User talk:Chavey/Archive/2012

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Branca de Neve e os Sete Ananos

This record shows up on the Stray Authors list because the author(s) credited on the pub doesn't match the author(s) of the title record. Can you re-check to see if the pub record is correctly credited and make the title record's author credit match? Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I've made the title record's credit (Brothers Grimm) match the pub record's credit. Mhhutchins 22:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yarbro's False Dawn

Another editor has added the gutter code to this verified record. Can you check to see if it matches your copy and determine if the note should be altered or kept as is? Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

It took me a while to get to checking this -- that box was buried deep. I have the same gutter code, but apparently on a different page than that editor, which seems suspicious. I've asked him to check the page number. Chavey 20:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Two Tom Allens?

Before this discussion I thought it was clear that there's only one of them and already made vts for one anthology and one introduction of Tom Shippey. But Ahasuerus is right in mentioning the possibility of a second Tom Allen. I wonder if the Locus note/obituary could shed some light into the (double) identity. Stonecreek 09:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this discussion to my attention -- I hadn't noticed it was based on a note I had entered. Comments added to the Moderator thread. Chavey 15:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Broken Amazon Image Links & Missing Images

You have 1330 verifications of which 303 are without images and 2 have errors. Giving the large number, I placed the list on a this subpage so as not to clog up your talk page. If additional data or filtering would make it more convenient, let me know and I'll see what I can do. -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much! I'll get to work on those. Chavey 02:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I've updated the listing based on yesterday's database dump. While I normally wouldn't update it (if you ever do want one, just let me know), I added a check for 1x1 images as discussed on another page so I re-ran it with that (detected two). -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Italian collection of Moore stories

This collection and its contents are in the db as English. If you don't change the language at the time of entry, the system automatically defaults to English. I choose not to have any other language than English displayed so that it's easy to spot titles that have not been language-defined. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The title is listed as being in Italian. The publication has no place to post a language. You are correct that I had forgotten that entering a collection in Italian does not make the stories in it default to Italian (a bug, IMO), so I have corrected that. But I don't understand why you say that the collection is in there as English. Chavey 23:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I meant to say the title records were in English. Before you corrected them the titles were displayed on Moore's summary page when an editor chooses only to see English titles. So they had defaulted as being English. All titles in the database that have not been assigned a language defaults to English. If that's a bug, then how should the thousands of records that have not been assigned a language be displayed? If you added the content records after the pub record had already been created, then there is a bug in the system, because you weren't given the option to assign a language when entering the contents. That should be addressed. I've washed my hands with dealing with translated publications and personally don't care how they're displayed as long as my user-assigned preferences are honored. Mhhutchins 23:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Ok, that makes sense. When I created the anthology publication record, I created it as Italian, and entered the titles of all the stories at that time. I had expected that they would inherit the language of the book, and didn't notice that they hadn't. So you think that if I did that in two steps (create the anthology; submit; add the stories) that they would get the correct language? Chavey 01:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
No. The only time you have the option of selecting a publication's language is when it is first created. I've just been handling a few Italian magazines submitted by Pips55. They're all entered as Italian, with the contents added at the same time. All of the content records "inherited" the language given to the pub record at the time of their creation. There was one submission in which the language wasn't selected, (well it was left as English), and all the content records that were created with it automatically became English. So I don't know how you could have created a publication record as Italian and all the contents became English. If you did, then that's a bug. Mhhutchins 01:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Since I have a several dozen non-English anthologies to add eventually, it would be nice to find a route that works. (Going to each story and changing their languages one at a time seems like an unnecessarily tedious step.) Chavey 01:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I would suggest leaving a message on Willem, Hauck, or Stonecreek's page presenting them with this problem, and see if they've come across it in their work with non-English titles. Mhhutchins 01:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, I did a few tests and came to this pretty dismal result: if you don't create the content records at the same time that you create the publication record, the records are defaulted to English, regardless of the language of the title record. If you add contents after the publication record has been created, it doesn't matter if you've changed the language of the title record before or after adding the contents, the only option you have of changing the language of the content records is to update each one to assign the correct language. I created a pub with a language other than English and entered one content record. Here's the title record. The content record that I added at the time of creation has the same language as the title record. The content record that I added after pub creation has the default language. I'm surprise that with so many people working on non-English publications, this problem never arose. Mhhutchins 02:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm aware of such limitations (chiefly annoying is the obligation of entering everything in one pub in only one attempt) and have to work around them every day (IIRC they've already been evoked in diverse places), but everything can't be perfect immediately, so I'm doing my best under the present constraints.Hauck 06:48, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I expect then that when I entered this book, I made one of the mistakes: (1) Created it, forgot to change it to Italian, went back and changed the book, but not the contents; or (2) Created it in Italian, but didn't add the contents until later. Either "error" seems possible. And it doesn't seem that's the way the system should behave. I'll do some searching in the "Bug Reports" and "Feature Requests" to see if fixing those behaviors is in there. If not, I'll add them. Thanks for figuring out what was going wrong! Chavey 02:11, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
This is Bug 3479684 and on my list of things to fix once I wrap up my current project at work. The project will be finished on March 29, then I need to catch up on my sleep (48 hours would be nice) and then I plan to attack these bugs. Ahasuerus 02:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Mass change in a publisher name

