User talk:Biomassbob/Archive/2012Apr-Jun
C[harlene] James
Would you happen to know if C. James who illustrated Charlene James's story "No Stone Unturned" in Weirdbook Two is the same person as the author? Ahasuerus 16:00, 1 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] "Archetypal Patterns"
Are you certain this poem is by the father, Manly Wade Wellman, and not the son, Wade Wellman? Mhhutchins 16:12, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
No. I never ran into the son before, so assumed the father had written the poem. Looking at the Wade Wellmans in the data base, I have to assume it was the son, so I will cancel the submission. Bob 16:25, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Weirdbook 17
The note in Weirdbook 17 reads (in part) "included in W. Paul Ganley's Forward to Weirdbook 18". Shouldn't it be "Foreword" rather than "Forward"? Ahasuerus 18:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it should be. I didn't enter that information, and overlooked the misspelling when I was editing. Bob 18:20, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Fixed, thanks! Ahasuerus 18:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Weirdbook 14
FYI, "The Way Back Home", which appears in your verified Weirdbook 14, has been turned into a VT of "De Doodskist in de Zee". The publication's note field has been updated. Ahasuerus 02:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] Fanzine vs. Magazine
At a certain point in a fanzine's growth, I feel it becomes more than a fanzine. Not that it makes that much difference when it comes to the ISFDB records, as both are handled the same. Wouldn't you think that a publication that pays for its contributions in anything other than contributor copies be considered more than a fanzine? Weirdbook's ambitions and reach were far greater than the average fanzine. A secondary source, Marshall B. Tymn and Mike Ashley's Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines has Weirdbook listed under its magazine category, separate from the category for fanzines. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
BTW, I noticed that you changed a record for which I did a primary verification without bringing it to my attention for discussion. As I've made it clear several times before, making substantial changes to a primary-verified publication record requires that you make an attempt to contact the primary verifier. It's also peculiar, or maybe just unusual, that a hardcover publication be typed as a fanzine. Mhhutchins 04:05, 4 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] The Weirdbook Sampler
FYI, "Allen Koxzowski" has been changed to Allen Koczowski. Everything else looks good, I have merged a few titles and set up variants for others. Ahasuerus 04:03, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Or should that be Allen Koszowski? Mhhutchins 04:06, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I must have misspelled the name when I posted the note above -- I noticed that we didn't have anything else by "Allen Koxzowski", so I searched on "Allen Ko" and used the name that popped up :-)
Also, is it a safe bet that C. Youden is the same person as Craig Youden, who also appeared in Weirdbook? Ahasuerus 04:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
Clearly I hit the x instead of the s originally. Thanks for catching this and the Youden i.d.. Fixed this and the A. Arthur Griffin pseudonym. Bob 14:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Telzey Toy
I rejected the submission adding new contents to this record. As I told you before, you should import the contents from a record that already has them, like this one. It saves you time from entering them manually, and it saves anyone else from having to manually merge each title with the record already in the database. Mhhutchins 23:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] Publications with unknown dates
Hi. I accepted your submission of The Best of James H. Schmitz, but I have a comment and question about the date. You should not assign an abritrary month. If there is no date in the publication, you should use 0000-00-00. Remember that copyright date is not a publication date. Does it have a number line? Sometimes those encode the dates. --MartyD 11:27, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
Fixed. No number line; both the 10 digit and 13 digit ISBNs are given, price is encoded, but we only know it's after the first printing and before the third. Bob 17:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Winds of Time
I have on hold your submission of The Winds of Time. Your submission would change the ISBN and page count on this record for a 2011-07 edition to the ISBN and page count for a 2009-03 edition. Did you mean to clone the original entry? BTW, Amazon says the original entry's ISBN is a hardcover (at $18.95), while saying the ISBN you provided is a paperback (at $6.95). I see you're a verifier of that record, but I don't know if you mean that verification to be for your submitted data or the original data. Thanks. --MartyD 11:40, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
I cancelled the submission. I'm not sure what I did, but I did mean to clone the pub. The one I have is indeed a tp, original cost alleged to be $9, for sale by Amazon at $6.95. I'll pull the verification, which should have been for the tp. As for the date, these are almost certainly a print on demand pub, and the date on mine is 23 June 2010. I will use the Amazon date on my new submission. Not sure how I messed this up so bad, but glad you caught it. Bob 17:25, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Flight from Tomorrow
I accepted the submission to add this record before realizing there was already an almost identical record in the database. If there is substantial difference between the records, please explain in the note field of your record. If they are the same, please delete one of them. Mhhutchins 13:22, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
I must have missed finding the original record. I deleted the duplicate and filled in the pages for the stub. Bob 17:36, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Amra #68
I've changed the reviews of the nongenre nonfiction titles in this record in essays. Mhhutchins 15:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Should I do that for the other non-genre reviews? Why is that useful? Bob 18:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
It gets rid of stray authors. For example, this and this was caused by the two reviews in this issue. This is similar to the situation I explained here. Reviews of non-associated books can be handled like reviews for films, recordings, graphic novels, etc., although this is not as strictly adhered to. I do it to avoid stray authors. There's nothing in the rules that requires you to change these reviews to essays (unlike the non-book reviews). Mhhutchins 20:59, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Poul Anderson's The Loss of a Son
You verified this pub which contains The Loss of a Son (1993) and this pub which contains The Loss of a Son (1970). Are these two poems the same poem? If so, they need to be merged (keeping the earlier date). If they are different, it would be good to add a note to that affect to avoid latter confusion. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
They are the same. I don't always understand what needs to be merged; I'll take care of this one. Bob 14:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
If you clone or import contents from an existing publication, you don't have to merge. If you add contents yourself, then you will have to merge it manually. I found a number of cases that were unambiguous so I merged them myself, but here are more for you to look at:
Songs of Gurre (1993) vs. Songs of Gurre (1971)
These are indeed the same. Bob 00:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
The Leopard of Poitain (1960) vs. The Leopard of Poitain (1970) - if these are the same, the variants will need to be merged as well
These are different stories about the same character by the same author. I've changed the first title by adding the publication, with a note in the Synopsis that this differs from the later story. The two you merged are the same. Bob 00:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Other than introductions and forwards, we do not differentiate works by adding the publication. If two stories have the same title, leave the stories as titled in their publications and enter a note that they are different in the titles' note fields. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1911) vs. The Gods of the Copybook Headings (1973)
Shocking that a 1911 poem by Kipling finds its way into two pubs here. Bob 00:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
A Choice of Weapons vs. A Choice of Weapons - Hauck verified his as a short story where you have yours as a novelette. You should check with him to see if it's just a different interpretation of size (and come to a common agreement) or whether it was expanded. If it was expanded, the date of the latter one should be changed to that publication and a note added to the title record.
I just want to add that the text in Absolute Magnitude is six pages long and is given as short story by Locus here. Hauck 17:20, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
These are the same story and stories in this chapbook are credited to having been published earlier in Absolute Magnitude. While the one in the pub I verified is 14 pages long, I obviously didn't count the works, so I'll go along with short story as specified in Locus. Bob 00:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Fighting Chance (2005) vs. Fighting Chance (2006)
These are the same. Bob 00:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Also, two "The Mirror from Antiquity" records are in this pub. Is that correct? If so, definitely add a note in the title and publication records. If not, you will need to remove one & delete it. If you just merge them, it will leave it duplicated in the pub.
I see what happened. Someone submitted a stub for this pub, with all the shortfiction length as "shortfiction". I converted these to the proper length, but missed one here. I went to remove one of them, but couldn't tell which one to remove because the length isn't given in the removal list. So I put in del for the page number on the one I want to take out and will have to go back and remove it after the change is approved. Bob 00:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
If you have any questions, let me know. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Counterfeit Howard Collector
I accepted the submission adding this record even though I don't know how such publications should be handled, or even if they're allowed in the database. The one thing I'm sure of is the publisher field is wrong. If this is counterfeit, I'm assuming it gives the same publisher as the original, and the record should reflect that. If no publisher is stated, then the field should be blank. Mhhutchins 01:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
This is only the first of a number of counterfeit Howard publications that are well-known to collectors of his work. Of course, the pub does claim it was published by Lord -- the text is all copied from the original. Should I credit Lord, then create a variant with "unknown" or some other designation as the editor or publisher? Bob 14:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Credit it as stated and record in the note field the differences between the two publications. Mhhutchins 15:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Howard Collector #5
Submission for this accepted. Please verify that the piece by Hoffmann Price on page 32 is shortfiction. Also, we don't include photographs as a content record, but I don't know if it's a stated policy. On the main help page for creating records there's this: If an article is illustrated with diagrams, or with photographs, these do not need to be included; they are not "artwork" in the sense that we are indexing. I'm not sure if that applies here. Mhhutchins 16:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
I didn't know whether to include the photos or not. Photos of REH are fairly rare; a couple of newly-discovered photos were treated as a big deal in the latest REH Foundation Newsletter. I'll take them out. The Hoffman letter is not fiction, but an essay. Bob 17:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Robert E. Howard's Futility
I have your edit to merge Futility with Futility (Excerpt) on hold. Are you sure that the latter is not an excerpt as titled, but is indeed the whole work? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 01:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
The Chacal pub uses the last 8 lines of the poem as the heading for a story by another author. Howard wrote two poems named Futility, and I think it's important to identify which one the exerpt comes from. Since the Chacal poem says it's an exerpt, merging the two seemed to me to indicate they were the same poem, but one was only part of that poem. I didn't really look at the Chacal pub before; I suppose that the source of the poem could be indicated in the notes section of that pub. By the way, that Futility appears in five other pubs I have, plus a fragment of it in another two, none of which are in the database yet. Bob 02:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
The source would need to be indicated in the notes. If they are merged, it would show the entire poem as being in the Chacal pub - we would loose the information that it's only an excerpt. Excerpts should have their own title records. However, they should be dated with the date of the work they are excerpted from (which is supposed to help with the correlation you're trying to make). I have rejected the edit, but changed the date on the excerpt to match the original. If you want to add a note in addition, go ahead. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:14, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
No objection from me. Thanks for the guidance. Bob 14:10, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Howard's untitled fragments
I've added the first line to REH's untitled fragment first published in this publication so that it can be disambiguated from other untitled work. I've also merged it with the reprint in The Howard Collector (1979). Mhhutchins 00:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Next step for me is to go back and merge a bunch of other stuff, mostly just with the same book, and to see if the reviewed pubs are in the database. Bob 01:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Merging titles that are not identical
If you merge this title with this one, there can only be one title, and you've chosen the one without the dash between the last two words. There are primary-verified records for four publications that give the story as "Kelly the Conjure-Man". If the title given in your verified publication does not have the dash (on its title page, not the contents page), you should make it into a variant record, and not merge it with the other one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
It should have the dash. I changed it. I never use the table of contents any more. I was focused on the designation of the piece as a short story by the others, when in my opinion, it is an essay. While parts of the story may be exaggerated or even incorrect, he seems to be relating local folklore about a character who made a considerable impression on his neighbors. His letters are full of such stuff. I'm reluctant to consider this fiction; it's more like history. Anyhow, that distracted me from the hyphen. Bob 19:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I've accepted the merge, changing it to an essay. According to Howard Works, it's a story, but I'll accept your assessment. Perhaps you should share your opinion with the other editors who verified it as a story. I've always thought we should have an FA type (for facetious, or fictional, article). Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
One problem I don't know how to address. This pub http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?181381 shows just "Letters" on pages 172-190. I don't have a copy of the pub, but suspect that some or all of the REH letters in the 'zine probably appear there. But without the letters being listed, there is no way to merge the records or to identify the letters that do appear. Bob 19:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Unapersson is no longer active, but Nimravus shows up every once in awhile. Leave a message on his talk page asking for a description of each letter so that the records can be merged (or varianted if titled differently). Mhhutchins 21:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
I'm holding the merges of the letters because they have different titles. For example, this one is probably the same as this one, but yours has a date. The compiler of Howard Works gives this as the title in the Ace collection: "E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, 25 June 1936" and then gives the first line of the letter. How is it actually titled in the fanzine? (And as a reminder, you shouldn't make submissions that change primary-verified records without first consulting with the editor who did the primary verification.) Mhhutchins 21:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Rats! I left a message on Unapersson's page! I'll try Nimravus. The title -- in the fanzine, Lord treats letters as follows: "Letter: E. Hoffmann Price to H. P. Lovecraft, dated June 25, 1936" or "postmarked" that date, or "circa" the year or month and year, or in many of Howard's letters to Preece, "no date". I don't recall a single letter except those by Howard that was not dated. In some cases, I added the first words in parentheses to insure identity, but only when there was no date. I also tended to not include the word "dated" or "postmarked", and just include the date itself. Now to be specific, the fanzine has: "LETTER: E. HOFFMAN PRICE to H. P. LOVECRAFT, dated June 25, 1936". I entered that particular item exactly that way, without the all caps.
You say that the letters "are probably the same." Michael, there is no probably about it. Everything in the book "The Howard Collector" came from what was published in the fanzine. The only possible confusion will be with letters from Howard, where he didn't date them.
Bill Thom has a lot of problems he inherited with Howard Works, but he's working to clear them up. As far as I know, Bill entered most of the letters section by copying the information in Dennis McHaney's Howard bibliography "The Neverending Hunt", which is not without error, but is really very, very good. Since it was published in 2006, it's a bit out of date, particularly on letters, many of which were unpublished at that time, but have been published since. That source always gives the first words of the letters, but only includes letters written by Howard. McHaney also doesn't follow Lord's practice of inserting "dated" in front of the date. I have no idea why Bill reversed the day and month in his database, but otherwise he seems to have followed McHaney's practices. That seems like overkill to me when the date is clear.
