User talk:Scifibones

Talk Archives - Scifibones

1) August 2020 - August 2021

Dietmar Tauchner

Hi! It does seem that the English titles should be variants of the German ones, not vice versa (the author is of German language). Stonecreek 10:25, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Dietmar Tauchner is bilingual. A look at the actual text shows the poems are presented in pairs. The English is most often first, then the German. Sometimes the other way. This is why the contents are l.isted as they are. I made the parent whichever was shown first. If you look are the standards, (I'm sure you can find them in the help section) whichever was written first is the determinate, not the author's native language. I used the text in generating the content titles and then doubled checking as I linked the variants. Thanks for your interest. John Scifibones 10:35, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

I see you decided to change "dark matter" and incorrectly make it a variant of "Dunkle Materie". I'm glad you asked before changing more. John Scifibones 10:42, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

It does not matter how they are presented in the book, what matters is which version was written first. Are you sure that he wrote them in English and then translated them into German and not the other way around? If that is the case, his working language will need to be changed to English due to the number of titles originally in English. Annie 10:48, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Unless the book explains that the first printed version is the original? If not, let's do some more due diligence and see if we can find out what language these were first written in. Annie 10:59, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Annie, It is not explicitly stated which was written first. I have read Richard Gilbert's introduction at least five times. I look at the layout of the text. This is what I concluded and how I went about creating the record. Could I be wrong, of course!! Obviously, I spent a bit of time on this. If you feel it should be changed, I'm okay with it. I trust your judgement. Thanks for stepping in, again. lol John Scifibones

I will keep the variants on hold for a bit and will hit some German sites later to see if they may have more information about his writing process - maybe some of the poems were published somewhere else earlier and there are notes in there explaining what is what? I did not try to imply that you did not do your due diligence - these multi-language authors can sometimes be a pain :) So we do as much digging in both languages as we can - and when we are not sure, notes need to be added to each poem explaining WHY we connected that way - that's where the explanation for the layout of the book may need to come into play. Hope this makes sense! :) Annie 11:15, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

My best guess is that they were first published in German: Tauchner had a volume of poetry published in German in 2009, and at least some of the poem titles should be part of this. Also, he presents poems in German on his home page bregengemme.net. Stonecreek 12:10, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Can you find the contents page (or even better - some of them pages) of the 2009 collection? Annie 12:40, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Sorry, Annie, I wasn't able to locate the contents page: it neither is displayed at Amazon, DNB, nor the author's page. Christian Stonecreek 04:30, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

I made another pass through the text and found that I had missed the Acknowledgement

"Most poems in the book previously appeared (sometimes in a slightly revised form) in the following publications: Presence, Mayfly, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Mainichi Shimbun, Scifaikuest, Star*Line, HIA Contest, Heron’s Nest,Bones, Notes from the Gean, Roadrunner, Mu, Daily Haiku, Acorn, Paper Wasp, Bottle Rockets, A Hundred Gourds, Tinywords, Shamrock, and The Kusamakura Haiku Competition."

These are primarialy, English language publications. Perhaps the titles that were not previously published are the ones where the German was shown first. That would also align with what I have done. Thoughts? John Scifibones 13:40, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Still does not tell us what they were written in - which is what we need, not what they were published in first (unless the two coincide) :(. Just because they were published in English does not necessarily mean they were not created in German first. Annie 13:44, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) Looking around internet, got me the following from a book about haiku in English: "Dietmar Tauchner's first language is German. His writing exhibits much subtlety in English, even as it is marked by the circumstances of his geography." I am kinda starting to get convinced that these were in English first. I will do some more digging. If nothing changes, I will approve the variants in that direction and add some notes on the author and book level explaining the conundrum. Annie 11:18, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Should you accept my treatment, I will have to go back and correct the titles that Stonecreek changed before deciding to communicate. John Scifibones 12:25, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Once we decide what we are doing, I will take care of them. Stonecreek had been warned before to stop "fixing" things because he thinks that they are wrong without any shred of evidence OR communication to support his changes. Hopefully this thread is enough to remind him to stop doing that. Annie 12:37, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

More fun. See this review, page 3, the Olympus Mons review. That part kinda implies an original in German. Or at least that the German version is better - I can see that happening even on a translation. Grrr... :) I will keep looking. Annie 12:52, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

"Olympus Mons das Auf & Ab" is one of the titles where the German was listed first. The English "Mount Olympus men’s" is shown below it. Unfortunately, I missed entering those two and the other 2 on that page. Ouch. Should I go ahead and submit them? John Scifibones 13:07, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Two languages is nothing -- Angelica Balabanoff wrote poetry in five languages :-) Ahasuerus 13:11, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

This submission adds the missing poems in their correct place and order.

Approved. OK - so they are not always English first? I think I missed that in your early explanation. If that is the case, then I'd say to use the order as an indication of original and add notes explaining that in the publication... Meanwhile I added a note on the author page. Annie 13:56, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Overachievers. There are always overachievers. :) Annie 13:56, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Okay Annie, I have submitted the edits necessary for the 3 added works, a note for the publication, and two submissions to break the incorrect variants. After you process those and all the variants on hold, I will review to make sure everything is correct. Should I verify this pub, even though I worked from a PDF file? Looks very similar to what the publishers send authors for their use. John Scifibones 14:30, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

I would not verify based on a PDF personally. We had had that conversation a few times over in CS and different people have different opinion. For me a scan/PDF of a paper book is not enough for a verification; some people think it is. So... YMMV. I will go do some approving. Will post back when done. Annie 15:00, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Hi, i just have done that repairment a few minutes ago, so you can cancel your submissions if you like. Sorry for the crossover. Christian Stonecreek 14:51, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

(uncredited) OK. All approved. Two things remain to be done:

• Go through all pairs one more time and see if they are all in the correct order and if there are any missing
• Add the translator template to everything which is now a translation.

Have fun! :) Annie 15:11, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Need [1] and [2] processed, then I can submit all the rest . John Scifibones 16:03, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Done. Annie 16:06, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Everything necessary is in the queue. Thanks John Scifibones 17:06, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Transliterating the German umlauts

When the title is in German, these get transliterated by adding "e" after the main letter (so ä -> ae). If you want to also add "ä ->a", then add two of them but the first one needs to always be there (because that's how a German speaking person will look for the title if they cannot find ä on whatever keyboard they are on (and if the title is on an old site somewhere that does not support ä, that's how it will be spelled there). Thanks! ;) Annie 10:58, 15 September 2021 (EDT) Stonecreek 12:07, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Cuisine Chinoise: Five Tales of Food and Lif

Hi! This new pub has only 96 pages. It appears to be a Chapbook not a Novel. If not let me know. Thanks!Kraang 11:09, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

You're correct, go ahead and change it, add "Adam Pruett" as cover artist at the same time. Thanks for catching it. Also I appreciate you processing these so quick. John Scifibones 11:15, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

This [3] appears to be identical to your earlier submission[4].Kraang 13:58, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

Why are we adding comics books? Annie 14:01, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

I'm creating the record for the Ignyte award John Scifibones 14:06, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

Answer to Kraang, chapbooks require content title John Scifibones 14:07, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

