ISFDB:Help desk/archives/archive 07

This is an archive of old discusson from ISFDB:Help desk. Please do not change the archived discussions. For the directory of archive pages, see ISFDB:Help desk/archives. To discuss them futher, please start a new thread on the Help desk page, with a link to the archived thread if appropriate. Thank you.

How the name "Louis L'Amour" is entered

I just submitted a new novel entry for Louis L'Amour's The Californios (as I described in the note field, it's a western with lost-race elements and mysticism). After submitting it, I noticed that another novel of his that's already in the database, The Haunted Mesa, has his surname as "L'amour". I thought that it might somehow be a deficiency in the software (not allowing an upper case letter after an apostrophe), but Madeleine L'Engle doesn't have this problem. It's possible that there's a good reason for L'Amour's name being this way, but I thought I'd point it out so that it can be corrected. Jayembee 06:03, 3 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Right you are - that's the way it is on the official website. I updated the author data. Note: case is not taken into account when matching author names. The novel ended up being credited to the already existing author despite the case difference.--swfritter 15:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Would promotional giveaway samplers be included?

I have in my collection a number of paperback samplers published as promotional giveways. Most of them are non-genre (though some of those include at least one borderline SF title), though one is a sampler published by Bantam Spectra in 1985, with excerpts from eight then-forthcoming SF novels. If it helps any, it can be seen listed in the Locus Index. Jayembee 10:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

If they were all SF, I would list them as collections of excerpts. If only some entries were SF, I would list only those entries, with a note that non-genre entries were omitted. In any case i would include a note describing the special background of such publications. -DES ^Talk 21:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We already have a few promotional giveaways on file, e.g. Silverberg's Revolt on Alpha C. Ahasuerus 22:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

There are several "samplers of series" already on file - I know, I keep finding that a book I picked up at a car boot sale is actually a full "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Charmed" novel given away with some magazine. And there are samplers which are mostly Collections of extracts - haven't entered many of those as they're all new excerpts and a bit of a pain. But they're definitely printed SF. BLongley 23:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Ibid on DES' comments. I personally was wondering the other night, since we seem to be allowing electronic-only short stories to be added, if movies should be indexed... -Marc Kupper|talk 22:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

To me, e-texts are still texts, therfore written albeit not printed on paper. I see that as quite different from videos of any sort. Anyway, that is a different question from the sampler siutuation. -DES ^Talk 22:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Please NO! Let IMDB deal with those and we can link to them. It's bad enough when we have a Novel (in) of the Film (out) of the Short Story (in)... and there are no doubt Novels of the Film of the TV episode based on the Short Story, etc. (Twilight Zone stuff probably - and we've already had disagreements over the "audiobooks" of those.) BLongley 23:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid that we are not equipped to index movies simply because our software doesn't have support for hundreds of data elements that movies need -- just pick the IMDB entry for a random blockbuster! Ahasuerus 22:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep, and their rules for the fields are even more complicated than ISFDB's. I've tried to send in corrections at times and don't think I ever succeeded. -Marc Kupper|talk 04:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Fred Pohl's Hatching the Phoenix

Hi, I've just imported the contents of The Mammoth Bk of Best New SF 13 (Dozois), from the "... Seventeenth Annual Collection" and noticed that the Pohl story is type SERIAL rather than SHORTSTORY. Is this what people expect? (It seems it was originally 2 part serial in Amazing Stories.) ...clarkmci/--j_clark 05:15, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not what I'd expect. Maybe if it was still in the same two parts, but once it's not split it's not serialised. BLongley 19:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't look long enough to be a novel either. It place 17th in the 1000 Locus poll for novellas.--swfritter 20:15, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The 1000 poll? Yeesh, Locus has been going longer than I thought. ;-) BLongley 21:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"10¹⁶ to 1" vs "10 to 16 to 1" (James Patrick Kelly)

Also in importing the contents of The Mammoth Bk of Best New SF 13 (Dozois), from the "... Seventeenth Annual Collection", I notice that the James Patrick Kelly story is, in my copy, actually

10¹⁶ to 1

The story is in 5 other publications in ISDBF, all currently entered with title "10 to 16 to 1".

