Difference between revisions of "Help:How to change a story in a collection"

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(Moved Marc's explanation here)
 
(→‎Changing Content Entries: Updated to reflect the fact that storylen is no longer editable; rewrote for readability)
 
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'''How to change a story in a collection or anthology'''
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{{HelpHeader}}
  
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Suppose someone wanted to update the publication ''[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?4130 Best Science Fiction Stories of Clifford D. Simak]'' and to change the title of the story ''[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?53623 Neighbor]'' into ''Neighbour''. If you look at the ''[http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?53623 Neighbor]'' title record you will see that this story is included in ten different publications meaning any changes to the title record will impact how the story is displayed in all ten publications.
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==Changing Content Entries==
  
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Sometimes you want all ten records to get impacted – usually this is for data fields that are “about” the story such as the date, storylen, synopsis, notes, etc. In that case, just make the changes and the odds are a moderator will just review/approve the thing without  a second thought.
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If you come upon a Publication record in which the content entries do not match exactly what is in your verifiable copy of the same pub, you will want to update that record. The way the ISFDB works, any changes to a Title record (i.e. a story, essay, novel, interview, etc) will impact how that title is displayed in '''ALL''' publications in which that title is printed. Thus, if you have a UK edition of a collection where the title of Clifford D. Simak's story "Neighbor" is spelled "Neighbour", changing the spelling to "Neighbour" would change the way the story appears in all publications and corrupt our data. In order to prevent this from happening, the Edit Publication screen will not let you change titles that have appeared in multiple publications: such titles will be grayed out and not editable except for the page number field. If a Title has appeared in only ''one'' publication, e.g. a story that has never been reprinted, then you will be able to edit its fields directly.
  
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However, when it comes to data fields that are about the title itself and not the story then the changes should normally be more limited in scope. Ideally, an editor could go to a publication record and just change the spelling of ''Neighbor'' to ''Neighbour'' to match what stated in the publication and ISFDB would then relink the publication to the title record for ''Neighbour''. Unfortunately, that’s not how ISFDB works at the moment meaning we are faced with a more tortuous path.
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In cases when you want your Title changes to apply to all publications, e.g. if you want to change the date of a story, you can change it in the Edit Title screen.
  
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Here are the steps to change the title of a story that’s listed in the contents of a publication.
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When making a content change in the Edit Publication screen that applies to the way the Title appears in that publication only, follow the "add-remove-merge" method described below.
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# Bring-up the edit-publication page
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## Click on <nowiki>[Add Title]</nowiki> that’s down at the bottom of the Contents section.
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==The Method==
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## Enter the information for the new title, in this case it would be page 226, Neighbour, 1954-00-00, SHORTFICTION, novelette, Clifford D. Simak.
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## Click <nowiki>[Submit Data]</nowiki>
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Here are the steps to change the title of a story that’s incorrectly listed in the contents of a publication:
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## Suggestion - If you are updating many titles it's been found to be helpful to set the page number for the old titles that you want to remove to something like, NA, (blank), Remove, Delete, etc. Wait for moderator approval of the publication edit and then proceed to the next step. Note that this is optional and if you are comfortable that you can keep track of the old/new titles then you can just move on to the next step without waiting for moderator approval of the publication edit.
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# Go to the publication that you wish to edit and choose "Edit This Pub" from the Editing Tools menu.
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# Go back to the original publication record and click “Remove Titles From This Pub” in the navbar.
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## At the bottom of the Content section, you'll see the <nowiki>[Add Title]</nowiki> button. Clicking on it will create a set of fields to enter one new content entry.
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## Look for the old version of the title, in this case “Neighbor, SHORTFICTION , Clifford D. Simak” and click the checkbox for that line.
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## Enter the information for the new title, completing as many fields of which you're certain. In this case, you would enter: page 226, Neighbour, 1954-00-00, SHORTFICTION, novelette, Clifford D. Simak.
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## Click <nowiki>[Submit Data]</nowiki>
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## Suggestion - If you are updating many titles it is helpful to set the page number for the old titles as "NA", "Remove", "Delete", "***", anything to distinguish the titles you wish to remove in the next step. This is optional and if you are comfortable that you can keep track of the old/new titles then you can just move on to the next step without waiting for moderator approval of the publication edit.
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# Wait for moderator approval of your publication update and remove-title. Once approved you will need to merge the new title record for ''Neighbour'' with the existing record. ISFDB has several mechanisms available for this
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## Click <nowiki>[Submit Data]</nowiki>. Wait for moderator approval of the publication edit and/or proceed to the next step.  
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## From the author’s bibliographic display page click “Dup Candidates” in the navbar, locate your story, ''Neighbour'', in this case, set both check boxes, and merge them. If the two titles you want to merge are not spelled exactly the same then try the “fuzzy” mode of  “Dup Candidates” (there’s a link at the top of the page for this) and see if that’ll group your titles.
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# Go back to the original publication record and click “Remove Titles From This Pub” in the Editing Tools menu.  
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## From the author’s bibliographic display page click “Titles” in the navbar, locate your story, ''Neighbour'', in this case, set the for the shortfiction records, and merge them. The advantage of the “titles” method over “Dup Candidates” is that it can be used to merge title records that are dissimilar enough that the “dup” mechanism did not group them. A disadvantage is that “titles” only displays 100 per page and if the merge candidates are on two separate pages then you need to use one of the following method to merge these titles.
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## Look for the old version of the title, in this case “Neighbor, SHORTFICTION , Clifford D. Simak” and click the checkbox for that title record.
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## From [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/search.cgi Advanced Search] search for ''Neighbour'' by Simak, set the appropriate check boxes, and merge them. An advantage of this method is that you can use the and/or mechanism along with partial word scans to construct a search result that has a short list that includes titles you need to merge.
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## Click <nowiki>[Submit Data]</nowiki>.
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## Finally, sometimes the titles are dissimilar enough that you can’t get them grouped onto the same page using the methods outlined above. In that case, edit one of the titles so that its name matches the other (add a note to the moderator in the in title’s notes section), wait for approval, and merge the records using one of the methods listed above.
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# Wait for moderator approval of your publication update and remove-title submissions. Once both have been approved, you will probably need to merge the newly created title record with any existing title record, or mark it as a variant title if the story was published with different titles or author credits in different publications. If you're unfamiliar with merging go to [[Help: How to merge titles]]. If you're unfamiliar with creating variant titles see [[Help:How to record a variant title]].
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[[Category:ISFDB_Help|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]