Exact publishing dates

Let's not lose the exact publishing dates by using only Year-Month on books :) If you are verifying and you want to get the date as printed in the book on that specific publication, that's fine (although even then if I have the exact date I will use it and add a note on what is on the book). But if the source is Amazon and the book is new enough (last 10-15 years), let's use the exact date - no reason to lose information we can ave. The field has a Year-Month-Date format for a reason :) Thanks! Annie 15:31, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Okay, I see you already fixed the last two. John Scifibones 15:37, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Yep. I approve, fix and come talk to people. Rinse and repeat until I do not need the steps after "approve". :) Annie 15:45, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

If you are still watching, I have another canonical name switch. Steven Wittenberg Gordon, let me know John Scifibones 16:50, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, I paused for a second when I approved that last variant you did. Let's watch and see with this one? It seems like after 2015, he is coming without MD so if all new publications come that way, this will be the correct direction sooner or later. So keep an eye on him while adding more poetry and let's see how it will shake out. It is not just about the numbers we see at the moment - sometimes it is important to see in which direction that pair is moving. Hope this makes sense. Annie 16:57, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Unfortunately I am working backwards on "Eternal Haunted Summer", the next entries are going to make it look worse. After I have this magazine wrapped up, I'll look for some recent work of his. John Scifibones 17:01, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Then reverse it :) That's why I explained why I think we may want to wait and see instead of just saying to wait. Even if he has dropped it, the numbers will stay in the other direction anyway so... reverse it. Annie 17:06, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

All the necessary submissions are in the queue John Scifibones 17:57, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

I will get them in a minute. One small thing: Under our rules, MD is spelled as M.D. I will fix the record after I approve everything in the queue now. Keep that in mind for the next magazines you add :) Annie 18:07, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

All done. Annie 18:20, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Review of I Am a Witch's Cat

I'm holding your submission to link the review of "I Am a Witch's Cat". You're linking the review to the CHAPBOOK title. We almost always link reviews to the story contained in chapbooks. I expect that you probably want to this title instead. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 10:05, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

I cancelled the submission linking to the CHAPBOOK, and resubmitted as you suggest. Thanks for making me aware of this. John Scifibones 10:12, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

BirthPlace and UK

You may want to check this one when adding UK birthplaces - or keep it in mind anyway :) For newer dates (lost 2 centuries or so), we need "England, UK"/"Scotland, UK" and not just England/Scotland :) Annie 13:51, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for fixing Bex Pavia, John Scifibones 14:09, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

"First published in" notes

Even if they are not strictly necessary once you add the first publication to the DB, they can be useful - they tell someone that we DO have the first publication indeed and that we know for a fact that there is no previous one (or we are relatively sure anyway). I don't go around adding these notes to every piece of fiction/poetry I add but I tend to leave them in place if they are there (and I add them when the first publication may be a confusing matter). Annie 20:12, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm glad you processed the rest of the submissions for Ghost Signs. I was just about to write and ask why you processed the single title and then added a note about the pub being incomplete. You had to skip over the others to get to that one. It was separate because I had to figure out how to enter the Hebrew, lol. Anyway, I am pretty big on first publication notes, but, only when we don't have the original pub. To my thinking, if there is no note, that implies the publication shown is the original publication. I know it often isn't, but, that is more a reflection on the previous editor, not the logic. I will leave them if your feel strongly about it. Personally, I'm against. John Scifibones 20:32, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

P.S. You didn't even give me a chance to merge Di Vayse Pave. John Scifibones 20:38, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Because it was in my way on a filter I was running on the page while tracking something else. I am loading the new and upcoming books into the DB and as part of it I have hundreds of ON HOLDs on the board at the same time - and I am using the browser to find me the different versions of the same title and so on. So when a title pings on one of my searches, I tend to process it. Which is a long way to explain that sometimes I may process a weird random submission out of the blue :)

It implies to you. The problem is that not all our non-first publication titles have a note and we miss a LOT of first editions especially for stories and poems so a user browsing the DB will never know what the case is. So... notes are good. Example: I am someone who just found ISFDB. I find this. Is this a 1969 novel? Or do we miss a first edition? When we KNOW, it is helpful to say so. It implies it is but we all know that chances are, it may not be (now... 1969 and novel - probably is because we had been clearing these a few times but new editions keep popping up so... who knows). Hope that makes sense.

Hey, I am a full service moderator - I follow up on merges and the like when they are obvious, I do capitalization checks and fixes, I make sure all links and IDs work, add source notes if you don't, ensure that incomplete is added if we are missing stories/poems and there is nothing else in the queue to complete the book (and if you mess up any of these or need to do too many merges, I come and talk to you about that). Incomplete is a useful template by the way - makes sure we do not forget to finish adding content. And even if it will generate one more unneeded edit at the end, it is a trivial one and is processed in seconds so I would rather have it than not when working on a book with a lot of imports and edits to add the contents. ;) Annie 20:49, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

I'm glad you brought up the incomplete template. I think you should emphasize to the moderators to encourage it's use. You see what I'm working on. It would have helped me if it was used more in the past. It will help in the future if it is used more now. John Scifibones 21:01, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Or I can work with the editors who work collections, magazines and poetry instead. Which I do. :) A lot. You may have realized that I tend to post a lot more than most moderators.

It is a new template - I asked for it a couple of years ago (we have a report for "empty" collections/magazines but as soon as you add one story/poem, it gets hidden. So I asked for the template to cover these cases - and had been chasing people to use it as consistently as possible (including manually reviewing months of collections and anthologies now and again to ensure they have it)). The DB is a work in progress - the older the record is, the more likely is that some of the current bells and whistles did not even exist when it was added. Annie 21:07, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

I didn't mean that the moderators should use it. My point is that moderators see the editors who are submitting empty containers, they can then instruct in its use John Scifibones 21:12, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Different moderators have different styles of moderating...

PS: You do NOT want incomplete in empty collections. Only in the ones that have at least 1 entry but is missing some. Otherwise you are diluting the report on incomplete. The empty ones show up here and magazines here. The incomplete ones are here (with template) and here (no template - based on notes parsing). Moving the empty into the incomplete won't achieve anything (and is counterproductive - people may decide to work on the latter but may not be up to tackling a fully empty ones). So only add incomplete IF you already added a title but you are still working on the rest. Annie 21:24, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Magazines dating

We date magazines based on cover date. So "NewMyths.Com, December 2013" will be "2013-12-00" and not "2013-12-01". If it came on the 1st, add a note in the publication notes but the magazine itself is dated per cover date. Thanks! Annie 01:33, 14 October 2021 (EDT) PS: If the magazine issue is "Something, December 1, 2015", the date of the magazine will follow the date 2015-12-01. This is for magazines with specific dates (think tor.com) or for things that come out twice a week or in another sequence based on dates and not months. I am fixing the ones as I am approving but please keep that in mind for the next batch. Magazines and books have different rules - both for naming and for dating :) Annie 02:02, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

I specifically dated them to the exact date shown on the NewMyths.com website as a result of your comment in #58 above. Yes, I know you said books on your post. If the exact day is important for an ebook release, why is it less important for a webzine? John Scifibones 08:23, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Escape Pod, I noticed you changed the date here. It was not published on that date under that name. If you're going to do that, why not just use this record for both publications and get rid of this one? Either way, we are stating something that isn't correct. The way I showed it, originally taught me by MagicUnk here, while quirky due to the nature of the db, is at least factually correct. John Scifibones 09:08, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Another way to handle these, is to make both the titles variants of the canonical name title. That way, the correct author name and date will show in each publication. What do you think? John Scifibones 09:38, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Ebook is a format as is hardcover or paperback. The dating rule is based the type of publication. Books and magazines have different rules. Magazines are dated based on cover date regardless if they are eBooks, webzines or paper ones. Books are dated based on whatever information we have including exact dates. I cannot explain it clearer than that. I will look at the other question in a few minutes. Annie 11:36, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

And now about that variant. You cannot make a brand new parent because it will match one of the variants. Outside of split novels and serials (where the variant shows difference in contents), we create a variant for a difference in Title, Author, Language or translator only. Which means that if the 4 elements (the last one is optional) are the same, we merge, we do not variant. And that's where it gets a bit weird for canonical titles.

