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This archive includes discussions from July - December 2018.

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Same story credited to author or translator

What would be the most elegant way to handle this? "The Butterfly Dream" or "The Dream of Chuang Tzu" or other titles was translated, or maybe retold, from an original attributed to Zhuangzi by Herbert Allen Giles. Some books (e.g. this) print this story with the author given as Chuang Tzu, others (e. g. this) give the author as Herbert Allen Giles. I want to combine them both under a common canonical title. I am thinking the canonical author ought to be 莊子 (Zhuangzi). So when I variant the ones credited to Giles, should I change the author to something like "Herbert Allen Giles (as translator)" and make that a pseudonym of 莊子, or should I just variant the story without pseudonyming the author? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 12:54, 1 July 2018 (EDT)

The individual stories should be credited per their publications. So if Giles is given as the author in the publication, he should be entered as the author. For the varianting, it matters whether it is really a translation or a retelling. A translation with a mistaken credit would be varianted without a pseudonym. If it is a retelling, then it should be varianted to a title as by Chuang Tzu & Giles (and not to the original story by Chuang Tzu). Unfortunately, this can obviously be a bit subjective. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:11, 1 July 2018 (EDT)
I have found a literal translation and it demonstrates that Giles was translating not retelling. So, I will variant without a pseudonym. Thanks. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 13:24, 1 July 2018 (EDT)
Please be sure to add notes explaining why as it will reduce future confusion. I'd add them to the pub containing the translation as well as the title record. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:44, 1 July 2018 (EDT)

How to enter a new translation in an omnibus

I would like to enter a publication which is an omnibus (two novels by Jules Verne). The title / publication will be new. However, both of the contained titles are new English translations. Is the simplest approach to enter the omnibus giving the titles, and then unmerge the titles, update the notes regarding the translation and variant them back to the French? ../Doug H 09:36, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

As this is a new omnibus, you just need to enter the titles of these translations in the new record (they cannot be already merged if you create a new OMNIBUS), then indicate the translator(s) at title level (use the {{Tr|Name}} model) for each novel. You then variant these new translations to their French originals (but do check they are not in the db first). Linguist 10:16, 4 July 2018 (EDT).
If you haven't done the submission yet, I suggest you include a note to the moderator that the contained novels are new translations and should not be merged. Some moderators try to be helpful and check for duplicates and do merges to save submitting editors some time. Here, that would not be a Good Thing™. --MartyD 09:19, 5 July 2018 (EDT)

In search of a Howard V. Brown cover

Fixer has added a new collection of Victor Rousseau's stories. Howard V. Brown's cover looks awfully familiar, but I can't quite place it and Google is no help. Would anyone happen to recognize it? Ahasuerus 21:35, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1938. Annie 21:53, 4 July 2018 (EDT)
VT created, thanks muchly! Ahasuerus 21:56, 4 July 2018 (EDT)
It was just a lucky coincidence - I was looking through the Thrilling Wonder Stories reprints the other day and remembered the cover. Happy to help :) Annie 23:27, 4 July 2018 (EDT)

How to structure a table of translations for a publication.

I would like some help setting up a table of translations for the title notes for a Jules Verne title. I expect to use the technique to document the translations for his other titles as well, but have only got one ready to go. The list is long enough that I expect it to go after a BREAK template.

I would like to use HTML to structure the information better, but don't see any easy way to set up a table. My expectation is that there would be sections for each language (currently three for this title), and within each section, one or more translations - identified at a minimum by the differentiating text, possibly the translator identification (name or unknown). Within each translation would be a linking references to the different titles using the translation - one per row. Probably only one row for most translations, but no guarantee. The linking references could include the year and publisher. There should also be a 'non-translation' translation for publications that have not identified the translation, with as many links as there are different titles. Where there is only one translation (I don't expect too many Icelandic translations, but do have them for four of the novels), this generic approach may be used.

I mocked a couple of things up and they look awful. Can anyone provide either a better approach or a mock-up?

Oh, and the approach may also work well for adaptations, another Vernian bugaboo. ../Doug H 23:10, 9 July 2018 (EDT)

