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Lovecraft beer!

I just stumbled onto these:

and thought some of you might be amused to consider ways the Rules of Acquisition could be applied to them. :-)

Happy New Year, everyone! --MartyD 00:07, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

The site asks you if you are 21 before it lets you proceed. Oddly enough, ISFDB turns 21 this year :) Happy New Year! Ahasuerus 00:58, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

James D. Ross

Based on Amazon reviews, James D. Ross' "Charlie Moon" mysteries contain ambiguous speculative elements: the reader can choose to believe that the spirit world with which one of the characters communicates is real. Would anyone happen to be familiar with the series? Ahasuerus 17:38, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

C. L. Moore's "Trysts in Time"

I accepted a Fixer submission to add a record for this publication, which is a collection of two stories. The first title is recognizable and has been merged. The second title, "Trysts in Time" isn't in the database, but it's very likely a retitled reprint of an earlier published story. The back of the book describes it thus: "a bored adventurer sets off through time . . . and finds more than he bargained for in a beautiful woman who keeps reappearing throughout all of history!" Does anyone familiar with Moore's work recall such a story? Mhhutchins|talk 04:45, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

According to Google Books, the title page says "Greater Than Gods and Tryst in Time". The title on page 55 also reads "Tryst in Time", which we have on file. Ahasuerus 05:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll correct the Fixer-submitted title to that shown on the title page. Mhhutchins|talk 23:03, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Marcos Mongo

Will the editor who created the three chapbook records credited to Marcos Mongo please variant them (and their shortfiction content) to the actual author? If you're uncertain who the actual author is, they should be varianted to "unknown". Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 05:14, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Since the original submitter hasn't responded, I checked these out. According to Zauberspiegel, three were by Harry G. Watkins and one was by Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, so I set up pseudonyms for them. Chavey 02:35, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Tthere were only three titles when I posted the message, and the next day all three of them were varianted to "unknown" (by an unknown editor), clearing the pseudonym. I'm not sure which you're talking about. Those three titles of unknown authorship are still in the db as being unknown. Mhhutchins|talk 03:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

When I went there, there were four chapterbooks (and associated short fiction) listed under Mongo: Zaou programmiert die Wachsfigur, Nandors Leichenbande, Zaou sucht die Erde heim, and Tribunal der Finsternis. According to the Zauberspiegel link above, the first three were written by Harry G. Watkins, so I varianted them to him, and they are currently on his page, as the first three chapterbooks by him. The fourth book, Tribunal der Finsternis, is claimed by Zauberspiegel as having been written by Klaus-Dieter Schmidt under the Mongo alias. I aliased that book to Schmidt. It has since been changed so it reads that it was written by Gordon Scott, which is (apparently) the canonical alias of Klaus-Dieter Schmidt. Chavey 08:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Server downtime

The server will be brought down for maintenance at 9:30pm server time. Please note that the server is now on US Eastern Time, i.e. one hour later than what we are used to. A new patch will be installed during the downtime. Patch notes will be posted shortly thereafter. Ahasuerus 02:00, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Everything should be back up and running. Ahasuerus 02:35, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Publication Series enhancements

As per FR 842, a new field, "Transliterated Name", has been added to Publication Series records. It's a multiply occurring field, so you can add as many transliterations as necessary. The field's value(s) can be viewed vis mouse-over pop-ups on Title, Publication and regular/Advanced Search pages. Advanced Search has been modified to add support for this field. In addition, the regular Publication Series search logic has been modified to find publication series whose regular OR transliterated names match the value entered by the user. For example, if you do a search on "Biblioteka", the search results page now includes not only publication series like "Biblioteka Jaskółki" but also publication series like "Библиотека всемирной литературы".

A new cleanup report has been created and can be accessed by moderators starting tomorrow morning. It find publication series whose names contain Latin characters and which contain titles written in a non-Latin language. There are approximately 70 affected publication series and I expect to clean up most of them tomorrow. We will have to check with our Japanese-savvy editors to sort out the 10+ Japanese publication series that we have on file.

Finally, Edit Publication Series has been modified to disallow the creation of duplicate publication series names. There is a new cleanup report to find pre-existing ones.

As always, if you find anything unexpected, please post your findings here. If everything looks OK in the next day or two, I can start working on making similar changes to publishers. Ahasuerus 03:39, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

PulpTales Press

It looks like I have some cleaning up to do, and as I get my life back in order I would like to create a series like this for Pulp Tales Press when I have the time. Somebody else started the Adventure House parent series and I've been adding on to it since I started contributing to this site. I can't help but think that a parent series and such would be useful to locate Pulp Tales Press books. Not their irregular magazines, or their anthologies, just their facsimile reprints as they seem to be second only to Adventure House in reprinting old pulps and digests. There are a couple of other publishers, but somebody else can do those, or they can be left for later. I'm not sure that I'm on the right page to ask this question, but, if so, somebody could drop me a note as to whether or not I should do this. MLB 08:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Japanese publication series

If anyone can determine the original Japanese names of the following publication series:

could you please update the data? Also, if you determine that the names of some of these publication series were originally spelled using Latin characters, please post your findings here and I will remove them from the cleanup report. Ahasuerus 17:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Hayakawa SF and Hayakawa SF Shirizu are the same thing. "Shirizu" is just a (wrong) romanization of "series". The name of the series is ハヤカワ・SF (Hayakawa SF). Working on the others. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:19, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, finished through Sōgen Suiri Bunko. I'll do the others tonight or later today. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:49, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

All completed. Most are awaiting approval. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:26, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Approved, thanks! Ahasuerus 22:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I looked them over and apparently I am too late but saw no glaring issues. Yay! We now have transliterations for pub series too. I wonder if we ought to have transliteration labels too (so we can know what sorts of transliterations we have). There are different methods of transliteration within a script like Latin and I am sure you can imagine there are other transliterations like into Japanese kana and Cyrillic, etc. Thanks! Uzume 04:41, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

We had this discussion back when the first "transliterated" field was implemented. The (tentative) consensus was documented in Template:AuthorFields:TransLegalName, which basically says that multiple transliterated values should be primarily used for "multiple competing Romanization schemes" and for languages which use "multiple scripts" (Japanese, Serbian, Azerbaijani, etc.) Now that we are in the process of implementing additional "transliterated" fields, we may want to move this explanation to a separate Help page and link to it from field-specific Wiki templates.

I should note that the issue of using these fields to enter other types of transliterations (kana, Cyrillic, Arabic, etc) was mentioned. However, there was little support for it since it was felt that Romanization would be sufficient for our purposes, especially since non-Latin titles are already entered using the original script. Of course, we can always revisit the issue. Ahasuerus 16:10, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

This becomes more of a concern when deciding how to sort, e.g., official/original Japanese (i.e., names, titles, etc.) cannot normally be collated (even by native speakers) without some form or transliteration (usually to one of of either hiragana or katakana). I believe when we start to consider native canonical authority control (e.g., authors and other contributors, subject headings, etc.), we will want separate language/script based directories. For example, how does the magazine ja:奇想天外 fit into our magazine directory? Remember magazines are title records and you are already claiming we can/should be entering such things in native/original script (I know you told me that we are not ready for native canonical authors yet; perhaps that has changed?). Uzume 19:36, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Not yet. I am currently working on adding transliteration support to publishers, then it will be series, titles and authors. The last two will present certain technical challenges, but nothing insurmountable, I hope. Once that has been done and the publisher/magazine/author directories have been sorted out, we will be able to convert author names to their original script. Ahasuerus 22:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not see an entry in the magazine directory for 奇 (the Japanese would not use this either though I am not sure what the Chinese do with their magazines perhaps they collate by radicals or something) or the kana き or キ (the Japanese transliterate the title 奇想天外 to either hiragana きそうてんがい or katakana; if you go to the Wikipedia article I linked to you can clearly see both 奇想天外 and きそうてんがい at the beginning—the transliteration is there to specify its pronunciation and collation). Uzume 19:36, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree: it would be good to have some way of specifying the "sort field" for non-Latin character entries such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Cyrillic, and so on. One of the transliteration entries could be used for that, but it would need to be specified in case there was more than one transliteration. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

An interesting point. My first reaction is that there may be ways to address this issue without creating a "preferred transliteration name" field. For example, we could add all transliterated names to our main (Latin) directories as long as they start with two Latin characters. We could also create additional (Cyrillic, Japanese, etc) directories, which will automatically list primary and transliterated author/magazine/publisher names as long as the first two characters follow certain rules, e.g. they belong to the Cyrillic alphabet.

However, let me first ask you (plural "you") this: can you think of any other scenarios which may require a strict "sorting order" for names, thus necessitating a "preferred transliterated value" field? Ahasuerus 22:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure we necessarily need a preference as per se. Like you mention nothing keeps us from having a Japanese magazine with kana transliterations and Latin transliterations from appearing in both kana-based directories and Latin-based directories (and that goes for non-Japanese works, etc. too so long as the transliteration collation fields exist/are filled in). Any preference would sort itself out over time as the records get updated (so I can for example see a preference for Japanese authors and titles to be in kana-based directories but for individual cases that need not be true). My point is, right now there is no really good automated way to determine what sort of transliteration an existing transliteration is so how do we know which directories to place it in? You bring up a good point about sampling the contents (are the characters Latin, Cyrillic, kana, or something else), however I can see situations where that might not work well. If we have a kana-based directory what do we do with Japanese magazines like ja:S-Fマガジン? If you look at the Wikipedia article there is the kana エスエフマガジン (where S-F is represented by the phonetics エスエフ). Also there are complications with sampling. I know there are at least four different types of kana in the Unicode maps (katakana, hiragana and their half-width variants come to mind). I suppose this is not that different that uppercase vs. lowercase, etc. but I can see the sampling getting complex and hard to maintain (we are going to need transliteration cleanup reports and/or mod warnings when we get submissions with multiple scripts in a single collation string; official strings probably will have cases with multiple scripts in them like the magazine I mentioned before). Perhaps the best solution would be have collating fields (including transliterations) that have a collation type flag but that collation type flag is automatically generated when entered and checked to be of one particular script (so collation methodology is automatically selected by script content and such entries are checked to be of only one type at entry). I wonder if there are cases where we might want/need multiple collations for a single script (I cannot think of such but I definitely do not know every language and script). Uzume 03:42, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Interesting ideas, thanks. I will mull them over and will respond once I am no longer under the weather. Ahasuerus 15:17, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Publication series -- the last 4

The following four publication series names remain suspect:

Biblioteka Fantastika. This is a Macedonia publication series. Unlike Serbian, which can use either Cyrillic or Latin, Macedonian is generally restricted to the Cyrillic alphabet.
Klassikē Bibliothēkē Neōn. Greek.
Sareboe Samalem. Sundanese.
Wu ye wen ku. Chinese.

