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Special Genre Issues of Non-Genre Issues

Italics copied from ISFDB:Help desk#magazine issue on genre topic. See that discussion for context:

I guess yet another paragraph should be added to Help:Entering non-genre magazines. Something on the order of Headline: "Special issues" Text: "Sometimes, a non-genre magazine will devote an entire issue to speculative fiction and/or articles about it. This can be regarded as a genre publication and catalogued in its entirety, even though other issues of the magazine aren't." --Vasha 12:43, 13 January 2018 (EST)

I'm all for it. Is there any argument against this? Stonecreek 03:58, 14 January 2018 (EST)

Agreed. If the whole issue is genre, then that issue is a genre publication. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:13, 14 January 2018 (EST)

Agreed. Jens Hitspacebar 08:55, 14 January 2018 (EST)

It seems reasonable, but it may be prudent to clarify what we mean by "the whole issue". Do "special issues", which concentrate on SF but include other things, count? If they do, do we want to include the non-SF content? Ahasuerus 09:51, 14 January 2018 (EST)

Good point. I would recommend only including genre content. How about "Sometimes, a non-genre magazine will devote an entire issue to speculative fiction and/or articles about it. This can be regarded as a genre publication and genre non-fiction should be cataloged along with the fiction (even though we do not normally catalog non-fiction from non-genre magazines)." -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2018 (EST)

I like that. --MartyD 13:37, 14 January 2018 (EST)

Me too. Christian Stonecreek 14:17, 14 January 2018 (EST)

I like the wording. Annie 22:55, 14 January 2018 (EST)

Sounds good. --Vasha 11:07, 15 January 2018 (EST)

I also like the proposed wording. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:01, 15 January 2018 (EST)

I have updated Help:Entering non-genre magazines to add the new section using the agreed upon wording. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:13, 17 January 2018 (EST)

Revisiting standardization of author names

I've recently been told by multiple moderators that there's a policy to always write an author's first initials with periods after them, even if the author themselves and the publication don't. However, I find that Help:Screen:NewPub#Author(s) states "In the very rare case where an author prefers two (or more) initials as if they were a name (such as "TG Theodore"), without period or space, and is so credited, we follow the author's preference." What's the current thinking? I can see arguments both in favor of and against changing author names to a standardized form—I just want all moderators to agree on one policy, whichever it is, and have the help screen changed if necessary. --Vasha 08:56, 24 January 2018 (EST)

The original standard was to always use periods after initials. The reason for it was that some older magazines and anthologies had a habit of randomly dropping periods and capital letters. We didn't want to create variants and pseudonyms every time an editor chose to use "r a lafferty" instead of "R. A. Lafferty" or "r a heinlein" instead of "R. A. Heinlein".

Then Steven H Silver stopped by and pointed out that "H" was his middle name and not an initial. It started a discussion which, after reviewing the evidence, resulted in the current Help wording. I believe it still reflects our policies. Ahasuerus 16:06, 27 January 2018 (EST)

(BTW it really isn't a very rare case.) --Vasha 08:56, 24 January 2018 (EST)

It looks like it's become more common lately. We may want to delete the word "very" from the clause cited above. Ahasuerus 16:06, 27 January 2018 (EST)

(unindent) Let me get this straight: is the following correct? There should be two variants, one with periods and one without, if the author is credited both ways in publications. But that only applies IF the variant without periods is the author's preferred spelling. If the author usually writes their name with periods, then it should be recorded with them in the record for a magazine that prints the name without? --Vasha 16:19, 27 January 2018 (EST)

Pretty much. Let's use Steven H Silver as an example. Most pubs credit him without a period (his preference) and our canonical name doesn't have a period. The few times when he was credited using a period, we recorded the data as it was entered in the pub ("Steven H. Silver") and created variants.

On the other hand, take R. A. Lafferty. All of his "r a lafferty" stories (I recall coming across a few many years ago) have been entered as by "R. A. Lafferty". Ahasuerus 22:57, 27 January 2018 (EST)

And just to be clear, again, the form without periods should be canonical? Because it is the author's preference and in most cases it will be the commonest in publications. --Vasha 10:58, 28 January 2018 (EST)

Hmmm. Something's not consistent here. If our normal policy is to normalize the as-given credit to conform to our capitalization, spacing, and period-after-each-initial standard (ignoring any special exceptions), specifically so as to avoid creating variants, then it seems we should apply that same policy in similar situations where we're omitting punctuation or spacing or are down-casing. E.g., if all of these credits -- RA Lafferty, R.A. Lafferty, R. A. Lafferty, r a lafferty, etc. -- would be recorded as "R. A. Lafferty", then it seems any occurrence of Steven H. Silver should be recorded as "Steven H Silver", with a note about removal of the period, and no variant made.

