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)
Thanks for the confirmation. Up to you but I would add the note if I were you :) Annie 20:34, 20 April 2018 (EDT)

Moderator Notes

Hello Martin,

Remember the little talk we had on my talk page today about the change in your verified publication? :) In this submision adding a moderator note saying that you are moving the OCLC number and adding a GR number will allow Bob to know what you changed - what he sees is what you see in the record I linked above - so it is not clear what you changed in the notes for example or which of the IDs are new, if any were removed or changed. Thanks for adding the IDs! Annie 01:38, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic

Hello Martin, One small correction - when an author has a more than one initial, we add a space after the first dot - thus S. T. Joshi (I suspect that you were wondering why he appears as a new author) :)

Regarding your note: If you are editing a publication and you see a title name, date and author in grey and uneditable, that means that they are used in another publication as well. What you need to do is to go back to the publication record, click on the record from there and edit the title. I did the edit for the date here by editing this record because it was just a date change. When you do that, make sure that you want to change the record for every title in the list. If you need to change it only for your copy (because of the author or title being credited slightly different), you need to unmerge the title, edit it (once approved) and variant it (ore remove the title from your publication, add the new one and then variant at the end). But for dates - you just edit the record to the earliest one. Let me know if you have any questions. :) Annie 02:06, 22 May 2018 (EDT)

ThanksMartinStever 01:14, 23 May 2018 (EDT)

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Exhaustive Scholar's

Hello Martin,

I rejected your attempt to add the date of the first edition (which we have here) to the reprinted edition here. If you have any proof that the reprinted edition was printed in the same month, please share it and I will add the date. Thanks! Annie 03:33, 4 June 2018 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. I wrote the author an email to check on it. MartinStever 22:46, 4 June 2018 (EDT)

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Bibliography

Hello Martin,

I am temporarily holding this update on hold. As the publication is PV'd, the verifier had access to the site as well and chose not to use the publisher date. It such cases, the editors should really talk to each other before changes are made (I posted on Rtrace's page for you. In case they have a reason not to use the publisher site date, it can be stored in the notes instead. As soon as Ron responds, I will deal with the submission.

I know that some of our policies can be a bit maddening and I appreciate your patience in the matter. Secondary sources are sometimes wrong so we are very careful when a PV'd book is being edited based on information not in the book. Annie 14:36, 5 June 2018 (EDT)

