ISFDB:Help desk/archives/archive 23

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Expanded archive listing

The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night from The Easton Press

I can't find this 17-volume series in the database, so I'm wanting to add it. I'm not sure how to proceed, though, since there are so many different versions of this in the database. Should I enter each volume as a variant of another? If so, which entries would be considered the original works on which to base the variants? Any suggestions? I appreciate any help. Nihonjoe 17:43, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A nightmare I totally avoided when methodically tracking down online editions of speculative fiction that are in the public domain. There are multiple editions by multiple editors/translators. From Abebooks it appears that the Easton edition is the Sir Richard Francis Burton edition but with 17 volumes instead of 16. According to wikipedia the work was originally published in 16 volumes. Those 16 volumes are also available at Project Gutenberg. As a starting point you can look through the Project Gutenberg volumes to see if the contents correspond with the Easton volumes. Perhaps one of the 17 volumes of the Easton edition contains extra material? There are other moderators who are far more active than I have been recently who may be able to give you better advice about how to proceed at that point. The existing Arabian Nights Entertainments Series is enough to give me nightmares. Note: When you click on the Project Gutenberg link there will be a Bibrec tab. Click on that tab and the notes will contain a link to the next volume.--swfritter 21:04, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The 17th volume contains the supplemental material as well as an essay about the series. Nihonjoe 21:29, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

So we seem to be comparing apples to apples. Another thing that is important is whether or not you intend to enter all 1001 stories. That would be incredibly ambitious. I see that you are a new editor. Entering data into the ISFDB can be quite complex, perhaps especially in this case. If you have some other less complicated data to enter it might be a good idea to get some experience. Meanwhile I will spend some time figuring out the best way to put the Project Gutenberg versions into the database. Once they are in it may be a relatively simple task to enter the Easton Press pubs. The first of the month is coming up so I will be entering some magazines for April so it might take me a few days to get to this project.--swfritter 00:11, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

New is relative. I have plenty of experience entering things, but wanted input on how others might enter these as they are quite big (as you said, 1001 stories).

I tend to put an entire multi-volume set in as a single publication; it just gets *too* complex otherwise. In general the Arabian Nights Entertainments Series is organized by translator, and they are not viewed as variants of some single source. Since the Easton Press edition is from the Burton translation, go to the Sir Richard Francis Burton translation title, then "Add Publication to This Title", and add it all at once. I use the excuse of the framing story so that I can just view it all as one large novel, because it's far too much work to enter all of the individual stories, and of course usually it's not possible to figure out which stories are in an edition, much less which are in each volume. Chavey 10:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I will consider this for a few days. Nihonjoe 17:47, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Considering the amount of bibliographic material available elsewhere it seems as though we would be reinventing the wheel if we do any extensive editing in this area. The Arabian Nights Entertainments series could certainly be more readable through the use of sub-series entries. In order to enter the Project Gutenberg pubs, which is my eventual intention, I will still have to enter 16 different pubs. And a sub-series will probably be a good place to put the title data that is generated.--swfritter 18:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I created that series in the first place, and put most of those titles in there, and I certainly wouldn't object if you found a reasonable way to improve its organization via sub-series. I might mention that if you look in the series "Bibliographic Comments", there's a lot more information about the titles there, and which editions have been included so far. Since WorldCat lists well over 5,000 records for "The Arabian Nights", there are limits both to how complete we will ever make this series, and how "organized" we can make it. Chavey 01:21, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

[unindent] I have added a note to the series which hopefully make it easier for the casual user to understand the logic of the series. If there are any clarifications that need to be made, please feel free to modify the note. My ONLY goal is find a logical way to enter the Project Gutenberg volumes so that users will know they exist and so that they can also access them the ISFDB. I can also use the title generated from that process to also provide links to the internet archive scans.--swfritter 19:53, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that note is helpful. The intent of this series (as described in the "Bibliographic Comments" was to exclude those publications which "do very limited extracts from the Arabian Nights (e.g. only "Sinbad")", but other editors have since added many such stories. I wonder if it would help that page to once again discard all of those publications, and put that limitation on the series along with your note. Chavey 03:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

[unindent]After thinking about it, I'm entering each volume separately in order to be able to enter page numbers without confusion. I've submitted three volumes so far, and I'll wait for those to be approved before doing the rest. Nihonjoe 04:03, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

If the individual stories are going to be entered then there needs to be consideration as to whether the pubs should be entered as collections or even as anthologies. I consider them to be adaptations rather than translations so I do not think we need to go the anthology route especially since that could require an insane amount of effort on the part of the moderators. I have not been an active moderator for the past few years but I know how much time and effort such a project can require from the moderators. The active moderators need to come to a consensus as the scope of this project. The Burton editions are of particular significance and entering their contents probably makes sense but the long term consequences of documenting the Arabian Nights canon are daunting.--swfritter 13:33, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

They have all been entered now. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:12, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Adding title to publication

I forgot how do I add a title to publication, I have found this help page "http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Getting_Started:Add_Publication_to_Title" however there is no "Add Publication to Title" link on the left bar (as the help page claims). Eg. I am trying to add "What is the Fourth Dimension?" to "Scientific Romances" because by SF-Encyclopedia the publication right now is not complete.

I found that on the publication page I can "Add titles" but surely this will create new titles not use existing ones, right? Qshadow 10:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

At publication level and to add a short story or an essay (as I suppose that you want to do), you've got two options : 1) use "Import Content" and enter the text's ID (here 1517771) in the bottom box or 2) use "Edit This Pub", enter the new text (by "Add Title" at "Content" level), it will then have to be merged (if it already exists) during a following phase. Hauck 14:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I've added the other titles to the publication, and other Charles Howard Hinton publications based on data from SFE3 and OCLC. Mhhutchins 16:25, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Hauck and Mhhutchins. Qshadow 17:35, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Why these are not marked as series?

What is the reason that these stories marked as "sequels" in notes, but still series where not created for them?

"Farewell to Earth" by Donald Wandrei. Sequel to A Race Through Time.
"Awlo of Ulm" by S. P. Meek. Sequel to Submicroscopic.

I am trying to understand the rule of creating or not creating series, just when i thought i almost got it, i saw these examples. (I have more like this). Qshadow 13:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

IMHO because nobody took the steps to create them. Some contributors are not particularly interested in taxonomy, don't want to enter endless debates on the relative positions of the texts, or simply don't have the time (it's not a mandatory field). Hauck 14:24, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

A number of 1920's-1930's stories were originally entered by a contributor who tended to enter series information in the Note field. He had certain medical problems and left the project about 5 years ago. I have updated the affected records. Ahasuerus 17:30, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand now, I will fix if I see such notes. Qshadow 17:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Last Series for 30s and 40s

After I checked a few thousands series and fixed what I could, here are the last 30s and 40s series that do not match to Fantlab.ru, that I was unable to figure out if they are true series or not:

• Purple and Gray by Harl Vincent
  • Confirmed and updated. A few other series have been set up. Ahasuerus 02:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Old Earth by Raymond Z. Gallun
  • Confirmed/updated using Starclimber: The Literary Adventures and Autobiography of Raymond Z. Gallun. Ahasuerus 02:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Ellowan Coppersmith by Lester del Rey
  • Confirmed and updated. Ahasuerus 02:31, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • There are two novellas in this mini-series. Records updated. Ahasuerus 01:56, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Marionettes, Inc. by A. E. van Vogt
  • This one is actually by Bradbury and the publisher's description reads "Several of these tales, including “Changeling” and “Punishment Without Crime,” are set in a world in which the eponymous company, Marionettes, Inc., has successfully created incredibly detailed replicas of existing men and women." I suppose it means that not all of these stories are set in the same world, but it's not clear which ones aren't. I'll go ahead and create a series for the three that we are sure about. Ahasuerus 02:55, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Also this one: "Supermind" by A. E. van Vogt is a fixup novel, but since we made series in such cases before (eg: "Rogue Ship"), I think here too we must create a series from the fixup stories. Qshadow 16:55, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, last I checked there was no consensus re: van Vogt's fixups. It's one thing if a series of related stories is subsequently converted into a novel, but van Vogt has been known to take a bunch of unrelated stories and rewrite them until he had something approximating a novel. We know why he did it -- it kept him afloat in the 1950s when he was spending much of his time on things like Dianetics -- but does it make the original stories part of a series?.. Ahasuerus 03:05, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Ahasuerus! Btw, I was really wondered about van Vogt, and his love for fix-ups, this is interesting information. I agree with you, in such case there is no reason for series. Qshadow 09:57, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Last Series for 50s

Moving to 50s (btw 60s we already covered in my first post about series):

• And the Rock Cried Out" by Ray Bradbury
  • These two stories describe Mexico in the aftermath of a nuclear war, but I don't think they are related otherwise. Is that enough to create a series? I am not sure. Ahasuerus 20:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I will reread them and reply later. Qshadow 22:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
      • True, not a series. Qshadow 21:02, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
• The Venusian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
  • Another couple of stories with a vaguely common setting, in this case a rain-drenched Venus, but no other connections (that I know of.) Ahasuerus 20:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I will reread them and reply later. Qshadow 22:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
      • True, not a series. Qshadow 21:02, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
• Tarkington Perkins" by Fredric Brown
  • The first story was a Brown/Reynolds collaboration, the second one was by Reynolds alone. Confirmed and updated. Ahasuerus 19:30, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Ted Binder" by Murray Leinster
  • Yes, it's a series. Also, the title of the story "Mr. Binder and the Solid Vacuum" (1958) reminded me of the plot of "Jezebel" (1953), so I checked the Russian translation of "Mr. Binder and the Solid Vacuum" available online. It turns out that it's the same story. We'll need to notify Steven H Silver, the maintainer of the Leinster Web site. BTW, the character's name is "Thaddeus" rather than "Ted". Ahasuerus 18:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Sam Hall" by Poul Anderson
  • The connection between the stories is rather loose, so I have set them up as a "universe". Ahasuerus 19:23, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson
  • I am not sure it qualifies as a series. To quote a recent review, "[The Demon of Scattery] features a framing device lifted from a minor scene in Anderson’s fine novel The Broken Sword. Skafloc, hero of that novel, and Irish demigod Mananaan MacLir relay the events of The Demon of Scattery to pass the time during a long sea-voyage." I have updated the title record. Ahasuerus 18:40, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Here, I am not sure too. Skafloc is only mentioned as the one that tells the story, but he is not the hero of the story. Qshadow 22:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
• Station in Space" by James E. Gunn
  • This one is kind of complicated. The 5 stories collected in Station in Space form a future history of sorts, but only some of them feature Amos Danton. Perhaps we should have a super-series for "Station in Space" and a sub-series for "Amos Danton"? Ahasuerus 19:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
    • This is probably my mistake, I didn't notice that we have these stories already organized in a collection. I usually filter cases like this (FL guys like calling collections "series" if they feel that the stories inside are connected), but on ISFDB we usually stay with "collection" only. I have no preference here, either choice is fine. Qshadow 22:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
      • A super-series has been created. Ahasuerus 04:09, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• Multivac" by Isaac Asimov
  • The problem with the Multivac stories is that all (?) of them have somewhat different versions of Multivac. Asimov apparently liked the concept and toyed with different approaches to it, but is it really a series? Ahasuerus 20:31, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I think it definitely makes them a series. The main theme and the setting are the same. Better create a loose series than not create at all. Qshadow 22:00, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
      • BTW, I forgot to mention. The "+" before the stories on Fantlab means that they are only remotely connected to the series. Eg. In the Multivac series, the Multivac is only mentioned in the stories with "+". Qshadow 08:54, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
        • OK, I have created a series for the Multivac stories and added the following note: "The ISFDB listing is currently limited to the stories in which Multivac is featured prominently. For other stories where Multivac is only mentioned in passing see the Wikipedia article." Ahasuerus 04:07, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
          • Great! Qshadow 09:17, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I am almost sure that these are real series. Qshadow 10:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Question about the ordering of the Perry Rhodan Universe

Hello to all, I transcribe here the question asked by Wolfram.winklerabout this pub: Perry Rhodan is a German SF series of magazines, at this time exist about 2800 titles (First print). The publisher decided to publish a hardcover version, one book of this version contains the text of 5 - 8 magazine titles. 3 - 13 books are a cycle. The title "Ovaron" is the 4th book of the 7th cycle called "Die Cappins" and is the 48th book of the main series "Perry Rhodan" look here. I don't know where I should place the information about the cycle and cycle#. Short: Main series "Perry Rhodan" #48 -> sub series "Die Cappins" 7th cycle #4-> title "Ovaron". Please give me a tipp, what to do, thanks. Perhaps I should use the field "Notes", but this is not perfect. In ISFDB similar publications appear below Pub. Series: Perry Rhodan, Pub. Series#: 36 like here, but there is no information about the cycle. Perhaps can one of our experts on the subject can provide some clues. Thanks. Hauck 11:15, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Answered on the editor's talk page. Stonecreek 09:22, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Nice, thanks. Hauck 13:23, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

AE Canadian Science Fiction

To Whom It May Concern,

According to SFWA, the current pay rate of AE Canadian Science Fiction meets the requirements for inclusion. I tried to register a story by Preston Grassmann recently, but it was declined.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Roger M.

I have placed some Notes in a recent submission, currently on hold, to a new discussion on our Rules and Standards page regarding this request for AE's eligibility into the database. I don't know if Pgowen and yourself are one and the same person, however we will inevitably need some input from you to state the case for inclusion in the discussion. Please also sign your comments with four tildes (~) which will automatically add your e-signature. Thanks. PeteYoung 06:54, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Two additional series (for the decades we already did)

I have updated my local Fantlab DB to the latest version and compared to latest ISFDB, and found two new series that folks on Fantlab created in the range (1930-1969):

• "Dr. Stanislav Slapernarski" by Martin Gardner
  • Confirmed and set up. Ahasuerus 20:16, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Troas" by Poul Anderson and by Isaac Asimov (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troas_(fictional_planet) )
  • This one is more complicated. To quote this version of the Wikipedia article about "Question and Answer" (edited by Rtrace, one of our editors):
  • Anderson was approached in 1953 by Twaine Press editor Fletcher Pratt with a story proposal: a scientist would create a world, and then he, Isaac Asimov and James Blish (Asimov thought the third writer might have been Blish's then-wife, Virginia Kidd)[1] would write novellas set in that world. The three novellas would then be published as a book, together with an essay by the scientist who created the scenario. This formula, which Pratt called a Twaine Triplet, had already resulted in the 1952 book The Petrified Planet.
  • I don't think the shared origin of these two stories means that they share the same universe. Similarly, the three stories in The Petrified Planet are currently listed separately and "Uller Uprising" is part of Piper's "Federation" universe. We may want to explain the relationship in Notes, though. Ahasuerus 20:16, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I agree. Qshadow 22:23, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I remember I also have to give two answers for the 50s series. Qshadow 10:01, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Series for 70s

Moving to the 70s. Remember the "+" usually means the title is "additional" to the core series, it may mean that it is very remotely connected to series, or that it is very connected, but it is not the core title of series, but some additional side story/novel.

