Difference between revisions of "ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard"

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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)

A.C. Clarke - The Last Theorem

Hi, I'm in the process of editing this 2009 printing. It contains 3 preambles and 4 postambles. Whilst looking for the pub dates for the 'ambles', I notice on the 1st printings of the hardcovers (2008-08-00) the dates of the preambles are given as 2008-07-00. Is this correct? I can't figure out where the earlier date comes from.

If those dates should be 2008-08-00, is that the date I should use in the 2009 edition, or should I use the first pub date of the 2009 edition. Seems to me I should use the 1st pub date, but I'm asking anyway.

Also, the Amazon listing herefor my 2009 print gives the pub date as 2009-03-05. The full Amazon date is commonly used on ISFDB but what's the current consensus? Thanks, Kev --BanjoKev (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2023 (EST)

The current consensus is to read the help page on dates: over here. :) If the exact date does not contradict the printed date, we use the exact date (so if the book says 2009 or March 2009, we use 2009-03-05 and source it to Amazon; if the book stays February 2009, we use 2009-02-00, even if Amazon says 2009-03-05, and we source it to the book (a note on the Amazon date is a good idea as well).

The 2008-07-00 comes probably from an older date on the original publication that was updated but whoever did it, never bothered to fix the title dates as well - if we do not have a book with a 2008-07-00 date and none is known to exist, they need adjusting... If you use the same titles, they will use the original dates. If you need to use new title records (for change of title, author or language/translator), you use the date of the first publication under that specific title/author/language (and translator). Annie (talk) 15:15, 4 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks Annie, that's the clearest explanation I've seen yet on the use of Amazon dates - much clearer than the Help page. The rest of your comment covers everything neatly! Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 15:30, 4 January 2023 (EST)

Careful with old books though - this is valid for new books only (anything pre-2005 or thereabouts is suspect as these are usually second hand records). 2009 is close to that but Amazon was up and running well by then so as long as you use the date from the proper Amazon, it is usable (UK books in Amazon.co.uk, US ones on Amazon.com and so on). Make sure the notes say both what Amazon and the book say (contradicting or not so someone who finds the record knows that for example March 2009 comes from the book and just the date is from Amazon or that just the year is from the book). And that applies for Amazon, publisher sites, contemporary reviews, blogs - any exact dates we can find that are reliable to some extent. :) Annie (talk) 15:40, 4 January 2023 (EST)

Publisher Merge updated

Post-submission pages for moderator-only Publisher Merge submissions have been updated. They now correctly display embedded HTML and properly link to third-party Web sites.

6 more post-submission pages to go, including the three heavy hitters: NewPub, EditPub and ClonePub/AddPub. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:23, 4 January 2023 (EST)

Author Merge post-submission pages improved

Post-submission pages for moderator-only Author Merge submissions have been updated. They now correctly display embedded HTML and properly link to third-party Web sites. 5 more post-submission pages to go. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:11, 5 January 2023 (EST)

corrections/additions

I have the following corrections/additions for a moderator to add (sorry, not good at this myself)

Paul Finch, Terror Tales of the Home Counties, both the tp and Ebook dates should be 2020, NOT 2021
- per the Telos webpage and Amazon
Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Music Hath Charms (2020), should be in Chapel Hollow series
- see author's intro to story, plus read this myself
Chris Mason, The Stars Fell (2021) (novel)
- this is a different Chris Mason than for all of the other entries, the anthology and stories are all by the Australian Chris Mason
- the novel is by the USA Chris Mason if you google "Chris Mason The Stars Fell Mississippi" the first entry notes him as a native of Jackson, Mississippi to confirm this
R. B. Russell, Strawberries and Cream (Gleam, 2019) this story is NOT his, this is a different Elizabeth Brown
- I emailed Ray (RB) Russell, he states that he retired his Elizabeth Brown pseudonym many years ago, all of the other Elizabeth Brown entries on the RB Russell page are correct
- this is almost certainly written by Elizabeth Brown (IV), when I look in Galaxy #3 where E Brown #!V only current isfdb listed story "Honey" was published, the intro states she has had stories published "in other Clarendon House anthologies" Gleam is a Clarendon House anthology, there is no free access to her story Gleam
Lavid Tidhar, The Drowned God’s Heresy (2020) is a Gorel story (see 2nd paragraph of story)
Liz Williams, Sungrazer (The Book of Magic, 2018) is a prequel to the Comet Weather novels
- https://milfordsfwriters.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/liz-williams-comet-weather-interview/
also her novel Embertide (NewCon Press, Jun 21, 2022) is the third novel in the Comet Weather series

Thanks for this Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

I have applied list formatting to the above to make the different items easier to follow. Thank you for identifying these. I will make the necessary changes. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:39, 8 January 2023 (EST)

All changes made. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:03, 8 January 2023 (EST)

Steve Duffy, Finding Yourself in the Dark toc

Here is the TOC for the 2021 Steve Duffy collection Finding Yourself in the Dark this can be confirmed on the Sarob Press blog: 14, March 2021 originals starred Chambers of the Heart (Supernatural Tales 40)

The Other Four O'Clock
The Last House on Mullible Street
The Villa Morozov

The Clay Party (The Werewolf Pack, 2008) No Passage Landward (Supernatural Tales 41) Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage (Supernatural Tales 30)

A Day at the Hotel Radium

Bears: A Fairy-Tale of 1958 (Little Visible Delight, 2013) The Ice Beneath Us (Uncertainties, Volume II) The Purple-Tinted Window (Supernatural Tales 21) The God of Storage Options (Supernatural Tales 42)

thank you —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

Contents added. Thank you. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2023 (EST)

Steve Duffy, Finding Yourself in the Dark story dates

My apologies, should have included the year published for the 4 stories in the Steve Duffy Finding Yourself collection listed as year unknown. Please add the year published:

Chambers of the Heart, Supernatural Tales 40, Summer 2019
No Passage Landward, Supernatural Tales 41, Autumn 2019
The Purple-Tinted Window, Supernatural Tales 21, Summer 2012
The God of Storage Options, Supernatural Tales 42, Winter 2019-2020 published in 2019

Thanks again! Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

Updated. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:35, 10 January 2023 (EST)

A Circus of Hells

I have come across a version of A Circus of Hells by Poul Anderson not in the data base. You can find it on eBay both US and UK. There are plenty of pictures. It has an ISBN of 0-451-15113-5 Also a tag of AE5113 and a price of $2.95 US and $3.95 Canada. The vendor says the book says Copyright 1970. It has, what I am told, a very rare Tim Hildebrandt cover. Not sure what to do with it since the ISBN already exists and the version in the data base says 1988 4th printing (Record 343). Goodreads shows ISBN 0-451-15113-5 being published May 1, 1970 but by ROC, it does not show a cover. ISBN Search does the same. It can be found at www.ebay.com/itm/125594585270?hash=item1d3e0548b6:g:nzUAAOSwAxZjY-Ww&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoKrbz98NB7JNkUUO05wUjzjnSkKfh8sdjNSorItVZEhok4RAdnItA8Xofzv68%2FboeRgEG3sb4QDbv64KwrHQK%2F45MQTS6wmFCZuFfAQuw8hYtJGe%2FRUqs7qsc2anHPd7H%2BPENFreXATFyewh5vdAZJMUZYBQyplW4NQdHqj%2Bx18%2BS5V%2FxuCYUMk7rGTf1cnL3GtRxtwBaEA5MmGaSpgT4B8%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8SohoOzYQ.

www.etsy.com/listing/1318714938/a-circus-of-hells-poul-anderson-vintage?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_-books_movies_and_music-domestic_med&utm_custom1=_k_48265362d7dd14f2c35d30dea9430cc4_k_&utm_content=bing_412372832_1304021088340600_81501381743197_pla-4585100933176896:pla-4585100933176896_c__1318714938&utm_custom2=412372832&msclkid=48265362d7dd14f2c35d30dea9430cc4 Help I need guidance!!! aardvark7 (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2023 (EST)

I hate to disappoint you, but the version you found is already in the database here, only with the wrong cover illustration. The 'Copyright 1970' is for the first Signet printing, the fourth printing was published in 1988 (verified on Locus1. Also $2.95 would have been an outrageous price for 1970). The price they dare to ask ($400.00) is outrageous though, and I doubt it is so rare. There's another copy for sale on eBay here for $7.95

So the only thing to do is replace the cover illustration and add the Tim Hildebrandt credit (there's a signature at the bottom). Hope that helps. --Willem (talk) 10:24, 10 January 2023 (EST)

Yep, thats the copy I was seeing in the data base. I have a garbage version of the Hildebrandt cover, but I found a copy on Etsy for $6 and hope to have in a week or so. I will scan that cover and upload it. The cover was also used as one of the Flight of Fantasy cards put out by Tim Hildebrandt titled Demon Flight. aardvark7 (talk) 12:00, 10 January 2023 (EST)

R. B. Russell corrections

The following stories should be moved to the R. B. Russell page, again from email discussion with RB Russell (one of these stories is already on the RB Russell page) 2 stories from Ray Russell (1924-1999) Company (2009) Mathilde (2011) this should be combined with the Mathilde entry already on the R. B. Russell page

the one story under Ray B. Russell (Delicate Cutters) R. B. Russell states this is his story, does not need a separate page

Thanks again Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

Changes made. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:41, 10 January 2023 (EST)

one last Steve Duffy correction

for Steve Duffy: the duplicate entries for the story "Bears: A Fairy-Tale of 1958" need to be combined (one is "Fairy Tale" and one is "Fairy-Tale", but same story) Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

Change made. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2023 (EST)

James White / Hospital Station

I am editing and PVing Hospital Station - Ballantine fourth printing. The story on page 84 is titled "Trouble with Emily" but the Contents section of the pub record has "The Trouble with Emily" so I will correct it. This pub has been PVd twice but both PVs are inactive hence this post. Teallach (talk) 16:15, 13 January 2023 (EST)

Baxter - Voyage... the essay 'Lost Mars'

I'm trying to resolve the titling for this essay; see Baxter's Author Record # 102 - find 'lost mars'. Dirk and I agree that the 3 entries there (Afterword: Lost Mars / Afterword: Lost Mars (Voyage) / and Lost Mars) are all the same essay. A few of the pub records show PVs no longer active. What, if anything can I do to sort this? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:00, 14 January 2023 (EST)

I have the UK 1st ed hc of Voyage. This pub has three PVs, all inactive (I'll get round to PVing it myself... one day). In this pub, the afterword is titled: "Afterword" [over] "Lost Mars". It starts: "In our world, Challenger was the name..." and ends: "... walked on Mars at Mangala Vallis in 1986." It is 5.75 large hc pages long. I hope this assists you in resolving whether all the afterwords are the same. Teallach (talk) 16:40, 14 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks Teallach, that's one of the four inactive PV pubs accounted for exactly. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 17:10, 14 January 2023 (EST)

I have the second printing of the HarperPrism paperback. The afterword is titled "Lost Mars", and is definitely the same as Teallach described. I made the later versions variants of the first (perhaps the title of the first appearance is wrong, but unfortunately there are no active verifiers). Result is here. Thanks for finding this! --Willem (talk) 08:32, 16 January 2023 (EST)

I think that's the best that can be done under the circumstances. Thanks for sorting that out Willem. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:26, 19 January 2023 (EST)

Password problems

Hi,

before Christmas I have created a new account (DieFliege) and have added new data. But unfortunately I forgot my password. I have tried to reset the password but I have received no email. And there is no chance to send an email without being logged in. So, I have created another account (Pinudeycos) to be able to send you this message. That's not good organized! Please reset my password of the account DieFliege. My email address ist zukoe@ok.de.

Regards, Erich —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pinudeycos (talk • contribs) . 15:31, 14 January 2023 (EST)

I am sorry I missed this request when it was posted a week ago. Investigating... Ahasuerus (talk) 11:43, 22 January 2023 (EST)

Here is what I have found in the database:

User account DieFliege does exist.
It has one primary verification and two submissions (5518038 - canceled and 5518327 - approved) associated with it.
The user account DieFliege has no email address associated with it. It makes recovering the password safely impossible since we have no address to send a new password to.
User account Pinudeycos is associated with the email address listed above.

Given the evidence, it is quite likely that the two accounts are indeed owned by the same person, but it's not a 100% guarantee. It would be unsafe to start resetting passwords based on circumstantial evidence.

Since "DieFliege" has only one approved submission and one primary verification, I would suggest using "Pinudeycos" from this point on. It has an email address on file, so its password can be reset if the need ever arises again. Sorry about the hassle! Ahasuerus (talk) 13:06, 22 January 2023 (EST)

Thank you, I will use my new account Pinudeycos for further additions.

R. B. Russell and Rosalie Parker additions

I have been in email contact with R. B. Russell and he appreciates the updates/corrections on his page. He has sent some requests to be added to his and Rosalie Parker's ISFDB pages if possible for R. B. Russell

If there is a category for Novellas, then Bloody Baudelaire (2009), The Dark Return of Time (2014) and The Stones Are Singing (2016) were hardback publications. (Bloody Baudelaire is listed as a chapbook, which it wasn't.)
Novels: Can we add Heaven's Hill, published by Zagava (2021)? ISBN 978-3-949341-15-1, hardback, 326 pages
Under non-fiction, can we add the following (all have fantastic content that fit the isfdb remit): (all written by R. R. Russell
- Robert Aickman, An Attempted Biography, Tartarus Press, 2021 (ISBN 978-1-912586-36-3, hardback, 396 + vi pps)
- Past Lives of Old Books, Tartarus Press, 2020. (ISBN 978-1-912586-23-3, hardback, 282 pages)
- Occult Territory: An Arthur Machen Gazetteer, Tartarus Press, 2019 (ISBN 978-1-912586-14-1, hardback, 272+xiv pages)
- Fifty Forgotten Books, And Other Stories, 2022, (ISBN 9781913505509, paperback, 256 pages)
for Rosalie Parker, under collections'
- Sparks from the Fire by Rosalie Parker, 2018, Swan River Press, collection of short stories, hardback, ISBN 978-1-78380-023-0, 40 Euros., 201 pages. here is a TOC for this collection from the Swan River website
  - “The Bronze Statuette”
  - “The Fell Race”
  - “View from a Window”
  - “Holiday Reading”
  - “Sparks from the Fire”
  - “The Birdcage”
  - “Tour Guide”
  - “Wing Man”
  - “Jetsam”
  - “Writers’ Retreat”
  - “House Party”
  - “Job Start”
  - “Productivity”
  - “Voluntary Work”
  - “Messages”
  - “Entitlement”
  - “War Games”
  - “The Attempt”
  - “Breath of Life”
  - “Acknowledgements”

also, The Old Knowledge & Other Strange Tales was reprinted as a hardback 2nd edition by Swan River Press in 2012. and again, thanks for your time on these matters Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) . 17:35, 15 January 2023 (EST)

Regarding the Bloody Baudelaire chapbook, at ISFDB we classify as CHAPBOOK any short fiction that is published by itself, with no other content. So, if a novella (as in this case) is published as a book all by itself, it is considered a CHAPBOOK title type on ISFDB. Please see this page for more details on that.

The Dark Return of Time is considered a short novel (more than 40k words), and is therefore listed here as a NOVEL title type. Same for The Stones Are Singing.

I'll see about adding the other titles you mention. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:23, 16 January 2023 (EST)

Okay, I've added Heaven's Hill, Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography, Past Lives of Old Books, Occult Territory: An Arthur Machen Gazetteer, Fifty Forgotten Books, Sparks from the Fire, and the second edition of The Old Knowledge & Other Strange Tales. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:07, 16 January 2023 (EST)

Add story credit to my page

Please add to the page of Joseph P. Kervin:

"And Who is to Say, 'Is Redemption not Divine?'"
Shadow Dance (magazine )Number 11, February 1994.

Editor, Michelle Belanger

44 pages

$3.00

digest size

Cover: Kimberlee Traub

Thank you, Joseph P. Kervin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joseph P. Kervin (talk • contribs) . 20:54, 15 January 2023 (EST)

This has been done. See here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:50, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Genre help wanted

I've uploaded a shortfiction piece. It's in three files 1 here, 2 here and 3 here. Would you judge it genre or non-genre? Sorry for the poor quality.Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:53, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Sure, it's genre: a well-known stone-age family transported into our days it is. A nice find! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 10:12, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks Christian for that verdict! I'll get on it. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:35, 20 January 2023 (EST)

Cleanup Reports

I'm working on the Cleanup Reports for a while. Now I found in the section English Titles with non-Latin characters and without Transliterated Titles several titles that apparent don't need any transliteration or whose necessity is not apparent to me. I don't mean foreign alphabets. Some titles also have apostrophes. What shall I do in this case? --Zapp (talk) 07:38, 22 January 2023 (EST)

This is a bit more complicated than it looks at first glance. Let's use Carl Sandburg's How They Bring Back the Village of Cream Puffs When the Wind Blows It Away⁠ as an example. The title looks OK, but if you pull up the raw data behind the Web page -- Control-U in most browsers -- and search for "Title:", you will find that there is a &#8288 at the end of the title. It's an invisible word joiner Unicode character, which is used to format text in documents. Similarly, P'ei Hsing's Sun K'о looks like it uses the Latin alphabet, but the last letter is actually "&#1086", the Cyrillic "o".

The proper steps to take are different depending on the scenario. When the wrong alphabet is used, e.g. a Cyrillic character instead of a Latin character as in the "Sun K'o" example above, we just need to enter the correct character and the problem will go away. On the other hand, if you come across invisible characters and uncommon Unicode punctuation (Unicode has a lot of special characters for apostrophes, spaces, etc), please post you findings here. We have a special software module which automatically converts Unicode oddities to standard punctuation and strips invisible characters at data entry time. It's not comprehensive because Unicode is huge, with thousands of supported characters, so I need to update the software every time we come across something new.

I am going to review this report later today and see what I can do to update the software. Thanks for reporting the problem! Ahasuerus (talk) 10:26, 22 January 2023 (EST)

I have added the two offending Unicode characters to the list of characters that we auto-translate and fixed the data. I've also fixed the Latin/Cyrillic confusion. Never a dull moment :-) Ahasuerus (talk) 11:42, 22 January 2023 (EST)

I see, thank You. --Zapp (talk) 15:58, 22 January 2023 (EST)

R. B. Russell and Rosalie Parker small corrections

The R. B. Russell novel Heaven's Hill entry has 2 almost identical entries, one has the page count and one has the price. These entries should be combined. This should eliminate the 2 bibliographic warnings. For the TOC for the Rosalie Parker collection Sparks from the Fire, the entry for the story "House Party" has a superfluous "11" this should be deleted. Thanks again, Roger —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

The Heaven's Hill publication records have the note "Publisher's website uses the same ISBN for both the limited numbered edition and the limited leatherbound edition." As these are two different editions, we have separate records even though they have the same ISBN. Looking at the the publisher pages, they only list the page count for one of the editions; hence only one record has a page count.

For Sparks from the Fire, the 11 was a page sort that was missing the | symbol (which causes the number to not show). I added that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Urania Help

I need help, information & guidance. I recently added 3 Urania Collezione issues (Pub records 931803, 931815 & 931818). However I see that if I ask the DB to call up the series publication Urania Collezione, these issues are not there (Pub. Series Record # 1632) Instead they are listed under Series Record # 29322. To me this means that either I have done something wrong, or there is something else I need to do. I originally entered these as a new collection since the others in Pub. Series Record # 1632 were also Collections. Help me Obi-Wan. aardvark7 (talk) 09:12, 25 January 2023 (EST)

You entered 'Urania Collezione' and the related #'s in the Title Data Series and Series num. You should have enter them in the Publication Data Pub series and Pub series #.

Two edits will be required to fix each publication.

Title: City - Edit the title record removing the Series and Series Number.
Publication: City - Edit the publication record and enter the information in the Pub Series and Pub Series Number.

Follow the same procedure for the other two. John Scifibones 11:06, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Title Merge problems

I cancelled this submission because when I clicked the submit merge button the result was the exact opposite of the selection I wanted to keep; keep showing as DropId [3131671]. I've tried several times with the same result. Also tried merging 4 Arthur Clarke title records (all slightly different) and KeepId turned out to be one I didn't want to keep - if all that makes sense! Any ideas what's going wrong?

Have a look at this current submission where the same thing has happened. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:52, 25 January 2023 (EST)

When merging, ignore the record number. Pay attention to the highlighted fields. The software will always store the resulting merge in the lowest record number. This submission is the reverse of what we want. Here is the merge for 'The Second Preamble'. I'll cancel my submission after I process yours (note: there is no pub date 2008-07-00). Does this help? I'll fix any punctuation or case problems post merge. John Scifibones 20:18, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Thanks for your answer John, but can I ask you not to fix after merge so I can see and learn from it. I did see that the 2008-07-00 didn't exist and would select the 2008-08-00. The 'lowest number' bit I wasn't aware of. I thought the retained title is the title in the green field and not the red, but looking at your Second Preamble, the title to keep, "The Second Preamble: Frederik Pohl says: (The Last Theorem)", is neither the lowest record number nor the 'green field'. I guess I'll just have to pay attention to the radio buttons and hope for the best :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:56, 25 January 2023 (EST)

In case it's useful, see How merge works in the help. --MartyD (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Absolutely on point, thanks for that Marty. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 09:07, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Now I see your confusion. "(The Last Theorem)" at the end of the titles is the disambiguation. This is unnecessary and we want to remove it! John Scifibones 21:02, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Now, that has nailed it, I have been working on so many "Introduction by Joe Schmoe (book title)" that I overlooked that there's no ambiguity with any of these Last Theorem essays. Doh! I also now understand what you meant on Pete Young's page where you referred to "The sixth title just needs a simple edit". Well, another happy customer, thanks for your help.

Submitted 5 merges and 1 edit for all "The Last Theorem" essays. I think that covers everything. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Magic. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 22:03, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Well done, thanks for cleaning this up. I have two more picky points; you asked me not to edit anything. We have one case violation and two missing lengths. Will you take care of them? John Scifibones 22:13, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Submitted 1 case and 2 lengths. Something's not quite right with the Serbian translation titles. The translation linkage seems to be working but not the varianting. Hints please, I'm not familiar with translations, although I note that the translations help says they have to be varianted. On the Serbian titles pages the variants are showing, but not as variants on the English titles. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2023 (EST)

(unindent) Kev, They are displaying correctly. Check 'My Preferences' under the 'Logged In As' navigation menu. Make sure 'Display translations on Title pages' is checked and 'Display translations on Author and Series pages:' is set to All. I don't believe this is the default setting. John Scifibones 08:28, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Great! That gives me what I was looking for. I was having problems getting the right combination of settings. Many thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 08:55, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Urania Millemondi

I recently added a new series book Urania Millemondi #80 pub record 932195 How do I get Gardner Dozois to be listed as Editor?? I didn't see this option anywhere. aardvark7 (talk) 09:35, 27 January 2023 (EST)

By marking it correctly as an anthology and not as a collection. Done now: here :) A few things here though:

Look at the other Uranias and make sure this does not need to be entered as a magazine (Italian magazines are a bit... confusing). See this series and the other Urania series.
"Those Shadows Laugh as "Quelle ombre ridono" " - is the title printed like that in the magazine or is it from your source(s)? If your source, it is VERY likely that the title in the magazine is Quelle ombre ridono and the rest is just the source way to show what had been translated. If so, the titles you have are incorrect
I changed that Introduction to an essay and added the title of the book into the title as we always do with essays with common titles - all non-fiction parts on fiction books are called essays and not non-fiction.
Where is 2016-00-00 coming from for the stories? We date variants per their own first publication NOT with the date of the original story. So we need the source showing that these stories were published in Italian in these translations in 2016. Annie (talk) 10:49, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Hi Annie. I was basing it on the Urania Collezione series. I have also come across some Urania that are not here. Still looking on how they are done.

