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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 January - June 2022

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Sphere Frights

https://www.amazon.com/FRIGHTS-2-Kirby-McCauley/dp/0722157800; Kirby McCauley's 1976 anthology Frights was reprinted by Sphere in 1979 in 2 PB's; Frights 1's cover artist was found because someone noticed the same cover was used on a 1983 French book from Fleuve Noir; I noticed SFE lists Terry Oakes as cover artist for both Frights PB's, so that info seems to be known now, but what may not be known is whether that cool art at the Amazon link above, which I added just now in an edit along with Oakes' credit, was also re-used for a Fleuve Noir book. I thought I could check, but they published hundreds of those things, so if anyone more familiar with French PB's recognizes that cover they can always make it a variant. --Username 18:18, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Mystic Voices

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?500808; I couldn't find anywhere that shows the contents page of the original 1923 edition of Roger Pater's collection, but a scan is on Google Books and by searching for titles I think I've pieced all the page #'s together. However, it's possible it's not 100% correct, so if anyone has a copy or can find somewhere that shows contents let us know here. --Username 12:28, 3 January 2022 (EST)

I just added the 1923 intro by Pater so I think I'm done with this book now, but the problem is David G. Rowlands wrote a new intro for the 2001 Ash-Tree Press edition, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?279936, while there's something called "Preface to Mystic Voices" by Pater, which runs the same # of pages as the original intro. So I don't know if having 2 "Introduction (Mystic Voices)" will conflict, and whether that Preface should be merged with the 1923 intro since they're almost certainly the same. --Username 10:45, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Allen & Unwin vs Allen & Unwin (Australia)

There's a UK book due out this week that looks eligible for inclusion here. That review says it's from Atlantic Books, but Amazon and Kobo both say it's from "Allen & Unwin".

The publisher record for Allen & Unwin states "Australia-based independent publisher since 1990.", plus addition info about its history prior to then. However, there is also Allen & Unwin (Australia), which seems to cover the same post-1990 entity?

Both of these have pubs for recent years - the former seems to be a mix of USD and GBP priced pubs, and just a few AUD (which I suspect is more down to where the data was sourced from, rather than an indication of the country of publication); the latter is a mix of unpriced and AUD pubs. This seems a bit confusing to me. Naively I might assume "Allen & Unwin" should refer only to the pre-1990 UK publisher?

Going back to the title I want to add, doing a bit of investigation shows that the current "Allen & Unwin" entity is listed on the Atlantic Books site as "The UK home of Australia’s leading independent publisher". This makes me think that the title/pub I want to add might be best attributed to a new "Allen & Unwin / Atlantic Books" publisher record, to disambiguate from the parent Australian org, or the UK publisher prior to 1990. (And potentially the same for other books that have been published by the UK imprint of the UK arm of the Australian parent org - but that's something for another time...)

(FWIW There also seems to be a separate Oct 2021 pub from Allen & Unwin (Australia), which I may or may not get around to submitting, but will at the very least ensure is reflected in the title date.)

Any thoughts/objections/suggestions? ErsatzCulture 18:31, 3 January 2022 (EST)

EDIT: FWIW Kobo has a preview of the ebook already available, which does indeed have "Allen & Unwin" on the title page. The logo is similar but not identical to the one on the title page of the Australian ebook as visible via Amazon.com.au. ErsatzCulture 18:40, 3 January 2022 (EST)

Sacred or Scared?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5188173; I remember some time ago when I changed a lowercase letter in a name to its proper uppercase but it didn't show up that way after I submitted the edit; I didn't mention it anywhere but now this edit linked above has the same issue, where it agrees the name was changed but still shows the same lowercase letter instead of McRoberts and has the same record #. More importantly, that title just can't be correct; SCARED Realm?!? I got on a kick of adding covers and a few other things to some of these PublishAmerica books, which seem to mostly be by people who have no other credits on ISFDB, and I get the feeling they weren't of the highest standard and probably had bad proofreading (not that major publishers don't often have bad proofreading, too). No title page photos online that I can find, so if anyone knows where to find one or actually owns it, can you check title page and verify it's SACRED Realm; please don't tell me it's really supposed to be SCARED? --Username 00:33, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Falkenstern

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/carr_terry; Fantasy Annual IV and V, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?8918, and the SFE link above reveals Lisa Falkenstern did those covers, like she is credited for doing on III on ISFDB. IV has "LAF" signature on PB covers so that's obvious but I don't see any kind of signature on V so that's questionable. --Username 10:22, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Crime Club

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crime_Club; Harry Harrison's novel Queen Victoria's Revenge had no cover so I added it, but there was a note by some other editor that it was part of The Crime Club; link above says they were an imprint of Doubleday, so I changed publisher from Doubleday to Crime Club / Doubleday. However, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?57191, shows that only 5 ISFDB records use it that way while there's more than 25 that use it as part of a series. There's also 13 that call it Doubleday / Crime Club, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?25307. Also, Collins has many of their Crime Club books listed here as a publisher, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?9961, but also a few listed here as a series, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2690. So some standardization may be in order to get all Crime Club books by both publishers under the same name. --Username 11:25, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Rat Cover

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?289366; I added OL ID to this and now that it's approved I realize the Archive.org copy has a totally different cover; prices on back are higher, so likely a later printing, in case anyone knows how many editions this went through. ISBN is the same as the earlier "train" cover, though. --Username 11:18, 6 January 2022 (EST)

Mouseover help for prices

As per FR 1467, the software has been updated to display mouseover bubbles for price values. All currency symbols listed in Help:List of currency symbols are currently supported. If you find bibliographic pages which display prices without a mouseover bubble, please post the offending URL here. Ahasuerus 11:44, 6 January 2022 (EST)

Rogue Wave / Theodore Taylor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/find_dups.cgi?30022; This book was entered as a novel and a collection, I changed novel edition to collection, but it's just a bunch of old sea stories from Argosy, not sure why it's here. Merge or delete, as you wish. --Username 16:03, 6 January 2022 (EST)

Anybody know anything about the author Theodore Taylor? Except for The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor, his work seems to be non-genre (primarily children's historical fiction). It's possible Weirdo might be genre, but sounds more non-speculative horror. None of his works are verified so no one to ask who has read them. It seems like his works need a good pruning. I'll give it a few days to see if anyone has any input, though. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:43, 6 January 2022 (EST)
Yeah, I just looked through all of the long fiction and I agree (I couldn't find enough info to comment on the short fiction). The only one that looks genre is The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor. Not even Weirdo looks genre to me. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:55, 6 January 2022 (EST)
I went through the long works and tagged those that aren't genre. I left the autobiography since he does have at least one genre work. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:01, 6 January 2022 (EST)
https://archive.org/details/roguewaveotherre00tayl; Copyright page dates many of the stories as much earlier than their ISFDB date. --Username 18:39, 6 January 2022 (EST)
I've removed all of the non-genre stories since he is definitely not above the threshold. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:38, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Restructuring Blaze Ward's Alexandria Station Series

I want to restructure the Alexandria Station series and sub-series per Blaze Ward's own structure as shown on his website here. Proposed new structure:

