Difference between revisions of "ISFDB:Community Portal"

Revision as of 10:57, 24 July 2022

ISFDB Discussion Pages and Noticeboards
Before posting to this page, consider whether one of the other discussion pages or noticeboards might suit your needs better. If you're looking for help remembering a book title, check out the resources in our FAQ. Please also see our Help pages.
Help desk Questions about doing a specific task, or how to correct information when the solution is not immediately obvious. • New post • Archives	Research Assistance Help with bibliographic projects. • New post • Archives	Rules and standards Discussions about the rules and standards, as well as questions about interpretation and application of those rules. • New post • Rules changelog • Archives	Community Portal General discussion about anything not covered by the more specialized noticeboards to the left. • New post • Archives	Moderator noticeboard Get the attention of moderators regarding submission questions. • New post • Archives • Cancel submission
Roadmap: For the original discussion of Roadmap 2017 see this archived section. For the current implementation status, see What's New#Roadmap 2017.

Archive Quick Links
Archives of old discussions from the Community Portal.

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32 · 33 · 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 · 50 · 51 · 52 · 53 · 54 · 55

Expanded archive listing

Affonso Arinhos de Melo Franco = Afonso Arinos

These [1] [2] are clearly the same person - same birthdate, deathdate, place of birth and Wikipedia EN link. Both only have a single, different, item in their bibliographies. I'm not familiar with Brazilian/Portuguese naming/publishing practices - does anyone have any opinion/preference on which should be the primary author record, and which the alternate?

Also, I note we have 3 different versions of the given name between the 2 records and the canonical/display and legal name fields: Affonso, Afonso and Alfonso. I propose to leave the display names as-is, but use "Afonso" as the legal name, as that is what Wikipedia EN and PT both have. If anyone can advise on whether "Arinos" should be grouped with the given name or the family name - as the two records split things differently at the moment - that would be helpful too. ErsatzCulture 12:46, 1 May 2022 (EDT)

More Recent Dead

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?463527; When my edit is approved, which entered all 3 dozen or so missing stories from the only place I could find with the page numbers, a JAPANESE site, could someone who owns this book check the Simon, Arnzen, Jeffrey, Gay and Ryan publication histories, which I assume are at the back because they're not at the front? Arnzen published a book of poetry in 2005 from NAKED SNAKE Press with the same title as his poem here, the Ryan story was a digital short on Amazon in 2013, and Gay's story was in online zine Guernica in 2010. The Jeffrey and Simon works I made the same date as this anthology because I can't find anywhere that says they were published elsewhere. EDIT: While searching for something completely unrelated today I found a copy of this book, uploaded Dec. 2019, hiding on Archive.org; probably why I couldn't find it earlier is because Open Library lists both the original anthology and this sequel under the same title heading. So I rejected the Japanese edit and made a new one crediting the Archive copy, but what's interesting is while I was right about the Arnzen, Ryan and Gay stories, Jeffrey's story is from Alt-Zombie (2012), which has no contents on ISFDB, while Simon's poem is from Dead Set (2010), which has contents on ISFDB but not that poem, so I assume whoever entered credits forgot or didn't have complete info. So after this is approved I'll have to fix a few dates, and then look at those other 2 anthologies and see what I can do. --Username 12:14, 2 May 2022 (EDT)

William Campbell

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?15478; The last 2 entries are for the guy who played Squire of Gothos on Star Trek; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Campbell_(actor). I don't think he's responsible for all the other stuff, but possibly those interviews aren't really supposed to be on here. Mods? --Username 00:57, 3 May 2022 (EDT)

Fixed. You really could do this on your own. But thanks! Christian Stonecreek 06:08, 3 May 2022 (EDT)

Deciding whether to completely delete non-ISFDB material wrongly entered here by other editors should be left up to moderators, not someone like me. --Username 09:45, 3 May 2022 (EDT)

Rhonda E.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2964977; Eikamp's name is correct on contents page of webzine and in her bio; should it just be corrected or is a variant really necessary? --Username 11:56, 3 May 2022 (EDT)

Wagner

https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.22068; I randomly came across the record for noted anti-Semite and Hitler's favorite composer Richard Wagner, and added an appropriate photo to it; however, I had no idea his works were published as books, but there they are. Funny that there's such a huge gap between the original editions and the modern ones; surely there are many more that are missing. However, the only copy on Archive.org I can find of his complete trilogy is a crusty 1910 copy from the reliable old Public Library of India; I'm sure Arthur Rackham's illustrations were beautiful but in this poorly scanned copy they all look like Rorschach tests. I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone wants to enter it. --Username 20:25, 4 May 2022 (EDT)

Basil Copper Questions

I don't usually enter page # for editions that already have them entered for another edition with the same # of pages, but in this case, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?283565, the contents were out of order so I decided to enter the #. That opened up a bunch of other issues; first, someone wrote a note saying they got the month, November, from amazon.uk, but I only see a Jan. 1 date which means they didn't know when it was published, but certain other Amazon sites have an exact date of 11-16-1978. Where they got that from is unknown because book only says 1978, so if anyone knows of a photo showing publisher's slip with exact publication date then the date can be changed. Also, the 4 original stories were never given the month so I did that, but story lengths for 3 of them them weren't entered, either. 2 of them were obvious and were fixed, but "The Treasure of Our Lady" is right on the edge between novelette and novella, being 48 pages both in hardcover and paperback, so anyone who owns a print copy could do a word count and enter whatever the right length is. "The Great Vore" is a novella (fixed by me, also) but is on ISFDB in an issue of The Urbanite which only mentions his story "The Flabby Men" on the cover; there's no way they could have fit it into such a small mag so either someone here goofed and entered it incorrectly or there's just an extract in the magazine, so if anyone knows it can be fixed. Finally, Dalby's site says 219 pages for the Hale edition, just like the St. Martin's edition, but someone entered 224 here; many people worked on it over the years, so it's hard to tell who did it, but since Hale and St. Martin's editions back then were usually exactly the same except for prices and other minutiae, I suspect it's really supposed to be 219. --Username 14:27, 5 May 2022 (EDT)

2022-05-06: Brief downtime at 11am server time

The server will be unavailable between 11am and 11:05am. A software patch to automate the process of adding ISFDB templates will be installed. Ahasuerus 10:42, 6 May 2022 (EDT)

Everything should be back up. If you come across any issues with Notes templates, please post the URL of the affected record here. Ahasuerus 11:04, 6 May 2022 (EDT)

Tem Title

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?34535; S.R. Tem's recent collection Thanatrauma has no contents entered here, but Best New Horror Vol. 31, not entered on ISFDB yet, has a story by him from that collection. While checking his online PDF bibliography there was a note that said the limited HC (only TP and E are entered here) contains an extra story, "Again, the Hit and Run", from 1981's Chrysalis 9, so I added that info to the title record, but there's no such story title, it's "Again, the Hit and Miss". Only sites that show the latter title are ISFDB and Philsp, so I assume that's where the info came from. The former title is much more common online, so I suspect it's the correct one, but there doesn't seem to be any photos of Chrysalis 9 contents online. A lot of older SF buffs on here, so I'm sure someone owns it and can verify what's the real title; problem then is how many other titles in the 10 volumes of Chrysalis may be wrong here. --Username 13:04, 6 May 2022 (EDT)

Peter Crowther Story/Collection

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2902166; Crowther published a collection with same title in 2021, not entered here; that's what the review is of, not the individual story. --Username 13:44, 6 May 2022 (EDT)

Please bring that to the attention of the PV: he might not see it here and would have to be asked anyway. Christian Stonecreek 07:31, 7 May 2022 (EDT)

Done. They've already made an edit for the collection and imported contents; that was fast. --Username 10:26, 7 May 2022 (EDT)

Haha, you're welcome. ;) PeteYoung 10:29, 7 May 2022 (EDT)

Oz Books

https://archive.org/details/@ximm?query=oz; 1916 Rinkitink edition has Reilly & Lee as publishers but note on ISFDB says they didn't appear until 1918. I'm sure some of these other books will be useful, too. This dude Ximm never had anything except cover photos whenever I came across him on the Archive, but I guess years ago he did add some actual books. --Username 14:38, 6 May 2022 (EDT)

Wikipedia dates Reilly & Britton becoming Reilly & Lee after 1918, which would put the 1916 first edition of Rinkitink as published under the original name of the firm. Happily, there are numerous bibliographies of Baum and Oz available. The Book Collector's Guide to L. Frank Baum and Oz is one such example. Unfortunately, the two scans of Rinkitink (ignoring the Gutenberg link) in the page you cite do not have enough of the book scanned to uniquely identify the printing. They aren't of the first or second printings which all have "Reilly & Britton" on the title page though there are binding variants of the 2nd with "Reilly & Lee" on the spine. Given that the color plates do not have captions, this is likely a printing from about 1919 or 1920. It could be further narrowed down by the titles listed on the verso of the ownership page, which is missing from the scans. If the verso listed titles through The Tin Woodman of Oz it would be ca. 1919. The ca. 1920 printing lists titles through Glinda of Oz. The captions with the plates were added with a variant of the ca. 1920 printing. The color plates were gradually discontinued beginning in 1932 and were completely gone by 1935. You could add an undated printing for this scan if you'd like. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:14, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

Holy Christ, that was a beautiful block of info. Alas, I'm not really into the whole "minor variant" thing, but if I see any books in Ximm's collection that look unique I'll try to enter them. I wrote the above info mainly because I know there are people here who like entering multiple editions of the same book and detailing all the little differences, so this looked like a trove they could use. EDIT: Something I just noticed; The New Wizard of Oz is from Bobbs-Merrill, did a search and that's the only Oz book on ISFDB by that company, but Ximm's copy seems to be the 1903 original which isn't entered here (1903 here is 2nd ed.), and the page count, 208, fits the much later editions, not the earlier ones. Also, the copyright is 1899, because the original book was titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but date here is 1900, with a long note explaining why. So there's some things to start with. --Username 19:14, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

No, the cover is not that of the first printing of the second edition (First edition with the title change to The New Wizard of Oz), that cover was first used for the fourth edition (ca. 1920), but binding cloth is wrong and the fourth edition has 259 as the last numbered page. The archive.org edition appears to be the 4th printing of the Fifth edition which was published in the mid-1930s. It is bound in light green cloth which started with the 3rd printing and it lacks a printers imprint on the copyright page which distinguishes it from the 3rd and 5th printings. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:30, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

Dead Lee

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?152739; Death date given as 1986 but book is 1993; also, http://www.crimefictioniv.com/Part_17A.html, which says Ann, not Anne, with a note saying they corrected her middle name. --Username 20:21, 7 May 2022 (EDT)

1992 & 1993 Hugo Awards - "Preliminary Nominees" entries

I noticed that the 1992 and 1993 Hugo data has several entries categorized as "Preliminary Nominees". I don't know if it's defined anywhere was exactly that term is supposed to mean - Schema:awards doesn't go into any detail - but I'm guessing it's for long lists and/or awards that have multiple rounds of nomination/voting, which AFAIK has never applied to the Hugos. ErsatzCulture 12:36, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

Our "Special" award levels were created to reflect the variety of scenarios that we had come across over the years. There are no exact definitions; editors just use whatever seems the closest to the nomination that they happen to be working with. Ahasuerus 18:49, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

I dug out the stats PDF for the 1993 awards, and that indicates those entries are titles that weren't finalists, but appeared on at least 5% of ballots. That implies to me that these records would be better categorized as either "Honorable Mention" (which is what they are listed as in that PDF, and which was used for the 1962 Hugos, or "Nomination Below Cutoff" (which is what has been used for the "best of the rest" records since 1995).

Thoughts? ErsatzCulture 12:36, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

If the official PDF lists them as Honorable Mentions, that's what they should be listed as here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:11, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

Thanks both. Unless there are any objections raised here, I'll switch the offending records from "Preliminary Nominee" to "Honorable Mention" in a few days' time.

BTW, I see we also have a gap for these not-quite-Hugo-finalists between 2003 and 2009 inclusive. I see that the full stats for 2003 at the very least were published, so I guess I've just created a mini-project for myself to add all those in... ErsatzCulture 16:58, 11 May 2022 (EDT)

Asimov's A Problem of Numbers marked as non-genre

This story is not speculative in any way or form. After adding its original magazine, it had been marked as such. If anyone disagrees, please point me to the part that would make it speculative - I did not spot even a hint of it while reading it. :) Thanks! Annie 18:40, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

Superhorror

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?35586; Donald Grant actually Don Grant (FantLab flap photo), but that's alternate of Donald M. Grant, who didn't do cover art, so I made it Don Grant (artist); real artist Donald Grant only did French covers. Who's this mysterious Don? While doing this I noticed Gordon Grant's art credit actually belonged to Gordon Grant (artist), so I fixed that, too. --Username 19:53, 9 May 2022 (EDT)

Sometimes cover art is licensed, too, and sometimes people who normally only work in one language will do work in another. This is especially true of art, since it generally doesn't require any translation or modification. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:20, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

Alphabetizing secondary verifications

We are up to 14 secondary verification sources. They are not sorted on most Web pages and it can take a few seconds to find the one that you need. I propose that we alphabetize them. Ahasuerus 16:33, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

I like that idea. It will make finding them easier, especially if we add more. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:06, 11 May 2022 (EDT)

Right! For now the list seems sufficient, but upon adding more and more, it'll be better to have them ordered. Christian Stonecreek 13:34, 11 May 2022 (EDT)

The change has been implemented. Thanks for the comments! Ahasuerus 17:57, 13 May 2022 (EDT)

French Dark Love

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?70551; Mes amis, this, https://archive.org/details/noircommelamour0000unse, has 2000 date on p. 511 but has Albin Michel as publisher, not LGF as OL says, and the cover's gray, not green like the original edition. French contents were never entered here, so this is some sort of edition to be entered. --Username 21:15, 10 May 2022 (EDT)

Szabo B.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?212434; cover of 2 zombie books is same, PV of 1st long-gone, Balasz is not used in either 1 on Archive.org, it's Balaz in both. --Username 12:37, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Satanists

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1317298; I did several edits for this anthology today; it was a mess, with both HC having no page #, but more importantly Haining's introduction being given its actual title and the 2 Sun essays having to be imported to the editions that were missing them (and both being misspelled). But the Derleth intro is the most curious, because it was only in the American Pyramid edition on ISFDB, but the cover of the American Taplinger edition clearly mentions it, so I imported that, but neither British edition mentions it; is it possible it was written especially for the Americans? I changed the date to match that of Taplinger, but if anyone can verify it was in the British HC then date can be adjusted (and imported to British PB if anyone can verify it was in there, too). --Username 14:39, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Potter?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2682; That Bloch cover looked familiar; turns out it was from Lisa Cantrell's Manse, so I changed artist to Bob Eggleton and made a variant; however, 2 of the other Potter books are OK but the Leiber cover has no variant (clearly Potter's style, though); so does anyone know where it originally came from? --Username 15:33, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Which books are you meaning? You linked to a publication series with a bunch of titles. You can post links to the specific publications, that will be helpful. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:10, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

I would have, except there's only 1 Leiber book on the page. When I wrote that the other 2 books are OK that meant I didn't need to ask anything about them. --Username 19:25, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

It still would have reduced the effort required to figure out what you're talking about if you have linked directly to the publication. Like that. The easier you make it for people to help you, the quicker you'll get the response you want. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:07, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Having another one of your bad days, Joe? Also, if you're going to reject so many of my author images because they're book covers, regardless of how uncommon they are or whether, as in Richard Wagner's case, they illustrate an important point about the man himself, not to mention that I've seen probably thousands of author images on ISFDB that are book or magazine covers, raising the question of why those were accepted by you and other mods, especially since in many/most cases non-book/magazine images are available online, and you're going to unnecessarily import photos to the Wiki, the least you could do is find images that aren't at the top of the authors' Wikipedia pages, as is the case with all 3 (Wagner, Fuller, Brown) you rejected today. Also also, what's the point of deleting Green Manifesto out of all the contents reviewed in that magazine issue, negating the substantial info I added to its record, instead of just marking it "non-genre" like countless other books on ISFDB? --Username 20:19, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Please stop being a jerk. We aren't your slaves, and you seem to take great glee in being as obtuse and difficult as possible. You've been asked countless times now to include reasons for your submissions, to include links to what you're specifically talking about in your posts here, and to not treat moderators as your personal slaves. Still, you persist. If you took just a couple extra moments to make our job easier, you wouldn't have so many submission waiting for approval or questions left unanswered here because you refuse to use common courtesy. This is a collaborative project, so please try to be a little more collaborative in the future.

