User talk:MartinStever

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Welcome!

Hello, MartinStever, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Stonecreek 01:27, 13 March 2018 (EDT)

Phases of Gravity

Hello,

I approved your Phases of Gravity submission but had to do a few changes:

  • We standardize publisher names and the UK Headline is saved in the DB just as "Headline".
  • When adding the GoodReads IDs, extract just the number from the complete URL. The external ID fields code will build the links based on the IDs - this way if a site changes the way they are creating links, we need to change this in only one place.

The result is Phases of Gravity. Do you happen to know what was the published price of this edition? Welcome again! Annie 22:21, 25 March 2018 (EDT)

Thanks for helping out the newb! I don't know the original price. I did look around for it.MartinStever
Any time :) If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask - and we all started somewhere - the DB has quirks that tend to look intimidating but are logical ones you know them.
If you do not know the price, leaving it empty is the correct thing to do - I was just making sure that you did not miss it. Thanks for adding this edition. Annie 23:57, 25 March 2018 (EDT)

The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

Hello, when you're changing data for a Primary verified publication, our etiquette requires you to check the matter with the PVs. I've put your submission on hold pending this. Hauck 16:29, 8 April 2018 (EDT)

That's not a good use of time. The correction of the PV's is minor. They have a page number wrong. I've got a copy of the book in question in my hand. The db is wrong. My other "corrections" were to add external connections that may not have been in place with the PVs entered their data. I'd rather allow the db (and the PVs) remain wrong then spend time corresponding wrt such a very minor correction. MartinStever
No problem, if you don't want to conform to our etiquette, you're free to do so just as you're free to find a more suitable and more worthy project for your time. For the time being, your submissions will stay on hold. Hauck 17:23, 8 April 2018 (EDT)

Message to the erring PV Some time ago you verified (according to the db) that in the 1982 version the novel started on page 5, when it starts on page 7--per the copy I hold here in my hand, having just reread it while on vacation. Page 5 has an interior illustration and page 6 is blank. The introduction, which is really part of the story, begins on page 7. I normally would just fix this, but Hauck insists that this change can only be made if there is a discussion with the PV's. Now I'm not really sure how to transmit such a discussion to make such a change--as there are two PVs. This statement was sent to the first PV appearing on the list of the page in question. Shall I copy it to PV #2 or does a discussion between the two of you take place?

There is sort of a logic breakdown here, however. If someone is detail-oriented enough to submit such a minor correction, the correction should be accepted. The alternative, which is that people who are detail-oriented like me, will only submit minor corrections that call for a dialog if they are not introverted and not conflict avoiders. Getting corrections only from ppl who are detail-oriented, not introverted, not conflict avoiders, and with some time severely limits the sources of corrections to a subset of a subset of what is already a small number of people, which ultimately reduces the accuracy of ISFDB more than does putting a PV(s)-check process in place for trivial changes.MartinStever

(answer copied from my Talk page to keep the conversation about the notification process in one place)

Thanks for the heads-up! I have checked my copy and it matches your description -- there is an illustration on page 5 with the body of the novel starting on page 7.
As far as our notification process goes, it was created based on our early experiences with editors unilaterally changing verified data. The main issue is that there can be many slightly different versions of the same book: US vs. Canada, subsequent printings, book club reprints, etc. Sometimes an editor may think that the book in his hands matches what's in the database, but, upon inspection, it turns out that he has a different publication. That's why we ended up implementing the current notification process. Although it's not perfect and sometimes cumbersome, it's been our experience that its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. Ahasuerus 18:58, 8 April 2018 (EDT)
In marketing we learn measuring causes of non-participation is difficult. Non-participation can be based on ignorance or choice. Has ISFDB done any surveying of users (who have gotten over the ignorance hurdle) to find out why they do or do not participate in editing?MartinStever
I don't think we've done any surveys, but we have received a certain amount of feedback over the years. A number of occasional contributors have found our data entry rules to be too complex, so they just e-mail us new data whenever they come across it.
I should add that it's an issue that other bibliographers have had to deal with over the years. Back when we started this project, we hoped that we would be able to avoid it, but, alas, no such luck... :-( Ahasuerus 21:03, 8 April 2018 (EDT)

As I'm (as usual) playing the bad cop here, a few comments :

