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Expanded archive listing

Multilingual Publications

What causes a multilingual publications to show up on the cleanup report? This one for example.John Scifibones 08:27, 1 October 2021 (EDT)
I'm responsible for a number of the publications showing up on this list, I would like to correct whatever is wrong and prevent them in the future.

The cleanup report does exactly what its name suggests -- it looks for multi-lingual publications in the database. Some of them, e.g. books with parallel English and Spanish texts, are legitimate and will be marked as "ignored" by moderators. Others had the wrong title imported and need to be corrected. For example, consider this edition of The Elf Queen of Shannara, which you verified in August 2020. It includes a Dutch INTERIORART title, which looks suspicious in a run of the mill 1992 Del Rey book. Chances are that it needs to have an English "Morrowindl" record added, the Dutch title removed and the resulting 2 INTERIORART titles varianted. Ahasuerus 12:06, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for responding. I'll take care of this edition of The Elf Queen of Shannara. The magazines, Samovar, Mithila Review, Eye to the Telescope, and Liminality, Strange Horizons all look correct.John Scifibones 12:20, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

Moderators can ignore the legitimate multi-language ones - the code does not know when it is a mistake and when it is supposed to be that way so it flags everything and we mark them as ok when they are. I’ll clear the report later today of the false positives. Annie 12:49, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks Annie. When I'm working on a multilingual publication, should I add a reminder to clear this flag in the notes to moderator?John Scifibones 08:00, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

No because we cannot do anything about it until the report is generated overnight and the publication pops up there. :) I used to check that one weekly (at least), I just need to get in the habit of that again. If they start piling up again, feel free to nudge me on my page or post on the moderator board and someone will assist. Annie 08:44, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Asimov's Annotated "Paradise Lost"

I had just submitted Asimov's Annotated "Paradise Lost" and got to wondering what the type should be. The primary content would be Milton's poem - hence POEM, but it's non-genre below the threshold so would not be in the Regular Titles . Asimov is above the threshold, so his annotations (NONFICTION? ESSAY?) would qualify and would appear in the Regular Titles (if they had a cohesive form). I don't plan on adding any titles in the Regular Titles, so only the publication's title will exist as a TITLE - currently as non-genre NONFICTION. Should it be something else? ../Doug H 11:59, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Why would Milton's poem be considered non-genre? Clute/Grant lists it, stating about Milton: "His renown, in both English literature and genre fantasy, is based primarily on Paradise Lost..." I've no idea why the excerpts from this poem have been marked non-genre. I would list it as a CHAPBOOK with the poem. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:52, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

If the excerpts are non-genre, it implies the full poem is non-genre and treating it as anything else creates a conflict, one I don't intend to address. CHAPBOOK sounds right for the publication and ESSAY for the annotations. I figure I'll leave the poem out of the contents (being non-genre below-threshold) if I can, a CHAPBOOK with only an ESSAY may not compile. I'll stick it in if I must, but mark it non-genre. Once the dust settles on whether Paradise Lost is genre or not and belongs on ISFDB or not should be possible to address by simple insertions or edits. Thanks for helping me avoid sticking it in NONFICTION. ../Doug H 19:50, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

The Honorverse Disk CD-ROM omnibus problem

Something odd has happened. I created a new omnibus named "The Honorverse Disk" and it created the correct title record here. I checked the pub record created at the same time here and everything looked OK. However, after doing the title merges, I checked the pub record again and and it now shows the Omnibus Title to be "The Prince" instead of "The Honorverse Disk". The problem may be that "The Prince" is itself an omnibus which is included in the "The Honorverse Disk". In order to get that title included, I had to initially enter it as a novel and then change the type when I did the title merge. Can someone fix this? Phil 15:31, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

When you have an omnibus inside of another, things like that happen - the server is a bit confused. Pull out the other omnibus and replace it with its contents only. That will fix it. Think of the omnibus and chapbook types as containers only - you never import them inside of something else, you import what is inside of them. Annie 15:41, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

PS: You will have the Same Problem if you add two collections inside of a COLLECTION record or anything else like that. :) The System does not know which one is supposed to be the reference title so it does weird things. Or any other type. We need a reference title matching the publication type. When you give the system 2 or more of these, it gets wonky. That’s why 2 novels never make a novel publication for example. Annie 15:47, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

PS1: The fact that the system did not allow you to add a second omnibus should have given you a clue. Please don’t try to do clever workarounds via editing title types in such cases - if you do not understand why the system stops you from adding something somewhere, come and ask. Annie 15:49, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm not sure how to do what you ask and be true to the contents on the CD. The Prince currently only exists as an omnibus title. That's how it is delivered on the CD. It doesn't seem right to add the four individual component titles of "The Prince" to the "The Honorverse Disk" omnibus when they only exist as part of a single delivered title. If that is what has to be done, I'll do it but it feels inaccurate. I'm sure I'll have this same situation happen when I add other Baen CD-ROM Library titles so the resolution to this case will tell me what I have to do the next time. Phil 16:32, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

But that’s not how the DB works. You add the individual titles and add a a note explaining the situation. You cannot have an omnibus inside of an omnibus. Omnibus is a container containing other pieces of novel length usually (or collections or anthologies) - the other pieces do not need to have been published on their own. So for cases like this you either treat the thing as a single novel (if they are delivered always together, what makes them an omnibus - don’t think of what someone else’ may call them, think of how we define the term in the dB?) or you add the pieces and write notes. Annie 16:38, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

And it is common certain titles to be only published inside of other titles. No reason not to list them or we will lose a lot of stories. :) If the disk calls that an omnibus, don’t try to emulate it - our omnibus is a very specific thing. I think that there is some of this going on and that’s understandable. People call their texts every which way. We record not based on how they are called but based on what they actually are. So look at it - is it consisting of novel sized texts? Add them as novels. Is it consisting of shorter ones? Then it is a collection/anthology. Is it a single text that calls itself an omnibus? That’s a novel. Annie 16:52, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm not convinced that The Prince is truly an omnibus since two of the four component novel titles are by more than one author. What if I change the type of "The Prince" to Anthology? Can an anthology be included in an Omnibus? Or am I just reaching to make my case? :) Phil 17:31, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Being from more that one author is irrelevant here - omnibus contents can be by different authors. Omnibus can contain an anthology but it will be incorrect as an anthology cannot contain two novels. Just add the novels. That way they will even show up in the authors’ pages. If I understand what your are seeing, I’d add the 4 novels on their own and add them to their own series called The Prince. That gives you both the individual titles (if they ever get reprinted) and some organization of the 4 together. Annie 17:39, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

The novels already exist and are part of an existing series so... I'll remove "The Prince" omnibus regular title and add the four novel titles plus add a note of explanation to the "The Honorverse Disk" title. I'll also add a note when I add the new pub records that match the date of the "The Honorverse Disk" to each of the individual novel titles. I think we're losing clarity for the title "The Prince" but I doubt the DB design ever conceived of one omnibus legitimately being included in a different omnibus. These CDs are a new edge-case paradigm and present a new challenge. Phil 18:07, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Nope. You just keep insisting on conflating what we call omnibus with what the external world calls an omnibus. Annie 19:14, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

PS: And we had seen this before - box sets where one of the content volumes is an omnibus - both paper and e-ones. :) This may be a new media for it but the usecase had always been there. It comes down to how we define the type Omnibus and how we use it. :) As i said - Just As with chapbooks, it is there to be a container. So when you wants its contents, you get that - not the box itself. ISFDB’s terminology can be a bit removed fo how people see the terms in the real world. :) Annie 19:54, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Yetenekliler Dünyası / The Father Thing

This book seems to be a reprint of this book, and using my translator function, I believe that the contents could be listed as translations of this book’s contents. What does anybody think? Translations are almost never perfect. MLB 01:54, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Seems to be but let me check a few other sources to make sure the stories match completely - dropping/adding a story happens a lot with translations. Annie 15:23, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Hexadecimal Kid

Richard Sandes Forsyth wrote three Tron-like stories starring the Hexadecimal Kid that appeared as serials (1978–1981) in Computer Weekly and Practical Computing originally, and one of them was also reprinted as a serial in Computerworld. The exact page numbers appear to have been lost to time; the author has provided me via email with the dates in which each chapter appeared. For example, "ASCII Through the Logic Gate" appeared in 33 parts ("Block 0" through "Block 32") in Computer Weekly beginning on 1978-05-25 and continuing each week until 1979-01-04. (All the data I have is here, if you want to see what I'm working with.)

Should I list the data source as "Other: Data provided in email by author" or just the author's website? (The names of the parts came from the author's website; the dates of publication came from the email.)

There are two levels: the data on the magazine (date of publication, price, format, etc.), and the data on the known speculative content. It seems that only the latter was provided by Forsyth. Thus, this should go into the notes (something like 'Known speculative content provided in email by its author').

Does the part's title need to have appeared in print to be listed as such? For example, could I list it as "Son of Hexadecimal Kid, Page 13: Page Boundary" even though the part title doesn't appear in print but does appear on the author's site?

No, we go by the printed title.

Should I retain the author's whimsical jargon-naming of the parts (Bit 0–16, Block 0–32, Page 0–16) or should I list Page 13 instead as "Son of Hexadecimal Kid, Part 13: Page Boundary"?

It seems the 'whimsical' titles are the ones that were printed, so we go with them.

And is there a better way to submit this stuff in bulk than simply clicking Add New Magazine for every single issue?

Alas, no. Stonecreek 10:50, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks Sylvar 10:43, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

It seems the publisher was inconsistent about publishing the titles of the parts of Son of Hexadecimal Kid:

Part Number	Part Title	Title As Printed
0	The Base Page	Page 0 — the base page
1	Front Page News	Page 1 — front page news
2	Virtual Paging	Page 2 — virtual paging
3	Page Boy	Page 3 — page boy
4	Turning the Page	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
5	Page Thrashing	Page 5 — page thrashing
6	Page Feed	Page 6 — page feed
7	Page Replacement	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
8	Radio Paging	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
9	Off the Page	[unknown]
10	Pageantry	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
11	Page by Page	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
12	Full Page Spread	[unknown]
13	Page Boundary	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
14	Page Proof	[unknown]
15	A Page and a Half	Son of Hexadecimal Kid
16	Torn Page	Son of Hexadecimal Kid

Should I really enter those as printed, even though they're inconsistent with each other?

And how should I link them to each other as parts of the main serialized story? Sylvar 13:33, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Yes, publication data beats consistency.

You add them as SERIAL in the magazine. Then once approved, you variant the SERIAL to the story/novel they serialized. See this for an example. The "(Part X of Y)" is only added IF the separate parts don't have unique names (See the parts here for an example with unique names). Annie 13:54, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Okay, so I think my titles for this series would be

• Page 0—The Base Page
• Page 1—Front Page News
• Page 2—Virtual Paging
• Page 3—Page Boy
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 4 of 16)
• Page 5—Page Thrashing
• Page 6—Page Feed
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 7 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 8 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 9 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 10 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 11 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 12 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 13 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 14 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 15 of 16)
• Son of Hexadecimal Kid (Part 16 of 16)

...is that reasonable enough to submit? Sylvar 11:07, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

If that is how they are titled, it is reasonable enough. Annie 12:39, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

The titles of parts 9, 12, and 14 are my best guesses based on Parts 7–16; no copies of parts 9 and 14 are online but we know the issues they appeared in. And as far as the author and I can figure, the publisher simply forgot to publish Part 12, even though they intended to, and the piece is also available as a pdf on the author's website. What should I do with Part 12? Sylvar 12:52, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Technically a PDF is a an ebook so you can add it as a chapbook (and then inside of it you have that missing 12th piece and you can variant it to the complete text the same way you do the rest. Its date won't be in sequence. Alternatively, you can leave it out and just add a note about it in the complete title record. Annie 14:05, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Is it okay for the 1978 and 1979 serializations of The Hexadecimal Kid and His Faithful Dog ASCII to be variants of the same 1978 title, or should the 1979 reprint serials be variants of a different title, "The Hexadecimal Kid and His Faithful Dog ASCII (1979)"? The text of the pieces did not change, as far as I know. Sylvar 10:46, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Art credit for an entire magazine issue

As an example: Practical Computing (August 1980) has a credits statement next to the table of contents for the entire issue which says "Art[:] Margaret Smith". Is it reasonable to therefore credit the cover art and interior art, if not otherwise signed/attributed, to Margaret Smith? Sylvar 12:22, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Unless the speculative content is not illustrated, I'm afraid the answer is no: we only record the artists whose work illustrates works of speculative fiction (see rule 4. here). So, if Isaac Asimov would have had a robot story of his published in Practical Computing we would index this story and the artwork that illustrates it, but not the cover artist or other artwork (or content) unrelated to speculative fiction. Stonecreek 12:35, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Did you really mean to say "Unless the speculative content is not illustrated"? From context, it looks like you meant something else. Sylvar 14:59, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Let me rephrase my question: If interior art illustrating speculative fiction is not explicitly credited on that page or a nearby page, but the magazine lists a single name in the credits for "art", is it better to list the illustrator as "uncredited" or in the name of the person credited for that issue's art? See, for example, this INTERIORART illustrating the SF short story that begins on the previous page. (I am aware that since the cover in this case is illustrating a fantasy scene from a game, I should not enter it because games are excluded from ISFDB's definition of speculative fiction.) Sylvar 14:59, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Double negatives in languages can be fun when you go into a language which does not support them :) To clarify: If there is art connected to the genre piece you add, it gets added (and yes, you can use the artist credit from the complete issue - just make sure you document where the credit comes from). If the piece has its own title, you use that. If it does not, use the title of the story it illustrates. If there is more than one, use [2], [3] and so on after the title of the second, third and so on. Annie 15:06, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Magazine format question.

Quick question on magazine formats. Yes, I have looked at the help page. For magazines, 8.5" x 11" and perfect bound, just confirming that we use tp instead of quarto. Thanks John Scifibones 09:48, 6 October 2021 (EDT)

Well, we say usually, not always. :) Perfect bound is a lot more prevalent now because of how printers work so what would have been saddle-stapled a decade ago can go either way these days. And most new magazines are PODs. So either works really. If I am adding from secondary sources, I am more likely to go for tp; if I can see it, it depends on how it feels.Annie 12:24, 6 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm working on Space and Time, adding missing issues, and reviewing existing issues. SFE3 says they went to perfect bound after issue 81. I'm going with tp unless anyone voices an objection. John Scifibones 12:45, 6 October 2021 (EDT)

William Hope Hodgson

I've been adding some Turkish editions of William Hope Hodgson's works, but I'm stumped by this book. Google translator states that this book is called Out of the Storm but the story described seems to be The Voice in the Night. Does anybody have any ideas? MLB 23:04, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Matching by title is not always a good idea - publishers and translators get creative in weird ways and match the wrong books - so careful with that. Let me see if i can figure out what they translated with this one. Annie 00:29, 12 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. MLB 03:42, 12 October 2021 (EDT)

Schwarze Messen: Dichtungen und Dokumente

Hello, something went wrong Schwarze Messen: Dichtungen und Dokumente. The authors are not merged, so we have two Meyrinks: the original and a new one. When I am search "Meyrink" I find only the original. When I am search for duplicate for the new one I get no other title. I have no idea what to do. Help is very welcome. Thanks Henna 14:43, 12 October 2021 (EDT)

I will try to fix it. If I am successful, I will tell you what I did. :-) --MartyD 14:52, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

Unsuccessful. I have consulted the Oracle. --MartyD 14:59, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

I fixed it by copying and pasting the correct name into the author field for the work. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:24, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

It is an invisible/non-printable character picked up during the copy/paste. The server already have a map of these to clean on "save" but there is a new one here - which needs to be added to the map and then scrapped from the authors which got caught into it. It happens now and again... and more of weird characters keep popping up. The only solution is to retype/copy-paste the author again in the broken record - but it also needs a fix on the code side. Annie 15:49, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

Yes, sorry about the obscure comment. I pointed Ahasuerus at it so he could see what the offending character is. I realize if we retype the name in the existing record it would cure this particular author's problem. --MartyD 16:29, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

(removing the templates from the title of the message so the pointers can work properly). Yes - understood - I sent him the report I stumbled upon as well - I was just explaining what caused it (for anyone who had not been fighting these before) and how they got into the records and that even if we fix all of them on the site, they will happen again - as there is a new non-printable involved. Browsers being helpful when copying and grabbing stuff you cannot see - one of the reasons I almost never copy/paste directly from sites I am not using often - I paste in notepad and copy out from there. :) Annie 17:38, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

Many thanks to all of you. Now everything is fine. Henna 04:38, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

ISBN as printed, even if the check digit is wrong?

This publication lists the ISBN slightly differently than the printed copy, as scanned by the Internet Archive.

Currently listed in ISFDB:	0-87795-577-8
Shown on inside front dust jacket:	0-87795-557-8
Shown on copyright page:	0-87795-557-8
Shown on back cover:	0-87795-557-8
Printed variant if it had a valid ISBN-10 check digit:	0-87795-557-3

For what it's worth, the ISBN currently listed has a valid check digit—it just isn't what was printed.