In most cases, the canonical title is the first title the text is published under. There are two exceptions to that rule:

• A different title becomes more popular.
• The first editions are under a pseudonym while the new ones are under the canonical name

Both of these cases create a situation where the canonical title's first appearance is AFTER one of its variants. As long as there are no translations involved, we then date the canonical title based on its earliest variant (translations and serializations do not count for this - just pure variants). The reason is pretty prosaic - a canonical title is not just one of the variants, it is used for ordering the titles in the bibliography. So it needs to be the first appearance of the story in the language as a whole (serializations get dated differently and do not influence the full text dating). Think of this logically. If you take MagicUnk's argument to its logical conclusion, then every time you create a parent just to move a story to the canonical name, you will need to date the parent as 8888-00-00 (unpublished) which will make a mess of all bibliographic pages that have pseudonyms. I think they got a bit confused with how we handle dating when a translation pre-dates the original. Let me know if that makes sense. Annie 13:30, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

I have come across this situation a number of times, probably because of the area I concentrate in. While the variants are correct, I'll need to change the publication date of the parent, as was done here. I hope I can find them all. John Scifibones 13:43, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Don't worry too much about it - we have a report(Variant Title Dates Before Canonical Title Dates) for that so they will show up and get fixed (moderators can ignore the ones where it is legitimate - translations). I will see if we can update a help page somewhere to assist with that a bit - I know that some of those rules step on each other's toes. :) Annie 13:53, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

The only thing that I would add to Annie's explanation is that the rule re: "A different title becomes more popular" is typically only invoked when a later title becomes significantly more popular. For example, consider The Stars My Destination. It was first published as "Tiger! Tiger!" in 1956, but the US title, "The Stars My Destination" (1957), is much better known. If "Tiger! Tiger!" was the canonical title, it would make it harder for our users to find the book, so the benefit of using a later title as the canonical title outweighs the awkwardness of having the earlier title appear as a variant. If the two titles were fairly close in terms of popularity, swapping them might not be worth the trouble. Ahasuerus 14:04, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Owen Kerr

source? Annie 01:47, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

And Michael L. Drummond? When information is added, a source need to be added in the notes, Web pages OR moderator notes if it should not be public (although we do not list non-public information for authors). Annie 01:52, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

And Michaelsun Knapp?

And Shannon Waller. Thanks! Annie 02:18, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

NewMyths.com is the source. John Scifibones 07:46, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Links for each please. Annie 11:36, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Bewildering Stories, 30 August 2021

A few small things here:

• Excerpts never get lengths - they are "short fiction", no length. I fixed that but keep this in mind.:)
• "The Ballad of Omega Brown 3: Omega and the Sorcerer of Space Station 9" should really be Omega and the Sorcerer of Space Station 9, and then put into a series named The Ballad of Omega Brown under 3. Remember that we use simplified names when series are involved so you do not load that into a title - you pull it into the series. Annie 17:13, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

I realized my mistake, putting a length on an excerpt in a later issue. There are several fiction series I have encountered in subsequent issues. I have been leaving the series on them, since I can't enter the series until the title is created anyway. This will remind me which stories belong in which series. Appreciate making sure I'm aware. John Scifibones 17:26, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

You need to get back to the issue anyway to variant the serials so I'd use the simplified title initially and then add the series on the second pass. Otherwise an approving moderator may decide to assist you and do the move for you (which is not an issue technically but as you are coming back... they can use the time elsewhere and they will probably stop by to talk to you about it and... ). Just saying :) Plus if these get approved after you are gone for the day, someone can put the updates in the queue at the same time as you. So I try not to leave a title in a weird state knowing I will need to edit no matter what. Keeps the DB cleaner overall. :) Annie 17:31, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

And if you want to do something creative/weird (name it that way knowing you need to edit so making sure you have the data IN the story record for the second update for example), use the moderator note to tell the approving moderator what you are doing. We are not mindreaders - we assume either inexperience or a half-asleep editor. The first always end up with a post on your Talk page. The latter only when it happens a lot. So... add moderator notes. :) Annie 17:34, 15 October 2021 (EDT

Good points, I'm convinced. It's too bad there is no access to the length field when creating a parent. I will have to go back and add the length after it is created. Maybe worth a suggestion on the Community portal. What do you think? John Scifibones 17:40, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

You don't really need that and it will probably cause more issues than it will solve - people click the weirdest things and someone needs to clean it later. :)

Set the length on the child. If the child already has length during the creation of the parent, the parent will inherit the same length on creation. Same for the juvenile/novelization/non-genre/gf checkboxes. Series and series numbers will automatically move to the parent if they are already on the child. One of the places where order of submissions is important for what you get at the end. The way I work these is to make sure the child record has the correct checkboxes, lengths and so on and then variant up. Now - approvals being what they are, that can backfire if you want to do the title edit and the MakeVariant at the same time but a moderator note on MakeVariant may help. I tend to try to process TitleEdit before MakeVariant if I see them next to each other but... does not always happen. A second check once all is approved is always needed anyway and you can sort all that was missed after that. :)

If you still want to ask on CS knowing all that, be my guest :) Annie 17:52, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Since there is no length on a serial child, there is nothing to flow up to the short fiction parent, but, I'll just make sure I go back and set the field when reviewing the final product. John Scifibones 17:57, 15 October 2021 (EDT) Is this statemnt incorrect? Are lengths allowed for serials? John Scifibones 18:02, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Serials. Well... yes, that's one usecase it may be useful (nope, no length there either - length is only for Shortfiction which is not excerpt). But you should only variant one installment anyway first - you need to wait for the ID of the parent for the rest (please do not make us approve new parent for each installment...) so you can as well just add the length at that point (it is a quick edit. Plus this is when you can add a link to the full story on the site in the story record - so win/win). Feel free to post on CS but it won't be exactly trivial so... not sure if you will get it soon(ish) if ever. Annie 18:05, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Haha, No I'll just do one parent. John Scifibones 18:10, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

(unindent). Considering the existence of this story, that 3 on that series is order, not part of the series name. Fixed here. Annie 19:11, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Okay John Scifibones 19:22, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

From Both Sides

HI! Is the parent title an essay[5]? You also entered the title twice as (part 3 of 4)[6]. ThanksKraang 22:46, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Yes, it is a serialized essay. First one I've come across, I assumed it was allowed. Here is an edit to fix my mistake in the last serial title.