• "John Maine" by Michael G. Coney
  • According to SFE3 and Wikipedia, the links between individual works are tenuous, but I think this listing is reasonably accurate. Ahasuerus 23:29, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks! I am trying to update the FL site to have the same hierarchy now. Qshadow 15:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Finger Pointing Solward" by Donald Kingsbury
  • According to Kingsbury's Web site, Finger Pointing Solward is the title of his "original unpublished novel that takes place about 500 years after Courtship Rite". He calls the universe "Courtship Rite world" in passing. Also, he states that as of the time of the writing (2001), there were only two other published stories set in that universe, "The Cauldron" (an excerpt from Finger Pointing Solward) and Shipwright. I am not sure why the FantLab crew thinks that "To Bring in the Steel" is set in the same universe. Ahasuerus 23:43, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I have asked FL editor to double check this, but I am not sure if he could track back the reason. If he doesn't, it can go to general forum there for discussion, which is probably an overshoot for now. Qshadow 15:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Both of them (John Maine & Courtship series) updated/fixed on FL according to your comments, thanks! Qshadow 12:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Jack Martin" by Dennis Etchison
  • According to Smashwords (and Etchison is on Smashwords, so presumably it's accurate) "[the short novel] Shadowman follows Jack Martin into an even deeper darkness in Shadow Bay", but I can't find any evidence that he appears in "It Will Be Here Soon". I have asked one of the primary verifiers to check. Ahasuerus 00:09, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Confirmed and added. Ahasuerus 23:35, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

This one is big, we actually have Imaro series, but FL guys combine Imaro and Dossouye into "Nyumbani" parent series, plus adding to it lots of short stories. It looks like they made a lot of organization work on this one. I decided to put google translate link here, so you could see the comments in brackets:

• "Nyumbani" by Charles R. Saunders
  • I have created a series for the Dossouye stories and fleshed out the Imaro series based on Saunders's Web site (more digging may be needed.) However, I see no evidence that the two universes are related. Saunders states that the Dossouye stories are set in "an alternate Africa that is not the same as the land Imaro roamed." Ahasuerus 03:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
    • What about the other stories, (eg Amma), are they in one of the series? Qshadow 15:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Saunders's site lists it as a non-series story. However, I see that another, more extensive bibliography, which was based on a list provided by the author, lists it as "non-series Nyumbani". I'll need to reconcile that list with what we have. Ahasuerus 17:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Regards, Qshadow 22:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work, much appreciated! Ahasuerus 03:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

And thank you, for checking all this! Qshadow 15:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Is a novel whose translation got split up into two different publications a SERIAL?

The German edition of David Brin's Brightness Reef has been split up into two publications: Sternenriff and Fremder der fünf Galaxien . I've entered the German titles as NOVEL now, but it just occured to me that it would probably be better to change them to SERIAL. On the other hand I've got the impression that the SERIAL type is intended for magazines only (the help seems a bit ambiguous about that). Is SERIAL ok to use for cases like this? Jens Hitspacebar 11:23, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

You're right, SERIAL is used for magazine publication only. You can use the NOVEL type as you can see in the above page. Hauck 12:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Jens Hitspacebar 12:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Series for 80s

Moving to 80s, this time the number of series is pretty large. Btw, the series year (50s, 60s, etc..) means actually the start year of the series, or simply the year of the earliest title.

• "Federation World" by James White: This one is actually a fixup novel.
  • Updated, thanks. Sectorgeneral.com has additional details. Ahasuerus 03:57, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Kim Ryan" by Joseph H. Delaney
  • Confirmed and updated. The FantLab team may want to add the novel based on the novella "In the Face of My Enemy" to the series. They also seem to be missing this series. Ahasuerus 04:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Valentina" by Joseph H. Delaney
  • Confirmed and updated. Ahasuerus 04:26, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Always Coming Home" by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • It turns out that "May's Lion" is thematically related to the "Always Coming Home" stories, but is not set in the same universe. "Napa: The Roots and Springs of the Valley" is the title of a chapbook which contains three photographs and "Where It Is", a story from "Always Coming Home". "One of Eight Life Stories: The Dog at the Door" is another excerpt from "Always Coming Home". Ahasuerus 19:30, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Time" by John Brunner
  • Although these two books have the word "Time" in their respective titles, they are unrelated. The first one is about the evolution of an alien species from the dawn of civilization to the space age (no human characters.) The second one is about two time-traveling (well, sort of) humans on Earth. Ahasuerus 23:26, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
• "The Fortress" by George R. R. Martin
  • I wouldn't call these two stories a series. "The Fortress", written in 1968 and published in 2003, was a very early story with no SF elements. "Under Siege" took the same material and added time travel and other SF elements. I have updated their respective Notes, which hopefully clarifies the relationship. Ahasuerus 23:43, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Presents of Mind" by Dan Simmons
  • I don't think this is a series. These 4 stories by different writers were originally published in 1985 in the Christmas issue of Mile High Futures, a comics catalog. They apparently share a common theme but are not related otherwise. Ahasuerus 01:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Land of Dreams" by James P. Blaylock
  • Confirmed and updated. Ahasuerus 01:48, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Pocket Brains" by Rob Chilson
  • Confirmed and updated. Ahasuerus 01:52, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
• "In the Country of Tattooed Men" by Garry Kilworth
  • In the Country of Tattooed Men is a collection of unrelated stories. Did you, by chance, mean "Triptych", which the FantLab bibliography describes as a series? At this time we list it as a single story, presumably because its components have never appeared separately. Ahasuerus 01:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I wanted to ask about the Triptych series, sorry for confusion. Actually two of them we list as separate stories: "Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands" (82292), "Murderers Walk" (57344). So we possible should create an entry for "The Black Wedding" too, and put them all together in a series if they are connected somehow (are they?). Qshadow 14:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! They are surrealistic pieces and it's hard to tell whether they are set in the same world. I have asked the primary verifier of Other Edens to check the introduction to see if it may make things more clear. Ahasuerus 16:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

• "Lost Souls" by Poppy Z. Brite
  • Updated using the master list posted on the author's Web site. The FantLab list is somewhat different. Ahasuerus 02:40, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
• "Telemass" by Eric Brown
  • Checked against the mega-list posted on Eric Brown's Web site and updated. Unfortunately, the way the ISFDB software works, a story can be a part of one (and only one) series. "Elegy Perpetuum" was arbitrarily assigned to the "Engineman" series. Ahasuerus 06:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I know its a lot, but at least the weekend is coming :) Qshadow 15:58, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look (although weekends mean little when you are retired :-) Ahasuerus 17:03, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Eerie Country

This question is about Eerie Country #1, #2 and #3. This is pretty minor but it bugs me that I don't get what's happening here. For the first three issues the publication titles all are entered with the same format, e.g. Eerie Country, 1, 1976. For #1 and #2 the Title Reference shows in the format Eerie Country, #1 (with the "#') but in the third issue the Title Reference shows as Eerie Country, 3, 1980 (no "#"). If you then look at the Series Bibliography it looks like this. Minor, I know, but it doesn't look right. When I entered #3's title I followed how it had been entered in the first two issues. What am I missing? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 00:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems that somebody edited the respective title entries for the first two issues (for these issues you still have separate title and separate publication entries). To match you have to edit the title for #3. I hope that helps. Christian Stonecreek 03:49, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Christian. I sort of figured the only way to match them up was to do that but I wasn't sure. That always seemed to happen automatically for previous pubs. Doug / Vornoff 04:34, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Illustrations within or at either end of essay titles

I see illustrations, many of them appearing to be of the filler type, within the text area of the essays and sometimes at either end, that are named either with the same name as the essay content title, or sometimes with the name of the publication. I can understand the former when the illustration is part of the logo display on the masthead of the essay, but so many times they don't look like they were drawn for the essay but used as space filler. It looks strange, then, to see them given the title of the essay. Is that just the common practice and is accepted? Or would it be preferred to title them with the name of the publication? I don't have a problem with either way. I'd just like to know which. Also, I've seen full page artwork that just happens to be the page before the essay also given the name of the essay but with no particular relation to the essay. Any advice on this? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 19:30, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that no one has responded to this almost week old request for help. There's only one basic rule that needs to be followed in titling INTERIORART content records: it should be titled for the work which it illustrates. If it doesn't illustrate a specific work (fiction or nonfiction) within the publication, then it should be titled for the publication itself. I personally do not create content records for filler illustrations, but some editors are (if I'm being generous) more "enthusiastic" about recording the most minute details of a publication's contents. Even then, they should follow the rule I cite. Mhhutchins 15:22, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you - that clears that up. I guess I've fallen into the "enthusiastic" category lately - I'll try to tone it down some. It may become moot in a bit as I'm rapidly running out of items in my collection that others haven't already edited. It's good, though, because I have run into full-page art that abuts a story where I can't see any relation to it but where others named it as art from the story. Doug / Vornoff 17:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguated interiorart content titles

I thought I understood the following situation but I'm beginning to wonder because I've seen things both ways a lot. In the case of, say, multiple interiorart contents for the same story, the practice is to disambiguate using brackets [2], [3] etc. for works by the same artist. I thought this did not apply when there was different artists for the same titled work (that it was automatically disambiguated) - only if you had the same artist. Is this correct? In the case of, say, multiple letters by the same person within the same publication this is also done - but not for letters by different authors even though the title is the same.<br. Is it this:
Space Cadets (March 1964) Joe Blow interiorart
Space Cadets (March 1964) Fred Jones interiorart
Or is it this:
Space Cadets (March 1964) Joe Blow interiorart
Space Cadets (March 1964) [2] Fred Jones interiorart
Thanks for any help. Doug / Vornoff 19:44, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry again for the non-response to your request. The sole purpose of adding the "[2]", "[3]", etc to a title is disambiguation. This means that the title and the artist credit would otherwise be identical. If a work is illustrated by different artists, there is no need to disambiguate, thus no need to add "[2]", "[3]", etc to the title. But if one artist has one illustration and the other artist has two illustrations for the same work, then only the second work by the second artist needs to be disambiguated. Mhhutchins 15:27, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought but I've seen the unnecessary disambiguation so much that I started to doubt what I thought and needed clarity. Thanks for your help, Doug / Vornoff 17:51, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

An omnibus of anthologies

I'm adding an omnibus which collects six anthologies (interesting, I know!), so I'm curious if I enter the individual stories or just the names of each anthology. I'm leaning toward entering the stories. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:13, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I just imported the contents from the individual anthologies. That seemed to be the best way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:22, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it establishes a link between the pub and all the titles that it includes. Ahasuerus 16:39, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

In this case I think that the whole lot should stay also as a ANTHOLOGY. I tend (perhaps wrongly as per Help) to reserve OMNIBUS to a title containing one NOVEL, particularly in the case of ebooks where none of the components have really (physically) been "published". Hauck 17:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Giving a link to the record or at least providing the title and author would really assist us in helping you. Keep this in mind when posting on the wiki. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:53, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

But you're supposed to be able to read minds. Didn't you get the memo? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:25, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Shh, this is not a secure authorized location! Ahasuerus 00:29, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

As per the last discussion of OMNIBUSes, Template:PublicationFields:PubType was modified to state that "A publication may be classified as an omnibus if it contains multiple works that have previously been published independently, and at least one of them is a NOVEL, ANTHOLOGY, COLLECTION, or NONFICTION". Ahasuerus 16:39, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I went back through several days' worth of submissions (several hundred of them) and found this record. It should properly be typed as OMNIBUS, and there should be content records for each of the six ANTHOLOGYs which it contains. Otherwise each of the anthologies, this one for example, will only show they've been published once, and that there is no ebook edition. When you update the publication record to OMNIBUS, don't forget to update its title record as well. You will notice that the story length field trick of adding the numbers of the series collected doesn't work for a title typed as ANTHOLOGY. It only works for an OMNIBUS. Mhhutchins 17:00, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

So how do we get it to show the actual content of those six anthologies? The Season One collection isn't necessarily republishing the anthologies, but the content of the anthologies. Also, all of them are already ebooks. Very few titles in that series (and from that publisher) have been published as physical books. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Translation

There are different options to translate following German terms:

Redaktion: editor, editorial staff, ...
Textredaktion: ?
Lektor: reader, editor, ...
Lektorat: editing, copyediting, ...
Illustration: artist, ...
Titelillustration: What's that?
Umschlaggestaltung: artist?

What is the exact translation for these therms? Thanks.--Wolfram.winkler 07:55, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

We may also want to update ISFDB:Foreign Language Abbreviations with this information. Ahasuerus 19:31, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I can't answer all, but some:

Illustration: same in English: illustration. The "artist" translation you proposed in your question would be an "Illustrator" in German.

Titelillustration: not absolutely sure because I haven't found a clear definition. But there are lots of hints on serveral website: this mean "cover art" and usually states the person who did the cover art (for example: "Titelillustation: Werner Schmidt"). The artist of the "Titelillustration" should therefore be recorded in the "Artist" field.

Umschlaggestaltung: that's cover design, something different than cover art. Important details about the difference between cover design and art in the ISFDB see here.

As for your questions regarding "Redaktion" and "Lektor": I am confused as well by the use of the word "editor" for, it seems, many different things in book production in the English language. I usually do this: if there's a "Herausgeber" (usually in magazines and anthologies) I use that person as the "Editor" (in the "Editor" field for magazine and anthologies, or in the note field for other types). If there's no "Herausgeber" but a "Redaktion" is mentioned on the copyright page (often in novels) I'll record these infos in the note field in the form: "Editor: Name of the editor". I've never recorded the people mentioned as "Lektor" so far and also haven't found a good English translation other than "editor" for it.

