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Expanded archive listing

Moderator Availability (edit)

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)

Editions Métal => Éditions Métal

This publisher's name should be changed to "Éditions Métal".AlainLeBris 09:58, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Done! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:07, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Mikael Bourgouin => Mikaël Bourgouin

This artist's name should be changed to Mikaël Bourgouin as credited on books.AlainLeBris 13:05, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:32, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

One of the books that got changed here has a different verifier and the back cover is visible in Amazon France (it is Mikael Bourgouin). I think the publication note there covers the case but I'd leave a note to the PV about the change as it won't show up in their changed notifications and they may want to revise that note to point out the difference between the note and the credit and the reason for it. I've added a note on the author page about the two forms of the name needing to share the same page due to how the software works. Annie 16:25, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I've updated that one so it shows as a variant. See here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:07, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

This took a bit of work, too. I had to change it to "Mikaal Bourgouin", variant that to "Mikaël Bourgouin", then correct the variant spelling back to "Mikael Bourgouin". This means that "Mikael Bourgouin" and "Mikaël Bourgouin" now exist simultaneously in the database. Not sure if this is significant somehow. Ahaseurus should probably look at it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:11, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Ha, that's new - we were unable to do that before (and I had tried it with another author a few years back).

The question is which one the titles will go to when you type an author and if that won't cause issues elsewhere - because chances are that these may read as the same author in some parts of the code. Annie 19:57, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Yes, that's very much a concern. Let me try to replicate this sequence of events on the development server. Ahasuerus 20:37, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I have replicated the behavior on the development server. It looks like a bug in Edit Author. Investigating. Ahasuerus 20:53, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I believe I have fixed the bug. The following author records will be affected:

• Ed Acuna / Ed Acuña
• Edgar Poe / Edgar Poë
• P. J. Herault / P. J. Hérault
• Mikael Bourgouin / Mikaël Bourgouin

Next, I will need to fix similar (but not identical) flaws in Edit Publisher, Edit Series, Edit Publication Series, Edit Award Type and Edit Award Category. Luckily, it looks like no existing records are affected by these bugs. Ahasuerus 16:49, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Fixed by allowing us to use separate authors this way or by closing the loophole allowing them to exist? If we can use the authors that way, will also EditPub and so on honor what you type and get you the correct author? If you closed a loophole, should I go and clean up these 3 (uhm 4 - I cannot type apparently) and warn the PVs on what happened and why? Annie 17:10, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

I am afraid I wasn't clear. I meant to say that I fixed the bug in the software that allowed these author name pairs to be created. Prior to this fix, if you created a new author record, e.g. "Test", and then used Edit Author to change its canonical name to "Jules Vérne", the software would let you do that. Post-fix, the software will produce an error and explain that you can't do that because we already have "Jules Verne" on file.

Please note that, since the author name "pairs" listed above are not supported by the software, you may need to change one of the names to something different like "Ed Acuna1" first, fix everything, then change it back. Ahasuerus 17:44, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. Suspected so - that's why I asked for clarification - I know that e/é and the rest of these pairs are indistinguishable for our software (until we get to Unicode anyway) and we rely on these names being unique in some places of the code so wanted to make sure where we are at. I was having a small hope we can now do these but oh well :)

Author merge should sort them out as well:) I will fix these, add notes explaining why they need to be together and notify all the PVs (and any other active editors who worked on the titles) involved whose record change due to this. Thanks! Annie 18:04, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Sure thing. Ahasuerus 18:11, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(edit conflict) How difficult would it be to change the software to allow both by switching everything to use UTF-8, and therefore allow different entries such as "Mikael Bourgouin" and "Mikaël Bourgouin"? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:07, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Full Unicode support is certainly our ultimate goal. Unfortunately, it's one of the biggest tasks on the To Do list. Ahasuerus 18:10, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(conflict...) I remember asking that 5 years ago - we need that so that small and capital letters in Cyrillic are treated as the same letter from search (the same way A/a a are treated as the same Latin letter) - which makes capitalization of Cyrillic titles more important than anywhere else - because otherwise you cannot find them (unless you search for the transliteration instead - you are still better off searching via google though so that's why there is that secondary google search if the local one does not find something). So I will be the first to say that we really really need that. But I also know it is not trivial :( Annie 18:16, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) Edit Publisher, Edit Publication Series, Edit Series, Edit Award Type and Edit Award Category have been updated to prevent editors from accidentally creating duplicate records. The bugs were even worse than in Edit Author, e.g. you could change an arbitrary publisher name to "ACE Books" (note the case.) Hopefully all fixed now. Please let me know if you come across any issues. Ahasuerus 19:14, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

And unlike the author names, some of these could have been changed by anyone. Thanks or fixing the bug! Annie 21:32, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Goodreads

Just a heads up that I tweeted a request on their Twitter asking if ISFDB can use their cover images (many not on Amazon) without having to save and upload to our Wiki; doubt they'll respond/agree but if they do, great. --Username 18:23, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Cool. Let us know if they reply. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:41, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Odd Mods

So I noticed someone the other day entered some info for an Evergreen (division of Grove) book, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?424, and as usual I check to see what other related books may need entering/fixing, and noticed 1 book had the wrong format, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?286274, so I changed it to TP. Then I got this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+R, where the top rejection --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+R shows a list of recently rejected submission for the logged-in user. For you, it shows your recently rejected submissions, for me it shows my recently rejected submissions, etc. Only you can see that list for your rejected submissions. Please provide a direct link to the rejected submission. Ahasuerus 12:09, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

is from a mod I had problems with months ago when he threw a tantrum because I fixed some info he got wrong and then recently when I did the same again. He's rejected my edits twice recently, once to reject an updated picture of Donald Trump which showed him full-on and happy instead of sideways and sad, adding "No politics on ISFDB!", as if an image is political, --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

The submission in question would have replaced our current image of Donald Trump from the back cover of a book with a 2024 campaign button pin, which is clearly political in nature. Ahasuerus 12:17, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

and then rejecting the 1 above, which is a mistake because as can be seen here, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Template:PublicationFields:PubFormat, the dimensions are clearly those of a trade paperback (and none of the other Evergreen books are PB, either). --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I have found the submission in question. The Publication Note field in this primary-verified pub says "This edition is 17.7 x 10.5 cm". Template:PublicationFields:PubFormat says:

• pb - paperback. Typically 7" × 4.25" (18 cm × 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper

Since 17.7 is less than 18 and 10.5 is less than 11, the format should be "pb". Ahasuerus 12:24, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I didn't even notice it until now, but the PV for the Evergreen book is this same mod, so it's another case where he doesn't like me fixing his info that needs fixing. I like how this guy doesn't approve any of the other edits I have in the queue but only picks those he can reject, even though neither of them should have been rejected. It's almost as if he's doing it out of spite because he's still angry about our past dealings; nah, that can't be it, that would be childish and unprofessional, right?. On a related note, the first few edits in my queue relating to Shroud Magazine were "put on hold" recently by another mod until I answered a question he had for me, but since then more recent edits about Shroud have been approved while those remain; was the hold really taken off after I answered his question or are they still on hold? --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Yes, I removed the hold after you answered my questions. Ahasuerus 12:10, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There was no Trump image at all until I added 1 a few months ago, then added the current 1 because it seemed to be a rare 1 and was bigger and easier to see; I was never happy with the sideways view and unhappy expression so decided to replace it with a full-view happy photo, and that was the first 1 that came up; no political intent was intended. Since you obviously disagree I will leave it as it is now. The Evergreen books are all TP except for a couple of supposed HC, so I find it hard to believe they switched to PB just for this one (might be a trimming issue as mentioned above); if so then all the other TP should be PB, too. As for my remaining Shroud edits, I'm just going to cancel them and do them again so they'll go to the top of my list since they seem to be lost where they are now. --Username 12:47, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I've grabbed a PD image from Wikimedia Commons that shows him smiling, and put that in place. That should also avoid the problem of using a campaign button. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:48, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There are two issues here. First the Trump image that is so clearly political, that only a completely blind person would not notice it. I was probably the first moderator to see it, so I was the one who had to reject it, as any moderator would have done. In my opinion there should never have been a picture of that horrible man uploaded, but opinions don't matter here.

Second is the submission to change the format of a publication that has a primary verification by an active editor. As has been explained to you again and again, for this kind of change you need to contact the verifier, so start acting like the professional you claim to be. After I rejected your edit, I added the dimensions to the notes, because the Library of Congress has them wrong. On reviewing this pub, I noticed it should have been moved to Evergreen Black Cat / Grove Press, when this form of the publisher was entered in ISFDB in 2018. I corrected this now. --Willem 15:35, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

All authors should have a photo if one is legitimately available. To not have one for Trump would be just as political as trying to use a campaign button (just in the opposite way). I'm no fan of the man, but having a picture of him here has nothing to do with anyone's opinion of him or what kind of person he is or isn't. Let's try to keep that in mind. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:43, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Just like I said, opinions don't matter here. --Willem 15:48, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

As I mentioned on Username's Talk page the other day, political statements are not allowed here and that includes statements posted on the Wiki. There are plenty of other places where people can share their opinions of politics and politicians. Ahasuerus 16:44, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Point taken. Sorry, won't do it again. --Willem 16:47, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Submission Search implemented

The "Moderator Links" section in the navigation bar has been updated with a new option -- Submission Search. At this time it lets you enter a user name (case sensitive due to Wiki limitations) and then gives you a list of the most recent approved submissions created by the user. The table layout is the same as what you get on the Recent Approvals page. You can page through the displayed results 200 submissions at a time.

If everything looks OK and we don't run into performance/other issues, we can consider adding additional functionality, e.g. the ability to display rejected submissions, limit the search by date, etc. Ahasuerus 18:38, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There is a bug with names that have a space in them: try to search for Scriptor Praesensionium or Scott Latham. And no amount of quotes seems to help. Annie 11:43, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks, I'll take a look. Ahasuerus 12:39, 15 November 2021 (EST)

I believe the bug has been fixed. Here is what we get when searching on "Scott Latham". Ahasuerus 19:56, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Artist Chaffe

Author Record # 27922, Chaffe lists no other information and only one record for cover art Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1967. On Oct 4, 2021 Heritage Auctions sold the art that was used as the cover for that magazine. https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/doug-chaffee-american-20th-century-the-throwaway-age-worlds-of-tomorrow-magazine-cover-may-1967-gouache-on-board-17-1-4-x-1/a/8055-71064.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Inventory-BuyNowFromOwner-ThisAuction-120115. They give credit to Douglas Chaffee and he signed the art in the lower right. I think this record should be merged into Author Record # 26145 and record 27922 be deleted. I have submitted a request to change the artist of Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1967 from Chaffe to Douglas Chaffee aardvark7 17:09, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

We credit as per the publication. I was able to find this issue at Internet Archive and the table of contents has "Cover by Chaffe". I rejected your edit and instead made it an alternate name. Please remember that, for cover artists, we allow the use of secondary sources to add credits (using the canonical name) for uncredited cover art; however, we don't replace credited art using secondary sources. Hope that makes sense. If not, please ask questions. Thanks for finding this. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:08, 7 November 2021 (EST)email

The main thing is that Douglas Chaffee got into the record as being the artist. aardvark7 13:58, 7 November 2021 (EST)

One Against the Legion

Hello Mods. I have a copy of [1] however although the prices on the back match those of the record the copyright only has "Published in Great Britain by Sphere Books Ltd 1977" and not the "Reprinted 1979". How should I enter this publication please ? --Mavmaramis 12:57, 8 November 2021 (EST)

Captive Universe

Publication Record # 262970 shows no data of publication. For this ISBN, Goodreads has a date of June 15, 1976 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2835449-captive-universe. ISBN Search also shows a date of 1976 but a month of January. Record show 2 primary verifications: Syzygy last action 2016 and Don Erikson last active 2020 aardvark7 15:51, 8 November 2021 (EST)

Resurrecting a rejected NewPub

As The Apollo Murders has been deemed OK for inclusion here, does anyone care to unreject my original attempt to submit it from last month? I assume the original NewPub (which adds a different UK edition) could be accepted, and then the duplicate title record merged with the existing one - as opposed to having to redo it all as a new AddPub submission? ErsatzCulture 19:14, 9 November 2021 (EST)

It is still borderline but it does get marked as SF everywhere so... let's keep it for now. Unrejected, approved and merged and I dropped a note to the original moderator so he knows what happened here and why. I have a very vague memory that Fixer actually sent that one in and I did not like it (too borderline that early on) so sent it to wait post-publication - and I had not gone back to the October titles again. Annie 20:30, 9 November 2021 (EST)

Everything about this book screams Techno Thriller, but at least his other book[2](ages 3-5) has some spec fic(advanced tech/magic gets cardboard box into space) in it, albeit for toddlers on someone knee.Kraang 21:22, 9 November 2021 (EST)

Two editors and one moderator decided that there is something borderline enough to include it. I’d rather err on the side of inclusion. We can always delete it when someone reads it and we decide it is not ours. :) Annie 01:21, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I actually picked this up yesterday when the ebook was dirt cheap in an Amazon daily sale (which is what prompted me to check if anyone else had added it here). Unfortunately there are several hundred other books that are prioritized above it in my TBR, so it'll be a long while before I personally get round to seeing how speculative or not it might be... ErsatzCulture 05:11, 10 November 2021 (EST)

You know, there is a small part of my brain that is screaming in my head that if it is in space (and set in 1973), it must be ours - even if all they do out there is grow potatoes or kill each other. Annie 14:35, 10 November 2021 (EST)

At the risk of getting way off-topic for the moderator page, I'm reminded that the Patricia Cornwell space-set mysteries puzzled me due their lack of inclusion. I did wonder whether to submit them - NB: I haven't, and am not likely to ever, read them - but I assumed that they'd maybe been picked up by Fixer and rejected? Although perhaps Thomas & Mercer isn't an imprint that Fixer watches? ErsatzCulture 17:48, 10 November 2021 (EST)

I haven't read them, but the descriptions I've read make them sound like near-future thrillers with some science fictionish elements. So, based on that, I'd consider them on the fence for inclusion. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:33, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Lloyd

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:MA_Lloyd; I came across a book with this editor's name and his ISFDB page has a stray comment from someone on the wrong page, in case anyone wants to move it to the right page. --Username 10:21, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Done. Thanks for the heads-up. Ahasuerus 20:05, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Dark Drabble Anthologies or Dark Drabbles Anthologies?

I'd like to index the third anthology of drabbles in a series edited by D. Kershaw for Black Hare Press. I have a contributors' copy for this volume and the title, as given on the title page, is Monsters: A Dark Drabbles Anthology (note the plural of 'drabble'). The page after this lists four other titles under the heading 'Dark Drabbles Anthologies' (again note the plural use of 'drabble').

However, two other titles in the series have been listed on the ISFDB (one of them by a contributor to the book concerned who has provided a primary verification) - Worlds and Apocalypse - with the subtitle of each volume given as 'A Dark Drabble Anthology' (note the singular of 'drabble'). They are together listed in a series called Dark Drabble Anthologies with 'drabble' in the singular again.

Looking up each title on Amazon and using the 'Look Inside' feature, both the Worlds and Apocalypse volumes are subtitled 'A Dark Drabbles Anthology' (i.e. 'drabble' in the plural) on their respective title pages (although Amazon has assigned them a variant subtitle for marketing purposes in its database). Also, the covers of the two books indicate that they are numbered 'Dark Drabbles #1' and 'Dark Drabbles #6', respectively.