It's possible, as a moderator, to edit the publisher name of all the publications from any given publisher in a single edit, without having to change each individual record. Click on the publisher's name, then choose "Edit This Publisher" under the editing tools menu. I would not suggest doing this if there are any primary verified records in the group without first talking it over with the verifiers. Mhhutchins 04:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I thought I had tried that before, and it didn't work, but that must have been some error I made. Chavey 04:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Other than the caveat about changing verified records, you have to remember that the edited publisher record retains its ID number, and you may have another publisher with the identical name but with a different ID number. Those will then have to be merged, but that can only be done if the names are exactly the same. Mhhutchins 04:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Just tried that with "Vertigo", after verifying that all of the titles by that "publisher" were from the imprint of DC Comics (and that none were verified), and it worked just as it should :-) Chavey 04:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Donor by Robinson

Can you confirm the publisher given in this record? Both Forge and Tor are imprints of Tom Doherty Associates, and neither are imprints of each other. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 22:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Same situation with this record. Mhhutchins 22:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Corrected. They were both "Forge". Chavey 20:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Red Moon and Black Mountain

For this verified pub I added some notes and changed the pagecount from 244 to xii+244. Thanks, --Willem H. 19:09, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Merril's Shadow on the Hearth

I saw your message about updating the notes of this record. Would you be able to do a larger, higher resolution scan of the entire dustjacket and email it to me? I want to create a cover for my jacketless copy, and I promise not to make it so good that I'd be able to sell it as an original. :) Mhhutchins 18:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll take it down to my office tomorrow so I can do it on the scanner there. It's a really nice copy of the DJ, with just some minor flaws on the spine. Would you like a copy of the title page, with Judith's signature :-) [As you can guess, I was very pleased to get this copy!] Chavey 19:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

A fun day at the ISFDB

A good day. I received an email from a researcher who had heard (somehow) that I had identified, and written a bio of, the "Tremlett Carter" who wrote the 1895 book "The People of the Moon", so I directed him to the ISFDB pages I wrote for his biography, and the evidence for his identification. Then I got to verify a 1st edition of Judith Merril's first anthology in the "Year's Best" series (from a Gnome Press file copy, no less). And I finished the evening with verifying the 1st edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A fun day. Chavey 08:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That is a good day! Kevin 02:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

M. S. Waddell

When you have a free minute, could you please review this discussion? The fact that M. S. Waddell and Martin Waddell appeared in alternating "Pan Books of Horror Stories" (as pointed out by P-Brane) may be sufficient circumstantial evidence (in addition to what Vault of Evil and Pan Horrors claim) to link the two authors. Ahasuerus 00:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Turning Schwartz into Black?

Just joking! (Schwartz is nearly the German word for black). But I'd like to turn Schwartz into Shwartz in your verified pub.. See this question about the background of my suggestion. Would this be okay for you? Stonecreek 06:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

There have been some occasions when Susan's name has gotten spelled wrong, so I need to check whether this is such an example, or just a mistake. It will take me a couple of days to get to that particular book, but not too long. Chavey 01:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Non-genre titles

I see that you have created Bug 3528720. Unfortunately, it's a design limitation: at this time we only support "non-genre" novels. All other types of non-genre titles -- collections, non-fiction, short fiction, etc -- have to be entered as "collections", "non-fiction" and so on. The right way to address this problem would be to create a new field in the Title table where we would store a flag determining whether a title record is "GENRE" or "NONGENRE", but that will require a fair amount of work... Ahasuerus 04:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I recognize that it's a design limitation, and that it will be a while before it percolates up to being very high on the priority list. But I still think it deserves to be on the list of hoped-for capabilities. Chavey 11:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh, sure, it's certainly desirable! But as long as it is a "hoped-for capability" rather than a bug, we probably want to move it to the "Feature Request" tracker :-) Do your user rights on Sourceforge allow you to move tickets between trackers? If not, I can do it with a single click. Ahasuerus 15:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
The reason I had this listed as a bug is because there is no link from a Non-Genre publication to the title record that contains it. And while adding the NONGENRE feature is one solution to that problem, it's probably not the only solution. But the fact that a (certain type of) publication record cannot contain a link to its title record seems like an honest bug. Chavey 15:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Here is how it works internally: the publication display script scans all title records in the current pub, finds the first title whose types matches the type of the publication and links to it. In this case there is no match, so no link is displayed.
Since the NONGENRE title type is currently limited to novels, it looks like the software is working as intended, we'll just need to change the pub type to NONFICTION and the link will reappear. Ahasuerus 01:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
So I take it that the workaround is that a Non-Fiction, Non-Genre book should be listed as "Non-Fiction", with a Note that it's Non-Genre? Chavey 01:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Exactly! The same workaround can be used for non-genre collections and other non-genre books that are not novels. Some editors have been known to add suffixes like "(non-genre collection)" to titles, but that's not ideal. Ahasuerus 03:58, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Reviews

BTW, did you notice my explanation of reviews over on the Help Desk? Ahasuerus 05:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes I did; thanks. It seems that help page needs some substantial revision. But at least now I understand the intent of that odd section. (Even if only momentarily :-) .) Chavey 11:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Ayn Rand's Anthem