Alexandria Station Universe

  • 1 Alexandria Station Stories (rename of series "The Last Waltz")
  • 2 The Science Officer
    • Move #1-8 into new sub-series "The Science Officer: Season One"
    • Move #9-on into new sub-series "The Science Officer Season Two"
  • 3 The Jessica Keller Chronicles
    • Titles 1-9, Subseries "CS-405", "Uniforms of the Fleet: Volume One"
  • 4 First Centurion Kosnett (moved from within "The Jessica Keller Chronicles" and stated on the website to be "Sequel Series to the Jessica Keller Chronicles")
    • Two titles so far (to be six total)
  • 5 Handsome Rob
    • existing titles

This will put them in an in-universe order as well as matching the author's preferred grouping. Comments please. Phil 18:46, 7 January 2022 (EST)

At the moment, the sub-series that comprise this series are not explicitly numbered, so the display order is the alphabetical order of the sub-series names. Simply assigning then numbers based on publication order would be an improvement.
That said, since the author's Web site states that "First Centurion Kosnett" is a direct sequel to "The Jessica Keller Chronicles", I wonder if it may be better to creates a "Jessica Keller Sequence" sub-series and then turn both "The Jessica Keller Chronicles" and "First Centurion Kosnett" into its sub-series. We would end up with multiple levels of nesting, but it may be a more accurate representation of the universe.
I am going to leave a note on User:Chris_J's Talk page since Edit History indicates that he has done much of the work on this author's bibliography. Ahasuerus 17:36, 9 January 2022 (EST)
I think that would handle it nicely! That would also give room to create another sub-series if Blaze ever creates the follow-on series to "First Centurion Kosnett" that he has mentioned in his newsletter. BTW, I just discovered I missed mentioning that I also need to break up The Science Officer into to two sub-series: "The Science Officer: Season One" for #1-8 and "The Science Officer: Season Two" for #9-? (Fixing original note above for consolidated view of changes.) Phil 08:02, 10 January 2022 (EST)
Chris hasn't responded, so I went ahead and restructured the series based on your proposal. The only thing that I did differently was moving the non-fiction book "Uniforms of the Fleet: Volume One" to the newly created "Jessica Keller Sequence" series. Could you please take a look to see if everything looks OK? Ahasuerus 11:01, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Looks good! Thanks for doing it - I wasn't looking forward to all the delays doing it as a non-Mod! One thought about the new series name Jessica Keller Sequence. I asked Blaze Ward what he considers a good name for grouping those series together and he suggested that it be called "Republic of Aquitaine Era" since he has very loosely plotted out a future series set in the "Imperial Aquitaine Era". Plus, Jessica Keller isn't really more than a mention in any of the series after the "Jessica Keller Chronicles". Phil 11:35, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Works for me! Ahasuerus 11:46, 15 January 2022 (EST)
I've submitted the series rename. Thanks! Phil 12:12, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Approved. Ahasuerus 12:15, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Artist ID

Can anyone make out this signature? Futurelifesignature.png --Rosab618 17:30, 8 January 2022 (EST)

Perhaps Jack Woolhiser? A Google search on "Jack Woolhiser signature" finds better quality signatures which look similar. Ahasuerus 17:14, 9 January 2022 (EST)
Right you are! Thanks!--Rosab618 01:09, 10 January 2022 (EST)
Excellent :-) Ahasuerus 11:07, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Correct Help text for "Correcting a Variant Title that was done backwards"

This help text is partially incorrect. For Step 2: Instead of reading "You do not need to wait for moderator approval of the delete-variant-title but instead can just continue on to the next step." it should be changed to something like: "You need to wait for moderator approval of the delete-variant-title before continuing on to the next step. If you do not wait, you will get the error message "Error: Proposed parent title is currently a variant of another title. Variants of variants are not allowed." Phil 12:21, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Excellent point; I have made the change. Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:18, 9 January 2022 (EST)
Thanks! Phil 22:10, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Cthulhu and Henry James

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1692; 2 letters in 1989 issues of Crypt of Cthulhu, published nearly 75 years after he died. Probably a different Henry James. Same 2 PV for both issues, 1 gone, the other Biomassbob, so he might still have those issues. --Username 18:24, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Award to add? German Science Fiction Award - Deutscher Science Fiction Preis

Hi there, happy to new year!

How about adding the German "Deutscher Science Fiction Preis" , in English: "German Science Fiction Award", which is around since 1985.

Information about the award on English: https://www.dsfp.de/der-preis/the-german-science-fiction-award-information-in-english from the website itself or at the English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher_Science_Fiction_Preis

Many thanks and Best regards, Jannis (still very new to the isfdb!)

Looks like a perfectly legitimate award to me. If we have volunteers willing to enter the data, I can create a new award type for it. Ahasuerus 12:31, 10 January 2022 (EST)
Since I am the one asking for it, I would enter the previous winners and nominated entrees year for year (if there isn't some evil deadline to be finished in xxx days?). --Jannis 02:37, 11 January 2022 (EST)
Nope, no evil deadline! :-) Ahasuerus 08:26, 11 January 2022 (EST)
The only "evil" thing that may happen is that someone else may notice the award and decide to assist and add some of them before you :) Annie 17:32, 11 January 2022 (EST)
OK, if there are no objections, I can add the new award type tomorrow. Ahasuerus 19:42, 11 January 2022 (EST)
Cool, thanks a lot! The needed information for this award: Short Award Name: "DSFP", Full Award Name: "Deutscher Science Fiction Preis", Awarded For: "Best German-language science fiction novel and story", Awarded By: "Jury", Poll: "No", Non-Genre: "No" --Jannis 04:06, 12 January 2022 (EST)
Could you please clarify this award's "poll" status? Checking the list of 2021 nominations, I see that they are ranked 1-5 for short fiction and 1-9 for novels. It would appear that it makes it a "poll" in ISFDB terms based on Help:Screen:AwardType:
  • Poll: "No" if this award is limited to wins and nominations. "Yes" if this award assigns numeric places, e.g. 1, 2, 10, etc.
? Ahasuerus 16:00, 12 January 2022 (EST)
Sorry, yes you are absolutely right: Poll: yes, since there are the winners and other nominees as well! --Jannis 01:57, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Outcome: a new award type, DSFP/Deutscher Science Fiction Preis, has been created. It has two award categories, one for novels and the other one for short fiction. Ahasuerus 09:27, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Broughton Stories

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoda_Broughton; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?786021; 3 new stories, obviously not really new because she died many years earlier, all stories have notes saying they appeared in Temple Bar, Wikipedia link says they all appeared in non-Temple Bar publications, so any experts who know where and when they appeared can fix if they want. --Username 13:49, 10 January 2022 (EST)

I've fixed them up. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:20, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Times Wrong Numbers

