User talk:Mskerstetter

Welcome!

Hello, Mskerstetter, 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:

• Help pages
• Field-by-field guide to entering new publications into the database
• Help:Getting Started
• What the ISFDB Wiki is for
• FAQ
• Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.
• Wiki Conventions - How things are usually done on this wiki.
• Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

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! Annie 19:20, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

N. K. Jemisin's books

I approved all 3 but made a few small changes:

• When the price is not specified as here, do not put "see note", just leave the field empty.
• We use "Orbit" for the UK Orbit and "Orbit (US)" for the US one - so I corrected that in the Publisher field.

As these were issued as a set, you should also add the complete set (as an omnnibus, then you import inside the 3 novels and the collection and all stories from it). I can assist with that if you need help and/or guidance. The results are here, here and here. I responded to you over in the Help page but if you have any additional questions, do not hesitate to ask here or over there.

Welcome again! Annie 19:25, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Annie, is clicking on the + tab and typing in here how I reply to you? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mskerstetter (talk • contribs) .

That starts a new conversation but it works as well :) Instead look next to the title of this conversation ("N. K. Jemisin's books"), on the far right side of the screen. there is a small Edit there. Click that. It will open the editor. Scroll to the bottom and type your message. You can sign using ~~~~. Annie 20:40, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Ah, thanks. Hopefully I'll learn quickly. I just submitted the collection except that I forgot to indicate hardcover format. Looking back, I think I was also supposed to put C in the Contents field. I'm still unclear about adding/merging/importing the contents as you mentioned in the Help Desk post. Do I sign off literally with just the four tildes or do I need to type in the surrounding html codes, the user id and date information? Guess I'll try the tildes now. ;^) Mskerstetter 21:09, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Nope, no need to add C - it will happen automatically. The Contents field is only for Omnibuses :) I fixed the format while approving and fixed the title - we normalize case (See the help page. Each field on the form has a small question mark - if you click it, we have a help page there).

It is just the tildes - they get converted :)

For the import. Let me explain with "The Awakened Kingdom". You go to the author page or use search to look for it here on the site. You find it here. See the number in the corner - 2734851? Note that down somewhere. Find this number for all stories in the collection.

Now go to the publication I just approved. here it is. Look on the left menu and find "Import Content" and click on it. It will open this page. As we will import individual titles and not all titles from another book, you need Option 2. Add the IDs we found earlier, one per line in there (the + sign opens new lines). Press Import Titles. Now you can add the page numbers and you can also add any additional titles that you cannot import because we either do not have them OR we do not have them under the exactly same title as they are in the book. And then submit and a moderator can approve.

Let me know if I can explain something more :) Annie 21:19, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Ok, that seemed clear enough. I gave it a shot and submitted the new information. Hope it looks right. Thank you so much for your help! Oh, incidentally, how do I get the tildes to put in Mike rather than Mskerstetter? Mskerstetter 21:40, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Any time :)

Change your "Nickname" in preferences :)

We cannot have a collection inside of a collection. So instead of importing the other collection, we import the contents of it. I fixed it after approving-- when you have a chance, update the page numbers of the stories.

If the set was sold as a SET and not just matching hardcovers, you should really add it is an omnibus as well and then import the novels, the collection (here you can) and then the stories as well. If you are not sure how, I can create the omnibus for you and then you can just verify? Annie 21:46, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Pages for the stories added. Yes, the four volumes were sold as matching number sets, but this is not the definition of an omnibus. An omnibus is a volume containing several novels or other items previously published separately. These are still separate volumes. Had the issuer chosen to do so, he could have sold the volumes individually. Mskerstetter 22:06, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

In the strict sense of the word- correct. But in this DB, we record Boxed Sets and any other sets as Type: Omnibus and a note explaining what it is exactly. So yes - this will be an omnibus here. And the fact that they can be also sold individually is why I approved you adding them individually - they exist as both. See: [1], the part "Boxed Set::

• Boxed sets. Boxed sets which have additional data elements (ISBNs, cover art, etc) not present in the individual books that they collect should be entered as OMNIBUS publications. Boxed sets which do not have additional data elements and are merely bundlings of pre-existent books should not be entered.

If this set has a limitation number and a box(?), it has additional elements so it gets added. If they do not have a box but are just a matching set, then no need to add indeed. Annie 22:14, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Well, there isn't a box, but they do each have a limitation page showing the number and the author's signature. So I guess by DB definitions, this is an omnibus. But dinner's ready, so it'll have to come later. Mike 22:20, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

If it is just the limitation page then not really an omnibus under our rules either so all is good - you really need a box or a common ISBN for the whole set or something like that for the paper sets to qualify. Thanks for clarifying - for some reason I thought it HAS a box. Bon Appetite! :) Annie 22:25, 6 June 2020 (EDT)