Any additional information about these pub series would be appreciated. Ahasuerus 22:56, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I submitted a correction for Wu ye wen ku. It was almost correct, but is now fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:24, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I think Biblioteka Fantastika would be Библиотека Фантастика in Macedonian (македонски). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:31, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

It seems likely, but I hesitate to make the change sight unseen because it's conceivable that the publisher used the Latin alphabet in this case. We have a number of Japanese and Russian pub series whose names include words like "SF"... Ahasuerus 23:40, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I checked with one of my students who speaks Macedonian, and he confirmed that it's always written in Cyrillic. I checked all of the thousand or so books from "Detska radost" that are in WorldCat, the publisher of that series, and looked at all of those where the title was given in Cyrillic, but none of them had a series title that was also in Cyrillic. Chavey 08:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for checking! I guess one option would be to change the title to "Библиотека Фантастика" and add notes to the pub series record and the pub record to the effect that further confirmation may be needed. Ahasuerus 15:09, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I think Klassikē Bibliothēkē Neōn would be Κλασσικē Βιβλιοτηēκē Νεōν in Greek. Not finding much about it, though. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow we are starting to get some esoteric stuff cataloged now. Do we have any Aramaic fairy tales or the Coptic Demotic magical texts or the like yet? Anyway these are good signs of ISFDB becoming internationalized. Uzume 05:04, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

It's all Greek to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:29, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Wilfried A. Hary = W. A. Hary

I don't understand why a pseudonym was created for this author when every work of fiction in the database is credited to W. A. Hary. Can the editor who created the pseudonym and variants please explain? This came up on a clean-up report because there are a dozen or so titles outstanding on the "pseudonym" summary page. Mhhutchins|talk 19:18, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I see your point though that is not entirely true, e.g., Expedition der Ameisen . It should be noted the Wikipedia article de:Wilfried A. Hary and the VIAF record 69481816 both say Wilfried A. Hary. It should also be noted the Wikipedia article and this die Terranauten article both claim Wilfried Antonius Hary uses the pseudonyms of W. A. Travers and Erno Fischer. Uzume 19:45, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

This seems to be the form of his name chosen for his horror fiction. The science fiction was mostly written under the fuller name (but isn't entered at this point). And the pseudonym Erno Fischer was afaik only used for fiction set in the Terranauten universe. Stonecreek 20:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

The majority of Wilfried Antonius Hary's horror stories were published W. A. Hary. I was under the assumption that science fiction was published under his true Name but a quick scan showsas Erno Fischer (Terranauten and others), W. A. Travers, W. A. Hary, Wilfried Hary and Wilfried A. Hary. The mostly used alias seems to be W. A. Hary. And as I am the culprit to variant W. A. Hary titles to the already existing true-name entry: that wasn't a very good idea in order to keep variants down. I feel we should change W. A. Hary to be the main, canonical name. Erno Fischer is definitely NOT the author's name, it is Hary. JLochhas 21:07, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I made submissions to credit Wilfried A. Hary with the outstanding W. A. Hary records. Uzume 21:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

It's better to canonize the fullest name, if there's substantial amount of work - and there should also be the occasional shortfiction under that name (apart from chapbooks). Stonecreek 21:20, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe you said his SF work was under the fuller name but it is just not cataloged here much yet. Has he written more Wilfried A. Hary SF or W. A. Hary horror, or somethings else? Uzume 21:22, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

[unindent] With hopes that eventually the work attributed to his more complete name will be added to the database, I drop my objection to the parent/pseudonym relationship. And thanks for varianting the remaining records. Mhhutchins|talk 21:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Cover images from Amazon

copy-paste by the writer 2016-01-13 from the original at User talk:Mhhutchins -Pwendt

For the Dell Yearling (imprint) edition of Peter Graves, 2nd printing 554604, i recently linked a cover image on the secure server (URL begins 'https') at Amazon, namely URL

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51OFHnt89sL.jpg

ISFDB and my browser correctly processes that URL value in order to display the thumbnail cover image correctly for me. But that is not true of the footnote which reads "Cover art supplied by images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com" and incorporates a dead link. I guess this may even violate ISFDB agreement with Amazon.

Perhaps the database interface works entirely for the insecure server ('http') ecx.images-amazon.com alone. (I see that component of URL on your user page, where it may be interpreted as an example rather than a requirement. That is why I ask you in this instance.) --Pwendt|talk 22:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

"your user page" refers or alludes to User:Mhhutchins#How to link to images on Amazon's server.

"I guess" refers or alludes to the possibility Amazon requires a footnote with a functioning link. --Pwendt|talk 21:00, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) That's curious. When I go to Amazon and pull up their page which contains this image, I see that it uses "ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OFHnt89sL._SX338_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" as the image URL. Do you recall where you found the "images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com" URL? Ahasuerus 21:13, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I see that the first and last words of the filenames on the two servers are identical (51OFHnt89sL.jpg) and from apparent scuffmarks and discoloration I infer they are images of the same book.

Easily I can provide one of my sources, ShopSwap.com [1]. I believe that I found it on more than one page that is returned by Google search 'Peter Graves: an extraordinary adventure'

--serendipity, as my purpose was to find an edition that uses the subtitle (i didn't find one clearly) or to determine that the subtitle should be deleted from the database for now (i did so, 2016-01-06 16:10:58 TitleUpdate Mhhutchins Peter Graves: An Extraordinary Adventure). --Pwendt|talk 22:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

After checking various online discussions, it would appear that "images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com" may be owned and used by Amazon. If we could confirm that, then I could update the ISFDB software to credit Amazon for any images hosted by images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com. For now it would be best to use "images-amazon.com" links since they apparently have identical information and our software already supports them. Ahasuerus 23:56, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

One week later moments ago, I submitted a revision in favor of the current standard protocol and pathname for the example publication record P554604. Not yet approved. --Pwendt|talk 00:37, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

New users experiencing problems with account creation

FYI, it looks like the server upgrade that was performed by the hosting company on New Year's Eve messed up more than we realized. New users trying to create ISFDB accounts are currently unable to have their e-mail addresses confirmed. I have started an e-mail discussion with Al. Ahasuerus 23:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Update: Al has fixed the problem. New editors should be able to receive e-mail confirmations going forward. Ahasuerus 03:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm also unable to edit my own user page; I get a notice saying "Permission error: You do not have permission to do that, for the following reason: You do not have permission to edit pages in the User namespace." Not sure if it's related to the server upgrade, but I was affected by the email issue and it seems odd that I can't edit my own page. S. Qiouyi Lu 16:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

At one point we had a fairly serious problem with spam, so we tightened up Wiki posting permissions. A new user can only edit a limited subset of Wiki pages until his or her Wiki edit count has reached a certain number. I don't want to post the actual number in case our spammer friends are reading this, but it's not very high. I would suggest giving it a few days to see if the issue resolves itself once your edit count is high enough. Ahasuerus 17:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Self-advertising (reprise)

Further to discussion last year regarding a business card to hand out at our local book sale, here's what I've opted for (without replicating centering and fonts). I figured I'd leave images off to avoid copyright issues, and colour to simplify printing if it were ever done commercially.

www.ISFDB.org

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database

A community effort to catalog works of science

fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Linking author, title, publication, awards, magazine

content, anthology and collection content.

Doug 14:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

New volume of critical essays about Heinlein

Have you worked yet on the new volume of critical essays about Heinlein? The publisher is Salem Press. The editor is Rafeeq McGiveron. It appeared in September 2015. I have an essay in the early sections of the collection about the critical reception of Heinlein's work, and would like to see it listed here. Thanks for your help. DMH Donald M. Hassler

Done, result here. Note that you may try to enter such a book by yourself, it's quite straightforward. Hauck 18:24, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Edward E. Kramer as "Nathan Elliot"

I've come across what is very likely an incorrectly attributed pseudonym that needs a little untangling. I propose removing the pseudonym "Nathan Elliot" (one t) for Edward E. Kramer – our records, probably erroneous, currently show it has been used only once by Kramer in the unverified publication More Phobias: Stories of Unparalled Paranoia for the story Jamie's Demon. However, "Nathan Elliott" (two ts) was a pseudonym used frequently by Christopher Evans, and both Wikipedia and the Writers of Wales Database show him to have written a story with this title in the same year under the name Nathan Elliott. I think these two sources provide more reliable information that what we currently have as evidence for Kramer/Elliot (which appears to be nil). Unless other editors know of a reason why the records should stay as they are I propose making the change in a few days. Thanks. PeteYoung 14:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I wish more more editors would add their sources for author information to the applicable author wiki page. The pseudonym is actually 'Eliot' (one 'l' and one 't') which matches the Locus and OCLC credits. While it's possible they both drew from the same incorrect source, I would recommend keeping the 'Eliot' credit (even if you change the pseudonym parent). -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:18, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm kinda wary about changing the pseudonym to Evans. All of the "Nathan Elliott" stories appear to be science fiction novels from the 1980s. This 1995 "Nathan Eliot" short story is horror, appearing in an anthology co-edited by Kramer. Did Evans write any horror at all? So we're comparing a single horror story of the 1990s to a series of science fiction novels from the 1980s which are differently credited. Because the names are somewhat common, I think it's going out on the limb to say they're by the same author. The Wikipedia article and Wales databaase don't appear to be definitive sources, and may have simply jumped to the same conclusion as you, that "Elliott" is "Eliot", and may have sourced each other for the data.

If we can't find a reliable source attributing the pseudonym to Kramer, I would suggest removing the relationship and keep the story credited as published, with a note. And I agree, that it would be great if ISFDB editors were required to provide sources for pseudonym attributions on a wiki author page. Mhhutchins|talk 18:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm trying to get in touch with Christopher Evans via Paul Kincaid, who may be a mutual acquaintance. A word from Evans either way should settle this. PeteYoung 00:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Christopher Evans has confirmed by email that 'Jamie's Demon' is not by him. Note added to the story, and thanks for the correct feedback, guys. PeteYoung 12:56, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

"Top 50 Forthcoming Novels of Interest" fixed

"Top 50 Forthcoming Novels of Interest" has been fixed and prettified. Unfortunately, it's based on limited data since our users tend to be interested in already published books rather than forthcoming books. Ahasuerus 01:17, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Delete Author Entry

I would like to have the mentions using my name on this site deleted and thus my entire entry deleted: I am not a public figure, the publications cited are minor contributions to minor fanzines and there is no public clamour to discover such material, and I never asked to have a presence here. Failing that, I would like to have my birth year removed from my record: it is materially injurious to my finding employment. I have searched for the method to accomplish these goals and found an archived discussion of this subject that astounded me: the mere fact that a piece of information exists on the Internet somewhere should not convey the right to collect and publish such information in a single location against the express wishes of the person who is the subject of such a collection. I hope that you will take my employment situation into account, and also reconsider the larger policy of ignoring author requests regarding their entries. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jgelb (talk • contribs) .

I'd disagree with this commentary: publishing inevitably leads any person to become a public figure. I personally wouldn't work for anybody who rejects a search for a job on grounds like that. Also, we don't publish the date of birth, only the year. That's not concrete enough to identify any person, unless it's a really uncommon name. We could move the year to the wiki pages instead, though. Stonecreek 16:25, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Since the entries don't show any contents (outside of the titles of entries and when and where they were published), I'm not sure why someone would care about "minor contributions to minor fanzines". If it's the entry I think it is, I would be less worried about people finding the page here than people finding her fan page (though it doesn't seem to be anything to worry about unless her potential employer is a schmuck who hates all things fandom). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:22, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) A couple of general comments about the way the ISFDB works.

Like other major bibliographic sites (WorldCat, Goodreads, etc), we catalog published works regardless of the presence or absence of public demand and/or authors'/editors' requests. For example, here is what Goodreads' Help pages say on the topic of removing books based on author request: "Deleting published books from our system is against policy. Goodreads is striving to be a complete database of all published works, including works that are out-of-print."
When it comes to biographical data, we use publicly available sources. This means, e.g., that we do not identify undisclosed pseudonyms even when we, as individual editors, are aware of them.