Following ISFDB standards for stand-alone publication of novellas, I changed your verified record to a CHAPTERBOOK and added a SHORTFICTION content record. Mhhutchins 13:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Good call. A verification from before I understood ChapterBooks. Chavey 13:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
No prob. All of the pub records were entered as novels, and I converted them all. Mhhutchins 14:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Star Man's Son

Can you confirm the publisher's name as given in this verified record? Before the company merged with World Publishing in 1960 it was known as Harcourt, Brace & Company, which became Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1970. In the early nineties "Jovanovich" was dropped from its name and it became just "Harcourt Brace" (no comma). Your record is now part of those listed with this later incarnation. I'm assuming it should be with other 1950s publications grouped with this earlier company. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 05:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. It's officially "Harcourt, Brace and Company", and I hadn't noticed the distinction between that and "Harcourt Brace". Since the name with "and" spelled out isn't one of our existing publishers, I corrected the publisher to "Harcourt, Brace & Company". Chavey 12:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

In Conquest Born

I've uploaded and linked the full image of this record's cover art, and added more notes. Do you know the source that said the cover image was reversed on some copies of the first printing? Mhhutchins 00:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

No, it wasn't me. My cover looks the same as yours. Chavey 03:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps [this] is the image referred to? --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Psion

Added the Author's Introduction to the contents, Roman Numerated pages to the page count, notes and a new image to [this]. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Zelerod's Doom

I've corrected the interior art credit for your verified pub from "Gain Bennett" to Gail Bennett: it's barely visible in 4pt type, but it's there. Also notifying DESiegel60 (P1). Cheers. PeteYoung 17:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Binary Star No. 4

Please see [this] discussion. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Henderson's Pilgrimage

Can you confirm that Hector Carrido is credited with the cover art in your copy of this title? My copy of the 11th printing has the same art (different cover design), but is not credited. Also, my copy doesn't give the subtitle ("The Book of the People") on the title page, just the front cover. Does yours? Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 18:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the cover is credited to Hector on the copyright page. The title on the title page of this edition is just "Pilgrimage". The cover includes "The Book of the People", and my first Avon edition has that subtitle on that title page, but this edition doesn't. I corrected the title (should we make a VT?), and added a note about the cover credit. Chavey 00:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Technically, yes. But I'm a little lenient when it comes to subtitles like this (I never make variants for subtitles that are just a statement of the series, e.g. "The Eighth Novel in the Neverending Series, or At Least Until the Buying Public Realizes They're Being Ripped Off Because the Paucity of My Creative Imagination Has Become More Evident With Each Volume".) I'll give your edition as a source for the cover art. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 00:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you, and prefer somewhat more use of "The Pub title doesn't have to be the same as the Title rec" and somewhat less use of long lists of VT's. Chavey 00:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I can always use that to support my decision. I'd never thought of that one before. Mhhutchins 01:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Dreams of the Raven

Just added/cloned a record for the Canadian edition of [this] which contains an excerpt not noted in the record for the US edition [it may not be there, but ...] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

New Worlds 9

New image, expanded the notes and added one missing piece of interior art to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Twisting the Rope

I've added the subtitle which appears on the title page of this edition and added further notes. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The Bloody Sun

Replaced the amazon scan and added an interior art piece to [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

A Place Beyond Man

Scanned a new image and added an interior art piece to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

DAW Collectors publication series

I've added a reply to your comment at User talk:Marc Kupper#DAW Collectors publication series. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Fury

Added the price to [this], source Tuck. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Dorothy Daniels

I've added a comment to Author talk:Dorothy Daniels. --Marc Kupper|talk 16:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Priestess of Avalon

The maps in this record should be treated as "uncredited". The "courtesy of" notice doesn't imply creation, only permission. And personally, I try to avoid any corporate credits as much as possible. Mhhutchins 18:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Corrected. And I agree with you about corporate credits. I think these notes were from earlier in my "career". Chavey 18:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Janus #1

I've corrected the spelling of "Dhalgren" (was "Dahlgren") for its review in Janus #1, and linked the review to the title... also, in case you don't know already (you probably do) the complete run of Janus/Aurora is now up at SF3.org here, the majority as PDFs. I expect I'll be working my way through indexing these in the near future. PeteYoung 04:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I know those are posted. I've been working with the editor (Jeanne Gomoll) for the last year on getting those ready to be posted. We had dinner together a few weeks ago while planning strategies for contact the contributors to get permission for posting the issues. A few things had to be blacked out from contributors who didn't want their writing to be online. I have the originals, which I was working from, and she's giving me some additional data about the issues which I still have to enter on the main page. What you might not know is that she's been trying hard to get all of these posted in time for the announcement that she's the fan GoH for WorldCon 2014 (for founding Janus, WisCon, and the Tiptree Award). Chavey 04:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not on the Loncon 3 committee although I have several friends who are, and because I've been doing some assisting on the website design I knew she was to be fan GoH but had to keep it to myself until the announcement. Glad she finally got them up... plenty of good reading there! PeteYoung 12:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Jeanne's pretty happy that she can finally talk about it too. People would ask her "What's new?", and she'd have to think about something else to mention. By the way, another reason for Jeanne's push to get these available online came from Roxanne Samer, who's doing her Ph.D. research on the early feminist SF zines, and hence volunteered to do all of the scanning of the Janus/Aurora issues. I have a partial collection of the first such zine, The Witch and the Chameleon, and scanned those issues for her. But her work with Janus/Aurora made it possible for Jeanne to take on the task of getting everything online. My wife is a professional at locating people, so she got involved in the process of finding contributors to get permissions to put their contents online. The "Google compromise" means that we have to make a good faith effort to find all of the contributors, and delete content if the contributors object (two people so far). And we must make it possible for contributors we haven't located to see these and ask for their content to be deleted, but we can post the contents until then. The net effect is that a year from now we may have some other contributors who have asked Jeanne to remove their contributions, in which case future online versions may have slightly less content than those there now. Summary: If you want those pdf's, download them now instead of bookmarking the site :-) Chavey 14:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Caldwell's Your Sins and Mine