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?307807; The page # start off OK but start to differ and by the end are off by 5 pages, as seen here, https://data.fantlab.ru/images/editions/plus/big/173665_4. Many people worked on this book over the years but there's no notes so maybe somebody had the book and they're all correct as they are, or maybe not. EDIT: Oh, I see now, someone got the # from The Supernatural Index. A real copy is needed to decide what the #'s really are. --Username 18:47, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Gor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1036747; I was editing on Sidgwick & Jackson books and saw 1972's Gor Omnibus didn't have a cover, but couldn't find a cover image anywhere except on APPLE'S APP STORE. It's a perfectly clean cover and mentions the publisher's name so I uploaded it, but was told there was already an image by that name. I replaced it, and it turns out another editor, Ofearna, uploaded the cover for the 2007 Dark Horse edition nearly 10 years ago. That edition is also on ISFDB, with the correct cover, and she's not on the editors' list, so why it's in the Sidgwick wiki is unknown. So if any mods want to delete the Dark Horse upload, or if anyone actually owns a copy/knows where to find an image of the actual 1972 cover, they can replace the one from APPLE'S APP STORE. Ironic that Dark Horse's edition barely sold due to complaints but Apple has no problem selling what are basically BDSM porn novels. --Username 14:27, 14 January 2022 (EST)

I am assuming you are referring to Image:GRMNBSBZJM1972.jpg (associated with 297784) and one of the apps by "Corbin Miller" (either 650224447 or 628282752). There are a few applicable screenshots containing the cover but this one is particularly relevant. I cannot speak to why Susan uploaded that image with respect to that edition as clearly it does not belong there (but rather on the Dark Horse edition as you pointed out). You might find this archived discussion from the end of 2012 relevant. I appreciate your finding the correct cover but the image certainly needs to be cropped on the top and bottom. Thank you, —Uzume 12:11, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Wow, that's some Indiana Jones-level digging there, remembering a short discussion you had from 2012. Ofearna asked how to fix it, and obviously it never was. Any mod can still delete it if they care to. I can't believe there's no image of the original 1972 cover on the web somewhere, but I'm sure someone will find it eventually. Or maybe someone will admit to owning it and scan their own cover. --Username 12:35, 15 January 2022 (EST)
I did not really need to remember that as I just looked at Special:Whatlinkshere/Image:GRMNBSBZJM1972.jpg and found the older discussion. FYI: I also cropped the image and reuploaded it. Thanks again, —Uzume 12:42, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Different statuses for the two collections of authors

In the light of the fact that the two allowed melting pots assemble many authors of diverse languages: shouldn't 'uncredited' (here an example) and 'unknown' have the same status, i. e. have no language attached? Stonecreek 06:34, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I don't think it is possible to edit an author to remove the language. Author records start out with no language when first added from a publication, but any edit to the author record adds one. "null" is not an option in the language pull down list. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 07:26, 15 January 2022 (EST)
That is correct. The ISO 639-2 standard, which we use as the source of our supported languages, includes "zxx - No linguistic content; Not applicable", but it's not a part of the subset that we currently support. Ahasuerus 13:41, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Yeah, but I seem to remember that 'uncredited' once was the same way (or was it established when we had no language assignment around, but 'unknown' should have been around then also).
Also, 'uncredited' is virtually uneditable, 'unknown' maybe should have the same status. Stonecreek 08:23, 15 January 2022 (EST)
The difference between uncredited and unknown is not language. It is that uncredited has so many records the software prohibits viewing the author record. In the database, uncredited has a language of English, you just can't see that in the display. The software could probably be relatively easily changed to not display the language field on the unknown author record. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:38, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Our software uses authors' "Working language" values to determine which titles have their language displayed on Summary pages and which ones don't. For example, our Vladimir Nabokov record currently uses "English" as his working language, so his Russian works have "[Russian]" displayed next to their titles while his English works do not have "[English]" displayed. If we were to change his working language to "Russian", it would be the other way around.
Similarly, the fact that "unknown" currently has "English" set up as its working language means that English titles do not have their language displayed next to them while all other titles do. If we decide that it's desirable, it wouldn't be hard to change the software to always display the title's language on "unknown"'s Summary page. Ahasuerus 13:53, 15 January 2022 (EST)
Does it make sense to have an "unknown (language)", even if it's just to separate them out? Make it an alternate name? ../Doug H 15:04, 15 January 2022 (EST) (says unilingual bystander who doesn't really know what he's talking about).
That sort of makes sense. It is unlikely a Japanese publication would ever be credited with an author of "uncredited" or "unknown" as they would use something similar in Japanese. If we do make such authors, it might even make sense to make them into pseudonyms of the "unknown" or "uncredited" (although that might have other implications but in theory such could be handled like other shared pseudonyms in the title variants). —Uzume 12:50, 16 January 2022 (EST)
But those two denominations are no actual credits they are sorts of placeholders, and it makes IMO more sense to keep it as simple as possible, that is: have one denomination in our overall language of handling for each of the meanings. Stonecreek 13:12, 16 January 2022 (EST)
This approach partitions the unknowns, allowing one to view only, say, Russian unknowns together. An advanced query will do the same thing for those who might want to know and having the canonical unknown with listings for "[as unknown (Russian) [Russian]]" would seem odd. ../Doug H 15:02, 16 January 2022 (EST)

Perry Rhodan in French

Hi everyone! This seems to be a somewhat bigger cake, and there are some more complex problems involved.

There are two major phases of publishing the original Perry Rhodan series in French (see below), but both face the seemingly in most cases erroneous crediting to Clark Darlton and 'K.-H. Scheer': those two authors were central to the development of the series, but retreated over the course of time more and more from writing the novellas. So, in most cases the credit for one or both of them is wrongly stated (see this example, where the originals were written by Kurt Mahr and William Voltz, respectively). Usually we'd denominate the French credits as something like 'Clark Darlton (in error)' and 'K.-H. Scheer (in error)' (or possibly in the latter case just as 'K.-H. Scheer' since this alternate name of K. H. Scheer seems to have been used only in French).

Phase 1 (bundling of two novellas): This was the way to publish the series in French up to the year 2005. As of now, these publications are entered as novels, though each of them seems to consist of two distinct titled parts (the translated two novellas, see the example referred to above). It'd be better to have them that way, I'd think, that is, to have those volumes entered as anthologies or collections.
The trouble is that from 1966 (the beginning of the Fleuve Noir PR series) until 1970 or a bit later (I still have gaps in my collection), there is no clear evidence that the books are indeed collections of two novellas (apart from the mention “First Part” and "Second Part”, without any other title). See #1 of the series, presented as the translation of Unternehmen Stardust alone. Distinct titles for each part, usually translations of the German titles, seem to appear around 1970. As from 1973 or thereabouts, two original titles are indicated, thus implying the book is indeed a collection or anthology. So the very early years of the French series cause a real problem. Linguist 05:25, 17 January 2022 (EST).
It seems that for the first volumes at least, there's no major problem per se: they are varianted to the novel adaptations of 1962 and after (see here for #1), not the original novellas of 1961 and after. This also is the case for the last one without named parts. In case future problems will pop up, it still would be possible to use the identified beginnings of the respective parts as titles for the novella, like was done here for a statement by Scheer. Stonecreek 09:14, 17 January 2022 (EST)
Phase 2 (translations of fix-ups): With the year 2005 (and #200) the publications were stated translations of the fix-up novels that combined and bridged the single novellas into genuine novels and thus should directly be varianted to their originals.

