User talk:Chavey/Archive/2011-2

Aventine

Hi, I uploaded a cover scan for Aventine. I saw that the OCLC was already supplied by you, so I leave you up to it to verify that.--Dirk P Broer 21:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yup, that's the cover. Chavey 19:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Shadow Matrix

Does the title page of this book credit anyone other than Marion Zimmer Bradley? (It's come up as a pub/title author mismatch.) Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 02:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The title page credits only MZB. Adrienne is credited only on the copyright page. I assume that means it should be listed as by MZB, and then be a variant of one by MZB and Adrienne, or something like that? Chavey 03:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, just update the pub, remove Adrienne Martine-Barnes, and nothing else needs to be done. It's title record is already a variant of of a record crediting both MZB and Martine-Barnes. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Chavey 11:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Better Days

Please add the source for the data in the note field for this pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Chavey 13:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The Professor's Experiment

I removed the city name from the publisher field of this pub record so that it would link to all other books from the same publisher. We only add the city to disambiguate publishers of exact or similar names. That doesn't mean you're not going to find them in the database, as that was how many records were created before the database became open to the public. When I see them now, I usually correct it. Also, again, add the source for your data in the note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I changed the publication date to 1895 based on the listing in Reginald1. Mhhutchins 05:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem on the publisher, but are you sure this is the same edition that Reginald1 has listed? The AbeBooks listing clearly claims an 1898 publication date, so I was assuming this was not a first edition, but rather a first edition thus. That was also encouraged by that book seller listing it as a "New Edition". Chavey 13:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Even if there was a new edition in 1898, there was still an edition published by Chatto & Windus in 1895. In addition to Robert Reginald's listing, there's also a OCLC record. Feel free to add a record for an 1898 edition if you can find corroborating evidence of one. Bookseller listings tend to be less reliable than they should. Mhhutchins 07:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Peapod Classics

I accepted the submissions too quickly to make Peapod Classics into a publication series. It's pretty obvious from the Amazon look-insides that it's an imprint, not a series. Look at the copyright page and back cover of Travel Light. Where did the series numbering come from? Mhhutchins 06:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Small Beer Press describe Peapod as a "line of numbered trade paperbacks". The numbering comes from the chronological ordering for the two I don't own. "Carmen Dog" has, at the top of its spine, the phrase "Peapod Classics No. 1", which makes it look like a publication series. The copyright pages do, however, use the term "imprint". What do you think? Chavey 07:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I should add that on the site link above, "Peapod Classics" are listed on the same level and in the same way as their "Chapbook Series", which are clearly described as a series, with numbers listed for many (but not all) of the books in the series. Which probably means I should construct a Publication Series for them as well. Chavey 07:33, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I just took another Look-Inside of Travel Light and it gave the title page (unaccountably, it wasn't part of Amazon's Look-Inside last night, do they change which pages are visible?) Small Beer Press is not mentioned at all on the title page, only "Peapod Classics" (over) "Northampton, MA". You can always ask Willem H. how his copy of Howard Who? is credited. I should not have accepted the submission changing the publisher without asking him in the first place. His designation of "Peapod Classics / Small Beer Press" seems to be the correct way to enter the publisher. I'm going to change it back and let you two work it out. Mhhutchins 15:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Howard Who? has "Peapod Classics No.3" at the top of its spine, making it i.m.o. part of a publication series. this looks right to me. There seem to be no more than three according to the publisher's website. --Willem H. 10:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

2nd printing of Sarah Canary

You'll need to remove the bullet point about "Month of publication..." as it doesn't apply to your record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

"Month of publication from the code "1091" printed on the front flap of the dustjacket." Interestingly, that code is still printed on the front flap. But presumably that's like saying "First published ...". So I'll remove that note. Chavey 13:42, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Gate of Ivrel

Scanned in an image, added the interior artwork and expanded the notes for [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Good additions, and a nice cover scan. Chavey 01:28, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

One of about 200 I picked up in the last week, most with nearly flawless covers. The DAWs were simply outstanding! --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

200? Is that your usual weekly shopping or are you just upset about the changes to "Top Verifiers"? BLongley 15:48, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

A couple of people 'dumped' about 700 books at a local store. The manager calls me when even one full box comes in. I'd have bought twice that if I could afford to. Picked up a few for Willem, too. And I asked for the changes to Top Verifiers, remember?? :-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Remember? If I had a memory I'd... actually, I can't recall what I would do. :-( Sourceforge says DES and MartyD asked for something like what I did. There's probably a load more suggestions here that I can't find (Wiki searches are not my speciality by any means.) Nowadays, I just code the improvements I want, or think someone else wants, and wait for complaints about how I could have done it better. BLongley 22:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