Finally, Unapersson made a lot of errors in his contents. I found a misspelled Hoffmann, a title given as "With a Set of Rattlesnakes" instead of "With a Set of Rattlesnake Rattles" and consistently listing the letters as "Letter, " rather than "Letter: ". I don't have this pub, so I don't know if the colon was used, but I have to suspect it was. I also suspect the dates were used, but treated as sub-heads rather than part of the title. Maybe Nimravus can clear this up. Bob 23:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)
Let's hope so. When Unapersson was active, primary verification was relatively new, and other standards had not completely come together as they are now. So, I would not hold his verified records to the same standards as later ones. I'll hold the submission to merge "Burkett News" until Nimravus is able to confirm how the author is credited in the Ace reprint volume. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Given that Lord edited the book, I suspect that the Mrs. was left in. And according to Howard Works, the author is given as Mrs., but to tell the truth, I would still like verification. Bob 14:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Secrets of the Earth Star by Kuttner
Image file name was given in the cover field of this record, not the URL. Also, please notify the other primary verifier that you've added the poem to the record. (This should have been done before you made the submission. My repeating this over and again is becoming quite tedious, don't you think?) Mhhutchins 19:56, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Done. Pretty trivial change, but I wanted to match the entry for the hc, and after I uploaded the scan for the tp, I didn't want to have to come back to extend the contents. In the future, I just won't bother with such additions or corrections -- it's too much trouble. Bob 20:27, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
We're all volunteers, so it's up to you how much or little you want to do. But that doesn't mean we don't follow established standards. Mhhutchins 21:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Kuttner Times Three
I had assumed that you'd already searched to see if the pub was in the database. Guess I'm shouldn't be assuming. Please determine which of the pubs for this title should be deleted. Mhhutchins 21:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
I even looked at the pub before I entered the duplicate! Fixed.Bob 23:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Two-Handed Engine
Can you confirm the author credits that are given in this collection? It's unusual that an author's pennames are used to credit the stories in collections. For example, is the story "Call Him Demon" really credited to "Keith Hammond" on page 581? Mhhutchins 02:26, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
No author credits are given at the beginning of the stories or in the TOC; from these, you wouldn't be able to tell which stories were Moore's or Kuttner's or both. The Acknowledgements at the back of the book lists the sources of the stories, including the authors as given in those pubs (as shown in the database -- "as by Henry Kuttner", when the authors were Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, for example). Of course, the subtitle of the book is "The Selected Stories of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore" and the only way to tell which is which is the Acknowledgements section. It seems to me that we either cite no author for the stories or we use the information in the Acknowledgements. And whoever entered the contents apparently found that the source of their information felt the same way. Bob 13:19, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
What about the ones credited to "Hammond", "Hastings", "Padgett", and "O'Donnell"? Does the Acknowledgements credit the actual author of the stories, and not just the author as credited in the original publication? For example, that "The Code" wasn't written solely by Moore? If not, the record will stand as is. Mhhutchins 14:06, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
Only the author as given in the original publication is shown. It's clear which names are pseudonyms (those credited "as by" rather than just "by", but it does not identify the real author(s)where a pseudonym is given. Bob 14:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Fantasy Book
It is ISFDB standard to record the volume numbering in the note field, and not the title field, unless this is the only way to disambiguate a title. So I'm going to accept the submissions, but remove the volume numbering from the title field. About the changing of the type from magazine to fanzine: according to Tymn & Ashley's reference this is under their magazine listings, not their separate listing for fanzines. And having read the article accompanying their listing of the title, it's pretty clear that the publisher and editors did not consider this a fanzine, but a fully committed attempt to "fill a noticeable void in the market for a magazine devoted entirely to fantasy." One more thing, are you adding the covers to the page count? This is an ISFDB standard when editing and creating records for magazines. I noticed you were reducing the page count by 4. Mhhutchins 03:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot to mention. Reversing the names of co-authors or co-editors doesn't effect the way the names are displayed in the record. Once it's in the database, the way the names are displayed can't be changed without deleting the record and creating a new one. Mhhutchins 04:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I guess I have no problem eliminating the volume and issue number from the title, although as I told you before, with fanzines it makes more sense to track issue numbers than dates because of their irregular publishing schedules. But with this 'zine, the numbers don't appear on the covers, so putting the volume and issue numbers in the notes seems reasonable.
Looking more carefully, Mallonee is credited as editor for the first two issues, then for the next six he's listed as the publisher only. He apparently retained the title of Managing Editor (statement of ownership, management and circulation in V2n1), but most issues don't indicate that. Then he's listed as some sort editor again. Should he be listed as editor all the way through?
For consistency's sake, I believe he should. I can't imagine his role changed that much. (In many cases, the Managing Editor is considered the actual editor, especially in the early days of sf magazines.) I'll leave that to you. Mhhutchins 16:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
For the page numbers, the page numbers in the pubs do not include the covers. I could be wrong, but I don't recall many pubs that include covers in their page numbers (I though Amra was a notable exception). If an article is on page 10, that number does not reflect the front cover. So what do we do, put in a note that page numbers do not include covers while adding 4 to the number of pages?
State in the note field that the covers are not included in the publication's pagination, but they've been added to the record's page count. Mhhutchins 16:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
As for fanzine, the letters to the editor and the editor's replies clearly indicate that those writing to or for the 'zine and Mallonee consider the pub a "labor of love", and although he aims to the quality of a professional magazine, circulation is much too limited for such a classification (less than 250 subscriptions, about 3,000 per issue sold at the end of the first year). Those who do not read, or even see the publication, sometimes misclassify things. That's understandable, but those misclassifications have to be subject to change by a primary verifier. Look at the stub you put in for the first issue. There was no way you could anticipate how important Mallonee and Smith felt illustration was to the fantasy in their publication. The illustrations are not only numerous, they tend to be large and take up more space than you might expect from other pubs dealing with the same sort of content. It's typeset by the staff of the Cal Tech newspaper. It's a fanzine, Michael. Bob 14:24, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
A periodical publication with a circulation of 3000 copies, with advertising, and pays contributors in cash is not a fanzine, at least not under current Hugo rules. I can't imagine it would have in 1981 either. And after all, all fanzines are magazines, regardless of their intent, content, appearance or circulation. But I'm not going to argue about it. Don't change the type in any of the later issues that I primary-verified. Mhhutchins 16:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
I did add to the notes of a couple of your primaries, naming the publications that contained reprinted stories. But I wouldn't dream of denying anyone else his right to be a stubborn ass! I certainly don't want to dispute meaningless differences with a primary verifier.
I found it interesting that the paid subscriptions increased from below 250 to about 500 by 1985, but the number sold through dealers dropped from about 3000 to 1800. The number of subscriptions seemed to slowly increase through the life of the pub, but street sales did not. Subscriptions are in line with other fanzines, but apparently the focus is too narrow to attract big street sales, despite the high quality of the contents.
Paying for content isn't a quality of only professional 'zines. Leo Grin was convinced he could produce a fanzine and pay for articles, and proved it with "The Cimmerian". Now there was a narrow focus - Robert E. Howard. Still, Leo had no problem publishing bimonthly for five years (one year publishing monthly). He even paid for letters to the editor, sort of, with a free issue. But Leo wasn't trying to make a living at publishing, and maybe Mallonee was. Bob 20:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Sourcing in a pub record
Although I've accepted the submissions to update the publication records to give the original source of stories reprinted in Fantasy Book, it would be better to give this information in the title records of the individual stories. The data is more likely to get overlooked when it's one level deeper in the database. In many cases, the data is unnecessary entirely, because a user would only need to click on the title record to know the story's first publication. Mhhutchins 16:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the information is redundant in some cases, but for a casual user of the database, I thought the redundancy might be helpful. For the really old stuff the information is not redundant, of course, nor for publications like Redbook. Your point that the information should be in the title record is excellent; I'll work on that before I finish with Fantasy Book.
I've added some material to Fantasy Book, December 1985 that you verified. The editorial there includes 4 book reviews. Hope they connect the first time instead of having to go back and attach them to the correct pubs. Bob 16:13, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Two of them linked, two did not. The first because of a misspelling of the author's name, and the second because of an extended title. Each shouldn't be too hard to link. Mhhutchins 16:17, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
If you insist on giving source data in the note field of the publication record (and it appears nothing I've said has convinced you otherwise), please use quotation marks around story titles, and italicize books and magazines (using HTML). Mhhutchins 19:57, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Story lengths in Thunder in the Void
I believe there are several more problems with the story lengths given to the content title records in this collection. A 32-page story is a novella ("Raider of the Spaceways"), but a 59-page story is a novelette ("Avengers of Space"). And a 29-page story ("The Crystal Circe") is a novella while a 41-page story ("War-Gods of the Void") is a novelette. Are you familiar with the method to do a (relatively) fast word-count? Mhhutchins 16:24, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I can also give you the link to a word counter created by one of the ISFDB moderators. It takes a few minutes to figure out, but does a pretty good job. Mhhutchins 16:29, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Prince Raynor
The submission adding this record has been sitting in the queue for a couple of days. I suppose no other moderator wanted to handle it. My concern is how you've titled the interiorart records. Some are bracketed, others are not and some use quotation marks (and one has an opening mark but not a closing one). Are the brackets used in the titles and are the titles from captions of the pieces? As I've said before, ordinarily we title an interiorart record the same as the work it illustrates. Mhhutchins 17:58, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Wow, I must have been really tired when I did this one. The illustrations with square brackets are given their titles in the ToC, but not on the illustrations. This includes the frontispiece. The ones in quotes are given both in the ToC and as captions on the illustration itself. I've used the quotes before, of course, where the title is a caption on the illustration. It seems to me that when there is an identity to the illustration, it should be used. Bob 19:13, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
But it doesn't do anything for a user who is searching on an artist's summary page for the title of the story that the artist illustrated. Many book covers have used famous works of art, and by the logic you follow, the covers would all have the title of the work of art. But after all, this is primarily a database for speculative fiction. Having the art connected to the title of the story is more important than giving the title of the piece which can always be given in the title record's note field. The note field is searchable if one is looking for the title of the artwork. I hope you understand the rationale behind the policy. You can always disagree, but you won't find many editors who will want to change the thousands of title records that have been entered into the database using these standards. Mhhutchins 19:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
So why the different methods of entry? Some bracketed, some quoted, and neither follow ISFDB standards. Mhhutchins 19:55, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
You've told me before that information that doesn't appear explicitly should be bracketed. As you continue to point out to me, the ToC information is not necessarily the same as the information on the story or article itself; the information from the ToC is therefor bracketed. The quotes show that the information is explicit. You've used quotes on the captions for cartoons in Fantasy Book. So I think I'm being consistent with your previous guidance. I thought these were ISFDB standards. Bob 20:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the misunderstanding, but I never said "that information that doesn't appear explicitly should be bracketed." I gave you two instances: in the page count field you bracket the pages which aren't numbered, and in the title field of a magazine you can bracket data that isn't explicitly stated in order to disambiguate a title. I never said you should use brackets in the title field of any other kind of record. My use of quotes was restricted to providing the spoken dialogue used in cartoons, another form of disambiguating the title record. Nothing in my instructions was intended to lead you to believe that brackets or quotation marks were to be used to record the captions of titled interiorart records that weren't cartoons. Mhhutchins 04:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Of course, the pub itself is attached to the illustration, and anyone who looks at the pub will see which story the illustration fits. So the information is all there and easily found. Bob 20:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
I wasn't speaking of users who have already accessed the publication record. I was speaking of users who are searching for records of artists who have illustrated a specific story. Mhhutchins 04:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
I would guess that most of those interested in what story the artist illustrated would be satisfied to know that he illustrated "Prince Raynor". It strikes me that we all have a tendency to take a view of how the data base will be used to the exclusion of other possible uses. I know I tend to look at how I would use the data base and enter items accordingly. I don't understand why you enter each illustration for the stories in the Fantasy Books you verified, instead of just a single entry that a particular artist illustrated a given story. Your approach looks like useless filler that will just get in the way of someone looking at the artist's summary page. Do you feel your bracketed numbers (or the page numbers) give useful information? Compared to a caption?
