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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 2019

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Python error

Was trying to add an image to an entry and got this python error: Image:Screen Shot 2019-07-13 at 7.28.13 PM.png. Oddly, everything seems to have gone through okay as the publiscation in question (723121 seems to be fine (it has the cover I uploaded). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:32, 13 July 2019 (EDT)

Got the same error again when updating the cover artist for this pub: 264000. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:35, 13 July 2019 (EDT)
That was an unintended side effect of the post-approval change discussed on the Moderator Noticeboard, now fixed. The bug only affected the way things were displayed, not the data added to the database. Sorry about that! Ahasuerus 22:50, 13 July 2019 (EDT)
No problem. You want the image deleted? I don't know if it has any potential security stuff in it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:08, 13 July 2019 (EDT)
Nope, no security stuff. Just a graphic reminder to re-test all changes before installing them :-) Ahasuerus 23:18, 13 July 2019 (EDT)

Yiddish Speakers?

I added story by Der Nister which is a translation from the original Yiddish. While I can find a scan of the original Yiddish edition at Hathi Trust (Vol. I and Vol II, I was unable to determine the original title in the proper alphabet and thus added this title reflecting the Yiddish language parent but noting that the original title hasn't been found yet. Are there any editors that are fluent enough with Yiddish to find the proper title? The English title is "At the Border". I'll also note that the collection Gedakht is described by Wikipedia as a "collection of fantastic stories", and may itself be eligible for inclusion here if someone wants to take that on as a mini project. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:06, 14 July 2019 (EDT)

It looks like "Gedakht" is געדאכט, but that's all I can figure out. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:22, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
Google Translate says "At the Border" is אין די גרענעץ, but I have no idea how accurate that is. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:23, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
I searched the text for גרענעץ and found four entries: אויף גרענעץ, which apparently means "On (the) border", זיך א גרענעץ, which means "set a boundary", זיין גרענעץ, which means "its boundary", and קיין גרענעץ, which means "no border". One of those might be the title. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:30, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
According to Language help, Linguist knows a little Hebrew. It's not the same thing, but uses the same alphabet, so he might be able to offer some help. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:33, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
I think I found it. The table of contents in Volume 1 is on page 243. I carefully reconstructed the title of the story that appears on page 137 using the Hebrew alphabet Wikipedia page and ended up with אויפן גרעניץ which Google translates as "On the borders". Assuming that I identified the correct letters (exporting the scan to a pdf didn't work with cut and paste), I think I've identified the title correctly. Thanks again. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 17:44, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
Saw the post a bit late. I have added a transliteration to the title : oifn grenits, the equivalent of German auf der Grenze « on the border ». Cheers, Linguist 05:19, 16 July 2019 (EDT).
Maybe you can add Gedakht to the database? You might be able to it more quickly than anyone else here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:54, 17 July 2019 (EDT)
Will do (in due time, as there seems to be quite a lot to do…). Or maybe Ron can enter the romanized titles, and I'll Hebraize what I can ? Lekhaim ! (! לחיים) Linguist 04:43, 18 July 2019 (EDT).
I went ahead and took a stab at it. It would be an excellent idea for someone to check the entries against the scans to ensure I didn't get them wrong. Also to add missing transliterations. I also went ahead and made the Yiddish name canonical. I was able to link up all but one of the English titles. I suspect that "The Fool and the Forest Demon" may be "דער נאַר און דער ןןאַלד־רוח" as Google translates that as "The fool and the old age" which is a close title. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 18:35, 19 July 2019 (EDT)
I have linked "The Fool and the Forest Demon" and "נאַר און דער ןןאַלד־רוח, that was OK, and corrected the transliteration (der nar un der vald-rukh; you had confused ו (v) and ן (final n), which do look almost alike; and in Yiddish, א at the beginning of a word usually indicates it starts with a vowel, so און is just un “and” (= German und), not aun. I have started looking at געדאכט: ערשטער באנד : your first entry, the title of the story on p. 7, דער נזיר און דאָס ציגעלע, was written backwards (each word correct, but in the wrong place, if you see what I mean). I have corrected it, but there is one word I don't undestand : "The hermit and the stigele". Does that sound familiar ? Linguist 05:56, 20 July 2019 (EDT).
Same thing for the next one (words were inversed) : צוס בּאַרג, tsum barg = German zum Berg “at the mountain”. Linguist 07:41, 20 July 2019 (EDT).
Ditto for אין וואַלד, in vald, "in the forest" (German im Wald). Linguist 07:58, 20 July 2019 (EDT).
Went through both volumes, updated a few more transcriptions, gave translations when possible. There are two titles I don't understand fully, and three not at all. Sorry ! :o( Linguist 08:38, 20 July 2019 (EDT).

Votes and counting

I've been adding a lot of votes recently and have been amused at how, sometimes, my feeling about a story/book fails to match up with others' votes. Amused, but not surprised--we all read, and enjoy, different things. However, I do think it would be interesting in the Statistics/Top Lists to expose those stories that have the farthest deviation from the mean (i.e., stories that some people absolutely hated while others loved). The one I ran into today was Philip Jose Farmer's "Riders of the Purple Wage," originally published in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthology. I thought the story was quite good, especially when re-reading it recently because the concept of a universal basic income has become more prevalent. It already had two votes when I added mine: a 1 star and a 4 star. Somebody really hated it. Gengelcox 16:24, 14 July 2019 (EDT)

It's certainly doable. A simple database query (select std(rating),title_id from votes group by title_id having count(user_id)>3 order by std(rating) desc) creates a list of controversial titles starting with:
Ahasuerus 18:29, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
That's exactly the kind of thing I was hoping might pop up -- I recall reading The Time Traveler's Wife with a book club and how it really creeped some readers out while others loved it. Gengelcox 10:20, 15 July 2019 (EDT)

On the subject of the Stats page and votes, I'm wondering if we could expose the top lists for novella, novelette, and short story along with the list already being run for novel? Gengelcox 16:24, 14 July 2019 (EDT)

We could create a "top" list for SHORTFICTION titles, which would include short fiction without a "length" designation. We could also create separate sub-lists for novellas, novelettes and short stories. Ahasuerus 18:29, 14 July 2019 (EDT)
I'd be interested, but obviously not a priority. Gengelcox 10:20, 15 July 2019 (EDT)
OK, FR 1289 has been created to document these suggestions. Ahasuerus 11:04, 16 July 2019 (EDT)

Jerry Ahern

Someone had started shifting the canonical name to a name that was never used in print (Frédéric Charpier for them (at least in our DB) and unless I am missing something, is not even connected to these books). Can someone share light on what they had been doing here (and add notes to the authors names). If noone can explain what this is all about, I will break the pseudonym in about a week and clean these pages up a bit. Annie 15:27, 17 July 2019 (EDT)

Apparently Charpier translated a bunch of Ahern books into French, then continued the series himself while continuing to use the Ahern name. At least that's what the French Wikipedia article states:

Frédéric Charpier a par ailleurs traduit en français un grand nombre de romans d'inspiration survivaliste de la série Le Survivant de Jerry Ahern (en), puis continué lui-même la série en français, sous le couvert d' « adapations » qui sont des créations originales (numéros 29 à 53, aux éditions Vaugirard).

