User talk:Orcax

Welcome!

Hello, Orcax, 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!Kraang 03:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, Kraang :). I'll be hanging around, this is the neatest tool I've found on the web in a long time. I'm currently updating my books database and isfdb is a wonderful help. Orcax 19:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The Revolving Boy

The ISBN you gave for The Revolving Boy seems invalid, can you check it again please? "0330025694" seems more likely. BLongley 21:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and we enter UK decimal prices as "£0.25" rather than "25p" for instance, I've fixed that for you though this time. BLongley 21:32, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Starship Death

Could you please re-check the ISBN on Starship Death which you just added? You entered it as "0 352 33169 X". I suspect it's 0-352-31169-X. Note, if it's stated wrong in the book then we'll add a note about this. Also, even if a book shows an ISBN using spaces we enter it in ISFDB using hyphens or all in one as in 035231169X. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You're both correct. Starship Death should be 0-352-31169-X and the Revolving Boy should be 0-330-02569-4. No spaces, check - I'll just be using the hyphens. And the £ notations. Orcax 10:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, both ISBNs corrected now. BLongley 13:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Harrison's One Step from Earth

I imported story contents from a previous printing of the title you submitted. Please check to make sure that all the stories are in your edition as well. When you get a chance you can add the page numbers. Also, is there some roman-numeraled pages as in the 1981 Arrow printing? Thanks. MHHutchins 23:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Have added the page numbers. Will this thing autosort? Orcax 00:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It'll autosort.Kraang 03:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Study War No More

Hi Orcax! I see you added this pub[1] without the contents. One of the easy ways of adding a new anthology or collection with contents is to find an existing publication and use the "Clone This Pub". Then change the date, publisher, page #'s, pub type(pb,hc etc), artist, etc. For the moment use this only if all the authors and titles are the same. Do not make any changes to the titles or authors names. By using the clone function the existing contents will be automatically linked. Try this pub again. You can leave any questions here or on the help page and someone will reply. Thanks!Kraang 03:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Looked for an input for contents, but there didn't seem to be any. But entered a collection today without that problem turning up, so I probably overlooked something.

Got another question: when using the command "embed file", does that file/picture get stored locally here on isfdb? Or do you have to link out to a host? Orcax 02:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

That's right, if you use the Upload file link in the toolbox on the left, the image will be stored locally -- see Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki for details. Ahasuerus 02:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Five Fates

This is a tricky case since Laumer wasn't credited as editor in most (all?) editions of this anthology. Does your edition credit him explicitly or did you get this information from Clute/Nicholls or some other secondary source? In the meantime, I have used Clone Publication and re-entered your pages numbers to create this record. Thanks! Ahasuerus 02:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's kind of borderline. All the authors are actually listed on the binding/spine, Laumer first. But the copyright line reads:

Copyright (c) 1970 by Keith Laumer.

I figure if he gets the money, he's the titleholder. Orcax 03:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, copyright can be misleading due to "work for hire", ghosting and all kinds of other things. However, in this case Clute/Nicholls concurs, so I have set up a variant title to point to Laumer and the world is a better place now :) Thanks! Ahasuerus

Oh, and my book catalog program/database lists Laumer as author. This is basically an app that takes a list of isbn's / lccn's and goes around to a bunch of libraries and retrieves information in the course of storing your book data. You can find it here:

http://www.fnprg.com/bookcat/index.html

There's probably a bunch of these things out there, but this guy lives along the stretch I used to drive back in the days I drove 100 miles to work each day. Orcax 03:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Right, there are a number of vendors that sell similar products, with Bookwhere, which allows you to download records from 2,000 libraries, leading the pack in terms of coverage. We have similar robots (User:Dissembler, User:Fixer) which grab data from Amazon.com and other sources. Also, there are aggregate catalogs and search engines (see Sources of Bibliographic Information), which let you search multiple catalogs online, as well as OCLC, which has a "union catalog" of thousands of libraries. And to think that just 20 years ago you couldn't even connect to the catalog of the Library of Congress! :) Ahasuerus 16:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Woman on the Edge of Time

Woman on the Edge of Time is showing a bad check-sum, can you check again please? I suspect it should be 0-7043-3837-8 like the other Women's Press edition. BLongley 15:33, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

You're right, it should be 0-7043-3837-8. I'll fix it. Orcax 11:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, approved. BLongley 15:15, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Future History

I approved Future History, but if it contains two NOVELs as your note suggests, isn't this an OMNIBUS? Or are the two stories a "fix-up" where you can't tell which is which? BLongley 15:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I was a bit in doubt. The two novels in there are clearly marked. But the publisher claims the book is a novel. Orcax 11:18, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we don't always listen to the publisher. I've made it an Omnibus for now, as it's apparently the only British publication of "West of Honor". If you could add the page numbers for each part we'll be all set I think. Unless this happens to be the right cover, in which case we can add that cover-art too? BLongley 14:39, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Have added the page numbers (these pages are actually unnumbered in the book, the numbered pages takes you right to the first printed page of each novel. These are the title pages.)

And that picture is the right one. Who is the artist? Sorry, I'm not really all that familiar with Amazon and its services. Interesting to see that you can upload pictures; I have thousands of these things that can just be dumped out of the database, all of them done on a flatbed. Orcax 15:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I uploaded over a thousand images to Amazon UK and Amazon US before we acquired the ability to upload to ISFDB. ISFDB images are now my preference as Amazon don't guarantee to keep Image URLs stable - so if you spot a publication here with no picture, or with a picture that isn't stored on ISFDB (i.e. any picture with a location that doesn't start "http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images") and you can provide one, we'd be glad to have it! See here for a starting guide. BLongley 15:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

We are up to 3,038 images now, which is fairly impressive considering that it's not our primary focus. Ahasuerus 16:47, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and sorry, I can't identify the artist from the scan alone. If the book doesn't credit anyone, you can sometimes find an artist signature on the cover - is there any sign of such? Sometimes it's as subtle as an "F" or "PE" in a little box, sometimes it's a full name and initials. BLongley 15:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

When I finish the db-updating here I'll just start from the top and upload images to anything I have that doesn't have a cover image. My raw images are generally a bit larger than what isfdb asks for, though. Is there any function in isfdb to shave the dimensions down to the preferred format? I'll also have a look around here, I probably have some graphics software on some machine that can do the job in batch.

A Spectre is Haunting Texas

Added the extra foreign currency prices from the back cover to SPCTRSHNTB1971. I used to ignore them but a Mod explained that another editor might re-enter the same pub just because of the extra info, and there's enough duplicate entries in the db as it is. Also, the 'subsidiary' prices get entered as is, no conversion of 95¢ to $0.95. Only the primary gets converted. Have fun on here! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Tom Bombadil

I'm looking at a thin volume containing "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil". Anyone know if "Tom Bombadil" is to be classified as a novella or novelette? Giles and Tom seem to take up sort of equal space here. Thanks. Orcax 09:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Locus list it as a poem, no length needed. BLongley 18:53, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Interview with the Vampire

I have approved the 1977 Futura edition of Interview with the Vampire, but the ISBN checksum is bad. Could you please double check the numbers? TIA! Ahasuerus 15:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)