You have a point here. I don't believe there's much value in creating individual records for each work of art. Unfortunately, I was overruled when the discussion arose about how to handle the recording of interiorart records. Unlike those who would believe that a single individual should decide how the database is created, I was willing to follow the standards that the majority agreed upon. Of all the rules and standards that I've tried to pass along to you, there is only one set that I created unilaterally, those governing the entry of SFBC editions. And that's only because no one else cared or even bothered to be concerned about how they should be entered. Everything else I've tried to teach you grew either out of discussions in which every active editor (not just moderators) could contribute, or were long established before I came here. Mhhutchins 04:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
Without the title of the illustration, I would just say that each story was illustrated by the artist, or even that the artist did all the interior illustrations for the pub. There would be no point to saying which pages the illustrations were on, assigning arbitrary numbers to each. Bob 20:36, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you could do that...but then you'd be ignoring or even defying the standards, and then, once discovered, every submission you made would be suspect. Mhhutchins 04:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "The Jury" in Spectrum
Hi. If "The Jury" in the various Spectrums (Spectra?) are not the same and are unique to each volume, I suggest you treat them like "standard titles" and disambiguate by adding the publication's title in parentheses (just as if they were titled something obviously generic, like "Introduction"). If "The Jury" is sort of a regular feature -- sort of like a magazine column -- you could even make a series (e.g., "The Jury (Spectrum)" for the series name) if you wanted to and put them all in it. --MartyD 00:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
I agree, as you would see if you looked at later entries. This seems to be a habit with me -- I start a series of entries not really knowing how they should be done, but learning as I go along. Then I have to go back and correct the first few entries. In this case, it wasn't until the 4th entry that I figured out a "standard" form. Bob 00:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
In Spectrum 6, you made it "Spectrum 6 Jury". That was different from what you did in the previous two, so I'm just mentioning it. If it's actually titled that way, it should stay. --MartyD 11:17, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Also in that same pub, you used "Chairmen's Message", while in others you used "Chairman's Message". --MartyD 11:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
You used "e" in Spectrum 8, too. It's "a" everywhere else. --MartyD 11:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "Grand Master Award" in Spectrum issues
Hi. I accepted your changes making "Spectrum 2 (Grand Master Award)" and "Spectrum III (Grand Master Award)" on the interiorart, since that style is consistent with what you did in the other submissions. But are these pieces actually titled "Spectrum 2", "Spectrum III", etc? If so, I think what you did is fine. If not, I think they should be structured the other way around ("Grand Master Aware (Spectrum x)"), matching the titles of the essays they accompany. They'd be distinguished by the different title type ("INTERIORART", in this case). Thanks. --MartyD 11:37, 19 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] "various artists" in Spectrum issues
Your submissions had artwork credited to various artists. How are these things actually credited? Unfortunately, if the artists are credited, you should list them all. If they're not credited, you should instead just use "uncredited" and put the comment about their being the work of various artists in the title notes. Thanks. --MartyD 11:43, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
O.K., the "chapter" is indeed uncredited, although the artwork was selected by "The Jury". Individual illustrations within the chapter (the vast bulk of the pub) are credited, roughly 200 of them per pub, more in later editions as the size of the pubs increased. The information on each illustration includes artist, art director, client, title, medium and size. Some artists will have more than one illustration involved. The illustrations are also grouped; for example, Institutional, Book, Advertising, Comics, Dimensional, Editorial, or Unpublished. There are also awards in each category. Now, how much information should be entered? List the artists? What page they appear on? If they won an award? Title of the artwork (if any)? I can't see rewriting the pub, but what is reasonable? Obviously, I've entered a minimum so far, entering about as much information as you might find in a typical pub. I had intended to enter numerous fantasy art books, many of which are in the data base, but none verified. If the information load required is too extensive, I'll have to rethink that. Bob 14:25, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
There's no obligation to enter more than you choose. There are editors who enter everything, and others who prefer nothing. The only thing that matters here is, that we don't have (or want) an artist called "various artists". Art is either credited or not. If you don't want to enter each individual piece, I think it's better to use "uncredited", and explain in the notes. --Willem H. 15:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you both for the guidance. I'll take care of the "various artists" problem and think about what else to enter. I had not been able to find the sorts of examples you provided; I looked through a number of art books in the database(ones I have) and none of them were verified. Bob 17:00, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Spectrum 13
In Spectrum 13, you have Katrina Gras for the essay but Katrina Gras (Spectrum 13) for the accompanying artwork. They should be consistent. I'm guessing the parenthetical is not needed in this case? Thanks, --MartyD 23:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
I guess not. Habit is a terrible thing sometimes. I'll fix it. Thank you for the help! Bob 01:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] 1632 maps
I've changed the way the maps are entered in this record to conform to the way they're entered in the other editions of the title. If you feel strongly that each should be entered separately, you can bring the other verifiers into the discussion. Mhhutchins 02:08, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
O.K. with me. But the maps are not always credited, and I didn't get far enough into the pubs to see this pattern. Bob 13:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Interior art credits redux
As I've mentioned before, interior art credits should be given the title of the work which they illustrate. For example, in this record, the frontispiece should be titled "Spectrum 18 (frontispiece)". Please change this content record (along with the endpapers and back cover content records), as well as any titles entered in other volumes in this series. Mhhutchins 02:19, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
O.K. That convention doesn't seem logical, but if that's how it's supposed to be, I'll fix them. This concept disturbs me. It makes sense when illustrations are related to a novel or story or even essay, I guess. But when we're dealing with an art book, where the illustrations are not related to other content of the pub, others have not followed this procedure. For example, the pub Willem H. brought to my attention http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?263317 lists all of the illustrations in an art book without reference to the name of the book, and that makes a lot of sense to me. Here fep is used as the page number instead of as part of the illustration name; I suppose I could use the page number instead of frontispiece.Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
That makes sense if you would actually title the artwork. In this case you're not titling it. You're telling the user, the person looking at the record, that this is the frontispiece...but of what? It's the frontispiece for a publication titled Spectrum 14. Naming it "Frontispiece" is ridiculous. I can't believe anyone can not see the logic of that. If the artwork has a title, then use it. The example you've given is a different kettle of fish, and has nothing to do the titling scheme I'm trying to get you to understand. Mhhutchins 14:48, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
A question: is the record on page 19 of this record actually artwork? Mhhutchins 02:20, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes. It's a poster with "The Show" printed over it. Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
On page 8 of this record, I'm assuming that the Ralph McQuarrie piece illustrates the Jane Frank essay, so the titles should match. (I think Marty already brought this to your attention.) Mhhutchins 02:30, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
No, he didn't. At least, I didn't generalize his comment to include these illustrations. Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Then read the entirety of this message again. Mhhutchins 14:48, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Again, I was consistent with what you found a problem with in the first paragraph above. This is another example of the same thing. Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't believe it's inconsistent. I'm pointing out exactly as I stated in the original message, and I quote: "interior art credits should be given the title of the work which they illustrate." The frontispiece illustrates the book so it should be titled "Spectrum 14 (frontispiece)". The McQuarrie piece illustrates an essay which you have titled "Grand Master Award (Spectrum 18)", so the interiorart record which illustrates it should be titled the same. Mhhutchins 14:48, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Is the artist credit for the record on page 8 of this record correct? Mhhutchins 02:23, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Misspelled his first name. Of course, he normally doesn't use his first name. Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
In Spectrum 17 you credit the front and rear endpapers in the note field, but create content records which are "uncredited". Mhhutchins 02:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
The endpapers are not credited. In all other volumes, where there are illustrated endpapers, credits are given on the endpapers themselves. But in this volume, they are taken from illustrations within the pub, one a detail of the entire illustration, the other the whole illustration, but both in B&W. So I put the credit in the notes. Should I have done differently? Bob 14:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Yes. Because a piece of interior art (or cover art, for that matter) isn't explicitly credited doesn't mean that you can't credit the ISFDB record. You give the credit and then give your source in the note field. Mhhutchins 14:48, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
I've made a number of edits to Spectrum 17, putting in titles of the artworks. If these edits are o.k., then I'll extend them to others in the series. I'm trying to figure out how to characterize the artworks in these volumes; the titles are given for most of the illustrations, but not how they were used (for example, if they appeared as book covers or interior illustrations). Should I use quotes around the titles? No matter how I characterize these illustrations, it will likely be difficult to relate them to other uses of the same illustration. Bob 16:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
I truly believe you're heading in a direction that's going to be more trouble than it's worth. Look back at the earlier volumes and at how I've handled the changes in the interiorart records. If you want to proceed with giving the title of the works, you should consider creating records for all of the interior art. I'm going to bow out and let another moderator take it from here. Mhhutchins 16:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Modifications to your submissions
Hello, I decided to alter some of your edits:
1) I dropped the publication series from your submisions to Supplement to Whispers, because we don't do self-defined publication series, a publication series is defined by the publisher.
2) I deleted the quotation marks from the titles of your submitted interior art. You seemed to be not sure about to include them and it is in general better to leave them out for interior art. They often only mark that it is a title.
Otherwise, thank you for your input. Stonecreek 13:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC) [edit] Supplement to Whispers #4, 1974 or 1984
Please confirm the date as entered for this record. Also, I rejected the submission to merge the editor records of the supplements to those for the main periodical. Merging them would have created a mess on the magazine grid for the combined titles. Because they have different titles, I've created a series just for the supplements. Mhhutchins 04:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
The grid problem never occurred to me. In light of that, your solution seems reasonable. Thanks. Bob 15:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] To Gorice XII, King in Carce / Carcë
I'm rejecting a submission to merge To Gorice XII, King in Carcë, a verified record, with To Gorice XII, King in Carce, keeping the latter title. Because these are not the same titles, you should make one record into a variant. They should only be merged if you're certain that the first spelling is incorrect. That can be done by contacting the primary verifier of the record for the pub that contains the title, in this case Rtrace. Mhhutchins 04:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Good idea. I'll follow up. Bob 15:48, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Bok
You didn't have to delete the second publication record and create a new one under the first one's title record. Merging the two title records into one would have solved the problem. Mhhutchins 16:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
That was my first thought. But I chickened out because I didn't remember if that was correct. Both routes are pretty easy, fortunately. Bob 16:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
You're still going to have to merge or delete the publess title record for Bok. The same situation with Letters Lovecraftian. In the future, wait until the submission adding the first publication is in the database. Then use the "Add Pub" function for the submission adding a second pub record to the title record. This will save you three submissions (and three for the moderator who handles them.) Mhhutchins 16:58, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
It's worse than that. I own the pubs (right now I still haven't found the Fabian one), and should have waited until I put in the contents for the first and cloned it. I even got the author wrong on the Bok pub. Impatient. Bob 17:28, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Contributors as authors
Are you certain that all of the contributors to Bok should receive equal billing as authors of the book? That is very unusual for artbooks. We normally credit only the artist as the author, and occasionally the editor or the author of the text accompanying the art. How does the book's title page credit the responsibility? Mhhutchins 17:45, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
These people are credited as authors on the title page, along with "divers others". Bok is not. I think this was early in de la Ree's publishing career and perhaps he was uncomfortable not crediting the other contributors. While there is a lot of artwork in the pub, it's really not a typical artbook -- it's about the man, not his art. The art is typically from personal communications from Bok to the authors. Bob 18:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I've accepted it. You'll now need to change the title record. Mhhutchins 22:06, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Whispers mini issue
This looks more like a supplement than a "mini-issue" regardless of how it's titled. It seems to make more sense to enter it into the "Supplement to Whispers" series. Also, keep in mind, the name of the series is "Supplement to Whispers". I had to reject a submission that updated an editor record by entering it into a series titled "Supplement to Whispers - 1975" which is the title of the record. If you merge it with the editor record already titled "Supplement to Whispers - 1975" then it will automatically be in the same series as that editor record. Mhhutchins
I thought you'd notice it upon updating the record, so I didn't mention it, but there's a typo in the disambiguation of the titles in this record. Mhhutchins 17:15, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Well, since you obviously know more about this pub than Schiff did, I'll enter it as a supplement. Of course Schiff felt that the News part of the 'zine was the heart of the publication, the reason it existed. Fixed the typo.Bob 18:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Did I say anything about changing the pub record? I'm talking about what ISFDB series to place it into. It's up to ISFDB editors to decide into what series to put it, not Schiff. So, fuck yes, I know more about the ISFDB than Stuart David Schiff and Stuare David Schiff both. Mhhutchins 19:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Now that I've cooled off, I can calmly tell you that your response was immature and was obviously meant to upset me. If you will go back to my original message (it seems I often have to ask you to re-read what I've written), my exact words were "this looks more like" and "it seems to make sense". Nothing in it was intended to be definitive. I wasn't telling you what to do. I was simply broaching the question and needing a rational explanation as to why you feel the record for the mini-issue should be merged with the series with the full issues. But, no, I didn't get a reasoned response. Just another knee-jerk reaction and the same defensive posture that seems to permeate much of the discussions between us. So, I've made a decision that I will no longer be handling any of your submissions unless they relate directly to records which I have primary verified. I believe this to be the best decision for both of us. Mhhutchins 20:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Magazine -- "Editor" -- Series
Hi. I accepted your submission that put Witchcraft & Sorcery #5 into a series, but I changed the series to be just "Witchcraft & Sorcery". There are two different things going on in the display of magazines in an editor's summary bibliography: the "series" and the annual grouping. The "series" is achieved through the title, but we only use the magazine name, in this case "Witchcraft & Sorcery". If you look at Gerald W. Page, you will now see that. To get the annual grouping, we rely on the fact that the title ("editor" in this case) record and the name of the publication are maintained as two separate things. What we do is merge all of the title records for a given year into a single record and then rename it to the form "<magazine name> - <year>", as you tried to provide for the series. What you then end up with is a series with the magazine's name, containing "titles" that are the year groupings, and each title's publication list is that year's issues. Take a look at how Bards & Sages works out on Julie Ann Dawson's summary bibliography.
All that said, the year groupings are not required. They're done to keep down the clutter on the editor's summary. So until we have several issues of the magazine in the same year entered, there's no real point to doing the year grouping. If you want to know more, there's this help about magazine series, and there are some more detailed instructions in How to enter non-genre magazines that pertain to genre magazines, too. Please ask if you have any questions. --MartyD 22:47, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
I have also placed your proposed update to Series to Whispers - 1976 on hold. As I just described above, this isn't quite the right handling. The Mini-Issue's title/editor record should be in the "Supplement to Whispers" series, and then we would merge that title with other 1976 supplements and rename the merged title "Supplement to Whispers - 1976". See how the other entries in the Supplement to Whispers series are handled. If you want me to try to fix this up, let me know; if you'd rather take a shot at it yourself, go right ahead. Thanks. --MartyD 23:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
O.K., I've edited the Mini-issue to just "Supplement to Whispers" and put each of the W&S pubs into the W&S series. There are only 6 of these W&S magazines, so I'll probably not group them by year. And the mini issue is the only supplement for 1976, so it doesn't really need a sub-group either. Your explanation really helped - I was obviously confused. Thanks. Bob 00:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Silverheels
Just checking... Is the author of Silverheels in W&S #6 "Silverheels", too? --MartyD 23:01, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
No, another of my famous typos. It's by Glen Cook. I have other work to do on this pub, so I'll add correcting this to the list. Bob 23:43, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Nefertiti-Tut Express
I accepted your submission of The Nefertiti-Tut Express, making one change to it. The ISFDB's CHAPTERBOOK is a little bit like a one-work collection. Unlike a NOVEL, where the publication "contains" only its own title, a CHAPTERBOOK additionally must be made to contain the short work that is being published. It's a little confusing, but if you think of CHAPTERBOOK like COLLECTION or ANTHOLOGY, that will help. So I added a SHORTFICTION record. I see Bradbury has a poem of the same name, but I am assuming this screenplay is something different. If not, we can merge that new record with the poem. Thanks. --MartyD 23:26, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I ever entered a new chapbook before, but what you say makes sense. Yes, this is different from the poem, same subject: when England was ruling Egypt, they apparently used mummies for fuel in their locomotives at times. You can guess what Bradbury made of this. Thank you for the guidance! Bob 00:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Undated, but numbered, magazines
Last note for the day, I promise. :-) For the W&S issues with no publication date, just the issue number, if you put a comma before the number -- "Witchcraft & Sorcery, #7" -- in the magazine name/title, it will end up condensed a little better in the magazine grid when added to the series. See, for example, how Theaker's Quarterly Fiction's grid looks. Without the comma, the entire name + number will end up in each cell. --MartyD 23:39, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
Now that is truly news - I never ran into dateless magazines before. Truly a "trick of the trade". Thanks once again. Marty, don't be afraid to criticize or correct. That's how I learn. I am likely to make many mistakes more than once, but eventually I do learn. Bob 00:09, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Partners in Necessity
For Partners in Necessity you used the last printed page number for the page count but included and properly numbered afterword, bio etc. In a case like that you should use the actual count. Also the afterword has a actual title (Son of Authorial Denial) which I believe should be used instead of the generic Afterword.