My question is this: Should I submit an entry about Monsters using the subtitle as it appears on the book's title page or should I use the singular form of 'drabble' so as to make this volume conform with the existing entries in the ISFDB? Greg--Explorer1000 17:47, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Use what the title page says :) Annie 19:20, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks Annie! That's what I thought should be the case. I guess the titles of the other two books in the series and the series title should also be updated before working on the entry for volume #3?--Explorer1000 19:26, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Yep. Ping the PVs. There may be a different copy floating around as well (correction on part of the print run? - these are PODs most likely so easy to do). So we check with the PV even if we can see the book on Amazon now. Annie 19:29, 13 November 2021 (EST)

OK. That's reasonable.--Explorer1000 19:43, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Gorman Book and Other Problems

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?80385; Did some work on Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series since there was lots of wrong/missing info; this particular book I believe was missing the Carroll & Graf edition, although I'm not 100% sure because by the time someone got around to approving it I'd done a lot of other edits and couldn't remember anymore. However, I wondered why it was approved and yet there was still a pending edit on my list with the same title; when I looked at the record, Gorman's name is there twice. I highly doubt that I did that when I made the edit, so I figured I'd wait until someone approved the remaining edit. Someone just did, and all the info I entered is there now, I think, but Gorman's name is still there twice. I have no idea what happened, but someone might want to take a look and see where the chain broke. Also, while coming here to write this note, I had to log in again after not having to do it for a long time. I've also noticed recently that searching records is taking longer than usual; there seems to be a delay on pages that have more than a couple of entries, and when you go back to a previous page it takes a few seconds for the record link you just clicked to change colors so you know it's been clicked. I don't know if others are experiencing this, but other sites I go to don't seem to have a problem, so I don't think it's my laptop. I logged in again, so that's taken care of, anyway. --Username 12:33, 14 November 2021 (EST)

Hmm...simply removing the second one doesn't work, so there's something definitely fishy about it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:06, 15 November 2021 (EST)

It is a kinda known issue - you need to replace one of the two with a different name (I add 1 at the end usually). Approve that. Then you can remove it with a second edit. :) Annie 14:54, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Yeah, I figured that would work. I wanted to make sure the right people knew about it. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:30, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for letting me know! I thought we had a cleanup report for this scenario, but maybe not. Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 16:43, 15 November 2021 (EST)

A new cleanup report has been deployed. I expect it to find 2 more pubs with duplicate authors when it runs tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 09:12, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Serials without Standard Parenthetical Disambiguators

The following titles comply with standards and may be removed this cleanup report

• Castles in the Sky - 6 titles
• Creative Destruction - 48 titles
• Echoes from Dust - 60 titles
• Keepers of the Ageless One - 20 titles
• Near Zero - 46 titles
• The Cavern of Serpents - 5 titles
• The Night Companion - 9 titles
• The Voyage of the Princess Ark - 36 titles
• Trigger Warnings - 9 titles

Thanks in advance, John Scifibones 09:41, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Done. Annie 12:15, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Here are a few more

• The Witches' Bane - 21 titles
• My Name Is Daedalus - 6 titles
• Murder in New Eden - 22 titles

Apreciate your attention John Scifibones 14:49, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Done. I also fixed a couple capitalization issues ("With" is never capitalized in mid-title) :) Annie 13:40, 2 December 2021 (EST)

A few more which can be removed

• From the Ashes of Our Fall - 5 titles
• Living Standards - 32 titles
• The Dead Bine - 41 titles
• The Masterful Timepiece - 5 titles
• Volatility Cycles - 19 titles

Apreciate your attention, John Scifibones 08:37, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Just a reminderr John Scifibones 19:27, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Worldcon beats pressing Ignore I am afraid :) All done - although "The Dead Bine" was really "The Dead Bin" ;) Annie 20:32, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Better to misspell here than the actual title! Thanks John Scifibones 20:42, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Condor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?19977; 70's Condor was a cheap paperback house; 40 years later Condor is not the same publisher. --Username 13:34, 19 November 2021 (EST)

I came across this publisher again today and see nobody responded to this so I'm bumping it up; some differentiator needs to be added to one or the other. --Username 12:31, 27 February 2022 (EST)

Sixth Month of the Condor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?254915; Open Library page says June, copyright page of Archive.org copy, https://archive.org/details/waltdisneyproduc0000clar, has a 06 at the end of the page; is that what Scholastic used to denote month of publication? Also, the long-gone PV has a stray message on the wrong page of their board. --Username 16:18, 21 November 2021 (EST)

What Happened Here?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?271797; One of the edits I made today was for an ancient Boy Scouts anthology of genre stories, but my edit field has been cleared and that book isn't in my approved edits list. Checking the book's record, my note about where I got info from is there but many of the stories don't have the page #'s I entered and the edit history doesn't credit me at all. What is this? --Username 11:04, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Looks like a system's hiccup (either of our software, or - more likely - of the internet / server connection). This happens very seldom, but it does. Stonecreek 11:12, 22 November 2021 (EST)

It errored out. Happens occasionally - not much anyone can do besides redoing the submission in case it did not get through (as usually part of it goes through and part of it fails). As you can see, it happens less than once a month usually. You just ended up being this month's recipient of the glitch. Annie 11:39, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I am afraid the linked page is moderator-only, so Username can't see it. Here are the dates of the 2020/2021 errored out submissions:

• 2021-11-22 09:17:07
• 2021-10-31 08:50:35
• 2021-09-03 21:40:09
• 2021-08-10 19:21:53
• 2021-04-09 19:03:27
• 2021-03-19 18:41:44
• 2021-03-13 18:45:32
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• 2020-06-08 06:48:00
• 2020-02-25 01:03:37
• 2020-01-16 07:34:40

Ahasuerus 14:03, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for posting these - I totally forgot that this one is not visible. Annie 14:30, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I re-entered rest of info that got lost, so now it should be complete once approved; I also amended my note with today's date and my name so nobody working on this later (which is likely since almost every name entered on ISFDB is different in the book) doesn't think someone else entered partial page #'s and fixed some names and then I stumbled along and finished it off. --Username 17:17, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Today I clicked on my errored out edits and was surprised to see my edit that's mentioned here; does it go away by itself or can it be deleted, or does it just stay there? --Username 17:34, 19 December 2021 (EST)

My two from 2016 and 2017 are still there, so I suspect they will only go away if there's another glitch of a different sort. ../Doug H 09:50, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Author Merge Request

Hi.

For F&SF September/October 2019, SFJuggler is the PV.

I noticed a title " Films: Love Death + Some Regression", which is an essay noted as by "Karen Lowachee" at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?738088. I believe the author name is a typo, and the author should be "Karin Lowachee". The Amazon kindle preview notes "Karin Lowachee". "Karen Lowachee" has no other titles in ISFDB, but "Karin Lowachee" does, and they appear in F&SF also, of a similar type.

I checked with the PV and SFJuggler concurs that a correction to "Karin Lowachee" should be made. I understand that the Authors must be merged, to the "Karin Lowachee" author name. There should be no records left for "Karen Lowachee".

My understanding is that a Moderator must do an Author Merge.

Thanks. Dave888 13:29, 22 November 2021 (EST)

A merge is needed if there is more than one title under the wrong author name and you do not want to update all records one by one. In the case of just one title, you can simply update the record here and the mistaken name will get auto-deleted as soon as it is approved. Authors are matched based on the name, not the ID. So:

• Check with the PV (there are two of them and both are very active) to make sure
• If one of them checks the magazine and agrees, submit the edit :) Annie 13:33, 22 November 2021 (EST)

PS: Even if we go for a merge and not an edit, the "check with the PVs" is a mandatory step :) So... start there. Annie 13:34, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I'll check with Rtrace also. I already checked w/SFJuggler.Dave888 14:13, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Rtrace OK obtained, and edit on author name submitted. Thanks for your help.Dave888 11:17, 23 November 2021 (EST)

Black and Blue question

Publication Record # 460949 is an ebook for Black and Blue by Gena Showalter. The record shows it has an ISBN of 978-1-4516-7162-9. The record also states from Amazon a KINDLE page count of 401. Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/23692680-black-and-blue shows both an ebook with ISBN 978-1-4516-7162-9 AND a Kindle version with an ASIN of B00BSB2AMG, the same ASIN that Amazon shows for the Kindle version. Aren't these two different books rather than what looks like one in the DB?? Audible also mentions the Kindle version and links to the Amazon page. Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-and-blue-gena-showalter/1114818769?ean=9781451671629 mentions an ebook (Nook) with the ISBN. Curious in Indy aardvark7 14:44, 22 November 2021 (EST)

It is the same book available in 2 formats. We don’t separate the ebook formats as separate records unless the publisher does with a separate isbn/cover/something else. There are a few publishers that issue separate ISBNs per format. For all the rest the ISBN is for all eBooks essentially - some stores use it, some (Amazon since last year) don’t. Until last year, the ASIN record in Amazon also carried the ISBN (and until a coupe of years ago, they were also visible on the Amazon page). :) Annie 14:56, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Many Goodreads records come from the Amazon database as it existed at a certain point in time. In a way, it's similar to our database since many of our records also come from the Amazon database as it existed at a certain point in time. The result is that our data and Goodreads data can vary -- even when the original source is Amazon's core database -- because we took snapshots at different times. Throw in the fact that our data entry rules differ and it can get confusing. It's one of the reasons why it's important to include the "snapshot date" when recording where our data comes from. Ahasuerus 15:33, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Annie from what I am hearing from you, unless the cover is different, treat Kindle & ebooks as the same book, right?? aardvark7 16:31, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Or unless there is a "EPUB ISBN" and "MOBI/Kindle ISBN" and "PDF ISBN" printed in there which are different or there is an extra story in one of them or extra excerpt or something along these lines. Officially each format is supposed to have its own ISBN but that's expensive and only a few (mainly children books) publishers do that. So everyone has an eISBN instead (which in theory does not exist but in practice does) and if there is a publisher site, they contain links to Amazon (with ASIN), B&N (based on the ISBN), Apple, Kobo and so on. See this one for example (I was just working on editions of this book so I had it handy). Look at "Product details" and the link on the right. The Amazon link is transformed into an ASIN link if you click on it because this is what Amazon wants these days :) But it is the same book even if Amazon does not show the ISBN anywhere on the product page anymore. Goodreads have two records for this one though: ASIN based and ISBN based - just like for the one we started the conversation with. It is how they do things these days - not very consistent but that is a somewhat common pattern with eBooks - they keep Kindle and eBooks separate for the most part. We don't. :)

Small publishers can be trickier (no site very often) but they are similar. Not all Kindle books have ISBNs (you don't need one if you are exclusively Amazon) of course.

Take for another example this one - I looked at the three available formats from my library (epub, mobi/Kindle and the Overdrive ebook (which is not sold - it is a library format)) - looked as in "downloaded all 3 and checked to see if they are the same). It is the same book inside. Hope all this helps. Annie 17:19, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Nathalia Sullen

Nathalia Sullen artist record 264974 is the same person as Nathália Suellen artist record 177821. All books in the data base are listed under Nathália Suellen except for the 7 books listed under "The Dark Queen" series. Bio information and websites are listed under Nathália Suellen. I am trying to check "Look Inside" for any books on Amazon to see how the name is listed in the book. I would say Nathália Suellen is her legal name. I have been able to check Black and Blue, Coral and Bone there and they show Nathalia Sullen. The Gathering Dark, Last Kiss Goodbye and Splintered either do not show the cover artist or there is no Look Inside. The artwork for these 3 can be found at https://www.kaifineart.com/nathaliasuellen and https://coverart.nathaliasuellen.com. I will see what I can find about the others. Dark Descendant uses Nathália Suellen aardvark7 16:28, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Part 2. All books in data base looked at on Amazon "Look Inside" Dark Descendant, Unhinged, Untamed, Ensnared, Roseblood, Odd & True show Nathália Suellen. Jinn & Juice, Illusionarium don't give cover artist. Wolf at the Door does not have database version on Amazon. All others show Nathalia Sullen aardvark7 16:59, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I would submit a request to merge these two records together but I am not sure how to go about it. As you can see from what I have found, books have used both versions of her name and some books that are under Nathália Suellen used Nathalia Sullen for her name. aardvark7 09:08, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Since the spelling is different (Sullen vs. Suellen), we would not merge these. We would pick one of the two as "canonical" -- usually the one she is better known by or has more credits as -- and make the other an alternate name/pseudonym. For any art record credited to the alternate name, we would make a variant title credited to the canonical name. Once all of that is complete, the alternate name's bibliography would appear empty and would point people to the canonical name, and the canonical name's bibliography would show the combined results, with anything credited to the alternate name tagged with a form of "as by xxx" ("only as by xxx" or "also as by xxx").

Any records we have not using the name as given in the publication should be corrected (and then variant made, if applicable).

If there is no explicit credit in the publication and credit comes from a secondary source, we generally would use whatever form of name the secondary source used (again, making a variant, if applicable), except we would NOT create another alternate name just to accommodate a variation used by the source but not any publication. In that case, we would use the canonical name and note the secondary source's form of the name. For example, suppose a secondary source called her "Nat Sullen". We would not use that as a credit, rather we would use whichever of "Nathália Suellen" or "Nathalia Sullen" we decide is canonical and record in the publication notes that the artwork is uncredited, but XYZ credits the art to "Nat Sullen".

--MartyD 11:58, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Marty, I am finding her name spelled 4 ways. I believe Nathália Suellen is her proper name. If you go to the "about" section of her website https://gallery.nathaliasuellen.com/about. it shows Nathália Suellen

All of the books listed under the Nathalia Sullen listing, show Nathalia Sullen in the text shown in the Amazon Look Inside. However I know that this person is Nathália Suellen as the artwork for these books can be found on her website at https://coverart.nathaliasuellen.com/page/5. These are the only books I have found so far with the spelling Sullen

All of the books under the Nathália Suellen listing have one of 3 configurations shown in the Look Inside: Black & Blue has Nathalia Suelle, 7 of them show Nathalia Suellen, 8 show Nathália Suellen (Stain shows nothing in the English version but Nathália Suellen in the Spanish). (NOTE a vs á) 3 others do not state the artist in the Look Inside. The books Wolf at the Door and Coral & Bone shown on Amazon are different printing. I have a list of who is who. The art for these books can be traced back to her websites https://nathaliasuellen.com and/or https://www.deviantart.com/lady-symphonia listed under the Nathália Suellen record.

I agree with the "canonical" vs alternate name/pseudonym solution. I guess I am putting in my 2 cents for Nathália Suellen to be canonical with Nathalia Suellen, Nathalia Sullen and Nathalia Suelle being alternates. aardvark7 17:29, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Yes, that seems fine, although I am pretty sure the software will consider Nathália Suellen and Nathalia Suellen to be the same and will not produce a second record based just on the differing diacritical. If that proves to be true, you would need to note it appears as "Nathalia". --MartyD 10:02, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I am willing to try to link all of the books to the name listed in them using Nathália Suellen as canonical. What I don't know is how to link alternate name Nathalia Sullen to Nathália Suellen. After the names are linked, would those 7 books also show under Nathália Suellen? (Are those the "also as bys?) For those books showing Nathalia Suellen as the artist, (currently are all listed under Nathália Suellen), it is easy to make a note that they state the artist as Nathalia Suellen. I assume nothing else would need to be done since you think Nathalia Suellen would not be set up as seperate from Nathália Suellen.

Actually there is a lot of work done when you create a pseudonym. The titles won't show up on the canonical author page automatically - you need to create new parents for each of them (Make Variant, Option 2, all remains the same except for the author where you put the canonical name). Annie 16:17, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well I am missing something or not understanding. The names Nathália Suellen and Nathalia Sullen currently exist. If Nathália Suellen is canonical, how do I go about making Nathalia Sullen a pseudonym of Nathália Suellen? (This is the cover artist not the book author) Am I understanding that I would take the 7 books listed under Nathalia Sullen and reenter them using Nathália Suellen? The would I take the books under Nathalia Sullen and make them variants of the books under Nathália Suellen? And if that is the case, the book Black & Blue is already listed under Nathália Suellen. I would need to make a version where the artist is Nathalia Suelle and make this a variant of the book under Nathália Suellen? Or am I completly out in left field here?? aardvark7 22:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

No - nothing new needs to be entered except for the parents at the end. We just need to connect the existing records. Two steps needed: make a pseudonym (starting form the to-be-pseudonym record, look in the left menu and locate “Make/remove alternate name”. Follow the prompts there. This will make the second author form an alternate/pseudonym for the first. The second step (can be submitted at the same time and is technically multiple steps) is for each title in the pseudonym page, to create a parent record (Open the title record, look in the left menu and locate Make variant, Option 2, change only the author name). let me know if you would like me to do this one so you can see the steps or if you want to try. Or I can give you a step by step with links so you can do it while following them. Annie 22:29, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I gave it a try. It seemed pretty straight forward. Once I got in I think I also saw by what you ment by Option 2. Hopefully I did right. aardvark7 16:54, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Black & Blue is the only book having Nathalia Suelle. It is currently listed under Nathália Suellen. Would one delete the current record then reenter it under Nathalia Suelle? Then Nathalia Suelle would also need to be linked under Nathália Suellen as an alternate name. Or instead of deleting the record can you just change the artist name to Nathalia Suelle? aardvark7 15:01, 3 December 2021 (EST)

No need to delete anything - just update the book (or the title record)'s author field to what it needs to be. Annie 16:17, 3 December 2021 (EST)

PS: And yes - Nathália/Nathalia will be treated as the same name due to how the DB is setup. Annie 16:20, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I will at least go into the books where Nathalia is shown as the artist in the Look Insides and make a note in the Pub Notes that the book shows Nathalia Sullen. All of these books are currently listed under Nathália Suellen. I don't want to mess with Black & Blue until I understand what is going on to get that name as a pseudonym of Nathália Suellen. aardvark7 22:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I didn't see a way to change the artist on Black & Blue so I made a note in the Pub field. This is the only book I can find using Nathalia Suelle and it's a note from the author thanking her for the wonderful cover. I also made notes for the books where for name was spelled Nathalia instead of Nathália aardvark7 16:54, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Annie I have to apologize, I screwed up. I did a wrong cut and paste. On the books where I state "Book text credits Natalia Suellen for cover art", it should read "Nathalia Suellen". I thought I checked and double checked, but I missed it. Fortunately I always check everything one last time after it goes through you folks. I will be fixing these and I again apologize for the extra work I put on you folks. I will now go stand in the corner. aardvark7 19:32, 6 December 2021 (EST)

The only people who do not make mistakes are the ones doing nothing. Let me know if you need me to fix something - if not, submit the changes you need, add a moderator note explaining that you are correcting a copy/paste mishap and we are all set. Annie 19:37, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Syzygy

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Syzygy; added issues of Crank from Archive.org and this PV did #4 but entered a couple of titles wrong; I fixed them and then got nervous because I anticipated the usual complaining about not checking with PV first before changing anything. I was relieved to see the PV hasn't responded since 5 years ago, but now that I think about it they should probably have 1 of those "no longer active" things on their board, right? --Username 21:22, 23 November 2021 (EST)

Francois Roca => François Roca

This author's name should be changed from "Francois Roca" to "François Roca" (see here for example).AlainLeBris 04:06, 24 November 2021 (EST)

That one is a bit more complicated because of the English editions - no argument that this is the guy's name but we need to find out how he was credited (and if it does not have "ç" on the credits somewhere, we will need notes and so on...) I'll work on that in the next days. Meanwhile I added a legal name so we at least have it there. Annie 19:44, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Notes added. Name changed. Annie 23:59, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Fake

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Verification_requests; Saw a couple of rare entries on this board, but they don't seem legit. --Username 07:36, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for your open eyes. I have deleted the two spam entries. Stonecreek 08:17, 24 November 2021 (EST)

I blocked the account, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:56, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Editing My Edits

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?29309; Can any of you explain to me why, after I discovered there's a recently added Archive copy of Joseph Payne Brennan's rare 1963 collection Scream At Midnight and added it here, and then discovered there's another story in the book at the end that's not on the contents page for some reason and was never entered here until I added it, someone approved the edit of some other editor who entered the missing story again for some reason, removed my note about the handwritten dedication at the front with a 1963 date, and removed my note about the missing story and then slightly rewrote it and entered it as his own note? It's not like he owns a copy; he used Google Books as his source. Can someone remove the duplicated story and reinstate my note about the dedication and my note about the missing story? Didn't the mod who approved this guy's edit notice any of this? --Username 23:32, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Done. It might be that this just was a coincidence of simultaneous approaches. Stonecreek 12:52, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Was my approval and my mistake. With hundreds of edits to approve there are a few that slip through. With no PV only the edit history is there to refer to. I'll remove the extra story.Kraang 13:12, 27 November 2021 (EST)

"Omnibus" of magazine/comic issues

Looking for some moderatorial opinions on handling of a submission that is for a book collecting a three-issue Marvel Comics series of H. P. Lovecraft adaptations. Each of the issues featured one short story and two poems by Lovecraft. The issues contained a new graphical/comics-style adaptation of Lovecraft's works and also reprinted the original works.