My 'request' was in a discussion somewhere... I have no idea how to make a Feature Request, and can't think of any off-hand anyway.... --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, "somewhere" is what I guessed when you mentioned it. The 'new, improved' method of making a request is to go to Sourceforge here and use the "Add new" option. You don't even have to admit who you are, unlike the old method where people just logged into this wiki and moaned on ISFDB_Feature_List. Before that, people just bugged Al directly I think. I guess that if the new process is still too technical you can bug me or Ahasuerus directly, but that won't always be the case. BLongley 23:55, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I should probably leave my details with local stores like you did - it seems pointless me visiting them just on the off-chance now, they have so little. I don't know if there's another collector that gets there first or if Luton just has no other SF fans, but the last visit I made I bought half their entire stock of SF and Fantasy, and it fitted in my pocket. :-( BLongley 22:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The one store I mentioned has four outlets, maybe 10,000 titles [rough guess] between them? Another single store has nearly 5000 in boxes. They have no idea what's there. Later this summer I've made arrangements with the owner to set up and scan them all, listing them and giving him the scans on CD. Entering them all here will take months. There's also a 'chain' [family-owned/operated] of 9 stores and they have a warehouse just for the duplicates in Calgary [three hours away]. I get down there maybe once a year. Always happy to shop for others, though that's nowhere near the same as hunting for yourself, is it? --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm always more interested in something I didn't even know existed until I saw it, which kinda makes it important to do the searching myself. I can't go to Amazon and search for Category "SF" and "Author" NOT in the thousands I already have books by. BLongley 00:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yes! Love that A-HA!! feeling of new discoveries. Well, when you get tired of finding nothing much, come on over the pond, breathe some fresh Canadian air and of course that wonderful aroma of old books. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Beauty

Another editor, Herzbube has submitted a clone of [this], making his an undated later printing. I think yours is the unknown printing based on the price and the price differential between the US and CDN prices. His edition has $4.95/$6.75, yours $5.99/$8.99; both state 'First Edition'. Locus1 has the '93 with a price of $4.95.. does yours have an ISBN 13 anywhere? A $3 differential wasn't usual until around 2000, about when ISBN 13's began appearing. For now I'm going to put Herzbube's submission on hold and direct him here. Maybe you can compare the books and see if there's a way to tell what's what? Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

My edition states: "First Harper Trophy edition, 1993", but of course that's not quite the same as saying "This is the First Harper Trophy edition". So I would suspect that he has the true first edition, and mine is an unstated later printing (there is no number line, or any other indication of the printing). His edition should be accepted as an apparent 1st printing, based on the Locus information, and I will correct my edition to specify it as an unnumbered later printing. Chavey 00:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and no, there's no ISBN 13 on my edition. Chavey 00:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your conclusions that my book is an earlier printing than yours. I was already suspicious of the statement "First Harper Trophy edition, 1993" when I noticed the price difference between our two printings. Despite Locus' price information, I am not entirely sure whether my book really is the first printing - after all there might have been more than one printing with the same price. I'm no expert, though, so if you think that the Locus information is sufficient to mark my cloned pub as the first edition I am happy to re-edit the pub record once the submission has been accepted. Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 19:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll accept the edit as is and you can tweak it! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, if there's no way to tell the difference between your edition and whatever the actual first printing looks like, then you might as well assume you have a first printing! There are certainly books around that must have gone through multiple printings, but without a price change, that their owners have to assume are 1st printings. If there's no number line, no gutter code, and no other way to distinguish a 1st and 2nd printing, then no one can have any evidence that you don't have a 1st printing. So if your edition agrees with Locus, which usually does get a 1st printing (except when printings are spread several years apart), then all of your data should be identical to that first printing, and you should verify it as such. Chavey 19:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for your assurance. Patrick -- Herzbube ^Talk 20:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

ISSNs

should not be entered into the ISBN/Catalog # field. Feel free to record them in the pub's note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Got it. I'll probably move it to the general page on the magazine. I just couldn't figure out what to put in that field. Checking other examples, I see that field is normally left blank. Chavey 01:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really do any harm to leave it in, it's just that it varies so infrequently it seems pointless to record it on every issue. We must get round to suppressing the "Bibliographic Warnings: Missing ISBN/Catalog #" message that comes up when you don't put it in though. BLongley 21:10, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Paradox

Can you check the spelling of the cover art credit for this issue? Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

PS Will you be entering the contents for these issues? Mhhutchins 01:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I copied the cover art credit from Locus1, but as you noticed, they spelled it wrong. I corrected that. Yes, I intend to be adding the contents, as I said in the "Notes to the Moderator" :-) Chavey 01:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the note. Gonna have to start paying more attention to the new features we're getting slammed with lately. Love it, though. Mhhutchins 01:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I approved the content additions, but I think some of the interviews -- those credited to "Anonymous" and to "Miscellaneous" -- should be recorded differently. I doubt either of those is the actual credit in the magazine. If there's no apparent credit, I think these should all use "uncredited" until/unless we can find out otherwise. It may be possible to contact the editor and ask, if you want to try that. --MartyD 10:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Kissing the Witch

Would you object to my adjusting the publisher of this book to "Joanna Cotler Books / HarperCollins"? Yours is one of the few primary verified books under this imprint and I thought you should know of my efforts to bring them all under the same name. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem! Chavey 01:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, just need one more verifier's OK and I'll do a mass change for the publisher. Mhhutchins 01:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Completed Sidewise Award, and Paradox Magazine

