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This is an archive page for the Community Portal. Please do not edit the contents. To start a new discussion, please click here.
This archive includes discussions from July - December 2017

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Archives of old discussions from the Community Portal.

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"Publications with Invalid Prices"

The cleanup report "Publications with Invalid Prices" has been enhanced to include prices without a currency symbol. Ahasuerus 16:26, 1 July 2017 (EDT)

Proposal: modifying capitalization help

See discussion at R&S. --Vasha 11:05, 2 July 2017 (EDT)

OCLC URLs in Notes

As we discussed a few weeks ago, I have been trying to create a script to move OCLC numbers from publications notes to the external ID field. Unfortunately, I have found a number of odd permutations which make it hard to perform an automatic conversion. For example, consider this 1985 publication. The two lines that contain OCLC URLs are followed by additional lines related to the referenced OCLC records. The way my script is currently written, it would move the OCLC numbers to the External ID field and delete them from the Note field, which would create a mess. There are other patterns that make it difficult to automate the process without jeopardizing the integrity of the data.

On the plus side, our indefatigable editors have manually migrated close to 10,000 OCLC numbers to the new field over the last month+. At the rate we are going, the conversion process may be done by early 2018. Ahasuerus 16:53, 2 July 2017 (EDT)

If OCLC, or WorldCat (in all kinds of combinations of small and capital letters) are mentioned anywhere in the note except on the OCLC line itself, then it should not be touched, I agree. But we still have a lot of them where it is only on a line on its own, never referenced outside of the line... I know that text analysis of the full field to check if it is free to lift is time consuming but that will move a lot of OCLC numbers automatically Annie 18:29, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
Well, let's consider the publication that I linked above. I will copy and paste the relevant section of the Note field to make it easier:
How would the parsing logic know not to touch these 2 OCLC numbers even though there are no other references to OCLC or WorldCat next to them? A human would immediately realize that the lines that follow are related, but it's really hard for a computer program to make that type of determination. Ahasuerus 21:40, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
2017-10-11 update: The example above is no longer valid since the Note field has been changed. Ahasuerus 15:21, 11 October 2017 (EDT)
This record have a third OCLC and the word WorldCat under these two - which will mean "nope, human needed". And these 2 messages are faulty anyway - one of them is a bit wrong (they are the same number, different text). I can see the problem though - single OCLC but text on the next line for it.
Here is a new idea - OCLC as a last line on the notes? Annie 22:00, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
That's a good point. There are at least 14,661 notes with an OCLC link as the last line (except for the optional "/ul".) I'll see if I can take advantage of that. Ahasuerus 22:17, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
There are also lots of records where the last 2 lines are: OCLC link; then LCCN link. Those should also be easy to recognize and move. Chavey 02:27, 3 July 2017 (EDT)
It looks like any "pure OCLC link" line followed by a line that starts with a recognized pattern should be doable. Ahasuerus 10:19, 3 July 2017 (EDT)
... and then I find a publication note where the last line consists of an OCLC link and the next-to-last line reads 'OCLC <.....> Table of contents from <carriage return>". Sigh... Ahasuerus 14:15, 3 July 2017 (EDT)

(outcome) I have pretty much abandoned my attempts to convert OCLC links automatically, at least for now. There were just too many permutations and gotchas. Ahasuerus 15:21, 11 October 2017 (EDT)

Titles without Pubs report

Can we have this extended to include essays(for now) so we can start clearing those out of the DB? The ones that need to stay for one reason or another will need to get notes to explain so and ignored but there are a lot that need just old fashioned deleting. Thanks! Annie 18:33, 2 July 2017 (EDT)

Done. The data will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 21:51, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
Cleaned up, it was mostly essays by a few authors that seemed to have had a special dispense (granted by who, I don't know) like Shirley Jackson and Arlan Andrews (and also some quite unknown authors that probably used our system to beef up their bibliography), some leftovers from varianting, some purely electronic texts, some mismatched types (ESSAY for SHORTFICTION), some wrongly split NONFICTION books and some duplicates (under or not slightly different names). We can now try to clean the POEMs. Hauck 03:31, 3 July 2017 (EDT)
Great! POEMs will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 10:11, 3 July 2017 (EDT)
Done, note a concentration on very few authors (Hardy -see below-, Payack -a special dispense like Hardy?-, Baudelaire -problem with pseudonyming-, Poe -some working or "generic" titles or variants-) and a few leftovers. Ready to go to the next level (SHORTFICTION), perhaps in small batches as I won't try to guess the numbers involved. Hauck 03:58, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Excellent! Actually, SHORTFICTION isn't too bad, only 1,300 records. I have tweaked the report and they will pop up tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 13:54, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
A lot of the pub-less stories got nuked when I was assigning languages - because they were not in a publication, they did not get automatic language through any of the usual means so they got in the manual inspection and got deleted there. Thus the much lower number that one would expect (same happened with the poems and essays by the way).Annie 16:13, 5 July 2017 (EDT)

BNF cleanup report tweaked

The cleanup report "Publications with direct BNF links in Notes" has been tweaked to ignore links to Gallica and other non-catalogue parts of the BNF Web site. Ahasuerus 16:13, 3 July 2017 (EDT)

K. S. Hardy pub-less poems question

A huge amount of the poems in K. S. Hardy's account a pub-less (example: this one). What is our policy on that - do we allow them (if they were in printed books or ebooks and not solely online)? I can see that going both ways - if someone bothers to add the non-genre magazines/newspapers they were in, they are eligible (poems are fiction after all and we allow fiction from non-genre sources) but without the magazines, it looks weird. So what do we want to do:

  • Delete the lot of them
  • Add Magazine entries for the magazines/newspapers that contained them and add them as the only content
  • Leave them as they are. (my least preferred but if that is what we want to do, then I am fine with it).

Thanks for any opinions. PS: There are couple more poets like that (and I suspect we will find a few short fiction writers like that as well). Annie 15:40, 4 July 2017 (EDT)

If someone had added it and did not bother to add a note where they appeared, they are getting deleted - if someone cares enough, they need to write notes. But someone did here - thus the question. Annie 15:52, 4 July 2017 (EDT)
IIRC they were added by the author (or its representative, here). I'm going to delete them as our policy (or so it seems to me) was to add non-eligible (either because of their genre or their place of publication) texts at author's level and not as "proper" titles. For example, even if I've written a few essays about SF in non-genre publications, I won't try to include them in the db. I'm also wary of a recent tendency of "aspiring" poets (this is strictly without sarcasm) to massively enter their works in the db (note the length of this page.Hauck 02:39, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Essays are clear. But if we have a short story in Nature (a non-genre magazine), we catalog these. As we will do any SF story in any non-genre magazine of any type. So I was wondering what we are doing for poems. I have no issue with deleting the lot of them. Annie 02:50, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Yes, but in the case of Nature there is (in theory) a publication record that goes with the text, it's not the case here IMHO either because the poems are not spec-fic or the publication itself is not eligible. To go beyond this case, the underlying question is "Are POEMs to be treated like SHORTFICTIONs?". This could easily make a few pages at R&S. (For the record, I'd say "no" only on practical grounds as I fear that there are a looooooooot of poems in looooot of "obscure" supports waiting to be entered). Hauck 02:57, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Another point is that I found the practice of some "self-centered" contributors to enter only their own texts (either as a stub as in this case or as the sole content of the publication like here as I've seen numerous times) instead of taking the time to enter the whole publication quite contrary to our spirit and aims. In Hardy's case, it's quite interesting as some titles were entered as stubs and were (before I deleted them) given as being published in this magazine or that one, BUT the contributor simply didn't take the pain to add the issue. This is just lazyness or self-publicity but it's not acceptable bibliographic work. Hauck 03:02, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Maybe they did not know that they should because a boatload of those were accepted like that. But then - people will be people, there will always be people with different agenda in a community project... When I end up with one of those incomplete ones, I just edit and add the rest if I can find it. Maybe that will show a new contributor what is the expected behavior. And even if it does not, we do not have a half-way entered publication.
PS: Agree on poems - unless if they are in a genre publication, they are out in my book. Annie 03:31, 5 July 2017 (EDT)

Add AWards From the SFPA

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry association holds an annual contest as well as offering yearly awards for speculative poetry published the previous year: the Rhysling Awards for individual poems, the Dwarf Stars Award for short-short poems, and the Elgin Awards for genre poetry books and chapbooks.

I would like to have the SFPA award, Dwarf Stars and Elgin added to the Awards list —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akua (talk • contribs) . on 23:05, 4 July 2017 (EDT)

The Dwarf Stars Award and the Elgin Awards look solid and I would have no problem adding them. However, I am not sure what "the SFPA award" means in this context. We already support the Rhysling Award and I am unaware of any other SFPA-administered awarwds. Could you please clarify? Ahasuerus 20:32, 6 July 2017 (EDT)
The SFPA holds an annual contest for sf/f poetry. "The 2017 SFPA speculative poetry contest is open to all poets, including non-SFPA-members. Prizes will be awarded for best poem in 3 categories: Dwarf (poems 1–10 lines [prose poems 0–100 words]); Short (11–49 lines [prose poems 101–499 words]); Long (50 lines and more [prose 500 words and up]). Line count does not include title or stanza breaks. All sub-genres of speculative poetry allowed in any form. Entries will be read blind"Akua 22:10, 6 July 2017 (EDT)Akua
OK, I have added new award types for Dwarf Stars Award and Elgin Award.
As far as the "SFPA Poetry Contest" goes, I am not sure it counts as an award in the regular sense of the word. Its Web page says that it "is intended to raise funds for SFPA, as well as to draw more attention to speculative poets and reward writers of good speculative poems". All poems must be unpublished and and it costs $2 to enter a poem. Ahasuerus 15:21, 10 July 2017 (EDT)

Stephen Crane and the supernatural

On this page, a scholar answers a question about which of Stephen Crane's stories have supernatural elements by listing just three, one of which he considers to have merely "overtones of the supernatural." Do you think this is sufficient evidence to remove Crane's other stories from the database? --Vasha 18:46, 5 July 2017 (EDT)

Ashley and Contento's The Supernatural Index lists 10 stories. I wouldn't recommend deleting any of those. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 21:08, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
The thing is, Ashley & Contento tend to indiscriminately list the complete contents of a book of "Tales of Terror and the Supernatural" -- because they can't read everything, that's fair enough. I would recommend in that case adding a synopsis and a nongenre mark and a note saying that Ashley & Contento list it even though it's not supernatural. Vasha 21:24, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
If someone reads them and write synopsis for each (or find some) and determines that they are non-genre, a flag and an explanation will be a good idea. I would say that without a reading, it is just one source against another - we need a real human :) Deleting them will cause issues downstream - someone somewhere will decide to add them again. So staying in sync with Ashley & Contento plus notes is probably the best way to go. Annie 21:48, 5 July 2017 (EDT)
Sure, that's fine. Vasha 22:20, 5 July 2017 (EDT)

Stephen Crane wrote a number of parodies of ghost stories in which an apparently supernatural phenomenon turns out to be something ridiculously mundane -- for example "A Ghoul's Accountant" and "The Black Dog." I believe these should be marked non-genre, right? --Vasha 21:28, 6 July 2017 (EDT)

Linking to Smashwords images

Please note that we can now link to Smashwords images. The syntax is similar to what we do for SFE3-hosted images -- see Template:Image Host Sites for details. Ahasuerus 18:42, 7 July 2017 (EDT)

Cool. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:50, 7 July 2017 (EDT)

The Whole Science Fiction Data Base 8 question

Hello, I've seen a reference to this: 'The Whole Science Fiction Data Base 8' stating that it provides more detail about a specific book (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?257168). Can anyone please tell me what this 'Data Base 8' is and how to access it?

Thanks in advance!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Voodoomailman (talk • contribs) .

Answered the duplicate post in the Help Desk. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 22:42, 8 July 2017 (EDT)

LCCN double formats, PV'd publications and the current cleanup project

LCCN have two valid formats: year-number and year(some number of zeroes)number. Both are valid, both can be used for search and linking. In the current LCCN cleanup project, my understanding is that we are moving "as is" - if the editors preferred the 91-38127 format to be visible, this is what we put in the new External ID field - we are not trying to standardize at all (by using the 91038127 format always in the External ID and leaving the 91-38127 in the notes); if they preferred 91038127, that is what we are putting in the field. Especially on PV'd publications. There are a few cases really:

  • Link is pointing to 91038127, the visible part is 91-38127. The new field should be 91-38127 (link ends up in the same place; the visual part is preserved).
  • No link at all, just a string 91-38127, same as the above (actually in this case, I would say that using the 91038127 format is unreasonable.
  • If the visible part is already 91038127, we follow the same principle.

