User:Mike Christie/Debates

Summary

This section is to keep track of contentious issues; I might end up making a FAQ section out of this. At a minimum I plan to summarize the debate positions and any consensus.

Things to include in each summary:

• What the issue is
• What possible answers/solutions there are
• Any future features or database changes that might address the issue
• Current consensus, if there is one
• What the help files say, including links to the relevant help files
• Whether any of the outcomes are unacceptable -- e.g. if a moderator sees an edit of one type, should they reject it?

Issues that have been debated

Should title.title always match pub.title?

There are two separate fields in the database where a "title" can be recorded: one in the title table, and one in the publication table. These are referred to here as ttitle and ptitle, for brevity. Publications usually have "parent titles": that is, a book will have a publication record, which contains one or more title records, one of which is regarded as the title that represents the publication itself, as opposed to a short story within it. For example, this publication of Le Guin's collection "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" contains title records for each short story, but also a title record that has title-type of COLLECTION and has ttitle of "The Wind's Twelve Quarters".

Should the ttitle match the ptitle in every case?

Note that translated works are a separate issue which can lead to ptitles and ttitles not matching. See the separate translation debate, below.

Other than translations, there are two reasons why one might expect a ptitle to differ from the ttitle.

First, if the ttitle is used to track multiple different versions of a book, which are all the same story, under different titles or pseudonyms, then there would be different ptitles for that ttitle. For example, suppose you have two books: one is titled "A Midsummer Tempest" by Poul Anderson; the other is "A Mid-Summer Tempest" by Poul Anderson. Both these publications could be recorded under the single title "A Midsummer Tempest". The ptitle would still be accurate; the single ttitle would simplify the bibliography. The alternative is to use the variant title mechanism within the ISFDB to create a separate ttitle for each publication, and mark one as a variant of the other.

Second, if a book has a subtitle, the subtitle could be placed only in the ptitle. The ttitle would then record everything up to the subtitle. For example, Le Guin's "Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea" would have a ttitle of just "Tehanu".

Arguments for using a single ttitle for varying ptitles:

• It can be a significant simplification of data entry and readability in the bibliography
• No data is lost, because the ptitle still records the accurate data. (See below for a special case where data could be lost.)

Arguments against:

• The variant title mechanism is the only way for the author bibliographies to display pseudonyms and alternative titles. For a title such as Lewis Padgett's "Robots Have No Tails", which was republished as "The Proud Robot, by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore, the title could only appear under the bibliography of one of those two author names.
• Some information could be lost in certain circumstances. For example, suppose Le Guin's "Tehanu" appears in an omnibus with the full title and subtitle: "Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea". Either a separate ttitle is created for this version, just because the title appears in an omnibus, or else the "Tehanu" ttitle is used, which doesn't show the actual title printed in the omnibus. A similar comment applies to minor typographical variations, or pseudonyms, in novel titles in omnibuses.
• Short stories and publication-length works would be treated inconsistently. Short stories, having no publication record, have no choice but to use the variant title mechanism.

There is not unanimous agreement on this issue. The help files currently assert that all differences in titles should become variant ttitles, under all circumstances, and that subtitles should be included in both ptitles and ttitles, so that they match. This is not a consensus view. Relevant help files are Template:TitleFields:Title and Template:PublicationFields:Title.

For now, there is no reason for a moderator to reject edits that adhere to either convention, at least for minor changes to the title's punctuation, and for subtitles. Significant changes to the title, and pseudonyms, should always require a variant title. However, so long as an edit does not obscure the truth, or delete information about the true state of affairs, then moderators do not need to reject edits or feel obliged to correct them afterwards to conform to either approach.

Should titles include subtitles?

See also should title.title always match pub.title?.

Often a subtitle is not widely used as part of the generally reported title for a work. For example, "Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth" is more widely known as simply "Time Cat". However, this is not universally true. "The Faded Sun: Kutath" is generally known by that full title, since there are three "Faded Sun" novels.

Should a subtitle be included in the title.title? What about the publication.title?

The argument for including it in the publication is that the publication record should be as close as possible to an exact representation of the publication. However, if it is included in the publication but not the title record, then they do not match; see should title.title always match pub.title? for the issues this raises. If it is included in both, then the bibliography will in many cases display a title that is not what most readers are familiar with. In addition, variant titles are then likely to appear which differ only in the presence of a subtitle; this is not interesting to the reader at the author bibliography level, but they will display there.

Possible future changes to the system that could address this include a separate field for recording subtitles. Distinguishing subtitles would allow improved bibliography displays while sacrificing no data.

Currently there is a consensus that the publication records should include the subtitle. There is not universal agreement on including them in the title as well, but most editors do not do so.

The help files say that the subtitles should always be included. This doesn't represent a consensus. The relevant files are Template:PublicationFields:Title and Template:TitleFields:Title.

The only edits that a moderator should be concerned about that relate to this issue are title or pub edits that remove a subtitle from a pub.title. These edits should be queried to determine if the subtitle exists on the publication. If it does, the subtitle should be left there. Adding or subtracting a subtitle to a title.title can be left to the editor's discretion at this point, as there is no consensus on this issue.

To do

• Is it always possible to identify the parent title for a publication?
• Should titles like "Introduction" have the publication title in parens afterwards? E.g. "Introduction (The Wind's Twelve Quarters)".
• Should titles have parenthetical comments that identify text revisions?
• How should chapbooks be displayed?
• How should chapbooks be internally represented? In particular, should a chapbook holding a single title record it as a NOVEL regardless of length? If so, are there two title records for a SHORTFICTION printed in chapbook form?
• When partial ISBNs are found on publications, can they be completed for entry into the ISBN field?
• Do translated publications (English -> foreign) get a separate title, or are they recorded under an English title?
• How should Ace Doubles be represented? What if they contain anthologies or collections?
• How should cover artists for Ace Doubles be represented?
• How should boxed sets be represented?
• How do we record sf works in non-genre magazines/anthologies/collections?
• How do you tell when you're looking at a collection vs. an omnibus of works all of which are by the same author?
• Do we record editors of collections, and if so, how?
• Do we record cover designers, and if so, how?
• What's the deal with Tor ISBNs?
• How do we handle fresh linking material between stories?
• How do we handle section titles?
• Can we use a printing history list in a late printing to enter earlier printings?