I've finished entering all of the Sidewise Awards, except for one which requires a content listing not in the ISFDB nor in Locus1. My local library has the book ("New Amsterdam", by Elizabeth Bear), but it's checked out. I have it on reserve. In the process of entering these awards, I needed 3 entries from "Paradox" magazine, which we did not have in the system. So I entered all of the issues, and essentially all of the contents. That felt good. Chavey 01:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite satisfying, isn't it? :-) Almost makes you want to tackle this site and cope with the other dozen or two awards we don't have yet. :-/ BLongley 23:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes, I've been thinking about it. I off to WisCon tomorrow, but I've been thinking about doing some analysis of what other awards we should include. For example, should we do national awards from other countries? (I spent a few hours yesterday cleaning up the Wikipedia category listing on this, but there are some Wikipedia doesn't know about.) What about regional awards? Awards for best fanzines? Should we include awards that go to authors/artists, as opposed to their books & stories? I'd asked you before about adding the Carl Brandon Society awards, but it seems that before you do that, we should have a more general discussion about what classes of awards we want to include. Chavey 23:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

"Carl Brandon Society awards" would be fairly easy to add, but only if Ahasuerus puts a code-change in. Or several - I think we could split it into those using the web-interface and those using the Web-API for instance. And make the list of allowable awards maintainable - we could add one at a time as we find volunteers. I've just called for one more to join in, as he seems to have "Tagged" a load of stuff that we're now covering with Award-Editing. Still, we're only just getting to grips with all the recent improvements, we might need to pause a bit and let people catch up. BLongley 00:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Worlds End And After

I have the submission that would add this as a new pub on hold. It looks like it may already be in the database as Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past . Its pub record (verified by you) was under the parent title, though, so I have moved it to the Variant Title. Or did I misunderstand and there is another publication for this title that you were trying to add? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks like I tried to do too many things at once. I was trying to update the publication record, but also correcting the title. The book listed as Worlds End And After should not be listed that way. Both the cover and the title page list it as Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past. That pub record should exist, as a variant of The Turning Place. There should be no pub record for a book titled Worlds End And After (by Jean Karl). I realize now that I should have changed the title in the title record, not in the publication record. I can clean that up with a few more submissions. Chavey 23:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

(Unless you want to fix it up) Chavey 23:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I am probably too tired tonight to do it justice, so I simply let it through for your review. Looking at the result, it would appear that we want to change the title of the verified pub from Worlds End And After to Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past and delete the unverified pub. Ahasuerus 02:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Done. Chavey 03:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Rider & Co.

Hi. What do you think about making the publisher on Dracula be just Rider? --MartyD 01:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Fine with me. Chavey 01:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Artwork in The Land of Really True

Should the interiorart in The Land of Really True be titled "The Land of Really True" instead of "The Land of Never Was"? --MartyD 02:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely. That's what I get for re-starting a second NewPub by using the first one :-(

I'll fix that up. Chavey 02:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

"Katherine kerr" pseudonym submission

I'm going to reject the submission making "Katherine kerr" [sic] into a pseudonym of Katharine Kerr. There are no records published under that name. It exists in the db solely due to a review in this pub. You'll need to contact the verifier of that review and ask that he adjust the review to credit it to the canonical name. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. I apologise for the non-regularised form of the name - they really did did call her "Katherine" though. No contact necessary in this case, although I would appreciate such in future. I'm only human and do need to learn from my mistakes still. BLongley 23:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Shaper's Legacy

Added an image [not the greatest but best of the four I could find] to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Ditto for [Shaping the Dawn] --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Emma Donoghue's The Tale of ... stories

There are quite a few duplicate title records for Emma Donoghue's short fiction. They are all associated with the two publications of this collection (the second of which you verified). The records for the first publication list the dates as "1997-05-00" and the lengths as "ss". The records for your verified publication list the dates as "1997-00-00" and the lengths as "sf". I believe the dates should be "1997-05-00", but am uncertain about the length. As modifying these records would require notifying you as a verifier anyway, I thought I'd just bring it here and ask if you wouldn't mind double checking and then merging these. Thanks. --JLaTondre 13:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. I have verified the "1997-05-00" date and the "ss" listings on all the stories, and done the title merges. Chavey 02:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Acolytes of Cthulhu

Accepted update for [this]. Locus has the contents , artist [Gahan Wilson], though a different month. FYI --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

This evening I'm just working on Amazon covers. One of these days I'll spend more time on Locus content copying. But I updated the cover artist, publication month, page count, and cover price (the previous entry disagreed with Locus) from Locus. Chavey 02:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Possible Aldiss vt

Hello Darrah. In your verified here, the Aldiss story is titled _Ten-Story Jigsaw_ but in the first publication here, it's _Ten-Storey Jigsaw_. Can you have look at your anthology to see if a vt is needed. Thanks. Hervé Hauck 15:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

In both the table of contents and the title page for the story it's "Ten-Story Jigsaw", so the VT is necessary. It looks to me like someone has already set that up. Chavey 17:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Hauck 17:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that on the copyright page, it lists it as "Ten-Storey", so they appear to have recognized the difference between British and American spelling, and made the change consciously. Chavey 17:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The Dazzle of Day

I saw the two pub records, 352625 and 38125 you verified for The Dazzle of Day. One puzzle is the statements

• does not include a dedication "For Ed kamarado"
• does not include the dedication to "To Ed"

I grabbed a random book and was astonished to see that it too does not include a dedication "For Ed!" Maybe you meant that one of the two does include the dedication? FWIW, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031286437X has an Amazon Look Inside that seems to be different than the two you verified.