Not sure if that's what this is about, but it's what I could find. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:07, 17 July 2019 (EDT)
This site seems to support what I wrote above. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:11, 17 July 2019 (EDT)
Aha. That explains it. Thanks - somehow I missed that when I was looking through the wiki articles earlier and trying to figure out what is going on. Why can't people just use their own names (I know, I know...). I will add some notes on the author's page... :) Annie 16:12, 17 July 2019 (EDT)
I'm the culprit (only saw the post today). As Nihonjoe explained, Charpier went on writing the series himself after translating the first ones, but indeed his name never appears except as a “translator / adapter” : a common practice among the Plon / Presses de la Cité / Vaugirard / Vauvenargues publications (see some of the Blade / Jeffrey Lord pubs, with a host of French shadow-writers). I thought I had made a general note somewhere about it, but had apparently only meant to… But such notes appear on each individual title, see here. And by the way, the Wikipedia passage quoted by Nihonjoe was written by me ! Linguist 04:15, 18 July 2019 (EDT).
Come to think of it, I had written the note for Original Richard Blade Adventures in French, but somehow the one about the Survivalist got waylaid. Linguist 05:23, 18 July 2019 (EDT).
Yeah, once I got on the right track, it started clearing up. Thanks for the explanation! I wonder if we should not use Jerry Ahern (Frédéric Charpier) for these books (or something along these lines) so it is clear it is not really Ahern - we had done that for other wrong attributions in the past. Annie 13:33, 18 July 2019 (EDT)
I would use "Jerry Ahern (II)" and include a note on the author page explaining things. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:45, 18 July 2019 (EDT)
That also works :) Even "Jerry Ahern (I)" would work. I find descriptive differentiator easier but the nummeric ones work as well. Annie 15:21, 18 July 2019 (EDT)
I like the numeric ones better because they are shorter. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:29, 18 July 2019 (EDT)


(unindent) Our software supports uncredited co-authors (e.g. see this series), but it doesn't have native support for ghostwriters. We have FR 346, "Add support for ghostwriters", but it wouldn't be easy to implement. For now, the best we can do is add a note at the author level like we have done with V. C. Andrews and her ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman.

Speaking of the "Richard Blade" series by "Jeffrey Lord", Wikipedia says:

  • In the early 1990s the Russian publishers could secure the rights to only the first six books in the series, and approached the translator - Mikhail Akhmanov - to write the further adventures of Richard Blade.[3] Together with then young sci-fi author Nick Perumov and others, Akhmanov wrote over sixteen sequels[4] to the adventures of Richard Blade, and then, after writing Russian sequels to the saga of Conan, went on to create numerous original characters and plots.

The Russian Conan project was apparently similar. Ahasuerus 15:30, 18 July 2019 (EDT)

Publication Series Name

Several hours ago the new publication series 8383 Queen's Treasure Series was created in the usual way, by adding its first publication record, which remains the only one. I added a pub series Note. Publication Series: Queen's Treasure Series. The keyword Treasure should be plural.

First Question: If the pub series name is modified in its one publication record, will the existing pub series record be deleted, and its information lost --either immediately on approval, or by some automated cleanup, perhaps overnight? (I understand that is the case when a publisher name loses its only publication record.) --Pwendt|talk 21:57, 17 July 2019 (EDT)

Publication series get deleted as soon as they loose their last book. This is one of the cases when you need to find a moderator and ask them to change the name. Which I just did. :) Annie 22:16, 17 July 2019 (EDT)
Thanks. So this one is now named "Queen's Treasure Series", which happens to be the name displayed on half-title page, rather than "The Queen's Treasure Series" as atop the description and list on the next page and in newspaper advertisements by the publisher. In some newspaper articles "Queen's Treasures" in quotation marks may be found.
Second Question: Do we have good reasons to prefer shorter or longer versions of names such as "[The] Queen's Treasures [Series]"? --Pwendt|talk 17:57, 18 July 2019 (EDT)
It's actually "Queen's Treasures Series" now - as requested :)
In a lot of cases, it is down to the editor's preference. The word Series is rarely in the name of a series I create for example - except for older series where I may add Series if I expect that someone can consider it a magazine. Or something. So... no real good reason - unless one specific spelling is used a lot more often in both books and reference materials. If I was adding it, I probably would have added it as "Queen's Treasures" but that is just me - and I would not change it when someone adds it the way you added it. Adding a note in all spelling being used (and where) is never a bad idea. Annie 18:18, 18 July 2019 (EDT)

Slow Server

Is it just me or is the server extremely slow at the moment? Annie 18:26, 19 July 2019 (EDT)

Facebook links

I'm guessing a fix was put in to allow links from Facebook to link correctly by stripping out the "&fbclid=" part. However, it looks like there's a tiny error still. The links come through with an equal sign (=) added to the end, so they still don't work. This link should go to 724848, but the equal sign prevents that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:56, 24 July 2019 (EDT)

I don't recall any recent software changes that should have affected the way URLs are processed. Could you please post a sample "native" Facebook URL? Ahasuerus 22:10, 24 July 2019 (EDT)
They look like this:

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.isfdb.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fea.cgi%3F134396%26fbclid%3DIwAR3OXAEyuHT1_DnUzX-Tcv034vhq_SK67RFSzaq9YPKJ-Rn0XK4sDu_e1no&h=AT3ko-M8HhxEAD8-AyA0tPcBCjgKDxL9prtGNFq-RVARTQoeLpsqJ3qmQuAuSSKwOYYGPkJl63JIBO_WyePJ7VehGAC_0QxggDWv-uOzULagbxUoyQq2eCiyf3jw_X3a2y6nXdZnMYgaXj_HFNiofqqf3xV_1nFkysIT-w-Q-NdK9PnjoR2-6Usdi8UkDKGAcfHdFc01i8wjGkUc22KidBMRxAm6hRrPHcxYvXJQ7z_oXXCZQLK5pgW1m_346YrJ0LQFPzZOzICFCMsngFmZoq_G3sjl4zH6jefD5FbY1B88uOv8hl4gz_B_tazNKu5uG9c5L4uG6pSFgHQ-4peRtlpt_Sow8v9nyKLLZGPapKOrOWRK9wEoQSJu1A_BuPFIjxX-7KZPi871ZFCbl4qecl4Ndw0dM3zUvPq9EXhZLE02Vs1lk1LcYOgZpLL-VHbYOCsyqLqjU5GLHl_i1geqN882tKZQG2N49Fcl7KWypQnmcn2PSlcDHlUkaIYV6GhQ5B0Up2FopsRdBBKAbEnY6K4OltweDFaOGwt66V4-Pmt_RTWAzT4h10b88kcNYuYxaIdBbtg8ak8qDcdxCqMLlrK3rxparnymcMPObbFeClppvLX3M3HgjTyhOUzIfzCZJbyeic8

That translates to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?724848= somehow (note the equal sign at the end). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:50, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
It translates to