Will ISFDB break if I embed the superscript html in the title for my publication? If no, should I change it for my publication (in the usual way)? Does the actual title in the other 5 publications have the power of 10 superscripted? ... clarkmci/--j_clark 05:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

No, ISFDB won't break - see [1]. BLongley 22:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what people would search for: if I'd entered it from scratch I'd probably have entered it as 10^16 to 1, as that's what I use in most computer languages - but the "to the power of" symbol is highly variable, e.g. I think it was "**" on my first computer and "↑"on my second. But I really don't like using the same word "to" twice in the name, it makes it look like a ratio between three things rather than astronomical odds. Unfortunately "16 to 1" is probably the substring I'd attempt to search for if I didn't know a standard for the character, and the end sup tag prevents that search working. BLongley 18:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, can't answer the third question, I own none. BLongley 22:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If changing a title's publishing date, should I also change the date in the Bibliographic comments tag?

Hi, This book Conan, by Robert E. Howard et al currently has a publishing date of 1969. This is a Lancer paperback. Lancer used catalog numbers to track publications; this pub's cat. no. is 75104-095.

I have a copy of this book. There is a copyright date of 1967 on the title page verso, but no other indication of when this book was actually published (that I can find, anyway).

My q's:

1. Unless there's a catalog list for Lancer somewhere that shows the publication date to be 1969, should I change the date to 1967 to reflect the copyright date?

2. If a publication date is changed this way, what should be done with the Bibliographic Comments tag, which contains the date?

e.g. for this pub, CNNZGTRDVM1969

Would this become CNNZGTRDVM1967 ? How would this change be implemented?

Note: The Bibliographic comments page currently has no entries.

Big Al Mintaka 22:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyright dates are, unfortunately, highly unreliable. The original copyright year often (but not always) reflects the year of the first publication, but copyright renewals throw another monkey wrench in the works. In this case, the Robert E. Howard bibliography site has reasonably complete information about the book except that the compiler uses the word "edition" where most publishers would use the word "printing" :

• Year : 1968 through 1973 - See Notes
• Book No. See Notes
• Edition : 12 editions - See Notes
• Format : Paperback
• Pages : 221
• Cover art : Frank Frazetta
• Illustrations : None

• 1st edition, 1968, 73-685, purple edges, 60 cents
• 2nd edition, 1968, 73-685, purple edges, 60 cents, Canada
• 3rd edition, 1968, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents
• 4th edition, 1968, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents, Canada
• 5th edition, 1969, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents
• 6th edition, 1970, ,75-104, purple edges, 95 cents
• 7th edition, 1970, 75104-095, purple edges, 95 cents
• 8th edition, 1970, 75104-095, purple edges, 95 cents, Canada
• 9th edition, 1971, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
• 10th edition, April 1972, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
• 11th edition, Sept 1972, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
• 12th edition, May 1973, 78744-125, yellow edges, $1.25

Does this help? Ahasuerus 23:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes it does help, thanks! For one thing, it tells me that I've been looking at the wrong "printing". It also narrows down the possible matches for my edition to two others in that list. I'll have to do a little offline research on that bibliography website, which I did not know existed. Thanks also for that link!

There are minor inconsistencies between that bibliographical list and the list at ISFDB. For example, the list above has two 1972 printings, whereas the ISFDB list has only one. In the ISFDB list, the Publication Listing for the 1972 edition says that page 221 has a "4-72" date code. Howard's biblio has no notation to that effect. My book doesn't have any date codes on that page either.

Taking the Lancer codes, page edge coloring, and lack of a date code into account, it appears that my book is either the 1971 or Sept 1972 printing in the Howard list. In the ISFDB list it is most likely the 1970 printing. The ISFDB list may therefore require both the addition and modification of printings.

If I can figure out what's going on I'll certainly post the info here before doing anything else.