Regarding author images, it's always best to use an image that isn't a book cover as using the book cover is somewhat iffy when it comes to fair use. If there's an acceptable image, even if it's used on Wikipedia, then we should use that image (or one of the images, if there are multiple images available). Any authors that are using a full book cover as the author image should be reviewed to see if there's a better image available.

As for the non-genre book and review that were removed, they were removed because the book is non-genre (it's a political book about steps that should be taken to save the planet) and neither author is above the threshold (this non-genre book was their only work recorded here). I placed the review information in the notes of the publication in which the review appeared. I noticed it appeared to be non-genre, so I checked to see if the authors were above the threshold. When I discovered they weren't, I deleted it. Pretty simple, really. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:33, 12 May 2022 (EDT)

Uploaded But Unused

With the recent Bruno Elettori or whatever his real name is discussions I was looking at books with his cover art and did a few cleanups for the James V. Smith books, but as I went to upload the Grafton cover for Beaststalker it told me there was already an image, and it turns out that OSTRICHSACK uploaded it in 2018 but never actually added it to the book's record, so I did. Is there a way to check and see how many other cover images they may have uploaded but never added? --Username 11:48, 15 May 2022 (EDT)

I think Ahaseurus might need to make a special report that shows that. The wiki has an Unused images special page, but it likely doesn't know if they are used by the main database (since that's outside the wiki software). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:21, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

You are correct that Unused images is only for the wiki and does not take the database into account. It gets tricky finding true unused ones as some images (example, alternate covers or back covers) are only used in notes so you cannot just look at the publication image field. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:24, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

It would probably require it to review all the images in that list of unused images, then check the direct URLs for those images against those used in the database, and eliminate any that are used. A report could then be generated based on those images remaining. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:24, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Advanced Search options limited to registered users for performance reasons

All Advanced Search menu options have been limited to registered users for performance reasons. Hopefully this should help with the robot problems that we have been having recently. We'll see how it goes and tweak other software components as needed. Ahasuerus 17:58, 15 May 2022 (EDT)

Severance Package

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1360869; I don't think that HC with the insane price was ever published; this link, https://picclick.com/Severance-Package-by-Duane-Swierczynski-Paperback-First-Edition-224552226535.html, doesn't mention an earlier edition on copyright page (although there is a 2007 date also; not sure what that's about, so maybe the book was delayed). --Username 20:42, 15 May 2022 (EDT)

LibriVox

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?29415; I added a link to the 2022 Vampire Nemesis, was told it should be made its own record, and that was just approved; I'm wondering why there's such a huge gap, 2015-2022? Did they go out of business and then recently start again, or is there 7 years worth of genre works that were never entered here? --Username 11:19, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

By a (probably not) coincidence that gap corresponds to the time frame in which I was inactive. Sounds like a good project to go through The Fantastic Fiction links that appear on this page. Each category may be listed by release date and sorted by most recent.--swfritter 19:40, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Mon Mohan

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=mon+mohan; Notes about Brian Aldiss book cover designs by this person, but they also have a cover art credit, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?232231, which is blank. --Username 13:01, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Empty record deleted. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:25, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Nicobobinus

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?17241; I added Amazon cover to Puffin edition but it's blurry because it's small; Archive.org copy has no OL cover and it's a later printing anyway with a higher price; the interior illustrations likely come from the original British HC edition which is not entered here, and possibly belong to the American edition, too (and the American cover likely dates from British HC edition), and the Puffin cover seems similar but not quite to the earlier editions, plus there's a German edition on Goodreads which has a completely different cover but other foreign editions have the same cover online. So maybe people here own any one of these many editions and can enter them here to lessen the confusion. EDIT: Also, I wonder if anyone knows why the cover image for the American edition on OL shows a cartoon of Riker from Star Trek: TNG taking a dump on a toilet that not only has the expected brown stains but also what looks like radioactive slime. Also, he's reading a Star Trek magazine; very meta. --Username 14:07, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Dark Voices

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?12252; Heads up that after someone uploaded Dark Voices 2 to Archive.org a year and a half ago the other volumes, most of which weren't published in America, are being added, but weirdly someone added 4 to Community Texts back in March while someone else just added it to Books to Borrow, which seems pointless since the Community edition is fully readable. However, 5 is also there (in Books to Borrow); what's odd about this volume is that while almost all the contributors are semi-famous/famous genre authors, the last story is by a complete genre unknown American, Myrna Elana, who apparently published no other horror fiction (regardless of her bio which says she's at work on a horror novel) and seems to have spent her time publishing and writing LESBIAN EROTICA. --Username 18:50, 16 May 2022 (EDT)

Tales of Terror

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?783292; This seems like a problem, because the ISBN seems to be from the Magnet PB here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1786522; the Methuen (not Metheun) HC was already entered years earlier. Delete? --Username 13:06, 17 May 2022 (EDT)

The Surrogate Covers

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?998393; I added OL ID to Signet edition which has been on Archive.org since 2010; someone here added cover artist based on Paperbacks From Hell, but the British edition has most of the same art, except they changed the doll. Should cover art credit be imported? British copy on eBay doesn't have any credit. --Username 08:40, 18 May 2022 (EDT)

Thinner

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?414371; I just entered the real 1985 Bachman edition; this has a price almost double and should really be in the Stephen King record judging by the note. PV's gone so someone should decide what to do with this; maybe they have a copy of this edition. --Username 12:41, 18 May 2022 (EDT)

Gutenberg and LibriVox publications

Note. Some issues re Webpages links from our title and publication records pertain equally to HathiTrust Digital Library, and the Internet Archive, for instance, but we do not treat HDL and Archive.org images as publications.

We treat Gutenberg texts and LibriVox audio-recorded readings as publications. I understand we do not treat different file formats as different publications. Right? Therefore, it seems to me appropriate that our publication records link to Gutenberg and LibriVox catalogue pages (let me call them) which offer visitors a choice of formats. Right?

I find that our publication records of Gutenberg and LibriVox editions generally do not link to Gutenberg and LibriVox at all. Advanced search yields these counts of records whose Webpages field "contains" the string (that is, as part of a URL):

librivox : 1762 titles, 2 publications [publisher LibriVox, 710]
gutenberg : 12 titles, 5 publications [publisher Project Gutenberg, 4494]
archive.org : 3314 titles, 4882 publications
hathitrust : 468 titles, 68 publications
loc.gov : 18 titles, 18 publications

Evidently we are migrating archive.org links from title to publication records. And not migrating librivox.org links.

I conducted these searches today after submitting my first update of a LibriVox publication 5321408, in which I did add what would be our third publication Webpage at librivox.
(FWIW, I don't think we should have any LibriVox publications that neglect to identify the reader when LibriVox does so [always, I guess]; it appears that I updated such a one without adding that datum. So I have some sympathy.)

A majority (3) of our 5 publications with webpages at gutenberg[.something] are non-gutenberg editions for which gutenberg is one of our sources. Two are gutenberg.net.AU pages for PG of Australia ebooks.

Probably I missed a policy: we don't use the Webpages field to link the publisher's product page for the edition/printing. Right? --Pwendt|talk 21:52, 20 May 2022 (EDT)

It depends:

All Project Gutenberg publications automatically link to their respective Project Gutenberg pages. The ISFDB software creates the link automatically which is under "Other Links" in the left menu. There is no need to duplicate it in the web page field.

Thanks. I had forgotten that Gutenberg link in the margin.

We don't generate such a link for publication records of PG Australia ebooks, so our present Webpages links to gutenberg.net.au (2 of those 5 gutenberg links) are appropriate. Probably we should link gutenberg.ca among Webpages of PG Canada ebooks for the same reason. --Pwendt

For Library of Congress, if it is a LoC Catalog Number, then it should go in the External IDs which will automatically create a link. For older pubs (such as Famous Mystery Stories), the link is not the LoC Catalog record (https://lccn.loc.gov/22005893), but to a LoC hosted scan of the publication (https://www.loc.gov/item/22005893). I would still add the LoC Catalog number to to publication record.
The others are generally publication specific items and should be in the publication web link. However, we have not always had a publication web field and so older ones were entered at the title level. There has not been a systematic cleanup to move them to their respective publications.
As for publisher webpages, it depends. If the webpage is for that specific publication and has meaningful information, it can be on the publication level. If it's just an ad, I wouldn't bother.

Hope that helps. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:05, 21 May 2022 (EDT)

(contd from inline above) By "publisher" I did mean narrowly Gutenberg for ebooks and LibriVox for audiobooks --publisher page being the one with metadata and a choice of formats, all of which we consider a single publication.

My move of one link to LibriVox was approved overnight, so I am happy to update:

* librivox : 1761 titles, 3 publications

I agree with the apparent consensus that it has low priority. For me something to do given another reason to revise the records, such as here--to identify the translator. --Pwendt|talk 13:46, 22 May 2022 (EDT)

Index of Project Gutenberg Works ...

Index of the Project Gutenberg Works of Haggard, ed. David Widger, 2018-10-29, Ebook #58163 : catalogue page ; html format (top)

What should we make of Ebook #58163? Is it NONFICTION we should acquire? Is its catalogue page no more than an Author webpage? Or something in between? --Pwendt|talk 22:03, 20 May 2022 (EDT)

As it is a downloadable ebook, it is within the ISFDB scope. It can be entered as NONFICTION as we do with physical checklist publications. It is more a question as to whether you feel there is enough value in the Project Gutenberg indexes to take your time adding them or if you have other work you would rather do. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:10, 21 May 2022 (EDT)

Darkfuse

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2072743; Wordgrinder entered Penkas story as "Note Seen" in HC; they haven't been here in many years, and ISFDB is the only search on Google for "Note Seen", so it's likely "Not Seen", in case anyone else has the HC and can correct it. --Username 08:53, 23 May 2022 (EDT)

Twenty Years (or, It Just Feels Like It)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5317059; I was confused about this until I realized I submitted my edit on 5-14 and a person who isn't a regular coincidentally PV it and entered price info a couple of days after me which was approved very quickly (cough), so now instead of my entry of the page #'s from the only copy I could find on the web that actually showed contents page being approved I'm supposed to check with this person first, who didn't enter those #'s even though they must have a copy otherwise they wouldn't have PV it; if anyone else wants to enter those page numbers and then check with PV go ahead, since I'm not re-doing rejected edits anymore. Now that I look at edit history I realize this person deleted my price info which was entered months ago and just replaced it with their own instead of adding their info to my existing info; talk about etiquette. --Username 10:13, 23 May 2022 (EDT)

For Want of a Nail

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5317182; Can anyone substitute a better cover that isn't faded and dirty like the current one but also shows the NAIL on the right side? --Username 10:21, 23 May 2022 (EDT)

Gilbert Wright

While checking info for an unnecessarily rejected edit of mine I came across this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?15653; I doubt a British artist from 1911 also published a story in a 1945 American magazine (Blue Book), but it's possible, in case anyone knows for sure, and if they're not the same then (artist) could be added to the 1911 guy. --Username 11:19, 24 May 2022 (EDT)

Confusing Cacek

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?3865; Someone's been entering missing collections of P.D. Cacek's short stories lately, and I noticed that "...with bright and shining eyes..." was entered as original, but I knew that wasn't right because I added a gothic.net link a while back, remembered from when I found it years ago, and also entered info for Quietly Now, the anthology where the story either first appeared or was reprinted, hard to tell. However, as I checked further there were like half-a-dozen stories by her that were marked original that really aren't, and it's hard to say how titles appeared because a lot of them appeared in REALLY obscure publications. So I mention all this in case when my variant edits are approved anyone may look into them further and possibly un-variant a few, because some of them seem pretty fishy to me and probably do have exactly the same titles between original publication and her collections and were just entered wrong here. --Username 21:45, 24 May 2022 (EDT)

Titled excerpts

What's the best way to handle excerpts that have their own title? I just came across a 6-page excerpt introduced as "There Are Elves Out There" [over] "An Excerpt from" [over] Born to Run. I think it should be a SHORTFICTION with a title note that it's an excerpt. Opinions? Phil 08:35, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

The help page spells it out clearly: " If the excerpt has a different title that the work from which it is excerpted, use that title. Otherwise, use the title of the excerpted work, but add " (excerpt)" to the end; e.g. "A Feast for Crows (excerpt)"." :)

So yes, it should be "There Are Elves Out There", short fiction, with a note explaining that it is an excerpt and from where. Annie 14:59, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Thanks! Some days are just derp... Phil 15:09, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Oh, I know - too many different things to remember (some of which are not very common so they kinda get forgotten). Which is why I pointed out where it is in the help page - it may be my most visited page around here... :) Annie 15:12, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Rex Miller - Above the threshold?