Much as I lament our various deviations from the record-it-as-it-appears rule of thumb, it is even worse to vary what we do in specific situations. We should either normalize capitalization/punctuation/spacing of author names in all cases, or we should not ever do it. Note that "normalize" can nonetheless allow for different formatting according to circumstance. --MartyD 12:29, 28 January 2018 (EST)

I agree that it's a concern, but let's consider the following scenario. Suppose an ISFDB user who is aware of our "period and space after an initial" rule comes across "Steven H. Silver" elsewhere, e.g. in a publication or on Silver's Fancyclopedia page, which uses the "H." form of his name. The way we have things set up right now, the user does a search on "Steven H. Silver" and discovers that it's a pseudonym used by "Steven H Silver".

Suppose we were to change the data entry rules and update all of our "Steven H. Silver" titles to use "Steven H Silver". There would be no easy way for an ISFDB user to find his bibliography in the database. Ahasuerus 13:31, 28 January 2018 (EST)

Yet another case where some sort of fuzzy searching would be useful. It is also a problem that we have to create variant titles for trivial differences in.punctuation (British "Mr" vs. US "Mr." and so on). Is there any possibility of ignoring punctuation when searching? --Vasha 14:50, 28 January 2018 (EST)

I have run a few tests on the development server and it looks like we can modify the regular Author search to ignore punctuation without doing too much violence to performance. Titles would be tougher to do: a sample search went from 0.8 sec to 1.3 sec. Ahasuerus 16:40, 28 January 2018 (EST)

Well, it seems that cases like this one (SHS) were one of the reasons why the use of abbreviated names without punctuation was restricted to very few authors. If users won't find Steven H Silver the next step would be to search for Steven H. Silver, whereas the other way wouldn't occur to many users. Stonecreek 16:10, 28 January 2018 (EST)

Impossible to restrict this to very few cases if we're going to follow author preferences at all. In that case once we find out that an author uses a non-standard punctuation, we have to adopt it, and there are literally hundreds of them. (I just yesterday found four more that I hadn't known about.) --Vasha 16:33, 28 January 2018 (EST)

(unindent) My first inclination is to enter an author's name as he wishes, but in many cases it is as the country of origin wants it. Using the Steven H Silver example, in some countries it's mandatory to print the author's name with a period, while in others it is automatically left out. The same is true with authors like Andrew J. Offutt who often published with his name in lower case. While it would be nice to do what the author wants, there does seem to need to be as system to go by, or everything will just end up being just a mess. Listing an author's name with such variations as pseudonyms doesn't seem to be an option either. Might I suggest that the standardization as is continue, but we have a page in which writers names are listed as they are published, but then these names have a link to the author's standardized name? I.e., somebody types in KJ Kabza and they go to a listing of similar names, and they find KJ Kabza's name with a link to this author's official page. This would save the site the trouble of constantly creating pseudonym pages for authors who want an unorthodox variation of their names on their writings. MLB 19:22, 28 January 2018 (EST)

I agree with you that this is awfully messy. The more I think about this, the less I like any version of "make a variant for the name as it appears in the publication, but only if." It is inconsistent and user-unfriendly that way; it requires people who are entering new records to look up whether the author is one who can be varianted or not every single time. Wouldn't it be better to simply have one form of the name, even if that means making lots,of notes about what's in the publication (a field for that?) That single form could be the author's own or a standardized one. I can't decide which I prefer and there are arguments in favor of both.

Using a standardized form would be relatively simple in concept, but putting it into practice would involve a lot of editing of records. These are the parts of the system needed: 1. A single author page with their name in standardized form (K. J. Kabza). 2. A note on that page stating that the author himself spells it KJ. 3. A note on every publication and/or title record stating which spelling is used in which publication. 4. A search engine that will pull up K. J. Kabza's page if someone types in "KJ Kabza." --Vasha 06:19, 29 January 2018 (EST)

If we'd get an author request on a certain spelling, we should go with it, but then it still may be better to make an unpunctuated version of a name into a variant of the punctuated one, since we have to weigh in the needs of the users, too; one aspect seems to have gone out of consideration: that an author is published with an unusual spelling doesn't necessarily mean that it's the author's intention. There are other parties (editors, publishers) involved. Your submissions, Vasha, in many cases were done without giving proof of the author's request or preference, and often without asking primary verifiers. Stonecreek 06:23, 29 January 2018 (EST)

"doesn't necessarily mean that it's the author's intention" is why I say that if we are going to use the author's own spelling, we should consult their personal web pages and social media for evidence. It's true that if we only made variants for authors who personally requested us to, there'd be so few of them that the inconsistency wouldn't be very noticeable--we'd still on the whole be using a system with only one form of the name. But it seems unfriendly to the authors to force them to do that. We should have some way of indicating what the author's spelling is, taken from their web presence rather than only by request. And either create variants for any nonstandard spelling (which I don't really want to do) or for none--we can accommodate author requests some other way than by making variants. --Vasha 06:45, 29 January 2018 (EST)