I don't believe the date as given in this record is correct. Publishers did not start using the SBN assigned publisher codes (445 for Popular Library) until the late 60s. And the price of 60 cents for such a slim volume in 1961 is not in line with other prices for that period. The OCLC record you cite as a source for the year is also probably wrong. Is your copy part of the Popular Giant series? Mhhutchins 04:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

You must be correct. I looked at Biblio.com for first edition books from Popular Library that had photos, and looked at 100 book each from various years up to 1966. From this research, it seems that they began using SBN's in 1966. Going back to my book (which is not part of the Popular Giant series), the ads in the back of the book were for Popular Library editions of some Thomas Costain historical novels, which didn't exist until 1964. I've updated the record for the book, with an "0000" date, and a note about some of this, along with a conjecture that it's a 1966 publication. Chavey 13:52, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for zeroing out the date. Looking at the list of Popular Library pubs on the ISFDB, it appears that they didn't use the SBN code until 1970, so your book may be later than you might think. Mhhutchins 17:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Valente's Guide to Folktales

Can you confirm that this book doesn't have an ISBN-13, and only has the ISBN-10? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 14:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Back cover, which was what I looked at, has only the 10-digit ISBN. The copyright page has both. I assume that means I should correct it? Chavey 15:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
If it has both, it's better to enter the ISBN-13 into the record. I would advise not using an ISBN printed on a back cover or dustjacket unless that's the only one in the book. The one on the copyright page trumps any other in cases where the numbers don't match. But there are exceptions, especially if the one on the copyright page is a misprint or an invalid number. ----
Corrected. I spent a few hours on the contents, including getting original attributions for things, and I think I overlooked some stuff on the copyright page. Going back, I added a note for the name of the cover piece, listed on the copyright. Chavey 17:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The Beast Master

Added an image and artist credit [from the Ace Image Library] to [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Market Forces

I'm suspicious of this record for several reasons. The ISBN-13 did not come into wide use until 2007 (publishers were required after December 2006 to use it). Also, the price is very high for an ebook, which is the same price as the trade paperback of this edition. And the OCLC record that's been linked to the record doesn't give a publication date (March 2005), only a copyright date. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 22:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

You are correct. WorldCat gives both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, but does not say which actually is in the book. Amazon verifies that they used the ISBN-10. And on the price, I had misread the Amazon listing, which included both the Kindle price and the print price. Both have been corrected. Chavey 23:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Corrigans Homunculi

Hello, Darrah! I have added a ISFDB-based cover image to your verified pub and I also changed the month to July based on the listing published in the magazine I mentioned in the notes.

In addition I put the title into this anthology series, so that now the subtitle seems somewhat superfluous and out of sync with the other anthologies in the series. Would it be okay for you to shorten the title to just Mr. Corrigans Homunculi? Stonecreek 10:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Update look good to me. I changed the title as you suggested. Chavey 14:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Your question about "The Faded Sun" on my talk page

You asked a question on my talk page regarding the DAW Collector's Number on C. J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun. It's been a while since you asked, so I am responding on your own talk page. I hope the answer is still useful despite the long delay. The collector's number appears in my publication in three places:

  1. In the bottom-right corner on the front cover, together with the DAW icon. Have a look at the cover scan on the pub record to see what I mean.
  2. In addition to this, the same number and icon also appear on the inside of the front cover page, this time in the upper-left corner of the page
  3. Finally, the phrase "DAW Book Collectors No. 1143" is printed on the copyright page

Hope this helps, Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 11:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much, I appreciate the help. The common wisdom that the DAW number only appeared on the first printings seems to have been shown to be quite incorrect. Chavey 13:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Indeed :-) By the way, if you would like me to record DAW-specific attributes in a certain way in my pub notes, just let me know. So far I have been aware of only Marc Kupper's special interest in DAW (this page is tended by him), but I'll gladly help you or other DAW experts as well. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 14:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
It seems that there is some interest in the question of which DAW books are listed with the DAW publication number, and which are not. They have always done so with first printings, but not necessarily with later printings. As such, it's probably useful to add a note along with the DAW number as to whether the number appears on the cover, on the copyright page, both, or neither. As best as I can tell, the DAW number always appears on the copyright page after some particular date, and not on reprint editions before some date, but we don't really seem to know when that transition happened. So with later DAW printings, I would invite you to add a note such as I did with C. J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun. I don't think there's any need to get detailed about the locations of the DAW numbering, but whether it occurs on the cover and/or copyright page may be useful. Thanks, Chavey 19:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The Silverleaf Syndrome