The last time we discussed this issue, there appeared to be consensus that we should replace exact dates of birth with years upon author's request, but a few other things were left open-ended. Now may be a good time to codify everything and make the policy available on a separate Wiki page. 22:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The policy should be documented, but having a separate Wiki page wouldn't be necessary. We have a Policy notice. Wouldn't it be just as good to document it in a new section of that page? This would avoid the need for searching or directing users to a variety of pages. Mhhutchins|talk 00:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

As with Goodreads, I don't think we should delete references to basic data, including appearances in fanzines. I would be a little more willing to consider deleting birth years, in case someone is concerned about age discrimination (which is real). But in this case her birth year is also published in her entry at fancyclopedia, so having us remove it isn't going to help. I'll also mention that as a DUFF winner, and three-time Guest of Honor (Concave, Baycon, and Capricon), she IS a public figure. Chavey 05:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's say that we allow authors to delete all or part of their bibliography. Even though I do not believe for a second that will ever happen, here's a hypothetical question: how do we know if the person making the request is actually the author? There is no way of verifying the request is legitimate without requiring that the person provide certain information that in itself will be a breach of privacy. Ironic, isn't it? Mhhutchins|talk 01:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I am very much against letting us get strong-armed into changing things based on individual wants/pleas even when privacy is concerned. If we go down this slippery slope, as Michael pointed out, we will need an authentication system (we cannot let just anyone tell us to remove things) and a way to police such records so the data does not get accidentally reintroduced. I believe we would do far better to agree what data we collect and how we collect and retain it and stick to that. Now if this prompts us to reconsider what we have decided to collect, that is fine. Right now we also have contact information in the form of email addresses. To me these are about the only questionable items we collect (and they are pretty pointless for dead authors unless we are listing email addresses of some authorities besides the authors). Of course the collection methods should also be documented (we should not publish things given to us privately in confidence and we are not going to hire private investigators to collect such items but if they are publicly known, so be it; such things cannot really be retracted). Uzume 01:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the email address field is pushing the boundaries of propriety. I don't think we need to be providing that information to people. Providing a link to their website(s) should be enough, and most websites will have one or more contact methods listed on the site. I support simply dropping that field in the table. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Well websites can be more than just an author's website. I believe most of those links are actually to biographies, bibliographies, and authority control sites rather than personal author websites (though we do have those too and they can be useful in providing biographic and bibliographic information). The thing about email addresses though is that they are normally easily changed and disabled, etc. It is possible to change your name and/or the names you publish under but how does one change their birth or death information? This is why we collect it to help identify contributors so we can credit them accordingly (you get all the glory and blame from whatever you publish). If we are using email addresses to contact contemporary authors and we want to keep such around, I recommend it not be part of the DB proper and instead say a list on a wiki page here or the like then we can have different collection and retention rules for that (in a similar vane, I can put whatever I want on wiki pages here, e.g., under my user space, so long as they are not terribly profane, libelous, fraudulent, etc. and at least somewhat on topic). Uzume 01:46, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

A little bit of background. ISFDB 1.0 was designed in 1995 when the Web was new. E-mail addresses had been around for a while while author-specific Web pages were very rare at the time. For example, when I asked Steve Miller's if he wanted me to put his Liaden Universe FAQ on a Web page, he wasn't even sure what a Web page was.

History aside, I think we want to keep e-mail addresses in the database for the following reasons:

Many authors explicitly say "You can contact me at name@domain.com" on their Web pages.
Our policy has always been to stick to publicly posted addresses. As Help:Screen:AuthorData says, "If the author's email address is public, i.e. stated on the author's Web page in plain (unobscured) text or otherwise publicly posted, enter it here."
I don't recall author complaints about this field. Occasionally authors create submissions when their e-mail address changes or becomes inactive.
Moving e-mail addresses to the Wiki would be against our overall development philosophy, which is to move all biobibliographic data from the Wiki to the database, not the other way around.

Ahasuerus 02:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I totally agree with retaining the current policy. Mhhutchins|talk 04:16, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

I too am not in favor of changing our policies in this regard but if we are to (re)consider our policies with regard to privacy concerns I just thought I would mention where I felt our current policies were perhaps weakest in this regard. Uzume 16:04, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Robert Arthur, Jr. is NOT Robert Arthur

Editor Calion found out about this mix-up. There was actually only one piece of shortfiction credited to Robert Arthur, Jr., but I guess many of the others as by Robert Arthur are really by the Jr. Is anybody able and willing to sort the apples from the pears, for I am not able to do it. Stonecreek 09:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

And there's Robert Andrew Arthur, which may be a pseudonym of Robert Arthur, Jr., or still another person. Stonecreek 09:51, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I know very little about this area (the anthologies and their contents are only barely spec-fic), so I can't help. But what I do know is that changing the published credit isn't the way to go about. (I guess we all know that except for the submitter.) Some of them are ghost-edited, so it's a safe bet to change them, since the books were never credited to "Robert Arthur" or Jr. I'll try to approach it from a purely technical stand, and let someone else do the bibliographic work. Mhhutchins|talk 01:39, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Turned out easier than I thought. The submissions only changed the Hitchcock anthologies which were ghost-edited. There are still three anthologies explicitly credited to Robert Arthur as the editor. Someone will have to determine if it's really him or Junior. There's also one collection (Ghosts and More Ghosts) which Wikipedia attributes to Junior. But this collection contains stories in the Murchison Morks series which we have as written by not-Junior. Just to make it clear, this isn't father and son. They were both born in 1909, adding more headache to separating their bibliographies. Mhhutchins|talk 01:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

More trouble: In this memoir by Junior's daughter, he is the author of Ghosts and More Ghosts which means the Murchison Morks stories are his as well. Also, the wikipedia page we have linked to Robert Arthur mentions nothing about him writing all of those stories for the pulps and the slicks in the 1930s and 1940s. Those stories are almost certain by Junior, whose Wikipedia page explicitly calls him a "speculative fiction writer" and provides a list of many periodicals which we have indexed here and attribute to non-Junior. Mhhutchins|talk 02:01, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I've come to the conclusion, after quite a bit of research, that all records in the database are by the same author, whether attributed to "Robert Arthur", "Robert Arthur, Jr." (only one story in a 1933 issue of Amazing Stories), or "Robert Andrew Arthur" (a 2013 reprint of a 1954 story originally credited to "Robert Arthur"). What screwed it up was someone providing data (based on the Wikipedia page, I guess) for Robert Arthur, a Hollywood producer, not the same person who was the pulp writer and ghost-editor for Hitchcock, who was a Junior, but published all but one story as just "Robert Arthur". It's all there in his daughter's memoir. Unless there's objection in the next day or so, I'm going to merge these authors. Mhhutchins|talk 03:19, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to my ears. My guess would have been that the Hitchcock anthologies might have been by the movie Arthur, but a literary person like the other Arthur is far more reasonable. Thanks, Michael! Stonecreek 10:18, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. I also looked into this a fair bit and I too would go about changing Robert Authur to be the canonical name (copying data from Jr. and making Jr. a pseudonym) and update the Hitchcock variants to credit Robert Author (and clean up the few outliers you mentioned). If after all that, the director still deserves some accreditation for something here, I say we make a new canonical name for him (adding dates or something). Uzume 13:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I think this is wrong. Robert Arthur, Jr. was born November 10, 1909 and died May 2, 1969 and wrote various Hitchcock things, in particular the Three Investigators series. Robert Arthur Feder, born November 1, 1909 and died October 28, 1986, was a film producer who also wrote the Murchison Morks series. At least that is the assertion of Martin H. Greenberg, who, in Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction (1979), Vol. 2, p. 65, says, "Robert Arthur (Robert A. Feder) is a neglected writer of sf and fantasy, best known as a television and radio producer and scriptwriter. This is unfortunate, because he produced a number of excellent stories, many of them outside the sf magazines. In the science fiction field his reputation resides with his "Murchison Morks" series." However there is some confusion as to which Arthur is which even in this book, because his birth and death dates are given (1909–1969). These dates cannot have been input by Greenberg, however, because he refers to Arthur in the present tense, which he does not do for deceased authors. However however, the fact that it looks like Robert Arthur, Jr. wrote Ghosts and More Ghosts, which includes Murchison Morks stories, seems to count against Greenberg and for your interpretation (and if Murchison Morks was indeed written by Robert Arthur, Jr., I didn't find out about this mixup on ISFDB; I created it). Calion 16:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

If Junior's daughter said he published the collection Ghosts and More Ghosts, and if that collection contains the Morks stories, then it follows that Junior wrote the Morks stories. Greenberg had to have been wrong when he gave the author as a pseudonym of Robert Feder. Ironically, Greenberg was always being confused with another Martin Greenberg, so you'd think he would have been more sensitive to avoiding such confusion. I'm going to merge the author records. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 20:07, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

It was staring us in the face the whole time. This page was linked to Arthur's page and if I'd taken a moment to read it, the decision to merge the records would have been more immediate. Regardless, the deed is done. Mhhutchins|talk 20:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm the one who linked that page, but I don't see any slam-dunk evidence on it. Is it that it supports him as author of Ghosts and More Ghosts? Regardless, it's starting to look at least likely that there is only one Robert Arthur, author. I wish I knew where Greenberg got his information. I'd say sorry for starting the confusion, but I think I can be forgiven for taking Greenberg as an authoritative source. Calion 21:31, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I read that page as well as the daughter's page and why I said I agreed that everything basically should be accredited to one individual. Once that is understood, it is a simple matter to choose the most used named. It looks great—thanks Michael! Uzume 00:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

E-mail and weather problems

Our e-mail server is once again having problems. I have escalated the ticket to Al.

Also, please note that a significant part of the East Coast of the United States is about to be hammered by a major blizzard. Widespread power outages are expected, which can cause some editors to be offline for a while. Ahasuerus 17:36, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

The e-mail server is back in business. Ahasuerus 17:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

New editors not supplying a contact email

I thought new editors were required to supply an email address. This one needs to be made aware of his talk page and I have no way of contacting him. Mhhutchins|talk 05:08, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

New editors have to supply a valid e-mail address (and confirm it) in order to be able to edit the Wiki. However, our e-mail server has been having problems lately, so they are not getting confirmation e-mails -- see above. Ahasuerus 05:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

But they can edit the database without responding to a confirmation email? Strange protocol, IMHO. Mhhutchins|talk 05:39, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

It greatly reduces the number of spam edits, which is a good thing :) Ahasuerus 05:41, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Spam edits of the database? Then that makes it even stranger that they're not required to respond to a confirming email. Wouldn't that increase spamming? Maybe I'm missing something here. Mhhutchins|talk 17:07, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant "spam edits" on the Wiki side, not on the database side. We had a big problem with spammers a while back and the implementation of e-mail verification helped get them down to one or two per day. Ahasuerus 17:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. A few still get through which I delete when I come across them. I guess you're saying that there is a system to combat spamming on the wiki, Mhhutchins|talk 02:54, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

That's right, the current system was originally put in place in order to make it harder for spammers to post spam on their Talk pages. They can still do it -- if they go to the trouble of entering a valid e-mail address, waiting for the verification e-mail to arrive and clicking on the verification link -- but it slows them down and makes the spamming process less efficient. Spamming is a very big business (hundreds of millions of dollars annually), so anything that slows them down makes us look like a less attractive target. They just move on to other, juicier targets. Ahasuerus 13:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

but it's currently not working because it allows persons to edit the database without doing an email confirmation. Mhhutchins|talk 02:54, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The e-mail server component of the ISFDB (i.e. the software that sends e-mails) has been having problems since the hosting company upgraded the firmware on 2015-12-31. This means that new editors can't verify their e-mail addresses and therefore can't edit the Wiki. They can still create submissions, though. Granted, we can change the submission mechanism to require editors to have a verified e-mail address on file, but then any time we have e-mail server problems new editors won't be able to create submissions. That seems like a bad trade-off. Ahasuerus 13:40, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Putnam = G. P. Putnam's Sons

I plan to merge these two publishers into a single publisher named G. P. Putnam's Sons. Although "Putnam" is printed on the spine of the dust jackets, the publisher as given on the title page has always been "G. P. Putnam's Sons." If any editor has primary verified records under Putnam, and doesn't want them to be part of the merged publisher, please change them to a unique publisher name of your own creation. Once I've made the merge in a few days, after any discussion here, you can change them back to Putnam. Non-moderators, let me know what publisher name you've changed them to, and I will do a submission to change it back to Putnam. There are currently now only 40 or so records under "Putnam" which have been primary verified. Mhhutchins|talk 02:44, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

ISFDB in the News

The online fanzine File770 recently published an article New Tiptree Award Website Looks Great. Mike Glyer gives a couple of reasons why that award site is great, with one particular note:

The site’s crown jewel is the searchable James Tiptree, Jr. Award database, which not only 
returns the names of winners and honorees, but links to their author websites, and to their 
bibliographies on the Internet Science Fiction Database.

