User talk:Zxcvbnm/archive

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Welcome!

Hello, Zxcvbnm/archive, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The Young Oxford Book of Nightmares

Accepted the submission to add [this] anthology to the database, but needed to make some changes/corrections to make the record conform to the standards we use here. Nothing major. From the top: we use shortforms for the binding, so hardcover becomes 'hc'; the ISBN as listed was missing the '-0' at the end [all 10 or 13 numbers need to be there, though the separator dashes are irrelevant, the software will automatically add them]; the artist field is for cover artist[s] only [since you added (cover artist) to Smith, I kept him and deleted the rest; if they are responsible for interior art, they need to be added to the contents portion of the record. There are a couple of ways to do that: make one general content record using the title of the book as the title and list all the contributors/artists or if there are multiple drawings each one can have a separate entry with one or more artists. If the pieces are captioned or titled then that would be the title for the piece, otherwise multiple entries are treated as Title [1], Title [2], Title [3], etc.]; titles of contents should be recorded exactly as they are in the book, do not add (aka ...) as that whole entry now becomes the title [if a story has been issued/published under a different title, then a Variant relationship needs to be set up between the two titles, which will then cause the title to appear in any contents record with the (aka ...) relationship shown, but the software does that after the Variant is established, you can't do it while entering contents]; the same applies to the authors, though we call the variant a pseudonym; story titles that have a hyphen need both 'sides' capitalized as in X-Y, not X-y, no matter how the publication prints it [I didn't make this up, it's just the way we do things here :-)]; author names that have two or more initials, always put a space between them as in X. Y. Zee, not X.Y. Zee; same applies to the one title S. Q. in this publication. This may seem like a lot at once, but don't be worried. Take some time to read the Help pages linked above, nearly all of the above is delineated there. And don't be afraid to ask questions!! We're here to help. I do have one question, as to the spelling of one author: Morgan Llywelyn [the last name just looks a little odd, even for a Welsh one!]. I also added a cover image and a couple of secondary links to the notes. Please add the other artists as [I assume you have the book] I have no source to figure out who/what they contributed. Again, Welcome! Thanks for editing. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:04, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

To respond, click on the (edit) button to the right. Discussions are 'stepped' by using an additional colon at the beginning of each response. Please 'sign' any comments using either four tildes or by clicking on the second last icon at the top of the editing page [looks like a squiggle] after typing in your comment. This will timestamp and 'sign' the post with your user name. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
re: illustrators. I refer you to [1]. The other illustrators are listed in the notes. Otherwise, I'm sorry, but someone else will have to add them if it is this labour intensive. The spelling of Morgan Llywelyn is indeed correct. ISFDB has a pre-existing author page. Zxcvbnm 20:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
Listing them in the notes is fine. --~ Bill, Bluesman 08:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough. There are 54 or so illustrations. Zxcvbnm 19:51, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Richard Chopping

I've held your author update as I'm not sure what evidence you have that this is indeed the same guy as "Richard Wasey Chopping", the James Bond Illustrator. Can you tell me your source? BLongley 18:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Also, there's a few formatting problems with the submission - Legal names are given as "Lastname, forenames" so it would be "Chopping, Richard Wasey" and birth and death dates are given in YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. "1917-04-14" rather than "14 April 1917". I'll fix those for you if you can confirm this is the right Richard Chopping. And I'll also add the Birthplace too - I know it well, I lived in Colchester for 15 years! BLongley 18:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

(Moving this back to your page so that you get notified of updates and the whole conversation is in one place)

There are numerous obituaries on the net. They clearly identify him as being one and the same. In particular the Guardian's 14 Jun 2008 article which can be googled. The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Third Series, July-December 1967 is one of several sources for the Boyde pseudonym. Zxcvbnm 20:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
I have no doubt about the other Richard Chopping works you want to add, but am not so sure about the author of "The Eagle (1967)". How sure are you that the Novelist and Illustrator also wrote this shortfiction? If it's a different one, it's best to disambiguate that one before allowing your other edits through, to save later rework. BLongley 20:37, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
One of the "Lie Ten Nights Awake" editions identifies Chopping as the author of "The Fly". Zxcvbnm 20:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
That's good enough for me! If you can add a note about the source to the Richard Chopping Author page or to whichever of the Lie Ten Nights Awake publications contains the details, it'll help. We do get a paranoid at times, sorry! Thanks for checking. BLongley 01:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The Listening Child - British Pricing

I put your submission on hold updating {{P|278255|The Listening Child) because it wasn't using the proper form for Shilling and Pence with pre-decimalization pricing. You can see the correct way Help:Screen:EditPub#Price. Basically it amounts to shillings/pence, and in this case results in 13/6. I will leave it to you to cancel your submission and submit a revised update. Thanks Kevin 20:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!. I accepted your revised submission. Have a great Saturday! Kevin 21:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Awake-Asleep-Awake

There is already a [publication] record with what would appear to be the same story, though the punctuation in the title is slightly different. I can't find a source that lists the contents to double-check if the way it's shown is indeed how the title appears in the book or if the way you have it is the correct one. The [OCLC] record doesn't list contents, nor does the [British Library] record. If the way you present the title is correct then the existing record should be changed. I assume the story was originally published in 1957 which would mean that Blood Will Cry Out should be the Variant, not the other way around. I have the submission on hold. --~ Bill, Bluesman 08:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I noticed the duplicate record and alternate punctuation when I initially submitted "Young Oxford". I have the "Young Oxford" book open on my lap as I type this. It clearly states on page 211 (Acknowledgements) "J.J. Curle: `Blood will Cry Out', (originally called `Awake-Asleep-Awake') first published in R. C. Bull (ed.): Upon the Midnight (Macdonald 1957), reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company (UK)". I agree that "Blood Will Cry Out" is an alternate title. The ISFDB instructions on adding an alternate title were confusing. Page 86 of "The guide to supernatural fiction", by Everett Franklin Bleiler (Kent State University Press, 1983, 723 pages) lists it as "Awake-Asleep-Awake" Zxcvbnm 19:42, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. Changed the way the original story was listed and then did the Variant. Indeed some of the Help instructions can be confusing. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 20:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Sigh. But "The supernatural index: a listing of fantasy, supernatural, occult, weird, and horror anthologies" by Michael Ashley, William Contento, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995 - 933 pages, lists the story as "Awake, Asleep, Awake". To be on the safe side should we list a second variant title? Zxcvbnm 20:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Secondary sources should rarely be used as the source to create a variant title record. Once a publication that uses this form of the story's title is in the database, we can create a variant. Mhhutchins 02:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Halloween Howls

The submission adding this record to the database was accepted. The other editors were added to the record. For the purposes of ISFDB, the editor is considered the "author" of an anthology. Also in the page count field, do not add "pp". The system does this automatically, and your adding it to the field duplicates it in the display. Also you list three artists in the cover artist field. Are these all credited in the book for the cover only, or as interior artists as well? Is the cover three works of art or one piece that is a collaboration among the three artists?

The cover apparently is a collaboration. The credits page (168) says, "Cover and text illustrations by Megan Dempster, Jenna Jakubowski, and Chris Pierik." Zxcvbnm 19:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Much of the information you placed in the "Note to Moderator" field is important to include in the "Note" field. The first field is not for information about the book. It's to give the moderator further information about the submission and disappears upon acceptance of the submission, not becoming a part of the record. I've added pertinent information to the record's "Note" field based on your note to the moderator.