Hi Annie. So I scanned the covers, but I see an instruction limiting the size to 600 pixels a side. How does someone ensure the scan meets that limit? Incidentally, I submitted new, similar publications for each of The Broken Earth trilogy titles. Mike 14:54, 7 June 2020 (EDT)

Depends on the type of scanner you have usually - each has its own settings on the size of the scan. And if you are working on the image later, you can also resize there. Annie 16:14, 7 June 2020 (EDT)

The Pages question

Hello,

I moved your question to the Help Desk (here) and posted some initial answers. The Help Desk is the best place to ask such questions - while someone will notice the question on the other pages, it may take weeks or months - as they are not monitored and only a standard sweep for advertisements and weird edits via Current Edits will unearth it :) Annie 23:06, 9 June 2020 (EDT)

The imports

You are hitting two different new things at the same time so let's see if I can assist in making them less weird.

• When you import a complete book (what you had been doing with "The Saga of Pliocene Exile", it imports all internal works except for the container. For novels, the container is the novel itself. For collections, it is the collection. So when you do omnibuses like this one, each book is imported with two Import submissions:
  • The one you are doing which will bring in all maps and introductions and so on.
  • A second one, using the lower part of the Import screen with the ID of the novel only.
  • So if you want to import this book, you do the Book Import (Option 1) with ID 188157 and the Novel import (Option 2) with ID 1572 (for this). Then you do it again for the next book. :)
  • Alternatively you can import just the novels instead by just doing the second import.
  • We do not have a book to book link so we import the contents itself.
• Now you have everything inside but you have the number of pages of the individual books so the software has no clue how to order as it does not know they are not from the same numbering. This is where the piped order comes into play - you use an ordering number. So you do something like 1|1000 instead of just 1. This will show the first number but it will sort by the second number (so 1|1 will be the same as just putting 1). For omnibuses like this one, I would usually use |1000, |1001 and so on for the contents of the first book, |2000 for the second and so on to keep it easy.

See how I reordered here. I will approve your other imports and do the second imports and the reordering again. Let me know if you have any questions and/or concerns. Annie 13:38, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

All is approved and you can see the result. The third novel was imported from an edition with no maps an so on - was that intentional? Annie 13:45, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

Oy. My head hurts. Let's see if I can address all this.

• Last question first. No, I didn't "intentionally" fail to import the extra material. Looking at the book I imported The Non-Born King, it doesn't look like anyone included the extra material in the contents. I guess I'll have to do that. Once I do, will the extra material appear in the omnibus contents automatically? UPDATE: I have, I think, submitted a contents update for this, AND used piped ordering, I think! Take a look and see if I did it correctly.

Once it is approved, you will need to import again :) The import only links the titles that are already there. If you change the original, you need to reimport into the "copy". The good news is that the software is intelligent enough not to import the same title twice - it will skip the ones already inside. Annie 01:48, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

• That being said, examining the second book that was imported The Golden Torc, I see that the first of the maps listed in the contents is NOT included in the omnibus contents. Any idea why?

this one? It is already there because it was also in the first book. As we cannot import the same title twice you have options:

• Create a new interior art with [2] in the name and we can variant it.
• Use the publication note to explain that the map is in all the books (and add the page number).
• I would do the second... Annie 01:48, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

• Yes, I used Option 1 on the Book Import screen for my inputs. You say above that I should do both options. I don't understand why. What does the second one do that the first one doesn't? And you tell me what I CAN do, but what SHOULD I do?

The first one imports everything but what we call a reference title. So if you import from a NOVEL record, it will import everything BUT the novel itself. If you are importing from a COLLECTION, it will import the stories and essays and so on but not the COLLECTION itself. So in order to import everything in an omnibus, you want to import both the contents AND the reference title - thus the need for 2 imports - one with the publication ID (getting all but the reference/main title) and one for this reference title (with the title ID). Hope that makes a bit more sense. Annie 01:48, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

• As for the piped ordering, where does this happen? What input screen?

Where you do the pages inside of a publication during edit, clone, Add/New or import. So where it says 303 for example, you can use 303|1001 and instead of ix, you can use ix|1001. Annie 01:48, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

• Lastly, I still need to import The Pliocene Companion into the omnibus, so I'll try your dual import thing with it. However, I see that like The Non-Born King, nobody has put in its contents, so I guess I'll do that first. UPDATE: OMG, I've just looked at the contents. It's going to take me an hour or two to get all of this entered! I need dinner before I can face this.

Mike 21:01, 10 June 2020 (EDT)

It is fun, isn't it? :) Check other editions in the same list to see if someone did the work elsewhere -- if they did, you can import from there instead.

Let me know if I missed something - and/or if I can assist with anything more. Annie 01:48, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

A Pliocene Companion

I approved the edit but a few changes were needed:

• When the non-fiction contents is inside of a book/magazine and it is not an interview/review,we record it as an essay, not as a NONFICTION
• The pipes are needed only when there is a possible problem with the ordering. For paper books where you have the page numbers, you add pipes only if you have two elements on the same page. Once you import this into the omnibus, you should add them (although they will be |5000 and so on so it goes under the novels) :)
• We have a special section for interviews :) I created the interview records and removed the essays.
• Some capitalization changes: "As" is always capitalized, so is "Original".