The Italian titles come from both Mondourania & Urania Mania. The Urania Mania source also gives the English Title and date. Uraniamania.com is odd in that you have to find the Book name (Urania Millemondi) then find the book number. However the web page stays the same so you can't link directly to it.

The English title as Itialian title I did based on a Urania Collezione that had been entered by someone else. I did it this for both this item and a Urania Collezione that I entered.

will do it anyway folks want, I just need guidance. There are lots of other Urania Millemondi items out there. aardvark7 (talk) 11:56, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Yeah, the titles are almost 100% not printed like that in the magazine and we should be using just the Italian titles and NOT the abomination we have now as a title (and they need varianting - I assume you are working on that, together with adding the notes on the translator in each story)?). Same with the dates - unless you have a source for the date for that story in Italian (and you need to add it as a note into the record once created), use the date of the book. Can you show me the other book where you saw this kind of titles?

I'd advise not to add another one until we sort this one out completely so you can have the correct process and add the next one with less required changes post-approval :) Annie (talk) 12:28, 27 January 2023 (EST)

I am not having any luck find that book yet. I will let you know when I do. As to varinating, from what you said, I am guessing that a book can be a variant of more than one?? Just looking, my Urania Collezione #200 looks to have a number of stories that appear elsewhere.

An easy one is my Urania Collezione #221. It has only one story Luna chiama Terra... that is a translation of High Vacuum. High Vacuum is Title Record 8422. Luna Chiama Terra... is title record 3135055. So for that record I would hit Make this title a variant. In Option 1 I would enter the parent# as 8422 and Link to existing parent, correct??

Each story gets varianted to its own parent. See this one for an example. Incidentally, this is also a good example of how we handle Urania - a magazine with a collection/anthology inside of it. The Italian magazines are... interesting. I will look again over the weekend to see if we may need to convert that to a magazine to match everything else. :) Annie (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2023 (EST)

So actually in Urania Collezione #200 I would not link this , but link to stories to their Original title parent instead, like I think I do for the above example, correct??

Yes - each title gets linked to what it is a translation of. Annie (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2023 (EST)

And I assume as I was linking these, first I would change (as an example) Trouble With Time as "Problemi di Tempo" back to Problemi di Tempo. Do this for all the stories first, then start linking (varinating) after these have their correct names.

Yep. While you are there and editing the title, add also a note with the TR template (each story needs to have one). Unless you change the titles with a Publication edit - in which case you still need Title Edit to add the translator. Annie (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Uraniamania shows all of the titles and such in the book, the page they are found on, their original title and original pub date. So the dates should come out too, correct?, as these dates don't match the date of the book.

Nope. The original date is the date of the original in whatever language it is published in, not of the translation. Translations and variants are dated based on their own publication histories. Use the date of the book for these unless you can add a note with the name of the book/magazine where the ITALIAN edition was published first. Annie (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Sorry I bounced around, I have entered 3 or 4 Urania Collezione and the one Urania Millemondi so I have work to do. Also it was only recently I found the page/title/date info on uraniamania (have to hit a tab and the site is in Italian) and I have have to update some. aardvark7 (talk) 15:10, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Comments above. Annie (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2023 (EST)

As an FYI, I entered my Urania Collezione as Collections as all of the others were that way. As far as I can tell, my Urania Millemondi #80 is the first one of this series. If you don't decide to change it to a magazine, anthology makes sence to me.

Also I was going to variant out my Urania Collezione #157, City book, but I'm confused. There are two records for City, both share a large number of covers. One is Title Record # 23788 listed as a collection and the other is Title Record # 41546 listed as short fiction. I am thinking my version goes under Title Record # 23788 as it is the collection, not just the short story City. Oh and I checked, Nither mondourania or Uraniamania breakdown City into its parts.aardvark7 (talk) 10:01, 28 January 2023 (EST)

Artist Credit on Harvest Home paperback by Thomas Tryon

The listing for the paperback edition of Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?293925) incorrectly credits Melvyn Grant as the cover artist. I know that Grant is credited as the cover artist in the book Paperbacks From Hell, but the credit is wrong. The actual artist is William Maughan. I have attached a file showing comparisons of Maughan's signature on Harvest Home and The Infernal Device with Melvyn Grant's signature from the cover of The Black Mountains by Fred Saberhagen. I have also attached images to show the difference in Maughan and Grant's art styles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Batlash (talk • contribs) . 10:17, 27 January 2023‎ (EST)

Comparing signatures of William Maughan and Melvyn Grant

Don Erikson is the PV for that pub, and he's not currently active here. I agree with your assessment and have made the change. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:13, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Terra SF II: The Year's Best European SF / Karl-Michael Armer -> Karl-Michaël Armer

These edits https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5552335 and https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5552334 seem to be stuck. I see no messages on my talk page. Is there an issue, or a better way to approach this? --Glenn (talk) 15:53, 27 January 2023 (EST)

It looks like you are removing the title in one submission, then adding it back in the other one. Since the only difference is that you're trying to change from "Karl-Michael Armer" to "Karl-Michaël Armer" (basically adding an umlaut), both submissions need to be rejected (which I've now done). Currently, the database software doesn't distinguish between characters like "e" and "ë". That will probably change in the future once UTF-8 is fully integrated into the database, but for now we simply treat them as identical. I have modified his legal name to include the umlaut, though. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:22, 27 January 2023 (EST)

Request: merging two author pages

Hello Mods, I would like to put a request in to merge the pages for author "J.D. Scott" under "JD Scott." I can confirm they are the same author, because I am the same author (and I use "JD" without the periods). Thank you so much.

PS: I just discovered this wonderful resource this week! This is completely awesome, and I hope to contribute more soon. —The preceding unsigned comment added by Jdscott (talk • contribs) 20:18, January 31, 2023‎

I corrected the author attribution for your story in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine, May 2017. Thanks for alerting us to the error. John Scifibones 23:24, 31 January 2023 (EST)

Merging Interview and Essay in House Carfax

JLaTondre is working on House Carfax issues today which I added links to a while back; I merged Pavey's story "Boo-Hoo Forest" in a (pending) edit but got a message saying interview can't be merged with any other type (although when I tried to link that error page here it said something different, "can't merge two types" or something like that, why words changed I don't know) when I tried to merge the Joan Schramm interview/essay re: Clive Barker, so J as a mod probably knows why that is and can merge them himself. I would have asked this on his board but I get an archive page ending in 2022. --Username (talk) 12:59, 11 February 2023 (EST)

Charles de Lint / Moonheart: A Romance

Could a moderator please look at the discussions here:Philfreund and here:GlennMcG and advise me which of "Moonheart" or "Moonheart: A Romance" would be better as the canonical title. Teallach (talk) 18:47, 14 February 2023 (EST)

We don't have a policy. The spirit of "canonical" is that it's the best-known/most popular form. Especially where the subtitle is not actually any sort of title, I'd let prevalence dictate and, if neither is more prevalent, then go with the first appearance. --MartyD (talk) 08:28, 19 February 2023 (EST)

Pratchett & Gaiman / Good Omens

I am editing and PVing Good Omens
Only PV is inactive, hence this post. I propose to:
1) correct title to "Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" as per title page
2) correct page count to 383
3) correct price to £4.99
4) upload and link cover scan
5) Import content and Coverart record
6) add explanatory pub notes about all this
Because of the different price, my original thought was to create a new pub record for a second 1992 printing. However, the pub records for later PVd Corgi printings such as this 1994 one indicate there is only one 1992 printing. I am aware that publishers' printing histories are sometimes erroneous but I think it is much more likely that the existing 1992 pub record is incorrect, particularly as the record is so skeletal and the verifier PVd it without making any edits. If I hear no objections within one week I'll proceed with the edit. However, if a moderator thinks it's better to create a new record then please let me know here. Teallach (talk) 18:58, 16 February 2023 (EST)

Changing it seems good to me. It looks like the data is just a copy of the record for the 1991 edition. As long as you're making yourself a verifier, I recommend making the changes to match your book and dropping a note about what you did on the inactive PVer's talk page. --MartyD (talk) 09:40, 17 February 2023 (EST)

Will do. Yes, I also thought the pub record looked like a copy and paste job. Thanks. Teallach (talk) 14:13, 17 February 2023 (EST)

Changing Publishers

Re: https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Rtrace#Dark_Music, is there a way a mod can do something so that when a publisher's name is changed whatever info may be in its record will stay the same? A bug fix or something, since I assume it's not supposed to happen and must be a bug? --Username (talk) 10:53, 22 February 2023 (EST)

When you edit a publication and change the name of the publisher from one thing to another, the software interprets that action as "not that publisher, this one". It removes the existing publisher link and makes a new link using the newly-supplied name, just as if you had entered the publication from scratch. It is not a change to the publisher record itself. Why the software implements that behavior is more obvious if you consider changing a publication's publisher from "Doubleday" to "Baen". You wouldn't want that to edit the "Doubleday" record's name. The software does not know your intent. So editing the publisher on the publication switches publishers. Editing the publisher record changes the details of the publisher. This same behavior is true for author credits. Adding to that, the drop-a-reference behavior is such that if the last reference to a publisher record (or author record) is removed, the now-orphan record is deleted automatically, and any information on that record is lost. --MartyD (talk) 08:44, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Atheneum publisher.

I've been having a discussion with Philfreund in regard to the publisher Atheneum. I picked up a copy of 'Ware Hawk. But there seems to be a dispute in regards to what constitues a publisher and a publication series. My copy has "A Margaret K. McElderry Book" on front flap of dustwrapper and on title page and copyright page. Also on copyright page under this is "An Argo Book" with the Argo logo on the spine. So should both "Argo Books" and "Margaret K. McElderry Book" be publication series ?--Mavmaramis (talk) 13:55, 23 February 2023 (EST)

The "A/An XXX Book" often indicates that the book is out by the XXX imprint of that publisher. Not sure what we need to do with this one but just as a note: we can only have one publication series per book so it cannot be both in the DB (we have a template to add the second in case we ever add support for multiple pub series).

PS: I'd argue that with ""A Margaret K. McElderry Book" on the title page, this should actually be in this publisher: Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum... Annie (talk) 14:02, 23 February 2023 (EST)

There is no Publisher Series set for 'Ware Hawk. What do we do about the Argo Book logo that's also on the title page? This pub has "Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum" as the publisher and "Argo" as the publisher series but it's also the only pub in the DB that has Argo as the publisher series. Phil (talk) 15:51, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Look at the rest of the books which should have Argo as a pub series and talk to their PVs if any? :) I'd do Argo as a pub series if I was adding the book most likely. Not all sources will have all the data so our data may be a bit fragmented - because they were missing data or because we did not copy the data over. And sometimes it requires some juggling and conversations to sort out what is a publisher, what is an imprint and what is just a pub series. Whichever way you go, document the decision (possibly even with a note about the spine/cover) in the pub series and/or publisher note.

Alternatively, if we decide that Argo is actually an imprint, we probably need a "Argo / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum" record. I'll do some digging to see if I can find some information about Argo in this case - Pub series and imprints can be very hard to untangle and in some cases, we do our best to guess and then just keep it consistent.

I also hope someone else who has a better idea of the publisher in these years will chime in. Annie (talk) 16:09, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Looking deeper into this, it's not even clear that the use of "An Argo Book" is correct in the existing publisher records. That phrasing only seems to be used in the LCC description. The 'Ware Hawk title page and dust cover only show a rectangle containing a capital A over the word "Argo" which would lead me to believe that the correct name would be simply "Argo". Phil (talk) 13:10, 24 February 2023 (EST)

"A/An XXX Book" should always be recorded here as just "XXX" IMO - the series/publisher is XXX, the rest is just a way to say that it is a book from that series/publisher. Even when that spelling is on a title/copyright page. Kind of how "illustarted by", "Illustrations:" and so on can prefix the artist... Annie (talk) 13:13, 24 February 2023 (EST)

(Outdent) After thinking about it, I think the correct publisher should be "Argo / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum". Is there any way for a moderator to change the publisher name here to that? This publisher and this publisher would need the same change for the Argo portion. Phil (talk) 15:57, 25 February 2023 (EST)

Yes, we can change the publisher name once we decide what to use. However, I think Argo should be a pub series - I cannot find any indication anywhere online that Argo was ever an imprint, let alone an imprint of an imprint. Annie (talk) 16:49, 25 February 2023 (EST)

I'm fine with that. Can you merge two publishers? "An Argo Book / Atheneum" becoming simply "Atheneum" will be the headache if not since there are currently 75 publications under that publisher. The other impacted publisher names only have 3 or 4 publications each. Phil (talk) 18:30, 25 February 2023 (EST)

Yes, publishers can be merged. Let’s give everyone else a few more days to post an opinion (and I will do more digging) and then I’ll merge or rename based on the decision. Annie (talk) 18:39, 25 February 2023 (EST)

Now that I've thought a little further, a merge won't be useful since we'll have to add Argo as a publisher series for each of those publications anyway. Phil (talk) 19:39, 25 February 2023 (EST)

I'm holding submissions to change publisher and remove pub series for this one pending a resolution here. P.S. I think it is correct as is. John Scifibones 10:44, 28 February 2023 (EST)

Also holding this edit for the same above reason. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 11:27, 28 February 2023 (EST) And the following: 1, 2, 3 and 4. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 16:50, 2 March 2023 (EST)

What a challenge it is getting Atheneum publications correct. I just looked at my PVd Susan Cooper books and found that I needed to change the publisher from "Aladdin / Atheneum" to "Aladdin / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum" since both are imprints and both are on the title pages. Phil (talk) 12:49, 1 March 2023 (EST)

Welcome to the glamorous world of imprints. We really need a better system to connect pieces and imprints... :) Annie (talk) 12:51, 1 March 2023 (EST)

(Outdent) This thread has been quiet for a while. The sense I was getting was that for Argo, we would be going with a publication series rather than adding it as a third or fourth imprint. As for the edits to change "Aladdin / Atheneum" to " Aladdin / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum", I'm a little less clear as to whether we've got a consensus. We've got some fairly old edits that are being held pending a resolution of this discussion. Are folks in agreement on how we should proceed with those? Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 18:10, 30 May 2023 (EDT)

I finally did some internet searching and in this Wikipedia article for Aladdin Paperbacks found this reference to Argo being an imprint "[Jean] Karl ran the Atheneum Books for Younger Readers, Aladdin, and Argo imprints until she retired in 1985." I also found a Wayback Machine article here that includes the line "While at Atheneum she founded Aladdin Paperbacks, the Argo Young Adult Hardcover book line, and the Books for Young Readers Division." I also found this article that states "She founded the mass market imprint Aladdin and the young adult science fiction imprint Atheneum Argo.". Based on these items, I think we need to consider "An Argo Book" to be an imprint. Phil (talk) 17:14, 1 June 2023 (EDT)

Just under the name "Argo" though, right (with or without a parent after it)? "A/an XXX Book" is a standard way to credit XXX as the publisher XXX on title pages and copyright pages and using the whole "An Argo Book" will be a departure of how we record things. Annie (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2023 (EDT)

Mostly yes. I would think they should be "Argo / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum", "Argo / Atheneum", or "Argo / Atheneum / SFBC". However, it looks like there are currently publishers in the DB "An Argo Book / Atheneum" (75 pubs), "An Argo Book / Atheneum / SFBC" (3 pubs), and "An Argo Book / Margaret K. McElderry / Atheneum" (4 pubs). Those would need to be modified so they meet the current naming standard. Note that just plain "Argo" is a completely different publisher from the Czech Republic. Phil (talk) 22:16, 1 June 2023 (EDT)

Oh yes, with a parent. I know the Czech publisher very well. :) We can rename and/or publishers if needed when we get to the bottom of what we want to do here (so we won't need to change each book separately). :) Annie (talk) 12:13, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

It sounds like we've got a consensus. I'll wait until tomorrow. If there are no further objections, I'll approve my held edits and the adjust or merge the publisher's name to shortened versions. Thanks.

You're welcome. --Username (talk) 12:56, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Missing Grazer

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5587838; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?359518. I'm not sure what happened here. He does exist. --Username (talk) 20:34, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Delete images

Could someone please delete these three images - they're no longer required image1 image2 image3. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:57, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Deleted, John Scifibones 22:04, 23 February 2023 (EST)

Thanks John. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 22:19, 23 February 2023 (EST)

The A to Z of Zelazny

Hello ISFDB Moderators,

Thank you very much for adding the Interzone #294 listing.

About the Alexander Glass essay 'A is for Amber', could The A to Z of Zelazny be used as the title of the series? And 'A is for Amber' as the first in that series?

Although it isn't stated in the magazine, 'A is for Amber' is the first in a planned series of 26 essays ('B is for...' and 'C is for...' are in hand coming in IZ 295 and IZ 296; 'D is for...' is on its way). If it could be set up in the same way as Folded Spaces and Climbing Stories, that would be excellent. (But if you need to wait for the second to appear, I completely understand.)

Cheers,

Gareth Jelley --Interzone (talk) 13:15, 26 February 2023 (EST)

We enter the title as per the pub. As this is a verified pub, I have asked the verifier (MagicUnk) to take a look at this conversation and respond. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:54, 26 February 2023 (EST)

Done. Have a look. MagicUnk (talk) 03:07, 27 February 2023 (EST)

Thank you so much, MagicUnk. It looks great. --Interzone (talk) 06:54, 27 February 2023 (EST)

Asimov - The Caves of Steel

I've established from my copy that these two pubs are the same book: date unknown and 1971. I want to keep the latter but then in deleting the former, we lose the inactive PV. Would that be ok, and is there anything else I need to consider? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 10:31, 25 February 2023 (EST)

How can you tell the PVed one is the same printing? If you can indeed establish that for a fact, I recommend you keep it and fix it up and delete the other one, even though the record for the un-verified one is in better starting shape. Then we don't lose the primary verification. --MartyD (talk) 06:57, 27 February 2023 (EST)

Good advice Marty, considered and implemented. Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:29, 1 March 2023 (EST)

La terra morente

I was looking up this title as I may have a version not on file. Is there a reason why this book is listed both as an Omnibus and as a Collection? As far as I can tell they are the exact same book, ISBN, Title, all the same. Record 1436700 Collection. Record 1436698 Omnibus. aardvark7 (talk) 08:16, 26 February 2023 (EST)

This has an explanation. They are not two records for the same book. Rather, the Omnibus contains the Collection. Both happen to have the same name. Unfortunately, the "Publications" display shows you publications using the title and publications in which the title appeared. If you look closely at this, you will see the one publication listed is not a publication of the standalone collection, but rather is the omnibus (which contains this collection). --MartyD (talk) 06:45, 27 February 2023 (EST)

OK I see, sounds weird but no problem. Thanks for the info. aardvark7 (talk) 09:15, 27 February 2023 (EST)

Urania

Dear Mods, can we come to an agreement on how to treat all of the Urania titles. I come across a number that are not in the data base but I get conflicted on how to handle them. The Urania (collana) look to be all Type Mag. Then we go to Urania Collezione. Here we have types novel, omni, Coll & Anth. Each of these seem to be handled differently when entered. Classici Urania we have novel, Coll, anth and chap. I have entered one item from a new series (to the data base), Urania Millemondi. I entered it as an anth, but now I am thinking may be these should all be mags. I have pending Urania Millemondi 79, which I also have as an anth. It has two full length novels in it. This is all very confusing!!! aardvark7 (talk) 12:01, 27 February 2023 (EST)

Our Italian records are designed based on the input from an Italian editor who is not among us anymore. Thus the almost weird way we had recorded the Urania-s in there - apparently they are considered magazines in Italy so even if they look more like a publication series, they were added as magazines. Series that were added after we lost our Italian colleague had been entered based on the understanding of whoever was entering them and not always cleaned up or cleared by someone who actually looked up the history.

The basic rule is that inside of a single pub series/magazine, we should stay consistent for as long as the format and so on stay consistent. So future Uranias always get added as magazines.

For Italian books, I tend to check Fantascienza and see how they recorded the thing (that's where you get a NILF number from as well for the external IDs). Urania is here. Millemondi. Classici Urania. To me they all look the same so I would argue that if we had decided one to be a magazine, they all should be - and as Urania is established as a magazine, switching to a pub series for all of these does not make sense to me. Why we have Classici Urania as a pub series and not as a magazine is unclear... So for a new series? Pick a way. I favor magazines for these but going for pub series also makes sense.

So as you can see, clear as mud. It is indeed confusing :) Welcome to international publishing... Annie (talk) 17:18, 2 March 2023 (EST)

If memory serves, the first person to work on Urania was Ernesto Vegetti who died of a sudden heart attack in January 2010. He was an extremely knowledgeable bibliographer, but we were still hashing things out in the late 2000s and I am not sure we took full advantage of his background.

The next person to work on Urania was User:Pips55, who was active in the early 2010s but hasn't been seen since 2013. I don't recall what, if any, changes he made to the way Urania was organized. We changed our software to add support for publication series right around that time (2012-2013), so it's possible that he was just taking advantage of a shiny new toy and experimenting with it.

Spot checking magazine issues and pub series collections, I think the choice of the magazine format makes sense for the main series. Consider the very first issue, I Romanzi di Urania #1. It contains a complete Italian translation of one novel and the first part of a multi-issue serialization of another novel. Issue 10 contains 5 stories/novellas and the 4th part of a 4-part serial.

On the other hand, "publication series" makes more sense for Classici Urania, which generally published complete books: novels (mostly translations), some translated collections and a few translated anthologies. I don't think they included any serializations. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:39, 2 March 2023 (EST)

Something else to consider when dealing with Urania is that several translated novels which were originally published in the Urania magazine (and thus entered as serial) were later published as part of, e.g., the Urania Millemondi, or Urania Collezioni series as novel. While (presumably) the same translation, thus the same work, these title records are listed as two separate translations. See The Einstein Intersection, translated as 'Einstein perduto', or Miracle Visitors, translated as 'La doppia faccia degli UFO', for example.