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?134396&fbclid=IwAR3OXAEyuHT1_DnUzX-Tcv034vhq_SK67RFSzaq9YPKJ-Rn0XK4sDu_e1no

for me btw - which is not even the same author ID. And it is consistent with any link like that from Facebook since we started having this problem awhile back (after they changed how their links work). Are you sure you copied the correct link? 14:35, 25 July 2019 (EDT) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Anniemod (talk • contribs) .
Depends if you are signed into Facebook or not. If you are signed into Facebook, it resolves to Nihonjoe's link. If you are not, it resolves to Anniemod's. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:11, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
I see the same regardless if I am signed in (Firefox, I can see my name and so on) or not (Clean Chrome browser where I had never logged in). It may have something to do with having access to the link or not... Annie 17:14, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
I don't know about access. I just clicked the link above. Regardless, it is clear Facebook adds different parameters under different conditions when you click the "Follow Link" button. And ISFDB resolves those different parameters differently (no surprise). In an ideal ideal world, Facebook wouldn't add parameters to the URL, but that won't change. In an ideal world, ISFDB would handle extra parameters correctly (i.e. ignore them). I remember there was discussion about software issues with that. Guess the question is do we think the benefit (possible more exposure, new users) is worth the effort. I don't have an opinion on that - especially since it is Ahasuerus' time, not mine ;-). -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:48, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
That's right, we would have to change the way ALL ISFDB Web pages process and validate parameters. It should be doable and would also result in certain additional benefits. Unfortunately, it would be time-consuming :-( Ahasuerus 20:14, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
is the site behind an apache proxy or equivalent? Seems like something that could be done at that level, by not passing that parameter to the processor at all. --Unapersson 13:05, 22 August 2019 (EDT)
That's a good point. It may be possible to configure the Web server to pre-parse and modify incoming requests, stripping Facebook-added parameters. The downside is that it would also mean making configuring an ISFDB server more difficult and restrictive. Food for thought... Ahasuerus 12:57, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
This is exactly the type of reason why it would be very good to reduce the number of entry points in our code. By this I mean ideally it would be nice to have a very few CGI files (one would be great) and have that parse the path and query string after that (loading Python libraries as needed, etc.). That sort of transition would allow for greater flexibility (it might be possible to deploy without CGI, e.g., WSGI, etc.) and security (moving all the Python libraries out of the web browsers executable/CGI path and instead into Python packages and modules, etc.). Uzume 18:59, 18 September 2019 (EDT)
Sorry, I gave two different URLS. The example "native Facebook" link is for a different one than the other. I mixed up two different ones, somehow. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:55, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
Lol I didn't even notice the author ids were different (despite Annie saying that). I focused on the parameter differences. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:25, 25 July 2019 (EDT)

"Translations without Notes" - Reorganizing the report

Here are the numbers behind Translations without Notes: 

+--------------------+--------------------+
| English            |               6476 |
| Italian            |               6386 |
| French             |               4907 |
| German             |               4227 |
| Dutch              |               2554 |
| Portuguese         |               1108 |
| Spanish            |                774 |
| Polish             |                255 |
| Finnish            |                233 |
| Romanian           |                207 |
| Serbian            |                178 |
| Swedish            |                115 |
| Croatian           |                114 |
| Hungarian          |                112 |
| Danish             |                 68 |
| Turkish            |                 45 |
| Czech              |                 44 |
| Lithuanian         |                 44 |
| Japanese           |                 41 |
| Slovenian          |                 20 |
| Slovak             |                  8 |
| Esperanto          |                  8 |
| Chinese            |                  6 |
| Norwegian (Bokmal) |                  5 |
| Galician           |                  5 |
| Korean             |                  4 |
| Norwegian          |                  4 |
| Latin              |                  4 |
| Scots              |                  3 |
| Middle English     |                  2 |
| Catalan            |                  2 |
| Estonian           |                  2 |
| Russian            |                  2 |
| Hebrew             |                  1 |
| Albanian           |                  1 |
| Mirandese          |                  1 |
| Scottish Gaelic    |                  1 |
| Thai               |                  1 |
| Malay              |                  1 |
| Old English        |                  1 |
| Icelandic          |                  1 |
+--------------------+--------------------+

Based on editor feedback, my tentative plan is to create separate cleanup reports for English, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese translations. The first 7 have more than 500 affected translations while Japanese is the 7th most common language in the database and sees a lot of turnover.

The remaining languages will continue to be covered by the existing cleanup report whose name will be tweaked. We can also split it into language-specific tables and have a "table of contents" at the top of the page to make it easy to jump to the language of your choice.

Does this sound like a good idea? Anything else that we need to change or tweak while we are at it? Ahasuerus 15:52, 25 July 2019 (EDT)

How did Portuguese sneak up that high on the list... :) I like the plan - it will make that project a bit more manageable. I am not sure that we need the Japanese on its own - they always show up close to the top of the generic report anyway - but if it is not that hard to split it, I guess we might as well. Annie 16:30, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
I like this idea. Looks like I need to work hard to bring the number of Japanese titles even higher. Maybe I can get it to the top five. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:34, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
How hard it will be to add the parent's title or language (or both) in the report alongside the title (similarly to how advanced search shows titles for example)? It is not critical but sometimes it is helpful to work per language pair (mainly because the names of the translators become familiar and I usually have their pages open on the side...) Annie 21:04, 25 July 2019 (EDT)
It should be eminently doable. Ahasuerus 21:53, 25 July 2019 (EDT)

(unindent) OK, it's decided then. I have another 550 Fixer-harvested ISBNs to process and then I will work on this FR. Ahasuerus 15:42, 31 July 2019 (EDT)

The Shaver Mystery Compendiums - Call for Volunteers

6 Shaver Mystery Compendiums have been added by Fixer. Looking for a volunteer willing to add Contents-level items. (July and August are Fixer's busiest months because September is typically the busiest month in the publishing world.) Ahasuerus 17:45, 28 July 2019 (EDT)

I will add them later today - will see if I can figure out if all of the art items from the magazines were reprinted or just some of them. Annie 13:35, 29 July 2019 (EDT)
Fiction imported; will work on covers, ebooks and so on and a second check if we need any variants instead of the main titles later today. Annie 14:14, 29 July 2019 (EDT)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 15:10, 29 July 2019 (EDT)

Collected Short Stories (H. P. Lovecraft)

I am planning to convert this to a publication series - it looks weird with all the variants and so on - and it will allow us to actually mark the correct editions as part of the series. Anyone can see a reason not to? Annie 14:45, 29 July 2019 (EDT)

Never mind, they already have a pub series. Still something does not feel right... Annie 21:00, 31 July 2019 (EDT)
It appears that they should be in two publication series: Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural and "Collected Short Stories", which we don't support. I do think that the use of a title series which really only applies to the Wordsworth printings here is not appropriate. I would suggest removing the title series and putting these in a new publication series with a notes on both pub series records explaining a parent child relationship. This would be workable unless Wordsworth reprints these as part of Collected Works but not as part of Tales. However, I suspect that it unlikely. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 06:52, 1 August 2019 (EDT)

What to do with pubs that are not spec-fic?

Hi. I wanted to check with the community what the feeling is about submitting deletions of pub records for which no evidence can be found they are spec-fic, and for which the author is not above the 'threshold' (yeah, I know, quite vague... :)?
I am well aware that it's not fun for the editor(s) that have put all the work in to get their work erased (I wouldn't like it myself). But if we let these records stay because someone happened to have put a lot of work in it, where will it end? It becomes trickier if a verified pub record turns out to be not spec-fic. I tend to leave these alone but these too should - strictly speaking - be deleted from the database (after contacting/notifying the PV first). Thought? Suggestions? MagicUnk 08:05, 31 July 2019 (EDT)