I believe that our developer discourages using really elaborate HTML in database notes. Probably you should create your table on a wiki page (where there'll be plenty of space, too) and link to it from the notes. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 23:16, 9 July 2018 (EDT)
Wasn't there a recent effort to get rid of a lot of wiki pages and get them into the database? ../Doug H 23:27, 9 July 2018 (EDT)
Still ongoing. :) However, tables ARE supported in notes so you do not need a wiki page. I would add it after a BREAK so people can look at it only if they want to but go ahead and have fun creating a simple table. It cannot be fancy (no parameters for the td/tr) but it should work for what you need here. Let me know if you need a hand with the table creation (in case you had never used tables in html - but it is straight forward - tr, td, th and table are all supported so this example is exactly what you want :) Annie 23:43, 9 July 2018 (EDT)
Wouldn't it be better to simply enter the translations into the database, and therefore let the database do the arranging? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:53, 10 July 2018 (EDT)
I suspect that the problem that Doug is trying to address is that canonical title pages display a list of translated variants but do not show translator names or any other VT details. Unfortunately, the proposed solution would result in data duplication and data duplication inevitably leads to records getting out of sync.
Redundancy: Putting a table of translations in the main title is redundant, but so it the putting the translation text into each title variation of any given translation. If only variants of variants wasn't so complicated. ../Doug H 12:40, 12 July 2018 (EDT)
One way around this issue would be to change the way we display VTs on canonical title pages. We could add a "Notes" column, which would display each translation's (or all VTs') Notes text, to the VT table. Alternatively, we could display Notes as mouseover bubbles, which would be similar to the way we display publication formats, transliterated values, etc.
If we decide to add Notes columns, we may need to change the layout of the VT/"Other Titles" section. Currently it displays up to 4 tables side by side: regular VTs, serializations, translations, translated serializations. Adding a Notes column to just 2 of them would make the section too busy, so we may need to display the 4 tables sequentially rather than side by side. Ahasuerus 14:57, 10 July 2018 (EDT)
A user preference maybe? Or something similar to the toggles (the "Do not display translations" • "Do not display variants or translations" ones) that has "compact view"/"detailed view" as options? Annie 15:23, 10 July 2018 (EDT)
Adding another User Preference is certainly possible, but I am not sure it would work too well for users who use multiple devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, etc.) Having to adjust your preferences every time you switch devices is a pain. Besides, even large monitors would be strained if we were to add Notes to the 4 tables. Imagine what this page would look like if each of the 4 tables showed VT notes. Ahasuerus 15:34, 10 July 2018 (EDT)
So you keep your preference to the shorter format and click on the toggle to show it when you need it? I work from my phone a lot so I have the covers not showing on the title pages for example (unless I am on my laptop for a a long time, then I switch the preferences as opposed to just clicking when I need it). I kinda like how the covers and translations are handled on that same page - and something like that for the variants/translations should work equally well for example. Plus it will be consistent with the rest of the page :) Annie 10:19, 11 July 2018 (EDT)
Notes are a free form entry field that can have extensive content. Even if limited to a user preference, I'm not sure how that could implemented in anyway that wasn't ugly... -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:23, 11 July 2018 (EDT)
I have deployed an experimental change to address the issue (in a small way.) Let's see if it helps. Ahasuerus 21:56, 11 July 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) You are almost right in stating what I'm trying to address. The slight difference is that my aim is functional, not technical - for anyone wishing to determine a match or non-match to a publication to be able to do so easily. Where there are multiple translations to a single language, differentiating them currently involves checking the title record for each translation and matching to the details in those notes. My approach of consolidating those notes in the source title saves time and highlights the requirement at the base title level to be careful in matching translations on the correct criteria. It does involve redundancy. I understand there is another project on the books to address translators and translations. My efforts are directed toward making available the data required to support the outcome of that project. I am not trying to push that project forward and I am afraid the partial solutions you are discussing are a distraction. I am looking for a specific short-term solution to support my clean-up of a specific author's works. I expect that the translation project will make it necessary to restructure all of my notes, but I hope that all the information required to do so will be present and may make a good test case. ../Doug H 08:51, 11 July 2018 (EDT)

OK, if it's a cleanup project, it should definitely go on a wiki page. I actually did the exact same thing for the numerous translations of Guy de Maupassant's "Le Horla" and created one page for the list of translations and another for the first paragraphs. As you can see the result is pretty mind-boggling and wouldn't be of interest to most users! I cannot see any reason to try to put all of that in the database notes, even after a BREAK.
I like the way I have it structured as a list & don't actually think it would work as a table (there'd be too much white space, for one thing). The one way that it could be improved is if you could pull up the first paragraph as mouseover text or something rather than having to click through to it (is there any way to do that in this wiki's version of wiki markup?) But at least I can link to the subsection for that translation rather than the whole page.
These pages have been in existence for a couple of years now, waiting for information about the publications listed at the bottom (do you have any of them, Doug?) --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 10:12, 11 July 2018 (EDT)

Coda: I have set up a table on a Wiki page and left a link in the title note for the original French title. This approach should work for now. Thanks to all for your interest and help. ../Doug H 08:45, 13 July 2018 (EDT)

obscure awards, new author

i added some books by a new author, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?276030. Her bio says "2006 and 2003 Tassy Walden Awards for best young adult and middle-grade novels from unpublished Connecticut author". http://webspace.quinnipiac.edu/meyer/CV%20-%20Linda%20Ross%20Meyer.pdf. https://www.shorelinearts.org/tassy-walden-awards Is there a waiting list to put it on or something? thanks. gzuckier 18:12, 13 July 2018 (EDT)

Looks like only two of the categories ("Middle-Grade Novel" and "Young Adult/Teen Novel") would qualify, though it isn't a specifically SF award. I didn't see a link to winners of past awards on the site (it's been given out since 2001). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:21, 14 July 2018 (EDT)
The things that we typically consider when adding a new award type is whether:
  • The award is real and not some kind of promotional gimmick by a publisher/author
  • We have editors who are willing to enter the data
In the case of the Tassy Walden award, it looks real, so the only outstanding question is whether we have editors willing to work on adding the awards. Ahasuerus 13:08, 14 July 2018 (EDT)
So, do we have a volunteer willing to enter these awards? Ahasuerus 11:36, 19 July 2018 (EDT)
I can eventually get around to it. I'm working on finishing up the Seiun Awards right now, and then I have the Taisho Awards to do. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:54, 7 August 2018 (EDT)
Sounds good! Once you are ready to start adding award records, could you ping me so that I could create the award type? Ahasuerus 16:44, 7 August 2018 (EDT)

Unusual serial situation

How best to handle this? There's a story by Lilith Saintcrow that was first published as a short story titled "Maternal Type" and then, with the title "She Wolf and Cub: Prologue", as part of a serialized novel. So if I enter "She Wolf and Cub: Prologue" as a Serial and variant it to the Novel title, what do I do with the record for "Maternal Type"? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:18, 15 July 2018 (EDT)

Update: I think I've figured it out. The prologue is already in the database as part of "Part 1 of 12." So I will make a note in that saying it incorporates the former short story "Maternal type" and a note on the story saying it was later incorporated into a novel. No need to variant them to each other. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:57, 15 July 2018 (EDT)
That's not uncommon - novels containing previous stories or chapters pulled out and published as stories. Not as much in the genre but in the literary journals, it's almost a rarity to find a real story... Link them via the title notes - that's pretty much all we can do :) Annie 18:02, 15 July 2018 (EDT)