Replaced the amazon scan and added notes [there were none] to [this]. Posted a Verification Request re the initials. --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! It's an older verification of mine, and I wasn't as thorough then as I should have been. Chavey 18:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The Spellstone of Shaltus

Replaced the amazon scan for [this] and added the artist from a signature [bottom left] with note. --~ Bill, Bluesman 05:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Gaskell's Strange Evil

Can you check to see if the publisher as given on the title page of this record is "E. P. Dutton"? I've started to separate those books published after the publisher became an imprint of the Penguin USA Group as simply Dutton, when previously it had the full name of E. P. Dutton. I'm assuming this 1958 edition gives "E. P. Dutton" as the publisher. Because it's been primary verified, I've not updated the record, but am asking you to do so, if the publisher as given in the record can not be confirmed. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I finally got into the storage boxes and found this. As you expected, although it says "Dutton" on the spine, the title page has "E. P. Dutton". I corrected the publication, and the publisher page for "Dutton" now has no entries prior to 1989. Chavey 09:30, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The same situation with this 1984 publication. Mhhutchins 03:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

FR 3585574: Allow "MAGAZINE" as title type in Advanced Searches

Re: FR 3585574, I believe the functionality is already available. The title type for magazine titles (as opposed to publication records) is EDITOR and you can use EDITOR as a Title Type in Advanced Search. Perhaps you were referring to the fact that Advanced Publication Search doesn't let you search by Publication Type (which includes MAGAZINEs)? If so, then this functionality was previously requested in FR 2833930. Ahasuerus 04:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Where I got confused, I guess, is that if I go to a standard book publication, e.g. here, it says it's of type COLLECTION, and that's how I would search for it, either as a pub or as a title. If I go to a magazine, e.g. here, it tells me it's of type MAGAZINE. It doesn't give me an option of going to a "title rec", so I assumed that the "Type" was "MAGAZINE". Certainly nothing there tells me that the "title" associated with this pub is of a different "Type" than the publication, and that doesn't seem to happen anywhere else. So, apparently, I was mislead into thinking that's how I should search. There is nothing on the Advanced Search page that would lead me to the correct way to search for magazines; there is nothing in the FAQ list about doing searches; and the Help page on Advanced Searches contains essentially nothing. So I guess I don't see how I could have figured out that to search for journals/magazines, I should use Type EDITOR. If appropriate, I'll gladly change that FR to "Users should be able to figure out from the documentation how to do a search for magazines." Chavey 05:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
The first thing that comes to mind after reading your explanation is that we may want to ensure that Magazine pubs are directly linked to their respective EDITOR titles :-) But yes, you are quite right about the underlying problem -- the Magazine/EDITOR mismatch is pretty much unique and poorly documented. A simple band-aid would be to add "(for magazines)" next to the word "EDITOR" on the "Valid title types are" line at the top of the Advanced Search page. Would that work? Ahasuerus 07:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
That seems like a reasonable band-aid; should lead the user in the right direction, without requiring solving the larger problem yet. Chavey 16:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Both done. And happy birthday! Ahasuerus 06:54, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for both :-) I hadn't thought about the fact that my name would now show up for a day on the front page. Chavey 07:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Dragon Wing

Hi. This title appears in this pub that you verified. I wanted to notify you that I submitted a change that fixes a typo in the title: Prevously it contained the word "Escerpt", I fixed this so that it's now "Excerpt". If you have the time could you please verify that this is really how the title appears in your copy of the book? Could you also please verify

  • The spelling of the cover artist's name on the copyright page: Is it "Parkinson" or "Parkenson"?
  • The "Music copyright" statement: Is the year 1990 or 1989?

I'm asking all this because I suspect that some of the errors discussed here have propagated to your pub by cloning. Thanks Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 18:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. I'm currently re-organizing my books, and am unable to find this one right now. I will get back with you as soon as I am able to locate it. Chavey 07:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Bug 3397761: Changing contents re-used a title display

Re: Bug 3397761, the current behavior (or at least the current intended behavior) is what we agreed upon back in 2009 when this question last came up. Prior to September 2009 it was possible to use Pub Edit to change Title records which existed in multiple pubs and that could wreak havoc in various ways. We then modified the Pub Edit logic to gray out any Titles that appeared in multiple pubs and "yellow out" any container titles, making them in-editable, which addressed the immediate problem.

So I guess the question is if you happen to remember what the "various oddities in the appearance of that title record" were. Did the software let you change a Title record that existed in multiple pubs (which would have indicated a bug)? Or did the changed Title record only exist in the pub that you were editing? Ahasuerus 06:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