Record-it-as-you-see-it and making variants based on that seems to be the most straightforward solution. Due to limitations of the system, we can't do that for capitalization variances, but we could for punctuation and spacing. It won't solve the "KJ" versus "K. J." search issues, but it will at least lead to being able to find a credit that one is looking at. What difference does it make if we have a lot of variants? Doing it that way then just isolates the how-to-normalize-it issue to choice of which name is the canonical. And that decision can be documented in one place. --MartyD 07:29, 29 January 2018 (EST)

Maybe we should all get together and just teach authors how to spell their own names. MLB 11:58, 29 January 2018 (EST)

Any more thinking on this? We need to get it settled. The latest problem case is G.Kay Bishop, who wants to spell their name without a space between the "G." and the "Kay." --Vasha 02:14, 3 March 2018 (EST)

Being as there isn't a resolution yet, here's what I'm going to do unless and until there's a consensus to do otherwise. The Help currently states "In the very rare case where an author prefers two (or more) initials as if they were a name... without period or space, and is so credited, we follow the author's preference." So therefore:

1a. I will use the author's preferred spelling (if known, e.g. from their website) as the canonical form of their name. 1b. If I can't figure out the author's preference, I will use a non-standard form of the name as canonical if and only if it is a lot more common than the standard form.

2. In all publications, I will enter the name exactly as it is printed, varianting if necessary. (Note that in at least one case which I've seen, the author has spelled their name with and without periods at different times, but is currently using the period. In such cases I will enter the publications exactly as printed even though the canonical name is not non-standard.)

3. Point (2) only applies if I have seen a preview or asked a verifier; in existing publications where I don't know what's in the book, I will leave the name as it currently is, varianting it to a new canonical form if necessary.

4a. Although the Help only refers to "two or more initals... without period or space," I will use these same guidelines for all non-standard author preferences for punctuation or spacing (e. g. "G.Kay Bishop"). However, initals with periods after them must always have spaces between them. 4b. Since it is not possible to have multiple different capitalizations as pseudonyms, I will use a non-standard capitalization as canonical if and only if there is clear evidence that the author wants it that way, and clarify publications with notes if necessary.

If anyone doesn't like this solution, speak up! --Vasha 13:08, 10 March 2018 (EST)

As long as there is no consensus, one should stick to the rules, as it seems there is no basis for just another self-defined rule. Stonecreek 14:02, 10 March 2018 (EST)

Exactly--sticking to the rules is precisely what I am doing. All that I did with those four points was to explain in detail how I am interpreting the guidelines in the Help. Can you show me a written rule that contradicts anything I said? --Vasha 14:12, 10 March 2018 (EST)

Now, that would be a new development! As with misusing the title tags, in changing names I have seen numerous examples where you seemingly followed your own preferences, not necessarily the author's one. At least there were numerous examples where you proposed changes based on the spelling on some publications (not all, and some against PVed ones), and some where you supplied no proof at all. Stonecreek 14:39, 10 March 2018 (EST)

What sort of documentation would make you happy? Shall I post a link to the author's website in the moderator notes of every single record that I add or edit, if there is something non-standard about the name? Shall I count how many publications use one spelling vs. the other and post that number in the moderator notes of every single edit? --Vasha 14:55, 10 March 2018 (EST)

Yes, something along these lines would be very much appreciated. And with your proposed point 2. you are absolutely NOT sticking to the rules as your recent submission for a publication edited by one 'Robert N Stephenson' made clear. Either you haven't understood the rules or are willingly messing things up. Stonecreek 15:10, 10 March 2018 (EST)

Yes, I did follow the rules. Robert N Stephenson uses that spelling AND it is spelled that way on the title page of the book, so it should be used in the database, according to Help.

You are the one who's not following the written guidelines. You can't just say "I've been doing it X way for years;" either rewrite the guidelines or follow them. --Vasha 15:13, 10 March 2018 (EST)

So, what is there that you don't understand in the sentence Initials should normally be entered followed by a period and a space as "Gordon R. Dickson" or "K. D. Wentworth", even if period or space is omitted in the publication.? Stonecreek 15:32, 10 March 2018 (EST)

I quote Ahasuerus above: "Steven H Silver stopped by and pointed out that "H" was his middle name and not an initial. It started a discussion which, after reviewing the evidence, resulted in the current Help wording. I believe it still reflects our policies." Thus, the part about following author's preference applies to middle intials also, not just two initials. --Vasha 15:46, 10 March 2018 (EST)

I am speaking of Robert N. Stephenson here, for whom you tried to apply your self-invented rule #2. Please apply the valid guidelines! Stonecreek 04:18, 11 March 2018 (EDT)