Have a good one, Big Al Mintaka 03:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

As to changing the publication Tag from CNNZGTRDVM1969, I wouldn't bother. It's just a Unique Identifier, automatically generated, and you can actually break things if you change it to a non-unique value (so do an advanced search for the Publication tag you want to change it to if you must): e.g. there are so many "Doctor Who and the..." pubs that I had to fix many pubs with overlapping DCTRWHNDTH prefixes. Any link using such went to the first publication and ignored the rest. But it has no real meaning even if you can see how some of them were generated - see all the BKTGnnnnn entries as well. BLongley 19:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I would go farther, and say don't ever change the publication tag for any reason, unless it is currently non-unique. Outside sites, including wikipedia, and our own wiki pages, can and do link to records usign the pub tag, and changing the tag will break all such links for the pub in question..

It is worth noting that ther is no reeason to assume that the ISFDB list of printings is complete. if a printing appears in a reliable external list, feel free to add itto the ISFDB, with a note on the source, please. -DES ^Talk 18:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding a new Author

How??? Searched the 'Help" and it covers just about everything else...??? --Bluesman 01:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Because there is no need to add an author as such. When you add a work by that author, the author is automatically added for you, and if someone deletes all the works by a given author (perhaps they weren't SF) the author is automatically deleted too. Not that there aren't places where the help is lacking, but this is not a big issue, though perhaps the help ought to say what I did above somewhere. -DES ^Talk 01:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

And to quote Help:How to:

• Note that there is no way to directly delete an author. If all the title information for an author is deleted, the author will disappear from the ISFDB, but there is no "Delete Author" function. Similarly, there is no way to directly create an author; once a work by that author is entered, an author record will appear automatically.

It was hidden in plain site/sight :) Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

So this is accomplished by adding a new title to any existing author and then putting in a different author's name in the field?--Bluesman 05:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

No! Please don't do that. Simply create a new record by going to the edit tools on the home page. Choose the type of publication: novel, collection, anthology, etc., and then add the info in the fields. If the author is not in the database, a new author record will be created. If the author is in the database, the new record will be added to his summary page. In other words, you can not add an author without creating a pub record which credits him/her as the author. This applies to shortfiction within the contents of a larger work as well (magazine, anthology, nonfiction). MHHutchins 05:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Mhhutchins is absolutely correct above. What may be confusing you, from any author's biblio page the "New Novel", "New Collection", "New Anthology", etc links are available. One might expect that these would create a new publication with the author's name already filled in, based on the page you were on. But the software doesn't work like that (maybe it should, but it currently doesn't). New novel (or new anything else) from anywhere that it is available creates a completely blank record for you to fill in all the data for, including the author's name. It doesn't matter what page, including an author's page or the main page, you may have been on before you clicked on The "New ..." link. All the "new" links are available from the main page to any logged-in editor. They are not available from every possible page, and I think there are some pages where some but not all of them are available. Since every page has a link to the main/home page, it is often simpler to go there first. -DES ^Talk 15:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Merging publications

I can't figure out how to merge two publications of a title. The help section only seems to deal with titles. My use case is the two pubs of Michael Swanwick's Moon Dogs: these seem pretty clearly identical (all the data, including the ISBN is identical). There were apparently two states of this book, issued simultaneously, and which had different ISBNs, so an alternative to merging might be just to change the ISBN of one of the two titles.Jefe 21:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, we don't merge publication records, which is why there is no help on it. If these two records really reflect the exact same publication, simply copy all the info into one of them, and delete the other. If we choose to regard the two "states" as different publications, because of the different ISBNs, then simply correct one or both of the records until each accurately represents one of the states. In such a case, a note in both pub records, each referencing the other, would probably be a good idea.

Do you have physical copies of the two different states with their different ISBNs? If not, do you have info from a reliable source that establishes that both states were in fact issued?