What should be listed in the record? Sylvar 12:47, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

The correct one in the isbn field. The wrong one with no dashes in the catalog ID field if the field is not used for something else (helps with searches; only optional these days). And a complete explanation of the situation in the notes including what exactly is printed where. Annie 13:00, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Although for that specific book - make sure we do not have two versions with two ISBNs. The above was a general answer on how to handle incorrect ISBNs in books. Especially when external sources like OCLC recognize the isbn that we have. :) Annie 13:02, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Fantastic Story Magazine

While looking up something else I found this. Is this eligible for the database? If so, as what? If not, why? Just would like to know the rules. MLB 22:46, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

(now in the actual Help Desk): Not eligible because it is not a book really, it is a blank notebook/notepad (with lined pages in this case) with a fancy cover and a stiff price. The only way to have somehow added it would be to pretend it is an art book (so non fiction) but a single cover does not make an artbook. With illustrations out of copyright, there are a lot of these floating around (and some even in copyright - there are usually at least 20 new notebooks with Harry Potter covers every year and when the year journals start showing up you get everything from Moleskine's Le Petit Prince to Star Wars and beyond on covers and don't get me started on some of the other media franchises, especially the juvenile ones). Now - if there was a new illustration every few pages or there was actually a story, it would be eligible because of them. As it is now, it is on the same level as a keyring with a scene from LOTR or a piece of original art of one of our artists. Annie 01:30, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

Titling essays in series

Hi, everyone. I was just combing the wiki for an answer to this question. If a magazine has a named regular column, and each individual column has its own title, how should they be titled here? Should each individual title be used, and the essays just put into a series named for the column's title? Thanks.--Rosab618 02:36, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

You use the title as it is printed in the magazine (minus the column name) and then put them in a series using the column name. See Analog's The Alternative View for one of the more famous examples. Or the later entries into Asimov's Reflections. The "Column name (issue)" is used only if that specific installment of the column has no individual title. Annie 02:59, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. In the case of an interview in The Scream Factory #15, in the TOC an interview is called "TSF BiblioFile: Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem", but on the page of the interview, that title is on the right and "Scream Marriage" is above the text. TSF BiblioFile was the name of the interview series, apparently. Should I just call the interview "Scream Marriage"? And what should I call the interior art that goes with the series, not that specific interview?--Rosab618 03:56, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

For the interview, I'd call it just "Scream Marriage" - yes. Add a note in the publication notes explaining the TOC vs on the page naming.

For the art... if this interview is the only thing in the column, I will just call it the same as the interview - the column in this issue is the interview. If the section has more than one interview, "TSF BiblioFile (The Scream Factory, #15) or whatever the issue is called is probably better. If the same art exactly appears in all the magazines, just "TSF BiblioFile" may also work (with a note once created that it is the same art in all issues. Or I will just call it decoration and add only a note that it is there and just ignore it when doing the listing. :) But then I am prone to do that for insignificant interior art pieces sometimes. Annie 04:07, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie!--Rosab618 04:13, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

Titling interior art

How should one title interior art that doesn't have anything to do with the text on the surrounding page? In issue #15 of The Scream Factory, much of the interior art seems to be placed more or less randomly. For example, Greg Weber's two-headed doll sculpture appears on the same page as a bibliography of Peter Haining. Should I name the illo after the bibliography, since the illo has no title of its own, although it has nothing to with the bibliography?--Rosab618 04:11, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

We do not name based on what it is printed next to, we name based on what it is illustrating and/or is associated with.

If it illustrates something else in the issue, use the name in whatever it illustrates even if it is not close to the actual text physically.

If it is just there and does not seem to connect to anything, use the name of the publication for the first one of these ("The Scream Factory, #15" for example, then "The Scream Factory, #15[2]" for the second one from the same artist and so on). The exact help page sentence for these is: "If it is independent of other content, and has no apparent title or caption, give it the title of the publication in which it appears, disambiguating if necessary.".

So in your case, use the magazine's issue name as a title. Annie 04:17, 16 October 2021 (EDT)

Serialized Translations

Should the translator template be added to serial titles, or is it's inclusion in the parent tile sufficient? John Scifibones 12:02, 18 October 2021 (EDT)

It needs to be added in each installment. As we do not have a variant of a variant and the serials are directly under the original, we treat them as we would treat any other variant. Plus keep in mind that unless the story/novel translation is also printed in its entirety somewhere else, there is np combined title in the correct language anyway. Annie 12:08, 18 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks John Scifibones 12:23, 18 October 2021 (EDT)

Variant name help

Today I added a Michael Arnzen collection, The Selected Works of Michael Arnzen: Needles and Sins, but Michael Arnzen is a variant name. Would someone change it, and the stories I haven't varianted, to Michael A. Arnzen, as by Michael Arnzen?--Rosab618 01:24, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

this book (you have a title ID used in a publication template which does not work very well)? I am not sure what exactly you are asking. So let's start with the first question:

• How is the author credited in the book? If they are credited as Michael Arnzen, that's the versions that need to be used and then they get varianted to the canonical.

As the cover says Michael Arnzen, unless you know that he is credited otherwise inside of the book, these are correct and then the stories which has no parents need to be varianted up. Are you asking someone to finish the varianting?

If you are asking something else, can you please clarify? Annie 01:32, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

Sorry, I fixed the link. Yes, I want the book and the orphaned stories to be varianted up. Thanks!--Rosab618 01:56, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

Can someone finish the varianting?--Rosab618 13:51, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

I’ll finish it when I am back on a computer. If it is urgent, you can always just do it yourself - it involves the same number of steps regardless of who does it. Annie 14:26, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

How is it done?--Rosab618 15:16, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

Ah, you never needed to do variants that do not have an existing parent? Sorry, did not realize that.

Let's work with "A Lust for Lungs". Go to the title record. Press on "Make This Title a Variant". You want Option 2. Change the author name to the canonical name (Michael A. Arnzen in our case) in there and press submit. Once approved, a new title will appear under the canonical name and the two will be automatically connected. Rinse and repeat for all the titles. Let me know if you want to try or if you want me to do them. Annie 15:53, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. I've done them now. It's good to know I can do that.--Rosab618 01:51, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

And all approved and the book looks fine to me - but check it one more time just in case. Outside of a very few things which only moderators can do (change the name of an author for example), anyone can change/connect anything - so if you are not sure how, just ask. If you ever work translations, that's also how you make an original title we do not have a record for yet - you just change the title, language and date (and eventually the author if needed) and you have a parent for your translation. Or you can add the book in the other language and then variant but even I would not try that in some languages (I'd add a parent title in most language but whole books are complicated). Let me know if I can assist further! :) Annie 02:11, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

What about this interview? The interviewee has an alternate name.--Rosab618 21:02, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Template:TitleFields:Interviewee provides the answer. John Scifibones 21:19, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Thank you!--Rosab618 21:26, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Translation question

Have a situation with the following facts. A subsequent serialization of Joseph Olenin's Coat, 2016 which is a translation of Le Manteau de Joseph Olenine,1886. I see two possible treatments.

1. Variant the serial titles to the 2016 translation and add title notes showing the original French title and publication data. (Drawback - all English titles on a French author's bibliography page.)
2. Variant the serial titles to the original French publication. --John Scifibones 16:13, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

Which is the correct treatment? John Scifibones 16:13, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

Into the French. If the story was ever published as non-serialized English version, that one will become a translation of the French as well. See The Italian Serialization for an example. We do not support variant of a variant so everything always get varianted into the original/canonical title. :) Annie 16:30, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

I'll try to find enough to also add the original non-serialized version published in The Cossack Review. Thanks for your help John Scifibones 16:41, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

The more versions we have, the better. PS: If you want to indicate that a serialization is the same as a non-serialized version, you use the notes :) Annie 16:52, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

Non-serialized version added as you suggested. John Scifibones 23:57, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Mountain Magic (Wellman version)

One of the titles I need to include in a new Baen CD-ROM Library publication is Mountain Magic (Wellman version). Looking at the notes for that pub record, there is an explicit statement that the publication is supposed to be an Anthology. It is currently an Omnibus but looking back at some of the edit history, it was obviously originally an Anthology. Even using Import for the titles themselves, including it in the new Baen CD-ROM Library publication's notes is massive since it's an Omnibus consisting of over 40 titles; including an Anthology would be much, much simpler. :) Can anyone comment on this? Phil 13:16, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

You are hitting again the industry vs ISFDB definitions. In ISFDB: a novel and two collections and other stuff make an omnibus. If you remove the two internal collections (not their contents, just the containers), you have one novel and a LOT of stories - which can be an anthology. So you have two choices:

• Remove the collections, making it an anthology
• Keep as is - so it is an omnibus. I'd do that because then you keep the relationship to the collections

However... You WILL want to include the contents anyway. You do not need to do it one by one - look at the Import screen - option 1 allows you to import ALL titles from another book in 1 step - so it does not matter what type it is really - I'd be importing the contents into the Disks (and not just the containers) regardless of the container type. Then the Disk will show on the listing for a story - as opposed to just having the collection and needing to drill to see where the collection may be. Simpler is almost never better. :) Annie 13:25, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Eligibility of a graphic novel that includes a text story

Sanity check to avoid wasting the time of me and a mod on something that would be rejected: is a graphic novel that contains a text story eligible for inclusion? (Probably just adding that story to the contents, but skipping the comic story.) ErsatzCulture 17:02, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

The story is eligible. The Graphic story is not (unless we say that the author (Schwab) is above threshold which may well be the case). So two options:

• Add as a non-genre collection with the prose story added and a note explaining the situation in the TITLE note. Do not click on "graphic" anywhere :)
• Treat Schwab as above threshold - so a collection again but now genre and with both stories added.

I'd do the first but you decide what you want to do. Annie 17:12, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks - the threshold policy is a bit too mysterious for me, so I'll be going with the first option. ErsatzCulture 17:48, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

I'd consider V. E. Schwab definitely above the threshold, so I'd include the graphic story, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:55, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

But will they be in 10 years? With SF getting more and more mainstream, determining treshold becomes a lot more complicated for living authors - some like Gaiman are obvious but some not that much. I see a lot mode YA authors publishing on both sides - and you never know where the majority will end up - it used to be so much easier. I tend to agree for Schwab, she seems to be safely over. I’m fine either way - but we may need to rehash some of our definitions. Although based on our rules, if the graphic story is added, it will need not only be marked as graphic but as non-genre as well because it is not speculative fiction/not related to speculative fiction under our definition of the genre. No graphic novel can be considered genre under our definition due to the very clear exception kicking them out even if it is admitted as an above threshold author work. :) Annie 01:09, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

I suspect she will be in ten years, too. And I agree we need to rehash some of the definitions. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:22, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Pub verified by inactive editor with blatantly incorrect page count

This pub was verified as having a third of a million pages, but the editor who PVed is inactive. There's a similar looking pub with a more plausible page count that's a substring of the dubious page count. Would it be reasonable to correct the erroneous pub to have the same page count, or would it be better to blank out the page count field, so as not to have apparently verified data that hasn't actually been verified? (Possibly with a pub note tweak to state as such?) ErsatzCulture 17:57, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Fix and add a note saying "Page number corrected on DATE and after all the verifications based on OCLC/BNF/edition X whatever source gave you the number; original value was "XXXX" or words to that effect. Or remove the page number and leave a similar note. That way it is clear why it was changed, when and that the verifiers had not looked at the book again. That's the general way to correct any incorrect info in the physical fields/data in a PVd book where a PV cannot be raised to check for an error. No changes without notes even if they are that blatantly wrong unless they are just formatting/moving stuff in the correct fields. Annie 18:10, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks - edit submitted. ErsatzCulture 18:48, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

And rejected. You added the note. You missed to fix the actual field. Want to try again? Also - for this book you have better sources: OCLC says 441 and BNF says 441. Which explains the typo - someone was correcting from 350 to 442. So please be careful when correcting based on other editions especially when one is pb and the other tp (hint: tp have bigger pages, not necessarily bigger fonts in those days) or they are across unrelated publishers (different fonts used) - sorry, was explaining the principle above and missed to check if your similar editions are similar. For older books OCLC/BNF/other local library is almost sure to have some data. So add the two IDs, add the pages based on that and then add the note that the page number is updated on that date, post verification based on the OCLC/BNF numbers correcting the old value of 350442. :) Annie 19:22, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

And fixed. Annie 19:38, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

BTW, I dunno if this is something that would be worth having a cleanup report for? The very basic SQL query I've been using to pick out some of these dodgy pubs is:

    select * from (select pub_id, pub_title, pub_pages, CAST(pub_pages AS INT)  num_pages from pubs where pub_ctype = 'NOVEL' ) foo order by num_pages desc limit 50;

This gets to novel pubs around 1450 pages, which I guess is the point at which the entered page counts are probably correct? I'm sure something more intelligent could be put together, but perhaps that's a start? (NB: a couple of these are picked up by the existing report, but not most of them.) ErsatzCulture 18:48, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

So submit a bug for the report - we have a report, it just needs a bit of fixing. :) Annie 18:59, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Need help with basic uploading.

I uploaded this cover, which is not the whole cover. (Had a moment). Tried the upload a new version link and pointed to the image of the whole cover. I kept the original file name. Got the warning that this is the same image, uploaded it anyway as the old image was replaced. The old image was uploaded again. Any suggestions?John Scifibones 09:09, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Your browser may have cached the prior image. Try doing a shift refresh and see if the latest appears. Also, is it OK if I delete the earlier uploads? Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 09:36, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks Ron, that was it. Yes get rid of the old versions. I have to do the same for the other two issues, you can get rid of those as soon as I do them. Give me 20 minutes. John Scifibones 09:42, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Repeated title in the same publication

I have found instances where the same title is repeated, by the author, within a given publication. However, separate title records were created when originlly entered into the database. Is the best fix, remove one title, merge, import the merged title back into the publication, put a note in the title record? Or is there a better way? John Scifibones 17:41, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Happens with poetry and very short shorts. There are two possible scenarios here with 3 possible ways to handle:

• Same title, different text - one of them needs to be disambiguated and they are NOT connected after that; notes need to be added to explain what is going on (and which is which so they don't get merged again and so it is clear which one to use if they get reprinted (for poetry, I'd use the first line to disambiguate one of them or even both in this case - makes matching later easier bu the usual [2] also works, the first line goes into the notes in that case).
• Same title, same text - one of them get disambiguated and then varianted to the other one (due to a software limitation - you cannot have the same title record twice in the same publication). You won't be able to reimport it again after a merge as it is already there - thus the workaround here. Alternatively, list it only in the first appearance and add a note listing the rest of the pages it appears on.

Let me know if I can assist further. Annie 17:56, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm glad I asked first. Disambiguate and variant was not intuitive, yet this is what needs to be done. Thanks John Scifibones 18:05, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Yep - sometimes we need to do weird things because of how the software works. It can be changed but it will requite a lot of effort and cannot be done overnight - so we work inside of the framework of what we have. :) Annie 18:14, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Merge Pyr publishers

Seems that perhaps Pyr [1] and Pyr / Prometheus Books [2] publishers should be merged. The description of Pyr talks about Prometheus Books, and it seems likely to be just an old vs new recording style issue. Thoughts? --GlennMcG 17:00, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

Oh yes - they are the same publisher - we have a few pairs like that in the DB (I just posted about another one of these here earlier this week and : getting ready to go ping PVs about it)...

Generally agree that we should merge them (look at a random year for both of them - it seems like in the years when both are used, the ebooks went to Pyr, the paper books to the longer name - but even that is not consistent or make any sense to split them this way) but there are a lot of PVs on the publications of both so I'd leave this here for a few days to see if someone else will chime in with a disagreement and/or notes and if it gets ignored, I'd ping a few of the more active PVs with books caught into this. . Annie 17:13, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm curious what you are proposing to do. Pyr is an imprint of Prometheus Books, are you proposing to eliminate the use of just the imprint? If so, I believe you need a standards change. Ultimately, we may get to a point where both the imprint and publisher are required, and I support that. P.S. I'm one of the PV's. John Scifibones 17:59, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

Under the current rules both of these are valid names for the same publisher while Pyr was an imprint of Prometheus (using just the Imprint name when it does not cause confusion is allowed and we have other examples like that - and in cases like that we "standardize" into one of the two OR we find a separation line between the two forms if there is a clear one). The way these two publishers are used now splinters the Pyr record and gains us nothing. Pyr had always been an imprint - first of Prometheus Books and since 2018 of Start Publishing. So we have 2 choices here:

• Split into two publishers based on this change of ownership - so all pre-2018 books go into Pyr / Prometheus Books and all later ones into Pyr / Start Publishing (or maybe just Pyr)
• Combine all Pyr books together into Pyr and explain the corporate ownership in the notes

I'd vote for the latter - Pyr is Pyr regardless of who happened to own it at a certain time. But I tend to prefer that to splintering records based on corporate decisions which barely register with a reader and making the DB all but unusable for Publishers' listings. Annie 18:14, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

I thought you were suggesting the opposite, hence my question. The publications I PV'd are all just Pyr. Since that is where you're going, I'm fine with it. John Scifibones 18:37, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

If we merge everything into a single publisher, it cannot be "Pyr / Prometheus Books" due to the 2018 change. :) Annie 18:45, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) In the mean time, I'd like guidance on what I should do with some books that I've PVed with this issue. Two of the three U.S. paperback publications of the series [3] are set to publisher Pyr, but all marked Pyr | an Imprint of Prometheus Books. Should I start to attempt an edit (after consulting active PVers) to the full Pyr / Prometheus Books? Or hope that it gets dealt somehow, sometime in the future with a more global publisher change? Thanks. --GlennMcG 15:30, 7 November 2021 (EST)

As long as you discuss with the PVs, sure. There won’t be any major changes coming short term so we operate under the rules as they are now. Annie 16:40, 7 November 2021 (EST)

My thoughts are to use "Pyr" and note the change of ownership in publisher notes. Using this does not show where the split takes place in 2018, but if we split the publishers as described above we can use this info when publisher is upgraded to "Imprint" and "Publisher/Parent" field. The splitting is only useful for 2018, so Id still merge into "Pyr".Kraang 20:41, 8 November 2021 (EST)

ARC edition clarification

Previous discussions about ARC editions and Patreon editions seem to indicate that we are not creating publication records for those items. If that's the policy, what should be done if there's a pub record already created for an ARC edition? I just discovered this record Storm from the Shadows ARC. The associated title record here needs to have its date adjusted to match the earliest pub date but what date should be used, the date from the hardcopy edition or the date from the ARC? Phil 08:37, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Your first assertion is correct, ARCs are generally not indexed but with a few exceptions. I don't recall it being discussed much in the last ten years, however I do recall past reference being made to a discussion circa 2011 where it was pretty much agreed that only ARCs with an allocated ISBN should be indexed, and even then when it is also being sold by the publisher to the public, and that the date should be entered as "8888-00-00" (ie. unpublished) with any actual ARC publication date included in the notes, with the publication of the proper first edition being the true "First Edition" date. I don't know if this ever became written policy, and this approach may indeed have been superceded in the intervening 10 years. I have a few ARCs for which collectors of them would love to see some bibliographic referencing for, yet I've never entered them here given the ISFDB's general antipathy towards them. Can any other seasoned editor point to something in black-and-white that can clarify? PeteYoung 16:53, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

I believe the last iteration of this discussion was in February-July 2021. I agree that it would be desirable to have whatever we can decide on formalized. Ahasuerus 17:11, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

I just discovered that Baen included the eARC of Mission of Honor as part of Baen CD-ROM Library #22 The Mission of Honor Disk which I'm currently preparing to add to the DB. Until we have a decision, I'll just enter it as a note instead of a new title even though that title is the reason that the CD-ROM was created. Phil 18:39, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Need help with an author photo upload

Can't seem to load this image into Bolesław Leśmian. Think I did tag and upload out of order. John Scifibones 13:39, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

There is not an upload option for author photos that tags them. You have to manually apply one of the tags (see Category:Image License Tags for available tags). You then click on the image, copy the URL, edit the author page, and paste the URL (similar as you do for cover images). Hope that makes sense. Let us know if you have further questions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Binti trilogy unrelated titles across languages

I just noticed there are 3 separate title entries for the collected Nnedi Okarafor's Binti trilogy across different languages:

• English language omnibus, which also has a German variant
• French collection
• Portuguese collection

IIRC the omnibus vs collection disparity comes from the third in the trilogy being long enough to be considered a novel. (There may also be a consideration that there's also a fourth novelette in this series, which may or may not be present in the various omnibuses or collections. IIRC that's not usually something that impacts varianting though?)