Thanks, just checking. I don't see why an essay can't be serialized.Kraang 23:09, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Maybe someone in this thread should read the manual. I know, boring, but when not sure - it usually helps. :) It cannot be a serial by our definition of what a serial is. Serials are only for fiction, not even for poems unless we have a rule change: “ SERIAL. Use for a title that would otherwise be either SHORTFICTION or NOVEL, but which is being serialized in a magazine, a fanzine or a series of chapbooks.”. Serialized essays are entered as essays and then if you want to combine them somehow, use a series. But they cannot be treated serials and they cannot be tied to the full text in the usual way.

For example when we expanded the chapbooks to allow single serials, it was with that understanding - leaving single essays and parts of essays published on their own still as non-fiction books and not as chapbooks. Annie 01:17, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

PS: These are now fixed. Annie 02:52, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for fixing it John Scifibones 06:54, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

Anytime. Thanks for adding the magazines. Annie 07:17, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

Your welcome, I'm slowly adding ones to keep track of on my user page. John Scifibones 08:37, 23 October 2021 (EDT)

Classic Celtic Fairy Tales

For older books, Amazon uses the YYYY-MM-01 format for the books that do not have exact dates (coming from DBs that required a date but did not have one or that did not have a date and the early Amazon imports required one. So for anything older than 15-20 years (pre-2000 for sure; early 2000s can also be a problem so I would keep an eye for it), Amazon is a bad source for the Day part of the date when it is 01 - good for year, occasionally good for month but for the day portion, you want 00 unless you have a contemporary review or something else like that that mentions exact date. Even when not 01, it can be iffy the older the book gets but it has a better chance to be correct. Changed it here. Thanks for adding that one! Annie 21:03, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

I knew to watch for the January 1 dated books. I'll add this to the list. What had to be changed in the notes field? John Scifibones 21:08, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Yep - Jan 1 has both month and day suspect; Feb 1 has the month fine but... :)

The notes field change is my bad - I had added a note ("Month from Amazon.com, date uncertain.". Pulled it out pre-submitting - decided it is superfluous. Left behind the "." from my own note by mistake. Decided not to reject and redo as the note makes sense this way as well. Sorry. :) Annie 21:16, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Oh, and a trick about finding what changed in a field:

• The AddPub/NewPub/ClonePub record in the history always shows what was initially submitted so you can compare easily current with initial.
• If there is more than one edit after that, look at the history and open the edit before the last one that changed something. So for example if you look at this and want to see what exactly the last edit changed, go to the edit before the last one and read it in reverse order (+ is - and - is plus). If the Notes field show no changes in that one, go back to the previous until you find one that changed it. You can see both kinds of changes on that record - I was tinkering with the wording and the record while reading the book (with some additions after I got to the end of the ebook) - then got tired of editing and could not spot the issues so asked someone to assist with a final proof-read (thus the last update). :)

Does not work completely for old pubs where we do not have the initial creation or some of the edits; works for newer ones. And works for all fields - Notes was just an example. But helps when someone changes the data you added and does not tell you for one reason or another. With a small note - a few fields (title name, title date and title author) can be changed from two places - EditPub or EditTitle so if you are tracing a change in that, you need to look at both histories.

And yes, before you ask, I really need to write that up and put it on the wiki and after that we probably should attach the help page to the Histories pages. Annie 21:41, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Additionally, if you edit the title record from inside the publication, I believe you lose any previous edit history for the title record. You must look at the pub record in that case. Same with cover art title. I hope you realize how much I appreciate you taking the time to teach me the fine points. John Scifibones 21:56, 24 October 2021 (EDT) Or is that incorrect?

Nope, you are not losing the old edits done previously on the Title level as long as the ID does not change when you change inside of the pubRecord (and we try not to - because then you lose all things like series and notes) - it just does not have that specific edit (or 6) because it/they happened on the pubEdit. You usually do not have the creation for Title Records either - because they get created as a side effect of creating a publication or out from another title (then it is in the old title that created them). If a new ID is created - then yes, any older edits' are not linked because it is a new ID. Now - Series, Authors, Publishers and Pub Series behave differently when you edit inside of the publication/Title record - we create a new one there if needed, we do not change the existing one. The reason is that with titles, we will NOT allow you to change it inside of the book if there are two books holding it. Enforcing that for the other types of records is kinda weird - so we allow change and just create new records if needed. Think of the title inside of the pub as a link to the actual title record when we show it (so you change it, you are changing the original) while the rest are matches based on text only (so when you change it, we just link elsewhere).

And if that story was then ejected from the pub where these changes happened, the link gets lost. You do lose one side of the merged history when you merge a title as well. So not perfect by any means but helpful nevertheless. That feature was never planned to be a history - we just found out that we can reuse it (that's why it does not have an "old state") and why some of them look so ugly (if any referenced IDs is missing now)

Shrug. When people care enough to learn things, I am very happy to explain and show some tricks - the DB is huge, some of the practices are weird and because of our history, we are stuck with a lot of oddities. I may sound a bit let's say ornery when responding to suggestions but it is just because what looks easy may have a back history that makes it anything but - like the Publisher help page change proposal. I know you mean well and I do not disagree with the intention or the desire for change but... there is stuff to keep in mind and work out before we can change the rules text and practice. I love clean slates but there are very little number of them in this DB. Not to mention that for publishers there is also a second thing I did not want to bring in there -- imprints. We may need 3 fields, not 2: Parent, actual publisher canonical, "As written" - because some imprints get moved between parents, some change from imprint to publisher and back and so on. Or a way to connect via variants for example. Or something. The publisher field is a minefield. We probably should start with a "What do we want to record" and build the requirements for publishers (let me pull my wish list...), then figure out implementation and old records reconciliation (and find someone to do it) and then we can change current practice. :)

Remember when you asked me if I would support you to self-moderate and I told you that you need more practice? I had not forgotten and part of why I try to explain in detail when you hit something weird is exactly that. Not that moderators and self-approvers know everything or never make mistakes (some of my blunders are... embarrassing) - we are all people. But the more you understand the "why" behind some things, the less likely is to blunder... :) Annie 22:19, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

A Celestial Voice

I was looking at this. Because of how the note reads and our naming policies, it is unclear that we DO have Polar Borealis issue 3 and that it is not part of the credit (as opposed to the source of the credit). Maybe a better way will be: "First published in Carillon, UK (source: Polar Borealis, Issue 3, November-December 2016)".

And out of curiosity - is that the whole credit? No date/Issue number? I suspect this is Carillon. And as they seem to have published in paper (confirmed paper), they are technically eligible as non-genre periodical (so adding just their SF content as with The New Yorker) so if we find in which issue it was, we can add the issue. Does not have issue number (the link is unstable as all links at Galactic Central but will survive awhile. Rabbit holes - all magazines are rabbit holes. Annie 22:48, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

I always put the source in ()'s. I thought this was pretty clear. As far as using the date vs issue number, I can go back if you find it ambiguous. I supply issue number and or date and publisher, if a book, provided I know it. Polar Borealis was hit or miss on what they supply. Re: Galactic Central, I only use them for the cover. The complete ebook is attached to each publication, they were my sources. I'm open to suggestions John Scifibones 23:01, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

I know that you use them only for the cover - I went looking to see if they know something about the magazine the poem came from, not about your magazine. Unfortunately they seem to only have what the magazine itself has as info - sometimes they are able to connect some dots based on reprints and so on - so I tend to check.