By the way, you can use the template {{T}} to link to title records. In this case, this would look like Moon Dogs. See Help:List of ISFDB Templates for other possibly useful templates. -DES ^Talk 22:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not just "generally speaking", you CANNOT merge publications, only titles. As DES says, make sure one of the publications has all the data and delete the other. In this case the only difference is whether it's "NESFA" or "NESFA Press" for the publisher. We don't seem to have decided on a preferred option there, so no loss. However, we could usefully have the contents added (e.g. from here, or any other useful reliable source). That page also seems to give the two ISBNs and prices: "Hardcover edition, ISBN: 1-886778-22-1, $25.00. Boxed edition, ISBN: 1-886778-23-X, $36.00." Does this mean you SHOULDN'T delete one of them - no, it just suggests that it's easier to delete one, enter the contents for the other, and clone the other changing ISBN and price. Adding contents to both and merging all those titles is far harder. Changing the ISBN of one of them would be a good pointer to the existence of the other, but then you'd be skipping the hard work of entering contents, and we don't want to make life TOO easy on our editors.... ;-) BLongley 23:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've marked one of them for deletion. I don't have the energy to enter all the contents (and then reconcile them later!) at the moment, so I'll leave that alone for now. Thanks for the templates pointer -- I didn't know about those!Jefe 01:02, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It was only 5 minutes to enter the contents, so I've done that. (Another 15 for merges though!) BLongley 19:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I've dug up my copy, and polished up some of the story data.Jefe 00:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Pamphlet containing a single story

I have a pamphlet, published in 1975 by Charles Miller of the Robert E. Howard short story The Grey God Passes. The pamphlet contains only the single story with illustrations by Walter Simonson. I'd like to set it up in the database, but am not sure what type of publication to list it as. Should I add it as a publication to the shortfiction title record that already exists, or set it up as a new title? If it is a new title would it be a new novel, collection or something else? --Gloinson 02:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I would add it as a publication of the story, of type "CHAPTERBOOK". However, there are some significant implementation problems with this type (a fix has been requested, but we don't know when or if one will be available). Some editors would suggest setting this up as a collection with a single content item. That also allows specifying an editor, if there was one. Please don't enter it as a novel. -DES ^Talk 16:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I've set it up as a Chapterbook. --Gloinson 04:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

The Best of John Russell Fearn, vol 1-author removal

This. [2] . I just reread the author/collection instructions and finally I understand it, I think. Collections are entered under author, but not under editor. I entered the above wrong. It bothered me that I could not get it to appear under it's author. I just submitted the author, but I have no idea how to delete an erroneous author, (this case the editor). I understand the need to get it under the author so users can find collections and get them, but I do not understand why the editor would not be included. Even though this one is a Forry type, others have and do work at editing material for collections and I think they also need top billing. My concern being that Major Ingredients by Eric Frank Russell is a collection, but if the editor Rick Katze had not busted his buns, it might not be available. By not entering him also, we miss the opportunity to make connections to other NESFA/Katz projects. I admit I am quirky on how I find books, but I have searched editors for their material, just like I do authors, and sometimes they interconnect with my odd wants. Additionally, could the collection instruction be differentiated slightly, say by highlighting collection, on the help editing panel. With no separation, it was hard for me to parse personally. Sorry about this. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The ability to specify editors for single author collections and novels has been requested and Al has confirmed that he will implement it when he gets a chance. We have also talked about making the whole system more flexible and adding "roles" to books, e.g. "editor", "designer", etc, which is what library catalogs do, but nothing definite at this time.

As far as fixing this publication goes, all you need to do is replace the Publication Author with "John Russell Fearn" and everything will be right with the world again :) Ahasuerus 18:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Shudders, I will give it a go. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to mention that we will also need to correct the author at the Title level. A Collection Publication contains Contents level Titles (stories, essays, etc) and a Collection Title record. The latter is not editable when you are editing the Publication record, so it needs to be edited directly via "Epit Title". Ahasuerus 23:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, since The Best of John Russel Fearn, etc is on hold. That hold, has to be my add of JRF, with no deletion of Harbottle. Therefore if it should be done, by direct removal it needs to be rejected. Also the second one might also be too early.