Should these be kept as-is, or should the title type be made consistent, and the French and Portuguese titles be made variants? ErsatzCulture 09:28, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

EDIT: On closer inspection, this is a bit messy, because this nominal "trilogy" has four stories, it looks like the French and Portuguese collections have 2 novellas and a novelette, whereas the German omnibus has the 2 novellas and the novel, and the English omnibus has all 4 stories. My confusion is further compounded by only one of these 4 titles having the content field specified, and the one that does is arguably wrong - at title level it has "1-3", whereas the pub details show 1, 3 and 4 as the contents ... ErsatzCulture 09:45, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

EDIT#2: Checking the Amazon BR preview of the Portuguese ebook, it turns out we have the contents wrong - it contains the 2 novellas and the concluding novel, and not the novelette. (The French book does have the novellas and novelette though.) I'll submit an edit to fix the Portuguese contents.

This confusion does make me think that this series should be renumbered though, as 1 (the opening Binti novella), 1.5 (the novelette), 2 (the Binti Home novella) and 3 (Binti: The Night Masquerade). This would make the contents numbering on the German omnibus correct, and makes the Portuguese "Trilogia Completa" look (slightly) less inaccurate. Any objections? ErsatzCulture 11:22, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

This the update that got our order all weird instead of inserting the novelette as 1.5 (and then noone thought to go clean the collections and omnibuses notes). But yes - Home Should be #2 and all should flow from there. See also the author site.

PS: Careful with international editions - make sure you really are sure who translated what :) Annie 14:07, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. I've got edits accepted or pending to fix this up; although I'll hold off from removing the novelette for a few days in case the editor who originally added it think it genuinely does exist in Portuguese. (The only Google hits I got for it were from ISFDB) ErsatzCulture 18:11, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Paulotecario‎ occasionally disappears so it is unclear when he will be back. Check with the moderator who approved as well - Rudam may have some memories where he verified that it is indeed there as I do not see a note on sources in the submission. Annie 18:21, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

I have all the English releases, if anyone needs me to look at them. I don't think I've verified the information here yet, though. They're good stories, though. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:43, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks - I think all the English details are OK, other than the meta issue of the series numbering, which is hopefully now fixed.

One related question: I just went to add the series and content numbers to the French collection, but I get a popup saying that only omnibuses can have content numbers. This restriction isn't mentioned on Template:TitleFields:TitleType and whilst Template:TitleFields:Content only mentioned omnibuses, it doesn't explain why the content numbers can't be used on collections. My understanding - primarily an earlier Wiki discussion about Binti the Night Masquerade and the knock-on effect on the English language compilation IIRC - was that that a collection becomes an omnibus if it contains a novel, but what happens if the numbered stories are novellas? (Apologies if this has been discussed previously - a cursory wiki search didn't throw up anything that looked relevant.)

(Given that the Brazilian collection turns out to have 2 novellas and a novel, I assume that can be converted to an omnibus and then made a variant of the English language one.) ErsatzCulture 08:31, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

The Content field is indeed for omnibuses only. We Used to allow it before - that’s where jvn used to go before we had a checkbox fro example. But since it remained only for the content numbers, it had been omnibus restricted. You cannot have everything treated everywhere - it is on the page of the field and you are supposed to read those for fields you rarely use (or want to use in new circumstances). If you think the help page needs to be updated, make a proposal in R&S :) I’ve tried twice to get community support to allow its usage for collections/anthologies for exactly this kind of cases and people did not care much so that’s it :).

For the Brazilian one - yes, it needs to match the type. In my book one novel does not make an omnibus but that’s fine as long as they match. But don’t connect them until we resolve the case of that fantom novelette - we only variant exact omnibuses IMO - extra titles make them different because of the Content field so they stay on their own. Annie 11:59, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Can you put the variant edit on hold then please? ErsatzCulture 13:15, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Yup. Annie 13:16, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

<<deindent>> Thanks. BTW, I just checked the Amazon preview of the German ebook (not currently in the database, but presumably the same contents as the physical edition that is) and it does appear to lack the novelette, as recorded in the database, so presumably should be unvarianted from the English language omnibus? ErsatzCulture 13:31, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

See that IMO up there in my statement? We have somewhat conflicting practices on that. If they are collections, we will usually variant translated collections with minor differences (missing story or 2 or added story or two - otherwise way too many collections will just never get connected anywhere and that serves no purpose) and just add a note). With omnibuses as we list contents on the field, it is trickier and never clear where to draw the line. I would not variant them. Some people do. If they are, the content field should show very clearly that they are different (Which in my book means they should not be varianted at all - so round and round we go). :) Comes down to our definition of variants and what minor is. Another thing we need to codify a bit better but all attempts had failed so far so we kinda play it by the ear. Annie 13:45, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

The 1635: The Eastern Front Disk ISO

While preparing the data for creating the new Baen CD-ROM Library title "The 1635: The Eastern Front Disk", I discovered that at least one of the component collections has a different title depending on which of the eight file formats is viewed. In this case, "Rx for Chaos" is the canonical title and is used in the .doc, .epub, and .rtf format files. On the other hand, "Prescription for Chaos" is used in the .htm and .mobi format files. (I don't know about the .lit, .lrf, and the .rb file types because I don't have any software that will open them to check.)

I think that I should handle this as follows:

• Include the canonical collection title with its component titles imported like normal with the page number set for example to |1.1
• Include the new "Prescription for Chaos" title with the page number set for example to |1.2 . Once the new title record is created, make it a variant of the canonical title. (I don't think there's a reason to import the component titles from the canonical title since they would be duplicates and not show anyway.)
• Create notes describing the two title/file format situation.
• Create duplicated title notes for all of the component titles in the new "Prescription for Chaos" title just like I do for all other duplicated titles in these CDs/ISO images.

Is this a good approach or is there a better way? Phil 13:29, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Nope - don't add both of them in the same book - that implies they are BOTH in the same book at the same time - which they are not. You have two options:

• Create two separate high level books - one with the one name, one with the other.
• Create a single one, use the one name and add a publication note explaining the difference in naming.

I'd go with the first option if I were you (different contents == different books) but... Annie 13:48, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

So if I understand correctly, create two new stand-alone collection titles with names like "Rx for Chaos (Baen CD-ROM Library)" and "Prescription for Chaos (Baen CD-ROM Library)"? Then add notes and import content titles as required and include both of the new titles in the new CD-ROM omnibus? Wouldn't both of the new titles also be variants of the original Rx for Chaos title? Phil 16:48, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Nope. Create two collections - yes (just as titles unless they were published that way - so nothing to import). But also do two separate omnibus publications - one for the formats that use Rx and one for the ones that use Prescription. No omnibus should have both collections included at the same time UNLESS both are really included. If I am reading the contents list of a book, I should not need to read a note to understand that there is a fake title in there that may not be in my copy and that even if the omnibus record in ISFDB contains 2 collections, I am getting just 1 in my book. :)

Or to say it a different way - build the omnibus with ONE of the titles and in the notes list the formats this publication is for. For the ones you do not know, chose where to list them and note that it is unclear if they are not actually part of the other publication (and link to it when you have both). When you are done, clone it for the second version. In that one remove the collection and replace it with the other collection title and adjust the note for the formats. Annie 17:06, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Both titles ARE actually included in this one ISO image omnibus. There's literally only one source file containing all these items. This omnibus is a monster. There are 68 titles included in it including 4 other omnibuses. (The value in the content field will likely be 38N+10A+14C+4O+2S.) The same two titles split by file format situation also exists for the excerpt of "1635: The Eastern Front" included in it as well. Plus I may well find more cases like this as I go through each of the included titles. (And someone, somewhere has the actual CD-ROM the ISO image was created from as well so the decision for this will someday be repeated when that publication is added.) Is making clones actually the best thing to do? I really think this is just one very complex publication. :) Phil 18:10, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Let's make sure we are talking about the same thing. If I download/get/open the ".htm" format of the ISO, do I get TWO separate collections or just the one called "Prescription for Chaos"? Annie 18:36, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

The file with the .htm suffix only contains the one collection called "Prescription for Chaos" on its title page. Phil 22:07, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

OK. If you add the two collections to the Contents, the book will look as if BOTH are available at the same time in the same contents page. Which is never true. Which means that they should never appear in the same Contents/Regular Titles list inside of a book. So we can resolve that in two ways: have two separate records splitting the formats and using the notes to explain why we have two of them OR have a single record with ONE of the collection titles and keep the second title for the collection in the notes only (listing the formats for which it is different). Considering that all formats are in a single ISO, we may be better off with just a note.

The problem here is that you essentially have multiple books in the same container (the ISO is not really an omnubus of all those collections and novels and so on - it is an omnibus of the different formats which are the complete omnibuses themselves; the ISO is an external wrapper for that). Because we cannot have omni inside of an omni, we record them all as if they are a single one. Yes - the DB is not really built for that and frankly, I don't think it should be. Use the notes to explain the situation and we are all set. Add an extra note inside of the collection title notes explaining the same. That should be more than enough. :) Annie 22:22, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

The Dread Machine

Before I do anymore work on The Dread Machine I have to know something, why are the contents of this issue completely different than this issue on the publisher’s website. I have no doubt the contents were copied by the original poster correctly, but this goes beyond a simple mistake. So … ? MLB 21:18, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Because instead of adding the issues, someone had been working from The All Contents page and just adding the stories - or so it looks. That's not a record for Issue 1.1 - that's just the stories that were on the site at the time they were added here. Go to the last few pages of All Contents and you will see the stories we have in the order we have them. The fact that without the issues this webzine is not really eligible to be in the DB under the current rules or that this is not how we add magazines (webzines or not) was kinda ignored by an impressive number of moderators. Ignore this record for now - I will sort it out later this week and see if it is salvageable and add the 3 issues that are actually eligible if you want. :) Annie 21:32, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Oh dear: there is also the 2021 version. Let me try to untangle what we do have first, then we will add what is missing. Thanks for finding this one. Annie 21:39, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

And there is another webzine in a similar shape: Diabolical Plots - 2020. Let me see if there will be others because I am starting to have a very bad feeling. Thanks for finding this mess - it needs solving! :) Annie 21:49, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Well, I ain't touching it until all the problems are worked out. This is why I list two versions of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, the Kindle version and the web version. As I've been instructed to. MLB 00:43, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Publication tag mismatch error

Created a small problem when uploading a cover. I attempted to use the automated upload and I hadn't logged into the wiki. After logging in, and uploading this picture, There was no tag (at that time). Instead of grabbing a blank template, I let the auto upload generate a tag and I slapped on the uploaded picture. That caused this warning. How do I correct the error? John Scifibones 12:59, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

If you really want to, you need to re-upload the file with the "Upload cover" on the publication page and it will show up in the correct place and we can delete this one. Or you can leave it where it is and ignore the warning. Annie 13:22, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Since everything is correct except the expected location, I'll just leave it. John Scifibones 13:32, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Canonical name correction

Hi.

I just noticed that the author of "Silver Door Diner" (found in Fiyah, Autumn 2020Publication Record # 866330) is listed as "Bishop Garriso". This is the only publication listed for "Bishop Garriso".

The correct spelling of the author's name is "Bishop Garrison". I have confirmed this at Fiyah magazine and a number of other places. See https://www.fiyahlitmag.com/issues/issue-16-joy/

"Silver Door Diner" is the only work listed by "Bishop Garriso", and "Bishop Garrison" is not yet listed as an author.

I am sure that the canonical name needs to be corrected, as this is a typo and not a variant that I have seen anywhere for this story or this author.

Please advise me on how this can be dealt with. I have not yet figured that out.

Thanks. Dave888 16:25, 5 November 2021 (EDT)

Posting a link to the author page you are talking about is very helpful. :) Here. Fixed. Sometimes typos like that happen - a missing last letter is an easy mistake to do when adding a lot of contents.

As there was no information to be lost on the author page and it was indeed a typo in our DB and not in the magazine, you could have done that in two ways:

• Rename the author directly - a moderator action, you ask for it on the Moderator portal. I just fixed based on the request here.
• Just change it in the title record. This is a bad option if the author page already has data (web sites, images and so on) as they will be lost and you will need to add them again to the new name. Annie 16:45, 5 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. Yes, I meant to include a link to the author page. My bad. And thanks for the advice about the Moderator portal. Yeah, I don't like Option 2 - that sounds like it would be more problematic. Best wishes.Dave888 18:00, 5 November 2021 (EDT)

In this case it would not have made any difference which way you go - the author did not even have a language set. But when changing author names, publishers and pub series from inside of titles/publications, this needs to be kept in mind - when the last reference is changed, they are deleted automatically and all data attached on them is lost. Series names as well to some extent but there we need to delete the old one manually so we can rescue the information before that. :) Annie 19:11, 5 November 2021 (EDT)

It Came from the Multiplex

I corrected the contents of the e-version of It Came from the Multiplex from my copy. However, it would be easier to rebuild from scratch the trade paperback of It Came from the Multiplex, so should I just delete the paperback version, or just delete the paperback's contents, then import the contents from the e-version? MLB 00:07, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

Use Remote Titles to remove the contents (with a moderator note explaining what you are doing) and then import from the ebook. Annie 04:45, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

Importing contents does not import titles that are already present in the target publication, so you won't end up with duplicates. However, if you want to pick up the page numbering for everything from the source publication, deleting all the contents first with the note that Annie suggests is a good way to go. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 07:54, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

Format question

European description of a 2021 poetry collection "A5 booklet, printed on high quality paper, in colour 40 pages." Just confirming that we treat this as a tp. Thanks John Scifibones 12:05, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

Well, we do have the A5 format, especially introduced for European needs. If it's saddle-stapled, it'd not be filed as a tp, I think. Christian Stonecreek 12:34, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

I thought A5 was for magazines. Here is a link to the publisher's page, note Jane Yolen's statement. The Last Robot. Thoughts? John Scifibones 12:57, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

Ph if stapled - that’s what the pamphlet format is. Tp otherwise. And yes - A5 is for magazines despite some people deciding to use them elsewhere against the written rules. :) Annie 02:13, 7 November 2021 (EST)

Maybe we can get a feature that prevents the wrong formats with the wrong types? Or at least flags them with yellow and puts them on a cleanup report? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:05, 8 November 2021 (EST)

The Books & Braun Dossier

There are a couple of problems related to this title.

• The TP edition here and title here (plus variants) are recorded as a Collection. I think it should be an Anthology since (using the ebook published about a month earlier) some of the component stories are attributed to Pip Ballantine alone, some to Tee Morris alone, and some to both in collaboration. Can I just submit changes for the title and pub records to switch them from Collection to Anthology or does this need to be done by a moderator?

• Several of the component titles are shown in the ebook to be authored just by Pip Ballantine or just by Tee Morris but the same titles are already in the DB with the author shown as by both Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. I'm confident these are the same titles because the blurb on the back cover of the TP edition states "First published in The Tales from the Archives and Ministry Protocol, these stories are now collected for the first time in one volume." Since I'll be adding them to the ebook pub, do I just enter them as new regular titles with just the single author and then make those new title records variants of the multi-author title?

Thanks. Phil 13:09, 16 November 2021 (EST)

That still makes it a collection by the two authors - you can have 2 authors collection and with collaborators like that, such collections happen often. :) Anyone can change the type but in this case, the type is correct.

Correct. Record the stories as shown in the book. Then we will variant if needed. Again - not uncommon :) The only thing to keep in mind when you do the variants is that the title with both authors on it should be the parent so the story shows up on both authors' pages (we won't show it based on a variant only. Annie 13:19, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for clarifying. I've submitted the ebook pub as a collection now that I know which type is correct. I'll create the variants as you specified once it's approved. Phil 15:43, 16 November 2021 (EST)

If my understanding turns out to be incorrect, we will convert all of them in bulk :) Approved so you can variant -- keep in mind what I said above about the parents (and that may mean date adjustment in the parent). Annie 15:53, 16 November 2021 (EST)

And it took all of 3 minutes for that to happen. Template:PublicationFields:PubType says:

• ANTHOLOGY. A publication containing fiction by more than one author, not written in collaboration, should be typed as an ANTHOLOGY. For example, "Late Knight Edition" contains stories by both Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, individually; this is an anthology, not a collection. If a book of Conan stories contains stories which are all partly or wholly by Robert E. Howard, it is a collection; if one or more of the stories is by Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp, not in collaboration with Howard, then the book is an anthology.

So yep - anthology. I will change them. Sorry about that. I was looking at the collections definitions and missed to look at the anthology one. :) Annie 16:04, 16 November 2021 (EST)

So now I have a problem with the anthology records. I think the new title The Books and Braun Dossier should be the canonical title since it's older than the existing canonical title The Books & Braun Dossier by over a month. However, the old has a variant here which only differs by using Philippa Ballantine instead of Pip Ballantine as an author. If I remember correctly, a variant can't have a variant, right? For that matter, I'm not even sure why the existing canonical record exists since the title "The Books & Braun Dossier" was only published as by Pip Ballantine, never by Philippa Ballantine. Is it so the title will show under the canonical author's name? Please help me unravel this! Phil 08:18, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Yep, it needs to exist so that the book is visible on the canonical author's page. :) Even if the book is never published under the canonical name of the authors, if you want it to appear on the Author page of the said author, you need a parent to bring it there. That's why you need a Philippa Ballantine parent for every book she publishes under another name. So back to our set of titles here: this cannot be the parent because it has the wrong author :) So what you do in this cases is:

• Update the existing parent to have the proper first date and whatever you want to be the canonical name. See what I did here.
• Put the new title under it the usual way.