I've scanned and uploaded a new cover image. Also one for Tomorrow Log. Added OCLC link to Tomorrow Log. Dana Carson 04:27, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, Dana. I mistakenly used the ToC title for the afterword. Fixed. Bob 14:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Plan B
Added LCCN, OCLC and afterword to Plan B. Dana Carson 06:17, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Excellent! Thank you. Bob 15:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Sabbat and Carcosa
Your merges would keep the later date rather than the earliest. Is there a reason for that? BLongley 12:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I screwed up! I was doing all the poems that appeared in both "Amra" and Carter's "Dreams from R'lyeh", and apparently missed that these two poems appeared in Derleth's earlier anthology. I'll withdraw those submissions and resubmit. Bob 14:04, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "Introduction (Manna from Heaven)"
Could you please check whether "Introduction (Manna from Heaven)" is attributed to Stephen Brust or to Steven Brust in your verified Manna from Heaven? TIA! Ahasuerus 05:28, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
It's indeed Steven. Thank you! Fixed. Bob 14:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 14:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Trading in Futures
Added afterwords to Trading in Futures. Dana Carson 13:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you! Bob 15:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Adventures in Science Fantasy
I accepted your submission of Adventures in Science Fantasy. A couple of comments/questions:
Is Untitled synopsis really titled "Untitled synopsis", or is it simply an untitled synopsis? If the latter, our standard would be to give it the title of the work for which it is the synopsis, with "(Synopsis)" appended. If it's a synopsis of multiple things and is untitled, I guess I would go with untitled ("Hunwulf, an American. . .") and explain in the notes that it's a synopsis for xyz. BTW, if in the ISFDB screens you search All Titles for "synopsis" and for "untitled", you'll find examples.
Also, I would make a synopsis' type be ESSAY instead of SHORTFICTION. The subject may be fictional, but a synopsis is a factual account of that fiction (e.g., you wouldn't consider a publisher's blurb about a novel to be fiction).
Acknowledgments is one of those "generic" titles that should be disambiguated by appending the publication's title in parentheses: "Acknowledgments (Adventures in Science Fantasy)".
Thanks. --MartyD 02:17, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
It's really titled "Untitled synopsis". This is common with Howard's more obscure publications; there are a good many "Untitled fragment" and "Untitled story" items as well. The editor followed common Howardhead practice, which makes sense when you consider the publisher and the likely purchasers. The first few words are used to disambiguate them. I'll change the synopsis to an essay, although it seems to me that classification is no more satisfying than shortfiction. I'll fix the last point - silly to miss that. Thanks! Bob 02:27, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good. Just checking. Tomorrow I will work on those pending fanzine/magazine submissions of yours. Sorry about the delay in getting to them. --MartyD 03:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "The Song of Horsa's Galle[r]y" in The Howard Collector V3n1
Hi. Might The Song of Horsa's Galley in your verified The Howard Collector V3n1 perhaps have an "r" in it? We have The Song of Horsa's Gallery in multiple verified publications, so I figured I'd start with the sole-verifier one. Thanks. --MartyD 02:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Holy Cow! Yes, my entry is correct. I checked several other pubs I have that include the poem, and there is no doubt. As if Howard would ever write a poem about a gallery!! I don't have the pub with the incorrect spelling, so I don't know if that pub misspelled the title, but there is absolutely no question that it should be galley. First line: "From the Baltic Sea our galleys sweep to South and West and East..." Bob 14:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, made sense to me. It was just easier to check first with one person. Off to the Gallery of verifiers, as it were. Thanks for checking. --MartyD 15:09, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] John P. Severin interview in REH: Lone Star Fictioneer #4
Hi. Because you decided John Severin is the canonical name and John P. Severin the pseudonym, I changed the interviewee in Lone Star Fictioneer #4 from John P. Severin to John Severin (otherwise, it does not show up on the canonical name's bibliography page). Since the title included "John P. Severin", I did not add a note about it. --MartyD 16:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm comfortable with John Severin as the cononical name since it's more commonly used. From the context, I presume Severin is a comic book artist of some note. I would have thought that John P. Severin in the title might be made a variant when I go back to re-edit the pub. Bob 17:21, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
We don't have a way to have variants based on different names of interviewees (just based on names of interviewers). So we have to make the interviewee be the canonical name (possibly explaining the publication's actual "credit" in the notes, if the names are radically different). Here, the name used in the publication is in the interview's title, so there's really no need. --MartyD 17:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "Knife[-]River Prodigal"
I have two submissions on hold. One would creat a new title, "Knife River Prodigal" as a variant of Knife-River Prodigal. The other, however, would merge that existing title into Knife-River Prodigal, which would delete it. I'm thinking the first variant isn't needed, and you've decided that the hyphenated form is a mistake, but I can't tell for sure. Would you explain what you're trying to do? Thanks. --MartyD 16:41, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
The hyphenated form is the correct one. The unhyphenated form (which is what is used in the pub I entered) should be a variant. The extra merge is my mistake; I didn't understand that it wasn't needed and in fact messed things up. I'll try to remember this in the future. As always, thanks for the instruction. Bob 17:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok, all set. If there's already an existing title of which you want to make your current title a variant, find the existing title. The URL will look something like
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63626
The number after the "?" is that title's ID#. When you go into the Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work screen, the very first section lets you link by this number: type it or paste it into the "Parent #" field and click the Link to Existing Parent button. Doing this saves a step. If you use the bottom section, a new title gets created that then has to be merged with the existing title, requiring a second round of editing and approvals (I did this for "Knife-River Prodigal", so no need to do anything further with it anymore). --MartyD 18:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Loose Cannon
Added appendices to Loose Cannon. Dana Carson 18:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Fantastic! Thanks. Bob 18:48, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Bryan/Byran/Byron L. Roark
We have three Author records for this person: Bryan L. Roark, Byran L. Roark and Byron L. Roark. Could you please double check how he is credited in the magazines so that we could either correct the spelling or create pseudonyms? TIA! Ahasuerus 21:31, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Only the last is a real person. The other two are misspellings. Incredibly dumb of me. Bob 22:10, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
No worries, everything has been approved and cleaned up. Thanks for checking! Ahasuerus 02:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Steve Smolins's review of Mike Resnick's "Official Guide to the Fantastic Literature"
Just a note that I have changed the way Steve Smolins's review of Mike Resnick's The Official Guide to Fantastic Literature is listed. Apparently Smolins used the title of the book as it appeared on the book's cover rather than on the title page, so he called the review "Official Guide to the Fantastics". According to Help:Screen:NewPub:
Title - The title of the work being reviewed. If the review uses a non-canonical title which is already recorded in the ISFDB as a variant of the canonical title for this work, simply enter the title used in the review. If the review uses a title which differs from any of the known titles for this book, but which still serves to unambiguously identify the book (e.g. if the review has a misprint, or abbreviates the name of the book), then enter a corrected title, but make a note in the notes field for the publication that the review title was spelled incorrectly, and give the form of the title actually used in the review.
so I have changed the review title to "The Official Guide to Fantastic Literature" and updated the Notes field.
As far as the author goes, Smolins credited "Michael Resnick", the name used in the book. According to Help:Screen:NewPub:
Author - The author of the work being reviewed. If the review uses a non-canonical name which is already recorded in the ISFDB as a pseudonym or alternate name of the canonical name for this author, simply enter the version of the author's name used in the review.
so I changed the name to "Michael Resnick". I also linked the review to the "Michael Resnick" variant title. The good news is that all reviews of all variant titles appear on the canonical title's page, so this review will be visible when you view the canonical title.
Hopefully everything looks OK now. Thanks for editing! Ahasuerus 05:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I was aware of the problem, but was not aware how the cover title differed from the title page, nor did I know that Mike used his full name since I don't own that pub. Glad you could clear that up for me. There were a bunch of similar problems with the reviews in this 'zine. For example, Glenn Lord's "The Last Celt" -- I've never seen it referred to as listed in the database. Likewise "Night Images". Both of these are listed by these shorter names in Howard Works (on line) and "The Neverending Hunt", for example. I have these on my list of "to do" items. "Bloodstar" is a graphic novel, of course, so at first I thought it wouldn't be in the database. So I need to finish fixing that one, changing it from an essay to a review. I really appreciate your help with this stuff. Bob 14:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
Glad to be able to help! One step at a time and all that :-) Ahasuerus 01:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard"
At the moment we have two versions of "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard": one is a regular series and the other a publication series. As far as I can tell, these 8 books comprise a regular series rather than something that the publisher decided to put a common logo on. If so, then we will want to delete the publication series. Would you agree? Ahasuerus 01:15, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
This has confused me before, and obviously it still does. The examples given in the help page haven't made things clear for me, sadly. The Weird Works were marketed as a package (I bought the hardcovers for a single up-front price from the publisher), they have the same editor, each book has "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume x" on the jacket and title page, the jacket illos had the same artist, etc. But other series I would consider a publisher's series aren't entered that way -- Leiber's Swords series from Gregg and Prior, Don Grant's "deluxe" Conan series, etc. And yet Weinberg's Lost Fantasy series is. I simply don't understand why. It appears that a single author disqualifies a series from being a publisher's series, regardless of how it's marketed.
The reason I made the pubs a publisher's series was to avoid making "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard" a subheading in the title of the pub as some entries, both stub and verified, tried to do. "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard" is not a subheading, it's a series logo. The editor and publisher were careful in naming the volumes to make most of them different from other pubs. For example, volume 8 is titled "Hours of the Dragon", not the very common "Hour of the Dragon". So usually, adding "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard" is not needed to disambiguate the titles. I thought that putting "The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard" as a publisher's series would solve the problem. Obviously, I was wrong.
Incidentally, there are 10 books in the series. I'll enter the others today. And I'll remove the publisher's series designation as well. Someday I'll learn. Bob 15:44, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Let me try to take a step back and explain how we ended up with the current structure.
When ISFDB 2.0 was created in 2005-2006, all we had was regular series. They are very handy when trying to organize an author's biblio, in part because they allow unlimited nesting, e.g. Anok, Heretic of Stygia is a sub-series of Age of Conan, which is in turn a sub-series of Conan Universe. Their most noticeable limitation is that a title can only belong to one series, so if you have, say, a Tarzan/Earh Core crossover, it will only appear in one of the two series. Nonetheless, they work quite well overall.
However, we quickly realized that regular series only keep track of the way titles interrelate. If a publisher wants to create a series of books, e.g. Ace Double or Airmont Classics, which are not internally related, then we can't use the regular series field to record this information because it would conflict with the normal series data in the included titles. That's why we created "publication series", which some people refer to as "publisher series", although that can be misleading because some publication series have been known to be picked up by other publishers. We still have a few authors whose regular series and publisher series need to be redone, most prominently Jules Vernes, whose Voyages Extraordinaires needs to be converted to a publication series, but we are getting there.
Now that we have covered the basics, we can go back to the issue of collections. Collections are what we call "container" titles. Like anthologies, chapterbooks and magazines, they serve to package other title records -- stories, novels, essays, interior arts, etc. If a collection is comprised of titles that belong to a regular series, e.g. all stories in Heinlein's Revolt in 2100 are a part of his Future History, then we add the Collection title to the series. Note that its publications can belong to different publication series -- see the following Japanese, German and [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?373551 Portuguese pubs.
Next, we have single author collections, usually of the "The Best of ..." or "The World of ..." variety, which collect unrelated stories, but the publisher makes it clear that they comprise a complete set, e.g. The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg (Subterranean Press). It would clearly make our users' life easier if they could see these titles displayed together on the Summary Page and the only way to do that is to put them in a regular series. In a vast majority of cases this is safe to do because collection sets are publisher-specific. Even if another publisher decided to reprint these volumes under a different title, we would just turn the reprints into variants of the original titles, which will preserve the regular series.
