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Moderator | Current Availability | Time Zone |
---|---|---|
Ahasuerus – Talk | Daily. Mostly working on automated submissions and the software. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Alvonruff – Talk | Daily. Working on a major overhaul of the isfdb infrastructure, staged at isfdb2.org. Self-moderating only. | US Central (UTC-6) |
Annie Yotova: Annie - Talk | Most days, wildly varying hours. Working mainly on Fixer and international titles but available for questions. | US Mountain/AZ (UTC-7) |
Chris Jensen: Chris J - Talk | Available sometime everyday. | Pacific (UTC+12) |
Desmond Warzel: Dwarzel - Talk | Most days, wildly varying hours. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Dirk P Broer: Dirk P Broer - Talk | Self-moderating only. | Netherlands (UTC+2) |
Jens: Hitspacebar - Talk | Self-moderating only. | Germany (UTC+2) |
JLaTondre - Talk | Intermittent, mainly evenings. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
John: JLochhas - Talk | Intermittent, mainly evenings and weekends. | Germany (UTC+2) |
Kevin Pulliam: Kpulliam - Talk | Often missing for weeks and months - Best to email | US Central (UTC-6) |
Kraang - Talk | Most evenings | CDN Eastern (UTC-5) |
Dominique Fournier: Linguist - Talk | Off and on most days, with occasional blackouts (like now); can help on French or other outlandish titles. | France (UTC+1) |
Marc Kupper: Marc Kupper – Talk | Low but not quite zero | US Pacific (UTC-8) |
MagicUnk - Talk | Intermittent. Occasionally going into an editing frenzy. | Belgium (UTC+2) |
MartyD - Talk | Sporadic, but most days. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Mhhutchins - Talk | Self-moderating only | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Nihonjoe - Talk | Weekdays. Sometimes evenings. | US Mountain (UTC-6/-7) |
Pete Young: PeteYoung - Talk | Most days, although time zone frequently varies. | UK (UTC) |
Ron Maas Rtrace - Talk | Most mornings and evenings. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Rudolf: Rudam - Talk | intermittent | Germany (UTC+2) |
John: Scifibones - Talk | Most days, some evenings. | US Eastern (UTC-5) |
Willem Hettinga: Willem H. - Talk | Most days, unpredictable hours. | Netherlands (UTC+2) |
- Currently unavailable
- Dcarson (Dana Carson) - Talk - Not seen since 2021-02-20 (marked inactive). US Eastern (UTC-5)
ISBN wrong
Record 672711 (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?672711) Le fantôme de Canterville et autres contes shiows the ISBN to be 978-2-253-02346-3. However NooSFere and World Cat has this ISBN for L'enfant tombé des étoiles. (along with Goodreads & Amazon.fr) For Le Fantome de Canterville : et autres contes, World Cat shows the ISBN to be 2253048089 9782253048084 for the 1988, 1997 edition but no cover pics. NooSFere shows editions for 1982, 1988, 1989 & 1991 for LIVRE DE POCHE Jeunesse. No 1986 edition ISBN : 2-253-02346-9 for 1982, ISBN : 2-010-13984-4 for 1988, 1989, 1991. All have the same basic cover that is shown in the ISFDB page. This file was verified by Linguist back in 2018 and I don't want to step on toes. aardvark7 17:41, 1 May 2022 (EDT)
Bruno Elletori / Elettori
Does anyone know if Bruno Elletori is the same person as Bruno Elettori ? --Mavmaramis 03:09, 2 May 2022 (EDT)
- Bruno Elettori is on Instagram. He has artwork posted there matching these Bruno "Elletori" credits:
- and one that is similar but not identical (a face in the eye instead of a skull):
- --MartyD 10:22, 2 May 2022 (EDT)
- If Elettori (one L) depicts Prisoner of the Planets on his website where the credit on the book has it as two L's - does that mean the the two records on ISFDB for the artist should be merged - or some kind of varianting done ? --Mavmaramis 14:04, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- Yes. I think we should make the two-L, one-T misspelled one a pseudonym of the one-L, two-T correctly spelled one. For your case, we would make a variant. You can verify the printed credit is (mis)spelled with two Ls and one T, and we have definitive-enough evidence it's by the person who spells his name with one L and two Ts. We can research the others and either variant (if actually misspelled, or if we cannot tell) or correct. For example, I found Days of Atonement full scan on archive.org, and it shows "Front cover illustration by Bruno Elettori". So I'll go correct that one. Would you like to do the pseudonym and varianting, or would you rather I did? --MartyD 18:14, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- p.s. I can see for Days of Atonement that Locus1 has the name misspelled, and it uses the same spelling for Facets. That might be the source for misspelled credits in ISFDB. --MartyD 18:17, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- The entry for the artist will need sorting as well as the publications listed under each. --Mavmaramis 11:41, 8 May 2022 (EDT)
- Yes. I will take care of it. --MartyD 07:24, 9 May 2022 (EDT)
- This is done. I was able to find a good source of "Elettori" (vs. Grafton's misspelled "Elletori") for all but Beastmaker and Beaststalker (for neither of which was I able to find actual artwork, either). Given the bountiful supply of documented misspellings, I decided it's safe enough to start with an assumption that the same is true for those two. I sent Elettori a message on Instagram, but he has not responded. --MartyD 09:53, 10 May 2022 (EDT)
- Yes. I will take care of it. --MartyD 07:24, 9 May 2022 (EDT)
- The entry for the artist will need sorting as well as the publications listed under each. --Mavmaramis 11:41, 8 May 2022 (EDT)
- If Elettori (one L) depicts Prisoner of the Planets on his website where the credit on the book has it as two L's - does that mean the the two records on ISFDB for the artist should be merged - or some kind of varianting done ? --Mavmaramis 14:04, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
(Unindent) Found images of Beastmaker at Goodreads and Beaststalker also at Goodreads --Mavmaramis 07:19, 15 May 2022 (EDT)
Wrong Riot
Mavmaramis upped a cover for Riot '71 to the Wiki, but it clearly says WALKER on the cover; the real Hodder cover is here; https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Riot-71-Ludovic-Peters-Hodder-Stoughton/19674196786/bd. Editor rarely responds on his board, so I'm letting everyone know. --Username 09:44, 2 May 2022 (EDT)
- I was only provided with a photo of the front flap of the dustwrapper by Joachim Boaz which had the Edgar Blakeney credit. He did not state he had a different hardback copy and pointed me to his Ruminations blog for a scan and I did not notice it was a different publisher. --Mavmaramis 05:56, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks for responding. I assume you'll upload correct cover using my link, and maybe create a record for the Walker edition, too, using your cover. Also, since you saw the front flap and British HC's usually have a price there, was the price obscured, not there, or did you forget to enter it? --Username 10:05, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- As stated I was only send an image of the front flap and nothing else. There was no price printed on it as far as I remember. I have no bibliographic details for the Walker edition nor did Joachim Boaz provide me with any so no I won't be uploading anything - don't shoot me I was merely assisting JB as he's not a registered user here (nor do I suspect he wants to be) and merely uses me to make edits. If you wish to upload the cover you linked then you are free to do so. I cannot create a record for a book I do not own and know nothing about other than the cover artist. --Mavmaramis 16:16, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks for responding. I assume you'll upload correct cover using my link, and maybe create a record for the Walker edition, too, using your cover. Also, since you saw the front flap and British HC's usually have a price there, was the price obscured, not there, or did you forget to enter it? --Username 10:05, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- OK, I'll upload it. Your friend J.B. has a 2014 review of a 1979 Michael Bishop novel entered on ISFDB, so I'll see if I can find a photo of him to add to his record. Thanks for doing as much as you could. Also, if anyone else reads this and wants to enter any other editions they may own, while checking all this out I saw a paperback cover of Riot '71 with an angry white dude manhandling a black lady, so unlike the almost artistic HC covers the PB cover just went straight for the sensationalism. --Username 18:48, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
Aldiss / Helliconia Winter
I am editing / PVing Aldiss's Helliconia Winter. The only PV is inactive, so this is to advise that I will add sourced notes, remove "Helliconia (map)", import the existing "Helliconia Winter (map)" (because the maps for Helliconia Summer and Winter are slightly different) and replace "Both Reginald and Clute have the Cape edition as the first" with "Reginald has the Cape edition as the first" in accordance with my post 'Clute/Nicholls and "First Edition"' on the Moderators' Noticeboard dated 3 April 2022 Teallach 19:13, 5 May 2022 (EDT)
Uploading issues
I've tried to upload some new images but some of them don't seem to appear - 2 of them did do so after some time (even after refreshing / closing and re-opening the website). The third goives me "Error creating thumbnail: /var/www/html/wiki//bin/ulimit4.sh: line 4: /usr/local/bin/convert: No such file or directory" despite it being within the size limits. --Mavmaramis 14:01, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
- The old wiki software the ISFDB uses has a bug in that when you upload a replacement image, it doesn't tell your browser a new version is present and so your browser continues to use its cached version (if the image has already been viewed). You need to force the new image to be displayed (Ctl + F5 on most browsers). Any other user viewing the image will see the new one. As for the convert issue, that can occur even on those images below the size limit. It can be ignored in those cases. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:26, 6 May 2022 (EDT)
Mel O.