Problem solved. Now only one thing remains: all the stories here need parents so they show on the Philippa Ballantine page. Let me know if you have any questions! :) Annie 14:30, 17 November 2021 (EST)

So for these, do a make variant and use Option 2, changing the author name to Philippa Ballantine, correct? Which get added to the "Books & Braun" series: the variant, the new parent, or both? Phil 16:15, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Yes on how you do the variant UNLESS there is already a title for that on Philippa Ballantine's page for the story - then you use that and option 1.

Variants cannot be part of a series - the inherit it visually but their records are not part of the series officially :) So it will always be the parent. However, there are two ways to do it here:

• Set it on the variant before it is connected, make sure it is approved before the "Make Variant" and then do the parent creation: the system will move it to the parent for you.
• Make the parents, then add the series to them when they are approved. Annie 16:20, 17 November 2021 (EST)

«Commentaire pour servir à la construction pratique de la Machine à explorer le Temps»

The short story "How to Construct a Time Machine" by Alfred Jarry first appeared as «Commentaire pour servir à la construction pratique de la Machine à explorer le Temps» in Mercure de France, février 1899 and can be found here, on HathiTrust. Since I don't speak French, I don't trust myself to enter this correctly. Would someone who speaks French please do so? Sylvar 13:39, 18 November 2021 (EST)

That shows Albert Fleury Dr Faustroll as the author (see the table of contents on p.862). Is that another name for Jarry? I know he wrote Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien in which Dr Faustroll is a character, but that's all I know. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:05, 18 November 2021 (EST)

Great catch! It appears so; the Bibliothèque nationale de France lists "Faustroll, Docteur (1873-1907) pseudonyme" in their authority record. Sylvar 22:09, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Okay, this has been updated. See here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:33, 23 November 2021 (EST)

Setting up a separate Talk page for PV change notifications

I've seen some Talk pages where the user has setup a separate page for PV change notifications plus adding a banner section on their main talk page pointing out their PV change notification preferences. How do you setup a separate page so it can be linked to from your main Talk page? I think I can borrow the banner section coding from other users and adapt it (though I have only rudimentary HTML skills) but how to set up the target page eludes me. TIA Phil 13:08, 21 November 2021 (EST)

Just open the page as if it exists already and it will allow you to create it. If you would like me to, I can create it for you (just let me know how you want it to be called after your username)? Annie 16:14, 21 November 2021 (EST)

Example: If you want it to be called "PV Notifications", open http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Philfreund/PV_Notifications. Click on "Edit" either at the top or in the middle of the page and when you save, you have a new page. :) Annie 20:26, 21 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for offering. I was able to do it myself and it's ready for use. :) Phil 11:20, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Prince Caspian

There are a lot of publications for Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis. I was getting ready to clone to create a pub for the 42nd printing of the Collier/Macmillan paperback first published in 1970 when I noticed that the title page shows "Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia". I assume I should create a new novel with that title and then make it a variant. I'm just kind of bothered that there several other Collier/Macmillan paperback printings that are PV but simply show "Prince Caspian" as the title. Thoughts? Phil 11:30, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Several of the other publications made note of the sub-title, and many of these have PV's that you could confirm with after you have created the new title and variant'd it back to this title. ../Doug H 16:36, 23 November 2021 (EST)

If you look at the publications, there are a few with the subtitle mixed in the list. Some editors merge the subtitled variety of a title with the non-subtitled and that used to be a lot more prevalent in the past. I tend to keep them separate - if the subtitle is important enough to be recorded, it deserves its own variant. So yes - add your own book, variant it where it needs to go and then go talk to PVs where the subtitle is actually there. :) Annie 17:00, 23 November 2021 (EST)

I've added the new title and have a submission to make it a variant. However, when I got ready to contact the PVs of the other two pubs that are just different printings, I found that one has no PV and the PV for the other is no longer active. Leave it as a dead end unless someone does a PV at some later date? Phil 13:07, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Pretty much. We can add a dated note about the different printing information (dated so it is clear it is post all verifications) but we are not changing verified books unless we actually KNOW that there is a mistake. Annie 14:08, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Dune reader's guides

I have a question. Now that there is another version of Dune coming out, I’ve noticed that there are a number of reader guides out there to these series. Do Cliff’s Notes, and stuff like that belong on this site? MLB 01:43, 25 November 2021 (EST)

They are not forbidden. Abridgments and non fiction about speculative fiction are always allowed. Annie 14:25, 25 November 2021 (EST)

Anthologies with Afterwords by each author

I have found several Andre Norton Anthologies that have an Afterword for each of the stories included. Each Afterword is written by the author of the short fiction work that precedes it. The first one I entered is Four from the Witch World and only has four stories. Did I do the Afterword titles in an acceptable way? If not, I'll change them if you'll let me know a better way. The anthology publications I'm about to work on have 18 or more titles in each one so if I need to change my method, now is the time. :) Phil 15:59, 25 November 2021 (EST)

They are not wrong/bad as they are but I’d reverse the story and book title on the title line of these afterwords or even skip the title of the book (unless the afterword is specifically written for this book and not just for the story - explaining why the story is in the book for example) - that way a reprint won’t require a new invented title. Plus we add the book name to differentiate and the story title is a differentiator enough (often anyway). See this for an example - these afterwords are strictly for the stories. Annie 16:34, 25 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks! I went ahead and removed the book title. One of the other anthologies had been done that way so at least it's consistent for that series of anthologies. Phil 16:34, 26 November 2021 (EST)

Cover tag question

I uploaded a couple webzine covers and noticed that a different tag is applied if the source noted is the website vs. scanned by user. The fair use language is applied if it is scanned by user. Does it make a difference which one is used? John Scifibones 11:26, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Nevermind, fixed my mistake John Scifibones 13:01, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Simplified titles for excerpts

Does the convention of removing (not including) the series name in a title apply with excerpts? --GlennMcG 15:41, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Yep. We also include the excerpts in the series occasionally thus making clear where they belong. Annie 16:30, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Andre Norton Sword Series Set

In 1984, Unicorn Star Press published the Andre Norton Sword Series Set consisting of three trade paperback titles shrink-wrapped with a single front card. It has its own ISBN printed on the card. I believe this should be an omnibus but since the "binding" is shrink-wrap and it consists of three separate trade paperbacks, I wanted to check to see if there's anything else that needs to be done when creating this omnibus that is special other than good notes. Phil 18:30, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Yep - that’s a boxset (minus box but with cover and ISBN so still the same idea) so it goes in as Omnibus. The format is the format of the books - so tp. And add a note explaining the shrink wrap and all that. Annie 18:39, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Edgar Allen Poe's Snifter of Terror

Hi, everyone. I was just wondering if I could add this anthology series of comic books. There are non-graphic stories and poems as well as the graphic stories. But could I add the (very altered) graphic Poe adaptations as well, or should I leave them out? Thanks.--Rosab618 03:46, 2 December 2021 (EST)

The altered graphic stories are not eligible in any way or form. Graphic contents (manga or comics) are only eligible when by an above treshold author as that essentially overrides everything else. Still - single comics issues are not eligible even by those per our practice (if they are graphic only - which is not the case here).

The poems/stories if the are Poe's text exactly most likely are eligible. Single comics issues can be borderline but in this case because there are the text versions, they are in I think (if added - they go in as non-genre magazines with only the text versions added). However, the whole series is collected in a paperback (that's volume 1) and that paperback is also eligible (minus its graphic contents of it. Annie 12:57, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks, Annie. I think I'll add the comic books since I don't have the paperback.--Rosab618 13:51, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Unverified OCLC

Can someone tell me (roughly) how many OCLC external identifiers have been specified on publications that have no primary verifier? Thanks in advance. P.S. Please keep/post the query, there may be some refinements some day. ../Doug H 14:20, 2 December 2021 (EST)

At this time, we have 145,254 OCLC External IDs. 75,689 of them are for publications without a primary verification (either permanent or transient). The query is as follows:

               select count(i.pub_id) 
               from pubs p, identifiers i, identifier_types it
               where p.pub_id = i.pub_id 
               and i.identifier_type_id = it.identifier_type_id 
               and it.identifier_type_name = 'OCLC/WorldCat' 
               and not exists 
               (select 1 from primary_verifications pv 
               where pv.pub_id = p.pub_id)

(Drop "and not exists" and everything that follows it to get the first number.) Ahasuerus 20:56, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks. Pandemic downtime has given me too much time to think up new projects (and no additional time to implement). The reason I asked about the unverified OCLC was to gauge the scope of a project. The OCLC provides a list of libraries purportedly carrying particular publications. I would be willing to provide primary (transient) verification against any copy held in my immediate locale. I expect there are others equally willing. I was just toying around with ideas on how to match the two up for myself or someone in general. Can't actually get into many of these libraries under pandemic conditions, but an interesting thought experiment. ../Doug H 12:17, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Why just the ones with OCLC numbers? If you are hitting the stacks in a library, you may as well just go after everything in the SF section :) A few years ago I was considering doing just that in my local library but then things happened as usual and the plan fizzled out. Annie 17:05, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Different problem. I did indeed go to all my local libraries verifying Jules Verne books. I thought about it for all SF books but figured a) my hit rate for unverified is likely low and b) my overhead in checking each book (entering, searching, checking copies) on a tiny interface (I no longer hate my phone, but we're not good friends) and then dealing with entering it makes this a particular problem that needs particular solutions. The OCLC situation is one where a book is important enough to enter and verify without seeing a copy. It makes possible a limited list of publications for any given location with particulars to check, with only minor edits likely. A different situation. Even with the many thousands of candidates, the number of ones likely to be addressed from my home town are pretty small. It would also give rise to small helpful projects that avid contributors can do in their neighbourhood that no one else can do (as well as getting them out of their cyber-dens). As I said, many projects, just needed data for the OCLC one. Here's one we can work on together - a local university library has a special Slavic section of somewhat older books. If I get you a list, and you mark which are candidates, WHEN they let me back in I could go collect the data, enter them and verify them with your editorial oversight. I don't know who I can get to do the same for the Icelandic ones though. :-( ../Doug H 16:34, 4 December 2021 (EST)

If anything, it is just a different side of the same problem. Using my library list I can easily add the books based on oclc and other sources and then request them out (thus turning my usecase into yours). Get that list of yeh Slavic ones or point to it and I can vet what we want from it. If you get me that Icelandic list I can see what I can do - not strictly my bailiwick but I can at least find the highly probables and I have someone I can ask for ideas. Annie 17:06, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Kris Longknife Print-on-Demand PVs

I'm PVing my more recently purchased Kris Longknife books and they're POD. They have a recent manufacture dates (some as recently as a few weeks ago), and are marked Rev 2.0 on the copyright page. For example: [4].

I could use guidance on how to deal with this issue.

Should I:

• Edit the base record, and record my rev and date, vaguely parallel to how SFBC editions are dealt with?
• Add a new publication record?
• Something I haven't thought of?

Thanks. --GlennMcG 18:05, 2 December 2021 (EST)

POD are difficult because of the varying dates, but I'd say if there's a "Rev 2.0", that's very similar to statements like "Second Edition" or "Second Printing", and it's a clear distinction between printed copies of that and earlier printed copies. So I suggest you make another record for it, noting the "Rev 2.0". It is easy to merge them later if we decide having two records is inappropriate. --MartyD 09:54, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Classifying a collection containing genre and non-genre titles

Assuming the following contents:

non-genre novella	157pp	65%
genre novelette	67pp	28%
genre short story	16pp	7%

Is this a genre publication with one non-genre title or a non-genre publication listing only the two genre titles? John Scifibones 10:34, 7 December 2021 (EST)

Is the author of the non-genre work above the threshold? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:14, 7 December 2021 (EST)

The author of this collection does not generally write within our genre. Just so happens that two of the three works are genre. John Scifibones 18:01, 7 December 2021 (EST)

I'd list the collection as non-genre and put the non-genre work in the notes. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:34, 8 December 2021 (EST)

Yep, I concur. Annie 14:43, 8 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the help John Scifibones 14:52, 8 December 2021 (EST)

"A Logic Name (sic) Joe"

It hurts my heart to say that, on its first publication, the story was called (in the voice of its narrator) "A Logic Name Joe". Not "Named"—but "Name".

Here, see for yourself.

Should we account for this in some way?

Apologies if this is the bibliographic equivalent of "WE! DO NOT! TALK ABOUT! THE ORANGUTAN!".

And apologies for forgetting to sign this earlier. Sylvar 10:48, 13 December 2021 (EST)

No worries. This is already shown here. The incorrect title is varianted to the correct one. Thanks for watching for errors, though. There's always the possibility of typos like this. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:05, 13 December 2021 (EST)

It appears that this are only variant titles because of the alternate author names, not because of a variant title with only "Name", or am I missing something? Christian Stonecreek 13:19, 13 December 2021 (EST)

It's a bit of both, since the typo was in the original that was credited to the pseudonym. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:22, 13 December 2021 (EST)

I do not see the title "A Logic Name Joe" in the link you mentioned. I only see the typical "A Logic Named Joe". Sylvar 15:17, 14 December 2021 (EST)

Weird. It was there before and now it's not. I can't see a record of it being changed, either. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:54, 14 December 2021 (EST)

The em-dash swamp

I'm PVing [5] and ran across the story Golden the Ship Was — Oh! Oh! Oh!. The title page for the story doesn't have spaces around the em-dash, which is in conflict with publication entry. Help for 'title' [6] indicates there shouldn't be surrounding spaces. Is this a rathole to avoid, or something I should attempt to submit an edit for?

Has this query been lost, or is the lack of input a hint to let sleeping dogs lie. --GlennMcG 15:11, 14 December 2021 (EST)

When researching this, I attempted to run an advanced search for titles containing " — ", but the spaces seemed to be discarded from the search query. Is there a way to specify a literal space character? --GlennMcG 01:21, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Spaces are recognized in advanced search without doing anything more than typing them. If typing [space] [Alt0151] [space] doesn't work, (I get 4176 hits at this time) try a force clear of your cache and run the search again. See if that helps. John Scifibones 09:00, 12 December 2021 (EST)

It's not working for me. Even after clearing the cache I get get 7131 results, which include entries both with and without surrounding spaces. (I've also tried using a different browser).

Advanced Search | Titles | Title, contains, ' — ', and | Get Count

(The quotes around the space-emdash-space are just for clarity here, but not entered in the field). --GlennMcG 15:21, 12 December 2021 (EST)

One of the check boxes in User Preferences is "Keep leading and trailing spaces when searching". Perhaps the two of you have this option set up differently? Ahasuerus 16:14, 12 December 2021 (EST)

That did it. Thanks. --GlennMcG 16:58, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Sure thing. I have also fixed list indentation in User Preferences to make it clear which preferences are grouped together. Ahasuerus 19:06, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Lost entries in Help Desk

I had an question about editing titles with em-dashes in the help desk, but it seems to have disappeared. Was there a restoral from backup? It also had question about advanced searches with leading and trailing space, which was answered. --GlennMcG 20:23, 12 December 2021 (EST)

The question was asked and answered on ISFDB talk:Help desk, i.e. the Talk page associated with this page. I have moved it here -- see the section immediately above. Ahasuerus 20:38, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I hadn't really internalized the difference between adding an entry to the help desk vs. one for a users talk page. Somehow the 'New Post' button was invisible. --GlennMcG 21:11, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Conversion of chapbook/novella to novel - sanity check/experienced wisdom required

Converting a novel to a chapbook is thoroughly documented, but as far as I can tell, the reverse isn't - I guess it's a much less common action?

Anyway, I tested doing a chapbook/novella to novel conversion on a local instance of the site/database over the weekend, and it seemed to go OK. However, when I came to replicate that on the live site, I managed to fall at the first hurdle by not exactly repeating what I tested on my local instance.

Specifically, on my local tests, I did the following 3 steps:

1. Convert the SHORTFICTION/novella title record to NOVEL
2. Remove the CHAPBOOK title contents record from all the relevant pubs
3. Convert the relevant pubs from CHAPBOOK to NOVEL

Instead what I did for the first step was convert the CHAPBOOK (i.e. not SHORTFICTION record to NOVEL. This means that when I try to remove one of the contents from one of the pubs, I get a warning box that states:

   WARNING: Unable to locate the title reference for this publication.
   Removing titles while in this state is dangerous. Check to make sure the publication type is correct (collection, novel, anthology, etc.). Then come back and remove the title in question.

which is worrying, so I've gone back to my local system (which was refreshed from the weekend's copy of the database, and had my prior test edits undone). I *think* I have got things to the desired state by doing:

1. Update all relevant pubs from CHAPBOOK to NOVEL
2. Merge the NOVEL and SHORTFICTION/novella title records.

The latter step does prompt another warning box:

   WARNING: records 2930366 and 2930367 both appear in the publication ReDawn
   Merging titles causes the title names to be commonized, AND causes that new title to show up in the publications those titles point to. If you merge two 
   titles that appear in the same publication, you will cause that title to show up twice in that pub. This is probably not what you want.
   .
   If you are trying to remove a duplicate title from a publication, edit that publication, and click on Remove Titles From This Pub. Then select the title you wish to remove.

Despite, this doing the merge does appear to have had the desired effect - everything is showing as a novel, there are no duplicate contents showing, SQL queries on the local database show what I'd expect.