To recap, I need to substitute JRF for Harbottle, first step. Then I need to change the title record from Harbottle to Russell, second step?. Sorry, but if that is not the "Epit Title" I do not know what it is and I may not have ever seen it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries, I have approved your change to the Collection Title and then changed the Publication's author to "John Russell Fearn", so we are all set :) Ahasuerus 15:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Heartily. It looks much better with the author getting direct credit. I also think I am detecting a re-scripting of the notes formating. Is it your desire to have the {This Publication Record] on top line? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I always correct typos/punctuation/HTML, merge duplicate Notes lines, adjust related Title dates and such on auto-pilot without notifying the submitting editor. It's only when there are structural problems with submissions that I hop over to the Wiki side and leave a note to the editor. When the edition/printing information is buried deep in the Notes field, I usually move it to the top to make it readily available to our users, but we don't have hard and fast rules re: Notes. As long as the information is clearly presented and is easy to find, it's all good! :) Ahasuerus 21:58, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

No Problem with that. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Standards for Synopsis?

I've often used this site, but felt that a synopsis for works was needed to make it really useful. I was excited to see a synopsis appear here as i was wandering around. For my own sake, i've made small paragraph-sized synopses for a lot of the sci-fi i've read. I'd be glad to contribute these, but i wanted to make sure i was doing it right. I can't find any info on what is acceptable or desired for synopses.

Thanks.--Jwbjerk 19:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit Title Help has a very brief section. It's possible there might be entries elsewhere - anyone? In addition to what is mentioned in Help, copying blurbs and summaries from books is generally frowned upon for a number of reasons - the example you link to above looks like it might be just such an animal.--swfritter 21:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Ideally the synopsis is not copyright work. Using the provided example:

• "Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when" is on 1250 web pages.
• "With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who has left him for another man, Matt has nothing" is on 5 web pages.

It seems the synopsis was created by extracting two sentences from the front flap.

Publisher's web sites usually have a statement that all of the material on their site is copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission. I personally believe that copying an entire synopsis would not qualify as "fair use" it also seems publishers are not complaining that synopses appear on thousands of web pages. I'd still prefer to get feedback from a couple of the larger publishers, Penguin Group for example, to see what their thoughts are on this. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not very interested in adding in the blurbs from off the backs of books, the content i have in mind is original. Personally i think most blurbs were written by people who knew very little about the book, i don't have a high opinion of them.--Jwbjerk 02:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. I know some people react with horror to synopses as sometimes they are spoilers. As part of verifying an anthology last night I added the synopses I wrote back when I read it but then decided to trim them way down to be more like teasers. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia might also be an appropriate place. There are well thought out standards which allow spoilers. Some significant shorter works along with novels are covered.--swfritter 18:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Board book?

I approved this submission from Fixer, but wondered why Amazon didn't show a binding format. After clicking to Amazon from the link in the pub notes, I saw they classify it as a "board book". Some abebooks.com dealers do the same, but their info may just be from the same source as Amazon's. So what sort of binding is this? Hardcover, trade paperback, or a strange amalgalm of the two? MHHutchins 22:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia says. Although I am not sure the example above follows the definition. Trade paperback seems to me to be the closest although it is not very close to being accurate.--swfritter 23:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, if Wikipedia's definition is to be believed, then it seems to be a hardcover book with uncommonly thick pages. Wouldn't it make it a "hc" in our world? Ahasuerus 02:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds OK - although to me cardboard denotes something a little softer and the kid books I remember that might have been included were fairly bendable although they may not be what is being referred to.--swfritter 22:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Then I think you aren't remembering what's referred to. These have very thick pages, I'd say around 1/8" off hand, though it might not be much more than half that. The books are usually not tall but at least as wide as the average pb - maybe about 5" square?. (My sons now being in college, & no grandchildren on the horizon, I don't have samples on hand.) If you bend them, the cardboard would crease, very permanently. Intended to be handled by very young toddlers while surviving the experience. -- Dave (davecat) 01:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There were several more Fixer submissions with the same description. If Wikipedia's definition is the same as Amazon's description, can you imagine how thick a 549 page book would be? Why would a large print book for adults be published like a child's picture book? There are plenty of books in the db published by Thorndike that are categorized as hardcovers. 'Tis a puzzlement, indeed. MHHutchins 03:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Amazon says "Board Book: Designed for infants, the pages of these books are made of thick cardboard that can support extra wear and tear" and doesn't mention the "luxurious editions of regular books" Wikipedia does. But I think what they're referring to in these many-paged examples are books with board covers but still with paper pages - the difference between these and regular hardcovers is mainly that the illustrations and blurb are printed directly onto the cover, not a dust-jacket. But I've never bought one from Amazon so am not 100% sure. A true board book (not a board book binding) would typically only be about 12 pages. BLongley 19:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