Publication	Price	First hc	First tp	Dedication
352625	$12.95	mentioned	April 1998	does not include a dedication "For Ed kamarado"
38125	$13.95	none	March 1998	does not include the dedication to "To Ed"
Amazon	$13.95	May 1997	March 1998	unknown

Perhaps you mean for 38125 "That edition does not mention the earlier hc edition" rather than "This edition does not mention the earlier hc edition?" --Marc Kupper|talk 03:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out that I had flubbed those two comments. I have re-written them to be more accurate and, I hope, easier to figure out. Please let me know if I was succesful. Chavey 12:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

That's better plus you apparently found that the they have different first hardcover edition dates too! I suspect it would be less confusing if you just documented what each publication says and don't try to compare the two. We know we have:

First Hardcover Edition: May 1997
First Trade Paperback Edition: March 1998

Printed in the United States of America

D10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

And to note there's another Tor Trade Paperback edition that also reports it's a first printing though it has a different price, a different First Hardcover Edition date, and different First Trade Paperback Edition date. The local library has copies of the hardcover edition and so I'll take a look to see what it says. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

The library book came in but it turns out to be a trade paperback edition. This one is the $13.95 version. I've e-mailed them to see if the copy they have at another branch is the hc or tp edition. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Dark Universe submission

Your Dark Universe submission from Stealth seems to be a duplicate of this, although yours has October instead of September and doesn't have any price. What do you think? --MartyD 10:52, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

And the Leisure Books submission likewise seems to be a duplicate of this. --MartyD 10:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

You're correct, of course. I was mislead by the title page for Dark Universe, which had no entries in it, so I checked it out and added a couple -- while blindly not noticing that it was a VT. It does seem odd, though, that it's a VT with no entries. I assume it's because of a review, or something. But if there's a way to fix that, I suggest that you might consider it. Chavey 13:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Another example of the same phenomena is with the title page for Great Science Fiction Stories of 1939 as by Martin H. Greenberg. No actual editions are listed there, and it looks like a spurious record, until you follow the VT. This seems like the type of record that's ripe for confusion. When I run across such books, is there anything I can do to fix them so they look more natural? Chavey 14:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Dark Universe exists because of the reviews (this and this). According to Help:Screen:EditPub#Reviews the reviews should use the canonical title instead, with a note in the pub containing the review stating the title used on the review. We could then delete the variant, as nothing will use it any longer. Your Asimov / Greenberg example is more complicated, but similar. There are three reviews of the title as by Martin H. Greenberg, but no publication. You'd have to seek further opinions about this one. I'd go with the use-the-canonical-name-and-note-the-actual-name-used approach, but it may be you should do something else (like record the name used, since we have a pseudonym set up, but link to the canonical title). But I am not an expert on review handling. --MartyD 02:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Treading the Past

I accepted the submission for this pub, but feel a few changes are in order. The publisher should be Enigmatic Press based on this Amazon.co.uk listing. The Amazon.com listing for a distribution of the UK printing by Firebird in the US. You will find corroboration and additional information in the OCLC record. You should also note the source for your data or do primary verification if you have the book in hand. (I noticed the absence of source on a few submissions for these award-nominated pubs you've been entering lately. Can I assume that Amazon was the data source for this record?) Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Have you had a chance to look over this message and be able to respond? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 14:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I missed this message; thanks for the reminder. This last week I was looking for collections & anthologies without cover images, and adding those images when Amazon had them. That doesn't require source data. But I also ran across several of those "empty record" entries (from a book review or an award, when the book isn't in the system), so I added those books when I found such entries, but on several of those I forgot to add source data. A check shows I forgot to source the data on 8 of my last 21 NewPubs. I'll try to do better on that. (I added that note to those 8.) Chavey 02:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Christmas Trees and Monkeys by Daniel G. Keohane

I'm holding a submission adding a new pub to this title. It's very similar to the other one that you submitted here. The difference is the date (January/November) and one has an ISBN while the other has an ASIN in the ISBN field. This submission appears to be based solely on Amazon's stub record here, which may have been based on a publisher's announcement. This would have been followed up by a listing of the actual published book. I don't believe both Amazon listings should be reflected as two different records in the ISFDB. Mhhutchins 21:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

That seems like a likely explanation to me. I'm cancelling the submission. Chavey 00:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Endless Voyage

New image, slightly expanded notes, artist from secondary source for [Endless Voyage] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Stormqueen!