Same for this change - thanks again for checking with the publisher but because of the unclear date (Jan or Feb), I'd like to have the (very active) PV approve the change beforehand. There is nothing you need to do on these two - I will handle them once I get the responses. Annie 14:42, 5 June 2018 (EDT)
I'm at a loss why the PV didn't bother to look at the readily available information on the publisher's website, in the first case. The publisher went out of his way to highlight the date of publication in a press release and on his web site. Bibliographers are funny about such things, yes? Would it be helpful in instances like this, when I'm trying to provide accurate information, if I put the webpage address into the notes to the moderator?
In the second case, I suppose the PV can write Bob as well. Certainly the date along with the author's quote highlighting the lack of clarity around whether a book came out in Jan or Feb of a particular year is better than 0000-00-00.
I appreciate that you're following up directly with the PV's on entry correction, but we disagree that a book's publisher or a book's author is a secondary source. My experience in publishing confirms that colophons are prepared based on expectations, while publishers and authors are the authoritative sources about what has really happened.
The policy is only maddening in that I've had at least one book "corrected" where I was the PV, in a way that I disagree with, and there was zero contact from the one making the correction or the moderator. In another case the PV agreed with me on a minor correction, and the moderator incorrectly disagreed with both of us. The policy certainly is a buzzkill. That written, I do appreciate your friendly demeanor. MartinStever 16:16, 5 June 2018 (EDT)
I do not disagree with your research - as I said - thanks for doing it. We need it done and we need the data and I suspect both the PVs will be fine with the changes. But as you had witnessed it, it is really annoying when someone changes your PVd books and makes the record worse. Mistakes do happen - and they are correctable but it is a thin line sometimes.
Putting the webpage in the moderator note is ALWAYS useful - saves the moderator the time they need to go and find it. Stopping by on the PV's page with a simple "Hey, see what I found. Do you mind me adding it to the record and changing the date" is also useful. For the case with the month, I would actually use just the year and add the note that it is either January or February but this is between you and the PV now. If we put -01-, someone not reading the notes may decide that we have the wrong data because they think it is -02- and vice versa. :). Either way works and yes, it is better than the 0000. Thus me holding and not just rejecting.
Thanks again for your patience and as annoying as it is, it is about protecting data.
When something like that happens (a book is "corrected" in a wrong way), feel free to post on the editor's page and ask - and if that does not help, come over to the Community forums. Sometimes it may need to be in a certain way because of conventions. Sometimes it is just a mistake. Mistakes do happen and sometimes it is a subjective decision on the moderator's part - is it small enough so that I can let it go through even without a check with the PV or does it need the PV's eyes on it first. The "Changed Verified" system is kinda newish and very helpful (before it virtually every change had to be communicated unless the PV had specifically asked not to be notified for certain types of changes) - now at least for small things we can use the new system. And if you add moderator's note, the PV can also see them when reviewing the change :) You will notice that I approved the rest of your submissions even if some of them were on verified publications. Thin line :)
As for secondary vs primary sources - if it is not printed in the book, it needs to be noted carefully and complete with sourcing. The publishers are usually reliable and we use their data (it is much better than Amazon for example :) ), I agree. Annie 16:35, 5 June 2018 (EDT)
To date I've only made edits when I have a book in hand. MartinStever 20:09, 5 June 2018 (EDT)
:) I hope that you are also verifying when when you have the book. It helps.
PS: One approved, one to go. Annie 20:14, 5 June 2018 (EDT)

(unindent) and all is approved. Thanks again for your patience. Annie 13:00, 6 June 2018 (EDT)

Fingerprints on the Sky: The Authorized Harlan Ellison Bibliography: The Fully Illustrated Reader's Guide

It does not really test our rules on small/capital letters at all (see this for another example) - although you are missing a space between the ellipsis and the next word. As per our help page:

  • An ellipsis should be entered as the sequence "period", "period", "period" without spaces in between the periods. If the ellipsis is in the middle of the title, it should be entered with a space after it, prior to the start of the following word.

I've added the space and change the "The" to "the". The result is here Annie 12:54, 6 June 2018 (EDT)

I'm glad you made those edits. I don't want to mess with Harlan's choices when it comes to the written word; he's particular and not afraid to share his opinion. :) Thanks for the references to the rule book. MartinStever 14:02, 6 June 2018 (EDT)
We regularize titles - if the author is very picky, we can add the title as typed in a note but we like the DB to look nice and ordered (and yes, things DO slip so sometimes it does not look so nice and ordered but oh well). The main reason is the number of variants we will need if we decide to have all titles "as presented". So rules are in place and we try to follow them. :) Annie 15:23, 6 June 2018 (EDT)
PS: If there is evidence that the author really really wanted that to be a capital letter, it can be changed and a note for the evidence added :) The space after the ellipsis though is still required :) Annie 15:31, 6 June 2018 (EDT)
The next time Harlan calls me, I'm going to ask him about it. MartinStever 11:19, 7 June 2018 (EDT)

Translation of "Micromégas" in The Folio Science Fiction Anthology

Does your The Folio Science Fiction Anthology provide any information about the translation of Micromégas? We have records for a couple of different translations of it, so I can't tell if it should be merged with one of those or stand as another. Thanks. --MartyD 22:47, 14 June 2018 (EDT)

I does not. It only reads, "First published by J. Robinson in 1752" MartinStever 23:02, 14 June 2018 (EDT)