1. It seems to me the original issues, while technically comics, should be "in", since they reprint the Lovecraft works. Would they be MAGAZINE?

2. Would we make this new publication an OMNIBUS? If the originals were ANTHOLOGY, I believe we would, but if they're MAGAZINE?

3. If we made this new publication ANTHOLOGY, would we still want to include the the titles of the three original publications?

I think there's also an issue with MAGAZINE/EDITOR and wanting to include that title record in another publication. Does anyone know?

Thanks, --MartyD 12:14, 27 November 2021 (EST)

I would guess that the original Marvel issues should be entered as MAGAZINEs. Reprints of MAGAZINE issues are typically entered as ANTHOLOGY pubs, e.g. see these Astounding reprints. Ahasuerus 20:03, 27 November 2021 (EST)

I’d add the reprints as anthologies - as the originals are magazines, we cannot import them so we cannot make an omnibus. The old comics are non-genre Magazines - just like newspapers are magazines in the dB IMO. My 2 cents. :) Annie 20:42, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Are we going to start adding comic books? I thought they were always out of scope. For an author like Gaiman, this would add quite a bit of new material. TAWeiss 08:51, 28 November 2021 (EST)

These particular comic book issues were a special case -- they contained not only comics but also reprints of the stories/poems which the comics were based on. Ahasuerus 10:09, 28 November 2021 (EST)

I was the one who submitted this. Please note this is a hardback book with ISBN. Do magazines or comics have an ISBN?? aardvark7 11:08, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Normally, magazine issues do not have unique ISBNs. Instead, the whole magazine run is assigned an ISSN. Occasionally, when a magazine issue is sold as a standalone publication, it may be assigned an ISBN.

Comic books follow the same paradigm. To quote Comics.org:

• There is no single identifier standard, today, for comic books. ISBNs are used for some trade paperbacks, original graphic novels and specials. ISSNs are used to identify some series but do not identify specific issues (generally the ISSN is used in conjunction with a publication date).

(emphasis added.) Ahasuerus 12:00, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Also let me note I am not advocating entering the 3 comic books that make up this hardback, only the hardback itself. I agree with the person about comics, they don't belong in the database. This hardback kind of reminds me of record 2556723 Stan Lee Presents the Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of Blade Runner aardvark7 13:07, 28 November 2021 (EST)

I was thinking this would be a collection like this.

Yeah, like that... aardvark7 22:24, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Sorry, I have been having cable problems.... This is definitely not a normal "comics" situation. Since the three issues printed the original Lovecraft works, they would be "in". So what I was thinking when I asked about this is what happens if/when someone decides to enter those three issues? Do we care to represent that this compilation collects those published subsets (and, if so, how exactly), or do we want to ignore that and only have the compilation linked to the three issues by common content? --MartyD 15:39, 1 December 2021 (EST)

We could list the comics and publications in the title description, and links to something like GCD

I agree with Annie's comment above -- I would enter them as non-genre magazine issues. Ahasuerus 17:35, 1 December 2021 (EST)

We have a similar problem with an omnibus including a previously published omnibus - you cannot have an omnibus inside of an omnibus per the rules here - you import the contents of it only instead (boxsets are prone to that). The only way to indicate the connection is via the notes - so that's the only thing we can do here when magazine issues are collected in an anthology... Annie 13:32, 2 December 2021 (EST)

(unindent) So what are the rules for comic books? If they reprint text stories/poems from other publications, then they are in? Do we add in all of the comics written by over the threshold writers. Are these in now, or only if they are reprinted elsewhere? Should we add all of the Sandman series for example since #19 won a World Fantasy Award ? I'm just trying to clarify the exclusion rules. TAWeiss 10:16, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Think of comics as non-genre magazines. See Help:Entering_non-genre_magazines. If an issue publishes a work that is "in", then we would create a record for that issue, but we would only create content records for the "in" content. --MartyD 16:01, 5 December 2021 (EST)

We actually do have a bit of a loophole here. For above threshold authors, everything is eligible except "non-genre (...) non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book." (thus us not indexing articles in random magazines which are non-genre even from Isaac Asimov). We had always had an informal rule not to allow single issues/floppies of comics even from the above threshold authors (kinda on the same premise) but if you read the ROA, they are not explicitly forbidden - they are not considered speculative fiction (so we are in the clear for non-above the treshold authors) but they are fiction so technically speaking they are as eligible as their collected variants and GNs are(which had been allowed so far)... We can get that clarified in the ROA and close the loophole completely by changing:

• "This includes any non-genre works published as standalone books as well as non-genre short fiction, but excludes non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book."

to

• "This includes any non-genre works published as standalone books as well as non-genre short fiction, but excludes non-genre non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book or a genre publication and graphic stories in non-genre magazines".

Or something like that. That covers it all because comics floppies and the UK/Japanese magazines are non-genre magazines under our definitions so we are all set. That also closes another loophole - if you parse that sentence in ROA in a certain way, that makes even genre non-fiction ineligible if it is not in a standalone book or genre publication (NYTRB and any other newspaper magazine with interviews and reviews and articles only and no fiction for example will be completely out which is not how we want to read line - and not how we had been reading it). Time for a R&S thread so we can hash out the wording? Annie 21:50, 5 December 2021 (EST)

Sounds good. I am thinking we should further sub-divide paragraph 4, e.g.:

Works (both fiction and non-fiction) which are not related to speculative fiction, but were produced by authors who have otherwise published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold (see below). Specifically:

• Included: non-genre fiction and non-fiction published as a standalone publication
• Included: non-genre short fiction
• Excluded: non-genre non-fiction which was not published as a standalone publication or in a genre publication
• Excluded: graphic stories in non-genre publications

We can discuss the details on the R&S page once the discussion has been moved there. Ahasuerus 11:32, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Moonsinger's Friends - inactive PV

I need to make changes to Moonsinger's Friends based on the copy I own. Once I make the changes, I'll PV it. The sole current PV is Bluesman who is apparently inactive so I can't get his consent. Along with needing additional titles and notes, it also needs to have the title changed to "Moonsinger's Friends: An Anthology in Honor of Andre Norton" to match what's on my copy's title page. I believe that should also be the canonical title. I asked the PV of this pub to check her copy and she has submitted a title change to correct the title on that pub as well. Since my corrected title matches the title for the hardcover edition of the same date that doesn't have a PV, is there any objection to me making the same change to this title record as well as the pub record? Phil 22:39, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Since it has been about 5 days since I posed this question and there are no objections, can I reasonable go ahead and make the changes? Phil 17:07, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Languishing submission

Can someone approve this submission that is languishing in the queue for two days. It'll allow me to continue my work on this issue.AlainLeBris 03:11, 28 November 2021 (EST)

No problem, looks good. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, sometimes the quantity of submissions overwhelms us [poor unpaid] moderators! ;) PeteYoung 07:14, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Mars Manual

https://archive.org/details/TheMarsOneCrewManual; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?21494; Not sure this belongs on ISFDB, except for the reviews, since it seems like non-fiction, not a novel. --Username 00:03, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Well, it is described at Amazon as a flight manual for a fictional trip to Mars, and this would make it eligible and is correctly entried as fiction: it is written like a piece of nonfiction, but that's just a masquerade. Stonecreek 04:33, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Author Link Error

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?732%7C; That error occurs when you click the link on this page, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:Gengelcox, so something's wrong there. They made a rare edit on Community Portal recently, which is why I noticed. --Username 21:57, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Just a bad code on the user’s page - a | at the end of the link. The author page is fine: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?732

I’ll drop a note to the editor. Annie 22:13, 30 November 2021 (EST)

And fixed. Ahasuerus 22:18, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Links to file sharing websites

Should we have links to files on file sharing websites like here? TAWeiss 17:27, 1 December 2021 (EST)

It's a very good question. There are quite a few archival sites out there and their legal status is all over the place. Some, like Project Gutenberg, research the copyright status of each file ahead of time. Others, like archive.org, cover so much ground that they can't realistically contact every rights holder; they make things available first and take them down if the copyright owner asks them to. Then there are sites like the LibGen.* family of projects, which claim to comply with relevant copyright laws, but have been in and out of legal trouble for years -- see this Wikipedia discussion. We certainly wouldn't want to link to the last type of archival sites.

In this case all I can find is the following note by the site maintainer:

• please direct all inquiries & legal threats to collectfruit at gmail dot com!

Ahasuerus 18:07, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Since I'm the 1 who added it, I can say that since it's just a PDF I don't see a problem; anything that required signing up or something similar I would never add. As I've written here a few times, a site like Archive.org is more problematic because they add anything and everything, which is why they get complaints so often and have to take stuff down, so that's why I usually add an Open Library ID but not the actual Archive link; if people go to the OL page and decide to click the link that's their choice. A funny thing happened earlier this year where someone uploaded a 1984 issue of S.D. Schiff's Whispers Magazine (most issues of Whispers are very hard to find) to the Archive but when I went back to it a little while later it was gone with the usual notice about being taken down possibly because of complaints, etc. However, recently I saw the same issue again and pounced on it immediately, since it was not in the preview section but was 1 of those full PDF's; there are still several stories in that issue which have never been reprinted, at least not anywhere I know of, so I have several downloaded stories in my printed-out pile waiting to be read (along with countless others). It seems the only difference between the original URL for that issue and the URL there now was a single dash, which made all the difference. There's this message on Annarchive: "ABOUT ⒶNNARCHIVE: though many of the files hosted in these archives were donated or scanned by myself, many more were collected from file-sharing websites, some of which no longer exist. i don't take credit for these files nor do i in many cases know the identities of the original scanners - i'm just trying to make sure these files continue to be available." Since the last issue of Dragon came out in 2007, I doubt anyone complained about their hosting a PDF or it wouldn't still be there. The only reason I noticed this issue was because I got on a run of adding/fixing stuff for books with hologram covers and saw that Amazon's cover image actually displayed the hologram better than the other cover image, so I replaced it and then found the other stuff. --Username 18:46, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Converting NOVEL to NOVELLA / CHAPBOOK (plus more)

Les chevaux de Soulimane: one would think that it's unlikely that this publication holds a novel — looking at the page count: even at 300 words per page (which seems not very common for a text aimed at adults, and quite unlikely for a juvenile) this would well be under the threshold of 40,000 words. So it seems more likely that it's a CHAPBOOK containing a novella.

In addition, shouldn't the publisher be the commonly known Albin Michel? It is according to the OCLC entry I linked to (and according to the ISBN range 2-226-). Also, there's the question what the source for the note that it's not the first printing is: the copyright date is not sufficient when there's no other earlier publication to be found (or is there?) It still might be the first, and the note should reflect this.

Unfortunately the entering & veryfying editor doesn't respond to my questions, posted here. So, how shall we proceed? Stonecreek 07:37, 2 December 2021 (EST)

As I don't want to contredict such a specialist of french publishing and a specialist of "first editions", I've unverified the publication. Do as you want, I strictly don't care. If Stonecreek without the book is better placed than me to determine what is exactly its publisher, so be it, it's not the first that he meddles with data (I remember something along the lines of "first printing"). Hail to your bibliographic genius that transcends time and distance... Note that I do not dare to answer to such luminaries lest I be eclipsed. On a more positive note, even a dimwit could have found this 1987 book that is the mythic 1st printing. AlainLeBris 12:22, 2 December 2021 (EST)

A few quick notes:

• The French "Dépôt Légal" is not the same as the Copyright date in English editions. It belongs to the book, not the text and as such can be used safely for dating of French books.
• A lot of publishers use the same ISBN block for all their imprints. The fact that we had not seen this imprint yet can mean one of three things: either someone was standardizing (we had seen that a lot) OR it is a rare one in our books OR there is a mistake in the record. BNF has the publisher as "A. Michel, 1987" (incidentally confirming an existing 1987 printing and that 1988 is a later printing). OCLC has Albin Michel with holding libraries in Canada and France (via BNF); if you look at OCLC's other editions, the 1987 ones with the same ISBN are also there so it also confirms that this is NOT a first printing. None of these exclude the possibility of it being out from an imprint. If a verifier says that is how the publisher is credited, I'd note a difference with the sources but won't destroy their data

FYI: The OCLC entry under 1987 with a Canadian library - the Canadian library in question actually lists this as the (c)1987, 1988 printing. The French library lists theirs as 1987. ../Doug H 14:40, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Yes but being a French book, I kinda trust the French record more than the Canadian one (which probably should be up on the 1988 record and not on this one but...) :) Annie 14:53, 2 December 2021 (EST)

• The only somewhat valid issue I can see here is the length. However - being a 1987/1988 book, I am not sure of the density of the print (we still have 90-100-pages novels at this point because of small and dense prints). Alain, can you count the words on a page? Just to see where the estimate is going? Thanks! Annie 12:46, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Alain, in your comment you totally missed out on the question that triggered the thread, and that is the length of the fictional text. Even a 'dimwit' like me is able to do a little bit of calculating, and while it's possible that there are about 350 or more words on every page, I strongly do think that this is unlikely for a juvenile at that time of publication, and that's why I asked about a word count or an estimate of it. The other questions arose while looking at the thing (and it was WorldCat that had put just Albin Michel as the publisher). So, please stay friendly in tone, and remember: it's highly ethical to answer questions when asked. Thanks in advance, Christian Stonecreek 13:35, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Kipling: Above the threshold?

Hi, I just searched for his novel "Kim", which seems to be nongenre, but I would have considered Kipling above-the-threshold. I'd estimate he'd be similar to H. G. Wells in the proportions of genre / nongenre works. Any input would be welcome. Stonecreek 11:46, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I'd consider him ATT. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Kipling was all over the place. He wrote a couple hundred pages worth of science fiction stories, another collection worth of supernatural stories, animal/children's fantasy stories like Just So Stories and The Jungle Books, some "weird fiction", horror, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, his popular novels -- Kim, Captains Courageous, The Light that Failed -- were not speculative. He also wrote a lot of realistic stories, but then again, some of them had at least borderline speculative elements, e.g. the "Boots" trilogy was narrated by a dog. Ahasuerus 12:56, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I take it from the answers that it'd be okay to add his nongenre works (?). I'll wait for the weekend to pass, and then add Kim if there's no massive contradiction. Thanks for your input so far! Christian Stonecreek 01:14, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Aberrant Dreams

"A Shogun's Weapon" entered by PV, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?270300, but "A Shogun's Welcome" here, http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/k/k00006.htm#A18, and here, http://darrkenium.blogspot.com/2006/01/some-publications-im-in.html. PV doesn't respond to messages, so what's to be done? --Username 13:37, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well, that seems to have changed. He last answered to a question in November, and is occasionally around (mostly at weekends, I think). So just try to question him about the piece. Stonecreek 13:57, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well, I questioned him, but I see that a question I asked back in February was never answered so I'm not holding my breath for this one. However, I found this, https://web.archive.org/web/20060630044423/http://www.hd-image.com/aberrant_dreams/stories/spring_2006/a_shoguns_welcome.htm, so I think it's clear what the real title is. --Username 14:13, 3 December 2021 (EST)

So, the best you / we can (or should) do is: wait for the weekend to pass, and then act (if there's no answer and you don't wanna do it on your own, just give me a reminder on Monday). Christian Stonecreek 01:09, 4 December 2021 (EST)

I'm just going to change it to the correct title and add that archived link. If PV ever responds and somehow the title really was Weapon in the zine I can always change it back, although I doubt that will be needed. --Username 11:36, 4 December 2021 (EST)

The Future is missing

Hi, it seems one specific magazine issue is missing, according to this thread. Christian Stonecreek 04:56, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Not missing - just hiding between other things on the board. It had been found, brought to the light and approved. Annie 05:35, 4 December 2021 (EST)

The Problem

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5170361, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5170358; mod apparently needs to change publisher to preserve notes, so someone can do that if they wish. --Username 19:09, 10 December 2021 (EST)

I've done a bit more research and I can find Publisher Update submissions by non-moderators in the recent approvals. Are you certain that you are not able to update the name in the publisher record? @Ahasuerus, Is there a list of edits/fields within edits that are only available to Moderators? I know that an author merge is usually requested on this board, but am not sure what other functions require higher privileges. Are there any edits where fields are locked except for Mods? That seems to be the issue that Username may be experiencing. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:32, 12 December 2021 (EST)

As far as I know, we don't have a list of fields which are only editable by moderators. It's supposed to be covered in field-specific mouse-over and Wiki-based Help pages. In this case, the mouse-over Help reads "Only moderators can edit publisher names" and Help:Screen:EditPublisher says "Note that only moderators can edit this field once the publisher record has been created."