Hitspacebar 18:39, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your informations, it is so complicated. Lektor is a person, who reads any text and correct the missspellings and grammatical errors. I've found the therm "Proofreader", it seems to me a good translation.--Wolfram.winkler 11:19, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's really compilicated. However, a "Lektorat" is often more than just a proofreader. A Lektor often works as a mentor or advisor (Berater) for the authors, tries to find plot holes in the story, and I've read somewhere that there have even been arguments ("Streit") between a Lektor and an author because the Lektor had changed the story the author had written (without asking). "Korrektorat" would be the one doing proofreading only (you sometimes find both terms on a copyright page, for example in books by Golkonda: Jo Walton's Die Stunde der Rotkehlchen has three different persons mentioned on the copyright page: one for "Redaktion", one for "Lektorat" and one for "Korrektur"). I've added several terms to the Foreign Language Abbreviations page. Jens Hitspacebar 15:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to always enter the German word(s) as well, not only the translation, to avoid misunderstandings. For example: "Editor ('Redaktion'): Name" or "Proofreader ('Korrektorat'): Name". I haven't done that myself so far, only for information like "First German edition ('Deutscher Erstausgabe'), but I think I will start doing it for these terms as well to make to information more precise. Jens Hitspacebar 18:38, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Series < 1930s

We finished all the series that started in 1930-1989, so before we move to the 1990 which is really big, here is the rest of series before 1930s:

• "The Pacha of Many Tales" by Frederick Marryat
• "The Psyche Zenobia stories" by Edgar Allan Poe
• "The Bible According to Mark Twain" by Mark Twain
• "Strickland" by Rudyard Kipling
• "Aerial Board of Control" by Rudyard Kipling
• "Âges Farouches" by J. H. Rosny aîné
  • According to Jean-Baptiste Baronian, this is a "cycle" comprising all of Rosny's prehistoric novels and stories, but I am not sure if they are related otherwise. I'll ask around. Ahasuerus 21:51, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
    • According to Hauck, these books share a vaguely similar prehistoric background, but are not related otherwise. Ahasuerus 01:25, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• "Astronautique" by J. H. Rosny aîné
  • Visions of Mars: Essays on the Red Planet in Fiction and Science (p. 44) concurs and provides a synopsis. Records updated. Ahasuerus 21:23, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
• "The Recluse of Bayswater" by Arthur Machen
• "In Search of the Unknown" by Robert W. Chambers
• "Jungle adventure novels" by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • AFAICT, none of the listed "jungle stories" are related. Ahasuerus 01:54, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
• "Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump" by H. G. Wells (we have two last stories as separate titles, but not the first two)
• "Lemuria" by Clark Ashton Smith
  • These two stories and two poems mention Lemuria, but so do other CAS stories/poems -- see this list. CAS's universes tend to be interlinked and many connections are indirect and subtle; if we were to create a "Lemuria" series for these 4, we would have to create other "series" based on similarly tenuous evidence. Ahasuerus 02:04, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Regards, Qshadow 23:20, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Ezines: Perihelion Science Fiction

I have added updated information under the Rules and Standards Discussion page topic concerning inclusion of Perihelion in the database. Thanks! EdPerihelion 16:59, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

How to add a new issue of magazine if its issue grid has been grouped into years?

If a magazine's issues have been grouped into years, like it's been done for Alien Contact Magazine, how do you add a new issue to one of the year's titles? For example to the record for Alien Contact - 1992? I don't see a link "Add publication to this title" which are available for NOVEL title records. Alas, the Help:How_to_add_a_magazine_issue_to_the_magazine's_issue_grid is rather confusing than helping here. Do you just enter the new magazine issue via "Add new magazine" and merge the title records to "Alien Contact - 1992" afterwards? Jens Hitspacebar 14:42, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I usually proceed this way (just be careful at the merging stage). Hauck 14:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Adding the EDITOR record of a periodical into a series automatically displays it in the issue grid for that series. You don't necessarily have to merge it with an annual grouping, but that is recommended for periodicals that are regularly published. (I use the three-or-more issues per year rule.) Mhhutchins 18:52, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Artist F. Plachy

I was in the process of entering an issue of High Adventure featuring "The Mysterious Wu Fang" and was trying to identify the interior artist. The various signatures are "F. Plachy", "Plachy" and "F.P.". Checking online I found two references to an artist "Franz Plachy" on a Boris Wilnitsky fine art catalog and a Heritage Comics auction catalog. The figure of the man in the Wilnitsky catalog is almost identical to one of the men in the interior art for Wu Fang. "Plachy" exists as a name in the ISFDB here and has one credit. From what I found out, is this enough info to link "Franz Plachy", "F. Plachy" and "Plachy" together. Since there is no actual credit in either the existing record or the ones I'm working on, I assume that "Franz Plachy" cannot be a canonical name unless one pops up somewhere. If that is the case, and if the names are deemed linkable, would "Franz Plachy" become the 'legal name' to the canonical? Which of the others "F. Plachy" or "Plachy" would become canonical for the other to be made a pseudonym to? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 18:32, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

We usually choose the most complete name for lesser-known artists if there isn't an overwhelming number of records given to a shorter form of the name. But in this case, without more records in the database, I would suggest just leaving it as is. Without a more reliable source than just "almost identical", it's best to record the High Adventure piece as "uncredited" and note your supposition and its source. Mhhutchins 19:10, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I can see not adding the "Franz Plachy" name anywhere but just make a note of it. Since "Plachy" exists in the other record, does it by default become the canonical name. If that is so, should I just credit the art in the High Adventure stories to "Plachy", since the signatures are clear and there is no credit? You've told me that if the credit is to be based on a visible artist's signature alone, I should credit it to the canonical name and make a note. Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 19:37, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

That's true. I misunderstood that your identification was based on signatures and not just a similarity to another work. So as I mentioned above use the most complete form of the name, which would be "Franz Plachy", and note that the credits are based on a visible signature. Before you make "Plachy" into a pseudonym of "Franz Plachy" and variant the single record, contact the PV editor to see if his credit is based on a signature. If so, the credit would be changed and a pseudonym and variant would be unnecessary. Mhhutchins 19:45, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I've mentioned to him that we have a discussion here so he may show up. I understand what you're saying above. All good except substitute "F. Plachy" for "Franz Plachy" as the former is the most complete of the signatures in the book. "Franz" was the supposition I was making (and will make a note of) but "F. Plachy" is hard data. Thanks again. Doug / Vornoff 19:55, 10 July 2015 (UTC).

I found a "Ferenc Plachy", but he seems to have been more of a fine artist than an illustrator. Do the signatures in High Adventure match the one on this illustration credited to Franz Plachy? Mhhutchins 20:35, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

That's the image I've linked to above. Unfortunately the signature is more flowery than the ones ijn the pulp pages. His "F" is melded with the "P" of "Plachy". The figure of the man, though, is quite similar to the figures in the pulp but, as you say, not enough to be completely sure. Doug / Vornoff 21:36, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Here's a picture of his signature, if I've done the linking correctly: Plachy sig Doug / Vornoff 22:16, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The credit for this record is from a signature only and it appears identical to the one Doug posted above, except that there is no "F". It is just the name "Plachy". Since it is just a signature, I've no objection if the credit and canonical name be expanded. My own standard is to go with the canonical name of the artist, unless there is a printed credit giving the name in a different form. In this case, there is nothing but the signature. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 01:46, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a handwriting expert, but I could find nothing in common between the two signatures. Before making "Franz" into the parent, we may need a little more evidence. If everyone agrees, I suggest using "F. Plachy" as the canonical name until something more concrete comes along. Mhhutchins 02:02, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

(unindent) It sounds like Ron is comparing the signature on his art record to the one I just linked to, not the "Franz" one, implying we should make the canonical name "F. Plachy", same as what Michael suggests. I'm for it . I'm just sorry that Mr. Plachy has fallen into such utter obscurity with such a paucity of info on him available. Doug / Vornoff 02:28, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Hold your horses! I think I've found the definitive "Franz Plachy" reference on this website. If you click on the picture it enlarges and you can clearly see the signature is identical to the one I've linked to above. The artwork is credited to Franz Plachy and even gives his birht and death dates. The artwork is recognizably his as well from the dozens of pages I've seen in the work I'm submitting. So, if you all agree, I think that now the canonical name should be "Franz Plachy" and we should enter his dates. Doug / Vornoff 03:18, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Adding Title to Publication

I wanted to add title to publication for The Universe Wreckers, we've compiled the three parts into one novel. Is this possible, or will I need to Add a Novel? I appreciate any assistance you can provide. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ArmChairFiction (talk • contribs) . 22:08, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The natural thing would seem to be to "Add Publication" to the existing title that collects those stories. It's common to have the same book published by different publishers at different times, and this would seem to be an example of that. Chavey 02:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

It would also depend on if the three parts being combined into the one novel were left untouched (meaning they were just stuck together with no further revision), or if they were revised significantly and adapted into the novel. If the former, it should probably be listed as an omnibus. If the latter, it would be a new novel and should have a publication note added that indicates it was adapted from the three other stories/parts. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 04:03, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

"The ForeRunneR" and "Herland"

The 1915 feminist utopia Herland was originally published in 15 installments in the magazine The Forerunner, which I believe that I've entered correctly (albeit without the capitalization, "ForeRunneR" that the magazine itself used). Then, at the end of the year, they collected the 12 issues into a single hardbound book, "The ForeRunneR, Vol. VI", which thus contains the 12 serializations, and hence the first novel. I don't know if I've handled this book correctly. I've entered this as a magazine, so that I could keep it in the same series as the individual volumes, and list that "magazine" as containing the novella. I can imagine an argument that I should leave it as a magazine, but containing those 12 installments as separate content items. I can imagine listing this as an "anthology", which contains only 1 item of genre interest. (I can't quite imagine an argument for listing this as a "novel" or as a "chapterbook".) WorldCat does not list this collected volume separately from the magazine. To see how others list it, here is L.W. Currey's listing for the book, and here is the only other bookstore with a copy -- although this second copy may just be the 12 magazine issues, since it does not specify the hc binding. Chavey 16:46, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Note that there is now a problem with this title, see this report to see what needs to be fixed. Hauck 08:21, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I see three issues here:

1. Whether Herland is a novel or novella. A word count from the Gutenberg copy comes out at 53,089 words which would clearly be a novel by our standards.
2. What title type should be used for the collected volume of the magazine. I've entered several collected magazine volumes and have entered them all as anthologies. While most of the ones I recall are reprints done sometimes decades after the original publication, this one was published closely following the magazine publications and seems closest to what was done with The Forerunner. I don't think of the collected volumes as true periodicals and placing them within the same series as the magazine does funny things to the issue grid (e.g. [1] which also has a separate issue regarding how reprints are typed). In any case, typing these collected volumes as ANTHOLOGY works best in my opinion.
3. Assuming that the collected magazines are as they were originally presented (this is likely a scan of a prebound copy), I would argue that the collected volume should contain the several SERIAL types rather than than the NOVEL. While strictly outside the stated rules for SERIALs, I feel that these exactly reprint what was in the magazine and the parts remain separate. Though collected in a single book, they are not really presented together as a single novel. An example of where I've handled this situation is in this collected volume which contains the serialized parts of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath".

That is how I would have handled this, though I expect others may disagree, especially with #3. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:20, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks much. Mike had corrected my error of novella vs. novel. I followed your lead on converting the collected mag to an Anthology, putting in the serial parts instead, and removing it from the magazine series. Chavey 08:49, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Variant covers

I found three variant covers there: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1761187 But the Jim Burns - Summary Bibliography lists only the first one. What`s the fault? --Zapp 11:58, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

In order to see displays of translated titles or variant titles which have a different "language" (as if art has a language!), you must go to your personal preferences and change the setting. Otherwise it defaults to English and Original (parent) titles being displayed. Go to the Home Page of the ISFDB, and click on the "My Preferences" link (you must be signed in.) On the next page, click on the "My Language Preferences" link and check the "Show translations in all languages". Don't be surprised by how cluttered the author/artist summary pages look. Mhhutchins 15:20, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Cover: Tarzan and the City of Gold

There's something wrong with the above and I'm not sure how to correct it and didn't want to mess it up. The 1961 & 1964 covers by Mortelmans are the same but the 1967, also by Mortelmans is not, yet they show as being the same. I was thinking some kind of unmerge is called for but am not sure. The first ERB-dom interior art was to variant to the first 1961 cover and the second ERB-dom interior art was to variant to the 1967 cover, but both show up here because the cover ISFDB record #'s for the three book cover records are the same. Thanks for any ideas. Doug / Vornoff 04:06, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Click on the "Unmerge Titles" link under the Editing Tools menu. On the next screen, check the box of the 1967 publication. A new title record will be created. You will then need to unvariant the title for ERB-dom reprint and then variant it to the correct title. (Do you know how to unvariant a title record?) You may need to also update the dates of the records. Mhhutchins 04:17, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

OK, I will give it a shot. I believe to unvariant you put a zero in the parent field. Doug / Vornoff 05:39, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Everything looks good. I went ahead and varianted the ERB-dom reprint to the 1967 version. Mhhutchins 06:04, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Display problem with title

I've just entered this story (and its illustration) which has the title "<3/</3". The display of the title drops the last 3 characters and in some cases (e.g. [2]) starts an html link before it is intended. The correct title is still there if I open the edit form for the title. Functionally, everything, including links still work, but the display is certainly sub-optimal. Do we have any method for escaping characters in the data so that they will not be parsed as HTML, which is what I assume is happening here. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 02:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It's a know bug -- see Bug 279. For now, I have "fixed" it by changing the "<"s to "&#60 ;"s. There is a translation table that lets you encode any character. Unfortunately, the "fix" is fragile -- if you edit the title again, you will need to re-enter the HTML value. Ahasuerus 03:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have thought of that, though I wasn't sure which characters were problematic. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 11:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Downloading/Uploading Cover Images