Well, we do not want chemistry and language textbooks (yep, we had some :) ). Can you share a few links of books you consider deleting? Annie 12:40, 31 July 2019 (EDT)
Yup, much easier to make a determination if we know which book(s) you are considering. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:02, 31 July 2019 (EDT)
Here are a couple of examples:
Out of the Dark (even though it's primary verified - this one's borderline, perhaps?)
Born of the Sun (even though it's recorded in Locus1 - unjustified imo)
The Bailey Game (did ask ClarkMCI, no feedback to date)
The Raging Quiet (here ClarkMCI made a note that he has suspicions this is not spec-fic)
I checked Goodreads reviews, and not really one that I could find that convinced me these contained spec-fic elements warranting inclusion. MagicUnk 07:51, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
All of these novels are by established SF authors, so I would flip the "non-genre" flag and document what we know about them in notes. It's been my experience that it's more beneficial to keep borderline cases in the database and explain why they are "borderline SF" or "not really SF even though they may look like SF" in Notes. Not only does it help our users, but it also prevents robots and new editors from creating "genre" records in the future. Ahasuerus 10:50, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
Hmm, that's something we could do of course. But then we are ignoring the 'authors above a threshold' rule (assuming they are non-genre), don't we? Afaik the authors of the examples above aren't really above the threshold - even though they are established SF authors. We can update/remove that rule of course... What are the other editors' practices related to non-genre publications? MagicUnk 10:59, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
Are we? The idea of the threshold rule is not to count someone’s work as if they are tomatoes and go by percentages but to allow us not to burden the DB with the collected works of a prolific author just because they happened to write 1 genre novel. If the author is considered a genre one, they are above the threshold IMO. There is a reason why that rule does not say anything about exact numbers. Annie 11:25, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
PS: And borderline spec fic belongs here for two reasons: the boundary will always be in the eye of the reader and so that we do not need to make all the explanations of why it is not. And especially for those borderline ones, I really do not feel like we should be removing them based on GR reviews alone (if you look at The Amazing Mycroft Mysteries and their reviews, you would decide that they are not genre either. And yet, as I read the first two lately, I can tell you that they belong (the first one has killer-bees and enough science around them to qualify it at least as a border case, the second one has a working medium). I would opt on the inclusion side unless either someone reads the book and can make a decision or at we find another way to make sure they are not speculative at all. Or that the author is not a predominantly genre one - if they are, then the works are in anyway. Annie 12:50, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
As to the threshold rule. The relevant parts of the policy say Works (both fiction and non-fiction) 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 [are included], and, Works that are not related to speculative fiction by authors who have not published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold. [are excluded]. Mirriam-Webster has Threshold: a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is not or will not. For me, this means that the policy says that even for established SF authors who have not produced 'much' (ie are below the threshold), the non-spec-fic should not be entered. Cursory reading of the threshold-related discussions over the years seem to support this interpretation. Now, we may not want the policy to mean 'above a certain value', but then I would like to see the rules of acquisition rephrased to somehow include 'non-spec-fic work of established SF authors' (whatever established really means :-))
Now, having said that, there's - as you rightly point out - the other side of the medal; when is a work borderline SF, and thus eligible for inclusion? I concur that it is difficult to figure out without having read the book whether they have to stay or not from reviews and synopses alone. So, concluding, and erring on the side of caution, I surmise the current consensus is to leave them in when there's not unambiguous proof of the contrary, but add a note as to the debatable SF contents of the work. If it can be unambiguously established the contents is non-spec-fic, and the author is below the threshold (even when an established SF author), it has to go out. In practice, the latter case may not happen at all - unless someone actually reads the work, right? MagicUnk 16:31, 2 August 2019 (EDT)
How do you define the threshold? Not what the dictionary says, how do you understand it in ISFDB? We read that rule somewhat differently I think - mainly on how threshold is defined. It sounds like you are trying to find a numeric representation of that value. What I am reading when I see that is exactly what you want to rewrite it as - an author over the threshold is not just about the numbers, it is about "is that one of our authors?". I just cannot see a difference between what we have and what you are proposing to change in the wording. Some authors are ours under one pseudonym (Nora Roberts and her Robb pseudonym for example), some are ours under all names. Annie 16:59, 2 August 2019 (EDT)

[unindent] Wellll... I think that's the issue - we're not interpreting the current rules exactly the same way, which is a Bad Thing™. If I may paraphrase; you and Ahasuerus seem to imply that whenever the author is an SF author -ALL- publications should be recorded. This implies - amongst other things - that however small their output may be, all publications have to be recorded irrespective, as long as they are a recognized SF author. Whereas I'm interpreting the rules as "even if the author is an established/recognized SF writer, if his/her SF output is 'low', everything that's non-SF should -NOT- be recorded". Do note that new editors do not have all the ISFDB history, so are likely to go and check the Mirriam-Webster definition of threshold, and will end up with interpreting it as a numerical threshold - as I did. Going back to the examples given above, authors such as Gillian Cross, Welwyn Wilton Katz, and Sherryl Jordan, notwithstanding having produced SF works, can hardly be considered established SF authors imo. Now, I'm not having a preference one way or the other 'per se', but the rules should be as unambigous as we can make them, especially so because we do not want new editors to interpret the rules - nor the moderators for that matter. So, either we have

  1. If it's a 'recognized' SF author, record ALL (ie SF -and- non-SF) his/her works, or
  2. If it's an author with SF works above a certain threshold (numerical), record ALL his/her works (and consequently, if the output is 'low', do NOT record all of his/her non-SF works)

I've been interpreting the rule as the latter (and I suspect many other editors & moderators with me - chime in and tell me if I'm wrong here ;). So, do we want to organize a poll as to clarify if it's 1, or 2 we want? If we want 1. we need to rephrase the rules, as it's confusing right now for new (non-English-speaking) editors (which I am), as they are likely to interpret it as 2. Also, if we would go with 1., the danger exists we end up with loads and loads of non-spec-fic works of 'established' SF authors, however low their output is/has been.

---And yes, I am well aware of the difficulty of coming up with acceptable definitions of 'recognized SF author', or, 'author with SF works above a threshold' - but that's food for another discussion...

Also, we should be careful not to muddy the waters by introducing the notion of 'borderline' SF, as these need their own set of rules, of which the most important one is (I think): if in doubt, you are allowed to add it to the DB, but make sure to add a clear note about its dubious SF contents. Regards, MagicUnk 11:49, 4 August 2019 (EDT)

Early on, we had multiple discussions about the "threshold". Lots of different definitions were proposed, including numerical ones like "at least 50% [75% etc] of the author's output is SF". We always ended up with exceptions and exceptions to exceptions, so we were never able to come up with an explicit rule. The best we could do was to state that:
  • ... "certain threshold" is hard to define, but we need to draw the line in a way that would exclude Winston Churchill, who published at least one work of borderline speculative fiction. The goal here is to avoid cataloging everything ever published by James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, Honoré de Balzac and other popular authors. Instead, we want to catalog their speculative fiction works only.
Note that it doesn't say anything about the author being "recognized". For example, take George Orwell. By any measure -- sales, critical recognition, public awareness, etc -- he is one of the most recognized authors of speculative fiction. Yet we do not list his non-speculative novels.
For what it's worth, here is how I usually approach the issue when deciding whether to include non-genre works for an author. I ask myself: "If an average reader comes across an unfamiliar work by this writer, will she suspect that it is SF?" In the cases listed above, the answer is "no", so their non-SF doesn't get included. If the answer is "yes" or "probably", I include the non-SF works.
A few other things to keep in mind. There was a time when the only non-genre works supported by the software were NOVELs. It made life difficult and sometimes editors used "creative" solutions. They had to be revisited once the software was able to handle all types of non-genre titles. Some of these "creative solutions" may still be lingering in dark corners.
Also, at one point the policy was to enter non-genre works if they had been reviewed in genre-publications. The policy was changed years ago, but, yet again, some ineligible non-genre works still exist in the database. Ahasuerus 11:02, 5 August 2019 (EDT)

Japan Fantasy Novel Award

Can we add this one? It was given from 1989-2103, and then started up again in 2017. It has the following categories:

  • Japan Fantasy Novel Award
    • Grand Prize
    • Award of Excellence
    • Nomination