I'm holding a submission to add a non-genre novel by Rex Miller. Do we think he is above the threshold? I see there is one non-genre story in his bibliography, but that is included in an genre anthology. What do folks think? --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:43, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

I am not familiar with this author's work, but reviews suggest that his main splatterpunk series, "Chaingang", is borderline SF at best. The only speculative element that I could find is that the serial killer protagonist seems to have a "danger sense" of sorts. Some plots are also wildly implausible to the point of being almost surrealistic, but not really speculative. If this can be confirmed, we may want to make these title "non-genre" or at least add notes explaining that they are borderline SF. Ahasuerus 11:50, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

That's a different issue and if investigation bears out, we could change them. The submission I am holding is to add a new non-genre novel. I'm just trying to determine whether the consensus is that this author is above the threshold so that we should list all of his non-genre works. It was reviewed in Locus, but in 2015, Hauck converted it to a review of a non-genre work. I assume the the original review was of type REVIEW and was presumably linked to a title record. I speculate that Hauck deleted any existing title or publication records for this novel at the same time. The ultimate question is whether we want to undo the 2015 work and re-add this novel. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:38, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

I don't think so - his horror is marginally ours because of essentially a sixth sense kinda thing; that should not make all his other work eligible though... Annie 15:03, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Hearing no arguments for including this title, I've rejected the submission. Thanks all. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 15:31, 29 May 2022 (EDT)

Shame about that; it would have been cool to have a novel about Vietnam approved on Memorial Day weekend. So I guess nothing changes with the Locus review, right? Anyway, to all my fellow Americans reading this, Happy Memorial Day and God Bless America. Before I go, I think now is an appropriate time to mention the case of the missing Trump, by which I mean that to-do months ago where some mod with a grudge didn't accept my photo of Trump because it had a political message on it, which resulted in someone else uploading a non-political photo to our Wiki, which then mysteriously disappeared recently, which I believe only a mod has the permission to do. I recently found another photo that I liked and that's in his record now, but I'm still curious about who was responsible for that; I'm sure the trail can be traced. --Username 18:23, 29 May 2022 (EDT)

Twin Lynches

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?23755; David K. Lynch just showed up on the recent activity list, and I see that interview belongs to the other David Lynch of Twin Peaks fame, but it's in a PV issue of TZ magazine, so a decision needs to be made about how to separate him from the other Lynch. --Username 10:19, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

PV Dagon

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?277149; Surprisingly there's still a lot of work to be done on Arkham House books, and while doing some I came across that page which is PV not by the usual Arkham PV but 2 uncommon PV, one of whom hasn't left a message in a year and a half (might need a "no longer active") and the other who clearly won't be responding to anything anymore judging by his messages, so someone may want to look at this, because that "none" under Catalog ID seems unnecessary. EDIT: Also noticed this is a rare Arkham book with an unstable Amazon image; didn't replace it but found this, https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/dagon-macabre-tales-p-lovecraft-1845762682, which is that 4th printing but has a $10.00 sticker over the previous price, so I don't know if that counts as another edition or what. --Username 11:50, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Curwen Street

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63286; original Arkham has "House ON Curwen Street", not OF, and so does the Carroll & Graf which I just entered page #'s for. "Of" doesn't make sense, so this may be an entry error here of long standing. EDIT: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1358135 (right title with subtitle), http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?978579 (right title with shorter subtitle), http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?563345 (right title). --Username 12:57, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Kull

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234404262828; No Archive copies or searchable Google copies, 2 ISFDB records (1 of which likely should be deleted), eBay link verifies date on copyright page and price on back cover barcode, but # of pages is a mystery; is it 214, 256, 224 as Open Library says, or something else? Anyone here have a copy? http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?10220 --Username 18:01, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Bogus image-related yellow warnings fixed

I believe I have fixed the software bug which caused invalid yellow warning to be displayed on submission review pages for Author Edit and Clone Publication submissions when editing image URLs. If you come across anything unusual or unexpected, please let me know. Ahasuerus 13:46, 29 May 2022 (EDT)

Nightwalker Editions

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/nightwalker-thomas-tessier-centipede-1761310973; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?14418; I did a lot of Thomas Tessier edits recently, and I think most of them are approved now, but since I check my edits afterwards I see that apparently I forgot to backdate the intro by Jack Ketchum to 2008 because it was originally from Leisure, not Centipede. Checking further, the afterword by Tessier actually has a title, Back Then, so I fixed that and imported it into Centipede, too, and that Worthpoint link above shows a piece of it and after typing the phrase "was hot stuff" which I can barely make out I can confirm that it got a hit for the Google Books copy of the Crossroad Press edition, which is not on ISFDB but may be in that Tomes of Terror, which is a Crossroad omnibus; I don't see the Ketchum intro, though, so maybe they dropped it. So all this is a long way of saying that after all my Tessier edits are approved anyone owning any editions may want to do any further tweaking that may be needed, because they just reprinted the hell out of this guy's books, and Centipede's site going on about new material seems to be the usual publisher BS (unless there's also a new intro and afterword in that edition along with the old ones, in which case, go Centipede). --Username 23:34, 29 May 2022 (EDT)

Falcons of Narabedla

A few months back Stonecreek opened this discussion, suggesting Falcons of Narabedla should be a novella in stead of a novel. There were two responses, both against this change. Surprisingly (or not) yesterday he changed it anyway (see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1946 here], except for four publications that have primary verifications by others (see here, probably because he knew this would leat to protests. Now we have the same text under two different titlerecords. Do we accept this behaviour? --Willem 05:37, 31 May 2022 (EDT)

This isn't correct and the changes should be reverted. We have the exception for works less than novel length being considered novels if they appear in an Ace Double. If someone wants to change that exception, we would need to reach consensus in the Rules and Standards board before doing so. I'd like to hear why Stonecreek made this change and split this title into two different ones. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:36, 31 May 2022 (EDT)t

I didn't split that title into two: there already was the novella of the same title (and also a CHAPBOOK): I have just merged the ones that were quite obviously publications of texts of the novella with the existing one.

I can only give advice to you, Willem, to do some research before pleading 'guilty': you then would have found Originally published in May, 1957, in Other Worlds magazine with publications maculated by you.

(An aside: you really want to state that the Ace Doubles have near to 350 words on a page?) Christian Stonecreek 04:45, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Looking at last week's database dump, Stonecreek is correct that there was already a NOVEL and a SHORTFICTION (novella) record. However, in the processing of merging, Stonecreek turned what was the NOVEL record (1946) into the novella and created a new NOVEL record (3040549) with the old novella record no longer existing. This wasn't the greatest as any external links to the NOVEL record would now be incorrect. He also left a a novel publication under the novella record. While a discussion on how Ace Double should be handled is better suited for the Rules and standards, if these two records are really for the exact same text, having it as a NOVEL and a novella is not the best solution. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:27, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Yeah, sorry for hitting the wrong title (1964) to merge with, could have bitten into my ass (and would have done so, if I would have been able to reach it).

I really do think we only have texts of novella length in this case, with the 1964 Ace publication maybe slightly expanded (or maybe just revised).

I just set out to adapt the remaining incongruency when this again unnecessary discussion popped up. Christian Stonecreek 08:55, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Done. Christian Stonecreek 10:50, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

A few things:

I didn't split that title into two: yes you did. The novella in Otherworlds is completely different from the novel. I downloaded the text from Gutenberg, it has exactly 26.727 words and starts with the same phrase as the novel, but ends with "She smiled. "Does it?" But her bright eyes had given me my answer, and I never had to make up my mind again". Now this title is polluted with the expanded edition that ends with "I heard it, drew a deep breath and then put my arm around Cynara, calling to Adric to come and share it with me". A little research would have prevented this mistake. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Willem H. (talk • contribs) .

No, I didn't. I unmerged the falsely connected titles and merged them with an existing one. For your willingly not understanding mind that does mean that the split existed before. (added by Stonecreek)

Yes you did. You split out every non-verified record. Or do you really think the 188 page Portuguese edition, or the 154 page trade paperback contain the short version? And what is your source for the e-book editions? --Willem 05:55, 7 June 2022 (EDT)

No, I didn't: two versions were there before, and the same two versions are there after. And do you have nearer insight of the Portuguese edition (any word count, number of pages with fiction, no illustrations or other additional material), and yes, the tp seems to hold a text of only novella length, like the one that was already there). (added by Stonecreek)

See above for how the two versions end. It's quite easy to determine which it is, or should I ask Mavmaramis since you refuse to answer questions? --Willem 14:12, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

Originally published in May, 1957, in Other Worlds magazine is not mentioned in the Ace double editions. Only "©1964, by Ace Books, Inc." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Willem H. (talk • contribs) .

You may have noted that these publications still have (mistakenly, see above and below) the text as novels. (added by Stonecreek)

Yes. and don't you dare touch these! So far I count two people opposing your change, and you are the only one in favor. --Willem 05:55, 7 June 2022 (EDT)

Well, two people vs. me and your own estimate: It's possible that it's a novel, but the estimates do point towards a higher likelihood that it is a novella. So, I repeat again: why do you do an estimate and then don't use it? Please explain. Christian Stonecreek 06:54, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

I will use it, but I have the habit of discussing things before making changes. --Willem 14:12, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

you really want to state that the Ace Doubles have near to 350 words on a page?: no, it's only 323 words per page. I counted (in the 2nd printing) three (average) pages, and that's the average. Multiplied by 127 pages of text that gives 39.729 words or very close to novel length. How did you count Christian? --Willem 15:32, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

That's close to novel length but still below. How do you come to the conclusion that a count below a threshold qualifies a text to lie above it? I do think your argumentation is getting weirder and weirder and deviates more and more from facts, Willem. Christian Stonecreek 01:44, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

Ever heard of a margin of error Christian? It's less than 1%, so unless you want to count every word in the book, it should remain as it was. By the way, you didn't answer my question. By what method tid you reach the amazingly incorrect wordcount of the publications of the original novella can't have more than 35,000 words. See above for an exact wordcount of the novella. Either your count is 8.000 too high (if you counted the novella), or 5.000 words too low (if you counted the novel). --Willem 05:55, 7 June 2022 (EDT)

What is wrong with 'can't have more than 35,000 words' when the actual word count lies below it? It was a very rough estimate for an upper limit - just to ensure the title type - but absolutely correct to ensure it's of novella length. I do give a specific range (for example 30,000 - 32,000), when the estimate is finer.

And why do you do an estimate when you don't intend to use the result?

Your estimate seems to be quite incorrect: there are 12 chapters for which one has easily to substract about 1,000 words (likely more) for empty space around their respective beginnings / endings. And this would put the corrected estimate for the expanded / revised 1964 version at about 38,000 - 39,000 words, I think. Christian Stonecreek 08:54, 7 June 2022 (EDT)

So you finally do acknowledge that there are two different versions of the story. Now which version did you do a "very rough" word count of, the original novella or the expanded edition? Your remarks above seem to imply the first. You verified two publications, the German translation and the 1984 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?640300 Arrow edition]. I can't imagine you used the German translation (could be abridged), so that leaves the Arrow wdition, but according to Worldcat and the British Library that one states ©1964, the date of the Ace version and thus the expanded edition. Please explain. --Willem 16:03, 10 June 2022 (EDT)

So your counting ability has also suffered a loss, you may have to count again. Christian Stonecreek 06:54, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

I copied the Other Worlds text of Falcons from the title to the last word using the "Full Text" option on Archive.org and pasted it on the site I mentioned somewhere above a while back, wordcount.com, and got these results: 27,462 Words 154,640 Characters 120,876 Characters without space 36,576 Syllables 1,890 Sentences 4,654 Paragraphs. In case that makes a difference as to what length it should be entered as here. --Username 07:25, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

Many thanks for your assistance; it seems that we do have the original text (novella - the one with an estimate of 27,462 words, first published 1957) and a somewhat expanded version (most likely a novella - by all word count estimates so far - Willem just conceded that his original estimate of 39.729 words was too high, this text was first published in 1964 by Ace). Christian Stonecreek 07:33, 11 June 2022 (EDT):

OK. Also, I just added Archive link to the 1974 Spanish-language edition, awaiting approval, which was uploaded early last year. There's also this, https://archive.org/details/Dimensions1419540506, which includes Falcons' first chapter and mentions in the uploader's note that the second chapter was published in the next issue of Dimensions, but that doesn't seem to be on Archive, and magazine went out of business so serialization was never completed, anyway. Also, https://archive.org/details/falconsofnarabedla_1709_librivox, because as I mentioned somewhere recently there's a huge gap in LibriVox entries on ISFDB and this is probably one of many that should be on here. I at first thought the title was NARABEDIA, and that actually gets a few hits, https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22falcons%20of%20narabedia%22&sin=TXT, so other people thought that was the title, too. There's also this, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27044742M/I_falconi_di_Narabedla, which says previewable when searching for the title but seems that got taken down, but anyway it's an edition not on ISFDB. I also added Archive link, awaiting approval, to the 1979 Ace edition, uploaded way back in 2010, but oddly it doesn't show up when searching for the title on Archive.org, only on OL. There's also 2 records on OL for a March 1988 Time Warner UK edition, but WorldCat link leads to 1984 Arrow. Also added Luminist PDF, awaiting approval, to the 1964 dos version. So it's not surprising there's questions about the word count because they reprinted this thing so many times and in so many ways it's hard to know what the definitive text is. --Username 08:03, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

Nobody denied that the Other Worlds version is a novella. Above I gave a wordcount of 26.727 as athe result of pasting the text in MS Word. Also I did not say anything about my estimate of 39.729 words for the expanded version. Christian, do not try to twist my words, but answer my question. Which version of the text did you do a "very rough" word count of. --Willem 08:11, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

So, you deny that you phrased something like 'the book, it should remain as it was' (meaning that you're convinced that it's not a novella)?

Don't try to circumnavigate the point, Willem! That is, we try to determine the length of the second version, which seems to have to stay as a novel because of a faulty overestimation of yours (and of which you decided that it should not count towards determining the title type). Please come up with a corrected estimate that takes the empty spaces into the account. It really seems that there's no novel of the title Falcons of Narabedla by MZB anywhere in sight. Christian Stonecreek 10:49, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

1. "it should remain as it was" because novel length falls within the margin of error. Is that so hard to understand?

2. If you want to prove anything, come up with a far better wordcount than you did.

3. You are not helping to determine which publication has which version of the story. So for the third time, which version of the text did you do a "very rough" word count of. --Willem 14:12, 11 June 2022 (EDT)

ad 1.: You wrote of a margin of error of 1%. That may have had some validity for your faulty word count of 39.729, which is too high, as you condescended. So, once again, please supply a more correct word count, Willem. What is wrong with your attitude that you can't supply that, it's really only a rough count of the empty spaces: how much pages does it add up to?

ad 2.: See below (ad. 3.).

ad 3.: As explained in the discussion above: I didn't do a 'rough word count', I supplied an upper limit for the initially 1957 published text. There the corresponding note appears: what did you not understand about the note? You are constantly failing to supply a more correct word count for the 1964 version. So, I assume it would be right to add a note to it that it's most likely a novella? (And, please no more circumnavigating of yours). Christian Stonecreek 06:32, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

ad 1.:I explained my method of counting above and I'm satisfied with the result. If you have doubts, provide a better word count yourself, don't try command me. You're getting abusive again.

ad 3.:Then let's go back to the original discussion, or have you forgotten about that. Do you still think this publication contains the original novella? Do some research before accusing me af anything! --Willem 04:50, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

ad 1.: So I ask you again: How much of the blank space (if any) has gone into your estimate? And what was the abusive phrase I supplied: instead of stating things like those, please give a concrete citation. I just asked to give a more correct estimate.

ad 3.: You are correct: all the texts of this title that I have seen are of novella length. Christian Stonecreek 08:44, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

(unindent) I am trying to wrap my head around this discussion, but a number of comments are unsigned and I am having trouble figuring out who said what. Could the contributors please sign their comments above? Ahasuerus 11:07, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

Done so far for mine comments with '(added by Stonecreek)', I'd think. Christian Stonecreek 11:34, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

Added the'unsigned' template to mine. --Willem 12:46, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks for clarification. I will review the discussion and hopefully comment tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 18:58, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

(unindent) It looks like there are a few separate issues here. The first one is substantive, i.e. the issue of separating the two different texts now that we have confirmed that the original story was expanded for book publication (which SFE agrees with.) I have checked my copy of Marion Zimmer Bradley Super Pack and confirmed that it contains the shorter, 1957, version of the text. We should ask primary verifiers of the affected pubs (including translations) to check what the last sentence says and update their verified records to avoid questions in the future.