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1704977; 3 different PV's, all active; question is whether this is supposed to be Mel Odom (artist). --Username 10:32, 9 May 2022 (EDT)
- Yes it is, corrected now. --Willem 13:05, 9 May 2022 (EDT)
Duplicate Publication Record: Adams / So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
I was about to PV the Pan pb 2nd printing of Adams / So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish when I realised it appears to have duplicates: Record 1 and Record 2. Note that the publication date of 1985-05-00 for Record 2 looks incorrect because it is a 2nd printing so the date should be "date unknown". I cannot see a tool for merging publication records, so could a moderator please advise how I go about sorting this out? Do I just delete one of the publication records? I am reluctant to do this because it will result in a loss of information about the PVs. Only 1 of the 4 PVs (Linguist) is active. I have left a note on his talk page pointing him at this topic. Teallach 17:44, 9 May 2022 (EDT)
- The covers are different, and both are editor-provided scans. The capitalization in the blurb at the bottom is different, and the second record has a Pan logo in the top left, while the first record does not. --MartyD 09:05, 10 May 2022 (EDT)
- Although the cover scan associated with Record 1 is editor provided, I do not believe it has come from a pb edition. Compare it with the scan associated with the Book Club edition. From the imperfections on the dust jacket, they are clearly the same. So one of these pub records has re-used the scan from the other. I strongly suspect the Book Club has the correct scan. The hc eds (Pan trade and Book Club) have the cover with no Pan logo to top left. The early Pan pb's have the cover with the Pan logo to top left. Teallach 19:01, 10 May 2022 (EDT)
- Likely by sheer coincidence I entered the OL ID for the first (?) printing recently, so if a mod would like to accept that edit then that book can be looked at. Hologram covers, FTW. --Username 19:17, 10 May 2022 (EDT)
- Hello, and sorry I only saw the notification to-day. Indeed, both "2nd printings" are identical, Record 1 having the wrong cover. It would have to be deleted, of course, but I don't know whether there is a way to preserve the PVs. I'll ping Ahasuerus about it, he should know if it's possible. Linguist 11:02, 21 May 2022 (EDT).
- Unfortunately, Ahasuerus says it's not possible. So I'll suppress one and change the date of the other to “unknown". Cheers, Linguist 04:34, 22 May 2022 (EDT).
- Linguist: all looks good now. I have also PVd the kept record. Thanks for cleaning this up. Teallach 06:41, 22 May 2022 (EDT)
To merge or not to merge?
Same title, same publisher - merge these or not? Suggestions? Thanks! MagicUnk 14:31, 11 May 2022 (EDT)
- This is why adding a note to excerpts (if possible) is valuable. A simple statement 'Excerpt consists of first two chapters' for example. Glenn is a PV for two of the three. He can tell you if this one and this one are identical. John Scifibones 18:15, 11 May 2022 (EDT)
- They're the same... about 3 pages worth. --Glenn 19:03, 26 May 2022 (EDT)
Author L Chan
We have two summary bibliography pages L Chan and L. Chan for this author. Under our rules 'L Chan (no period) is the correct canonical name. Many of the entries under 'L. Chan' should have been credited 'L Chan' initially. I propose to change any title where I can see that it was recorded as 'L Chan' in the publication. Question, where our only source is secondary, should I change those or leave and make 'L. Chan' an alternate name. Obviously, the author only uses 'L Chan', but we show what is actually in the publication. Opinions? John Scifibones 10:43, 13 May 2022 (EDT)
- For any of those entered as "L. Chan", if there's a PV, ask them to verify how it's entered in the book. For those without a PV, we can simply variant them to "L Chan" and make "L. Chan" an alternate name to "L Chan". ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:24, 13 May 2022 (EDT)
- For the secondary-only cases, it can be helpful to look for scans -- Amazon Look Inside, archive.org, Google Books, etc. I think if the scan contradicts the secondary source, it's better to correct and include a note about the discrepancy and source of the information used to override the official/blessed secondary. If no scan is available, then I agree we're stuck with keeping the secondary's credit and making a variant. Because we know for sure that some publications used "L.", we cannot assume a mistake on the part of the secondary source. --MartyD 08:43, 14 May 2022 (EDT)
Araminta Station
There is a note onm this record that states "First version, do NOT merge with the second version." but I cannot find the alleged second version listed or depicted anywhere. The note may be there to warn but doesn't actually help in pointing you to the other cover so you can visually see the differences. --Mavmaramis 15:14, 14 May 2022 (EDT)
- Dirk P Broer added the note per the Edit History so you can try asking him. It is possible that at one time there was a miscredit in the database or a wrong cover image displaying on one of the editions that made it look like two separate covers. If so, it could have been corrected and the note is now superfluous. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:11, 16 May 2022 (EDT)
Wiki Covers
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:THNCHNTDNN1975.jpg; So someone uploaded cover with a huge crease running all the way through it, I found one that was uncreased, some other person reverted it back to the creased cover, and this had the fortunate side effect of me finding a better cover than the one I uploaded previously, which is not only uncreased but slightly bigger in dimension yet smaller in size than the creased cover, plus it doesn't have black mark over price like my previous cover. however, am I supposed to do something else now? I ask because it still has the name of the original uploader as the scanner. --Username 09:44, 16 May 2022 (EDT)
- The image you uploaded was vastly inferior to the original (smaller, less bright, less sharp, price unreadable), so naturally it had to be reverted. The new one is still less sharp than the original. You could have contacted the (active) primary verifier of course. --Willem 10:41, 16 May 2022 (EDT)
- It may not be 100% as sharp as the original, but it also doesn't have a huge fault line running through the entire cover. Does anyone else have an answer to my question above? I'm guessing the "edit" at the top could be used to insert my name in place of the original uploader, but I hesitate to do that since obviously some people are very touchy about anyone improving their work. It's surprising how many terrible book covers/author photos were uploaded to the Wiki over the years when certainly in most cases better ones were easily found online; in the future I'll try to remember if I'm going to upload a better image to only do so for images uploaded by people who aren't here anymore so as not to upset anyone. --Username 11:08, 16 May 2022 (EDT)
Strange Horizons
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=at+strangehorizons.com; I was checking the 6 August 2001 review of The Best of Cemetery Dance and the ISFDB link doesn't work, but online Google search found the issue; note search above gave same problem when I clicked the first link, so possibly all of these links don't work. --Username 11:54, 17 May 2022 (EDT)
Peter Sís
The artist Peter Sis should have an acute accent over the "i" in his last name. Would a moderator change it? --Rosab618 04:15, 18 May 2022 (EDT)
Rob C.
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Rob_Crausaz; I'm uploading a better cover of his PV to A Glass of Stars; hasn't been around since 10/2018 and so should probably get a "no longer active" message. --Username 10:48, 18 May 2022 (EDT)
Duplicate Publication Record: Adams / Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
The Pan pb 4th printing of Adams / Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has duplicate pub records: Record A and Record B. I propose to delete Record B but it has two PVs, neither of whom are active, hence this post. I have edited / PVd Record A and transferred across all the additional notes from Record B so that no information will be lost. May I please proceed with the delete? Teallach 16:31, 20 May 2022 (EDT)
- No objection, seems OK to me. Linguist 07:40, 22 May 2022 (EDT).
Luisa Preißler
Greeting! I have no idea on how to do this but--- Could Author Record # 321880 be merged with Author Record # 232592 isnce they are the same person.
Author Record # 232592 also has Luisa Preissler & Luisa J. Preissler attached and this would join all 4 versions of her name together and hopefully also put all of the book titles together as a group. aardvark7 09:04, 24 May 2022 (EDT)
- Done, see here. It's actually quite easy to do. First you make the variant author a pseudonym of the canonical ("Make/Remove Alternate Name" under editing tools), then you variant the titles under the pseudonym to the canonical author. --Willem 10:19, 24 May 2022 (EDT)
Dennys
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5326614; On a roll of adding prices to Canadian publisher's books; this one had a price that looked funny, so I checked and it was 95, not 96, but has active PV's so I cancelled it. If anyone wants to fix this very minor thing the Google link is at the bottom. --Username 08:11, 25 May 2022 (EDT)
- Is there a reason that you are mentioning this here instead of reaching out to the verifiers, both of whom are active? I'm sure either of them would be happy to check the price, though you'll have to use the email system to contact Mhhutchins. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 10:53, 25 May 2022 (EDT)
- Well, besides the fact that I've made it clear recently that I'm not re-doing rejected edits anymore and cancelling my edits that turn out to have active PV so as to avoid the waiting for a response/PV complaining about my fixing of incorrect info, which I believe you thought might be a good idea, both of the PV for this book had particularly less-than-positive responses when I've contacted them to let them know I added or fixed something in their edits, as you can easily see if you go on their boards; Mr. W especially still stands as probably the rudest response I've ever gotten, which is really saying something. You and others are always going on about etiquette and such but when I do the "right thing" often I'm met with hostility for daring to correct something, regardless of the fact that usually it's justifiable, so maybe you should let other PV know how they're supposed to respond. This is a very minor fix, so if nobody wants to change it it hardly matters. --Username 11:30, 25 May 2022 (EDT)
Satanic Panic
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1317298; After nearly 2 weeks my extensive edits for these books were accepted, but 1 that removed something was rejected with no comment but "Why?" and the same mod removed something himself from the original edition; I can barely remember the convoluted importing and fixing I did for these, so someone look these over if you can spare the time and make sure everything's where it's supposed to be. --Username 18:27, 25 May 2022 (EDT)
Rejected Why?