Too many title pages for varianting

Gerry Anderson's UFO (U.K.) and UFO-1: Flesh Hunters (U.S.) have been a few years on ISFDB under John Burke's pseudonym Robert Miall as unrelated books. I want to make the second a variant of the first. But...
There are presently four title pages associated with the two books. First, the parent Gerry Anderson's UFO by John Burke, and the variant as it was actually published, Gerry Anderson's UFO by Robert Miall. Then there's the second parent UFO-1: Flesh Hunters by Burke, as well as UFO-1: Flesh Hunters as by Miall.
If I had been the one entering Flesh Hunters to begin with, I'd have just made it a variant of Gerry Anderson's UFO by Burke, as Gerry Anderson's UFO by Miall is. But at this late date, there's that superfluous UFO-1: Flesh Hunters by Burke title page, which I can't delete; and so I'd be trying to make Flesh Hunters a variant of two pages at once.
How is it done?
The same thing applies to UFO 2 in its British/American Burke/Miall permutations. MOHearn 15:39, 7 August 2018 (EDT)

If I'm understanding you correctly:
  1. Pick which parent you think should be the canonical title.
  2. Go to the variant of the other parent and re-variant it to the canonical title.
  3. Once 2 is accepted, the extraneous parent can be deleted.
-- JLaTondre (talk) 19:09, 7 August 2018 (EDT)
I followed your instructions--perfect. Thanks! MOHearn 17:50, 8 August 2018 (EDT)

When is a multi-part novel really a series?

I am trying to fill in some gaps in the Jules Verne publications and would like to air a problem with titles being published in parts (as touched on here). As Annie has pointed out elsewhere, French novels suffer from this.

Mysterious Island (L'île mystérieuse) was originally serialized in three parts with separate titles, with each part was identified as part of the novel. There have been English translations of the entire novel, each of the three parts separately, and in two parts. These have been (I believe correctly) tracked as variants (translations) of the original.

Captain Hatteras (Voyages et aventures du capitaine Hatteras} was originally serialized in two parts, with each part was identified as part of Captain Hatteras. However, in this case ISFDB also has both parts (Les Anglais au pôle Nord and Le désert de glace ) as separate titles. These have been placed under a series (Captain Hatteras) along with the full novel (which would be an omnibus if these were separate novels). This is inconsistent with the approach of Mysterious Island.

What would be the criteria for using either approach, and do these titles actually follow that criteria? There are still the Captain Grant novels, and From the Earth to the Moon & Around the Moon to resolve. ../Doug H 22:38, 7 August 2018 (EDT)

Sriduangk. pseudonym

There is a note on B. Sriduangk.'s page as follows: "An undisclosed pseudonym. The name may be a constructed identity of more than one person, with the Wikipedia entry conflicting considerably with other independent research as to the author's identity and biographical details. Until any such details can be verified it may be a wiser course to leave them blank, as it is also a possibility that the stories themselves have been/are being written by another author entirely." I have found a story from 2007 published under the name that some research claims is hers, Venesa Burranupakorn, with the following bio: "Venesa Burranupakorn is an undergrad studying English Literature at the University of Durham, England. Her highest aspiration is that, after graduating, she won't have to stand in a street corner while pleading to passersby that she will write lit essays for food." Since there is debate over whether those two names should in fact be connected, I guess I shouldn't make a pseudonym relationship? What note should I write? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 16:36, 8 August 2018 (EDT)

As per ISFDB:Policy, our basic standard for biographical data is "publicly available sources". In this case I would enter Venesa Burranupakorn's story, then add a note to the effect that some published research [insert link(s)] suggests that the author may be the same person as B. Sriduangk. We have similar notes for a few authors whose identity is unclear, e.g. Ludy Brack and Marcel G. Prêtre. Ahasuerus 17:08, 8 August 2018 (EDT)
I have submitted an author note, although I think the wording could use improvement. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 19:33, 8 August 2018 (EDT)

Bastards

I came across Bastards, and looking at the description both in WorldCat and on amazon.fr very much doubt that this is specfic. To delete or not to delete? Same for Rainbow warriors which seems to me borderline at best, and there may be more pubs by Ayerdhal that should not be in the database. Thoughts? Advice? Thanks! MagicUnk 12:00, 9 August 2018 (EDT)

A Goodreads review says:
  • ...contre-espionnage/guerre inter-services secrets avec un aspect SF non négligeable dans un New York contemporain. SF qui passe plutôt bien malgré des termes et explications assez spécifiques de temps à autres.
so it sounds like it's speculative fiction for our purposes. Also, this author is probably above our threshold for non-genre works:
  • [Included:] Works (both fiction and non-fiction) which are not related to speculative fiction, but were produced by authors who have otherwise published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold.
Even if it turned out that the book contained no speculative elements, we would, most likely, still want to include it as "non-genre". Ahasuerus 12:16, 9 August 2018 (EDT)
Thanks Ahasuerus. Looks like it's a keeper then :-) (if it weren't for ...un aspect SF non négiligeable... as otherwise I would argue against invoking the over a certain threshold as imo the published volume of the author is way too low, especially when comparing to other authors out there...) MagicUnk 14:11, 9 August 2018 (EDT)
Unfortunately, we have never been able to quantify the "certain threshold".
My personal take on it is that the key question is whether the average ISFDB user views the author as "primarily genre". If the answer is "yes", then omitting the author's non-genre works would leave our users uncertain if the missing books are (a) non-genre or (b) genre but we missed them.
Other editors have expressed a variety of different opinions over the years. Ahasuerus 14:27, 9 August 2018 (EDT)

Kind of genre ?

Hello everyone. I am uncertain whether or not to label "non-genre" this magazine, primarily devoted to Fantasy, SF and horror films, but occasionally publishing genre stories or reviews of genre books. Is there a definite policy about this kind of publication ? Any brilliant ideas ? TIA, Linguist 04:49, 10 August 2018 (EDT).