By the way, can someone remind me again why we can't have NOVEL-type title records in a magazine? (is this something to consider and start a rules discussion?) MagicUnk (talk) 08:43, 3 March 2023 (EST)

There is a fair amount of history there -- see Help:Use of the SERIAL type for the gory details. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:19, 3 March 2023 (EST)

I tend to think that the classic Urania series was added erroneously as a magazine series: they may appear as such judging on outer appearance and on the regular schedule of appearance, but so does the German Terra series and other likewise examples. I do own a few of the Urania publications and from those and judging by the general contents (publishing whole novels, anthologies and collections) and by the title pages where exactly those novels, anthologies and collections are stated (and not a magazine), Urania does appear as a publication series. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 09:17, 5 March 2023 (EST)

Peace Talks audiobook conundrum

There's conflicting information for the audiobook edition of Peace Talks by Jim Butcher. There's an existing record here for the UK edition of the audiobook with a UK price and the publisher shown as Hachette Audio UK. There is also the same audiobook shown on Amazon.com which has the same date with a US price but the publisher is Penguin Audio. The cover art is different but the narrator and length are the same. Both have the same ISBN / Audible ASIN. MagicUnk is holding this submission until we can resolve this issue but we are confused as to the best path forward (discussion here). Suggestions would be appreciated. Phil (talk) 08:18, 28 February 2023 (EST)

Maybe the ISBN on the Hachette one is a mistake. On Hachette UK, the audiobook ISBN is 9781405532488 (ASIN B086C8ZZGF on Amazon.com). On Penguin Audio, the ISBN for that is 9780593290705; you have to go to Buy to see it (ASIN B082YH6QL4 on Amazon.com). --MartyD (talk) 10:36, 28 February 2023 (EST)

I found the problem. The Audible ASIN for the UK edition is wrong. It should be 1405532483 which yields an ISBN of 9781405532488. Right now the UK edition Audible ASIN is the same as the one for the US edition yielding the same ISBN. Since the UK record has no PV, I've just submitted this edit of the UK record. My held submission here should now be OK. Phil (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2023 (EST)

That happens occasionally when there are two separate audiobooks for the same book (as opposed to the same audiobook just carrying the same ASINs but the same ISBN and publisher across markets) and someone either looks at the wrong Audible or clicks on the wrong edition of the one they are looking at. Same happens with ebooks now and again, especially now that Amazon does not show the ISBN cleanly. So I've learned to look and chase down the possibility for the record being a mix between two separate books. Annie (talk) 18:23, 28 February 2023 (EST)

Title Dates Before First Publication Date

Can I draw attention to # 142 on this report. The cover art date is correct in the 2019 printing; the artwork was 1st published on the 2018 printing. Tag Ignore? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 17:47, 7 March 2023 (EST)

The correct date for this title record is 2019-04-04. The date the artwork is first credited to blacksheep-uk.com in the database. The canonical title caries the date of the first appearance. It only get tricky when the first appearance is credited to an alternate name, but that is not the case here. Please submit the correction and I will approve it.

Referring to an exception report by item number will rarely be correct. It changes when run but also as items are corrected. The title in question is #102 as I write this. John Scifibones 18:30, 7 March 2023 (EST)

Looks like a PV changed the artist attribution for the 2018 printing,now 2018-08-23 is the correct date for the variant. John Scifibones 17:24, 8 March 2023 (EST)

Delete False Variant Message

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/deletetitle.cgi?1369275; 14th Armada Ghost Book link to copy in a pending edit of mine, it's Smeaton in there, too, tried to delete false variant (so many false variants on this site; who entered them and why?) and got the above message, someone delete after my copy link edit is approved (assuming it doesn't get deleted automatically), thanks. --Username (talk) 11:20, 14 March 2023 (EDT)

It seems there's only the Smeaton version existing. So these two titles should have been merged in the first place. Please do so in a follow-up. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 12:46, 14 March 2023 (EDT)

The Dragon Hunter and the Mage

The above title is not in the db. It is an independently published book by a new author. Everything is cut and dry EXCEPT there is two editions of this book with two different ISBN numbers. Still nothing new but here is where I am having problems. Goodreads and Amazon has the 2nd edition as being published on April 25, 2016. Goodreads gives the date for the 1st edition only as 2016. World Cat only gives 2016 for both editions. OceanofPDF gives the 1st Edition date as April 25, 2015 and Open Library gives it as May 10, 2016. A number of the above sources show the cover of the 1st edition, which is the same as the 2nd edition. So for both editions I have the ISBN, page #, cover artist and publisher. Missing the price for the 1st edition. But how to enter this is driving me nuts. There is an Audio and Kindle version and in 2020, a French version, plus a sequel. But I need to get this correctly started before I can proceed with the rest. HELP!!! aardvark7 (talk) 15:20, 14 March 2023 (EDT)

Self-published books can be a pain that way :) I think you are overthinking it a bit - just add what you know. If I was adding based on the information above, I'd add the first edition with the OceanofPDF date and mention in the notes this is the source of the date and add the dates according to the other sources in the notes and then once approved, clone for the second with the Goodreads/Amazon date and all the other data you have. Open Library showing the first edition after the second is a bit... amusing. So if you add the ID from it, make sure to note the discrepancy in dates. We document what we find - as long as you list your sources and add notes on which piece of information comes from where, we can then update if we can find more information. Let me know if something does not make sense. Annie (talk) 16:18, 14 March 2023 (EDT)

S&S

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Markwood#Spaceships_.26_Spells; In case this guy doesn't respond I'd like a mod to see this because there's some confusion with the dates being those of the library binding edition, which has no month, instead of the trade edition, November, plus there's confusion because note says there's ISBN on back cover but I don't see any and it has trade price but has those brown edges which I, possibly in error, think means library binding. Plus the whole title being entered wrong thing. PV of binding edition is gone so no help there. --Username (talk) 16:22, 24 March 2023 (EDT)

The Odin Chronicles

I'm in the process of indexing speculative material in the general webzine, Page & Spine: Fiction Showcase, and I've been wondering how best to index a science fiction anthology first published on the webzine in serial format. However, the 23 short stories making up the anthology were published on a day-to-day basis in January/February 2022 and this sets them apart from each weekly issue of Page & Spine.

Confusingly, the first episode to be published was number 21 (on 29 January 2022) and appears on a web page that scrolls up from this episode to number 18 (published on 1 February 2022) at the top of the page. Clicking the forward button at the end of that page brings you to episodes 8-17. These can be read in numerical order by scrolling from the top of the page to the bottom. However, these episodes were also published in reverse chronological order with episode 17 coming out on 2 February 2022 and episode 8 appearing on 11 February 2022. The final two episodes (22-23) as well as the first 7, and the brief introduction, all appear on the one page. Episode 7 was published on 12 February and episodes 6-1 were published between 13 February and 18 February, with the introduction appearing on 19 February. Episodes 23 and 22 were published on 5 May and 6 May 2022, respectively. Each story can be read on its own dedicated web page on the webzine (e.g., the Introduction can be found here).

I was thinking initially that each story could be treated as a special issue of the magazine but I think that it would be best to index these stories as a serialised anthology that happens to be published on the site of the webzine. I don't know as yet if the anthology has been printed but the serialised version in Page & Spine would constitute the first edition and so by indexing the stories as an anthology, rather than as part of a magazine, this would facilitate merging editions.

But what is best practice here? Treat the stories as part of an anthology or as part of a serial in a magazine? And if it should be treated as an anthology, is the publisher the webzine or is it the webzine's publisher (N. K. Wagner)?--Explorer1000 (talk) 13:34, 27 March 2023 (EDT)

If they weren't published as part of a distinct issue, their first publication (for ISFDB's purposes) was the anthology. You can note on the title page for each story when it was originally published individually and include a link to the publication on the webzine site. That's how I'd enter it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:28, 27 March 2023 (EDT)

Thanks Joe. I can see how that would work. However, there are complexities. Firstly, though expected to come out in December 2022, according to Jonathan Sherwood, the print book has not, as far as I can ascertain, been published yet. Secondly, Page & Spine is due to be taken offline permanently in about five weeks' time, which means these early versions of the stories will disappear, although it is possible that the Internet Archive will preserve them. Thirdly, (and I only discovered this earlier today) the 23 stories, plus seven more, were published between July 8th and September 14th 2022 on the Stupefying Stories Web site. Again, the stories are not part of individual issues of the Stupefying Stories magazine. Should the print version of the anthology never come out, how should these stories be treated? Should the more comprehensive, thirty-story, collection on Stupefying Stories be considered canonical with the less complete collection on Page & Spine being merely noted in each story's publication note?--Explorer1000 (talk) 13:20, 28 March 2023 (EDT)

The stories in this series have all been archived on Archive.today:

Introduction

"Weber's Place" by Pete Wood
"Amid These Dancing Rocks at Once and Ever" by Paul Celmer
"The Song of Akinyi" by Jonathan Sherwood
"The Two Fathers" by Peter Wood
"Where’re You From?" by Roxana Arama
"Delayed Messages" by Carol Scheina
"Picnic" by Pete Wood
"A Friend for the Machinist" by Jenna Hanchey
"Sloane Dreams of Being" by Travis Burnham
"The Odinian Job" by Gustavo Bondoni
"The Apple" by Pete Wood
"Twelve" by Roxana Arama
"Would Scarcely Know We Were Gone" by Jonathan Sherwood
"Love and Groceries" by Carol Scheina
"No Place" by Pete Wood
"Dreams of Another World" by Jenna Hanchey
"A Question of Timelines" by Travis Burnham
"Memory Vault" by Gustavo Bondoni
"The One Who Walks Out" by Carol Scheina
"Faith and Good Works" by Pete Wood
"Hunt" by Jonathan Sherwood
"Friends Like Binary Stars" by Travis Burnham
"The Disappearing Cat Trick" by Carol Scheina

If we want to make sure we can find information on the stories for the rest of the site, it may be good to go through and archive all of them by the deadline in May. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:21, 29 March 2023 (EDT)

Though, looking through more of the stories on the site, not all are genre. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 10:40, 30 March 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, Joe, for adding those stories to the archive as that will at least preserve them for future indexing if the print volume doesn't come about. Most of the webzine's content is non-genre, but its Outta This World section, which lasted from May 2020 to May 2022 and included speculative stories and poetry, has now been indexed. I also indexed a few speculative poems and stories that appeared in the Crumbs, Kids Stuff, End Notes and The Itch sections from January 2020 to May 2021 (and the Stories and Poems sections for January-May, 2020) as I worked on the Outta This World material. I also already checked through the Kids Stuff section though 2021 and 2022, and I'm currently working my through the Crumbs, End Notes and The Itch sections for May 2021 to May 2022. In the meantime, I've also covered a few speculative items from 2019 (identified from surviving author pages as most of the individual and sectional story/poem/essay archives dating from prior to 2020 have already been deleted). I think the best way of ensuring what remains is to submit the individual author pages to the Internet Archive and the monthly archives for the surviving sections. I'll do what I can about that. Greg--Explorer1000 (talk) 08:29, 31 March 2023 (EDT)

Technically speaking, you can add the non-genre ones in the notes. Non-genre stories are added here as titles under very limited circumstances (when published in a speculative magazine (and sometimes a book but there are some differences) or when written by a over the threshold author). However, when adding a non-genre book/magazine (where we only index the genre contents), noone will stop you from adding the non-genre contents in the notes of either the publication or the title (publication only for -zines as the title record is usually the yearly roll-up. That also has the added benefit of people seeing the complete contents, people not trying to add the rest (because we are missing them...) AND if one of them ends up being genre, it is easier to identify later and know it used to be there. Now, that does not mean to go and index everything but in mixed publications, it does not hurt. So up to you. :) Annie (talk) 13:35, 31 March 2023 (EDT)

Hi Annie. Sorry for not responding sooner. The Rules of Acquisition are quite vague about what is meant by authors "over a certain threshold". If the rule was more clearly defined, e.g. a writer who has written a (specified) minimum number of speculative works, it would be so much easier to decide whether or not to index a non-genre piece. But the rule to exclude non-genre material from a general magazine/webzine as opposed to a speculative one is quite straightforward. However, your point about listing non-genre contents in the publication note is reasonable - I've done this before with respect to reviews of fanzines in Tightbeam - but this would add a lot of extra work with respect to Page & Spine! What I could do is note any non-genre stories or poems written by known speculative writers. For example, I did see a non-genre short story by Robert Runté and a couple of poems by Denny E. Marshall that could be added to the note for the issues concerned. In any case, I fear that a lot of earlier issues will not be possible to cover as I don't think there's enough time to add them all (or rather the surviving author pages for all of those issues) in time before Page & Spine is taken offline in about four weeks. Greg--Explorer1000 (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2023 (EDT)

Well, some of the discussion above is now moot as Page & Spine has been taken offline as of this morning, a month earlier than expected. Some parts of it were indexed in 2017 and 2018 by the Internet Archive, to which has been added more material in the last week or so. Some additional cached portions might be found on Bing and Google. However, I'd say that a lot of material - especially in the years 2012-2016 - has been lost. In relative terms, the amount of speculative stories and poems published in the early years might not be very high at least. What I can say has been indexed and checked are as follows:

The Outta This World section, which lasted from May 2020 to May 2022, has been indexed in its entirety.

The Crumbs section (for short pieces like drabbles and short-form poetry) has been examined in its entirety for the period January 2020-May 2022. Any speculative material in the Crumbs section has been indexed for this period.

The Kid Stuff section has been checked for January 2020-May 2022 with a small number of items indexed.

The Itch section (really a single-author column), which paralleled the existence of the Outta This World Section, was checked for May 2020-May 2021 and this produced three speculative fiction stories. It's possible that the remaining twelve months included a similarly small amount of speculative material.

The End Notes section (normally essays) was checked for January 2020-early May 2021. I can still check the rest of May 2021 as the page concerned is still open on my screen.

The Stories and Poems sections were checked for January to early May 2020, when the Outta This World section was introduced. I did find one speculative story incidentally in the Stories section after this date. It's possible that some other speculative material found its way into these sections, which would have been dominated by general fiction (including crime, cosy mysteries, romance, westerns, etc.). Speculative material would certainly have appeared in these two sections from time to time between 2012 and early 2020.

The Reading Lamp was checked for January 2020 to May 2020, when it came to an end. This was mainly for essays but included stories occasionally. It was replaced by the End Notes section in May 2020.

The individual stories appearing (up to chapter 23) in The Odin Chronicles were saved to the Internet Archive by Nihonjoe (as indicated above). I'd also saved the pages of the section containing the stories.

I indexed a few items for 2019. These I'd found in author pages where those authors had contributed stories or poems in 2020-2022. I had hoped to cover more before the webzine was taken offline. It might be possible to find more speculative material for 2019 in whatever the Internet Archive has for that year - I did attempt to save some of it.

Hopefully, some additional speculative material will be found on the saved portions of Page & Spine going forward. The main thing is that the dedicated speculative section - Outta This World - has been fully indexed at least. Greg--Explorer1000 (talk) 07:55, 6 April 2023 (EDT)

Image delete

Could someone delete the older image here please. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 21:35, 29 March 2023 (EDT)

Done Annie (talk) 22:04, 29 March 2023 (EDT)

Trembling with Fear: Year 2

When I filled out the contents of this print anthology and exported same to the entry for the kindle version over a year ago, I forgot to differentiate the three preliminary uncredited essays ("Horror Tree", "Trembling with Fear", and 'Foreword'), and when I noticed my error it was too late for me to fix it as the contents lists are now grey (meaning "titles appearing in multiple publications; cannot be edited here"). Is this something that can be fixed by a moderator or admin? Greg--Explorer1000 (talk) 12:19, 5 April 2023 (EDT)

All that means is the titles are shared among multiple publications. To avoid the mistake of making a change that applies only to the publication being edited and having it appear unexpectedly in other publications, the software forces you to make a deliberate choice. Where you want the change to apply everywhere, click on the link to each title and then edit that title record. After the submission is accepted, both publications will show the change. Just for future reference: If you want to make a change that applies to only a specific publication, you would add a new content record with the corrected title and remove the shared one; you could make one a variant of the other, if appropriate. --MartyD (talk) 13:09, 5 April 2023 (EDT)

Oh, I see! Thanks for explaining that, MartyD! :) I've edited the titles for the essays concerned in the print anthology, so from what you say, they should change automatically for the Kindle version once these edits have been approved. Greg--Explorer1000 (talk) 14:54, 5 April 2023 (EDT)

Gateway - image delete

Could someone please delete this image - it has differences to the actual printing. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 13:16, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

As requested. John Scifibones 13:40, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 23:19, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Submissions taking really long

Hi, my apologies if this is not the right place to ask, I'm fairly new here. I made several submissons and edits in the past few months, and they all were accepted/corrected quickly, but a bulk of my last edits/suggestions are taking longer than usual to be approved/rejected. My pending edits page says to check my talk page if they're taking too long, but I found nothing new there. Is this normal or is there something wrong?

Thanks! Alittlebook (talk) 14:19, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Nothing wrong - just a normal bottleneck that happens sometimes. Moderators are human and have real lives and jobs (and their own projects in the DB) - so sometimes things get slowed down a bit in the queue. If the problem is with your submissions, someone will come over to your page and talk to you with questions and ideas on how to improve them. If noone does, it is a capacity problem - more submissions than what can be handled by the moderators who have the time to work the queue at the moment or a lot of submissions which require a lot of time to verify and clean up. Sometimes you can have a submission approved almost immediately, sometimes it takes considerably longer. We try to clear them as fast as possible but... things get stuck sometimes.

So... apologies for the delays and please be patient with us while we try to catch up with the queue. Annie (talk) 15:14, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie! I asked just in case I had done something terribly wrong :P I made a questions about one of the edits in my page, I was unsure if it was the best place to answer it (again, I'm very new here so I'm still figuring things out). Alittlebook (talk) 19:14, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Yep - the basic rule is that you answer where the question is. So if someone asks you something on your page, you answer there exactly how you did answer to my questions; if the question is one another page, you answer there - exactly how you responded here.

Your submissions are not really bad but as is often the case with new editors, they need work and explanations. Which means that moderators need to have time to research them, fix them and then come explain to you how to improve any future ones. So they may stay open a bit longer than usual. We do not expect people to be perfect when they join (noone is - no matter how many times you read the rules - the DB is big and complicated) and we assist as well as we can but it takes time (and sometimes you just know you won't be around for awhile so starting to work with a new editor may not be something you are willing to do - we all step in and help each other in such cases but if I know my time at a certain week is fragmented and I have no idea what time if any I will have for the DB, I may think twice before starting to work with a newish editor - I'd rather be here to answer any follow up questions). Annie (talk) 19:28, 12 April 2023 (EDT)

Unapersson

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Unapersson; Someone just wrote this person a note about one of their PV, I wrote the writer a note saying they should adjust title because there's another thread with same title from 2019, then I noticed that after that 2019 thread PV went silent until a few days ago when they responded to another thread. This PV is one of the oldest, I think, considering how many times I've seen their name, so if they're really back maybe the "no longer active" sign should be taken down. --Username (talk) 12:13, 15 April 2023 (EDT)

Good point. I have left a note on Unapersson's Talk page. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:56, 16 April 2023 (EDT)

J. B. Priestley: The Doomsday Men

The Doomsday Men (1949) shows a cover, which didn't match the Edition I own. I uploaded my scan The Doomsday Men (2) And tried to ask Bluesman, if his scanned cover is really the original one. His scan has an unreadable small mark "... in U.K.", which isn't on my book. According to Bluesman, he isn't active any more. The Data of the book is simular.