Latest revision as of 10:21, 5 October 2009

This page is a help or manual page for the ISFDB database. It describes standards or methods for entering or maintaining data in the ISFDB database, or otherwise working with the database. Other help pages may be found via the category below. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page.

If, after exploring the Help system, you still have a question, please visit the Help desk and let us know. We probably know the answer, but we need your help to know what we left out of the help pages.

If you are new to editing the ISFDB, please see Help:Getting Started.

For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates.


Changing Content Entries

If you come upon a Publication record in which the content entries do not match exactly what is in your verifiable copy of the same pub, you will want to update that record. The way the ISFDB works, any changes to a Title record (i.e. a story, essay, novel, interview, etc) will impact how that title is displayed in ALL publications in which that title is printed. Thus, if you have a UK edition of a collection where the title of Clifford D. Simak's story "Neighbor" is spelled "Neighbour", changing the spelling to "Neighbour" would change the way the story appears in all publications and corrupt our data. In order to prevent this from happening, the Edit Publication screen will not let you change titles that have appeared in multiple publications: such titles will be grayed out and not editable except for the page number field. If a Title has appeared in only one publication, e.g. a story that has never been reprinted, then you will be able to edit its fields directly.

In cases when you want your Title changes to apply to all publications, e.g. if you want to change the date of a story, you can change it in the Edit Title screen.

When making a content change in the Edit Publication screen that applies to the way the Title appears in that publication only, follow the "add-remove-merge" method described below.

The Method

Here are the steps to change the title of a story that’s incorrectly listed in the contents of a publication:

  1. Go to the publication that you wish to edit and choose "Edit This Pub" from the Editing Tools menu.
    1. At the bottom of the Content section, you'll see the [Add Title] button. Clicking on it will create a set of fields to enter one new content entry.
    2. Enter the information for the new title, completing as many fields of which you're certain. In this case, you would enter: page 226, Neighbour, 1954-00-00, SHORTFICTION, novelette, Clifford D. Simak.
    3. Suggestion - If you are updating many titles it is helpful to set the page number for the old titles as "NA", "Remove", "Delete", "***", anything to distinguish the titles you wish to remove in the next step. This is optional and if you are comfortable that you can keep track of the old/new titles then you can just move on to the next step without waiting for moderator approval of the publication edit.
    4. Click [Submit Data]. Wait for moderator approval of the publication edit and/or proceed to the next step.
  2. Go back to the original publication record and click “Remove Titles From This Pub” in the Editing Tools menu.
    1. Look for the old version of the title, in this case “Neighbor, SHORTFICTION , Clifford D. Simak” and click the checkbox for that title record.
    2. Click [Submit Data].
  3. Wait for moderator approval of your publication update and remove-title submissions. Once both have been approved, you will probably need to merge the newly created title record with any existing title record, or mark it as a variant title if the story was published with different titles or author credits in different publications. If you're unfamiliar with merging go to Help: How to merge titles. If you're unfamiliar with creating variant titles see Help:How to record a variant title.
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