We should also add a note explaining that some editions claim that this work is part of the Darkover series, but, as SFE says, the link is "marginal". This is also the case with The Door Through Space, another early Bradley novel, which also needs to be updated with this information. Ahasuerus 13:56, 14 June 2022 (EDT)

Word counts have been added and Notes have been expanded. I have also updated all versions of Falcons of Narabedla and The Door Through Space with information about their links to the Darkover series. I have also created a series for the 3 versions of The Door Through Space and added notes about its unusual history. SFE will be updated shortly. Ahasuerus 11:35, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

The second issue is deciding whether we want to make the expanded 1964 text a novella as opposed to a novel. As was pointed out during the first iteration of this discussion, Template:TitleFields:TitleType says:

NOVEL. ... For Ace Doubles, each content title will typically be a NOVEL, rather than SHORTFICTION, unless one of the constituent works is itself an anthology or a collection.

Given that our current best estimate is 39,729 words, the rules as currently formulated clearly favor making it a NOVEL. We should explicitly document this application of the rules in the Note field of the novel title. We should also state the known word count of the 1957 version in its Note field.

The third issue is whether the current Help exception for Ace Doubles is a good idea. My current take on it is "maybe not", but that's something to discuss on the Rules and Standards page, assuming that there is interest.

The fourth issue is the steps taken by Stonecreek to move these two texts between publications. The right way to do it would have been to re-open the February discussion and post new evidence suggesting that certain publication records had been linked to the wrong title record. Then other editors would have been able to check the word counts and first/last lines of whatever editions they had access to -- see Username's comments and my Marion Zimmer Bradley Super Pack example above -- instead of relying on what he thought was "quite obvious".

The way it was done, i.e. without re-opening the discussion and against the outcome of an older one, caused confusion, stress, distrust and a variety of data problems, which were outlined in JLaTondre's response above. This was a self-inflicted wound which should not have happened and then it just spun out of control, causing defensive responses, flaming and even more stress for everyone involved.

This is not something that a self-approver should be doing. As I wrote on Stonecreek's Talk page in January 2022:

Since you are a self-approver, the responsibility to enforce ISFDB conventions and keep records self-consistent falls on you. Please make sure this doesn't happen again or else it will jeopardize your self-approver status.

Given my repeated warnings on Stonecreek's Talk page, e.g.:

This is not what the self-approver status was created for; additional instances of this behavior or any other abuse of the privileges will result in their termination.

I don't think Stonecreek's self-approver privileges can be retained. I will let him respond here before I make the final determination.

P.S. I have notified SFE about various minor issues with their Bradley entry. Ahasuerus 13:56, 14 June 2022 (EDT)

I do apologize if I turned wrong in any of my actions. Alone: I didn't touch the Ace Books, I only merged the novella length publications with the already existing novella title (and I checked the available sources, i.e. Amazon's Look Inside - the archive.org links are no help, so I think I did use the available information). The reason it got reprinted so much after 2010 is the expiry of the 1957 copyright. And I'm sincerely sorry for causing any stress & problems in the data (but I think this is independent from this specific problem, it may have occurred in an unrelated act) but where there really any? (I don't remember deleting any title, only transforming them, so any relation should have remained!).

Finally, if there are really only two versions of "Falcons of Narabedla" they both seem to be novellas: the Arrow publication is considerably shorter than 39.729 words, and the German translation of 2001 is longer with about 38,000 words (but it should be with German needing a bit more words to express the same). Christian Stonecreek 16:27, 14 June 2022 (EDT)

I am going to revoke Stonecreek's self-approver privileges for the time being. After a 2 week cooldown period -- let's make it until July 1 to be it exact -- Stonecreek will be able to re-apply for the self-approver status using the regular nomination/self-nomination process. Ahasuerus 20:48, 14 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks. Not being aware that my privileges were seemingly not used in a proper way, I'll nevertheless seek concordance in possibly upcoming cases like these. Christian Stonecreek 01:50, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

:::: I'll let this discussion rest, and try to establish which publication should be under which title. It seems plausible that the post 2010 e-books and super-packs contain the 1957 version (a few notes would have helped a lot). I'll ask Stonecreek about the German translations and Mavmaramis about the Arrow edition. I assume the Portuguese translation is of the 1964 text (188 pages). If no proof otherwise is given, I'll return that one to the expanded title. The 2013 Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust edition is definitely the 1964 text. Amazon shows the first pages of the kindle version of that book, which I compared to the Ace Double and Gutenberg text. --Willem 14:49, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

For the Arrow edition I have come to an average of about 254 words per page, with an absolute high of 266 words on one page in my sample, and with an overall majority seeming to lie just beneath or around 250 words a page: the reason for the difference to Mavmaramis' estimate seems to lie in not discounting the empty space and the shorter lines (for example of dialogue and paragraph endings). I think the right way to do an estimate is to actually count the words on representative sample pages (and discount unused space of chapter endings & beginnings). Thus, this word count estimate does lie beneath the threshold of 40,000 words: at 37,772 (just taking the high point page), at 36,608 for the average, and even below that for the 'impressionist' average. Christian Stonecreek 01:03, 16 June 2022 (EDT)

Son of the Flying Tiger

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?824087; Anyone have a copy of the original 1973 edition? Someone (possibly) bootlegged it in 2020 and uploaded to Archive.org (in Community Texts so the net police wouldn't find it), and its covers and title/copyright pages are original with just a 1-line publisher/date added by the (possible) bootlegger. However, the novel ends on p. 181 and ISFDB's sources say 189. My page change was rejected, so I'd like to know if it's really 181 so it can be un-rejected. Anyway, I'm not adding the new edition, but the (possibly) bootleg copy is fully readable. --Username 21:59, 31 May 2022 (EDT)

Even if someone were to confirm a different page count, the submission could not be unrejected as it also attempts to add a scan of the 2020 Orphanwerk Press edition to the 1973 Venus Freeway Press edition. Scans are great, but they should only be added to the publication record which appears in the scan. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:25, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Important thing is getting the right page count confirmed and entered if someone says it's 181 (well, important for the purposes of this database; nobody really gives a damn what the page count is); that (possibly) bootleg edition should have been put in note to mod by me just to show the last page is 181, not put in web page section, so my edit can stay rejected and I will enter the new page count in another edit. --Username 17:36, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Two different Worldcat records have the page count as 189, Reginald1 has it as 188 (discrepancy could be due to an unnumbered final page). A scan of a different edition is not a more authoritative source than those cited. If you come up with a better source that the page count is incorrect, then it can be changed. If you can't, please don't attempt to change the page count. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:14, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

To be clear, the page count will stay the way it is now unless someone who owns/can get their hands on the 1973 edition responds here with verification (a photo of the last page would be nice) of 181. I won't change it otherwise. Let's be honest, odds are nobody will ever respond and I'll forget about this quickly and go do edits for a thousand other things. --Username 18:24, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Where in the WorldCat

WorldCat's dead. --Username 09:24, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Ah, that was the reason I didn't found an entry for a recently added publication. Though I expect the line "WorldCat will return", like in a certain 2022 movie, will hold true. Christian Stonecreek 10:48, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

I just visited the Worldcat site. It seems to be having a database problem (it's only giving errors when you do a search). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:37, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

It has returned! Christian Stonecreek 15:03, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Cover modification bug fixed

Bug 642, "Cover Art Modification Bug":

If only the date [or another field value in a COVERART record] is changed, it still shows the title and artist as having been changed.

has been fixed. If you come across anything unexpected, please let me know. Ahasuerus 17:52, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Technical Fiction

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?9372; I think those 3 chapbooks should be non-fiction, and that Trek Technical non-fiction should be a chapbook. --Username 12:40, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

Satan on the Loose!

While entering page #'s for the '65 Consul of Derleth's anthology Night's Yawning Peal, I looked up the '74 Signet and while everything there seems to be covered, there's a picture online of the back cover with an ad for a book called Satan on the Loose. It seems not to be fiction but rather non-fiction from a Mex ex-gang member who turned his life over to Jesus and was the subject of that well-known book/movie The Cross and the Switchblade. I know this book (and others he wrote which have similar "horror" titles) probably don't belong on this site, but as can be seen here, [3], many have sweet cover art more appropriate to 80's horror paperbacks. Only 2 copies of Satan are on Open Library and they share the same (uncredited) cover art, with 1 chapter about SATAN'S COMPUTER PROGRAMS (or PROGRAMMES in the British edition), and a stunning note on the British back cover that The Cross and the Switchblade was made into a comic book! So some of those covers may have been done by genre artists and, if so, that may be a way to get those editions on here. These old religious books (not the later Left Behind junk) are a huge void here with many having intros or art done by genre people (many probably hoping nobody would ever find out they were the ones responsible). --Username 14:26, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

Display of pseudonymous reviews fixed

Bug 165, "Pseudonymous reviews do not display reviewer's canonical name", has been fixed. Ahasuerus 17:04, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

Fighting Fantasy Question

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?459101; I added a lot of info to this, accepted today, so now that it's in my note about the 2 sample adventures being included, is this really still a novel, non-fiction, collection, or what? --Username 19:59, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

It's a novel - provided it's over the 40,000 words threshold (but should be with this page count): since it seems to be entirely fictional it can't be nonfiction. Christian Stonecreek 06:47, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

I had a copy of this as a kid; from ~30 year old memory it is a role playing game rulebook that has no narrative content. The 2 adventures I believe are standard gamemaster + players RPG scenarios, as opposed to the choose-your-own-adventure style single player branching narrative found in the main Fighting Fantasy series. As such, I suspect it is ineligible for inclusion here per ISFDB:Policy#Exclusions?

In a similar vein - but a book I've never actually seen a copy of, so will defer to others' opinion - I saw this a few days ago, which I believe is also a set of RPG rules in paperback form, and so probably shouldn't be listed here. ErsatzCulture 12:31, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

I added Archive link in my recent edit, in case anyone wants to see it and decide. --Username 12:51, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

Both these books are in Reginald3, so I'd hate to lose them. Additionally one is in Locus1 and the other in Clute/Grant. With the two chose your own adventure items, I definitely think the Jackson book should stay with those items as SHORTFICTION. I do think Reginald got the it wrong (see the note) and it probably is better described as NONFICTION as noted in Clute/Grant. For the other book, I'd still want to keep it by virtue of it's mention in two of our standard genre sources. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:47, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

Backslash searches fixed

Bug 278, "Search on backslash characters fails", has been fixed. Please note that the database that we are using, MySQL, is configured to treat the backslash character (\), "Ä", "Æ", "ä" and "æ" as identical by default. We won't be able to correct it until we upgrade the whole database to Unicode. Ahasuerus 20:03, 2 June 2022 (EDT)

The Elephant Talks to God

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?862319; My edit for the '89 ed. was just accepted, then I just added/fixed stuff for the '06 TP (not approved yet), but that says on back cover that it includes most of the original stories plus new ones, except the '89 copy on Archive.org has no contents and is just one 60-page story, while the '06 copy on Archive.org has titles for individual stories. So not sure what's to be done; also, '06 TP says page count is 123 but it ends at 122 and only thing on next page is a photo of Dumbo derrière, so it maybe should be changed to 122. --Username 12:15, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

The 1989 edition is not one long story, it too is made up of individual tales. There is no TOC and there are no titles, but the text is the same. For example:

The text beginning on page 7 (1989) is 'The Ant's Point of View' on page 106 (2006)
The text beginning on page 9 (1989) is 'A Woman from China' on page 11 (2006)
The text beginning on page 13 (1989) is 'Not Profound' on page 9 (2006)

Perhaps making the named stories variants of disambiguated untitled stories? Plus, extensive notes. I'm interested to hear from others who have dealt with similar situations. John Scifibones 13:33, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

German Verne

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?428612; Typing title and publisher on Amazon led to this, https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Jules-Verne/dp/B0000BTYIL, which isn't the right book but is a title on ISFDB, so the 1 Verne title by the publisher on ISFDB is probably missing other Verne books. --Username 15:42, 3 June 2022 (EDT)

Sure: there are lots of other titles by Verne in various translations and hundreds of German publications missing! If you'd like to add some, please do so (best for those olden days publications to rely on DNB, not Amazon). If there are questions, please don't hesitate to ping me. Christian Stonecreek 12:46, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

I'm barely fluent in English, much less other languages. After ~30,000 edits I can probably count on my fingers and toes how many foreign editions I've entered, so whenever I see an interesting topic concerning foreign editions I mention it in case anyone fluent in those languages wants to look at it, which has resulted in positive responses and new entries before; enge Bekanntschaften, do your best. --Username 13:07, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

I know there's a lot to do, but I'm barely achieving my self-afflicted to-dos; so, just keep on doing, and when a question pops up with those publications, you know where to tutn to :-). Christian Stonecreek 13:41, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

Jules Verne has been on my plate for a few years now. I started with all the first editions and then as many translations as I could. A 'quick' break doing some non-fiction Asimov has taken about a year now, but I do hope to get back to populating a few of the missing editions in English and other languages. There is a German site I have my eye on. Christian, I may hold you to your offer, if you're still around when I get back to these. ../Doug H 22:07, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

Millennium Macabre

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=um+macab&type=All+Titles; I thought I'd found in that first entry a mostly empty record to enter stuff for until I realized the same item was entered in 2020 by someone else who apparently didn't notice it was already on ISFDB and filled in the details, but the review is with the empty one and also the American price. So empty one can probably be deleted if those things are moved over to the full record. --Username 10:04, 4 June 2022 (EDT)

Change "WatchDate" to "WatchPrePub"?

We have a "WatchDate" template and a linked cleanup report which help keep track of pub records with publication dates from questionable pre-publication sources. The template is currently found in 20 publication records.

Based on our experience with pre-publication data, it would be useful to have broadly similar functionality for questionable pre-publication covers. We could accomplish this goal by creating another template/cleanup report pair, but it's been suggested that creating a generic template/cleanup report pair for questionable pre-publication data would be a better long-term solution.

Here is the current proposal:

Create a new template, "WatchPrePub", as a replacement for "WatchDate".
The new template will be used for all types of "questionable pre-publication data".
The new template will take a parameter indicating which field's (or multiple fields') data is questionable.
The new template will expand to something like The following data is based on questionable pre-publication information and may be incorrect: [parameter, e.g. "publication date" or "cover and publication date"].
The linked cleanup report, which currently displays the publication title and the publication date, will have a "Questionable Field(s)" column added. It will also let editors re-sort the table by publication name, by publication date or by field name similar to the way the Publication Series page works.