According to the written guidelines and the fact that, as Ahsduerus indicated, those guidelines apply to middle initials, Robert N Stephenson should be in the database as Robert N Stephenson. The fact that he is not only means that the the current form of his name is incorrect (by the written principles). But see Annie's comment below for a sensible proposal to make things easier. --Vasha 18:08, 11 March 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) When I started editing here, one of the easy rules on the books was about the author names - if it has an initial, add a dot and a space and ignore whatever the book decided to use; capital letters for the first letter in each name; small for the rest. It was refreshingly uncomplicated. If I was adding a magazine or an anthology, I did not need to go and check each name to see if that specific author is not saved in the DB under some fancy capitalization or with some fancy spaces and dots somewhere. The few exceptions were exactly that - well known exceptions.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for what the authors want but this is a DB and even if search can be tweaked to connect the dots (no pun intended), using arbitrary rules based on preferences makes the already tedious process of adding anthologies and magazines much worse. Add to this the fact that then the moderator needs to do the same checks (because almost none of the editors will explain why they used that spelling in a moderator note) and the thing just becomes silly. Not to mention just how confusing it is for someone that is just starting. We are a database and databases need to have strict standards. Adding a new field into the author and using that as a "display name" makes a lot more sense than having a standard that is essentially "if the editor finds a reference that the author really do not like dots, don't have dots". Either we go with "whatever is on the book" or we go with "here is our strict standard". Everything else is just unnecessarily confusing and complicating things without adding any value. Annie 17:33, 11 March 2018 (EDT)

I have to disagree with the "without adding value" part--authors have a right to decide how they spell their name, and apparently Steven H Silver managed to convince everyone of that when he posted--but everything else you say makes sense. Editors entering new publications should not have to know what the author's preferred spelling is. As things currently are, entering exactly what's in the book will create lots of duplicate names that aren't varianted to each other. So yeah, it would be very nice for people to be able to just enter a standardized form. Your idea of adding a field to the author record to indicate their preference is an excellent one. There's just one problem--how do we deal with the problem of recording exactly what's in the book? Some people will make notes if they know to, but not all the time. Are you willing to lose having that detail recorded? Personally I think it isn't important and yeah, it doesn't add much value to know exactly what's in the book, but I want to hear from other people whether they want the exactness. --Vasha 17:52, 11 March 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) I love Annie's suggestion of having an extra field in the author record that would contain the author's preferred spelling and cause their name to be displayed that way everywhere, while the main Name field would contain a standardized form. That makes it easy to enter publications, just use the standardized form, no need to look up what the author usually uses. A note in the publication record would be optional--if you know several different spellings are in use, note which one is used in that publication record. This wouldn't be too technically difficult, right?

And if we don't go with that solution, the Help needs to be clarified. Thanks a lot... --Vasha 08:32, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Sorry, but there's no need to make this urgent, since we do have valid rules, AND we have such a desired field: it's called the note field. Any additional information regarding an author might be put into this nice item. Stonecreek 13:32, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Christian, you have said many times that you disagree with my interpretation of the current rules, but I haven't heard from anyone else. That's why I'm begging and pleading for an update to the help section that will clarify matters. This can't be just between you and me. -- Vasha 13:54, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Oh, it isn't. I've watched you espouse your views for quite a while, mostly ignoring anything that contradicted what you want. The entire database can't possibly be changed just so you don't have to think [in other words keep your edits to under 7 seconds, about the limit of your attention span]. You never interpret, you just don't want to do it that way. Waste of cyber-skin. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:09, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) I agree that our current lack of consistency re: author initials can be frustrating. I myself have run into this issue on a number of occasions.

I think the underlying problem is that common usage has changed over the last few decades. A hundred years ago, even 50 years ago, it was understood that having a period after an author initial was the standard. Occurrences of author initials without a period were due to typographical conventions (notably at some digest magazines) and not to be taken seriously by bibliographers. The few cases when an author insisted on a "naked" initial -- famously Forrest J Ackerman -- were seen as affectation at best. Over time common usage changed while our data entry standards haven't. It's not an uncommon scenario in the bibliographic field: we have repeatedly changed our data entry standards and the software to support e-books, audio books, links to 3rd party Web pages and so on.

That said, every time the world changes, it takes some time for our standards to catch up. Being too slow is bad, but being too hasty can be bad as well. For example, back when Wikipedia became big (2005-2006) Al and I kind of assumed that it would ultimately become the repository of all knowledge. Our plan was to work closely with it and to move some of our data, especially biographical data, to Wikipedia pages. Within a couple of years we realized that Wikipedia was not necessarily the panacea that we had thought it would be, e.g. their notability policies meant that they would never have Web pages for most of our authors. We also realized that our decision to create a single "Wikipedia URL" for author records had been wrong. We ended up rewriting the software to support multiple 3rd party URLs per author and, later on, per title, per publisher, per award type, etc.