The first commenter agreed that linking to us was a cool feature :-) Chavey 07:00, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Great! Christian Stonecreek 20:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Non-genre work by fictional character from genre works -- in/out opinions solicited

I have a very odd case that we're unlikely to see again. I'm interested in feedback on inclusion/exclusion from anyone having strong feelings about it, one way or the other. IMO, it's not worth an R&S debate -- I don't think we need a rule for it.

I've recently recorded a series of stories, plus a collection, about the adventures of a bridge-playing robot, Chthonic. These are written by a bridge guy, Danny Kleinman, and a computer guy, Nick Straguzzi. Although the primary purpose of these stories is the bridge, there's no question in my mind that these are "in" according to the rules of acquisition. But now here's what may be a unique situation:

There is a book, Human Bridge Errors: Volume 1 of ∞ (Master Point Press, 2007). This is a true bridge book. I consider it non-genre. It uses fictional settings and characters from the Chthonic stories to lay out deals and make its points, but it's not telling stories -- it's instructional; I personally would classify it as non-fiction. The kicker is, it's purportedly "Collected and Analyzed by Chthonic", with Kleinman and Straguzzi as the "editors". Chthonic has an "Author's Introduction", prior to a "From the Editors" credited to Kleinman and Straguzzi, and the entire book is written in the first person, as Chthonic. (The Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication info has Kleinman and Straguzzi as the authors, FWIW.)

If it were to be "in", I think I'd make a higher-level "Chthonic" series, put this book into it, and then make "The Chthonic Bridge Chronicles" (containing the SF works) a sub-series.

Does anyone have strong opinions about whether this should be in (as non-genre, unless someone wants to argue that it's spec-fic) or out? --MartyD 16:19, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Out, as an integrist, I think that we've got far too many "peripheric" texts already entered (I've just multi-moderated a bunch of non-genre short stories by Atwood, explaining probably this reaction) from Aesopian fables to regecy romance via Shakespeare plays and comic books. Hauck 16:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Out, if you chose the NONFICTION category. My personal choice, though, would be to include it as a NOVEL. There's only the framing story that's speculative, but that is enough to my taste. This NOVEL set in Nazi Germany also is only in because of its framing story told by Death. Christian Stonecreek 20:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

It's non-speculative non-fiction by non-genre writers. Three nons and you're out. Mhhutchins|talk 21:51, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Dragons of Summer Flame

This title has "Dragonlance Chronicles Volume 4" on the title page, but we have it listed as part of the series Dragonlance: Second Generation (which actually only has one book in it). Why don't we move it to be part of Dragonlance Chronicles? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:06, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

You can do that if there is sufficient evidence to confirm that it should be moved to the other series. Mhhutchins|talk 20:22, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I submitted it. Since every edition (hardcover and paperback) I have seen has "Dragonlance Chronicles Volume 4" on the title page (I have seen about 5 or so different ones), that's good enough for me. I have no idea where the idea came from that this was part of the Second Generation series (which isn't actually a series). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:26, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Visco is no more?

It appears that Visco has gone kaput. When the records linked to Visco are come across, please re-link the images to those on Galactic Central. Mhhutchins|talk 19:59, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

If anyone is looking for another project: They can be found by doing an Advanced Search, using the Publication Search Form, and searching the Image URL field for sfcovers. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:01, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

A brief look at the search results counts 1400+ affected pubs as of today. Uzume 02:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Visco is now archived on Philip Stephensen-Payne's website: http://www.philsp.com/visco/index.html. In his announcement he added that he and Terry Gibbons have neither the time nor inclination to do any further work on the website but think it's worth preserving. PeteYoung 05:21, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

So is it possible to write a script to rewrite all of these links without any manual submissions? Mhhutchins|talk 06:59, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the question when it was posted. I'll take a look. Ahasuerus 18:03, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Randomly checking a couple dozen images suggests that the site structure was preserved during the migration. Let me try to convert our links real quick. Ahasuerus 18:32, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Done. Ahasuerus 20:06, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Great. Thanks. I see that they're credited to Galactic Central, which is fine by me, as long as the image loads. Thanks again. Mhhutchins|talk 21:31, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Submission listing incongruity

This is hardly a high priority but I thought I would report it as it seems to be aberrant behavior of the Python code. The minor issue is that when viewing lists of submission records (via myrecent and recent) it seems the displayed "Subject" varies from current old value to submitted new value based on the submission type, e.g. PubUpdate and MakeVariant always choose the proposed submitted title, however, TitleUpdate always choose the old original title. I did not look into every submission type. It seems to me these should be more consistent. As a side note and in terms of considering which to standardize on, using the old value maybe more interesting when viewing submission records after successful moderation (because the diff won't show the old values after the submission is committed). Uzume 20:57, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable; FR 849 has been created. Ahasuerus 20:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Arthur H. Landis / Camelot

Putting this here because I have no personal knowledge of the works in question and several verifiers of pubs may have a relevant opinion. I've been addressed on the Fictionmags list with a query about Arthur H. Landis, specifically as to why his novel Let There Be Magick! is not included under the fiction series 'Camelot'. A title note for A World Called Camelot states "An earlier and somewhat different version of this novel was published as a serial under the title "Let There Be Magick" with the by-line of "James R. Keaveny", and is copyright, 1969, by Camelot Publishing Company." I'm just checking first if there is a reason why this series does not include Let There Be Magick! or if it's an oversight that needs to be corrected. Thanks. PeteYoung 05:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

It's easy to fix. Just change the variant links of the serial parts to the title record for A World Called Camelot. We allow that serialization sometimes means that the work may have been revised or expanded for book publication. Mhhutchins|talk 07:02, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Curiously, SFE claims that Home – To Avalon (1982) is part of the same same series while Landis's (seemingly well-informed) Wikipedia article states that it was merely "thematically similar".

Although I have all 4 books in my collection, I haven't read them and can't get to them right now. I'll send Dave Langford an e-mail to see what their archives says. Ahasuerus 15:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe we're looking at two different pages, but the SFE article you link states that Home To Avalon is the only Landis novel not in the series. I'm going to variant the serial to the book publication title. Mhhutchins|talk 19:00, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I see that Dave has already updated Landis's SFE3 page. The previous version read:

He published there a four-part serial as by James R Keaveney, which became A World Called Camelot (September 1969-March 1970 COVEN 13 as "Let There Be Magick"; rev vt 1976) as by Landis, and was followed in the same series by Camelot in Orbit (1978), The Magick of Camelot (1981) and Home – To Avalon (1982).

Ahasuerus 19:46, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

PeteYoung asked me to drop by. I have a copy of A World Called Camelot which I can get to and am happy to look anything up, but I'm not sure I can add anything otherwise.--AliHarlow 10:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

New Publisher - Venture Press

A new UK-based SF/F publisher, Venture Press, was launched a few months ago. Amazon knows of more than 80 titles, but, unfortunately, almost none of them have ISBNs associated with them. Fixer won't be able to process them until we add support for "third party identifiers" (in this case ASINs), so for now this publisher will have to be handled manually. Ahasuerus 23:56, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

I have always wanted to make large improvements to the web API (e.g., get any of the records and search not just by ISBN, etc.) but offline issues (probably the biggest is unstable work conditions) keep becoming an impediment and it is hard to get back into coding here (I need to rebuild my workstations/work environment as well as my development server). Being sick for the last week has not helped either. That said, things like OCLC and LCCN IDs, etc. should also help with many older titles that Fixer really is not designed to find and process. Uzume 15:01, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Actually, Fixer has a number of APIs (and local databases) which handle pubs without ISBNs. The database of Kindle books without an ISBN alone contains more than 750,000 ASINs. Fixer's problem is that he has no way of telling which Kindle books are already in the ISFDB database. The situation will change once we add "third party identifier support" to the ISFDB software. Ahasuerus 17:02, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Container titles in the Content section of Edit Publication

As we all know, Edit Publication won't let you edit a Content item if it is associated with 2+ publications. That's fine, but the software also prevents you from editing "container" titles (collections, anthologies, omnibuses, chapbooks) even if they do not exist in other publications. It seemed like a prudent precaution back when the "yellow" functionality was implemented, but sometimes it forces you to submit additional edits, which can be a pain when you are trying to make hundreds of changes.