The other frequently used field which can only be edited by moderators is "Canonical Name" in Author Editor. Also, in Advanced Search, Author and Publisher merges can only be done by moderators. (The ability to edit Award Categories used to be restricted to moderators, but the restriction was lifted a couple of years ago.) Ahasuerus 13:08, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks. That explains it. I've updated the publisher per Username's original edits. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:07, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Brazzaville

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?253751; This book got confused with another William Morrow book, and the 600 pages was actually 300+; I fixed that and other stuff but screwed up replacing the old cover image with what I thought was a better one because I forgot to delete the stuff between the dots; the old image seems to be gone from Amazon, so I found what I think is the only image online that shows the entire cover, front and spine, clearly and uploaded that to the Wiki, so whoever approves the 1st edit, ignore the yellow warning because next edit fixes that. --Username 15:41, 11 December 2021 (EST)

Approved and done. --Username 09:37, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Nick Rodgers / Nicholas Rodgers

Does anyone know whether Nick Rodgers is the ssme artist as Nicholas Rodgers ? --Mavmaramis 04:53, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Judging by a gallery on his website I would say yes, and Nicholas should be a pseudonym of Nick. Do you want to do this? I added the link to his (as Nick) author page. --Willem 05:34, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Could I leave that to you please ? --Mavmaramis 12:28, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Ok, and done. No problem. --Willem 14:17, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Puffin Plus

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?855; (UK) part prevents these 2 from being part of the other Puffin Plus series books; also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?27275. Puffin Plus wasn't the publisher, just a series. --Username 09:36, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Dragondoom by Dennis L. McKiernan Title Record # 943551

In my search for art by Richard Bober, I can across a cover by him not in the data base. The cover scan I have, came from xigallery but a small version can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38408653-dragondoom They show this as being a mass market book printed in 1990 at 454 pages but they have no ISBN number. On the cover I can read "In US $5.50 (In Canada $6.50) A Bantam Spectra Book" and the book number 28837-6 which does not match the Publication Record # 276425 book with no cover. At a quandary as to what to do or how to proceed. Any suggestions?? aardvark7 10:25, 17 December 2021 (EST)

Well, for the years 1990 & 1991 OCLC as well as Amazon seem to have only the one ISBN that we have in the database. The variant cover might have been scheduled but never got published (or might have been published in a totally different - later - year. As Goodreads doesn't source their data, and has often found to be unreliable (even more than Amazon), my best guess is that this was in fact not published. Stonecreek 12:40, 17 December 2021 (EST)

J. Turner

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=mythos+in+h&type=All+Titles; James Turner at bottom should have a (I), and essay merged with other essay. EDIT: Also, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?80501; art credits probably belong to a separate James Turner. --Username 16:52, 18 December 2021 (EST)

Author email

You may have published a book by Nancy Macon, 703 how I lost a ton and gained a like. I just wished to tell her how much her book meant to me and how difficult it may have been to write it. She is a courageous successful woman.

Sincerely Edna Smith, Hamilton, Ont. ednajsmith@gmail.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ednachristy (talk • contribs) .

The ISFDB is not a publisher. We are a bibliographic site that indexes speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, & horror) works. It seems likely a web query has led you astray somehow. I'm sorry, but we are unable to help you with your request. If you search the author via Google, she may have a social media site via which you can reach out to her. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:03, 19 December 2021 (EST)

Languishing submission (2)

Can someone approve this submission that is sitting in the queue since 2021-12-17 05:36:44 and will not disappear by itself? The ISBN entered is as on book.AlainLeBris 03:31, 21 December 2021 (EST)

The ISBN seems to have a bad checksum. Will you verify it's correct (see here)? I've approved the submission. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:30, 21 December 2021 (EST)

Dick Smith?

[3]; Exorcist makeup guy, not SF fan guy, added (make-up artist) to his name in an edit, PV'd by someone I don't wish to contact, it's at the top of my edit list with nearly 150 edits in front of it, so can someone approve this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5179291, before the others? --Username 19:03, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Happy Holidays to the Moderators

As I know from past experience it is a laborious avocation. Thank you.--swfritter 19:19, 24 December 2021 (EST)

Heaven

Can 1 of you un-reject this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5179360, since it IS the same art; you can see the girl's head in the hole of the Pocket cover; it's a step-back cover, and opening it reveals exactly the same art, just like the several other foreign Andrews reprints I added edits for recently. Here's a copy: https://archive.org/details/isbn_0671525425. --Username 20:10, 24 December 2021 (EST)

I unrejected & approved it. Please add a moderator note in cases like that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:09, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Jumbled Covers

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?6199+1972+1; I remember this disarrangement happening once before, so I'm sure mods will know how to fix it again. --Username 18:07, 26 December 2021 (EST)

I'm not sure what disarrangement you are referring to. Can you be more specific? You have selected the "View covers for this year" for the books published by Record in 1972. The three images match up to the covers for those three books. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2021 (EST)

Like the previous time this happened, the 3 covers, instead of being one after the other, are 2 in one column and 1 in the other. Whoever fixed it last time discussed it between a couple of mods and discovered there was some coding or other kind of problem and fixed it, so I assume it's the same this time. ALSO, can a moderator accept the 2 edits I made nearly 2 weeks ago regarding Richard O'Brien? The Rocky Horror actor was interviewed and hosted the TV show Urban Gothic, so those 2 belong to him; the PB horror novel is by some American with the same name, and he may have written the poems or not, but the interview and intro for Urban Gothic definitely belong to the actor. I don't understand why the dozens of edits I made today and most days are rushed through and accepted with barely a glance just to make the queue smaller, especially at night, but something simple and obvious like that sits there for weeks. --Username 22:38, 26 December 2021 (EST)

For software issues, your best best is to write a note on Ahasuerus's user page. He is our developer. A mod cannot help you with software issues. For your edits, some of your edits are easy to process, but a number you make difficult because you provide no sources or notes and are impacting verified pubs. Mods don't always have the time (especially during the holidays) to handle the difficult ones and will drift to handling the easy ones. Looking into this one, on 12/14 you changed the Richard O'Brien record to be the actor's biographical information. Five hours later you submitted these two edits which conflict with that prior change. In addition, if the actor is not the author, than the interview does not belong in the database. So, no, these are not easy ones. I will work through them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Again, when this happened the last time where covers were misaligned, I left a note just like the one above, 1 mod discussed it with another one, they figured out what the problem was and then fixed it. I see that the 3rd cover has a little symbol after the title, and if I remember correctly that's what the problem is. I found it: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard#Cover_Problem.3F. The O'Brien interview probably doesn't belong here, just like the Dick Smith interview I added (makeup artist) to recently because the same editor confused him with the Dick Smith who was a SF fan guy, and that interview was also deleted. So complain to that editor who doesn't check which name they're entering before they make an edit. Why would a horror magazine like Fangoria be interviewing someone in the SF field? Also, Dick Smith's name is on the cover of that issue of Fangoria, image available online, with "Makeup lessons from the Master". I wouldn't contact that editor anyway because they hacked my home page months ago and it had to be locked by mods so they couldn't do it again, in case you weren't aware. The intro I verified in a few seconds from the Wikipedia page for Urban Gothic which mentions that Richard O'Brien, the Rocky Horror guy, was the "Storyteller" of the TV series, thus also the author of the intro for the book version; the book isn't PV'd, anyway, so there was nobody to contact about that one. So no, this isn't something that should take any significant amount of time to accept. This has nothing to do with holidays because it happens regularly, holidays or not. I did a number of extensive edits yesterday (and most days), all of which sat there all day until the 1 mod who seems to work at night just ran through all of them in a few minutes like they usually do. But the Richard O'Brien one needed 2 weeks to think about? --Username 08:21, 27 December 2021 (EST)--

Regarding the covers: As per the discussion you linked to, Ahasuerus made a software change to fix that issue. I gave you the simplest & quickest way to handle software issues.

Regarding the edits: You made conflicting edits in the space of a couple hours. You did not provide sources. Yes, all of that can be looked up, but it takes times. Most of your edits provide sources and those will get processed more quickly. When you make the moderators do extra work for information you already have, there will be less moderators with the time (or even patience given you have been told many times) to deal with it.

I have provided feedback on how to improve responsiveness to your edits. You can choose to accept it or not. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:59, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Another, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?6335+1976+1. Now that I look further, Plon has several pages in the 70's where covers are misaligned, so it seems to be a general problem. --Username 19:22, 9 January 2022 (EST)

The software has been changed not to use mouseover help for transliterated values on Publisher Year pages, which should solve this issue. Ahasuerus 14:24, 1 February 2022 (EST)

Minor Change to Canonical Name

Jess C Scott should be corrected to comply with standards. (Add the missing period). Faster for you to edit than for me to post three title edits and one author update to move the metadata. Thanks, John Scifibones 14:18, 27 December 2021 (EST)

The absence of the period is correct. The author does not use a period as per her website. As such the "However, when it is clearly the author's choice to omit the period, or when the author has a single letter name that is not an initial (e.g. "Harry S Truman") the period should be omitted." comes into play. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:30, 27 December 2021 (EST)

No problem, I'll edit the titles I have added after they are processed. Thanks for looking at it. John Scifibones 15:45, 27 December 2021 (EST)

We probably need a note in the author note field that the name is per the author’s preference though so it does not get “fixed” by someone without them doing research. Annie 17:26, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Done, John Scifibones 22:37, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Author merge required: Paul Ma[r]gueritte

Spotted these in today's deaths: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?326688 , http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?322795

The former record (with the r) appears to be the correct one, per the links to English and French Wikipedia.

The incorrect version seems to be down to a transcription/data entry error - possibly at some other reference site? - rather than an error in the source pub(s). The author record has a single poem, from a single pub. That pub has a link to a scanned copy on archive.org, and the contents list (specifically page xiv) shows the name spelled Margueritte, so this seems to be a case for merging rather than varianting author records? IIRC author merges are only available to mods? ErsatzCulture 19:40, 28 December 2021 (EST)

The Internet Archive scan (the work is in public domain so the full scan is available without an account) shows the title page has the "r". The two records have been merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:48, 29 December 2021 (EST)

Missing N

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1155697; it's Payne, not Paye. I don't know if changing that would cause note to go away, so I leave it to mods to fix it in order to avoid the usual complaining. --Username 23:25, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Fixed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:44, 29 December 2021 (EST)

Lancer Duplicate

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?251+1971; The only book published by Lancer in 1971 that was missing the ID was The Baby Factory; I found a cover on Biblio.com and used the ID to find the missing cover on Bookscans, so that's now complete. However, the Alice Brennan book has a record with no cover but a cover artist mentioned in Paperbacks From Hell according to the note, while there's another record with a cover but no cover artist and a note saying the artist is unknown. So mods may want to decide which record and what notes to keep. --Username 11:11, 31 December 2021 (EST)

Rigby

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?148444; I did a lot of fixes for these magazines; the proofreading was terrible, with different titles in different parts, different names, etc. The editor who entered them here years ago made their own mistakes, too, so it was a bit of a mess. I think I got most of it, but someone may want to look at them to see if anything else needs tweaking. More importantly, the spelling of the editor's name as J.C.H. Rigby was wrong, with their name being JCH with no periods both in those old zines and their recent novels, which I also fixed. So mod will need to change the name to JCH on that page linked above. --Username 17:55, 31 December 2021 (EST)

J. C. H. Rigby and JCH Rigby merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:50, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Words Without Borders

I wanted to add the january 2015 issue of Words withojt Borders but spotted that the series entry has a note about first checking with the mods. The theme of the issue is Uchronia so it should be in scope. My personal interest in it is to add a missing short story to Karin Tidbeck's bibliography. /Lokal_Profil 06:46, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Go ahead and add it. I changed the note from "Non genre webzine. Check with moderators who deal with webzines before adding content." to "Non genre webzine. Only genre contents should be indexed." Our moderation system handles the "check with moderators" part. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks. Submission is now up. /Lokal_Profil 17:22, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Two Shadows

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?646+1997; I added the cover to The Shadow Over Innsmouth, coverless on ISFDB since 2007 when it was entered, but there's another record for the same publication, probably redundant and not needed if mods agree. --Username 18:20, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Duplicate deleted. It would be helpful if you just linked to the actual pubs when you post these type things... -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:34, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Nesbit Collection

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?783292; I wondered why the publisher, Methuen, didn't have any of the hundreds of other books published by them listed when link was clicked, until I realized whoever entered this spelled it METHEUN. Also, E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror is already listed by Methuen in 1983 on ISFDB, so why this was entered is unknown; this image, [4], from Dalby's site shows ISBN that's in E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror here, so where this other ISBN came from is also unknown; is there an edition from the same year where they changed ISBN for some reason? Edit History reveals this wasn't done by regular editors but by a mod and then added to by another mod; no PV, though, so whoever wants to look at it may find it doesn't really belong here, except maybe for the note. --Username 22:46, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Misspelled tags, and tags that are near duplicates

The tag "Detectve" is misspelled and is probably a duplicate of "detective". Also "fatasy" and "handicapt children" and "hyptonism" that I found with a quick manual scan.

Each of these tags has a "near duplicate" that is identical except that it uses spaces instead of dashes:

• science-fiction
• young-adult-fantasy
• young-adult-sf
• near-future
• young-adult
• post-apocalypse
• action-adventure
• mega-engineering
• into-movie
• history-of-sf
• juvenile-sf
• african-american
• young-adult-ghost-story
• time-travel-romance
• occult-horror
• african-american-protagonist
• young-adult-historical-fantasy
• far-viewer
• post-apocalyptic
• post-holocaust
• Young-adult-post-apocalypse
• movie-novelization
• science-fiction-romance
• young-adult-paranormal
• high-fantasy
• sci-fi
• shape-shifting
• young-adult-thriller
• young-adult-alternate-history
• tongue-in-cheek
• African-Americans
• political-science-fiction
• alien-point-of-view
• body-switching
• techno-thriller
• Pre-WWII
• shape-shifters
• civil-rights
• cultural-identity
• out-of-body-experience
• Pre-apocalypse
• single-parent-families
• second-person
• X-rays
• near-death-experience
• South-America
• Middle-East-inspired-fantasy

If you're looking at ISFDB database, this query can be used to find them: select count(*), replace(tag_name, " ", "-") as flat_name from tags group by flat_name having count(*) > 1; Variations of this query can be used to find tags that only differ in capitalization, or plural versus singular, or ones that use apostrophes that aren't needed. --Colink 23:06, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Griff

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?3767; Fearn's Griff pseudonym was used for a cheap 50's novel; other Griff was used by an artist in the 2000's. --Username 12:36, 4 January 2022 (EST)

The Very Best of Barry N. Malzberg - table of contents corrections

Hi.

I have the paper copy of "The Very Best of Barry N. Malzberg", 2013, Nonstop Press. (1499157) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1499157

I have made a comparison of the TOC and the actual stories in the paper version (in my possession today, checked out of the library) vs the current ISFDB entrees. The current ISFDB paper and ebook versions TOC listed essentially agree, and they are both missing stories and have 1 story in the wrong place/order/page number. If I am not clear, the corrections needed here are essentially the same for both the paper and ebook versions.

Bluesman is listed as the primary verifier for the paper version (none listed for the ebook). The Bluesman Discussion page states that Bluesman is inactive and that I should post about this here.

I am ready to make the edits (1 edit, a number of imports of stories that are missing but are otherwise in ISFDB, and one new entry for the Acknowledgements (i.e., copyright/source info) after I have approval.

Thanks for your help. Dave888 20:15, 6 January 2022 (EST)

We don't index the Acknowledgements as a general rule so that will be just in the notes :) Make sure that the story that is on the wrong page actually is on the wrong page (we go by the book, not its contents page) although a discrepancy should be in the notes. If you are sure that you have the same book and not a later edition/printing of it which added more stories (note that OCLC says "32 stories" so you may want to reconcile that and their list to ours while you are writing notes), go ahead and correct it, adding a moderator note explaining what you are doing and why. Annie 20:34, 6 January 2022 (EST)

1) Thanks for the reminder on the Acknowledgements. I'll handle that in the notes.

2) For the story on the wrong page ("The Lady Louisiana Toy", it appears that the page number entered was a typo. The number entered is "196", and the actual number is "296", both on the TOC and on the page of the book. This also puts it as the last story, which matches the ebook order. So, the ebook and paper TOC matches the corresponding locations in the book when corrected.

3) Regarding the copy I have, it sure appears to be the same edition noted for the tp. It has the same ISBN. It has the same "First Edition, 2013" with no number line. It has the same number of pages and the same price and cover. Checking a few places, so far all of the separate ebook version (Nook, Kindle) that I checked have the same TOC that matches as the paper version I have. In his review comments for Locus, Paul di Filippo's 2013 review notes "some three dozen stories", and mentions one of the stories ("Leviticus: In The Ark") that is in my copy's TOC and not the existing TOC. Taken together, it is likely that his ARC contained the same TOC at 37 and not 33 stories. I concur that the OCLC entry notes 32 stories, but looking at the actual list they have the same 37 stories as my paper copy, in the same order. So, it appears that the summary entry there for 32 stories is incorrect, although they have the correct TOC. What kind of moderator note would I need to use? Would noting that the OCLC summary total is is incorrect be sufficient?

Thanks.Dave888 00:15, 7 January 2022 (EST)

I'd say something like this in the Notes of the publication: "As of 2022-01-07, the OCLC record mentions that there are 32 stories but they list all 37 in the record details." (or words to that effect - feel free to rewrite) thus both dating the note AND explaining what the discrepancy is. If the record is ever updated, our note can also be updated and so on but if we don't notice, we have a record with a date. As for the moderator note - "Working off a copy of the book; to verify after all updates" (if you had not verified yet - some people don't want to verify until they know that all the info is correct because things happen...) is usually sufficient. :) Annie 15:45, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks. That all sounds good. I'll check in if I get confused, and you or someone else will see the edits for approval.Dave888 16:59, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Two related questions on the ebook version. 1) I see a dual ISBN number, " 978-1-933065-55-7 [1-933065-55-9]". Why are there two? Is this really for two different ebook versions, say the Kindle and the Nook? 2) Checking various sources, I don't find either of the existing ISBN numbers are correct for this book. I assume I should update it? Thanks.Dave888 00:08, 10 January 2022 (EST)

That's ONE ISBN only -- in its ISBN10 and its ISBN13 formats. Our ISBN field can contain only one ISBN and we always show both versions when they exist (aka all 978 ISBNs always have both - just look at the paperback as well).