I put the information in the "Note to Moderator" field precisely because I felt the Moderator would need further information to modify the entries. It's not clear whether the "folk tales" should have a subtitle added, and if so, how. I'm not sure whether it's necessary to add a note about the re-tellings. The CD information on the other hand is relevant and in retrospect belongs in the "Note" field. Zxcvbnm 19:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Moderators do not have the ability to modify entries in a submission. We can only accept a submission as is, or reject it entirely. After acceptance, and the record is in the database, either the editor or the moderator can make updates to the record, and as a primary verifier, the original editor should be the one with the best info to do that. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Moderators have modified at least two of my submissions. I have no problem with them doing that. Zxcvbnm 19:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Moderators (and other editors) may have made corrections to the records after the submissions were accepted, but no one can make changes before the submission is accepted. That was the point I was trying to make, perhaps ineffectively. Sorry. Mhhutchins 01:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I've also linked to the cover image on Amazon. Please see if everything that I changed about the record is OK, and if so, then do a Primary Verification of the record. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 16:08, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Further changes: I disambiguated the generic title "Introduction" by adding the name of the book to the title as "Introduction (Halloween Howls)". This is a standard ISFDB practice. I've also merged the title records for the 8 reprinted pieces with the records already existing in the database. As you become more familiar with the database, you'll be asked to do this whenever you create new title records for works that already have records in the database. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the merge process as I had to do that for a duplicate entry for the Kingsley Amis short story "Mason's Life". However, I believe I have to wait until a Moderator accepts my entry before I can merge. Zxcvbnm 19:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The Last Dodo

The submission adding this record was accepted into the database, with a few changes. I added a record for the interiorart (crediting Boyde), added the publication series and made the format into "hc" (hardcover). (All of this from secondary sources.) I then made "Richard Boyde" into a pseudonym of Richard Chopping (according to the Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1967: July-December published by the Library of Congress). After that I made variant records of the title record, the cover art record, and the interior art record giving Chopping as the real author. If you have this book, please do a Primary Verification of the record. If you don't you should record the source for your data in the record's note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The "interiorart" designation is wrong. I'm not sure how or why this misunderstanding happened. "The Last Dodo" is a children's novel. I indicated that in my original submission. Chopping wrote it. He also did the cover and interior illustrations (also credited as "Boyde"). I have corrected the entry. I do have a copy of the book but it is currently in storage. Zxcvbnm 19:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I rejected the submission to change this record for Chopping's interior art into a novel. There is already a record for the novel. You do admit that there are illustrations in the book, and as so, they are given a separate record. These are given separate records because in many cases the illustrator is not the author of the work. Mhhutchins 19:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah, silly me. I somehow missed the novel listing. In that case Chopping should also get an interiorart credit for "Postlethwaite" as he also illustrated that book. Zxcvbnm 19:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I've added an interiorart credit for that book as well (and corrected the title as it appears the true title is Mister Postlethwaite's Reindeer and Other Stories according to OCLC). Mhhutchins 01:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

The New Young Oxford Book of Ghosts

I had to reject the submission to give this record the same date as the copyright year (1999). Because it's a second printing, we can't be sure what date it was published, unless that date is actually stated in the book. Copyright years should only be used for publication dates on rare occasions, such as an undated first printing without any secondary source available to give the actual date of publication. Copyright years can often be a year off, that is, copyrighted at the end of one year and published early in the next year. (There are even some books that were published in December which have the following year's copyright date.) I have cloned this second printing record to create a record for the first printing and dated it 1999, based on info from OCLC. Mhhutchins 01:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Kersh's Neither Man nor Dog

I accepted the submission adding the price to this record, but moved the source for the price from the moderator's note into the record's note field. Again, the moderator's note field does not become part of the record, and it's important that you note the source for data if a) you have the book and the data isn't present or b) you don't have a copy of the book. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I am aware that the moderator's note field does not become part of the record. I noted the price source in the moderator field so that the moderator may verify it if he or she needs to without it becoming part of the official record. The information is available in google books, so it's not as though it's unverifiable. Zxcvbnm 22:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

A lane to the land of the dead.

Would these records help: [1]; [2]? --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:58, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. I do not know how the book is paginated. Amazon.co.uk claims the Hamish Hamilton edition is 160 pages. Under the circumstances I felt I should be cautious, especially since I am still new here. I don't want to incorrectly clone an entry especially if I don't have a copy of the book. I note also that the links you provide do not include the paperback's subtitle. Zxcvbnm 00:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
A stub record, without page numbers, would be just fine as then the ISBN becomes searchable on the db. Putting it in the notes of another pub doesn't accomplish much as nothing in notes can be found with the current search engine. Page numbers on Amazon are worthless, always multiples of 8, sometimes out by over a hundred. The two library records would be accurate, OCLC has the contents and the BLIC has the price. A record does not have to be complete on a first pass, as long as what information is there is sourced/cited. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of records that have been created just using printing histories from later editions. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually, the ability to search Title or Publication notes was added back in May. That is of course a text search and doesn't auto-convert ISBNs, but it's better than nothing. BLongley 17:04, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The Tibetan Box

The merge as submitted would drop the note about the story's first appearance. Did you intend that? The Merge 'box' will always give choices if there are differences between the two items to be merged. It's important to make sure all relevant data is kept. I put the submission on hold. --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:27, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, delete the note. It refers to the novel's first hardcover edition which appears in the parent entry.[2] Zxcvbnm 19:47, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

"Duplicate entries"

Regarding the note in the submission for The Book of Ghosts: the dates themselves are not what causes duplicate entries. You entered the stories manually so there is automatically a new record created, whatever date is given. Since there is no way to import one story at a time, there's no way to avoid this. Merges will still have to be done. --~ Bill, Bluesman 20:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know! I will do them after I've merged duplicate entries in "Elizabeth Walter". Zxcvbnm 20:04, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
We might be able to improve the software so that if somebody does provide the same title, author, type, date and length it's automerged, but there's a bit of a backlog on software improvements at the moment. :-/ Feel free to suggest such though - I know after handling some reprint Anthologies and some new Omnibuses today that it's still a pain. BLongley 23:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually, it's rather fun. I'm searching for duplicate titles in authors who appear in the "Young Oxford" books though I'm not restricting it to their "Young Oxford" contributions. Several days of work, that. I'm careful to verify any conflicting information with worldcat, google books, etc. Zxcvbnm 23:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Glad to hear you're having fun! Most of us get a bit bored after a few hundred. Actually, most editors quit before they've even got to a hundred. :-/ Please keep on! BLongley 02:53, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

A Gentleman All in Black

The submission seems to be creating a Variant that's the same as the original?? What I see on the screen is two halves exactly the same. Am I missing something? --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:53, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The original title is "The Gentleman...". The variant is "A Gentleman...". Zxcvbnm 22:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Both halves have "A..." --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the submission should be to make A Gentleman All in Black a variant of The Gentleman All in Black? BLongley 23:03, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
I cancelled the original submission and have redone it. Zxcvbnm 23:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
And accepted! --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry! Zxcvbnm 23:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Excerpts