Leaving the link in the notes clutters them - if it is already moved down, why keep the note at all unless if it is tied to more details and needs to stay for clarification? Any opinions on that? Annie 18:58, 10 July 2017 (EDT)

I'm all for removing the note. A difference between LCCNs and the other external identifiers is that LCCNs are usually printed in the books. As an editor/verifier, I'd prefer to have the number formatted as it appears in the book. Assuming editors are likely to have entered them that way, preserving any existing visual formatting appeals to me. --MartyD 21:16, 10 July 2017 (EDT)
Me too (tm) Ahasuerus 21:56, 10 July 2017 (EDT)
There are cases (e.g. The Clocks of Iraz) where a LCCN number is quoted in a book that has no bearing to the present records of the Library of Congress, thus offering no valid link upon entering. I think all links should be checked, and the actual number must be used for linking, as was the case with the old method of entering LCCN numbers in the notes.--Dirk P Broer 21:33, 10 July 2017 (EDT)
We are not talking about the cases where there is a difference between the printed value and the actual one in more than format. Yes, all links need checking - and if it is plainly wrong, the note should explain the situation. But if the LCCN is printed as 62-123, I think this is what needs to be in the External Identifier field - as long as it is the valid one. I strongly disagree that we should enforce 91038127 in the link in such cases - this will make it appear as the value as well as the link now and that is the difference from those old links.
We may have an alternative option - have the external indentifier link be changed when creating the link - doing the conversion on our side (so it emulates the current most prevalent links). But this will be an overkill - LOC already does that. Annie 21:41, 10 July 2017 (EDT)

Similar series titles

This series has a notice at the top that another series has the same name. However, their names are not the same. In fact, the second series is a subseries of the first. Is there a way to suppress these notices on specific series? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:39, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

I submitted a series name change for the second one that may fix this. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:43, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Yep - instead of brackets (), use another separator in the series name. They have the notice as the same because the brackets syntax is considered disambiguation. The change helped (different names outside of any brackets). All good nowAnnie 13:46, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Cool. Any way to fix the sorting in the main series? It currently has them listed 2, 1, 3, 4 instead of 1, 2, 3, 4. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:40, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
The problem is that there are two different elements here - the books directly into the series (2) and the subseries entries (the rest). They sort separately and I am not aware of any way to sort them together - it sorts first the books into the series, then the subseries. So... one option is to put the single one that is in position 2 now into its own "main" series and put that main series as #2. Or you can wait to see if someone else has a better idea. Annie 16:49, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Guess we should wait for Ahasuerus to wander by. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:08, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Hmm...found an art book for the series, so I submitted that and changed the series to レア・ガルフォース to match the art book. That should fix it once approved and the new series is placed as #2 in the main series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:17, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Approved everything you had in the queue - and added the numbering (I think). let me know if this is what we were trying to achieve :) :) Annie 18:24, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Looks good. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:28, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

Here's a fun one to sort

Somehow, things got mixed up with this volume:

Volume one should have the following contents:

Instead, the first entry is for this omnibus (which isn't actually a real book). I'm not sure how it happened, and I'm not sure how to fix it since there's an omnibus within an omnibus. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:42, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

Use 'Remove Titles From This Pub' and remove the 'bad' omnibus . Once approved, you can delete the omnibus record (since it doesn't seem to be a valid publication) and import the missing novel's title record into the 'good' omnibus. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:50, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Submitted ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:05, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
That's the wrong one -- you want to kick out the 銀河無責任時代 omnibus, not the one that is the same name as the publication :) Annie 19:07, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:11, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
here is your stray title. Do you want to delete it? Seems like that series is missing its #1 now? Annie 19:13, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Submitted the deletion and the addition of the stray title (I knew about it, since that's how I noticed something weird was up). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:14, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Yeah, you were moving faster than I was typing above :) All looks good now I think? Annie 19:15, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Almost. I submitted a sort order fix, too, for both in the series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:16, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Got them less than a minute after you sent them - probably while you were typing. :) Now all should look fine. Annie 19:25, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Thanks for helping to sort it out. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:52, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
I remember the anime, but I had no idea that the (very) irresponsible Captain Tylor was so popular! Ahasuerus 20:25, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
And there's more, too. I still have 4 more novel series to add to the pile. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:47, 12 July 2017 (EDT)
Also, I wasn't aware there were this many. I knew the anime was based on some novels, but I'd never looked into it before. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:52, 13 July 2017 (EDT)
You never know what you may find once you start digging. Back when I started working on the database, I had no idea that so many Kenneth Bulmer books were only available in German (at the time.) Ahasuerus 16:00, 13 July 2017 (EDT)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Based on the following links ( WorldCat, LOC, Locus) and other references, the correct canonical title for this title should be "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell". The author's intent based on interviews is to use the punctuation of the time, and so the title should not include a period after 'Mr'. I can correct the publication entries for which I am PV, and suggest modifications to other PVers, but I think we should correct the Title Name as well. What's the recommended procedure for this?


WorldCat LOC Locus

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Taweiss (talk • contribs) . 19:46, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

Changed. Stonecreek 23:42, 12 July 2017 (EDT)

Nominating user Nihonjoe for moderator

See Moderator Qualifications#Becoming a moderator for the nomination process.

I would like to nominate user Nihonjoe (talk • contribs) for moderator. He has been with us for a number of years now, mainly working on Japanese entries and the Wiki side of the database. His talkpage shows excelent communication skills, and hardly any problems with his submissions. I think he meets the Moderator Qualifications and he has accepted the nomination. His language skills are an enormous asset.

Support

  1. Support, as nominator. --Willem 02:10, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
  2. Support, sorry to be late to the party, and discussion below notwithstanding. I don't share those concerns. I've found him to be a good communicator and his submissions and understanding of ISFDB policies and procedures to be solid. I also think beefing up the moderator corps' Asian language capabilities would be an added benefit. --MartyD 21:11, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
  3. Support, Nihonjoe is careful and all of his submissions that I have moderated have been uniformly good.Rkihara 23:06, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
  4. Support, with a small note - I had never seen him submitting an English language item (except when it was needed for a variant for a Japanese one or something like that.) Which does not disqualify him (and I had not been around long enough to know the complete history) but the conventions around capitalization, names normalizations, same-named publishers and so on can be a bit tricky (a lot trickier than they are in any of the other languages) and need a lot of attention when moderating. But the easiest way to learn those is either to edit a lot in that language or start helping people do them properly - and the first one is unrealistic for someone whose interests are in other languages. So when/if he becomes a moderator, I hope he will be careful around English-language submissions. :) Annie 13:06, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
  5. Support, I'm about 65/35 split [positive/neutral] and only because I have not moderated enough submissions for Nihonjoe. I think most were Variants, so the original submissions were already done [while I'm comfortable with french, German, Spanish or Italian I have no experience with cyrillic or pictographic languages]. But that's my lack, not his. I went through past pages of commentary and I will say there is a definite involvement at all levels. That's important. I don't feel the 'lack' of submissions is crucial [I certainly had far fewer when I became a Moderator, but the database was much simpler then - I actually knew what I didn't know]. What one submits also doesn't need to cover everything [I've never done one involving an Award - so maybe both my and Willem's flags should be lowered to half-mast]. I agree with Marty that more language coverage is a plus at the Mod level. And I haven't seen where Nihonjoe has been the slightest bit reluctant to ask if there's something he's unsure of. That's how I learned. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:29, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
  6. Support, despite a moderate amount of submissions, what I moderated was usually the result of serious, careful work. It being often Asian-centered is no problem, on the contrary : competence in this field seems to be an asset for this db. Linguist 08:16, 23 July 2017 (EDT).

Oppose

  1. Oppose Not for now, as Nihonjoe has (IMHO of course) not enough contributions (7.000). In the present state of the db, 10.000 contributions is a bare minimum (15.000 being the correct number to have learned most of the ropes), the last two accepted moderators were above the 20.000 mark. There is also, at this time, no shortage of moderators. Hauck 02:18, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Comments/ Neutral

  1. Neutral. Since I was asked to comment, I will post this versus not responding. I would prefer that someone becoming a moderator be familiar enough with the tools to handle this situation (discussion two topics above). However, I don't oppose the nomination. Nihonjoe's work has been good & I highly doubt he will cause any damage. If others are fine with him picking the rest up 'on the job', I'm comfortable that he will remain conscientious and so don't have an objection. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:03, 23 July 2017 (EDT)


  • Regarding Hauck's comment, there are a couple of moderators who have fewer contributions than me per the list: Albinoflea (~2800), Tpi (~4000). Another has just a few more than me: Kpulliam (~8500). So these seemingly-arbitrary "bare minimum" or "correct number" of contributions seems to be just that: arbitrary. As for the other argument (no shortage), there is no mention anywhere that I can find of a cap on the number of them (or anything similar). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:06, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
What don't you understand in the acronym IMHO? Of course it's arbitrary, it's my opinion. As for Albinoflea, I've exactly had the same position (not enough contributions), as for tpi he's with us since 2008 and was made moderator more than seven years ago in different times. On the relationship level, this immediate outburst just confirms my opinion that you're not ready for the job. Hauck 12:50, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
I apologize if you feel my comments were an "outburst", but I wasn't aware I wasn't allowed to make comments. If that's the case, I'll certainly refrain. I understand the IMHO acronym, too, as I've been online since the glory days of IRC way back in 1990. I'm fine if you don't think I'm ready for the job. I was merely pointing out that the numbers you gave seemed arbitrary (to me, even though I didn't use "IMHO" when I made the comment). You are certainly welcome to have your own opinion about anything, and I wasn't trying to imply that you couldn't. Apologies if it sounded that way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:46, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
A little bit of background. Back when ISFDB 2.0 was open for alpha testing in 2006, all testers were automatically made moderators because we were still testing the software. Once the beta phase started in December 2006, many original testers slowly became inactive. Eventually their moderator flags were removed. Some even asked to have them removed because they felt they were no longer on top of things.
Over the following few years a more formal process -- formal requirements, nominations, voting, etc -- was developed. We also added a "demoderatorization" policy for inactive moderators.
As far as the number of contributions goes, I think it's a useful gauge, although necessarily a rough one. As the size and complexity of the database grows, moderators need to be aware of more and more areas which didn't exist in 2006: awards, publication series, external IDs, cloning, cleanup reports, links to third party web pages, various title flags, languages, chapboooks, user preferences, etc. It's possible for an active editor to be very familiar with one part of the database editing process and be a rookie in other areas.
When reviewing the edits made by a potential moderator, I find it useful to look not only at the total number of edits, but also at the breakdown by submission type, which can be found here. In this case, I see that Nihonjoe has created 432 New Award submissions, which suggests that he is probably familiar with awards. Similarly, he has created 318 Title Merge submissions and 765 Make Variant Title submissions. On the other hand, he has created fewer than 10 Title Unmerge submissions, a tricky area.
One thing that we have found useful in the past is identifying the areas which a prospective moderator hasn't been exposed to and having a more experienced moderator work with him to make sure that he or she becomes familiar with them before we turn the moderator flag on. Perhaps it's something that we could consider in this case. Ahasuerus 13:54, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
I'm sure there are far more areas where I haven't done much, too. I don't think a moderator has to be intimately familiar with every area before becoming one, but rather willing to learn and willing to ask questions if they don't know what should be done in a given area. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:46, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
True, but there are times when, as the saying goes, "we don't know what we don't know". There have been times when I thought that I knew what the policy was and made edits based on my understanding only to find out later that my understanding was incorrect or out of date. On the other hand, as the system grows, it becomes harder to keep track of all of our features and policies; if we required perfection, we would be left with no moderators. Kind of a tricky balance... Ahasuerus 14:57, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
However, if that's the general consensus, I'm happy to live with it. I wasn't looking to be made one, but Willem said he thought I could do the job, so I indicated that I was fine if he wanted to nominate me. Whatever the decision here, I plan to continue contributing as I can (which is all I've ever done). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:46, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
I find that this too is a matter of balance. On the one hand, we obviously do not want new editors to be able to approve their own edits -- even the most well-meaning newbie is liable to make mistakes early on. On the other hand, having moderators approve every trivial change made by a veteran editor is not a very good way to spend out limited resources either: it makes both the veteran editor and the approving moderators less productive. Making qualified editors moderators is in everyone's interests, we just need to make sure that they have been properly "seasoned" :-) Ahasuerus 15:09, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
If people want to work with me in specific areas in which they think I need more experience, I'm open to it. I tend to just work on whatever interests me (though I do have a very large list of projects which seems to never get smaller). So, feel free to pass the salt and pepper and make sure I'm seasoned. ;) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:13, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
I think this discussion is going nowhere. Sorry to put you through this Nihonjoe. Perhaps my moderator flag should be removed because I don't do anything in the awards section? --Willem 15:22, 17 July 2017 (EDT)
No worries. I've been through far worse in similar discussions. This one barely registers. I'm fine it continuing if people want to continue it. Either way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:03, 17 July 2017 (EDT)

Request for additional comments

It's been 5 days since the nomination. Normally (and as per the standard process), it would be enough to determine if we have consensus. However, only 4 votes have been cast so far: 3 in favor and 1 against. I worked with Nihonjoe last year, when he was learning the ropes, but I have processed only 14 of his submissions in 2017, so I hesitate to cast a vote.