For the background on this, see also Perrypedia. Any input on this will be welcome! Stonecreek 08:20, 16 January 2022 (EST)

From this response it seems to be okay to variant the titles of the second phase to the original novels.
For those of phase on from the internal logic and the statements 'This book collects French translations of two Perry Rhodan novellas' as in the example referred to above the assumption made above that those are really ANTHOLOGIES / COLLECTIONS also seem to be correct (with the exception of the ones that are variants of the early novel adaptations of the 1960s).
And also the alternate name 'Clark Darlton (in error)' should be inserted when appropriate.
I'll wait for a few days more for any other input (say until next Weekend) and then begin with the work. In this case, could you Dominique or Alain supply the titles for the respective two parts of the ANTHOLOGIES / COLLECTIONS, or should just 'Chapitre I' / 'Chapitre II' [or 'Première partie (...)' / 'Deuxième partie (...)'] be inserted.
In any case, there seem to be some updates for the notes in order. Stonecreek 02:05, 18 January 2022 (EST)
I can add the titles of the two parts when necessary, but remember my collection of Perry Rhodans is very far from complete. Just give me a ping when you want the job done. Linguist 04:18, 18 January 2022 (EST).
Thanks! Likely, this will be due beginning sometimes during next week. Christian Stonecreek 05:02, 18 January 2022 (EST)
I have just verified this publication and two points worth mentioning appeared to me when looking at it:
1) Dominique, how do you plan to enter the novellas: a) with their title proper, or b) with 'Première partie : respective title'. (I ask because some of those you haven't verified nevertheless have the respective titles listed in the notes.)
I think the second solution is the better one, as it gives a more precise idea of the way the French edition is organized (and sorry I didn't see your question earlier). Linguist 04:13, 23 January 2022 (EST).
2) In general: shouldn't the month of the stated dépôt légal be made into the to be entered month of publication (instead of the month of printing)? After all, this is the most likely month, the other one is just the month it was printed in. Christian Stonecreek 10:14, 21 January 2022 (EST)

Gwynplaine

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1562; I added author photo to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre's record, it was just approved, but my note about his death by suicide was replaced by the note I wrote for the moderator about author's uncertain birth place which was moved into the regular notes section. I don't know why that was done, but who cares; the point is while I was looking at his record I noticed there was a comment written by Ahasuerus nearly 10 years ago that the author used 3 different names and most everything else about him was uncertain. Now that I stumbled onto this, if anyone knows whether anyone ever figured out his real name, where he was really born, etc. it might be time to update his record. --Username 10:38, 18 January 2022 (EST)

Bryan Smith

I think that the few dark suspense novels of Bryan Smith should be listed as the volume of supernatural and horror fiction that he has published, and is still publishing. I have been told no, but I would like a second opinion. How much is the right amount to be above the threshold? Not trying to cause any problems here, but... MLB 13:59, 19 January 2022 (EST)

Given the amount of work he's had published, I think he is above the threshold. So, I'd say add them, but be sure to mark any that have no supernatural content as non-genre. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:22, 19 January 2022 (EST)
Unless there is a cache of non-speculative stories and novels I don't know about (and Goodreads does not about either), he looks well above threshold to me. Annie 15:08, 19 January 2022 (EST)
I'm the one who has reservations.;) Is the volume of an author's work decisive in determining whether he/she/xer is above the threshold, or should we factor in how famous/well known the author is in the speculative fiction field as well? The author is definately not in the league of Asimov or Clarke or... And as I'm reluctant to add non spec-fic regardless, irrespective whether its above or below threshold (which is subjective, right? :), I have my doubts whether to include the work. MagicUnk 16:53, 19 January 2022 (EST)
"Well known" to whom? There are some big authors that never got an award in their life - bad timing, too niche or whatever else happened. With the advent of self-publishing, we will have even more of them. On the other hand, as big as Orwell will always be in the genre, we won't index all his works because he is not primarily a speculative author. The only somewhat objective criteria we have is "is he primarily a speculative author aka does most of his work belong in the genre?". For Bryan Smith the answer is "yes" IMO. So he is above threshold.
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not index any non-genre work by anyone. But under the current definition and practices, Smith is above the waterline I think. Annie 17:35, 19 January 2022 (EST)
ISFDB:Policy says "The goal [of the "certain threshold" standard] 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." So basically it excludes non-SF by "non-genre authors".
That's how I have been using the "certain threshold" standard, but in the past some editors have argued in favor of using a higher standard, something like "genre importance". Ahasuerus 20:24, 19 January 2022 (EST)
I'm not sure if you can use "well known" as a term much now. Smith would have been considered a mid-level author in the old days, but now, he's considered a major talent in the small-press horror field. He's been filmed, and major limited, signed editions have been issued. He's no King or Koontz, but he's major player in the horror field. MLB 02:29, 20 January 2022 (EST)
Being a famous horror author in and of itself doesn't warrant inclusion in the database. I'm with Ahasuerus' interpretation of the rules here: the author should be a genre author. So, since I'm not familiar enough with Bryan Smith's other works, would you say the majority of his work has speculative elements in it, as that would imply he's a genre author and his non-genre works eligible for inclusion? MagicUnk 05:00, 20 January 2022 (EST)
Let me make sure that I understand your question correctly Are you making a distinction between "psychological horror" [not SF as per Policy] and "supernatural horror" [SF as per Policy]? If so, then I believe that a very large percentage of Bryan Smith's works includes supernatural elements. A randomly selected 2016 collection included stories about "serial killers, vampire nuns, demons, werewolves, and regular people forced to make hellish choices." Some of his works are not speculative -- psychological horror and crime fiction -- but overall I would say that he is a genre author. Ahasuerus 11:20, 20 January 2022 (EST)
Yup, that's the distinction I wanted to make. As he's a genre author, I'll aprove MLB's submission, and flag it as non-genre. MagicUnk 16:56, 20 January 2022 (EST)
That's why I mentioned that unless there is a cache of non-speculative stories somewhere, he is above threshold for me (that implies that he is a genre author - you cannot get there unless you write mostly our type of stories). He is definitely one of ours - the speculative manages to sneak even into most of the ones that you would not expect (although a few stories and novels somehow managed not to have it) :) Annie 17:20, 20 January 2022 (EST)

Vagabonds of Gor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?53042; Related to my find of the apparently rare cover for Gor Omnibus recently, the 1987 Star edition of Vagabonds was missing its cover until I just uploaded a beautiful one from www.sfandfantasy.co.uk. I also added Canadian and NZ prices from a back cover photo on AUSTRALIAN eBay. Online info suggests Ken (W.) Kelly did the cover, as he did for so many other Gor novels, but there was no mention of that on the back, so that's for someone else to enter if they own a copy and it mentions his name somewhere in the book. Uzume, do you have a copy? --Username 22:05, 19 January 2022 (EST)

Depp

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?384335; Rand Ravich wrote the screenplay for The Astronaut's Wife; the cover linked above is the poster with the stars, Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. It's not artwork. --Username 19:26, 21 January 2022 (EST)

Web API updated

The Web API, i.e. the part of the ISFDB software which communicates with other computers, has been updated to include publication-specific transliterated titles and Web pages. There should be no impact on regular Web pages which are viewed/edited by ISFDB users. Ahasuerus 14:45, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Adding a "Stated Publication Date" field?