I wouldn't label it "non-genre" since it does cover the genre. Listing it how you have it is good. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:34, 10 August 2018 (EDT)
Thanks ! I'll leave them as they are, then (unless strong objections arise later…). Linguist 12:00, 10 August 2018 (EDT).
I like the way it looks now, but this issue got me thinking about the larger picture.
It's my impression that we have been using the term "non-genre" in two different ways. First, there is the "non-genre" flag which can be set at the title level. At this time it is only used to determine whether to display titles in the "Non-genre" section at the bottom of Summary pages.
Second, we enter "genre" and "non-genre" magazines differently as explained in Help:Entering non-genre magazines. This distinction was created long before we had the "non-genre" flag, which is why the Help page doesn't mention the flag.
This difference in the use of the term "non-genre" is apparently a gray area at the moment. We may want to discuss it on the Rules and Standards page and update Help:Entering non-genre magazines based on the discussion results. Ahasuerus 13:02, 10 August 2018 (EDT)
Compare Jump Point Magazine with a similar solution to Linguist's: it is not marked non-genre, but there is the note "Gaming magazine; only speculative fiction content is included." Personally, when I enter a magazine that is primarily devoted to movies, games, comics, or the like, I only enter prose fiction. I suppose I might enter reviews of prose fiction if they had them. And I *do* mark it non-genre. But I guess it isn't particularly important whether you do or don't, since the note explaining why you have entered only partial contents is the most important thing.
A R&S discussion would be good but I'm not too hopeful it'll lead to concrete changes... --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 13:11, 10 August 2018 (EDT)

Gollancz vs. Gollancz / Orion

Gollancz SF Masterworks (II) are generally listed under publisher Gollancz - see eg Double Star as an example. In contrast, the Millennium / Gollancz SF Masterworks series are generally listed under Gollancz / Orion - see Jem. On their back page it says: Gollancz, an imprint of the Orion publishing group. Looking inside the books, there's no distinction I can see: both say on their copyright page This edition published in Great Britain by Gollancz an imprint of the Orion publishing group. Is there a preference for one or the other? And if so, should I be encouraged to update the records to one variant only? (ie using Gollancz, as I believe we tend to list the books under the imprint?) Thanks! MagicUnk 14:40, 10 August 2018 (EDT)

nongenre piece by genre author in nongenre mag

A 2 page nongenre piece by Stephen King in a literary magazine; enter piece (only) or just skip it? thanks gzuckier 21:43, 12 August 2018 (EDT)

Per standards, it would not be included. I've seen that bent if there are genre works in the magazine, but if there are no genre works than it should definitely be skipped. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:02, 13 August 2018 (EDT)
ok, thanks. gzuckier 14:54, 13 August 2018 (EDT)

can somebody rename an image for me please?

rename Image:Keith Parkinson.jpg to Image:Kirk Reinert.jpg thanks. gzuckier 22:15, 12 August 2018 (EDT)

There is no direct way to do that in the version of the Wikimedia software run here. Instead, I downloaded the image, uploaded it at the correct location, and deleted the old version. If you run into this again, you can create the new one and then tag the old one with a deletion template (providing an explanation). -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:09, 13 August 2018 (EDT)
ah deletion template. new to me, and useful. thanks. gzuckier 14:53, 13 August 2018 (EDT)

Advanced Search Problem

I'm trying to do an advanced publication search with no results. I select Authors Name "contains" Chiang "and" Publication Type is "exactly" MAGAZINE and turn up zero results, which I know is not correct. It seems to interpret "Author" as "Editor." Is this the intent?--Rkihara 14:04, 22 August 2018 (EDT)

Are there any magazines authored by Chiang? If you're looking for works by Chiang published in a magazine, I suggest searching for SHORTFICTION or SERIAL. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:29, 22 August 2018 (EDT)
Expecting to find the magazines where Chiang has a story in by looking for a magazine where he is an author is like expecting to find one of the Best of anthologies when you look for an anthology authored by one of the authors that have a story inside. In the case of EDITOR and ANTHOLOGY, the author in our DB is the editor; not the individual authors... Annie 14:43, 22 August 2018 (EDT)
(after edit conflict) An Advanced Publication Search on "Title Type is exactly MAGAZINE AND Author Name Contains Chiang" looks for magazines whose editor's name contains "Chiang". Similarly, an Advanced Publication Search on "Title Type=MAGAZINE and Author Name Contains Chiang" finds two dozen magazine issues edited by Algis Budrys, but none of his stories.
FR 1179, "Create a breakdown of author's titles by magazine", was requested just recently and would probably help, but it hasn't been implemented yet. Ahasuerus 14:56, 22 August 2018 (EDT)
Thanks to all, I misunderstood what is searched for in that category.--Rkihara 23:28, 23 August 2018 (EDT)

"unknown" as directory entry

I found a title where the author is given as "By the Author of 'A Trap to Catch a Sunbeam', 'Old Jolliffe', &c" and the directory entry for that author is set to "unknown." Is that OK? I think the author credit should be "The Author of 'A Trap ...'" and the directory entry should be "Author of 'A Trap ...'" --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 11:11, 23 August 2018 (EDT)

I've encountered a number of author credits in this form with older publications and I completely agree with the changes you propose. We also may want to revisit "Matilda Anne Mackarness" as the canonical name. If this is the only title that we're tracking by this author, it doesn't appear (from Worldcat) that it was ever published using the author's full name. There are other editions published as by "Mrs. Mackarness" which is probably a better choice for the canonical name, with the full name reflected in the legal name field. However, Wikipedia lists several other works. If any of these are eligible for inclusion here, we would have to see how they were published to determine the appropriate canonical name. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 19:31, 23 August 2018 (EDT)

How to group several magazines under a single EDITOR title?

I'm adding the Dutch Orbit magazines (or trying to...), and want to group magazines from the same year under a single EDITOR title? How do I do that? See these pubs : 680202, 680477, 680478
Additional questions: would it be best to group per year of publication (not the calendar year), or per actual calendar year? And would it be best to restart numbering within each publication year? For example what I mean, see De Boekenplank/Orbit
(Oh, and is there a help page somewhere that explains how to do this grouping? Couldn't find it... Thanks! MagicUnk 15:33, 28 August 2018 (EDT)

You need to merge the editor records - Advanced Search will allow you to see them in an interface that will allow you to submit the request for the merge.
We group by the year of the magazine (the year on the cover/masthead that gives us the publication date technically) and we group only the ones that have the same editors and year. In this case, the 1977 one will stay on its own (but its editor title needs to be changed to say "Orbit - 1977" while the two 1978 should be merged under "Orbit - 1978".
Numbering should match what the MAGAZINE is using, not what you think is best. So if the magazine do not restart their numbering, we do not either. If they do, we do :)
Let me know if you cannot work out how to build the search string for this one and I will walk you through the process. Annie 16:11, 28 August 2018 (EDT)
Thanks Annie. I want to learn, so I'll give it a try myself first. I'll come back crying if I fail miserably... :-) MagicUnk 16:21, 28 August 2018 (EDT)
If you cannot figure it out, come back and I will give you the step by step :) I am not going to do it for you until you ask me to - and then I will still post the step by step :) Annie 16:26, 28 August 2018 (EDT)
Needed some fiddling around but got it! Doesn't look too bad :-) Thanks for the advice Annie. MagicUnk 18:18, 28 August 2018 (EDT)

Original English title of 'Dag der Androïden'?