And so, even though I understand the frustration, I think it's important to come up with a comprehensive consensual solution to make sure that we don't have to backtrack and re-do things in the future. Annie's suggestion is an interesting one, but there are other potential approaches. For examples, we could adopt a combined approach:

• state that due to recent changes in the publishing world we would start entering author names as printed on title pages and create pseudonyms/VTs when needed, and
• create a new "standardized author name" field in the author record; it would always include periods after initials and would be used by the search logic so that users could find author names regardless of the way they are "initialied" in books/magazines

Please don't be discouraged by the fact that the last Rules and Standards discussion didn't yield any immediate results. Sometimes it takes a number of iterations before we find a solution that is both feasible and addresses everyone's needs. Then we have to prioritize it, but that's a whole different issue. Ahasuerus 13:58, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

I had been on the record with a similar position as Christian as well - trying to bend the rules causes more problems than it solves and makes both adding books and moderating records much harder. I think that we should just stop trying to follow every fad of US publishing and just follow our rules and use the Notes (and/or new fields) to ride them. I dread working on magazines and small publishers anthologies these days because of creative naming conventions for the authors and us not following our own rules. Annie 14:27, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

That is certainly true, Annie, it is a big messy mess! I'm just trying to figure out what I should do right now, while things are unsettled (and while current rules allow for exceptions but are poorly worded as far as explaining exactly which exceptions are allowed).

I've been compiling quite a long list of authors who use non-standard initials/capitalization/spacing, along with which publications various spellings are used in. I guess I should put that on a Wiki page so that we can all refer to it. --Vasha 14:56, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

How about an innovative approach? Follow the rules. Initial, dot, space. Initial, dot, space. Notes in the author name and in the publications with creative naming conventions and we have all the information that we need. These are fixable downstream if needed anf if we change the rules but in the meantime they do not cause triple work for everyone.

I know you mean well and that you are trying to advocate for the authors but this is a DB and consistency is important. We need a system identification for the author - this is what our canonical name is for the most part - we default on the most used name but... how initials are different from suffixes - or are we going to decide to break that pattern as well? And if we start following this for the US market and keep changing the rules on the fly, what happens when I start asking the same for the Bulgarian ones for example? Let's not go there, shall we? :)

Plus the DB is a scary place for new editors anyway - making it almost impossible to figure put how to enter a name does not help matters. If anything, I think we should go back and clean the mess we had already created by not following our own rules. Annie 15:03, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Or abandon any pretenses that we are actually following rules and start recording names exactly as they are written in the publication. Which I am even less of a fan of. Annie 15:05, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

I don't disagree with you; standardization would be user-friendly. But there was a decision, years ago, to allow exceptions. And that's still in the rules. So strict standardization isn't following the rules. That's one of the things this inconclusive discussion has been about--should we overturn the former decision that exceptions are allowed? --Vasha 15:08, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

There is a point of no return on all of this. Are we a bibliographic website or just another Index??? Once a decision is made to just STANDARDIZE [I really wish there was a way to make this the obscenity it is ....] there's really no way to go back. At best there has been an attempt to make the 'best-of-both-worlds' work. Sometimes it does, sometimes there's some twit who can't stand that there's a 'difference' in use and usage and the 'help/rules' get lambasted; and they're NEVER satisfied until it's changed to their way. They're flawed, so what. We grow. Bibliography is messy, it's what keeps us thinking [at least more than 7 seconds per edit] and why there are always going to be adaptations. Changing the perception that our Help listings are rules instead of guidelines would make most of these discussions much easier. We already have ALL the tools we need to deal with [supposed] aberrations in authors names/story titles/etc/etc that we need. By simply recording data as it is in the publications we list, and then dealing with the 'fallout', ........... if there's an editor or mod who can't deal with that, or just wishes to iron-clad/stomp/jackboot any variance into submission ..... they should leave. I'll help the twits pack ........ --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:35, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

I think it is - the exceptions are there for special cases but I think we stretch this a bit too much. I would argue that any exception needs to be discussed on the community pages - if it is not done or there is no agreement, then strict standardization is the way. Otherwise you end up with different editors having different ideas on what is "conclusive" and what should constitute an exception. Or even if we do not stretch it that far, using a non-standard initials handling should ALWAYS be recorded on the author page with links to the sources showing the author preference. Does not help with the adding of the works of that author but saves everyone a lot of time in finding out why... Annie 15:50, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

Yeah, that is all very cautious and wise... No problem, for now I will just be keeping a list of all the proposed exceptions. --Vasha 16:30, 6 April 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) Here is a list I've been keeping of unusual names. Note that these are just ones I've jotted down over the last couple months, the tip of the iceberg... --Vasha 15:14, 7 April 2018 (EDT)

Follow the rules and all is good. I've the feeling that some authors don't know what name they have --Wolfram.winkler 05:19, 16 July 2018 (EDT)

How to handle author credit of traditional stories (again)

I think we should decide on a rule regarding traditional, re-told tales and clarify the help accordingly. I'm coming up with this because we currently have an author page like that of Ludwig Bechstein, which has several titles where the variants are from other authors ("Grimm" and "Kletke"). Moreover, "Grimm" has also been made into a "pseudonym" of Ludwig Bechstein, which is not correct because the Grimms weren't. According to Ludwig Bechstein's Wikipedia page it looks like the Grimms and Ludwig Bechstein were different authors, each collecting tales independently. I therefore propose the following:

• If a data source doesn't clearly state that a tale is either a retelling by the credited author, or that the author has re-used the text from another author, we assume that it's a different work and use the credited author.
• Only if a data source clearly states that the credited author has simply re-used the text from another author do we use the orginal author (adding a note about the re-use by the credited author).
• Title records, which are retellings by different authors, must not be varianted. Example: "The Three Dogs" by "Grimm" must not be a variant of "Die drei Hunde" by Ludwig Bechstein.
• Different authors who retold tales must not be made pseudonyms.