What do you think? Ahasuerus 11:23, 4 June 2022 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I have created FR 1506, "Generalize WatchDate to be WatchPrePub". Ahasuerus 13:22, 9 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks. ErsatzCulture 17:34, 9 June 2022 (EDT)

Rites of Passage

Vault of Evil has a lot of small-press covers not on ISFDB including this Obelesk anthology, but after uploading it the .jpg, [4], which says "rites1" when downloading, includes that other unrelated cover. So before adding it to the record, how to go about editing it so only Rites cover shows? --Username 11:19, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

You can load it into an image editor (e.g., on Windows, you can use MS Paint) and crop it to contain just the half you want, save that, and upload it. In the notes expand the "uploaded by" notes to document the original source and to state that it has been cropped to remove a second, irrelevant cover. --MartyD 07:30, 6 June 2022 (EDT)

Brazilian Galactica

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=guerra+dos+d&type=All+Titles; Brazilian title is a reprint of English-language Battlestar Galactica novelization, War of the Gods, but editor didn't link it to original novel or make it part of the B.G. series. Also, the cover credits another author than the one in the English edition; Resnick wrote a different Galactica novel. On a tangential note, that Van Vogt translation with the same title has a cover artist but no cover art; Amazon seems not to have it but Spanish-language sites have a lovely cover, which may be the right one for this edition. EDIT: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2909468; translates as living legend, which is already on ISFDB in English-language edition. --Username 14:11, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

Edit History Needs Editing

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?312013; Just before I was going to see if anything needed fixing using Archive.org's copy of this zine, I noticed the first entry in "edit history" is missing a field and another field is in the wrong place. I guess someone knows what's up with that. --Username 17:55, 6 June 2022 (EDT)

Checking the database, I see that this is one of 80 "approved" submissions which do not have the approver's name or the time of approval recorded. Based on the dates when they were created -- between 2010 and 2013 -- these submissions errored out half way through the approval process. At the time, we didn't have a mechanism for catching these types of errors and our submission display software doesn't display them correctly. I will create a new bug report and fix the issue once I am done with the bug that I am currently working on. Thanks for reporting the problem. Ahasuerus 21:55, 6 June 2022 (EDT)

EDIT: Also, I had a cover replacement for the Headline PB edition of Alone With the Horrors rejected earlier (it wasn't as clear as the earlier one, which I should have noticed) and another edit was just approved, but there's 2 of the same cover artists now. I don't know what the trail is but something went wrong, so if someone can trace and delete whichever's necessary; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?36880. --Username 17:55, 6 June 2022 (EDT)

Done.Rudam 01:51, 7 June 2022 (EDT)

Proposal: change "AK Mulford" to "A. K. Mulford"

AK Mulford currently has a couple of self-published novels in the database. The Amazon UK preview of the physical version of one of those novels confirms they use(d...) that form of their name, with no full stops after the initials.

Today it was announced those novels plus a bunch of others had been picked up by a trad publisher, with the self-pub ebook versions already being replaced by versions from the new publisher. Per the Amazon preview, these have "A. K. Mulford" on the cover and title page, although the "AK Mulford" version of the name still appears on the copyright page, FWIW.

The author's site also uses the "A. K." form (mostly - the value in the HTML title tag is AK"), but I suspect that may be a recent change to match the new editions.

My understanding of the rules is that we try to follow the author's preference regarding how their initials are recorded. However, I don't ever recall seeing variant names to cover both "A. B. C." and "ABC" forms, so I assume the rules are just to standardize on one form or the other? If that's correct, does anyone object to switching this author from "AK Mulford" to "A. K. Mulford", updating the titles and pubs accordingly, and adding appropriate notes to document when/where the older form was used? ErsatzCulture 18:16, 8 June 2022 (EDT)

In the absence of any objections over the past ~2 weeks, I just went to update the author's name, but I'd forgotten that this is something that requires moderator privs :-( I've added an author note re. the name variants, but could a moderator do the honours please? Once the name has been updated, I'll go through all the old/existing pubs and add pub notes about the form of the name used on them, and then start on adding all the new ones. Thanks ErsatzCulture 11:55, 21 June 2022 (EDT)

Once there's an entry for "A. K. Mulford", we can variant those under "AK Mulford" to the "A. K. Mulford" name. Right now, there are no entries for any books under "A. K. Mulford", so the name shouldn't be changed right now. The canonical name is always the one with the most entries. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:37, 21 June 2022 (EDT)

There are a couple of different but related issues here:

1. There's nothing in the database for "A. K. Mulford" yet because I was waiting on any feedback here before entering them, to avoid unnecessary extra work. The 2 "AK Mulford" titles currently in the database have already been reissued as tradpub ebooks under the "A. K. Mulford" name, and per the article I linked, there are another 6-8 titles contracted, all of which will presumably be under the latter name. As such, right it's a "tie" which name is in wider use, but it won't be long before "A. K. Mulford" will be much more widely used.

2. I ended up hacking up a quick-and-dirty report [*], and (bugs permitting) there are no author entries in the database where we have both "J Doe"/"J. Doe" or "ABC Doe"/"A. B. C. Doe" canonical and pseudonym entries for different forms of starting initials. (There are a handful for the surname as just an initial, and one for a middle initial FWIW.) Whether this lack of variant entries for starting initials is just a coincidence, or some rule/standard that I hadn't seen formally defined, was again something I was hoping to get feedback on here. If it is indeed OK to have both "AK Mulford" and "A. K. Mulford" entries, then that makes this point moot, but given the lack of precedent, I'd prefer to have the nod that it is OK.

[* - which as is the way of things, has identified a few other unrelated author records in the database that needed cleaning up...] ErsatzCulture 19:06, 21 June 2022 (EDT)

Haunters of the Dark

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?67364; I made a minor edit for this, replacing Amazon "P" image with updated image, but that led to me noticing that while ISFDB says 11/2004, OL says 9/25/2007, goodreads.com says 12/1/2007, and Amazon says 12/1/2007 or 5/25/2008 depending on which country it's from. There doesn't seem to be any OCLC or LCCN for this, although there is a non-working OCLC link on the OL page, and I can't find any copies on eBay. I have a feeling it's vaporware, but can't be sure. So does anyone know more? EDIT: I just found this, https://www.philipjosefarmer.com/PJFnew-200710.htm, which complains about the multiple date changes. I'm almost positive this was never published now. --Username 10:44, 9 June 2022 (EDT)

Cover change was approved today, so just bumping this up so someone can chime in and this likely non-existent book can be deleted (which begs the question of why I was so dumb as to replace a cover for a book that probably will be gone soon, but whatever). EDIT: I just realized it won't be deleted, the date will just be changed to unpublished, so the image will remain. Go me. --Username 14:33, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

I've changed it to unpublished status. Thanks for digging into this one. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:29, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

OK. I think the notes you wrote didn't turn out the way you wanted, though. --Username 17:55, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

True, they did not. That's what I get for trying to use wiki markup instead of html. Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:42, 16 June 2022 (EDT)

Foundation's Edge

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5337513; There's already an OCLC link here, but I added another one which shows Whispers Press info at bottom while it's Doubleday up top. I have a feeling this will be rejected, so I'm mentioning it here so someone can look at it and accept or reject quickly. --Username 13:21, 9 June 2022 (EDT)

Blumlein

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?31280; I made an edit for something by Michael Blumlein recently, and I also found this, [5], which raises a few questions; the pub. date is later than what's on ISFDB, the page count is the same as the much later Dell edition, but not either Scream/Press edition, the artist is Timothy, not T.M. (although online photos suggest he's credited as T.M. in the book), and there's a Timothy Caldwell on ISFDB with 1 cover art credit a few years later and a Timothy M. Caldwell who wrote some poems around the same time as the artist was active, so they may all be the same person, although T.M. Caldwell's record includes a few much later short stories, so maybe that's a different Caldwell (EDIT: It was). Most odd, however, is the mention of Blumlein's forthcoming second novel, A Native Land; there is literally ZERO mention of him ever working on or publishing a book with that title online. I was never a fan of his even back 30-35 years ago when I read any and every horror book I could find, his work being much too intellectual for me, but I'm sure there are fans of his here who know more and may add or fix some stuff in his record. --Username 10:55, 10 June 2022 (EDT)

I'd guess the date of publication (Sep. '90) was taken from Amazon, where it's still stated. But that's the trouble of not documenting in the notes where the date is from. I'd think it'd be safe to change the date of publication according to your found source. Anyone disagreeing?

On Caldwell: I also do think the three are one and the same: all publications seem to belong to the 'slipstream' scene. Christian Stonecreek 13:17, 10 June 2022 (EDT)

I hope the date's changed, because it seems more likely a horror collection would be published close to Halloween. Also, I've found exactly one (1) other mention of A Native Land, https://archive.org/details/The_New_York_Review_Of_Science_Fiction_027_1990-11, where the review of The Brains of Rats notes that title as being mentioned in the author's note. So whether he scrapped it or one of his later novels is that work under a different title is a mystery. --Username 13:43, 10 June 2022 (EDT)

Stac(e)y Jaine McIntosh 2020 story "Lunar"

Stacy Jaine McIntosh has a single story "Lunar" from 2020 to their name. This is surely the same person as Stacey Jaine McIntosh, who has a story of the same name and year in their bibliography. However, the first Lunar story has no pubs listed for it, so I'm slightly perplexed how it exists. I have a vague recollection of seeing and reporting something similar before, and being told it was due to being reviewed, but I can't see that that is the case here? As such, I'm not sure if this is a case for merging/deleting or varianting the relevant records. ErsatzCulture 08:38, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

This usually does happen when you have or create a parent title and then relate the variant title to a different parent: the former parent has no publications anymore when there weren't any under it. So, it does seem the derelict title can be safely deleted. Christian Stonecreek 13:10, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks. In the absence of any other responses, I've now deleted the title record that had no pubs, and it looks like the offending author record has also been removed, as hoped/expected. ErsatzCulture 11:47, 21 June 2022 (EDT)

Sirius Confusion

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?28514; Do those recent zines really have any connection to the much earlier Sirius publisher? --Username 12:41, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

"Reviews" section of the Title page rewritten

The software that displays the "Reviews" section on the Title page has been rewritten and upgraded to handle the 4 permutations that reviews can create:

reviews of the displayed title
reviews of the displayed title's VTs
VTs of reviews of the displayed title
VTs of reviews of VTs of the displayed title

The software has also been modified to display the alternate names of the authors of reprints and their languages. If you come across any issues, please post the affected URL(s) here. Ahasuerus 19:06, 12 June 2022 (EDT)

Edit History bug fixed; submissions-related column headers clarified

The Edit History bug reported on June 6 has been fixed.

In addition, some column headers in submissions-related tables have been clarified. "Moderator" has been changed to "Reviewer" to account for self-approvers. "Time Reviewed" is now "Time Approved" or "Time Rejected" depending on the Web page. Ahasuerus 11:01, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

C. Cole ?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=c.+cole&type=Name; The 3 C. Cole (or Coles) Phillips (or Phllips) names probably need merging; same bio data is repeated between records. --Username 11:59, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

Alternate names created. Thanks for finding. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:09, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

WatchDate changed to WatchPrePub

As per FR 1506, "Generalize WatchDate to be WatchPrePub", the ISFDB template "WatchDate" has been retired. All of its occurrences in publication notes have been replaced with "WatchPrePub|Publication date". Help:Using Templates and HTML in Note Fields has been updated.

Please note that the associated cleanup report is currently empty. An updated list will become available on Sunday morning when the weekly reports run. Of course, you can always use Advanced Publication Search to look for "WatchPrePub" in the Notes field. Ahasuerus 15:59, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks. I've tagged a pub which still has a placeholder cover, so I'll check the report at the weekend to verify it shows up. ErsatzCulture 17:55, 13 June 2022 (EDT)

I've updated that one with the final cover per the distributor. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:25, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

Magazine Search bug fixed

Bug 637, "Magazine Search", has been fixed. If you come across unexpected behavior, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 20:31, 14 June 2022 (EDT)

Macauley

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=macauley&type=Publisher; 12 in one, 26 in the other, none PV, same website linked in both. --Username 20:00, 15 June 2022 (EDT)

Cover art attributions, and Bob Haberfield

Surveying the cover art attributed on ISFDB to Bob Haberfield, I found the following anomalies: Seven attributions (for different art) based on bing.com searches. Three were based on Flickr, and one on a bookseller's opinion at abebooks.com.
Though I think that all of these covers are actually Haberfield's work, I think we should be a bit more critical. Guesses should not be presented as facts.
On the other hand, there are good sources for attributing most of these covers to Haberfield:
1) Michael Moorcock writes at the multiverse.org forum: "Actually I picked Bob Haberfield for the first Mayflower covers and he did my covers for quite a long time until he joined an asram and stopped doing commercial work."
Q: "The currently burning question remains, for me: who did the first few Mayflower photocollage covers; the original Stealer of Souls (red & green eye), Stormbringer (gritted teeth in stormy sky), and the first covers of the Runestaff series?"
Moorcock: "All those covers, Guy, were done by Haberfield. You'll find some of his photomontages in New Worlds, as well."
I'm going to interpret Moorcock's answers as a statement that all Moorcock's Mayflower covers for the period 1968-1976 are by Bob Haberfield. Stylistically, it also makes sense. With one exception, The Black Corridor had a gadget photo cover. And then in 1977, there appeared a Rodney Matthews cover, ending Haberfield's reign.
2) Haberfield showed 32 images of (mostly) cover art on a site which disappeared years ago, but can partly still be found at archive.org. Alas, the next two pages have no images. But I've made a reconstruction using saved images and uploaded the second page here. The third page had only two currently irrelevant images.
I intend to refer to this statement for quite a few cover art credit changes and/or note modifications, so add your comments here please. Horzel 05:36, 17 June 2022 (EDT)

At the moment the multiverse.org forum seems to suffer from an invalid security certificate. But archive.org has a copy. Horzel 15:14, 29 June 2022 (EDT)

Changing Canonical name to Ishmael A. Soledad from Ishmael Soledad

Any objections to making Ishmael A. Soledad the canonical name and Ishmael Soledad the alternate? Even his twitter page uses the middle initial. Thanks, John Scifibones 11:47, 17 June 2022 (EDT)

None noted; Done John Scifibones 11:42, 22 June 2022 (EDT)

Weinkauf

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=weinkauf&type=Name; Same person? --Username 15:56, 17 June 2022 (EDT)

Tombs of Gold

https://archive.org/details/DonSturdyInTheTombsOfGold/appleton-v-don-1925-BK000556/; All of the Tarzan books published by Grosset and Dunlap's division, Madison Square, have no covers here, but I found one on Amazon, then found another on Archive.org, Golden Lion, from an account devoted to JEWELRY. While doing so I saw another book, Don Sturdy in the Tombs of Gold, which looks like it belongs here, but there's only 2 Don Sturdy books here and that isn't one of them. So maybe someone knows why that is; maybe the mummies are fake like in Scooby-Doo? Or maybe it's just that nobody ever decided to enter it. --Username 09:36, 18 June 2022 (EDT)