New image, slightly expanded notes; added interior art and author's note to contents for [Stormqueen!] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

We Who Are About To..., or, When It Changed

Hi, I have a question as to which of the above mentioned publications received a retro Tiptree Award. here says When It Changed, but here says We Who Are About To... Would you know what is true here?--Dirk P Broer 15:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

When It Changed. There was some confusion, even among members of the Tiptree Motherboard, and it got listed incorrectly in various places (even in their own material, as you noticed). But I forced the issue with them, and they finally went back to their original notes (last month!) and verified that they had voted in When It Changed. They are aware that they have an error on their web page. They're in the process of changing the company that handles their web creation, and will probably fix that after they've completed the change. Chavey 16:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I should add that the ISFDB awards list has it right! Chavey 16:36, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, that means that I edited both Wikipedia and the FeministSF Wiki to contain wrong data about both "When It Changed" and "We Who Are About To...". Never too late to make my wrongs right though! Thanks for solving this matter, --Dirk P Broer 18:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

And I'm glad you caught that! Chavey 19:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Day Dark, Night Bright

I had to reject your update of this pub. It would have added this illustration, which is clearly not from a Leiber book. The ISBN is probably wrong (I think we got it from Locus1). I found this amazon title, and added the illustration and a note about the ISBN. Can you agree? Thanks, --Willem H. 12:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. I found another bad ISBN as I was looking for covers, but apparently I missed this one. Thanks, Chavey 14:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Retief!

Turns out that the secondary image on Amazon was the correct one, not the "Search Inside" image. I've added it to the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I wondered about the difference between those two pictures, but I thought the "official" one would have been correct. Thanks for finding that. Chavey 00:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Miracle Workers

Did you intend "464" to be the page count and not the artist in the update for this pub? Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yup. My bad. Correction submitted. Chavey 00:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The World Wreckers (cover artist)

Hi, cover of The World Wreckers is signed "Melvyn", as used by Melvin Grant (he did quite a few covers in this series).--Dirk P Broer 13:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for solving that mystery! Chavey 13:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Dirk had submitted an update to the notes identifying the signature, which I accepted. Then I came across your similar update. Since the first was a little more specific, I left that and rejected yours. Please adjust the notes if you think what is there is not appropriate. Thanks. --MartyD 14:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Chavey 16:02, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Supplied a scan as well for The World Wreckers.--Dirk P Broer 15:28, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Asimov's Undergraduate Award

I'm afraid you've run into two known bugs. You can't have an ampersand in the award category so "Undergraduate Excellence in SF & Fantasy Writing" is a no-no: all the Moderator will see is "XML PARSE ERROR". And apostrophes are out too - '--- 'Honorable Mention' -------' gets the software confused as to where the string terminates. BLongley 14:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, how did you even submit the 'Honorable Mentions'? I get a Python Error if I try to replicate it. Did you use backslashes to escape the quotes? BLongley 14:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I submitted it as: --- ''Honorable Mention'' -------, trying to get italics. In other words, no backslashes, but a double apostrophe. I now realize that I shouldn't have expected that to work. I just resubmitted the winner and runner ups, using &amp; in the award category. If that works, I can resubmit the honorable mentions using --- <i>Honorable Mention</i> -------. Basically, I'm just trying to imitate what had been set up for the previous years awards. But I was careful to only do one year, 'cuz I thought there might be problems. Chavey 14:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, I approved the three new additions but they don't seem to have taken. I'm not sure why yet, will try and replicate it locally. BLongley 15:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Darkmage by Hambly

Can you see if the statement "Book Club Edition" appears on the front flap of the dustjacket of this pub? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 13:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes it does. Chavey 17:14, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking. I'm trying to determine the approximate period in which the statement was removed from BCEs. Mhhutchins 02:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

'Ware Hawk

New image and added notes [there were none] to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Award submission rejects

I had to reject several submissions due to a bug, which is discussed somewhere on the community pages. Even when they were accepted, they remained in the submission queue. Please resubmit once it's been determined what may be causing the error. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

No problem. After seeing the discussion on the moderator board, I expected that. Chavey 04:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I think I've solved it but Ahasuerus still needs to check it. In other news, I'm close to overloading him with a mass of changes that will allow new Award Types to be created as and when we get volunteers to work on each one. But Ahasuerus is also looking at improved foreign language support which might be a desirable feature before we open up the flood-gates to lots more non-English awards. BLongley 16:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

What If?