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5318733; Can someone un-reject this? The old pic's already on Wikipedia, he's turned to the side, and it's very small; the one I entered isn't on Wikipedia, he's facing forward, and it's quite a bit bigger. Also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5318770, which was rejected even though there's no PV. Also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5318771, which wouldn't have been rejected if the previous edit had been approved, because that's clearly where the date came from. Also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5319524, because previous editor entered #6 incorrectly as both series # and ID. Also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5319526, because that's what previous editor's note and WorldCat (ID already on book's record) say. The same mod rejected all of these; he also rejected my replacement of E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror cover with the full wraparound cover (featuring art continued on the back) but I'm going to let that one go because there was an actual PV for that one. --Username 15:12, 26 May 2022 (EDT)
- I have asked Biomassbob to respond here. Ahasuerus 11:53, 27 May 2022 (EDT)
- Username doesn't bother to complain to me because I'm unlikely to buy his arguments. For example, the photo he chose is poor, slightly out of focus, and the existing photo is better. Most of his suggested changes had no explanation of why the existing information was bad, and I rejected them with the question "Why?". He apparently doesn't think he can possibly be wrong, he doesn't want to notify PVs when he makes changes. I liked the cover for Tales of Terror, but he really needs to contact the PV. Another of his favorite tricks is to remove an entry in a pub, then in his next submission, replace it with something he likes better. It would really make things easier for monitors if he would just edit the entry instead of tossing it out before we can know why he wants to remove it. He's a difficult editor to review, obnoxious and arrogant, but he works hard and I'll keep reviewing his submissions. But he should learn to submit reasons for his suggested changes. Bob 19:50, 27 May 2022 (EDT)
- Dude, you haven't even approved any edits by me for months; I actually thought you'd given up moderating here because you were barely around for a long time and your attitude when you did work on my edits last year suggested you were doing so under protest or something, rejecting many of them because of some silly reason like "no movie-related info in the notes", which was a common excuse, apparently not noticing the countless other movie-related notes entered by other editors. If you think my Abe photo was poor then you must really think the already-on-Wikipedia, tiny, dark, profile picture currently there is horrible, right? I'm going to find a really great one now just to make you happy. As for PV, there are many things I assume they should know like looking at existing notes or clicking external ID's to verify my edits without me having to spell everything out like I'm working with slow adults, but apparently I give them too much credit. I have explained many of my edits where necessary when the info was something not apparent. As for being wrong, please see the many messages I've left on the boards where I chastise and insult myself as an idiot for making silly mistakes; like the recent Stephen King "Weeds" situation. I already explained that I'm letting the Tales of Terror rejection go because it actually has a PV (unlike your rejection of my importing of something into Dark Energies, which has no PV but only secondary verifications, which don't require contacting the person who did those, as you should know being a PV and all) and I don't feel like waiting for an often really long time for a response just to add a better cover, especially since a lot of the PV left years ago but whoever's in charge of tagging them as "no longer active" never did that. As for the "tricks" you mentioned, I don't even know what to say about that because I have no idea what you're talking about; removing wrong info and importing correct info is a very common thing that I've done many times because that's what you're supposed to do. Your abusive "obnoxious and arrogant" comment would bother me if I cared what you thought about me, which I don't, and recalling from the dim mists of time your attitude when you were a regular moderator and worked on many of my edits long ago, all I can say is: pot, meet kettle. The one thing I agree with you about is that I work hard, since in the slightly less than a year-and-a-half I've edited here I've made more than 25,000 edits, and encouraged others to do many more, all the while putting up with all the constant complaining and insults from others who "work" here while getting almost nothing in the way of feedback about anything I write on the boards. But I shouldn't be surprised about any of this because from reading recent and not-so-recent writings on the boards it's clear many editors have stopped editing here because they couldn't get along with other editors/moderators; as I mentioned somewhere recently, the fact I'm still doing this at all should be cause for gratitude. I think that's about it, so now that I'm going to replace the Abe picture and not bothering with the Tales of Terror cover, see what you can do to approve those other edits you wrongly rejected, or let someone else approve them if you don't want to. --Username 20:42, 27 May 2022 (EDT)
The Other Glass Teat
I found an advert in the back of The Glass Teat refering to this book with blub, size (210 x 140mm) and giving the ISBN as 0 86130 005 X. No evidence this publication from Savoy ever appeared - it doesn't appear on Savoy's website listing of publications - nor does the ISBN appear to exist so should it not be listed as "unpublished" under Savoy's publisher page ? --Mavmaramis 11:43, 27 May 2022 (EDT)
Shape of Fear
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:THSHPFFR1971.jpg; I uploaded a better image to this book but didn't get the usual "do you want to replace", apparently because back in 2009 Bluesman entered a too-big image or something, so can a mod get my image, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:THSHPFFRDJ1971.jpg, to show up in the book's record? --Username 12:26, 27 May 2022 (EDT)
- The original image was at the "wrong" location. I edited the pub to add the new image and deleted the original. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:59, 31 May 2022 (EDT)
- Same for this one, edited the pub to point to the new image, then deleted the original. John Scifibones 15:28, 2 June 2022 (EDT)
- http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:THMNWHFRDL1942.jpg; It's not replacing the old image because it has an extra "L" in the URL. --Username 12:48, 12 June 2022 (EDT)
Once Again
Unnecessary rejections: 1) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5327115; New image has different URL with "SSL" which is, according to mods, the preferred Amazon image address now, but also new image doesn't have the "copyrighted material" bugs at top and bottom, which I replace whenever I see them if I find a cover without them. Un-reject this edit. 2) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5327678; New image replaces old image with "P" in the URL which, according to mods, should be replaced. Un-reject this edit, too. I'm really getting tired of my edits being rejected incorrectly, especially these very minor image replacements, and having to waste time writing these stupid notes in order to get them un-rejected when that time could be used to actually make more edits. Somebody inform this particular mod that there's a reason to replace old images besides the fact that they "look better". EDIT: Same mod rejected another replacement of a cover with "P" in the URL, saying the new cover looked worse than the old one, but I'm going to let that one go because new cover I got from OL has a proper URL but also has some slight cover differences so I'm just going to make another edit from Amazon where the cover with proper URL looks exactly like the old cover. Most alarmingly, however, is this rejection, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5326695, where mod left a long note about stuff including the page count change, when there's an Archive link in the edit which leads to a copy of the book where it's obvious that the much higher page count I entered is the correct one. Un-reject this edit, too. On the plus side, while checking into all this I noticed at the very top of the copyright page the name of the illustrator for Wells' book, so that's been added in another edit; every dark cloud has a silver lining. I don't know what's going on here but let's try not to let this keep happening. --Username 19:05, 2 June 2022 (EDT)
Please add Goodreads Choice Awards "Science & Technology" category
I can't imagine this is going to get much use (especially as they seem to have dropped this category for their most recent iteration), but could we have this category added so that this nominated title can be added to it? I think this is a moderator or bureaucrat task?
Thanks. ErsatzCulture 16:41, 8 June 2022 (EDT)
- Any moderator should be able to add a new category to an award type. Only new award types require bureaucrat intervention. Ahasuerus 17:27, 8 June 2022 (EDT)
- Done. Ahasuerus 18:03, 8 June 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks! ErsatzCulture 18:04, 8 June 2022 (EDT)
- Done. Ahasuerus 18:03, 8 June 2022 (EDT)
Chavey
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?325318; After constant complaining about adding info about cover images to this guy's PV books at the bottom of a long list I've added a couple recently, but just noticed there's a warning about the length of it being way too long and some browsers possibly not being able to handle displaying it properly. So someone should contact him and advise him on how to break it up or whatever's needed since he rarely checks it. --Username 19:35, 9 June 2022 (EDT)
- Our Wiki software is quite old, which is why it displays a warning about the 32K limit, which is not an issue with modern browsers. Al is currently working on upgrading the Wiki software. Once he is done, the warning will disappear. Ahasuerus 11:56, 10 June 2022 (EDT)
Ruleless Stonecreek?