Can anyone think of a reason not to change the software to allow the editing of "yellow" container titles? (As long as they don't exist in other pubs, of course.) Container titles will still be colored yellow to remind us that they are "reference" titles. Ahasuerus 16:57, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I see no reason to keep that restriction. As you said, I've made hundreds of extra edits when the changes could have been made in a single submission. I say go for it, until a situation arises that might cause us to reconsider the change. At the moment, I can't think of any that would. I would ask that moderators be extra cautious about submissions changing container records until the final outcome has been determined. Mhhutchins|talk 20:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I think I remember it now. What we were concerned about in September 2009 was that some new editors were replacing the reference/container title when adding individual stories to collections/anthologies. I guess it's still a potential issue, but even if a flawed submission gets past the approving moderator, the mismatch should be caught by one of our nightly cleanup reports. Ahasuerus 00:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Yep, that's why we did it. Perhaps we can have a warning for both submitter and moderator that the container title record has been edited? Mhhutchins|talk 01:20, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

It would be non-trivial to add a warning for submitters, but I think a moderator warning should be doable. I'll take a look... Ahasuerus 05:05, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Linking to Locus1 and FictionMags

I recall a while ago that someone was able to create stable links to listings on Locus1 and FictionMags. Does anyone remember how that is done? Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 17:51, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be looking for this discussion: ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive35#Linking to FictionMags. Uzume 16:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that discussion (heaven knows how hard it is to find anything in this wiki!). As I understand it, you still can't actually link to the Locus1 or FictionMags listing, only to the index to that listing. Still not exactly what we need, but closer than nothing. Thanks again. Mhhutchins|talk 17:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Best way to enter novels broken across publications

I have a question on the best way to enter novels that are broken into multiple publications. This format is especially common for Japanese publications where a single novel is serialized across publications (sort of like chapbooks). I ask because I was looking at entering the Japanese translations of works by Diana Gabaldon (for starters) and I see several that are broken up like this. For example, the first I noticed is a translation of Dragonfly in Amber as "ジェイミーの墓標" (meaning: Jamie's gravestone) in three books:

JPNO 20534034: ジェイミーの墓標 1
JPNO 20540156: ジェイミーの墓標 2
JPNO 20550120: ジェイミーの墓標 3

I know some previous suggestions were to make title series for them but that does not represent the translations using our current variant methodology well and also these series are more like pub series that represent a single title as there is little to no guarantee that a novel broken in a certain way will be reprinted in the same format. This is why I sort of want to use our serial titles to represent such but what sort of publication should this be in and how to I enter this? Also if I use serial titles typically we variant these to the complete work but if the serials are also translations that is slightly problematic as we so not support multiple levels of variants. At a glance, I see at least six more translations of her novels published serialized in this format type (3 pubs representing Outlander, 3 pubs representing Voyager, 3 pubs representing Drums of Autumn, 4 pubs representing The Fiery Cross, 4 pubs representing A Breath of Snow and Ashes, 3 pubs representing An Echo in the Bone, etc.) and I know this is extremely common in Japanese publishing in general (even for native language content). I would like to know the recommended method before I enter hundreds of publications and we change our methodology. Thank you. Uzume 17:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I can only suggest that you create separate publication records for each book, then variant them to the original title record representing the whole work. That's how some editors handles splits in other languages (like this one.) And there's precedent, since serials are varianted to the original title records. Aren't "splits" similar to a serial in form without appearing in a periodical, but in a separate book publication? Unfortunately, that method isn't consistent (see these two series: here and here). The only documentation I could find was here. but I'm not sure that method has ever actually been discussed among the community (or I don't remember ever seeing it.) It just doesn't feel right to me, since there's no connection between the records, other than placing them in the same series. But doing it that way means any user of the database would never know that, for example, The Reality Dysfunction by Hamilton, ever appeared in mass-market paperback in the US, but the split Portuguese paperbacks are right there under the original title record for the Hamilton novel, and the French splits are visible under the Cherryh novel's title record. That's why I personally prefer the variant method instead of the series method.

Of course, this problem would be solved if we had a relationship function...but I've harped on that forever and I've given up on ever seeing it happen. Mhhutchins|talk 20:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree and that is why I brought the discussion here before I start entering piles of pubs and titles in some format only for us to to later decide a different methodology is more appropriate. It should be noted that we currently do not support native script in author records and publisher records which means all of these will have to be revisited anyway to put the original citations in when allowed. Uzume 21:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I am in the process of adding "transliterated values" fields to our records. "Transliterated legal name(s)" was implemented in 2015. "Transliterated publication series name(s)" was added in January 2016. "Transliterated publisher names(s)" has been coded and will be added in the next day or two once I finish testing the changes. Series, publications, titles and authors' canonical names will be done in the coming weeks. They will all come with associated cleanup reports which will help identify records that haven't been properly transliterated yet. Ahasuerus 23:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Well the point I am making is that transliterated names are basically a form or alternative name so we could potentially support things like variant author names and work titles using something akin to that. Uzume 01:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I am afraid I am not seeing the similarity. Our pseudonyms and variant titles are created based on:

what's stated in publications
our knowledge of who wrote what
our knowledge of which texts are identical (or close to identical)

Transliterated names, on the other hand, are based on different transliteration systems. The reason that we support multiple transliterated values per field is that there is no single universally accepted system. Ahasuerus 22:42, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I noticed how transliterated legal name and transliterated publication series was added to advanced search (I would really like to add OpenURL searching to ISFDB; there is no reason for any of our searching to use POST forms when GET forms would be fine and can be linked to easier). It sees to me this should generally be implicit when searching (unless someone really wants to target just such). We do not have separate ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 searches (of course not)? Uzume 01:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Regular search already handles transliterated values seamlessly, just like you suggested. I tried to use the same approach with Advanced Search, but it killed performance, so I ended up implementing the current system. Advanced Search is due for an overhaul anyway, at which point I hope to address this issue. Ahasuerus 22:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Cool! Maybe we can implement a standard search methodology like OpenURL too then. Uzume 22:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

By the way, I am curious about native script pubs and titles. Currently I believe we support such but is it alright to enter native script Japanese magazines? I have bibliographies for many "in genre" magazines and anthologies too (but I do not believe our new magazine directory supports anything but Latin script; http://homepage2.nifty.com/te2/b/home.htm seems to be sort of the Galactic Central of Japanese material—only that site does not seem to have covers). Uzume 21:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I am curious what you mean by a relationship function. Do you mean a field to specify what type of "variant" a title is (I can see the usefulness of such but also the potential issues with such too)? Or did you have something else in mind? Uzume 21:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The issue of "relationships" has been discussed a number of times, but it covers a multitude of sins, as it were. Here is what I wrote on this subject when it was last raised:

It looks like we have two separate although in part overlapping issues here. The first one is adding the ability to associate "people with roles other than author/anthology editor" with title records. The list of these "roles" is long and includes translators, editors of single author books, cover designers, adapters, etc. The biggest challenge here is the ability to support co-translators/co-editors/etc as well as pseudonyms, including collective pseudonyms. Over the last couple of months I have come up with a possible approach, which will hopefully work for translators and should be extendable to other "roles". There may also be a related issue of supporting "roles" for people associated with publication records, but I haven't given it much thought yet and it may be overkill anyway.
The second issue has to do with linking related titles. The first question that we face here is whether we want to support "one-to-many" title relationships or whether we want to limit this functionality to "one-to-one" relationships. "One-to-one" relationships are fairly straightforward and include abridgements, adaptations (plays etc), expansions, revisions and so on. "One-to-many" relationships are more complex and include things like fix-ups where a single novel may be linked to multiple short stories.
Once we decide what types of relationships we want to support, we will need to make other decisions. For example, do we allow arbitrary relationships or do we limit them to a predefined set ("abridgement", "expansion", "adaptation", "revision", etc) which would be displayed to editors as a drop-down list? Also, what should we do about titles that have multiple relationships, e.g. "revised abridged" texts? Should we have a separate relationship for each permutation (which would make the list long and unwieldy) or should we allow multiple concurrent relationships between titles so that we could have "revised" and "abridged" specified separately? BTW, this is one reason why translations are somewhat different: you can have abridged or adapted translations, e.g. Alexander Volkov's adaptations of the Oz books or Brian Stableford's adaptations of numerous French novels.
Finally, how do we want to display related titles on Summary pages? Should we display them as independent entities with "[abridgement of Wizard of Oz by Joe Q. Author]" or "[fixup of X and Y"] next to them? Or should we display them together, similar to the way we display variant titles? It would seem that certain types of relationships like minor revisions/abridgements/expansions would look better if we could display them together. On the other hand, would it still work for significant alterations like 30 page abridgements of novels?
I should also add that we really ought to rewrite the database filing logic before we can implement whatever enhancements we agree on. Currently the approval logic for every submission type files data in its own way, which makes it hard to add new fields and especially non-trivial relationships. We need to centralize the filing logic so that there would be one place where title records would be filed, one place where publication records would be filed, etc. That's a fairly major change. Ahasuerus 18:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. We also have a related FR, "Contributor roles". Ahasuerus 23:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, as interesting as those points are I am mostly interested in translator role. Uzume 01:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that adding translator support is more important than adding support for, say, "adapters". However, it's prudent to investigate whether it's possible to come up with a design that could handle all of these "roles" out of the gate. It may help avoid all kinds of design unpleasantness down the road. Ahasuerus 22:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. But some types of attribution are inherently different. Some are based on collections of works (a novel with some pictures, etc.) and others on derivatives (which should always credit the original). Perhaps we can focus on the two different types and design general methods for handling such and then implement and test it. Uzume 22:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Any "co" roles in my mind can just be listed with the main ones (I see little value in supporting "co-author" when one can just have more than one author). Uzume 01:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not 100% sure that I fully understand this comment. The challenge with supporting multiple/pseudonymous translators is coming up with a table layout that would support all possible permutations. Our original attempt to address translators (see "title_translator" in the "titles" table) was a failure because we didn't account for that. Ahasuerus 22:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand either. In my mind, translations, like reviews, are by definition derivative works so why can they not be handled in a similar way? There is an original title X. It has a cover art title Y, interior art title Z and potential review titles A1, A2, A3 as well as potential translation titles B1, B2, B3, etc. With a little thought it seems possible, though using the current title variant mechanism might not be optimal. Maybe my view is too simplistic? Uzume 22:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

As for for the work relationships, I believe translations are important, as those works in general do not stand on their own. As for abridgments, etc. methinks it would be fine to handle them more like review links (let them be listed separately and perhaps we can add a link to a related work and just state the relationship). Of course others will have other opinions but that is my take on it. Uzume 01:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

You can also do something similar to this series. In English, the publisher took two of the Japanese volumes and merged them into one volume. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

That is an interesting data point, however, I am not sure it is entirely applicable as those volumes that were merged were listed in the original Japanese and being "上" (upper; used for first part) and "下" (lower; used for last part). That said, the use of an "omnibus" seems questionable under this situation as obviously the original printings were listed as splits and not complete works/novels to begin with (I think I would have varianted them to an unsplit titles instead; that way when unsplit or different split pubs arrive things do not get too ugly). Notice how different The Twelve Kingdoms looks from The Twelve Kingdoms (that break down is also listed on the Japanese Wikipedia as well). Uzume 01:12, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The question remains can/should I enter these like:

ディファレンス・エンジン〈上〉 and ディファレンス・エンジン〈下〉 (I like this precedent as in my opinion the pubs really are chapbooks and the splits make sense as serials as they do not really stand alone despite having been published that way; I wonder if there is a cleanup report against putting serial titles in chapbook pubs though or the like)
2312 太陽系動乱 (上) and 2312 太陽系動乱 (下) (this is not a bad precedent either and adheres to ISFDB:FAQ#How does the ISFDB deal with "split novels"?)
a subseries that is just broken up a different way (I really do not like this one as it makes it hard to see the relationships between the split titles and nonsplit titles, etc.; in my opinion this is especially bad for translations and one never knows when or what might get popular enough to get translated)
something else

And finally, I know this maybe somewhat subjective but how does one determine when to use this sort of split technique vs. just dropping them into a series (are 1, 2, 3 split identifiers or series identifiers, etc.)? Any guidance is appreciated.