I have compiled a list of moderators who have approved more than 50 of Nihonjoe's submissions in 2017 and who haven't voted. I will ask them to chime in based on their experience. Unfortunately, one of them is on vacation. Ahasuerus 11:02, 22 July 2017 (EDT)

Outcome

The final tally is 6 in favor, 1 opposed and 1 neutral, so I will go ahead and set the moderator flag on Nihonjoe's account. Based on the comments about his limited exposure to non-Asian publications, I will encourage Nihonjoe to concentrate on self-approvals while he gets more experience in other areas. Ahasuerus 16:07, 24 July 2017 (EDT)

I'll keep Hauck's comments in mind. As for non-Asian contributions, I've submitted quite a few. More recently, I've been focusing on a few long Japanese series (one of the series had around 160 volumes in it!), so most of my recent contributions have been related to those. Thanks to everyone who participated. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:56, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
Congratulations from me also... don't be afraid to ask questions, and the beers are in the fridge. :) PeteYoung 06:24, 25 July 2017 (EDT)
As long as some of them are root beers since I don't drink. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 10:48, 25 July 2017 (EDT)

Content field for omnibus variants

The way we variant ombinuses is that we do not variant if the content is not exactly the same. At the same time, if you want to see the content of a variant, you need to have it added on the variant itself. Is there a reason why this field is not treated as the Series and SeriesNum fields and to be greyed out on the variant and inherited from the parent? Annie 18:10, 19 July 2017 (EDT)

Let me think about it... How about this scenario: the parent is [/1,2] while the variant is [/1,2+ss]? Is it a legitimate parent-variant pair or should their VT link be broken? Ahasuerus 20:56, 19 July 2017 (EDT)
Well, I do not like to variant different content - if it is a variant, it should be the same content (abridged, translated and whatsnot make a variant, split volumes (these I still do not like but oh well); different fiction elements altogether make new title). Otherwise where do we draw the line? At 1 story, 2 stories? 1 novel? If we take that wiggling to the extreme, we should just variant all omnibuses that contain the same 2 novels - after all the fact that one of them have 1 more novel and the other 2 more novellas and the third 4 more novellas is ignored if we say that 1-2 and 1-2+ss is the same. Or if we decide we will accept that, we need to draw the line somewhere firmly (and to keep in mind that if 1-2+ss is varianted under 1-2 but that will also mean that 1-2+2ss needs to go under 1-2+ss which will mean under 1-2 as well.
Of course if the community disagrees, I will just shut up and go do the variants the way we agree we should (and I had never seen your hypothetical situation so never thought on that - I was just cleaning series from variants and saw it on the omnibus and decided to ask. Annie 21:11, 19 July 2017 (EDT)
I only variant those with the exact same content. Otherwise, it's a different publication. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:08, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
I do this on a case by case basis (that is a really precise definition!). When the "bulk" is kept, especially in translation, I make the variant, for example in Ahasuerus' scenario for a translated work, I'd make the variant. As for the content of the field proper, I rarely use it as some title series are quite fluid and what is true at one moment may not be so in the future. Hauck 02:09, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

Award year listings not working for Gemmell Award

Examples: 2016, 2015, 2010. If you view them by category, it works fine: Legend, Morningstar, Ravenheart. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:54, 20 July 2017 (EDT)

It is the dates - someone had added them as 2010-06-00 (for example - the one I looked at) and not as 2010-00-00. I fixed one so now one shows under 2010. I will wait for Ahasuerus to see this and confirm before I fix the rest. Annie 16:11, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Just looked at the help page: "Enter the award year using the YYYY or the YYYY-00-00 format" :) So at least the help page is correct. Maybe we need a check added to make sure that the page does not allow the month and date to be added. Annie 16:14, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Probably easiest would be to have it be a YYYY-only field and add the "-00-00" on the back end if needed to make the database happy. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:45, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
It will do it if you just add 2017 :) The field accepts two formats: YYYY and YYYY-00-00 and stays valid. Because it is called year, I guess the assumption is that people will just add the year so no additional checks were done. I think the validation is the same as a date field but the help page for them is different. Annie 16:48, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
PS: That is why I said that I want to wait for Ahasuerus to chime in :) Annie 16:50, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Yup. Another idea: just have the database strip out "-MM-DD" for the awards and replace them with "-00-00" when submitted. Might be quicker than changing the form and such. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:20, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Thanks for identifying the problem! I am kind of under the weather at the moment, but I will take a closer look as soon as I get better. Ahasuerus 20:33, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Get better! This can wait. Annie 20:41, 20 July 2017 (EDT)
Yup, definitely hope you feel better soon. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:42, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
Thanks, folks, I am feeling better now. Not at 100% yet, but "mostly functional" (or at least that's what Fixer tells me.)
I have changed the affected Web page to use the award year only, so values like 2010-06-00 should no longer be a problem. While I was at it, I fixed a couple of other bugs. They only affected processing improperly formed award URLs, so fixing them should have no impact on most users. Please let me know if you run into any issues. Ahasuerus 15:44, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
So what is the policy now - dates or year only? If we officially allow dates, we need the help page changed. I know that it will work for dates now but that does not make it correct according to the current rules - thus me asking. Annie 15:50, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
I guess the first question that we need to answer is whether we plan to support awards that are not given annually. For example, Writers and Illustrators of the Future gives its awards quarterly. It's really a contest for amateur writers rather than an award:
but there may be other awards that are given more than once a year. If we were to decide to add them, we would need to redesign our software because it currently assumes that all awards are annual. (Gaps are allowed, of course.)
For now, I think we should keep the current policy, i.e. "YYYY or YYYY-00-00", for award dates. Once we clean up the data (there are 90 award records with months), I can add another layer of validation to prevent editors from entering YYYY-MM-00 and YYYY-MM-DD values. Ahasuerus 16:10, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
I agree. :) I've corrected any that I was approving last few days. Can you get a list of the affected ones so we can fix them? Annie 16:25, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
I have coded and deployed a cleanup report to find them. The data will become available tomorrow morning. I'll go ahead and create an FR to add that extra layer of validation that we discussed earlier. Ahasuerus 17:53, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
There is another example of 2 sets of awards in one year with the 2010 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. My assumption is that because their eligibility year was drifting, they awarded a second set of awards in 2010 to harmonize the eligibility year with the calendar year. I originally tried adding those with different months, but quickly discovered the problem seen with the Gemmells. I ended up adding both sets under 2010 with notes on the award record explaining which set it belonged to. I also added an explanation on the award type record. It might be a nice idea to have a note field for the award year where these sorts of things could be explained closer to where they appear. We could also note eligibility periods and time and place of the award ceremony. Just an idea. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 18:52, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
An interesting example; thanks. I agree that there would be value to adding an "award year note". Unfortunately, our current database layout doesn't lend itself to this addition. Notes are associated with records. At this time the only awards-related records are "awards", "award types" and "award categories". We would need to create a new record type -- something like "award year" or "award ceremony" -- in order to add notes.
After sleeping on it, I think it may be a viable idea. We already need to create an award type and an award category before we enter an award. If we were to add a new record type for "award years/ceremonies", it would be similar to award categories and would be available as a drop-down list on New/Edit Award pages. You would have to define an "award year" before you could enter any awards for it and there would be a note explaining where and when the awards were announced and/or presented. This functionality would also allow us to support non-annual awards like "2015 3rd quarter". Food for thought... Ahasuerus 09:28, 22 July 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) I have created FR 1086 to document what has been discussed here. It's not a high priority; I expect that we will discuss it when it's time to talk about Roadmap 2018 . Ahasuerus 12:45, 24 July 2017 (EDT)

Sounds good. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:29, 24 July 2017 (EDT)

"Note to Moderator" field name change

Hello, I find Annie's idea to use the "Note to Moderator" field to "notify" PVs really great. I'm starting to use it intensively as does Annie (of course) and Bill. This may be the long-searched-for way to simplify our notification procedures as this field is accessible anytime in the "My Changed Primary Verifications" link. Of course this way of doing things should be just used for "simple" updates or additions (The process for more problematic cases should stay as it is via the Talk Pages). To make things even clearer, perhaps should the field be renamed along the lines of "Note to Moderator / Notification to PVs" (or something else). Any thoughts on the matter? Hauck 02:56, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

One of the issues is that if there is more than one update in a day or since the last time you opened your Changed verifications, the previous notes get lost - each pub is on the list just once (I believe so anyway - maybe adding all updates to the list there is the way to go?). They are in the submission itself but not in the quick link under "Changed verifications" so finding them is not that easy). When I know I am multi-editing (typos usually), I make sure I repeat both but if I do not know about the change (or it was long enough ago to forget), the lost ones are getting lost. And yes - anything that is not moving fields around, format issues and so on should still be following the old process.
Nope, multiple edits show up on the list, and each change is different. I can't say if Mod notes stay as the ones I just checked on my list didn't have any. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:42, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
Another concern is that these are supposed to be just for the moderators (so people may add personal information there) - even though they were never really hidden. A rename of the field just for the publications (how often do we get personal information on changed publications? Authors edits - maybe, but on publications, not that much. Plus if we do see one, a rejection WILL keep it safe (I am pretty sure that only moderators and the editor that submitted the original have access to rejected submissions or at least it is not that easy to find them) and the moderator can reapply the change and add a proper note) Annie 03:26, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
So split in two fields? Hauck 03:32, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
Also an option :) But we have editors that put notes to the moderators into the Notes or Synopsis fields (and notes for the edition into the moderators notes) :) So technically, no matter what is done, we will have things that are just in the wrong place anyway. And I am really not that concerned about these on publications - most updates on verified publications won't have personal data. It's just that we tell people this field is safe - so we need changes in that. As long as people know that the field is visible, we should be fine with one field I think.
But I do agree, it is very useful for cleanup operations (and cuts down on the "what did she change now?" questions I hope) which is where I use it mostly (bigger changes get the note AND a post on the Talk page). As long as the multiple edits issue can be resolved, that may be a very effective tool indeed (not that there will be a lot of multiple edits in the same publications very often but corner cases tend to snarl designs and it is a valid case). :) Annie 03:47, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
Extremely useful, for all minor changes. I've actually re-submitted sometimes because I forgot to add a note [by rejecting the non-note version only one shows up on the other PVs page[s] ]. If we make it more visible/renamed/whatever more people will use it. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:42, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
I seem to have missed the original suggestion / discussion. Searching on "Note to Moderator" turned up nothing and I'm not looking through everything Annie has submitted. Any chance of a link? Thanks. Doug H 11:46, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
I think that the seed of the idea is here. Hauck 12:43, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
There was never a discussion per se. I used to use the moderator notes a lot before I was a moderator to remind myself what I did or what else needs to still be done or to show the moderators what I am changing for a small change (it is very annoying to try to figure out the change in a 6 lines of notes when visually you cannot spot it:) ). Then I realized that I can see the moderator note when I click on the changed verification or in an item in Recent Edits (before I was a moderator) so figured that it won't hurt to add there a summary of what I am changing during my cleanup -- too small to notify (moving lccn or adding a missing tag or changing to a template or adding a transliteration or changing a capital/small letter in a story - that kind of thing). So that is the backstory - a side unintended effect of a feature basically that is very useful on its own. Annie 12:53, 22 July 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) It looks like there are three overlapping issues here:

  • Add a new field to allow entering "Change Summaries". We may want to add this field to all types of submissions, not just EditPubs, since the functionality can be useful in a variety of cases.
  • "Create a history of changes to primary-verified publications by storing a snapshot of the way each verified pub looked like right before it was changed" as per Roadmap 2017. Unlike the proposed "Change Summary" field, the data will be saved automatically at the time the submission is approved. Even if the submitter doesn't enter anything in the "Change Summary" field, the data will be captured. The display software will be able to show two versions of the record side by side with differences highlighted.
  • Ensure the privacy of the "Note to Moderator" field since it can contain private information like e-mail addresses.

If this functionality is deemed higher priority than other outstanding items listed on the Roadmap 2017 page, I can reshuffle the development queue accordingly. Ahasuerus 16:28, 23 July 2017 (EDT)

I do not think that the first two are opposites - if you just change a letter somewhere in the notes (or add a tag), finding it even when you have both versions takes a lot of time and effort. So having a change summary in that case is very useful. Annie 14:13, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
I agree that they are complementary. Changing the software to highlight the differences will help, but a Change Summary field can do a lot more to explain the reasons for the change. Ahasuerus 16:23, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
Something else to think about: Changes in contained titles. We have the publications changes but if something is changed on the titles level (being it the title itself or content), there is no notification. And these are the ones that can really mess things up -- changing a story to a novella when you know it is not true or merging the translations of two stories when they need to stay separate. Any plans to start adding those to the changed primary verifications as well (and/or make them more available)? Annie 16:39, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
As I recall, I briefly considered the issue of EditTitle submissions affecting verified pubs when I was implementing the Changed Primary Verifications report. I agree that it would be desirable to add EditTitle submissions to this report. Title merges may be trickier; I'll have to think about them. Ahasuerus 17:55, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
I think that just highlighting that there had been a merge will be enough if someone wants to look into it - with a surviving note (because the current Recent Edit entry does not show the moderator notes for Merges and Deletes I think. Merges are mostly important in two cases: pseudonyms and translations. In most other cases, they are usually because someone added a book and typed the content instead of importing. On the other hand, this will make the changes page very busy so having two separate levels (show pubs only and show all titles) may be desirable. Just thinking aloud here - may be overthinking some of that. Annie 18:36, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
However - in both cases, we need to think about multiple changes - either by adding ALL changes at the Changed Primary Verifications or by making a list of "here are all changes, click away". Otherwise we are running the risk of me changing substantially the format (fixing links for example) and then someone updating a small to a big letter - leaving both my summary and changed record away from the eyes of the PV. Annie 14:13, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
As Bluesman pointed out earlier, the Changed Primary Verifications page already displays all changes, including multiple changes per day. If you have come across cases where a change to a verified publication didn't appear on the primary verifier's Changed Primary Verifications page, it was a bug and I'd love to hear the gory details! Ahasuerus 16:27, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
I need to remember what the issue was. Maybe if one of the "changers" was the PV? Will post back when I remember what that was all about (and because of that my mind somehow decided that we never have the duplicates. Looking at my own list, we obviously do so apparently I am a bit confused. Sorry! Annie 16:39, 24 July 2017 (EDT)
I think that in the meantime, using the moderator note field is a useful, albeit imperfect workaround. Annie 14:13, 24 July 2017 (EDT)

PulpCovers.com covers

Apparently, 4 years or so ago, the site owner gave permission to use their covers over here. What is the correct process here:

  • Ask the user to send an email from the domain (to verify that it is them?)
  • Just accept it as stated
  • Something else?