Hello, I came across this story: WILLIAMSON, Jack - DAG DER ANDROÏDEN (1954, vert.door John Beek) in Orbit Lente 1978. Anyone happen to know the title of the original story? Thanks! MagicUnk 16:10, 28 August 2018 (EDT)

My first guess would be With Folded Hands ... because it's been widely translated and because the theme matches. Is there a way to check the text? Ahasuerus 18:33, 28 August 2018 (EDT)
The 1954 throws me off though - if you look at the years in this listing, they match the English years - so I think we are looking for a 1954 story here. I may be wrong of course :)
Talking about that, MagicUnk - these years look like the years of original publication - can you confirm that these were indeed translated in Dutch in the same years? Annie 19:22, 28 August 2018 (EDT)
No, I can't know for sure. I don't have the magazine in hand. The only sources I have atm are De Boekenplank and sfanpedia. The latter has 1954 as pub date of the original english text. But how accurate that is... no idea. MagicUnk 16:57, 29 August 2018 (EDT)
When you are adding a translation and you do not know when the translation was first done/published, you should use the date of the magazine/book you are adding (the first known to you appearance of the story in THAT translation) and not the date of the original :) So this story's date should be 1978, not 1954 in the Orbit record. Annie 17:27, 29 August 2018 (EDT)
Original title is "Guinevere for Everybody". First published january 1955, so the copyright year is not unlikely. --Willem 16:28, 15 September 2018 (EDT)

Homer's Iliad (Finch, Pooley & Co)

Grateful for any help on this. First, is it worth adding to the database and second, how would I do that?

The title page has THE over ILIAD OF HOMER over TRANSLATED BY over ALEXANDER POPE over WITH NOTES over BY THE over REV. THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY, M.A., F.S.A. over AND over FLAXMAN'S DESIGNS over London: over FINCH, POOLEY AND CO., LIMITED over 33, PATERNOSTER ROW. There is no copyright page. At the end of the text, Pope's translation is dated March 25, 1720 (although the book is clearly much newer than that) and the last page has PRINTED BY over MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED over EDINBURGH. The cover and spine has "Homer's Iliad" and there is a hand-written dedication dated Christmas 1911.

The text itself consists of A Pope's translation interspaced with notes and interior artwork which is proceeded by his preface and an introduction by THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY plus lists of contents and illustrations. A concluding note by A Pope follows the text.--DavidHarlow 01:33, 31 August 2018 (EDT)

We do have The Iliad so adding a new edition makes sense so if you want it, you can add it. I do not see a Pope translation but wwe are still untangling translations so who knows. What exactly is your question? Are you wondering what title to use? Or something else? Annie 14:21, 31 August 2018 (EDT)
Thanks. My question is where do I start? Should I be aiming to end up with a poem, a novel, a collection (I see all these for various Iliad works). Should I clone an existing publication (eg., http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?544340) or "Add a publication" to the base Ἰλιάς title?--DavidHarlow 15:37, 31 August 2018 (EDT)
As we do not have the Pope translation yet, we need a new variant anyway so just add it as a new book (each translation needs its own variant). We treat it as a novel so just add it as any other novel. When approved, variant it to the original Greek title. That's it. If we had the translation already, then Add Publication there or a cloning of the work containing it would have worked. Let me know if I can help further. Annie 15:45, 31 August 2018 (EDT)
I've made a stab. I've no doubt made a number of mistakes, but at least this gives you something concrete to comment on.--DavidHarlow 16:09, 31 August 2018 (EDT)

Am I being shadow-blocked?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?3954376 ? Thanks. gzuckier 02:57, 9 September 2018 (EDT)

It looks like this submission errored out half-way through the approval process. Here is an explanation of how the approval process works from the moderator-only list of Errored Out and "In Progress" Submissions:
  • The status of each submission is temporarily changed from "New" to "In Progress" during the approval process. Once a submission has been successfully approved, its status is changed to "Approved". If, on the other hand, the approval process errors out, then the submission remains "In Progress" and is displayed on this page. If a new submission appears on this list, check again in a few seconds to make sure that you didn't catch it while it was in the process of being approved.
It doesn't happen very often, approximately once every 5,000 submissions, but it's a pain when it happens. In this case we'll want to examine the newly cloned publication and check if any Contents titles didn't make it. Sorry about the hassle! Ahasuerus 10:52, 9 September 2018 (EDT)
Glad it wasn't the Deep Administrators. Thanks. gzuckier 21:20, 9 September 2018 (EDT)
Oh, I see the entry. I didn't realize it got partly entered. OK, I can go over it and see if anything's missing. thanks. gzuckier 22:05, 9 September 2018 (EDT)
Also, there's no such thing as "shadow-blocking" on ISFDB. The software (either of them) has no way to do that. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:30, 9 September 2018 (EDT)
I was kidding. I hoped I was, anyway. Wait, "either of them"? We got 2 versions? gzuckier 21:20, 9 September 2018 (EDT)
That's right. The ISFDB Wiki uses the standard Wiki software from MediaWiki. We have only limited control over it.
The rest of our software is homegrown and can be changed pretty much any which way we want. Or at least it could be if we had an unlimited number of development man-hours :-) Ahasuerus 21:40, 9 September 2018 (EDT)

only e-pub where we don't have a printed pub

As I recall, we don't do these, right? The item in question: https://granta.com/parfait/ thanks. gzuckier 21:23, 9 September 2018 (EDT)