Careful with updating - make sure that it was not there back in 2013 either - this was the ISBN of the epub most likely at the time. Removing ISBNs from old records because the current versions, especially because Kindle/Amazon don't carry them anymore is a very bad idea. If you have the kindle version, mention in the notes that the ISBN is not printed in the book if that's the case - but let's not destroy old data :) Annie 11:23, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for helping me with these ISBN nuances. I do wonder what source the original ebook ISBN numbers came from; I did not find it. The current ebook versions at Amazon and B&N list the same pair of "new" or current ebook ISBN numbers, neither of which match the original here, in addition to the ISBN for the paper version which does match. I'll eventually add the two ISBNs that are in the ebook to the Notes. It appears one is for the Kindle and the other for the Nook at this time. I'll hold off on this aspect a bit to ensure I've got it, and to give you time to let me know if I don't.Dave888 11:54, 10 January 2022 (EST)

The note tells you Amazon.com was the source. In 2014, Amazon still had the eISBNs - they stopped recording and using them in 2019 or thereabouts (making my life miserable for new books) :)

What two ISBNs? You listed just one above and it belonged to both eBooks editions at the time of the book addition (or at least it belonged to the Kindle version - if the publisher uses different ISBNs per format, then we record the ebooks separately). If the book is reissued with a new ISBN, then we need a new publication for that. :) Annie 12:11, 10 January 2022 (EST)

I cannot honestly tell if the current ebooks (same info) I see on Amazon and B&N are a new ISBN or not, as I was never able to find the original information noted. The ISBNs are definitely different than the original one on this ebook, although the book contents appear to be identical otherwise. 1) the "original" ebook ISBN listed here for the 2013-02-28 ebook is "978-1-933065-55-7 [1-933065-55-9]". 2) the current versions I find on the Amazon version are "kindle ISBN 978-1-933065-50-2" and "epub ISBN 978-1-933065-8". For the B&N version, I see a very similar but not identical (the kindle ISBN is different) "Kindle ISBN 978-1-933065-55-7" and "epub ISBN 978-1-933065-58-8". Looking back, I see that I was incorrect earlier about the ISBN info being the same listed on both ebooks. My apologies, and I will still appreciate your guidance on how to handle this.Dave888 12:25, 10 January 2022 (EST)

In 2013, the kindle version carried an ISBN 978-1-933065-55-7. If the current version in Amazon shows a different ISBN, then it is a reissue. :) Annie 17:04, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Not to be too dense here, but there appear to be two ebooks today with different ISBN than the original Amazon ebook. Does that really mean that I need to create new editions for those two ebooks? Sorry for being slow on this.Dave888 18:17, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Nah, you are doing fine - you are just overthinking it a bit. Unless the same book carried both ISBNs at the same time (Russian books often do that as they have multiple publishers and each of them adds their own ISBN on the same physical book), they are different books for us regardless of their format(s) and we want to record each ISBN separately. So we add them as separate records, each with their own ISBN, ASIN/BN number if available, notes and so on. The same way you would add them if they are paper books - these just happen to be ebooks. If the ISBN is the same (or there isn't one and the formats are the same book essentially), we lump them in one record unless it is a known reissue (so all formats stay together if the ISBN was shared/missing and no differences are known); if they are different ISBNs, we add each on their own. There are a few children's publishers that use different ISBNs for their MOBI, ePub and PDF versions so they get 3 records as well (in theory everyone was supposed to do that - use separate ISBN per format; in practice most publishers don't thus our usual policy). Hope that makes more sense? Annie 18:24, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for helping me get there. I think I have it now. Definitely new editions for the new ISBN ebooks. I'll take care of that soon.Dave888 12:21, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Clear Queue

I'm wondering if anyone's going to accept the 8 remaining edits in my queue; I'm not sending an e-mail to a mod for something so blatantly obvious, especially since the last time I contacted him on his board he was rude, so if you don't want to approve them they're just going to sit there. I'm tired of most of my edits not being approved except in little spurts throughout the day when some random mod has a few minutes of spare time, and then most of my edits get approved at night by the same mod who runs through dozens of them in a few minutes just to clear the backlog. --Username 09:17, 8 January 2022 (EST)

A few minutes is more like an hour or more and your not the only submitter their are about a dozen more. Anyways happy to plow through them.Kraang 23:00, 10 January 2022 (EST)

No offense, but unlike a lot of other editors here I actually double-check all my edits and make sure everything's spelled properly (by the way, you misspelled "your" and "their") and check them again after they're approved to make sure I didn't make any mistakes or didn't forget to add info, which sometimes I did. So it's kind of insulting when most of them sit there, sometimes for a day or two (with the usual excuses from mods about holidays even when the holidays are long over), and then you approve almost all of them in a very short space of time. It leads me to believe that you're not actually checking any of them for accuracy but simply fulfilling a quota, and the very rare occasions (twice, I believe) when you actually rejected my edits you were wrong and the rejections were un-rejected. I believe you only started approving my edits a few months ago after I added a cover image to a German anthology which you had worked on, so it's good that you feel like paying it forward, but I put a lot of effort into my edits and expect the same from whoever approves them. It's all moot, anyway, because the trend on ISFDB these days clearly is e-books and the like, with the mountain of missing/wrong info on older print books being mostly ignored. I've edited here pretty much every day for over a year now and still never have trouble finding plenty of edits to make, and this site was opened to public editors in 2006, so that should tell you something about the abandonment of the physical in favor of the virtual. I've planned to leave here a couple of times now with unforeseen circumstances getting in my way, so hopefully I will succeed shortly; when my edits suddenly stop for a while, that will be a sign. --Username 09:19, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Never mind, I just cancelled all of them. --Username 10:35, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Please remember that ALL edits are approved by moderators "when some random mod has a few minutes of spare time". This isn't our job, and we get to them when we have spare time to spend on ISFDB. I'm sorry you find that frustrating, but the whole site is run by volunteers, so you'll need to find a way to deal with it. It sounds harsh, but that's the way it is with volunteer projects. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:26, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Clarkesworld Magazine

Annie and Rtrace -- I'm looking to add new information for Clarkesworld but want to confirm some issues that you guys are having to deal with when you moderate my entries. Here's my current assumptions: (1) Title should be entered as "Clarkesworld, Month Year"; (2) The issue number goes in the Notes field; (3) Even though Sean Wallace and Kate Baker are mentioned in the masthead, we're just assigning editorship to Neil Clarke; (4) Even though Clarkesworld is published every month in a print, pdf, and ebook (both EPUB and MOBI) editions, for the purpose of the database we're putting it in as ebook. I think that's everything that I've been doing inconsistently. If there's something else you see, let me know. -- Gengelcox 13:10, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Actually, we want all 3 editions: Print, webzine and ebook (PDF, epub and mobi as one record unless there is a difference in contents) - 3 records per month :) However... there is a problem to be untangled first. We have two series: the ebooks and the paperbacks. These need merging and a bit of fixing but there is a problem in how the editors had been credited on some issues so it is not exactly trivial.

So yes for the title ("Clarkesworld, Month Year"), yes for the issue number (in the notes), the date will be YYYY-MM-00 only. If the three editors are credited, we credit all 3 IMO - see the links above - we had been a bit all over the place with that.

So if you want to add our missing issues, work in the series that now holds the ebooks - but feel free to add all three versions (add in one, import in the other 2 for the contents). I will see what I can do about bringing the ones from the print version series into the other one and we will probably need to add the missing webzines now that they are fully eligible as well. But one step at a time. Let me know if something does not make sense. Annie 13:21, 12 January 2022 (EST)

After edit conflict. I generally agree with Annie with the exception of the editors listed in the name field. Clarke is listed on their website as "Editor-in-Chief", with Wallace as "Editor" and Baker as "Non-Fiction Editor". My understanding is that when there is a hierarchy, we list only the main editor and do not list sub-editors. That being said, it's fine to list the other two in the notes. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:34, 12 January 2022 (EST)

When the magazine was up for nomination a few years ago, all 3 were listed as editors - I think this is where the 3 names being used came from. I am fine either way as long as we keep it consistent :) Annie 13:36, 12 January 2022 (EST)

That could arise in two ways. Either all three editors happened to be listed on the EDITOR record when the award was added; or if it was long enough ago, the award record was created with whoever was listed in the nomination. I don't think awards is a good way to look at this (See last year's Hugo nomination for Strange Horizons). I could have sworn this was in the help pages, but it doesn't appear to be there. There are a few discussions in R&S with the latest that I could find here. I don't know if that's a consensus, but the gist of the discussion would mean that we would definitely list Clark, with Wallace debatable. Listing a non-fiction editor would seem to be out by that discussion. Since it's been 8 years since this was discussed, perhaps it's time to bring it up again. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 10:53, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I just added two issues. I thought I had already added November 2021, and my browser seemed to confirm it by auto-filling the fields, but I double checked and couldn't find evidence of it in the current database, either approved or pending. Strange. In any case, I'm getting a message that says Unconfirmed for "Clarkesworld" in the Title Series field. Should I be leaving that blank? -- Gengelcox 14:15, 12 January 2022 (EST)

If you look at the links I posted, the series is actually called "Clarkesworld Magazine", not just "Clarkesworld". :) We will fix that when these are approved but for the future, always a good idea to see how we may have called the series.

I don't see an errored out submission either so maybe you closed the browser before submitting last time? I've done that a time or 6... Annie 14:24, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Doh! Of course (for both issues). Thanks! -- Gengelcox 14:26, 12 January 2022 (EST)

R. Levy

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?92474; This should actually be this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1154861. --Username 16:06, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Fixed. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Dating publications

The help for entering the date of publications explicitly says what to use: For books, to identify the publication date, try to find a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001". This seems to be pretty clear, but in this argument a moderator has used an interpretation that contradicts the written rules, and is not in line with the latest outcome of a discussion on that topic. The end of that thread enclosed the agreement that a statement in a book should overrule an Amazon date, and I don't see that this has been outruled anywhere afterwards. Stonecreek 01:56, 13 January 2022 (EST)

One of my early difficulties in entering publications was matching a book with no publication date to existing publications of the same title. After failing to find a match in title summary list from the undated (0000-00-00) publications, I would have to search all the dated ones, as people would 'research' a date and use that. At the time I felt that such 'researched' values were misleading, even if the Notes pointed out where the data came from. But having no alternative to offer beyond creating multiple dates (e.g. publication as printed, publication as derived - possibly multiple, copyright - original and renewed) and the bulk of my books entered, I've left the topic alone. But it seems to me that two (?) exceptions to the "document what is in the publication" rule cause more problems (discussion, work, confusion, etc.) than anticipated when they were made. (The other exception being publisher). ../Doug H 08:28, 13 January 2022 (EST)

The help page text is showing one place to look for a date. It does not tell you that this is the only way to determine the date (if it was, we’d have a LOT more 0000-00-00 and YYYY-00-00 books). We allow that field to be filled in based on secondary sources - as long as that they are documented. The interpretation that the sentence means that this is the only way to determine the date ergo we need to ignore all other sources is just weird.

In addition - not keeping the day portion when it is verifiable is losing data which we can have and can be used for research and for differentiating sometimes. That had not been the practice the DB had used in years - we use complete dates for books. Reverting to “month only” makes no sense. Annie 10:41, 13 January 2022 (EST)

PS: More background for the decision above - the date change performed and being reversed by me was not in a single publication as the initial post here implies - all October 2020dates were annihilated with No note added anywhere (ebooks, audio books, audio CD, both US and UK hardcovers). Annie 10:50, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I believe there are a number of issues here:

• Librarians and bibliographers generally record both the "stated" and the "actual" data values when known. The latter are given in brackets, e.g. "Cambridge [Cambridgeshire"] for the place of publication. We do the same for authors and titles: we capture both the "stated" value and the actual value using our "alternate name"/"variant title" mechanism. Unfortunately, the software doesn't support this type of functionality for other fields like dates, publishers, etc, so we are forced to choose between each field's "stated" and "actual"/"researched" values, at least until the software can be changed to let us record both values.
• Template:PublicationFields:Date says:
  1. [top of the page] Dates are in the form YYYY-MM-DD, where month and day are filled in if known, otherwise they have the value 00.
  2. [second bullet] For books, to identify the publication date, try to find a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001"; the copyright date is often misleading, since works can be reprinted.
  3. [last bullet] Books with a January publication date may often be bought in the closing weeks of the prior year; they will show the later year's copyright date, even though that year has not yet started. In these cases, the convention is to use the official publication date rather than to try to identify when a book actually first became available.
• These three statements are confusing at best and contradictory at worst. The first one tells you to use "day ... if known", but the second one seems to tell you to use the month only. Then the second statement warns you not to rely on the copyright date, but the third statement tells you to use the copyright date even though it's possible for a book to say "Published in December 2020" and have a 2021 copyright date.
• The issue of using YYYY-MM-00 publication date values taken from copyright pages over more precise YYYY-MM-DD date values from other sources was debated back in 2006-2007 when ISFDB 2.0 was launched. At the time, the majority of editors believed that exact publication dates used by Amazon and other online booksellers were unreliable and did not necessarily represent actual publication dates. This resulted in a convoluted process of capturing the exact (YYYY-MM-DD) pre-publication date from Amazon, using it to generate the "Select Forthcoming Books" list on the front page, then changing the date to a YYYY-MM-00 date printed in the book when the publication was verified.
• To the best of my recollection, this practice was abandoned in the mid-2010s and we switched to keeping the more precise YYYY-MM-DD date when its source was properly documented in Notes, similar to the way we add and document other types of information -- like cover artist names -- from secondary sources. Unfortunately, I don't recall whether it was done as a result of a formal discussion or as a quiet acknowledgement that the transition to online sales had made full YYYY-MM-DD dates more consistent and reliable across the board.
• To check the current practice, I have compiled a list of primary-verified publications published in January 2021. Out of 126 pubs, only 30 (14 of them are magazines) have 2021-01-00 dates. The rest have full 2021-01-DD dates.
• Re: the 2012 Rules and Standards discussion, it ended with MartyD planning to come up with new Help language and post it for further discussion, which, as far as I can tell, never happened.
• Internally, publishers have always used full YYYY-MM-DD publication dates. The problem was that, in the past, they were rarely made available to the general public unless the book was the kind of bestseller that people lined up to buy on the day it was released (think Harry Potter.) With the proliferation of online sources like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, etc, publication dates are now readily available in the vast majority of cases.
• Based on the above, I think it's clear that we need to have a Rules and Standards discussion. At the very least, we need to clean up Template:PublicationFields:Date and eliminate internal contradictions. Ahasuerus 10:55, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Apologies for butting into a moderator discussion, but as the person who kicked off the original talk page conversation about this (not linked in the initial comment for this item), and who inadvertently poured fuel on the fire by digging out the 2012 R&S discussion (that is linked above), a comment. (Some of this looks like it's already been pre-empted by Annie & Ahasuerus whilst I was editing, but I'm too lazy to remove any duplication).

On closer reading of that 2012 R&S conversation, the very first sentence invalidates it as being relevant to the edits that kicked all this off. It states (my emphasis): "If a book has a stated publication date, e.g., "First printing: April, 2010", and it has a known-from-the-publisher actual publication that that is different, e.g., "March 30, 2010", which date should be used in the "Publication date" field?" i.e. that discussion was based on scenarios where the month-and-year in the primary source contradicts the day-month-year from secondary sources.

The edits to (the title and multiple pubs of) The Ministry for the Future, were to change the dates from 2020-10-06 (or 2020-10-08 for the UK hc) to 2020-10-00. None of those yyyy-mm-dd dates (some of which originated from multiple sources, not just Amazon) contradict the yyyy-mm information on the copyright page these edits were based on, unlike the example I quoted from the R&S discussion. To my mind, there is negative value generated by making an edit like 2020-10-06->2020-10-00; some examples of how day-of-month information might be useful are given in my first comment in the discussion page I linked above. In cases similar to that hypothetical example where the entered yyyy-mm-dd value is in contradiction to the month/year value in the primary source, then it's perfectly reasonable to use the latter, but then this should be explicitly mentioned in the pub note, surely?

(This is before we get into separate issues outside the subject of this specific wiki item, such as the edits being done without updating the pub notes to say that the data was changed based on a source other the ones already mentioned in the note, and that those original sources had a different value from what had been made in the later edit, etc.) ErsatzCulture 11:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

My understanding of the previous discussions (2006/7 & 2012) is that the general agreement was to not use Amazon (or other vendors) dates, if there is a statement in the publication made. The help is quite clear on that, though the statement made after first bullet of the help to use month and day 'if known' can lead to puzzlement. The 2012 discussion made it clear that secondary sources may be used, but they should be dependable, in particular "that a statement in a book should overrule an Amazon date". Christian Stonecreek 12:51, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I always use the in-publication date. I also use the Amazon date if it's more precise and agrees with the in-publication date. For example, if a publication has "October 2021" as the date on the copyright page, and Amazon has "October 14, 2021", I'll use the more precise Amazon date. If the Amazon date was "September 27, 2021" instead (which happens all the time), I would use only the month and year from the publication and note the discrepancy in the publication notes. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:08, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Yep, my understanding of both the rules and our practice as well. Use the printed date if it belongs to your printing but if more details are known to complete the date, use them if they do not contradict the primary source information (and always document your sources). Annie 19:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I am not sure what you find puzzling in the "where month and day are filled in if known" statement or why you believe that this part of the help page somehow does not apply and can be just ignored and disregarded. The day of these publication is known - so it can be in the field as per the help page text (and our current practice supports that). The bullet point after that provides assistance on where to look for the information in a book (but does not list the only place for that information or restrict other means of finding the data - not all books have the information on this page) and the third one is a clarification on resolving contradictions. Although I do agree with Ahasuerus that we need to clean up the language on these 2 bullet points. The 2012 discussion was resolving an issue with contradictions again - when primary and secondary dates contradict themselves - and not stating that the field can never be updated based on secondary sources.

You also keep ignoring the fact that the dates of the modern books are also fully verifyable on the publisher sites, Goodreads and other online platforms these days, not only on a vendor site (if you chose to still ignore Amazon.com and Amazon UK as valid data sources for English language new books in their respective countries (especially when that data is fully corroborated)). Deleting information from our records because you chose not to trust the source as listed and you would rather delete the information than either try to verify it yourself or ask the editors who had worked on it to assist, is even worse than applying an obsolete rule which contradicts the current practice IMO. Annie 19:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

It is the other way round: if a current practice is against a rule, then the practice has to change (or the rule has to be discussed: that's what we are doing now). It is not okay for one moderator to declare a rule as obsolete. I do concede though that I should have looked at the publishers' sites. Christian Stonecreek 01:58, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Please note that of the 3 moderators who have posted so far, all agree with the current interpretation of the rules, so it's not just a single moderator going against the consensus.