I've been wondering if it's allowed to download a cover image from a website, re-size/adjust it, and upload it to the publication via the "upload new cover scan" button. On the Upload image help page it says, under the Semi-automated procedure: "If the image was copied from a source other than your personal scan of the publication's cover, you will need to edit the "Source=" section of the pre-filled template". Does this refer to what I mentioned above, i.e. copying an image from a website? And if so, what do you replace the information in the "Source" field with, exactly? Of course, if it's forbidden to do this, I just need to be told and that'll be the end of the subject. Thanks for any input, Doug / Vornoff 04:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, you may "snag" a cover image from another website. Be sure that it's less than 150k and the image is no more than 600 pixels at its longest side (exceptions made for wraparound cover art only.) But be sure to edit the "Source" line (as stated). Otherwise you may get questions directed at you from other users, ones you may not be able to answer since you don't have the publication itself. Also, don't forget to see if it's on one of the approved sites. Then all you have to do is link to it, regardless of its size. (Unless you believe there's a better image on a site from which you can "borrow" the file.) Mhhutchins 05:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

About sourcing: just give the name of the website from which you took the image. Mhhutchins 05:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the info, that's helpful. Doug / Vornoff 05:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Motoichiro Takebe

There are three artists listed separately: Motoichiro Takebe, Motoichirou Takebe and Ichiro Takebemoto. I've looked around the internet and I believe all three are the same person. I've found the works credited to the 2nd and 3rd names also credited to the first name on various sites, some of them in Japanese with enough English to match the titles with the artist. The first name seems to be the one in widest use on the net, however, the third one has his real name in Japanese in the bio section. If I were going to try to reconcile these names I would pick the first name for the canonical name, then copy his real name from the third into the first. Then I'd pseudonym the 2nd & 3rd names to the first and then variant as necessary. I have no reason to doubt that "Motoichirou" is how it is entered in The Legion of Time (page 201) as I've seen references to it spelled that way for that book on the net. So, should I go ahead with this or is there other advice you all can give me? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 00:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Go with the arabic alphabet version of what you feel is the artist's canonical name, and variant/pseudonym from there. Mhhutchins 01:59, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. Doug / Vornoff 03:05, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

He also worked under the pseudonyms 城青児 (Shiro, Seiji)、宇田野武 (Udano, Takeshi)、宇多野武 (Utano, Takeshi)、and 鈴江四郎 (Suzue, Shirō)。···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Linked Reviews

I have noticed that when reviews are auto-linked to their respective title records, it is because the review titles are entered as the title records are (copy and paste). This is contrary as to how some review titles appear in the publication. My question is, once a review is auto-linked to the proper title record, how strong is that "bond"? In other words, can an editor go back to the review title and change it so it appears as it does in the publication and maintain the link? Many reviews give the series of the book or subtitles not shown in the title record and other anomalies (typos not withstanding). So basically, will changing the review title to match effect the link? - Syzygy 17:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Changing the title of a review doesn't affect its link to the reviewed title. Once a link has been established, the only way to re-point a review to another title is by using "Link Review to Title". If you enter 0 as the record number of the reviewed title, the link will be deleted and the review title will become an "orphan". Orphan reviews are identified by the nightly process and appear on one of our cleanup reports. Ahasuerus 18:22, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The more important question is why does it matter how a title and author credit is given in a review after it's been linked to a title? The ISFDB policy is to change them to the canonical title and author. I believe "correcting" these titles once linked as counterproductive and creates unnecessary additional work for the editor and the moderator. Mhhutchins 18:32, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The reason I ask this is because in magazines that do a substantial amount of reviews there will be quite a few titles that deviate from the canonical and variant titles in the db. Following instructions in Reviews to mention such deviations in the note field would be a bit overwhelming for the editor and the note field, in my opinion. Also, it seems that insructions for review titles is at odds with content titles which states " The title should appear exactly as published, even though this may be different from the canonical title." Isn't a review part of content? Syzygy 19:41, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The simple answer: yes, it's "content". Complicated answer: no, it's not "Content". That's why reviews are not entered under the Content section of a publication record. It's an entirely different type of record. Look at a review record, and you'll see that there is no field for the title of the review. Most reviews are not titled in the publication, nor are they titled in the ISFDB record of that publication. But occasionally a publication will title a review, for example, a review of John Smith's latest novel is titled "Brilliant new novel by John Smith is an exhilarating reading experience". The ISFDB editor is not asked the title of the review: you enter the title of the work being reviewed, regardless of how it is titled in the review. You have the option to enter the title exactly as it appears in the review, but then you also have the responsibility to link that review if the system doesn't find an exact match. Or you can enter the canonical title of the work being reviewed and save the time and effort to make a new submission to link the review. That's your choice. Mhhutchins 21:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm sort of a stickler for accuracy and like to see a title appear as it does in the pub, but it does involve more editing. I think I'm going to mull this one over a bit more, but it's good to know that "The Cow Jumped Over the Moon" can be entered as "A Bovid Mammal Capable of Spaceflight Leapt Beyond the Orbit of a Planetary Satellite". Thanks for your answers/explanations. Syzygy 22:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Multivolume Japanese novels

What is the best way to enter the award winning novel 『吉里吉里人』 that was originally serialized in the bimonthly serial 『終末から』（しゅうまつから） between 1973 and 1974, reserialized between May 1978 and September 1980, then republished in a single volume in 1981 and then published in three volumes in 1985? Here is a list of the the three volume novel set from 1985:

1. ISBN 4-10-116816-4
2. ISBN 4-10-116817-2
3. ISBN 4-10-116818-0

This novel won both 2nd Taisho award in 1981 and the 13th Seiun award in 1982 among others.

I can of course enter all the publications over time (if I can find data on them) but I am mostly interested in just getting the title entered for the awards (I am slowly working my way through Taisho awards). The problem is the multivolume novel set (which I have data on). This is a very common type of publishing in Japan but within ISFDB we typically only variant serials and instead makes series for multivolumes (but that seems inappropriate here and I do not think we currently support awards for series). So what is the best way to handle multivolume novels (which are extremely common in Japan)? Thanks. Uzume 16:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I have many other examples as well and the only guidance is the comment on split novels at the bottom of Template:PublicationFields:PubType, however, that seems more applicable for rare cases with western works and calls for a note (essentially a special case). I want help or a policy call on what to do—not for a special case but rather where an entire culture/industry does this sort of thing en masse as is common in the Japanese publishing industry (there are tons of novels and other works published in multiple volumes that have only a single name and volume reference; sometimes with numbers but more commonly 上下 (up and down for two volume works) or 上中下 (up, middle, down for three volume works), etc.). Uzume 18:46, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I think there is a distinction to be made here. On the one hand, we already have a number of Japanese "light novels" series, which are published as sequences of short(ish) novels, e.g. No Game No Life, Log Horizon or Accel World. Although fairly short by modern standards, each individual volume is typically between 160 and 300 pages, which makes them NOVELs and that's how Fixer has been entering them. If and when a complete series of light novels is given an award, we will have little choice but to enter it as an "other", i.e. "not title-based", award as explained in Help:Screen:AddAward.

On the other hand, we also have novels which were originally serialized as e-novellas. Each installment is typically entered as a CHAPBOOK with a single SERIAL Content item, e.g. see the Dark Kings series. This has been discussed by editors/moderators, but I am not sure Help has been updated yet.

To go back to 吉里吉里人 (Kirikirijin), I guess the first question that we need to answer is how long the complete novel was and how long the original serialized parts were. Was it more like No Game No Life/Log Horizon or was it more like Dark Kings? Ahasuerus 22:36, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea of serializing across CHAPBOOKs, however, as you mentioned I am not sure of the best way to characterize such. The three volumes are 501+502+520=1523 pages, however remember these volumes are just 15 x 10.8 x 2 cm (5.9 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches) each and the complete novel was published earlier in 1981 in a single volume of 834 pages and 19.4 x 13.4 x 4.6 cm (7.6 x 5.3 x 1.8 inches). This is according to Amazon data. My thinking is to use the CHAPBOOK method and assign the award to the joint parent NOVEL title from the SERIALs (so the CHAPBOOKs would just be another/3rd serialization). I wonder how flexible this method is however, e.g., I have some key nonfiction that is also in such a format (e.g., Fujio Ishihara's 『Ｓ-Ｆ図書解説総目録 (1971－80年) 』 bibliography in five publications across two volumes; from the link select the image on the right to see the spine of all five publications enumerated from right to left: 上1/2, 上2/2, 下1/3, 下2/3, 下3/3). Uzume 13:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

If the single volume version is 824 (mass market paperback) pages long, then individual volumes would be around 270+ (mmpb) pages per. That makes them full-blown NOVELs and I afraid that entering them as CHAPBOOKs would be bending the rules too much. I suggest that we handle them the way The Lord of the Rings has been handled: each part is entered as a NOVEL while the single volume version is entered as an OMNIBUS. We also have about a dozen award records linked to the OMNIBUS title. Ahasuerus 21:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I was afraid you might consider it that way. The issue is most Japanese people would not consider them separate novels (since there is only a single climax, etc.). Uzume 12:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Understood, but this is not an uncommon practice. Some series consist of self-contained installments while other series are almost like one long continuous story. The most famous example of the latter is The Lord of the Rings, which was broken up into three volumes when it was first published. In recent years a number of SF authors have complained about their doorstopper fantasies getting split in two volumes when market conditions changed, sometimes resulting in painful cliffhangers. Ahasuerus 17:42, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Also what to do with the earlier serializations? Variant them to the omnibus title? That seems wrong. I have serious doubts the earlier serialization parts line up with the later serializations/series in chapbooks/novels parts. Uzume 12:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

An interesting question. I think we have run into this issue a few times, but I don't recall how we decided to handle it. I'll have to run a few queries against the database. Ahasuerus 17:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I look forward to your feedback from such an investigation. Thank you. Uzume 14:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Checking the data, I see that we do not have SERIAL titles set up as VTs of OMNIBUSES. We do have 15 SERIALs whose parents are COLLECTIONs, e.g. this Italian magazine appearance of John Brunner's Times Without Number, which straddles the fence between COLLECTIONs and NOVELs. Then there is Frederik Pohl's The Gateway Trip, which was originally serialized in "Aboriginal Science Fiction". I don't think these examples help in this particular case since the book wasn't serialized in a magazine. Ahasuerus 01:21, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually it was originally serialized in periodicals (I am not sure if 『終末から』 counts as a magazine but I am pretty sure 『小説新潮』 does). Uzume 10:24, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

What about the (I believe undocumented, but not new) method we have used for some historical multi-volume publications (used only when all volumes are published simultaneously)? See Fantasmagoriana that I just got done entering and massaging. Treat the volumes as a single publication, note it in the notes, and overload the page count with the various numbers as needed. This doesn't require anything changed in the database or software to accomodate, and allows awards to be title based. Kevin 04:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

That is very interesting and I wonder why it was done that way (especially in light of the fact that the single publication record and title record seems to not only represent the original two volumes but also recent electronic reprinted publications at The Internet Archive, Google Books, and The HathiTrust Digital Library). Uzume 10:24, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

In this case, there has been no later widespread publication that I could find. However even if someone wanted to index a single volume edition, it could easily be indexed as usual, with no impact from the two volume record hidden within the original publication record. Just 'Add Pub to this Title'. I don't consider putting scans online at any of the online repositories to be a new publication, nor the automated OCR which is atrocious (Technically the OCR and PDF downloads meet our definition, but I've never wanted to or seen anyone index them as such). I only treat them as documentation of the publication scanned. Kevin 15:31, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The bigger problem is that this is not an isolated case and handling them differently based on page counts is probably not a good idea from a cultural/industry point of view. I would rather handle this as chapbooks but I understand your concerns (which is exactly why I brought this here). Uzume 12:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it's to be expected that the popularity of different types of series structure, including "continuous vs. discreet", will be different in different countries.

One could argue that one way to handle this issue would be to add a new series flag to capture this distinction. Unfortunately, a single flag would be unable to capture the many shades of the continuum that exists "in the wild". Somewhat similarly, a couple of months ago we had a request to add a new flag to indicate whether a series needed to be read in order. The consensus was against it because it was not a binary situation.

Also, although my exposure to Japanese SF has been very limited, I have read the first 4 light novels in the Overlord series. I don't know how representative they are, but I don't see an issue with classifying each volume as a separate NOVEL. Each volume had a reasonably self-contained plot. Classifying them as CHAPBOOKs would IMHO do much more violence to the database. Ahasuerus 18:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure which work you refer to by Overlord light novel series but most light novels series are just that—a series of shorter individual novels. This work clear is not that. Uzume 20:19, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

There are lists here and here. Of course, if light novels do not have this problem, then Overlord is beside the point. Ahasuerus 21:02, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as non-fiction goes, at this time CHAPBOOKs are only used to enter standalone appearances of short fiction and poems. A non-fiction book like the one linked above could be entered as 5 separate NONFICTION titles and the titles could then be organized as a series. Ahasuerus 21:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. Perhaps a series of series is more appropriate in this case. Uzume 12:43, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

If it's any help, here's how I entered the Twelve Kingdoms series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

That is an interesting approach but I do not think I agree with that, however, it does clearly demonstrate the problem (and one particular workaround; unfortunate that will not scale well when there are multiple/many incongruous serializations). I do not like that you had to create arbitrary English translation titles of the parts which exist nowhere but in omnibuses putting them into single publications. I shall think on whether that is viable as a workaround in this case. The bigger problem is how this messes up the DB and makes hard to fix later when other serializations appear. I appreciate the help though. Uzume 03:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Why not just create a publication record for each separate publication? That's the basic approach for ALL publications regardless of their language, format, and relationship to other publications. Then add the titles to a series into which you can add notes that explain everything. If each part is novel-length typed them as NOVELs (as Ahasuerus pointed out in the case of Lord of the Rings.) If they're less than 40K typed them as CHAPBOOKS with a SHORTFICTION content record or SERIAL if they're not self-contained works (see Stephen King's The Green Mile.) I don't think the various "serializations" (I hesitate to call them that) should be a problem. There are many English language novels that have been serialized in various parts and the current system handles them just fine. (A Princess of Mars has been serialized at least three times.) Or am I simplifying a complicated issue? How exactly would you want to change the software to accommodate these publications?