Queefrotica

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?452132; 3 Germans PV this, and today I came across a highly embarrassing book here which includes words like "Whispering Gash"; the point is that the cover is credited to Elena Helfreicht (I added that info plus the cover image), not Helfrecht as in the book above, which seems to have no Amazon Look Inside but typing artist's name and book's ISBN on Google got exactly 1 hit from one of those highly suspect sites where they dump e-books; however, it does seem to prove that it is actually Helfrecht in Chiang's book, and her website also says Helfrecht. Judging by her name I assume she's German, so maybe PV will know whether she worked on any other books. Also, does Chiang's book have an English-language edition not entered here or was it German-only? --Username 12:02, 18 June 2022 (EDT)

The Illustrated Dracula

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1739936; This review points to a 30-years-later book with the same title, but the book it's supposed to be linked to, from Manor Books with an intro by C. Lee, just had a cover uploaded to the Wiki, so that might need looking at to get everything connected where they should be. --Username 08:38, 19 June 2022 (EDT)

Burroughs Length

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?184537; I'm afraid to ask about this, knowing how angry people can get about determining lengths, but none of the page counts for the 3 novels in this book are long enough for a novel. Abridged, or some other explanation? The original 1924 edition is nearly 200 pages longer. No Archive copy of this edition that I can see, and all 3 PV are long-gone. --Username 12:41, 19 June 2022 (EDT)

The OCLC entry lists 141 copies in the United States (and 1 in Australia). Maybe someone has access to one of these libraries. (P.S. none in Canada or near me) ../Doug H 15:34, 19 June 2022 (EDT)

Entering Correct Short Stories by Luigi Pirandello

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Dirk_P_Broer#Pirandello.27s_Short_Stories; As it says, I stumbled on the fact that the edition entered here was another one entirely. Judging by the response he ain't gonna fix what he broke, so if anyone wants to bother, go ahead. I don't enter translated stories, having enough trouble dealing with English. --Username 19:58, 19 June 2022 (EDT)

Irving Heine - (possibly) questioned pseudonym

SFE have just added a page for "Irving Heine" and state "Unidentified and perhaps pseudonymous author (probably UK), long thought to be one of the many Pseudonyms of Denis Hughes..." The entry here is an alternate name for Denis Hughes. Given that SFE don't seem to be 100% convinced this is a pseudonym, how should this be reflected here - is adding an author note sufficient to cover this? I've had a quick skim of the the help pages for alternate authors, and don't see anything that covers "believed to be" scenarios. ErsatzCulture 16:24, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

I would use an author note and not create an alternate name. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:21, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

The question about "believed to be" pseudonyms may be open.

But Irving Heine is a "believed to be" that SFE4 has retracted. See my AuthorUpdate submission 5349912.

Somehow I achieved four consecutive submissions to the point, 5349912–15. --Pwendt|talk 18:34, 26 June 2022 (EDT)

Irving Heine and E. R. Royce are two names known only as credited authors of one work each. SFE formerly reported them as pseudonyms of Denis Hughes, retracted recently and ten years ago. The alternate names and parent titles are now "undone" here, with new or updated publication, title, and author notes. Now our alternate names for Hughes correspond to the 19 pseudonyms and house names that SFE4 currently lists for his sf writings. --Pwendt|talk 10:53, 24 July 2022 (EDT)

Abortion Stories

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?307797; Copy uploaded to Archive.org last month; rare book, WorldCat has only 2 University copies and 1 Library of Congress copy, so this is very welcome. I assume the upload was made to capitalize on the recent pro-life ruling. Anyway, that "Order of the Virgin Mothers" is a story but was reprinted in a book of plays, and looking at Google's copy it is a play. So I think they need separating. --Username 18:34, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

Display of cover images on submission review pages tweaked

The software that displays cover images on submission review pages -- New Publication, Edit Publication, Merge COVERART Titles, Variant COVERART Title, etc -- has been fixed to produce valid HTML. For cover images associated with existing publication records, you can still go to the pub record by clicking the image. If you notice anything unusual, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 15:01, 23 June 2022 (EDT)

"Adult" Fantastic Fiction

https://www.ffadultsonly.com/; Part of fantasticfiction.com, but when I tried to replace cover here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?875156, I got yellow warning about non-ISFDB site. Did anyone ever ask about whether this sister site could be made ISFDB-friendly like its parent? Also, while cancelling my edit, I noticed that the note about Levinson possibly being the author seems to be wrong, since it was reprinted as part of the Gardner Francis Fox Library, https://www.gardnerfrancisfoxlibrary.com/cherry-delight-27-man-who-was-god-glen-chase-gardner-f-fox. --Username 09:43, 24 June 2022 (EDT)

They Return At Evening

https://www.etsy.com/listing/771875662/first-edition-they-return-at-evening; I couldn't find a clear photo of contents page so I could enter page #'s but that Etsy link shows it's H.R., not H. Russell. His record here is a mess, with many title and name variants, some like these probably a mistake, so someone with access to most or all of his collections in their various editions could probably do a major clean-up. I left a note on the page of the editor who entered these under the wrong name, but I don't hold out much hope for him doing anything about it. EDIT: He did something about it. --Username 21:35, 25 June 2022 (EDT)

Chris Curry / Tamara Thorne

https://www.thehorrorzine.com/Fiction/July2022/TamaraThorne/TamaraThorne.html; The Horror Zine publishes online monthly and includes a story from a genre veteran but doesn't usually mention when they're reprints, which is most of the time. "The Lady Who Lost Her Head" is on ISFDB from Grue Magazine in 1987 as by Chris Curry. There's no mention that they're the same person, and so that story and those other Curry works all need variants now, right? EDIT: Thorne says 1957 but Curry says 1954; another problem. --Username 17:29, 28 June 2022 (EDT)

French Soul Catcher

https://archive.org/details/lepreneurdames0000herb; I did some edits for English-language editions of Frank Herbert's book but noticed this French edition which seems to be earlier than the one on ISFDB, in case any French-fluent editors want to enter it. EDIT: Also, https://archive.org/details/dunetome100pock, whose ISBN only matches much later editions from a different publisher but uses the same cover art and has the later publisher's name on the cover (?). It's also stamped Sausalito Public Library, so apparently there was a thirst for French-language editions of Dune in California at some point. --Username 20:38, 29 June 2022 (EDT)

David St. Clair

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?4619; He wrote a lot of dopey non-fiction books in the 70s and 80s about psychic powers and exorcisms and whatnot, but the etsy.com page I just found for his 1989 book Bloodline says he's turning his hand to fiction. Mine to Kill's Corgi ed., https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/91790613, says "true account" on the cover and the cover of The Devil Rocked Her Cradle on ISFDB also says "account". They're non-fiction (although the Bart ed. of Mine To Kill on ISFDB has different copy on the cover that tries to make it look like a novel) and so probably should be deleted; he's certainly not above-the-threshold. --Username 08:55, 1 July 2022 (EDT)

Reviews by Dave Langford (alternate name)

The summary bibliography for alternate name Dave Langford lists more than 100 Reviews.

And it does not display the note "Alternate Name. See: David Langford (or view all titles published using this alternate name)" that I expect to see.

Meanwhile, for David Langford, I see no way to "toggle" from the default view to one that lists only works we know to be published under that canonical name. Is that a feature we have lost? or (more likely, yes, of course) a phantom memory of some years-ago wishful thought? --Pwendt|talk 13:18, 1 July 2022 (EDT)

When all titles under a pseudonym are already varianted to the canonical name, the page remains empty of titles and the software will display "Alternate Name. See: David Langford (or view all titles published using this alternate name)". If there are still titles not yet varianted, as with all these White Dwarf reviews, it will display only "Used As Alternate Name By: David Langford", so all these reviews will need to be varianted to David Langford. AFAICR I think it has always been this way. ;) PeteYoung 09:23, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

That's right. Spot checking some of the "Dave Langford" reviews, I see that they come from recently entered "White Dwarf" issues, e.g. White Dwarf, December 1984, which was entered on 2022-05-08. They just need to be varianted. Ahasuerus 12:04, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

Science Fiction Encyclopedia Links

I have been working on this project, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/sfe3_authors.cgi. About half of the original task is done but many of the remaining entries are matches on pseudonyms and I am not sure what is the best way to process them, if at all. swfritter 16:15, 1 July 2022 (EDT)

SFE's pseudonym stubs can still be useful as sources of pseudonym attribution, so I would link them on our side. If we have the same pseudonym on file, then I would add its SFE link under the pseudonym record. If we don't have the pseudonym -- which can happen for non-genre pseudonyms -- I would add it to the canonical name. Ahasuerus 12:19, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

That was my inclination. It is kind of nice to see items disappear from the list after they have been processed.--swfritter 16:15, 3 July 2022 (EDT)

Keep in mind that, as the report header says, "this report lets moderators ignore SFE author URLs." Once you have a list of SFE author pages which we don't need to link to, please feel free to post it here and a moderator will "ignore" them. Ahasuerus 21:47, 3 July 2022 (EDT)

Meanwhile, I am taking a little Covid break. Not severe, but I definitely have a little Covid fog.--swfritter 16:15, 1 July 2022 (EDT)

Sorry to hear that! Hopefully things will get better soon and it won't have any side effects. Ahasuerus 12:19, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

Just on the subject of that report, could it be extended to look for SFE links associated with records other than authors? This link is currently at #1633 in the list, and I'd added it to the relevant series page ages ago, but it still shows up in the report. I guess non-author SFE pages are less important to get in the database, but it would seem preferable to add them where relevant, rather than mark them as ignored, I'd have thought?

(Although I do note that the SFE link on this series page - which I'd previously moved from an author page to the series, as the author/editor in question now has a proper SFE page - doesn't show on the report, so maybe things are more complicated than I thought? ErsatzCulture 13:02, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

There are a couple of things to consider here.

First, the ISFDB/SFE reconciliation report is supposed to be rebuilt nightly by scanning the SFE categories listed on this SFE page of "people" categories: artist, author, critic, etc. Their full list of categories includes awards, comics, fandom-related entries, films, games, etc. Once we catch up with the "people" categories, we can explore other categories. "Award" looks particularly promising. "Game" may also be of interest since we have quite a few fiction series based on game worlds.

Second, SFE's recent (October 2021) migration from HTTP to HTTPS required certain software changes on our side. Some were easy to implement, but others can't be put into effect until we upgrade our server. This means that we are working with an out of date version of SFE's data. (We'll be able to catch up once our server migration is finished.) Since I don't see https://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/star_trek_picard listed as part of a "people category", I assume that it comes from an older version of the SFE data. Ahasuerus 15:49, 2 July 2022 (EDT)

Red Skel(e)ton

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?326759; Someone uploaded a copy of this anthology to Archive.org in 2015; the first author's last name was misspelled, and Supernatural Index where contents were entered from by previous editor spells it properly, so I assume it was just a mistake and I fixed it. More importantly, the title page seems to suggest the title should be Red Skeleton (or maybe Red Skel(e)ton), and it is Skeleton in many places on the web; what do you think? Also, there is much (creepy) interior art; does anyone know if it's also by the cover artist? --Username 11:32, 4 July 2022 (EDT)

I think it should be "Skeleton". Note that LOC has it that way. Also, if you look at the scan, both the title page and the running headers spell it Skeleton with the second "e" slightly lighter and dropped a bit, but still clearly "Skeleton". --MartyD 11:52, 4 July 2022 (EDT)

Yellow Mark

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5352499; Does anyone know if that URL can be fixed in order not to display that warning? I entered the other Sunset book by Jakes, Brak, with an Amazon cover that's not so good but at least there was one, but this audiobook's cover could only be found by me on Goodreads and it does start with an Amazon URL but mod apparently doesn't agree, although there are countless cover images on ISFDB with the same warning and yet their covers still display properly. I prefer to save uploading covers to Wiki for rare books, or those with badly scanned or damaged covers, neither of which applies in this case. --Username 11:53, 4 July 2022 (EDT)

I suggest you ping Ahasuerus. It could be the validator needs a little tweaking. It probably doesn't like the periods in the "compressed.photo.goodreads.com" part -- usually periods separate Amazon's formatting directives -- but that's just a Male Answer Syndrome WAG. --MartyD 18:43, 4 July 2022 (EDT)

Our software currently recognizes one stable pattern for Amazon-hosted "S" image URLs: *.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/ followed by 26 letters or digits and ending with ".gif", ".png" or ".jpg".

The "S" URL linked above is "images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327999593i/9621932.jpg", which is very different from what's expected. Do we know if this pattern is supported by Amazon? Ahasuerus 18:54, 4 July 2022 (EDT)

The link does work. I have never seen one like it. I spent a little quality Google time trying to find an alternative Amazon path for it, but I was unsuccessful. --MartyD 07:19, 5 July 2022 (EDT)

Oh, I know that it works, I am just wondering if it's officially supported. We've run into stability issues with unsupported Amazon URLs in the past -- "here today, gone tomorrow". Ahasuerus 09:00, 5 July 2022 (EDT)

"Publications with Invalid Page Numbers" updated

The cleanup report "Publications with Invalid Page Numbers" has been updated to look for invalid values after the pipe character. Once the report is rerun tomorrow morning, it should list 388 publications. Ahasuerus 12:32, 5 July 2022 (EDT)

2022-07-05 -- server problems

The ISFDB server is currently experiencing system issues and "leaking" disk space. It appears to be the same problem that we ran into a couple of months ago and that had to be fixed by the hosting company. At the rate things are going, we will run out of space within a couple of hours.

I have notified Al and hope that the issue will be resolved later today. Ahasuerus 12:35, 5 July 2022 (EDT)

The server finally ran out of disk space around 5:30am this morning. The hosting company fixed the issue a few minutes ago. Everything should be back up. Please post here if you come across any problems. Ahasuerus 10:08, 6 July 2022 (EDT)

$5.95

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Username#The_Summer_Meadows; Can someone look at this and approve my edit? I'm tired of arguing. --Username 17:01, 6 July 2022 (EDT)

It was approved very soon after I wrote this, but I think that was just in the normal run of things, not as a result of my message. I'm still curious about whether I was imagining things, or does anyone else see what I saw? There's no Delacorte PB and searching Google's copy brings up $5.95, right? --Username 12:58, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

I saw the $5.95, but I wouldn't have been able to figure out that the snippet was showing the price from a flap. FWIW, a Google shows plenty of resellers calling it a hardcover, as well as a Reginald bibliography on Google Books calling it "cloth". An entry on AbeBooks calls it hardcover, talks about the dust jacket condition, and has some pictures, although the pictures do not include anything that definitively show the format. So, given all of that, it seems likely Google Books' metadata is mistaken. --MartyD 10:39, 8 July 2022 (EDT)

I happen to agree that $5.95 is the price for the hardcover. I agree because of information provided subsequent to the edit. However, the publication note still says only 'Price found in search of Google Books copy. I find that statement incomplete at best. Note, I did not reject it, I released it so another moderator could review it. John Scifibones 11:14, 8 July 2022 (EDT)

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/21/archives/new-novel-by-leland-frederick-cooley-607-pp-new-york-avon-paper-175.html; https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/01/archives/a-listing-of-recently-published-books-fiction-general.html. Yes, $5.95 IS the price of the hardcover. There's 2 mentions of it linked above. I saw those first, didn't want to enter 2 links, and found the price in the Google copy, which is preferable because I'm sure the New York Times was just as capable of wrong info as anyone else, but when you see $5.95 in print on an actual scan of a physical copy when you do a search on Google, you can't dispute that; pics don't lie. If you'd like to add those 2 Times links to the record so it's more complete, you're free to do that. --Username 11:30, 8 July 2022 (EDT)

John Farris birthdate

It was pointed out on Twitter that ISFDB has today as a birthdate for him, but Wikipedia (and also IMDB) has the 26th. I looked through the Wikipedia history and talk pages, but couldn't see anything that might explain the discrepancy, other than the possibility of confusion with a different John Farris, but that one doesn't have any DOB info on Wikipedia, so that doesn't seem an especially likely explanation.