Look at the note in the context of the whole page. There is the November-December issue under it and there is issue 3 in the notes. No connection between them. :) So I'd add the date of the issue to the note thus creating the link. As for the sources and ()s - when the source is complete (with date and/or issue number), it is somewhat obvious. Here? It literally can mean a special issue of the previously named source - you know what you mean because this is your format but what if someone stumbles on that page first? I prefer to spell out the word "source" or "based on information from" or something like that usually - making it crystal clear regardless of the format of the information. But that's just me. Annie 23:08, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Too bad they didn't use an acknowledgements page, I always use that word. I'll make the change as you suggest. Will you process the non title updates still in my queue? Thanks John Scifibones 23:18, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

At least they provided some credits - some magazines/fanzines could not be bothered even with that (and don't get me started on translations). :) All approved and I changed one of the notes for a missing space and to date one of the issues in the note (same reason as explaining above). Feel free to change the order of the date/issue number if you prefer. Now I should really stop getting distracted and go work on my project :) Annie 23:26, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Polar Borealis

Hi John - Glad to see that you've brought Polar Borealis up to date! :) I know that ChrisJ worked on it previously, but I was thinking of updating it further myself, especially due to its receiving an Aurora Award recently, but you beat me to it! :P Are you planning to cover its sister publication, Polar Starlight, the next issue of which is imminent?--Explorer1000 12:18, 26 October 2021 (EDT)

Actually, I just saw that you have covered the first two issues of Polar Starlight. Nice one! :) --Explorer1000 12:38, 26 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, I'll try to keep them current. File a complaint with customer service if I slip up. It appears you are making progress. Feel free to use me as a resource. John Scifibones 18:39, 26 October 2021 (EDT)

LOL I wasn't complaining! Thanks for the offer of help. :) And, just so you know, Polar Starlight #3 launched last night... :P --Explorer1000 10:23, 27 October 2021 (EDT)

I was just messin' with you. I know you weren't. John Scifibones 10:47, 27 October 2021 (EDT)

I had just read this, and it stuck in my mind. John Scifibones!~

Publishers

I read your posts regarding the Publisher field with some interest. It has been on my radar for a number of years, but more concrete activities have taken precedence. Coming up on my to do list was a precursor to dealing with publishers, which was scraping the various forums to create an index based on rules, procedures, techniques, history, precedence and such. One key point was discussions on various topics that left possible projects hanging, either unstarted or abandoned. Dealing with publisher's was one of the latter.

Please let me know if you do pursue this further than the forums. The note I have for myself on this topic was to dig into the imprint/publisher distinction and look to see if there was any help to be found in the legal registration aspect, i.e. copyright/trademark. I took a quick peek and found the [Ace a] trademark, but not the A one. Anyway, at the moment it's a distraction, albeit one I don't mind spending some time and thought on if there's someone else to share with. ../Doug H 09:44, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for reaching out. I'm willing to invest time and effort into this project. My interest is less on the academic side, more on standardization and implementation. Documenting publisher and/or imprint should not be a subjective process. The real publishers and their imprints are hard enough, our system allow the entry of almost anything in the publisher field. Consider this.

Printed on the title page verso, "Token Publishing Company/ A Timewarp Book"

All these are possible

1. Token
2. Token Publishing
3. Token Publishing Company
4. Timewarp
5. Timewarp Books
6. Timewarp/Token
7. Timewarp/Token Publishing

These are not only possible ,but, comply with present standards. The only control is the moderator review system. I would add the PV system, but, that seems routinely ignored. Unacceptable. This is why I made point 1, reach agreement on what the final structure should look like. After that, there should be enough interest to work on publishers & imprints. I look forward to further discussion. John Scifibones 12:34, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

My starting point is what ISFDB generally stands on - record what is in the book. We can still quibble about how much of what's written should be kept (e.g. city), but the content should rule. The reasons offered for 'standardizing' is it seemed impossible to document the Byzantine structure of publishers and imprints over time and allow reasonable queries. My reason for wanting to index the wiki was to bring out all the old arguments and identify the concerns and examples, hopefully leading to a better solution. (In keeping with this, I also dislike the practice of recording dates found by research as the date shown in summary lists.) I look at your point 1 as a goal, not an activity, but agree with its primacy. What's the point of the field and how do we get there, given what's in the books? ../Doug H 13:09, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

I will leave you two alone if you do not want me here but just wanted to add a note - that is exactly why I think we need at least 2-fields field for Publishers (3 possibly (parent/imprint/"as is") (or a total rework of how publishers are implemented - having 2-3 fields will be a lot less work and more likely to happen than an overhaul to allow varianting and what's not). :) Using what is in the book is what we all want but we need to find a way to get Publishers bibliographies as well properly assembled or we are not a very good DB (which had always been the argument for standardization). Annie 13:45, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

Annie, not only are you welcome, I don't believe we can achieve our goal without your participation. As I stated in the R&S thread, I think you are on the right track with the multi-field approach. We have enough workarounds with the author/title variant system. In fact, you showed me a new one yesterday. However, I commit to an open mind, and perhaps there are equally good alternatives. Anyone who reads this is also welcome to participate. John Scifibones 14:26, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

Multi-field and repeatable to handle co-publishing - if you think that imprints and publishers are bad, you need to look at some of the co-published books and how they are entered (hint: unless someone made a point to clear them up, they are added every which way). And co-publishing may mean multiple ISBNs as well so that is also tied here. And co-publishing across borders means multiple prices as well (not that this requires co-publishing but it can tie into it). On the other hand, ISBNs are sometimes one of the best way to figure out publishers - not the exact one but the corporate one or who has main responsibility in co-publishing cases with single ISBNs. So... just throwing that here. Ignore it for now I guess but we cannot talk Publishers without that - not the majors anyway.

If you want a somewhat of a starting list for something - this is the list of publishers which Fixer (the robot who looks for new and forthcoming books so we can add them) looks in Amazon.com for (that's an oversimplification of how the list is used - but in short these are what we can consider "our" publishers so books by them get a human eye to decide if they are ours or not if they are picked up from a category where we expect genre books). Not a complete list and as you can see the format is a bit weird (it is for machine comparisons, not human eyes) but it should be readable (headofzeus is "Head of Zeus" for example) and keep in mind that these are kinda partials so "Ad Astra / Head of Zeus" and its variants come from the headofzeus match as well). It is nowhere near complete but it has most if not all of the major publishers (and it keeps getting updated). But may be useful for scale and for a start. And that does not go anywhere near historical imprints and other crazy things. Or non-English language publishers. Alternatively, start with the big names and work down that list -- it will contain most of the crazy iterations.