So the bottom line is that single author collection sets are typically safe to enter as regular series rather than as publication series. Of course, now that I have made this grand pronouncement, someone will immediately post an example where it is not safe to do :-) Ahasuerus 04:14, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Shadow Kingdoms
The record you tried to overwrite is a valid record for an Audio CD version. All you had to do was check the ISBN on Amazon or OCLC. Please just clone the hardcover and change the fields to match your tp edition, thus no importing necessary. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:27, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll take care of it. Bob 15:47, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Robert E. Howard: World's Greatest Pulpster
FYI, I have moved "Recounts the life and writing career of Howard, the latter month by month" to the Synopsis field of the Title record. By the way, I take it that the pub doesn't have an ISBN since Lulu didn't support ISBNs back then, right? If so, it may be worth noting that the book has no ISBN in the Notes field. Ahasuerus 05:49, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Absolutely right. I have never seen that sort of note before, and didn't realize it was appropriate. There are many cases where there is no ISBN or catalog #, but I can see where this is a special case. Bob 15:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, it doesn't make much sense to note that there is no ISBN in a book published prior to 1970 (give or take.) However, when dealing with post-1980 books without an ISBN, it's typically beneficial to make it explicit -- otherwise some users will suspect that the verifier may have forgotten to enter the ISBN. Ahasuerus 05:34, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Introduction (Uller Uprising)
FYI, John D. Clark's "Introduction (Uller Uprising)" has been turned into a variant of "Introduction (The Petrified Planet)". Ahasuerus 05:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
I knew that it was and actually thought I had made it one. Brain freeze. Thanks for picking that up. Bob 14:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Jeffrey Goddin's The Night of Her Sacrifice
You verified this pub which contains The Night of Her Sacrifice (1983) and this pub which contains The Night of Her Sacrifice (1978). Are these the same story? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
They are the same story. I'm surprised because Chronicler was careful to note where several other stories were published previously, but missed this one for some reason. Thanks for catching it. I'll merge them. Bob 15:27, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "The Soul[-]Eater"
Would you double-check whether The Soul Eater in your verified Hounds of Black Death and also The Weird Writings... Volume 2 might be hyphenated, as we have it here? Howardworks.com shows it hyphenated. Thanks. --MartyD 16:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC) [edit] "The Fire of Ass[h]urbanipal"
Another double-check request: Is there perhaps an "h" in The Fire of Assurbanipal in your verified The Howard Collector, V3n4 and also The Weird Writings... Volume 2? Your note in V3n4 spells it with the "h", but I don't quite understand the note's reference to the original version. We have many appearances of the "h" version, and howardworks.com exclusively has that. Thanks. --MartyD 16:12, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
The "h" should be in the titles. But in V3n4, the version of the story is different from that in the other stories. I think I've fixed the problem with a couple of edits. The version in V3n4 is the first publication of that version, without supernatural elements. When that version didn't sell, Howard rewrote it and sold it to Weird Tales with the supernatural elements. I wasn't very clear about that; I hope I am now. Bob 16:26, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I get it. So what you should also do is edit the first one and in the title's notes put a "DO NOT MERGE with the same title from December 1936 Weird Tales." plus the information you just gave me: "This version is the first... Howard rewrote it...". You could add a similar note to the other one, too. --MartyD 16:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
I went back and changed this title for two other appearances of the alternative title which got mixed in with the Weird Tales version. Bob 17:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Reprints in The Weird Writings... Volume 2
I was merging the titles in The Weird Writings... Volume 2, when I ran across the reprints at the end. While two of them technically could be merged with the original titles, "Pigeons from Hell" couldn't be, because that original title also appears in the pub (I tried it, and it did not work right). So I ended up deciding to treat these three as variant titles, adding "(reprint)", for which there is some precedent. I then made those variants of the original titles. I think combined with your note, that's probably a reasonable treatment. And if anyone complains, you can blame me. :-) Unfortunately, in doing it I lost the years and page numbers. I think I restored the page numbers correctly, but I didn't have the year information. I wasn't quite sure what those years were that you used, either. Anyway, I apologize for the extra work, but please review those and see if there's any lingering damage needing to be fixed. Thanks. --MartyD 16:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Marty, I'm happy to fix that up. I really appreciate the work you put in reviewing those monsters, and a few minor glitches are easy to fix. Thanks! Bob 16:29, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] REH: Two-Gun Raconteur merge
I have your propose merge involving REH: Two-Gun Raconteur titles on hold. The merge as submitted would combine all 15 issues under a single title. Since these issues span multiple years, that's not how we would normally organize them. If you tell me a little more about what you're trying to do, I can help you figure something out. Thanks. --MartyD 16:34, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
That was to be the first step, I guess. I think I would split them into three groups: #1-#4, 1976 to 1977, plus the #1 reprint; #5-#10, 2003-2006; and #11-#15, 2007-2011. The last group is one per year. Probably start a new group if Sasser publishes again (He has a web site now with the same title; I don't know if he'll publish another hardcopy magazine.) I appreciate your help with this. Bob 16:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm going to have to leave them for someone else to evaluate. Spanning years isn't the normal way of doing things, so I'm not able to judge whether it's ok to let those through or not. --MartyD 11:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I know that magazines are normally grouped by year, and have tried to follow that organization with "Oriental Stories", for example. But with fanzines, the publishing is erratic. If you look at "Amra", a classic example, those are organized into groups of around 10 issues, each group covering several years. The first year was issued fairly regularly, so the first group is a single year. Michael Hutchins agreed to that organization, although I don't think he was entirely comfortable with it.
Michael insisted that both Whispers and Weirdbook were magazines, although I still believe they were fanzines; in any case,they had erratic publication schedules. They ended up with yearly organization, which is kind of silly to me because there are rarely more than two issues per year, and sometimes only a single issue per year.
With "REH-TGR", the first four issues were a kind of first existence; issue 5 come out many years later. Between 5 and 10, the biannual schedule was reasonably well followed. Then after 10, the issues are more or less yearly. This organization makes a lot of sense to me, but if you thing a yearly organization is more appropriate, I won't object. I think it's more important to get the job done than to worry about the organization. Bob 15:05, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
They don't have to be grouped at all. Merging the titles is a clutter-reduction technique. If there's one issue a year, there's no real point in merging anything. --MartyD 01:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Editor records, year groupings, and series
I think you have a mental block about editor records, year groupings, and series. See this earlier note. I rejected your proposed submission that would have put Oriental Stories, December-January 1931 into an "Oriental Stories - 1931" series. We do magazine groupings by merging all of the editor (a.k.a. "title") records into a yearly group, then put that merged title into a series named only after the magazine (here, Oriental Stories). To get it into the 1931 grouping, you need to merge this one's title with the existing Oriental Stories - 1931. Had that not already existed, you would have needed to merge all of the 1931 issue titles together, then rename the result "Oriental Stories - 1931". Magazine handling is a little tricky; I hope that makes sense. --MartyD 11:46, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
You're right, of course, I do have a problem with merging magazines. I tend to think the first thing to do is put all issues under a single series, "Oriental Stories" for example, then merge the issues by year. When a year already exists, I'm unsure what to do. Your instructions are much appreciated. Please look at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?117309 Byron L. Roark, who edited REH: Lone Star Fictioneer. Same problem. I merged all 4 issues, and they are shown as issue #1 now. I've submitted a change to remove that group from the overall title "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer"; the idea is to eliminate that group, then rename "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer #1, Spring 1971" as "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer". This came about because I merged the four issues together instead of under the overall heading. So the problem is one of long standing. I'll try to learn! Please be patient with me. Bob 15:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I have the submission that would remove it from the series on hold. That's not really right, either. I'm going to reject that submission, and I will edit the various parts of those to make a "standard" presentation. That would be a single series, "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer", with two titles/editor records: "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer - 1975" and "REH: Lone Star Fictioneer - 1976". The former will list the three 1975 pubs, the latter the one 1976 pub. Since there's only four of them, there's almost no point -- the three 1975s could all be listed separately. But it will let you see how it would look. We can always rearrange it again. --MartyD 01:29, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
All set. I realized while doing it that the reason we do what would be the more obvious way of keeping each issue its own separate title, putting those titles into year-oriented series, then putting those series into a master magazine-level series is that then all of the individual issues would still show up on the editor's summary (which shows titles, not publications). The only way to reduce clutter on an editor's summary is to reduce the number of titles, so we group the magazine issues by merging the titles. --MartyD 01:46, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] A Rising Thunder
Adding some detail to A Rising Thunder by David Weber.Ofearna 23:30, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Interesting! Bob 14:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "Eyes of the Dead" and Edgar Gardiner
Sorry, had to run out this morning.... I have your proposed merge of "Eyes of the Dead" as by Edgar Gardiner and Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner on hold. If this merge were to go through, the various publications where the story had been credited to "Lieutenant Edgar Gardiner" would lose that information, showing the story credited to just "Edgar Gardiner". Since you're the verifier of three of those pubs, my first question to you is: How is the story's author credited in them? We already have the lieutenant set up as a pseudonym and the titles a variant of the lieutenant-less Edgar, so I'm not quite sure why you're merging here. Thanks. --MartyD 01:17, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
This was a mistake, and I cancelled the submission. I know better than this; I learned a lot about merging and when I need a new variant (and when I don't) from working these "Complete" volumes. Thanks for the guidance, as always. Bob 19:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "The Souk" merge
A question similar to the one above: I also have your proposed merge of "The Souk" as by The Editor and as by uncredited on hold. This one would eliminate the "The Editor" credit, leaving all of them credited to "uncredited". Do you know in the two where we have it credited to "The Editor" how it is actually credited? Thanks. --MartyD 01:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
I somehow lost log-in to the Wiki and just figured out how to log in there again. The Souk is never credited as a whole. It contains letters, though. Occasionally, one of these letters merits a reply, and the reply may be labelled from "The Editor" or "The Editors". The first of the above pubs had "The Editor" replying to one of the letters, so whoever entered the pub assumed "The Editor" wrote the entire item. While that is almost certainly true, it is an assumption, and "The Editor" is not assigned credit in the ToC or on the article itself. I deliberately set out to eliminate "The Editor" credit. If you feel I'm wrong to do this, please let me know, and I'll change the merge to keep "The Editor" credit. I'll also go back and look at the other "The Souk"s to see where else "The Editor" or "The Editors" occurs. Bob 19:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I see you cancelled the submission. What you did would have been fine -- it would have eliminated "The Editor" as a credit. I just wasn't sure that was what you intended. --MartyD 11:31, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] 1951
I think 1951 should be an ANTHOLOGY rather than a COLLECTION. A collection implies that all of the fiction contents have an author in common. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 14:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree. Changed. Thank you for catching this. Bob 14:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Borders of Infinity
I'm holding your submission to add shortfiction records called "one" "two" "three" and "four" to this pub. I tried the same thing in 2009, which resulted in this discussion. We agreed to enter the piece as one short story, and add notes about it. See the notes here and here. If you agree, I can approve your submission (it also adds the interior art) and remove these four pieces. --Willem H. 08:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
It's always nice to find that a solution to a problem like this has been worked out by you guys in the past. Certainly I agree, and will fix the pub. Thanks! Incidentally, that first note you cite (the one to the title) is mine. Bob 14:22, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Accepted, edited & merged. Should be ok now, except for a pagenumber maybe. I forgot to mention the note here. Thanks, --Willem H. 14:54, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Oriental Stories, December-January 1931
Can you please take a look at Oriental Stories, December-January 1931? I'm not sure if you entered this or not, but since it says the contents came from The Complete Oriental Stories, Volume 1 and you have verified that, I figure you will be able to address my question: It looks like the contents of the Dec-Jan 1931 issue contain more than it should. For example, Rondeau Orientale is listed as being in both the Dec-Jan 1931 issue and the Feb-Mar 1931 one. The Yellow River is listed as being in the Dec-Jan 1931 issue and the Oct-Nov 1930. While it's possible there were repeats, I'm wondering if the Dec-Jan 1931 issue was cloned from "The Complete Oriental Stories, Volume 1" and non-applicable contents were not subsequently removed? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I haven't had time to look these over yet, but I will review all the Oriental Stories and Magic Carpet Magazines. I import the contents of the Complete version books, then go back and eliminate the excess; each Complete book contains contents from multiple magazines. Please understand it takes several visits to complete one magazine: first I have to enter the magazine itself, then import the content, then remove the excess. There were some problems with importing that took a week or so to solve (resulting in some code changes), but I should be able to fix all issues within a couple of days. Bob 17:45, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
No problem. What you are doing is fine. However, because you are working on multiple items at once & spreading those edits over an extended period, you may occasionally get inquiries like this one. Other editors stumbling across something in progress have no real way to tell where you are in the process (or even if you are in the process) or whether something got missed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:28, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Changes to Verified Pubs
Bob - Thanks for keeping me informed when you make changes to the publications I've previously verified, but please use the '+' button on that page to add a new section to the notes page for each new publication changed. This lets me quickly skim the changes in chronological order. - Thanks - Kevin 02:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
O.K.Kevin, sorry. I think they are always in chronological order, but sometimes doubled up. I'll quit that. Bob 02:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
No Problem. I also changed the text and instructions a bit to so it will be less confusing in the future. Cheers - Kevin 02:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Merging editor records for anthologies
You shouldn't do this, especially if the editor records are for different publications. Editor records for magazines can be merged, but only then to declutter and organize an author's summary page. There is no other reason to merge editor records. 18:54, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
O.K., but I'm not sure what the merge was here. I did try to merge records for what we've called "anthologies" which are facsimile copies of magazines, for the same reason that magazines are merged. But if you mean I shouldn't do that, fine, I just didn't know that before and it's kind of anti-intuitive. If I tried to merge magazines with facsimiles, I did that by mistake. Please let me know more clearly if merging the facsimiles should be avoided. If so, I guess I'll have to organize them under series titles instead. Bob 19:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Look at the three submissions of yours that I have on hold. It has nothing to do with them being facsimiles, because that's not an ISFDB publication type. These are all editor records of ANTHOLOGY type. You should not merge editor records for anthologies unless the titles are identical. You wouldn't merge Silverberg's editor records for New Dimensions just because the titles are all in the same series. By the same logic, you wouldn't merge the editor records for the facsimile reprints (anthologies) of Oriental Stories. Now if they were MAGAZINE types, that would be different. As I said above, the editor records of MAGAZINE type records can be merged, but don't have to be merged. You can choose to cancel the submissions or if you prefer I can remove my hold and allow another moderator handle them. Mhhutchins 19:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll cancel them and group via series. You know how difficult it was for me to learn to merge magazines, so you should know I'll have no trouble not merging anthologies. Thank you for clearing this up. Bob 19:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] R. H. Barlow's R. E. H.