Excerpts should never be made Variants of the novel! We are hesitant to even merge excerpts as they may change with different publications [one might be part of chapter 1, the next of chapter 6, etc.]. Some editors/moderators don't even bother to record them as they aren't much more than publishers' blurbs used to fill out otherwise dead space. Also why they aren't given any status/length and remain just 'shortfiction'. FYI :-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Ann Pilling = Ann Cheetham

First edition of Dark harvest was written/published under the Cheetham name, [BLIC]; [OCLC]. Even an [image]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:08, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Oxford Book of Nasty Endings

You submitted an edit for [this] record, though I don't know what the edit was for. Nothing you did, but apparently a merge of two records for one of the stories caused the software to view the record that was dropped in the merge as now invalid and gives me no option on the edit but to hard-reject [big red warning sign across the submission page!!]. Apologies but you'll have to re-submit the edit. --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Basically, you merged two instances of "A Sharp Attack of Something or Other" and then tried to edit the one that wasn't being kept. One of the unpleasant side-effects of having to wait for approvals, I'm afraid. BLongley 17:34, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

The Oxford Book of Christmas Stories

I'm aware of the English tradition of Christmas ghost stories, but are you certain that all of the stories included in the submission's content entries are spec-fic? Mhhutchins 17:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

No. This is a companion volume to the 2001 "The Young Oxford Book of Christmas Stories", same editor Many of the authors have pre-existing ISFDB entries. I note that Kingsley Amis's "Collected Stories" includes his non-genre stories. Administrator BLongley verified this particular title. Two other editions have ISFDB records, again listing and creating records for the non-genre stories. Having read the Amis collection, I assure you that half the stories are about as non-spec-fic as one can get. Other authors' non-genre works have ISFDB records. Anthony Burgess, for example. "The Pianoplayers", which I have read, is again entirely non-spec-fic. Ditto too his "Malayan Trilogy", which I have not read, but have heard much about and have heard described as being somewhat in the Graham Greene milieu. "Nothing Like the Sun" is a fictional recreation of Shakespeare's love-life. "Tremor of Intent" is a spy novel. In fact, most of Burgess's novels listed here are non-spec-fic. Several other authors have their non-genre titles listed under the heading non-genre works, or some such phrase; again ISFDB creates records for them. Zxcvbnm 20:47, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
You're going to find nongenre stories in the database. There's no way around it. BUT, if you know a story is nongenre, it should not be entered into the database. Burgess is an example of an author whose summary page has to be purged, just as we recently purged Graham Greene's summary page. Most of these titles were entered by an early robot program that pulled data from Amazon. That program is no longer in use because it was designed to pull EVERYTHING by an author who only had one or two spec-fic works. The current robot is much more sophisticated and avoids this problem. We should not consciously add works to the database that we know are not spec-fic and the database's policy is clear on that. There will, of course, always be borderline cases, which we, as a policy, tend to include.
To your last point: all work by an author who is chiefly known for his spec-fic work is included in the database, even his non-genre work. That is why the NONGENRE type was created: for non-spec-fic works by spec-fic writers.
I will accept the submission if you can verify which works are spec-fic and then take on the responsibility of purging the non-genre stories from the database. Or you can cancel the submission and create a record which only includes the spec-fic contents. Your call. Mhhutchins 23:34, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. I hope to reply on this some time next week. Sorry for the delay! Zxcvbnm 21:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
No worries. I'll keep your submission on hold until you can get back to it. Mhhutchins 23:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Have you had a chance to check on the genres of the stories included in this anthology? The submission's been in the queue for awhile and I "feel the need" to either accept it or reject it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:37, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I've had no time to verify the entries. I'd hate to lose the work, not to mention the time spent inputting it. Can we compromise? Accept it, then I'll weed out those entries and authors who do not have solid ISFDB entries and mention in the notes what other stories exist in the collection. Otherwise... Zxcvbnm 20:46, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Despite my better judgement, the submission was accepted. It would be better not to use the "solid ISFDB entries" as the sole criterion for keeping a story. It's possible the story could be the one and only spec-fic story by any one of the authors. And vice versa, it could be a non-sf story by an author who has "solid ISFDB entries." One of the reasons why the db exists is because it's built by those who read and love the work. I would hope that you could take the time to peruse the stories, even though it takes longer than inputting them. It's going to take more time to remove and delete the false entries than it did to input them. Mhhutchins 21:19, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. I will be reading the book, but it is far down my TBR pile. I do notice that several of the stories appear in other anthologies that already have ISFDB entries. I'll be merging them after I finish typing this. One final point in my defence: this volume and the other "Young Oxford" Christmas volume - which the ISFDB has a pre-existing, detailed listing for - have gotten much flak from readers for the dark selection of stories. For what it's worth, Mabel Marlowe, Laurie Lee, Hugh Oliver, Norman Smithson, Timothy Callender and Harry Macfie are the authors who do not have any other ISFDB entries attached to their names. I'm surprised that Sue Townsend has a pre-existing entry. Zxcvbnm 21:39, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

"Logan's Run (excerpt)"

Ordinarily we don't included the source of an excerpt in the record's title unless that's the way it's recorded in the book. It would be better to note the source of the excerpt in the record's note field. Also we don't give a URL for any listing in the Locus online database, because it has shifting anchors (they change when new listings are added to the database.) It's better to just give the source as simply "Locus1". Since you gave a secondary source, I'm assuming you don't have any of the four books in which this excerpt appears. I suggest that you cancel the submission, and make a new submission, leaving the title intact, but noting the novel from which it is excerpted. And then give the source of this attribution as Locus1. (There is no standard that I'm aware of concerning the titling of excerpts, so feel free to start a discussion on the rules page. I've placed the submission on hold if you want to go this course.) Mhhutchins 17:34, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I included the source of the excerpt in the record's title precisely to avoid ambiguity. There already is a record titled "Logan's Run". To add a similarly titled excerpt - which excerpts a different book - I believe complicates things. Other records include "excerpt" in the record title: "Firestarter (Part 1 of 2) (excerpt)". Zxcvbnm 20:17, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I said nothing about removing "(excerpt)" from the title. To quote myself "ordinarily we don't include the source of an excerpt in the record's title". There is only only record titled "Logan's Run (excerpt)" in the database so there's no need to disambiguate it. Recording the source in the notes should be sufficient. And again, if you feel this approach is wrong, please start a discussion on the rules page. I will remove my hold and let another moderator handle it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:19, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm gonna agree with Mhhutchins on this one. I've placed the submission on hold again. Based on our current guidelines, the added note is 'good data' but the extra stuff in the title is 'jumbled data'. If we get too much jumbled stuff in the database it becomes less useful. Please submit a new change to just add the new note information, and then cancel the original submission. Thanks Kevin 00:24, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
I understand your point about "jumbled data", but I feel strongly that an exception should be made here. Please see my note below in response to BLongley where I explain my reasons. Thanks. Zxcvbnm 20:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I think I have the only verified pub with this in, so will try and remember to have another look at it. I don't think I've read it, and am not sure if I could tell if it was from "Logan's Run" or "Logan's World". It's certainly worth noting though, thanks for bringing this to our attention. BLongley 03:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for offering to check. I feel strongly about this. If it had been titled, say, "Logan's Plight", I would accept whatever decision you make without argument. But the book's editors chose an already existing title ("Logan's Run") for an excerpt that apparently isn't from "Logan's Run". I believe something like this needs all the clarity it can get. I do not believe a note is sufficient. Again, I am new to the ISFDB so must ultimately accept whatever decisions admins come to on this. Zxcvbnm 20:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid I haven't found my copy yet - my hardbacks are still in boxes after the last move - but you've convinced me. To keep everybody (mostly) happy I'd suggest "Logan's Run (excerpt from Logan's World)" and notes about why we needed to do it in this case. BLongley 17:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
'Z', I've approved the submission, but I'll leave it to you to go into the notes for the title and add a clear explanation that this was excerpted from 'World' not run, the source of the information, and I also recommend a reference to page 133 and 134 of the look inside I've provided below. That should tidy it up and prevent significant future confusion. Kevin 18:59, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Bill, I've done some research and I'm beginning to agree with Z (Z Because I can't pronounce your login and I've haven't picked up your name yet). See Amazon Look Inside for Haining's Vintage Science Fiction. Look at the TOC and you see that every item shares a title with the movie, and lastly, jump to page 134 (or search for "Logan's World") and you can read the introduction he provides there, clearly indicating this is an excerpt from 'World', not 'Run'. At a minimum the Vintage appearances should probably indicate somehow that they are not the same as an excerpt from 'Run'. Might need unmerging, but if you can check your 1995 version, that might wrap it all up. Kevin 04:42, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
The bottom letters of the keyboard z-x-c-v-b-n-m. The top letters are q-w-e-r-t-y-u-i-o-p which somebody else had taken. Thanks for agreeing with me on this issue. Zxcvbnm 16:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd guessed the reason for the username, my keyboard is like that. But I've learned that not all keyboards are the same - after many minutes wasted on calls to a Belgian help-desk over a simple password reset, the QWERTY/AZERTY differences become very clear. :-/ BLongley 17:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Still, if you'd care to give us a name or nickname to call you by it might make this seem less formal? BLongley 17:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Crabfroth