Is this (i.e. converting the pubs then merging the titles) a reasonable course of action, or would it maybe be better to revert the CHAPBOOK-to-NOVEL edit, and then follow my original course of action? Thanks ErsatzCulture 14:36, 13 December 2021 (EST)

This process is not preferable: all reviews and other links (for example awards) usually are linked to the SHORTFICTION, and by deleting that all of these links are broken. Stonecreek 13:11, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks for responding - unfortunately it's still not clear to me what the safest/best course of action is. Is switching the pubs from CHAPBOOK to NOVEL and then merging the NOVEL and SHORTFICTION/novella title records OK? Naively I'd assume that merge actions should not break anything, but I would prefer it if someone could explicitly reassure me that that is the case. ErsatzCulture 14:01, 16 December 2021 (EST)

In most cases this would not be okay (as explained above). It should be the conversion of the SHORTFICTION to NOVEL; this way the links that are connected to the fiction remain intact (CHAPBOOK is not a fiction title but rather a container title, like COLLECTION or ANTHOLOGY). Stonecreek 14:29, 16 December 2021 (EST)

OK, I'll revert the edit I made and go back and do the steps I originally intended to do. Thanks. ErsatzCulture 16:10, 16 December 2021 (EST)

Need misspelled alias corrected

Author alias Larry Schwinger here is misspelled as Larry Shwinger. Can a mod please correct the spelling to Larry Schwinger? Phil 11:59, 15 December 2021 (EST)

We need Chavey to chime in on this one since he's verified that publication. If it's misspelled in the book, we need to keep the misspelling. It's already varianted to the correct spelling. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:10, 15 December 2021 (EST)

I posted a note on his page. I have the book in hand and it's spelled correctly on the copyright page, just not in the DB. Phil 14:25, 15 December 2021 (EST)

How is it spelled on the Title page? That's the one we use if we have access to the book. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:32, 15 December 2021 (EST)

He's the endpaper map artist and not on the title page. Phil 14:36, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Larry Schwinger is the artist who did the endpaper maps, he is credited on the title page verso not the tile page. I have a first printing and the name is spelled as Phil is stating. I will be glad to provide a primary verification after I see what the final record looks like. Hope this helps, John Scifibones 14:40, 15 December 2021 (EST)

This has been corrected. Thanks for catching it! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:47, 16 December 2021 (EST)

Awaiting approval for new magazine

Hello,

On 12/6/21 I submitted a new magazine, "Vastarien: A Literary Journal vol. 4, issue 2," for verification. It has remained under pending edits since then. I have watched the backlog go up&down from 100+ to 400+ several times. The question is, has this pending edit gone astray, or is someone holding it while they are simply too busy with life as Christmas/Covid looms?

I ask, because I have never waited more than 5 days for this process to play out before, and we're into the 9th day.

Thanks.

Distanceswimmer —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Distanceswimmer (talk • contribs) . 15:02, 15 December 2021

I see one on the 9th, but nothing before that. All of the moderators are volunteers, and (especially during the holiday season and summer) sometimes it takes a while to get to everything. We all have real life things that get in the way of participation here. A few things:

1. I notice that you added it to both a title series and a publication series with the same title. Generally, magazines are included in a title series, but not in any publication series. I've removed the publication series.
2. The web page for publications is for pages specifically about that publication or issue. The generic URL should go on the title series page. I've done this for you.
3. There's no need to include an Amazon web page if the item has an ISBN or an ASIN. We automatically link those. I've removed this URL.
4. When including the artist, it's always good to include in the publication note where that information was obtained. Something like "Cover artist per copyright page" or "Cover artist per back cover and copyright page", for example.
5. When you post to a discussion page or a user's talk page, you can sign your posts by using four tildes at the end, like this: ~~~~

Please let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks for contributing to the site! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:45, 16 December 2021 (EST)

Edgar Allen Poe's Snifter of Death, #1

Hi. I'm now the proud owner of a physical copy of this comic. It measures 10" x 6.75". What should I list as the format? Pulp?--Rosab618 18:22, 18 December 2021 (EST)

How many pages? What kind of binding does it have? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:25, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Hi, Nihonjoe. Thanks for responding. It has 32 pages and it's saddle-stapled.--Rosab618 14:32, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Probably pulp, then. That's the closest we have. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:16, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Adding Infinite Matrix stories?

I would like to add some stories that were published in Infinite Matrix, especially the Rio Hondo stories. But given the different publication dates, I’m not sure how best to do that. Should I “Add a new magazine” for each story? --Elysdir 14:27, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Yes, that it what you would have to do. You would add the issue in which the story appeared. A few issues have been entered already. See here. --MartyD 16:36, 21 December 2021 (EST)

Merging reprinted reviews

Do I have to change all the dates of the reprints to when they were originally published?--Rosab618 14:55, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Do you have a link (or links) to what you're talking about? That will help us better understand your question. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:03, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Right here. These reviews were all published elsewhere, Interzone mostly.--Rosab618 16:17, 20 December 2021 (EST)

That link doesn't work. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:21, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Sorry, fixed it.--Rosab618 16:23, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks! What's with the weird page numbering? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:50, 20 December 2021 (EST)

I messed up. Instead of typing (for example) 62|62.1 for the pages with more than one item, I thought 62|1 would work just as well. It didn't. I fixed it and re-submitted, but there's quite a backlog.--Rosab618 17:59, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Okay, I approved the page numbering corrections. Please review it and make sure everything looks correct. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:23, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks, it looks right. But what about merging the reviews? Oh, I know. I'll go to "Show All Titles" and merge them that way.--Rosab618 23:13, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Author name clash -- Christopher Smith vs. Christopher L. Smith

I recently submitted an edit to variant a story [7] credited as Christopher Smith to a new parent Christopher L. Smith. I had evidence that 'L' had written it (his biography on the Simon & Shuster web site [8]). However, when I look at the main page for 'L' [9], when I click the link for 'only as by Christopher Smith', it takes me to the author page of the non-author [10].

Is there a step I missed, or is this expected? --GlennMcG 15:24, 21 December 2021 (EST)

If there is more than one Christopher Smith (e.g., here, a Christopher Smith who is Christopher L. Smith and a Christopher Smith who is not Christopher L. Smith), then the bibliographies need to be separated by creating two different "Christopher Smith" records. We do this by adding a disambiguator to one or more of the names. Help:How_to_separate_two_authors_with_the_same_name explains how to do that. Please take a look and see if you can figure out what to do. Ask if you get stuck, but you'll be a nice test case for that help text, so I don't want to prejudice anything. --MartyD 16:32, 21 December 2021 (EST)

Would Christopher Smith (L.) be a reasonable way to disambiguate? None of the examples given in the instructions seem to apply very well. Other than rule that the disambiguator must be added to the right, I'd prefer Christopher (L.) Smith for aesthetic reasons. --GlennMcG 17:02, 21 December 2021 (EST)

I'm not sure I understand the issue. We have two Christopher Smith's:

1. Christopher Smith as an alternate name to Christopher L. Smith with a single work.
2. Christopher Smith (I) with three works.

It looks like they are properly separated already based on what you are describing. Did something change since you posted this or am I misunderstanding? -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2021 (EST)

I sorted them out since it looked (based on everything I could find) like there were two different Christopher Smiths. Then I noticed your comment here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:49, 21 December 2021 (EST)

And to answer Glenn's question, "Christopher L. Smith" is always the way the name would be entered unless (for some bizarre reason) a publisher entered his name with parentheses around the middle initial. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:51, 21 December 2021 (EST)

The publisher used the name without any middle initial. That's what started me down this road. --GlennMcG 17:56, 21 December 2021 (EST)

And I can't comment on whether the instructions for this issue are sufficient. --GlennMcG 17:59, 21 December 2021 (EST)

However, I seem to have been heading the wrong way in attacking the problem after reading the instructions. I didn't pick up on the difference between two authors whose canonic names clash vs. a 1 canonic/1 variant clash. The instructions didn't help as much for the later case, as was I thinking that I could disambiguate the variant. --GlennMcG 21:08, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Unpaginated illustrations

In The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, each illustration is right before the story it illustrates, on a plate with no page number. How do I add them in the right order, before each story, with no page numbers?--Rosab618 00:01, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Here is an example of how it's done (please concentrate on the Giger plates, not the Schoenherr & Schiemann illustrations that are part of the regular page count). If you call up the edit screen for the publication, you'll also see how those pages for the plates were entered. Hope that helps, Christian Stonecreek 01:44, 22 December 2021 (EST)

I'm sorry, I don't understand how to do it.--Rosab618 21:21, 24 December 2021 (EST)

You would enter "|SORTPAGE" for them. For example, if the plate appeared between pages 142 and 143, you would enter the page number as "|142.5" (without the quotes, but including the pipe before the "142.5") This will sort the page as if it was numbered "142.5", but will display no page number. Be sure to make a note in the publication that the illustration pages are not numbered. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:16, 30 December 2021 (EST)

Dead links in publication record (any record?)

While PVing Wall of Years I noticed that proof cover is a dead link. Is there something I could/should do about it? --GlennMcG 17:11, 25 December 2021 (EST)

It was deleted many years ago without a reason supplied. I restored it and added a license template. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:41, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Law of Survival / Kristine Smith

While PVing Law of Survival I discovered that the 'excerpt' for Year's Best Fantasy really isn't an excerpt, but an blurb/description of the then upcoming anthology. And it's not really written by Hartwell, unless he refers to himself in the third person. Is there a better way to mark this up? Should it even be included? --GlennMcG 00:37, 26 December 2021 (EST)

My 2 cents: I'd skip it as advertisement - unless it is from the actual book, it is not an excerpt and we do not index advertisements... If it stays, it will be an essay with the name of the book and uncredited author I would think... Annie 23:28, 30 December 2021 (EST)

The Beast-King Murders

This book, part of the Phantom Detective series, is attributed to George A. MacDonald (under the pseudonym Robert Wallace). But the Greenleaf Classics website attributes it to D.L. Champion. Which is right?--Rosab618 02:10, 26 December 2021 (EST)

Ask the editor who made the variant? Here is the history - Rtrace may still remember his reasoning. Annie 23:25, 30 December 2021 (EST)

How to Build a Better Robot by James Rollins/Clemens - merge question

It looks like the contents of the hc and tp of Crucible have been been entered separately, and so there are duplicates of the essay "How to Build a Better Robot". More accurately, there are quadruplicates, due to the book being attributed to a variant author name.

Rather than make a mess of this, could I query the correct way to merge these? My guess is that the two titles for the James Rollins should be merged first, ensuring that the correct parent ID reference is kept - 2679173 I think - and then merge the two titles for the James Clemens parent author. (Doing the titles for Clemens first would seem to have the risk of leaving one of the Rollins titles with an orphaned parent ID reference, albeit temporarily.)

However, one thing that concerns me is that the title merge page (tv_merge.cgi) doesn't give any explicit indication about which of the two IDs would be kept - I'm assuming it's the lowest and/or the one associated with the most "winning" fields when resolving the conflict, in which case 2671973 would indeed be correct (vs 2900726), but this all seems nebulous enough that it seemed safer to pose this question rather than stumble in blindly... ErsatzCulture 17:09, 30 December 2021 (EST)

As you noted, the two duplicates by Clemens should be merged as duplicates. Do this by clicking the Check for duplicates link while on his author page. There will be a few other possible duplicates listed, too, but ignore those for now. Check the boxes next to the two entries for "How to Build a Better Robot" and click the Merge Selected Records" button.

Once that's done, you can do the same for Rollins name. Once those are all merged and approved, you then variant the merged Rollins title to the merged Clemens title, leaving the Clemens title as the only one left, with the Rollins publications varianted to it. Please let me know if you have any questions. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:11, 30 December 2021 (EST)

The question is of the order here, not of how to do it :) It ultimately does not matter. The merge will preserve the lower ID -- so you can use that when selecting a parent for the merge of the variants (OR add a moderator note to ask the moderators to first approve the variants merge (submit it first, then use its ID in the notes for the second one in case someone works out of order - that's what I used to do when I could not approve my edits). Worst case scenario, the order gets messed up and something is force rejected - you can then resubmit later :) Annie 23:22, 30 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks both - a couple of edits are in the queue for this. ErsatzCulture 16:24, 31 December 2021 (EST)

Tags, duplicate and mispellings

I was looking through a database dump of the tags and noticed that there tags with mispellings like "Detectve" (id 11064) and near duplicates like "into movie" and "into-movie". Is there a standard for tag names and a process to report and or fix them? --Colink 22:20, 2 January 2022 (EST)

There is FR 911, "Allow moderators to edit and merge tags"; its comment section discusses some of the functional and technical issues involved. Also, this whole area can be tricky because one person's "obvious duplicate" can be another person's "subtle but important distinction" -- it was one the reasons why we originally made tags user-definable and not subject to the submission creation/approval process.

For now, moderators have the ability to remove clearly incorrect tags. If you notice any, please post on the Moderator Noticeboard and they will be removed. Ahasuerus 22:33, 2 January 2022 (EST)

C. H. Hung & Bruce Mcallister

I have a question. I have just finished reading the November-December 2021 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and it contains two stories of interest. One is by C. H. Hung and the other is by Bruce McAllister. Neither are genre, but should they be listed because of the authors? Lemme know. MLB 01:53, 3 January 2022 (EST)

IMO, the answer is no, unless the issue of the magazine is being included for some other reason. I don't know if others will disagree. #4 here says 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 (see below). This includes any non-genre works published as standalone books as well as non-genre short fiction, but excludes non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book. .... Assuming for the sake of argument that those authors are both above the "certain threshold", we would allow inclusion of the pieces. But #4 here says Works unrelated to speculative fiction that are found in primarily non-genre publication that will be cataloged based on other criteria, e.g. a Norton anthology of 19 century literature or a Playboy issue that include a single speculative story. This is done to avoid having to catalog huge amounts of non-SF data. It's not quite the same, but I think the "Norton anthology" example is relevant. Basically, non-genre anthologies are not "in" just because of an association with a genre author; by extension, that same treatment would apply to magazines. So if that issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine were "in" because it contained an SF story or an article/interview related to SF, then it would be acceptable to include those particular non-genre stories. But because the magazine is non-genre and the stories are non-genre, the presence of those stories is not sufficient for that issue to be "in". --MartyD 07:02, 3 January 2022 (EST)

Well, okay then, on to something else. Now I know. MLB 22:39, 3 January 2022 (EST)

re Cover Image Data

Hello to all,

I just can't remember : is it possible for a non-moderator to upgrade the Cover Image Data Web page (viz., to replace the previous scanner's name by his, and suppress the older versions) ? I thought I'd better check before telling off a contributor who never does, he might not be able to… TIA (and a Happy New Year to all, while I'm at it), Linguist 08:14, 3 January 2022 (EST).

A non-moderator can upload a new image & edit the page to replace the previous scanner's name. It depends by what you mean "suppress the older versions". If you upload a new version, that becomes the new version and the prior one is "hidden". If you mean delete the prior one, then, no, deletion of wiki pages is a moderator only function. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:31, 3 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks a lot ! That's all I needed to know (and what I thought as well) ! Linguist 04:40, 4 January 2022 (EST).

Adding a new collection

Very basic question. Been all through the Help areas without finding an answer, but maybe I missed something obvious.

If I'm adding an author's new collection, when do I add the existing stories that are already in ISFDB? Do I create the new collection without any stories and later get the opportunity to import the stories after the new title is approved by a moderator? I don't see any "import" possibility on the New Collection page.

Color me easily confused. I'm returning here after nearly a year away (because life happens) that was preceded by only a month or so that contained mistakes. Sfmvnterry 01:55, 4 January 2022 (EST) (Interested to see what happens with a "Watch this page" selection.)

Welcome back! :)

Yep, after the adding of the collection is approved, you can use our Import functionality to import the stories we have using their IDs. You cannot import during a creation (or an edit) - it is a separate page which requires the collection to be already in place. You can either add it as an empty one or you can add the stories/essays we do not have (if there are any).

The menu is called "Import Content" and here is the help page for it once you get to that point. Let me know if I can assist with anything else. :) Annie 11:02, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Thank you. Allow me to point out that as far as I can tell, nowhere in the help is this two-step process made clear. I did find the "Import Content" page in the process of trying to answer my question myself. Thanks again. Sfmvnterry 18:02, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Some of the help pages are old and there is always the "we know that" bias when help pages are written. Looking for the most logical place for this: Will it help if we include a note/subsection about the Import option here? Annie 18:06, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Good point. I have updated that Help section -- could you please take a look to see if it makes sense? Ahasuerus 21:58, 4 January 2022 (EST)

I think that it is clear enough. We probably need something similar for the Edit page help as well but that’s a good start. We may want to template part of these two pages - too much repetition so a chance to easily get out of sync. Annie 22:07, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Done. Unfortunately, the EditPub scenario was so different that the same language could not be shared by the two Help pages. Ahasuerus 12:47, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Yep - that is why I said similar and did not just copy it over :) Looks good to me - we can always adjust if needed. Thanks for taking care of it. Annie 12:53, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Here's a vote from a newbie agreeing that the update looks helpful. Sfmvnterry 22:58, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Awesome. :) Thanks for pointing the problem out! Annie 10:39, 5 January 2022 (EST)

The em-dash swamp (redux)

I'm PVing [11] and ran across the story Golden the Ship Was — Oh! Oh! Oh!. The title page for the story doesn't have spaces around the em-dash, which is in conflict with publication entry. Help for 'title' [12] indicates there shouldn't be surrounding spaces. Is this a rathole to avoid, or something I should attempt to submit an edit for?

Has this query been lost, or is the lack of input a hint to let sleeping dogs lie. --GlennMcG 15:11, 14 December 2021 (EST)

Perhaps it's more like Fight Club. --GlennMcG 15:34, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Just holidays. :) Technically m-dash's punctuation is well defined in the rules so if you submit a change, it will be approved. Now - do you want to go down that rabbit hole - have fun. That may be something we may want to do a report on actually and clean up a bit more systematically (or discuss a change in the rules). Annie 16:08, 4 January 2022 (EST)

Checking the database, I see that we have 7156 titles with an em-dash. Of that number, 4316, or 60%, have at least one adjacent space. For Publication records, the numbers are 548 and 329, i.e. also 60%.

Given the discrepancy between Template:PublicationFields:Title, which says:

• Em-dashes should be entered directly adjacent to the words on both sides

and the predominant practice, we may want to have a Rules and Standards discussion to determine which way we want to take it. Once we have consensus, we can update Help and create two cleanup reports, one for Title records and one for Publication records. Ahasuerus 16:51, 4 January 2022 (EST)

As Tomorrow Becomes Today / Sullivan

I'm trying to fix/complete the edits I made on the anthology As Tomorrow Becomes Today. The publication uses the author spelling of 'Charles Wm. Sullivan III' everywhere in/on the book. I normalize this to 'Charles Wm. Sullivan, III' as per rules. The section essays in the book are titled, but not given a separate author attribution.