And if that is enough, can we have it added? I am holding a submission from them with another link and I explained the situation to them.

PS: And it is a good site to have permission to link to. Annie 12:30, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

I think the permission posted on our Wiki should be sufficient in this case. I have updated the software to credit the site. Approve away! Ahasuerus 13:14, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
Done! Can you add it to the help page as well? Thanks! (over here :) Annie 13:44, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
Added and alphabetized. Ahasuerus 14:35, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

demon.co.uk

Our UK-based spies are reporting that "UK Demon Internet" (demon.co.uk) has undergone a number of changes over the last few months. As a result, many non-business users, including some SF people, have moved their Web pages elsewhere. We have a couple dozen author records which link to Demonic web pages, so it would be good to double check that our data is still valid. Calling for volunteers! Ahasuerus 13:24, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

I will see what I can do today. Annie 14:59, 21 July 2017 (EDT)
The only ones that need attention are the 11 that used to be on fiawol.demon.co.uk (this is the list. The rest are either verified (they are still where we think they are) or updated now (for the ones that had moved). All of these are invalid - but I want to spend some time to try to find where the sites went (if anywhere) and a quick look did not find them. Annie 15:40, 21 July 2017 (EDT)

Template:PublicationFields:ExternalIDs

I've tweaked the layout of Template:PublicationFields:ExternalIDs in order to make it more readable and helpful. I added some descriptions so people will have a better idea about each one. If those familiar with the different IDs can add information on how to find it when viewing a record on each site, that will make the page even more helpful. Also, if there is a Bulgarian name for the SFBG, that should be added to the entry in the table. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:09, 22 July 2017 (EDT)

No Bulgarian name really - it is an abbreviation of Science Fiction - Bulgaria :) Known as SFBG - both on the site and in any conversation or site that cares what a site calls itself. Added some notes. I like the new format :) Annie 15:36, 22 July 2017 (EDT)
Glad you like it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:45, 23 July 2017 (EDT)

Search by External Identiier issue

Can we have this search strip leading and trailing spaces? See this? for and example. Annie 20:23, 26 July 2017 (EDT)

Done. Ahasuerus 21:35, 26 July 2017 (EDT)
Thanks! Annie 13:36, 27 July 2017 (EDT)

Duplicate Finder and COVERART

The logic behind the three Duplicate Finder pages has been tweaked. COVERART titles are no longer considered potential duplicates of non-COVERART titles. Ahasuerus 20:09, 30 July 2017 (EDT)

2017 Dragon Award nomination withdrawals

I noticed that Scalzi's and Littlewood's nominations are listed as withdrawn on the award page. However, Dragon Con refused to remove them, so it's still possible they may win. I think these two entries should be changed to reflect that they haven't been removed from the ballot. Thoughts? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:19, 9 August 2017 (EDT)

The first thing that comes to mind is that this is still an ongoing process. Scalzi first announced the nomination, then announced that he was withdrawing. Now the organizers have announced that they will not honor the withdrawing authors' requests. Since things are changing rapidly, we may want to wait and see what happens.
That said, it raises a larger issue. There is nothing preventing an organization from presenting an award to an author who doesn't want it. Consider the Golden Raspberry Awards given to the worst movie/actor/etc of the year. I am sure many awardees would love to be able to refuse them. We don't have anything similar at this time, but there have been complicated situations related to declined nominations/awards. For example, in 1986 Judy-Lynn del Rey was given a posthumous Nebula in the "Best Professional Editor" category. It was refused by Lester del Rey, her husband. We currently list it as a win and explain the situation in notes. Should Scalzi or Littlewood win, we could use a similar approach. Ultimately, we should probably separate "withdrawn" and its siblings from the "award level", but it will require non-trivial software changes. Ahasuerus 18:03, 9 August 2017 (EDT)
I like that idea. I also think that unless the sponsoring organization actually removes them (regardless of which award it is), they shouldn't be listed as "withdrawn". I think it will cause less confusion that way. We could just add a note to each of them that they had declined the nomination but that Dragon Con refused to remove them from the ballot. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:20, 9 August 2017 (EDT)
2017-08-14 update. As per this post, the award committee has decided to honor author requests and removed The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood and The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin from the ballot. They will "re-issue ballots to those people who voted for these two books". In the meantime, John Scalzi has withdrawn his withdrawal and will remain on the ballot.
Our award records have been updated to reflect the current state of affairs. Everything should be in sync assuming no other surprises. Ahasuerus 18:38, 14 August 2017 (EDT)

Finding month of publication

I was searching for the true month of publication for a book where the pre-release data that we displayed had the paperback being published prior to the hardcover that stated it was a first edition. I discovered that isbnsearch.org is generally able to give months of publication, back at least to 1976. A random sampling search of that site on a couple dozen books that we had months for showed very high agreement with their publication months. I found two disagreements: (1) One that claimed it was published a month later than we had listed (possibly due to Amazon selling books a little earlier than the official release date); and (2) One book where we had a January publication date and they had a December. This later case may be because Amazon defaults to Jan. 1 when they don't actually have a release date, and possibly because isbnsearch.org might default to a December date if they don't know (but I'm not sure of this). This site was fairly week on non-English books, but when they had such data it still agreed with us. Unless someone knows otherwise, this would appear to be a useful site for such bibliographic data. Chavey 09:39, 10 August 2017 (EDT)

Do they explain where they get their data from? Ahasuerus 11:21, 10 August 2017 (EDT)
I can't tell for sure. I suspect this site is descended from the isbnsearch open source project, but I can't find any actual evidence for a connection. If they are connected, then the SourceForge development page describes it as "A distributed search portal of common sources of ISBN numbers". That project has been inactive for 2 years (and the principle force behind it hasn't been involved in any other of his earlier projects, so likely either gafiated or passed on). The source code for that project is available, so you could always take a look. There is also an online discussion about accessing that site via Perl, which looks pretty straight forward. Chavey 03:14, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
The date they list for that pub is the same date as Amazon UK shows. Given that the search results show links to buy the book, the odds are they are pulling the data from their various affiliate sites (Amazon, etc.) and aggregating the results. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:21, 12 August 2017 (EDT)
That's consistent with the statement on the SourceForge page that said they were aggregating from several other sources. If their description is accurate, though, they are pulling from more than just the Amazon pages. Chavey 09:45, 15 August 2017 (EDT)

Is it necessary to distinguish Nynorsk from Bokmål?

Currently the language options here only include "Norwegian." However, there are two written Norwegian languages, Nynorsk and Bokmål, and publishers generally specify which one their book is in on their book listing page (unfortunately, Worldcat does not). Since we only have 130 titles in "Norwegian," it should be possible to figure out which of the two languages most of them are, shouldn't it? --Vasha 21:14, 10 August 2017 (EDT)

Language belongs to titles though - not to publications. Are the two language different enough to require the split of the titles? And when titles are translated, it generally says Norwegian. Trying to split them may not be as trivial as you think. Maybe we can use a note or a new template. Annie 21:31, 10 August 2017 (EDT)
The question of what constitutes a language and what constitutes a dialect is a complex one. Linguists joke that the main difference is the presence of an army and a navy :-) For this reason we use what is listed by ISO 639-2 and MARC21. They are not identical, but they are described by the Library of Congress (which maintains the two lists) as "compatible". We do not use ISO 639-3, which adds hundreds of additional language/dialect/sub-dialect codes.
In this particular case things appear to be a bit more complicated than usual. There are three MARC21/ISO639-2 entries for Norwegian:
  • "Norwegian", coded as "nor", also used for Bokmål, Dano-Norwegian, Riksmål and the Trøndersk sub-dialects
  • "Norwegian (Bokmål)", coded as "nob", also used for Bokmål, Dano-Norwegian, and Riksmål
  • "Norwegian (Nynorsk)", coded "nno", also used for Landsmaal (Landsmål) and Nynorsk
I have managed to find which of the two it is for all of the Norwegian titles but four. --Vasha 19:48, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
It would appear that we should keep "Norwegian" and add "Norwegian (Bokmål)" as well as "Norwegian (Nynorsk)" to be used when we know which version was employed. We may want to consult User:Linguist to make sure that the summary above is correct. Ahasuerus 23:09, 10 August 2017 (EDT)
Wikipedia writes "After the latest Bokmål reforms, the difference between Bokmål and Riksmål have diminished and they are now comparable to American and British English differences." That's the impression that I've had from my Norwegian friends. So if we do distinguish between Bokmål and Riksmål, should we begin to distinguish between books in American English from those in British English? Iberian Spanish from South American Spanish? Canadian French from European French? High German from Bavarian German? Chavey 03:27, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
"Language vs. dialect" can be a thorny area, which is exactly why we rely on a better qualified third party to make the decision for us. We generously let them figure out whether "Zacatlán-Ahuacatlán-Tepetzintla Nahuatl" and "Tetelcingo Nahuatl" merit separate language codes :-) Ahasuerus 10:37, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
I would tend to go along with Ahasuerus here, and think it would be useful to have extra "Norwegian (Bokmål)" and "Norwegian (Nynorsk)" at our disposal in case a pub is specifically ascribed to one or the other. But on the other hand, it wouldn't be a great sin to keep using "Norwegian" in other cases — or even all cases — as we have been doing so far (and it would save a bit of trouble). In other words, I don't think it's essential, as indeed the difference is not enormous today, but if some finicky editors are prepared to go into these details, why not ? :o) Linguist 05:09, 11 August 2017 (EDT).
Well, if they're that similar, then it certainly isn't essential. The reason I asked in the first place is because the book I just added, Knots by Gunnhild Øyehaug, had a reviewer talking about "the original Nynorsk" in a way that made it sound like a difference. --Vasha 13:22, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
One thing to keep in mind is that we need to support not only "living" languages, but also "historic", "extinct", "ancient" and "constructed" languages like Old English, Latin and Esperanto. If the differences between "Norwegian (Bokmål)" and "Norwegian (Nynorsk)" were sufficiently important to merit separate ISO codes in the past, we probably need to be able to capture them. Ahasuerus 14:00, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
And the publisher did specify Nynorsk. But I think no harm in ignoring that, myself... To be sure, German publishers distinguish books translated "aus dem Englischen" and "aus dem Amerikanischen." Eh, matter of taste... --Vasha 13:22, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
FWIW, some English language publishers include notes along the lines of "This book uses British English spelling". Ahasuerus 14:00, 11 August 2017 (EDT)
That level of detail strikes me as being worth a title note, but not a specification of a different language. My Norwegian friend (born and raised in England; spent all of his professional life in Norway) compares Nynorsk to King James English, but there remain certain literary journals that require submissions to be written in that form. Chavey 00:28, 13 August 2017 (EDT)
The nice thing about relying on a "trusted third party", in this case ISO 639-2, is that it lets us sidestep various linguistic controversies like Serbian-vs.-Croatian-vs.-Serbo-Croatian. If we were to make an exception, no matter how well-meaning, we could be asked to make further exceptions in the future, thus raising the very issues which we tried to avoid in the first place. Ahasuerus 17:01, 13 August 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) "Norwegian (Bokmål)" and "Norwegian (Nynorsk)" have been added. Unfortunately, "Bokmål" is currently displayed as "Bokmal" for technical reasons, at least for now. Ahasuerus 17:09, 19 August 2017 (EDT)

I have managed to find which of the two it is for all of the Norwegian titles but four. --Vasha 19:50, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
Great, thanks! 20:27, 20 August 2017 (EDT)

New Wiki page: current genre publishers

While searching for new releases in short fiction, I started taking notes on publishers, and have now posted my notes here: Guide to Genre Publishers. It includes all those I know of who've published something in 2017, with the exception of those (many!) who only publish a single author. There's 150 at the moment; naturally, I must have missed quite a few. At the bottom is a rather haphazard selection of publishers who've brought out some speculative fiction this year but don't specialize in it.