If I use chapbook, that generates an extra container title (irrespective if I use novel or serial for the contained title), so I could actually do both by putting the chapbook container titles into a subseries while also variant'ing the contained titles. Uzume 00:10, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

There are software safeguards against putting CHAPBOOKs in series. It's possible to get around them, but there is a cleanup report to find offenders. On the other hand, there are no provisions against putting SERIALs into CHAPBOOKs, e.g. see the Dark Kings series by Donna Grant. Ahasuerus 15:47, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Really? Why is that? They are containers and there are collections and anthologies, etc. in series. Uzume 22:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

There are some borderline cases where CHAPBOOK series may make sense. However, in 99%+ of all cases it's the contained SHORTFICTION/POEM title that the submitting editor wants to add to a series. This was a fairly big problem for many years, so we ended up adding this limitation on the software side. Ahasuerus 23:02, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that putting the contained content into series is often the more important concept but I do not understand how such could be a big problem. Are we running out of space for submissions or just moderators to moderate them (all such submission are still moderated are they not?)? Uzume 23:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Neither, really. The ability to add CHAPBOOKs to series was something that used to trip up many editors, including moderators. Disentangling the resulting messes was a constant headache, hence the implementation of this safeguard. Ahasuerus 00:24, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me, moderation warnings and perhaps editor warnings would be sufficient. Uzume 01:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I really think something like Night's Dawn Trilogy (paperback) (is it really a trilogy in six parts? also the other translations in the parent series are split but variant'ed) and 十二国記 / The Twelve Kingdoms (those are not really separate novels and as such I do not understand how the combined pubs are really omnibuses) are wrong because the relationships are broken (and frankly I would like to clean them up). Thank you. Uzume 00:10, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Because the original Japanese publications were split into two separate novels labeled 上 and 下. Therefore, when the English version was released and combined them into one volume, it was an omnibus, combining the two novels into one. At the time, I discussed it with Ahasuerus and that is what we determined. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure I agree with such a choice (often later Japanese pubs will either not split them or split them differently) but such is life (it is hard to see into the future). Uzume 22:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Server downtime - 2016-02-09

The server will be unavailable between 6pm and 6:05pm server (Eastern-US Standard) time. The patch will add support for transliterated publisher names. Patch notes should be posted by 6:30pm. Ahasuerus 22:10, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The server is back up. Ahasuerus 23:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

"Transliterated publisher names" are now live. They work similarly to the way transliterated publication series names work with the following caveats:

"Publisher Directory" has been updated to support transliterated publisher names. For example, the "zn" page lists Знание because its transliterated name is "Znanie".
Publisher Merge (moderator-only) has been updated.
Edit Publisher has been changed to enforce publisher name uniqueness.

A new moderator-only cleanup report will become available around 1:30am server time.

As always, if you find encounter issues, please post them here. Help will be updated shortly. Ahasuerus 23:18, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

How does this handle (if at all) variant publisher names (based on just transliteration differences). For example, Kurodanhan Press published both Japanese and English texts and I am sure the publications published by them have the publisher listed differently based on the language of the publication ("黒田藩プレス" in Japanese pubs and "Kurodanhan Press" in English publications). Or do we just have to handle them as if they are different imprints (even though they both mean exactly the same thing). Thanks. Uzume 01:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Unlike titles, publishers do not support "variants" at this time. I suggest we raise this issue on the Rules and Standards page. Ahasuerus 15:42, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

OK. Uzume 22:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Also how do I submit publisher name changes like renaming Asahi Sonorama to 朝日ソノラマ (and of course adding Asahi Sonorama as a transliteration)? I managed to make submission 2946481 but I had to use a convoluted method to enter it. Uzume 13:57, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

As per Help:Screen:EditPublisher, "only moderators can edit [Publisher Name] once the publisher record has been created". The reason this limitation was implemented was to prevent well-meaning editors from creating submissions to change established publisher names like Macmillan.

There is a new moderator-only cleanup report that finds Latin/non-Latin mismatches between publishers and titles. At this time it lists 270 publishers. I will be working on it starting today and expect the list to shrink in the coming days. Once I take care of the usual suspects, I am sure I will need help with a number of more obscure Japaneses, Arabic, etc publishers. Ahasuerus 15:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

That seems like an odd choice since the submission should be moderated anyway, it should regardless go through a moderator. And it makes it so editors like myself cannot easily help with such unless it is brought to a public forum in the way are you are proposing (or one takes convoluted means to make such submissions as I demonstrated; which by the way was approved). To me it is not unlike changing a canonical name. Obviously, if I made a submission to change "Piers Anthony" to something else I would hope it would be stopped in the same way as a submission to change "Macmillan" would be. Uzume 22:36, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

At one point a few well-meaning-but-misguided submissions got through and messed up a couple of major publishers. This limitation was added as an additional safeguard once the mess had been cleaned up. Ahasuerus 22:48, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

That sounds like a moderation issue—punishing the masses due to a limitation of a (otherwise incredibly hard working and amazing) few. Uzume 23:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

It's true that in an ideal world moderators would catch all questionable submissions. However, that doesn't always happen, especially late at night when moderators tend to be tired. That's why we have implemented additional safeguards to reduce the likelihood of significant damage to the database. To use another example, the ability to merge authors and publishers is not available to non-moderators for similar reasons. It may be worth considering making the ability to edit canonical names moderator-only as well. Ahasuerus 00:05, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

It still seems to me, editor and moderator warnings would be sufficient ("this change affects <large number> of records; perhaps get consensus before" "submitting this change" or "committing this submission", etc.). Uzume 01:43, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, our (rather painful) experience was different :-( Ahasuerus 05:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

(status update) I have taken care of the low-hanging fruit (the Ancient Greek version of Harry Potter was fun!) and we are now down to 161 questionable publishers. I expect that I will be able to clean up another dozen or two, but then I will need help. I think it will make sense to make the report accessible by non-moderators sans the ability to "ignore" publishers -- I'll work on it next. Ahasuerus 22:48, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I bet that was fun. Thank you again. Uzume 23:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Sure thing! The cleanup report is now available to non-moderators -- please see the announcement below. Ahasuerus 00:05, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks (I noticed that Harry Potter edition is the only Ancient Greek publication record we have that has an ISBN—woot!). Uzume 00:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Additional cleanup reports made available to non-moderators

The following cleanup reports have been made available to non-moderators:

Series with Numbering Gaps
Suspected Latin/Non-Latin Publication Series Name Issues
Suspected Latin/Non-Latin Publiher Name Issues

Ahasuerus 00:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Report 99 needs minor cosmetic adjustment: "Publiher" Uzume 00:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Fixed - thanks. Ahasuerus 00:20, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Cover images at Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is not listed at Help:Screen:NewPub#Image URL among "external sites which have given ISFDB explicit permission to link to them".

I wonder about this having visited its HTML release of My Father's Dragon, first edition P558873, where the lead paragraph begins "This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever."[2] And then visiting its cover image.[3] --Pwendt|talk 22:35, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

We don't just link to images, we "deep link". That means we draw bandwidth from the host's server in order to display their image on our webpage. Many websites, including PG, consider this bandwidth theft. If you're certain that the image is the correct one for the publication, download the file, resize it to ISFDB standards, and then upload it to our server, using the "Upload cover scan" link on the publication record. Then you can link it to the ISFDB publication record under the Fair Use provision of US copyright. Mhhutchins|talk 23:08, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not certain about that particular title but likely the image can be copied not just under fair use but also under public domain as most works on PG as unlicensed as such. Uzume 17:08, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Mouseover Help cleanup

Mouseover help has been cleaned up. It should no longer try to link back to the current ISFDB page if there is no Wiki page for it to link to. A number of other minor HTML corrections have been made -- if you run into any issues while editing records, please report them here. Ahasuerus 23:44, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I wonder how well mouseover works for our text-based browsers users. Uzume 17:02, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Greek translation of a Richard Blade story by "Jeffrey Lord"

Will the editor who created this record please variant it to the original English title? I'd do it myself but have no clue to what it could be. Mhhutchins|talk 06:58, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

The Greek SciFi Wiki lists it as Looters of Tharn (#37). I varianted the title record. --Willem 10:15, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Advanced Search tweaks

Advanced Search has been tweaked to display authors' Working Language and not to display record numbers. Ahasuerus 01:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!--Dirk P Broer 20:33, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Since we are talking about pub series merges...

This is a different issue but at least technically related. I am interested in merging the pub series ハヤカワ・ファンタジー (Hayakawa Fantasy) with ハヤカワ・SF (Hayakawa SF series). The documentation I have on these (e.g., JA Wikipedia) claims Hayakawa Fantasy was renamed to Hayakawa SF series. There is something to be said about keeping records that cite what is printed on the publications, however, I believe there are also later reprints with the same number but the later name (unfortunately these are hard to discern as the publisher does not make the printing history very explicit). Anyway, since the last conversation was claiming they are the same pub series and keep them merged, I wondered if this also applied here (even though a number of pubs cite something different; I thought I would bring this up once I had the first series completely entered but since this topic came up perhaps better to field it along side for better interest and feedback). Thoughts? Thank you. Uzume 21:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

If the two publication series used two different names, then it's a different scenario vis a vis the one discussed earlier today. I think merging them would be counterproductive. Ahasuerus 01:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I certainly considered and wondered about that myself. I assume any definitive reprints that used the new series name should go into the new series as labelled despite the interesting jump in dates and numbers. I did well label the change in the notes. Perhaps that is the best solution. Uzume 05:24, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

SF Collectors' Editions

The Note associated with SF Collectors' Editions currently reads:

A series of trade paperback reprints, all with bright yellow covers, no artwork, and with an encircling band of the Gollancz SF logo in various colors. [...]

However, if you follow the link, you will see that 17 of the pubs have artwork on the cover. Would anyone happen to know if the cover design was changed halfway through the run? Ahasuerus 01:10, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly then it happened, but I recall some titles, like Floating Worlds and Tik-Tok, which were originally without art, being reprinted with cover art. I suggest removing the "no artwork" statement. Mhhutchins|talk 02:09, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Done - thanks! Ahasuerus 02:39, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

"Gollancz SF" or "Ten Greatest SF Novels of All Time"?

I am in the process of moving the final publication series, Gollancz SF Series, to the database (not counting the 4 pub series which will continue to have Wiki pages.) Although our Wiki page calls it "Gollancz SF Series", some publication records refer to it as "Ten Greatest SF Novels of All Time", e.g. this edition of Ubik. Would anyone happen to know if the name of this publication series changed? Or did the publisher use the two names interchangeably? Ahasuerus 01:39, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd go with the latter title for the series, but I don't have any of them to confirm that. BTW, which are the four series which will remain on the wiki? Mhhutchins|talk 02:14, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

They are listed under Category:Publication Series. Now that I have taken another look, I think it may be possible to move most, if not all of them to the database. Here are the reasons why I originally thought we should keep these Wiki pages:

Hamlyn's Venture SF - contains a scan showing the evolution of spine design. Perhaps we could link the Wiki-hosted image directly instead?
Bantam Spectra Special Editions - lists first editions, first paperback editions, first American editions and reprints. Move the list to the Note field as a simplified HTML table and add a "BREAK"?
Avon SF Rediscovery - little more than a collection of cover scans which can be easily seen within the database by clicking "Show covers". Can be deleted.
Series:Winston Science Fiction - selected covers and a few paragraphs worth of background information about this publication series. We can move the text to the database (after the obligatory "BREAK".) The covers are no longer an issue.