As for your original post about "just getting the title entered [into the database] for the awards", I personally don't like that approach and ask others not to do it. Creating titles without publication records leaves a void for others to fill, and a useless record for the average user of the database. I know some editors do this (there are dozens of titles for French-language awards without publication records), but I think we should encourage editors to add publication records, not titles. This database has been, and should continue to be, built on publications, not titles. Mhhutchins 04:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I was planning to create publication records for each separate publication where applicable and not create any titles without publications. The point was to discuss what is the best approach to accomplish such based on the publication history and the fact that this type of publication history is essentially a cultural industry standard in Japan. I was not proposing any changes to the software system itself (although if there are policy changes that come from such discussions and those policy chances are best implemented with software system changes, so be it).

The point of "just getting the title entered [into the database] for the awards" was to choose which publications to target (not to avoid ensuring there is at least one publication per title) to best accomplish award entry. I would agree that probably the highest priority of the ISFDB project is capturing publications records (and titles, etc. are but a function of that) into a comprehensive bibliography but remember its beginnings were focused on awards and thus publications that resulted in awards (which are usually awarded to titles). Awards are a type of recognition that help define the essence/focus of the genre (based on the groups presenting the awards of course). I would prefer to not enter awards (or entering them unlinked to a title record) over entering awards to titles without publication entries.

The issue (short of helping decide which publications to target to facilitate award entry) is that this type of publication history is problematic to enter and often ends up with notes explaining things and at the same time is an essential part of an entire industry. The point is our current policy and technology does not handle well something that is essentially commonplace with Japanese publishing (we currently handle such things as exceptions by means of explanations in notes, etc. and I did not want to see "exceptions" for the majority of an entire industry as that would become unwieldy and very hard to maintain). Uzume 14:18, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

The question remains of what to do with Kirikirijin. Provided I can find data on all the publications, entering them is not that big of a problem but is Kirikirijin a novel or an omnibus and series? If this had been entered earlier at the time of the awards, it would have been straightforward. Enter the periodical serializations and variant them to the novel resulting from the single volume novel publication. But now along comes the three volume publication. I would like to handle this as an alternative serialization in chapbooks (which cleanly allows me to assign the award to the parent novel title) but due to size this might be unduly bending the rules and thanks to feedback perhaps should be considered a continuous series of novels in their own right. Does that mean the single volume publication should now be an omnibus? What to do with the earlier periodical serializations (which I believe will be harder to find publication details on and thus would likely be entered later)? I am fairly certain there have been no significant changes short of editorial changes in serialization (i.e., none of these qualifies as a fixup). Thanks. Uzume 15:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I would start by creating a publication record for the 1981 single-volume publication as a NOVEL-typed record. (You would attach the Taisho and the Seiun awards to this title.) This would only be an OMNIBUS if there'a a clean break between each part, each having their own title page, and even as importantly, marketed as a collection of three previously published novels, which I don't believe is the case. For the splitting of the full novel into three separate publications, assuming that each are more than 40K, create records for each as NOVELs. (There is a precedent for this procedure. See the FAQ for split novels here.) Then enter the full novel's title record into a new series, and then create another series for the split novels and make that series into a subseries of the first. (See how an English language split novel was handled here.) Were the 1973-1974 and 1978-1980 serializations in book form or periodical? If the latter, I would just note them in the title record of the complete novel, without making an effort to create stub records. Mhhutchins 16:39, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I believe the ISFDB:FAQ#How does the ISFDB deal with "split novels"? precedent (which I did not understand from the comment at the bottom of Template:PublicationFields:PubType) is exactly what I was looking for. I am not sure it is optimal but it seems the best compromise I have heard so far (and avoids the omnibus issues/possibilities while being able to scale somewhat). Uzume 19:15, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I made submissions for the 1981 and 1985 novel publications. Interestingly enough it seems there is a recent kindle ebook publication from this year that actually might be an omnibus of the parts from 1985 since it is labelled 上中下 http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00UKXREKG Uzume 19:54, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

For interested parties the finished product as I entered it is available here: Fujio Ishihara (linked to the author since this is a new author for our DB). Notice I did not enter the serializations except as a note on the 1981 title record (which is also home to the awards). I did not deal with the 2015 Kindle omnibus publication either. Uzume 10:24, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

how to cancel my verification?

Hi I verified SFBC edition of Slan # 321540 before realizing what I really have is SFBC edition # 257165. So I added my verification to the latter, but can't see how to unverify the former? thanks gzuckier 22:08, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Go to the verification page for the publication record and click the button under the column titled "Not Verified". Mhhutchins 22:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

aha, that works thanks. gzuckier 07:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Deadlock

It looks like we have two unverified publications of the above title, this one, and this one, that are the same entity, except that one is typed a chapbook and the other a novel. The notes are also different. If I were to guess what to do, I would copy pertinent notes from the novel version to the chapbook and delete the novel. Would this be right? Doug / Vornoff 04:50, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

190 pages seems pretty high for a CHAPBOOK. I would keep the NOVEL record, delete the SHORTFICTION title record and the CHAPBOOK publication and title records. Mhhutchins 06:31, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Done. Thanks / Doug Vornoff 15:05, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Found some titles which are disambiguated by adding a year in brackets. Is there a rule for this?

I just came across some variant titles which have the same parent record and where the titles of the variants are disambiguated from each other by adding the year in brackets to one of them (probably because of different translations, but there's no note about it in these records). Example: "Der neue Beschleuniger (1987)" and "Der neue Beschleuniger". I've not seen this here so far and it looks pretty odd to me. Is there an (unwritten) rule for doing it like this? Jens Hitspacebar 18:49, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The year of publication shouldn't be used to disambiguate titles. That's why we have a field for the date. If you see any more, and there's no reason for it to be there, please make a submission to correct the title. I'll see if I can find any more in the db. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:08, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I've found some cases where the date is used to disambiguate a revised version, such as this one. Although technically, it shouldn't be done that way, in a few rare cases it might be necessary. Mhhutchins 20:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

As you've noted, in some cases, the date was used to disambiguate another translation which uses the same title. That should be in the notes to keep it from being merged. I'll remove the year from those titles. Mhhutchins 20:16, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

And in some cases (like this one), the year is an actual part of the title and shouldn't be removed. Mhhutchins 20:18, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Jens Hitspacebar 20:33, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Adding page nos. to unsorted Anthology contents list

I would like to edit "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 27" pub. rec. #483081, from my own copy, but could use some guidance on a number of things.

First, the contents list in the existing pub. record lists all the titles, but in a random order, eg "Honorable Mentions 2013" which is at the end of the book appears about 1/3 of the way down the list, and "Summation 2013" which is at the start of the book appears 2/3 of the way down. Also, there're no page numbers shown in the pub. record. So, do I have to add all 30+ items as new titles, with page numbers, and then delete the existing titles, or can I just add page nos. to the existing titles? If the latter, will they be automatically sorted by the system after I press "Submit"? And will the system also put latin numerals, for prefaces etc, before the ordinary numbers? Or do I need to use the "|" pipe symbol and sorting numbers?

I'm afraid that the pages have to be added: the contents likely have been imported from one of the parent title's publication, but as the page counts differ, it'd be mistaken to copy them too. It would have been possible to use the pipe symbol but it is in many cases to time consuming as the page nos. should be entered anyway by a primary verifier (it could be you!)

Ok, no probs, it will be good practice. But just to clarify, does numerical sorting only happen with the pipe symbol? If, say, I did insert page nos. in the existing titles, with such numbers being obviously out of sequence, would the system stay with the alphabetical arrangement and ignore the numbers once I submitted the edit?

No, page numbers rule! The pipe symbol comes in handy when there are no page numbers known but the sequence of items is (and one finds the time to enter the correct sequence) and especially for unusual use of page numbering, when there are for example pages without or a different pagination inserted in between, like here. Stonecreek 16:35, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Secondly, how would the contents list have been scrambled as it is? I thought perhaps it showed the title order of the US version, #450282, but a quick look shows that that book has the same order as mine.

Without page nos. they are just automatically ordered by alphabet.

Arrrrg! How did I miss that...? I'm supposed to like cryptic crosswords, codes, patterns and things - told you I was getting cross-eyed.

Thirdly, what's the difference between Full and Concise contents listings? I can't see any differences between them in the examples I've looked at.

Concise would probably mean only the fiction, no other material like introductions or illustrations (but that depends on the editor responsible for the note).

Ok, makes sense.

Fourthly, the existing record #483081 for this book is unverified, and I don't see any user name linked to it; is that because it's a work in progress, or some sort of automatic/bulk listing? Either way, who would I give the update request or advisory to?

We try to capture all speculative publications, this likely was found by our robot Fixer and the contents were then imported by an editor.

Ok, noted.

Possibly too many queries here, but as a relatively new user, I found myself getting cross-eyed with the number of ISFDB pages I had open at the same time. Thanks in advance, Astrodan 15:15, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I hope that does help a bit. Stonecreek 15:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

It does, thanks for the help and info.Astrodan 16:20, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Four tildes (~ repeated) adds my e-signature

Marc Kupper provided me some instruction regarding management of the display generated by four tildes (~ repeated) --that is, setting my e-signature. See User talk:Pwendt#Signature. Minutes ago I entered [[User:Pwendt|]]|[[User talk:Pwendt|talk]] at Preferences:Nickname, which field was previously empty (rather than defined by the entry --[[User:Pwendt|]] as Marc Kupper supposed).

I sign using "--~~~~", hoping that the auto-generated display shows that I misunderstood the instruction and need help.

--[[User:Pwendt|]]|[[User talk:Pwendt|talk]] 23:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

fix section heading and lead sentence --[[User:Pwendt|]]|[[User talk:Pwendt|talk]] 00:01, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

How exactly do you want your signature to be displayed? If you want your signature to be displayed as "Pwendt", just enter the four tildes and nothing else. In that case, there's no need to set a nickname preference.

If you want an accompanying talk page link (in parentheses), according to Marc's instructions, enter this into the nickname preference field:

[[User:Pwendt|]] ([[User talk:Pwendt|talk]])

I've never tried to create a nickname, so I'm just going by Marc's instructions on your talk page. Mhhutchins 01:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I've figured it out. You have to check the box that say "Raw Signatures (without automatic link)" if you want to use the template that Marc provided. Try that and see if it works. Mhhutchins|talk 02:47, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --Pwendt|talk 17:56, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

If you want to do something more complicated like my signature, you should always "subst" it, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:36, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Two different translations

If there are two different translations of the same title by two different translators, should the two translated titles be merged or both made as variants of the original? --Jorssi 21:53, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

If the answer to my previous question is that they should be merged, is it also the case with abridged translations? For example, I have two translations of Cujo by Stephen King. One of them is an abridged translation and the other is unabridged. --Jorssi|talk 22:10, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Per a recent discussion on the Rules and Standards page, title records for works which have different translators should remain separate, with both being made variants of the original language's title record. The abridgment is only a factor in the decision if it is an extreme one, changing the work from a NOVEL to SHORTFICTION (less then 40K words). In that case, it is not varianted to any title, and the publication is typed as CHAPBOOK. Mhhutchins|talk 22:14, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. --Jorssi|talk 22:24, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Using ISFDB Wiki search box

I've two queries about using the ISFDB Wiki search box: -

First, possibly a trivial one; what's the difference between the 'Go' and 'Search' options beneath the search box? they both seem to produce the same results.

Second, my main query; the actual results, best illustrated by a section of a recent search I attempted. This concerned my copy of Harlan Ellison's 'Dangerous Visions', the Content of which I was considering editing regarding the story introductions. (Depending on answers here, and results of any subsequent searches, that subject might need a question of its own.) I suspected that with such a well-known book, this subject must have been discussed many times before, and a consensus reached. The first three of the six items shown in the search result follow:

1.ISFDB Bug List (40,488 bytes)

30: ...ved for well known examples like Last Dangerous Visions." Apparently if you set the title_copyright to...

39: ...Y, COLLECTION, FANZINE, MAGAZINE, or OMNIBUS only content items other than the parent are listed and availa...

2.Rules and standards discussions/Archive/Archive01 (172,385 bytes)

102: #Content-centric. Take a series of related books, e.g. Ace...

110: #Publisher-centric (subset of Content-centric above). Since ISBN prefixes's are handed ...

294: *Improving software support for content editing/pseudonyms/translators as well as single ...

423: ...d cut-and-paste into all of these "Last Dangerous Visions" wannabes' entries? Ahasuerus ...

673: ...ut -- presumably just by changing the name in the content records.

3.Rules and standards discussions/Archive/Archive02 (127,034 bytes)

144: ...owledgements and author info, but I'm sure of the content), can someone look at the US one with the suppose...

188: ...ished colection? Locus1/Contento also list in its content beside individual stories headings for the collec...

196: ... Editor shows just SHORTFICTION and ESSAYs in the Content section of both; however when I do Diff Pub of th...

207: ...ks like Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art? [[User:Lorenzr|Lorenzr]...

213: ...ld Diaries contain a small Fictional and/or Essay content, although most of the books are blank diary pages...

Only the top line of each of these three sections is linked to other pages, but those following pages are lengthy and don't show or highlight the numbered text snippets in each section, and I ran out of time trying to find them.

The two 'Basic Search' and 'Advanced Search' pages under the 'Finding Data' section of the 'Main Page/Help:Contents/Help;How to' page are both empty, so:

What is the best/most efficient way to use the search system?

What do the numbers on the left of the lines in the results above mean?

Thanks, Astrodan 09:27, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the version of the Wiki software that we use is very old and not very robust, to put it mildly. Al von Ruff has plans to upgrade our Wiki software to the latest version, but he is currently on hiatus.

When I need to review an old Wiki discussion, I find that I get much better results by using Google Search. In this case I would search for something like:

• "Dangerous Visions" -cgi-bin site:isfdb.org

where "-cgi-bin" tells Google to skip URLs which include "cgi-bin", i.e. database entries.