I will add them once the award is created. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:50, 6 August 2019 (EDT)

Done. As per this discussion of the Clarke Award, "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence" are not separate categories in the ISFDB world but rather different award levels within the same category. The category has been created and I have added a note about the first and the second places being called "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence" respectively. Ahasuerus 17:08, 6 August 2019 (EDT)
Based on your comparison to the Clarke Award, there should be two categories under win:
Win:
  • Grand Prize
  • Award of Excellence
Neither of these should have a "poll place" because you either win the Grand Prize or Award of Excellence or you don't. There is no ranking beyond winning one of those two or not. All of the nominees are eligible for both. The prize committee can choose to award in any given year either of those to one or more nominee (two is the most in a given year for either, at least historically), or choose to award only one of them to one or more nominees. The remaining nominees are just nominees for the Japan Fantasy Novel Award in general. I hope that makes sense. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:50, 6 August 2019 (EDT)
Originally, the Clarke Award was set up to have separate categories for winners, runner-ups, and shortlisted works. However, based on the outcome of the linked discussion, we changed it to have a single "Best Science Fiction Novel" category. Clarke winners are now entered as "Award Level 1", runner-ups as "Award Level 2" and other nominees as "Finalists" (a supported "special award level".)
If my understanding is correct, "Japan Fantasy Novel Award" has a similar hierarchy: "Grand Prize" is effectively "Award Level 1", "Award of Excellence" is "Award Level 2" and the rest of the nominees are "Finalists". Is this a reasonable approximation of the way the award works? Ahasuerus 19:49, 6 August 2019 (EDT)
Kind of. The problem is that both "award levels" are not awarded every year, as opposed to the Clarke Award where they are. If you win a Japan Fantasy Novel Award, you are awarded either the Grand Prize or the Award of Excellence. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:53, 6 August 2019 (EDT)
Let me double check that I understand correctly. "The Grand Prize" is a higher award level than "The Award of Excellence", right? And their recipients are selected from the same pool of books? Ahasuerus 10:22, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
It's always listed higher on websites that list awards, so probably? The recipients of both are from the same pool of nominees. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:53, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
There are some years where a Grand Prize is not awarded, so considering it "Award Level 1" seems weird in years where only the Award of Excellence was given. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:53, 6 August 2019 (EDT)
Well, similar things have been known to happen. For example, consider the 1976 and the 1994 John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, which had no winners and two (ranked) finalists. Or the 2015 Hugo awards, when "No Award" won in the "Best Novella" and the "Best Short Story" categories. Ahasuerus 10:22, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
I guess I'm most concerned about how it will show up on the title and author pages. As long as it shows "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence", then it should be fine. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:53, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
Maybe this is a feature request: to have the option of assigning names to the "places" for an award, or to just use numbers. That way, it displays "Grand Prize" instead of "1". I know this wouldn't be applicable in all cases, but it seems this (and perhaps the Clarke Award and other) are a bit of a hybrid between awards like the Hugo (which have multiple categories) and single awards with "poll places" (or rankings) since they give a name to the places, but share a common nomination pool. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:13, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
Well... The good news is that we already have a related FR, FR 656, Add a "Term used to described runner-ups" field to Award Category. The bad news is that it would be a fairly time-consuming change. Nothing too drastic, just a bunch of man-hours. Ahasuerus 15:49, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
Another wrench for the works: in 2005, a person who would have won the Award of Excellence declined it. There's not currently a way to indicate that since you can't select both "Poll place" (to indicate they would have won place 2, the Award of Excellence) and "Special" (to indicate they declined the award). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:44, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
That's right. The only way to capture both the fact that s/he was supposed be given the Award of Excellence and that s/he subsequently decline it would be to have a separate category for the Award of Excellence and, presumably, another one for the "Grand Prize". I guess we could do that, but where would the nominees/runner-ups go then? Ahasuerus 15:52, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
That's the big question, isn't it? This one really is a hybrid. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:23, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
A third category "Award Nominees"? When someone wins, they get removed and moved to the proper award (and we add notes on the three categories explaining the situation). Why won't that work? Annie 17:30, 7 August 2019 (EDT)
Well, it would work, but then we would have the same problem that we had with the Clarke Award prior to the changes. Having nominees in one category, Grand Prize winners in another category and Award of Excellence winners in yet another category would mean that the data for one award year would be scattered across multiple categories. It wouldn't be an accurate model of the way the award data is structured, so third party developers who use our award data would need to add an exception and so on.
Given our software limitations, I guess we need to decide whether it's more important to display the words "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence" on award pages or to have all nominated works listed within the same category (and use to document "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence".) Ahasuerus 08:15, 8 August 2019 (EDT)
I am less concerned about the award pages (we can add notes there) and more concerned on how things look on title pages -- we cannot add notes explaining what is what there. I know that we have challenges with the model (because it as built based on how US awards look like :) ) - but then we do have two types of consumers of the data - the people that look at the site and the people that use the DB itself. Just thinking aloud. Annie 12:16, 8 August 2019 (EDT)

(unindent) I guess we might as well do it right and change the software to support "Displayed Award Level". I assume that:

  • The new optional "Displayed Award Level" field will be at the award level, not at the award category level. This will support scenarios where the displayed award level changes from year to year.
  • The new "Displayed Award Level" field will be in addition to the currently existing "Award Level" field. The latter will continue to be used for sorting purposes.
  • The new "Displayed Award Level" field will allow arbitrary text like "Grand Prize" and "Award of Excellence" to be entered.
  • If no "Displayed Award Level" value is entered for an award, the value of the "Award Level" field will be displayed.

Does this look about right? Ahasuerus 09:55, 11 August 2019 (EDT)

I think so. Annie? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:20, 11 August 2019 (EDT)
Looks good. Do we want to have the award name always in English or do we want to allow a “Native / English” format as well? If the latter, we will also need the transliterations fields. As these names will show up on title pages, I’m inclined towards allowing the double name - especially because some of this names may not have an agreed upon English name and whatever is chosen will be the editors’ interpretation. Annie 02:52, 12 August 2019 (EDT)
At this time none of the award-related records, i.e. award types and award categories, support transliterated values. If we decide to add support for them, we should probably do it across the board. Ahasuerus 11:35, 12 August 2019 (EDT)
True. Which is why I brought it up. Because this one needs transliteration in its main form as well. Annie 12:34, 12 August 2019 (EDT)
I like the idea of adding transliteration fields for the awards. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:21, 12 August 2019 (EDT)

(unindent) OK, FR 1295 "Allow entering transliterated values for awards-related values" has been created. Also, FR 656 has been changed to reflect the "Displayed Award Level" functionality discussed above. Ahasuerus 13:59, 15 August 2019 (EDT)

Okay, this award has been entered through 2018. The 2019 winners have not yet been announced. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:50, 24 October 2019 (EDT)
Great, thanks! Ahasuerus 19:57, 24 October 2019 (EDT)

Chen Jiatong

Would anyone happen to know the Chinese spelling of Chen Jiatong's name? I have found a bunch of English-language articles about him, including a recently added SFE3 article, but I don't know how his name is spelled in Chinese. Ahasuerus 17:01, 9 August 2019 (EDT)

Looks like it's 陈佳同 per this book. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:12, 9 August 2019 (EDT)
The National Library of Singapore agrees. Thanks! Ahasuerus 10:12, 11 August 2019 (EDT)
No problem. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:19, 11 August 2019 (EDT)