I accepted your title change and verified it via Worldcat and via google books search inside that the correct title is Crabfroth. I could not verify the change in date, and set it back to 1948 however. Google Books search inside of the 1948 book appearance confirms that there is a 1948 date on that publication. Are you aware of, or can you point us to an earlier publication of this title? Could you add that earlier publication to the database? Thanks Kevin 21:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

There is an existing ISFDB entry dated 1947. William Sansom: A Critical Assessment[3] by Paulette Michel-Michot confirms the 1947 date. The footnote on page 107 claims that the story was first published in the anthology At Close of Eve in 1947. I did not mention this in the notes for a good reason. When I did that on A Lane to the Land of the Dead, "Bill, Bluesman" got testy with me. See above. Zxcvbnm 22:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
That's excellent research and good enough for me. I'll go change the date and add a note. You are welcome to put At Close of Eve in as a stub anthology with only a single record. I even found cover art on Amazon if you like here. Just put a note in that it is an incomplete record based on whichever internet resources you used. As to Bill being testy, We've ALL gotten turned around here online when the only medium of exchange is text. Without tone, or facial expressions things can often be taken the wrong way and I think it was just a moment of misunderstanding. We always like source notes (as compared to nothing).... we just happen to prefer an actual database entry when possible. Thanks again, Kevin 22:29, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Something else I just noticed... this discussion is one of those places where it was just a simple mistake. Over at Bill Longleys User_talk:BLongley#Submission_warning, you noticed they mentioned you but you misunderstood what they meant when they said "you have a submission on hold from B00jum" and "Thanks for the B00jum reminder, I've rejected that now as he doesn't seem to have learned to cancel yet". There is actually a totally different user.. with that user name.. and they are the one who hasn't figured out how to cancel submissions. My advice (and the advice that I often remind myself to take) is that 95% of everyone is nice. The not nice ones usually stay home and don't try to help.
  • Always assume that you misunderstood if you think someone is speaking in anything but a friendly, helpful tone. You'll usually be correct.
Thanks again Kevin 22:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for catching my error. I've since corrected my post on BLongley's page. Zxcvbnm 23:15, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
No worries, this Wiki communication is not exactly intuitive. You wouldn't believe how long my "watch-list" is after four years here, for instance. :-/ BLongley 03:12, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
I just accepted your edit to merge the two Crabfroth's... and clicked accept before realizing that your edit was choosing to delete the note I had just put in about sourcing the date. Did you want to delete the added information? If so.. then I won't put it back... otherwise we should put it back. Thanks Kevin 23:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Ahhhh I see now you are putting in the original anthology. Great! Kevin 23:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
You might consider putting a 'stub note' on the Anthology. What I usually do is just state "This is a stub record, recreated from partial bibliographic data" or something like that. Kevin 23:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The Book of Ghosts

I've placed your submission updating the price of The Book of Ghosts on hold. The correct format for pricing is to precede the price by the correct unit of currency. $, £, C$, etc.. whichever is primary. (Unless its priced in old shillings and pence.. but that's a different day.). You can see the help on pub editing price in the help pages Help:Screen:EditPub#Price. I'll leave it to you to cancel and resubmit a corrected entry. Thanks Kevin 22:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I approved the new submission. Thanks again Kevin 23:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm aware that I have to input the currency signal. It was a slip. Question: what do we do if it says "US $19.99 / $23.99 CAN" on the book itself? Ignore the Canadian price? Zxcvbnm 23:17, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
You are allowed to totally ignore the Canadian price.... the basic standard here is 'some info is better than no info'. If you have the time or inclination (And I admit.. sometimes I don't so I don't always put it in)... we usually put it in the notes section as a simple statement "C$23.99 in Canada." Someday... maybe by 2025, we will probably have a field to accept 'price 1, price 2' etc... but until that fateful day.. it's just an optional item for the notes. Thanks for asking, Kevin 00:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
As to explaining 'why' you made a mistake... don't worry about unless you feel it wasn't a mistake. We all make mistakes. It's just easier to give a link in case you didn't know, than to ask if you know. I'm almost always happy with a response of "Oops, Thanks" and to move on. (shrug). Kevin 00:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

At Close of Eve

I'm going to go ask you to cancel your submission to edit At Close of Eve. I'm afraid that you've stepped into one of our potholes here at the ISFDB. (We've cleaned up alot of them, but this one remains for the time being). You were entirely correct to edit the title of 'Introduction' to 'Introduction (At Close of Eve)' in order to disambiguate it. Please resubmit that change. The incorrect part was changing the 'type' from 'Short Fiction' to 'Anthology'. This should instead have been changed to 'Essay'. The larger container record of the Anthology is already of type = Anthology, the introduction needs to be listed as simply an essay. I'm leaving the old submission for you to cancel so you can see what it looked like and what needs to be different next time. (I expect this is one of those 'Oops, Sorry' situations.. I know I made enough of them over the years.) Thanks, Kevin

I'm certain I changed it to "essay". I even remember double checking everything, having to change the "length" field to a dash. I know I've made a number of errors so far, but this one I'm convinced is a program bug. Zxcvbnm 21:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
And if you did have an intention we didn't understand, please let us know. I know our current software is still pretty user-vicious (but you should have seen how bad it was when I started!) and help is inadequate, but it's only newer editors that can point out the latest inadequacies. Please keep on editing, and talking! BLongley 04:08, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The Land of Lost Content