In looking at the available binding from Amazon I see we are missing out on a number of bath books and foam books. FWIW - I was dealing with a publisher the other day where "hardcover" meant that the cover art is printed on the board and they had another term for books with the artwork on a dust jacket. In this case it's not clear if "board book" is in error or the publisher's idea of what they are selling. It's late for me but I'd chase the book down on the publisher's web site and if needed ask them directly what the term means if it's not explained on their web site. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The Shadow Matrix---copyright crediting used for other author

This. [3] . The title page says only Marion Zimmer Bradley, but the copyright is to Marion Zimmer Bradley and Adrienne Martine-Barnes. The book shows both. What is the correct usage? Also it has the DAW ISBN on back cover and copyright page. No price. September 1997 printing date. DAW collector number of 1065. Actual page count is 510. 493 pages numbered. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Make the authors Marion Zimmer Bradley and uncredited for both the publication and parent title. From the parent title make that a variant title with the authors Marion Zimmer Bradley and Adrienne Martine-Barnes. Once you have the new title record, edit it and cite the source for the uncredited reference (which should also be noted in the publication notes). As it's a couple of steps I went ahead with this other than editing the parent title record. Harry, please review, and correct if needed, the note I added to the publication. Once the wording is nailed down we can copy/paste it here.

While it's not in the help I have lately been dealing with those extra pages using this syntax which I keep meaning to propose on the rules page; [10]+436+[6] which would be 10 unnumbered pages before page 1 and six after page 436. If there's material worth including in the ISFDB contents then I use page numbers such as [5] and [440] to reference them with [5] being the 5th unnumbered page in the block before page 1 and [440] being a few pages after 436 but it's in the unnumbered territory. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Just my two-cents worth: I don't feel this is the way the publication should be recorded. Copyright has nothing to do with authorship. Is it not ISFDB policy that records should reflect what's on the title page? Otherwise, how would we handle all of those sharecropping works farmed out by Byron Preiss, Martin H. Greenberg and other packagers? How about a Nebula-award winning novel which is co-copyrighted with the author's sister-in-law? There must be hundreds of works in which co-authors are not credited for various reasons. When we have definitive proof of co-authorship then we can place that info in the note fields, but, even then, not in the author fields. (And there's no way that I'm going back to check the copyright of the thousands of records that I've verified. :) MHHutchins 04:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Mike - uncredited co-authors/editors should have to live with a place in notes, if any. I know Locus keeps adding Martin H. Greenberg to Denise Little anthologies based on "copyrighted by Little and Tekno Books" but that doesn't reflect what the book says about the editors. I could live with it if additional authors and editors were credited elsewhere (e.g. I own several "The Best of X" books credited to X alone, but with covers saying "Edited by Angus Wells") but copyright statements don't indicate co-authorship or co-editorship, or we'd have dozens of authors called "The Estate of..." for a start. I can wait for the extra fields for translators, editors of collections of other people's work, etc, rather than introduce unverifiable co-credits. BLongley 19:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

The argument is not and has not been using copyright crediting to establish who is on the author line. It is what to do if others have added an uncredited in the book copyright only author. I would not have credited anyone on a copyright basis. Is Marc's solution wrong or not? I, in my ignorance, would have been happy to delete the second author, as I still can not definitively attribute the work to them. AT what point would you attribute a second author, not mentioned in the primary source. Along these lines an anthology is attributed to the writer of the stories, but rarely is that author the person who presented the anthology for printing. Hence we ignore an editor. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

If we're arguing, it's against the person that originally added the undeserved credit, which we seem to be guessing is due to a copyright credit. I'd delete the second author and leave a note. So I guess I'm saying Marc is wrong in his solution, if there's nothing in the publication that really suggests a co-author. BLongley 22:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