The project scope has been gradually expanded over the years. The relevnt part of ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition says:
  • Included:
  • downloadable e-zines
  • e-books with a unique identifier such as an ISBN, ASIN, EAN, or catalog number (note: software support added in mid-2006, non-ISBN identifiers allowed in March 2011)
  • Internet-based publications which are downloadable as electronic files in any number of ebook formats (ePub, Mobi, PDF, etc).
  • Online publications available exclusively as a Web page, but only if:
    • published by a market which makes the author eligible for SFWA membership (listed here), OR
    • shortlisted for a major award
  • Excluded:
  • Works published in a web-based publication and available exclusively as a Web page -- such as blogs, author-run sites, fan fiction, web serials, etc -- unless listed in the Included section
Ahasuerus 11:31, 10 September 2018 (EDT)
Seems like the title in question is a no, then. thanks. gzuckier 23:08, 10 September 2018 (EDT)

should these be changed to magazines instead of anthologies?

Every issue of the mag has a theme, so is sort of anthologous, so the fact that these 2 have themes doesn't make them any different from all the ones we list as magazines. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?212998 thanks. gzuckier 21:27, 9 September 2018 (EDT)

Granta is a Magazine. So I would be against converting it to an anthology series. Annie 18:42, 10 September 2018 (EDT)
No, it's the other way around. Most of them are listed as magazines, but #16 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1000006 is listed as an anthology, and would like somebody to convert it to a magazine. thanks. gzuckier 21:56, 10 September 2018 (EDT)
Ah, misread what you were asking and was just saying that the publication is indeed a magazine. Why don’t you submit the change? :)Annie 04:03, 11 September 2018 (EDT)
Aha, now I figured out how to do that, thanks. gzuckier 00:24, 12 September 2018 (EDT)

Source code dowloadn not working

In the documentaiton, it says to go to https://sourceforge.net/p/isfdb/code-svn/HEAD/tarball to get the full source code package. It also has this address in the headder of the one of the code files I was able to get to on sourceforge.

That link isn't working. it gives error "We're having trouble finding that snapshot. Would you like to resubmit?" ad has a link to Commit (r204)


Is there a better ink to get this code all zipped up? If not, how and where can I get these files?

-Jeremy

If you click that "resubmit" button, SourceForge should generate a tarball with the source code and make it available for download. The generation process make take a couple of minutes or at least it did for me when I tried it 5 minutes ago. Have fun with it! :-) Ahasuerus 21:43, 13 September 2018 (EDT)

searching for fantasy novels

How do I do a search for every fantasy novel published in 1970 ? --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by JamesK (talk • contribs) .

Well, to begin with, a list of all novels of all sorts can be generated in advanced search: I presume you are looking for novels first published in 1970 so you set Title Year to 1970 and Title Type to Novel. Unfortunately, narrowing it down to fantasy is not straightforward; try Title Tag contains "fantasy" but a lot of books aren't tagged. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 12:16, 17 September 2018 (EDT)

Fantastic Stories Presents: Fantasy Super Pack #1

What does forced mean? I'm wondering why this submission was refused for cloning? What did I do wrong? MLB 21:25, 19 September 2018 (EDT)

"Forced" means the software gave the moderator no choice but to do the rejection. The problem is that one of the content titles present when you did the Clone is gone. The most common reason for that is the title was part of a Merge submission that ended up being processed first, and the missing title is the one that the merge deleted. --MartyD 22:04, 19 September 2018 (EDT)
So, is it okay to create this submission again? MLB 01:14, 20 September 2018 (EDT)
Yes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:08, 20 September 2018 (EDT)

New Publication: 'Shunt' by Stubert Ferglstein - missing info

Not sure if this is the right place for this, so apologies if not.

For some reason the ASIN has been missed off of this submission. For any mods watching, it's B073RPH6DT.

It's also flagged the image URL, which is fair as it's a generic AWS one, but I did take it from the Amazon 'look inside' feature. If that's not acceptable, https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BX4a2O8nL.jpg may be a decent alternative (albeit with a white border).

--Karaken12 04:27, 22 September 2018 (EDT)

To assure you: this is the right place. I added the ASIN and the image (from look inside won't do it, just use the image displayed at ebook level). I also changed the price, as £7.99 is the one for the printed edition. Now all should be correct. Stonecreek 06:59, 22 September 2018 (EDT)

Tricky serial situation

I don't know how to handle this ... The story "Blossoms Blackened Like Dead Stars" was originally published as a short story in the anthology Ride the Star Wind. It is now being expanded into a longer work (intended to be a novel), also titled "Blossoms Blackened Like Dead Stars," and the longer work is being serialized in Eyedolon magazine. The original story appears (slightly altered) as part 1 of the serial, under the title "Blossoms Blackened Like Dead Stars (Part 1)." The other chapters have different names; for example part 2 is "The Flechette." So ... how would you enter all this into the database? My current plan is to make separate records for the short story "BBLDS" and the serial chapter "BBLDS (Part 1)" and use notes to explain the relationship between them. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 01:02, 23 September 2018 (EDT)

Sounds good for me. Christian Stonecreek 05:51, 23 September 2018 (EDT)

Date issue with Kostelanetz's "Openings"

There is a problem with the record for "Openings" by Richard Kostelanetz. I have added the following note to the record: "From 1975 onward, Richard Kostelanetz has published hundreds of microfictions under the collective title "Openings;" each is the opening line of an unwritten story. Whenever something by him titled "Openings" appears in a magazine or anthology, it is likely to be a selection of these microfictions, and probably not the same as any other selection. This record currently represents all such selections." All the "probablys" in there are because I can't actually view what's in one of our current publications, Forbidden Lines #13, so I don't know if it's different from what's in The Irreal Reader. However, I have found other "Openings" published in various places online and in literary journals, and they are all different selections.