I'm holding a submission to add the Vanguard edition of this title. Do you have a copy of this book? If not, you should record the source of your data in the record's note field. If so, please check to see how the author is credited on the book's title page. According to the OCLC record, the book is credited to "Robert Phillips" (at the bottom under "Responsibility"). Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a copy of the book. I accept your decision. Amazon has a cover photo which appears to be of the 1970 Vanguard edition. Oddly, I went by the OCLC when I created the ISFDB record. I should mention as an aside that OCLC occasionally drops the initial "The" from story titles. Zxcvbnm 21:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I've come across that many times. I think librarians (those who enter OCLC records) must have their own way of entering titles! I'll accept the submission but change the author to "Robert Phillips" and then do the necessary varianting. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Forgot to mention, and it can't be mentioned enough: when you're entering data from a book that is not in-hand, please record the source for your data in the submission's note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I just know that this is one rule I'll keep forgetting. Sorry. Zxcvbnm 00:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The Cavalier, January 13, 1912

The source for the format of the Benson story in this issue is the Fictionmags Index, which gives the title in quotation marks. All the remaining publications of the story are without quotation marks and are correctly listed under a variant title record here. The submission has been rejected. Mhhutchins 03:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

But this entry from the same source does not have quotation marks nor this. Also, The supernatural index: a listing of fantasy, supernatural, occult, weird, and horror anthologies does not. Locusmag.com also does not include quotation marks. Each authority refers to the Cavalier publication. Zxcvbnm 00:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Updates to The Book of Ghosts

I'm holding the submissions to "unmerge" the content records from this pub record. There is a bug in the software for this function that has bad results. When removing contents from a publication record it's better to use the "Remove Titles from This Pub" function found under editing tools. It's also simpler, because you can remove multiple records with one submission. Using this function not only removes the story from the pub record, but also removes the pub record from the listing of pubs in which the story appears (thus making it unnecessary to "unmerge" the pubs from the story, and vice versa.)

Now to the reason why you're removing the contents. I understand from your note in the submission to update the record that some of these stories have been edited/abridged/adapted by an unknown editor. The OCLC record even attests that each of the stories is "from" the author, indicating an adaptation. Unfortunately, the ISFDB software doesn't handle adaptations very well. When a story has the same title and the same author credit, we can't set up a variant relationship. There must be a change in either title or author before a variant record can be created. We can't create a variant based solely on text. Admittedly, this is a failing of the database, but one we want to correct eventually.

In your submission which updates the pub record itself, you note that several stories haven't been changed and that a couple have been moderately trimmed. I don't think this is sufficient reason to remove the content records and add new ones. The one content record for which you actually updated the credit is "The Mummy's Curse", changing the author from Louisa May Alcott to "Louisa May Alcott, unknown". This creates a new author with a cumbersome name.

Under these circumstances, and the ISFDB's limitations, I'm going to reject the "unmerges". I suggest that your remarks in the pub record's note field is sufficient to explain that these stories have been edited, but that they remain merged with the original story title record. The only exception would be if the author credits differ in the actual book. I assume you're working from a copy of the book. How are the stories actually credited on each of their title pages? Mhhutchins 15:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. Yes, rejecting my edits is best and understandable. I suspect all the stories have been modified, though several only ever so slightly. The Table of Contents has, for example,
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Adapted from Washington Irving
(page) 9
The Tell-Tale Heart
Adapted from Edgar Allan Poe
(page) 35
etc., etc., etc.
The story/chapter titles have the exact same information & wording. (Deleted previous comment. I see that you've added my original note. Thanks.) Zxcvbnm 21:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC) and Zxcvbnm 22:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Remember Your Grammar

You changed the dates of several stories in a submission that updated the collection's pub record, but subsequently changed them again, sometimes to different dates when updating the individual stories. For example, the title record's "Fair Rosamund" was changed to 1980-12-20, along with a note about its first publication, but the pub update wants to change it to 1980-00-00. "The Tric-Trac Man" was changed to 1991-00-00, but the pub update changes it to back to 0000-00-00. I'll accept the submissions and let you change anything that may not be correct. Mhhutchins

Keep in mind that when updating records to wait until the submission has been accepted before making another submission to update the same record. Queued submissions will not necessarily be accepted by the same moderator or even in the same order of submission. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I had suspected that this may complicate things, but I intentionally went ahead and did it. Sorry. Zxcvbnm 20:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The Haunted Doll's House

Please update the note in The Haunted Doll's House to indicate the names of the publications you checked on google books. At some point in the future a 3rd may be added without someone checking the title note... which then makes the note confusing. Thanks Kevin 20:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Classic Vampire Stories

  • Don't fear verifying a book before the final edit. It's just a flag in the database, and the chance of anyone referencing it before you finish fixing it is astronomically small.
  • You are welcome to enter a record for each new piece of titled artwork, but there comes a point of diminishing returns. Notice also that the entry already in the book for artwork doesn't list a page. It's simple credit for interior art. This usually covers all that we need. It might be better to simply put a note in that says "18 total illustrations appear on pages 3, 5, 18, 22, 31, etc. Only a single artwork credit has been entered into the ISFDB for brevity" - I've personally used that one a couple times where there was artwork literally 'scattered' across a book.
  • The reason you cannot change the name of the introduction is because it appears in multiple books. (Click the title link from that record to see where else it appears). If we let you change the name on that page... it would change the name everywhere. The process of changing a name of something like that is multi-step.
    1. Add a new title to the publication with the title you want to add.
    2. At the same time as the above entry, change the page number of the old title (the one you want to remove) to 'Delete'.
    3. Wait until this submission is processed. Then submit a new change using the 'Remove a title form this publication', and the 'Delete' page number makes it REAL easy to spot in the list. Now submit this change
    4. Also submit a 3rd change which makes your 'new title' a variant of the 'old title' (or the reverse if appropriate).
  • Don't forget.. we don't use the table of contents in a book. Every title should come from the title page of the shorter work. Before going through the steps to change the title... I just want to make sure we are on the same page.
  • Lastly, you mention a problem wiht page numbers? Whatever the page number is printed on that page.. is the page number for that page.... unless the page before is actually labelled "iv" and the page after is labeled "vi". Are you actually saying in your note that the page labelled "i" is the 5th page counting from the front of the book?