Having said that, the scenario that Nihonjoe mentioned above -- a book published on 2021-09-27 with an "October 2021" statement on the copyright page -- is fairly common and leaves us in an inherently difficult position. If we enter "2021-09-27" as the Date value, we very visibly contradict what's stated in the book and violate the "principle of least astonishment". If we enter "2021-10-00" and move the exact date to Notes, we lose granularity and accuracy, especially when it comes to searching and data mining. There is really no good way of solving this conundrum as long as we have only one publication field.

The most obvious solution would be to create a new field for "Stated Publication Date" with the understanding that the current "Publication Date" would be used for "Actual Publication Date" values. This change would require updating:

• 5 edit forms -- NewPub, EditPub, AddPub, ClonePub, Import/Export -- and related post-submission pages
• "Publication table" shared by many Web pages
• Publication Display pages
• Forthcoming Books pages
• Advanced Publication Search
• the Web API

and probably a few other Web pages, but nothing insurmountable.

It would help with the difficulty that Doug H mentioned earlier and may also serve as a prototype for other, more involved, projects which will separate what's "stated" in the pub from our "normalized" values, e.g. publisher names. Ahasuerus 10:26, 14 January 2022 (EST)

This would be a nice & appreciated solution for the conflict. Christian Stonecreek 10:45, 14 January 2022 (EST)

In case I miss the discussion of the implementation of such a solution, a few of observations.

1. It would be nice to incorporate all changes separating "stated" from "normalized" values. It would also likely make it such a mess to discuss and implement that it wouldn't get done, so I'd 'vote' to use it as a learning experience for future changes.
2. It would be nice to know the 'source' for exact dates, which means another field or a Notes standard.
3. In the event of conflict, we should document both dates and the reason for picking one, either in fields or by a Note standard.
4. Since the fields serve different purposes and seeing both on summary listings is wasting screen real estate, I'd suggest either allowing one to pick the field either on the display or in one's profile.
5. Since it will generally be a case of one or the other, the preference would be which to show when they conflict and whether to show the value, possibly flagged, regardless.
6. Multiplicity of values (for disagreeing sources) throws a wrench into all the above...

/Doug H 12:57, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Re: (1), i.e. adding "stated" fields for other values, there is a certain amount of history there. For example, there is an outstanding request to add support for multiple imprints and multiple publishers per publication. That gets complicated real quick. A "stated date" field would be much easier to do.

Re: (2) and (3), i.e. adding a new field for date source(s), I think a separate field would be excessive. All other values are currently sourced in the Note field and I suspect that it's as good as it's going to get.

Re: (4) and (5), i.e. letting users decide which field to display in the standard "Publication table", my concern is that it would result in different seeing very different views of the data. That can get confusing.

Ahasuerus 18:40, 14 January 2022 (EST)

On (4) and (5), show both dates in a bubble on hover over the current date field - that way one can look at them from the table and not need to go inside to see what is what. I think we nee do retain real publication date as the date field in the tables (because that's better for sorting as well) - but the stated one can go in the tooltip. Now... if we can find a way to push there the printing information as well, that would solve the final issue in finding what book you are really holding on multi-printed books (what Doug is also trying to solve I think) but that's a different pony. Or maybe not - it is related to dating. Adding one more field "Printing/edition information" won't add too much effort compared to adding one. And we don't need to define what is in it strictly - just free text so it shows up on the tooltip for the dates in the publication table and people can fill it with whatever feels relevant for that specific book. Annie 18:50, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Printing numbers are a fairly big can of worms because we want both the ability to sort by the printing number AND the ability to tell what kind of "1st", "2nd", etc printing it is. The latest (and hopefully final) iteration of the proposal is documented in FR 794, "Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to pub records":

• Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to publication records. The first field should be strictly numeric, allowing values like "1", "3" or "27". It will be displayed as a new colum in the he standard Publication table. It will be used for sorting publications that have the same publication date and publisher within t.
• The second field will allow arbitrary value like "stated fourth Ace printing but actually at least the 6th printing because Ace reset its printing numbers at some point". The value, if present, will be displayed in a mouse-over bubble next to the numeric Printing Number value. (See http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive48#.22Printing_Number.22_field_--_an_alternative_approach for further discussion.)

Ahasuerus 11:13, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I remember that. And that’s irrelevant to what I am saying above. I don’t want to make it absolute. I want to allow something to be visible when you are looking at the list of publications for a title without the need to open 11 0000-00-00 books to find out if we happen to have the printing I am holding. Assisting - not defining. Yes - all that stuff above is awesome to have but we never will most likely. So trying to assist editors and make the DB a bit more user friendly may not be a very bad second idea. Just saying. Anyway - let’s drop this for now and deal with the dates - or we will never get anything done. Sorry for bringing it up. Annie 12:58, 15 January 2022 (EST)

(unindent) Apologies to have dropped the ball after that 2012 discussion. What was proposed there, and what I believe was agreed to, is:

• The publication's statement is the base date unless that statement is known/demonstrated to be for some other printing.
• Missing date information (whole date or date details) may be supplied from other sources, which must be documented. Unreliable sources may be used if independent corroboration can be found.
• Where secondary source information is used, the publication's statement (or lack thereof) should be recorded in the notes.
• Disagreements between the publication's statement and other sources should be documented in the notes.

There was also a bunch of detail around the hierarchy preference for secondary sources. Unless someone thinks I should not, I can recover the ball and propose a wording change encompassing all of that. I believe current practice is usually in line with this. --MartyD 10:22, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Yep - thanks, Marty - although we also need to discuss some of these - unreliable in 2012 and unreliable in 2022 are two different things if someone has been paying attention. :) But getting a proposed language so we can work based on it is a good idea. Annie 12:58, 15 January 2022 (EST)

(Unindent)Re. Ahasuerus' grandparent comment "Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to publication records. The first field should be strictly numeric, allowing values like "1", "3" or "27", could this maybe be slightly relaxed for formats such as ebook? A few ebooks list a version number on their copyright page, which isn't (usually?) an integer, but probably is sortable, and so it would be nice to be able to store this in the printing "number" field rather than the free-text details field. This could be useful in cases where an cover image has been updated, but the ISBN has stayed the same. (Although I do have the sneaking suspicion that covers may well get updated without the version number being incremented, which would make this observation/request a bit moot.)

A couple of examples: decimal format, date format. FWIW I've just downloaded the latter on a different device, and it does indeed have a later/higher version value to go with the different cover image.

I don't know if other version formats are in use, and I appreciate there's probably not a (MySQL or Python) data type that covers integers and decimals and dates, so please take this as more of a comment than a formal request for any hypothetical implementation. ErsatzCulture 11:57, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I have seen ebooks with odd-looking printing designations like "1.2" and even "A". In addition, print-on-demand books occasionally use printing designations which incorporate dates, but can also include other characters. My current thinking is that they are not really "printing numbers" as we understand them, but the industry is changing and perhaps the concept will evolve in the coming years. Until the dust settles, I would be hesitant to add the kind of extra software complexity that would be needed to handle these designation in the same field. Ahasuerus 18:19, 16 January 2022 (EST)

To close the loop on the help text, and to further my attempt to set a cross-posting record: The official Template:PublicationFields:Date has been updated with the proposed text. I hope it will be helpful. --MartyD 12:43, 12 February 2022 (EST)

Notes to moderators

I was wondering what "a" means in the case of the following self-approved edits [5], [6], [7] and [8]. As all those publications are PVed by multiple contributors, "a" seems to me quite a bit too light a justification. As I can't easily dig one book between a few tens of thousands to check what and why have been done, I suppose that I'll have to unverify those titles and I resent this. AlainLeBris 05:50, 14 January 2022 (EST)

When editing a primary-verified publication, editors are forced to enter at least one letter in the "Note to Moderator" field. My best guess is that Kraang thought that the edits were obvious and self-explanatory, so they didn't require an explanation. Let me ask him to stop by. Ahasuerus 10:32, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Title and Transliterated title were reversed on two pubs in another "et" was spelled "at" and the last "Bonhomet" was spelled with two mm's. Found these in the cleanup report. Obvious minor input errors with a simple fix. Do seem to rub a lot of people the wrong way since I returnedClear Queue.Kraang 11:39, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Once approved, the "old" value is not visible anymore - which makes these a lot less obvious when one checks them. Sometimes looking via some of the old edits can help find what changed but it is easier if the note assists. So even if it looks obvious, "values swapped", "et -> at" or something like which describes the change and helps anyone finding this later understand what happened and why is a better idea than just bypassing the mandatory moderator note software check with a random symbol. :) Annie 11:57, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Different statuses for the two collections of authors

In the light of the fact that the two allowed melting pots assemble many authors of diverse languages: shouldn't 'uncredited' (here an example) and 'unknown' have the same status, i. e. have no language attached? Stonecreek 06:34, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I don't think it is possible to edit an author to remove the language. Author records start out with no language when first added from a publication, but any edit to the author record adds one. "null" is not an option in the language pull down list. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 07:26, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Yeah, but I seem to remember that 'uncredited' once was the same way (or was it established when we had no language assignment around, but 'unknown' should have been around then also).

Also, 'uncredited' is virtually uneditable, 'unknown' maybe should have the same status. Stonecreek 08:23, 15 January 2022 (EST)

The difference between uncredited and unknown is not language. It is that uncredited has so many records the software prohibits viewing the author record. In the database, uncredited has a language of English, you just can't see that in the display. The software could probably be relatively easily changed to not display the language field on the unknown author record. By the way, you really should be putting topics like this on the Community Portal. Moderators opinions are not the only ones that count when talking rules / standards / how the software works. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:38, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I have copied this discussion to the Community Portal and will respond there. Ahasuerus 13:36, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Draft date help rewording available

Hi mods. Please see User:MartyD/ProposedDateHelp for the first draft of proposed date help rewording. I'm afraid it's a little TLDR, so any pruning help very much appreciated. I'll incorporate any comments received in the next few days and then publish on R&S and Community Portal. Thanks. --MartyD 11:38, 18 January 2022 (EST)

Affected Record

Somebody just made an edit for a Robert Hale book I made edits for months ago, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?250039, and I thought it was odd that the original 2013 edit has that info under Affected Record instead of the book title. Don't know if that needs fixing by anyone. --Username 20:24, 20 January 2022 (EST)

YBHS Story Dates

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?75928; I fixed a ton of dates for the Year's Best Horror Stories series a while ago, and today I started on the remaining volumes. Is the procedure for the Sallee story linked above to change the retitling to the date of the YBHS reprinting or make it the same date as the original? I already fixed the date of original title to the anthology it appeared in. Sallee explains why he retitled it either in YBHS or the later collection it appeared in, but online sites that have that text seem to all be spyware sites I don't want to enter. --Username 13:46, 21 January 2022 (EST)

Unverifying publications

Just a FYI, as Stonecreek, using his/her moderator attributes has decided to change the author credits on some of my PVed publications regardless of my opposition to this move, I'm unverifying all the Perry Rhodan that I've entered and will not enter any more from now on. For all questions about this publications, now just ask him/her or any PV left.AlainLeBris 13:32, 22 January 2022 (EST)

I am trying to understand the scope and the nature of the issue here. Checking Wiki history, I see the following discussion starting on 2022-01-16:

• Stonecreek asking questions about "Perry Rhodan in French" on the Community Portal and a response by Linguist
• Stonecreek asking AlainLeBris about the way French Perry Rhodan books are credited and suggesting changing the credits, which AlainLeBris was opposed to
• A brief exchange between Stonecreek and Willem about creating variants for Perry Rhodan translations, Willem agreeing with the proposed changes
• Stoneckreek inviting Linguist to comment on the Community Portal
• Stonecreek changing the credits on Seul contre la Terre on 2022-01-22. Other publications may have been affected, but it's hard to tell now that AlainLeBris's primary verifications have been removed.

One (or two) additions are worth mentioning, I think: I asked Alain to bring his view of adding '(in error)' up somewhere - at best in the thread on the Community Portal - and I only changed the publication to align the credit with the title (and add two links). Stonecreek 06:34, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I am not sure if this covers everything, so I am going to ask the listed editors to comment. Ahasuerus 16:07, 22 January 2022 (EST)

Yes, that about sums it up, Ahasuerus. I asked about needed changes to have the French credits for a 'Clark Darlton' that has in most cases nothing to do with the real Clark Darlton. The author seems to be credited in each and every volume published in French because of merits as founder of the series (and mostly erroneously so).

I had taken action after two positive responses by moderators on the community portal. I have also changed the credit for 'Clark Darlton', added missing content and some notes for this, which also was primary verified by Alain (it seems that in each and every volume of the French series of translations as edited by Jean-Michel Archaimbault there's content missing).

I can see no reason for you, Alain, to unverify the publications. In fact, I would appreciate your help to have the data right. Christian Stonecreek 00:17, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I totally agree with Christian here. Changing erroneous credits does go along with the common practice and rules on ISFDB, which trump any individual practice or rule. This does not affect the data in any way, since the system automatically produces the “as by …” credit as well as the authentic one. I see no reason why Alain should unverify any pub of this series. Linguist 04:29, 23 January 2022 (EST).

I can't find any other discussions on the subject. Since I don't own any of the French Perry Rhodan's, I can't say much about crediting authors. "Clark Darlton (in error)" looks logical on titles he didn't write. What Christian calls phase 2 are the 2005 and later titles in this sub-series. Since these are (according to the pub notes) translations of German originals (see here for an example), they should be varianted to the German original, not to a fictional French original. --Willem 04:53, 23 January 2022 (EST)

(unindent) Thanks for chiming in! It sounds like we have general consensus re: what we want these records to look like. What I am pondering is what kind of process we want to put in place for handling similar types of situations going forward.

The "self-approver" system was implemented relatively recently, in April 2021. At this time we have only one self-approver, but it's likely that we will be have more editors with self-approver privileges in the future. Inevitably, there will be cases when an editor with self-approver privileges disagrees with an editor without them, sometimes re: primary-verified publications. Normally, it's up to the reviewing moderator(s) to decide what to do and then to communicate the decision to the primary verifier(s), but what should the etiquette be when self-approvers are involved? The only thing that Help says about self-approvers at this time is (in Help:Screen:BureaucratMenu):

• Manage Self-Approvers. Lets a bureaucrat enter the name of an ISFDB editor and select whether the editor is a self-approver, i.e. able to approve his or her own submissions. Also lists all current self-approvers.

In this particular case the self-approver reached informal consensus with 2 moderators before making changes, but the primary verifier wasn't notified about the decision by a moderator. I think we need to spell out what self-approvers are expected to do when there is a disagreement with a primary verifier, something like:

• Let a moderator communicate the decision to the primary verifier before making changes

If nothing else, the list of Moderator Qualifications includes good communication skills, which self-approvers are not expected to possess to the same extent.

Thoughts? Ahasuerus 18:46, 24 January 2022 (EST)

I would argue a self-approving moderator should adhere to the exact same rules and requirements as a full moderator. After all, a self-approving moderator has virtually the same level of power to edit the contents of the database, so have to adhere to the same standards as a moderator regarding data accuracy and rules adherence, and being able to communicate clearly with other moderators and editors plays an important part in that (not to speak of being collaborative, open-minded, consensus-seeker (i.e. not being a cavalier seul),... which are also important skills for any moderator to possess). The only thing a self-approving moderator cannot do, is approve or reject someone else's submissions - which can be extended to something in the sense of "don't edit/alter someone else's edits without express permission, or seek approval from moderators". Which is roughly identical to what you are proposing above :) Regards, MagicUnk 06:43, 25 January 2022 (EST)

Keep in mind that there are a number of other things that moderators can do that self-approvers are unable to do: "ignore" records in cleanup reports, merge authors/publishers, remove secondary verifications, remove tags, etc. For this reason I would call self-approvers "self-approving editors" as opposed to "self-approving moderators". Ahasuerus 13:40, 25 January 2022 (EST)

True, but the important element here is the ability to self-approve, hence change any date you like, however you like - so, at least in that respect, we want to hold the self-approving moderators (or editors, if you will) to the same high standards as full moderators have to adhere to. Regards, MagicUnk 09:03, 27 January 2022 (EST)

What it boils down to is that there is no "self-approving moderators" (because approving is part of what a moderator is) - "self-approver" is not a restricted version of a moderator who just cannot approve the submissions of others; it is really an elevated version of an editor, allowing that editor to approve their own work but not giving access to the rest of the moderators' tools or have any expectations in sharing the moderators' responsibilities.

I like the language proposed above. Annie 14:32, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I agree. I also just wanted to comment that it looks to me like everyone involved tried to do the "right" thing, and I think it's unfortunate that bad feelings resulted. It's good to figure out what might be done differently to avoid that the next time. --MartyD 15:39, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I think that at least a part of it was pure communication breakdown - the usage of (in error) was never explained in regards of how its usage helps our DB (the removal of the books from the incorrect author bibliography, the ability to see them where they belong, the ability to connect them to their originals an so on - and yes, it is partially because of how the DB is designed and it does require some weird displays sometimes - but they need to be explained when needed, not just brushed over and considered normal because people know them). Instead there was an explanation on why the credit is in error technically -- but not why it is important for the DB for this to be differentiated somehow. Add to that the change to the data happened after only two days of waiting time (despite our FAQ advising to wait for a week) and I can see where part of the frustration came from. I agree that everyone tried to do the right thing but it feels a bit heavy-handed and rushed.

In addition, there is a bit of a semantics (and/or language) issue that had been bugging me for awhile in the (in error) authors and it also played a role here I think - we use (in error) for two separate things:

• Real errors (printing mistakes, mis-attributed covers and so on)
• Conscious decisions by a publisher/editor to use someone else's name - as a house name in this case, as a way to sell more copies for a book "based on" the work of someone (usually in translation and in interesting times - aka Eastern Europe in the 90s for example) and so on.