I have an organizational proposal - set a Wiki page for the "Publishers Project" - not under your account but somewhere free standing. Add it to this category (which needs cleaning but... we may as well start using it again - I am considering dropping a few more things in there as well). Then its Talk page can be used to plan and discuss and so on while the page itself becomes a repository of lists and decisions and so on. That way all about the project will be in a single place, people will be able to subscribe to it and follow if they wish to and so on. One way or another, the Publishers need to get an overhaul sooner or later so we may as well organize it a bit. Not urgent but if you are starting to assemble things - it may make sense to do it now. Annie 15:20, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

For what it's worth, my db extracts the publisher componet of the ISBN and builds a dropdown list on the fly. The new page is established, should I move this thread? John Scifibones 16:35, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

If you want :) Posting the link would have been useful. :) Annie 16:50, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

All discussion re: publisher project should be continued at Publishers Project John Scifibones 17:00, 29 October 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) I've posted something to kick things off. Do you know how to put pages (project and talk) on your watchlist? ../Doug H 22:01, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Yes. I saw you started to organize things. I was actually going to ask if you would dig up some of the past discussions, I have little success searching the wiki. I'll try to read through the history this week. John Scifibones 22:08, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Doug, if I may mention something - organizing the talk page with section and subsections just looks weird. That organization should be on the main page - the talk should literally be for talks and discussions and structuring and ordering it really looks as if you do not want people to edit and respond there - there are no questions, it is just a wall of structured text, links to read and so on. And that after telling people that this kind of stuff goes on the Project page. If that's how you want to do it, fine by me. But... I think that's backwards. Annie 22:11, 3 November 2021 (EDT)

Bolesław Leśmian photo

To apply a template, you don't edit the template page. Instead, copy the sample text in the Usage section of the template page (the smaller text with a gray background), add it to the image page (in this case Image:Bolesław Leśmian.jpg‎), and replace the placeholders with the actual answers (if a field is not applicable, you can delete that line). I reverted the changes to the template as that changed every image that used the template. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:29, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Sorry I messed things up. Don't know why I'm having trouble understanding. What is wrong here? Thanks for your helpJohn Scifibones

There is nothing wrong that I can see. Looks like the warning is overzealous software. I will ping Ahasuerus. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:42, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

I just added the author id in case that is it.John Scifibones 16:43, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

That looks like Bug 765, "Entering an author image URL can generate a spurious yellow warning". We've known about the problem for a some time, but, unfortunately, it's not trivial to fix :-( Ahasuerus 17:08, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Samovar, 25 October 2021

Sorted out the transliteration and the original for the Russian story here (popped up on a report as a Russian story with non-Cyrillic letters in the author name so before ignoring it (as it is indeed correct that way for this publication), I fixed the author's canonical and name and all that). Feel free to ping me when you can use a hand for a thing like that. Annie 19:36, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for the improvements. Lately I've been taking up a bit of your time, I hesitate to distract you from your own projects. John Scifibones 19:45, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Someone will need to get them sorted anyway - better when you add them and they take a few minutes than 3 months later when there are 20 of them and need half a day. :) I am off to adding the anthology that story came from - we may as well have that as well. :)

Just post on my page - if I do not have time just now, it will be there to remind me when I do have a minute or 5. When I make a comment on needing to get back to my own projects, it is not an admonishment towards anyone else - it is a self-reminder that I was pretending to be doing something and keep getting distracted because it just requires too many steps (don't know about you but I tend to procrastinate tasks which need to be done but require too much work...). Apologies if it sounded in a different way and made you feel that you are disturbing me (or worse). And if you ever need anything I can assist with, just holler. :) Annie 20:10, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

The Cossack Review

As it is not a speculative magazine, I flipped the non-genre tag on for it. That way it is clear that we are not indexing all the contents. Not sure if you forgot to do it when you created it or did not realize you can do it at that point so heads up. Annie 02:54, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I thought about it on initial entry, then decided I would go back and look a little closer. I recognized a couple contributor's who write speculative fiction. Jeannine Hall Gailey and Akua Lezli Hope. As sometimes happens, it slipped my mind. Even marked as non-genre, I'll try to identify ay contents wihich do qualify and add them. John Scifibones 08:18, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Neither author references this publication on their bibliography pages, I'll let it go. John Scifibones 10:42, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I tend to set it as soon as possible just so that a well-meaning person does not decide to fill it in with no extra research (especially now that we changed the rules and "Editors of YYYY" is not mandatory for non-genre periodicals so they are not so easy to spot without the flag). :) That does not preclude us from having a full issue sometimes when there is a speculative issue or adding any extra stories/items into it when we find them to be genre. The big challenge with these non-SF journals and magazines is finding what to add from them when you are not reading them so they almost by default are a work in progress until they are completely read by someone. :) Thanks for working on the magazines! Annie 14:16, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Murder in New Eden, Chapter 31: City Operations Has an Upgrade Variant

HI! Submission[7] will create a variant of it's self. You can reject and resubmit. Thanks.Kraang 21:18, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

fixed, thanks John Scifibones 21:32, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Now a Ragged Breeze

Re this submission: We don't variant based on case. By rule, all title cases are supposed to be normalized. By common convention, we allow lower case in poems. But when there are both upper and lower case versions, we normalize to one. I merged these together under the "proper" case version. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:03, 7 November 2021 (EST)

I started to do it, figured I would get called out, so I varianted it. I agrre it should be merged. John Scifibones 10:06, 7 November 2021 (EST)

All these title changes

Most of them are in PVd magazines (for example). Which means that you need to discuss with the PV before you make changes in the titles, especially when there is an active PV. In case if inactive one, a note in each publication explaining the post PV changes is usually asked for. Please ping Taweiss and discuss with him before I can approve these. I will keep them on hold in the meantime. Please note that this is not because I disbelieve you or think you are wrong but having a link to the magazine or even the magazine is not a reason to ignore the courtesy policies of the site and effectively invalidate the PV program by changing data with no agreement and notification. I know he is just transient but that does not mean he cannot have access to them. Thanks!

Also on a separate note - we tend to drop the series titles from titles and the main titles from serials if they have separate titles. Either way is acceptable so I will leave you and the PV to decide how you want the renaming to go. Annie 21:25, 11 November 2021 (EST)

Far Horizons, April 2014

About this: "Review of Firefly & Serenity (TV Series and Movie) omitted" - the policy is to add these when they are in Genre magazines - just not as reviews but as essays. A genre periodical makes everything inside of it eligible for inclusion in one way or another (that's the difference between genre periodicals and non-genre ones). The note is enough if so you chose to leave it but anyone after that can add that missing essay (or 2). So just heads up. Annie 22:23, 11 November 2021 (EST)

Since I had a couple typos to correct and a cover to add, went ahead and moved it to essay. While I have moved reviews from review to essay, this is the first time anyone has suggested moving from notes to essay. I understand you were just making me aware of the possibilities. Thanks John Scifibones 11:06, 12 November 2021 (EST)

Editors get a somewhat free hand in the contents they add - as long as they follow the rules, a few things can be done in different ways. The policy is in Reviews. A lot of editors prefer to just add notes and leave it at that - which works but is technically incomplete so at a later date someone may decide to fix them. As you are working off the magazine/contents somewhere, adding them now is easier than 10 years down the road when we cannot find a copy of the thing anymore. So I tend to just add them when I work magazines - that way our record is complete (we know why we skip these but someone finding the magazine online may be confused or not realize that there are missing pieces). :) Annie 23:47, 12 November 2021 (EST)

Synth 4: An Anthology of Dark SF

So let's discuss this submission: I suspect you omitted the Caselberg story because you were planning to import it. Which is fine. But you need to say that in your moderator notes: when handling there is no way for someone to know if you are planning to import it, you missed it by mistake (so it will be a good thing to add it so we do not lose it) or you skipped it because it is somehow not eligible (so a moderator needs to do the research you already did to figure out if we want this story). Otherwise you have two cases:

• A moderator spends the time to track it down so they can import (or to add it and then merge)
• A moderator puts in the incomplete template (so we do not lose track of the book now that it has contents) which then needs removal.