Hope this helps, Kevin 04:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Home Sweet Home vs Home, Sweet Home

Do you have evidence that the one title Home, Sweet Home (with Comma) is a typo in the database and should be merged with Home Sweet Home (without comma). Or would a variant relationship be more appropriate? Thanks Kevin 04:48, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Several sources exist. The Gutenberg Canada copy of the original edition, although there is no comma in the content of tables (which may just be a transcription error on the website's part), there is on the story's title page. The google books version of the 1976 Arno edition contains a comma. Worldcat/OCLC has the comma. The google books snippet view of the 1992 Robinson edition includes the comma. On the other hand Locusmag.com incorrectly includes two commas "Home, Sweet, Home". In fact I cannot find a credible source that lacks the comma or has two commas. For that reason I do not believe it warrants a second title, or even a note about the matter in the ISFDB record. Zxcvbnm 20:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Firstly, I see that I was reading the change backwards... your intent is to make all the titles 'with' a single comma. I apologize for mis-stating your intentions above. Secondly.. now we are stuck. Just last week Nimravus primary verified the 1992 Collected Stories. I understand where you are going now, and also understand that most sources point towards 'with' a single comma. So now we need to check on this with Nimravus to see if they can check their paper copy. Please go over to their talk page and ask them to verify with or without a comma on the title page of the story. (Since Nimravus is relatively new as well, I'd say it's better than 50% chance that they just missed the comma, but since we can check, we should). If there copy is missing a comma, then we will have to move all the publication but theirs over to 'with' a comma, and then put in a variant relationship. Thanks Kevin 22:24, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Nimravus has replied that the title appearing their verified publication uses a comma on the title page. I've gone ahead and accepted your submission based on this. Thanks Kevin 15:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Sanctuary

I'm accepting your variant submission for Sanctuary and The Sanctuary. You are welcome to submit a 2nd submission changing the date of the newer title to the date of the first publication of the work. Thanks Kevin 04:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Author Legal Names are "Lastname, Firstname Middlenames"

I noticed you submitted an update to the author A. M. Klein. Thanks for finding this updated information, but in the future, please enter this using the instructions found in Help:Screen:AuthorData. There is a link to this help page from the 'Edit Author' page where you typed in the information. For future entries, the format of the legal name should be "Lastname, Firstname Middlenames", or in this case "Klein, Abraham Moses". I went ahead and fixed it this time, so this is just a tip for next time. Cheers Kevin 16:52, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it was just a slip. I've done it properly before and had already read the help page. No doubt I'll get it wrong again some time in the distant future. Zxcvbnm 17:45, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
No problem.. as before it's often easier to include a reference to the help page. (That way if someone else has a question they might also find the help pages easier). Kevin 18:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Short Stories - The Collection

I took a quick look at OCLC 9901442 and 558415414 for Short Stories. I didn't see an "Introduction" by the editor of the collection in either contents list. Do you have a copy, or other evidence to support it's existence. Also is there some need to document the introduction to a generic collection that happens to include one Spec-Fic title? Without any evidence to support it's existence, or it's inclusion, I'm not really sure we have any need to include this introduction in our database, and I would like to remove it. What are your thoughts? Kevin 17:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

This reliable source claims there is an introduction. The author dabbled in mystical subjects, so there are a number of stories in the collection that warrant inclusion. I don't know which stories, though. Zxcvbnm 20:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Titles with Elipsises

In your recent submission for Short Stories you included the content item "No Traveller Returns..." I had to change this because it doesn't meet our data entry standards. The correct way to input an ellipsis is "space", "period", "space", "period", "space", "period" like this "No Traveller Returns . . ." I fixed it on the one story.. but the other entry is still incorrect. You can fix it when you merge the two story records (by selecting the correct title to keep).

I also noticed that Traveller might be misspelled. You might want to double check and see if it should be spelled Traveler.

Thanks Kevin 17:12, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

"Traveller" is indeed correct. As for the elipsis, I merely copied the already existing entry for the story that someone else had created. Zxcvbnm 17:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for double checking. Merge accepted. Cheers, Kevin 18:48, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Barney Blue-Eyes

I accepted the submission adding this pub, and made some changes based on the same OCLC record that you give as the source: adding the publication series and number, the roman-numeraled pages, and a record for the interior art (based on your note, not the source which doesn't give interior art credit). I also regularized the publisher as "Thomas Nelson & Sons" and linked the OCLC record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I found another OCLC record that does give interior art credit. Wonder what the "etc." means on the first OCLC record? Mhhutchins 00:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Even found a second collection in the series. Mhhutchins 00:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Anthony Burgess

The majority of this author's work is not speculative fiction. We probably need someone who is familiar with his entire ouevre to go through the db's listings and purge any non-genre titles (along with their pubs). They're only here because of robot submissions. We recently cleaned up Graham Greene's page which had dozens of non-genre titles. The only works that I'm familiar with and am certain are spec-fic are A Clockwork Orange, The Wanting Seed, and The End of the World News. According to Clute and Nichols Devil of a State, The Eve of Saint Venus, and Beard's Roman Women are fantasies, and 1985 is science fiction. A Long Trip to Teatime may be a children's fantasy. If any work is borderline, it should be kept in the database. Are you up to the challenge? Mhhutchins 20:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

For the time being I'd rather err on the side of caution and mark suspect titles non-genre. Of course this raises the awkward question what is "borderline"? The ISFDB has a pre-existing entry for Burgess's Sherlock Holmes pastiche "Murder to Music" because it appears in a Sherlock Holmes anthology. I've read this story and it contains no spec-fic elements. This story also appears in Burgess's collection "The Devil's Mode". Yet when I inputted that collection I intentionally did not include "Murder to Music". That raises another question. What to do if a collection/anthology is 99% spec-fic, but has that one non-spec-fic title? In my humble opinion, the "non-genre" classification should be reserved for these titles. While I have your attention... I realize I should put this in the "Oxford Book of Christmas Stories" discussion up above, but I must tell you about one story in the "Christmas" collection. A child learns the hard way that Santa isn't real. This kid decides he wants all the presents, so he hatches a plan to rob Santa. He waits up late, sneaks up on Santa putting presents under the tree, clobbers him with a walking stick. The poor kid then discovers he's just murdered his grandfather. The end. Merry Christmas. Yes, there are some non-spec stories in the collection, but this is not your typical Christmas compilation. I would never have submitted it if it were. I'd say it's at least 50% spec-fic. Zxcvbnm 21:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
You've encountered another limitation of our software (and you're going to come across more if you continue to edit here.) Currently it is not possible to mark a work as both SHORTFICTION and NONGENRE, two mutually exclusive types. So we've reserved the NONGENRE type to book-length works. I have no idea if they are (or ever were) solid plans to create a NONGENRE SHORTFICTION type. The child-murdering-Santa story is definitely non-genre, unless, at the end, it turns out to have been the real Santa. Mhhutchins 21:39, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. The child-murdering-Santa story is definitely horror, therefore genre. As for Burgess, "Any Old Iron" - which you've since marked non-genre - is an updating of the Excalibur legend. I've not read it, so I can't comment (or decide if it's genre, borderline or non-genre) though I do own a copy. Zxcvbnm 20:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
An updating of the Excalibur legend told in a modern setting with fictionalized historical characters is non-genre. And non-supernatural murder stories are not horror stories, although I admit that many are in this database, because they're written by genre authors (e.g. Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Dean Koontz). Mhhutchins 23:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Forgot to answer another of your queries: "borderline" is a story in which the interpretation of its fantasy elements is left to the reader, and not explicitly revealed by the author. If Dorothy's trip to Oz may have been only a dream (as in the film version), then the story is not really a fantasy. But if an author leaves it to the reader to decide, then it's borderline. That's my definition. Other editors will have theirs. Mhhutchins 21:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The Land Where the Ice Cream Grows

Your submission adding this pub was accepted, but I had to make some changes to make it conform with ISFDB standards, and made additional changes based on the OCLC record that you sourced. The biggest change was the additional of a content record for the shortfiction piece. When creating a chapterbook record, you have to also create a content title record for the story which is contained in the chapterbook (this is done automatically when you enter a NOVEL record, but must be done manually when entering a CHAPTERBOOK record). Also, the "w" in the title was capitalized. I placed brackets around the page count (this means the book is unpaginated, based on the OCLC record), and added the imprint ("Benn Books"). I made the binding "tp" based on several dealers' listings on Abebooks.com and the size given in the OCLC record. There was also a simultaneous hardcover printing which I will clone from this one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Classic Ghost Stories

I've accepted your submission to edit Classic Ghost Stories, but then I made several changes to the abridged titles. Our normal policy in the case of edits and changes, is to either document them in a Title note "The version of this title that appears in the XXyyZZ edition below, is an abridgement" or something similar. Look at what we have under Genetic General (aka Dorsai!). We have one variant (for title), but we have 3-4 different text versions all under a single title record.