To answer your second question, I believe that they are line numbers. They are not displayed when you go to the destination page, but most browsers should let you use "Control-F" to look for arbitrary text. Ahasuerus 20:59, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just tried that Google Search method; much better. From your answer, I imagine that the 'Go'/'Search' button option is just a sort of legacy carry-over? Astrodan 10:04, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know, the "Go" button searches for matching page titles while the "Search" button searches for matching page titles and matching text within Wiki pages. Ahasuerus 15:55, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, search by default looks for each word. For multi-word terms, you will get more useful results by putting them in quotes: "Dangerous Visions" vs. Dangerous Visions. --MartyD 11:41, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Deleting an author profile

My apologies if this isn't the best place to ask, but is it possible to remove an author listing from the ISFDB completely? I'm listed in the ISFDB from a story I had published online several years ago, but I'd rather not be, as I'd prefer not to be listed in any databases if possible. And if I can't remove it, can i at least delete the Date of Birth from my profile so this isn't listed publicly? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mrfiction15 (talk • contribs) .

The only way to remove an author entirely from the database is to delete all of the titles first. Since data about works published in books, periodicals, and websites is publicly available information, we can not allow the removal of that data from the ISFDB for personal reasons, if the work otherwise qualifies for inclusion in the database (see the inclusion policy).

You can remove personal data from an author's ISFDB profile if you can show that a) it is not correct or b) it's not otherwise publicly available information which could compromise the author's security. Although this last part isn't stated in the ISFDB policy, we have done this in the past under certain circumstances. If you are the author, and have a good reason for wanting to remove your DOB from the author profile, just go to the summary page and click on the "Edit Author Data" link under the Editing Tools menu. Make the changes and in the "Note to Moderator" field, explain your reasons for changing the data and give us minimum proof that you are the author. Changing the date to just the year might be a good compromise. What's important to remember is that it only takes another editor to come along and add the data back to the database. There's no way we can flag an author to prevent this from recurring. Mhhutchins|talk 17:53, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Series information from the getpub.cgi web api?

I'm trying to create a low bandwidth way to auto enter book data into a database, based on an ISBN. I'm doing this for an independent specialty bookstore I work at. Right now the well documented web API (http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Web_API) shows how to get XML data... but the data one can get seems to be very limited.

This API doesn't return any "Title" data -- I'm specifically thinking of series information (not publisher series info, but series info).

Since the getpub.cgi is clearly bringing in data from tables other than the publication table, I wondered if there was any discussion of increasing the number of fields that are returned in this query. Since it is all XML based, it including additional series field (or others) should not break any custom applications out there. Including series information would be a really cool, for starters.

Also, other than the text title field, this XML result doesn't include any title record numbers to programmatically go back up the tree and get the series data, or any other data associated with the Title (other editions, for example).

Are there any undocumented web API's that might return full Title Information associated with an ISBN/publication record?

Right now it seems like the web search form and data scrapping is the only way to get "title" data, as opposed to "publication" data. which is kind of messy, and probably takes up more bandwidth than one would like.

I've searched around a bit, but am not seeing any other documented web API's. In an ideal world, the getpub.cgi would allow query parameters to allow the results to include more/less fields, like series or related publication information. is this possible? Is there some undocumented bits to this api that do that?

Any information, or discussion about what gets included by default in the returned XML data would be appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jlassen (talk • contribs) .

I am afraid there are no undocumented Web API calls that would return additional data. There is a feature request to add "gettitle.cgi" and there is another feature request to make "getpub.cgi ... include some title information", specifically:

• series name and series number information, but synopsis, length, and entry type

Are there any other fields that you would like to see implemented?

Also, keep in mind that our weekly backups are publicly available. One way to get the data that you need would be to set up a local copy of ISFDB and retrieve title fields directly. Ahasuerus 03:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for this information... in particular, the link to backups is a possible interesting addition to workflow and data acquisition that I hadn't thought of.

Other than title Series, I'd love to see returned from this query a field of "other publications"... that is, all the ISBN's associated with a given TITLE record.

New content in wrong pub

I just entered content here when it should have been entered here. Content has been approved. Would the correction procedure require me to import content from the latter into the former and then remove the new content from the latter, and correct any metadata in the respective pubs? If this method is wrong, please advise. Syzygy 15:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's the way 1) import, 2) delete from the former which allow you to modifiy the dates in the latter (as there will only be one occurence of each title so allowing you to change the title data at publication level). I've done this for you (IIRC I've approved your initial submission without seeing the December 2010 date). Hauck 16:39, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I've made submissions to update the metadata in both pubs and corrected the verification status. Syzygy 17:02, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Page numbers - mixed numerals

I'm verifying a book that has a page count as follows: - 10 unnumbered pages, a page showing 'xi', a blank unnumbered page, then the novel starting on the next page (this page and the next three are unnumbered before the Arabic page count begins on page 5, to the end of the novel on the last numbered page, page 400.) There are three pages of mixed non-fiction/shortfiction starting on what would be page ix, although that doesn't seem to be relevant when discussing Roman numerals.

Is the correct way to show the 'Pages' count in the pub metadata; [xi]+400, xi+400 (or even [x]+i+400, which could be misleading)? Thanks, Astrodan 13:46, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

It would be entered as "xi+400". That's the highest numbered page of the two ranges of numbered pages. Brackets are only used for a range of pages which are not numbered. You can interpolate unnumbered pages which are in a range of numbered pages as being numbered. Many book designers don't give the page number on pages on which a content begins (chapters, stories, illustrations, etc.) So you determine its page number by the pages either before or after it. By that same logic, if you're adding content for a work which starts on any of the first ten pages of the roman-numbered range (in the case of the book you cite), you can give its page number in roman numbers, even though there is no actual number on the page. Mhhutchins|talk 16:45, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I need to consider interpolation earlier. Thanks, Astrodan 11:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Two artists on this cover, but not on the same art

When we have a single piece of cover art with two artists contributing, we put those two artists as "co-authors" of that artwork. But when they are separate elements, especially when those elements have been used on their own elsewhere, this isn't appropriate. For example, this cover (which was repeated here) has the central piece done by Sternbach with art by Tinkelman wrapping around it. I can't put them both as authors of this art, because the central Sternbach art has been merged with several other occurrences of it as a stand-alone piece, so if I listed them together as the cover artists for this piece, I would end up with Tinkelman as a co-author on pieces he had nothing to do with. How do we handle such a case? Chavey 05:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

My opinion: They both contributed to what we're looking at on the cover. That makes the cover a collaborative effort, even if it was a book designer who actually created the cover from separate elements. So there should be a single cover art record crediting both artists. Tinkelman is the "co-author" of that cover. I'm not sure how it can be said that "he had nothing to do with" it. As for merging, well the software doesn't allow it, since the records have different credits. Currently, you can only note the other uses of the art and link it to the other record in the title record's Note field.

If you want to take the "author" analogy further: unless the co-authors of a work explicitly tells you what each of their contributions to the work consisted of, you can't know exactly how the collaboration works. In all cases, we credit both authors equally. We don't even have the ability to record "with" credits. The software currently doesn't allow us to credit each of the "authors" of a cover. I'm not even sure how it would work if somehow we could figure out how to do it.

Here's a third option: only credit the major contributor with the cover when it is explicitly credited and note the other one. In this case, credit the cover to Sternbach, and note Tinkelman's contribution in the title record. Mhhutchins|talk 07:11, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

When I referred to Tinkelman as having "had nothing to do with" the art, I meant for covers such as this one. That Sternbach cover is merged with the version of the cover that has Tinkelman's "cat snake", so the combined set of covers, shown here have both versions: Two by Sternbach and three by (Sternbach + Tinkelman). IMHO, Tinkelman's art on that cover is worth crediting here, and not just as a note. But of course I don't want him credited on the first two. But it seems wrong to list it as "Cover2", since there aren't two "covers". Should the two sets of Sternbach covers be unmerged? Maybe make the second one a variant of [ 2015 (UTC)

Yes, unmerged, but no, not varianted. (This is the option that I suggested.) I'll work on it and you'll be able to see the results. What will happen is that there will be two separate cover art records. One credited to Sternbach and one credited to Sternbach and Tinkelman with a link in their respective Note fields. Mhhutchins|talk 01:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Here are the results: the record for Rick Sternbach's original cover and the record for the artists' collaborative cover. You'll see that I added a note linking them. Until we get a relationship function, that's the best we can do. Mhhutchins|talk 01:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! A good solution. Chavey 14:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Title merge or title import

I have an essay I would like to add to this pub, however, I would be predating this record's yeardate. Do I 1.) Update the title record's date, then import the record to the pub, or 2.) Enter the essay title as a content record in the pub and then merge the two records? Which method is preferable? Syzygy 16:22, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

It would be easier to import the essay and then change the title record's date. That avoids having to type the entry. It is also clearer to the moderator if the import is before the date change. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:45, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Import submission made. Syzygy 17:12, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Pub series letters, not numbers

Hi. What is the usual policy when books in a pub series are identifed with letters or Roman numerals instead of Arabic numerals ? I have just met the case, and left the field blank + a note, but maybe the letter should have been entered. The case does not seem to be covered here. Linguist 21:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC).

There is this example, but the sort by series number doesn't work properly. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 22:14, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

That's a good reason to use regular numbers. And why we have a series note field to record the irregularities in numbering. Mhhutchins|talk 22:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Right, thanks, I'll add a note to this series. BTW, what about using a number and indicating the letter between brackets : 8 (H). Would that work or be suitable ? Linguist 08:31, 8 October 2015 (UTC).

You can try it to see if it sorts correctly. Mhhutchins|talk 16:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. So far, I have only met one of a kind, so there wouldn't be much to sort. But I'll try that system if the case arises again. Linguist 13:42, 11 October 2015 (UTC).

Cover title record doesn't appear on cover artist's summary page

Comprehension question: this cover title record for Anathem has two cover artists, but if you go to the summary page of the cover artist Dave Wall the cover art for Anathem is not listed there which doesn't make sense to me. Is there a reason for this, or is it simply a software bug? Jens Hitspacebar 17:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

On the publication listing, you can click the "Cover:" link to show the coverart title record. The coverart record gives Yolande de Kort and Dave Wall, but it is varianted to a record that is just by Yolande de Kort. As such, it won't display on Wall's page, but only on de Kort's page. I am not sure why it's varianted given the publication notes. I'll ping the primary verifiers. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:49, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, looks to me like they should be merged, with credit to both artists. Bob 20:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, Jens, that situation was caused by you crediting only one of them in your verified record, and another editor varianting the two cover art records. If your book doesn't credit both, (and the design appears to be slightly different), then they should be unvarianted. If both of them are credited in your publication, you need to unvariant the cover art records, and then merge them into one record crediting both. Mhhutchins|talk 21:10, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Credit on first printing as entered (two artists given). Hauck 13:36, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Hm, I see. Dave Wall is definitely not mentioned in the German version. I'll unvariant them. Jens Hitspacebar 14:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Submission approved. --Willem 14:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Cover, and part of a cover

The most common cover for China Mieville's Iron Council, shown at that link, is also a part of the cover for Foundation #94. Should there be any type of merge operation that shows this relation? Or just some kind of note that connects the two? Chavey 22:51, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Since there's two records, one for each of the images on the Foundation issue, you can variant each of them to their original COVERART title record. Mhhutchins|talk 23:01, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! I hadn't thought through the implications of having the two cover records there. Chavey 04:35, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding Cover Reproductions and Cover Art as Interior Art Contents

I'd like to get the current consensus on whether or not adding reproductions of genre book and magazine covers found within essays is acceptable or not. Of course, I'm not referring to lists of current books found in such as Locus, but the occasional covers that are examples of what the essay's theme is. If it is acceptable:
1. Should the title of the interior art content be of the form: "Weird Tales, November 1930 (cover)"? And should the date be the original cover date or the date of the current book or magazine publication date?
2. What about in the case of, say, raw artwork that is from the cover of a magazine but has no title over-printing? If there is no specific caption for the art, should it be given the title of the magazine article it's found in, as is usually done, and then varianted to the original cover, leaving the date as the current publication date?
3. Is there a suggested size limit for these reproductions to be acceptable?
Thanks for any advice. Doug / Vornoff 20:08, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

As long as they are actually used to illustrate the work, then nothing in the rules prohibits adding them as INTERIORART records. Some of us do it, some of us don't, and some of us think far too much effort is made in recording interior art.

1. The title should be exactly how the work is titled or captioned. If it is neither, then it should be titled as the work it illustrates. The date should be the date of the publication, unless it is a reprint of an earlier use with the the exact same title.
2. Same response as #1.
3. Same response as the original question. Their size in the publication shouldn't matter as long they actually illustrate the work. Editors have to use their own judgment, and determine if the time and effort of creating such records adds value to the database. Mhhutchins|talk 21:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay, that answers the questions for me. Thanks. Doug / Vornoff 21:44, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Book ToC - page numbers discrepancy

My copy of Berserker has a discrepancy between the start page for each of the 11 stories as listed in the table of contents, and the actual start page of each story in the book. The difference is three pages for the first story, increasing through the book to reach thirty-three pages for the last story.

The pub record for Berserker I was going to additionally verify shows the incorrect ToC numbers in the Content section; should I amend this to show the actual numbers, or leave it to show the ToC numbers, with a pub note highlighting the differences? PV1 has been advised of this query.Astrodan 14:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

The actual page number supersedes the one given on ToC so everything is to be changed. You can record the discrepancy in the notes, it will perhaps help to avoid this pitfall later. Hauck 15:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, will do, thanks Astrodan 16:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

The Professionals series

One of the titles on the Titles Without Pubs list is "You'll Be All Right" by Robert Holdstock writing as "Ken Blake". This is a member of "The Professionals" series. In this Kenneth Bulmer obit it states that The Professionals series was written by Bulmer and Holdstock. I've seen "You'll Be All Right" attributed to both Bulmer and Holdstock separately several times on the internet but not together. Is this sufficient info to change the attribution of all the series members to both authors? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 21:47, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Writing "with" in this case probably means that they wrote individual titles in the series, not necessarily co-wrote each of the titles. Until a definitive and reliable source comes along, I recommend adding a note to the title records. This doesn't effect the adding of publication records published under the pseudonym. Mhhutchins|talk 23:03, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

I see what you mean. In the case of "You'll Be All Right" and the Professionals series it seems I've stumbled into a strange kettle of fish. This site talks about the credits for "Blake" and "Bulmer" and adds that the British National Bibliography has only added to the confusion. (No mention of Holdstock) OCLC has a listing for Bulmer and one for the pseudonym Blake, but none for Holdstock. On the other hand, Holdstock's wikipedia page says only four books (the one's in ISFDB's series) are by Holdstock, the rest are by Bulmer. So, who knows - don't think we ever will for sure. But, as you say, we are safe adding the pubs with Blake as the author. Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 01:29, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Utopia Island

One of the titles on the Titles Without Pubs list is Utopia Island. The English language title was used in a 2-part serial running in May/June Wonder Stories 1931 and they are translations of the German Ein Flug um die Welt und die Insel der seltsamen Dinge. Looks like there is no novel published as "Utopia Island". Does this mean this title (which has been varianted to the 1927 German work) should be deleted from the db? The serial parts are already varianted to the 1927 German work. Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 05:48, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it should be deleted since there has never been a book publication under that title. But the problem with deleting this one is that there are two reviews linked to that title. Once the title is deleted, the reviews won't be linked to any title record. So one should first change the review links to the serialization. I'll do that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Mhhutchins|talk 05:36, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

"A novel by X based on the screenplay by Y"; who gets credited?