There are two title records for R. H. Barlow's "R. E. H.". The first one is dated Oct 1936 and the second one is dated Sep 1936. As you have verified publications containing both (The Howard Collector V2n4, Spring 1968 and The Weird Writings of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2: August 1934-September 1954), would you check if these are the same? And if so, what date they should be merged under (Weird Tales is the first publication in the database, but does the second anthology list another source)? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC) [edit] The Nefertiti-Tut Express
Hello Bob, Terence McVicker here. I'm sorry but I've just joined this group and do not know all the protocol for editing information and the like. I noticed that you've entered date re: my publication THE NEFERTITI-TUT EXPRESS. I appreciate your taking note of the book but could you correct the following please: The book is priced at $29.95 not $30.00; the page count is 52 not 45 and does include the covers; Saddle stitched is the proper term for the stapling; and please note that the book contains in addition to the Screenplay, "Excerpts from a conversation with Ray Bradbury at his home," and "Converting motion into freeze-frame by Gary Gianni." I'd do it myself but I'm not versed in your editing format yet. I'd much appreciate your doing this for me. Many thanks. Terence McVicker/THE RAS PRESS
Terence, I'm really glad you're joining this group. I'm sure that we'll benefit greatly from your expertise. I've only been in it a few months myself, and trust me, I've made plenty of mistakes. I'd be pleased to make the changes you want. Your protocol was perfect! Bob 23:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I left the binding as saddle stapled; I was instructed to use this terminology on another publication by one of the moderators. I've been reserving saddle stitched for pubs that are actually stitched with thread or ribbon rather than metal staples. I've made the other changes and additions; I'm a little uneasy over the addition of the content, but we'll see what happens. Normally, a chapterbook in the data base is a single story; a chapterbook is not what I usually mean when I call something a chapbook, it's very specific. We'll see if the moderator lets the additions through. Bob 23:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Hallowed Hunt
Can you confirm the page count entered for this record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Page count given is correct. Bob 14:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for checking. There's another record with the same ISBN with a page count of 372, which has also been primary verified. Strange. 17:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)Mhhutchins
Figured it out. The other record should have been for the book club edition, which retained the trade publisher's ISBN. Mhhutchins 17:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Price of Who Goes There
I accepted the submission to change the price of this record for the 1979 edition form $23.95 to $40.00, but are you certain you didn't buy the 1997 edition which was priced at $40.00? Mhhutchins 17:05, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
I thought so because of the number (440) and signature, but now I'm less certain. I went back to see when I bought it, and it was late enough to be the second edition. There is nothing in the pub that could indicate a second printing, but I'm going to change it based on the price alone. Thanks, Michael, for asking. Bob 18:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Editor series and title series
You should remember there's a big difference in the way we handle magazines and other publications. The year grouping of editor records is used only for magazines, not for anthologies or other publications. I approved your edits for "Oriental Stories" and "Magic Carpet Magazine", but changed the series to Oriental Stories Facsimile Reprints and The Magic Carpet Magazine Facsimile Reprints. B.t.w., looking at the Farnsworth Wright bibliography, I see you entered the four "Complete ..." pubs as collections. These should be anthologies. Do you want me to make these changes? --Willem H. 11:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I'd really appreciate it if you would. I entered the Completes as collections of magazines, of course, but I agree that since the facsimiles are anthologies, these should be as well. They are certainly not collections of stories by a single author. As for grouping the individual facsimiles, I have no objection to however they are grouped, I was only trying to put some order to the series. That said, as I understand it magazines are grouped in annual packages to reduce the clutter on the editor's page, so it seemed like a good idea to do the same with the facsimiles, especially in cases like Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine, where all of the issues of the magazines have been copied. In fact it would seem logical to me to merge the facsimile copies with the original issues of the magazines. There are several fanzines where the editor issued "second printings" of early issues, and those are treated as 'zines, not anthologies. One final point: should the Oriental Stories anthologies be numbered so they can be in chronological order? 'Nuff said. Bob 14:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Changes made. About the grouping/numbering, i.m.o. it's better to have one "rule" for this, to avoid chaos. Yes, the Oriental Stories anthologies should be numbered (and the Magic Carpet anthologies too). About merging magazines, that's impossible. Magazines have an editor record as container title, and no title record that could be merged. So even if the fascimile editions were entered as magazines, they could never be two publications under one title. As I said, there's a big difference in the way we handle magazines and other publications. --Willem H. 15:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Swords of Lankhmar
I approved your update to The Swords of Lankhmar however can you check if it shouldn't be merged with The Swords of Lankhmar that has a pub date a yer earlier? Dana Carson 21:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
It definitely should be merged; there is a stub for this pub there. I had a total brain freeze and couldn't find the existing pubs when I entered the book, or again when I moved it. I'll do the merge and delete the stub. Thank you for pointing this out!!! Bob 22:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Sonnets to Jonquil and All
I corrected the spelling of "sown" to "sewn" and disambiguated the title of the "Notes" in this record. Please check the page number for "Pendaren's Song". Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Page 8 is indeed numbered as iix. Same as in http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?350481 The Demons in the Upper Air by the same publisher. I've never seen that notation before, but it makes sense -- one less numeral than viii. Bob 21:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Except that the system doesn't understand it's a number and is unable to place it in order. Mhhutchins 21:35, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Signed ed. of Ship of Shadows
Please check the price in this record for the signed limited edition, which is cheaper than the trade edition. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Surprised me, too. But it was for a con where Leiber was guest of honor, and I suppose they thought it should be cheaper for those who had paid to attend. Now I have to say my copy of the trade edition is price clipped (but not the special edition). But the price seems reasonable for the time. Bob 21:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I found this other record for a special Seacon edition at the same price. You will save yourself some further inquiries by noting the price is as stated in the pub. To the average user, it would appear to be illogical. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I checked with a dealer in England who was in the book sellers' room at that con. He confirmed that the price for the signed version was indeed lower, and for the very reason I proposed above.
[edit] Ltd. ed. of The Best of Fritz Leiber
Is the limitation as given in this record stated in the book? Mhhutchins 21:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes. If you look on Amazon you'll see it's out of print. But I'm not sure the publisher didn't lie. Bob 21:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
If that's what's stated in the book, we'll have to go with it. Mhhutchins 21:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Deeper Than You Think editor record and introduction to Wolfhead
I've accepted the submission to merge the three title records into one, even though I can think of no logical reason to do so. There's another submission that I've put on hold: a merger of this record (the introduction to Wolfhead) with the record of the editorial in Deeper Than You Think, January 1968. Unless they're identically titled you shouldn't merge records, unless you want to change the way the work is titled in both publications. Othewise, you should variant one to the other. Mhhutchins 21:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
I will variant the new one and withdraw the merge. They are titled as shown, but of course, are identical in content. Bob 22:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Howard's Black Hounds of Death
Please check the author credit for the poem on page 188 of this record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
"Good grief! Fixed. Bob 03:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC) [edit] Deletion of 'Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber'
I'm going to cancel your submission to delete Selected Stories by Fritz Leiber. I've checked the Night Shade website and Amazon and both indicate that the ISBN in the linked record actually does exist and that it is a Trade paper edition of the HC edition. (I Agree the title needs to be cleaned up and merged with the HC edition). I will leave those tasks to you, or you can submit a clone of the HC and resubmit a deletion of the messed up record. Thanks for all the submissions for all the rare and hard to find items! Kevin 03:44, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Interesting; never occurred to me that there was a trade paperback, probably because I don't care for that form of publication. I'll take care of it. Thank you for catching that. Bob 04:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Quicks Around the Zodiac clone
I have your clone of Quicks Around the Zodiac on hold because I had just approved the changes you made to the publication you cloned. So this submission is a copy of the OLD information, before those changes I accepted. Would you rather have to re-apply those changes to this new copy (if I accept the submission) or would you rather cancel and re-clone the updated version? --MartyD 12:25, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Please approve the clone. I made the necessary changes to the clone already to fit it to the new pub. Bob 15:02, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok, done. --MartyD 10:10, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurances
I'm holding a submission to add a new publication for this title, but it's entered under this title record which was an abridgement of the original anthology. Here is the title record for the original anthology. Please look at the two pub records entered for this title and see if either one matches your copy. If so, cancel the submission. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:14, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Michael. I seem to have trouble finding some pubs, this time because it was in an anthology series and was similar to one of the anthologies. I'll cancel the submission and verify the pub. Bob 13:11, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
You should search by title rather than search by name. If the title is in the system, it will find them every time. Mhhutchins 14:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
BTW, do you have a copy of the numbered edition, signed by the three editors? This particular book has always been a sore spot for me. Luckily, I was able to get 20 authors who attended the convention to sign my copy. Sadly, Fritz Leiber, who had been scheduled as a Guest of Honor, died the month before the convention. Mhhutchins 14:54, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, no. Mine is a pure trade edition. Bob 15:20, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] A Pail of Air
I accepted your A Pail of Air and Other Stories submission, but "clone" unfortunately keeps the original title (so it's like "Add a Publication to this Title"), which resulted in The Best of Fritz Leiber's having a publication with a mismatched title. I unmerged A Pail of Air from it and made that a variant instead. When you have a publication with a new/different title, it is a little better to add it as a new publication first -- with the correct title -- then import its contents from the publication you otherwise would have cloned once the initial submission is accepted. There's less chance of error that way. --MartyD 10:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the instruction. I really didn't know how to handle that thing. Next time I'll know! Bob 13:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Toadstool Wine
I approved your changes to the Toadstool Wine publication record and title record. I noticed that in the publication, you have the publisher as "A. S. P.", but in the title record note you state "...members of A.C.S., the publisher, were...". That seems to be a disconnect. Is one of the entries incorrect or does the note need clarification? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:40, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for finding that! I'll fix it. Bob 12:45, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Mystery of the Japanese Clock
I changed the type of this record from CHAPTERBOOK to NONFICTION. The first type is exclusive to works of short fiction. Mhhutchins 23:58, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Cool! This was another of those "Is this fiction or is this an essay?" kind of pubs. Bob 14:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Fantasy Commentator, Summer 2004
Hello, Bob! I accepted your submission for this fanzine. I do have a remark on 'S. T. Josti', though. This is very likely a misprint of S. T. Joshi. You may already know that, but I thought it'd be better to play safe and mention it. Stonecreek 06:16, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it was a typo, but thank you for mentioning it. I might have read right past it. Bob 14:16, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I might also remark that you should only use HTML in a record's note field, and no other. I can not give you a reason other than we were told not to do it, might be something about searching for titles, I can't say. If you look at this record, you'll see the HTML has screwed up the display for every record after page 57, including the Verification Status display. Mhhutchins 19:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I'll go back and fix that when the first set of corrections are made. I know I screwed up the italics even in the notes, and have tried to fix those. But I'll pull them from the content; I was trying to match the way the titles were given in the pub, but no big deal. I found at least two additional corrections I need to make in the notes to that pub anyhow. Bob 20:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Found a reason not to use HTML in title fields: look at how the essay "Fritz Leiber's "The Button Molder": A Jamesian Story?" is displayed on the summary page for Rosemary Pardoe. Because all titles are italicized, the variant title looks identical to the parent title. Mhhutchins 20:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Author of "Dead Ringers"
Can you check the spelling of the author credit for this record? His canonical name is Stefan Dziemianowicz. If the record's credit is correctly entered as published, please create a pseudonym and make a variant record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:17, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Wow, you're quick today. I am still working on that pub, having long delays in response. The "a" is a typo. Fixed. Bob 19:22, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] "Fafhrd and Fritz"
Do you know the original publication of this essay? You changed the date to 1977-04-00, so it must have appeared earlier than its appearance in the NYRSF. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 19:27, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
That was the reference date given for the NYFSF article in the Commentator. I'll change it. Bob 19:38, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Still waiting for the submission to merge this record with the one for the NYRSF appearance, which will correct the date. Mhhutchins 05:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Done. I didn't realize fixing the date on the Commentator article would negate the merge. Bob 14:29, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Future Glitter
Please check the URL for the cover image of this record. Mhhutchins 19:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Fixed. Bob 14:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Anarchistic Colossus
You changed the page count from "[6]+248" to "[vi]+248" in this record. The first count means there are six unnumbered pages before the pagination starts. The second count means that there are roman-numeraled pages before page "1" and that the last one is "vi". If that's the case, there's no need to bracket the page count. Brackets around a number means that there are no numbers on the pages (they're not paginated), but they contain a significant content that you want to add the record, and can only do so by adding the unnumbered pages to the page count. In the case of this record, there is an "Introduction" before the first numbered page. If that "Introduction" is on the fifth unnumbered page then it's page number would be entered as "[5]". If it's on an unnumbered page facing a roman-numeraled page "iv", or two pages after a roman-numeraled page "iii" then it would be entered as "v". You are allowed to interpolate the page number of an unnumbered page based on pages that are numbered, whether those pages are roman-numeraled or not. Mhhutchins 05:27, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Okay. Thanks for the guidance. Bob 14:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Disambiguating interiorart records
Don't add the disambiguating "[1]" to an interiorart record. The first record gets the name of the work it illustrates. Start adding numbers with the second piece (as "[2]"). I've changed the title of the first piece by Paul Lambo (page 67) in this record. I don't like the standard. If I had been around when it came up for discussion I would have presented a very strong case against the policy. As it is now, it's too late to do anything about it without changing thousands of records. Mhhutchins 01:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
In general, I don't use the numbers for illustrations for a single article/story. I have been using them for illustrations that are not related to other content in the pub. For example, the art that had the [1] here was the inside of the back cover and the [2] was the back cover. I presume that the same rule applies, and won't use the [1] in these cases. And you're right, it is a poor standard, but no problem living with it. Bob 02:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Howard W. Day
Is the credit for the story on page 57 of this record correct? There are other pieces in the same issue by Howard E. Day. Mhhutchins 01:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Good catch! I keep trying to make his middle initial W. for some reason, don't know why. That one slipped through. Bob 03:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Titles of serials
Serials should be titled using this format: "Title (Part X of Y)". This is necessary if any kind of universal change is required, making it easier for the system to locate the records. The title of the serials in this record and this one will have to be corrected. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
BTW, is there a "The" in the title of the second part that's not in the title of the first part? Mhhutchins 19:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
To answer your question, yes. I was going to make that a variant. Changing to part x of y was part of my correction plan; I had followed what was in the 'zine, but realized it was clumsy. Another problem with this serial is that "City of Madness" was reprinted in "The Year's Best Fantasy Stories" for 1975 (Lin Carter, DAW). I presume there is no way to merge the two part serial with the whole story in the book, but I did note the source of the story in "City of Madness" title. Bob 20:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Before I saw read your response, I'd gone ahead and made the records for each part of the serial into variants of the record for when it was reprinted as one piece. That's the ISFDB standard. Mhhutchins 02:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I accepted the submissions to update the records, but you didn't address either of the issues that I mentioned at the start of the post. The serials remain "[1 of 2 parts]" and "[2 of 2 parts]", instead of "(Part 1 of 2)" and "(Part 2 of 2)" (with parentheses instead of brackets). And the "The" is still present in the title of the second part. Mhhutchins 02:24, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Fixed. "The" is correct; added to first part. Bob 03:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I rejected the submissions to make the first parts into variants with "The" in the title. If the "The" is in the title of the serial as it was published in the issue, just update the record, correcting the title (along with the interiorart records.) Mhhutchins 04:06, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I told you above, the titles as originally entered were the same as in the 'zine. The only error was I capitalized "J" in M'ji in the first part because the title was given in all caps. The second part was in initial caps only, and I discovered that the "j" should be lower case. My attempt to add "The" in the first part was solely in response to your double colon note complaining that the "The" was still in the second part title. So I suggested adding "The" as a variant to the first part so you would be happy that both parts had the same title. I didn't understand that you had failed to understand my initial response to your question. Bob 20:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Duplicate interior art titles?