  • MartinStever says s/he's "detail-oriented", that may be true but his/her number of contirbutions is seemingly below 10 (as per here) so we can't be sure of that. Note also that's not because someone is "detail-oriented" that his/her edits are bibliographically (or ISFDBly) correct.
  • On the choice of the page number, I wrote elsewhere: "even if the publication is not a magazine, the page number "5" may have been chosen in accordance with this part "Exception for works which have illustrations preceding their title pages - If a magazine presents artwork for a story or essay preceding the piece's title page, and it is apparent that the art accompanies the text, the starting page of the story or essay should be the page number of the artwork which illustrates it. If you're creating content records for both the work and its illustration, they would have the same starting page. (See "Sorting" below for multiple works appearing on the same page.) If there is no indication that the artwork is related to the text on the succeeding pages, and no indication in the table of contents that it illustrates the work, then do not count it as the first page of the work. " of our guidelines.".
  • On the moderating process and having some experience of it, I can say that a change (vs. an addition or a phrase in the notes) of data is never innocent and usually means (in decreasing order of likeliness) :
That there is an error in the entered data, this needs to be corrected but the "wrongdoer" would surely be happy to be notified of the fact, for example in order to correct his/her own private database (most of our book-hoarders maintain a parallel system of cataloguing their books, with varying levels of details).
That the persons involved have a different interpretation of which value has to be put in the modified field (e.g. the discussion about what is a "pb" for germans, or in this case, the page number to enter).
That the persons involved are speaking of a different book (different printing, BCE...).

In all these cases, communication is necessary not only for the sake of politeness but to attain the best level of bibliographical correctness. Nobody, even persons with limited social skills or self-proclamed "detail-oriented" are to be exempted of this mandatory dialogue. We've had in the past a contributor with mild asperger's syndrome and this rule also applied to him. Hauck 03:56, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

Nicely put! This question seems to come up often when dealing with submissions created by new editors, so we may want to add a shorter version of this answer to the section of the FAQ which covers changes to verified publications. Ahasuerus 16:02, 9 April 2018 (EDT)

--- Hauck, I appreciate the laugh. Insights from you on politeness are a lot like Gérard Depardieu's dieting advice. :) Certainly a change of data can be innocent, just as one can make an innocent error, and similarly a change of data can never be guilty. Someone who makes an entry error is not a wrongdoer, but someone who has made a mistake. A wrongdoer is someone who is either dishonest or criminal. So while you may consider yourself one "bad cop," no one is committing any crimes. People who volunteer their time and attention are nearly always well-intentioned. I will be mentioning to my staff that someone online questioned whether or not I am detail-oriented, which will give them all a laugh as well.

Happy to have provided you with your daily laughter dose, you should try this more often. Note that I didn't question the fact that you were "detail-oriented", as I strictly don't give a damm about it. I just pointed the fact that after less than 10 submissions, proclaming yourself a "detail-oriented" person is not a reason to issue a blanck check to you. Note also that, as I'm not an english speaker, mocking my choice of terms may be viewed as quite "facile" (but I saw that you get my meaning).

I am curious that "for works which have illustrations preceding their title pages," how do you deal with novels that have an illustration on an unnumbered page preceding a story? (I note the rule Hauck cites specifically says it applies to magazines and does not mention books, but perhaps Hauck's authority includes the ability to expand the rule.) I have many novels which include an illustration in the pages preceding the numbered page 1. If the story starts on page iii, because that's where the illustration is sitting among pages i through viii, and as such is preceding the story, and because it must illustrate the one story within the book, does not the numbering rule as interpreted by Hauck cause more confusion that it resolves? A book would be recorded as viii+232 pages long, but because the illustration (and therefore story starting page per this interpretation) is iii, the story is recorded as 238 pages long, with 5 of those pages containing neither illustrations nor story text.

Well, congratulations to have independently discovered that the rule that I've evoked is only peripheral here (note that I wrote even if the publication is not a magazine). In this case, as I usually do not enter such data, I was trying retroactively to understand why someone (another detail-oriented person?) entered this precise page number. Again, note that I usually don't give a damm about page numbers for novels.

Applying the rule as it is currently written, only to magazines, makes sense as it avoids just such problems.