See also the previous discussion How to handle author credit of traditional stories above.

Jens Hitspacebar 07:35, 10 February 2018 (EST)

I agree. However, there is an additional complication when a source uses the wrong author as a credit (this happens outside of traditional stories as well). I've seen it handled by 1) using the credit as supplied and varianting without a pseudonym; and 2) modifying the credit (example Ludwig Tieck (in error) and varianting with a pseudonym. I recommend we standardize on an approach there as well. For all these cases, notes should be liberally used. Links within the notes can show the relationships for those wanting to capture them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:08, 10 February 2018 (EST)

I feel it is ok to use a variant, with no pseudonym, for the wrong-credit situation, and have a note in the wrongly credited title with an explanation. This approach is consistent with our handling of works with no credit; we do record it as (not) credited, but we don't make that "uncredited" a pseudonym. --MartyD 10:19, 10 February 2018 (EST)

I'd like to thank --JLaTondre for inviting me to this discussion. While doing the Andrew Lang Fairy Books, I've come across this situation a few times & would really appreciate how to handle credit mistakes. --MartyD & JLaTondre both know the trouble I've had with The Enchanted Watch credited to Deulin. I always try to verify a story before I variant or link to a parent title(which takes me a long time when I can't check the original collections!) When I was doing The Green Fairy Book I noticed The War of the Wolf and the Fox didn't match any of the Grimm Brothers' stories, even tho it was mentioned on the wikipedia page for their tales. I found it in Hermann Kletke's collection. I was just going to list it under Kletke when it was put under Bechstein & I'm not sure what to do. I'd would rather break the variant to Bechstein & have it & the 2 other ones currently linked to Bechstein under Kletke. I know Kletke mentions Bechstein in regards to these stories but I think it just makes things confusing. I still haven't found the original of The Golden Mermaid credited to Grimm(& I know from doing this work titles & even character names were sometimes changed by Andrew Lang's translators). In regards to the Grimm as pseudonym, I was wondering of making those that haven't been verified under something like Grimm-x, with a note stating this is to be used for that purpose only? Sort of like that version of Maupassant's The Horla that is used when the translator is unknown. So far there's only a handful of stories in this situation & wonder if this could be a solution-any thoughts?Loviatar 02:02, 15 February 2018 (EST)

Entering translator

What is the rule on entering the translator? It's entered on the Title Page Note, of course, in the Tr template form, but can't it be entered additionally, as so many people have been doing, on each relevant Publication Page's Notes? It seems more user-friendly to have it there where a link may land you, and not have to navigate elsewhere. Likewise it seems helpful to me to mention the language in the Notes, although I can see that entering the original title, as I've been doing, can be redundant (although a first-time user might not scroll down when their laptop screen puts Contents below the fold). So--is there a rule on what can and can't go in the Notes as additional info? --Martin. MOHearn 12:00, 20 February 2018 (EST)

There are two things to consider here - the data in the DB and the users of the DB. For the first one, we do not need the translator in the publication - we all know to look at the title level and adding in the publication is just repeating known information. But for external users that are not so well versed in the way the data works here, having the translator inside of the publication record of novels is actually useful. I would not go out of my way to add it to other editors' work (I make sure it is in the title level when I am moderating) but when I am adding my own publications, I am adding to both (in a lot of cases it is because it is a Bulgarian publication and I need to make some notes on how the translation is marked - translation from a specific edition or an uncommon language, different from the original one for example)) and I would just leave it there if an editor adds it, especially if they are PV-ing. Just my 2 cents Annie 14:29, 20 February 2018 (EST)

I'm not aware of a rule that forbids to additionally state the translator in the note if a publication. Moreover, the software has no translator support (yet) therefore I think it's not a bad idea to do so. Language, however, is a different thing: it shouldn't go into the note redundantly (except maybe for some complex cases), because the software has language support and should itself be able, after some changes, to show the title's language automatically on the publication page, if such a feature is desired. I actually think it's a good idea if this feature would be added. Jens Hitspacebar 11:43, 21 February 2018 (EST)

It would be easy to change the Publication page to display the language of the container title. If you want to post this proposal on the Community Portal, we could then discuss the implementation details. Ahasuerus 17:30, 21 February 2018 (EST)

What Jens said is the same point of view that I can subscribe to. Christian Stonecreek 12:21, 21 February 2018 (EST)

So we all are on the same page here. Annie 12:33, 21 February 2018 (EST)

In my messages Hauck has said that the rule is that the translator data goes into the Title Notes and is not to be duplicated in the Publication Notes (and explained that it helps keep the data simpler to manage). After looking around the site for the rule I can see that it's implied in the Publication Notes help page, but it's merely an implication. Could the help page be made explicit one way or the other? If it specified that the translator data either is or is not allowed to be duplicated in the Pub Notes, then there would be a bona fide rule. As it is, it felt like the rules changed under me when I'd been adding the translator in the publication all this time without being told it was a problem.