Ahasuerus 03:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, everything has been moved to the database proper. Now to create cleanup reports to facilitate moving Series-, Publication- and Publisher-specific Wiki pages... Ahasuerus 23:16, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I remember working rather arduously on the wiki page for the Avon series, but I understand it's better that it be in the database proper. The difference with the series as presented in the database is that the cover images and the data are on separate pages, but I guess it's the same number of clicks to get from one to the other as it was in the wiki. I also did the bulk of work on the Bantam Spectra Special Editions page, so I'm glad that you were able to transfer the data about the editions. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 07:00, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Come to think of it, it may be beneficial to have a "composite" way of displaying publication series pages. I'll play with the layout to see what I can do. Ahasuerus 15:29, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that would be an ideal way of presenting a publication series, since the cover design is what makes it into a publication from the start. Of course, one should have the option of seeing just the data without the covers. Mhhutchins|talk 20:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Popular Library

Does anyone know if Popular Library, Inc., a publisher of sf periodicals from 1964-1971, is the same as Popular Library, publisher of paperback books from 1944 to 1991? If so, was the publisher designation intended to separate the book publications from the periodicals? Mhhutchins|talk 00:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I suspect so. I looked at some of the early books we have listed by "Popular Library", including the 1948 "The Case of the Crumpled Knave". One listing for this book on Abebooks explicitly lists it as published by "Popular Library, Inc.". So that book, at least, indicates these two publishers are the same. If we looked through more "Popular Library" books, I suspect we would find a lot of them being from "Popular Library, Inc.". Chavey 02:36, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

It appears that whoever entered the periodicals made a point of distinguishing the publisher name with the sole intention of keeping the books separate from the magazines. If that's the case, I'd just as well leave it as is. Does anyone else have an opinion of whether these two publishers should be merged? Mhhutchins|talk 06:53, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Barbara Michaels / Elizabeth Peters

Is the non-spec-fic work of this author eligible for the database? I personally don't believe she qualifies as "above the threshold" under any criteria: the majority of her output is not spec-fic, and she is not widely known as a spec-fic author. If that's the case, only her spec-fic work should be entered into the database. Her Wikipedia page states "she was best known for her mystery and suspense novels." It goes on to say that "Under the name Barbara Michaels, she wrote primarily gothic and supernatural thrillers.". Is there anyone who has read her work or has a differing opinion about the eligibility of her non-spec-fic output? I'm afraid that allowing her mysteries into the database opens the door for other mystery/suspense/romance/thriller authors to get the same treatment. Mhhutchins|talk 20:56, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not familiar with her and her work, however, based on what I see I concur (I assume you want to rip out the large pile of non-genre entries). As a feature request perhaps, I believe we should have cleanup report for non-genre works that appear with author credits who do not make the bar for full entry (we have a database, how hard is it to maintain a "makes the bar" bit?). People can then lobby to have authors included (and probably would easily get that if say an author has more than X works entered where more than Y% are genre fiction; we allow nonfiction). Uzume 04:50, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

A "Non-genre author" field wouldn't be hard to add to author records. It wouldn't resolve the perennial "threshold" issue, but it would help us eliminate the low-hanging fruit, which is currently hard to find. Ahasuerus 05:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that (1) Barbara Michaels is a non-genre author; (2) All of her non-genre work should be excised from our records; (3) It would be a very helpful feature to have a "non-genre author" flag which resulted in non-genre books being banned. Anything that helps our editors (esp. beginner editors) to understand our inclusion rules would be a good thing. Suggestion: On the summary page, list it under author tags, and have it appear before any of the "regular" tags. (Not 'implemented* as a tag, since it should be moderated, but just listed there.) Chavey 07:51, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

As usual : author (IMHO) below threshold, delete all non spec-fic. Note that I've asked for something along the lines of "I believe we should have cleanup report for non-genre works that appear with author credits who do not make the bar for full entry" but to no avail. Hauck 14:26, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way for the database to determine if they meet this "bar for full entry"? If so, we should document it somewhere so we can use that same bar in making a determination of whether something should be included. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:03, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Some authors are obviously not above the threshold where all of their work is eligible for the database. But there are some authors in that grey area that will need to be discussed. I can't imagine a day when the software will be able to make these decisions automatically. I like Hauck's suggestion that there be a cleanup script to list potential candidates, but still allow humans to make the final decision. Mhhutchins|talk 17:42, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

In fact the wording is Uzume's. IIRC I did ask for a clean-up report that found titles that were marked "non-genre" AND not PVed. I wished to target all those interminable series of Harlequin romances that were likely automatically inserted and savagely delete them. Hauck 18:18, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, FR 860 has been created. Implementing it will be a two-step process. First we will need to add a new "genre/non-genre" field to Author records. It's not hard, just somewhat time-consuming because we will have to account for the new field during author merges and such. The second step will be the creation of a new cleanup report to find authors who are not marked as "genre" and have non-genre works. Once everything is in place, we should be able to start working on cleaning up the database (savagery optional!) As of last week, we had 1,173 authors with 4,836 non-genre titles. Ahasuerus 18:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Nice, like this one? I also like these two publications Hauck 18:27, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, the FR codifies the proposed functionality, but it doesn't specify where the elusive "threshold" lies. That said, the original intent of the Rules of Acquisition was not to exclude non-genre works by less prominent genre authors. It was to exclude non-genre works by "primarily non-genre" authors. As the Policy page says:

The goal here is to avoid cataloging everything ever published by James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, Honoré de Balzac and other popular authors. Instead, we want to catalog their speculative fiction works only.

Based on that, I am in favor of keeping non-genre works by all authors, no matter how minor, who have been mostly active in SF. Take JC Andrijeski whom you linked above. She has published about 30 SF works, 24 of them novels. She has also published a non-genre novel and a non-genre novella. That's a 15:1 ratio, which clearly makes her a "primarily SF" author. Keeping her non-genre works in the database helps those who are interested in her oeuvre by telling them that "no, this is not SF". For example, the title of the juvenile novel "Jack Dervish, Super Spy" makes it sound like it could be SF, but it turns out that it isn't. That's useful information and IMO very much worth preserving. Ahasuerus 18:52, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Andrijeski's non-genre work should be documented in the database, and appropriately flagged. She qualifies as "above the threshold" because she the majority of her output is spec-fic. Michaels is widely considered a mystery writer, so only her spec-fic should be documented. Any enterprising ISFDB editor with time on their hands can create a bibliographic comments page and list all of Michaels' mysteries, but that would be unnecessary because we link to her Wikipedia page which already does that. Mhhutchins|talk 20:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

"Publisher Year" changes

The way publications are displayed on "Publisher Year" pages has been changed. The new layout is similar to the layout used on the Title page, e.g. see "Publisher Ace Books: Books Published in 1980". I plan to make similar changes to all "Diff Publications" and Publication Series pages shortly. Ahasuerus 22:05, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

"Diff Publications" done. Ahasuerus 23:19, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Publication series done. A few columns have been tweaked, e.g. the "Date" column now shows the publication month. I plan to make similar changes to the regular ISBN search and to the publication-specific version of Advanced Search tomorrow. Ahasuerus 01:29, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Regular ISBN search done. Ahasuerus 03:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Very nice! Chavey 07:52, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Sir! Looks great! Stonecreek 08:05, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

(unindent) Advanced Search done. Ahasuerus 20:57, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Correct way to enter a NONFICTION which contains an ESSAY with the same title as the NONFICTION?

This NONFICTION book actually contains three titles: a preface ("Vorwort"), an introduction ("Einführung") and a translation of the ESSAY Supernatural Horror in Literature titled "Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur". Until yesterday only the preface and introduction titles existed for this record in the database and I made a submission which should add the ESSAY "Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur" in order to make all three titles of the book visible. My submission got rejected by Bluesman who instead changed the TYPE of the title record from NONFICTION to ESSAY. As a result, the publication finally displayed all three titles it contains, but it lost its "Title reference". Now after some more submissions by Hervé the publication record is back to its initial state.

I'm a bit confused now by all this. I'd expect the title and pub records to look like this (all correct as of now except for the bold part):

TITLE record with TYPE "NONFICTION" titled "Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur"

PUBLICATION record with TYPE "NONFICTION" titled "Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur" containing these three titles (page number, title, type, parent):

6, Vorbemerkung (Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur), ESSAY
9, Einleitung (Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur), ESSAY, trans. of Introduction (The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature) 2000)
33, Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur, ESSAY, trans. of Supernatural Horror in Literature 1927)

What's the correct way to handle this?

Jens Hitspacebar 17:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

As long as the content is typed as ESSAY, it doesn't matter if it has the same title as the book itself. There's only a conflict if it has the same title and the same type. I just updated the record by adding an ESSAY content record titled "Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur". Then I varianted that new title record to the original English title record. I'm not sure why the original type had to be changed in the first place. Perhaps because it was so long in the German translation that the moderator believed it was a book-length work (usually typed as NONFICTION), and so there shouldn't be a content record for it. That's how it is normally handled. It is strange that it took 200 pages to translate a work that averages about 60-75 pages in English, but that's how translations work sometimes. Mhhutchins|talk 18:04, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, looks good now. The submission you did looks the same as my rejected submission, so my submission was correct actually. Good to know, now I'm back in "unconfused" mode :) As for the 200 pages: the essay is full of footnotes by S. T. Joshi, which blows ups Lovecraft's text (the English original "The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature: Revised and Enlarged", which this German version is based on, has a similar page count of 228). Jens Hitspacebar 18:38, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Now that makes sense! I would suggest adding a content record, typed as ESSAY of course, for "Annotations (Das übernatürliche Grauen in der Literatur)" credited to Joshi. But that's up to you. Then you could variant it to this record. Mhhutchins|talk 18:48, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Good idea! Done. Jens Hitspacebar 23:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Changes to searches

Regular and ISFDB searches have been changed to submit search parameters in their respective URLs. This means that you can link or bookmark your search results. In addition, you no longer need to resubmit the form when refreshing Web pages with search results.

Please note that URLs are limited to 2,083 characters. It shouldn't be an issue in most cases, but the way Unicode characters are represented in URLs, they take an awful lot of room. Advanced Searches that use long Unicode strings may be affected by this limitation. Ahasuerus 21:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Weekend support (19-22)

It looks like I will have limited internet access until Monday night. If anything major comes up, please e-mail User:Alvonruff. Ahasuerus 23:53, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Back in business. Ahasuerus 01:11, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

New How-To which explains how to get around the "Error creating thumbnail" error

I just created a new How-To to explain how to get around the "Error creating thumbnail" message: How to get the image displayed on its wiki page. What do you think, is it ok this way? Feel free to improve it :) If there's no objection I'd add links to this page on the How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki and How to pages. Jens Hitspacebar 21:09, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Great idea. This provides us a page to direct editors who are having this problem. I've done some simplification and clarification to your original instructions, and then linked the page to the "How To" list. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 18:49, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Help documentation for converting a NOVEL to a CHAPBOOK

I have rewritten the instructions for conversion because the original instructions weren't clear in how to deal with the two different situations in these cases. Mhhutchins|talk 18:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

2016-02-22 server outage (8pm)

The server will be down for maintenance between 8pm and 8:05pm server (Eastern Standard) time. Ahasuerus 00:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Everything should be back up. Advanced Search has been tweaked internally, but there should be few user-experienced changes. The most obvious one is that the "Next Page" link at the bottom of Advanced Search pages has been changed to a button. Ahasuerus 01:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

And you changed the search forms to use GET over POST—thank you! Uzume 01:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, that was done 4 days ago :) Ahasuerus 02:13, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

It would have been nice to get the new table results layouts too (I am not sure about the Next button or the colors but I really like the verified column in the simple search results; looking forward to it being deployed on advanced search). Uzume 01:59, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

There are a couple of prerequisite patches that need to be deployed first, but I expect that the new results table will be available shortly. Ahasuerus 02:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to get a major overhaul on the searching (e.g., supporting something like OpenURL or the like) but these updates go a long ways towards helping with that. Being able to sort advanced title search results will be nice. I noticed I can do ISBN prefix searches from the simple search but that does not work from advanced. Uzume 02:39, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

2016-02-23 server outage (8pm)

The server will be down for maintenance between 8pm and 8:05pm server (Eastern Standard) time. The patch will further consolidate the Advanced Search software. The only user-experience difference will be better error processing when Author and Publication searches find no records to display. Ahasuerus 00:30, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Everything should be back up. Ahasuerus 01:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

How great of you to keep everything up all the time. Thanks. Uzume 01:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words, but I am just doing my part like everyone else :) Ahasuerus 01:41, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it were caused by this latest update, but the "Show All Titles" function isn't working. Mhhutchins|talk 04:05, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The first patch was buggy and messed up "Show All Titles". I noticed the problem late at night and fixed it around 1am. Does it look OK now? Ahasuerus 21:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Greek mystery — but probably not mystic.