My main problem is, I'm not sure what date to give this record. Kostelanetz put out a collection of Openings in 1975 but has continued writing more since. I have given the title record a date of 1975, on the theory that that is the earliest date that any publication for this title could have. Does that make sense? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 16:03, 26 September 2018 (EDT)

If they are all different, they should not all be under the same title record. Instead, I would organize them in a series titled "Openings". ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:11, 27 September 2018 (EDT)
It's questionable whether they even belong in a speculative database. You can see some of them here (The Irreal Reader contains those and some more); only a couple suggest anything speculative. Both Forbidden Lines and The Cafe Irreal are as much devoted to experimental literary fiction as to outright speculative fiction, that's why the "Openings" fit into their pages. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:21, 27 September 2018 (EDT)
That's a completely separate issue. ^_^ ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:15, 27 September 2018 (EDT)

Ken vs. Kenneth Brady

While entering the contents of the anthology Fantastic Stories Presents: Science Fiction Super Pack #2 I noticed that Ken Brady and that Kenneth Brady are one and the same. I think that these records should be combined, however which should be the canonical name? I would go with Ken Brady as Mr. Brady no longer seems to be publishing any more under the “Kenneth” name. So . . . .? MLB 01:02, 27 September 2018 (EDT)

I'd go with the same reading. So, please go ahead! Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 04:05, 27 September 2018 (EDT)
I agree with both of you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:09, 27 September 2018 (EDT)

Same series name different publishers

Hi I'm guessing the Heroes series http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2732 from Cricket Books US is different from the one from Heinemann/William Heinemann UK, which I bet is different from the one from Pearson UK. The blurb inside Odysseus lists the other Heroes titles from them as Theseus, Perseus, and Hercules.

I would imagine it's not uncommon for several publishers to have series with the same name.

Anyway, how does one differentiate? Thanks. gzuckier 21:18, 4 October 2018 (EDT)

Publication series with the same name are typically disambiguated by placing the publisher name in parenthesis after the pub series name (example). -- JLaTondre (talk) 21:54, 4 October 2018 (EDT)
Thanks. It appears after some googling the two UK pubs are indeed the same series, so I'll see what I can do with the US one. gzuckier 21:58, 4 October 2018 (EDT)

editing Used These Alternate Names

I apologize if i've missed the way to effect this change, i did read the help materials and couldn't find it listed.

My concern is regarding this: "If a living author (or their authorized representative) requests that the ISFDB remove the author's detailed biographical information, the ISFDB will comply after confirming the requester's identity. The ISFDB will remove as much biographical data as needed in order to accommodate legitimate privacy concerns while preserving, to the extent possible, the work of the editors who have compiled the data. A note will be added to the author's record explaining what type of information has been removed and why."

Where would a living author make this request? I can't find an e-mail address or a form. (I tried editing myself, but i also don't have access to the "Used These Alternate Names" field, apparently, because i can see the others but not that one.) Thanks in advance for your help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cskerry (talk • contribs) .

You can contact individual editors with the "E-mail this user" link at the left side of their user page. Ahasuerus is a good person to ask about requests of this sort. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 15:04, 5 October 2018 (EDT)
You cannot edit it from the author page because it is not a field. The "Used These Alternate Names" shows up automatically when there is a work under that name and someone had connected the two names. You cannot just add a list of those name, we are "work" first so a work is a prerequisite. The way to change it is to break the pseudonyms and the connections.
For contacts - sending a mail to one of the moderators that is somewhat active is the easiest way (unless you are ok posting the request here). Ahasuerus is always a great person but he also has issues with getting mails from the ISFDB servers (or used to - some mail servers are a bit... unhappy with how we send emails). Feel free to mail me if you want with your request - I know that I am getting my mail cleanly. Annie 15:22, 5 October 2018 (EDT)
Keep in mind that the discussion which led to the codification of this policy only covered places and dates of birth. It didn't cover the issue of publicly available pseudonyms and it is my understanding that the policy doesn't cover them. At the time I wrote:
  • The idea here is to express our intent and codify our de facto policy while giving editors some leeway when dealing with specific requests
but I was referring to the fact that different authors had requested different components of their dates and places of birth to be deleted: year, month, day, city and/or state. Pseudonyms, which are bibliographic rather than biographical in nature, were not a part of that discussion. We may need to clarify the wording of the policy to make this distinction clear. Ahasuerus 18:42, 5 October 2018 (EDT)
When the connection exists only in our DB and there is no backrack/note on how the connection was made to start with, I would argue that it falls under the "do not pseudonym without a confirmation" though (especially for live authors) and not under "personal information". I broke the pseudonyms for now - we can always argue more if we should have it as is (and it is easily rebuildable). Annie 20:24, 5 October 2018 (EDT)
@CSkerry: Your pseudonym is revealed in the Artist Spotlight you contributed to the October 2015 issue of Nightmare which we currently have entered under your full name. What's your thinking on how to handle that? And to other folks, it's worth taking a look at that article because it may present a tricky indexing problem. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 20:53, 5 October 2018 (EDT)
Missed that one even though I looked at that issue (no idea how) - that accounts for one of the pseudonyms though - not the one with the stories. I've reconnected these two - it was the other one that was the big issue anyway... Annie 21:22, 5 October 2018 (EDT)

need delete image

Hi

I have managed to upload a duplicate

Image:JeffreyLindberg.jpg
Image:Jeffreylindberg.jpg

Could somebody delete ONE of them? thanks. gzuckier 00:57, 7 October 2018 (EDT)

Done. Image:JeffreyLindberg.jpg is the one that remains. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:41, 7 October 2018 (EDT)

Mabinogion retellings

How to handle Mabinogion retellings (and other retellings of Medieval material)?