Repeating the language entry from the container title via the software does sound like a very good idea. MOHearn 22:18, 21 February 2018 (EST)

OMNIBUS Definition Inconsistency

The OMNIBUS definition in Template:PublicationFields:PubType doesn't match the database. It states "Conversely, if a book is originally published as multiple volumes, and republished as a single volume, the latter is a novel unless the presentation within the single volume makes it clear that the works are presented as separate novels. For example, "The Lord of the Rings", by J.R.R. Tolkien, was originally published in three volumes; the single volume edition is to be categorized as a novel." However, the single volume The Lord of the Rings is entered as an OMNIBUS and not a NOVEL. Since it can be argued that some of these versions do present the individual books a separate novels, is this just a bad example that needs to be replaced? Or has practice changed & the whole quote should be struck? -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:15, 6 March 2018 (EST)

This seems like a similar situation to a fixup novel, or a novel-in-stories. If the final result is presented as a novel, that's the type it should be. LOTR seems like a bad example to choose to demonstrate the principle since there are some editions that are more omnibus-like and some that are more novel-like. --Vasha 17:27, 6 March 2018 (EST)

It really seems to be a bad example, which should be replaced. The initial novels were published independently, and, though they tell a chronological epic, the OMNIBUS should stay an OMNIBUS. We really have many examples of ongoing stories published in one volume that could be viewed as novels. Especially it would be a NOVEL that includes other NOVELs and that we already had ruled out, I think. Stonecreek 04:11, 7 March 2018 (EST)

The Date field for Titles that first appeared in a Magazine

I'm a new contributor. I read the rules about Date field in Magazine records. The two things that struck me were

'and also because there is no good way to determine actual publication date'

and

'For magazine cover dates that cannot be assigned to a specific month, use the year only: "Spring 1943" is just entered as "1943-00-00"'

For U.S. magazines there is a good way to determine actual publication date. Most of them have copyright registrations which list the date of publication for each issue. These are available online - for convenience I've saved on my hard drive PDF files of all annual Periodical Registrations books from 1891 through 1977.

I wish the second point would be reconsidered. I can see that there is a common consensus (i.e. not just ISFDB but elsewhere) to simply use the month and year for monthly periodicals. I don't believe there is common consensus to use "00-00" for quarterlies, annuals, and any other non-monthly periodicals. Why not put in accurate dates where known?

My real question, though, is would it be against the rules to make the Date field of individual titles be the actual publication date? E.g. "The Derelict of Space" by William Thurmond & Ray Cummings. This was first published September 1, 1931, in Wonder Stories Quarterly Fall 1931 which has a Date field value of 1931-00-00. The Title Record for the story also has a Date of 1931-00-00. Would it be OK to put 1931-09-01 in the Date field of "The Derelict of Space"'s Title Record? PatConolly 02:56, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

Yes, it would be against the rules as they are now stated. However, for quarterly publications, I see no reason to not state an actual month of publication. A publication for 'Spring' of a given year could be determined to have the first month of the timespan in question assigned (March), just as a publication for the first quarter of a year would be assigned YYYY-01-00. Stonecreek 03:20, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

I'm against it, particularly in this case as, to the best of my knowledge, September 1, 1931 is not IN Fall 1931 (for us europeans it's in Summer). It's for the same reasons that we do not date monthly magazines by the availability date. I've also strong reservations about the fact that the date registered by the copyright office is the real publication date (or what we mean by this term). In France books and magazines are also registered (it's the Dépôt Légal) and this date is rarely the same as our "publication date". I'm not sure that a copyright office's data has any relevance as a bibliographic reference (if it has, why not use the printer's records or the printing date that's on this issue).

Hervé, you're absolutely right on the exact date; the date of registration of an official national library has some more relevance than the date of availability as stated with some online bookshops, but not that much more. But in your stated case we would file the date of publication as September 1931 (1931-09-00), which would be an analogue to the three month span for any other quarterly published magazine. Stonecreek 06:30, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

In the U.S. copyright registrations, Publication Date for a magazine meant the same as Publication Date for a book - namely the date that the publication was on sale. The publisher submits that date with his registration. I would say it's as relevant as a statement printed in the magazine saying "next issue on sale (some date)" or in ads saying "this other magazine on sale (some date)". And if you check you will find that these publication dates stated in magazines match what the registrations show - at least it did for many decades (I don't really look at current magazines). I'm not sure why printing date would be preferable to on-sale sate. E.g. Asimov's first novel was published Jan. 19, 1950 and that's what ISFDB Date shows. If it was determined that the printing had occurred in December, would it be desirable to change that Date field to 1949-12-00? PatConolly 12:54, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