Recently, we had a discussion of publication dates on the Moderator Noticeboard. There were three parts to the discussion:

  1. Internal inconsistencies in the current version of Template:PublicationFields:Date
  2. Differences between Template:PublicationFields:Date and the prevailing data entry practices
  3. The fact that we have only one field for "Publication Date", which forces us to choose between entering the date stated within the publication (on the title page, on the copyright date, etc) and the date when the publication was actually made available to the public.

Following up on that discussion, MartyD put together a proposed update to Help, which would address issues 1 and 2 above. Unfortunately, the proposed changes won't help with issue 3 because publication records have only field dates and you can't fit two different dates in one field no matter what you do. If a book published on 2021-09-27 has an "October 2021" statement on the copyright page, as is fairly common, it leaves us in an inherently difficult position. If we enter "2021-09-27" as the Date value, we very visibly contradict what's stated in the book and violate the "principle of least astonishment". If we enter "2021-10-00" and move the exact date to Notes, we lose granularity and accuracy, especially when it comes to searching and data mining.

After reviewing the discussion which was prompted by Marty's proposal, I wrote:

  • ...we really need to add a "Stated Publication Date" to publication records and we need to do it sooner rather than later. A single field is just insufficient to handle the reality of what's out there.

Here is what I have been thinking:

  • The current "Publication Date" field (and all of its current values) would be kept "as is". It will be used for actual publication dates going forward
  • A new field, "Stated Publication Date", will be used when it's different from the actual publication date. If a publication has multiple publication dates, e.g. "2012" on the title page and "October 2012" on the copyright page, the more precise date will be used.
  • Title-level dates will remain as they are now and be "actual dates of first publication".
  • We will have to decide how to use this field for magazine publications, which have a separate set of data entry rules
  • If this works out, we may do something similar with certain other fields at a later point.

This would take a fair amount of programming work, but nothing insurmountable.

What does everyone think? Ideas? Potential issues? Ahasuerus 16:00, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I like the idea. We are a DB - the more data we have, the better. Annie 16:45, 23 January 2022 (EST)
PS: I think it will also solve nicely the issue with magazines dating - especially webzines and ebooks - which have dates but due to the way we have our rules, end up dated with just year or month. Having the two fields will allow us to keep both dates - the cover date and the actual date. Except that for them what we have now is closer to "stated dates" than to actual dates so we may need a cleanup effort to deal with these and move them to the proper places (especially for e-magazines and webzines). Annie 18:10, 23 January 2022 (EST)
A pragmatic solution, I'm good with it. Three topics when (if) we move on - display, documentation and population of the new field. A wish though - a way to persuade editors to provide meaningful citations for non-stated data. And in case I miss the later discussions - document the split / populating in/through the Help and use the history to 'recover' old values for date. ../Doug H 23:10, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Cliff ?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?35340; I added OL link, previous editor entered name wrong ( it's Cliff NIELSON on back cover, https://archive.org/details/generoddenberrys00fred), but actually it's by Cliff Nielsen, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?21018, so if anyone cares to untangle that...also, there's another entry for Cliff Neilson on ISFDB and another one for Cliff Nielson. --Username 18:04, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for finding these errors! Fixed. Stonecreek 02:10, 24 January 2022 (EST)
Doesn't seem to be fixed (yet)? MagicUnk 06:23, 24 January 2022 (EST)
Hi, could you explain what seems to be still wrong? I can't see anything (but one does tend towards errors like this with his own doings / writings). Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 06:52, 24 January 2022 (EST)
Well, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?35340 has to be by Cliff NIELSON, not NIELSEN, as that's what's written on the back of the cover (see archive.org scan). I didn't find Cliff NEILSON anymore (presumably automatically deleted once you updated the records to NIELSON?) - as I don't know which records were affected, could you confirm it really was a typo, or rather that the books did have NEILSON written on it. IF the latter is the case, that name had to be a pseudonym instead. Regards, MagicUnk 08:35, 24 January 2022 (EST)
Oh, and incidentally, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?866152 really seems to be a typo by the editor. At least I can't find a reference to an edition on which NIELSON is credited - rather, NIELSEN is credited on back cover of the paperback edition here, as well as on the copyright page of the 7th printing hardcover edition (via LookInside). Regards, MagicUnk 08:42, 24 January 2022 (EST)
Thanks, both were dealt with. Christian Stonecreek 09:00, 24 January 2022 (EST)

Star Trek Fanzines

https://archive.org/details/@fanzine_collection_archivist; I entered info for this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?853551, and saw this Archive user has a treasure trove of old Trek fanzines. ScoTpress, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?38212, is missing almost everything on ISFDB, so anyone who likes entering old fanzines might find a lot to do here. These don't seem to be listed on Open Library, so covers will probably have to be uploaded. Also, the cover artist is A.H. for the publication I entered info for, but there's a 1982 Polish essayist and an 1870's artist on ISFDB with the same name. So when this edit is approved someone may want to chime in with how to fix this; maybe A.H. (fanzine artist)? --Username 11:24, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I changed it to A.H. (fanzine artist) since nobody responded. --Username 10:05, 27 January 2022 (EST)
There's already an A.H. (artist) in the DB - not the same one you think? MagicUnk 12:20, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Probably not, since the A.H. already on ISFDB did the art in the 1870's and the person who did the cover for the Trek zine was 1984. Unless he lived to a ripe old age I doubt it's the same person. --Username 12:30, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Right... that's what you get when not paying attention :( But on the topic: the standard way to disambiguate is to use roman numerals (next to '(artist)', or '(in error)'). Examples here and here. Granted, the current case is a bit ambiguous, but I believe we could update the 'A.H. (fanzine artist)' to 'A.H. (I) (artist)' or 'A.H. (artist I)' as per the examples, which I believe to be more in line with actual practice. What do you think? MagicUnk 07:28, 28 January 2022 (EST)
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=fanzi&type=Name; only 2 names with "fanzine" in them, so you're right; change it to whatever you think best in keeping with standards. --Username 08:30, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Painting the Dark (Side)

https://www.amazon.com/Painting-Dark-Liane-Jones/dp/006101172X; I don't know which book was meant to be here, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?25543, but the book by Jones is Painting the Dark. --Username 19:34, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Looking at the edit history - seems to me a wrong cover was added in December 2017, and title was adjusted based on that wrong cover. I've replaced the cover with a link to the (supposedly) correct one, and changed the title accordingly. Should look better now. MagicUnk 09:54, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Gold Medal Recipe

