notes updated. Thanks! Ahasuerus 01:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Change to your verified pub Amazing Science Fiction Stories, September 1958

The artwork for the Nourse story in this issue was listed as Gold in the Sky (Complete Novel) while the story was classified as a novella. The story just appeared on Project Gutenberg and a word count of the text gives it a length of about 38,500 words. So it is indeed a novella - I changed the text of the artwork entry.--swfritter 01:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, in the same issue. Merged the top cartoon on page 145 with it's reprinted version - there was a missing comma.--swfritter 01:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Common Ectoids of Arizona

I see that you are about to delete Common Ectoids of Arizona, a Stepan Chapman Collection. According to the Locus Index, it's a "Chapbook collection of illustrations, purportedly a set of field drawings and notations of ectoplasmic entities" (!). I wonder if we should change it to non-fiction? Ahasuerus 00:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I deleted it before seeing your note, but I can put it back in if you think it should be listed. Paul Di Fillipo reviewing it in Asimov's, April 2003, described it as a collection of B&W cartoons of ectoplasmic lifeforms interacting with humans.--Rkihara 01:02, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we generally enter collections of artwork as non-fiction, but cartoons?.. I am not really sure. Perhaps something to ask on the standards board? Ahasuerus 01:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

On reflection there are already more than a few cartoon collections in the database, such as Gahan Wilson's, and Edward Gorey's. I'll reenter Chapman's collection since it's clearly SF oriented. It probably wouldn't hurt to try to sharpen up the fuzzy dividing lines we've set for graphic content. According to policy, comic books, manga, and graphic novels are out, yet Neil Gaiman's "Sandman"series is listed in the database, as are the graphic novels of Alan Moore. I'm content to let them stay, since I feel they transcend the genre, but at the same time I don't enter reviews of their books when I run across them.--Rkihara 04:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Michel(l)e Slung

Could you please double check whether Budry's review of I Shudder at Your Touch in F&SF, July 1991 refers to the editor, Michele Slung, as "Michele" or "Michelle"? TIA! Ahasuerus 11:28, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

It's Michele, review fixed. Thanks!--Rkihara 16:45, 2 February 2009 (UTC)