Do the rules for editing PVs only apply to me or do they also apply to Stonecreek? Data was changed and added by him without contacting me. I've been warned for breaking the rules like this, but apparently Stonecreek has fool's liberty, look here.--Wolfram.winkler 09:57, 12 June 2022 (EDT)
- Did you read the note: "Adding missing relevant data: date, content, pub. series, sources, links & notes"? All of these were missing - as usual - from the stub record you provided. Christian Stonecreek 11:39, 12 June 2022 (EDT)
- Is there no one who can give me a reasonable answer?--Wolfram.winkler 16:52, 13 June 2022 (EDT)
- Apparently there is no one who has the courage to comment here. That's sad. --Wolfram.winkler 13:28, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
- Is there no one who can give me a reasonable answer?--Wolfram.winkler 16:52, 13 June 2022 (EDT)
- Stonecreek's self-approver privileges were revoked on 2022-06-14 -- see the link for details. Ahasuerus 16:30, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
- I can't comment on your question, but I thought you'd like to know that Stonecreek entered another Hobbit Presse book by Mr. Sullivan, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?901899, in case you own that and can also PV. --Username 13:44, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
- Interesting information, but I can't see any connection to my question/complaint.
- I'll rephrase it: Do the rules regarding editing PV's data apply to all users?
- @ Username: I can't see how this information can help to clarify my question. Please explain that to me.
- BTW the next rule violation from Stonecreek here (Google translator).--Wolfram.winkler 11:35, 21 June 2022 (EDT)
- Well, the missing answers confirm my assumption that there is a two-class society here. I'll give you one piece of advice along the way: stop Stonecreek.(Google).--Wolfram.winkler 12:45, 4 July 2022 (EDT)
- I can't comment on your question, but I thought you'd like to know that Stonecreek entered another Hobbit Presse book by Mr. Sullivan, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?901899, in case you own that and can also PV. --Username 13:44, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
How to enter
Very shortly I will be having a box set of four books by different authors (published by Puffin) delivered. My question is how I enter this - would it be OMNIBUS ? --Mavmaramis 15:20, 15 June 2022 (EDT)
- Yep. And I would also add each of the books individually (so 5 publications) because these box sets tend to get separated... Annie 15:33, 15 June 2022 (EDT)
- Thank you Annie. The four books contained within the box set are already on ISFB anyway (it's an early 1970s set) but I'll still add them as content. --Mavmaramis 10:34, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
Paul Jacquays vs Paul Jaquays
Author Record # 9645 Paul Jacquays is in reality Author Record # 8705 Paul Jaquays. I think the name Jacquays was most likely misspelled when entered. The art for one of the books under Jacquays, Star of Cursrah, can be found on the artist's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Jennell.Jaquays.Artist/photos/1583624091905697. Paul Jaquays now goes as Jennell Jaquays. aardvark7 10:15, 16 June 2022 (EDT)
Mick Van Houten
In email correspondance with this artist in relation to some cover art identities he has informed me that (quoted verbaim) "‘Mike' was a consequence due to 3rd party ignorance, thankfully corrected later, although often I’d still see ‘Van' instead of the correct ‘van'." Would a moderator edit his canonical and legal name to show the correct 'van' please ? --Mavmaramis 10:37, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks for looking into this. Since we don't create alternate names based on capitalization, I have changed "Van" to "van" in all three versions of the name and added notes. Ahasuerus 16:43, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
- No worries and thanks. I'd initially contacted him in regards to Jane Gaskell's The Serpent and he sent me a lengthy reply explaining the error(s). --Mavmaramis 18:53, 17 June 2022 (EDT)
Andrew Robinson / Andrew J. Robinson
The listing for Andrew Robinson includes this interview which should be this Andrew J. Robinson. I have no idea whether any other items listed under the former belong to the later. --Mavmaramis 07:53, 19 June 2022 (EDT)
- Fixed. Interviews should always uses the canonical name of the author so I updated the record. They look like two different people. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:13, 19 June 2022 (EDT)
- I'm the one who recently added the photo to Andrew J. Robinson's page from Clive Barker's Hellraiser (1987); however, he's more famous for playing the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry (1971). I also just now added Andrew Robinson cover credits to the 2 other Windrusher books because he did all of them. --Username 08:46, 19 June 2022 (EDT)
Fantasyworld
Can one of you do something with this, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Username#Fantasyworld? I think I entered info properly as can be seen in the edit history, but the Michael Trevillion cover credit ended up being on his author page but not actually added to Fantasyworld, then mod deleted something, then the Trevillion author image which I also added showed up on his page where it hadn't been when I checked a few minutes earlier. I wrote to explain this and mod deleted the Fantasyworld author credit so now it doesn't show up anywhere. Someone restore my info as I entered it. Thanks. --Username 19:53, 19 June 2022 (EDT)
Frontispiece
I could swear I've seen other editors add "fp" when adding a frontispiece; I've done it rarely but still have done it several times. A moderator asked about this on my page, so if it's not OK to add that then how to go about searching ISFDB for all "fp" and getting rid of them? --Username 12:42, 26 June 2022 (EDT)
- Help section Regular Titles subsection Page, bullet point Special designations clearly identifies the allowable abbreviations. The fact that some other record may contain the same error is not justification for ignoring our standards. As always, you are free to propose a change in Rules and Standards. John Scifibones 13:12, 26 June 2022 (EDT)
- I asked if there's a way to search for all page fields with "fp" so I can see how many I've done, if others have really done it, too, and to delete them all if that's not a proper page entry; someone with that knowledge hasn't responded yet, assuming anyone will. Also, it's "Rules", not "Rusles"; I'll correct that for you. --Username 13:23, 26 June 2022 (EDT)
Artie Conliffe
In refeerence to this map. It is signed "Arthur Conliffe" so should not not be his true name and "Artie" a variant ? --Mavmaramis 16:21, 26 June 2022 (EDT)
Romanian Names
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=filipa&type=Name; 2 Titus. --Username 09:39, 27 June 2022 (EDT)
Keeping Up With the Joneses
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=james+jones&type=Name; James Jones' 1 British cover art credit should probably be with the 2 British cover art credits under James Jones (artist), and the American Shadows artist is likely a whole different person. --Username 09:58, 27 June 2022 (EDT)
Joe D. Ripper
I added Joe DeVito cover credit to the 1988 anthology Ripper! using www.jdevito.com Bibliography page. 2 PV, 1 active and only responding by e-mail, which I'm not using. EDIT: Oddly, the Ripper credit doesn't appear in the extensive cover list but only in a card list further down the page; doing a quick check of the other credited covers, it seems the Ripper credit was the only one missing on ISFDB, except for this late one, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?69942, which I just made an edit for to add the credit. EDIT: Many more DeVito cover credits/merges/variants done, pending approval. He also seems to have done the covers for a few of those men's adventure series (American Nightmare, Steele, etc.) but it's not clear if he did all the covers in each series so I didn't touch those. --Username 08:36, 30 June 2022 (EDT)
Machen Dupe
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?37144; I replaced cover for 1 edition and noticed now that there's another which seems the same, but there's different info in each, in case anyone thinks info should be combined in 1 record and the other deleted. --Username 15:49, 30 June 2022 (EDT)
Christian Vs Chris McGrath
I have been working on artist Christian (Chris) McGrath on my Pinterest account and have been finding a number of titles where his has not been attributed as the cover artist and have been updating those. A number of titles have a preview where you can see that the artist is named as Chris McGrath and in those cases I have been using that name. Under Christian McGrath there are a number of titles where it list the book, then again with the addition "with Chris McGrath"
There are two titles (one by me, one not) that are listed under Chris McGrath but not Christian McGrath. How do I get those titles listed under Christian McGrath with the addition "with Chris McGrath" as well as the others I have submitted?
They all should be listed under Christian McGrath with that note the artist is named as Chris McGrath. aardvark7 09:57, 2 July 2022 (EDT)
- We are using Christian McGrath as the canonical name and Chris McGrath as an alternate name. So if you have something credited to "Chris" McGrath, you should record it that way, then once that record is in place, make it a variant of the same title but credited to "Christian" McGrath. Where your record is used, it will say "by Christian McGrath (as by Chris McGrath)". On the Christian McGrath bibliography page, you will see the title listed with either "[only as by Chris McGrath]" if that is the only reference or "[as by Chris McGrath]" if publications are using the canonical record or any other variant.