The Folio Science Fiction Anthology

I'm holding your edit to The Folio Science Fiction Anthology. The date of "Micromégas" should be the date that the translation first appeared, not the date of the original French story. Does the publication specify the translator and translation date? -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2018 (EDT)

Never mind. I see the section above. I will merge this with the unknown translations. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:55, 16 June 2018 (EDT)

Resurrection Day (Complete Novel)

I have had to reject your edit to Resurrection Day (Complete Novel). This is how ISFDB handles novels within magazines. Even if the novel was published entirely in a single issue, it is entered as SERIAL. The "(Complete Novel)" is added to indicate it was a single installment. The serial record is then varianted to the novel record. I believe the rationale behind this is that often the magazine and book versions had minor differences. Your moderator note said "This novel needs some merging, as it's separately listed 3 or 4 times". As far as I can see, everything looks right as the differences are variants that are all properly varianted to the parent record. Was there something else? -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:20, 12 August 2018 (EDT)

This comes as a surprise, as what you've written above, JLaTondre, does not match the site's published instructions, which read: SERIAL. Use for a title that would otherwise be either SHORTFICTION or NOVEL, but which is being serialized. Include "(Part 1 of 3)" etc in the title of the work. Occasionally this will lead to odd situations. For example, Frederik Pohl's novel "Jem" was serialized in Galaxy; it was initially intended to be a four part serialization, so the first two parts were listed as "Part 1 of 4" and "Part 2 of 4". By the time the third part was printed, it had been changed to a five part serialization, so the titles of the next two parts were "Part 3 of 5" and "Part 4 of 5". In this case it makes sense to go back and change the title of the first two parts; a note should be added to the note field of the publication to make it clear what has been done and why, if such a situation arises. Note that all new SERIAL titles need to be turned into variants upon approval -- see Help:How to connect serials to titles for instructions. These instructions differ wildly from your direction above. How many moderators have written "This is no not who we do it," rather than just fixing the GD instructions so that they are accurate, clear, and precise?
It's this kind of random published instruction vs moderator disagreement that sucks the fun out of participating in ISFDB. MartinStever 15:24, 12 August 2018 (EDT)
There seems to be some confusion as those instructions do not contradict what I stated. It does not describe what happens when the novel is published in a single issue. Further up the Help:Screen:NewPub page, you will find "Magazines: Serial installments of a work are always given the date of the magazine in which they appear even if the work has been published previously in book or serial form. Novel length works (40,000+ words) printed as a single installment in a magazine are treated as serials and given the date of the issue in which they appear; the Title Type is "Serial" and the text "(Complete Novel)", preceded by a space, is appended to the title. See "Beyond This Horizon" for an example of a novel which was published as a multi-part serial, a book, and then as a single installment serial." It would be better if those two sections were tied together somehow (we are always looking for suggestions to improve the documentation), but my direction is consistent with the instructions. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2018 (EDT)
Sorry, JLaTondre, you are wrong. The instructions refer to fiction being serialized. What is the definition of "serialized?" "To arrange or publish in serial form." What are your instructions? To list a novel that IS NOT SERIALIZED as a serial because it says "over there" somewhere in the wiki where the powers that be at ISFDB have decided the ONLY generally accepted definition of "serial" does not apply to ISFDB. I'm not looking at "further up" Help:Screen:NewPub when I'm entering data. I'm looking at "Template:TitleFields:TitleType," which directly links to the entry pages via a question mark icon. That's where the instructions should live, following the map that's laid out--you know, those instructions I quoted? My method for entry followed those instructions to the letter. There's no confusion about that. Now, what are the instructions on this very handy page connected via a question mark icon for "type:novel?" "NOVEL. Used for a fiction piece of more than 40,000 words." Nowhere within the instructions for novel does it say "*look over there..no, further up..at this other page for how we decided 'novel' doesn't mean 'novel' at all." There is no such thing as a "single installment serial." It's newspeak. It's complete BS. It's right up there with 12-minute quarter-hour and 18-piece quartet for nonsense. It is the nonsense that sucks to fun out participating in ISFDB, which is a process of repeated expected contrition. "Well, I entered the data following the published, linked instructions, but because you think there's such a thing as a 'single installment serial' <god how I'm laughing at that>, I need to apologize, accept fantasy as truth, and admit I did it wrong when I used the standard English meaning of 'serial' as intended."