Or is this rule Hauck quotes meant to read "for works which have illustrations immediately preceding their title pages" for books, magazines, and all works? (If that's the case the rule certainly should be rewritten, as that's not how it reads.) If the rule Hauck cites is meant to convey the idea that illustrations that "immediately precede" a story, rather than "simply precede," then in the case of The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, there is an illustration, a blank page, and then the story. The illustration does not immediately precede the story, as Ahasuerus confirms above.MartinStever

Go ask this to the persons that wrote this rule, my authority here is nearly infinite but does extand into the lofty realms of R&S.
To close the debate (for me at least and on the amabilities front), there is ALWAYS a certain percentage of new contributors that can't accept our rules, can't accept a "No" or a "Wait" or an "Ask First" and that think that, on the ground that they are volunteers, everything that they submit is to be accepted immediately and without discussion. They usually spend more time making a fuss, crying and filling the wiki pages than contributing to our project. Having moderated more contributors' submissions than everyone else here and being frequently the one that deal with the first submissions, I'm quite used to play the target. Hauck 03:15, 12 April 2018 (EDT)

--HauckLet's get the sequence of events correct:

  1. I suggested a change.
  2. You said, "Tell the PV"
  3. I said, that's silly in this case; while at the same time I contacted the PV.
  4. The PV agreed with my proposed change.
  5. You inserted yourself into the discussion, with a silly interpretation of a standard. At the same time you chastised me for not following the policy of contacting the PV which I had just followed, see (3.) above.
  6. I questioned the standard that you used to trump the PV and my agreement, as your interpretation will certainly mess up the data if universally applied.
  7. Once again, you chastise me for not following the contact the PV policy...see (3.) above.

Could it be you're feeling like a "target" based on what you're putting out there? I've contributed thousands of edits to a few favorite wikis. As moderators go, you provide a unique experience.MartinStever

To clarify: the "R&S" mentioned above stands for the Rules and standards discussions page. Please keep in mind that we, moderators, do not come up with data entry rules independently. We merely apply agreed upon rules and policies. If you would like to propose a change to the rules, it can be done on the Rules and standards discussions page. If, on the other hand, you believe that a moderator is not interpreting a rule correctly, please post on ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard where other moderators will be able to review the issue. Ahasuerus 12:04, 12 April 2018 (EDT)

--Ahasuerus Thank you for these links and explanation. As a new contributor, I find the directions clear and helpful, where it wouldn't be all that easy to figure out without the guidance.MartinStever

The Dark Angel

Hello, and thanks for the update! However, I removed the publication series: most new editors are confused by the two types of series: 1) title series (where your suggestion belongs) and 2) publication series (a series that usually is used by one publisher only, like this one). Thanks, Stonecreek 02:17, 15 April 2018 (EDT)

Stonecreek Thank you. I'm concerned I've made some mistake that is leading to a problem with data integration. When I look at the story "The Dark Angel" as an example, it seems like the Dark Angel story in this book is not being pulled into the previous appearances of this same story. Any suggestions?
Well, I didn't saw that problem when editing your update. The system doesn't 'know' that a title has been published previously, so newly entered ones have to be merged (or varianted, if there's a difference in the titling) with existing ones. Now the easiest way is to go to the author's summary page, use the 'Check for Duplicate Titles' tool in the tool bar on the left.
Two other ways to avoid this would be to import titles or clone a publication (but that last option is only meaningful when a publication does exist that has identical contents); for both see the help pages for details.
I hope that helps. Stonecreek 07:19, 15 April 2018 (EDT)
Stonecreek Thanks, I went through and did the linking and added the one variant. It should be a learning experience.MartinStever

Entropy's Bed at Midnight

Hello Martin,

Why are you removing the OCLC number here? It is a valid one (here it is) and the book is OCLC verified which means that it should have an OCLC number as part of the record. Can you clarify your thinking here? Annie 20:25, 20 April 2018 (EDT)

Annie Sorry about that. I was taking the OCLC out of the notes, as I have a copy here and can confirm the quote with the changes in capitalization. I was going to add the OCLC to the external ids field, but hit submit. I figured to enter it as a fix once (if) the submission is approved. MartinStever 20:28, 20 April 2018 (EDT)
No worries. Approved and OCLC readded. Mishaps happen - we all had been guilty of that :) I was making sure that you are not dropping it on purpose. Thanks for the quick answer! Annie 20:32, 20 April 2018 (EDT)

Negative Spaces: Two Talks

Hello again,

Can you confirm that this book is indeed a pamphlet (a lightly bound book)? Is it stapled? I find it useful to always add a note specifying the exact binding of the book in such cases - less likely for the change to be reversed or misunderstood. Annie 20:30, 20 April 2018 (EDT)

Annie Yes, it is stapled. I can update the note.MartinStever 20:33, 20 April 2018 (EDT)
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