Does anyone know any more about this author, or is it something that will just have to be acknowledged in the note, but leaving the DOB field as-is. Having a month and day-of-month of the same number makes me suspect the data here is more likely to be incorrect (e.g. typo or date format mismatch), but I don't think that's enough to justify changing the value in the field. ErsatzCulture 14:23, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

The Prezi page says "Born July seventh, 1936". Judging by the edit history, that page is likely the source for our date. See [6]. The "blackleatherrequired" site only has/had 1936. Searching on https://www.missouribirthindex.com/ for Farris between 1935 and 1937 give "JOHN LEE FARRIS 07/26/1936". While that's not an official Missouri government site, it looks fairly authoritative to me. --MartyD 10:23, 8 July 2022 (EDT)

Thanks for doing way more detective work than I could even have considered! I've updated the author record, adding a note about the contrary date in the Prezi. ErsatzCulture 16:52, 11 July 2022 (EDT)

Long Dash

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?24550; Not merged like they should be because of that dumb dash being entered 2 different ways. --Username 15:21, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

Why Don't They Just Use Words?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?119003; So it turns out this dude, Brian Ames, wrote a ton of fiction including much that's not on ISFDB because it was published in literary/online zines, and had a weird old site, tendollardog.com, with a huge list (last archived link in 2009) of his works, so I'm going to add it here soon. I added links to 2 stories from mytholog.com, apparently a popular site once that ended in 2007 but is still archived online, but I just couldn't find that reprint of his All Hallows story "Several Appearances of Stuart" in Whispering Spirits, another once-popular online site that published PDF's of each issue, it seems, but changed their bloody URL so many times (Ralan says their old defunct site was whisperingghosts.com, which is weird because that's NOT THE TITLE OF THE MAGAZINE), including a Geocities site and a domain called dragynspice.com (*puke*). If anyone can extract any stories beyond the scant couple I found on Archive.org and can locate Ames' story, that would be great. The issue here, though, is that 1 of his stories was written using the old "write the title using graphics" BS, and in this case his 2002 story with the random symbols for a title was reprinted in his 2004 collection, but whoever entered it here decided to title it "grey blob". Now, I was going to variant, but changed my mind. So would anyone like to decide which title is more suitable and merge or whatever is needed? If you hover over the 2002 title it says "Circle with Vertical Fill". --Username 19:07, 8 July 2022 (EDT)

Blue Star

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?28465; I added a sweet Amazon cover for the Moorcock book and decided to enter publisher's address since it's in a photo; that 2021 book obviously isn't the same as the 70's books, but all I see in every edition on Amazon is Crystal Star. So if anyone can actually find a title page that says Blue Star it could be changed in some way to differ it from the old publisher; if not, it just needs changing to Crystal Star. --Username 14:00, 9 July 2022 (EDT)

Peter (Andrew) Jones

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?26793; These are orphaned because editors didn't variant titles and name to Peter Jones, but it's not a guarantee that all are by the same Peter Jones, being a very common name, so if anyone knows for sure about any of them they should be made variants. --Username 10:41, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

While Peter Jones is a common name, Peter Andrew Jones is less common. Peter Jones is our canonical name for Peter Andrew Jones so extremely likely anything under Peter Andrew Jones is the same Jones. All the covers are consistent with Jones' style as well. I have varianted them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:23, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

"Publications with Invalid Prices" tweaked

The cleanup report "Publications with Invalid Prices" has been tweaked to ignore legal prices like "£0.075" and "$0.125". Ahasuerus 13:16, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

2022-07-10 -- more server problems

The disk space "leak" which we ran into on July 5/6 is back. At the current rate we will run out of disk space in a few hours. I have contacted Al. Ahasuerus 13:18, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

7:15pm update. We are still leaking disk space, although slower than this morning. At this rate the server may run out of space either overnight or tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 19:18, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

After a couple of rocky hours between 4am and 5:30am, things seem to be back to normal. Fingers crossed. Ahasuerus 05:52, 11 July 2022 (EDT)

"My Pending/Recently Approved/Rejected/Errored Out" lists tweaked

The following Web pages:

have been limited to the last 3 months for performance reasons. We may be able to lift these restrictions once we upgrade the database engine. Ahasuerus 19:16, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

For me the report "My Pending Edits" is suddenly empty --a change this hour, or nearly so-- without new listings atop "My Recent Edits".

The current number of pending edits by all editors (not held by a moderator) is 431, up from 426. --Pwendt|talk 19:20, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

Address bar displays ~/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+N (Pending) or ~/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+I (Recent). --Pwendt|talk 19:22, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 19:38, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

Fixed. The 3 month limit should only apply to the "My Recent Edits" page from now on. Thanks for reporting the problem! Ahasuerus 19:49, 10 July 2022 (EDT)

Russian Warren

https://fantlab.ru/art1391; I've been adding edits for various Jim Warren-related things, and that page lists a bunch of Russian books with his art, but many of the covers I recognize from other books, or, in the case of that "pair of eyes with a woman's face on top" cover, from the poster of the G. Romero/D. Argento 1990 anthology film Two Evil Eyes. All the English-language covers are credited on ISFDB, but several edits could probably be made from the Russian ones for people fluent in that language. The 1996 cover is from Stuart Friedman's Maniac, for example, while the first 1997 cover uses the hourglass art from R. Karl Largent's Black Death, but the woman in the background isn't on that cover, so maybe they stole from multiple covers at the same time for some of these books, although she appears on the back cover, too, so maybe she was some kind of Russian horror personality or something (poor late Richard Laymon is also on the back cover, with a photo that couldn't look any less scary for a horror author). A bonus is that some of these Russian entries include American covers that aren't elsewhere on FantLab, with some including the original art used for the covers. I have no idea why the Deathwalker cover keeps appearing under Stephen King's books, though. --Username 14:10, 11 July 2022 (EDT)

FantLab editors have done a great deal of work figuring out which artists' art has been "reused without permission" by Russian publishers. For example, consider this 2003 translation of David Zindell's The Lightstone. The cover is a fusion of paintings originally produced by Mónica Pasamón, Jerry Vanderstelt and Donald Clavette. It's a headache to sort out... Ahasuerus 14:54, 11 July 2022 (EDT)

Elvis Is Alive!

"John Farris' 2004 collection from Babbage Press, [84], is rare, with only 2 copies on Worldcat. I ordered it from interlibrary loan a few years ago so it definitely exists, but I noticed it had no page #'s entered on ISFDB, and couldn't find anywhere online that shows the contents page so I could enter them. However, in searching I stumbled across the fact that it was reprinted under a different title in 2020, https://www.amazon.com/No-Sin-Unpunished-John-Farris-ebook/dp/B08G892JNN. So anyone with an Amazon account who can access the entire e-book may want to enter all the info on ISFDB; there's a few stories in there that are hard to find anywhere else. Also, if anyone owns the Babbage edition (HA!) it would be good to enter the page #'s, too." The above was cut-and-pasted from a message I left sometime last year (I knew I had written about this book before but couldn't find it until I searched for the title), and today after seeing John Farris' birth date fixed by others here I decided to do some edits for his books, which surprisingly are still missing many editions/have incorrect or missing info. While doing so I came across a single copy of Elvisland on eBay, with a welcome photo of the contents page, so I've entered the page #'s. However, in typical Babbage fashion their proofreading was crap, and the next-to-last story has a page # lower than the story preceding it. Also, WorldCat had a page count much lower than entered here, and an ancient review on sfsite.com agreed, so I fixed that, too. So now someone needs to verify from an actual copy if all the page #'s and the page count are correct. Anyone? No Sin Unpunished hasn't been entered by anyone yet, either, and I see that 1 story from 2005, "Bloody Mary Morning", was not in Elvisland and the title story seems to be original. --Username 21:30, 11 July 2022 (EDT)

Bad Voltage

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?6372; I just made some edits moving Potter's credit over to the second entry, replaced the unstable cover image, fixed dates, etc., so there's really no need for the first entry anymore. Not sure why it was entered because other entry was done in 2007, a couple of years earlier. --Username 13:50, 12 July 2022 (EDT)

Goldsteins

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=goldstein&type=Name; Steve, Steven L. and Steven Lawrence Goldstein all seem to be the same guy. --Username 18:03, 12 July 2022 (EDT)

Return of the Living Dead

https://archive.org/search.php?query=return-of-the-living-dead%20russo&and[]=mediatype%3A%22texts%22; Someone uploaded that Hamlyn edition a few days ago, but in Hamlyn's typical fashion there's no indication of what printing it is; they just liked releasing the same book with different covers. I'm sure Brit PB experts will know. Also, that Undead book revealed the sweet cover art credit on the back cover, so I entered that in the e-book edition (TP was never entered here). More importantly, I saw here, https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/2325/return-living-dead, the suggestion that Russo re-wrote the book after the 1985 film version came out, so that version may be a novelization, but writers at that Vault link seem confused about whether the Hamlyn edition with the cover recently uploaded was the rewritten version or whether it was the Arrow edition, and both the Hamlyn on ISFDB and the Arrow have the same page count, which seems unlikely if he re-wrote the book. So there might be some further investigation needed. --Username 19:12, 12 July 2022 (EDT)

Rewrite of submission review pages underway

The way the ISFDB software displays submission review pages is a holdover from an earlier era. The code is convoluted and inefficient, which makes it hard to add new features or fix existing problems.

I am currently in the middle of a rewrite which will require multiple patches to complete. If you see submission review pages behaving in wrong or unusual ways, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 10:08, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

I just tried to edit the DAW publisher page (see item below) and on clicking submit on the edit page, I'm linked to [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/submission_review.cgi?5363605 which just says "Moderator privileges are required for this option". (NB: this is just to submit an edit, not to self-approve it.) Sidebar says I'm logged in as me. (This was around 15:45 BST (GMT+1) if you need to trace any logs) ErsatzCulture 10:49, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

EDIT: I see that my 2 attempts to submit this (5363603 & 5363605) do appear in my Pending Edits page, so the edits have been accepted, and (presumably) submission_review.cgi is bombing out after that point. If I click on one of those edits, I can see the detail (view_submission.cgi), but when I click on the self-approver view link, I go to submission_review.cgi and the same error as previously mentioned. ErsatzCulture 11:03, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

Thanks, investigating... Ahasuerus 11:23, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

I have patched the code. Could you please give it another try and see if it fixed the problem? Ahasuerus 11:44, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

I've just submitted a new version of the edit to the DAW page, and was able to accept it as part of the regular self-approver workflow.

Something that I only just noticed, is that there seems/seemed to be some weirdness with the diffing logic on view_submission.cgi. If you go to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5363605 , it doesn't show any changes. DON'T CLICK ON THE XML LINK FOR THAT EDIT!! If you look at my slightly earlier attempt at that edit http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5363603 it was also not showing any changes. However, I clicked on the XML view to see if that had my edits, which it did, but when I went back to the submission view, those changes were now showing in the diff. I assume there's something behind-the-scenes that explains that, and presumably the lack of anyone else reporting problems means this hasn't had wide impact, but editors, especially self-approvers, might want to double check their edits have been properly processed? ErsatzCulture 11:58, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

This is odd. Submission review pages and "Raw XML dump" pages are not supposed to affect each other; they load data directly from the database. I have looked at the linked submissions and couldn't see the differences between the view_submission.cgi representation of the data and the dumpxml.cgi representation. I am not sure what could be responsible for the behavior that you described :-( Ahasuerus 12:11, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

It looks like my second submission lost my edits (due to somewhat-known back button behaviour on edit pages), which would explain how things look right now. Hopefully this is all solved - I've done a couple of AddPubs in the mean time, and they were both fine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ErsatzCulture (talk • contribs) .

DAW ownership

DAW has just been bought out by a Chinese publisher - paywalled PW story PR statement in Twitter thread. Whilst reading up on the background behind this, I note that the publisher note states "DAW is currently a division of Penguin Group (USA)". Whilst I might have edited that to switch to the past tense, as far as I can tell, that's isn't/wasn't a true statement?

Wikipedia says "Although it has a distribution relationship with Penguin Group and is headquartered in Penguin USA's offices in New York City, DAW is editorially independent and closely held by its current publishers, Betsy Wollheim (Donald's daughter) and Sheila E. Gilbert."
The acquisition statement linked above also says they were a private company & were "partnered with and distributed by PRH"

Anyone care to edit that note accordingly? (As someone on the other side of the Atlantic from where DAW operates, I don't feel knowledgeable enough about them to change things.) FWIW The bit about them being a division of Penguin seems to have been in since before 2010/the edit history records. ErsatzCulture 10:33, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

I suspect that "partnered with" can cover a variety of arrangements. I also note that the press release quoted by Tor says:

...we will be the sole SFF imprint of their company (a first for DAW).

which seems to suggest that they considered themselves a Penguin "imprint" prior to being purchased by Astra Publishing.