The latter is not really in anyone's error and I can see why an editor would not want to have that showing up on a book - it is not factually correct. Add to that the fact that (in error) is not really codified in the help page and the usage can be... misinterpreted. I am not sure what we can use? (house name)? (editor choice)? (incorrect attribution)? None of those rings quite right but I hope they illustrated what I mean. Annie 18:46, 25 January 2022 (EST)

I am thinking that this is similar to the issues presented by other ghostwritten works. For example, Virginia Andrews wrote fewer than 10 books before she died in 1986, but Andrew Neiderman has published dozens of books as "Virginia Andrews" and/or as "V. C. Andrews" since her death.

At one point we created FR 346, "Add support for ghostwriters", to address this problem at the software level. Unfortunately, it's been 9 years and I still can't think of a good way to handle it. Ahasuerus 10:09, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Author William Walling has died

Author https://www.independent.com/obits/2021/04/06/william-walling/ Reference http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ae.cgi?1618 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Raygo4th (talk • contribs) .

Updated, thanks! Ahasuerus 22:23, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I took a look at his page and many of the novels and stories are out of order re: dates. Is that wrong? --Username 08:56, 15 February 2022 (EST)

The link above is to his "Alphabetical Bibliography" page. The Summary Bibliography page displays titles chronologically. Ahasuerus 10:57, 15 February 2022 (EST)

I see; 1 positive is when I looked at his record again I thought the obit notice might be "Ana" instead of "Anna" but turns out it's actually "Barbara" so I fixed that. --Username 11:27, 15 February 2022 (EST)

German Dollars?

Mods added info link after prices recently; this page, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2222, has it after DM prices but not after whatever those dollar sign looking prices are. Mentioning in case that needs fixing. --Username 23:10, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Could you please link the Web page that you are referring to? Ahasuerus 23:28, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Hi! That's no Dollar sign ('$'), it's just an 'S' (for Austrian Schillings). I know it looks somewhat puzzling, but the publisher is situated in Austria and sells his publications there and in Germany (like most publishers located in Germany do), the sources for the data unfortunately list prices differently). Christian Stonecreek 01:59, 27 January 2022 (EST)

A note in each of the publications explaining the currency is probably a good idea - saying that it is Austrian shillings. Or on the series level - explaining the shifting currency of the series. Or both really. It is a somewhat uncommon currency around the DB after all and not everyone will make the connection to Austria. :)Annie 02:04, 27 January 2022 (EST)

We don't use "S" for any other currencies; we don't even use lowercase "s" for UK shillings. Why don't we add "S" as our official "Austrian Schillings" abbreviation to Help:List of currency symbols? We could then update the software to display mouseover help for "S" currency values. Ahasuerus 12:58, 27 January 2022 (EST)

But what about Singapore dollars? See here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?59076. --Username 13:06, 27 January 2022 (EST)

There's nothing using S$ yet. That would help differentiate between $, C$, A$, and so on. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:16, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Help:List of currency symbols already lists "S$" as "Singapore dollars" -- see the "$" row -- although I am yet to update the mouse-over help to accommodate it and a number of other dollar-based currency signs.

"S" followed by a space would be a different currency abbreviation. Alternatively, we could use "öS" ("Österreich Schilling"), which was another officially used "Austrian Schilling" symbol. Ahasuerus 13:53, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Ah, I missed it since I was looking for it in the leftmost column (like A$ and C$). Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:05, 27 January 2022 (EST)

Adding S for the Austrian shillings sounds like a good idea indeed. Annie 10:09, 28 January 2022 (EST)

It is! I do expect some more publications to pop up with (only) this currency. After all there are / were some smaller publishers that seem to have restricted themselves to their home country (not to mention the vital fanzine scene of Austria). I remember that the currency in the old times was called 'Alpine Dollars' tongue-in-cheek, maybe because the 'S' symbol was in fact thought to be a Dollar sign. Christian Stonecreek 10:37, 28 January 2022 (EST)

That's what I was thinking as well - we don't really have an Austrian editor so we had not had anyone adding the Austrian books and fanzines - so they had only popped up occasionally from the German side now and again. But Austria is not Germany so there are books out there with the Shilling as the leading currency (even if most probably also have a DM price). Annie 10:42, 28 January 2022 (EST)

The software has been updated to support Austrian schillings, Singapore dollars and a number of other recognized currencies -- see the Community Portal announcement for details. Ahasuerus 17:24, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Self approval status -- process

I would support all of the nominees above (and MLB and Ofearna too), but have a few questions. Is this a moderator only process, or should nominations be on the community portal like moderator nominations, and don't we need something like Moderator Qualifications for self approvers? --Willem 04:11, 27 January 2022 (EST)

That's a very good question. We presumably need to create a "Self-Approver Qualifications and Process" page. I also agree that related discussions should take place on the Community Portal to give non-moderators a chance to raise any issues that they may be aware of. Ahasuerus 13:55, 27 January 2022 (EST)

While the discussion for the process should in CP (better late than never I guess), I am not sure if the nominations should be. Self-approvers get only one new ability - they can self-approve. The only people that have any idea how "clean" their submissions are (do they need follow-ups by someone else, do they complete long chains of edits, do the editor often forget to fix things thus requiring a cleanup, do they communicate properly with PVs, do they follow the entry standards and so on), are the moderators who handle their submissions. Annie 14:18, 27 January 2022 (EST)

The same can be said for the moderator flag in the past though. Those are the same criteria on which the bulk of the moderator decision was made. As can be seen by the unverifying discussion further up the page, self-approvers can cause as much drama as moderators. The community should also have the opportunity to weigh in on self-approvers. It is possible a non-moderator could have had interactions with an editor that might have bearing on the editor's fitness to be even be a self-approver. While one would hope that would have been seen by a moderator, even moderators go absent for periods. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:46, 27 January 2022 (EST)

There is that. I was thinking more about the fact that moderators are expected to actually deal with other editors directly in a different ways when working on their submissions (or submissions changing data they had PVd) unlike self-approvers whose direct interactions do not change by the status technically. But it is somewhat of a false separation I suspect although an editor and an asleep moderator can cause exactly the same type of drama anyway. :) Most editors are not too shy to post here either - but either way works. Annie 15:00, 27 January 2022 (EST)

OK, I have moved the three sections dealing with the recent applications for self-approver status to the Community Portal. Ahasuerus 17:13, 27 January 2022 (EST)

I thought this page might make for interesting reading. ../Doug H 10:35, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Serials without Standard Parenthetical Disambiguators January 28

The following titles comply with standards and may be safely removed

• Equinox Mirror - 14 titles
• Floozman in Space - 38 titles
• Legacy of the Fallen Stars - 5 titles
• Living Standards - 13 titles
• Oikos Nannion - 27 titles
• Space Girl Blues - 21 titles
• The Chronicle of Belthaeous - 59 titles
• The Perils of Dr. Laura Whitfield - 4 titles
• Two Blind Men and a Fool - 54 titles
• Winter Ship - 21 titles

Thanks in advance, John Scifibones 16:12, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Done. Can you look at the first two entries here. Are they really "Party" and not just "Part"? Annie 16:27, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Clearly not, fixed John Scifibones!

Stalker : pique-nique au bord du chemin

The problem that I adressed to one of the verifiers here more than a week ago still remains: the credit goes to Arcadi Strougatski, whereas the cover, OCLC and Amazon have Arkadi Strougatski. Moreover, judging from the notes regarding the copyright for the translations of essays assigned for the year 2013 and the page count as stated in my verified publication, it seems that there's also missing some interesting content. Likely both primary verifiers just clicked to pv the publication that was added previously.

(And also the price seems to be erroneously entered: it's the one listed at Amazon, but as far as I understand the French policy, the price is in fact variable and is only given by a price category, mostly on the back of a book). Stonecreek 10:06, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Hello Christian. I can only be sure about the pub I have verified, which is indeed credited to Arcadi and Boris Strougatski. This being said, when Gallimard / Folio SF took over part of Denoël / Présence du Futur's stock, they reprinted some of that stock, but sometimes revised (and improved) the credits, which is obviously the case here. My feeling is that this pub was initially added from this original title, but not correctly updated, as can be seen from later reprints. Then came C1, who never updated previous data when he was PV1, and PV2 followed suit. So despite those two PVs, I think the pub can be safely regarded as unverified, and the credit should go to Arkadi. But to be on the safe side, I happen to know the second translator / reviser of the Folio SF edition, Viktoriya Lajoye (she is the wife of a former student of mine, the latter being a fellow member of miscellaneous regional organisms and societies; you can see it's the same photo, split asunder by myself). So I'll drop her a line, and see what she has to say about the matter. Concerning the price, it is possible for a French book to be priced in francs (or euros) at a certain time, then given a price category. I'll also ask her about that, as she probably owns the first Folio edition she revised. This might take some time, though… :o) Linguist 12:29, 2 February 2022 (EST).

Thanks, Dominique! That sounds like the perfect solution. Do you mind asking her about the possible additional content, too (the essays by Le Guin & Boris Strougatsky)? Christian Stonecreek 05:58, 3 February 2022 (EST)

I have already :o) ! Linguist 06:33, 3 February 2022 (EST).

The Doom Brigade

Hi, I have a question. I found some, what I thought was interesting information about the cover art for the 1996 edition of The Doom Brigade.(Publication Record # 38560) The cover artists are listed as Larry Elmore and Tony Szczudlo. The information I found was that in the Original painting by Elmore, the figures were in a winter scene. Since it took place in the Summer, the figures were imposed in a new summer scene by Tony Szczudlo, explaining the two artist. My submission was rejected by Kraang with the reason "Note added to cover artists title". I'm not sure I understand. The note I want to add only pertains to this record, not the general title. The other versions in the general title have covers by Keith Parkinson. aardvark7 16:13, 30 January 2022 (EST)

See the the cover title record where Krang added the info. He was saying that this belonged on the cover title record and not in the pub notes. That cover title record is specific to that version of the cover art. I agree that is the best place (instead of the pub notes) as it is info about the cover. I would suggest updating the note to link to the original artwork's title record as which one is the original is not clear currently. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:57, 30 January 2022 (EST)

OK I didn't realize there was another layer deep. I don't know if I can find the link again but will check. I do have a copies of the original cover art and of the final art. They are wrap-around styles. Any interest in those?? and if so which record would they be uploaded to? aardvark7 10:59, 31 January 2022 (EST)

Waiting for primary verifier

I would like to make some changes to the print version of Galaxy's Edge, July 2020 which will also affect the ebook edition. I posted a message on the ebook PV's talk page eight days ago but have not received a response. First, is it necessary to check with the verifier of the ebook if I am updating the print edition (not verified)? Seven items in the ebook will be changed by my changing them for the print edition. And are these types of changes considered major or minor (4 titles need to be merged, 1 author needs to be merged, and 2 titles need to be changed)? Daffodil11 19:44, 30 January 2022 (EST)

Merging identical titles which were missed when the magazines were added (or connecting unconnected reviews) is just housekeeping - no notification needed. The two changes of titles would usually require a notification and would be considered non-minor but as they are done to actually bring the magazine to compliance (aka the change is because of conventions and not because of what the magazines say), they are minor - they should have been changed when the the magazine titles were changed but someone missed them. I'd still notify the PVs on these - but they need changing :) Go ahead and make the updates. Annie 12:34, 31 January 2022 (EST)

I've done most of these, but there are two that present additional problems: Under Merging Authors Help it states that "...the ability to preform Author Merges is only available to ISFDB moderators..." and I am supposed to post a request here to merge author ZZ Claybourne with author Z. Z. Claybourne. Daffodil11 12:55, 1 February 2022 (EST)

You can fix that by editing the title as well -- no need to merge the authors if there is only one title and no details in the author page - you can just fix the author here and you are all set. We can merge the authors if you prefer here but heads up for the second possible option. :) Annie 16:32, 1 February 2022 (EST)

The other problem is a note that the ebook verifier placed in the ebook edition notes field, "'The Dictator and the Butterfly' is mispelled "The Dictator and teh Butterfly" on the story's first page." My understanding of the related Help section is that the title should have been entered with the typo and made into a variant? If that is so, then I should not merge the titles. The title should be edited to reflect the typo instead. And at this point, does this change go from minor to a major change requiring a check with the ebook verifier? I would also have to somehow separate the ebook and tp edition listings for this title because there is no typo in the printed edition of the magazine (I have not looked up or thought this last part out yet). Daffodil11 12:55, 1 February 2022 (EST)

If there is no typo in the print version, and there -is- a typo in the ebook version, then these two titles are to be entered as in the book, and varianted to each other. Also, confirmation is required from the PV of the ebook in this case. Pete is regularly checking, but some patience required :) Regards, MagicUnk 13:56, 1 February 2022 (EST)

A Question

I was approached by a moderator about be promoted to that of being a self-approving editor. I was also informed to come to this page and float the idea. So, after sleeping on it, I thought I would ask. All you can do is say no. MLB 01:11, 1 February 2022 (EST)

The process changed a little bit in the last couple of days so post here with title "Self-approver status: MLB" or something along these lines and it will kick off the process of the agree/disgree posts. Or I can kick start the thread. Let me know :) Annie 16:27, 1 February 2022 (EST)

I might be taken more seriously if you did. Tired of my...ah...eccentric submissions? MLB 06:55, 2 February 2022 (EST)

Shaking head - not really but here you go. I will actually miss working on your submissions - but the whole point of me being always after you to improve things and so on was exactly this :) Annie 12:45, 2 February 2022 (EST)

Duplicate publication record

We have two Primary Verified records for the same publication. Potter's Field 7: Tales from Unmarked Graves created 2022-01-31 10:58:40 and Potters Field 7 created later that day, 2022-01-31 23:23:30. I don't see another format which one of these can be converted to. Since both are PV'd, a moderator needs to handle this. John Scifibones 21:52, 4 February 2022 (EST)

You could try and ask user talk:morganmike or user talk:Elizabeth Hardy to switch their verification. Regards, MagicUnk 07:37, 6 February 2022 (EST)

I'll take care of it. John Scifibones 10:44, 6 February 2022 (EST)

MagicUnk. You asked me to take care of this and I agreed. I have posted questions on each of the editors talk pages as you suggested Elizabeth Hardy and Morganmike. So far, Morganmike has confirmed the title "per the title page as 'Potters Field 7" (no apostrophe). You subsequently posted the folowing on Elizabeth Hardy's talk page, "Potter's Field - check the back cover on Amazon :)". Why? The back cover 'Potter's' and front cover 'Potters' are irrelevant. Here is the text from the help page "Books. For a book, use the title page to get the title. This is typically the page with the copyright information on the back. Don't use the title on the cover, spine, or page running heads".

While waiting for one of the PV's to be transferred, I started merging the duplicate content titles. I discovered two with minor differences. I have asked Morganmike to clarify. I'll merge those after he answers. I am planning on making 'Potter Field' the Series and "Potters Field 7" the merged title. Both pubs will be made identical. As soon as either of the PV's is moved, I will delete the other pub after removing the contents. Let me know of any objections, modifications or if you agree.

I saw your question regarding publishers on the help page. Hiraeth is the successor to Alban Lake. (Spring 2020). How they differ, I can't say. This should have never happened, the second moderator should have rejected the submission and directed the editor to edit and PV the existing publication. John Scifibones 19:14, 8 February 2022 (EST)

If it's Potters field on the title page, then yes, that should be the title (and with a note clarifying the difference with what's written on the back). As to the transfer of PV - I guess if Morganmike is more responsive, he could move his PV to Elizabeth Hardy's record, and then update any discrepancies he notices. Regards, MagicUnk 08:08, 9 February 2022 (EST)

After I finish making the necessary changes, would you mind looking it over and recommending improvements? Thanks, John Scifibones 08:27, 9 February 2022 (EST)

Terry Bisson / Planet of Mystery

Whilst editing and PVing Planet of Mystery I noticed that it has been SVd to Locus1. This is incorrect. The same applies to this version. The SV (Bluesman) is inactive. Could a moderator please amend the Locus1 SVs to "N/A". Thank you. Teallach 13:09, 6 February 2022 (EST)

The CD ROM version of the index covers through 2008, so it is possible these verifications are accurate. I'll try asking on the ISFDB:Verification_requests page and see if anyone has access to that and can confirm or deny. --MartyD 13:48, 7 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks. Subsequent to writing my original note, I have discovered that it is ISFDb policy to allow for the possible future expansion of online reference sources. Therefore, assuming these two Planet of Mystery chapbooks do not show up on the Locus CD-ROM in 2008, it may be more suitable to change the Locus1 SV attributes to "Not Verified" instead of "N/A". Teallach 16:38, 7 February 2022 (EST)

W.C. Morrow Image

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:W._C._Morrow.jpg; FantLab has 2 images of Morrow, the 1 that was on ISFDB which was uploaded from Commons and the 1 I just replaced it with, which is an actual photo and not a drawing. I don't know if mods now have to remove all that legalese stuff about public domain and all that or if it goes away automatically. --Username 10:50, 7 February 2022 (EST)

It still needs a license template. As he died in 1923, the photo would be in the public domain so the template still applies. However, you should have changed the description to match what you uploaded. If you change the umage, it is your responsibility to update the description / license as applicable. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2022 (EST)

Out of Order

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5221185; I just made that edit, didn't see it on my list, it's down near the bottom instead of the top, that's unusual, might be something mods need to know about. --Username 19:36, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I know what's going on. It's a rarely encountered sorting issue and shouldn't affect anything else. I should be able to fix the software tomorrow. Ahasuerus 22:41, 8 February 2022 (EST)

Fixed. Ahasuerus 12:11, 9 February 2022 (EST)

Trumps

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Image:THGRTRTRMP1975.jpg; I did many edits for Dennis Wheatley's Sphere series of occult works by other authors today, and Greater Trumps was the only 1 that didn't have a cover (I added info on prices the last time I worked on these Sphere books a long time ago but didn't upload the cover back then for some reason). Oddly, no ISFDB-friendly site seems to have an image, so I uploaded it from some odd Wheatley site that kept opening new windows every time I clicked on a link. The image is a little small but very sharp and clean; however, I got a message that the Wiki already had a cover, and as you can see another editor uploaded something and then reverted it (twice). So if anyone cares they may want to clean that up. --Username 22:04, 12 February 2022 (EST)

Ruddickn

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Special:Contributions/Ruddickn; I fixed/added stuff for a book PV'd by this editor, who hasn't done anything since 2017, so 1 of those "no longer active" notes may be in order. --Username 08:50, 15 February 2022 (EST)

None?