The result is here. Please do not hesitate to ask anything that is unclear or voice any concerns. Thanks. Annie 04:01, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

Thanks, Annie. I saw the Interview section, but thought it applied to just standalone interviews rather than items in a larger book. Other things were puzzling too, such as a couple of the Interior Art items had textual descriptions accompanying them. I didn't know whether to list them as essay or art and just arbitrarily went with art. I suppose if I keep doing this long enough, I'll learn all this stuff. As for the capitalization, I just mimicked exactly how it appeared in the book. Hmm. Except Original. That was probably a typo.

• I have done your double import of A Pliocene Companion into the omnibus.
• I have "reimported" The Non-Born King.
• I have added the pub note about the preexisting map.

Do you think I've addressed everything and can put this stupid boxed set to bed??? Now I guess I get to tackle the Powers collection. Sigh. Why can't I learn this job with something simple? I nice stand-alone novel with no extra material? Noooo, I have to deal with complicated Jemisin, May and Powers oddities! Mike 15:43, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

I started with a translated novel with an author name in a different alphabet than the original. That is... fun as well :) We do what we can. I have the import on hold as it needs some added pipes in the pages - I will approve and fix in a bit and yes, we can call this one done. On the other hand, once you are done with those and you tried to add your first novel, it will be as if you are an Olympic champion and they asked you to complete with first graders :)

Interviews and reviews are always inside of the book you are adding, not about the books you are adding. :) If it shows up on PubEdit, it is for things inside of the book you are editing. We catalog publications- the titles always need to be inside publications. So an interview somewhere online cannot be added unless it is in an eligible publication :)

For the capitalization - we have house rules: see the section here. If you want, you can add notes on differences in the notes but it is usually an overkill.

For the art - if they are real art items and not cartoons, then what you did was probably right. For cartoons, we have a separate rule - see the same link above.

Have fun with Powers. Do ping me if you need any help or need to ask a question :) Annie 16:04, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

Dang, really? I still can't do anything without errors that need correcting? What pipes are needed? Mike 16:20, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

On the page numbers - as you are importing from a single book into an omnibus (which is really a boxed set), the page number of "1" will flow at the top of the list (as it is a single numbering inside of the record) while you want it at the top of the section for this part of the boxed set. When I submit the update, I will post here the update submission so you can see what I fixed. You are actually doing extremely well considering the material you are adding (and I am not sure if I am upset or happy that I did not see that Powers book when it was published) :) Annie 16:24, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

HAHAHAHAHA!! Are you a collector, too? I have to admit that it's a pretty stunning edition. And at over 11" tall, HUGE. I just uploaded a scan of the cover. I'm sorry there isn't another one available for you. I also have to confess that I'm also a sf book dealer and would love to sell you one, but alas, I only got one for my own collection! But when I die, I'm sure my daughter will sell it to you in a heartbeat. Mike 18:14, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

Powers Collection

Annie, I hope you see this. Am I importing Option 1 or Option 2? I guessing Option 2 using this as an example and specifying, in this case, page number 19. But I didn't want to get 20 titles into this and find I had done it wrong. Mike 18:36, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

If you go with title IDs (like this one), then yes - you use Option 2. If you find a collection that has the majority, you can use it for Option 1 but then you may need to do cleanup. So yes - use the Title IDs, Option 2 and you can submit more than one ID per submission - one per line (the + will open a new line) and then you add the page numbers on the next page before you submit. Annie 18:41, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

Dang, hit the wrong button. I've still got 7 more to import. Will get them in after this batch has been approved. Mike 21:19, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

You can have multiple imports in the queue at the same time - unlike some other types of submissions, these do not clash with each other. :) But that one is approved anyway Annie 21:22, 11 June 2020 (EDT)

Annie, I uploaded scans of the Powers collection and all 7 Jemisin's I've been entering. How long before they show up, or did I goof again? Did you see I posted to you at the end of the Pliocene section? Mike 00:23, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

You missed step two of the process with the images - they are now on the site but they are not linked yet. Once you upload a cover, you need to get the link to the image and edit the record of the book. See this explanation. Annie 01:57, 12 June 2020 (EDT)

Annie, a question for you. Please look at this listing. By it's own notes, it was published in hardcover form. However, it's listed as a chapbook. Why isn't it HARDCOVER? Mike 15:39, 15 June 2020 (EDT)

It is - you are looking at the wrong line of the record. Chapbook is the type (aka a collection of a single story (with some exceptions allowed)). Note that this is NOT the same as what the usual bookselling and bookproducing world call chapbook - this is a special ISFDB container allowing us to record single stories being published on their own. The format is "hc" - aka Hardcover. Annie 15:49, 15 June 2020 (EDT)