Given this ambiguous language, I think we'll want to quote the sources of our information about the prior ownership structure explicitly. Ahasuerus 12:01, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

I've now expanded the note in the DAW entry to reword the stuff about the Penguin relationship, and to add that Betsy Wollheim & Sheila Gilbert had been running it after the senior Wollheims, and to note the Astra buyout. More than happy if someone else wants to take a crack at tweaking it further. ErsatzCulture 12:27, 16 July 2022 (EDT)

Bill Gates

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?150983; I remember adding that appropriate photo a long time ago, but today came across this randomly and the name seems weird. Why is there a period after the III, and shouldn't III be after the other names? --Username 13:02, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

Richard Powers Portuguese Cover?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?16229; I imported the Galaxy edition's cover art to the 2 Wildside editions, but that Regresso edition clearly uses some of it while adding a stupid-looking green bird or whatever that is. So I don't know if Powers' credit belongs in that, too. --Username 17:47, 13 July 2022 (EDT)

Psychos Page Count

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?35077; I've been replacing unstable covers for Robert Bloch books and the HC edition of this has just been replaced with a cover that actually looks a lot better, but I think I recall asking about the page count some time ago; is the HC really much lower than the Pocket editions or is HC the same and someone got the wrong info from some website? Someone here may own a copy. --Username 13:51, 14 July 2022 (EDT)

PLEASE upgrade ISFDB to SSL meaning https:

Hi... I don't know where else to post this... I'm John T. Cullen (John Argo, Jean Cullen) and I have been active on the Web since 1996. I have had a number of websites up for more than 20 years. In the past few years, I finally figured out how to apply SSL (Secure Socket Layer) to my websites. That changes the domain names from http: to https: and it is a major, important upgrade. I am shocked that the ISFDB domain name address (http://www.isfdb.org/) has not yet been upgraded. PLEASE! it is so easy to do, and so important. ISFDB is a tremendously important resource to all of us in this business, including authors, editors, and webmasters to name just a few. PLEASE somebody start working on this issue... it will only take a few hours to install & make active. Thank you! JTC anchor site: https://www.johntcullen.com

Yes, it is important, because of all the intellectual property theft from China and elsewhere, to make even the most casual site protected, much less a major site like this one. I'm not a mod, but I'm sure someone will heed your advice soon. Also, your author photo was blurry and a hat covered part of your face, so I replaced it (pending approval) with a "John Argo" Amazon photo of you, hatless, wearing a colorful shirt and holding a glass of champagne outdoors. Where was that taken? It looks lovely; I wish I was there now. P.S. Don't forget to sign your messages here by clicking the next-to-last symbol on the row above. --Username 08:39, 15 July 2022 (EDT)

Glad to hear that you find the ISFDB database to be an important resource! The site administrators are very much aware of the need to upgrade to HTTPS and have been working on it since late 2021. Unfortunately, it's not a straightforward process since our site uses complex software. It took months of work to upgrade everything and we are now testing the results on our public-facing test server, isfdb2.org. There is no ETA at this time. Ahasuerus 11:02, 15 July 2022 (EDT)

Macrae Smith

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?577858; I did some edits for Macrae-Smith Company books, and there was one Co. entry, the one linked above, which I added Archive link to and fixed the publisher's name, but there's no dash between the words so I entered it that way. Online photos of title pages of the other books by them online suggest that someone saw dots between the words in publisher's name and thought it was a dash. So if anyone can verify that all half-dozen Macrae-Smith books on ISFDB have no dash then they, plus book linked above, will all be under the same publisher. --Username 10:27, 15 July 2022 (EDT)

Marie Belloc Lowndes Titles

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?19896; Her collection is actually titled IN Terror across all editions so I fixed that, but 1 of her novels contains no Out in the original Brit ed. (title page on Google) so changing that would require unmerging and such, in case anyone wants to do that. The Timmy novel seems to have the same title in all editions, because there's a not-on-ISFDB Doran American ed. on Archive.org with the same title. --Username 00:55, 16 July 2022 (EDT)

Leisure Trade Paperback?!?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?50607; This book didn't have a cover until I added it and got it approved today, but the mod then made their own edit changing format to TP. Leisure was a low-rent paperback publisher, they didn't do trade paperbacks. I just did an advanced search for Leisure Books and TP format and out of nearly 700 books by the publisher a grand total of 2 books came up, this one that was just changed and a $1.50 Charles Berlitz Atlantis non-fiction book, which is also likely not a TP. --Username 15:00, 16 July 2022 (EDT)

"Adult" Book Notes

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?651649; So some time ago I added price to this book with a note, then added Wikipedia page, then added at least one of those external ID, and recently I added a note about the face on the cover not being some random art but rather the male star of the film, and then made another edit about there being 2 film photos on the back cover. From past experience ISFDB can't handle entering new info in an edit if the same field had info entered in a previous edit that hasn't been approved yet, as can be inferred from the fact that a mod approved the edit with the face info but then the photo info edit was left hanging for a while, with whoever looked at it probably wondering why this guy wanted to erase the info he previously wrote, which of course I had no intention of doing. I even tried to trick ISFDB this time because when I entered the first edit I did so on a separate line in the note box, but for the second edit I placed the info on the same line as my price info done some time ago. It didn't work. So now I've had to enter another edit adding back the erased info about the face. Is there a way to enter info without it erasing previous info? I sometimes find new info to enter while a previous edit is still in the queue, and don't like to wait for the first edit to be approved because it often takes so long to get to it in my usually very long list of edits that by the time it's approved I forget to enter the next set of info. --Username 19:28, 16 July 2022 (EDT)

Submissions operate on a "field-by-field" basis. Only changed field values are recorded when submissions are created. For example, suppose I create two Edit Publication submissions for the same publication record. We'll call them Submission A and Submission B. Submission A changes the price value from "$5.99" to "$7.99". Submission B changes the Catalog ID value from "D-272" to "D-273". Since only these two changed values will be stored in the submission records, the two submissions won't overlap and can be approved in any order.

On the other hand, if Submission A changes the price value from "$5.99" to "$7.99" and Submission B changes it from "$5.99" to "$8.99", the approval order becomes important. Whichever submission is approved last will trump the other submission.

The same logic applies to Note fields. Whichever submission is approved last is the one that takes effect. If you create a submission which adds a sentence to the Note field of some record and then create another submission affecting the same Note field, the last approved submission will take effect. It would be safer to cancel the first submission, which can be done on "My Pending Edits" page, and create a new one. Ahasuerus 08:13, 17 July 2022 (EDT)

Flies on the Wall

This Alex Hamilton collection, which seems not to have been published in America unlike his earlier collection Beam of Malice (although that edition isn't on ISFDB), is rare and I did a lot of edits months ago piecing together the contents from searching the Google Books copy, discovering a contents listing online was missing 1 of the stories, finding a single copy on eBay so I could enter the price, uploading the full cover, etc. Today I randomly saw it on Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/fliesonwall0000hami); turns out someone uploaded it last month. Damn it. Anyway, most of the stories were collected in his bumper collection from Ash-Tree in 2007, but for some reason it seems his 1966 story "End of the Road" wasn't included and the original story "Fall" wasn't, either. So there's a couple of reasons this book is still valuable. Also, it's a good thing the eBay copy was complete because this copy is price-clipped, with an adorable little cut on the bottom of the front flap. --Username 11:03, 17 July 2022 (EDT)

French Vincent O'Sullivan

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1818259; Anyone know why this story, which is "When I Was Dead" in English, isn't a variant of that story, and why the anthologist is listed as a co-author? --Username 20:47, 17 July 2022 (EDT)

See Here

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?88940; "See" note may not be needed now that I've added the full cover, but there's so much tag stuff I don't know what to delete. --Username 10:41, 18 July 2022 (EDT)

Thirty Seconds Over New York

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19266963W/Thirty_Seconds_Over_New_York; Anyone know what edition this is? I don't see this cover on eBay or in Google Images. The Collins edition which has no cover on ISFDB is online and it looks nothing like this. --Username 14:38, 18 July 2022 (EDT)

Orchids for Doc

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?196373; Supposedly unpublished, but there is a WorldCat page that has a cover unrelated to the title, https://www.worldcat.org/title/orchids-for-doc-the-literary-adventures-and-autobiography-of-robert-aw-doc-lowndes/oclc/27728655, in case any old SF experts can do anything with this info. --Username 19:51, 18 July 2022 (EDT)

Birthing Person

A British author named Rodney Hyde-Thompson (can't get more British than that) wrote a 1972 HC novel called The Alternative about A MAN WHO GETS PREGNANT, and it was quickly released in America as a cheap Warner PB with sweet cover art and the usual comparison to Rosemary's Baby, followed (preceded?) by a British Sphere PB retitled Black Marriage, with a photo cover showing a man sitting in a rocking chair, wearing makeup and a dress, holding a baby doll in his arms. The Warner PB was on Archive.org so I entered that, the Sphere has an Amazon page and a WorldCat record so I entered as much info as I could from those, but the HC really needs a print copy handy to enter info from; the Warner PB doesn't even mention it was previously published in England. Anyone have a copy? Also, if any mods read this, can you approve those 2 edits before my hundreds of others, because I saw on eBay that the ISBN is on the spine, which of course can't be seen on the Archive.org copy. I'd like to enter that info before I forget. EDIT: Approved, and it only took 3 days. Thanks for the quick response; I really appreciate it. The ISBN has now been added so I can finally delete my bookmark of the eBay photo with the spine. --Username 11:29, 19 July 2022 (EDT)

The Collected Stories of Philip D. Dick

Looking at the edit history, this one has had 4 different editors/mods eyes on it, including a seemingly-inactive PVer, so I'm a tad wary of unilaterally fixing the apparent typo in the title without getting any second opinions.

Also, the mod note on the original edit which stated This edition was on Amazon.com US for a few weeks, where I bought it, before disappearing from their site. There was no publisher listed, and no ISBN. It feels like this - with slight wording tweaks - should probably be in the pub note, unless anyone objects? (That this pub is no longer available makes it harder to verify if the typo is/was genuinely in the pub, of course.) ErsatzCulture 10:18, 20 July 2022 (EDT)

Dave is probably going to show up from somewhere soon-ish :) If you want to add the note, go ahead. See also this for a conversation on other details on the thing. I am pretty sure the D. is a DB typo based on the long discussion we had on my page about it. Annie 12:50, 20 July 2022 (EDT)

You weren't kidding about the length of that thread ;-) I'll make the tweaks I proposed if there hasn't been any other feedback/dissenting opinion here in the next few days. ErsatzCulture 16:38, 20 July 2022 (EDT)

Internet Archive

https://blog.archive.org/2022/07/08/internet-archive-seeks-summary-judgment-in-federal-lawsuit-filed-by-publishing-companies; I've warned about this a few times before on these boards, but now it seems they're really getting serious. The Archive has always had a questionable practice of allowing any and every book, including hundreds of thousands of non-public domain titles, to be on their site, similar to YouTube and other sites. So it would be a major blow to this site if all those books weren't available anymore to add info from, not to mention to people who just like to read the books. So this is something to keep an eye on. Or is this something they go through regularly and it won't amount to anything? --Username 13:00, 20 July 2022 (EDT)

Canonical Name Change KC Grifant from K. C. Grifant

Any objections to making KC Grifant the canonical name and K. C. Grifant the alternate? The four titles attributed to K. C. Grifant shouldo have been credited to KC Grifant. I'll take care of the corrections when I make the change. John Scifibones 16:37, 21 July 2022 (EDT)

Sorcerer's Apprentice

https://archive.org/details/sa-016; The Wold story is on ISFDB with just a 1983 date and no note about where it came from, so I added a note about that, but philsp.com only mentions that story and the Keith Taylor article. So if anyone thinks the full contents should be entered here someone uploaded it recently. Philsp.com also mentions a #17 with a Karl Edward Wagner story but as far as I can see #16 is the only issue on Archive.org. --Username 08:22, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

I added the publication with a second article and the book reviews here. I've also been fixing the FictionMags links and adding RPGGeek links. Tom 10:56, 24 July 2022 (EDT)

Award Bibliography page - sorting by award type?

The "Award Bibliography" page currently sorts awards and nominations by year. That's fine for authors with relatively few awards, but it's not that great for more popular authors. For example, if you want to know if any of Paul J. McAuley's works have been nominated for the Hugo award, you have to search his "Award Bibliography" page for the word "Hugo", skipping false positives like the 2005 Sidewise nomination for "The 2005 Hugo Award Ceremony Script".

I am thinking that it would be helpful to split the "Award Bibliography" page into two separate pages: one by year, which would be identical to the current one, and the other one by award type, which would have separate tables for each award type, sorted by type name. Would that be an improvement? Ahasuerus 15:13, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

I'd love to be able to order that page by any of the 5 pieces of data in now shows - you have a similar issue if you are trying to find all nominations for a certain book for example (and they won't always be clustered if you sort per year because of translations and retrospective awards). So yes, having a second page grouping "per award" will be useful but having one which groups per title will also be a good idea IMO (if you are planning to do reorders anyway... :) ) Annie 15:20, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

Perhaps making the table that lists them sortable by some or all of the column headers? Would that be easy to implement? I know they have sortable tables on Wikipedia, though I haven't looked into how they are done. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:39, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

Making tables sortable is doable, but it would require some changes. For example, "Year and Award" is currently one column. We would need to split it into "Year" and "Award Type" before we could sort by award type. Also, translations and other variant titles would affect sorting by "Title", which may be better handled by creating a separate table layout.

One more thing. We have a "Statics" report for Titles Ranked by Awards and Nominations; you can limit the results by title type, decade and year. It would be nice to be able to sort author-specific titles by "award score". It would help answer questions like "What's Author X's most popular works?". Ahasuerus 15:54, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

"Work with the most awards" is not necessarily the same as "most popular work" though :) Other from that - yes - making these available on the individual authors' awards pages sounds like a good idea.

For the title sorting - that is why I did not mention making the tables sortable (if we do, we will need to pull "Original title" in its own column and that view will get too crowded and wide I think). I like our usual way of +1,+2 and so on in the address bar that we have in some other pages to switch between views and I think it can work well here as well. But either way works. Annie 17:56, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

Szélesi Sándor = Sandor Szelesi

Szélesi Sándor and Sandor Szelesi both appear on the birthdays section of the homepage today. The latter only has a single title (from a short story in a German anthology), so it would seem the second author record should be made a variant of the first one, or perhaps have the story changed to use the first author, if it looks like the latter is a data entry issue?

However, I noticed that both of the author records have "Legal Name: Szélesi, Sándor", which made me wonder if Hungarian uses <family name> <given name ordering> like Japanese. Wikipedia indicates that's the case, so I'm guessing the author records should be varianted (like we have for Cixin Liu and Liu Cixin), but a second opinion would be preferable before I start on edits about things that I don't have any expertise in.... ErsatzCulture 17:56, 23 July 2022 (EDT)

Triptych

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1157274; Someone uploaded some Cemetery Dance issues recently, and since William F. Nolan's work in #4, https://archive.org/details/cemetery-dance-4-spring-1990, was never collected in any of his many story collections I believe it should be made an essay, since he just talks about a few story ideas he's had but there's no actual story. --Username 19:04, 23 July 2022 (EDT)

@@ Line 966: / Line 966: @@
 https://archive.org/details/sa-016; The Wold story is on ISFDB with just a 1983 date and no note about where it came from, so I added a note about that, but philsp.com only mentions that story and the Keith Taylor article. So if anyone thinks the full contents should be entered here someone uploaded it recently. Philsp.com also mentions a #17 with a Karl Edward Wagner story but as far as I can see #16 is the only issue on Archive.org. --[[User:Username|Username]] 08:22, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
-: I added the publication with a second article and the book reviews [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5372039 here]. I've also been fixing the FictionMags links and adding RPGGeek links. [[User:Taweiss|Tom]] 10:56, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
+: I added the publication with a second article and the book reviews [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?907718 here]. I've also been fixing the FictionMags links and adding RPGGeek links. [[User:Taweiss|Tom]] 10:56, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
 == Award Bibliography page - sorting by award type? ==