Should I be attacking this from the title record, or the publication? I believe that I'll need to create variant titles pointing at the canonic author 'C. W. Sullivan, III', but I need some guidance on what order to proceed in. Thanks. --GlennMcG 15:44, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Title record. The essays only appear in the tp and hc editions of this book. It is likely the hc used the same credits as the tp. The current essays are credited to Charles W. Sullivan. You can just edit the title records to change to Charles Wm. Sullivan, III. This will change them in both publications. They are already varianted to the canonical name so you don't need to variant. Hope I explained that clearly enough... -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:17, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Edits are in. Now all that's left is whether the section essays should be copied to the hc pub. The clone (from tp, I believe) was done before they were added to the tp. --GlennMcG 00:54, 8 January 2022 (EST)

Help with Cover Art automatically misattributed to an author

Hello, I entered the Cover Art data with the name "Laura Fernandez" in my two pubs: Firewing and Sunwing, without an accent, and both entries added the accent and attributed it to Fernández 272892. Could someone help replacing these links to the correct artist: Fernandez 272875 please? Or let me know how I can do it, thank you. -Kapotun 00:29, 9 January 2022 (EST)

To differentiate the two, we have the artist entered as 'Laura Fernandez (artist)'. We do this to avoid listings of titles in the entry for an author or artist that don't belong there (for example, we have four different David Williams). So, you just need to enter 'Laura Fernandez (artist)' in the publication entries and the system will list it in the correct author summary. Stonecreek 07:52, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Got it, thanks. I'll submit the edits for approval then. -Kapotun 14:41, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Previously published version not in database

In Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob", the foreword "Behind-ForeEverAfterword: Sects and Death", by William S. Burroughs, was first published in 1979 as just "Sects and Death" in Burroughs' collection Roosevelt After Inauguration and Other Atrocities, not in the db. Do I date the version in Three-Fisted Tales of "Bob" to 1979, or not, because it's not the original title?--Rosab618 03:00, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Nope. But you can add the missing book and the missing title - that will have the original date and become a parent for the story we have now. Stories are dated based on when they are first published under that title and author form :) Unless that falls under the “better known as” rule and the story we have become the parent - then it will get dated based on first occurrence under any title. Annie 03:27, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Okay, I did.--Rosab618 03:43, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Box set of the Lord of the Rings (and the Hobbit)

Trying to figure out the best way to add this publication. It has a separate ISBN (inferred from 23523-1) 0-345-23523-1. There's no separate title on the box, so I assume that I should give the main title as the individual titles separated by ' / '.

Should I add the titles during the 'add omnibus', or import them later?

The artwork on the box is various labeled illustration elements (heraldry?) from JRRT. For example, Elwe, Luthen Tinvviel, Finwe. Add as cover art?

Is the format of the omnibus the format of the books within?

--GlennMcG 21:48, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Yes for the title - use the "/" separator if the box does not have its own title.

Import the novels later (add in the moderator note of the new Omnibus that you are going to do that). Although you may want to check the existing omnibuses - if there is one with the title as you need it, clone from it thus eliminating the need to variant/merge and import later :)

Yes for the box art (that's the cover of the omnibus) and the format (the books format inside of it determine the overall format). Add in the notes that it is a boxset. Did I get everything? Annie 21:59, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Hmmmm. All the boxed sets are titled 'The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings', except for one titled Tolkien, which happens to be a latter printing of mine. (Same box). Thoughts? --GlennMcG 02:12, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Up to you. :) You can also call it Tolkien if you want (based on the cover image) or go for the / standard - these kinds of boxes are a bit ambiguous. Annie 10:45, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Help page for novel->novella conversion incorrect or outdated?

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race is a novella per Twitter; confirmed by Kobo reporting 40k words for the ebook (which presumably includes copyright page text, etc). As this title has 2 pubs (ebook and tp), I followed the instructions at Help:How_to_convert_a_novel_to_a_chapbook#Special_Instructions_.28Titles_with_more_than_one_publication_record.29.

I have submitted an edit to convert the title from NOVEL to SHORTFICTION/novella per items #2 & 3. Item #4 says I can proceed to edit the pub records from NOVEL to CHAPBOOK as "You do not have to wait for moderation before proceeding to the next step."

The next step appears to be editing the pub records as per Help:How_to_convert_a_novel_to_a_chapbook#Special_Instructions_.28Titles_with_more_than_one_publication_record.29, but skipping item #3. However, after adding a new CHAPBOOK record to the contents (per item #4), and hitting submit, I get a Javascript alert popup stating "ANTHOLOGY, COLLECTION, NONFICTION, NOVEL, and OMNIBUS titles are not allowed within CHAPBOOK publications."

I'm sure I'd be able to progress once my first edit to the title record is accepted by a mod, but unless I'm missing something or have made an error, the sentence about not having to wait for moderation should be removed or altered? ErsatzCulture 16:45, 12 January 2022 (EST)

The software got updated, the help page was forgotten. Back in the days, you could indeed add pretty much any type to any record - thus allowing easier conversions. The result was exactly what you would expect. So a few years ago, a few cleanup reports were created so we can clean all publications with weird types in them and the software was updated not to allow weird combinations.

Your edit is approved so you can go and fix these - apparently my hunch on the length being iffy was correct on this one. :) I will fix the help page. Annie 17:15, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Done. Let me know if that reads ok. Thanks for finding the issue! :) Annie 17:19, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks - I think your edit covers what I reported, but I think there's another issue with that page...

In Help:How_to_convert_a_novel_to_a_chapbook#Publication_Record_Edit_Only_.28Titles_with_a_single_publication.29, having the note about changing the title subtype to novella/novelette/short story at #9 strongly implies that this should be done for the CHAPBOOK contents, given that is what had been referred to in the preceding steps #4-8. Surely this should be done for the existing contents record that was converted from NOVEL to SHORTFICTION in step #3? As such, it might be better to move the current #9 item up to be #4, and/or explicitly state that the subtype is for that record, not the CHAPBOOK one? (And update the subsequent section for cases where there are multiple pubs accordingly.) I'll happily edit the page if someone can sanity check my thinking. ErsatzCulture 17:27, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Let me finish an anthology I am trying not to lose track of and I will look at that order in there :) Annie 17:32, 12 January 2022 (EST)

I think I got it. Moved to Step 4. And added down in the special instruction as well (and then you will skip steps 3 and 4). Let me know if I missed something. Annie 17:58, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Variant interviews

I have two interview records with alternate-name authors as interviewee (like here). How do I variant these records, so that they show up under the author's canonical name? MagicUnk 11:17, 14 January 2022 (EST)

You don't - you use the canonical name AND add a note on what names is used - it is a software limitation. See the help page: "Interviewee - The canonical name of the person being interviewed, whether or not it matches the form(s) of the name used in the interview." :) Annie 11:21, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Duplicate ISBN numbers

Hi Annie. As you moderate a lot of my edits, I'll let you know. I just submitted a cloned version of the ebook "The Very Best of Barry N. Malzberg". I was very surprised to see the "Duplicate ISBN" message. I checked, and there is a duplicate ISBN for both the current ebook version (just submitted) and Silverberg's "Lord of Darkness" (2012), which are both on Nonstop Press. I assume one is a typo, and I just sent an email to Nonstop to see if I can find out what the actual story is. I'll update if I can find out which one is incorrect, assuming that is what is going on. At worst, if this is a fatal problem, I can resubmit the clone request after I know what the correct ISBNs are here. Thanks.Dave888 13:33, 17 January 2022 (EST)

Might be a typo, might also be Nonstop Press being weird and actually printing/using the same one (won't be for the first time - even the major publishers had done it now and again). Document where the source of the ISBN is and we are all set. No need to cancel it - it will get handned and note written if needed. Annie 17:48, 19 January 2022 (EST)

Sequence for editing a magazine issue with no content

This is my first attempt at this sort of thing, so I apologize for my ignorance.

I subscribe to Galaxy's Edge and noticed that issues of the magazine have been neglected at isfbd since the January 2020 issue. So I thought I would update/add issues to get them current. The first one (the January 2020 issue) has an entry but no content. The process for updating this seems somewhat convoluted, but perhaps that is unavoidable (I lack the knowledge to judge).

My main question is, what is the best/correct sequence for doing all the necessary steps?

I assume that the first step is to either edit the entry to add missing content, OR import content that already exists (using Option 2). The magazine has both new and reprint short fiction. I get the impression that it is better to import the reprints rather than merge them after the fact, but I could have that wrong. If this is true, then I should do both (add & import) in two seperate actions. Another question relating to this is, should I wait for one action (adding content OR importing content) to get approved by a moderator before proceeding to the other? Or is it safe to have both the Edits and Imports in queue for the same entry at the same time? And does it matter which one I do first?

In addition to the Edit and Import actions, I also have to do several things (I assume these all come after the above edit action has been moderator approved):

- Apparently I need to enter this poem as if it is a new entry during the above edit process, because in this case the author, Mike Resnick, used a facetious pseudonym (Mike Wadsworth Resnick) which has not been used before (at least in the isfbd records). Then I turn that new entry into a variation of the original poem. And perhaps I also connect the pseudonym to the canonical author? I am not clear on this process yet. The rules here are a bit too voluminous to digest in one go.

- I also need to turn an English translation of a Romanian story into a variant after first creating it as a new entry during the above edit, and then add the translators into the notes on the variant after the variant has been moderator approved.

- And I need to connect book reviews in the magazine to the entries of the books being reviewed.

- And I need to connect essays that are part of a series to the existing series.

It seems that none of these steps are automated. The only automated part I noticed is the connecting of new stories to the existing author record if one exists.

One other thing I am a little vague on is how I indicate that all this data comes from a Primary Source (printed copy in my possession). Do I just put something to that effect in the publication notes, or is there something of a standard of how I should indicate this. I see no box on the edit page for the magazine issue to check regarding the nature of my source.

My apologies for being both long winded and ignorant, but please correct me where I am wrong. In time I will get past the initial learning curve.

Daffodil11 17:31, 19 January 2022 (EST)

Welcome to ISFDB!

Yep, you got the steps correctly. :) First add the stories - either via import (existing) or Edit Publication (new ones). Then once it is approved:

• Do all needed variants - for translations, other names being used, other titles being used and so on
• Add the series to all essays that need them
• Connect the reviews which did not auto-connect.If the title and author of the review matches a title we have, it WILL autoconnect. If it does not, it needs to be done manually

You indicate that you have the book/magazine by either doing a primary verification (open the magazine and look in the left menu for the verification option) or if you would rather not do it until the magazine is complete, add a note in the moderator's note to tell us so we know when processing.

You can have import and edit submitted at the same time if you want to (or multiple imports). But you cannot have two edits as they will step on each other toe's.

Magazines tend to be the hardest thing to work on in this DB so... yeah, it can be a bit convoluted. Once you do a couple, it makes a lot more sense. So just try it - and if something goes wrong, all is fixable. :) Annie 17:45, 19 January 2022 (EST)

Best Cover Scan Attributes?

I want to upload a new cover scan http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?222057 Is there a desirable resolution, color depth setting that works well for the purpose, or a target file size that works well? I looked around the FAQs and other places, did a search, but nothing really bubbled up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bccrowe (talk • contribs) .

Personally, I scan at 300 dpi and keep the image, but upload a reduction to 600 pixels in the longest dimension. I've not really fussed about details like color matching (beyond it appearing roughly correct) since I was doing older books (50's-80's) and I've no guarantee that they even are their original colour, given aging and exposure to sunlight, chemicals and such. ../Doug H 12:29, 20 January 2022 (EST)

The ISFDB Wiki software prevents editors from uploading files which are too large. In addition, Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki says:

• Please be sure that the image is no larger than required, and in any case is less than 600 pixels along its largest dimension, if at all possible. You may wish to crop or rescale the image.

Also, unless the image is in public domain, we have to comply with the copyright laws of the country where the ISFDB servers are located (USA at the moment.) To quote Template:Cover Image Data:

• This resolution is significantly reduced, and could not plausibly be used to make publishable copies of the original.

In many cases the Wiki-imposed limitation on file size takes care of this issue automatically -- you'd need to upload a really big file to get to the "publishable copy" level of fidelity. Ahasuerus 13:14, 20 January 2022 (EST)

Oops!

I accidently listed the animal fantasy The Gentlest Purr as The Deepest Growl. Is there any way I can change the title, or do I have to do this listing all over again? MLB 10:15, 22 January 2022 (EST)

You can edit the pub to change the pub title. To change the content title, go to the title record and unmerge it from the others. Then there will be a single record that you can edit to change its title. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:22, 22 January 2022 (EST)

Disambiguated Author

I entered the contents of the May 2020 issue of Galaxy's Edge magazine, and one of the stories entered displayed the warning "Disambiguated Author" because there are two isfdb entries under the name Eric Miller. So I confirmed that the entry ended up under the correct author Eric Miller by finding proof on the author's website. Now that I know that the story is correctly connected to its author, do I do anything with that knowledge by noting this somewhere or just leave it as is? Daffodil11 15:18, 22 January 2022 (EST)

You can certainly edit the title record and add that the attribution to the correct "Eric Miller" was confirmed by consulting the author's Web site. Notes and references to external sources are always good :-) Ahasuerus 16:16, 22 January 2022 (EST)

William Llewellyn

I have noticed the name Llew appearing as illustrator, 1956-58, for the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. At the same time Llewellyn was a prolific artist for the same company. Could they be the same person? MLB 21:10, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I have since found out that they are the same. Well, another project to keep me busy in the future. MLB 22:07, 30 January 2022 (EST)

Learning the Ropes

Hi, folks. I'm very new here. I submitted info about a short story of mine that was published in a magazine called Harpur Palate. JLaTondre wrote back and welcomed me, and said they'd list the US price in a different way because it's a British publication. But it's not -- it was a student magazine published by the English Department of Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. I didn't see a way to hit "reply" and say that to JLaTondre, or a way to contact that person by clicking on the name and going to the home page. Is there a way to respond directly to a message, or send someone a new message here? Also, I'm looking at the HelpGettingStarted info, or whatever it is called ... and it tells one how to enter info about a book. I do not see a way to enter info about a magazine -- info dumbed down for a new user like me in the same way. I also had a story in a small British magazine (that one really is from the UK!) called Auslander. It was a horror/SF magazine, but I do not see copies for sale on Amazon. I'm wondering how to submit a picture of the cover art -- do I need to find a color scanner and create a jpg? Should I scan the whole magazine and send it as a pdf, so other writers in it can be included in ISFDB?

Thanks -- Judy

I've added some info to your record recently; a photo of you, your birthplace, the cover of the Harpur Palate issue you were in (I also added the artist who did the creepy cover and added the $8.83 price), the cover of the 1996 Keen! Science Fiction issue you were in, and a German cover for the 1989 Star Trek novel you wrote. Hope all this helps flesh out your record a bit more. If you could enter the month and day of your birthdate that would be good. Also, don't forget to sign your notes here at the end by clicking the icon above ("Your signature with timestamp"). --Username 10:41, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I had to reject your Harpur Palate, Summer 2003 edit. We do not add covers or cover artists for non-genre magazines. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2022 (EST)

To begin entering a magazine you only have to click 'Add New Magazine' in the left tool bar (under 'Add New Data'). However, your edit will benefit from reading the help screen on New Pubs first (and maybe looking into indexed magazines also). Anyway, you'll have to add a not-yet-existing magazine or fanzine first, before it's possible to upload a cover image. Stonecreek 13:02, 25 January 2022 (EST)

D'oh! Sorry about that. Somehow, I read that as Birmingham and not Binghamton. I have fixed the publication record. Thank you for letting us know. To respond to a message on your talk page, you can click the "edit" on the far right of the message title on your talk page. To post a new message to a specific user, you can click on their name in the signature line of the message which will take you to their user page. You then click the "discussion" link at the top of that page to get to the talk page and then click the "+" link at the top of the talk page to start a new discussion. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:51, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I figured the cover would have to go; I thought maybe it would slip by, being disturbing and all. The artist, who has no credits on ISFDB, is an interesting guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hovancsek. I suppose the only way the cover would be acceptable is if it illustrated Klass' story, so if she responds here, maybe she'll let us know her story involves CREEPY MANNIKINS. --Username 20:07, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Entering the parts of an incomplete serialization

The weekly newspaper Vilas County News began serializing Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet when their issues were 8 pages long, but they only managed to get 7 parts of it printed (ending somewhere after the beginning of Chapter XI).

• Should I enter these 7 parts as SERIALs anyway, or should I just add a note to the title page?
• If I should enter the parts, should they be called "Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet (Part 1 of ?)" with a question mark, or just "Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet (Part 1)"?
• And as an aside, what about the subtitle—should these be called "Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet; or, A Voyage to the Planet Mars (Part...)" instead?

Thanks! Sylvar 10:20, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Yes, they should be entered as serials. If you know how many were planned (for example, it was advertised as a specific number), I would use "(Part 1 of #)". If you do not, then use "(Part 1 of ?)". Either way, I would add notes to the serial title records and the novel title record explaining it was not completed. As for the title, it should be entered as per the magazine. If they used the subtitle, it should be included. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:15, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Connecting a new magazine issue & essay series inconsistencies

I created an entry for an issue of Galaxy's Edge magazine that was not in isfdb (until now I only added content to preexisting issues that had no content listed). I don't know how the new issue gets attached to the series. What did I do wrong during the initial "Add New Magazine" step, or is this something that is done in a multistep process. Also, when I get to 2022 issues, what do I do to create a year sub-list for the magazine?

Also, I am not sure what to do with the name of an essay series that has become inconsistent regarding the use of the articles "A" and "The." A Scientist's Notebook written by Gregory Benford spent over a decade as an essay series at F&SF, and from what I can tell from the issues I have, was consistently published as "A Scientist's Notebook." The series resurfaced at Galaxy's Edge and continued to be published as "A Scientist's Notebook." Use of the "A" in the series title has become unstable in the past couple of years. Here is a list of the recent inconsistencies in issues of Galaxy's Edge:

2020 September has "The" on essay page & the Table of Contents (TOC).

2020 November goes back to "A" in both places

2021 January has "The" in the TOC and no reference to the series on the essay page, but it is a reprint from F&SF, so I plan to import it in my next step in creating the issue entry.