I hope you may find this useful as a resource for keeping up with what's new. I hope you will expand on it, and feel free to improve the design. --Vasha 16:35, 13 August 2017 (EDT)

New genre publishers only or reprint ones as well? Because I am missing a couple from the latter. :) Annie 16:49, 13 August 2017 (EDT)
It's supposed to be new publications of all sorts, including reprints. Please do add more! --Vasha 16:54, 13 August 2017 (EDT)
Looks quite useful. Perhaps we can automate all or at least some parts of the compilation/maintenance process. Running a query against the database for 2017 publications, I get the following list of the 20 most prolific publishers:
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| publisher_name                        |           count |
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| Tor                                   |             169 |
| Turtleback Books                      |             163 |
| Escape Artists, Inc.                  |             137 |
| Titan Books                           |             115 |
| Gollancz                              |             113 |
| HarperCollins                         |             102 |
| Stone Arch Books                      |              99 |
| Orchard Books (UK)                    |              96 |
| Little, Brown Books for Young Readers |              86 |
| Tor.com                               |              86 |
| Bloomsbury USA Children's Books       |              79 |
| Baen                                  |              77 |
| Orbit (US)                            |              75 |
| Gateway / Orion                       |              73 |
| J. H. Sweet                           |              73 |
| Aladdin                               |              72 |
| Angry Robot                           |              70 |
| Orbit                                 |              69 |
| Disney/Hyperion Books                 |              68 |
| Scholastic Paperbacks                 |              67 |
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
A little tweaking can further improve the query logic, e.g. by eliminating single-author publishers and displaying each publisher's Note field. We can then turn this query into an overnight report and add it to the ISFDB Statistics and Top Lists page. The only thing that may require additional work will be linking the new page to Amazon search pages. (At the very least we will need to strip all disambiguators like "(US)", "UK", etc.) We will also want to display multiple publisher- and store-specific Amazon links: one for all US/UK/CA/etc books, one for all 2016/2017/etc books, and so on. Ahasuerus 12:34, 14 August 2017 (EDT)
I've added the ones in that table (except for Turtleback, Escape Artists, and J. H. Sweet which are all irrelevant for various reasons). But I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean about automating updates. It will almost always take some hand-work to find the correct links. --Vasha 00:51, 15 August 2017 (EDT)
Well, it depends. Some publisher names are unique and unlikely to cause issues across Web sites. For example, 47North can be used "raw" in Amazon.com searches. It can also be used in WorldCat keyword searches. On the other hand, Orbit (US) can only be used in Amazon searches after stripping the parenthetical disambiguator and it's completely useless on the WorldCat side. Then there are imprints like Orchard Books / Scholastic which clearly require manual massaging. Finally, there are publishers like The Black Coast Press, which Amazon lists as something completely different.
Perhaps we could add a new field to publisher records, something like "Name used by external sites". We could then use this name (if provided) to build search URLs for Amazon US/UK/etc and potentially other sites.
It also occurs to me that broadly similar functionality could be useful when working with other records. For example, if we could link Summary Bibliography pages to WorldCat/Amazon/etc (and optionally limit them to a single year), it could benefit both active editors and occasional users. Ahasuerus 11:55, 15 August 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) BTW, here are the next 30 "most prolific publishers of 2017": 

+---------------------------------------+-----------------+
| DAW Books                             |              66 |
| HarperTeen                            |              66 |
| Yen On                                |              66 |
| Del Rey                               |              64 |
| Sky Pony Press                        |              57 |
| Scholastic                            |              55 |
| Scholastic Press                      |              54 |
| WordFire Press                        |              53 |
| Saga Press                            |              52 |
| Ace Books                             |              49 |
| Wildside Press                        |              49 |
| Brilliance Audio                      |              48 |
| 47North                               |              46 |
| Square Fish                           |              46 |
| Random House                          |              44 |
| Heinrich Bauer                        |              44 |
| Simon Pulse                           |              42 |
| Bloomsbury Children's Books (UK)      |              42 |
| Head of Zeus                          |              42 |
| Egmont Books Ltd                      |              39 |
| Houghton Mifflin Harcourt             |              39 |
| Scholastic UK                         |              38 |
| Heyne                                 |              38 |
| Candlewick Press                      |              38 |
| Games Workshop                        |              38 |
| Amulet Books                          |              38 |
| Alfred A. Knopf                       |              37 |
| Hodder & Stoughton                    |              36 |
| Delacorte Press                       |              36 |
| Berkley Books                         |              36 |
+---------------------------------------+-----------------+

Ahasuerus 12:02, 15 August 2017 (EDT)

Here's the ones that are different on that page so far, which is the tip of the iceberg, since Amazon is rarely consistent.

ISFDB Amazon
Ace Books Ace
The Alchemy Press Alchemy Press
Alfred A. Knopf Knopf
Apex Publications Apex Publications OR Apex Book Company
Atheneum Books for Young Readers Atheneum
Avon Avon Books
Berkley Books Berkley
Bizarro Pulp Press Bizarro Pulp Press - JournalStone
Bloomsbury Children's Books Bloomsbury Childrens
Covet / Entangled Publishing Entangled: Covet
Crown Publishers Crown
DAW Books DAW
Disney/Hyperion Books Disney-Hyperion
Egmont Books Egmont OR Egmont Books
Emily Bestler Books Atria/Emily Bestler Books OR Emily Bestler Books
Faber and Faber Faber & Faber
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus & Giroux
G. P. Putnam's Sons G.P. Putnam's Sons
Harlequin MIRA MIRA OR Mira Books
Henry Holt Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Indigo BHC Press/Indigo
Laksa Media Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Little, Brown Little, Brown and Company
Penguin Books Penguin OR Penguin Books OR Penguin Classics
The Penguin Press Penguin Press
Pocket Star Books Pocket Star
Select Otherworld / Entangled Publishing Entangled: Select Otherworld
SMP Swerve Swerve
Talos Press Talos
Vintage Books Vintage
Weidenfeld & Nicolson W&N

Vasha 11:46, 17 August 2017 (EDT)

"Resist and Refuse" Magazine

Does the magazine Resist and Refuse sound like something that could be included here? It's a political magazine by weird fiction/horror writers. There will be fiction and the description says "Each story is to some degree related to the general themes explored in the zine and most have a dark and/or weird tone." Having a weird "tone" isn't exactly the same as being weird fiction... I think, personally, I would not include it in the database until someone reads it and says whether any of the stories are speculative. --Vasha 21:14, 17 August 2017 (EDT)

It looks like a non-genre magazine, although I expect that, given participants like Cody Goodfellow, some of the content may be at least borderline SF. I agree that we should wait for the first issue to appear. Ahasuerus 22:14, 17 August 2017 (EDT)

Add an editor to series entries

It has been suggested that series entries should have a field for "series editor". I think this is a good idea as there are a fair number of series that have editors who are different than those for the titles included in them. Thoughts? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:59, 18 August 2017 (EDT)

How would it work if a series had different "series editors" at different points in time? Would it require splitting the series? Ahasuerus 18:15, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
Maybe have an optional text field where the volume numbers or years can be entered? I'd prefer not to split the series, though perhaps it could be turned into two sub-series within a container series, the way we do with books in series within series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:29, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
And about the cases where there are more than 2 editors in different times - a new one every 5 years or one doing the series for 30 days and then followed by a few with a few each year - what qualifies? Or when there are multiple ones on the series level and they are different each year? Where will be the boundary?
And what about translation editors for example - in some series, they do more work on the translated series than the series editor does. Who will make the decision who is eligible to be added to the field? The idea sounds interesting on the surfaces but opens the door way too much for a subjective decision on what is really a series editor and what does not... Annie 19:23, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
I don't think it's terribly ambiguous. If they are credited as "series editor" in the book, that's who you put in the field. If they are credited as something else, you don't list them as a series editor. We can make a specific list of who would be included. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:28, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
And what happens when the series editors change every year or every few years? We list all of them? Enforcing a rule based on a number will make it very unfair. Annie 19:37, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
Based on what number? The only number I mentioned was to perhaps have a field where volume numbers could be listed next to each series editor (like we do for omnibus volumes). How does that limit it or prevent series editors from changing? It would display something like this:
  • Series: Amazing Series Example
  • Series Editor: Editor Name (1-6), Editor Name (7-10), Editor Name (11), Editor Name (12-37)
Pretty straight forward. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:22, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
  • Series Editor: Editor Name (1-6), Editor Name2 (1-2), Editor Name3 (2, 14), Editor Name4 (3-4) and so on... Not all series editors are straight forward. Or single editors. Annie 20:31, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
Yes. I'm not seeing an issue. It still lists all of them. You could even do it by years if that was applicable:
  • Series Editor: Editor Name (1983-1987), Editor Name (1986-1999), Editor Name (1997), Editor Name (1999-present)
···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:34, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
If we allow multiple formats, the editor's page will become inconsistent (they will have one note for a series with (1-3), one with years and third one with titles for example (because the series was never numbered for example). I do like the idea in general but I do not think that just adding the field and modifying the author pages to show it is as trivial or so without problems... And sooner or later, we will get a "but I want to go on the editor page to see which exact books they were a series editor for" request (as opposed to the just show the list of series and needing to click down to it.
And I do not think that making half a feature (there on the series page, but not visible on the author page) will be a good idea. Once we start talking about showing that on the author page, we have to deal with pseudonyms (do we link to the pseudonym used or to the canonical (and what of the person changes their name - do we add two(+) records)? How do we show that on the author page - combined or as two(+) records?
If that feature is ever implemented, I think it needs to tie to translators and other types of people that we do not record now both on the pub and on the series level (editors for collections for example. Or for novels) as opposed to just doing something for one case. And we need to make sure that we do not just overload the page with links (longer series volumes will end up way down the page when we finish listing the series editors for some special cases. And Publication series also need editors assigned if we are going there. Annie 21:00, 18 August 2017 (EDT)
Opposed to this move. All this steming from (IMHO) an ego problem, an "uncredited" editor that wants absolutely to be listed (he tried this before under another pseudonym). Apart from this dishonest attitude, the concept of "series editor" is way too much nebulous to be used.Hauck 06:06, 19 August 2017 (EDT)
I'm not sure it's terribly nebulous when the front cover or title page indicates a "Series Editor". If it's not credited, then we wouldn't include it. Not nebulous at all. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:40, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
Sure, when you'll find the mention of a "Series Editor" in another language than english (you know that we also cover those, I suppose), just call me, I'm waiting. Hauck 04:02, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
Why are you being so snarky? You're acting like I'm some clueless idiot who needs your benevolent wisdom (at least that's the way it reads to me). Regardless of whether the editor who initially wanted this was acting in his own self interest, it's a good suggestions that should be addressed seriously. And yes, I know we have other languages here than English (that should be pretty obvious to anyone who has seen my contributions, of which you have seen and approved many). I've seen series editors for Japanese anthology series, too. You even mention a French one below, so that's at least three languages with clear examples. I'm fine with waiting to implement it with other contributor roles, but please don't treat me like a moron. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:46, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
Unfortunately, tone can be difficult to convey on the internet :-( In addition, sarcasm is treated differently in different cultures (and even sub-cultures), which increases the likelihood of misunderstanding. Once you add various linguistic nuances, even between different versions of English (e.g. "When would you like me to knock you up tomorrow?" or "let's table this plan"), to the mix, misunderstandings start to pile up and it can be difficult to deescalate the resulting conflict. Ahasuerus 13:59, 20 August 2017 (EDT)

(after sleeping on it) Based on the fact that "series editors" can change over time, I think that the proposed field would have to be associated with Title records rather than Series records. It would also have to be a multiply occurring field (similar to authors, transliterations, Web pages, etc) in order to support scenarios with multiple "series editors" per volume. Finally, it would need to support pseudonyms.

Although quite time-consuming, it would be possible to implement. However, I agree with Annie that it would be better to address this functionality as part of a larger project to add support for "contributor roles" like translator, "adapter", "cover design", etc. Ahasuerus 08:54, 20 August 2017 (EDT)

We may even be forced to locate this "role" at publication level. In France, we have the "directeur de collection" ("Publication Series Manager/Editor") role that may bear some likeness to the proposed Series Editor. The person at this post is of course usually changing with time. So let's suppose that a precise title is first published under series editor X's reign, then reprinted (with a new cover to distinguish things) at a time when series editor Y is at the helm. Who shall get the credit if it's located at title level? X because he likely bought it, Y because he choosed to reprint it? Both? Hauck 09:26, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
I would say we credit it however it's credited in the work. If both are listed, then list both. If only one is listed, then list only the one credited. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:48, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
I think the first question that we will need to address is which "roles" will be associated with title records and which ones will be associated with publication records. For example, I am reasonably sure that we will want to associate "translators" with title records. On the other hand, "cover designers" will be most likely associated with publication records: multiple publication records can use the same COVERART title, which will be arranged differently by different cover designers.
However, what about "single author book editors"? A number of publishers, including major publishers like Tor, have been know to list the name of the person who edited the first edition of a book. Should we associate this "role" with title records or with publication records? Ahasuerus 14:11, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
Maybe we should make a list of all the different roles people have suggested over the years first. I think it will be easier to consider which records to attach them to if we have a good list to work from. Here's a quick list:
  • Series editor
  • Translator
  • Cover designer
  • Text/Book designer
  • Adapted by
Anything else? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:10, 20 August 2017 (EDT)
The original discussion of roles is here. A lot has changed since 2009, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think that some of the ideas are still relevant. Ahasuerus 20:32, 20 August 2017 (EDT)

List of roles

Role Level
Adapted by Title?
Back Cover Artist Publication
Collection Editor Title, Publication
Cover Designer Publication
Cover Photographer Publication
Editor Title, Publication?
Interior Layout Designer Publication
Narrator/Reader Publication
Series Creator Series, Publication Series
Series Editor Series, Publication series, other?
Translator Publication

I also like MHHutchins' comment at one of the previous discussions:

I don't think authors (in our current use of the word which includes artists and editors) should be assigned roles, but that roles should be assigned to authors. There's a difference there. Let me explain. Robert Silverberg should have one record for all his credits. His relationship to the publication is defined by the role we assign him. The system automatically assigns him the role of editor when the pub type is ANTHOLOGY, as it assigns him the role of author when the pub type is NOVEL. If he were credited with an INTERIORART credit, we would assume him to be the artist, even though there is no such credit explicitly assigned by the system. I would suggest a entry form that allows a drop-down menu to assign pre-defined roles then allow the editor to add another credit (as it does now for cover art). That way we can assign as many roles to a publication as are necessary. The system will combine these credits into one "author" summary page, but only display the assigned role on the publication record. To bring up a recent example: Robert Conquest edited The Robert Sheckley Omnibus, but there is no credit on his summary page. Once role assignment has been implemented, it will. The question is: how will it be displayed? Perhaps under a newly created Book Editor category. Which begs another question: how will this is differentiated from books listed under Anthologies which at the moment assumes the author to be the book editor? MHHutchins 23:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I think his suggestion is a good one: making a drop-down where we can assign different roles to every person attached to a particular title. This allows quite a bit of flexibility in doing things like adding an editor to each title in an anthology (if they each had different ones, which I've seen occasionally).