What information is the Date field intended to capture? If it is merely the date printed on a magazine as a means of keeping them separate (except for quarterlies which would NOT be separate per current rule), then it's redundant, since the Title field already says something like "Weird Tales, May 1930". Why not use it for the date the Title was actually published? This may be a personal quirk, but if Jan 1939 Amazing Stories came out 7 weeks before Jan 1939 Astounding Science Fiction (which it did) I like to know that. I like to know where Quarterlies fit in with the monthly magazines. I like to know whether Winter 1943 means the beginning of 1943 (Jan) or the end of 1943 (Dec). Well, basically I just like to know when things were published in the sense of "made available to the public". Hope this wasn't annoyingly long. PatConolly 12:54, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

My remarks had nothing to do with stating additional information in the notes, sorry if it seemed so. But as for publication dates, we go with the official ones as stated by the publisher, and that means for most (monthly) magazines the month stated with the title. Stonecreek 12:58, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

Yes I knew we are only discussing the specific Date field. I have been submitting the dates in the Notes field. And my main objection is not about the Date field for monthly magazines, but the Date field for non-monthly magazines. 1928-00-00 seems objectively less meaningful and informative than 1928-10-20. By the way, after you read the above I removed a mildly inflammatory statement about "accurate data" and replaced it with "Why not use it for the date the Title was actually published?" (following my point about it redundantly restating what is said in the Title field).PatConolly 13:42, 16 March 2018 (EDT)

Title Convention for Magazines

Hello. I have a question, please: How important is it to follow the convention for magazine titles? It is stated this way:

For the title of a magazine, the best source is the information (often below the table of contents) about the publisher, giving the address; this often says something like "IF is published monthly by . . . ." If this is not present, the magazine cover and the heading on the contents page are about equal in priority; again take a good guess.

I'm asking because I've noticed that some issues of Analog do not follow the convention. For example, the title for the October 1960 issue is recorded as Analog Science Fact -> Fiction, which matches the large heading on the contents page (which is the secondary choice for a title). However, it does not match the information paragraph, which says "Analog Science Fact & Fiction is published monthly by . . . ."

As another example, the information paragraphs in the current issues of Analog read: "Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding) . . . published bimonthly by . . . .", but they are listed as only Analog Science Fiction and Fact in the ISFDB. In this case, the information paragraph is on the editorial page rather than the table of contents page. This alternate title is mentioned in the ISFDB publication notes for the first two issues of 2018.

I'm happy to submit these changes and similar ones from my Analog collection if they are wanted, or perhaps someone would like to propose a change to the convention. Or maybe it can all be left as is.

Please advise and accept my thanks for your answers. --Main 19:44, 18 March 2018 (EDT)

Looks like your query slipped through the cracks! Your link above doesn't work for me but this one has the title info you referenced. It looks like you're exactly right. Someone with higher seniority than I have will hopefully shed some light but I notice that there are conventions that are used that don't stick by the rules here that become sort of de facto rules that are only learned by using the site a lot. It may be a matter of it looks less cluttered in the display listings without the added "(Astounding)". I'll ask MLB and Hauck who do a lot of Analog entries for their take on this and see if they'll join. Doug / Vornoff 15:10, 23 April 2018 (EDT)

John W. Campbell reportedly hated the Astounding name, and if so, I can only wonder what he would think of this continued discussion. However, be that is it may, the cover states Analog Science Fiction and Fact, this is repeated on the title/contents page, while the headers just simplify everything as Analog. The (Astounding) part is only listed in the indicia. Not sure what the Statement of Ownership says, but personally, despite this being a good question, I would just keep it as it is. Somebody who has access to their whole collection could check out if Dell Magazines always listed, in their indicia, Analog as it is listed now. Again, I'm for keeping it as is. Still, I'm just a working bee here, the ultimate decision will be somebody else's. MLB 22:13, 23 April 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) What do you think the name of Fiyah magazine should be? They don't have a header at the top of their contents page; at the bottom it says ©Fiyah Literary Magazine. On the cover it says "Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction" and they also start off every editorial by saying "Welcome to Issue (number) of Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction." Should we just ask the magazine staff which is their name? --Vasha 23:53, 23 April 2018 (EDT)

Mark, I have a gap in my Analogs from 84 to 97 so the earliest Dell Analog I have is October 97 and the title over the contents as well as the cover both say "Analog Science Fiction and Fact" and the indicia has, again, "Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding)". There seems to be some kind of leeway in the rules and with the amount of people that have verified these issues it seems the consensus would be to keep it as is. I like it that way as well - it's a lot cleaner.

And Vasha, I'd vote for "Fiyah Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction". There is no real indicia or contents page header apparently, so the next logical thing would be the cover, plus it gives you a good idea of what the mag is about, rather than just "Fiyah". Doug / Vornoff 00:52, 24 April 2018 (EDT)