I accepted the submissions of the What If? anthologies, but still wonder if the contents should be entered as short fiction or essays. I'd asked as a response to your original inquiry on the Community Portal page if you were certain because you had primary evidence of their nature or based on other secondary sources. Most of the sources I've been able to check give them as essays. Even the titles would suggest that, unless most of the authors have a serious deficiency in the naming of fiction pieces. :) Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:06, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I just got copies of the books from the library today (which shelves them as non-fiction). I'm going to look at them in the next day or so to see what their format is, then update them appropriately. Chavey 05:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Format for map entries

Re this recently accepted publication: as discussed earlier, the format should be "TITLE (map)". Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I keep confusing it with "Intro (Title)". I know you gave me the reason that they're different, which made sense at the time, but it just doesn't sink in. Chavey 20:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Think of a map as an illustration which types it as interiorart. All interiorart gets the name of the work which illustrates it...thus "TITLE (map)". All essay types are given the exact title which is stated in the publication. So if an essay is titled "Introduction" we have to give it that title. We only add the title to disambiguate it, no other reason. If an introduction is titled "You're Gonna Love This Book" that's how we title the essay record without having to disambiguate it. The "(map)" at the end of an interiorart record isn't there to disambiguate...it's only there to indicate that this is a specialized interiorart record. You'd do the same if it were a frontispiece as in "TITLE (frontispiece)". Mhhutchins 21:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll explain it the same but differently. We append the publication title to the Introduction essay otherwise when you looked at an author or editor's bibliography you'd see Introduction, Introduction, Introduction, ... and would need to click on each to discover what they are introductions for. The word "Introduction" is taken from how it's titled in the publication. If someone calls it "Author's Note" then that's what we would record an in the case of the book I have in hand at the moment it would be "Author's Note (The Dazzle of Day)".

Interior art is more complicated. Most illustrations do not have a title meaning we enter the the title from the publication or story the illustration is with. If an illustration has a title then we would use that. We don't have sub-types in ISFDB to allow us to note that it's a frontispiece, map, etc. and so append the type to the title. I can't think of *why* we append the type other than that's the way someone did it long ago and we adopted it as a convention. Just to mess with our heads, COVERART titles are constructed with "Cover: " followed by the publication title. That's a historical thing and, fortunately, ISFDB takes care of it for us. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

To some extent anyway - it seems clear that COVERART has a whole set of bugs of its own. :-/ (Dates not automatically adjusted when you adjust the pub date, "authors" left behind after removal as cover artist, etc.) I tried some Award editing for Artwork and found that we are sadly lacking in recording artists even for work in publications we DO have. Not a priority for me, but something to bear in mind. BLongley 03:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, this makes it clear to me -- especially the rule "If it has a title, use the title; otherwise use the publication title." I think I can grasp onto that :-) Chavey 00:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The Dazzle of Day (cover artist)

What's the source of the Shelley Eshkar cover artist credit for your verified The Dazzle of Day? I have a copy from the public library and can't spot the cover artist credit. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The artist was already listed when I verified the book, it wasn't something I added. And neither of my editions credit the cover artist either. The source of the credit appears to be Locus1. Chavey 00:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

My Death

What is the source for the price you've provided in this record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:27, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The price was already in the record for that book. Presumably, that price was posted from Locus1. I'll add that source to the record. Chavey 05:49, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #1

You updated this pub twice. Both submissions added "Poems of Robert Burns". Mhhutchins 06:04, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Oops. When I change a submission to add more data, I usually remember to cancel the earlier submission. Chavey 06:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The Secret River

There's already a record in the database for this publication. I know, because I created it last month based on a review in the May issue of Locus. Mhhutchins 20:46, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that a 56 page book should probably be entered as a chapterbook, not a novel. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, of course. I looked under "Marjorie Rawlings," so I missed the entry for "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings". And you're right, of course, about the chapterbook entry. I don't enter those very often, so I forget about them. Chavey 20:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I've done the same thing a time or two when I'm searching for authors. You ever notice how many spec-fic writers use middle initials? It doesn't seem to be as prevalent in the mainstream. Mhhutchins 22:10, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Orsinian Tales

I'm assuming you meant "wraparound cover art" in the note field of this publication. :) Mhhutchins 22:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. I hadn't thought about the difference before. A quick check shows 122 books listed with "Wraparound cover" and only 28 listed with "Wraparound cover art", so it seems I was using the norm. Do you think we should change them all to "cover art"? It wouldn't be that hard to do, and it's more grammatically correct. Chavey 22:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd never noticed before this submission. It's understood by most of us that it means that the artwork wraps around the cover. I pity the person who is so unfamiliar with books that they wouldn't know that all covers wraparound. :) Feel free to change the records if you have the time and inclination to do so. Mhhutchins 22:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but lots of books warn you, essentially, that if the cover doesn't wrap around (to the front) that "you should be aware that this book is stolen property" :-)   And we certainly wouldn't want to encourage that type of behavior! Chavey 22:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

"The Word for World Is Forest"

This story was discussed several years ago with the conclusion that the book publications are the same as the novella. Thus, all book publications should be entered as chapterbooks, with a content record for the novella. If you believe they're different and have done a side-by-side comparison of the two texts (the novella and the book version) we would have to change all the book publication records from chapterbooks to novels. Was this the basis for your submission to change this title record to the NOVEL type? Mhhutchins 00:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

It was just hard to believe that a 169 page book would be called a Chapterbook. If that's really the case, then it seems like there's an awful lot of other books that should be converted to chapterbooks. Maybe I'll take on the comparison with the novella version. Chavey 00:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