As to "an anthology is attributed to the writer of the stories" - no, it's usually credited to the Editor. It's only if there's no credited Editor that it seems reasonable (to me) to use all the Authors as co-Editors when there's a small number of people that may have organised it between themselves. 3 or 4 maybe, but a dozen or more is right out. BLongley 22:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm guessing too much - but if you meant to say "A collection is attributed to the writer of the stories, but rarely is that author the person who presented the collection for printing", then I agree - see my comment on Angus Wells. BLongley 22:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No apology as you are right and it proves my point that some of the terminology slips in my mind. I will delete the uncredited author in the version for my book and note that I have no substantive reference in the book to add her as an author. I also will note it in the title entry that it needs some verifiable data. I did look for the possibility of emailing the co-author All Tomorrow. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. As a sideline, I've created Author:Angus Wells with what I know about his editing credits so far, hopefully we'll eventually get that information into the database in something better than notes. But I think such pages are the way to go for now, rather than adding lots of "uncredited" pseudonyms. BLongley 20:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I think I did not make the problem clear, though I think Marc got it. The book had two authors credited with nothing to support the second except a copyright. The second author was already listed in the db. I believe Marc made it uncredited to make it clear that the db has no support for the second authorship. I can find nothing definitive to establish the second authorship, but it undoubtably exists to an unknown extent. No one wishes to create new authorship by copyright crediting. Thanks for the warning though.

Will make statement in title record to the effect that second authorship is pending confirmation.

Apologies Mark, the other commentary was dealing with parsing DAW's SFBC edition from their hc market edition. I read the new SFBC help and parsed another edition out, so I get it. The problem is I bought my SFBC DAW editions at first time sales bookstores and not as a club product. I will not be truly satisfied until I physically have an SFBC and a DAW hc edition of the same book to look at. I feel slickered. LOL. I appreciate the help. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

My ISFDB time has temporarily (hopefully!) shrunk to a few minutes a day, so I can't comment at length at the moment, but my general approach is that copyright information can provide us with useful hints, but is rarely a definitive proof of authorship. Some pseudonymous romance novels print the author's real name on the copyright page -- presumably on the assumption that romance readers do not read copyright pages -- so that information is likely correct. On the other hand, the copyright to most sharecropped novels is owned by the publisher/packager, so it's totally useless for our purposes.

There are also many permutations in between these two extremes, e.g. in this case it's "well known" that Bradley was effectively unable to write after a stroke and that all of "her" post-stroke novels were ghosted by Adrienne Martine-Barnes (and perhaps others, although I don't recall the details), but I wouldn't rely on copyright alone for this information and would look for other, more authoritative sources. Still, copyright information can be useful since it can prompt an editor to start an investigation into authorship issues. Ahasuerus 02:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

It's late and I need to be up in a few short hours. I just wanted to add that I added the credit based on a "secondary" source much like the secondary source we had for that business with the Binary Star publications. As people already noted, after her stroke (actually, I think after the second one), MZB turned more and more to co-authors to do the heavy lifting. From what Elisabeth Waters has written it seems at times MZB sometimes only had the barest outline. At times I do record things in the notes and not as full ISFDB credits. For example, those Martin H. Greenberg/Teknow copyright credits are always in the notes as I feel his role in that case was more of an owner and overseer and not as a directly contributing editor. Again, it's nothing I can cite specifically. I guess I could e-mail him and ask. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