That was a while ago, so my memory is hazy. But I think that what happened was that the fields that weren't given new data (so they looked empty), ended up inheriting the values of the fields from the old record. Chavey 06:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Hm, I am trying to recreate the problem (as I read it) on the development server and I don't think I am seeing what you are describing. For example, if you edit this pub, scroll down to the Content section and blank out the value either of the Title field or of the Author1 field, the submission will be rejected. Do you recall any additional details of the oddities that you saw? Ahasuerus 07:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I went to that test book you link to above. I added a short story as a content item. Then I went to that short story and added a synopsis and a web link to go with the short story. That's the initial scenario. Then I carried out the action of the bug: Went to the book and changed the title & author of the short story as if I were replacing that content item with another. Then I went to that short story. Instead of seeing a blank slate (other than the new title and author), it had inherited the synopsis and web link of the previous story. That's the behavior I was referring to. Chavey 14:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I see. <ponder>. I think the problem is that there are really two separate use cases here. In the first case a user is making cosmetic changes to a Title record in the Content section, e.g. "Robert A. Heinlein" instead of "Robert Heinlein" or "The Roads Must Roll" instead of "The Roads Must Role". When this happens, we want to preserve all other data associated with the Title record. The other use case consists of the user replacing a Title record with a totally different Title record, so we would want to blank out all of that Title's associated data.
Unfortunately, I can think of no way for the software to tell whether it's dealing with the first or the second use case. I guess we could disallow editing ALL titles when editing pubs, but that seems like overkill. We could also add a JavaScript pop-up notifying the user that Title data has been changed and asking whether to proceed anyway. Would that work? Ahasuerus 02:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
I think the pop-up could work well enough, if worded carefully. Instead of saying "The Title data has been changed", I would suggest asking something like "The Title Mary Poppins Goes to War will be registered as a minor variant of Mary Poppins Comes Back. Was that your intent?" Chavey 08:03, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
But changing a Title record wouldn't create a variant, right? It would simply change the title's title and/or author(s). Ahasuerus 08:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, my wording isn't right either. But as I understand it, this is an appropriate way to get the phenomena seen regularly: A publication that doesn't quite match the title record, because it has some slight variation that isn't sufficient to create a VT. (If I'm wrong, and this is actually changing the root title record, then this is a worse bug than I thought: Someone who thinks he's just changing the contents of one anthology would change the name of that story in every other publication it was in.) If I'm right, and this is just creating a publication that's a variant of the title, then this is what I mean, informally, by "a minor variant". Chavey 08:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
If a Title record exists in multiple pubs, then it will appear greyed out and the editor won't be able to change it. My Heinlein examples were probably poor because pretty much all of Heinlein's works have been reprinted. Here is a more realistic scenario: Fixer submits a new pub, but you notice that the author's name is missing her middle initial and the title is missing an article. You approve the submission, then pull up the new pub in Edit Pub in order to change the title and the author's name. The way the software currently works, it lets you make your changes to the Publication record and to the Title record at the same time -- because the Title record exists in only one pub. Ahasuerus 09:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I realize that this is, more-or-less, the correct way to go--force the user to delete bad contents and add the new. And with more experience, I wouldn't do things that way any more. But if it's not too hard, it would be nice for the system to be able to recognize when someone was trying to do that and take some more appropriate action. "More appropriate" might be to warn the user that they're taking dangerous action and really should ..., with a "Go ahead anyway" option; or it might be to erase the previous data from the record (if my memory of the problem is correct). I'm not sure. It just seems there should be a better way to respond to this problem. Chavey 06:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Dutton

Your two pre-1990 records are the only ones that remain that credit Dutton as the publisher. As requested in this message, please take a moment when you get the chance to see how the publisher is credited in your copies. Thanks. 14:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Beauty's Punishment corrected. Strange Evil is in storage, and I'll look for it in a bit. Chavey 15:23, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Cover artist identified

My copy of this title has the artist's signature at the bottom, but it is mirrored! It may have been cropped from your copy, so I replaced the note about there being no visible signature. Mhhutchins 17:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I uploaded a scan of the cover of this book, and speculate about who the artist may be. I can't find a signature, but perhaps you have a keener eye. Mhhutchins 17:25, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I asked Somtow over on Facebook, he confirms it's Don Maitz. PeteYoung 10:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
FB to the rescue! God job. Chavey 13:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming my educated guess, Pete. I'll update the record with the author as the source for the cover credit. Mhhutchins 17:21, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Interview entry standards

When entering an interview, you should enter the canonical name of the interviewee regardless of how it is given in the actual interview. The title of the interview is still entered as stated. So this review should give "Clifford D. Simak" as the interviewee. Also, about the format used to enter the letters in this publication record: Unless each letter is titled "Letter to the Editor", they should be titled in the format "Letter (<Publication title>)". Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the corrections. Will do. Chavey 08:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Janus, June 1976

Can you look at the review for "Perchance to Dream" in this issue and determine if a review record is necessary? I can not find any evidence that the title was ever published. Perhaps the essay record will suffice. I'm trying to get rid of the publess author (Jack Stuart) that this review creates. If it is a work of spec-fic, would you create a pub record for it? Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:14, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