2021 March & May both use "A" on the essay pages and TOCs.

2021 July has "The" in the TOC but "A" on the essay page

2021 September has "The" in the TOC but "A" on the essay page

2021 November has "The" on both TOC and essay page.

2022 January has "The" on both TOC and essay page.

So it looks like the editor after Mike Resnick was inconsistent from Sept 2020 to Sept 2021, and is perhaps settling into using "The," although that is uncertain given it has only been 2 consecutive issues using "The." While I can add notes to point out some of the recent inconsistencies, what should be done if the editor sticks with "The" when the series has years and years under the series name "A Scientist's Notebook?" And if I am making a change that affects the whole series, when should I decide that the change to "The" is permanent?

A third question was just answered by the previous inquiry. I will use (part 1 of ?) because the serial is in progress and I don't know how many parts there will be.

Daffodil11 14:52, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Document in notes in the issues where it is different and stick all of them in the "A ..." series. Problem solved. Add a note in the series notes as well about the change. :)

PS: By the way: the two essays with common name in that issue NEED disambiguation ("Fantasy & Technology" should be "Fantasy & Technology (Galaxy's Edge, January 2021)" and the same for Recommended Books :) Annie 15:16, 26 January 2022 (EST)

The other two questions: it should be "(Part 1 of ?)" - see the capitalization.

For the year entry - edit the EDITOR record - this one to change its title and date (to be 2022-00-00) and to add the series. That's it. Any additional questions - post back please :) Annie 15:19, 26 January 2022 (EST)

PS: And you need to connect the two reviews that did not connect. That happens when the review title is different from the actual title. Open the review and look at the left menu. There is a "Link Review" menu item. Use the ID of the title it reviews. :) Annie 15:20, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Order of contents appearance

The last review in a review column and the beginning of an essay are both on the same page (78), so when I visit the page where the contents are displayed SOMETIMES the last review is listed after the essay even though the review appears first on the page. Though I don't suppose it is much of a problem, it looks awkward due to the leading space before "Review." Is there a way to force this to display in the correct order? Note (in case either of these is a factor) that I imported the essay after the reviews were in place and I have Concise Listing as my default. Daffodil11 18:10, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Yes, you can use piping to do that. See "Sorting" at Template:PubContentFields:Page for how it works. Let us know if you have any questions after reading that (as well as answering them, it will help to know if we need to improve the documentation). -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:23, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks, it was reasonably clear. I just got too lazy to try to find the answer before asking here. I have found it difficult at times to find answers to questions I have had, resulting in lengthy searches. And often I know I have read something about a topic before but I can't remember where I read it and it can take some time to find it again. It has occurred to me that something like an index similar to what one might find in the back of a book might be useful here. I realize there is a search function, but the results can be frustratingly unhelpful. I'm not sure if such an index is feasible, or if it would be as helpful as I imagine. But it is a thought (by someone who has admittedly no experience in the topic). Daffodil11 19:21, 26 January 2022 (EST)

We kinda have a main help page which is linked from the main wiki page - usually one of the linked pages will get you to what you are looking for unless you are deep in the weeds somewhere on an interesting problem.

A little tip - look at the question marks next to each field on the EditPub/AddPub and other pages. Hover over them for a quick tip. If you click on them, they will get you to the help page for that specific field in more details - and 90% of the help pages you need will be the ones linked that way :) For the contents section (where this thing was located), the question marks are on the first row of them - there is one on the page number, there is one on the title, one on the author and so on. There is also always a full page help linked at the top of any edit page. Hope that makes sense. Not that we cannot do better of course - and if you think we need to add something to that main page, please share. Also - the links the welcoming moderator posted on your own Talk page in the very first message are curated to give you quick access to the main pages for a lot of help areas. Annie 19:30, 26 January 2022 (EST)

If you want to know areas where I found the help pages in need of improvement, here are two things that I remember spending too much time trying to find/figure out:

• How to add a new issue of a magazine (see my help desk post just before this one). I clicked on the http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Help:ScreenList and then on the "New Magazine" link. Nowhere did I find anything about having to edit the Editor Title, as a second step or otherwise. Additionally, even if I had stumbled my way to that page, the help templates linked through the question marks are so generic as to be of no help in this case. For instance, Template:TitleFields:Title does not mention that I should use a “Magazine Name - Year” format. Template:TitleFields:Date mentions nothing about using a ####-00-00 date. And Template:TitleFields:Series does not even have the word magazine in it. So eventually I posted my question here and you (Annie) were very helpful. I suppose I might have eventually figured things out after study of existing entries, but the help system was decidedly unhelpful in this case. Maybe there are explanations for these somewhere but I was not able to find them.
• Checking with other primary verifiers before changing data for a publication that they verified. I had read something about this while researching how to do my first edit (Galaxy's Edge, January 2020), but it did not apply to anything I was doing at the time. Then when I got to the July 2020 issue, I noticed that the ebook had been primary verified, but I could not remember what I had read about editing things that alter other primary verified publications. I checked in Help:Screen:Verify & Help:Screen:EditPub & Help:Getting_Started but could find no mention of this. Eventually I found discussions regarding this in archived Help Desk entries. For all I know, this is something that does not apply any more, but my impression is that I am supposed to check with other primary verifiers before changing data and notify other verifiers when adding data. Am I wrong? If not, maybe something about this needs to be added to the Help:Screen:EditPub, or maybe it is already there but I just could not find it.

In a related question, what is the proper procedure or proper etiquette regarding checking with the primary verifier? If, for instance, I post a message on their talk page and I know they are still active (and even notice that they have been active in the days since my post), how long to I wait for a response? And when said waiting period has elapsed, how do I proceed? Try to "email this user" or just make the changes or something else? I certainly don't want to step on toes, particularly as a newbie.

Daffodil11 21:44, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Will look at the rest in the morning (done for the day - unless someone else posts) but for PVs and waiting time - depends on the change - for changes which remove/change major information - a week and if they do not respond, post on the Moderator board so we can assist. See the FAQ page on that (and other things). For adding information - notify and submit is the usual policy - no need to wait. For typos and housekeeping changes - just the moderator note may be enough but notifying is never a mistake. Email can work but we have issues with some mail servers so some members may not receive them (and mail is not mandatory and you can opt out so if you want to try that as well, do that but don’t rely on it).

PS: Part of your difficulty is because you just started walking and are now competing in a marathon at the Olympics. The magazines can be entertaining (or brutal) - they make a lot more sense in comparison to the rest of the DB and not as a starting point but we will get there - just be patient and don’t hesitate to ask. Annie 22:18, 26 January 2022 (EST)

I probably ran into the PV notification stuff on the FAQ page and also in JLaTondre's welcome message on my talk page, but as mentioned, I could not remember where I read it when I wanted to read it again. Now it seems obvious after you pointed me to both locations. I just looked in the wrong places, which is why I mentioned the index idea in response to JLaTondre. I hope I have not come across as complaining about how things work around here. I have tremendous gratitude for all the work people have put into isfdb and I have no right to complain. Its just that JLaTondre asked about how documentation could be improved, and I thought I could offer the viewpoint of the ignorant. And that I most certainly am. And I feel even more obtuse now, because I just discovered the How to add a magazine issue to the magazine's issue gridand How to link a magazine to its wiki page and add it to a magazine series pages. I suppose I would have found them sooner if they had been linked to the places I did look. Maybe that is the only useful input I really have on this topic. Daffodil11 00:59, 27 January 2022 (EST)

That last page is a bit out of date actually - we are migrating stuff out from the wiki and into the DB proper. :) I’ll see what I can do about it later this week. Happens now and again with older projects that get out of sync with current practices. And no worries - it is a big project and getting lost happens even when you had been here for a long time. All feedback is valuable - especially from new editors. Can we make it easier? Probably not - but we may be able to add some links here and there to assist. :) You are more likely to get in trouble for not asking a question than for asking why so don’t sweat it. Annie 01:12, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Number line question

Hi. I have a publication with 'D 0 9 8' as printer's key here. I'm assuming this is the eighth printing, but anyone knows what that 'D' means? Thanks! MagicUnk 09:19, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Many times, I've seen that refer to the printer who printed that particular run. It's possible that refers to RR Donnelley, though I often see that one as RRD. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:06, 27 January 2022 (EST)

"C.S. Friedman" author record

Spotted this author record with an empty bibliography just now - shouldn't it be either varianted to the "proper" C. S. Friedman entry or deleted? Or is it serving some arcane purpose beyond my understanding? ErsatzCulture 18:33, 27 January 2022 (EST)

The record that created it needs to be fixed. When it looks like that, there is a review somewhere with the Reviewed author using that form so you need to find it via search and fix the record. Fixed now. :) Annie 18:41, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Title record edit not propagating to publications within

I submitted edit [13] to remove the series from a its title. It was approved. However, the publications within have not had their titles updated, even though the tool tip for 'title' indicates that they should. Thoughts? --GlennMcG 20:09, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Glenn, The tool tip is telling you that any publication which contains this title will be affected. What kind of publication might contain this title? Omnibus and collection immediatedly come to mind. If this novel was in either, you would see the change. Clearly, you were hoping this change would propagate to the underlying publications contained in this title. Sadly, You will have to submit an edit for each publication. John Scifibones 21:48, 27 January 2022 (EST)

There may be a terminological issue here. When this submission was approved, the title of the title record was changed from "The Great War: American Front" to "American Front". If you check any of the publication records which contain this title records, e.g. the first edition, you will note that the Contents section now says "3 • American Front • [The Great War] • novel by Harry Turtledove". However, if you examine the first line of the same Web page, you will see that it still says "Publication: The Great War: American Front". So the change did affect every publication which has this title record in it, but it didn't change the titles of the publication records. Hope this makes sense. Ahasuerus 21:59, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Perhaps if it stated what was going to change in the publication record, it would have been clearer. I reread the tool tip, and thought I could read the linked article for more information about what changed in the publication record, but I couldn't find anything. My guess is the referral is for earlier in the tool tip. --GlennMcG 23:51, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Can I assume that it works the same way for interior art and covers? --GlennMcG 01:41, 28 January 2022 (EST)

What's still is to do, is to change the titles of the single publications: the container title of the novel was changed (you'll see that when you edit one of the publications), but the title of the respective publication the container title appears in wasn't. John's example for a possible OMNIBUS publication is well chosen: if the change of a novel's title would propagate to the OMNIBUS that one's title would be changed, but is most likely quite different. Stonecreek 02:30, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Re: your question 'Can I assume that it works the same way for interior art and covers?'; well, no: you usually need edit those titles only once, because they should only appear inside of publications, not as stand-alone publications / container titles. Stonecreek 02:33, 28 January 2022 (EST)

The basic rule is that once created, each element is on its own - cover, title record and a publication record. If you need to change all of them, they need to be updated separately (sometimes possible via a single PubEdit (if used in only one publication), sometimes requiring PubEdit and a few TitleEdits - and that list of updates will need to include any title where the old title was used as part of the name (introductions, interior art and so on). During the AddPub phase, you enter one title and we reuse it for the 2 (or 3 if you have a cover) elements but that is just a behind-the-scenes reusing - we create 2 (or 3) separate elements). Changing one of them later on does not change any of the others. Annie 10:37, 28 January 2022 (EST)

What criteria is used to have more than one publication use the same cover title record? Is it a side effect of cloning a different publication? Or a merge? --GlennMcG 18:41, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Clone, import of the cover or a merge after a separate record was created. There are two different things to account for when you have a cover:

• The link to the image - that one will be different for each printing/edition (or can be anyway - usually a good idea to be in case there are slight variations and for ISFDB hosted images to ensure that one update does not wipe out the cover on all editions.
• The COVERART record - this one will be the same for all books that have the same image on the cover and the same language, title and author - if one of these three is different, it will be a variant instead. So if Book A and Book B have the same image on their cover, there will be two different COVERART entries (due to the different title) and we will variant the later to the earlier one. But if the 1998 edition of Book A and the 2020 Edition of the same book uses the same image (regardless if the colors are changed or what kind of writing is there on the cover or if the image is inverted and so on), we merge the COVERART records. See this record for an example - same image across languages and titles so we varianted it. At the same time all versions of this one stay as one entry despite the change in the cover because the image is the same (even if one of them are inverted and one of them is just part of the image -- ignore the ones that show the Apple+ thingie here - these are using /P/ Amazon images which are ISBN-based and need fixing - they are the same cover as the others - we just have a bad link now).

Let me know if I can assist further. Annie 19:00, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Gerin the Fox series

The Gerin the Fox series is numbered with a mixture of the original first two novels in separate and revised combined form. Is there a convention on how this should be recorded? There's also a problem with the later ebook versions that indicate 'Werenight', when almost certainly they should link to 'Werenight (revised)' title record.

My suggestion would be to number the first versions 1.1 and 1.2, and the revised 1, and renumber from that point. Or is there a better approach? --GlennMcG 19:41, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Recording translator(s) for translated collections

I see that a collection I added a few months ago is showing up in the "Translations without the Tr Template in Notes" cleanup report. Naively I'd have thought that for translated collections (or anthologies), the translator notes would only really need to go with the records for the individual shortfiction/essay/etc contents [*] - especially in cases like this one where multiple translators are involved? If the translator(s) have to go in the collection/anthology note, then you'd have to leave it undefined about which contents were translated by which translators (which seems a bit unhelpful), or explicitly match them up - which could make the note overly complicated, and only duplicates stuff which is (or should be) recorded in the shortfiction/essay records?

I did have a look to see how this was handled in the only other translated collection I could think of off the top of my head, but that doesn't have a title note, and looks in any case like it would get cropped off the report due to not being in the first 500 records alphabetically.

[* - This particular example is somewhat moot, as it doesn't currently have the contents added. I actually have the UK ebook of this pub, but I've avoided submitting the details as yet, because it looks a bit messy and requiring a fair bit of research e.g. the essays don't have a translator credited, but it's unclear at first glance if these are original to the English publications, or they were translated by the original author (which seems possible as I think he grew up in the US). I'll get round to doing all that if/when this book escapes from my TBR pile...] ErsatzCulture 09:27, 29 January 2022 (EST)

It's best I think to put something like Template(diverse hands) or Template(various hands) into the notes, at least that's how I do handle those cases. Christian Stonecreek 09:51, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks - that seems a decent way of addressing the issue. ErsatzCulture 11:32, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Amanda Luzzader / A. M. Luzzader

I’ve entered the fiction of Amanda Luzzader onto this site, but I’ve just found out that she has written a whole score of children’s books as A. M. Luzzader. These are not picture books, but text books for 3-8 year-old girls. Are they eligible for this site? MLB 23:13, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Yes. The only age related restriction we have is that we exclude "Animal books for very young children, i.e. books for preschoolers which depict simple scenes from animal life featuring anthropomorphized animals". Those don't fall into that category so they are eligible. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:20, 30 January 2022 (EST)

Potter's Field Anthologies

Should these three be in a title series? (different editors, different publishers, so surely no pub series, right?) MagicUnk 11:09, 31 January 2022 (EST)

They all have the same subtitle, so I assume that they are in a series. It would be nice to add volumes 1, 2, 3 and 6 as well. Ahasuerus 15:49, 31 January 2022 (EST)

Any suggestion on what the series title should be. 'Potter's Field', or, 'Tales from Unmarked Graves' (I've selected Potter's Field for now)? MagicUnk 13:50, 1 February 2022 (EST)

Mike Sirota

I was wondering if Mike Sirota is an over-the-threshold author, as he has written Stone Woman: Winema and the Modocs, his lone historical. Should I list it? Or just move on? MLB 22:54, 2 February 2022 (EST)

My recommendation: don't waste your time entering non-spec fic - at all :) MagicUnk 08:37, 3 February 2022 (EST)

Well, as you know, that's why the "over-the-threshold" rule was invented. That's why we list the non-spec fiction of authors like Fredric Brown, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and others. MLB 11:32, 3 February 2022 (EST)

If you add it, it won't be against the rules. I would not add it - simply because I do not see a value in having these in the DB at all (yes, even for our authors) but the consensus and the rule is that we allow them so if you add it, just make sure you mark it as a "non-genre". On the other hand, having complete bibliographies of "our" authors is a good thing (we may be the only ones having them considering how many things we list). So go ahead and add it if you want. :) Annie 14:10, 3 February 2022 (EST)

As far as I know, Mike Sirota is primarily a genre author, so there should be no issue with adding his one non-SF novel to the database.

Personally, I find these kinds of non-genre additions useful. If we don't include them, then our users won't know whether the "missed" novel(s) is missing because we were not aware of it or because it was non-genre. Ahasuerus 17:14, 3 February 2022 (EST)

An argument may be made that we would want all borderline novels/stories and non-genre horror as well then for the same reason - so it is clear that we have looked at them and determined they are not ours as opposed to never having seen them. But that opens a rather big conversation.

We really need the ability to indicate on a profile if an author is genre/above threshold or not - it is confusing now for almost anyone finding the DB why we would allow some non-genre books but not others. No need for a default value - sometimes we may not know - but when we do, we should be able to set that somewhere (and I know we can use the notes but... we need a template then and having a better indication that a note buried among other notes makes more sense to me. That may also reopen the question on what we consider genre authors, who needs to be above threshold and get these squared away in a better way. :) Annie 18:16, 3 February 2022 (EST)

Well, we do have FR 860, "Add a 'non-genre' field to Author records", which would address this issue. If there is support for making it higher priority, it could be pushed closer to the top of the list. Ahasuerus 19:02, 3 February 2022 (EST)

Talking of priorities made me look for the current plan from 2017. Any plans on issuing an update? ../Doug H 19:35, 3 February 2022 (EST)

We briefly talked about creating a new "road map" last year, but then I got sidetracked with the HTTP/HTTPS migration, which put everything else on hold. At this point our software is HTTPS-ready, but I still need to migrate links to third party sites. Once that's taken care of, we can work on creating a new road map. Ahasuerus 10:09, 4 February 2022 (EST)

Possible to move a pub from a parent title record to the child?

I noticed last night that I'd made an error a few months ago when adding the ebook pub of Swarm Rising - like the hc pubs, it should be attributed to Steve Cole, rather than the parent author record Stephen Cole.