Dublin Worldcon

If someone is attending and wants to meet, let me know :) That also means I will be (mostly) out of pocket on the site after today and until late next week. Annie 14:26, 12 August 2019 (EDT)

According to Template:Moderator-availability, Rtrace headed to Dublin a few days ago. Watch out for leprechauns! Ahasuerus 17:51, 12 August 2019 (EDT)
I need to remember to update that thing when I am off... Well, I was considering catching a few and bringing them back to help with Fixer's queues... :) But then they are not that reliable I guess. Annie 19:12, 12 August 2019 (EDT)
Indeed I am. I’ve sent an email with my contact info. I recall that we had problems with the wiki email function in the past, so let me know if you don’t get it. Hope to see you there. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 04:58, 13 August 2019 (EDT)
Got it - see you in Dublin. :) Annie 10:34, 13 August 2019 (EDT)

Support for 3 new language codes added

The software has been updated to support the following new languages:

  • Guarani
  • Interlingua
  • "South American Indian language", which, as per the ISO 639-2 standard, covers all South American Indian languages

Ahasuerus 17:45, 12 August 2019 (EDT)

"Translations without Notes" split into language-specific cleanup reports

As per FR 1291, the cleanup report "Translations without Notes" has been split into multiple language-specific cleanup reports. The original report is now called "Translations without Notes - Less Common Languages". Additional columns ("Original Title", "Language") have been added throughout.

Updated data will become available when the nightly process runs in a few hours. If you run into any issues, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus 22:48, 13 August 2019 (EDT)

Awesome! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:38, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
Thanks! And I love the new format of the reports with the extra columns. Annie 17:19, 27 August 2019 (EDT)
Glad to hear the new reports are useful! Ahasuerus 20:42, 27 August 2019 (EDT)

Professor Bernice Summerfield

For the series: Professor Bernice Summerfield (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?12512) the first 6 books have usually different names for the original and the identical reprint. This series pops up in my cover art verification as different titles have the same cover link. For none I found a verified pub, so I'd like to unify them by dropping the "Professor Bernice Summerfield and" and cleanup the duplicate records. Objections? --Stoecker 11:00, 15 August 2019 (EDT)

The titles should be as they appear in each book. If that makes them not "unified", then so be it. We shouldn't be changing them just to fit a sense of order. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:38, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
Please read what I wrote before answering! None of the entries have a verified status, so the data is only based on the externally visible data and thus there should be no difference with identical covers (and identical ISBN BTW). --Stoecker 15:52, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
I did read what you wrote. The couple that I checked have the full title as we list it on the cover. If we don't have a PV, and there is no Look Inside available, that's what we have to go with. When the titles have "Professor Bernice Summerfield and the..." as part of the title, it's obviously part of the actual title, unless we can get a PV to show it's otherwise listed on the title page. It's exactly the same as all the "Harry Potter and the..." titles. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:41, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
OK. In this case I can change all the titles and covers by adding "Professor Bernice Summerfield and" to the titles without? --Stoecker 17:42, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
If that's what's on the covers, then yes. Lacking any PV to check with, we have to go by what's on the cover or Look Inside. If the cover doesn't have that as part of the title, then we shouldn't be adding it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:29, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
So, for example, this one doesn't have the "and the" as part of the title, so the "Professor Bernice Summerfield" is just the name of the series. On the other hand, this one has "Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries " on the cover, so that's what we use for the title unless a PV or Look Inside shows differently. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:32, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
I only refer to 1-6. It seems since 7 the "and" is missing. That's why my first proposal was to also drop that for 1-6. But as you rejected that I'll unify 1-6 with the "and". If later a PV notes that this is wrong it at least will be much easier to correct it by simply editing the title records. --Stoecker 08:02, 16 August 2019 (EDT)

Imadjinn Awards

Here's a new award to consider adding. It has the following categories (those marked with * may or may not be genre for ISFDB):

  • Best Anthology *
  • Best Children's Book *
  • Best Historical Fiction (not genre)
  • Best Horror Novel
  • Best Fantasy Novel
  • Best Literary Fiction Novel *
  • Best Non-Fiction Book *
  • Best Paranormal Romance Novel
  • Best Romance Novel *
  • Best Science Fiction Novel
  • Best Short Story *
  • Best Short Story Collection (single author) *
  • Best Thirrler Novel *
  • Best Urban Fantasy Novel
  • Best Young Adult Novel *

Should we add them? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:28, 15 August 2019 (EDT)

The award is apparently given by a regional (Kentucky) convention which has been active for the last 6 years. It seems similar to Endeavour Award, which we support, so it appears to be eligible. Ahasuerus 14:35, 15 August 2019 (EDT)
Done. Ahasuerus 08:20, 25 August 2019 (EDT)
Thanks! I'll work on them when I get done with the Japan Fantasy Novel Award (only about 10 more years to enter). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:00, 27 August 2019 (EDT)

Spaces in Japanese names

Can we have a report that lists people with spaces in their names if they are Japanese? For example, "のの原 兎太" as opposed to "のの原兎太". The Canonical Name shouldn't have any spaces in it, but I haven't figured out how to do an advanced search that finds them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:08, 22 August 2019 (EDT)

You can do "Canonical Name contains % %" plus "Working Language is exactly Japanese" to try to get at this. You might be able to reduce the list with a few more restrictions, but there is a bit of noise since you pick up the names that are in other languages. --MartyD 08:01, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
Right, that's exactly what I use to find errant spaces. Ahasuerus 12:51, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
Awesome. I've cleaned those up. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:24, 23 August 2019 (EDT)

Currency symbols and abbreviations

Do we have somewhere a reference list of currency symbols and abbreviations? Help:Screen:NewPub#Price contains several illustrations but no hyperlink to a more complete list at ISFDB.org, nor elsewhere.

E.g. France: For the currencies of France, we report prices "FR 6" (1865), "F50.00" (1947), and "4 F" (1966) --for publications of Voyages Extraordinaires #1 T7386 and Baltimore Gun Club #1 T7389. Wikipedia-EN implies a single franc (F or Fr or FF) from 1795 to 1960. --Pwendt|talk 13:01, 23 August 2019 (EDT)

This is the only list we have that I know of. The different French Francs are afaik grounded in the different restarts of the currency. It may be that Linguist knows more about the matter, and I'll post a link at his talk page. Christian Stonecreek 13:35, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
I just started Help:List of currency symbols, if anyone wants to add to it or correct it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:46, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
We can also use this page for reference. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:49, 23 August 2019 (EDT)
As far as French francs are concerned, it seems to me that this database has mainly used "F" directly followed by the number, e.g. "F5.50", just like the dollar sign. At least, this was the standard rule Hauck and I followed. The difference in currencies does not really correspond to a difference in symbols, which vary greatly from publisher to publisher, as well as with publishing dates. Whenever I meet something like "FR 6" or "4 F", I change it to the standard F6.00 or F4.00. The only tricky cases are :
  • the period between 1945 and 1959, when the one franc piece corresponded to the lowest possible value (due to the dramatic post-war devaluation of the franc). I usually write prices indicated during that interval without any decimals, as these were just impossible. The only exception to this (unfortunately) comes form the lingering but rather rare use of the old 50 centimes piece until the end of the ’40s (mainly for newpapers and such).
  • the short period following 1960, when prices appeared in "new francs" usually noted as "NF" (one "new franc" equalling 100 "old francs"). But as this practice of noting NF disappeared with time, and there was nothing official in the NF notation, prices in new francs are just noted the standard way, with a commentary in the notes if necessary.
If no one objects, I'll add a line about French francs in the list, summing up our usual practice in the matter. Linguist 04:59, 24 August 2019 (EDT).
Which list? Help:List of currency symbols or Help:Screen:NewPub#Price? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:04, 25 August 2019 (EDT)
The latter (since the issue has been dealt with in the former). Linguist 04:08, 25 August 2019 (EDT).
Works for me. Feel free to add or correct anything on Help:List of currency symbols. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:28, 25 August 2019 (EDT)