I've added the missing story. Plus if there is a moderator note, someone checking the updates will also know why the story was added later. :) Thanks! Annie 22:32, 11 November 2021 (EST)

It's on my to do list, don't know why I didn't import it immediately. John Scifibones 11:16, 12 November 2021 (EST)

If you get into the habit of putting a note in the moderator notes saying "import for the last story in a separate submission" or something so someone knows to look for it, it won't slip your mind either :) And that's exactly why moderators do help with follow-up actions - things slip; when two people pay attention, it is less likely for it to happen. Annie 23:37, 12 November 2021 (EST)

Classic Pan and Fontana Horror

A few things here:

• 2 typos in the same title: "Foreward; Horror's Golden Age" is really "Foreword: Horror's Golden Age" :) Careful with that word Foreword - it gets misspelled very often - both in books and here in the DB - so I always look 3 times when I see it somewhere.
• The last story is not the one you imported. The contents page says "Mr. Smyth", not "Mr. Smythe". There is no access to the pages from that story in Look Inside directly but if you search in look Inside, all references are for Smyth and not Smythe and it also allows you to click and see the title page for the story so this is not a contents page typo. It may be the same story (most likely is - but we need some more proof to connect them) but it has a new title here so we use that. Even if we could not see these search results, we still would have used the title as credited.

Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions. Annie 22:51, 11 November 2021 (EST)

Looks like the two titles should be merged. If you look at the title record for Mr. Smythe, you see 2 source publication. The Look inside for Back from the Dead 2019 edition shows "Mr. Smyth", not Mr. Smythe. When the contents were added, they were simply imported from the 2010 edition, which we don't have the ability to look inside. While it is possible the 2010 edition says Mr. Smythe, it is more likely a typo. If you don't feel comfortable merging, then we should remove the Mr. Smythe title from here, import the this one and variant to Mr. Smythe. What do you think?John Scifibones 12:14, 12 November 2021 (EST)

The original record is from 2010 so who knows. Let me look at these one more time tomorrow and will deal with them. Careful with imports though - we have typos, books have typos and sometimes things just get slightly renamed. Edits and imports are the best time to find typos usually. :) Annie 23:41, 12 November 2021 (EST)

Prologue

Hello,

Gary Roen ended up with two stories called Prologue. You may want to add some notes if they are different. :) Annie 05:47, 12 November 2021 (EST)

Cryoburn notes changes

CD-ROM info added to Cryoburn Phil 13:22, 14 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the improvement John Scifibones 20:23, 14 November 2021 (EST)

The Curse of Chalion

Added Canadian price to first edition hc. Phil 12:32, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Fine with me John Scifibones 12:40, 19 November 2021 (EST)

HTML in titles

We do not allow html in titles. See The Help page:

• Fonts. Sometimes a title will have one or more words in italics, or in boldface, or in an unusual font. The ISFDB software would permit representing these via embedded HTML. However, this would mean that user searches that did not include the HTML would fail in many cases where they ought to succeed. Therefore, do not use embedded HTML to show font changes. For the same reason, do not use underscores to show _italics_, nor asterisks to show *boldface*, nor other typographical methods to show font in titles. If the font seems important, it can be shown and/or described in a note.

I fixed it here. Thanks! Annie 21:08, 21 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for fixing it John Scifibones 22:08, 21 November 2021 (EST)

Dating of excepts

Excerpts are dated as per their first appearance as such (and under that name). So this remains as 1909 unless it was printed in 1593 on its own and under that title :) Annie 02:43, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Same for Where the Bee Sucks and any others I find in the queue. I am fixing as I am approving. Thanks! :) Annie 02:45, 22 November 2021 (EST)

And a Link to the help page: "Excerpts. Use the date when an excerpt was first published in that form, not the date when the original text it is taken from was published." :) Annie 05:11, 22 November 2021 (EST)

No problem John Scifibones 07:13, 22 November 2021

Dating aside, do you agree there is value in adding specific citations to each of the works in this collection? The Shakespeare works were a test case. John Scifibones 07:51, 22 November 2021 (EST)

The more details we have, the better. :) I even add these on prose excerpts when I am verifying: for example. That way we can merge/variant excerpts when they contain the same pieces.

One thing about Shakespeare and line numbers (and even Acts in a few of the plays) - if the book has a note on which edition was used, you may want to add that as well - the Arden Shakespeare lines do not always match the Oxford ones (and so on) :) Annie 10:18, 22 November 2021 (EST)

In The Magic Casement: An Anthology of Fairy Poetry, Alfred Noyes provides no indication where any of the works are from. The Shakespeare citations are mine, from my 'Complete Works'. Just wanted to make sure the citations are something we wanted before I investigated some of the other works in the anthology. While line numbers can differ slightly, they do show how Noyes extracted lines from various acts and scenes to create a single work. In "Falstaff and the Fairies", he stopped mid-sentence added an elipsis and continued with dialoogue from 25 lines later in the scene. John Scifibones 12:29, 22 November 2021 (EST)

If the line numbers are yours, specify which edition you took them from - I have 6 editions of some of the plays; the line numbers can differ quite a bite depending on the editor (and in the double plays (with versions from both Folios), it can get even more interesting). Thus "always mention which edition your numbering refers to" is a basic rule with Shakespeare quotes. :)

And as I said - I like having information like that so if you feel like digging it out, have fun! Annie 13:21, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Take a look at this submission. It's the leatherbound edition apparantly published by several companies. The text is that of Arthur Henry Bullen for his newly founded Shakedpeare Head Press in 1904. Any suggested improvements before I add this to my other citations?

Looks good. Annie 15:02, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Awards for novellas and other shorter works

Hello,

When the award is for a novella, we link to the text (aka the novella record) and not to the chapbook (which is just a container). I moved this one where it belongs. :) Annie 17:45, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks for fixing. Don't know how I made that mistake, I do know that. John Scifibones 18:52, 3 December 2021 (EST)

It happens occasionally when one does a few rewards in a row. There was another one already there as well which may have also tripped you a bit. :) Annie 20:33, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I submitted corrections for 6 more titles. Apparently I didn't learn the correct procedure till sometime after entering the 2021 Ignyte Awards! Thanks for initiating a cleanup report to spot these. John Scifibones 09:10, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Enemies of the System

Hi, John! Thanks you for your counting of words for this!

In the process of transformation I ran across the OCLC entry for the 1978 Harper & Row publication, and changed the title accordingly: the subtitle is also on the cover, but the cover has just Brian Aldiss, whereas we (and OCLC) have Brian W. Aldiss, so I let the latter stand in the entry. Are you able to take a look if that was rightly done (we don't have a primary verifier so far)? Christian Stonecreek 12:34, 5 December 2021 (EST)

Hi Christian, The title and subtitle for 1978 Harper & Row publication are correct as shown. However, the title page credits 'Brian Aldiss'. Therefore, the author should be changed. My guess is that whomever edited the OCLC record looked at the copyright page which shows "Copyright © 1978 Brian W. Aldiss'. John Scifibones 15:01, 5 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks, John! I edited the publication accordingly. If you have your hands near a copy of the publication: ever thought of primary veryfying it (it's good to have someone around to ask if questions arise). Christian Stonecreek 01:46, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Christian, you misunderstand. I don't own the book. I did the count and answered your question by checking out the digitized copy here. I showed the link in the Community Portal when I answered your initial question. Sorry if I confused you. John Scifibones 07:54, 6 December 2021 (EST)

P.S. Good work getting it all sorted out.