I'm curious if the intent will match the result. In your submission for Pegasus, November 15, 1968 you have several times duplicated an interior art title, but on a different page and a different artist. Was there a particular reason that the new page (since it also has a new artist) didn't get a new [#]? The first example is Pegasus, November 15, 1968 [2] which appears four separate times.- Thanks Kevin 11:36, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
I guess I don't understand how to handle this situation. The artists for that pub appeared multiple times. So I added the numbers in brackets after the first entry for each artist. In general, the artwork was not related to the surrounding words, so it seems misleading to disambiguate by citing the essay or story in which the art appeared. So each artist ends up with a string of numbers, 2 through whatever, attached to his artwork in the pub. Yes, that results in several artworks having the same title, but with different authors. I can understand how that's confusing when looking at the pub. How should I handle this in the future? Bob 13:00, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
(Chuckle) In all honesty, you are the subject matter expert on these publications. If anyone has a question or confusion 5 years from now, you are the person we are going to come ask. How would you like to handle it? My recommendation is to handle it to generate the fewest questions from an uninformed user. In other words... someone looking at the record for the first time, and possibly unfamiliar with the ISFDB. I think the least ambiguous way would be to not worry about counting interiorart per artist, but instead just per publication, because that is how we handle elsewhere. So I would think numbering them sequentially for the publication. Then Artist Jane Doe does Artwork [2], [6], and [17] of this publication. This way interior art [2] only appears once... anything else will generate lots of questions... again and again over the years. Kevin 13:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Seems reasonable. If you approve the pub, I'll make the changes. It's a shame all this effort for that piece of crap pub. The artwork is truly terrible. I only have the pub because of the Leiber connection. Bob 13:23, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Ahhhh, the never ending task of the completist. I also have some dogs that I just keep to avoid creating holes in my collection. - I'll go approve the submission with the understanding that you will be making some wholesale changes to the contents item titles. Kevin 14:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
You may not have noticed, but being a completist is what led to all the fanzines. What do they all have in common? Robert E. Howard. That's my really big collection. Bob 14:41, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
There are two last art titles at the end without numbers. Was that title change overload and they were left by accident, or were these intentional? - Thanks Kevin 18:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Just missed them; art fatigue, I guess. Fixed. Thank you for spotting them. Bob 18:31, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Replacing SFBC Editions
I approved your submission to put in a new record The Book of Jhereg, though in the future it would probably be easier to use the import contents function. After accepting your submission I changed the publisher from "Ace/SFBC" to "Ace / SFBC". I corrected the ISBN from "0-7394-2969-8" (Which is for Taltos) and substituted the correct "0-7394-0667-1". I then remembered I needed to change the link from the Publisher:SFBC_1999#1999 SFBC Wiki lists to point at the new record, and lastly I deleted the old SFBC edition record. If I misunderstood your intent of the submission please let me know (For instance if the ISBN is actually wrong or something similar). Thanks Kevin 12:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, you got it right. I must have copied the ISBN from the wrong book although I'm not sure how. The spacing on the publisher -- now I know. But I flat out didn't see the "old" SFBC edition record, and I thought I looked pretty carefully. I was certainly surprised not to find it because SFBC editions are virtually always entered. Thank again for cleaning up my mess. Bob 13:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Woodroffe
I changed the name of a contributor to this Seacon's Special Art Exhibits from Patrick 'Woodroffe to Patrick Woodroffe (Without the odd single quote in the middle). It appears to be a cut and paste error we both missed earlier this morning. - If this correction was in some way in error please let me know and I we can go from there. Kevin 18:47, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I sometimes hit that key without meaning to and without knowing it. Glad you caught it. Bob 19:35, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
It was dumb luck. I was checking an artist signature on an entirely different project and it showed up in my search results. (shrug) - Cheers - Kevin 20:34, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] An Incident at the Luncheon of the Boating Party
I'm holding your submission to merge this title with this one. One is by Allen Steele, the other by Allen M. Steele (a pseudonym). The second should thus be a variant of the first. If you agree, please cancel and re-submit. --Willem H. 20:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Done. I keep making this mistake...hopefully, this time it'll stick. Thank you. Bob 20:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Starfarers by Poul Anderson
From the Amazon Look inside it seems to me that this verified pub is an expansion of Ghetto (1954) and The Tale of the Cat (1998). Can you confirmed it? Calin Hila 09:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
In a way. Chapter 17 is a modified version of "The Tale of the Cat" and Chapter 21 is a modified version of "Ghetto". That leaves 50 new chapters. Quite an expansion! Bob 17:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Witches of the Mind: A Critical Study of Fritz Leiber
User SFJuggler added the contents to this verified pub. Please check. Thanks, --Willem H. 07:35, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Willem, that's o.k. with me. I think it's like adding chapters to a novel or a non-fiction book; unless the authors change, I do not put in such content. However, I have no objection if someone feels adding such content improves the pub's description. Bob 16:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Making variants of existing titles
I wasn't sure if you know this, so I thought I would mention it. Unlike Make Pseudonym, where you can type in the name and the software will find the existing canonical author for you, Make Variant does not do that. If you use the bottom section of that screen -- typing in different title text or a different author name -- a new parent title will get created. So if you're trying to link up two existing titles, a merge step is then required to combine the newly-created parent title with the existing record for that same title. To make a title a variant of an existing title, it is one less step to use its "record number" (labeled Parent #) in the top half of that screen. That record number is the number appearing after the question mark in the link to that title. So, for example, on Howard's summary bibliography, we see "The Day Breaks over Simla". If you click on it or copy the link, you'll see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1451962. That 1451962 is its record number. Use that in the top half of the screen and click "Link to Existing Parent", and you're done. Side tip: You can copy and paste the whole link into that field, then delete all of the leading characters to leave just the number. --MartyD 10:57, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Good tips! Thank you! Bob 15:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Herring
Are you sure that Doug Herring and Douglas Herring are the same person? The 15-year gap between the bibliographies makes me a little suspicious. I am asking Swfritter about the 2006 artwork credited to "Douglas". --MartyD 11:11, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
No, I'm not sure. It was the two later artworks under Douglas that convinced me they were likely the same person. I would bet that the two recent Douglas pubs are the same as Doug, but am not sure about the others. Bob 15:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Swfritter provided a link to this website, which shows the artwork and even explains the 15-year gap. So I'm accepting the pseudonym and will make the variants. --MartyD 15:27, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Titles and authors in reviews
Just when you think you have a handle on the rules and standards, along come the exceptions. We do special handling of the way reviews identify the titles and authors of works reviewed. See Help:Screen:EditPub#Reviews. We basically do not want to create variant titles just because of a misspelling, abbreviation, or other author/editor license in a review. So if a work has never been published with the title or author name given, we use the canonical version of that title or name instead and record whatever the pub actually used in the notes. Since Saberhagen's work was never published as The Dracula Tapes, we'd make the review use The Dracula Tape. It works out pretty well, but does require some searching when the title isn't found. I've rejected your proposed variant, fixed up the review, and added a note to Fantasy Crossroads #6 accordingly. --MartyD 11:33, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Aha! That makes a lot of sense. I'll try to remember that in the future; these errors have bugged me all along. Thank you!! Bob 13
54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
For this review, which you linked to The Annotated Dracula in your verified Fantasy Crossroads #4/5, you used Leonard Wolf as the author, whereas the database entries treat Stoker as the author (and, indeed, the title you linked to is credited to Bram Stoker). So this is another place where we would record the review differently and add a note. I have made those changes. --MartyD 15:56, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
And here's a place you can practice. I have on hold your proposed removal of a non-existent pseudonym of Andrew J. Orfutt with a comment that the name is misspelled. It's not a pseudonym, so that submission isn't going to do anything. The reason that author entry exists is because the name is spelled that way in this review in your verified Fantasy Crossroads #8. So the review should be edited to spell the reviewed author's name correctly. If the original misspelling was just a typo on your part, no further action is needed. If, however, the name is misspelled in the fanzine, then you should record that fact in the fanzine's notes. I would have done the edits, but I can't tell what is needed. You can then cancel that pseudoynm removal; I just left it on hold as a reminder. Thanks. --MartyD 12:14, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Never mind on this suggestion above. I see you fixed the review. That deleted the author. I will reject the pseudonym submission (which now has no author reference, so there's no choice). --MartyD 12:23, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
As I recall, I submitted the pseudonym to bring that misplaced name to a moderator's attention so the name could be deleted. I knew it was in the data base because I misspelled the Offutt's name, but didn't know how to remove it. Apparently, when I corrected the spelling, it went away anyhow. I think part of my problem on this one was the delay between when I submitted changes and when they got approved or turned down. I'm too damn impatient sometimes. I'll try to cultivate more patience. Thank you, Marty, for your everlasting patience with me. Bob 13:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Fists of the Revolution
I have on hold your submission that would merge "Fists of the Revolution" as by Lumpkin with another as by Howard, losing the "Lumpkin". Did you perhaps mean to make a variant? How is it credited in your verified REH #12? --MartyD 12:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Another stupid typo. You can probably understand that after typing "Robert E." my habit is to type my own last name, even though my middle name is Edward, not Ervin. Yes, I typed my own name. [blush, blush] I suppose I could have corrected the typo, but the merge will do it for me. Bob 14:56, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Ah. That possibility didn't occur to me. :-) I accepted the merge, and it's now Howard. --MartyD 15:20, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Virgil Finlay
I'd like to make a number of changes to Virgil Finlay. Chalker/Owings lists Donald M. Grant as the editor, however, he isn't credited as such in the book. I'd like to change the editor to Finlay and uncredited with uncredited as a pseudonym for Grant. We don't seem to have an explicit standard on how art books should be credited (artist or editor), but I found this discussion where Mhhutchins suggested crediting both artist and editor for art books (last paragraph). I'd also like to add the introductory note by Grant. As it is untitled, I'm not 100% certain on what title to give it. I am considering "untitled introduction (Virgil Finlay)", and an explanation in the notes. Lastly, I'd like to go ahead and add the individual pieces of art as separate items. Let me know if you concur and if you have any other suggestions on how to title the Grant note. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:47, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Interesting. I have a ton of art books, and never know how to handle them. I entered the http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?10233 "Spectrum" books and used the editors as the authors, but these are not the work of one artist. Listing all the artists would be silly. But books like the Finlay are tougher, especially this one because Finlay participated in it's creation. In fact, looking in the pub, it's not clear what Grant's role was. There are a half-dozen Finlay books produced by Gerry de la Ree, a couple from Underwood Miller, and a number of others that are similar (in my collection). It would be nice if we had a special form for art books and portfolios by individual artists. In fact, I would like to see "PORTFOLIO" as a pub type. Michael's thoughtful suggestion about crediting both the artist and the editor is fine. I would prefer Grant be credited than see "uncredited". But I really prefer to credit the artist for single-artist pubs as the author, and list any editor in the notes. There is a series of Frank Frazetta books (for example http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?252448) clearly edited by Betty Ballentine, where I would credit her in the notes, not as author.
Putting in the individual pieces of art isn't too bad for this pub, although merging them with their sources will be a chore. I feel that there isn't much point to listing individual art works unless they are related to their sources. It seems to me that identifying such ties will be tough, partly because the INTERIORART in many pulps is not well-documented; often, it seems to be ignored. When Finlay produces half a dozen drawings for one story, how do your relate the art work in the book back to that in the pulp? But, please, if you feel putting individual artworks into the contents is a good idea, I have no objection.
As for Grant's note, I think your suggested title is fine. Another possibility is [Introduction (Virgil Finlay)]?