The story was published in "Tales", V.3, #1, Summer, 1976. This appears to be a small circulation journal, i.e. WorldCat has only two records of it: OCLC 17268315 at the NY Public Library, and 35012274 at Iowa State. (At least I think this is the journal; the journal had a P.O. address in St. Louis, MO, but the OCLC records say this journal was published out of Syracuse, NY. I have a researcher trying to verify this for me.) According to the review, they were paying $125 per story (it was actually $25 per story), so they were a substantial magazine, but I'm guessing it's a non-genre magazine. I can't find almost no information on the magazine itself. In particular, it's not in Contento's general fiction magazine index. Not that it should make a lot of difference, but the review is about what a terrible story this is, and bemoaning that a "high circulation magazine" would pay good money for it. So I'm not sure what to do with this. Probably convert it to an essay, then add notes to the essay about what it is? Chavey 16:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, you already have an record for the essay, so it wouldn't be necessary to create another one. Is there a possibility that this may be a spoof? Mhhutchins 16:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
No, I really don't think so. The author spent way too much time on his essay for that to be the case, and he had several other contributions to the zine. I can go ahead and create a record for this along the lines of other stories in non-genre magazines. Chavey 17:09, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Go ahead, but only if you have a credible and verifiable source for the publication. But honestly, I don't see the point of adding a publication record for an obscure story by an obscure author in an obscure magazine that's only reviewed in an obscure fanzine by an obscure author. How many degrees of obscurity does it take to make a record pointless? :) Mhhutchins 17:32, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Since Janus was nominated for the Hugo Best Fanzine 3 times, I wouldn't call it exactly obscure, but I agree with your overall point. I guess I misunderstood your previous comment. So I'm not exactly sure what you're recommending. Convert it to an essay with notes? By the way, my researcher verified the journal issue, found 4 copies of it, and is requesting a photocopy of it, so I will have a "credible and verifiable source", if that makes a difference. Chavey 19:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
As I pointed out, there is already a record for the essay itself. It's not necessary to create a review record for a review contained in an essay unless the title is already in the database and you want to link the title record to the review. Mhhutchins 19:42, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
Review record removed. Notes added to the essay record. Chavey 19:57, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Slightly Behind and to the Left

This should be typed as a COLLECTION and not CHAPTERBOOK. The ISFDB definition of the latter: This format is primarily used for separate publications of a single work of short fiction. Mhhutchins 05:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch. (An old verification.) Corrected. Chavey 18:57, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Crisis on Doona

You have varified this book as complete. However, the Amazon image is not accurate (as stated in the notes). I have found an accurate image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdrummbks/5224377467/ I also have the first printing. I'll let you update the image as you are the primary varifier.--Astromath 15:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

We cannot use the image that you have linked to, because it retains copyright licensing to the photographer of that image. The Amazon image as used is flawed (as you note), but we are allowed to use it. To correct the flaw, we would either have to use the ugly low-res Amazon picture here, or else you or I would need to scan in our covers. At some point I'll be scanning in a few hundred books that I verified but whose covers ISFDB doesn't have, but that time isn't yet. If you're willing to scan in your cover, that would be appreciated. Chavey 03:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Get Off the Unicorn by Anne McCaffrey

I see that you are the primary verifier for this pub. I also notice that there's a watermark on the image. Does your copy have that watermark? Mine doesn't. If your copy doesn't have the watermark, shouldn't the image shown be replaced with yours? (Or mine if you want me to replace it.)
P.S. I've asked elsewhere what isfdb's policy is about watermarks on images are.--Astromath 02:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that copyright watermark. I was not the person who added that image, and when verifying it I had not noticed that watermark. (The ISFDB policy is that we don't use such images, unless we have express written or emailed permission from the copyright holder to use it.) I replaced that with an Amazon image of the book.
As an aside, when you're discussing a book like this, it would be very helpful if you would include a link to the book. There are 11 publications of that book listed, 5 of which are verified. So I had to go searching through them to figure out which was the publication that I had verified. Chavey 03:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about that. I'll do better next time.--Astromath 13:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Camber of Culdi

Please see this discussion. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Fires of Azeroth

Hi -- haven't been here in a while, but if you still want the answer to this question, I checked my copy and the number is on the front cover, in the yellow DAW=sf box. Mike Christie (talk) 13:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks much! The traditional wisdom that reprint editions didn't include the DAW number has now been quite overthrown, except for early reprint editions. I updated the notes a bit to record that data, in case it ever comes up again. Chavey 15:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Love and War

Re: DragonLance Tales Volume 3: Love and War
I believe that "DragonLance Tales Volume 3:" should be dropped from the title. No other book of this series (or any other DragonLance series) include anything like that. This is for the sake of consistency in the titles. Do you agree?--Astromath 13:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely. Since I saw some clean up that I wanted to do to the notes, I went ahead and made that change. (P.S. Thanks for adding the link.) Chavey 15:15, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A Fistful of Sky

Just checking to see if you have had a chance to review User:Ofearna's submission that would change your primary verified record? Ahasuerus 01:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I hadn't seen that. Looking at the submission, he doesn't seem to be changing anything about the record. Since it appears as a change to the notes, I suspect there must be some formatting change he wants to make to the notes, but I can't tell what by looking at the submission itself. I am unable to detect any change to the text itself. Can you tell what he's trying to do? Chavey 02:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Andrea Hairston's Griots of the Galaxy

You verified this pub which contains Griots of the Galaxy (shortstory) and this pub which contains Griots of the Galaxy (novelette). Is the latter truly an expansion of the former? Or are the same work? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:42, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

They are the same work. There was some modest editing between the "So Long Been Dreaming" version (short story?) and the "Impolitic!" version (novelette), but there were only changes in 4 or 5 paragraphs that I could find. What was really different was the number of words per page. Picking a random page, covering the same text, the former printing approximates to 22 pages of 450 word per page (9,900 words); the later is 37 pages of 286 words per page (10,582 words). Both are obviously in the novelette range (17,500-40,000 words). Locus called the first publication a short story, which is obviously based on the page count only. They are wrong. I suspect they are wrong about the length standing of a very large number of trade paperback stories, at least ones like this with so many words per page. I am re-evaluating all of the stories in So Long Been Dreaming based on my "words per page" count, and will correct this one and others. [Added: Only one other story changed to a novelette.] Of course that doesn't address the larger problem of Locus specifying story length by doing a page count. Chavey 03:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Beyond Earth's Gates

Hi, I just added cover artist Harry Barton for Beyond Earth's Gates cover of this Ace Double. Horzel 10:07, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Last Planet

Modified cover artist of this edition from Barton to Harry Barton. Horzel 14:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

LeGuin: typo or pseudonym?