Feel free to edit the table to add other possibilities (or suggest them and I'll add them). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:27, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

The following is IMHO. First, we're going way too far in the details. Presently, the photographer of a photographic cover is credited as cover artist, why create another category (and so why not "cover aquarelist", "cover photoshoper" etc...), this kind of list is nearly infinite (I've seen pure genre books -NESFA?- where the font designer is credited) and can be easily expanded many times (proofreader, typesetter, packager, publication series designer, inker...). Second, for the huge majority of the records most of these new roles will be left void and are irrelevant to a bibliographical enterprise or simply unknowable. Third, there is as usual the problem of definition and the managing of the resulting conflicts, "Series creator" is a perfect example especially when applied to media-related work (who's the creator of Alien, Van Vogt?) and its wonderful world of lawsuits. Fourth there is the problem of levels and its possible impacts on the display. There are some publication series in french that have seven known series' editors, should the PS be split? On what grounds? (i.e. When is a new Series's Editor to be considered as leaving its mark on it? When he enters the company? After a fixed delay?). In general, I'm afraid that we're blindly forging ahead into minute details at a time when more bibliographically central points are still not adressed like the implementation of the printing rank. To be more constructive (It's quite a rare sight), I'd keep for now: Editor (either for COLLECTION or NOVEL records), Translator and a more general Designer. Hauck 02:45, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
To answer some of your comments:
  • Two: If they are credited in the book (or in a reliable source), they would be credited here. If not, then they wouldn't be credited. There's no guessing involved. Most books credit at least some of the suggested roles, so it's not really relevant that a given book wouldn't use all of them.
  • Three: Unless Van Vogt was credited somewhere as the creator of Alien (which he's not, as far as I I've seen, even though there are a lot of similarities). As with #2, unless they are specifically credited either in the work or in a reliable source, they would not receive credit here. Just like we do it now.
  • Four: We can discuss how any new roles would display (that's part of why this discussion is here). As for your example of the French series with seven series editors, I think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. I don't think a series needs to be split just because a new editor takes the helm (or joins the previous editor). The new series editor would be recorded when he is credited in the work or in a reliable source. Just like we do it now.
Regarding the rest, what do you mean by "printing rank"? I haven't heard that term before.
Thanks for your comments. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:48, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
It's the last item listed in the Roadmap 2017 section:
  • Add a "printing rank" field to order multi-reprinted titles without pub dates
Basically the printing number. Ahasuerus 18:20, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
Aha. I was wondering if that's that it meant. I like that idea, and that might be easier to implement since it's a standalone feature (unless you include the printing year part from more recent publications, as well as the printer information that some publishers include on that line). Thanks for the clarification. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:43, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
Yes, it should be relatively easy to implement compared to roles. We'll have to decide whether the new field will be strictly numeric (1, 2, 3, etc) or whether we'll allow arbitrary text. Making it numeric would make it easy to sort things. Ahasuerus 20:00, 28 August 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) Going back to roles, I believe translators will have to be associated with titles rather than publications. A single pub may contain two dozen titles translated by 10 different people. The same logic would apply to narrators/readers if we decide to implement them.

As far as "series creators" and "series editors" go, I believe that they would need to be associated with titles rather than series. In addition, you can have a standalone title, e.g. a game novelization, with 3 "creators" and 2 authors. If we decide to implement these roles, we'll have to think it through. Ahasuerus 20:11, 28 August 2017 (EDT)

New cleanup report - Potential Duplicate E-book Publications

A new cleanup, "Potential Duplicate E-book Publications", has been coded and deployed. All editors will be able to see the data while moderators will be able to "ignore" records. The data will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 17:25, 18 August 2017 (EDT)

Note that I'm leaving "as-they-are" the pairs of records where one is given as a Kindle book and the other a Nook book. Hauck 10:56, 28 August 2017 (EDT)

De Nederlandse Bibliografie publication number added as a supported external ID

De Nederlandse Bibliografie publication numbers have been added as supported external IDs. Ahasuerus 16:14, 20 August 2017 (EDT)

And now we have a cleanup report to go with it. The data will become available tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 16:17, 31 August 2017 (EDT)
Good. Thank you! --Willem 16:34, 31 August 2017 (EDT)
Sure thing! To complete the circle, I have created a "PPN" linking template. Ahasuerus 21:17, 31 August 2017 (EDT)

Award to add: Australian Shadows Award

See AHWA website. --Vasha 17:56, 21 August 2017 (EDT)

Looks pretty solid. Any objections? Ahasuerus 18:42, 21 August 2017 (EDT)
Without objection, so ordered. They have changed their structure a few times since 2005, so I had to create 9 categories to accommodate them. They should be ready for your data entry pleasure! Ahasuerus 19:15, 24 August 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) A correction is needed. As this post shows, the long fiction award began to be called the Paul Haines Award in award year 2013, not 2011. (Haines himself had won it for 2011, before he died.) Therefore, this category needs to be divided into two: "Long Fiction (2011-2012)" and "Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction (2013-)." Everything else can stay as it is.

Note that, following AHWA practice, the years stated for the awards are the years of publication (the award itself is given out the following year). Thus, the 2013 Paul Haines award (the first one) was given in the spring of 2014. --Vasha 12:42, 26 August 2017 (EDT)

OK, I have split the "Long Fiction" category into 2 and added the winners. Ahasuerus 14:09, 26 August 2017 (EDT)
Upon reflection, I am not sure that splitting 2011-2012 and 2013- is the best approach. We have a number of categories whose names have changed over time yet we don't split them. For example, the SFWA Grand Master Award, which we currently list as a Nebula category. Its name was changed to "Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award" in 2002, but we have only one category for 1975-2017. Ahasuerus 15:41, 26 August 2017 (EDT)
True. Would make perfect sense just to call it "Long Fiction" with a note. --Vasha 15:55, 26 August 2017 (EDT)
OK, done. Ahasuerus 10:35, 27 August 2017 (EDT)
Good... and the data entry is complete --Vasha 10:50, 27 August 2017 (EDT)
Excellent! Ahasuerus 12:36, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

Nonexistent book

I think I have found a record for a book that doesn't actually exist -- this edition of Samurai and Other Stories by William Meikle. That ISBN is only on Amazon.br and a few other random booksellers; and there is an interview with the publisher in December 2013 where they say that Samurai and Other Stories is forthcoming. Any objections to deleting that publication and changing the title date? --Vasha 16:12, 24 August 2017 (EDT)

I've fixed it. It was likely just a typo. The Kindle edition is listed as January 21, 2014, and the TP version is January 5, 2014. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:38, 24 August 2017 (EDT)
One interesting thing: 978-0-9922182-3-2 brings up the Kindle edition, not a trade paperback edition, on Amazon. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:40, 24 August 2017 (EDT)

Canonical name question: Geoff Brown/G. N. Braun

The author whose canonical name is currently G. N. Braun has equal numbers of records, published simultaneously, as G. N. Braun (fiction) and Geoff Brown (editorial work). The canonical name should be the one that's more familiar, and normally that would be the one used for fiction, but not in this case. As Braun, he's respected but neither very famous nor very prolific. As Brown, he's editor of magazines and anthologies (twice award-nominated), past president of the Australasian Horror Writers' Association, columnist for a major fan site and author of numerous articles, and publisher of Cohesion Press. I have found five interviews with him using the name Brown, one using Braun. So I propose changing the canonical name. Thoughts? --Vasha 09:35, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

Since he writes of himself as G. N. Braun on his own website, I think it would be somewhat confusing to change the canonical name. Stonecreek 04:02, 28 August 2017 (EDT)

OCLC as External Identifier vs. OCLC as Secondary Verification

Now that we have the External Identifier field in place which covers OCLC numbers, is OCLC as Secondary Verification still necessary? I feel like they're redundant now, and that we could probably remove the Secondary Verification option as long as we run a list of all the records that have OCLC 2V's that haven't had their OCLC numbers added as External IDs. (Which isn't likely to be a quick process, but is one we could start.) Albinoflea 16:09, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

It would appear that this will need to be a three-step process:
  • Move all OCLC numbers from notes to the External ID field
  • Ensure that all OCLC-verified publications have at least one OCLC External ID
  • Re-evaluate to see if we would be losing any other functionality by removing OCLC verifications
Does this sound about right? Ahasuerus 12:47, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
I'm not sure why we would remove OCLC verifications. My assumption is that when we do an OCLC verification, we make sure that all of the data we collect that is in that record has been pulled into our record (is that naive of me?). So the OCLC verification would, at least in my (possibly imaginary) world indicated that this data extraction has been done, while just having it as an external ID would mean that we have located the record, but not necessarily extracted the data. Chavey
Plus the verification allows to set a value as N/A do the next editor do not lose time looking for a record. It also contains a date (so it is clear when something was valid so one knows to check for a new record or not). The two things serve different purposes in my mind. Annie 23:50, 28 August 2017 (EDT)
Since WorldCat is not a finite resource, in my mind the N/A would only be a temporary state of affairs... in that sense I feel like its not really like the other resources listed in the secondary verification section, which are primarily bibliographic resources fixed in time. WorldCat is sort of like ISFDB in the sense that it's simultaneously adding new, current material while infilling with older material, especially non-English editions, so if there isn't a record for it today not that's not an indicator that there might not be one at some future date.
While I haven't been here long enough to know the original raison d'être for the Secondary verifications, my sense was that they were a way of asserting the existence of a volume when no primary verification was forthcoming based on the collections of the editors at any given time... basically along the lines of "We've never seen one but it's in Currey so we assume it exists", with the relevant data being extracted into ISFDB until a PV or more detailed source becomes available.
WorldCat entries are not terribly detailed by ISFDB standards, and the Using Worldcat data help page is really just a long cautionary tale. I primarily use it just to grab the OCLC accessioning number so that it can be linked to, which also gives a nice way of locating a copy of an edition in a library. Otherwise I occasionally use it for creating entries to prevent dangling reviews in older publications where the Amazon data is lacking or suspect... but in that sense they're really just stub entries. Most of the time I see an OCLC number and it's already attached to a fairly healthy entry in the DB. And we don't have an Amazon entry for Secondary Verifications, even though we're probably more reliant on Amazon than we are on WorldCat by now.
I would miss the date stamp and user info that Annie mentions, because we don't get that from regular edits and sometimes it can help identify who created or edited a record. In that sense if a WorldCat 2V is the only verification on record, perhaps they are valuable, but if there are multiple verifications WorldCat is probably the weakest, so there isn't likely to be much data coming from the WorldCat record aside from the ID number anyhow.
But that's just my sense from how I use it and how I've seen it used. I'm interested to hear how others are using it. Chavey and Annie's take is interesting because I just assumed that we would want parity... if there was a WorldCat 2V we should have a External ID and vice versa, which is why I felt they were redundant, but if people are using them for two different purposes then that is definitely not the case. Albinoflea 01:15, 29 August 2017 (EDT)
OCLC records are *very* helpful if we don't have a PV (page numbers, anthology contents, and a few other things). If we have a PV on the book, the OCLC has limited usefulness, although I use it for two other purposes: (1) I'll often grab the OCLC plot synopsis to add as our title summary; and (2) It can often be used to identify other editions of that book that exist, and add them as well. Chavey 01:25, 31 August 2017 (EDT)

A. Bertram Chandler Rim Worlds Books

I recently had reason to revisit the Chandler page to enter some new acquisitions. I would like to reorganize the "Rim Worlds" section, and the John Grimes Rimworld section in particular. First, the numbered pubs are in no particular order, neither in order of publication or in order of their point in Grimes' career. But if that were all, I wouldn't bother making changes. The situation that bothered me was that not all of the pubs under the John Grimes heading involve John Grimes. The first two novels (items 1 and 3) are about a character named Derek Carver. The second item, a collection, also features characters other than Grimes (although he appears in one as a minor character). There are others that are non-Grimes as well. And it should be "Rim Worlds", not "Rim World". Any thoughts? Bob 13:07, 28 August 2017 (EDT)

I only read a subset of the John Grimes stories and it was years ago, so I hesitate to give advice. However, this list of Grimes works maintained by David Kelleher looks useful. His site also has a master list of Chandler's works.
My personal recollection is that some stories featuring Grimes were either peripheral or set in what appeared to be alternative continuities, which may present bibliographic challenges. Ahasuerus 12:49, 29 August 2017 (EDT)
That material looks useful; thanks! Bob 16:34, 29 August 2017 (EDT)

Suppression of reference titles

I have been thinking about our last round of discussions re: how we display nonfiction titles in publications. After experimenting with the software on the development server I concluded that we probably have a larger problem.