The novelization of E.T. is "A novel by William Kotzwinkle based on a screenplay by Melissa Mathison", as stated on this cover. Most versions of this book give only Kotzwinkle as the author, but the Italian edition credits both Kotzinklw and Mathison. (The leads to a "stray publication" error.) Which is the correct way to attribute it; with or without Mathison? We don't have any explicit rules about it. Chavey 07:33, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

It should be only Kotzwinkle, I guess. The writing on the cover is undecipherable, but virtually all publications listed on the Italian amazon site give only Kotzwinkle (and for our site it seems to be the same for all novelizations that I know of). Stonecreek 08:20, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Novelizations based on another work should only be credited to the author of the novel, not the author of the source material. In most cases, it's pretty clear who wrote the novel. In cases where two different publications credit the authors differently, we have to determine the main (canonical) credit, and variant the other one. Yes, this may create a stray publication (it doesn't appear on the author's summary page), but there's no other way to handle it with the current software. Mhhutchins|talk 19:13, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

That's what I thought, but I couldn't find documentation of that in the Help pages. I've removed Melissa Mathison as an author from the Italian book, and put "Novelization from the script by Melissa Mathison." into the title notes (for both the Italian and English title rec). Chavey 16:26, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

To add or not to add

Hello. I have here a collection (Conan Doyle's His Last Bow) that appears in a Cleanup Report in the list of "Primary-Verified Anthologies and Collections without Contents Titles". As it was non-genre, I had abstained from adding the contents when I entered it. Should these be added anyway, or should the record be left as is ? TIA, Linguist 13:25, 5 November 2015 (UTC).

As the note for the parent title tells us: 'None of the contents is spec-fic and their contents should not be added to the database', I guess that's what we should do (but why this collection was added in the first place, I don't know). Stonecreek 15:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I suppose that Sir Arthur is to be considered "above the threshold", hence the mention of his non-genre works ? Linguist 15:22, 5 November 2015 (UTC).

Similarly, Boris Vian's collection of poems Je voudrais pas crever includes an SF-related essay which was the only genre content I had entered. I don't see any reason to add the poems, which are non-genre. Maybe this title should be removed from the list. Linguist 14:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC).

And this one shouldn't show up, since there's one content item (though it's not a shortfiction). Stonecreek 15:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Non-moderating editors who work on this clean-up report don't have the option to ignore (i.e. remove) a listing. If you spot others like the ones above, post a message on the Moderator noticeboard, and one of us can remove them from the list. I have removed the two publications you mentioned from the report. Mhhutchins|talk 19:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I was going to take the matter to the Moderator noticeboard, but postponed it till after (my) dinner-time… Linguist 20:33, 5 November 2015 (UTC).

Ruth Rendell

While looking into one of the books on the Titles Without Pubs list, A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell, it seemed by several plot descriptions on various sites that this is a non-genre work and I wondered if it belonged in the db. Looking at her other novels, only The Killing Doll seems like it would be genre. They seem to be murder/suspense works. Is this an over-the-threshhold author, thereby allowing non-genre books? Doug / Vornoff 06:24, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

IMHO she's not (above threshold), but I'm a kind of "hardliner" in this respect. Without objections, I'll clean them. Hauck 06:36, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Certainly not over-the-threshold. Almost entirely a murder mystery writer. Chavey 16:22, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I believe the title is only in the DB because there was a review of that title in Horror: Another 100 Best Books. Uzume 19:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Discouraging at Best

On the Titles Without Pubs list is the collection "Discouraging at Best" by John Edward Larson. In the Amazon blurb, it states "Already known for his works of speculative fiction, author John Edward Lawson uses Discouraging at Best to take a look at the "real" world". Nothing in the look-inside preface would lead me to believe there is any speculative fiction in this collection. Again, is this author considered over-the-threshhold, or should this publess work be deleted? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 06:29, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

My personal definition of "above the threshold" is two-pronged: 1) an author who is well-known within the speculative fiction field and is considered by those in the broader world of literature to be a spec-fic author, or 2) an author who is not necessarily well-known within the speculative fiction field for various reasons, but the majority of whose published work is considered spec-fic by those working and reading within the field. If either one of these authors publishes a non-genre work, I believe it is eligible for the database, as long as it is flagged as non-genre. In this case, the author would fall into the latter category. The title is in the database because it was reviewed in a spec-fic publication. Sometimes that's sufficient reason to create a publication record for it. (Caveat: other editors have their own definition.) Mhhutchins|talk 18:55, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your perspective - that'll help me out. Doug / Vornoff 21:38, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with Mhhutchins on this. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 02:12, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Betrayal at Calth

I just received a new publication from Black Library, "Betrayal at Calth". My problem is that this is a special limited edition consisting of a slipcase titled as above containing two novels as separate books "The Unburdened" and "The Honoured". These two books have been released as individual publications with different covers (and ISBNs) from the ones I'm talking about. However the two books in my slipcase have different ISBNs from each other and the overall "issue" (Betrayal at Calth) does NOT have its own ISBN. So do I enter the two individual books as separate publications with explanatory notes and possibly link them as a "series" or what?Prof beard 12:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Prof! This seems to be a similar case to this one, where also two books were published in one slipcase with different ISBNs, and they were published independently, too. I hope this can be a guideline. Christian Stonecreek 14:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest handling it like we would any other boxed set that has books which were available separately. (Like this one). Type it as an OMNIBUS with content titles for each of the novels. Leave the ISBN field blank, but give the individual ISBNs in the Note field. I assume there's already records for each of the novels so you'll have to merge the new novel titles with the existing ones. That way they will appear on the list of publications for each novel title. Mhhutchins|talk 17:07, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

There is no current entry for the individual novelsProf beard 13:45, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Even better. Don't have to worry about merging records. Just create new ones. Mhhutchins|talk 19:25, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

David Kuzminski / Atk Butterfly

David L. Kuzminski and Atk. Butterfly are shown separately but are the same author, with Butterfly obviously the pseudonym. Several sites verify this. A couple of the novels exist under both names but could be merged easily after a pseudonym is made. One of those is publess and probably was only available, if at all, very briefly since the publisher (print or online?) apparently went out of business. Many of the short stories under the Butterfly name are publess. The note for each one lists what I suppose is the vehicle they appeared in - looks like a tough task to try to track those down and may not even be possible. What happens to them - do they stay publess? Deleted? I didn't want to just barge into this without some advice - but what would you advise? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 04:34, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Since the publess stories I checked seem to have appeared in publications for which we don't have records (or not likely to have), then we'll just variant them to Kuzminski, after making Butterfly into a pseudonym. There are thousands of shortfiction records in the db without pubs, and it's not likely that we'll adjust the cleanup report to list them. It is an accepted practice to add titles for speculative stories to the db without creating records for the publications which contained them, especially if those publications are non-genre. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 06:45, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Adaptations and collections of adaptations

I give up. If the answer to this is written down somewhere in the official help, please point me to it. How do we handle a collection of adaptations? And, while I'm at it, what's the current standard for adaptations: separate work credited only to adaptor, separate work jointly credited, "variant" (I know) w/joint credit linked to original single-credited, or adaptor ignored except for mention in the notes? Thanks. --MartyD 12:09, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there is no separate standard for adaptations, so we have to "adapt" the current rules for entering other publications. If it's a single work adapted by one author of another author's original work, and both authors are credited on the title page, then it is entered as a NOVEL (if more than 40K words) credited to both authors (adaptor and original author). If it is less than 40K (as most of these kind of works are), then it's entered as a CHAPBOOK with a SHORTFICTION content record, crediting both authors.

By "collection of adaptations" do you mean a COLLECTION of stories by a single author which adapts the work of another single author? It would be handled as any other publication typed as COLLECTION credited to both authors, and with the individual SHORTFICTION records credited to both authors. If a single author adapts the stories of several authors in the same publication, it would be entered as an ANTHOLOGY credited to the editor (or the main author), with individual SHORTFICTION contents credited as collaborations between the various authors. Mhhutchins|talk 19:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

USA vs. Canada

I'm adding some information for the short list of sf books published by Apogee starting in 2005. Both "Apogee Books" and "Apogee Books (Canada)" have been used as publisher in existing ISFDB records, but there's only the one company so these are variants of the same thing. The copyright page of the first title from 2005 gives a Canadian address for the company, and says "Printed and bound in Canada." Titles 2-5, from 2006, still have the Canadian address shown, but now say "Printed and bound in USA." (By the way, the choice of "Apogee Books" or "Apogee Books (Canada)" by existing records does not follow the location of printing.) So a couple of questions: (1) What guideline should be used for choice of country -- company location or printing location? (2) What determines whether the price should be $ or C$? Is it the printing location, intended sales location, or something else? ThanksLdb001 00:20, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I will check out the books under the two Apogees and see whether they should be merged into one publisher. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. To answer your other questions: (1) We only add the country when there are identically-named publishers in order to separate their publications. In those cases we enter the country where the publisher is headquartered, not necessarily where they print their books. (2) The price of a book that is published in Canada, and intended for the Canadian market should be entered in Canadian dollars (as "C$" in the ISFDB record.) A book that is printed in Canada but intended solely for the US market should be priced in US currency. A book that is printed in the US and intended solely for the Canadian market should be entered in Canadian dollars. It's the market that determines how the currency is given, not the location of the printing. Mhhutchins|talk 03:56, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

There are actually three different publishers that have been named "Apogee Books". I have disambiguated each of them based on their country. Mhhutchins|talk 06:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Lucian's True History

I have some questions about the above titles/pubs. We have:
One canonical title (Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα by Lucian of Samosata) showing two publications.
Pub one (Lucian's True History by Lucian) 1902 A.H. Bullen publisher.
Pub two (Lucian's True History by Lucian) 1914 Gutenberg.
Also an unpubbed title (Lucian's True History by Lucian of Samosata) which has two reviews attached to it. I don't know about the Bleiler review but the F&SF review makes no reference to any particular publication.
The 1902 pub, available on <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=e6mCAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">books.google.com</a> has "Lucian" on the cover but no credit on the title page, so shouldn't the book be "uncredited" and then varianted to canonical at some point?
The 1914 pub, available on <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45858/45858-h/45858-h.htm">gutenberg</a> , shows no credit on the title page but is preceded by Gutenberg's title information showing the title and author to be "Lucian's True History" by Lucian of Samosata. The text seems to be the 1902 version. So does the fact that "Lucian of Samosata" is in the Gutenberg information make this the official author of the Gutenberg pub? Or is it "uncredited" again. Assuming it's the former, I think I would do this:
1. Since the reviews are attached to the unpubbed title, I would Attach a Pub to it with the same info as in the Gutenberg pub, thereby maintaining the "Lucian of Samosata" author. It's already varianted to canonical title.
2. Unmerge the old Gutenberg title and delete it.
3. Unmerge the current 1902 title, change the author to "uncredited" and variant it to the existing canonical title.
I'm thinking that would do it. Have I gone terribly, terribly wrong here? Of course things would be different if it's decided that the Gutenberg should be "uncredited" as well. That opens a whole nother kettle of fish. If this happened I think I would then:
1. Attach the reviews to the canonical title. Delete the publess title.
2. Unmerge both the 1902 and Gutenberg pubs, change the authors to "uncredited", and variant them back to the canonical title.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 21:56, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Just because an author is not listed on the title page is not justification for listing it as "uncredited". The help screen on "Authors says "As with the title, take the name from the title page in preference to the cover or spine of the book", but if there is no name there, you go with the name on the cover or on the spine. Later, that same page says "If the work is not credited at all, use "uncredited"... The intent is that the record made from the publication should reflect what can be found in the publication." So as long as you can find the author's name somewhere in the publication you go with that. It seems likely that NO publication of this title should be listed as by "uncredited"; they should all be credited to either "Lucian" or "Lucian of Samosata". That I think will handle most (but not all) of your questions. Chavey 17:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much, that clears that part up for me. That makes moot my two scenarios above so forget those. The only other question I guess is on ebooks, if the author name given in the introductory part of the ebook provider is different from that of the actual ebook itself, which should be used? I can see arguments either way. Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 18:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography

There seem to be two title reference records for this book, 1938533 and 1938537. The single publication under this title, record 550146, points to the former title reference. Should 1938537 de deleted? Thanks, Ldb001 00:50, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Both title records were in J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. When you created the pub, you manually added a NONFICTION title record in the contents. However, whenever you create a new pub, the system automatically creates a title record of the pub type being created. This resulted in a duplicate NONFICTION title being added to the pub. I have removed the extraneous one. In the future, when you create a new publication, you don't need to add a record for the publication itself. -- JLaTondre (talk) 01:22, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Tolkien - Book of Lost Tales Vol. 1

The title record 37198 for this book credits only J. R. R. Tolkien and not Christopher Tolkien. Other volumes in this series credit both, as they should, including Vol. 2 of Lost Tales. An exception is Vol 10, which should also credit Christopher. Christopher authored a substantial amount of the text in this book and all others in the series, in addition to editing the original material. Finally, all 12 volumes credit Christopher on the title page in the same way: "Edited by Christopher Tolkien." Can the title records for Vol 1, Vol 10, and any relevant omnis in this series be changed to reflect this, or is there a reason not to? Thanks, Ldb001 00:43, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