Doing edits for Fawcett Gold Medal books; The Haunting of Drumroe, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?586630, is 144 pages but says WorldCat has 143. This, https://picclick.com/Paperback-The-Haunting-of-Drumroe-By-Claudette-124789383161.html, has 11 photos, but this, https://www.etsy.com/listing/1026058074/pulp-novel-the-haunting-of-dromroe-by, has the same photos but also includes a video where the seller flips quickly through the book, pausing briefly on the copyright page, which allowed me to see the month and enter that missing info here. 1 of the photos shows what seems to be the last page of the novel, 141 (although it's possible 142-143 may be an epilogue or something similar), and another photo shows the last page, 144, which is a RECIPE. Fawcett published cookbooks, so is it possible that they included a free recipe in their 70's books? If so, does that really count as part of the book? Anyway, that probably explains the WorldCat discrepancy. --Username 09:24, 26 January 2022 (EST)

I would include it, though if it's not SF-related, you could include it in the notes with an explanation of the page count. I would use the full page count (144), even if the content on the last page isn't included anywhere other than the notes. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:04, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Voigt Book

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?730271; I fixed publisher and also added price and month; lots of editors/moderators worked on this, and someone added an OL link in 2019, I think, but for some reason didn't notice all the wrong/missing info; also, the cover uploaded to ISFDB doesn't match the OL cover, missing that big star on lower left and also missing the price after the ISBN on the cover. I don't want to upload the OL cover just for a PB reprint, but if anyone cares they can approve my edit and then do whatever they want afterwards. --Username 17:09, 26 January 2022 (EST)

2001: A Space Odyssey COLLECTION vs. OMNIBUS

Hi, everyone interested. We have this as a COLLECTION but this as an OMNIBUS. Both editions/publications feature the same fiction content (though translated in one case). My preference would be for the latter, but I can see why the first was entered as a COLLECTION. Please vote, people. Christian Stonecreek 05:52, 27 January 2022 (EST)

It looks counterintuitive, but I think the rules point to COLLECTION. From the help screen under novel: "NOVEL. Used when the book is devoted to a single work of fiction. The addition of multiple short stories makes the book a collection, not a novel". --Willem 08:49, 27 January 2022 (EST)
(after editing conflict) Looking at the rules entries for NOVEL and OMNIBUS here, it has to be either a NOVEL or a COLLECTION (not an OMNIBUS). I also remember an earlier discussion (but can't find it right now), where basically it was said that a short fiction piece was added to a novel 'as an afterthought', or as a bonus, then the pub type would retain the type of the primary work - NOVEL in this case (in agreement with the rules for NOVEL pub type). If you consider the two stories not to be bonuses or afterthoughts, then it has to be a COLLECTION (and not an OMNIBUS). Regards, MagicUnk 08:51, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Omnibus needs two separate containers inside of it IMO (2 novels, novel+collection, 2 collections, 2 anthologies and so on). 1 Novel+1 bonus story is a novel; 1 novel+2 or more stories (or 1 novel and 1 novella) is a collection. I'd call this one a collection. Annie 15:55, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Thanks to everyone, I have transformed and varianted the Portuguese title & publications. Christian Stonecreek 01:57, 28 January 2022 (EST)

German Spelling

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1801447; [1]; [2]; note the different spelling, TAUSENDUNDEINE, on the later edition. Cut-off cover image, mistake by the publisher, or did Germany have a spelling overhaul between 1997 and 2004? --Username 14:39, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Judging from the bibliographical links (DNB and OCLC) it's a misspelling just on the cover (and maybe also on the spine), which is not reflected on the title page. Stonecreek 02:16, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Semiprozines vs. Professional Magazines

The distinction between amateur and semiprozine is pretty clear. Are there specific criteria seperating semiprozines from professional magazines? John Scifibones 15:29, 27 January 2022 (EST)

In our DB? No. The distinction matters for some awards but in our DB, something is either a magazine (and that includes all semiprozines I had ever seen) or a fanzine (and even that line can blur in some cases - there is a reason why we use the same type for the title records of these). Annie 15:37, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Lately, I have seen some large differences in author renumeration. I don't want to incorrectly refer to a magazine as a semiprozine if it is something more. Pehaps I shouldn't use the term in anythong other an an awards reference? Thanks, John Scifibones 15:51, 27 January 2022 (EST)
But we don't have a semiprozine type anywhere? Do you mean notes? I don't usually use the term semiprozine in notes UNLESS the publication calls themselves so and/or they have awards/nominations in the category (and even then... I'd just call the thing magazine and not worry about the hierarchy). From our DB perspective, we don't really care what the remuneration is - a magazine is a magazine even if they pay in coconuts or monopoly money. Annie 16:00, 27 January 2022 (EST)
I have used the term in descriptions. I won't use it anymore. John Scifibones 16:40, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Application for self-approval status -- Swfritter

(Moved from Moderator Noticeboard to Community Portal) Which would probably be welcomed by a few moderators. The primary process I will be working on for (probably months) is internet archive links. The side benefit is that I am making a list of the few issues that need work. What would be nice is a way to flag admissions that I would like to be moderated by someone else.--swfritter 17:42, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Unfortunately it is all or nothing - once you get the ability to self-approve, moderators cannot touch your submissions - you can ping the moderators via the Moderator board or post on someone's individual page and they can look or assist you with a comment/advice, but we won't be able to approve/reject for you. Still interested in being able to self-approve under that rule?Annie 17:48, 25 January 2022 (EST)
Sounds good. Rtrace, Krang, and JLaTondre will probably be quite happy as they have been doing most of the approvals. Most of my knowledge from my decade as a moderator seems to be intact. Thanks.--swfritter 18:28, 25 January 2022 (EST)
I have pinged the moderators who have been working on Swfritter's submissions over the last few weeks. Ahasuerus 09:22, 26 January 2022 (EST)
I would welcome allowing swfritter to self-moderate. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 09:35, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Swfritter's area in the past & it appears present was magazines, so self-moderation would be great and hopefully sooner rather than later full moderation so I can go back to mostly ignoring magazines.Kraang 12:41, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Yes it would be a great help. Go for it.--Chris J 15:28, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Yep, I agree as well. The team is always around for questions/assistance if the rules had changed that much in a certain area. Annie 18:30, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:43, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:12, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Willem 18:18, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. Stonecreek 02:17, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --MartyD 12:26, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Bob 12:53, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. PeteYoung 00:10, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Outcome

Swfritter has been added to the list of self-approvers. Ahasuerus 09:55, 31 January 2022 (EST)

Application for self-approval status, Scifibones

(Moved from Moderator Noticeboard to Community Portal)

I formally request self-approval privileges. John Scifibones 13:59, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Support. I would be fine with you have full moderator privileges. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support. I'd advice first self-approving for a few weeks, then thinking about full moderation but as I mentioned on your page, I won't vote 'no' on either. Annie 18:28, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support. Scifibones' almost never require questioning. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 20:26, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support, self-moderation for a short period & then move to full moderation.Kraang 22:01, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support, John, has shown he as a very good grasp of the rules by now - all of his edits are of high quality. I agree with above statements that John should/could move to full moderatorship shortly after. MagicUnk 08:53, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. Does a good job with everything I've seen. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:12, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support.--Chris J 15:44, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Willem 18:19, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support, good work done so far as I've seen. -- Stonecreek 02:18, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --MartyD 12:26, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Bob 12:52, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. PeteYoung 00:10, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Outcome