Question: Should I clone the pub with my cover scan? I assume, yes, if the small mark on the page is correct. elsbernd (talk) 09:04, 16 April 2023 (EDT)

Bluesman did not verify the publication. He updated the record per secondary sources. In addition, the scan is a small size. It looks like it is something he downloaded from another site vs. a scan of the publication itself. I would update the current record vs. creating a new one. If someone else comes along with a verifiable version of the other cover, we can create a new one then. We have enough phantom records IMO. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2023 (EDT)

The rest of the text on the lower left of the cover reads "2/- net in U.K.". This matches the price in Tuck. If elsbernd's copy has a different price, I would question whether it's the same 1949 printing. If not, and assuming there is nothing on the copyright page to indicate a later printing, the I would agree with JLaTondre and go with the scan from elsbernd's copy in hand. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:14, 16 April 2023 (EDT)

Me

In "recent changes" a mod reverted something to the last revision which supposedly was done by me; some fake account apparently did something and more than 200,000 characters needed adding or re-adding or whatever. What of mine was messed with? --Username (talk) 08:58, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

When you "revert" or "roll back" a Wiki edit, all data on the affected Wiki page is restored to the condition it was in prior to the edit. In this particular case, a spammer first replaced the contents of ISFDB:Community Portal with a link to the Web site of a shipping company. That's what caused 203,740 characters to "disappear" from the page, as you can see on the Community Portal's Revision History page. When User:Willem H. saw what had happened, he used the "rollback" button to undo the edit and restore the Community Portal to the way it had been prior to the spam edit. That's why the first edit says "-203,740" and the second edit says "+203,740". If you select the 2 edits on the Revision History page linked above and click "Compare selected revisions", you will get an empty page which will also say "(One intermediate revision by one other user not shown) (No difference)". That's how we can tell that nothing was lost. Hope this makes sense! Ahasuerus (talk) 12:35, 18 April 2023 (EDT)

I think it's happened again. --Username (talk) 22:46, 20 April 2023 (EDT)

Fixed, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 23:52, 20 April 2023 (EDT)

Tọlá Okogwu - canonical name fix required

This author has a vanilla o as the second character in their first name; however the covers on all their novels - excluding pseudonymous ones - have an o with a dot below. Copypasting their name from their website shows the following bytes:

 ~ $ echo Tọlá | hexdump -C
 00000000  54 e1 bb 8d 6c c3 a1 0a                           |T...l...|

The accented a at the end of their given name in the record does match what's on their website though. ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:49, 12 May 2023 (EDT)

Fixed. That will be a pain when adding new novels by them (oops...) because I do not think that the o and ọ will be recognized as they same (so the site won't help to change it on approval) so I will try to keep an eye on this record. Annie (talk) 12:54, 12 May 2023 (EDT)

Her ;-)

Looks like most/all of the UK sites don't bother with that special character - Waterstones and Blackwell's don't even do the trailing accented-a either - and with hyperlink underscores obscuring the dot, I agree this one will likely come back again to haunt us... ErsatzCulture (talk) 13:14, 12 May 2023 (EDT)

Oops - I thought I cleared the whole her/him thing as I was not sure. Most online sources don't show special characters very well... even in 2023. :) Annie (talk) 13:34, 12 May 2023 (EDT)

Rainbow Mars

There seems to be two identical entries for this title. this hardcover edition and this hardcover edition. I have no idea which one of the two to verify. --Mavmaramis (talk) 13:45, 13 May 2023 (EDT)

Verify the first one (the one with the 2009 + 2010 secondary verifications). I will delete the other one. --MartyD (talk) 07:54, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

Recent Changes

Why does "Gary G." message I left and got answered by Bob says Hifrommike65 on it in changes list? Mike wrote another message, Strange Plasma, that's not on the changes page, so something went wrong. --Username (talk) 09:02, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

It is correct. You can click on "diff"" after the page name to see what changed. Hifrommike65 edited the last section on the page and manually added a new section heading for his comment. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:19, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Special:RecentChanges; I hesitate to ask again because some people here get hostile about that but I'm going to try, anyway; I see in that list that Hifrommike1965 is in the Gary G. message sent to Bob when it was actually me that sent it and he answered it; Mike's message, Strange Plasma issue 8, is not in the list but it is on Bob's page after the Gary G. message. So can someone restore my name to Gary G. and find a way to get Mike's message to show up in Recent Changes? Because I actually found the Lafferty story mentioned in that message. --Username (talk) 09:49, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

Recent Changes shows the last edits to a page (and the section they edited if applicable). At the time, Mike was the last person who edited that page and he edited the "‎Gary G." section so that is what Recent Changes showed. There are multiple ways to add a new section. You can use the "Add topic" button at the top which will append a new section at the bottom and set the edit summary to the new section title along with "new section". You can also just edit the page and manually type the a new section heading. In that case, the wiki software will use the section heading that was edited in the summary. This is what Mike did and so the wiki showed it that way. The wiki software is an open source product that ISFDB uses and it works the way it works. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:48, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

But why would he edit the Gary G. message when he wasn't responding to that but instead creating a new message about Strange Plasma? Seems like he made a mistake that should be fixed, right? I'm no tech expert, so I'll just ask if there's a way to get the "Gary G." line to show Username instead of Hifrommike1965 and also to get his original message about Strange Plasma to actually show up in the Recent Changes list with his name on it, because as it stands now the only mentions of Strange Plasma are Bob's answer and my own answer. If not, forget it. --Username (talk) 12:11, 14 May 2023 (EDT)

He probably scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked "Edit" on the last section in order to add his new section (as shown by this diff). That's just one of many ways (as listed by JLaTondre, above) that you can edit a page. If you look at the edit history of that specific page, you can see your edit where you created the "Gary G." section at 09:18, 13 May 2023, followed by a number of newer edits (most recent at the top) including the above-mentioned edit by Hifrommike65 at 05:30, 14 May 2023‎. It wasn't a mistake. Rather, it's just one of many ways to create a new section. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:18, 15 May 2023 (EDT)

You may also sometimes see an unhelpful history record if someone edits the whole page to insert a new topic or a response to a particular topic. The edit history will list nothing at all for the target of the edit (i.e., not the section's title), so there is no way to identify what was edited without looking at a comparison of two versions. This history recording/reporting is a feature of the MediaWiki platform used for this Wiki and is not due to anything the ISFDB's configuration is doing. --MartyD (talk) 13:33, 15 May 2023 (EDT)

Again Stonecreek changes my books not following the rules of ISFDB

Hello,

in my Self-Moderation request from here https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal#Self-Moderation_Request (which BTW I'd like to have a decision instead of simply ignoring me) I told Stonecreek that he is wrong in stating that I entered invalid information for my books.

And now I see changes to my books changing tp to pb for the books I added recently. These books are 18.5cm by 12.4cm, so according to https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Template:PublicationFields:Format "For books as tall as 7.25" (19 cm) or as wide/deep as 4.5" (11.5 cm) use "tp". As 12.4cm is clearly larger than 11.5cm that's tp as I entered correctly.

As said above already, lots of my books have made changes after I entered them which revert the once correct information to something else.

That makes it useless to care for such details at all.--Stoecker (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

I'll ask Stonecreek to comment. In the meantime, this looks like an offshoot of this Rules & Standards discussion. Softcover publication formats on international markets is an in-depth look at the issue. The November 2019 discussion was inconclusive, but a seemingly solid proposal to change Help in accordance with prevailing data entry practices was put forward. If we can resurrect the proposal and reach consensus, it would help everyone. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:50, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

I looked shortly at this discussion and it seems mainly to indicate that German tp should be pb instead for differences in publishing. I don't see this. Yes, there are slight differences, but mainly its simply as Annie says in my talk page about the pb/tp situation "That's very different from how the market looked 20 years ago for example :)". I have many older books and they match the pb definition (I give slight leeway for a 17.7x11.7cm book still added as pb), whereas the new ones don't. That's true for English as well as German. Books get bigger (and usually have bigger print and bigger borders to waste more space). As it seems reinventing a new format every 10 years makes no sense it obviously is as simply as adding most new books as tp even if they are still paperbacks from feeling. --Stoecker (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

[after edit conflict] That being said, changes to primary verified publications should be coordinated with the verifier(s) as per the standard process. Ahasuerus (talk) 21:19, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

Since I hinted to this problem (and others that weren't dealt with, like not sourcing the data and stating no or erroneous publication series) in my commentary upon Dirk's application, and I verified the publications in question & stated the changes in the 'Note to Moderator', I do think the informational part towards the primary verifier was not ignored. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 21:59, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

IF you, Dirk, would have followed these rules before, then why is it that other publications in that series (and others) with the same deepness dimension verified by you were categorized as mass-market paperbacks (like this one or that one)? Don't you agree that it's not useful to have them in different categories?

Well. Actually in my booklist I make no distinction between pb and tp. ISFDB does. Whether I like it or not I have to follow these rules. The two books you mention are many years apart. I don't see a reason why they must be the same. Also maybe 10 years ago I didn't understand this pb/tp issues as much as now? And I'd have no issue with correcting an entry which does not follow the rules to follow the rules, whereas this here is the opposite direction. And it's ok to follow rules always with a grain of salt, but some changes simply can only be considered as no longer following the rules. 10% more in width as in the changes I mentioned is a bit much. --Stoecker (talk) 17:19, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

The reasons presumably are that 1) the publisher(s) categorize them as mass-market paperbacks ("Taschenbuch" in German), and 2) the vast majority of same-dimensioned publications were entered and verified by editors as such.

The proposal in 'Rules and Standards Discussions' we are directed to above sums it up quite well: the publications aren't trade paperbacks in any meaningful sense of the word (some others of them in these series were published as a genuine trade paperback before). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 21:16, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

The arguments in favor of changing the format code may well have merit, but they should have been brought up with Dirk Stoeker before the change was made. Back when your self-approver privileges were restored in September 2022, you wrote:

There also will be more communication upon planned actions from my side

A bit later, in response to Annie's comment about:

[a] pattern of behaving under moderation, promising improvement if permissions are returned and then getting back to the old behavior as soon as permissions are granted again, especially around “correcting” other editors’ work silently

and Willem's comment "I sure hope there won't be a next time though", you wrote:

There won't be. I've been somewhat short-tempered (and even unfair & wrong to you) before. Apparently I've been a hothead regarding some things that didn't work out the way I thought they should.

Ahasuerus (talk) 22:41, 18 May 2023 (EDT)

I think that I have brought up the issue of erroneous format attribution in one of the publications in question towards Dirk when I wrote that it has a "wrong format, since the vast majority of publications by this publisher with the same format are defined as pb" in the thread for his application for self-moderating. This I did before being able to PV it. On PVing it I found that it in fact didn't deviate in height & width from other contemporaries in the series, including publications verified by Dirk.

But maybe you mean that I should have addressed him especially also on his talk page. As there are some more publications PV'ed by him (and I won't PV them all) it may in fact be better to address this (and the other problems) on his talk page. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 14:42, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

What I meant was that you should have discussed the issue of changing the format code ("tp" to "pb") on the primary verifier's Talk page before making the change. You should have explained your reasoning to Dirk and then, if the two of you disagreed about the best way to record the data, you could have asked for moderator opinion on the Moderator Noticeboard. It would have ensured that everyone was on the same page and avoided conflict. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

Alright, in the future I'll bring this to the PV's attention, even if I'm also a PV and have adressed the problem before to the PV. What other basic fields would you (or others) think be mandatory for the same action? Publisher comes to mind (of course), but also publication series (and/or adding a missing one)? Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:18, 20 May 2023 (EDT)

It's hard to compile a comprehensive list due to the number of possible scenarios. I don't know how common it is with German publications, but I have seen a lot of US cases where a seemingly minor change indicated that two primary verifiers had different editions or printings. For example, prior to WWII there were hardly any mainstream paperback publishers in the US. The first hardcover edition was usually printed on quality paper and had a solid binding. Subsequent hardcover editions used poor quality paper and flimsy bindings, but they cost less. Distinguishing between them can be difficult unless you are familiar with the publisher(s).

Another scenario that we came across a few years ago was limited to certain East European, primarily Russian, publishers. Russian laws apparently requires the publisher to state the number of copies printed in the back of the book. The first printing would say something like "10000 copies printed" while subsequent printings would say things like "10000 printed; additional printing of 3000+2000 copies". Making sure that two verifiers owned the same printing could be tricky if they were not familiar with whatever standards Russian publishers were required to use at the time. There may well be other scenarios in other countries that I am not familiar with.

In Germany, this seems to be more common only nowadays, and especially with the print-on-demand publications (where it's possible to change the setting, lettering, and even the contents without having to change the outer & inner appearance in a major way). The bigger German publishing houses (of which Bastei Lübbe is one example) are still quite reliable in their marking of printings, I think. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:59, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

In addition, different verifiers have different expectations, which are usually documented at the top of their Talk page -- see my Talk page for an example. Generally, minor improvements that do not affect the content, e.g. typo fixes, formatting, adding hyperlinks to existing notes, etc can be documented in Moderator Notes and do not require a separate notification on other verifiers' Talk pages. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:30, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

Dirk, you state "The two books you mention are many years apart." and you "don't see a reason why they must be the same" (referring to the 1982 & 2011 publications of A. D. Foster novels). Yet you stated above in this thread that "it seems reinventing a new format every 10 years makes no sense". There's some contradiction in these different statements, I think.

The later A. D. Foster publication and the one by Jim C. Hines are only two years apart (2009 & 2011), have absolutely the same dimensions in height & width, were published by the same publisher and are part of the same pub. series (for which the vast majorities of publications with the same width & height are categorized as 'pb', with quite a handful of different PVs; there are some genuine trade paperbacks in it, though, but they are higher priced: €12.00 and above). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:59, 20 May 2023 (EDT)

What strikes me is that Stonecreek always or often seems to appear as a transient PV. A rogue who thinks bad about it.--Wolfram.winkler (talk) 12:42, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

A transient primary verification is (or has to be) always based on a copy at hand. I sometimes have copies that I don't intend to keep for all eternity: either I don't collect the specific author or the copies aren't in a good enough shape (bruised on the cover / the back, or with markings on pages): then I do spend them after some time for charity (provided they aren't totally bruised & torn). I hope your rogue dreams are calmed and you'll sleep well. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:07, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

Nice explanation but not comprehensible: owned at the time of your corrections and verification, the books must be in your possession, after that you have then donated them? --Wolfram.winkler (talk) 13:50, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

Exactly so, that's the definition of a transient verification, please look it up in the rules. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:59, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

Your transient verification, which is always entered after the permanent PV, gives you the opportunity to change data without involving a moderator. It must have hit you hard to have been dismissed as a moderator. Google translation. --Wolfram.winkler (talk) 16:55, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

On what number of probes is that wrong assumption based, Wolfram?

Actually, it's more important being able to add content and quality to this unique database than being a moderator. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 05:08, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

At least one case, but one is one too many.

Then I wish you happy work in compliance with the rules.

Unfortunately, the past has shown that this does not really work (Google).--Wolfram.winkler (talk) 11:31, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

The details are under Help:How to verify data:

Select "Transient verification" if you have access to the book temporarily, e.g. you got it from a library.

Ahasuerus (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2023 (EDT)

Uploading Images

I request that moderators be less cautious with uploading the author images since they can always be deleted if there is a problem. I've had issues with work product being deleted and this is less than a public-friendly way to run the website.Maybrick (talk) 16:25, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

If I understand your request correctly, you are asking that moderators approve submissions which include cover/author images hosted by third party Web sites that we do not have permission to link to, then delete them if the third party Web site complains. If so, then it would be against current policy as described over on ISFDB:Image_linking_permissions#The_need_for_permission. We have a number of software processes, specifically yellow warnings and nightly cleanup reports, which ensure that we only link to Web sites that have given us permission. In addition, some sites, notably SFE, only give us permission to link to certain subsets of the images that they host, which is also enforced by the software. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:42, 19 May 2023 (EDT)

Old image delete

Could someone please delete the old image here. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 11:11, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Deleted. John Scifibones 11:37, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Thanks John. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:15, 22 May 2023 (EDT)

Fogadó a Halott Alpinistához

As the PV of this one is missing, I would like to change the author credit of this book based on a scan of the title page (matching the cover credit) which shows "A. és B. Sztrugackij" and the format from pb to tp (as it is shown as 133х204 mm and other sources online seem to concur with a 20cm book). Due to the specifics of the language, I propose to use the single name "A. és B. Sztrugackij" for the pub/title and then pseudonym it up to both authors. The scan is available at Fantlab: here. All other elements of our record match the scans - including the price and the ISBN so it is unlikely for this to be a different book with just the authors and format being different. I will also add a note on which elements are changed post the verification and based on what sources of course. Are there any objections? Annie (talk) 19:20, 24 May 2023 (EDT)

I'd only argue against a joint pseudonym. My recollection is that the Dillons are frequently credited as "Leo and Diane Dillon" yet we credit them as two individual authors. For that matter, the credit on this pub appears on the title page as "Arkady and Boris Strugatsky" (slightly different than the cover). I'm assuming that "és" translates as "and". I think it would be more in line with how we treat other credits like this to credit it to "A. Sztrugackij" and "B. Sztrugackij" as two separate authors. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:08, 24 May 2023 (EDT)

(after edit conflict) This raises an interesting question. "és" means "and" in Hungarian, so the author credit means "A. and B. Sztrugackij". How do we usually enter composite credits of this nature? Advanced Author Search finds Sarah and Schooling, which our Notes explain is used by "Singapore-based designers Sarah Tang and Alison Schooling", and a few other artist duos like Davidson and Maltz and Davies and Starr. However, the only author duo that is handled the same way is Hawk and Young (at least that I can see.) There is also Myself and Another and Theosopho and Ellora, but they represent a different scenario.

Checking Fantlab's Strugatsky bibliography, I see lots of joint credits like Аркадий, Борис Стругацкие and Аркадий и Борис Стругацкие. Should we enter them as a single alternative name or split them into their components? Ahasuerus (talk) 21:18, 24 May 2023 (EDT)

I’d usually split them in languages where the plurals don’t change compared to the single names. In that case splitting the credit will require figuring out how to form the singular of the family names - is the final j for plural or part of the single last names? Hungarian is highly inflected so it is not straight forward. I can look up the single names on Wikipedia and local sources but it feels closer to the source to keep it as one name. Annie (talk) 21:30, 24 May 2023 (EDT)

Looking at the Hungarian sources, the ij is there for the single names as well so splitting works here indeed. It still leaves the question on what we do when that is not the case but for this one, separate ones is fine with me. Annie (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2023 (EDT)

(unindent)With no objections, the changes are now done and a note added. Authors were recorded as split due to the match in the name in both plural and singular. Will reopen a separate discussion on what we do when they do not match. Annie (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2023 (EDT)

PartnerShip

The page of the sole verifier for this publication https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?407699 says they are no longer participating and to post edits to verified pages here, so I'm going to change the publisher of this publication to Baen Books from Baen, because the pages for the two publishers says not to confuse them, and the publication itself has Baen Books logo on the cover and says Baen Books on the copyright page. Baen Books is listed as the publisher of the first printing of this edition/ISBN number. So, unless anyone has any objection...Thanks. gzuckier (talk) 00:42, 27 May 2023 (EDT)

See ISFDB:Community Portal#Baen vs. Baen Books discussion for reference. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:34, 27 May 2023 (EDT)

Image delete...

Could someone please delete the old image here. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:52, 27 May 2023 (EDT)

...and on this this page, please delete the two 29 May 2023 entries. I added Pat's photo to the wrong page. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 03:02, 29 May 2023 (EDT)

Done. John Scifibones 07:29, 29 May 2023 (EDT)

JSC

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5678963; Cover artist has same name as alternate name for old pulp writer so some differing credit will need to be added. --Username (talk) 09:29, 31 May 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the heads-up. I changed it to "J. Scott Campbell (artist)". Just FYI for the future, you could have done that on the original submission: it doesn't need to start off with the un-disambiguated name. --MartyD (talk) 08:35, 1 June 2023 (EDT)

I forgot. Going back to edit page sometimes drops certain info depending on how long it's been since you made the edit, a problem that someone here probably should look into, so I just wrote a note about it that I figured someone would see eventually because my mind is deteriorating and my ability to remember anything is gone. If I hadn't written a note the edit would have sat at the top of the thousand other edits I had pending and by the time it was approved weeks later I would have totally forgotten about it and someone coming across the book's record in the future would think a dead pulp writer had risen from the grave to do some cover art. --Username (talk) 08:53, 1 June 2023 (EDT)

Reginald3 ID# notification

I'm adding Reginald3 ID#s and feel I'm cluttering up PV editors' pages. What's the accepted norm here - should I keep doing so? Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:21, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

I’d usually just use a moderator note when adding external IDs unless I am also adding other things. If I am working through a batch of books, I’d sometimes notify a PV for a first change and ask them if they want me to get them a notification for these - then keep lists per PV and post a single message per day at the end of the day. If you want to notify, it is never a mistake though. Annie (talk) 01:32, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for your thoughts Annie, very helpful :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 14:31, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Submission language

(moved from User talk:Ahasuerus)

Could we have another chart at the top of the Moderator submissions page that lists non-English language submissions? It would be based on the language of the title/publication. This would allow moderators with skills in specific languages to more easily find those submissions (for example, I try to keep an eye out for Japanese submissions). Thoughts? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:04, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

Well, it depends on the submission type. NewPub submissions include the language of the title(s) of the proposed publication, but most other submission types do not. For EditPub, ClonePub, etc the software would need to query the database to find the language(s) associated with each pub and EditTitle would require a single database lookup. That would definitely kill performance, at least for the Moderator Queue page.

Based on the above, my guess is that creating a "language table" for NewPubs would be fairly easy to do, but other types of submissions are currently unlikely. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:29, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

How about NewPub and EditTitle (both have the language in the record)? That will help a lot - I tend to scan for my languages as well often enough to find this useful. Annie (talk) 18:44, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

EditTitle (aka TitleUpdate) only includes the language name if the submission includes a language change -- see this XML dump for an example of an EditTitle submission. We could get it from the database, but it would require a database query against dozens or hundreds of title records. I'll have to check the performance implications. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

Ah, I've forgotten that. So I vote for NewPub at least - the vast majority of the new users in a new language start with NewPub I think anyway. Annie (talk) 19:00, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

I am looking at the code and it looks doable. However, I am not sure it would be a good idea to list all non-English submissions at the top of the page. Depending on who is active at any given point in time, we could have dozens or hundreds of non-English submissions. Getting down to the main table would require a lot of paging.

I am thinking that the new table should be similar to the recently added "Counts of pending submissions by submitter" table. We could call it "Counts of pending submissions by language". Clicking the language name would take you to a new Web page with a list of Japanese, French, etc submissions just like clicking "All" takes you to the "Pending submissions created by user N" page. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:56, 2 June 2023 (EDT)

Hearing no objection, I have created FR 1568, "Add a "Counts of submissions by language" table to Moderator Queue". Ahasuerus (talk) 12:20, 6 June 2023 (EDT)

PF

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5679743; Can one of you approve this? Someone made an edit adding contents so I want to head it off in case they add anything else and conflict with my edit. --Username (talk) 07:58, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Got it. I also made the canonical record for the cover art and took care of the intro that was duplicated by the later submission. --MartyD (talk) 10:35, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Adrian Tchaikovsky birthdate

SFE says his birthdate is today (June 4th), as do Wikipedia and 2022 Locus interview. Can someone have a look through his page's edit history to see if there's a particular reason why the 14th is recorded here? This brief Twitter exchange might corroborate the 14th - in that he doesn't correct the person wishing him a happy birthday on the 14th - but it all seems a bit woolly. ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:28, 4 June 2023 (EDT) EDIT: this tweet seems to confirm the 14th, I'll reply to the SFE tweet that brought this to my attention, pointing out they seem to have wrong info? ErsatzCulture (talk) 12:31, 4 June 2023 (EDT)

With his latest tweet Adrian Tchaikovsky states that it's not the fourth of June ("Not actually that day but the art is nice :)")! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 01:31, 5 June 2023 (EDT)

Yeah, SFE have acknowledged they had incorrect info, and I've updated the author note to explicitly say the 4th is wrong, pointing at author tweets to support that assertion. ErsatzCulture (talk) 07:10, 5 June 2023 (EDT)

Fountain/Mountain

I got a response to my "Fables from the Fountain" question but clicking it just left me at the top of the PV page because title says "Fables from the Mountain" in URL even though message still says Fountain. Any idea why? --Username (talk) 07:54, 5 June 2023 (EDT)

The Iron Wars

There appears to be a duplication of this record (1998) and this record (1999). I have a physical copy of the book in hand. The copyright is dated 1999 and title page states "First published 1999" The 1998 has an OLCL which also has a 1999 date. Don't see anything in my physical copy to indiate any earlier Gollanc hardback edition. I'm putting in a request to delete the 1998 hardback entry. --Mavmaramis (talk) 12:47, 5 June 2023 (EDT)

According to Amazon.UK it was published on Jan 7 1999, so I can see an erroneous date of 1998 getting in. See no reason not to delete it.Kraang (talk) 23:59, 5 June 2023 (EDT)

Non-standard disambiguated authors

Whilst searching for something else, I noticed there's a "A. G. Taylor (1)" record, rather than "A. G. Taylor (I)" as you'd expect per Help:How_to_separate_two_authors_with_the_same_name. A SQL query shows there's a few of these, if anyone wants to investigate and/or correct them:

   MariaDB [isfdb]> select author_id, author_canonical, concat('https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?', author_id) url from authors where author_canonical regexp '.*\\([0-9]\\).*';
   +-----------+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
   | author_id | author_canonical    | url                                         |
   +-----------+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
   |    257879 | Jan de Fast (1)     | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?257879 |
   |    259243 | Morgan (1)          | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?259243 |
   |    268475 | Arthur Williams (1) | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?268475 |
   |    271652 | Chris (1)           | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?271652 |
   |    282385 | Bruce (1)           | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?282385 |
   |    334909 | Otto (1)            | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?334909 |
   |    337464 | Brown (1)           | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?337464 |
   |    342919 | A. G. Taylor (1)    | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?342919 |
   |    347151 | John Stanley (2)    | https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?347151 |
   +-----------+---------------------+---------------------------------------------+
   9 rows in set (0.050 sec)

ErsatzCulture (talk) 09:18, 7 June 2023 (EDT)

Fixed! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:58, 7 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. ErsatzCulture (talk) 16:18, 7 June 2023 (EDT)

Varianting a mis-spelled cover art credit alreday present

Hello Mods. I picked up a hardback copy of this. Rear flap of dustwrapper has "Jacket illustration by Mark Posen" - obviously meaning Mike Posen. How do I go about making it a variant of this title ?--Mavmaramis (talk) 11:26, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

Enter it exactly as shown, and then variant misspelled artist name COVERART title to the correct one. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:45, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

Also, looking at it further, are you saying you have a different hc than the one you linked to, and that one has it as Mark instead of Mick (which is what the hc you linked has)? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:46, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

I have a copy of the one I linked to but I have no idea how to do a variant of the already existing cover art title as I couldn't change it when doing my verification.--Mavmaramis (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

It looks like you checked with Faustus and they verified the same misspelling as yours, so we'll need to unmerge the HC cover title from the TP cover title, change the entry for the HC so it's got the correct incorrect spelling (Mark), then revariant it back to the correct spelling. Since that's rather complicated, I've done that for you. You can see the result here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:00, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

Thank you. I didn't think it would be simple. All good now. --Mavmaramis (talk) 22:45, 9 June 2023 (EDT)

Please enable my web API access

Per Web_API#License_Keys, could someone enable my recently created API key? I'm guessing this is something that only Ahasuerus or Al von Ruff can do?