- For each of the two titles you cite, go to the title's page and choose "Make This Title A Variant" in the Editing Tools menu at the left. In the dialog that comes up, scroll down to the bottom half (there are two forms on the page -- use the second one), and change "Chris McGrath" to "Christian McGrath" and submit. After that is approved, you will see the title on the Christian McGrath page, with the "only as by Chris McGrath" annotation. If there were already a record credited to Christian McGrath, you would use the top half / first form to link the Chris McGrath-credited title to the existing Christian McGrath-credited one. If you make a new one and one already exists, that's ok, too. The two records credited to Christian McGrath can be merged without losing any of the Chris McGrath links. --MartyD 16:40, 3 July 2022 (EDT)
RIP FP
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?27947; http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Frederick_Patten. Change in status needed. --Username 18:33, 6 July 2022 (EDT)
Primus
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?27215; I found Archive copy and fixed the Scientists book by adding Donald I. Fine to the publisher among other things, am going to ask PV of other book to do the same, but that last book is obviously not the same publisher, so mods can decide how to differ it; what language is that, anyway? --Username 15:11, 7 July 2022 (EDT)
The Mists of Avalon
Hello mods. I have been sent details of a copy of this book - the Alfred A. Knopf edition - however it has the number 05925 printed in a white box on the rear of the dustwrapper, it has no gutter code on page 875 (or on any of the 10 adjacent pages), neither does it have 1/83 on the rear flap of the dustwrapper. Since it is a lot cheaper than the Michael Joseph UK or the "proper" Knopf (non Book Club edition) I've gone ahead and ordered it. I'm going to make a big assumption that it is infact a Book Club edition but one that has not yet been recorded on ISFDB. --Mavmaramis 14:17, 8 July 2022 (EDT)
Gollancz / Victor Gollancz
Ok so I've noticed some discrepancies in regards to some publications from this publisher. Eg. The Instrumentality of Mankind is noted as "Victor Gollancz" yet The Rediscovery of Man is "Gollancz". Title pages for both have "Victor Gollancz Ltd". Gollancz editions of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick all have publisher as Gollancz and again titles pages have Victor Gollancz. Can someone explain why they are all just "Gollancz" and not "Victor Gollancz" ? --Mavmaramis 06:07, 10 July 2022 (EDT)
Author Photo Links
Per this discussion, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:JLaTondre#Non-ISFDB_Author_Photo_Links, a warning when someone adds a non-ISFDB friendly author image might be warranted. I fixed a few but only because I chanced across the cleanup report's mention that there were several dozen that were unacceptable links. --Username 12:41, 10 July 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks for the heads-up. Let me see what the software is currently configured to do. Ahasuerus 12:25, 11 July 2022 (EDT)
- After reviewing the linked discussion, I think I see what's going on. The software as it currently exists does warn you if you try to add an image hosted by a site that we don't have permission to link to, e.g. see this 2017 submission -- note the yellow warning. What the software doesn't do is notify the reviewing moderator that the current -- and about to be replaced -- image URL is not allowed.
- If you think about it, this is how yellow warning work for all fields. None of them notify you about issues with the about-to-be-replaced data. I suppose we could change the software to do it, but it would have to be done across the board. Ahasuerus 13:00, 11 July 2022 (EDT)
Wrong cover image uploaded
Uploaded and replaced cover scan for this. Not the same edition. --Mavmaramis 12:00, 11 July 2022 (EDT)
Moderator view of certain submissions tweaked
"Moderator review" pages have been enhanced to display links to "Public View" and "Raw XML" views of unapprovable submissions. This applies to rejected submissions, previously approved submissions, and submissions created or held by other moderators. Ahasuerus 17:29, 11 July 2022 (EDT)
"Next Submission" behavior modified
The behavior of the "Next Submission" button on submission review and post-approval pages has been modified. It now skips submissions created by self-approvers. You can still see and access them via the "New Submissions" page. Ahasuerus 13:18, 12 July 2022 (EDT)
- P.S. User:JLaTondre has suggested that it may be useful to color-code submissions created by self-approvers the way we color-code submissions created by other moderators. What would be a good color to use? Ahasuerus 13:24, 12 July 2022 (EDT)
- What colors are currently being used? I know there's green for new editors, yellow for moderator entries, and blue for the entries of the person viewing the page. Maybe cyan? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:55, 18 July 2022 (EDT)
- That's right. Submissions created by other moderator use "#FFFF00", your own submissions appear as "#3333FF" and new editors' submissions are "#00FF33". I assume "cyan" would be the same as "aqua" or "#00FFFF". I have no preference since I am colorblind. Ahasuerus 16:21, 18 July 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, that would be the same as cyan. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:29, 18 July 2022 (EDT)
- Hearing no objection, I have made the change. Moderators may need to do a full reload of the "New Submissions" page (Control-F5 in most browsers) in order to see the new color. In addition, an explanation of all used colors is now displayed at the bottom of the page. Ahasuerus 12:54, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
Some Summer Lands
There is a listing for Jane Gaskell's Some Summer Lands. Note states "Library Edition" but using the ISBN provides absolutely zero results from ISBN search or any other book dealing websites. It doesn't appear as if Macdonald ever published it in hardback - no library copies seem to exist. Is this a ghost (unpublished) publication ? --Mavmaramis 14:55, 12 July 2022 (EDT)
- This ISBN has been verified against Locus1, which does list it as a:
- Reprint (Hodder & Stoughton 1977) fantasy novel, conclusion of the “Atlan” series. Library edition.
- The 1984-1998 Locus Index was compiled based on the monthly "Books Received" column in Locus Magazine. I suppose it's possible that this ISBN was listed by the publisher in a standard "review package" sent to industry reviewers, but was never distributed to libraries for whatever reason. Given this uncertainty, I think the best we can do is document what we know about this ISBN, i.e. where our data comes from and the fact that no online catalog lists the ISBN as of 2022, in the Note field. Ahasuerus 15:16, 12 July 2022 (EDT)
- It may well appear in Locus as you pointed out but ISBN search tells me "Sorry, we could not find any information for this book" when using the ISBN 0-356-12118-6. No libraries have a copy (at least none that I could find), OCLC/WorldCat and other bibliographic sites don't find it. If it did exist surely there would be more evidence than a printed note in Locus ? --Mavmaramis 00:46, 13 July 2022 (EDT)
- Well, if the totality of the available evidence -- including the fact that https://www.addall.com/advanced/ finds no traces of this ISBN -- suggests that it was never distributed to libraries, we can change the publication date to 8888-00-00 and add a note explaining our sources. Ahasuerus 09:04, 13 July 2022 (EDT)
- That seems to be a very reasonable course of action to take. --Mavmaramis 14:33, 14 July 2022 (EDT)
Tripods Trilogy Macmillan / Collier editions
I have been sent photographic evidence of Roger Hane's signiature (very readadable) for The White Mountains and City of Gold and Lead. --Mavmaramis 14:09, 13 July 2022 (EDT)
UNHOLD button tweaked
The behavior of the UNHOLD button has been modified. Instead of displaying a "dead end" Web page, it now re-displays the submission review page.
I also considered making the same change to the behavior of the HOLD button, but I am not sure that it has the same workflow. Suggestions? Ahasuerus 08:36, 16 July 2022 (EDT)
Jack Sullivan and Penguin
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?275516; 3 active PV, I just added OL ID for the Archive copy and a note mentioning the Brit price on the front flap (US price not seen but likely bad framing because there's a photo online that clearly says $29.95 at the top), but info on bottom left is obscured; what does it say? If it's the month that could be entered. --Username 13:01, 17 July 2022 (EDT)
- Checked my copy. Number bottom left on front flap is: 07288086. Make of that what you will. Price definatley $29.95 printed at top but my copy is price clipped bottom right (presumably UK price). --Mavmaramis 15:20, 19 July 2022 (EDT)
Publication to delete
I had entered Land of Always-Night by Kenneth Robeson and noticed this copy which seems to be the same pub entered under Lester Dent, rather than varianted. I'm happy to moderate and stand behind my own submissions, but would rather a moderator cleaned this one up. Thanks. ../Doug H 22:32, 18 July 2022 (EDT)
A tricky one
The FictionMag lists The Bards as having two authors: "Álvaro de Sousa" and "Holstein Ferreira". This turns out to be incorrect. The actual author is "Álvaro de Sousa Holstein Ferreira". Now, since I don't know whether or not the name is misprinted in the publication itself, or is a typo in the FictionMags entry, I cannot just update the author of The Bards to Álvaro de Sousa Holstein Ferreira. One option could be to variant both "Alvaro de Sousa" and "Holstein Ferreira" to the canonical name - would be awkward though. Any suggestions on how to deal with this situation instead? See also submissions here and here. Thanks! MagicUnk 12:02, 19 July 2022 (EDT)
- How do we "know" the attribution is incorrect and the poem was written Álvaro de Sousa Holstein Ferreira rather than two (other) people? Given that our credit relies exclusively on a secondary source and it's rather difficult to properly represent this particular type of mistaken attribution, I would be inclined to change the title to have the single Álvaro de Sousa Holstein Ferreira credit and record in the notes that secondary source FictionMags credits this as the work of two separate authors but secondary (and hopefully more authoritative) source XYZ credits it to just the one person; thus it seems likely the FictionMags dual credit is the result of a transcription error. With no primary verification, it's clear this has not been determined from the publication itself. Note that going any sort of variant/alternate name route mapping this poem to Álvaro de Sousa Holstein or Álvaro de Sousa Holstein Ferreira is relying on the same "knowledge" that this poem is in fact the work of one person, not two. So to do that, we still need a source. --MartyD 12:01, 21 July 2022 (EDT)
- A Couple of observations: Miller/Contento also has the credit for this poem as by two separate authors. My understanding is that FictionMags is built off of Miller/Contento and other indexes. Strangely, Locus1 (another index related to FictionMags) skips issue 7 of SPWAO Showcase. However, they do list de Sousa and Ferreira as separate authors in their record for Frontier Crossings. We have it as a single credit, which I believe to be correct. I can see how someone would consider the credit in FC to be two authors. The names are in all caps and the column where the essay occurs is narrow enough so that "Álvaro de Sousa" appears on one line with "Holstein Ferreira" on the next. The credit for the essay in Worldcon 75 Souvenir Book is clearly a single name. I expect we are talking about a single person and that it is entirely possible that there is an error FictionMags for SPWAO Showcase is similar to that in Locus1 for Frontier Crossings. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 18:24, 21 July 2022 (EDT)
- https://www.scribd.com/document/28902577/Nebulosa-1; author is mentioned several times using 1 name. --Username 18:48, 21 July 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks for the advice - I've updated the publication accordingly. Regards, MagicUnk 12:13, 26 July 2022 (EDT)
Carole Nelson Douglas / Probe
I am editing / PVing Probe and am posting this note because I am changing the Format field on a pub that only has an inactive PV. This book is definitely a small tp: 20 x 13 cm. Note that Locus1 incorrectly lists this as a pb which is probably the source of the error in the ISFDb pub record. Teallach 15:31, 20 July 2022 (EDT)
Re-Adding Author Info
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?348714; I fixed first guy's name to how it is in the book, but now all info on his old name's page is gone. Here's the cached page, [2]. --Username 23:07, 22 July 2022 (EDT)
- There are two problems here. First, and most importantly, this edit should not have been made. The edit removed the comma between the author's name and the suffix "IV". This is incorrect regardless of how it appears in the book. Please see this template under "Ranks, suffixes, prefixes" where it indicates that suffixes are regularized to include the comma no matter how they are printed in the book.