Scifibones has been added to the list of self-approvers. Ahasuerus 09:55, 31 January 2022 (EST)

Application for self-approval status--MOHearn

(Moved from Moderator Noticeboard to Community Portal)

And to keep the ball rolling on the subject of these last posts, here's my request for self-approval status.--Martin MOHearn 21:49, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Support - working translations and weird languages is never easy in our DB and I’ve rarely seen issues. Annie 22:08, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support, detailed submissions & has good grasp of the DB.Kraang 22:51, 26 January 2022 (EST)
Support. Never really had any issues with Martin's submissions. Should be no problem to go to full moderator status as well. Regards, MagicUnk 08:54, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. Does a good job with accuracy and including what needs to be there. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:13, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:33, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support.--Chris J 15:45, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 18:01, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Willem 18:20, 27 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --MartyD 12:26, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. --Bob 12:51, 28 January 2022 (EST)
Support. PeteYoung 00:10, 29 January 2022 (EST)


Outcome

MOHearn has been added to the list of self-approvers. Ahasuerus 09:56, 31 January 2022 (EST)

El Frankenstein

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?869753; I used my mad Spanish skillz to figure out that the editor who entered this anthology didn't know or care to variant stories to their English originals; I did for all of them except the Morrow story because that also involves varianting the name, and I'm not touching that. Also, they stole the contents from one of Peter Haining's crap anthologies, 1995's The Frankenstein Omnibus, so I don't know if that would make the anthology a variant of the 1995 one or not. --Username 19:59, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for linking these translations. Unfortunately, the length is missing or disagrees with that of the parent title for several of these. The consensus is that if the length changes in translation, we list both records with the original length. There is another step required for these edits to edit the translated record to conform to the length of the original. This will keep them from showing up in this cleanup report. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 09:52, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Shock

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?53695; Jack Davis did all 3 covers for this 1960 magazine, but was only credited on 1 here. I fixed that, but why is 1 issue separate from the others? That can't be right. EDIT: I made an edit fixing the date issue; I'll know if I did it right if it's approved. --Username 20:48, 27 January 2022 (EST)

They were separate because noone got around to merging them when one of them was added. :) Merged now.
PS: You do not need to rename/re-date the EDITOR record in order to merge in these cases - that would have meant two steps (update and then merge). Instead you can use Advanced search to get both titles in a merge screen - and just merge them from there. Thanks for spotting that one. Annie 18:01, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Bauman's Husband

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=versandi&type=Name; Jill Bauman, famous artist, is still missing many credits on ISFDB. I just added 3 cover credits, and then noticed that she has an alternate name of Versandi which she used for a few books in 1986-1987. There's only 1 other person by that name here, Bob Versandi, who wrote 1 story published in a Tor horror anthology in 1987. Jill did cover art for many Tor books, so it seems likely they threw her husband a bone and published a story by him (there's barely any mention of it online). I can't find any definitive proof it's her husband, but if anyone else can then they can be linked with a note mentioning they are/were married. --Username 17:08, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Western Why

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?840906; Non-genre and no genre zine reviews, so why is it here? Maybe it shouldn't be. --Username 19:03, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Loaded with one of the early automations and never cleaned up. Will zap it.
PS: Even if there were reviews, we would be converting the reviews to essays and still deleting that one. Annie 19:08, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Collier Maps

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?195397; I was editing for a John Collier collection and noticed there were 2 interior art credits on his page here, 1 from 1923 and 1 from the 1970's. The 1970's one turned out to be by a different guy with the same name who did maps for some of Michael Moorcock's books. However, after I fixed that and then merged the art with another art credit, I noticed the original date was several years earlier. For some reason, the maps in earlier editions have a different name. About a dozen PV's worked on these books, some no longer around, so if anyone knows the deal with these maps and what title they should have it's all there. --Username 12:10, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Major changes made to Harry Turtledove "Series: How Few Remain Universe" without any consultation

All titles & pub titles where changed by dropping the series name which appears to be built into the title, for example "Title indicated as "Settling Accounts: Return Engagement" on cover, spine, copyright page and title page"[3] & [4]. A look inside of any of the other ten titles will show the same thing, plus even in the "books by" part of the book its the same[5]. I believe this may have been changed in hast, Personal Verifiers & other interested parties should have been consulted.Kraang 12:47, 29 January 2022 (EST)

The relevant part of the data entry standards was changed a few years ago. To quote Help:Screen:NewPub:
  • Note that the title page may show the series name, and sometimes the publication's position in the series. The present (2018) usage is to enter only the "simplified" title, for example, you could enter the title for a publication as "Song of the Dragon" and the note would have "The title page states 'Song of the' over 'Dragon' over 'The annals of Drakis: Book One'."
We are currently discussing whether editors should discuss these types of changes with primary verifiers on the Rules and Standards page. Ahasuerus 13:03, 29 January 2022 (EST)
Struggled with subtitles in the past but in this case these appear to be the actual intended titles, just felt such a major change should have been brought to the attentions of currents editors which PV the books.Kraang 13:21, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Missing X-Files

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?102785; I can't find a cover or any proof this was published. Might be it was announced and then cancelled. Anyone know? --Username 15:08, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Software support for more currencies

The software has been updated to recognize and display mouseover help for the following currencies:

  • Austrian schillings
  • Singapore dollars
  • Hong Kong dollars
  • New Zealand dollars
  • Taiwan dollars
  • Chilean pesos
  • Colombian pesos
  • Uruguayan pesos

The Austrian schilling has been added to Help:List of currency symbols. Ahasuerus 17:22, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Swiss francs

We apparently use "CHF", "sfr", "Sfr", "Sfr.", "SFr" or "sFr" for "Swiss Franc" -- see these Advanced Publication Search results. Wikipedia says that "SFr" is obsolete and that the current usage is "Fr." (German), "fr." (French/Italian/Romansch) or "CHF" (English and other languages.)

I propose that we standardize using "CHF" -- which will require a couple dozen edits -- and update the software to display mouseover help to reflect the standard. Ahasuerus 17:49, 29 January 2022 (EST)

CHF has been added to Help:List of currency symbols. The software has been updated to display appropriate mouseover help. Ahasuerus 12:42, 2 February 2022 (EST)
All database records have been updated. Ahasuerus 12:49, 2 February 2022 (EST)

Amazon-hosted cover scans

We have around 420,000 Amazon-hosted cover scans. 386,000 of them use "images/I" URLs and are fine. However, over 23,000 Amazon-hosted scans use "images/P" URLs, which means that they are based on the publication's ISBN. Amazon has been known to change the cover scans behind "/P/" URLs arbitrarily. It happens regrettably often, so we can't rely on them to remain stable. We already have a yellow warning which says:

  • Note that Amazon URLs which do not start with "/images/I/" may not be stable

Based on what Amazon has been doing with "/P/" images, we may want to take it a step further and display the following warning on all affected Publication pages:

  • Note: The displayed Amazon image is based on the ISBN of the publication and may no longer reflect the actual cover of this particular edition.