I've just hacked together a script that fingers-crossed will fix ~600 borked Amazon image URLs in a relatively painless manner, but I'm getting "This user is not authorized to create submissions via the ISFDB Web API.\n Post on the ISFDB Moderator Noticeboard if you need access." responses. Thanks ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:18, 11 June 2023 (EDT)

SR 217 has been created. I hope to get it done tomorrow morning. Long term, the ability to give editors access to the Web API needs to be moved to the Bureaucrat Menu. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:19, 11 June 2023 (EDT)

The WebAPI has been updated. Please let me know if you run into any issues. Ahasuerus (talk) 00:36, 12 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, I've pushed through the first few successfully. There were a few niggles encountered, I'll document them on your talk page. ErsatzCulture (talk) 07:57, 12 June 2023 (EDT)

Bedlam cover art

Hello mods. Someone has made two totally different cover art illustrations for the same novel one and the same. See here. The 1993 edition has a totally different cover from the 1992 edition. --Mavmaramis (talk) 16:41, 12 June 2023 (EDT)

I unmerged them. The two records have been combined for a long time. The pubs were updated in the last year to add the artwork. Locus1 credits both covers to Stimpson and so probably someone assumed they were the same before we had images. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:47, 12 June 2023 (EDT)

Counts of pending submissions by language added to the Queue page

As per this discussion earlier, I have added a new table of "NewPub submissions by language" to the Moderator Queue. Language names are clickable and will take you to a list NewPub submissions for the clicked language.

Please note that you may need to do a full page reload (Control-F5 in most browsers) to get the new table to display correctly. Please let me know if you come across any issues. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2023 (EDT)

Is it your intention to group only the NewPub and AddPub submissions? Edit: I see the answer above, sorry John Scifibones 15:15, 15 June 2023 (EDT)

No problem! Unfortunately, only NewPubs are guaranteed to include a "language name" value in the submission payload. It may be possible to extract language names from the database for certain other submission types like "EditTitle", but it would affect performance and likely make the Moderator Queue page sluggish. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:25, 15 June 2023 (EDT)

Inadvertant cover art upload

Ooops. I uploaded this - it's the hardback cover art not the paperback edition. Could someone undo that. I've now re-uploaded it to the hadback copy. Thanks. --Mavmaramis (talk) 02:47, 17 June 2023 (EDT)

As requested. John Scifibones 11:05, 17 June 2023 (EDT)

Non-Genre Covers

https://archive.org/details/raggededgeofscie0000deca; Some new editors have uploaded covers recently for a 40s Ellery Queen issue, a 70s porno mag, and an 80s Runner's World. The Queen zine cover is illustrated so has a slim chance of being by a genre artist and thus eligible but the others just have a photo of a couple of naked people and Jenilee Harrison, Cindy on Three's Company, respectively. So before they upload anything else maybe they should be told that only genre covers are acceptable. --Username (talk) 10:40, 28 June 2023 (EDT)

We changed the rules a year or so ago to equalize them with non-genre books whose covers were always allowed - now non-genre periodicals covers are always eligible to be added both as images and as coverart records when the magazine itself is added here. The current rules are here: the relevant part is "Enter the cover artist if known. If an image is available, enter its URL - see ISFDB:Image linking permissions for details.". Annie (talk) 13:10, 28 June 2023 (EDT)

So you mean every magazine on ISFDB currently can now have an image? Even the pornos? I wish I could go back through my 50,000+ edits and find all the non-genre covers I had rejected and re-enter them, but that would be a waste of time. Seems pointless to enter covers if there's no art or anything genre-related on them but if that's what some people decided, I'm off to add some new covers. Nudity ahoy. --Username (talk) 13:30, 28 June 2023 (EDT)

Yes - since the change of the policy in late November 2022 (checked when we changed the help page - the discussion was in the weeks before that). It is up to the editors which covers to add and which not to add - but they are all allowed - even without an artist name and just as a URL. The same way we had always allowed it for books. Annie (talk) 13:37, 28 June 2023 (EDT)

The Good Stuff

I note that this title has two slightly differeing pieces of art. The difference being the floating rock so not strictly identical. --Mavmaramis (talk) 13:10, 28 June 2023 (EDT)

SV removal

In the USD edition of Dilvish, the Damned Reginald3 is correctly SV'd and numbered. In the Canadian printing it has also been SV'd - wrongly. Could someone remove that and mark it N/A. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 22:42, 1 July 2023 (EDT)

adding a publication

Can a publication listing be added before the item is offered for sale? (i.e., I have obtained an ARC with all relevant info, but the book is not scheduled for publication for a couple more weeks) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fabius (talk • contribs) .

The short answer is "yes". To quote Help:Screen:NewPub:

Future Publication Dates - ISFDB captures records for some publications that have been announced for release in the future.
- New publications announced for the near future (within the next 90 days) should be given that future publication date.
- Do not create records for newly announced publications scheduled for release more than 90 days into the future, as these plans often change.

Ahasuerus (talk) 11:38, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

One small note to add - if you are working from an ARC, mention it in the notes (when we work from pre-release records, we note the date for example making it obvious that we are adding pre-publication). Things change between ARCs and the actual book occasionally so that will minimize the risk of us ending with two separate records downstream. Annie (talk) 12:42, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

Second set of eyes please.

I've submitted a publication [deletion] that I'd rather not self-approve as it involves someone else's entry and PV. Thank you in advance. ../Doug H (talk) 23:23, 3 July 2023 (EDT)

After reviewing the data I agree that record 483390 and record 556122 apparently describe the same pub. I see that one of them has been verified by you and the other one by User:Don Erikson, who has been inactive for the last 3+ years.

One way to handle this situation would be for you to delete "your" pub record, then to primary-verify Don's pub, thus keeping both primary verifications. Would that work for you? Ahasuerus (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2023 (EDT)

An obvious approach. I reloaded the cover image as well. Will deleting a publication automatically get rid of the associated image? ../Doug H (talk) 08:46, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

The only effect deleting the publication has on the wiki page is breaking the link back to the publication. I went ahead and deleted it, mod only function, since you reloaded the image and created a new wiki page. John Scifibones 09:23, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

The Mouser Goes Below

Hello. After a long while, I have released this edit [1] for other moderators to have a look. While Willem agrees it's a Novel rather than a Novella, I am not entirely comfortable with affecting the change. MagicUnk (talk) 06:39, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

Examining the text in my ebook collection, I see that the submitter is correct: it contains over 64.5K words. I would make it a NOVEL and leave a canned message on the primary verifiers' Talk pages. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:04, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

PS. Real-life hasn't been nice to me the last couple of months, hence my absence from the site. Not sure when/if I will be back... Regards, MagicUnk (talk) 06:39, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

Sorry to hear about the real life issues! Hopefully things will improve sooner rather than later. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:04, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

I've approved the change to NOVEL and fixed all the translations to be NOVEL types as well. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:37, 5 July 2023 (EDT)

The Hollowing

Hello Mods. I have a question regarding this publication. I made a note that the book has an appendix, which is an in-universe folk tale of Ryhope Wood by Goerg Huxley - i.e. it's fictional. The tale has a title and a note before it making it appear as if it is an out of universe (i.e. a 'real world') tale. Should I add this as content ? --Mavmaramis (talk) 02:07, 8 July 2023 (EDT)

I think your treatment is fine, unless we discover the same story ended up published elsewhere. You might adjust the note to call out that it's a fictional appendix, and its credited author, "George Huxley" is an in-universe character. If you did want to make a content entry for it, I think you'd need to title it something like: "<whatever> by George Huxley" and make the author credit be Robert Holdstock. --MartyD (talk) 07:46, 10 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. I'll leave it as is and amend the note per your suggestion. --Mavmaramis (talk) 14:16, 11 July 2023 (EDT)

Who to credit ?

Hello Mods. The can of worms of cover design vs cover photo opens again with the two Gollancz editions of Trillion Year Spree. I made a note for my trade paperback copy that it states "Jacket design by Don Macpherson (over) Jacket photograph by Peter Letts" on backcover. The hardback credits Macpherson wheres the trade paperback credits Letts. So which one of those two get's the cover art credit ? --Mavmaramis (talk) 15:38, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Macpherson does not get a credit under any circumstances - designers never do. If the hardback only credits "cover: Macpherson", then I'd been inclined to add a "Macpherson (in error)" credit and pseudonym to Letts thus allowing a variant cover and credits as per the books. As long as Letts photographs are on the cover and not the author photo of course. Alternatively, no credit for anyone and just notes (photographs are a bit of a gray area sometimes as Cover Artists but if you decide to credit -- it should be Letts). Annie (talk) 15:46, 13 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks Annie. Maybe you could tell Makwood that as I tried to ask him what his hardback copy said (ghaving quoted him what mine said). See here where he states "So, you're saying the jacket front is a photograph, and not a graphic design? Doesn't appear that way to me". Gonna change the credit. --Mavmaramis (talk) 00:46, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Brainchild

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5716829; I added 2 ID and a note about page count but it insists that I did something with the title which I didn't. Why is that? --Username (talk) 10:53, 14 July 2023 (EDT)

Checking the raw database data, I see that the main ANTHOLOGY title has a page number, "|1", associated with it. It wasn't displayed when you edited the publication record because the "Page" field is grayed out and not editable for ANTHOLOGY (and other "container") titles. My first guess was that at one point this publication was a NOVEL or another non-container and the non-container title had "|1" assigned to it. Checking Edit History, I see that this pub did have its title type changed to ANTHOLOGY on 2018-10-14, which suggests that my guess was correct.

Once your submission is approved, the "|1" page number will disappear. Ahasuerus (talk) 16:54, 14 July 2023 (EDT)

Change required for variant name: Ren Qing -> Channing Ren

任青 is listed on the Hugo finalist list with the western name "Ren Qing". When I added the tp pub that has their story, I noted that various sources reported them as Channing Ren.

I've now bought the ebook pub, and - Sod's Law - it turns out that Channing Ren is how they are listed in the actual antho, see here.

Could someone update the Ren Qing author record accordingly please? Thanks ErsatzCulture (talk) 16:37, 14 July 2023 (EDT)

Done. Also, as an FYI, changing the author name in the English Title record from "Ren Qing" to "Channing Ren" would have deleted the "Ren Qing" author record and created a new author record for "Channing Ren". The new author record would then need to be turned into an alternate name of "任青", but it could be done by a self-approver. Not a big deal, just something to keep in mind in the future. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:31, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks; I did wonder if something like that was doable, but I thought better to just punt it here.

There's another one coming down the line, which I've put off, because I spent a day trying to get my head round it, and trying to write it up to confirm (a) a consensus for that course of action, and (b) how exactly to tackle it, isn't something I'm relishing. I don't think many westerners have realized there are 2 different Hugo finalists called 杨枫 and 杨枫(I), and IMHO we probably have the disambiguations the wrong way round, as the former should probably be an alternate name for 天爵, who isn't in the database yet. Something to look forward too... ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:32, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Wolfe - Der fünfte Kopf des Zerberus - novel and novella dating

Whilst editing two of my own English language pubs of this title I noticed some dating which someone, hopefully, can clarify for me.

There are two novella titles by different translators 1974-11-00 trans. by Yoma Cap and 1982-05-00 by Eva Malsch.

The novel 1974-11-00 trans. by Yoma Cap dating looks ok as does the Eva Malsch translation but I don't see a 1974-11-00 Yoma Cap novella publication - only the 1984-04-00 one as the first instance.

The note in the 1972-04-00 novel title page refers to the German translations but doesn't help me.

So, do we treat the novel and the novella as having the same first instance date? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:44, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

The sequence of events as I understand it is as follows:

The novella version of "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" was published in Orbit 10 on 1972-02-16.
The novella version became Part 1 of the novel version which used the same title, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, and was first published on 1972-04-00.
Both the novella version and the novel version were subsequently reprinted by various US/UK publishers.
The second part of the novel version was later reprinted as a separate novelette "A Story" by John V. Marsch in a 1994-07-00 anthology. We have it dated "1994-07-00".
Yoma Cap's first German translation of the novel version was published as Der fünfte Kopf des Zerberus in 1974-11-00.
The first part of Yoma Cap's German translation (which corresponds to the novella version of "The Fifth Head of Cerberus") was reprinted in 1984 and then again in 2002. The title date of this title is currently set to "1974-11-00" and matches the date of the first publication of the German novel.
The third (and final) part of the English novel hasn't been reprinted as a separate novella. However, the third part of Yoma Cap's German translation was published as "V. R. T.", a separate novella on 1983-04-00. The title date of this title is currently set to "1983-04-00".

The problem then is that we have an inconsistency. The separate English appearance of the second part, "A Story" by John V. Marsch, is currently dated "1994-07-00" and matches the date of the anthology in which it appeared. Similarly, the separate German appearance of the third part, "V. R. T.", is dated 1983-04-00 and matches the date of the anthology in which it appeared. However, the separate German appearance of the novella version (which is the same as the first part of the novel), is dated "1974-11-00", when the novel translation appeared, as opposed to "1984-04-00", which is when the separate German version appeared.

Based on the above, I would suggest changing the title date of the novella version of "Der fünfte Kopf des Zerberus" from 1974-11-00 to 1984-04-00. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for taking such a careful look at this and your elegant answer. It resolves my uncertainty about novella/novel treatment and confirms where I thought the problem lay - your 6th bullet point homes in on that. I've submitted the change 1974-11-00 to 1984-04-00 as you've suggested :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

The submission has been approved, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:14, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Great! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:44, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Mod Bob

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Template:Moderator-availability; Bob should be removed from the list. --Username (talk) 22:58, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Done, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 23:04, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

Elizabeth Spencer

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?131734; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elizabeth-Spencer/e/B01MFH59N3; Last 2 stories are by a young lady with the same name. --Username (talk) 23:27, 15 July 2023 (EDT)

It looks like Stonecreek has already changed their author from "Elizabeth Spencer" to "Elizabeth Spencer (I)". Ahasuerus (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Yes, except he added her image to webpage field by mistake, so I've just moved it to the right field, pending approval. Also, the older Spencer has a photo under "Movies, TV and Bio" on Amazon but as usual with "S" URL photos like those ISFDB won't accept them with or without the trailing stuff before .jpg, giving an unsupported message. --Username (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Your submission is approved. John Scifibones 20:08, 16 July 2023 (EDT)

Image delete x2

Could someone please delete the older images here and here. Uploaded by mistake. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

Deleted as requested. John Scifibones 18:36, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

Thanks John. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2023 (EDT)

Dawson

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1968198; I added link to Hodder and created a new record for Crowell, it's W. J. Dawson in both, author name neeeds changing. --Username (talk) 09:29, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

Pawsey ? Hayes

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5719001; I am not entering all of that info again just for a minor publisher name change so if someone knows how to preserve the one sentence in the publisher record then my edit can be un-rejected. Seems to me it would have made more sense to accept the edit and then cut-and-paste the sentence into the publisher record afterwards. --Username (talk) 09:53, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

I first went to the publisher record and changed the name there. Then that portion of your submission effectively became a no-up (changing the existing name to the same thing, so no publisher deletion), so I was able to un-reject it and approve it. --MartyD (talk) 10:05, 25 September 2023 (EDT)

Johnsgard

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5718012; I made another edit adding all info except name change, cover artists entered with alternate name for the man so after it's accepted that can be used as the parent, I guess. --Username (talk) 09:59, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

Change made and submissions approved. Submit an edit to import the cover art credit into the tp and I'll approve it. John Scifibones 10:18, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

SJS

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=solomon+j&type=Name; 1 credit each for the last 2 guys, your decision which is parent and which is variant. --Username (talk) 17:23, 27 July 2023 (EDT)

Done. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:28, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Islands in the Sky cover art

Entry for cover art for this publication shows two different images, although the spacestation is the same the approaching rocket has been replaced by a boy on the 1984 edition - both images are by Peter Andrew Jones. Should the later edition's image not be seperated out and varianted ? --Mavmaramis (talk) 12:40, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

We variant for author, title, language and title type (artwork & serials only). We do not variant for a difference in the artwork. It's the same and we merge or it isn't. The same meaning "all or part of one appears in the other". John Scifibones 13:47, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Alrighty. I only queried since there is a substantial difference between the one signed 'PAJ 80 Solar Wind' and the one signed 'PAJ 81' --Mavmaramis (talk) 15:15, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

If you think they are different enough, you can unmerge them and add notes on the reasons for it. I think they fall under our "is contained in" or "is part of" rule so they are ok as they are but the rules in that area can be interpreted differently. As John mentioned, they cannot be variants though so the choice is between what we have now and 2 separate unconnected entries. Annie (talk) 15:21, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

It's fine. I made a note in regards to the difference on the publication, plus the difference is obvious when viewing the cover art entry. --Mavmaramis (talk) 01:52, 29 July 2023 (EDT)

Matheson's Musings

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Zapp#Musings; Do mods agree that it should be changed to an essay? --Username (talk) 08:26, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

Author name change needed

The spelling for author LJ Cohen is currently "L. J. Cohen" sic. Would a moderator please change it to her preferred spelling of "LJ Cohen"? That is the spelling she uses on her website and which appears on the titles currently recorded in ISFDB. I think the current spelling is a holdover from old spelling rules. Thanks. Phil (talk) 08:22, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

The rules are still valid especially because these are initials (so not really old spelling rules) - but they also allow for author's preference to take precedence. I've changed it and added a note on the page so someone does not "fix" it. As you are the only PV of any of her book I saw, consider this also a notification for the changed in your PVd book :) Annie (talk) 13:24, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Thank you. Phil (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

(Slightly) clashing pending edits for author Juleen Brantingham

I just submitted 5730414, but I get a yellow warning for 5730402 which makes a similar change. My edit is a superset of the latter - adds a more details place of birth, obit link and expanded note - so could someone reject 5730402, or at least apply it before my edit 5730414 gets applied, so nothing gets lost? Thanks ErsatzCulture (talk) 13:57, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Approved them in the correct sequence. :) Annie (talk) 14:22, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks! ErsatzCulture (talk) 15:17, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Horus

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5722514; Can someone change the publisher to Horus Publishing? After that's done will that lead to unrejecting my edit? Because I've done hundreds since then and it's kind of hard to remember what I did for a single edit days or weeks ago. --Username (talk) 10:03, 2 August 2023 (EDT)

All good now. John Scifibones 15:27, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

The Architecture of Desire

Entry for this cover art has combined three entirely different pieces of art by Chris Brown. Note that this is not the same as this - there are substanial diferences between the two pieces. --Mavmaramis (talk) 12:53, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

They are definitely different. I've separated them into the three pieces. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:44, 4 August 2023 (EDT)

Thank you. --Mavmaramis (talk) 06:23, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Printing

http://www.cars101.com/firstid.html; I think this would be helpful; I have a pending edit adding a Random House book which starts with 2 in the number line but it's not a 2nd printing, that's how they started their lines for much of their history. Can this be added to Help or something? --Username (talk) 09:22, 6 August 2023 (EDT)

Reeves-Stevens - Phase II: The Lost Series

The coverart credit as it stands here is wrong, can we have help from a moderator to sort it out? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:46, 9 August 2023 (EDT)

How is it wrong? Have you contacted Mavmaramis to see what it states on the copyright page? Is there separate art on the front and back covers? If it's a mashup up two pieces of art, each by one of the two credited artists, the listing is correct. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:58, 26 September 2023 (EDT)

Jem

There seems to be two entries for this publication. The note for this version also has a 1980 printing and a £1.50 price and points to (presumably) the true 1980 printing here. Can't determine what the difference between the two entries could possibly be. Thoughts ? --Mavmaramis (talk) 16:36, 11 August 2023 (EDT)

Accidental cover upload

Hello Mods I inadvertantly uploaded the hardback cover art for a paperback edition (that'll teah me to look first). Title in question is Return to Eden. If someone could revert it back to what it was previously that' be great. I have uploaded it to the correct hardback edition. --Mavmaramis (talk) 13:17, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

Reverted. I also approved your submission adding the image to the Grafton hc. John Scifibones 13:24, 12 August 2023 (EDT)

Muster of Ghosts

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/File:MSTRFGHSTS1924.jpg; My cover doesn't show up but neither does the cover someone else uploaded last year. Can someone get my cover to show up? Also, I made an edit adding editor as cover artist so can you approve that, too. You also may want to check to see if the other person uploaded a cover for the American edition (different title) because there's no cover there, either. --Username (talk) 23:14, 13 August 2023 (EDT)

TCASFW Discussion

https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Mavmaramis#TCASFW; When one of you approves my edit you can discuss with this PV what you'd like to do. I think their final message is that one of their volumes has a dash and one doesn't. --Username (talk) 16:46, 14 August 2023 (EDT)

Adding image credit , please

Good day,

I need help.

I would like to have an INTERIOR ART CREDIT added for Author record # 269730 ; Carl Lavoie.