This question may have been answered before but I didn't find it ... I have created a record for Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabionogion which contains editions of the text of a number of Medieval Welsh stories plus English translations of them. So now we have Welsh source records to variant assorted translations to. The problem is that some modern versions are adaptations or retellings that get pretty far away from being a direct translation. What's the thinking on whether to variant those to the medieval text? My opinion would be not to-- instead, maybe we should make a series? E.G. "Kulhwch ac Olwen," with the translation "Kilhwch and Olwen" varianted to it, would be assigned to the series "Kilhwch and Olwen;" and Andrew Lang's retelling "The Winning of Olwen" would not be varianted but would be assigned to the same series. Does that make sense? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:45, 8 October 2018 (EDT)

In the end, it becomes a judgement call as to how much adaptation is required before one considers it a new work vs. a translation. No translation is a literal translation so there will also be some re-work, but there is a big difference between that and a wholesale re-write that often happens with fairly tales. Where one draws the line between the two will probably differ from person to person. Your solution is certainly reasonable to me. Crediting also comes into play here. If it's truly an adaptation, then often we variant to credit for both the original author and the adapter. However, if it is a re-telling, then we usually credit just to the re-teller (via variant if needed). Again, that becomes a judgement call where the line is. I recommend liberal use of notes so other people can follow the logic. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:48, 10 October 2018 (EDT)
Thanks. The three Mabinogion stories that Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book are recognizably based on Lady Guest's translation but greatly abridged, and reworded in places. In The Lilac Fairy Book the credit at the end of the story (where Lang usually states his source, including author's name if applicable) is "From the 'Mabinogion.'" So what we have is stories written by an unknown & uncredited author, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, translation abridged and adapted by Andrew Lang (probably—he did do the abridgments in his own anthologies, right?) Now, as you say, normally an abridgment of this sort would be credited to author+adapter—but what if the author is uncredited? Should this be by "uncredited and Andrew Lang"? That doesn't sound quite right. Currently I just have it "uncredited," with an extensive note. --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 11:53, 10 October 2018 (EDT)
Sounds reasonable to me. Lang sometimes credited translators in his prefaces, but wasn't clear on adaptations, etc. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:30, 11 October 2018 (EDT)

Date of an anthology published in parts

Lady Charlotte Guest's edition of the Mabinogion was published in parts between 1838 and 1845, then all together in 1849. What date should I give it? If this was a serial novel, it would be dated 1849, but it's an anthology ... --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 17:47, 12 October 2018 (EDT)

The Mabinogion: different editors of the "same" anthology

It seems like a good idea to have all of the Mabinogion anthologies under one title record because they have more or less the same contents, differing mostly in whether or not they include "Taliesin." The contents are eleven stories from two overlapping medieval manuscripts, with "Taliesin" being from a 16th-century manuscript. The first complete edition of all 12 was both assembled and translated by Lady Charlotte Guest. Subsequent editions have rearranged Lady Guest's translations, sometimes omitting "Taliesin," or have been various arrangements of other translations. So, how can I create a "master" title record for all these anthologies with different editors? Maybe date unknown/author uncredited to indicate that the "master" record refers to the source material, which all the subsequent printed editions are arrangements of? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 18:48, 12 October 2018 (EDT)

Why wouldn't you put in the original and allow the stories (or their variants) to act as links? ../Doug H 20:01, 12 October 2018 (EDT)
That is an idea, but not exactly easy. We don't have any other records for manuscripts, do we? --Vasha (cazadora de tildes) 20:16, 12 October 2018 (EDT)
There are placeholder titles for works where the first publication is unknown (e.g. Beowulf, Iliad and Le Morte D'Arthur. And we do have an original manuscript White Book of Rhydderch. So this would be the basis for an entry as the first collection with the stories in the original Welsh, the translations of the stories would be variants of these stories, and each translated collections would be have their own title (or be variants of the first for any given set), n'est-ce que pas?. ../Doug H 22:48, 12 October 2018 (EDT)

Series: Voyage Extraordinaires

The series for Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires is one victim of the inability of a title to belong to more than one series. Of the 54 books in the series, 11 are not included because they belong to another series. Eight suffer from having common characters and so are grouped as overriding series. One is listed as a series to allow it to contain the two parts as separate titles - something which occurred with other titles but was handled differently. And the final two are part 2 of a series where he has written a follow-up novel to another author. In this case, the series only exists because of his sequel.

I think the Voyage Extraordinaires series should be complete and most of the diverging entries could be dealt with (probably notes), with the exception of the sequels. I did some digging and discovered that only the original publisher (Hetzel) and it's buyer Hachette use the series name. The English translations ignore it. So I wondered if making it a publisher series would make sense. ../Doug H 23:38, 12 October 2018 (EDT)

https

Hi,

Are you planning to add a certificate to be accessible in https?

I'm (and others) trying currently to link wikidata and isfdb elements with mix'n'match (here and here), and in the visual match tool, we can not view this site because it's not is not https. It would not be safe to force mix'n'match into http.

Nowadays, it is very simple and free to add a certificate with letsencrypt.org

eru 11:33, 19 October 2018 (EDT)

Migrating to HTTPS is certainly the right thing to do. There are some administrative issues that we need to resolve first, but it's definitely on the agenda. Unfortunately, there is no ETA at this time. Ahasuerus 11:42, 19 October 2018 (EDT)
Thanks ! I will wait for it :) eru 11:46, 19 October 2018 (EDT)

never received verification email, I've tried now three times

email is morbius@altairIV.net, and it has not as yet, over two hours now, received anything from you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Krell (talk • contribs) .

Unfortunately, the way the ISFDB server is configured, some third party e-mail servers and gateways ignore e-mail messages our server sends. On the plus side, e-mail verification is no longer required for new users. The fact that you can post on this Wiki also means that you can create submissions :-) Ahasuerus 19:55, 21 October 2018 (EDT)

What a tangled web we weave ...

I stumbled across two sets of connected titles and cannot really wrap my head around what's there, let alone what to do about it. I have the book with this image and the card deck with this image. They are the same. The cover image referred to as Seademons is a reversal and cropping of the latter image. The problem is that the two families of links don't seem to connect and we end up with Cover for Eerie#7 and Eerie #7 cover. I expect there's a title merge or variant to be made, but can't figure out the next step. Anyone have any suggestions? ../Doug H 23:44, 27 October 2018 (EDT)

I merged the two "Sea Witch" records together & then set up everything as a variant of Sea Witch. That should have fixed everything, but let us know if you see anything odd. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:44, 28 October 2018 (EDT)
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