- The second problem is the "deletion" of the additional author data. When an author is updated in a title and publication record, this does not result as an edit to the existing author. Rather, the old author (in this case "W. E. Butterworth, IV") is removed from the record and a new author (William E. Butterworth IV) is created. In this instance, the author record for "W. E. Butterworth, IV" only occurred on the records where it was removed by the edit, it left that author record (with all of the other data) without any publications or titles, and thus it was deleted. Had this been an appropriate edit, it would have been better to update the author record to remove the comma, which would have preserved the additional date.
- Since this edit should not have been done, I would recommend that you update the author data to re-add the comma. The additional data (legal name and notes) will also have to be re-added and can be done at the same time. I suspect the wiki notes (Additional Biographical Data) which are still present will re-link by themselves after the the author name is corrected and matches the wiki again. However, I've never added an author where the wiki notes preexist, so it will be an interesting experiment. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 18:33, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- I made a couple of edits, first re-adding legal name and note about being the son of..., then an edit adding comma to author's name twice in the book's record. --Username 20:36, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- That won't work. Your first edit will add the author information back. You second edit will will create a new author and since the author you updated with the first edit will have no titles or publications associated with it, it will again be deleted. If they are approved in the opposite order of how they are submitted, I believe the edit to the author record would require a hard reject as the author record edited would no longer exist. I guess my recommendation wasn't clear. All the changes, to the author name, legal name and notes should all be done with a single edit to the author record. That will get everything back to the way it was. I assume an author name can be edited by an editor (i.e. non-moderator). Please let me know if the field is locked for you. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 21:28, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- I made a couple of edits, first re-adding legal name and note about being the son of..., then an edit adding comma to author's name twice in the book's record. --Username 20:36, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, it's locked. I can only change the name by going into the book's record; author's record, no. --Username 21:48, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- OK, I accepted your author edit, rejected the title/pub update, and updated the name on the author record to include the comma. I guess the moral here is that if an author has a single title publication, you'll need to ask a moderator to update the name field if that is required. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 22:29, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, it's locked. I can only change the name by going into the book's record; author's record, no. --Username 21:48, 24 July 2022 (EDT)
- Ron, I renamed the Wiki Bio page to match the new canonical name. While the wiki page correctly links back to the new author summary page, the author summary does not show the bio page. What am I missing? John Scifibones 10:16, 25 July 2022 (EDT)
- The use of wiki pages to document author information has been deprecated. They were used from before there was a notes fields on the author record. Links to old one are maintained, but new links are no longer created. The data is supposed to be migrated into the database and the pages deleted. As there is nothing on this wiki page that is not already on the author record, I will delete it. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:05, 25 July 2022 (EDT)
weblink no more
The webpage conglomeration.info on Kevin Ward, Authur record 9505 is up for sale. aardvark7 21:07, 23 July 2022 (EDT)
- Unfortunately, the Wayback Machine doesn't have a copy of http://www.conglomeration.info/2013/03/announcing-the-conglomeration-2013-featured-artist-kevin-ward.html on file, so I had to delete the link :-( Ahasuerus 11:48, 25 July 2022 (EDT)
La grande anthologie de la science-fiction
Hi I have been around this beautiful site before and today I am looking for info about Publication Series: La grande anthologie de la science-fiction at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?1898+2
My question is : why are there several entries for some of the books. For example, the 2-253-00060-4 is listed 7 times.
Thank you. Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bilboquet (talk • contribs) . 00:00, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
- We include entries for every printing of every eligible book. In this case, there are several printings of the titles, so there are several entries. I hope that helps. Also, please remember to sign your comments using ~~~~. Welcome to the site! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:14, 27 July 2022 (EDT)
To add or not to add that is the question.
Hello Mods. I'd like opinions regarding Megastructres as to whether it does or does not qualify for inclusion on this site. It's a Kickstarter funded book that has been published in two states - a regular edition and a premium edition with faux carbon fibre boards and chrome foil emblam. I have purchased the premium edition and await it's delivery from the USA. --Mavmaramis 04:45, 30 July 2022 (EDT)
- Unless you can find an art piece tied to some fiction, it will be out IMO. Non-fiction (of any type) and art are only eligible when there is a connection to eligible fiction (unless the author is above threshold) or (for art) when it is a cover for eligible book. I suspect we may need to wait for you to get the book and see if there is links to fiction in some/all explanations and that may change things. But from what I am seeing, it is out of scope. Nice book though :) Annie 16:15, 1 August 2022 (EDT)
- If that's the case can you explain why this publication is included ? --Mavmaramis 12:29, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- Ask the moderator who approved it. I don’t think it is eligible either unless the images are connected to eligible fiction titles or bssooks. But then we do have a scope creep in some areas (especially around art). If other moderators agree that if is in scope, feel free to add it. For me it is out of scope. But it is a collective project. :) Annie 13:11, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- I was the one who added and approved that one; according to the linked review it has connections to eligible fiction: it seems there are also art pieces of sf magazines included (or was that a wrong understanding?). Christian Stonecreek 13:21, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- Ask the moderator who approved it. I don’t think it is eligible either unless the images are connected to eligible fiction titles or bssooks. But then we do have a scope creep in some areas (especially around art). If other moderators agree that if is in scope, feel free to add it. For me it is out of scope. But it is a collective project. :) Annie 13:11, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- If that's the case can you explain why this publication is included ? --Mavmaramis 12:29, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- I'd consider Megastructures to be eligible given that it is speculating about near future possibilities. That bumps it into science fiction. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:52, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- But it is not fiction - look at our ROA. Which category would it be eligible under? Annie 13:07, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- It's nonfiction speculating about possible future stuff, some of which would (currently) be clearly science fiction. It's not speculative fiction stories, but nonfiction about speculative fiction. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:59, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- I own a copy of Soviet Space Graphics and as noted all the interior illustrations are covers of Russian magazines. Website for the publication os here - the 'About this Book' has "This otherworldly collection of Soviet space-race graphics takes readers on a cosmic adventure through Cold War-era Russia" and "Presenting more than 250 illustrations - depicting daring discoveries, scientific innovations, futuristic visions, and extraterrestrial encounters". So according to Annie's interpretation none of the images depict any "connection to eligible fiction" or are "cover[s] for eligible book[s]" they are merely visions of a potential future - ones that may or may not happen (i.e. "speculation") and if this a database SPECULATIVE fiction surely art depicting speculative future technoolgies, structures, whathaveyou ought to be included. I'm going to enter the publication anyway when it eventually turns up and see what happens. --Mavmaramis 16:52, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- It's nonfiction speculating about possible future stuff, some of which would (currently) be clearly science fiction. It's not speculative fiction stories, but nonfiction about speculative fiction. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:59, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- But it is not fiction - look at our ROA. Which category would it be eligible under? Annie 13:07, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
Merge Authors???