It’s in the recent

Vastarien: A Literary Journal. Vol. 6, Issue 1

and it’s the frontispiece illustration, ‘The Evil Eye'.

Here’s a link to a sample of the issue, the illustration is right after the cover page:

https://www.amazon.com/Vastarien-Literary-Journal-vol-issue/dp/B0CBT4B6D1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=28D1CYLFVH4XL&keywords=vastarien+literary&qid=1692175645&sprefix=%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-1&asin=B0CBT4B6D1&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

And here’s a link to the publisher, listing the content of the recent issue:

https://grimscribepress.com/issues/

Thank you. And have a wonderful day. -Carl Lavoie

Thank you for getting interested in our little project. However, it seems as if the issue you refer to hasn't been added yet; the latest one I can find is this from 2021.

But before you or someone else becomes active and enters it: this seems to be a general literary journal which then wouldn't be eligible per se to ISFDB (which is devoted to speculative fiction); for such a journal only the speculative fiction items, the artwork illustrating them, and essays referring to speculative fiction would be allowed to be included in the entry (see these definitions. Please think about it, and then think if you'd like to get help to add the publication in question. Stonecreek (talk) 06:18, 16 August 2023 (EDT)

Edmund Frederick, Chambers

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5746601; I came across Quick Action by Robert W. Chambers and added links (and a Canadian reprint) and then decided to enter links and stuff for other Chambers books illustrated by Frederick. Ran into trouble immediately because Tracer of Lost Persons is as by "R. W. Chambers" so if someone can approve my edit so it can be made a variant and month added to title record. --Username (talk) 18:46, 19 August 2023 (EDT)

Done. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:54, 27 August 2023 (EDT)

MRC

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2970668; An Archive.org link was recently upped for his 2014 novel so I added a link then I saw that his recent novel didn't have cover art in both editions so I imported it, then I noticed that the cover artist, who is also the author, didn't have a period added after R so it's a separate record. Since R with a period has bio info that means if I add a period it will erase the info, I think, so if one of you can add it without erasing the info. --Username (talk) 07:56, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

I fixed it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:04, 23 August 2023 (EDT)

Dragon / Grafton / Collins (UK)

I'm editing Asimov's Extraterrestrials and on the title page is stated "Dragon [over] Grafton Books [over] A Division of the Collins Publishing Group". We have Dragon / Grafton / Collins (UK) but my understanding is that we don't record the owners (Collins) of the publishers (Grafton). If that's correct, the four publications (also 1986) listed in that category should be "Dragon / Grafton" (as imprint / publisher). If moderators agree, that's what I propose using in the Publisher field for my edit (and I could also amend the four other publications to the same). Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 23:40, 26 August 2023 (EDT)

Not hearing any objections, I'll wait another few days and then implement the above. Thanks, Kev.--BanjoKev (talk) 09:54, 9 September 2023 (EDT)

With/with

I happened to notice that a mod is correcting "With" to "with" in a lot of records. Is there some way to trawl all the records and automatically correct wrongly capitalized words (or vice versa) with a patch or something? Seems like that would be helpful and save a lot of time. --Username (talk) 11:22, 27 August 2023 (EDT)

Multiple Archive.org Links

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5756500; Can a mod approve my edits for Number 87 from the first one linked above and ending with 5756519? I want to know if adding the second Archive.org link which someone added to the title records instead of the Macmillan edition's record will erase the much more recent link, uploaded this year, which I added in my first edit. On a side note, author's collection Thoughts in Prose and Verse also has been linked, no contents, in case anyone cares to read it and enter genre stories. --Username (talk) 12:15, 30 August 2023 (EDT)

Does everything look as you intended? John Scifibones 12:32, 30 August 2023 (EDT)

Yeah, I don't know, I've completely confused myself. I see one title record still has old link that I removed and I missed another Macmillan link, so I've removed it again and added new link. I don't even think my note above was correct because the new link is for the UK edition so it wouldn't erase the US link. Forget it, I can't do this stuff anymore, 2 more links to approve when you get a chance, someone else will have to take a look and make sure links are where they're supposed to be along with everything else, I'm done. I've got to get out of here. --Username (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2023 (EDT)

image delete request

Could someone please delete the old (04:13 hrs) image here. (edit) See this discussion. Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 09:15, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Kev, You wish to delete the cover with 'jr' correct? John Scifibones 09:43, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Yes, that's the one. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 14:20, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Done, John Scifibones 14:47, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Thanks John. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

Nine-Thirty O'Clock in the Morning

Curious what happened to the usual 5-minute or so delay at 9:30 every morning. It didn't happen today. --Username (talk) 12:22, 31 August 2023 (EDT)

The daily backups run between 9:30am and 9:35am. The database is unavailable until they finish.

On 2023-08-30 the backup process was modified to exclude a large and fast growing database table which didn't need to be backed up in the first place. An error was introduced while making the change, which caused the backups to fail on 2023-08-31. The error was corrected the same day and the backups have been running smoothly ever since. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:29, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Deagol

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Deagol; I added my first-ever message to this PV and noticed all messages are in italics or a weird font or something. Probably not important but I thought I'd mention it. --Username (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

That's bizarre. I can't see anything on that page that would cause everything to be in italics. I can't find any other page that are like that, either. I'm guessing it's something that went funky on the backend. We'd have to have Al or Ahasuerus look at it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:26, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Nevermind, I found it. While it shouldn't have affected the entire page (it should have only affected the part after it), I removed the italics from the page with this edit. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:29, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Here's another page; https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_Talk:Clarkmci. --Username (talk) 13:25, 2 September 2023 (EDT)

Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:19, 5 September 2023 (EDT)

The Pastel City.

Hello mods. This interior art is the same artwork as this title record. I'd also like to rename the interior art record from "The Great Rebellion [1]" to "CA 440 Minifreighter" (as per art caption in Cowley's Great Space Battles). --Mavmaramis (talk) 16:38, 2 September 2023 (EDT)

If there is a caption (or a title somewhere) in the book, then yes, rename and use that - captions and titles from inside of the books are always used when known instead of the standard [] notation. If the title was coming from a secondary source, we would just add it into the notes but if it is in the book, go ahead and rename. And variant it to the cover :) Annie (talk) 12:30, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

You may want to participate at this Rules and standards discussions. As pointed out in that discussion, the current rules do not include using the caption / title (though that has become a common practice) and so far there has not been agreement to change the rules. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:00, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

Will do. Annie (talk) 19:45, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Steve Duffy, The Faces at Your Shoulder

Having read this book at the Toronto Library, I would ask a moderator to add this collection to the (original) Steve Duffy page: (not Steve Duffy (1)) Steve Duffy, The Faces at Your Shoulder (Sarob Press, 2023) 181 pages 38 pounds Foreword, Duffy page 1 The Oram County Whoosit (Shades of Darkness, 2008) in isfdb page 37 The Soul is a Bird (original) page 71 In the Days Before the Monsters (original) page 101 The Pyschomanteum (Crooked Houses, 2020, Egaeus Press) this is NOT an original story, the original publication is not in isfdb page 123 The Lion's Den (Cern Zoo, 2009) in isfdb page 155 Futureboro (original) page 179 Notes on the Stories (uncredited in the book, the Sarob Press website attributes this to Duffy)

One other unrelated correction: The review Jean Rhys Revisited (2001) by Alexis Lykiard should be moved from the original Ray Russell page to the R. B. Russell page (aka Ray Russell (1)) this is actually a chapter in R. B. Russell's Fifty Forgotten Books —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RogerSSS (talk • contribs) .

Protocol for working on recently added/changed publications

There has always been potential for moderators unknowingly working on the same set of submissions. Early on we added the ability to put submissions "on hold" in order to mitigate this problem. Later, we added the Recent Activity page and, even more recently, "Edit History", which helps avoid confusion and cross-approvals.

At the same time, the recent implementation of the "self-approver" system significantly increased the number of editors who can approve submissions. Earlier today we had a collision between a moderator working on new submissions and a self-approver who noticed the new publication and tried to improve it while the moderator was still researching it. The result was a mishmash of approvals.

What should be the standard for moderators and self-approvers working on recently approved records which the original approver may still be researching? Since we now have Edit History, should it be something like:

Before correcting/adding data to a publication record, check its Edit History. If the record has been created or modified within the last 24 (12? 48? 72?) hours, check with the last approving moderator to see if the record is still being researched.

? Ahasuerus (talk) 12:48, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

I consider it always a good idea to talk to the editors and moderators that had worked on a record that still need work before changing the work of people -- sometimes they have an edit staying in a browser and never submitted, sometimes they just had not had a chance to get back to the record to fix it (or got distracted) and sometimes it is a misunderstanding of the rules on someone's part - the person trying to improve or the editor who started it or simply a disagreement on how things need to be entered where the rules allow editor's discretion. And especially if the submitter is a new(ish) user and there is no note from the handling moderator on their page yet but I think it is common courtesy in all cases. Asking for 24 hours grace period is a good first step I guess. Adding to that the requirement for communication before the edits are done will be even better - and will also help getting our editors closer to being self-sustaining. I did not think that we need to put that in writing but apparently it is not as self-evident as I always assumed it to be. Annie (talk) 13:18, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Could we add a flag to each record that gets set when a change is submitted, and then removed 25 hours after the submission is approved (and removed if a submission is declined)? Then the system could display a note on the edit page for any record that has that flag set. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:20, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Well, if the goal is to display a warning when an editor tries to edit a publication record that has been modified within the last 24 hours, then it can be done without adding new flags. We already have Edit History; it would be easy to modify the software to check it and display a warning. We'll just need to decide on what the warning should say. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:31, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Mountain being made out of a molehill. No need to add bureaucracy and development effort for a problem that rarely happens. This is a collaborative project which means people could occasionally work on the same items, but, in practice, it rarely happens in a short period of time. People should not feel possessive about their edits. An equally valid solution would be for moderators to put edits on hold and do their research prior to accepting the submission. That way they can make the corrections immediately after accepting the submission. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:34, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Let me just clarify that adding a note along the lines of "This Publication was last edited by X and approved by Y on 2023-09-12 at 12:34pm" to EditPub forms affecting recently edited publications would be quite simple. We already have all of the requisite data in a readily accessible location within the database. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:22, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Apparently the definition of possessive, as used in the above comment, is the approving moderator making the necessary changes and/or communicating with the submitting user immediately after approval. Isn't that exactly our responsibility? If not please enlighten me. I don't believe a software solution is necessary. It would surprise me if anyone else would decide to edit a publication immediately after its initial approval. John Scifibones 19:49, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

Re: "edit[ing] a publication immediately after its initial approval", I have come close to accidentally colliding with other editors/moderators a few times. I am subscribed to Amazon's automatic notifications for certain authors. When they publish new books, Amazon sends me an email. Sometimes other editors/moderators buy the same books the day they are published and enter them into the database at around the same time. I don't think it has caused any issues yet, especially now that we have additional yellow warnings, but it's been close a few times. Ahasuerus (talk) 21:09, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

It doesn't take a moderator to know we cannot edit submissions, but must approve them and then make corrections. The comment about research before approval is also incorrect. I had identified the changes I wanted to make. However it took me eight minutes to enter the corrections and the notes to moderator , review and post. P.S. I would have promptly replied to a query as to status.John Scifibones 19:49, 12 September 2023 (EDT)

This proposal is for a 24-hour period. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:46, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

Then propose a shorter window. The last time an editor (sitting on the recent updates queue and jumping as soon as they thought they saw something they MUST update now), made a merge on a story in an anthology of 20 titles or more, most of which required updates in the titles and authors (capitalization and spaces an so on) and follow-up merges and my edit had to be redone from scratch because the merge deleted the title ID - thus making the edit unworkable. I did not raise the question back then - I just redid the edit, posted for the new editor (first edit by them -- and anthologies tend to be... not fun) and then walked away for the day. It was not the first time that had happened. If common courtesy won't regulate that and it does happen more often than once in a blue moon, then we will need to spell out some rules. It is not about being possessive or not doing research before approval - it is about giving a moderator the needed time to do their post-approval edits before losing their time and forcing them to either redo the edit from scratch or look through multiple edits to see if something conflicted somewhere and a second edit is required. Annie (talk) 11:22, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

The above proposal doesn't address your scenario. A title merge is not a publication edit so wouldn't get the proposed warning. Collisions can happen without people sitting on the recent updates queue & without editing the same pub. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2023 (EDT)

It does - when the merge is because someone opened the recently created publication and looked for duplicates and decided to "help", that is exactly the issue at hand. Collisions always happen - and we all learn to live with them. But these are easily avoidable with a bit of common courtesy (or with a rule that says not to do it - if nothing else works). Annie (talk) 19:40, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Standards question has reached an impasse

Three verifiers cannot reach agreement regarding current standards. The question revolves around the publication pages field and content titles page field. Please help resolve the impasse here Thanks, John Scifibones 13:38, 15 September 2023 (EDT)

Lee Mandelo, Revisited

Although we view the Lee Mandelo name change as closed, this has not been the case in the general public. In particular, the ISFDB Wikipedia article has recently used Jason Sanford's article about the Lee Mandelo situation as factual evidence of an issue, and I would like to post actual counter evidence of what actually happened. As such, I've been working on two documents. The first is a post-mortem of the situation, which provides a detailed timeline of every submission and communication which is related to the name change. It then summarizes the system issues and potential recommendations. Once the post-mortem is finalized I will post an Open Letter to the SF Community, which will reference that post-mortem.

The intention of this two articles is to provide a reference-quality document that can be added as a reference to Wikipedia, if needed. So I'd like the documents to be clean, and not contain large sections of indented discussions. There definitely should be discussions, but not within those documents. The first document is available now at:

User:Alvonruff/A_Post-Mortem_on_the_Lee_Mandelo_Name_Change

Discussion about the document can occur here. Feel free to directly correct any grammar/spelling errors. Detailed discussions about the potential implementation of the recommendations should take place in the usual locations. Alvonruff (talk) 10:42, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Is this discussion only open to moderators? I appreciate Community Portal can be noisy, but assuming that this discussion is open to all ISFDB stakeholders, maybe have a link on that page here at least?

(Super trivial observation: maybe fix the "Revisted" typo in the item title, before there are any links pointing at the wrong title?) ErsatzCulture (talk) 14:00, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Fine with me to move the discussion so that it is open to all. Alvonruff (talk) 15:08, 16 September 2023 (EDT)

Organizing all of the publicly available data -- submissions, Wiki discussions, etc -- as a timeline sounds like a reasonable idea.

One thing that we may want to consider is how the ISFDB project communicates with the outside world. Currently, the ISFDB FAQ says:

What other Web sites and social media accounts does the ISFDB use?
ISFDB administrators may post announcements on this Blogspot Web page in case of extended unscheduled downtime or connectivity problems. There are no other official or ISFDB-endorsed Web sites, Web pages or social media accounts. Non-ISFDB Web sites and social media accounts maintained by individual ISFDB contributors (editors, moderators and administrators) are independent of the ISFDB and are not endorsed by it.

This policy was originally formulated in part due to the existence of Web sites/Web pages like this Facebook page which uses the ISFDB name and images without clarifying that it is not affiliated with the ISFDB project.

The policy means that our project is currently a closed system with no Web/social media presence aside from the ISFDB Web site and no official communications with the outside world except by individual ISFDB contributors acting on their own.

If we are to change this approach, we will presumably want to formulate an official communications strategy first. Something like an official social media account, perhaps? (I don't use social media outside of Web/Usenet forums which discuss SF, so I may not be the best person to come up with ideas.)

Alternatively, Al could post an "open letter" as an individual. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:12, 17 September 2023 (EDT)

One thing we need to do is try to work with Sanford to correct his information in his post. At least based on the timeline Al posted, the first time a concern was posted in one of the public forums here is on Dec 14, 2022 by the author in question, and everything was handled within less than a week. So saying ISFDB "fought against changing Lee Mandelo’s name in the site’s author listing for over a year" is rather a stretch. As noted, we should find a way to make it more clear when we will change a canonical name, but we certainly weren't "fighting" against changing it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:25, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

A new section, "How does the ISFDB deal with author name changes?", was added to the ISFDB FAQ on 2022-12-26 based on this and previous discussions. Can anyone think of additional ways to increase its visibility? Ahasuerus (talk) 08:13, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

Additionally, Sanford describes Username as a moderator, which is not and has never been the case. At the very least, his comment was certainly insensitive, but Sanford should do his homework before trying to smear the moderators. Simply checking the list at the top of the Moderator noticeboard would have clarified that point. The "bad publicity" really had nothing to do with us making the change. It was the author posting here and making a request. Once we were made aware there was an issue, we discussed it and quickly made the updates (as noted, within less than a week from being made aware of the issue). The majority of that less-than-a-week was sorting out exactly what needed to be done to make all the changes as it's not a simple thing to do, and things have to be done in a specific order in order to not make it even more difficult to update.

I think having an official Twitter/X and/or Facebook account would be good as those are the two largest social media platforms for publishing-related things. The Blogspot site is fine, but no one is going to think of looking there since it's rather obscure. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:25, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

Excuse me, how did I get roped into this nonsense? Some trans activists try to bully this site into changing someone's "dead" name and it's my fault now? What comment are you referring to? I do more edits and leave more messages here than everyone else combined --Username (talk) 23:12, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

To clarify: as of last morning, of the 234,773 submissions approved in 2023, 17,359 (7.4%) were created by Username. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:41, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

so mentioning a singular thing I said a long time ago is pointless because I wouldn't remember it, anyway. Quote me what I supposedly said. EDIT: Never mind, Mr. Sanford quoted me on his Substack page where I quite logically inquired as to what would happen if Mandelo decided their transition was a mistake and wanted to transition back; would Mandelo and all the assorted friends bully ISFDB into changing everything back to Brit? --Username (talk) 23:12, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

The current policy is:

The name chosen to be the canonical name is the most recognized name for the author within the SF genre.

Lee Mandelo provided evidence that the "most recognized name within the SF genre" was "Lee Mandelo". Once we confirmed it, we changed the canonical name as per the policy, not because the author requested it. Whether the policy should be changed to account for author preferences is a different issue and fodder for the Rules and Standards page. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:05, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

There are countless people online who have said their transition was the result of peer pressure or mental/emotional confusion or bad parents/doctors who encouraged them to transition for their own personal/monetary reasons and, tragically, many of them have already had body parts removed that they'll never be able to replace. Pretending otherwise is choosing not to accept reality. If Mandelo feels like their transition will be permanent and they're happy with that, fine. ISFDB is a gigantic site and highly disorganized; expecting it to run smoothly for one person is unreasonable. The delay in changing the name was due to a complete breakdown in communication, not because of transphobia. I reject terms like "bigoted" and "insensitive" to describe my remark; an apology will suffice. --Username (talk) 23:12, 18 September 2023 (EDT)

To my shame, I didn't say anything publicly when this kicked off originally - instead choosing to walk away from any association with this site for several months - but quite frankly, I feel that this site would be better off without you. All the edits you do to fix bad data are great in themselves, but I don't think they are worth all the aggravation you cause. If I recall correctly, at least one moderator refuses to work on your edits, and numerous other moderators and editors have had run-ins with you over your edits and general attitude. You've promised on numerous occasions that you intend to leave this site, any chance you can fulfill those promises?

It's one thing when that stuff is kept internal to this wiki, but when it explodes into the public domain, like it did last December, then all of us get tarred with the same brush, which is why I walked away then. I have numerous issues with what "the other side" did last December - e.g. Sanford's apparent lack of any sort of reaching out to get the ISFDB side of the story; the fact that (as IIRC Scifibones also found) 5 minutes of investigation disproved the claim that the deadname wasn't being still being used for publications (although it looks like some/most of them have finally been updated) - but it's hard to defend the ISFDB position when you had utterly poisoned the discourse. If you don't believe the comments you posted were utterly inflammatory, can I suggest you step out of your FoxNews/Daily Wire/Newsmax/whatever bubble, and understand that you can't talk to people that way?

Maybe I'll get attacked or censured for this comment, but quite frankly, I'd rather that happen, than have been silent on this. ErsatzCulture (talk) 08:03, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

Username has been warned about being abrasive and about personal attacks, e.g. here. However, the ideal outcome is not to drive abrasive editors away, it is to help them improve their ability to communicate with other editors to ensure that the project functions smoothly. If it doesn't work, then ISFDB:Policy#Conduct_Policy, which provides for escalating penalties for misconduct up to and including an indefinite block, comes into play. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:52, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

(unindent) Re-reading User:Alvonruff/A Post-Mortem on the Lee Mandelo Name Change, I have a few suggestions:

"14 December 2022" where it says "Mandelo posts a request to the Moderator Noticeboard". I suggest linking the Moderator Noticeboard discussion.
Same day where it says "A 4-day bibliographic discussion follows with numerous open questions, with responses from Mandelo." I suggest adding that the current standard -- "For authors who publish under multiple names, the canonical name is the most recognized name for that author within the genre" -- was explained to Lee Mandelo who then provided evidence supporting the notion that, as of 2022-12, the "most recognized name" was indeed "Lee Mandelo". That's what triggered the canonical name change.
The "Recommendations" section of User:Alvonruff/A Post-Mortem on the Lee Mandelo Name Change suggests the following change to the canonical name policy:
- The Canonical Name of a living author should only be changed at the request of the author in question.
This would be a fairly major policy change which would affect a number of scenarios. For example, we have received canonical author change requests based on authors trying to promote new working names. To quote what I wrote during the 2022-12 discussion:
- It's been occasionally proposed that we make exceptions to our canonical name policy for certain types of scenarios. For example, Debora Geary published A Modern Witch, a series of popular urban fantasies, in 2011-2013. Then, after a painful divorce, she removed all of them from Amazon and restarted her career as Audrey Faye. A few years ago she published a non-fiction account of her recovery after divorce (Sleeping Solo: One Woman's Journey Into Life After Marriage) in which she explained why she could no longer be associated with the name "Debora Geary". Another example would be a person converting to another religion and changing his or her name to reflect new beliefs. Changing one's gender would be another scenario which has been discussed a few times, including an extensive Rules and Standards discussion in September 2018.
- So far these discussions of possible exceptions have failed to lead to a new consensus, in part because of the number of possible scenarios and sub-scenarios. For example, consider Poppy Z. Brite, who has been using the name "Billy Martin" socially since the early 2010s, but whose books continue to be published as by "Poppy Z. Brite".
We will need to discuss the proposed change on the Rules and standards discussions page.