In thinking more about this I see it as a judgment call. We sometimes run across secondary sources for a bit of data and need to decide if it's reliable and based on that how to integrate the data in ISFDB. As it is, near the top of the to-be-verified stack is an anthology where I noticed they spelled a co-editor's name entirely wrong. The literalists will say, "no, there's a person we've never heard of" and the judgment call is I will be entering her as stated and doing a variant title based on secondary evidence of who the actual co-editor is. Adrienne Martine-Barnes as a co-author of The Shadow Matrix is a similar judgment call. Incidentally, I believe she's also an uncredited co-author for Exile's Song and Traitor's Sun though for the latter title I see I solved the issue in a different fashion - what do people think of Traitor's Sun (uncredited co-author?)? --Marc Kupper|talk 22:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that any time we create a Variant Title for a pseudonymous author or a ghost author we have to rely on some kind of secondary source for information. After all, if the real author were stated in the primary publication, he wouldn't be pseudonymous :) In many cases this information is reasonably unambiguous, say when it comes from a later reprint under the real author's name, but even that can be wrong or misleading, e.g. when a co-authored story is later reprinted under one of the author's names. In many other cases, this information comes from sources like encyclopedias or Web sites and, as we know all too well, everybody from Tuck to Clute to Don D'Amassa is wrong from time to time. Finally, copyright statements are an even less reliable source of pseudonym identification, but they can be a useful point of departure when searching for the Real Author (tm).

One thing that I find puzzling about Marc's experiments is the use of "uncredited" in this context. How can a title be attributed both to an author and to "uncredited"? This doesn't seem to compute, unless I am missing something. I also don't think that the use of "uncredited co-author" is superior to simply entering the author as stated on the title page, say X, and then, if there is reliable evidence that there was an uncredited co-author involved, say Y, making it a variant title "as by X and Y". Ahasuerus 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

My use of “uncredited” seems to be introducing confusion rather than indicating MZB and an uncredited co-author. It seems there will little loss of information if we remove “uncredited.” An alternative would be to change it to “uncredited co-author” or “Adrienne Martine-Barnes (uncredited co-author).” and “Adrienne Martine-Barnes (ghost writer).”

The original thinking was that when looking at a bibliography that people would see “The Shadow Matrix (1997) with Adrienne Martine-Barnes [as by uncredited and Marion Zimmer Bradley]” and that people would realize that AMB was the uncredited co-author.

It’s been my observation that copyright statements tend to be accurate, reliable, verifiable, but should not be taken as gospel. When verifying books I always take a look at them and will add notes if they differ at all from the credited author name(s).

With regard to this specific title.

1. AMB is credited on the copyright page.
2. MZB’s strokes and consequent use of co-authors seems to be well documented in Locus issues.
3. I just took a look at the MZB Literary Trust site which is run by Elisabeth Waters and see that it lists one of the stories as “with” and the others as “by” Adrienne Martine-Barnes.
   • Exile's Song, 1996 (with Adrienne Martine-Barnes)
   • The Shadow Matrix, 1998 (by Adrienne Martine-Barnes)
   • Traitor's Sun, 1999 (by Adrienne Martine-Barnes)

That last bit introduces an extra wrinkle in that we find that The Shadow Matrix was ghost-written by AMB using the pseudonym or house name MZB. --Marc Kupper|talk 02:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Unindented. I verified the book without the 'uncredited', with MZB as listed in the book. I added noted that the MZB literary trust gave a by credit to AM-B. That seems to work at book level. I then probably messed the title record up. I put a note in it giving the MZB literary trust crediting. I then added AM-B back in the uncredited author block. My thinking was the book level is correct, though people may need to delete AM-B in future verifications to reflect what their book credits. I am unsure that the uncredited authorship is needed, when the title record gives a valid source for the second authorship. Please correct my interpretation. Sorry for the workout, but as will happen I have some of the other MZB books with that question also. I intend to do as I have here, unless you correct what I did above. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The publication record looks good however something that came to mind is to remove statements such as "Adrienne Martine-Barnes is an uncredited co-author in the book, but the MZB Literary Trust Site says the book is by her." from the publication record. This way the publication record is an accurate and literal description of the book and we'll reserve "interpretation" and "explanation" for the title records.

I went ahead and changed the child title record so that it's "by" MZB only and thus matches the publications. I also moved the notes to the parent title, expanded on them, and added a link to the literary trust web site. The "uncredited" author is gone.

If that looks good to everyone then I'll clean up Traitor's Sun and Exile's Song to use the same method rather than the construction I'd set up last year for Traitor's Sun. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks real good to me, I think a db user will understand it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me too. BLongley 21:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)