My initial thought was to merge the two title records, but this seemed a bit sub-optimal, as I'd then have to manually recreate the one that got dropped so that this title shows up on the Stephen Cole bibliography page, but is attributed to Steve Cole. However, I couldn't see any way to move a pub from the parent title to the child title (and keeping the now pub-less title record around). Is there a way to do this, or is doing a title merge and then creating a "stub" parent title the only way to go? ErsatzCulture 11:56, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Remove Title to remove the wrong novel record and Import title to get the correct one in is generally a better idea, plus an edit the publication to fix the author name there. Merge will always work BUT if there was a valid title which belonged to the parent, it will mess it up. Plus any notes, links and so on will need to be transferred up (if they exist) and so on. So instead, work with the records we do have. Not to mention the (admittedly rare) case where this is the only title for the parent and the merge will delete the author record (with all details and all pseudonym connections in it - so you will need to recover those as well)Annie 12:04, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks - just submitted edits for removing the title and importing the Steve Cole one. Will edit the pub for the author name once those are in place. ErsatzCulture 12:13, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Approved. Annie 12:16, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Ken Kelly versus K. W. Kelly

I'm working through the Robert Adams Horseclans Signet titles using my owned copies and have found that the cover art in many of the existing records are credited to "Ken Kelly" even when the only credit is from the "K. W. Kelly" signature on the covers. Shouldn't these be changed to match what's actually there? "K. W. Kelly" is already an alias for "Ken Kelly". Thanks! Phil 09:36, 10 February 2022 (EST)

We record artists as stated in publications. If there's no credit in the book, and we identify the artist from other sources (websites, other books with the same illustration, signature etc), we use the canonical name of the artist, so in this case "Ken Kelly" is correct. --Willem 14:01, 10 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks for clarifying. I'll redo my pending submissions but make sure there is an appropriate note as well. Phil 14:27, 10 February 2022 (EST)

The War of the Ring

(moved from Bob's discussion page)

I'm attempting to PV my copy and came across the pub record you added [14] that has the same ISBN and cover (with more intense color values). The pub date on my copy is 2000-09-00, but the record has 2003-09-01 which you added on 2017-03-19. It seems a bit odd to be adding a record for 6 years in the future. Another complication is that my copy is Houghton Mifflin, while the record has Mariner.

I trying to figure out if I should just add a new record from scratch, or take this one over with much of the data replaced. Thoughts? --GlennMcG 00:36, 14 February 2022 (EST)

Apparently this was a pub automatically added from Amazon back in the days before Annie decided to input all such records. So the information for this pub was from Amazon in 2017, and I really have no idea how your copy could have the same ISBN. I don't understand your comment about adding a record for 6 years in the future. I wonder if your copy isn't the same as the first version of the pub based on the date you quote. I suggest you post your question on the Community Portal. Maybe one of the other moderators can provide some guidance. Bob 09:07, 14 February 2022 (EST)

As a start, 2017 is 14 years after 2003, not 6 years before it - so it was not added 6 years before it existed. :)

Onto the book itself: Chances are that the Amazon.com date was for a reprint/later printing which they later corrected (the current version of it is for a 2000 book). Mariner was an imprint of Houghton Mifflin at the time so it is possible that Amazon did use that on the record at the time. The ISBN now says "William Morrow Paperbacks" in Amazon (which is even more bizarre). But then data for 2000/2003 books in Amazon was loaded later and is known to have major issues. OCLC and OCLC again agrees with you on Houghton Mifflin pbk. ed. 2000 for the ISBN so edit the record and fix it. Annie 17:09, 14 February 2022 (EST)

I apparently had 20 year math rollover. Thanks. --Glenn 17:17, 14 February 2022 (EST)

Happens. I still refuse to believe that we are in the 2020s ;) Annie 17:23, 14 February 2022 (EST)

Aimee Thurlo

How do I change Aimee Thurlo’s canonical name to Aimée Thurlo? This is the name in which that she signs all of her work as. I would go back and then change her works on this site. MLB 22:23, 16 February 2022 (EST)

All fixed since all of the works use the accented letter. I changed the name to "Aimeee Thurlo" and then to "Aimée Thurlo". ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:27, 21 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks. MLB 02:31, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Digital Audio Downloads

In post 2007 digital audio downloads with no ISBN recorded and an Audible-ASIN which is an ISBN10:

• The preferred entry in the ISBN can should be?

1. ISBN10 (ignore the warning)
2. Convert to ISBN13 and then enter

Thanks, John Scifibones 11:59, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Convert to 13 - or someone else will need to edit after you to fix that :) Our field will show both of them anyway - so we show the proper format for the time. Annie 12:02, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Brian W. Aldiss, the short fiction "Hothouse" and the novel Hothouse

The 1962 Hugo for Short Fiction went to "Hothouse" by Brian W. Aldiss (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41305). That story was later incorporated into his novel, Hothouse (or The Long Afternoon of Earth), which is where the current iSFdb Hugo award is being pointed (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?186583). Can someone correct that? Gengelcox 13:42, 17 February 2022 (EST)

I think that may not be correct. According to theugoawards.org, that award was for the whole series, not just the one story. And if I understand correctly, the Hothouse "novel" of 1962 is the collection of the five stories in the series. So I think having the award record linked to the novel is the best representation of what the award was granted for. I don't believe there is a way to link it to the series record. --MartyD 08:41, 19 February 2022 (EST)

There should be a note on the award record explaining that though. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:48, 19 February 2022 (EST)

I think an explanatory note would be helpful, otherwise it seems strange that a "Short Fiction" award went to a novel. Gengelcox 12:56, 22 February 2022 (EST)

Same author/artist?

I stumbled across this. Are Jan S. Gephardt and Jan Sherrell Gephardt the same person? If they are, I'm not sure which should be the cannonical name but they should be linked. Phil 09:01, 21 February 2022 (EST)

They may very well be. The content for both overlap in the right years. Jan Sherrell Gephardt has more content, so I'd go with that as the canonical name. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:22, 21 February 2022 (EST)

Alias creation submitted. Phil 15:09, 21 February 2022 (EST)

Space Relations title problem

Based on a title note in here, my copy of the Fawcett Crest pb edition here and a WorldCat search, I think the cannonical title needs to be changed to "Space Relations: A Slightly Gothic Interplanetary Tale" as well as at least that of the non-PVd Charterhouse edition (and possibly all of the pubs). I hesitate to create a potentially false variant when I change the Fawcett Crest edition record and the Charterhouse edition record. Since the Charterhouse edition is the oldest pub, the variant would be for the short form "Space Relations". Suggestions? Phil 09:20, 22 February 2022 (EST)

Watts duplicates

We have both George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) [15] and George Frederic Watts (1817-1904) [16]. Can someone merge? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gengelcox (talk • contribs) . 10:37, 23 February 2022 (EST)

I'll take care of it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:44, 23 February 2022 (EST)

All fixed and at this entry. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:15, 23 February 2022 (EST)

About The Authors

Hello! New here. If there is an About The Authors section in the back of a given anthology, listing the bios of the included contributors, do I need to record this? Thank you. Canuckscribe 16:35, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Depends on how long the item is. If it is a substantial essay (a page or 3 per author), you can record is an essay. But if it is the usual 1-2 paragraphs per author, just add a note in the publication notes. See the "About the Author" and other biographical sketches bullet point here. For an example on how to add to the notes only, see this book for an example. You can use your own wording of course. :) Annie 16:49, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Hi there. I went and edited a Pub Note, but now it appears that my new note is there in addition to the original Pub Note, which was not my intention. My note appears as a duplication with some edits. Is there a way to prevent this duplication? Many thanks. Canuckscribe 16:46, 24 February 2022 (EST)

It is a single field. When editing it, you need to add/remove whatever pieces you need added/removed (just adding the new contents WILL replace the whole note, not just append to it for example). If you share which publication that happened in, someone can check and see what happened exactly there. Annie 16:49, 24 February 2022 (EST)

PS: A housekeeping item: when adding a new question, instead of pressing "Edit", press the plus sign next to the edit link. That will allow you to add a title and will separate the question :) And then when you are answering to an existing topic, use the edit link next to it, not the overall one at the top. That way the History will show which thread you are responding to so we do not need to hunt down where the latest update is :) Annie 16:49, 24 February 2022 (EST)

I have a question.

I have a question that I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. What do you do when a book has multiple covers but the same publishing date? For example, there’s this book and this book. Now I think that this one is the later edition, as the mega-series is not listed on the cover, but, suspicions are not facts. Do I list them both? I've seen this a lot. MLB 02:30, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Past advice (and precedent) has been to make different records if the artwork differs, with the exception being for those differing only in color. I recommend a cross-reference note about it in each set of pub notes. If the artist is known and the same, then I also recommend cross-reference notes in the title notes for each COVERART record, once created. --MartyD 07:32, 28 February 2022 (EST)

I agree with the separate record. One more note though: if there is a suspicion, especially around ebooks but also on reprints, that the sources are showing the date of a first/earlier edition and the cover cannot belong to it - the new Foundation series being advertised on a 2003 ebook cover for example - (Amazon often shows the first ebook date even when they change the covers; Goodreads is usually good for untangling those for the last 10 years or so if they have both covers), I'd set the date as 0000-00-00 to the suspicious book, document the source date in the notes, explain the issue and leave it at that). No point adding incorrect data which is physically impossible just because another site says so. Annie 15:47, 28 February 2022 (EST)

Burly Tales

Hi there. There are two entry for Burly Tales: Fairy Tales for the Hirsute and Hefty Gay Man, Publication Record # 882461, which I recently updated, but as they said in Highlander, there should be only one. The other is Title Record # 2964877, which is for the ebook. How do we make it one entry for this title? Many thanks! Canuckscribe 13:53, 27 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks for finding this doublette: I'll merge the two title records (2964877 & 2988934). Stonecreek 14:57, 27 February 2022 (EST)

Uploading an author picture

Anyone knows what I'm doing wrong here? (I'm getting a Yellow warning)... MagicUnk 04:46, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Known issue -as we are using the same code for authors and pubs. Ignore that specific one for authors. Annie 13:44, 3 March 2022 (EST)

Translation question and magazines

I'm a techno-dummy and have a bad history when it comes to entering data into other folks databases. Is there a way for me to submit information on a translation of one of my published works, or should I bite the bullet and make the addition myself? For the record, the original work is "The Wrong Refrigerator," published in Asimov's, September/October 2018. The Chinese translation was published in the 2020/09 issue of Science Fiction World. Also, do you track SFF adjacent publications? I recently became the staff interviewer for Galaxy's Edge magazine. To date, they have published my interviews with Seanan McGuire (July/August 2021), Jonathan Maberry (September/October 2021), Charlaine Harris (November/December 2021), and John Scalzi (in two parts: January/February 2022 and March/April 2022). My interview with Martha Wells will appear in the May/June 2022 issue. Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jmward14 (talk • contribs) .

Galaxy's Edge is indeed in the DB (here) and when we add our genre magazines, we index everything inside. But we are a bit (a lot really) behind on this one so if you want to learn how to add/update magazines and would like to update all our records while adding your interviews, that will be a great way to learn how the DB works. If not, someone will need to get around to it at some point - it is on one of my lists to do but... there are a lot of things there. If you decide to try, do let me know and I will get you some initial steps and some reading to do -- and we can work on that.

About the translation - you can try if your Chinese is good enough or you feel comfortable enough to add books and magazines in it. We don't have a Chinese editor who shows up regularly enough but if you have some sources about the magazine where it got published and what title it went under (and how your name looked in Chinese), I can try to assist. Annie 20:07, 5 March 2022 (EST)

Fixing cover art title problem

After the pub record for [17] was fixed by Dirk, I noticed that the cover title needed to be fixed as well. When I pulled up [18] to change the title to match the pub, I found that there are five additional non-related pubs showing for this title. I have no clue as to how to fix this mess. Can someone help? Thanks! Phil 12:59, 6 March 2022 (EST)

There is only one pub under this title. The rest are all under variants. There is a "Do not display variants or translations" above the publication list that you can click so that it shows only the pubs containing the parent title record. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:42, 6 March 2022 (EST)

OK. I'll fix the title. Phil 13:52, 6 March 2022 (EST)

Award issue: Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples"

The entry for the original short story published in 1995 is here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40561. This story was converted into a graphic novel, which won the 2019 Stoker. To me, the short story is a different beast than the graphic novel (as in the Chaykin graphic adaptation of The Stars My Destination), but perhaps this choice was made here because most of the text exists in the graphic novel version, rather than just being an adaptation? -Gengelcox 12:05, 8 March 2022 (EST)

The root of the problem is that the graphic version and the text version were merged at some point - which should not have happened because the text is different as far as I remember. Let me look into this and see what we need to split and move around. We are not well set for GN awards but the GN text is usually different from the pure story so they usually will have two separate titles (and a ton of notes explaining why). If they were exactly the same text, then we will keep them together with a note on the award on what exactly won the award. Annie 12:10, 8 March 2022 (EST)

Magazine or Anthology?

I have been working on the magazine Not One of Us. In addition to their regular issues, they produced a 'special publication'. It was intermittent at first, but yearly from 2002 - 2020. The regular issues were 52-page octavos (occasionally up to 56) priced at $4.50. Example. The specials were titled, 32-page octavos, priced at $3.50. Example. Four issues were entered as magazines and four as anthologies. I have added seven issues as magazines and converted the four anthologies to magazines. One anthology title had a Locus magazine review, so I scanned the Locus Index. There is no listing for any of the 12 specials between 1987 and 2004. However, the three issues between 2005 and 2007 are indexed. Before I add any more, I would like a second opinion. Magazine or anthology? John Scifibones 12:01, 9 March 2022 (EST)

I have a few of those (cannot get to them now as they are in Europe) - I would call them magazines but it can go either way (although if they are anthologies, they will be ph and not octavo as format (as they are stapled and octavo is not a book format) and if they are magazines, they need a big of renaming). As long as we are consistent and the single entries follow the rules of the chosen format, either way works for these. Annie 13:44, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Annie, thanks for the quick response. Are you referring to the "title", "date" format required for magazine titles? John Scifibones 14:54, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Yes and how we count pages technically (covers included for magazines even if we don't always do that for modern/POD magazines...) and so on. As these are stories only in these (no columns and letters and so on), it can go either way technically - as long as we are consistent and apply the correct rules. But they got distributed as magazines, not as books so there is that. :) Annie 15:30, 9 March 2022 (EST)

I'll stick with magazines. I will have to change the one review to an essay since the title record is rolled up into the year. Hopefully none of the three PV's will object. Is this considered housekeeping? John Scifibones 16:24, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Mostly yes but I'd still drop a note on their pages though and not rely on just the "changed PV notifications" for active PVs - just because it does change the contents of their verified. Annie 16:33, 9 March 2022 (EST)

PS: "Care, January 2017" is not the correct title here though - in any way or for -- because the magazine is not called "Care". It will need to either be "Not One of Us, January 2017" or "Not One of Us, January 2017: Care" (if there is another January 2017 one and to differentiate it and show that it is different) or something else like that (showing that it is a special edition - although even that is irregular but we need to differentiate). Look at the rules for the magazines naming -- you always need the MAGAZINE name as part of the title even of the issue has its own name. That's partially why some of them were anthologies IMO -- under our rules, the naming will be weird. May be a good reason to actually make them anthologies so their titles show up accordingly. Annie 17:03, 9 March 2022 (EST)

While 'January 2017: Care' is tolerable, 'January 2011: Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" is just ugly. I still think they are magazines, but agree the best solution is to make them anthologies. Should the anthology series have its own name? John Scifibones 17:25, 9 March 2022 (EST) P.S. One issue did have a couple book reviews. Is that a problem?

Nope, book reviews in a book are fine - not unheard of. :) I'd call it "Not All of Us Special Editions" or something. And yes - I think they are magazines but that puts them in a different rule book so... Annie 17:55, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Last question, A 32-page octavo magazine becomes a 28-page ph in a book. If the first story is page 3 (which would be the first page after the cover) does it now become page 1? Do all the page numbers need to be altered? Sorry to take so much of your time. This is a new situation for me. John Scifibones 18:03, 9 March 2022 (EST)

If they are numbered (which they are from what I remember from the few I have), we use how they are numbered and explain the numbering in the notes. That one is a pain because of how differently we treat anthologies and magazines. So I'd leave it at 32 pages and add a note that the covers are counted as part of the page if that is the case. We don't call page 3 page 1 if the number 3 is printed on it - even if it is really page 1 (or page 45). :) And no worries at all. Annie 18:11, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Search for List of Genre Authors

How do I search for a list of authors who have written Fantasy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gwydion5‎ (talk • contribs) .

I don't think you can do it directly. There are 2 ways to get lists of titles tagged with the "fantasy" tag:

• Run a regular Tag search on "Fantasy", then select "Fantasy" from the displayed list of tags. Page through the displayed list of titles.
• Run an Advanced Title Search on Tag is exactly Fantasy. Page through the displayed list of titles.

If you know SQL, you can download our publicly available backups -- see ISFDB Downloads -- and craft a custom query to get exactly what you want. Ahasuerus 17:48, 9 March 2022 (EST)

While that will show what was tagged in the DB with fantasy, tagging is a non-moderated activity - so all that the search/query will show is the list of titles that someone cared enough to tag with fantasy - and where noone disagreed strongly enough to seek the removal of the tag. So it may contain titles which are not fantasy even under the broadest definition and will be missing a LOT of titles which are. Which unfortunately is the best we can do - the DB is not set for differentiating between the different speculative genres... Annie 17:53, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Do any of the awards differentiate? ../Doug H 08:10, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Yes. Some awards are limited to fantasy works, e.g. the Balrog Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Gemmell Award or Japan Fantasy Novel Award. Certain other awards have separate categories for fantasy and science fiction, notably the Locus Poll Award. Ahasuerus 12:40, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Another option may be to look for the Fantasy imprints (and publishers) but even there, you will have inconsistencies... Annie 14:46, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Original cover as interior art

Hello, in this pub Die Verwandlung the interior art is the cover of the first edition of Die Verwandlung. What should I do with it, merge or make a variant? Many thanks Henna 12:22, 13 March 2022 (EDT)