Hello. I would be happy if anyone could identify the original title and author of the book advertised here.

It is credited to Wallace Moore, and supposed to belong to the Balzan of the Cat People series — but I have some doubts. The translated Greek title goes “Ofira (or Ophira), the Ice Queen" (or possibly "Queen of Glaciers"), which I haven't found anywhere. Could it be a quirky translation of Lights of Zetar, which I am not at all familiar with ? TIA for any enlightening piece of info. Linguist 20:53, 24 February 2016 (UTC).

I am not familiar with the series, but the back cover used on Lights of Zetar says:

A new world for Balzan to survive, where Orala the priestess plans to seduce him and Androth the Krell king to kill him.

"Ofira" is probably a mangling of "Orala". One could counter that "priestess" and "queen" are very different job descriptions, but this review provides an explanation:

“Orala the priestess” is not in this book. Never mentioned. I don’t know where that name or position came from. Yes, Balzan is the target of an attempted seduction, but it’s by a woman named Lenor, who is also the princess (not priestess) of the Krells and Androth’s daughter.

So the Greek title appears to be a hybrid between what's on the back cover of the English edition ("Orala") and what's actually in the book ("princess" = "queen"). Fun stuff! :) Ahasuerus 21:17, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your research. I suppose this could be the explanation. What makes me hesitate, though, is the fact that the cover illustration is different, whereas it is Viper Fan's policy is to reproduce the original cover art, as is the case for the first two volumes of the series (see here and here). I tried to do an image research, but nothing came of it :o(. Linguist 21:52, 24 February 2016 (UTC).

Just found the rightful Greek translation of The Lights of Zetar : Τα φώτα του Ζετάρ (Ta fóta tou Zetár), 1980, Viper Fan #71. So I'm sorry about your ingenious explanation, but it can't be that ! As I had surmised earlier, the Greek credit to Moore and the mention of the Balzan series are just hogwash. Identifying the original cover would certainly help. Linguist 22:02, 24 February 2016 (UTC).

It was fun while it lasted! :) Ahasuerus 22:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Advanced/Regular search - title searches

The way Advanced and regular search display title records has been standardized. Ahasuerus 01:21, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, again. BTW, I noticed with the last update (not this one) you also changed the modularization of code (and thereby the URLs). I am all for getting rid of the unneeded intermediate pages we had before (one for the first bunch of search results and another for the subsequent), Uzume 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

There were a couple of reasons why Al had them set up differently back in 2005. There were issues with HTML form closing since you can't have a form within a form. There was also an issue with "Show All Titles", which linked directly to the "followup" page -- linking to the first page would have required styling a POST form as a URL, which is a pain. Once we switched from POST to GET, everything fell into place. Ahasuerus 03:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

however, I wonder if combining all the advanced searches together (title, author, and pub) is optimal Uzume 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

80-90% of the Advanced Search logic was already centralized in a class which resided in a separate module. The 3 CGI scripts merely parsed the search values and called class methods. The parsing algorithm was the same, so I folded the 3 scripts into 1 and added the class to the same module. I also moved the module to the "biblio" subdirectory, something that I had been planning to do for a very long time. Ahasuerus 03:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

(and if we do want that, it might make more sense to use PATH_INFO instead of the new TYPE parameter and then we could combine say search.cgi and adv_search_results.cgi). Uzume 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

The shared components of the two types of search have already been centralized or will be centralized shortly (authors.) The remaining components are rather different, but I will take another look once I finish the next round of changes. Ahasuerus 03:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

OK, great, but my points are more to combining search.cgi and adv_search_results.cgi (there can be one that either displays the forms or the results when the arguments are given). Also, I believe it would be good if we started using PATH_INFO more and a good first use would be to say make search.cgi return the form, search.cgi/titles?<form parameters> return the title search results, search.cgi/authors?<form parameters> the author search results, search.cgi/pubs?<form parameters> return pub search results, etc. It might also be possible to merge simple and advanced searching (making simple searching just use a different simplified form without as many options but call into the same results backend). Anyway, just some thoughts to discuss and mull over. Uzume 06:17, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure I am seeing the value of these changes. Going forward, I suggest that we move technical discussions to the Development page since they are meaningless to the majority of our editors. Ahasuerus 16:15, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Also I wanted to ask how are the column widths chosen with the new layout? For example, in advanced pub searches I find the "ISBN/Catalog#" column to be oversized and the "Publisher/Pub. Series" column undersized needlessly causing the rows to fold and double the vertical width. Similarly in advanced title searches the "Date" column seems undersized. Uzume 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

We can certainly review the spacing situation and make any necessary adjustments. It should be easier to do once the three Advanced Searches have been reconciled with their regular Search counterparts. Ahasuerus 03:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I also wonder why we list title dates as YYYY-MM-DD and pub dates as MMM YYYY. Uzume 01:39, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

That's a good point. There is a similar issue on Title and Pub pages where dates are displayed inconsistently. My personal preference would be to use YYYY-MM-DD wherever possible instead of forcing our users to go to the next level to find the exact date. Ahasuerus 03:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I also am a fan of the ISO 8601 style formats. To me, it just makes more sense to go from large to small (that way they auto sort themselves too) vs. the various national date formats (e.g., MM/DD/YYYY or DD MMM YYYY, etc.). Uzume 06:17, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it would be best not to use technical terminology like "ISO 8601" on the Community Portal if there are other, more human-friendly, options available :) Ahasuerus 16:25, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Advanced/Regular search - author searches

The way Advanced and regular search display author records has been standardized. The patch also fixed a nasty bug introduced in the previous patch. Ahasuerus 04:48, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Advanced Search - paging

The way Advanced Search handles results with 101+ records has been corrected. All pages should display up to 100 records per page. The "Next Page" button has been changed to display correct values, i.e. "101-200", "201-300", etc. Ahasuerus 00:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Pulp Magazine scans

The Internet Archive has scans of a large number of early magazines. For example, they scanned the entire run of If Magazine (I've added links to this page to the title series for that magazine.) I didn't see any other complete runs, but you can go to their Pulp Collection home page and do searches for magazines you're interested in. There are also a modest set of indexes, including Donald Day's "Index to the Science Fiction Magazines, 1926-1950" and a Weird Tales index. Chavey 06:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing that. It is quite interesting. It seems they also have others outside of the Pulp Collection like for example (it looks like) the entire Starlog magazine and Ares magazine (both are somewhat fringe for inclusion here but are probably of interested to people that do come here). Others that might be somewhat interesting include Game and Gamer Magazines, Comic Books and Graphic Novels, etc. Uzume 21:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

One can also find things like A Princess of Mars, Grosset & Dunlap, October 1917 (as part of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction Collection) which makes me wonder about the publication date of our own record P286171 which says Grosset & Dunlap, 1918. Their scan has "Published October, 1917" on the copyright page. Uzume 21:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia states it was serialized in 1912 and published in hardcover in 1917. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:20, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Our record points to the LCCN which states 1918 but then points to HathiTrust which also has two scans where the copyright page of each says October 1917 as well (one of the two scans, the one from University of California, is the same as the one at Internet Archive). Uzume 16:49, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Here's a scan to the first serialized entry: [4]. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:07, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Displaying "unpublished" titles

I would like to get other users' opinions of the recent change in how unpublished titles are displayed. I personally believe it's unnecessary to highlight such titles. The word "unpublished" sufficiently describes the title without having the blaring highlight to point out that fact.
Here's how it appears on a publication page.
Here's how it appears on an author's summary page.
Here's how it appears on a title page.
Here's how it appears on a series page.
Mhhutchins|talk 16:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd also say that the longer and lettered "unpublished" suffices in directing any attention of editors towards the respective titles. Stonecreek 16:32, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok with Michael. Hauck 16:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Neither irked nor elated by it. Linguist 17:08, 26 February 2016 (UTC).

It's indeed a little bit too intrusive. Rudam 20:36, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. I can live with the current scheme and I do not mind it being emphasized/highlighted in some way but it currently seems overly emphasized/garish (about the only way it could be worse would be to use blink but thankfully very few browsers even support that any more). Uzume 20:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I think the green highlight should be removed completely, especially if there's no indication why it is highlighted. It draws too much attention to the "unpublished" label und distracts from the rest of the data visible on a page. As for the question if "unpublished" is self-explanatory: I can imagine that someone who only knows little or nothing about book publishing (gasp!) can misinterpret "unpublished" as "not published yet". No idea how likely this actually is, but if you put all your knowledge about the publishing process aside, the word "unpublished" only tells you that a book has not been published, but it doesn't give you a time context: is the "publishing process" over (it stays unpublished) or still going on. Imagine a kid: "Dad, what about 'Donald Duck vs. Batman' which was being advertised last year?" Dad: "It's unpublished". Kid: "Oh. So, when does it come out?". Therefore I think it's still a good idea to somehow explain "unpublished", preferably in a way that the user doesn't have to search for the explanation: a possibility is to add the question mark icon (the one used on the edit pages) next to the "unpublished" label and explain the meaning of "unpublished" in a mouseover hint. Jens Hitspacebar 20:57, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

(outdent) The current version is too much. I don't believe the highlighting helps. Either people understand our terminology or they don't. If they don't, adding mouse over text could help (don't see the need for the question mark icon though; that could add further confusion - "unpublished?"), but highlighting doesn't. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Interesting point. I haven't seen it that way yet. I'd expect that a question mark icon is commonly known to internet users as something to help you. An alternative, less obtrusive and less prone to misinterpretation than the icon, would be to instead turn the "unpublished" label itself into a link which would point to a wiki page explaining "unpublished". The "title" attribute of the link element could be something like "Publication was planned but never published. Click here for more information about "unpublished"". Jens Hitspacebar 16:09, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

It sounds like the consensus is that the current color-coding is unnecessary and should be replaced with some kind of mouse-over text and possibly a question mark icon. Let me do the low-hanging fruit first and then we can decide what to do with the icon. Ahasuerus 16:19, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

The change has been deployed. I used the same question mark that our edit forms use because you couldn't tell that there was mouse-over help available without it. How does it look? Ahasuerus 21:01, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Very good. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 22:23, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Yep, much better now. Thanks a lot for the change. Jens Hitspacebar 09:57, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

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-{{isfdb-comm-portal-archive-header}}
+{{isfdb-comm-portal-archive-header|date=January - March 2016}}
-Archives of the community portal for January - March 2016
 == Lovecraft beer! ==