If a story is first published in an anthology and wins a Hugo for best novella, is nominated for a Nebula as a novella, and comes in first place in the Locus Poll in the novella category, we handle it as a novella. If it were first published as a 169 page book, we would have probably left it as a novel. For example, most of the halfs of Ace Doubles are actually novellas, but they were published first as novels and that's how we kept them. There was a tremendous debate years ago that pretty much divided the editors down the middle. It got to the point where we started labeling the split: the Lengthists versus the Bookists. :) The compromise between the groups was the creation of title records for chapterbooks. Mhhutchins 00:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The foregoing is moot if it's determined that the book publication expanded upon the novella version. I don't have a book of the story, or I would have done a comparison before now. Mhhutchins 00:49, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I did a comparison by counting paragraphs, which should be accurate insofar as deciding whether Ursula expanded the work. I counted 665 paragraphs in the "Again, Dangerous Visions" anthology, and 659 paragraphs in the book version. That's clearly within the accuracy of doing a quick count by hand, so it's obvious that the book version is not an expanded version of the novella. So, abiding by the previous compromise, it must remain a Chapterbook. Thank you for the explanation. Chavey 01:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for doing the comparison. That pretty much settles the debate about this title. Now about the other hundred or so... Mhhutchins 01:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Catwings Return

The submissions changing the pubs of this title into chapterbooks were accepted, but I had to go back and add a chapterbook content/title record for each one. In order for a chapterbook to be complete, it has to have both a shortfiction content record and a chapterbook content/title record (if it's fiction.) Mhhutchins 00:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if that was handled automatically, so I was going to check on that afterwards. Thanks for correcting that, and I'll try to remember that. Chavey 00:35, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The change in chapterbooks that I spoke of above resulted in the automatic creation of chapterbook title records when a new book is entered into the database. But it must be done manually when a record is changed. Mhhutchins 00:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Stellar #2

Replaced the amazon scan for your verified here. Hauck 14:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Much nicer. Chavey 14:14, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Testing?

I know I mentioned this on Talk:Awards, but thought I'd repeat the question here. Do you, or any of your students/colleagues/acquaintances have the skills and time to try out the backlog of Development Changes we have? You're obviously interested in the Award Changes, but you have also mentioned knowing people with more language skills than I have. (Which isn't that difficult to be honest, I was only ever taught French and Latin as additional languages and failed both.) We're close to improved Language support and improved Award Support and I know that both will stretch our current set of Editors and Moderators, so the earlier we get people on board the better. I'm already dreading what Alibinoflea will do when the tools come online, as his native language isn't even in an alphabet I can read! ;-) BLongley 19:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Right now my students are all away on summer break, so aren't available for such work. The SF fans in my club have competence in languages such as French, Spanish, Croatian, Serbian, Arabic, Japanese, and probably others as well. I have lots of Chinese speakers, although not SF fans, but there will be little enough work in Chinese that I'm sure I can get some of them to help me. I'm pretty good at French, and can handle most of the Romance languages as well. I can do work now, but I won't really be able to get students to work in the other languages (except for Spanish -- I have one student who might be willing to start work right away). Chavey 01:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The next big change for Language support is now live - people can record a language against a title. We haven't done any mass updates - Ahasuerus is wary of such, and I am too when it comes to languages - but if you can identify the sort of things you or your fellow fans could work on I can try and do project pages for the manual workarounds. The simple ones are just changing the title language, if that's originally not English. The more complicated ones are finding the non-English titles that until now have had to be under the English Title. We could do something with ISBN prefixes fairly easily, non-ISBNed titles will be much harder. And we haven't done the Award improvements yet, so although I have played about with "Imaginaire" awards today I haven't been moving awards to a French Variant of an English title or vice versa - yet! BLongley 23:29, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Robert Burns' Poems of Robert Burns

In this pub, there are duplicate entries for "Poems of Robert Burns". Is that intentional? --JLaTondre 20:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

No it wasn't. There are three poems, and if they were spec fic, I would have listed them separately, but since they aren't, I only intended to list it as a single item (with a title note about the three titles). Thanks for catching my mistake. Chavey 00:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Moongather

Added an image and expanded notes slightly for [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

High Sorcery

Added month of publication to [this]. '79 fifth printing has a complete printing history. --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Interiorart title record unmerge

Before accepting the submission to unmerge an interiorart record , I need to know if there will be a follow-up submission. 99% of the time, it's better to remove a title from a pub, rather than unmerge a pub from a title record (which is basically what this function does.) There are particular bugs associated with this function that might make it better to use the remove function. Mhhutchins 21:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

The submission is gone. I see you cancelled it. In the words of Emily Latella, "Never mind." Mhhutchins 21:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I realized I had confused the cover artist with the interior artist. Chavey 21:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Voodoo Wife

I accepted your submission before realizing you'd made this title record a variant of itself. I've remove the variant and deleted it. Mhhutchins 22:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Oops! I've tried that one again, this time I'm pretty sure I connected it to the correct parent. Chavey 22:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith: His Universe and Times