We may also want to create a cleanup report to look for primary verified publications which still use "/P/" images. We have roughly 4,200 of them.

Does this plan sound OK? Ahasuerus 19:16, 29 January 2022 (EST)

I remember another mod bringing that up recently, but the # of covers was much higher. Whatever the real #, it would be good to modernize them. Only problem is that Amazon has MANY pages where the publisher is not the right one for the image; in some cases you can actually see the correct publisher's name on the spine. I can't count how many covers I've replaced over the last year because an editor just right-clicked the Amazon image without making sure it was the right one. Is there a way to look for those? I think I know the answer already. --Username 19:24, 29 January 2022 (EST)
4,200 is the number of "/P/" images associated with primary-verified publications, the low-hanging fruit in this case. The other 19,000 publications with "/P/" images haven't been verified, so it may take longer to update them.
We also have 6,768 pubs with "/G/" images, including 3,904 primary-verified pubs. Our yellow warning says that "/G/" URLs are not stable either, but I don't recall whether they are in more or less danger of being changed by Amazon. Ahasuerus 19:37, 29 January 2022 (EST)
Upon reflection, perhaps the first thing to do is to add a new option, "My Primary Verifications with Unstable Amazon Images", to the "My Verifications" menu. It's easy to do and it will let verifiers check their collections for potentially unstable/superseded cover scans. Ahasuerus 12:11, 30 January 2022 (EST)
A new menu option, My Primary Verifications with Unstable Amazon URLs has been added to the My Verifications menu. Amazon URLs which do not start with "/images/I" (like this pub's) now carry the following warning:
  • The displayed Amazon image URL does not start with 'images/I/'. It may not be stable and may no longer reflect the actual cover of this particular edition.
It sounds a bit awkward, but it's the best I could come up with. Originally I was going to have it say something like "The displayed Amazon image is based on the ISBN of the publication", but that only covers Amazon's "P" URLs. Their "G" URLs are also potentially unstable and do not use ISBNs, e.g. see this 1969 pub. I don't know how likely they are to mutate, but the last time we looked into it, we determined that only "I" images are stable, hence the current wording of the related yellow warning. Ahasuerus 17:46, 31 January 2022 (EST)
I have no idea where Amazon uses the /G/ space these days (if at all) or how stable they may be. They may be the previous iteration of the /I/ idea (aka non-ISBN related images - in which case we may be ok) but there is no way to tell. I will do some digging to see if I can find any information. Annie 19:01, 31 January 2022 (EST)
They probably have been the correct images when the book was added and/or verified. That is the problem with the /P/ links - they get changed by Amazon - they point to whatever /I/ image is the cover of the latest printing that had been loaded for that ISBN. So if you add a book in 2018 with the correct image but you use a /P/ URL instead of an /I/ one, when the book gets reissued with the same ISBN and a new cover in 2021, the cover here in our DB changes on all printings which use the /P/ URL. That's why we added that yellow warning for unstable links last year (?) - so people know to check for that. Annie 19:01, 31 January 2022 (EST)

(unindent) It occurs to me that we could split the new report into two: one for ISBN-based ("P") URLs and another one for other non-I (primarily "G") URLs. ISBN-based URLs are in greater danger of being changed, so having them listed separately would make it easier to prioritize the cleanup process. We could do the same to the warning message. Ahasuerus 08:01, 1 February 2022 (EST)

That's a good idea. Annie 16:47, 1 February 2022 (EST)
Done -- see the new menu option in the My Verifications menu. The warning message has been split in 2 as well. Ahasuerus 19:06, 1 February 2022 (EST)
That's really useful. I didn't start fixing up the /P/ images immediately when PVing, and now have a backlog of 464. (And 418 of the others). I thought I was going to have to start my shelves over again when I reached the end. --GlennMcG 15:14, 3 February 2022 (EST)
Glad to hear it's been useful :-) Ahasuerus 17:29, 3 February 2022 (EST)
Is the sort order the PV date? (most recent first?) --GlennMcG 18:46, 3 February 2022 (EST)
That's right. Ahasuerus 23:12, 3 February 2022 (EST)
Perhaps the Amazon icon could be expanded in the 'cover' column of the title record to show this good/maybe/bad status? --GlennMcG 19:08, 3 February 2022 (EST)
Could you please clarify which Web page you are referring to? Is it the standard "Publications" table displayed on Title pages like this one? Ahasuerus 10:05, 4 February 2022 (EST)
Yes, that's what I was referring to. --GlennMcG 15:56, 4 February 2022 (EST)
Another option is the Publication page (e.g. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?369390 this] and maybe a coloured border on the image? ../Doug H 10:13, 4 February 2022 (EST)
Or perhaps a way to mark the included cover images. It could be nice to find another publication with the same cover to fix up ones PVs. It would also be nice to have some way to notify other printing/format PVers that a candidate matching cover has been added to another entry. --GlennMcG 19:08, 3 February 2022 (EST)

Stephen King's Brother

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?256961; That interview is of horror man S. King's bro; the fantasy novel is by another guy with the same name. How best to differentiate these two? The birthplace and Amazon link belong to the fantasy author. --Username 17:15, 30 January 2022 (EST)

According to this biography, Stephen's adopted brother David Victor King was born on 1945-08-17, so I guess we could enter him as "Dave King (1945-)". Ahasuerus 17:28, 30 January 2022 (EST)
Done; edit awaiting approval. --Username 17:54, 30 January 2022 (EST)
Approved, thanks. The new author record has been updated. Ahasuerus 18:38, 30 January 2022 (EST)

Make Variant Title

Ahasuerus, Will you consider adding the series field to the 'Make Variant Title' form. This will save an edit anytime a series is involved. It will be especially useful for non moderators. Thanks, John Scifibones 09:09, 31 January 2022 (EST)

Earlier this month I was thinking the same thing while working on entering Japanese light novels, which require a lot of VTs :-) FR 1479, "Add Series and Series number fields to Make Variant Title" has been created. Ahasuerus 09:52, 31 January 2022 (EST)
And done. Ahasuerus 20:11, 13 February 2022 (EST)
Thank you!! John Scifibones 14:22, 14 February 2022 (EST)

The Sixth Sense (no, not that one)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1121274; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1013304; I found a better cover for Witch, then noticed there was another Sixth Sense novelization by M.Z. Bradley, which is in the Sixth Sense series here, but Witch isn't; when I tried to fix that the series fields are blacked out. The chapbook is a novelization but the story itself wasn't so I fixed that, too, but someone who knows can say why it can't be made part of the series. --Username 17:57, 31 January 2022 (EST)

It was decided some years ago that CHAPBOOKs are to be excluded from being part of a title series. I think the main reason was that they would clutter the listing of the respective series. Christian Stonecreek 01:38, 1 February 2022 (EST)
While chapbooks look like just another form of publication, they are a unique construct of this database. Think of them as merely a container, the pupose of which is to hold a content (title) record. The content record is the key. To include in a series, use the series field in the content record. Reviews and awards work the same way, attach to the content record. John Scifibones 07:53, 1 February 2022 (EST)
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