So all non Latin characters are followed by numbers without a space character, but currencies in Latin characters use a space before the number. What I don't understand is: why doesn't the French F follow this rule as the only Latin currency.
And I miss the Swedish krona SEK in Help:Screen:NewPub#Price --Zapp 06:33, 26 August 2019 (EDT)

Summary of ISFDB Publications search > Price contains: fr --two characters
'Bfr ' -- the usual hit, these four characters uniformly
Sfr Sfr. sfr sfr. -- four different strings, always followed by a space (narrow SEARCH)
Fr Fr. FR -- three different strings, followed by a space
Fr.-- no space
The use of 'FR ' that I mentioned above happens to be unique, and also the only hit for this search prior to year 1900. --Pwendt|talk 11:22, 26 August 2019 (EDT)
Our database Advanced search evidently strips leading as well as trailing spaces. Search '9 f' will find some uses of closing currency symbol F.
Summary of ISFDB Publications search > Price contains: 9 f --three characters (SEARCH)
F FF Ft --three different strings, all at end of price.
Wikipedia evidently uses trailing currency symbols for denominations of notes and coins; thus, 20F price may be paid by two 10 F coins. --Pwendt|talk 12:02, 26 August 2019 (EDT)

Tauchnitz Edition format

Do we know that the Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors was published sometimes in hc or tp format, as our publication records report?

I infer pb format from the digital copy of #3440 that I viewed at HathiTrust yesterday. (Augmentation of the publication record P567383 is in progress and I will add a publication series Note, too.)

First, I look for confirmation or correction of my interpretation that HDL images 6-7 and images 288-89 of 299 show the original front outside/inside cover and back inside/outside cover, or page 1 to "page 4 of cover" in Tauchnitz terms. Meanwhile images 1-5 and 290-99 show --perhaps with buffer images-- the materials, including hard covers, in which the original was bound by Cornell University Library or donor Theodore Stanton (image 3, with terms of holding and circulation). Right?

Thus I infer paper covers. HathiTrust reports size 16cm, which implies pb format --if not digest or another paper format, but all our publication records for the series reports hc, tp, or pb.

The August 1900 list of Latest Volumes ends (page 4 of cover) with this statement now quoted in the publication record, and destined for the series Note:

"The Tauchnitz Edition is to be had of all Booksellers and Railway Libraries on the Continent, price M 1,60. or 2 francs per volume. A complete Catalogue of the Tauchnitz Edition is attached to this work."

From this I infer a single format, rather than multiple formats, as of August 1900.
(Because Tauchnitz is based in German, I entered price "ℳ 1.60".) --Pwendt|talk 13:44, 23 August 2019 (EDT)

Since paperbound and hardcover formats are verified it seems reasonable to assume that the titles were published - likely simultaneously - in both variants, at least for some time. This was the standard procedure for some German publishers at the beginning of the 20th Century. Stonecreek 01:45, 24 August 2019 (EDT)

Neffy Awards

Should we add the Neffy Awards (or "National Fantasy Fan Federation Speculative Fiction Awards")? According to this page, they have been awarded annually since 2005, and periodically since 1949. I haven't found a list of the older awards yet, but I'll keep looking. The 2019 list is here, and the 2018 list is here. Locus seems to report on them. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:13, 25 August 2019 (EDT)

I could have sworn that we discussed adding this award a few years ago, but I can't find anything in the archives. Perhaps it was a similarly named award?
In any event, checking the award history, it looks like it's mostly a media award. However, it also includes enough fiction categories to make it arguably worth adding.
As an aside, their naming conventions can be confusing. For example, in 2010 their "Best SF/F Author" award was given to "Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay". I assume it means that it was actually a "Best SF/F Fiction" category rather than a "Best SF/F Author" category. Oh well, nothing that we can't work our way around. Ahasuerus 14:03, 27 August 2019 (EDT)
OK, a new award type has been created. I'll leave category creation to the folks who will be working on this award. They change from year to year and can get rather convoluted. Ahasuerus 19:42, 9 September 2019 (EDT)

Maithili added

The software has been updated to support the Maithili language. Ahasuerus 16:17, 27 August 2019 (EDT)

Authors with Author Data and One Non-Latin Title

Can we make entries ignorable on this report? There are a number where they just need to be ignored. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:32, 29 August 2019 (EDT)

I support this request :) Annie 19:36, 29 August 2019 (EDT)
Especially since a large number of the names in the list are alternate names that are already correctly varianted to the canonical name. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:48, 29 August 2019 (EDT)
It would be easy to do, but the fact that it's explicitly designed to find authors with one non-Latin title makes me wonder. Anyone recall the original reasoning behind this cleanup report? Was it, by chance, one of those reports which were created to go after the "low hanging fruit"? Is it still relevant now that we have cleaned up a lot of language issues? Ahasuerus 21:51, 29 August 2019 (EDT)
I do not think that it is relevant or needed anymore - it was part of the reports that were built around the time we were assigning languages to titles and dealing with the non-Latin author names. There is nothing there that we do not get from other reports for the ones where we need to do some work on. If you would rather kill it instead of allowing the ignore, I am all for it. Annie 22:20, 29 August 2019 (EDT)
If there are no objections, I will zap this report in a couple of days. Ahasuerus 12:52, 31 August 2019 (EDT)

Verification of electronic copies

Does a scanned edition of a book count towards verification? Would Transient be used if viewed anpreed Permanent if a copy is possessed? To what extent would the associated catalogue information (assuming a library-like source) be acceptable for completing fields? There are templates for a few sources (e.g. British Library, Gallica), but should there be a more standard approach (template, wording, format) to documenting the reference / link? Bear in mind that some sources require membership or presence at a physical site for viewing. Doug H 08:28, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