I saw a book with price as "none"; there are 47 such books on ISFDB. Is that a legit price entry? --Username 08:15, 16 February 2022 (EST)

I think free publications are usually entered with a "$0", "£0", etc price, e.g. see these Advanced Publication Search results and this 2011 discussion. I don't recall it being documented in Help, though. Ahasuerus 12:58, 16 February 2022 (EST)

[9]; I don't think most of these are free; many were entered by the same few editors a long time ago who apparently thought that was the way you entered the price if you couldn't find it in the book. --Username 13:11, 16 February 2022 (EST)

If it's not free, then price field should be left blank. Feel free to submit updates & remove the 'None'. Cheers MagicUnk 13:37, 16 February 2022 (EST)

Yup. I noticed only one eligible "$0" price on the linked list: ConFiction: The 48th World Science Fiction Convention, which says "No printed price; free to convention attendees". Ahasuerus 13:39, 16 February 2022 (EST)

Re: the sarcastic message above, obviously I'm not going to do 40+ edits for something so inconsequential; the reason I entered this on the moderator board is because I was thinking maybe there was a batch fix or something similar which only mods are able to do which could change all "none" prices to whatever they're supposed to be, like the way only mods can change a publisher's name for all books by that publisher. If there isn't such a fix then the hell with it; let the mods, many of whom are still around, fix the prices one by one that they never should have approved in the first place. Cheers --Username 18:23, 16 February 2022 (EST)

Amazon image link?

I can't copy an image link from a book with the look inside anymore but still can from one without that link. Has anyone else had this happen. Just started tonight.Kraang 22:05, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Unless you specify browser and OS, it will be very hard to even start helping :) Did you just update a browser or something? Firefox's previous update on Windows had some issues with my usual way (which is to drag the picture to the address bar - it flatly refused) - but the latest update fixed it. Annie 22:09, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Using Windows 10 Edge browser and had there usual systems update today. I'll log back in using Chrome and see what happens.Kraang 22:39, 17 February 2022 (EST)

I'm fine using Chrome must have been the update that screwed something up. Thanks never thought of the browser as the problem.Kraang 22:46, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Always my first suspect when something like that happens. With Edge, try to reboot - the thing is so tied with Windows that sometimes it gets a bit... wonky after updates (which is why I tend not to use it) :) Annie 22:51, 17 February 2022 (EST)

2 Vikings

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?67171, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?39897; Was doing some edits for non-genre Andre Norton books and these 2 Viking publishers are probably the same, so mods may want to merge and combine notes. --Username 19:31, 18 February 2022 (EST)

OCLC has Island of the Lost as Viking Press, and not Viking Books. Comment says 'Viking Books ...not to be confused with Viking Press', so might be another error(?) Probably best to keep them separate and update Viking Books to Viking Press, and update the comment accordingly... MagicUnk 06:20, 22 February 2022 (EST)

Career Moves of the Gods (cover)

Need a moderator to delete the initial image for here. I subsequently loaded the correct size image. Thanks, John Scifibones 16:31, 21 February 2022 (EST)

Done. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:17, 21 February 2022 (EST)

Space Relations Covers

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?23107; Philfreund just asked 2 people about changing the subtitle for this book, but my 2 edits have been waiting since Feb. 4. It seems someone entered the Millington edition using the Charterhouse cover while the Charterhouse edition had the Millington cover. I uploaded the right Millington cover and an improved 1 because the 1 here and elsewhere online, like Wikipedia, is the same awfully photographed one, so I found 1 that actually looks like the real cover; the Charterhouse cover here was a bad sideways photo so I found 1 on Amazon that was straight. --Username 08:53, 22 February 2022 (EST)

Someone did as I asked; thank you. --Username 12:33, 27 February 2022 (EST)

Author merge (or split?) request

Greetings. This is a rather complicated request, hence me resorting to the moderator noticeboard. Lee Lightner (Author Record #40411) is the pen name of two authors working in tandem:

• Harry Heckel (Author Record #219629)
• Jeff Smith

Sources:

• Harry Heckel's blog
• Lexicanum

This should be sorted somehow since some of the earlier works attributed to Harry Heckel and Jeff Smith (in tandem) have been republished under the author name "Lee Lightner".

For example, the short story "Engage the Enemy" (Title Record #1653415), published in Inferno magazine #45, is the same as the short story "Engage the Enemy" (Title Record #2737379) published in the omnibus Sagas of the Space Wolves. These titles should also be merged, or at least linked together somehow.

Addendum: "Engage the Enemy" (Title Record #1653415) is attributed to Jeff Smith (Author Record #28215); the author of the Bone comics; this is a different person.

Best regards, --Ir'revrykal 07:29, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Engage the Enemy now has a different Jeff Smith as an author. And I connected the joint pseudonym. Let me know if all looks correct now. Annie 12:48, 25 February 2022 (EST)

That looks good. Thank you. --Ir'revrykal 12:57, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Anytime. If you would like more information about what I did (and why), let me know :) Annie 13:01, 25 February 2022 (EST)

I took a look at the "Recent Edits" log and got the general gist, but it would definitely be instructive to hear exactly what you did—that way I might be able to do something similar without moderator assistance in the future. :) --Ir'revrykal 13:32, 25 February 2022 (EST)

So - we had a couple of interlocking issues on top of each other here:

• Two Jeff Smiths (probably more than 2 looking at his page but at least two). For that, I edited the title record of the story and added (I) in the name of the author. This is how we differentiate same named authors. Once that was done, edit the author to add a language and any other details you know about that author.
• The joint pseudonym: Make the pseudonym an alternate name for BOTH its authors. The menu for that is on the left side of the page when you are in the author who is to become a pseudonym/alternate name. You follow the same process for single author pseudonyms and author forms as well - you just connect them to only one other author. If you see anyone discussing canonical form of an author name, that is the one where all pseudonyms are connected to -- and where all the works by them will show up - regardless of what name they published under. That last happens manually, as explained in the next section.
• Now that we have a pseudonym, all of their works need to show up on the actual author(s) pages - alternate names cannot carry titles. For the one that was published before (the story) under the 2 names, I just connected the reprint as a variant (after fixing the type of the reprint). Menu is on the left (Make Variant) when you are in the reprint title page. For the ones we did not have an older record for, we make an empty parent - same page where you connect existing ones, just use Option 2 to create a new title instead, only changing the author names to tell it where to go. That is required any time we have an alternate name/pseudonym. :)

Let me know if something does not make sense. :) Annie 13:43, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Thank you, that is clear and very much appreciated. --Ir'revrykal 14:18, 25 February 2022 (EST)

Author Image Problem

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1735; I added a book cover from sf-encyclopedia.com to Mitchison's author image which included a big photo of her face; just approved but was broken, so I subbed a rare one that's sideways on Amazon but OK on Open Library; when I entered edit the previous image is just fine. Why it's broken in the record but OK in the edit is a question maybe someone can answer. --Username 19:53, 1 March 2022 (EST)

Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 00:27, 2 March 2022 (EST)

I see what's going on. This is the first SFE-hosted author image -- as opposed to a SFE-hosted cover scan -- that we link to and the software isn't set up to handle it. I plan to update it later today. Ahasuerus 12:10, 2 March 2022 (EST)

Fixed. Thanks for identifying the problem. Ahasuerus 15:47, 2 March 2022 (EST)

OK. There are many Amazon images of that same cover, so why I decided to add it from SF Encyclopedia is unknown. However, in doing so I accidentally uncovered a flaw in the software that's now fixed. Hooray for stupidity! --Username 19:27, 2 March 2022 (EST)

Image Deletion

The wrong size image was initially uploaded here. Please delete, correct image is in place. Thanks John Scifibones 19:24, 8 March 2022 (EST)

Done Annie 19:43, 8 March 2022 (EST)

Image Deletion

Please delete the old image here. Thanks Henna 11:03, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Done Annie 13:44, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Steve Duffy corrections

(I am a disaster at entering, so I will ask a moderator to make these these changes. Thanks!) for the Steve Duffy entry, 2 issues: 1.The 2011 ebook verions of his collection The Night Comes On adds 4 stories (placed at the end of the ebook, after the original TOC): On the Dunes The Lady of the Flowers Widdershins the Barrow Round Off the Tracks

the first 2 of these are already in ISFDB, the last 2 are original to the ebook version

2. There is a second Steve Duffy, who is from Australia and publishes mostly in AntipodeanSF, I can't find much about him, but the short bios in at least 3 antipodeanSF issues make it clear he is Australian. the following should be moved to Steve Duffy (2): The collection 14 Hours to Save the Earth 3 stories all beginning with A Tale of Tyl Feann I didn't find any other Australian Steve Duffy stories listed with the UK Steve Duffy

Thank you Roger

I had been wondering about that Australian collection. He is from somewhere down under indeed - but it may not be Australia proper so I won't add that to the notes.

The 4 additional stories - any idea if they are before or after the "Notes on the stories" essay and if the essay was updated to add notes for these 4 stories as well? Annie 17:23, 11 March 2022 (EST)

for the Steve Duffy The Night Comes on Ebook, there the 4 additional stories following the original stories, then the original "Notes on the Stories", then a "Postscipt to the 2011 electronic edition" is added to the end of Notes on the Stories —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

(Moving the note here where it belongs) - OK, I will move them behind it. Annie 18:12, 11 March 2022 (EST)

The Night Comes On - all fixed I think. Annie 18:14, 11 March 2022 (EST)

random corrections

And a few more random corrections/comments: Rjurik Davidson The Deep is a Warhammer story, should be listed with the other Warhammer story in his listing Terry Dowling The Five Sisters is a Dan Truswell series story Dave Hutchinson in the Catacombs Saints entry the Note should begin "This is an excerpt" not "The is an excerpt" Sarah Monette The Haunting of Dr. Claudius Winterson is a Kyle Murchison Booth series story Garth Nix, Cut Me Another Quill, Mister Fitz is a Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz series story (The story title is a strong hint for this) Don Tumasonis the story Sejanus' Daughter in the anthology Strange Tales, Volume 11 (edited by Rosalie Parker) was published under the psuedonym Hilbourne Carlone, should be listed on the Tumasonis page

here is a link to the Tartarus Strange Tales II page, the second paragraph has the Carlone name with Don Tumasonis noted in parentheses, this seems to be an open pseudonym: http://www.tartaruspress.com/parker-strange-tales-ii.html

thanks again Roger

The Deep is fixed.

The Five Sisters is fixed.

Catacomb Saints fixed

The Haunting of Dr. Claudius Winterson is fixed

Cut Me Another Quill, Mister Fitz is fixed.

Sejanus' Daughter - fixed.

Except for the last one, the rest were pretty straight forward so maybe you can try to fix such in the future? :) Thanks for noting these.

PS: It will be very helpful if you add links to your requests - it will make fixing these faster and less prone to errors. :) Annie 17:37, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Blades of the Tiger by Chris Pierson

I have found another version of this book printed in 2005 with the same ISBN but with a different cover. It shows up in Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/185765-blades-of-the-tiger-dragonlance-taladas-1) and I have found a number of copies of it for sale on ebay as well as the version in the database, so both covers seem valid. Goodreads shows a different page count, 384 vs 410. Goodreads also does not show an ISBN for this cover, but the various sellers show both versions having ISBN 9780786935697 and a 384 page count. The new cover is basically the same as the Audible version that I have just added. Should I go ahead and add this new cover version?? aardvark7 17:41, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Yes - with all of these notes and explanations added to the publication notes. If it is discovered later that it is not needed, we can always delete but it does seem like there are two versions out there - so we want it. :) Annie 18:16, 11 March 2022 (EST)

Winds of Change hardback

I asked for PV approval for making changes to Winds of Change on January 8 here and received no response so I am going ahead and making the changes. A second PV did respond here but referred me to the non-responsive PV. I will PV after the changes are approved. Phil 07:00, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Approved. A month to two months is long enough to wait and the updates looked more than fine.Kraang 10:40, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Sherwood Smith pub changes

I asked for PV approval for making changes to The Fox and King's Shield on January 21 here and received no response so I am going ahead and making the changes. I will PV after the changes are approved. Phil 07:52, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Approved.Kraang 10:40, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Violette Malan pub changes

I asked for PV approval for making changes to The Sleeping God and The Soldier King on February 2 here and received no response so I am going ahead and making the changes. I will PV after the changes are approved. Phil 08:31, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Approved.Kraang 10:40, 12 March 2022 (EST)

Multilingual Publications

The following publications can be flagged as okay

• Bewildering Stories - 10 Issues
• Goblin Fruit, Autumn 2009
• Polu Texni - 23 Issues
• Samovar, 27 December 2021
• Star*Line - 3 Issues
• The Magazine of Speculative Poetry - 2 Issues

Thanks, John Scifibones 13:29, 13 March 2022 (EDT)

All but the "Polu Texni" ones are done. Why would these need to have the language of interior art set differently from that of the magazine and the poem they illustrate? And where are these titles and languages to the images come from -- I don't see them on the site and there is no explanation in the notes of the publication or the interior art.

If the art is used/found elsewhere, the policy is to variant to an original name, not to use a title (and language) the publication never used. In all cases, these need a LOT more notes. Annie 17:39, 13 March 2022 (EDT)

The art credits are shown in different ways, depending on the post.

• In some issues Polu Texni, April 2, 2018, the art credit immediately follows the poem.
• In some issues Polu Texni, December 30, 2019 the art credit is immediately below the artwork.
• In some issues Polu Texni, August 24, 2020 the art credit is a link to a Wikimedia page with the art credit.

I have just documented what's on the website. John Scifibones 19:03, 13 March 2022 (EDT)

I just reviewed all 23 since I haven't looked at them for a couple months. Three issues did not explicitly state the credit as above. By opening the artwork in another tab, the credit shows in the webpage link. I can add a note or remove the artwork for these three. What do you think is the better alternative? John Scifibones 19:37, 13 March 2022 (EDT)

I clicked on a couple randomly and did not see the titles anywhere :) Let me look at them again. Annie 13:27, 16 March 2022 (EDT)

Canterbury

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?35959; I did some edits for Michael Sisson's anthologies, replacing a PB cover and adding prices, adding HC Masque of the Red Death cover, and most importantly finding an eBay listing for the very rare Canterbury Press American edition of In the Dead of Night. Turns out they just printed the same book and only changed publisher and price; looks exactly the same otherwise. But when I tried to upload new cover to the Wiki it didn't give me the usual warning about replacing 1 that's already there. Seems "Bluesman", long-gone now, uploaded a too-big cover. I tried reverting but now both editions are showing the same old cover. So when 1 of you gets around to those edits I'd like the Canterbury cover reinstated; I don't know if there's 2 of the same image now after I reverted or if Bluesman's cover needs to be deleted or what. EDIT: Mod forced the publisher name change I submitted (Canterbury Press changed to The Canterbury Press) but address I entered was deleted by that, so I've re-entered it. Covers on Wiki still need fixing; both uploaded hardcover images seem to be on the same page. I uploaded Canterbury cover with spine showing so that should be the cover for that edition, and will upload new Gibbs cover assuming there's one with the spine showing; I see now that 1 of the Panther covers with the skeleton hand looks bad and could use a replacement, too. --Username 01:06, 19 March 2022 (EDT)

Harme-Oat(e)s

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?22253; PDF on spacecowboybooks.com does indeed spell Butterworth and Jones' story Oates and the character in the story is Oates, but typing Harme-Oates Effect and 1975 into Google only brings up that PDF and ISFDB. Archive.org has many issues of Science Fiction Monthly but not February 1975, and there doesn't seem to be much info online. 3 PV for the 1975 issue, 2 active and 1 very much not, and SpaceCowboyBooks PV their own publication, so if any of them are reading this and can verify what the title in 1975 was they can be merged, or if different made a variant. --Username 12:55, 23 March 2022 (EDT)

Blunder link with some CGI target at ISFDB.org

Probably[*] I have forgotten how in ISFDB Notes fields to link a target at ISFDB.org --when the latter is "cgi with arg" if you know what I mean.

ISFDB Wiki

• Several ISFDB publisher names contain "Readers Union" (search report).

ISFDB database

• faulty update submission [10] --for reference that may be useful; unstable, so the next bullet point quotes the presumably offending code
• +Several ISFDB publisher names contain "Readers Union" (<a href="http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=Readers+Union&type=Publisher" search report</a>).

[*]some gross oversight may be more probable. --Pwendt|talk 23:51, 25 March 2022 (EDT)

I approved both edits last night & was to tired to figure out the HTML problem, so looked at it this morning and fixed it[11]. I believe this is what you wanted. Was missing ">" before "search report".11:05, 26 March 2022 (EDT)

Oh, my, yes, a gross hybrid of wiki and database code. Thanks! --Pwendt|talk 18:59, 26 March 2022 (EDT)

Image Deletion

The wrong size image was initially uploaded here. Please delete, correct image is in place. Thanks John Scifibones 10:45, 27 March 2022 (EDT)

Done. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:36, 27 March 2022 (EDT)

Thank you.

I noticed this one a couple weeks ago. John Scifibones 13:27, 27 March 2022 (EDT)

Aldiss / The Dark Light Years

I am editing / PVing Aldiss's The Dark Light Years. The only existing PV is inactive, so this is to advise that I will change the author's name from "Brian W. Aldiss" to "Brian Aldiss" as per title page. Teallach 17:58, 27 March 2022 (EDT)

Approved. The content record also needed to be updated so I imported the correct variant and removed the "Brian W. Aldiss" version. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:21, 27 March 2022 (EDT)