Back when the "ISFDB 2.0" software was designed and implemented, we wanted the Publication page to distinguish between each pub's "reference title", i.e. the main title in the pub, and all other titles. For this reason we displayed the former on the "Title Reference" line in the metadata section while displaying all other titles in the "Contents" section.

A few years later things began to change. First we realized that some reference titles, notably novels, could have page numbers associated with them. If we didn't display them in NOVEL publications which contained additional titles, the Contents section would look incomplete. For example, consider what this pub with its 4 introductions and 1 afterword would look like if we didn't display the novel title. And so we changed the software to display NOVEL reference titles twice -- once on the "Title Reference" line and then again in the Contents section -- but only for pubs with additional titles. It was inconsistent and duplicative, but we figured it was a relatively uncommon occurrence.

Then we began adding information to the Contents section. We added series data, variant data, pseudonym data, translation information and the juvenile/non-genre/etc flags. However, we didn't change the data on the "Title Reference" line, which is now out of sync with what's displayed for Contents titles.

Consider this NOVEL publication. Its "Title reference" line reads "Fanfaren der Freiheit". If the pub contained an afterword, the same title would also be displayed in the Contents section as follows:

  • Fanfaren der Freiheit • [Interplanetary Relations Bureau • 1] • novel by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (trans. of The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets 1968) [as by Lloyd Biggle]

One heck of a difference.

Also, back when we implemented non-genre/juvenile/etc flags we tweaked the "Type" line of the metadata section to display the reference title's flags. It's really a kludge since the flags are part of the title record and not of the publication record, so they don't belong in the metadata section.

I should add that this is not a novel-specific issue. It also affects other types of reference titles: collections, anthologies, omnibuses, etc.

I can think of two ways of addressing this problem. The first approach is to change the software behind the display of the "Title Reference" line to display the same information as what we display in the Contents section. It would synchronize the two sections, but we would be left with the issue of data duplication for novels and the kludgy flag display. Also, my experiments on the development server suggest that adding more information to the "Title Reference" makes it too long/unwieldy if there is a cover scan.

Alternatively, we could remove the "Title Reference" line from the metadata section and simply display the reference title in the Content section along with the rest of the pub's titles. I think it's a more comprehensive solution and will work better in the long run. However, it will change the appearance of the Publication page, especially the Contents section of NOVEL pubs, so I'd like to solicit feedback before I do anything. So, what do you think? Ahasuerus 20:39, 5 September 2017 (EDT)

That would certainly look good for novels and for monograph NONFICTION. Indeed, I very much like the idea of always displaying the reference title in the contents section in such cases where it is also a regular title. But are you suggesting also displaying container titles in the contents section? A much more awkward prospect. --Vasha 22:01, 5 September 2017 (EDT)
Well, let's use this collection as an example. The "Title Reference" line currently reads "Der Tag ist nicht mehr fern". If the display software leveraged the logic used in the Contents section of the page, the text would change to:
  • Der Tag ist nicht mehr fern • by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (trans. of A Galaxy of Strangers 1976) [as by Lloyd Biggle]
Would that be OK?
Also, it occurs to me that we don't have to change everything in one fell swoop. We could start by taking some of the following steps:
  • Always display novels in the Contents section
  • Rename "Title Reference" to something like "Container Title"
  • Do not display the "Container Title" line for novels
  • Change the display logic for other container title types to what's shown for "Der Tag ist nicht mehr fern"
We could then take a break and re-evaluate in a few days. Ahasuerus 23:54, 5 September 2017 (EDT)
So, any objections to the last 4 bullet points? Ahasuerus 18:12, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
No, let's give it a try! Stonecreek 23:47, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
The 4 listed changes have been applied. Let's see if the new layout looks better than the old one. Ahasuerus 17:58, 15 September 2017 (EDT)
I really like how this looks. My only issue is that "Container Title" sounds like obscure jargon; but at the moment I can't think what to call it instead. At least it's obvious what it is, no matter what we call it. --Vasha 19:03, 15 September 2017 (EDT)
A better term would be nice. We can always use more better English! :-) Ahasuerus 21:06, 15 September 2017 (EDT)
I miss the old title reference links. I go from a pub page to the parent title page all the time. It used to be the title reference link was in a consistent place and it was a no-brainer to find it on the page and click. Now it's buried in the contents meaning I need to hunt it down and then carefully position the mouse to avoid ticking anything else. If the pub-notes are long I first need to scroll so I can see the Contents section. Can the "Container title" field be added back for novels? It's still there for collections and anthologies. I think "Title reference" is a better field name name than "Container title". I never minded at all that sometimes it it was duplicative. 80% of the time I'm only looking at the metadata and I ignore the Contents. When I'm verifying a publication's pagination then I'll be looking at the Contents section and ignoring the metadata. --Marc Kupper 02:52, 4 November 2017 (EDT)
It would be easy to display NOVEL reference titles as "containers". The downside would be that they would then appear twice: once in the metadata section and then again in the Contents section. Personally, I don't think it would be a good trade-off, but let's wait for other editors to chime in. Ahasuerus 19:43, 5 November 2017 (EST)

Victor Valla

Jonebergquist has submitted Victor Valla as the cover artist for multiple publications. I have the original edits on hold as there was no source or notification to the primary verifiers. After posting on the user's talk page, the user made subsequent edits (also on hold), providing a moderator's note that gave the source as:

"http://cthulhufiles.com/bb/bboxer.htm also http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/search/label/victor%20valla and my Facebook conversations with Mr Valla"

As this impacts multiple verifiers, I'm posting this centralized notice here and pointing active verifiers to it.

If anyone has concerns with this sourcing, please post here. Otherwise, I will accept the edits tomorrow and add an appropriate statement to the publication notes. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:57, 6 September 2017 (EDT)

Not a fan of blogs as sources, but the data seems solid. --~ Bill, Bluesman 12:37, 7 September 2017 (EDT)
(edit conflict) The Cthulhu Files post seems thoroughly researched, so I would accept it. Here's an archived version of the page, if you wish to use it: archive. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:40, 7 September 2017 (EDT)
Edits have been accepted & source note added. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:02, 7 September 2017 (EDT)

Analog/Asimov's

Just returned from a vacation provided by my medical insurance, although I'm still having some problems. My brother picked up my mail and as soon as I can get to it, I'll list the contents of these magazines, unless somebody gets to them first. MLB 21:55, 8 September 2017 (EDT)

Good to have you back! Just take your time! Christian Stonecreek 00:39, 10 September 2017 (EDT)
Glad you made it through! Ahasuerus 21:03, 10 September 2017 (EDT)

Introductions to Lem's Dzienniki gwiazdowe / The Star Diaries / Sterntagebücher

There seem in fact to exist three different introductions (see here for the initial discussion):

  • the introduction from the first edition 1957
  • a new introduction plus an introduction for the expanded edition from the second and third editions 1966/1971.

They appear to have become mixed up for the various publications. It seems very likely that the 1957 introduction in fact wasn't published in English, as these editions feature expanded versions and omit the original 26th voyage.

In addition, it will likely be the case that (at least the two later ones for the expansions) are either credited to 'Professor A. S. Tarantoga' or 'Prof. A. S. Tarantoga' (which would be a pseudonym for Lem).

As this issue impacts multiple verifiers, I'm posting this centralized notice here and will pointing some active verifiers to it. Stonecreek 08:36, 9 September 2017 (EDT)

I'm not sure what the 'issue' is? These 'Introductions' are clearly in-universe, thus whatever 'signature' is attached to them can't be considered a pseudonym of the author. If this were a novel they wouldn't even get separate content status. I think it's a stretch even in a collection. --~ Bill, Bluesman 11:55, 9 September 2017 (EDT)
I agree with Bluesman about the authorship. In universe fictional essays don't get a fictional author. As for the dating, my edition states "Original edition: Dzienniki Gwiazdowe, published by Czytelnik, Warsaw, 1971", so I assume both introductions were first published in that publication. --Willem 15:57, 9 September 2017 (EDT)
Thanks for the comments, guys. I still think that we could use the signature as source for the credit (especially since one of the introductions refers to the absurdity of Lem being the author of the stories), but I also can live with that.
I'll variant the varianting of the introductions. There may exist four different introductions from the years 1954, 1966 (we have an edition for that year but without contents), 1971 (reference to LEM and two now shortfictions) & 1971 again? (for the expanded edition). Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 00:37, 10 September 2017 (EDT)

Old ISFDB backups

Now that additional Google Drive space has been donated to our project, I am in the process of making select pre-2017-06 backups available once again. The ISFDB Downloads page should be updated over the next day or two. Ahasuerus 13:30, 12 September 2017 (EDT)

MySQL 4.0/5.1-compatible versions of the existing monthly backups have been uploaded for 2006-2017. If someone needs a particular weekly backup file which hasn't been uploaded, please let me know and I will make it available. Ahasuerus 16:46, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Date order inconsistency

I just noticed that if a title or publication does not have an exact date, only a year, it is listed after exact dates in the publication table on the title page, but before exact dates in title lists. That ought to be made consistent. --Vasha 10:51, 13 September 2017 (EDT)

Originally records with 0000-00-00 dates were displayed first. There was a feature request to make them sort last. It was implemented in 2010. Somewhat later (I can't find the FR right now), the display logic was streamlined to display records with "00" months and days last: 2014-00-00 appears after 2014-01-00, 2015-01-00 appears after 2015-01-12, etc. Ahasuerus 11:35, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
P.S. Of course, these things are never cast in stone. Changes can be reverted (completely or partially) if we determine that they do more harm than good. Ahasuerus 11:50, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
I don't really care whether they are before or after, it's just that they should be the same in publication summaries and title summaries. So change titles to "after"? --Vasha 11:52, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
Sorry, I didn't realize that there was a discrepancy. Could you please post a couple of sample URLs? Ahasuerus 13:49, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
To take the example of the author I was just working on: notice that in the list of publications for "The Afterlife Is What You Leave Behind", 2011-00-00 comes after 2011-07-26; however, in Ben Loory's chronological summary page, "Wings" (2010-00-00) comes before "The Poet" (2010-01-12). --Vasha 14:01, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
Thanks! I'll take a closer look once I am feeling better. Ahasuerus 14:41, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
Actually, it's not as involved as I suspected. Here are the 4 places where we try to account for various 0000-00-00 and YYYY-00 permutations when sorting records:
In other words, we have 3 "YYYY-00-00 before YYYY-MM-DD" scenarios and 1 "after" scenario. It would be easy to make things consistent, we just need to decide which option is better. Opinions? Ahasuerus 14:59, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
Actually, I like before better... and that's the easier option too... But I agree that 0000-00-00 should continue to be at the end of the list. --Vasha 15:17, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
I agree with Vasha. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:21, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
I think I prefer the "before" option as well. Ahasuerus 20:11, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
I can live with both. Stonecreek 23:50, 13 September 2017 (EDT)
I would say that exact dates should be first but I can live with either. Annie 10:17, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

(unindent) OK, the change has been made. Please note that it also affected the "Publisher Year" page. For example, "1978-00-00" is now displayed before "1978-10-00" on this page. Ahasuerus 16:05, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Punch

Our friends and co-conspirators at SFE3 have added an article about the UK magazine Punch. We already have a couple of issues on file, but the SFE3 article includes additional information, notably a 1960 series of SF parodies written by well-known authors. In addition, Advanced Title Search for "Title Note contains Punch" finds a number of additional SF stories published in Punch (like this one.) Calling for volunteers. Ahasuerus 16:55, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

I'll work on it. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:41, 14 September 2017 (EDT)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:02, 14 September 2017 (EDT)
I have entered magazines for:
  1. Existing genre stories which had first published in Punch notes containing the full issue date.
  2. New stories from the SFE3 entry.
There are some additional genre stores stating first published in Punch, but without the full issue date. I tried searching for more information, but didn't find anything. I couldn't find an obvious Punch bibliography, etc. to make it easy. If anyone wants to try their Google-fu to try and find dates for those issues, that would be a help. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:52, 14 September 2017 (EDT)

Invalid birth places

This report indicates that this author entry has an invalid birthplace. Following the instructions at Template:AuthorFields:BirthPlace, I changed it from "Burford, Oxfordshire, England" to "Burford, Oxfordshire, England, British Empire", but it's still showing up in the report. Since that location was in the British Empire during at the time of his birth (1753), I'm not sure what it needs to be changed to. Ideas? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:14, 15 September 2017 (EDT)

For England, the software recognizes the following combinations as valid:
  • Kingdom of England (before 1707-05-01)
  • England, Kingdom of Great Britain (1707-1800)
  • England, UK (1801 or later)
I thought the template had sections for England and Scotland, but apparently not. Ahasuerus 20:47, 15 September 2017 (EDT)
The template has been updated. Ahasuerus 20:50, 15 September 2017 (EDT)
Okay, thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:56, 15 September 2017 (EDT)

Date issue in one-line title summaries

While we're discussing display issues, here's something to consider. Currently, regular titles have a top-level record that combines the canonical title, the canonical name of the author, and the date of first publication (or of first book publication in the case of serials). Variants and translations have their date set to the first time that title+author combination appeared (or that's how it's supposed to be done in theory; it's applied extremely inconsistently). Here's how some variants appear when displayed in tables of contents. The first is the canonical name + canonical title; the second is a variant title (and pseudonym also); the third is a canonical title + pseudonym.