I've taken a stab at it at the changes I suggested and I've linked as many of the individual pieces as I can. The De La Ree checklist is actually an excellent resource for determining this. In many of the cases, especially the Weird Tales illustrations, De La Ree indicates that there was only a single illustration, so I could safely merge these illustrations with their magazine appearance. I did set up as the editor. Since he isn't actually credited in the book, he has to be listed as an uncredited variant, if at all. My thoughts are that in this case, the book has significant additional material, the appreciation and the checklist, so the editor is important. Personally, I also like seeing the book in the editor's bibliography and to have it come up in searches, which you wouldn't get with notes. If you still disagree, we can open this up and try to get a standard established, or revert it back to just Finlay. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:26, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Beautiful job, Ron. My only problem was the Grant was not credited as editor in the pub inself, but since he was so credited in a reliable cited source, no real objection. I would guess de la Ree was also an active participant in putting the book together, but no proof there. I'm considering opening a discussion on a new standard to include PORTFOLIO as a pub type, indicating either one-artist books or portfolios of plates, with a form like those for ANTHOLOGY - Editor in place of Author. Then the Artist would be not just the cover, but the whole pub. The only other need would be something like "plates" for pub format. Any thoughts? Bob 13:48, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
It is an interesting idea. I wouldn't suggest re-purposing the cover artist field, though. Those show up as COVERART titles in the author (artist) bibliography. Also, while I can't think of a specific example, I suspect that there exist art books focusing on a single artist, where the cover artist is different than the artist who is the subject of the book. I suspect your greatest hurdle will be the availability of the programmers who would have to rework the author bibliography pages to display the new type. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 11:34, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the input; I hadn't thought through the artist problem. I'll cogitate some more. Bob 12:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Battle of Forever
Since you did the primary verification of this book I will send this information to you so that you can do the update.
The $9.95 price on the dustjacket is the price of the unsigned edition. The 500-copy signed edition went for $14.95 retail. Author's Co-Op was basically Perry A. Chapdelaine and he used a single jacket on both editions of the book. This information comes from the original solicitation letter from my files (I was a bookseller and we carried the book new at the time). Unsigned copies were available but the print-run is unknown.
SFJuggler 00:03, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Very interesting! I knew the price for the unsigned version, but didn't know that for the signed one was any different. I have had the signed one for years, but still haven't found a copy of the unsigned one! Amazing. I'll fix the price. Bob 01:31, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Occult Lovecraft
I found this and used that to fix up the titles in The Occult Lovecraft. I cloned it and made an entry for the hardcover, too. I also linked the review. --MartyD 16:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Wow, very impressive. I was pleased the review had as much information as it did about the content, but this really makes it a nice stub. Thanks for linking! Bob 19:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Winter of the World
I updated your primary verified pub The Winter of the World with some rearranged notes, and a new Gutter code. You might also want to hop back in and mark which gutter code you have in your collection. - Thanks Kevin 02:12, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, nice job! I noted that my copy is a first printing. I've been in the SFBC a long time. Bob 03:01, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Moderator??
Have to admit that I haven't dealt with your submissions regularly, but I am impressed by the attention to details, the responses to any questions and the willingness to learn the rather esoteric way things are done here. Also, your collection stuns me!!! I think it's time you considered being a Moderator. Doesn't really matter if there's still things to learn [it's an evolving DB, there's always things to learn/relearn]. If you are interested, I'll start the nomination process [which, if successful, means a case of beer for the existing Mods ... it's the only pay we get, the old promise of a magic decoder ring was a sham ........] :-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Bill, I'd be honored. My main objective right now is to get my collection entered, of course. And I do have plenty to learn. But I will keep trying to improve. Thank you for your kind words. Bob 02:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I'll start the process. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Virginia 'Edition'
Is there no other indication of publisher than 'Edition' for the Heinlein title? Seems more descriptive than an appendage. --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:33, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Second submission for the series has a bad checksum, typo?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
And the I Will Fear No Evil submission has a totally different publisher. The 'series' changed publishers? And I assume 'Giancolo' is a typo for 'Giancola'? --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I shortened it a little. The full title is "The Virginia Edition, Inc." as the publisher. I thought "Virginia Edition" was a reasonable shortening; we normally don't use Inc. or Co. Re the bad checksum -- I presume you mean the ISBN? Must be a typo; the ISBN in that volume is 978-1-897350-04-1 on the title page. A brief explanation on the two publishers. Yes, the series started out with Meisha Merlin, a publisher I always admired. They were to print 5000 copies in three grades, all in slipcases. After the first six books were distributed, MM went belly up. I don't know why, or if it had to do with the Virginia edition. So a group of fans took over, under the same project director, Stephen Pagel, the former owner of Meisha Merlin. They decided that they couldn't afford the slip cases, which cost more than the books to produce. They reduced the number of copies to 2000, did away with the slip cases and dust jackets, and went to all leather binding. They duplicated the first six volumes in the new configuration as a start.
I agree with leaving off the "Inc." but think the "The" should stay [similar to The Bodley Head]. Once the whole series is entered one edit at the Publisher title level will accomplish that [no need to revisit each record]. The bad checksum is the result of reversing two numbers in the ISBN [the submission has 978-1-987...], I'll accept and fix that one.
Now remember, the people who ordered the series ahead of time paid $2200 per set. The original leather-bound edition buyers paid $3500 per set. The uncommitted new sets are being sold for $1500 each. The only compensation I know of is that those who ordered the leather sets got 2 copies of the series each. Still, all of us ate it monetarily. The books are nice, but the originals were spectacular. There were a few other "extras" - each of us got a book from Heinlein's personal collection and a copy of a Heinlein biography. Incidentally, the ISBNs for all the original series books are identical, one ISBN for the series, but different for each type. And the Giancolo isn't a typo, it's a mistake I made in reading the name. I put the same Giancolo on all six pubs. Bob 02:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Good enough, I'll accept and correct the entries. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:23, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Please excuse me..... I need to get a mop to wipe up the drool I've spilt over here. NoNo... No.. Don't mind me.... Really.. I just will need a second mop. (chuckle) Kevin 03:19, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Hey, Kevin. I got two sets, since I had ordered the leather-bound books originally. By some fluke, I got sets #2 and #3. I'll let you have #3 for $1500 plus shipping! Stop drooling. Start reading! 46 Heinlein books, including 3 books of letters, 2 books of screenplays, all his novels and short stories - everything! Still in their original boxes and shrink wrap! What a deal! Bob 14:26, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Time Patrolman - A Jim Baen Presentation
I added your verified pub Time Patrolman to the Publication Series A Jim Baen Presentation matching the title page logo/statement in my copy in hand. Thanks Kevin 03:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Kevin. It never occurred to me that "A Jim Baen Presentation" was a Publication Series. I thought that just meant Baen had published the pub. I'll be alert for it from now on. Bob 14:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, back in that time frame he was still working for TOR (After leaving Ace) before Tom Dohorty helped him stand up Baen Book as an independent publisher. As to missing the publisher series... they are fairly new as an ISFDB Feature so there are fewer of them in the database because until a software update there was no-where to store that other than in the notes. No Worries! Thanks Kevin 00:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Robert E. Heinlein????
Were [these] titles typos?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 05:06, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah. Too used to typing Robert E. as in Howard, or even worse, Lumpkin (my own name). Fixed, I hope. Bob 16:23, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
There were still two left, corrected them. --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:34, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Number of the Beast The Virginia Edition
Maybe, there would be Pub. Series #: 25 in this pub BarDenis 09:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Right on. Fixed. Bob 16:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript (Revolt in 2100)
Had to reject the submission to merge the title without the appendage as that would have changed the title in ALL publications it has appeared in, and the Signet editions do have the appendage. If the essay does not have such in your copy it needs to be a Variant. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:42, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough. Bob 16:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Essay date??
[2026]?? ;-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:13, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Great typo! Fixed. Bob 17:18, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Robert E. Howard Potential Duplicates
There are several cases of Robert E. Howard works which may be duplicates. As you have verified publications containing both versions of these, I'm hoping you can check if they are really duplicates and either merge, variant, or add notes differentiating as needed.
Fragment ("And so his boyhood...") in this pub and Fragment ("And so his boyhood....") in this pub
Futility ("Golden goats...") in this pub and Futility ("Golden goats...") in this pub
The Dead Slaver's Tale in this pub and Dead Slaver's Tale in this pub
Daughters of Feud in this pub and Daughters of the Feud in this pub
Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:39, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
All are duplicates (two merges, two variants). Futility was correctly cited in one, but the other citation used the date for the wrong version of Futility, along with the correct first words for the version that appeared there. Should be fixed now. Bob 20:05, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Best of Fredric Brown
Hello, Bob. I came across my copy of this publication and I have three minor problems with it. Since you are the originating verifier for this book, I come to you first although I believe you did not originate these errors. First, The story "Etaoin Shrdlu" should start on page 176 and not page 197 as it appears. Second, The story, "The End", starts on page 280, even though it is unpaginated. Yet the page count is 279. I believe the page count should also be 280. Third, the title "Star Mouse" is how it appears in this publication and not "The Star Mouse", as it is listed, even though the original story most likely used "The". Does this need to be a vt? Your help would be appreciated. John-- Syzygy 00:07, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
John, right in all particulars. I changed each item; once entered, Star Mouse does need to be remerged with the variant title. Thank you for being alert! Bob 00:28, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Anonymous #1????
Is the credit really as above for the essay Who Killed Science Fiction??? in the new content for [this]?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, it is. It's Heinlein, of course, but he requested anonymity for his input. I'll variant it when I go through the contents to do the merges. Bob 14:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll approve the submission. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:05, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] 'Abridged' ISBNS
Several of your last additions to The Virginia Edition series have had truncated ISBNs: 978-897... instead of 978-1-897... I've been fixing them, so far! No short cuts!! ;-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:17, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I can understand how that happened (no focus) and I'll be sure to include the 1 in the future. Thanks for fixing them. Bob 14:38, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults, and Virtues
You submitted a Variant for two identically titled and authored essays. Did you intend a merge?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:49, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
There is an extra comma in the version in Nonfiction (after Faults). I started to merge, then thought variant was correct. Bob 18:52, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't see the extra comma! Approved. Thanks. --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Creating a Genre (This Hollywood-ish headshot appeared on most of Heinlein's book jackets through the 1950s)p
Can you confirm that the title as given in this record is the one stated in the book itself? If the piece is titled or captioned you should enter it as stated without disambiguation, or if this is a description, it should be entered into the record's note field. There also appears to be an extra character at the end of the title as given. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 15:23, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That's the wording in the pub. For virtually all of these page v photos, I've used the caption in the pubs, but abbreviated them in many cases. There were sometimes more than one sentence. In all cases, I've kept the sense of the caption which ties the photo to the particular pub in which it appears. The extra p is a typo - I must have hit the close parens key and the p at the same time. Bob 15:29, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Nonficiton [sic] of Robert A. Heinlein
There appear to be typos in the titles for the two volumes in The Virginia Edition. If they are typos, you'll have to correct the title fields of both the title record and the pub record of each title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:30, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I am consistent. Fixed. Thanks, Michael. Bob 15:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Inside front cover
Re this publication: If the page count starts on an interior page of a magazine, a piece on the inside front cover should be entered as on page "fep", according to these standards. What does "ivc" mean? Mhhutchins 19:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Same situation with Trumpet #3. And I assume the author credit on page six a typo. Mhhutchins 19:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC) [edit] Disambiguating interior art records
You only need to do this if the artist has more than one piece that illustrates the same story or issue. If George Barr has four untitled pieces in one issue, then you can add numbers to each one after the first. If he only has one piece, and another artist has another piece, they can both have the same title (as the issue). The reason to disambiguate titles is so that there are no two identically titled and credited pieces that could mistakenly be merged. Mhhutchins 20:48, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
That is what I was doing when I got into trouble once before (http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Biomassbob#Duplicate_interior_art_titles.3F). Kevin thought I should use the numbers even when the artists were different. I like your approach better. But to be sure, if two artists say, each have two illustrations, should there then be two pieces of art labelled Trumpet #X [2], each with its appropriate artist? Bob 21:00, 23 June 2012 (UTC) [edit] Qualifying the title of an interior art record
There is no need to add "(back cover)" to the title of a piece which has a page number of "bc". It's understood. In the case of this issue there are six pieces by Barr, with the one on the back cover being the sixth, so it should be titled "Trumpet #2 [6]". You have the option of adding a note to the title record that it appears on the back cover. Mhhutchins 20:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
This answers my question above. And it confirms that the way I was handling illustrations before Kevin "corrected" me was appropriate. Thank you, Michael. Bob 21:03, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Poul Anderson's Jennifer's Song
You have verified a 1993 pub and a 2009 pub containing Jennifer's Song (1993) and a 1977 pub containing Jennifer's Song (1977). Would you mind comparing the two versions with the note on the 1993 poem's title record in mind? Whether they're the same (and should be merged) or different, the note(s) on title record(s) should be updated appropriately. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:35, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
I did compare them when I entered the Fantasy Crosswinds #2, and that version is half the length of the poem in the other two pubs. I therefore didn't merge them, but I forgot to note that the comparison had been made. That is now taken care of. Thank you for noticing! Bob 19:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] Vance Merges
I'm holding a few of these from you as they look suspicious - e.g. "Winner Lose All" v "The Visitors". Are you sure you want to merge rather than variant? BLongley 20:31, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about that - they are all variant titles for the same stories. I'm consistent; wrong, but consistent. I'll cancel them all and redo. Thank you for spotting these. Bob 21:33, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
[edit] The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River, Lune XXIII South, Big Planet
This publication has a different title than the title record you entered it under. So I unmerged it and made it into a variant of the original title (Showboat World). Mhhutchins 22:08, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Same situation with this publication. If the title of the book doesn't match the title of the title record, use the "Add New Novel" (or the correct type) function, instead of the "Add Publication to This Title" function. Use the checklist I gave you in this message to determine which function to use. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:10, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Michael. Will do. Bob 22:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)