Hello, Darrah! I came across this title, published in one of your verified publications. The right name would be Le Guin, of course. But where did the typo creep in?

It is listed as "LeGuin" in both the ToC and at the actual article. Interestingly, the article has a graphic signature from Ursula, where the spacing in "Le Guin" is obvious. But following our standard, I left it as "LeGuin" and VT'd the essay. Thanks for noticing. Are you correcting, or VT'ing, the two editions of "Die Erzähler" that are listed under "LeGuin"? I see you verified one of them. Chavey 21:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

And now for something completely different: I added some notes (and corrected the WorldCat error Gustav Lühhe to the canonical Lübbe) for the two publications of Der Stein der Keuschheit by Margery Sharp - never heard of the novel before. Is it recommendable? Stonecreek 20:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the publisher correction. I wondered about that name, and glad to see you correct it. I don't own the book, and haven't read it, but ran across its existence in an auction of Jack Cordes' SF collection. Checking up on the plot, it certainly seems to belong here, even though her more famous series, "The Rescuers", does not. The author is well-respected, and this book was reprinted many times (as indicated in the 15 English & German editions I posted, so I suspect it is an enjoyable little fantasy farce. I also suspect that I can predict the ending of the book just from the reviews I've seen. But I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point. Chavey 21:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Darrah, you might be interested in this discussion which took place several years back. Although it was never codified, it seems to have become the de facto standard that we don't create pseudonyms based on spacing in an author's name. It's too hard to determine if the space (or lack of one) was intended, or a typesetter's choice (most likely in error), or whether it was caused by "justification" of margins. I've seen cases where Le Guin's name didn't have a space and are recorded in the db using the canonical form of the author's name (such as early stories published in magazines). Just as we don't create pseudonyms and variants based on capitalization (e.g. A. E. Van Vogt) or lack of an accent (e.g. Philip Jose Farmer). Sometimes the hard and fast rule about recording credits exactly as given becomes a straitjacket. Feel free to start a R&S discussion if you think it's necessary. I see that you've created a variant for the title record but the name itself has not been made into a pseudonym, which creates a stray author. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:43, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
I did not know about that policy, but I heartily approve of it. I have corrected the record to reflect this, added the note, and once again Ursula LeGuin has disappeared. Chavey 16:21, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Cloudcry

Added a full cover scan and expanded the notes a little for [[1]]. The record had Richard Powers as artist but the credit in the book is to 'Dick'. Changed the record and varianted/merged. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:06, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The Christening Quest

Changed Artist credit for The Christening Quest to Kevin Johnson per copyright page, will make it a variant for Kevin Eugene Johnson. BungalowBarbara 06:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm holding the submission until Chavey responds. In cases where you are changing data in a primary-verified record, you should discuss it with the verifier before making the submission. (Most editors are content with simultaneous notification of submissions which add data.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:16, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Also added note about author name -- different on cover & title page -- per #The_Christening_Quest earlier discussion above. This is an addition and not a change. BungalowBarbara 21:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I have removed my hold on the submission to allow Chavey to handle it. Mhhutchins 06:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I won't be able to get to that book until Sunday, so I will verify the change then. Chavey 02:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
The change is fine with me. That left 4 Italian covers attributed to "Kevin Johnson". I found the English covers (by "Kevin Eugene Johnson") that they all came from, and made those VT's of their original art. So "Kevin Johnson" now appears as a proper pseudonym. Chavey 22:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, and good work with the Italian covers! 23:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Author mismatch

It appears that you may have recently made some changes to this publication record or its title record to make it show up on the author mismatch list (clean-up script). The author credit of the title record should match the author credit of the publication record. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 05:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The authors are pretty clearly credited on the book, so I don't know how the title and other publication record came to be "uncredited". I'm guessing that someone said "The editor of this 'anthology' is unlisted, so I'll put it down as 'uncredited'. But my understanding is that for dos books, such as this, we list both authors as the author of the dual book, as opposed to looking for an editor. Is that correct? Chavey 06:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes. The authors should be credited in ANTHOLOGY doubles, but it appears that this has been typed as a CHAPTERBOOK. The publication may be a chapbook, but it's not a CHAPTERBOOK. ISFDB standards would make it an ANTHOLOGY with two stories. Either way you decide to handle it, the author credit for the pub records and their title records should match. Mhhutchins 20:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I believe I have corrected the problems. Chavey 03:16, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Janus V3 #1

The review of Extrapolation on page 38 of this publication should be converted to an ESSAY record, as the ISFDB currently has no other way to handle reviews of periodicals. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, done. Chavey 02:30, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The Red Magician

Re: The Red Magician
The printing is not indicated in the notes. What printing do you have? I have the 2nd printing.--Astromath 04:27, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I added notes to this pub, including that it's a first printing. Chavey 17:19, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
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