1. Record # 1197 | Title: Triplanetary | Author: Edward E. Smith | Date: 1948-00-00

  • Triplanetary • [Lensman • 1] • (1948) • novel by Edward E. Smith

2. Record # 893797 | Title: Triplanetary: A Tale of Cosmic Adventure | Author: Edward E. Smith, Ph.D. | Date: 1954-00-00

  • Triplanetary: A Tale of Cosmic Adventure • [Lensman • 1] • novel by Edward E. Smith (variant of Triplanetary 1948) [as by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.]

3. Record # 1281436 | Title: Triplanetary | Author: E. E. Smith, Ph.D. | Date: 1965-08-00

  • Triplanetary • [Lensman • 1] • novel by Edward E. Smith [as by E. E. Smith, Ph.D.]

I hope you can see the problem: in the third instance, the date of original publication does not appear. You will be on a publication page when you're looking at that; if you want to know the original date of the work, you click on the contents item to go to the title page, and that takes you to a variant title with a variant date, and you then have to click again and go up to the top-level title to find the original date. What's needed, then, is a revision of the display so as to include the original publication date in all three of those combinations.

It's actually not simple to do that. The current logic has the year of the variant displayed following the title only for the top-level title, as "Triplanetary • (1948)", and that's a good thing; it would be confusing if the year of the variant was always displayed, because we'd see something like "Triplanetary • (1965) • novel by Edward E. Smith [as by E. E. Smith, Ph.D.]" and it wouldn't be clear that that wasn't the date of first publication. So instead, in scenario #2, the date is placed in the "variant of... ", thus: "(variant of Triplanetary 1948)". But that leaves nowhere for the date to go if there isn't a "variant of...", that is, in scenario #3.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'd like to submit, as a shy proposal, a way of rewriting these table-of-contents summaries. How about VariantTitle • (OriginalYear) • length by CanonicalAuthor (variant of CanonicalTitle) [as by Pseudonym], thus:

1. Triplanetary • [Lensman • 1] • (1948) • novel by Edward E. Smith
2. Triplanetary: A Tale of Cosmic Adventure • [Lensman • 1] • (1948) • novel by Edward E. Smith (variant of Triplanetary) [as by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.]
3. Triplanetary • [Lensman • 1] • (1948) • novel by Edward E. Smith [as by E. E. Smith, Ph.D.]

There's only one problem with this: translations. I would prefer to have the date of the first appearance of that translation displayed next to it rather than the date of original publication. Here's how translations currently look, using the example of a translation that first appeared in 1961:

  • Die grauen Herrscher • [Lensman • 4] • novel by Edward E. Smith (trans. of Gray Lensman 1951)

(That is to say, the translation title is being treated the way a variant title would be currently, except for the notation "trans. of..." instead of "variant of...".) I would like to see translations either continue to look like that, or look like so:

  • Die grauen Herrscher • [Lensman • 4] • (1961) • novel by Edward E. Smith (trans. of Gray Lensman 1951)

However, we do already treat translations differently from variants for some purposes, so shouldn't it be possible to display the summary line differently for them also? Even if it's not possible, and we had to display translations as "Die grauen Herrscher • [Lensman • 4] • (1951) • novel by Edward E. Smith (trans. of Gray Lensman)" to be uniform with variant titles, I would still prefer that to the current state of scenario #3.

I hope this all makes sense! --Vasha 22:41, 15 September 2017 (EDT)

Interesting points, thanks. I'll need to spend some time playing with the data to internalize the permutations... Ahasuerus 12:09, 16 September 2017 (EDT)
Here's another thought; how about displaying both the variant date and the original days after three title, something like this: "Triplanetary: A Tale of Cosmic Adventure • (1954 / 1948)" "Die grauen Herrscher • (1961 / 1951)"
Here are a few more permutations.
1. Publication Record # 633461
Current: Spiegel, the Kitten • novelette by Gottfried Keller (trans. of Spiegel, das Kätzchen. Ein Märchen 1855)
Proposed: Spiegel, the Kitten • (1946 / 1855) • novelette by Gottfried Keller (trans. of Spiegel, das Kätzchen. Ein Märchen)
Note: Currently no variant date displayed because the variant title date (1946-00-00) is the same as the publication date
2. Publication Record # 421763
Current: Cultos da carga da Ilha do Beijo Picante • novelette by Rhys Hughes (trans. of The Cargo Cults of Salty Kiss Island 2017)
Proposed: Cultos da carga da Ilha do Beijo Picante • (2007 / 2017) • novelette by Rhys Hughes (trans. of The Cargo Cults of Salty Kiss Island)
Note: Translation published before original
3. Publication Record # 458637
Current: Fantastic Mr Fox • (1970) • novella by Roald Dahl (variant of Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Proposed: Fantastic Mr Fox • (1970) • novella by Roald Dahl (variant of Fantastic Mr. Fox)
Note: Variant year same as original year.
--Vasha 14:34, 16 September 2017 (EDT)

Poe canonical titles

Currently Poe's stories have their title of first appearance as their canonical title, even though often that title is very rarely used (in a number of cases, such as "Morella" or most of the Tales of the Folio Club, we have no publications using it in the database). What do you folks think about changing to the most common variant as canonical instead? --Vasha 15:24, 18 September 2017 (EDT)

I think we should leave it as it is: It would lead to some chaotics and in theory, these publications should eventually be added. Stonecreek 23:59, 18 September 2017 (EDT)
I agree with Christian. Another wrinkle to consider: If we're dating the variants based on when they first appeared, having something other than the original as the parent will cause everything to appear with an inappropriate date. --MartyD 07:36, 19 September 2017 (EDT)
There are actually quite a lot of cases in the database where the canonical title is the most familiar, widely used variant rather than the oldest one. In that case, the top-level record is given the date of the first publication. The combination of canonical title+canonical author name+oldest date may never have actually appeared in a publication, but it provides a standardized top-level title record. That said, I'm not actually very enthusiastic about creating such records for Poe. I agree with you two that it might disrupt work that people have done. --Vasha 10:59, 19 September 2017 (EDT)

Documenting Verne translations.

Someone has done a wonderful job of documenting the various translations of "Voyage au centre de la Terre" here. Unfortunately, this has not (yet) been extended to his other novels. I'm prepared to take a shot at this, but wanted to discuss the organization of the material first.

The translation information is laid out chronologically. If you examine the first title for a translation (e.g. the 1877 translation), the first appearance and translator are provided, as well as the text that characterizes that translation. Subsequent titles under the translation (e.g. 1965 retitled translation) repeat the first appearance and translator, but not the text.

For someone entering a publication where the translation/translator are not identified (as is frequently the case), it is not clear which title should be used, or when a new one should be generated. It requires opening each of the primary translation titles to locate matching text. Then, if the titles do not match, checking in the notes for the date of the earliest match for the title. Only then can the title be selected and a publication be added. This assumes that you do not have an earlier publication, for which you would have to updated the notes (as the dates are not generated).

Given that we do not have ways to identify translators or translations, or to make variants of variants, I was hoping we could still provide a better approach for people entering publications. I would like to make the identifying text more obvious by moving it up to the notes. For two different translations this might work, but here there are twelve. (The thirteenth is for unidentified translations - meaning someone did not have (or use) the text to differentiate the translation.) The amount of text would push the publications down by a screen or two. Is there some way to handle longer title notes? Is there a simple way to refer or even link to the titles without relying on the date? Doug H 15:07, 21 September 2017 (EDT)

Google Books warning

As many of you know, we had some issues with Amazon's API as a source of "forthcoming books" data earlier this summer. As part of my efforts to find an alternative source, I tried leveraging Google Books' API. Unfortunately, it turns out that the quality of their data for forthcoming books is much worse than Amazon's. Not only do they have less information than Amazon, much of what they have is badly mangled or just plain wrong. Please be extra careful when using their data. Ahasuerus 16:10, 26 September 2017 (EDT)

Anyone know Armenian?

I think this publisher should be Աջափրթ, but I can't find anything about them online. The only publication in the db is this one, so they may no longer be in business. Thanks in advance! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:55, 27 September 2017 (EDT)

User:Linguist was able to help with Armenian books in the past, but he is on hiatus at the moment. Ahasuerus 09:03, 27 September 2017 (EDT)
This is one of the books that was added based on a The Baum Bugle review. So I wonder if the review does not have more information - even if he does not speak the language, a scan will allow someone to decipher (I know the alphabet and a few words in Armenian - nowhere near enough to research this)? Maybe User:Rtrace would know something? I will ping him. Annie 18:45, 27 September 2017 (EDT)
Sounds like a plan. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:19, 27 September 2017 (EDT)
The review in the Bugle lists the publisher as "Ajpetrat" and further states that they are located in Erevan. The review does not give the Armenian title nor does it have a picture of the cover, though they state that it has the same design as the 1960 Russian edition. The other details for the book must have been added from the other source mentioned in the notes, which was added by someone other than me, so I'm afraid I'm not much help. I don't know if that source is eligible for inclusion as a work about speculative fiction. I did search the first word "Незнакомый" and it does not appear to be in the database. I had hoped to find who added that part of the note. Sorry the review didn't have more information. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 19:08, 28 September 2017 (EDT)
Thanks for chiming in - it was just a thought that something may be hiding there. I suspect the rest of the data came from User:Linguist - seems like we will need to wait for him (the cited book is not eligible for inclusion - it is non-fiction about Volkov (Title is: The Unknown Volkov in Memories, Letters and Documents) and he is definitely not above the threshold so it is not about speculative fiction no matter how you slice and dice it. Annie 19:28, 28 September 2017 (EDT)
This Wikipedia page lists a non-fiction book published by "Հայպետրատ", i.e. "Ajpetrat", in 1962. It links to this cover scan. A little googling finds books published by Ajpetrat in 1952-1962 as well as various bibliographic comments indicating that it was aka "Armenian State Publishing House". Ahasuerus 19:58, 28 September 2017 (EDT)
P.S. Re: The Unknown Volkov, some chapters are available online. The one dealing with this translator is available here. As I recall, I found it when we were first trying to clean up translations of Volkov's books. Ahasuerus 20:05, 28 September 2017 (EDT)
Now, that is the only thing that I did not look at - good old Wikipedia... I am not sure why not. I do agree with your analysis though. :) Annie 20:07, 28 September 2017 (EDT)
"Analysis" sounds so much better than "random googling" :-)
Re: "The Unknown Volkov in Memories, Letters and Documents", I believe it's eligible. The Rules of Acquisition state that all "works about speculative fiction" are eligible. The notorious "certain threshold" only comes into play when dealing with:
  • works ... which are not related to speculative fiction, but were produced by authors who have otherwise published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold.
Ahasuerus 10:59, 29 September 2017 (EDT)
I do not consider Volkov to be above the threshold (as I mentioned above) though. I know that he is mainly known for the pseudo-Oz stories these days but he published quite a lot of things outside the genre. If we consider them above the threshold then yes, it will be elligible Annie 14:50, 29 September 2017 (EDT)
It looks like Volkov wrote 7 genre novels and 11 non-genre ones, mostly historical fiction. I guess he was primarily a non-genre writer.
That said, the "threshold" only applies to SF authors' non-genre works. If we decide that Volkov is below the "threshold", it will mean that we won't list his non-genre novels and stories. However, it won't necessarily mean that all books about him should be out of scope. It all depends on the nature of each book since the standard is "works about speculative fiction".
Consider George Orwell. He was primarily a non-genre author and wrote only 2 SF books in the last 5 years of his life. We wouldn't want to include books about his childhood or early career since they have nothing to do with SF. However, a non-fiction book about his work on Animal Farm and/or Nineteen Eighty-Four would be eligible for inclusion.
Similarly, a book about Volkov may or may not be eligible depending on what it contains. If a significant part of the book is about his SF, then I believe it should be eligible. Ahasuerus 19:50, 29 September 2017 (EDT)
No argument at all. But this one is not eligible if Volkov is not genre - not from what I saw in the book. Annie 00:17, 30 September 2017 (EDT)
Ah, I see. I haven't really examined the text beyond checking the spelling of the translator's name, so I am not in a position to judge. Ahasuerus 15:01, 30 September 2017 (EDT)
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