Since David Cherry #78701 is the same person as David A. Cherry #21265, shouldn't someone merge the records of 78701 with 21265??? aardvark7 16:06, 1 August 2022 (EDT)
- Nope. We record authors names as they are used (with some regularization as per the rules). In this case some of the books have the initial "A", some don't. So we keep two separate records and we mark one of them as a pseudonym/alternate name for the other. This is already done here. Annie 16:10, 1 August 2022 (EDT)
- I guess I was expecting to see the books under David Cherry also listed under David A. Cherry with "(as by David Cherry)" as I have seen else where. aardvark7 15:05, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- The records under David Cherry need to be varianted to David A. Cherry. It doesn't happen automatically. If someone enters a new credit under an alternate name, the variant needs to be manually created. If the submitter & moderator are not paying attention, then they are left dangling. We have a cleanup report to find them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:20, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- So I see that the all of the Dave Langford reviews I added need to have a variant created. Is there way to create them more than one at a time? Tom 11:16, 7 August 2022 (EDT)
- No, you have to create them one at a time. John Scifibones 11:28, 7 August 2022 (EDT)
- Any chance we could get the variant link in the header like the edit link. Scrolling over and over to find the variant link in the editing tools makes the whole process more challenging. Tom 17:54, 7 August 2022 (EDT)
- No, you have to create them one at a time. John Scifibones 11:28, 7 August 2022 (EDT)
- So I see that the all of the Dave Langford reviews I added need to have a variant created. Is there way to create them more than one at a time? Tom 11:16, 7 August 2022 (EDT)
- The records under David Cherry need to be varianted to David A. Cherry. It doesn't happen automatically. If someone enters a new credit under an alternate name, the variant needs to be manually created. If the submitter & moderator are not paying attention, then they are left dangling. We have a cleanup report to find them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:20, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
- I guess I was expecting to see the books under David Cherry also listed under David A. Cherry with "(as by David Cherry)" as I have seen else where. aardvark7 15:05, 2 August 2022 (EDT)
The Purple Pirate
Does anyone know a reason as to why this publication has not been included in this series given it's published by Zebra Books/Kensington Publishing Corp. and has "Volume 4" prominently on the cover ? --Mavmaramis 14:39, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
- Because it appears to be the same book as #6 in the other series. Titles can only be in one series and if you put it in the "Tros of Samothrace (Three separate volumes)" series, it cannot be in the main series as well. In cases like that, the original series usually take precedence to later reprints... but there are exceptions.
- If there are two books with the same title, they need unmerging. If it is indeed the same book, we choose one of the series and you can use the MultiS template to note that there is a second series and add its name... Annie 15:10, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
- Is that something you can do. Copies of those Zebra editions are not cheap - someone on Ebay is selling them (with Queen Cleopatra) for £35 but the postage is a whopping £65. --Mavmaramis 15:32, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
- Notes added here and here. That's the best we can do. Let me know if I can assist further and feel free to edit if you want to add details. Annie 16:23, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
- Fabulous. Thanks. Does make it clearer. --Mavmaramis 16:19, 5 August 2022 (EDT)
- Notes added here and here. That's the best we can do. Let me know if I can assist further and feel free to edit if you want to add details. Annie 16:23, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
- Is that something you can do. Copies of those Zebra editions are not cheap - someone on Ebay is selling them (with Queen Cleopatra) for £35 but the postage is a whopping £65. --Mavmaramis 15:32, 4 August 2022 (EDT)
LCCN Help
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Username#Please_revert_edit_for_Kingsbane; Recently I noticed a Playboy Paperbacks book I was working on had an LCCN on the copyright page so I entered it, and then saw it wasn't on the LOC site; I own a few horror anthologies from the publisher and saw that none of the LCCN on their copyright pages were on ISFDB, and none were on the LOC site, so I entered those, too. I also searched Archive.org for books by the publisher and entered some missing LCCN from those, too. There was 1 PV, but since they entered LCCN as a note I thought I would move it to its proper field since many editors over the years have entered info in the wrong places and I try to fix them when I notice them, but this PV obviously doesn't agree and apparently didn't make a mistake but actually wanted it in the notes. I had a chat with a mod recently who mentioned that he remembered from years ago that the LOC site treated paperbacks as unimportant compared to hardcovers and never entered many of them on their site, just storing them away in boxes, but that doesn't change the fact that they were given an official # in the books themselves, and just because they don't show up on the site now doesn't mean they won't in the future if and when they decide to enter them; I highly doubt after I'm finally gone from here that anyone else is going to go back and check to see if they were ever entered on the site and enter the #'s themselves. So the question is, was mod (MagicUnk) right to approve my edit, and, if not, what about the others I entered? I'll remove the # from this particular one, anyway, since I was asked to. --Username 18:45, 5 August 2022 (EDT)
- Please see Help:How to create a link to a US Library of Congress (Loc) record. If the LCCN is not in the catalog, it should be listed in the notes & not as an external id. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:35, 6 August 2022 (EDT)
- I've gone back and fixed my edits where I added LCCN to ID, moving them to notes; while doing so I found these, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?629621, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?274049, the first of which made the same mistake I did and the second of which called it the "LCCN website" instead of LOC, a mistake I made in all my edits which I fixed at the same time I was fixing the ID, so if anyone wants to follow up on those two, there they are. --Username 10:17, 6 August 2022 (EDT)
- Clearly my mistake, should not have approved the edits. Apologies.
- On a side note: reading the help text, it occurs to me it is a bit ambiguous, and may need clarification. Invalid link is defined as ... an invalid LCCN (one that does not resolve to a LoC catalog record). In that case, it should be noted in the publication notes, along with the explanation that it is invalid, rather than in the external links. There are two categories of invalid LCCN's: 1) real, valid but not available online, and 2) erroneous, invalid (eg because of a printing error). So far so good. The help text goes on to state If the correct number can be found, it should be placed in the external links. This implies that an invalid LCCN can only be an erroneous one, and that a valid one is available, if only we could find it.
- So, I would be in favour of adding/rewording so that it's clear that it is for all invalid links, not just the ones that are erroneous (as in, printing error). Add If the LCCN is not in the catalog, it should be listed in the notes & not as an external id. ? MagicUnk 06:10, 10 August 2022 (EDT)
The Ghatti's Tale: Book One: Finders-Seekers
This publication title doesn't follow the current standard of not including series names in titles. I'm getting ready to edit the record and would like to change the title to simply "Finders-Seekers" which would match this title record. Both the cover title and regular title for this record already use only "Finders-Seekers". This record isn't a variant. The two PVs for this publication record are both inactive. Would there be a problem with my making this change? I'll also need to add notes about the LCCN and WorldCat records which show the full existing title. Thanks! Phil 22:34, 20 August 2022 (EDT)
- No issue go ahead and make the change.Kraang 13:12, 22 August 2022 (EDT)
Doug(las) Smith
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?97985; Ruins Extraterrestrial recently uploaded to Archive.org, I entered page numbers, Doug Smith's story actually by Douglas Smith, only Oceans of the Mind appearance is Doug (the other Oceans story is only by Doug, so that's OK), so unmerging and renaming is needed after my edit goes through. --Username 11:02, 26 August 2022 (EDT)
Order
orider is what's shown under Content when you edit something; should be order, right? --Username 13:14, 29 August 2022 (EDT)
- I mean, you're right, it should be "order".--Wolfram.winkler 16:29, 29 August 2022 (EDT)
- When typos attack! Fixed, thanks. Ahasuerus 18:30, 29 August 2022 (EDT)
Award Type and Award Category submission review pages upgraded
All Award Type and Award Category submission review pages -- Add, Edit, Delete -- have been upgraded to use the new submission review software. No major user-facing changes although you may notice some minor display differences. Ahasuerus 18:24, 29 August 2022 (EDT)
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
Here's something strange: there's quite obviously the second author, Wilhelm Grimm, missing (according to the entries at OCLC). Also, the collection is marked as 'juvenile', which shouldn't be so, since it's a translation of "Kinder- und Hausmärchen". And also, all contents are missing.
Unfortunately the sole verifier and supplier of the 1974 publication (which has the ominous note 'Introduction to Padraic Colum') seems to have left us, at least for a span of time ("I have found it too stressful trying to work with moderators here, & am taking a break from it." - commentary on his talk page on 2022-07-14). His last activity was more than three weeks in the past.
I'll submit the predating of the title to 1944 (according to the notes in the 1974 publication), the deletion of the 'juvenile' flag and the varianting to the original title. How shall we deal with this regarding the other problems (can someone do something about it, please)? Christian Stonecreek 06:38, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
How to treat a collection that contains a novel?