A few months ago you started this discussion. I wasn't sure then, but something was wrong with the solution. So I ordered a copy of the Vorkosigan Companion, compared this with my copy of Dreamweaver's Dilemma and did some additional research. I.m.o. the confusion lies in the fact that "timelines" has two different components. First there is the (uncredited) essay Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith: His Universe and Times and second the "interior art" piece by Suford Lewis. Authorship of the essay is best explained on Bujold's website here, where is stated that it was originally created for Baen's website in 1996, and later additions were by Michael Bernardi. Lower on the page is © 1996-2002 by Lois McMaster Bujold & Baen Books / Current version by Michael Bernardi. I think this means the printed versions of the essay are by Lois McMaster Bujold and Michael Bernardi (as uncredited). Before I change anything, does that make sense? --Willem H. 18:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

It looks to me like you have found the correct answer to this bit of confusion. I encourage you to go ahead and make your suggested changes. What I don't know is whether it's worth the effort to construct two title records, one "by Bujold" and one "by Bujold and Bernardi", or whether it's better to create a single title record by both and include a title note that "some early versions of this are by Bujold only". It seems likely that different printings of the same book might have different versions. I have two copies of Falling Free -- a 1991 version with no included timeline, and a 1999 printing with one. So they were certainly updating whether or not a book included a timeline, and hence probably updating the timelines with later printings. I did a check of the 3 timelines that I have, comparing them to the web page you linked to, and got the following versions:

1. 1997: The Warrior's Apprentice, 6th printing. Has all Web timeline entries up to age 29.
2. 1999: Falling Free, 5th printing. Has all Web timelines up to the first age 30 entry.
3. 2001: Ethan of Athos, 6th printing. Same as previous one, but also has the age 31 entry.

But, as I say, I don't know how we would be able to assign some versions to Bujold only, and some to Bujold/Bernardi. Chavey 23:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I asked Hervé and Dana Carson to comment, and if they don't disagree I will make the neccesary changes (and add notes, good suggestion). I'll keep you informed. --Willem H. 19:20, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Hervé agrees, and Dana Carson didn't respond, so I made the neccesary changes. I added notes to essay. Is that enough? (I tend to use as few words as possible) :-) --Willem H. 15:23, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

The notes look good. But I wonder about which publications are listed under the Bujold/Bernardi credit title record and which are listed under the uncredited title record. As I understand the situation, pretty much all of them should be listed under the uncredited title record, with the VT connecting them to the "true authors". Chavey 19:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

All publications are under one of the three "uncredited" variants. I agree, there's no easy way to check this, just count the pubs under the variant titles (3 + 4 + 20) and compare with the Bujold/Bernardi credit (27). Thanks, --Willem H. 19:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Mary (Hunter) Austin

I've jiggered the way the db handles the story "The Readjustment" and its author. Because "Mary Austin" was used as a pseudonym by another author, I chose to make it a pseudonym as well for this author, making her full name, instead of the dated one, into her canonical one. Let me know what you think. If you feel the dated one is better, we can always switch it back. Mhhutchins 23:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that was a good solution. Chavey 01:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Data from book sellers' ads

If at all possible, please use book sellers listings as the last resort when you're researching publication data. Some are more reliable than others, e.g. Lloyd Currey, but most are not as dependable. Your note that the source is a book seller does nothing to help subsequent users of the db determine the record's reliability. There is an OCLC record for the 1875 Harper & Brothers edition of The Little Lame Prince and another one for an undated Manhattan Press edition of The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling-Cloak. The latter is part of the Wonderland series, according to OCLC. Research has shown many books in this series published by Manhattan Press. Perhaps it was a subsidiary of Harper & Brothers? Mhhutchins 23:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, Michael, I was going to do more digging after approving the submissions, but got distracted. COPAC lists quite a few editions, so it would be a good place to check. Ahasuerus 01:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak

I'm holding a submission that wants to add a book with this title to the title record for The Little Lame Prince. This should have been entered as a new novel, and then its title record should be made into a variant of the original title, or vice versa, depending upon which is the canonical title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, you fail to give the source for your data. Mhhutchins 23:57, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Archer's cover art for The Starry Rift

I'm holding the submission to make one of two identical records a variant of the other. In ISFDB terms variant means one of two things (99% of the time): 1) there is a change in author/artist credit or 2) there is a change in title. Because these two records are identical in both credit and title, the best procedure is to merge the records. The art work is identical as well, but I see that the two publishers have chosen a different approach in how to present the work in each publication. We ordinarily don't consider this as a reason to variant the records. It would lead each editor in cases where art is used on a later printing of the same title to make a subjective decision about how much a difference one work is from the other. Perhaps the color tinting and/or shading is different, the text is placed in a different area, much of the original artwork has been cropped, etc. That would be overkill. We don't even make a variant when a story has been revised, if it keeps the same author credit and title. Artwork is even less important than that in the ISFDB scheme of things. It would be too much to ask an editor to choose which variant to place an artwork record under. Mhhutchins 23:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Submission cancelled. Chavey 01:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)