Do you guys ever wonder, "We've been around 20 years; why don't have an army of active participants, when this is a hobby that attracts fervent participation?" Answer: "single installment serial" and see page Help:Screen:NewPub.MartinStever
Back when we were getting ready to resume accepting submissions (2006), we needed to agree on data entry standards, so we reviewed the standards used by OCLC and other bibliographic projects. We thought that their rules were excessively complex and said "Surely we don't need that level of complexity! We can come up with simple common sense standards that anyone would be able to understand!" And so we proceeded to create our own standards, simple and logical.
Within a couple of years we realized that we had been wrong. The OCLC and other data entry standards were complex because they were intended to reflect real world complexities. As the scope of the ISFDB project expanded, we had to create more and more rules to account for more and more permutation and borderline cases. Our rules grew more and more complex. The rules for magazines are different than the data entry rules for books. The rules for non-genre magazines are different from the rules for genre magazines. Novel-length works published in magazines, whether serialized or not, present unique challenges and we have special rules for them -- see Help:Use of the SERIAL type. And so on and so forth.
This complexity certainly adds to the ISFDB learning curve. On the other hand, it also enables us to reflect real world complexities, which makes the ISFDB data more useful. It's a trade-off.
That said, we have also implemented many enhancements which have enabled us to make the process more straightforward. For example, early on we had a really ugly way of recording translations and no support for transliterations. Now we have a pretty solid and straightforward system. Similarly, the award system was rudimentary and not user-friendly. The current one is much better. Our support for non-genre titles was very limited, which led to odd data entry rules. Now it's pretty straightforward. And so on and so forth.
Still, the learning curve remains steep and there are many Help pages which could be improved. Thank you for pointing out that Template:TitleFields:TitleType doesn't mention the "Complete Serial" rules -- we'll correct it shortly. If you see other discrepancies, please don't hesitate to mention them. They are harder to notice once you have internalized the rules. Ahasuerus 23:47, 17 August 2018 (EDT)
The affected Help templates have been updated. Again, thanks for bringing it up and please don't hesitate to point out other omissions and ambiguities in the Help text. Ahasuerus 17:04, 26 August 2018 (EDT)
"They are harder to notice once you have internalized the rules." Ahasuerus, following my interactions with Hauck and JLaTondre, that will never happen.MartinStever 12:27, 10 May 2019 (EDT)

The Arkham Collector, Vol. 1

Sorry about the delay with this submission. The primary verifier, User:Rtrace is a moderator, so I assume that other moderators were waiting for him to review your submission. However, he is currently at the annual Worldcon and mostly unavailable. Since the submission didn't affect the data stated in the verified pub, I have accepted it. As per the request at the top of User talk:Rtrace, I have left a note on User talk:Rtrace/Changes to Verified Pubs. Thanks for contributing! Ahasuerus 12:45, 14 August 2018 (EDT)

A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter

Can you look at your copy of A Special Place: The Heart of a Dark Matter and check the "Dod Miller" credit? I have the Pegasus Books edition with the same cover that is shown in your verified listing but it lists "Michael Fusco" for both jacket design and photography. The cover shown in your listing is supplied by Amazon and is not a scan. It is the actual cover or did it get swapped out at some point? Thanks.Jim 18:06, 31 August 2019 (EDT) 

   Sorry Jim, because of the frustration created by some of this site's moderators and moderation policies, I am no longer participating in ISFDB.  Many of these frustrations should be clear from what's written above on this page. MartinStever 22:21, 8 September 2019 (EDT)
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