Ahasuerus (talk) 10:23, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

In my opinion, the best part about the current policy is that it is quantitative/qualitative and not subjective. We did not use "Brit Mandelo" because of someone's whim or someone's views on Mondelo's gender identity or even popular vote. Technically, the switch from Brit to Lee as canonical was made because the underlying measure of primary identification changed over time and "Lee Mandelo" supplanted "Brit Mandelo". I don't think we should have a blanket policy that authors or their agents can request changes. That's another form of whim, and the ISFDB's purpose is not advertising for authors or publishers. Perhaps one thing we could consider, though, is a policy allowing those entities to request that the ISFDB make a switch ahead of the results of an in-progress publishing world change. E.g., if "ABC" came to us and said "I changed my name to 'XYZ', and all of my books are being pulled from the shelves and are being reissued using that name. Could 'XYZ' be configured as my canonical name?" ISFDB could then project the future and perhaps act early. --MartyD (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

Re: "allowing those entities to request that the ISFDB make a switch ahead of the results of an in-progress publishing world change", we ran into an issue in this area back in the late 2010s.

In 2015 the author who had published the "Vladimir Tod/Slayer Chronicles" series as Heather Brewer changed the name to "Zac Brewer". There were plans to republish Brewer's old books under the new name and at least one SF story was indeed published that way. Based on that, an ISFDB editor proposed that we change the canonical name to "Zac Brewer" with the expectation that it would soon become the "most recognized name ... within the genre". At the time we decided to wait and see what would happen in another year or two.

As it turned out, the name "Zac Brewer" was used on 2 non-genre novels in 2016-2017, but all new speculative fiction (2 novels and 1 story) appeared as by "Z Brewer". I guess it goes to show that making assumptions about future releases is chancy in the publishing business. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:05, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

I agree. Keeping the policy as objective as possible is a good thing. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:43, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

Alvonruff, thanks for a very nice job on the timeline. I'm not sure anything posted on social media ever changed anyone's opinion, but it accurately documents the facts. Sections 3 and 4 are better served as the kickoff to the Rules and Standards discussion and should not be included in the public release. A subsequent post documenting our reasoning and any changes is a better course. Anyone interested can follow and/or participate in the R & S discussions (I anticipate multiple threads). Ahasuerus, If you are going to link this thread to the letter, I suggest starting the main thread and moving MartyD's & Nihonjoe's posts there. John Scifibones 19:54, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

I agree that discussions of the current canonical name policy and any proposed changes belong on the Rules and Standards page. I am just waiting for Al to chime in and clarify whether he meant to propose a change. If he did, then we can move the policy part of the discussion there. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:00, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

For Al's postmortem, I think it would be helpful to quote the first paragraph of the Canonical Name definition from Help:Screen:AuthorData and to summarize the "enter-name-as-it-appears-in-the-publication" policy and provide links to Template:TitleFields:Author and Template:PublicationFields:Author prior to getting into the timeline. That is the working context for the data present in the system and various events that occurred during the timeline. --MartyD (talk) 11:32, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

That's a good point. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:20, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

"Review of"

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?412925; While my editing which ended after Labor Day won't resume full-time until October I did, after a week without any edits, start doing a few handfuls of clean-up edits fixing this or that which lately have been almost entirely related to D. F. Lewis. I just came across an interesting situation which a mod should probably take care of because it's a 2-step process, changing ESSAY to REVIEW and then link review from the menu, which mods can approve instantly instead of me doing one step and then waiting for approval before doing the other step. Nemonymous 3 mentioned in the review in the zine linked above is on ISFDB, titled Gold Coin; the issue of New Genre is also here as is the issue of Gigamesh. The last non-linked review is of a Norwegian novel whose title translates as a ghost story so that book almost certainly is eligible and should be entered here and then the review linked to it. That one may require someone with a knowledge of the language. I tried to figure out how to search for all instances of "review of" in All Hallows issues but I couldn't do it. Maybe someone else knows how or, if not, an issue-by-issue check will be needed. --Username (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2023 (EDT)

Pohl - Gateway

Has anybody any suggestions how this situation might be resolved. No progress has been made as the PV is unresponsive. Thanks. Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:54, 20 September 2023 (EDT)

Image Deletion

Could a moderator please delete this image. The licensing tag information is incorrect. After the deletion, I will re-upload with correct tag. Teallach (talk) 17:47, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

Done. You could have edited the tag BTW :) Annie (talk) 18:18, 21 September 2023 (EDT)

I didn't realise I could do it myself. Thanks for the image deletion and the heads up re editing the licence tag. I have now figured out how to do it for the future. Teallach (talk) 13:44, 22 September 2023 (EDT)

Shutdown

Library of Congress has an ominous red warning about what will happen if the U.S. government shuts down a few days from now. Will anything on this site be affected or will it make no difference? --Username (talk) 22:57, 28 September 2023 (EDT)

The only effect will be not being able to look up LCCNs. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:03, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

LOTR Book

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3078415; Another editor added an archived link to the Canadian edition recently but nobody ever added a link to the USA edition which has been there since 2010 so I just added it. The title is in question because it's written in fancy font on title pages; PV Auric seemed to think Film Book should be 2 words but other editions are Filmbook. So which should it really be, and should Part I be removed from USA title since it's not actually part of the title in the book? PV doesn't respond very often so I thought I'd bring it up here. --Username (talk) 09:12, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Date for Voyage of Mael Duin's Curragh

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?49434; I just had my edit adding an archived link and fixing cover artist/adding interior artist but after looking at it I realized dates are off because Locus, https://www.locusmag.com/index/b1.htm, has one of those 2-date things and someone entered book as October but title and cover art are September, with my new interior art credit matching the book's October date. What's the rule? Which date should they all be? --Username (talk) 10:03, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

What does it state on the copyright page? If it includes a month, that's what we should use. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 11:04, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

No, there's no month, if there was that would take precedence over Locus. --Username (talk) 11:16, 29 September 2023 (EDT)

Cover art credit removal

As we don't credit designers for coverart, would moderators agree to removing Michniewicz's titles from here and here? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2023 (EDT)

Locus1 credits Michniewicz for the first one's cover. Since he is PV for both, you could try reaching out to Michael (use the ISFDB to send him mail) and see if he'll respond and offer an opinion. --MartyD (talk) 08:34, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Unfortunately I can't use the email system (it won't work with my provider, even though Ahasuerus has tried to fix it for me) so the only possibility there is if some kind soul would email him for me.

As far as I can ascertain from all the pub notes, Michniewicz is credited as designer for a lot of the series for the simple graphics. It is only for later issues where Gollancz have incorporated actual artwork that the artists get credit. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 20:29, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Any other help please? Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

I would leave a note on User talk:Mhhutchins re: the proposed changes. If there is no response after a week, we can remove the COVERART titles and document the designers in Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:12, 7 October 2023 (EDT)

I've left a message on his talk page. Thank you for the advice! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 02:10, 8 October 2023 (EDT)

John Goss

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?239252; 2 different guys. --Username (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2023 (EDT)

Separated out. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Goat

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?882813; Can a mod take a look at those last 2 edits? I see at least a few problems with ID and web links; maybe I'm wrong but I don't think they should be there. --Username (talk) 13:07, 4 October 2023 (EDT)

Shadow Edits

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:MOHearn#Return_of_the_Shadow; https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5782555; I contacted MOHearn but we have some cross-editing going on so if I can ask one of you to approve my edits (assuming there's no problem with any of them) starting with the one linked above and going through 5782728 (there's 4 non-Shadow edits from 5782649 through 5782652; ignore those) so we can put these behind us. Thanks. --Username (talk) 11:29, 5 October 2023 (EDT)

El Topo

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5784269; HC copy uploaded recently, I'm going to add it (I added that paper edition a while ago) but wanted to get this edit approved first assuming mods agree it should be a chapbook since novelization is only 80-something pages with the rest being non-fiction. --Username (talk) 12:00, 6 October 2023 (EDT)

Cleaning up English translations of RUR

Hi all, I'm in the process of cleaning up the English translations of Karel Čapek's RUR. This has led to a bunch of related edit submissions (5776995, 5791148, 5791149, 5791151, 5791157, 5791159, 5791160, 5791188), several of which will involve follow-up edits.

That said, I'm not quite sure how to approach cleaning up one of the existing chapbook / shortfiction pairs. There are 3 associated publications: 328124, 362654, 529466.

328124 is an English translation by David Short that I expect is distinct from the other two publications.
362654 is an English translation by David Wyllie that is currently mapped to the wrong title(s) based on viewing the publication's title page via a reading sample from Amazon (see edit 5776995).
529466 is a seemingly unknown English translation from Amazon's on-demand (self-)publisher. I haven't been able to find much trace of this particular edition online. I'm guessing this is likely a reprint of the out-of-copyright translation by Paul Selver possibly further adapted by Nigel Playfair.

Do the following actions seem appropriate for this situation?

Unmerge 328124 and associate with new variant chapbook and shortfiction titles (distinct translation by David Short)
Unmerge 362654 and associate with different variant chapbook and shortfiction titles (distinct translation by David Wyllie)
Leave 529466 as is, but update associated chapbook and shortfiction titles to note that this is an unknown translation.

Thanks! --Riselka (talk) 14:03, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Yep - when we know the translators of a specific book, unmerge the chapbook and the story, make them variants and add the translator to the notes of both titles. We had been slowly chipping at the early messes such as this one, created long before we started recording translators on the title level - so thanks for sorting it out. I also tend to add a "This title may contain multiple distinct translations" note or something to that effect to the one with unknown translators - when there is more than one book anyway. If two unknowns are known to be different, we also unmerge them and add as much as we know on their notes to identify what goes where... Annie (talk) 14:23, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Jules Verne has lots of examples of multiple translations in various languages. ../Doug H (talk) 17:29, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, that makes sense. I mainly wanted to check how to handle this particular instance because I expected the translator could be identified if someone checked this particular edition. Jules Verne is a good (although more complex) example that I'll keep in mind when I clean up future translation records. --Riselka (talk) 17:45, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

We are playing catch-up on these -- for a long time, we did not separate or record per translator - so since we started, it had been a never ending game of finding all of them. And the ones translated into English are the most problematic due to the volume - in most other languages, we are mostly done with adding the Translator template which required the messes to be untangled. There are corners of the DB like that - where you will find surprises you would think cannot happen. Jules Verne looks as good as he does because Doug spent months fixing the records. :) Annie (talk) 19:37, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Old cover image delete

Could someone please delete the old image, Date/Time: - 11:47, 23 February 2014 - to prevent reverting. The new image is identical but larger. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 16:26, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

Done. Annie (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks Annie! Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:25, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

Invaders by Adelia Saunders

This concerns the cover art shown for Publication Record # 777558, Invaders by Vaughn Heppner The cover art shows the author to be Adelia Saunders. She did not write a book called Invaders. She did write one called Indelible. I went over to Brilliance Audio. This is just a generic cover they use. Its the same cover for Invader by C.J. Cherryh, Artemis Invaded by Jane Lindskoid and a number of others including The Spirit of Dorsai, By Gordon R. Dickson aardvark7 (talk) 19:51, 19 October 2023 (EDT)

Updated, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:20, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Derived prices in early Bantam Books

Bantam Books was founded in 1945 and concentrated on publishing mass market paperbacks. As far as I can tell, early on they didn't display prices on the cover or on the spine. However, some (all?) of them, e.g. The Unexpected and my verified ''The Day He Died, had ad pages in the back with one or more lists of books which you could buy by sending $0.25 plus $0.05 for postage to the publisher's address. I suppose it's likely that the list price was also $0.25, although it's not a guarantee.

Some online sources explicitly state that the list price was "$0.25", but I don't know where their data comes from. Some of our records also display "$0.25" in the price field, e.g. The Unexpected, which has the following note:

No price stated, but ad pages for current releases list $0.25 price.

Clearly, this situation requires an explanation in the Note field, but what would you enter in the price field? $0.25? Leave it blank? Ahasuerus (talk) 10:11, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Seems ok to me to use $0.25 and treat the ad as a secondary source. If we had a book with no printed price on it, found a review (or announcement) contemporaneous with its issuance, and that review stated a price, I think we would normally be happy to use that and cite the review as the source. The ad situation strikes me as equivalent. --MartyD (talk) 14:03, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

I agree. As long as there is a note explaining the sourcing of the price, this is not different from finding a price on a publisher site, a contemporary review or any other secondary source. If we ever find a better information that contradicts the price as derived via such a method for that specific book, the note can be adjusted and the price changed if needed. Annie (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks to Ahasuerus for following up my discussion with him and getting this cleared up. Here's a list, [2], of all Bantam books PV by Scott Latham; he entered prices for all of them and there's a note in the third book that he got the price from Tuck. EDIT: In the 4th book there's a note, "Price from ads in the back, listing other Bantam titles all for 25¢", so it seemed random whether there's no price note or where he got it from if he did leave a note. --Username (talk) 14:56, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

I think this is fine. A note should be included stating where the price was from, but I have no problem sourcing prices that way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:27, 20 October 2023 (EDT)

(unindent) Thanks, folks. I have updated the publication record, deleted a duplicate pub and notified the affected verifier. Ahasuerus (talk) 18:11, 21 October 2023 (EDT)

Can we have some clarification please because I am confused by this discussion.

Ahasuerus' initial post implied to me that we are looking at a situation where an unpriced book contains a house ad listing other books for sale from the publisher. All these books are listed with an identical price but the list does NOT contain the title of the book in which it is printed. Call this scenario A.

However, MartyD and Annie's replies imply to me that they seem to think the list DOES contain the title of the book in which it is printed. Call this scenario B.

We need to consider these two scenarios separately.

Scenario A: I do not consider it appropriate to infer the price of a book from other contemporary books. The Ace 1st pb ed of Dune, published in 1967, is priced 95c. It's a fat book for its era. However, Ace pb's in that year were typically priced around 50c. So if, hypothetically, Ace books published in 1967 did not have a cover price then it would be erroneous to infer that Dune was 50c based on a house ad listing other contemporary books at 50c.

Scenario B: This is not contentious. Record the price in the Price field and add a mandatory pub note stating the source, ie the house ad. Teallach (talk) 18:52, 21 October 2023 (EDT)

Sorry, I may not have been clear. The ads in the back of my verified The Day He Died do include The Day He Died (with the correct catalog ID) in the list of books that you can get for $0.25, so it's "Scenario B" above.

Now that I am thinking about, there may be an additional twist. According to Jon Warren's "Official Price Guide: Paperbacks", some early Bantam paperbacks had 2 versions which shared the same catalog ID: a regular version and a version in a dust jacket. I don't recall seeing dust-jacketed versions, which are apparently highly prized among collectors. I don't know how they were priced and whether you could get them from the publisher for $0.25. Ahasuerus (talk) 19:36, 21 October 2023 (EDT)

Ah, all is good then. Thank you for the clarification. Teallach (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2023 (EDT)

Canonical name out of date?

G. Arthur Rahman has about 15 titles under that canonical name, from the 70s and 80s, but he has over 30 under the name Glenn Rahman (and a few under other forms of the name). Here is my entry of some new 2023 stories in addition to those on that author page. I'm holding off on making them variants to ask: Could his canonical name be changed from G. Arthur Rahman to Glenn Rahman to reflect the majority of bylines? -- MOHearn (talk) 10:29, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

Working on this. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:31, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

Yes, I'd think so - provided someone sets out to do the transformation. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 12:32, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

Done! You can see it here. Let me know if I missed anything as this one was more complicated due to the number of pseudonyms. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:15, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

Thanks, Nihonjoe! I'll put the new stories into their series and look over the older ones. -- MOHearn (talk) 13:38, 26 October 2023 (EDT)

Juliana Pinha --> Juliana Pinho

Hello, would it be possible to correct 'Pinha' to 'Pinho' in this entry for INTERZONE #295? Thank you.

190 • Notes From the Meeting of the First State Feder World Court: Walker Dairy, Freeville, NY, 198 Year One: Jessica Jane Pearson Vs. The Stranger Mr. Jacob Hampton • interior artwork by Juliana Pinha

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?977484

--Interzone (talk) 14:29, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

This depends on the way the artist is credited in the issue: we do document the spelling of a name, even if it is mistyped in a given magazine issue (and then do variant it to the canonical name, like in this example).

Anyway, since "Interzone" #295 is primary verified, it is etiquette to ask / inform the primary verifier. You can reach him here. Stonecreek (talk) 16:05, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the info. It is 'Pinho' in the magazine (on the story cover page, and in the contents page). I'll move this to the primary verifier page, thanks.

--Interzone (talk) 16:55, 3 November 2023 (EDT)

Star Bridge by James E. Gunn, Jack Williamson

Publication Record # 31949 states the artist is Ed Valigursky and that there was not any credit in the book. That the credit came from Jack Williamson's Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer. Heritage Auctions (fineart.ha.com/itm/paintings/gordon-pawelka-american-20th-century-star-bridge-paperback-cover-1963-oil-on-board-20-1-2-x-1/a/8000-71029.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515) has the artist as Gordon Pawelka. Was this a name used by Valigursky or do we have a conflict?? Hey Heritage could be wrong. It sold in 2020 for $3000 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aardvark7 (talk • contribs) .

RUSSWOTHE

https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:RUSSWOTHE; I made a minor edit for a book PV by this person and noticed there's a stray message in the wrong place. Is it possible to move it to their discussion page? --Username (talk) 18:40, 7 November 2023 (EST)

Done, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:21, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Followup: Crowley and Aziraphale's New Year's resolutions

Hello. I did not receive a response to my September 2023 question about how to catalog a weirdly-published Good Omens short story. So I am repeating the question here, please. Morebooks (talk) 14:25, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Not eligible unless it was downloadable as an ebook - we allow only a limited set of online fiction and "a publisher site" is not amongst them. If it was downloadable as an ebook, it will be added as a chapbook. Annie (talk) 15:08, 8 November 2023 (EST)

Wrong tag for L. Sprague de Camp's The Hardwood Pile

Hello to all. The tag "science fiction" has been wrongly attributed to this story, which is only a fantastic and humorous ghost story. Could a bureaucrat please remove it ? TIA, Linguist (talk) 04:31, 12 November 2023 (EST).

Remove non-SF/fantasy/speculative fiction incorrectly attributed to an SF author

Hi.

I recently read and loved the story "In the Days After..." in Asimov's Science Fiction, November-December 2023 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3238197). I was curious about this author who was new to me, with a story I really liked, so I checked ISFDB.

Most of his work is noted as 1981 and beyond, with a long gap (~28 years) from 1995 to 2023. The Asimov's blurb does note that Frank Ward (William Francis Ward) did take a long time off from writing for "life". https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?11458

There is a 1958 story listed under Frank Ward, "The Dark Corner". I was suspicious of this, as Frank Ward is listed with a 1950 birthdate.

I checked around. Galactic Central does show a substantial mystery body of work by a different Frank Ward, from the 1930s to the 1960s. http://www.philsp.com/homeville/cfi/n00786.htm#A5

I confirmed with the current Frank Ward via email that he did not write the mystery story "The Dark Corner", which does show up under the other Frank Ward at Galactic Central.

Given that "The Dark Corner" here is not by this Frank Ward (William Francis Ward), and that the other Frank Ward who wrote "The Dark Corner" appears to have written mysteries but not SF, fantasy or speculative fiction, I am assuming that I need to delete "The Dark Corner" story from ISFDB. I further assume this is done by the "Delete this title" button.

Please confirm, or let me know what is needed.

Thanks. Dave888 (talk) 13:09, 12 November 2023 (EST)

There's an issue with one of Ward's titles, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?914168, the Fantasy Book Index, https://archive.org/search?query=%22the+pegasus+suit%22&sin=TXT&and%5B%5D=year%3A%221983%22, says "Pegasus", there's a contents page scan on AbeBooks, https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Fantasy-Book-February-1982-Third-Issue/30051987897/bd, which probably says the same although it's blurry, only way to be sure is looking at the story's title page which would require a copy of the zine, you may want to ask him if he owns it so he can check. --Username (talk) 13:38, 12 November 2023 (EST)

I'm not quite clear what the issue is. When I looked at any of the 3 copies of the "An Index to Fantasy Book, Volume 1", at Internet Archive, they all note "The Pegasus Suit". Thanks for the clarification.

Dave888 (talk) 13:57, 12 November 2023 (EST)

Thanks for checking with the author! I have disambiguated the author name -- see the result here -- and updated the title record.

As to whether we want to remove "The Dark Corner" from the database, it depends on a couple of different factors. The story appeared in the anthology Bodies and Souls. Its dust jacket says "Fourteen Tales of Worldly and Other-Worldly Murder, Mayhem and Mystery", which suggests that it collects both SF and non-SF stories. We currently list one of the stories, "Too Many Coincidences", as "non-genre" while the rest are listed as SF. It's entirely possible that some of them are non-genre; we just don't know one way or the other. Once we know more about these stories, we can decide what to do with the anthology. Since it apparently contains at least some SF stories, we will want to keep the publication record, but if the overwhelming majority of the stories are non-genre, we may end up removing them and documenting them in Notes. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2023 (EST)

My thanks for handling this. I appreciate and concur with the thinking, and I'll try to retain that for the future. Mr. Ward is pleased this has been revised.Dave888 (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2023 (EST)

ISFDB says "Pegusus" which is obviously a misspelling of "Pegasus" but a look at the header on the story's title page is what's needed because it's entirely possible, as so often in zines, that titles differ from what's on the contents page. Searching for "Pegusus Suit" online finds only ISFDB and a couple of booksellers that obviously copied their info directly from ISFDB so it's likely just a simple mistake by whoever entered the contents here. You said you spoke to him via email so maybe you can ask him if he owns that issue of Fantasy Book to check and if it's wrong it will be fixed to "Pegasus". --Username (talk) 18:05, 12 November 2023 (EST)

I have reached out to Frank Ward on this question. I'll circle back when I know, and then correct the title if needed. Thanks.Dave888 (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2023 (EST)

I have confirmed with Frank Ward by check of his copy of the 1982 Fantasy Book that "Pegasus" is the correct spelling. He thanks us for making the correction. I will submit that now. Dave888 (talk) 19:09, 17 November 2023 (EST)

Bodies and Souls is linked at Archive.org in the notes section of its record here so the story can be read to determine if it's genre or not as can the other contents; also, it's much longer than the others in the book and should probably be given novelette length. --Username (talk) 18:09, 12 November 2023 (EST)

I checked at Galactic Central. They believe this story ("The Dark Corner") is a novella. I will make that change.Dave888 (talk) 12:10, 15 November 2023 (EST)

Approved, thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:13, 16 November 2023 (EST)

Muster of Ghosts II

[3]; I was going to upload SFE image but it seemed familiar and it turned out I'd done it already but the image didn't go to the right place; also this old edit, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5740959, has been sitting there for months because without an image the signature couldn't be seen. So can someone get the image fixed and approve the cover artist edit? EDIT: After I entered this message it didn't go to the right place because I'd already written about it, with the same message title, long ago but nobody ever answered; it's up above. --Username (talk) 10:56, 15 November 2023 (EST)

The image has been added to the pub & your edit approved. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:06, 22 November 2023 (EST)

MP3 CD price on Amazon note

Just a heads-up that Amazon is now typically showing the as new price for MP3 CDs whose publisher is "Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio" as $10.02. The list price for these CDs as reported on brilliancepublishing.com is almost always $9.99. Phil (talk) 07:23, 17 November 2023 (EST)

Amazon

I've noticed that Amazon.com is used frequently to verify a publication date. I just wanted to point out that it's an unreliable source, because any time they don't know the exact date, they use the first of the month. For example, the publication date of this book: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?535016 is listed as 2008-11-01, but the data is from Amazon, so I don't know if that's the accurate date, or they just used the first of the month because they didn't know any better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clauditorium (talk • contribs) .