Any advice on how to treat a collection that appears to contain a novel? See this submission that wants to convert a single contents title from Novella to NOVEL. It affects the collection The Knight and Knave of Swords. I seem to remember that we've had this discussion before, but can't find it right away. Thanks! MagicUnk 09:54, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- It stays a COLLECTION, like in this example ("If This Goes On —" is marked as a NOVEL). Christian Stonecreek 10:37, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks. Do you happen to know where I can find that old conversation (If you remember, that is)? MagicUnk 11:57, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- I believe there was a discussion along these lines re. Binti ~2 years ago, but nothing comes up if I do a Wiki search on that :-( ErsatzCulture 12:21, 31 August 2022 (EDT) EDIT: a 2019 item on my talk page; I'm sure there was a wider discussion relating to that though. ErsatzCulture 12:40, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- Thanks. Do you happen to know where I can find that old conversation (If you remember, that is)? MagicUnk 11:57, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- Sorry, but no, I don't. I do remember that being an item this year (which had the same outcome), but in my memory it was discussed on a personal talk page. Maybe Annie has a better memory (she's quite good with those discussions). Christian Stonecreek 12:25, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- I agree, it's a collection. 2001: A Space Odyssey COLLECTION vs. OMNIBUS is the only recent thread I could find. John Scifibones 12:27, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- Hehe, thanks for the pointer John - re-reading my own comments that confirm it should remain a COLLECTION... :) MagicUnk 12:38, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- I agree, it's a collection. 2001: A Space Odyssey COLLECTION vs. OMNIBUS is the only recent thread I could find. John Scifibones 12:27, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- There was a question on the Help Desk in April that is now gone. See http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISFDB%3AHelp_desk&diff=632012&oldid=630968 . The help (go down to OMNIBUS) cites this example for having a COLLECTION containing a NOVEL. --MartyD 13:12, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- The discussion was archived here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:52, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- My usual rule is “you need 2 full length works for an omnibus”. So 1 novel with a bunch of stories will be a collection (or anthology). See the word “multiple” in the definition of an omnibus which also specifically calls out a collection with a novel (and defines it as a collection). PS: Which is what Marty said - sorry, small screened phone :) So that’s just a confirmation. Annie 15:12, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
<type 'exceptions.NameError'>
Drawing the mods attention to the error message that appears here --Mavmaramis 16:35, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
- Fixed -- thanks for report! Ahasuerus 16:45, 31 August 2022 (EDT)
Strange Brew
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=hitchcock%27s+wi&type=All+Titles; Just mentioning that Hitchcock anthology Witches' Brew was published several times from 1965 onwards and some person(s) here jumbled the contents, which differed entirely from original edition to later one. So when somebody gets to those that explains why there's an edit where the entire contents of a book were deleted and replaced and a bunch of things had their dates fixed and such. I think I got everything, but maybe not. --Username 14:51, 2 September 2022 (EDT)
Worldcon Special Committee Award
Last Thursday, at the opening ceremony for Worldcon 80, the ISFDB received a special committee award. Thanks to the Chicon committee for the recognition, and congratulations to everyone here. The ISFDB would not be possible without the community effort of all the moderators who ensure the veracity of the user submissions. Alvonruff 07:40, 5 September 2022 (EDT)
IMPORTANT: Server Move
We've been working this year on updating the ISFDB components (Linux, Apache, Python, MediaWiki, etc) in order to modernize and enable HTTPS. At the same time, our hosting provider (FutureHosting) was sold to another hosting service (Nexcess), and they want us to move ASAP to a new server. Since everything is ready to go, we'll begin this migration the morning of 9/6. It takes about 24 hours to convert the old MediaWiki tables to their new formats, and it may take several hours for the isfdb.org domain name to migrate throughout the Internet. As such, editing will go offline 9/6 at the old server. It will go back online at the new server as early as 9/7 or as late as 9/9.
The old MediaWiki uses MD5 password encoding, while the new version of MediaWiki uses PBKDF2. Since the ISFDB uses the password hashes generated by MediaWiki, this means you'll need to login to the Wiki first (which will force a generation of the new hash), and then the ISFDB second.
You can track the status of the move here: User:Alvonruff/ISFDB_Move. Alvonruff 06:44, 6 September 2022 (EDT)
Image Deletion 2022-09-06
Please delete the old image here. Thanks Henna 08:52, 6 September 2022 (EDT)
- Done, John Scifibones 09:16, 6 September 2022 (EDT)
Moderator editing enabled
Moderators (and only moderators) should be able to edit ISFDB records now. If you run into any issues, please post your findings here. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:11, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
Post-migration bugs and discrepancies found by moderators
Title Merge
Title merge not taking selected conflicting items. I submitted a title merge and selected "Small Gods - 2022" for the title and "2022-00-00" for the year. The opposite selection is what ended up being submitted and showing on the approval screen. I tried twice with the same results. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:32, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- I should have left the edit unapproved, as it is now showing as unavailable. That may be a separate issue. Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:50, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- A "Title Merge" submission appearing as "no longer valid" is expected post-approval. The submission display software tries to pull up the records which existed at the time the submission was created. It then discovers that all but 1 of them no longer exists, so it gives up. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:12, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
Wiki Toolbar
I'm not seeing the toolbar in the wiki, nor do I see a preference for that. I had to lookup the signature code unless it is now automatic. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:32, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- I did a little digging on the toolbar and it looks like it is no longer provided with this version of MediaWiki. It looks like there is some sort of add on and Wikipedia edit boxes have it. Definitely not a priority item. Thanks. Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:50, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- Yes, that is the one that I was seeing referenced. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the signature tool. Wikipedia seems to have the same toolbar, and it also is missing there. Oddly, their documentation does show it. Looking more closely, it's there when you're editing a talk page, but apparently not a project page. I can get used to adding 4 tildes, but I did notice a comment on the community board looking for the same tool (I guess you noticed the same comment). I was more used to using the tool, but I did know there was wiki markup behind it. Anyway, thanks for the quick response. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 16:27, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- Ok. It is possible to enable the signature widget via $wgExtraSignatureNamespaces. Hitting the normal page, user pages, and talk pages was pretty easy, but the page we are on is a custom namespace (ISFDB), so it was hard to find what standard namespace covers that. So the new elements entry is $wgExtraSignatureNamespaces = [ NS_MAIN, NS_USER, NS_TALK, NS_PROJECT ];. And I was able to sign this response by clicking on the signature widget in the toolbar. Yay. --Alvonruff (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
Import of Multiple Titles
When importing multiple titles (Option 2), the titles show up in the reverse order in the next page where you can assign the order with the page numbers. It used to keep the order as added in the list of the import page. Not sure if this is a result of the upgrade or a different change - had not needed to import for at least a week... Annie (talk) 14:25, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- Scratch the "reverse". The order is really random once you land on the second page. Which is a pain when you are importing a lot of titles. Annie (talk) 14:31, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
Publication Comparison Bug
The "Title Merge" bug and the "Title Import" bug reported above had the same root cause. After scanning our software for other instances of the same problem, I found that the only other Web page that was obviously (emphasis on "obviously") affected by the issue was "Publication Comparison". It's a fairly minor bug as such things go: the data is displayed correctly, but the publications are not organized by publication date the way they were on the old server. I'll try to get it fixed later tonight. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:04, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
Rendering Delays on the New Server
We've discussed in email, but placing here for broader visibility: I've gone through about 3 days of authors born on a specific day, and about every fifth author I encounter a rendering hickup, where the non-bibliographic areas of a page successfully render (title bar, navbar, rendering canvas), and then encounter a 5 to 6 second delay before the author's bibliography renders. This seems to coincide with the mysqld process taking more than 100% cpu. Alvonruff (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- After reviewing what MySQL processes do under the hood, I suspect that the main culprits are "Fiction Title Search" and "All Title Search" in the regular "Search" box. When you enter a value in the "Search" box, the database has to scan all of the records of the specified type. For publishers, series, pub. series, tags and awards, it's not a big deal because we have less than 150,000 records of each type. We have 239,000 author records, but it's still manageable. On the other hand, we have over 2,000,000 title records, so it takes the database engine a couple of seconds to go through all of them looking for matches.
- Crucially, all other database lookups that touch title records have to wait while the search is running, which means that their Web pages "freeze". This includes publication pages, title pages and author pages. When the search finishes, the rest of the accumulated queries have to be processed at the same time.
- The best way to handle this issue would be to improve the way the database engine searches title records, but that can be tricky. A more straightforward short term solution would be to limit regular title searches to exact matches, which is what most searches are likely about anyway. We could then display a message telling the user that "For title searches, the results are limited to exact matches on the entered value. Use Advanced Search if you want to search for titles that contain the entered value". The main downside to this approach is that users would need to register in order to use Advanced Search. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:21, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- Has the storage engine changed? cf "MyISAM hasn't been the default storage engine for years. The default_storage_engine was changed to InnoDB in MySQL 5.5.5, which was released in 2010-07-06." and locking issues as covered here and here? ErsatzCulture (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- That was the first thing that I checked. There have been no changes that I can see. The core ISFDB tables are still MyISAM while the MediaWiki tables are the same mix of MyISAM and InnoDB that we had on the old server. Granted, the MediaWiki update added a couple dozen new tables and it's conceivable that their current engine type doesn't match what MediaWiki recommends. We'll have to take a closer look.
- Re: recommendations, last time I looked into these engines they each had advantages and disadvantages depending on how you were searching/updating your database. It's possible that things have changed over the last 5-10 years and one of them pulled ahead. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:28, 7 September 2022 (EDT)
- (Following was written a reply to Alvonruff, but I got somewhat beaten to the punch.)
- TBH, I don't know - my only reasonably current MySQL experience - well, MariaDB for what difference it makes - is running a local copy of ISFDB, and that only gets used one query at a time, so I wouldn't particularly notice any locking issues. I did briefly experiment with converting the database engine a couple of years ago, but that was only in the context of abusing the engine that uses transactions to allow for easy rolling back of database changes, as part of having code in a test framework.
- From what I can recall of that, and from skim reading the links above, I think the performance "hack" would be to get things moved (back?) to MyISAM - but maybe the relevant tables are (still) in that form? Having a mix of MyISAM and InnoDB does sound a bit off though?
- Some of those links implied that you can add stuff to SELECT queries to not lock tables - I dunno if that's something that could be looked at? (I just checked my local DB, and all tables are MyISAM, but I don't have the mediawiki stuff.) Or perhaps it's something where the database function being used defaults to running queries in transactions that lock stuff, and maybe you can stop it from doing that? ErsatzCulture (talk) 17:39, 7 September 2022 (EDT)