A work typed as COLLECTION should only credit the author of the fiction, not the editor. Title records of works written by J. R. R. and edited by Christopher should only credit J. R. R. in the Author field and Christopher in the Note field. That is the ISFDB standard. The only reason I can think of for the exception is that some editors must have determined that the books qualify as COLLECTION first (based on the greater percentage of fiction to nonfiction), and then determined that there is a substantial amount of nonfiction material written by Christopher for him to qualify as a co-author of the book, and not just the editor. This is a relatively rare case. I suggest that you contact the primary verifiers and give them a link to this message so that a consensus can be formed about the author credit. Mhhutchins|talk 06:14, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the informative response. All of these volumes do have a substantial amount of text authored by Christopher. The term "edited by" has a wide range of meaning in publishing, and what Christopher has contributed here is far beyond what most editors do. All of the volumes are of type COLLECTION, but that obscures the structure of these books. I'll send a note to the verifiers. Maintaining the ISFDB standard seems like a fine idea; it would be great if there was consistency. The two volumes that are not credited to Christopher in their title records have no less text authored by him than the other ten. Ldb001 07:52, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Both the pub record of the only book of the series which I have primary verified and its title record are credited to both authors. I'm fine with making that consistent throughout the series. That would involve changing not only the title records, but the pub records as well. Mhhutchins|talk 20:11, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion the whole series should be credited to both J. R. R. and Christopher. --Jorssi|talk 13:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to have to disagree. These books are primarily about the fiction which is why we've typed them as collections. I'd also argue that the content by Christopher is wholly dependent on J. R. R.'s fiction. Looking at the secondary sources, Clute/Grant mentions Christopher only as editor, as does Reginald3. Reginald does not list Christopher in the same manner as he does with co-authors. Lastly, if we were to add Christopher as an author, we'd probably have to revisit all of J. R. R. Tolkien's posthumous publications. The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and The Children of Húrin all list Christopher as editor on their title pages. My copy of Roverandom lists Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond as editors. In only one of these cases, Húrin, do we have Christopher listed and I believe his credit as co-author of the novel is incorrect in that instance. I worry that if we allow editors an author's credit based on the amount of editorial content, we don't have a good rule as to when that would apply. Should Joshi be credited as author of the Lovecraft collections? Touponce for Bradbury? Connors and Hilger for Clark Ashton Smith? Those all have significant editorial content. How would we craft a policy to determine when enough editorial content is present to qualify the editor for an author credit? --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:27, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

As I said above, the determination to credit both may have been based on how much of the book was written by Christopher Tolkien and not just his editing. Is it fair to compare C. Tolkien's contributions to that of Joshi's when Joshi's efforts aren't as visible in the text? Maybe not, but that's the only thing we have to work with. Again, I'm not just talking about selecting, editing, and assembling the works of another author. I'm talking about the word count that appears in the actual books. So I looked at the only book I have of the series. Roughly 150 pages or one-third of the text was written by C. Tolkien. Seems pretty large percentage of the text not to be acknowledged as a co-author of the book. This is a relatively rare case, and I see no reason why the standards for COLLECTIONs can't be bent as long as we make it clear in the notes of the title records that C. Tolkien is not the author of the fiction, but the editor and annotator of the work. Mhhutchins|talk 23:50, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Of course, all of this would be moot if we had a field to credit an editor in a NOVEL- or COLLECTION-typed record. Mhhutchins|talk 00:20, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

As a proposed policy, what threshold of percentage of editorial matter would you propose to qualify an editor for an author credit? C Tolkien is currently credited for The Children of Húrin with 72 pages or 23%. Whereas, this Bradbury collection has 258 (47%) pages by Touponce and/or Eller. Since they didn't both write all of the editorial comment together, is it possible that only one of the two editors should be listed? If we move forward with a policy, there are a number of other things to be considered: Do we only credit editors who are credited on the collection or novel's title page? Does any editorial content qualify (introductions, afterwords)? If we end up with a novel credited to both author and editor and it is otherwise printed without the editorial matter, we presumably create a variant between the title records, or would we credit the editor only in the publication record leaving the contained novel title record with the author alone?

I agree with your implication that a dedicated Editor field would be a be a better way to go. Or, better yet, a field for a name with a drop down list of types of associations (editor, translator, illustrator, subject, etc.) That would allow us to define a number of relationships and we wouldn't have to list artists as editors of their own collections of artwork. In any case, as with translator, I think that until we have such a field, it's best to list the editor in the notes. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 03:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Quite a while ago Ldb001 has pinged me about this discussion. It seems no decision has been reached yet, so let me add my 2 cents even though I am a bit late to the party (as usual). Two things that are very clear to me:

1. "The Book of Lost Tales" part 1 and 2 (BLT1 and BLT2 for short) have, at their centre, the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien. All other content provided by his son, Christopher Tolkien, is ancillary. As he himself states in the foreword "I have attempted to make the Tales themselves accessible and uncluttered while providing a fairly full account, for those who want it, of the actual textual evidences. [...]" (p. xix in the book that I own). The result is a collection of stories, written by J.R.R. Tolkien and presented in a form very close to the original manuscript. Each story is then followed by editorial notes both on the text and on any changes made to names (names are very important in Tolkien's work), and an in-depth commentary or essay written by Christopher Tolkien. Thus, the casual reader can enjoy the stories without distraction by lengthy footnotes and such.
2. Christopher Tolkien is the editor of this book and not one of its principal authors. This is clearly stated on the title page of the book that I own, and if you read the "Foreword" it is also clearly the role that Christopher assigns to himself. Moreover, secondary sources also consider Christopher as an editor: Ron has pointed out several sources, I would like to add to this the revised edition of "The Road to Middle-Earth" by Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey (bibliographical references on page xii).

Having clearly established that this is a collection of fictional stories, and that Christopher Tolkien is the book's editor and not one of its principal authors, let's turn to the ISFDB rules. Here I do a gleeful little dance :-) and point to this long-forgotten Help Desk question of mine (from 2009) where the conclusion was that we should actually remove Christopher Tolkien as co-author from the "The History of Middle Earth" series! This task has been on my TODO list since then, but unfortunately I have never gotten around to implement the change, which is why it has now popped up again on Ldb001's radar. Sorry for that.

So, in short, I do not support adding Christopher Tolkien as a co-author. Instead I would prefer to have him removed and see his editorship mentioned in title and/or pub record notes. I would be grateful if someone wants to take over this task, otherwise I will try to implement it myself - whenever I get around to it in the next 5-10 years. Cheers, Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 13:15, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

"The Mammoth Book of Best New SF" series, title problems

These are the UK editions of the long-running Dozois Year's Best series. I've noticed a discrepancy in the ISFDB titles at [3] and the individual volumes starting with "The Best New Science Fiction: 8th Annual Collection", [4] and extending to "The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection" [5]

It looks to me that, from UK #11 to #28, the books were actually titled, on the cover at least, as "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF ##". Amazon UK seems to agree, see [6]

Anomalies: Best New SF 8 & 9, covers simply say "The Best New SF" on the cover. For #8, US Amazon titles it "The Best New SF: No. 8", [7]

For #9, US Amazon titles it "The Best New SF: No. 9", [8]

SO: I think all of the titles from #11 to #23 should be changed to

• "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 11" to "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 23" (2015).

Note that, from UK#24 on, titles are correct: "The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24" etc. [9]

• UK Vol. 10's title should be changed to "The Best New SF 10", see [10]

• UK Vols 8 and 9 probably should also be "The Best New SF 8" and "9", but it would be best to confirm with the actual title pages. They don't come up on Google Books, sadly. Tillman 05:26, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

The ISFDB doesn't use the titles which appear on the front covers or dust jackets of books. It is an ISFDB standard to use the title as given on the publication's title page. Also the canonical title (the title field of the title reference record) doesn't necessarily have to be identical to the publication title (the title field of the publication record.) If you have copies of any of these publications, please update the title fields of the non-verified publication records to match the titles which are given on the publications' title pages. Some of the publication records you're referring to have been primary verified, and any changes to those records should be discussed with the editors who verified them. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 07:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

How to correct a Contents Listing?

The Contents listing for Northern Suns (TP edition, although I assume it's the same in the HC) lists the intro as Introduction: Another Music from Another Kitchen , when in fact the title is Introduction: Another Music from A Different Kitchen.
Given that the contents titles are not editable, how does one go about correcting this? Thanks. gzuckier 07:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

In many cases, all you have to do is click on the title, which carries you to the title record, which is editable. But in this case, the title appears in another publication which has been primary verified. So post a message on the PV editor's talk page explaining how your copy differs from his. Together you decide whether an edit is required, and if so, either one of you can edit the record. If he confirms that his is correct, then you'll have to "unmerge" the two publications from the title so that each one reflects the publication in which they appear. And then one will have to be varianted to the other. (I don't think that's likely in this case.) Mhhutchins|talk 08:23, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. gzuckier 10:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

The Emerald Wand of Oz

On the title page, it states:

A Byron Preiss Book

HarperCollins Publishers

So is "Byron Preiss" an imprint? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:37, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

"Byron Preiss Multimedia Company, Inc." was a "book packager [who] developed titles for such publishers as HarperCollins and Random House". Byron Preiss itself "develops, publishes and distributes interactive multimedia software", and "its current strategy is to develop content and acquire licenses for production in digital form and then exploit said content in multiple formats such as books, internet, video and CD-ROMs." (both sentences are from before its 2006 bankruptcy). The company would primarily do digital media, then work with a traditional publisher to also produce a book. Thus "Emerald Wand" should be viewed as a joint publication from two different publishers. I believe our standard for that is to use an "&" between the two, not a slash. If you do a publisher search in isfdb for "Byron Preiss", you will find Tor & Byron Preiss, which I believe is the correct format to use. You will also find Boulevard Books / Byron Preiss Multimedia and Byron Preiss Multimedia / Microsoft which, I believe, are in the wrong format. Chavey 11:33, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Bryon Preiss packaged so many books for so many different publishers that I agree with Darrah Chavey. It should be handled as a joint publisher by using the ampersand, and not an imprint of any specific publisher. Mhhutchins|talk 03:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks to both of you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Unidentified edition of "Into the Forest"

I'm wondering if anyone can help me figure out a book I have. The book is "Into the Forest", by Jean Hegland. The Bantam edition I have has the same cover as the 1997 hc edition, and everything about it looks like it should be that edition, except that it's a tp. The stated printing history says: "Calyx hardcover and trade paperback published in 1996; Bantam hardcover edition / October 1997", with nothing else. That reads like the printing history from the 1997 Bantam hc. It mentions nothing else about a publication date, although it has a full number line. There is a 1998 tp edition from Bantam, but it has a completely different cover. (This book has the same cover as the 1997 hc.) I would normally assume that this was a tp that came out simultaneously with the 1997 hc. But it deliberately mentions both tp & hc editions for the Calyx, and not for the Bantam! Checking Abebooks, it would appear that no one has ever seen this book. No one has a 1997 tp edition; every Bantam tp edition listed has a date specified as 1998 or 1999 (this edition has neither of those years listed anywhere) and all of those with an ISBN listed (all but two) have a different ISBN. My next guess is that this is an ARC of some type (in which case I shouldn't enter it). That is supported by the sharing of its copyright page with the hc (including its ISBN), a non-existent ISBN on the back cover, and the same cover as the hc. But there's nothing on it whatsoever that would actually imply it's some kind of proof or advanced reader copy. Any thoughts? Should this be entered? Chavey 11:53, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's an ARC or special softcover giveaway edition for convention attendees. I would suggest noting it on the publication record for the hardcover edition which matches it except for the binding. Have you tried googling in the back cover ISBN to see if there are any matches? Mhhutchins|talk 03:23, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I had tried looking up the ISBN on Amazon, WorldCat, Abebooks, bookfinder.com, and isbnsearch.org, none of which gave any hits. I hadn't tried a simple Google search, but I did that just now. No luck. I suspect you're probably right about it being an ARC, or something similar, and I'll add that note to the hc as you suggest. Chavey 01:46, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Missing title record

So this omnibus doesn't seem to have a title record, and I can't figure out how to make one for it. This one is a variant of it, but I can't make it a variant unless I can figure out where the title record went. Any ideas how to fix this in as few steps as possible? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:34, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that someone created this title as a novella, specifically this title record, but then changed the publication to an Omnibus. That means that there is a mismatch between the publication and the title, so the publication can't find the title. More precisely, it says "well, there's a title like me, but it's obviously the wrong one because I'm a novella and it's an Omnibus". If you look at that title rec, you'll notice that it claims to be of type "ShortFiction", but then it has a note that says "This is a collection of two novellas released in novel form." Those two statements are in direct opposition to each other. I don't know about the shortest way to fix it, but one way is to (1) Create a new Omnibus with this title and all the internal data except this novella (using a bunch of copy and paste -- the errors in this record makes it impossible to clone); (2) Convert the record above into the proper novella format (delete that title note; go to the pub. record and delete the second novella, change its type and other data that only applies to books); (3) Now add this revised novella record back into the Omnibus, and do a title merge if necessary. Chavey 08:37, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I fixed it. The easiest solution is to just edit the publication and add an OMNIBUS title record with the same name and author credit as the publication. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:37, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:20, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Gus Willmorth

I've run into four "Willmorth" last names which appear to possibly be the same man and I wondered about combining them but wanted to check here first. The most complete name I've found (but not credited to anything) is "Norman E. 'Gus' Willmorth, Ph.D". He was involved with Fantasy Advertiser in the 1940s and in fandom. Various links of substance are [11]; [12]; [13]. If it's determine that all these are the same person, which of the four names should be canonical? Or should the more complete name be canonical? Thanks, Doug / Vornoff 18:43, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

The editor credit for Fantasy Advertiser, V3 #5, November 1949 was mistakenly given as "Gus Willmorth & Roy Squires" (as a single name). I broke that into two separate credits so it's down to 3 records. ISFDB generally uses the most recognized/common name as the canonical name. -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:09, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, if there's no objection I will use "Gus Willmorth" as the canonical name. Doug / Vornoff 23:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)