The quality of Amazon's records varies a great deal. It's not always clear why the bad data is the way it is, but we can make educated guesses, at least in certain cases. For example, Amazon occasionally -- I would say around 5-10% of the time -- lists unrealistically low (14-32) page counts for English e-book editions of Japanese "light novels". It seems to be related to the fact that some light novels have short (4-20 pages) manga sections at the beginning of the book. We don't know why it affects Amazon's page counts, but it's something that editors have to keep in mind when entering light novel records using Amazon's data.

Re: dates, it depends on how old the record is, where the book was originally published and the publisher. For older books, some records have no day/month information, some add arbitrary "-01" or "-01-01" to the end of the month or year, and some have surprisingly accurate dates even for books published in the 1960s/1970s. Our best guess is that "surprisingly accurate dates" come from publishers' catalogs that Amazon has/had access to.

Amazon.com's records for books published in other countries frequently list the "US availability" date as the publication date. There can be a big gap between these two types of dates for books originally published in the UK and especially in Australia/New Zealand, which is why Amazon's dates for these types of books are often wrong.

Also, a note on the terminology. We use Amazon stores -- Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, etc -- as sources of our data, but we don's use it for verification. We have a number of recognized "secondary verification" sources which you can see if you display a publication record and click on "Verify This Pub" link under "Editing Tools", then scroll down to "Secondary Verifications". Like everything else in this world, these verification sources are not perfect, but their data is, on average, better than Amazon's.

Ultimately, the ISFDB data is only as good as our sources. Even primary verified data can be imperfect due to data entry errors and misunderstandings. That's why it's so important to document exactly where our data comes from. Ahasuerus (talk) 11:23, 20 November 2023 (EST)

US Copyright Office website

Do you guys ever use the US Copyright Office website? I would think that would be the most reliable source. It often has publication dates down to the day, whereas other sources only have them down to the month. https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clauditorium (talk • contribs) .

We use a variety of secondary sources to determine publication dates as discussed in this Help section. The Copyright Catalog can be (and have been) used as a secondary source of information as long as we keep in mind that their "Date of Publication" values and "Registration date" values are often different, so we need to make sure to use their "Date of Publication" values.

Another thing to keep in mind is what Help:Screen:NewPub calls "Discrepancies Between Stated Date and Reality":

Publication date does not always perfectly match the calendar date. For example, a January issue of a magazine is usually available in December of the previous year, and often earlier than that. 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. If there is a large discrepancy -- for example if a book was printed but unexpectedly delayed before release -- then this can be noted in the notes field.

This Copyright Catalog record for the first edition of Disclosure, a non-genre novel by Michael Crichton, is a good example. The "Date of Publication" value is "1993-12-20", but the publication date stated in the physical book is "January 1994". Ahasuerus (talk) 17:02, 20 November 2023 (EST)

When it comes to magazines, I'm aware of the disconnect between publication date listed on the copyright site and the date printed on the magazine cover. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clauditorium (talk • contribs) .

Back when mass market paperbacks took off in the United States, their publishers piggybacked on pre-existing distribution channels and inherited some of the peculiarities of the magazine distribution system. They also had to deal with numerous technical limitations of the printing business as it existed ca. 1950. For example, you could order a paperback with 96 pages or a paperback with 128 pages, but anything in between wasn't viable because of the way mass market paperbacks paperbacks were produced. Sometimes authors and/or editors were able to cut or pad stories to make everything work seamlessly. Other times typesetters had to add empty pages or use other tricks to pad the page count.

We see similar issues surface even in 2023. Amazon's page count values are often off because publishers create pre-publication records based on estimates. When books are produced, the actual page count is usually different. Not all Amazon records are updated post-publication, so we always take what's there with a grain of salt. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:10, 21 November 2023 (EST)

As for novels, I've noticed that in several cases, the date listed by isfdb.org is missing the day, but the copyright site will have this info. For example, Misery by Stephen King is listed here as being published on 1987-06-00; on the copyright site, the publication date is indicated as 1987-06-08 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1513). If I come across such occurrences, should I make a correction, crediting the copyright site? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Clauditorium (talk • contribs) .

Sorry, I didn't quote the most applicable part of Help:Screen:NewPub#Date earlier. Here is the relevant section:

The base date optionally may be made more precise (e.g., supplying the month or day of publication) using information from a secondary source, if that source's date is otherwise consistent with publication's stated date. The source, and which details of the date were obtained from that source, must be recorded in the publication notes. See Secondary Sources of Dates.

So the answer is yes, editors can make the date more precise as long as it is "otherwise consistent with publication's stated date" and the source is documented in Notes. If there is a discrepancy -- as in the case of Michael Crichton's Disclosure (see above) which was offered for sale in late December 1993 but the printed publication date says "January 1994" -- then we use the printed date and optionally document what secondary sources like the Copyright Office or Amazon say. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:24, 21 November 2023 (EST)

Captured By the Engines

Can someone approve my submission 5819033? Because I need to add month to merged art. --Username (talk) 22:55, 24 November 2023 (EST)

Approved. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2023 (EST)

"Pending submissions which will change my primary verified publications" on the New Submissions page

A new table, "Pending submissions which will change my primary verified publications", has been added to the New Submissions page. It will appear at the top of the page if any pending submissions affect the logged-in moderator's primary verifications. If you run into any issues, please report them here. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:27, 25 November 2023 (EST)

Can Ellen Be Saved

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?291669; I just uploaded new cover but it didn't go to the same Wiki page and replace old cover, it just created a new page. --Username (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2023 (EST)

I added the new one to the pub and deleted the old one after verifying it was not used in any other pubs. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:02, 26 November 2023 (EST)

One New Message

"The following Contents titles have dates after the proposed publication date"; I got this message after submitting an edit for Tor ed. of G. Masterton's Mirror because month was April, not May, and cover art needed fixing in another edit. Is this new? I don't remember seeing that before. --Username (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2023 (EST)

This warning was implemented on July 31 as per FR 1569, "Add a warning when a changed pub date is before one of the title dates". Ahasuerus (talk) 20:08, 26 November 2023 (EST)

Server issue?

Is there a server problem? I'm getting a 500 Internal Server Error message when trying to submit a Clone Publication. Phil (talk) 09:26, 28 November 2023 (EST)

Nevermind. I opened a new Clone the Pub tab and was able to submit the request successfully. Phil (talk) 10:10, 28 November 2023 (EST)

Log In

Why am I not logged in? Is there some new problem now? I see Username when I'm on the Wiki pages but the front page says "You are not logged in". EDIT: I got tired of waiting so I entered "Username" and "password" and that worked but a message popped up saying password was used in a data breach on Google or something like that. I don't know what's going on. Maybe someone can tell me if anyone else got that message or got logged out for no reason. I sincerely hope all of my info and edits and everything else that was there before I re-logged in is still exactly the same and nothing was changed/lost. --Username (talk) 09:45, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Old Edits

I'm trying to get my edits that have been sitting for months approved. I'll start with this, https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5747517, which is just a simple change from a dead Google Drive link to one that works. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 11:46, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Approved by Nihonjoe. Thanks. --Username (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5747546; Just a simple cover image, Rudam said long ago in the thread "Rejected?" on his board that there's no need to ask about covers except for a couple of specific publishers. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 11:50, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Approved by Nihonjoe. Thanks. --Username (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5749772; Just an archived link and an obvious format fix. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 11:54, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Changing the format is a major change and should not be approved unless the active verifiers have agreed. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:43, 29 November 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5750346; Just an archived link and an obvious fix of LCCN in the note. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 12:08, 29 November 2023 (EST)

The active verifier has asked that he be contacted through the email system about changes. No indication in the edit that this was done, or what the response was. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:43, 29 November 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5750954; Just a simple LCCN ID and cleanup of several misspellings in the note. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 12:12, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Moderator note only states "cleaned up sloppy note" without specifying what was changed. Best to notify the verifier. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:43, 29 November 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5757566; Just a simple note about the cover; it's on this page, https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/3786/fred-pickersgill-graves-give. Can someone approve this? --Username (talk) 12:27, 29 November 2023 (EST)

This one is more of a judgement call. Personally I think it's too much information that is not germane to the publication. What does the soundtrack artist have to do with the book? I could have lived with something along the lines of "Cover is from the filmed version of 'The Female of the Species'". However, other moderators may differ. At a minimum, if we're going to go into this much detail, it should probably go below a {{BREAK}} tag. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 17:43, 29 November 2023 (EST)

Approved by JLaTondre. Thanks. --Username (talk) 11:33, 13 December 2023 (EST)

Popular Science

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5824080; I did add the archived link and the cover image but I didn't touch those reg. title art and story things so does anyone know why it says I did? --Username (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2023 (EST)

It is a kinda known issue with the software when titles contains special characters, especially older titles added before some of the latest changes in handling these from the last years (in this case it is the < that is throwing the fit. Because of that, the comparison for changes detects a change - even if there is none). Annie (talk) 11:56, 6 December 2023 (EST)

Title change with no PVs

I was getting ready to add the audiobook and CD editions to Steven Erikson's novel Rejoice but noticed that the correct title name should be Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart instead of just Rejoice. I looked at WorldCat, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, SFE, and Wikipedia, and in all cases except SFE, that is shown as the correct title. Would there be any objection to me changing the title to Rejoice, a Knife to the Heart? None of the publications have a PV. Phil (talk) 09:17, 5 December 2023 (EST)

The publisher also refers to it as 'Rejoice, A Knife to the Heart', here. John Scifibones 10:49, 5 December 2023 (EST)

SF Adventures Yearbook

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5827099; I can never remember which changes to names affect what, so if someone can approve this assuming artist change won't mess anything up with info on his page or whatever. Also, both PV are long-gone so someone may want to check and see if there are any little details that I missed which need correcting. --Username (talk) 10:27, 5 December 2023 (EST)

Looks good, submission approved. John Scifibones 11:01, 5 December 2023 (EST)

Liam Hogan versus Laim Hogan

Hi.

In working to add the story "Ana" by Liam Hogan in "The Best of British Science Fiction 2016", I need to add it's first publication in Scientific American, as noted in the "Best of British Science Fiction" copyright page and else on the internet at Scientific American.

I checked the author's name. There is no "Liam Hogan" currently in ISFDB, but there is a "Laim Hogan", the author of the 2019 short fiction "XX". "XX" is listed as published in "Best Indie Speculative Fiction: Volume Two, November 2019". Upon looking at that "Best Indie..." on Amazon, the preview shows "Liam Hogan" on both the cover and table of contents.

Upon checking further, the website https://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.com/p/2014.html for Liam Hogan notes both "XX" and "Ana" as his stories.

Therefore, I would appreciate it if a moderator could correct this author's name in ISFDB to "Liam" Hogan. Once that is done, I'll add "Ana" in the Scientific American webzine.

Thanks. Dave888 (talk) 19:46, 5 December 2023 (EST)

We do have Liam Hogan so I cannot rename Laim Hogan. Same guy I think? If so, the fastest solution is to just fix the author on the stray story. If not, I will be happy to differentiate them. Annie (talk) 11:52, 6 December 2023 (EST)

Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:47, 6 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks for fixing the author entry. Looks correct now. I'll go ahead and add the first publication for "Ana" now. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dave888 (talk • contribs) . 14:03, 6 December 2023‎ (EST)

A SHORTFICTION title incorporated into the body of a NONFICTION title

I am holding this submission, which would import Howard Koch's SHORTFICTION title The Invasion from Mars: A Radio Adaptation into the 2009 NONFICTION book Waging The War of the Worlds: A History of the 1938 Radio Broadcast and Resulting Panic, Including the Original Script. As the title of the NONFICTION book states, the text includes Koch's script, so normally it would make sense to approve the submission. However, the Notes field explains that:

Howard Koch's radio script is incorporated into the body of the book's main text, rather than being a separate essay.

Would you say that it makes sense to list the SHORTFICTION title as a Contents items in this pub? Or is it better presented as a part of the NONFICTION title? Ahasuerus (talk) 15:44, 7 December 2023 (EST)

My five cents: I'd say it makes sense if the piece is incorporated as a whole and without interruptions (of explaining notes). In the latter case the piece may only serve as a means to comment on Koch's unique handling (or something similar). Stonecreek (talk) 06:25, 8 December 2023 (EST)

If it's contained in its entirety and its content appears in proper order (whether or not contiguously), I am inclined to allow it. Technically, the work is published in the book. If it's not contiguous, the situation strikes me as similar to publications of "braided" stories. --MartyD (talk) 15:49, 8 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks, folks. I have approved the submission, notified the inactive primary verifier and updated Notes to clarify the situation. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:32, 9 December 2023 (EST)

Entries disappeared

At least four of my entries from the last few weeks have disappeared from the database. I looked for the new publication series page, Gruselkabinett, as I was going to add more, and it and the four books I entered in it are gone. They're audio books: Der Bluthund by H.P. Lovecraft, Die Weiden and Das unbewohnte Haus by Algernon Blackwood, and Die Toten sind unersättlich by Leopold Sacher-Masoch. Even a new author entry they generated has vanished, the artist on two of the titles, Johannes Belach. I have no idea if more of my entries have disappeared. -- MOHearn (talk) 12:24, 13 December 2023 (EST)

Checking submission history (a moderator-only menu option), I see the following:

Publication ID 981382, Der Bluthund, created on 2023-12-02 16:30:43. Deleted by Stonecreek on 2023-12-06 12:08:08. Reason for deletion: audio play
Publication ID 981093, Die Weiden, created on 2023-11-30 18:58:05. Deleted by Stonecreek on 2023-12-06 12:07:37. Reason for deletion: audio play
Publication ID 981433, Das unbewohnte Haus, created on 2023-12-02 20:36:31. Deleted by Stonecreek on 2023-12-06 12:07:13. Reason for deletion: audio play
I can't find an audio book version of Die Toten sind unersättlich using moderator tools. I could presumably do it using programmer tools, but it would take time.

I assume that Stonecreek deleted the 3 pubs listed above as per ISFDB:Policy, which says:

Included: audio books, i.e. readings, but not dramatizations

I'll ask Stonecreek to join this discussion. We'll need to make sure that we are all on the same page or else we'll be stuck in an endless cycle of some editors adding certain books and other editors deleting them. Ahasuerus (talk) 13:01, 13 December 2023 (EST)

Yes, I deleted them on the basis of the rule that dramatizations are not to be included. I stumbled over the entry for "Die Weiden" upon reading a review at 'phantastiknews.de' of the play, and found that the other entries for publications fell into the same category. (A good rule of thumbs for a first check is if there are more than one speakers for a piece, it is most likely that it is a dramatization). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 13:53, 13 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks for the explanation. In the future, when you come across publication records for ineligible works (like dramatizations), please use Edit History to identify the original submitter(s) and discuss the issue with them first. That way they will be made aware of what is and is not eligible for inclusion and won't make the same type of mistake in the future. Without an explanation, they'll be either confused and frustrated when the data that they previously submitted disappears or they will continue adding ineligible records. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2023 (EST)

I should leave it at that, since Ahasuerus was a lot more measured than I could be right now over the situation. -- Martin MOHearn (talk) 15:53, 13 December 2023 (EST)

In the past, we didn't have Edit History, so it was hard to tell who did what when. Now that it's been available for almost three years, it should be the default tool used to figure out why something appears to be off and whether a discussion is warranted.

That said, old habits die hard. I still occasionally catch myself making a change, then realizing that I should have checked Edit History first. Hopefully, things will improve going forward. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:03, 13 December 2023 (EST)

My name was right there in the WorldCat verification on all four of those entries. MOHearn (talk) 21:34, 13 December 2023 (EST)

My apologies: I stiil have to adapt to making a direct notification: as with this case I came upon this while doing research for another author at the news site, and carried on with this other task after that to get it done in that specific setting.

And I didn't recall that the note left in the moderator's field wouldn't be easy to find. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2023 (EST)

(I'd love to add some really good audio plays to the database, but they are excluded, just like the ones you had added). Stonecreek (talk) 01:54, 14 December 2023 (EST)

Series Parent Position and Series Num fields

"Series Num" can have numbering that are not integers (e.g., 2.1, 2.2, etc.), but apparently the "Series Parent Position" field when editing series can only be integers. Can we change the field to allow non-integer numbering? This would allow subseries to be placed in the correct location with a larger series. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 21:40, 13 December 2023 (EST)

This functionality was requested in FR 1403, "Allow decimal numbers as Series Parent Position values". Unfortunately, it is much harder to implement than it looks. The way the "Series Number" field works for title records is rather involved; back when I implemented it, it took me weeks to get everything updated and debugged. Ahasuerus (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2023 (EST)

Sounds good. I'm glad it's on the list. Thanks for all your work on the backend of things. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:26, 14 December 2023 (EST)

Bibliographic information for Strange Tales

For the UK magazine Strange Tales edited by Walter Gillings I believe that the noted second printing of the first issue is just a variant cover. https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?618191

In George Locke's Spectrum of Fantasy, volume 1, page 3 he states as such. His examination of the two copies he had was that they were identical with the exception of two different covers. I would find it hard to believe that an attempt of a new publication which was dodging the fact it was a magazine would go into two printings, as there were still paper shortages after the War. The price on both covers is the same, one shilling net on one cover 1/- on the other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jwkbooks (talk • contribs) . 17:12, 21 December 2023‎ (EST)

Long time for approval?

Is it unusual if my relatively minor edits take two weeks or more to be approved? Thanks. Sfmvnterry (talk) 22:38, 25 December 2023 (EST)

Typically, it wouldn't take that long, but unfortunately, the "New Submissions" queue has been very long recently. Ahasuerus (talk) 12:51, 26 December 2023 (EST)

Thanks. Sfmvnterry (talk) 00:17, 28 December 2023 (EST)

Missing Clone

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5832571; What happened to the clone? It's not there. --Username (talk) 09:42, 29 December 2023 (EST)

The submission failed because one of the titles in the cloned publication, 2439970 (Intelligence and Luck), is no longer present. It appears that the title was merged in this edit which was submitted on November 21st and approved on December 12. I'm guessing that your clone submission was submitted within that time frame. When the merge was done, the other title record was the one that was kept, and 2439970 was deleted. You should be able to re-clone the container title and pick up the current contents including the merged title of that story. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 10:11, 29 December 2023 (EST)

Cover art weirdness

So browsing (as you do). I came across this cover art entry which seems, to my eye at least, an identical piece to this one. Any comments ?--Mavmaramis (talk) 06:40, 30 December 2023 (EST)

To my eye, these look identical. We would have to research the Maria Carella credit for the French ones. Likely Herve put on one and then carried that over into the other by cloning. The Tim Jacobus credit on the Doomsday Book covers seems clear (from copyright statement on hardcover's jacket flap). My first guess would be a misinterpretation of some sort of general artist credit on Le grand livre as referring to the cover instead of to interior artwork. --MartyD (talk) 09:42, 30 December 2023 (EST)

(after edit conflict) These are definitely based on the same cover art. The question then is whether the cover artist was really credited as "Maria Carella" in this J'ai Lu edition or whether it's a data entry error in our database. Checking Google, I see that J'ai Lu has used at least two other covers -- https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQjbJRjGrF4EtBXromnm4E-mn-bwNjmriUiD9y_zEqCWxOsPAdQkITLtQ-6VzOAKbgq3b4&usqp=CAU and m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61mHPaZVmdL._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg -- and it's possible that one of them was done by Maria Carella. Ahasuerus (talk) 09:49, 30 December 2023 (EST)

I did more research and found some pictures. In the original Bantam edition, the copyright page has "Book design by Maria Carella" (see here) and the rear flap says "Cover illustration © 1992 by Tim Jacobus" (see here). So I think the book design credit got conflated with cover artistry, either by J'ai Lu or someone else (if Herve did not have the books, his source might have been NooSFere, which credits the cover to Carella). Unless anyone disagrees, I will change the credit on the French ones and document the discrepancy with French secondary sources and probable source of the confusion. --MartyD (talk) 10:05, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Nice! I also wonder if Maria Carella was the cover artist or the cover designer for the first (1988) edition of Science Fiction: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology. Our source is the Locus Index, which simply says "cover by Maria Carella". For what it's worth, the Internet Archive has the 1996 edition, which has a different cover, on file and its copyright page says "Design by Lynn Newark". Even if we keep Maria Carella as the cover artist, we will want to change her working language from French to English. Ahasuerus (talk) 10:41, 30 December 2023 (EST)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=maria+carella; She's mentioned in 16 notes. --Username (talk) 11:19, 30 December 2023 (EST)

I made these adjustments: Maria Carella language to English. Le grand livre cover credit to Jacobus (+ variant to Doomsday Book cover). Added note to French cover and to the first of the French pubs about secondary sources crediting Carella but her being credited as book designer (and Jacobus as cover illustrator) in original Bantam edition. Added note to Bantam hc about the book design credit. I found some pictures of portions of the interior of that anthology, but they did not include the copyright or credits pages, so I couldn't conclude anything about that. --MartyD (talk) 11:28, 30 December 2023 (EST)

Revision as of 12:19, 30 December 2023 (view source) Username (talk \| contribs) (→‎Cover art weirdness) ← Older edit		Revision as of 12:28, 30 December 2023 (view source) MartyD (talk \| contribs) (→‎Cover art weirdness: fixed up) Newer edit →
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	::::: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=maria+carella; She's mentioned in 16 notes. --[[User:Username\|Username]] ([[User talk:Username\|talk]]) 11:19, 30 December 2023 (EST)		::::: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=maria+carella; She's mentioned in 16 notes. --[[User:Username\|Username]] ([[User talk:Username\|talk]]) 11:19, 30 December 2023 (EST)
		+
		+	:::::: I made these adjustments: Maria Carella language to English. ''Le grand livre'' cover credit to Jacobus (+ variant to ''Doomsday Book'' cover). Added note to French cover and to the first of the French pubs about secondary sources crediting Carella but her being credited as book designer (and Jacobus as cover illustrator) in original Bantam edition. Added note to Bantam hc about the book design credit. I found some pictures of portions of the interior of that anthology, but they did not include the copyright or credits pages, so I couldn't conclude anything about that. --[[User:MartyD\|MartyD]] ([[User talk:MartyD\|talk]]) 11:28, 30 December 2023 (EST)