The other option is to make a variant, and then put the not in the variant title note, "This is an Abridged version." or something similar. I took this route to show you how that option can look. But often either route is not worth the effort.... especially in this type of publication. Any modern juvenile collection of short stories should be looked at as suspect and very likely to have been edited for length and content. These types of volumes are also usually not worth the effort of indexing. They usually reprint stories which have literally dozens of appearances, and unless you are documenting a sentimental or a personal copy, they probably add little value to the database for the casual user. Thanks Kevin 16:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Classic Mysteries

I accepted your Classic Mysteries submission... but you will still need to submit title merges for the contents, and also.. double check the title with a subtitle... Our normal policy is that it looks like "Title: Subtitle".. with only a space after the colon, and no space before. Unless there is a very particular reason for documenting this title this way, it should be normalized. Also.. am I correct in thinking this is a 'Stub' entry, where you have only entered some of the contents? In that case, you should document that in the Publication Notes "This is a Stub Entry, Non Spec-Fic contents have been intentionally omitted" or something similar. Thanks Kevin 16:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's a stub entry. These are in fact all the stories. There wouldn't be room for anything else in its 128 pages. The book may have an introduction. I don't know. I don't have a copy of the book. I relied on the OCLC entry. At some point in the future I will obtain a copy of the book and will add "introduction" to the entry, if in fact there is an introduction. As for the story with the subtitle, I copied the formatting from the pre-existing ISFDB entry which appears in an omnibus edition of Cooper's anthologies (same publisher). I'll do the title merges now. Zxcvbnm 00:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
My bad. I just somewhere got the idea this was stub entry. As for the subtitle issue.. if the other instance isn't verified, and you just copied the format, lets go ahead and fix that while we are aware of the issue. Thanks, Kevin 02:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Poe poems

Both were published in a Poe collection and attributed to Poe, so we can't change the credit as published regardless of who actually wrote the poems (that's an ISFDB standard that is strictly adhered to). We can create a parent record which gives the name of the real author. I will do just that using the data you gave in the submissions. Mhhutchins 00:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Now the record shows the real author of the poems and how they were published. Mhhutchins 00:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I'm entirely satisfied with your changes/improvements. I'll do the remaining spurious titles tomorrow. Again, thank you very much for your help. Zxcvbnm 00:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

"To Isadore"

I have a submission wanting to make this record a variant of this one. Not sure why, except that you may have entered the wrong record number in the parent field. I think you simply want to make it into a variant by "A. M. Ide", right? Click on the "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" link, and on the next page replace "Edgar Allan Poe" in the Author1 field with "A. M. Ide". Mhhutchins 02:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was trying to do (but failed). Many thanks. Zxcvbnm 21:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

"Big as Life" submission

Thanks for the submission; you're right that this book should be included here. There are a couple of minor errors -- we use "Simon & Schuster" instead of "Simon and Schuster", and the price needs a "$", but those are easily corrected. What I'm a little concerned about is the note that Doctorow "repudiated" the book. I was unable to find any documentation for that online, and wondered if you had a source for that note. I found one source that said the book "has never been reprinted, per Doctorow's instructions", but the New York Times writes about this as if it was just sort of an embarrassing amateur effort that he's not pleased with, and notes that he does include the book on his ad card, implying that he hasn't really repudiated it. So if we include that comment, we should really have something to back it up. Thanks, Chavey 22:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say that what you've quoted proves he repudiated the book. However it's not that important to me. Delete my comment from the "Notes" field. Sorry about the "$". That was a genuine slip. Zxcvbnm 01:25, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Information about the work would be better recorded in the title record. The pub record's notes should be pub-specific, i.e. related to this printing or edition. Because a title record is created only after the submission is accepted, you have to wait until then in order to update it. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 02:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I see! Thanks for correcting me. I wasn't trying to jump a step, btw. That was a genuine newbie error. Zxcvbnm 21:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Not even really an error. There's nothing preventing title-level data being recorded in the pub record, and as Darrah points out below, when there's only one printing, the point becomes moot. Thanks for finding this obscure title. Mhhutchins 21:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Why does Doctorow's historical novel Ragtime get an ISFDB entry? I know it got a Nebula Award nomination and was reviewed in Delap's F & SF Review. I read the novel twenty years ago. I'm fairly certain it contains no genre elements. Wikipedia has a detailed plot outline. Ditto his western novel Welcome to Hard Times. Shouldn't we be more restrictive what titles by primarily non-genre writers like Doctorow we list? I suggest the following for non-genre authors: we restrict "non-genre novel" to those works that contain only the faintest borderline genre elements, such as Ragtime. (Doctorow's novel The Waterworks is indeed genre, btw.) Zxcvbnm 21:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Doctorow's use of real people as characters in Ragtime makes it an alternate history story, that is, "speculative fiction" because it speculates what would have happened if all of these historical figures interacted. You really couldn't consider it an historical novel in that it takes too many liberties with the truth. And Welcome to Hard Times is entered in the db as a nongenre work, although Doctorow's spec-fic output wouldn't qualify him as, according to the nebulous ISFDB standard, an author above "a certain threshold". (Don't ask. It's too complicated!) Mhhutchins 22:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Anything that receives a Nebula Award nomination, such as Ragtime, deserves to be in the ISFDB. But I agree with you that Welcome to Hard Times should be deleted, because Doctorow isn't above the "certain threshold" that justifies including his non-genre works. Mike, why don't we delete it? It hasn't been reviewed in any of the SF journals, so I can't see any reason why it has to be in here, and I wouldn't want to have to include all the rest of his non-genre books. Chavey 00:03, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Farewell to Hard Times. Mhhutchins 00:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Fine by me. I don't think we can use "nominated for an award" as an absolute criteria for inclusion until we agree which awards are always for relevant works - the Nebulas may be one. But many awards are given to things we don't cover, like films, TV shows, comics and graphic novels. When the software improvements go in (and I'm getting a little fed-up with saying that) we may be in a better position to fix such. It's a pain to delete a non-genre work - delete all the pubs and then the title - but it's also a pain to link awards we should have, like publishers and fanzines. We'll get there eventually, I'm sure. BLongley 01:36, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
About your suggestion that non-genre works are those "that contain only the faintest borderline genre elements": that would actually make them spec-fic, because our policy leans toward inclusion when a work is borderline. Our current standard is that non-genre works contain NO spec-fic elements. Those works are listed in the database if the author is considered a spec-fic author above "a certain threshold". Mhhutchins 22:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
"Repudiated" strikes me as a much stronger statement, i.e. it would seem to imply that the author wishes to disavow the opinions expressed in the book. All we now is that he doesn't really like the book much any more. So I changed the note to "The author has not allowed this book to be reprinted." and, as Mhhutchins suggests, I put that in the title record instead of the publication record. (Although assuming he continues to refuse to allow it to be reprinted, there's not a lot of difference between the publication record and the title record :-) Chavey 02:34, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Stevenson's "The Body Snatcher"