National libraries are not only acceptable, but wishable, I'd say (more than a vendor like amazon). They have the same goal in cataloguing the correct data (their main aim isn't to sell), and I use them whereever I can lay my hands on them.
Using a scanned copy (instead of a physical one) should imho always be used for transient verifications. Christian Stonecreek 10:49, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
A number of sites (e.g. Gallica, Hathi) support 3 levels - searchable (tells you number of hits, but shows no text), viewable and downloadable. Is there a distinction between viewed and downloaded (as in "I've seen" vs. "I have") for an electronic copy? Or would they both be lumped in as Transient? A scan isn't really the book, so is it more of a secondary source? Would it make sense to include "Scanned Copy" along with Blieler and Locus? Templates allow me to reference some of the sites / copies directly (e.g. Gallica), but I have made use of some downloads from my university library that gives me access to collections not publicly available. Would a template to incorporate the name/link be a better approach than simply using notes? Doug H 15:17, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
I would still argue that "I have/own a scan of the book in e-format" is different from "I own the book". You can "permanent verify" an e-book you have that is published as an e-book; I book that is marked as HC can be "permanent verified" only from a HC copy. Even if you see the whole book in a scan. So in your case I would Transient and add a note that the Transient is from a downloaded copy that I have. Annie 15:25, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
I would prefer a verification category intermediate to Primary and Secondary --regardless whether images of original covers and endpapers (and more?) are contained or absent; the latter because a re-bound or damaged book has been scanned, or because the scan is incomplete.
And I do prefer, in each publication record with digital copy as source, we specify whether it contains original cover or not (if appropriate: "apparently", "probably", with description, etc).
As yet I have written or updated hundreds of publication records noting some data from online copies, usually at HathiTrust, and I have not formally Verified any of them. My boilerplate, modified to fit the occasion:
* HathiTrust Digital Library provides full view of four copies including one with original cover: [that one is the one linked somewhere below, a hopeful unstated convention]
HDL holdings rarely include spine scans, a lack that I rarely note.
--Pwendt|talk 16:28, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
Annie, I agree they are different. But permanent vs. transient is temporal - do you still have or no longer have access to the "book". Saying a scan you have possession of is transient seems wrong. I'd prefer pure notes to such an approach. The permanent vs. transient seems to apply just as well to the scanned copy. Which is why I wondered if "Scanned Copy" is a valid secondary source - not the real thing but a good substitute? That approach offers only a Yes/No verification though. So a category between Primary and Secondary sounds nice, but probably mucks around too deep in the code to be easily implemented. If such an approach is viewed as 'good' and 'likely', it there a way to 'tag'/'template' entries to minimize the effort of conversion in the future? Pwendt's boilerplate works for him, but a more standardized approach based on some discussion would be better. So I'm hoping this generates some of that discussion. Doug H 16:58, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
That is why I said "I would argue" :) I do not verify based on scans (not because I would not but because I have other stuff to do before that) so I just offered an opinion on what I would do. :) If we agree on a different approach, I am ok with it. I also know that the fact that I have a scan today does not mean I won't misplace it tomorrow (with books at least it won't end up in a disk I throw away by mistake). Neither fits but my gut feeling is that if I had not seen the book in the format it is published, it is not a Primary Permanent for me.
These days more and more books get digitized so maybe we need a "Primary/scanned" type of verification (as Pwendt kinda proposed as well now reading up) ... And “Monitor/Notify” while we are at that (I enter book on behalf of a user who does not speak English, being able to mark it as such will mean that I will get the "changed" AND people know that they can ask me questions about the book because I show as active while the actual PV is around only when I call him to check and verify.
Back to the scans - if enough people think it should be Permanent, I will be fine. You may want to ping Ron (Rtrace) - he has quite a lot of books verified based on scans. Annie 20:01, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

See this archived discussion for a prior discussion that had some implementation ideas on this topic. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:16, 1 September 2019 (EDT)

Based on that discussion and this, I'd be good with an additional "Scanned copy" form of Secondary Verification. It's pretty generic and non-linking (there may be a FR to deal with that). How would we document the additional information in the Notes? I like using templates, it ensures a standard approach, simplifies searches and stats gathering and enables future enhancement. We only catalogue one publication of a book regardless of the number of copies, so theoretically would need only one verification / scan reference for a given publication. However, scans vary in quality, completeness and other factors, so I wonder if there needs to be allowance for more than one. And different publication sites (Hathi, Google Books, ...) may or may not be showing the same copy, but generally indicate the source copy owner or it is evident from the scan itself, which could help eliminate duplication. But do we document the publisher (and possible link) or owner (source)? Doug H 16:18, 1 September 2019 (EDT)

Margery Allingham

Our friends at SFE3 have updated their "Margery Allingham" entry. Would anyone be interested in leveraging it to flesh out her ISFDB bibliography? Ahasuerus 13:08, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

I can get that this weekend - I like Allingham anyway. I never think of her as one of ours. :) Annie 13:28, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
Thanks! And if I had a penny for every time I was asked "Wait, what? X wrote SF?", I would have a very impressive penny collection :-) Ahasuerus 14:30, 30 August 2019 (EDT)
I've actually read everything they had added over in SFE3. They just did not register as something I would add here or as something that I would even consider speculative (in my brain, they are in my mystery/crime part of my genres). Then I think about them and I realize that they DO fit. On the other hand, I had the same reaction after I read Reply Paid earlier this year -- I had to think on why we would be here (and once I figured it out (and it was obvious once I thought about it), I even added tags. For the first time in my life I think) But them I read extensively in both genres so "that is not from this genre" does not even register sometimes - it fits in one of my genres. I really need to pay more attention to that while reading early mysteries... :) Annie 14:58, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

"They" They 'They'

For several Kipling stories we now have not two but three SHORTFICTION that represent the title fashioned with double, or single, or no quotation marks. Some double-q-mark are canonical 21309 ("They") 1000842 and some no-q-mark are canonical 78266 97925 1000846. (Some single q-mark are parents with only one child.)

Previously I have used the double-q character where a publisher (or library record) uses the single-q, as one convention among several in a class to which it may not officially belong. Without recommending [a] consistent use of any typographical convention thruout the database, or [b] for all English-language titles, we might recommend [1] that either double- or single- but not both be used for any one title.

Regarding the hierarchy, we might recommend [2] that one among double, single, and no-q be the parent for all related titles (eg, SHORTFICTION, CHAPBOOK, ESSAY, INTERIORART, COVERART).

Perhaps I should have specified that the 1904 Kipling short story "They" &c was that year published in a magazine as They; and collected as 'They' (UK) and as "They" (US trade ed.), US subscription ed. not viewed. And published in 1905 chapbooks as 'They' (UK and US); the same US publisher who re-set the collection did not re-set the chapbook. --Pwendt|talk 18:07, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

--Pwendt|talk 17:00, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

'Romance language' added

'Romance language' has been added to the list of supported languages. Please note that it is only supposed to be used to enter titles written using Romance dialects and less well-known languages not supported by the ISO 639-2 standard. Examples include Picard, Lorrain and various Norman dialects. Ahasuerus 18:13, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

Series Names That May Need Disambiguation

Does someone remember what is the point of this report?

It seems to contain all the series names that have at least one partner that had been disambiguated (and which had not been ignored yet). Our policy (formal or not but implemented in practice) is that in such cases one series remains as the main one named so (no disambiguator) and everyone else gets disambiguated. So these series that are on the list will just need ignoring (and will always just need ignoring). Before I go and ignore all 589 of them:

  • Am I missing something? When do we need to do something with those?
  • If I am not missing anything, do we really need this report?

Thanks! Annie 20:52, 30 August 2019 (EDT)

It's been a few years, so I am not 100% sure what I was thinking when I created the reports. I suspect that the idea was that we have a lot more identically named series than we have identically named authors because series names are, quite frequently, commonly used words. For example, we have 10 series whose name happens to be "The Guardians" and 5 series whose name is just plain "Guardian". Moreover, none is an obvious favorite. Compare and contrast with Stephen King vs. Stephen King (I) vs. Stepehen King (artist) where it's clear which author doesn't need to be disambiguated.
Also, I find that having a disambiguating suffix comes in handy when processing new series. When the time comes to enter Book 1 in Jane Doe's "Guardians" series, the approving moderator will see a yellow warning because there will be no plain "Guardians" series on file. Ahasuerus 13:16, 31 August 2019 (EDT)
This actually makes a lot of sense - that is why I am asking before doing something cardinal. I will see if I can get some of those resolved. Any chance to get a matching Pub Series report? These use even less words usually and get repeated across publishers a lot. Annie 01:52, 5 September 2019 (EDT)
Sounds good; FR 1300 "Create a cleanup report to find pub series needing disambiguation" has been created. Ahasuerus 21:23, 5 September 2019 (EDT)
Done -- see this post for details. Ahasuerus 21:59, 4 October 2019 (EDT)
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