Why did you choose to remove the story length when you merged the records for this story? Have you done a word count and can confirm that it's not a short story? Mhhutchins 20:33, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

It's 7425 words. I did not deliberately choose to remove the story length when I merged. Put it down to mistake. Zxcvbnm 20:40, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I had no way of knowing whether it was deliberate or not. Moderators can only assume that when a merge is made that the editor has made the correct decision when reconciling the differences between the two records. Most of the time editors choose to retain a length designation when one of the records has the default "sf" length. It just pops out when a submission chooses the other course. Thanks for the clarification. Mhhutchins 21:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Overwriting content records and visible title records

When updating records, please be careful not to overwrite any content records, and especially stay clear of the title record which is visible on a few pub types. In the submission to update this record you overwrote the title record with the data for the short story "Dead Aaron". This change makes the publication a titleless pub, making it invisible on the author's summary page. You will learn that there will be times when you can edit the title record using a pub record update, but for now, use the "Add Title" button to add contents and leave any other content records alone during a pub record update. You should only remove contents using the "Remove Titles from This Publication" function. I'm going to approve the submission, but will have to create a new title record for it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:56, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

At the Edge of the Crater

You want to add "(excerpt)" to this title, but, in my opinion, this implies that the work is an excerpt from "At the Edge of the Crater". If this is a complete work, with an original title, it should remain titled as such with a note explaining that it is an excerpt from a larger, differently titled work. I'll keep the submission on hold if you wish to bring this up for discussion on the Rules & Standards page. Mhhutchins 20:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Your objection is correct. However, will you please accept the submission so that I can delete "excerpt"? I don't have a copy of what I submitted. I'm on a computer that doesn't cache or save. Thanks. Zxcvbnm 20:30, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Submission accepted. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Regularizing capitalization in titles

You should regularize the capitalization in titles, regardless of how the secondary source presents them, as in this case. Also, if you don't intend to add the complete contents, be sure to note in the record that the contents are incomplete. They're all given in the OCLC record, but you didn't give a source so I'm not sure where you got the data. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

A story in the collection also appears in this anthology which I inputted. This anthology is the source of the data. Zxcvbnm 22:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
It may be the "source for the story's original appearance", but it's not the "source of the data" that you used to create this record. I see now that you've gone back and added the OCLC number which I assume is the "source of the data". Thanks. 23:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
You should note that the contents are incomplete and give a source for the data in this record. The contents are complete in the OCLC record. In most cases, if given a choice, and you'd rather not take the time to enter complete contents, you can always just update the shortfiction record, giving the original publication in the note field. Mhhutchins 20:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Bill, Bluesman gave me different advice here. He said, "A stub record, without page numbers, would be just fine as then the ISBN becomes searchable on the db. Putting it in the notes of another pub doesn't accomplish much as nothing in notes can be found with the current search engine. A record does not have to be complete on a first pass, as long as what information is there is sourced/cited." An anthology/collection with a single entry and no page numbers should sufficiently indicate that the listing is incomplete. --Zxcvbnm 22:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
You'd think so, but then you never know how another person using the database sees it. But what if you've added more than one record, and then another person comes along and adds a few more. At what point should the two little words "Contents incomplete" be added to the record? I just don't like anthologies or collections created that have incomplete contents, knowing there's good sources from which the entire contents can be entered. My suggestion about giving the original publication in the story's title record note field was a fall-back choice if you choose not to enter the entire contents. You'll find thousands of records in the database that give original publication data in title records without resorting to creating stub records, albeit many of these sources are nongenre publications. Everything I'm saying here is a personal preference. No one is going to insist that you use either of these methods. But I do think it's better that if you choose to only enter one content record that you let the user know the contents are incomplete. The advice from Bill that you quote had nothing to do with this small courtesy. Also, Bill is mistaken about searching in pub records' note fields. Go to "Advanced Search" and then go to the last set of search fields (ISFDB Publication Search Form). There's a choice for "Notes" in the drop-down menu of each search term. This hasn't always been true so Bill may not have known about the feature. Mhhutchins 23:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings

In your submitted updates to The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings, you made some very helpful updates. But you also included a correction where you noted "The author's names were also in the wrong order; I've corrected that." The system, however, does not allow us to specify the order in which two author's names appear. Regardless of the order we give, it always lists multiple authors in the order it wants (I think it's by the ID number of the author). So changes such as that don't have any actual effect. Chavey 23:07, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The Virago Book of Ghost Stories, Volume II

I'm holding a submission to add a new printing of this title, but it appears to be almost identical to another record in the database. That one has a publication date from Amazon.co.uk (to which I just added the day of the month). Other than the month of publication, how is yours different? Mhhutchins 00:00, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

It's otherwise identical. The copyright page says, "Reprinted 1994". The item you cite above has an erroneous ")" at the end of the title. For the record, I cloned that one when creating this new record. - Zxcvbnm 00:53, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm certain that your copy is the one that's already in the database. Don't let slight differences like this, which is undoubtedly a typo, determine whether to update a record or create a new one. If there is an entirely different ISBN, publication date, page count, price, or stated printing, then create a new record. And if the record is not primary verified, there's a possibility that any one of the fields may be wrong. If you have a question about whether to update or clone, post a message on the Moderator Noticeboard. In this case, just make the corrections in the current record, and cancel the submission. Leave the date as is, and keep the note which sources the date. Mhhutchins 02:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Now I'm baffled. I thought ISFDB included reprints. The edition already in the database was published in August 1994. At some point that same year Virago reprinted the volume, hence my cloning the original item to create a new entry. As my copy has a different publication date, and is stated to be a (re-)printing of the original August 1994 edition, I created a new record.Zxcvbnm 20:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Your submission didn't actually say it was a reprint of the August 1994 printing. That's why I questioned it to begin with. And your response to my inquiry also didn't mention that. I guess we both were assuming that the other knew what we were talking about. Sorry about that. Mhhutchins 21:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
The ")" typo has nothing to do with my reasons for creating a new entry. Zxcvbnm 20:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Here's what my copy says on the copyright page,
Published by VIRAGO Press Limited August 1994
(publisher address)
Reprinted 1994
Zxcvbnm 20:39, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't realize that "Reprinted 1994" means that it is the second printing of 1994. I knew that there was a 1991 edition by Virago, and assumed "Reprinted 1994" meant that this is the August 1994 printing. So if you're saying yours is a third printing (1991, 1994, and 1994), then I'll accept your submission. You will need to update it to make it clear that this is the second 1994 printing so that another editor doesn't make the same mistake I did and assume it's a duplicate record. BTW, does you copy mention the 1991 printing at all? Mhhutchins 21:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's 1991, August 1994, 1994 (reprint). Actually, my copy erroneously claims that Virago published the hardback edition in 1987. Impossible as several stories are copyright 1991. Whoever put that in there confused it with another volume. I'll mention this when I update the reprint entry. Zxcvbnm 21:42, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

"Deleting" a content

You can remove a content record from a publication record by using the function "Remove Titles From This Pub" under the Editing Tools menu. You can try it on this record. Mhhutchins 21:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

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