The Empire of Sugar, It's Rise and Fall

Can you recheck the title here? "The Empire of Sugar, It's Rise and Fall" or "The Empire of Sugar, Its Rise and Fall"? If correct as it is now, add a note to that effect or someone WILL correct it without asking one day Annie 20:59, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Submitted a correction John Scifibones 21:25, 6 December 2021 (EST)

I'd assume you are planning on adding all these pubs you are adding notes about ("First published in")? :) Annie 21:54, 6 December 2021 (EST)

No, I was not. Don't we want the first published information for titles where I show the original publication dates? How else does anyone know the date was not "made up"? John Scifibones

Adding the note is a good thing to do - that way it is known and we KNOW where to look for it - and the next editor knows not to research that specific title. Adding the books AND adding the note (even when we have the book - so it is clear that we had checked and there is no missing edition we could find) is even better because we are publication-based DB. I know it can be annoying though - so just checking on your plans (one of the long term cleaning projects that had not been even started is adding all those missing "first published in" publications). So if you get bored, feel free to add a few here and there (not mandatory, not a problem if you don't but just heads up). :) Annie 22:11, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Now I understand the point of your question. I'll be glad to add some/all of the cited publications. Some are non-genre so I will only add the genre content. I'm glad you let me know, I tend to generate quite a few 'first published' citations. I'll start adding these to my to-do list. John Scifibones 22:19, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Have fun. And yes - the non-genre ones are the ones we miss the most usually but I've found that we also miss a lot of collections and anthologies (or we have them empty) - and when we start paying attention to a magazine, sometimes we find out it is worth checking every issue because they add a story or three... It is a rabbit hole though - sometimes you end up adding 20 different books because of one story (first of this story is in a book where there are older stories so you chase THEIR first and so on). But they are ours so if you are bored... :) Annie 23:24, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Dragon and Phoenix

Would you please check your copy of Dragon and Phoenix and see if the last numbered page is actually 540? I was getting ready to add a note for the Canadian price and PV when I noticed the discrepancy. Thanks. Phil 11:01, 7 December 2021 (EST)

Yeah, the 'Aboout the Author' page is numbered 540. You can change it if you like John Scifibones 11:07, 7 December 2021 (EST)

Will do. Thanks! Phil 11:09, 7 December 2021 (EST)

Angel with the Sword

Added notes and imported missing titles from the Appendix for Angel with the Sword prior to doing a PV. Phil 08:03, 13 December 2021 (EST)

If you think individual titles for all the information in the Appendix adds value, go ahead and import them. Personally, I'm a fan of highlighting any items of interest in the notes. As long as you are adding to the notes, please add the C$20.95 Canadian price. Thanks for spending time to improve this listing. John Scifibones 08:23, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Phil, take a look at your note for the Canadian price. You are showing a price in US dollars. John Scifibones 08:27, 14 December 2021 (EST)

Fortress of Owls

Added a note for the Canadian price to Fortress of Owls before doing a PV. Phil 10:05, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks John Scifibones 11:14, 13 December 2021 (EST)

The Chantry Guild

Added notes to The Chantry Guild before doing a PV. Phil 08:03, 14 December 2021 (EST)

Improvements are always appreciated. John Scifibones 08:20, 14 December 2021 (EST)

The Final Encyclopedia

Added notes, fixed page count to include unnumbered pages, added new regular title for the map to The Final Encyclopedia based on owned copy. Will PV. Phil 08:38, 14 December 2021 (EST)

What Distant Deeps

While preparing to PV What Distant Deeps, I noticed the page count was missing the unnumbered pages and the "Author's Note" on pg. ix isn't included in the regular titles. Any problem with me adding the regular title and changing the page count to x+370? Phil 10:25, 14 December 2021 (EST)

When the Tide Rises

While preparing to PV When the Tide Rises, I noticed the page count was missing the unnumbered pages and the "Author's Note" on pg. [5] isn't included in the regular titles. Any problem with me adding the regular title and changing the page count to [8]+356? Also adding notes and the LCCN. Phil 10:50, 14 December 2021 (EST)

The Way to Glory

While preparing to PV The Way to Glory, I noticed the page count was missing the unnumbered pages and the "Author's Note" on pg. [5] isn't included in the regular titles. Any problem with me adding the regular title and changing the page count to [7]+402? Also adding notes. Phil 06:25, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Lt. Leary, Commanding

While preparing to PV Lt. Leary, Commanding, I noticed the page count was missing the unnumbered pages and the "Author's Note" on pg. [5] isn't included in the regular titles. Any problem with me adding the regular title and changing the page count to [7]+432? Also adding notes. Phil 06:30, 15 December 2021 (EST)

With the Lightnings

While preparing to PV With the Lightnings, I noticed the page count was missing the unnumbered pages and "A Note on Weight and Measures" on pg. [5] isn't included in the regular titles. Any problem with me adding the regular title and changing the page count to [7]+323? Also adding notes. Phil 06:37, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Belgarath the Sorcerer

Any problem with me adding a new regular title for the endpaper maps in Belgarath the Sorcerer? Phil 08:48, 15 December 2021 (EST)

What map are you planning on adding? Appears that all maps are already accounted for. John Scifibones 08:53, 15 December 2021 (EST)

The endpaper maps by Larry Schwinger are missing as a regular title. Phil 09:03, 15 December 2021 (EST)

No problem, go ahead. John Scifibones 09:36, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks. BTW, I apologize for all the request for PV approval posts in the last few days. I'm going through all my hardbacks by author and seem to have many that match ones you have PVs on. Phil 10:16, 15 December 2021 (EST)

No apology necessary. I appreciate the notifications. Just remember to monitor responses. John Scifibones 10:57, 15 December 2021 (EST)

The Belgariad: Part Two

While preparing to PV The Belgariad: Part Two, I discovered a missing map on unnumbered page [2]. Any problem if I add it, adjust the page numbers, and add notes? Phil 08:03, 16 December 2021 (EST)

Okay with me John Scifibones 08:08, 16 December 2021 (EST)

The Belgariad: Part One

While preparing to PV The Belgariad: Part One, I discovered a missing frontispiece map. Any problem if I add it and add a note about the gutter code in my copy? Phil 08:21, 16 December 2021 (EST)

No problem John Scifibones 08:22, 16 December 2021 (EST)

Rage of a Demon King

Can you please look at your copy of Rage of a Demon King and see if there is a map on the endpapers? I have a first edition and there isn't one in mine. If it's not there, can I remove it from the pub? Phil 06:30, 17 December 2021 (EST)

I'm glad you brought this to my attention. My copy is a 4th printing. I don't know how I missed this. I will remove my pv from the first printing, clone it to create a 4th printing, and remove the endpaper map from the first printing. John Scifibones 15:43, 17 December 2021 (EST)

Krondor: The Betrayal

While preparing to PV Krondor: The Betrayal, I noticed that the "Author's Afterword" on page 374 is missing. Any problem with my adding it? Phil 07:01, 17 December 2021 (EST)

No Objection John Scifibones 15:30, 17 December 2021 (EST)

Polar Starlight #4 and Polar Borealis #20

Hi John, just thought I'd let you know that the latest issues of Polar Borealis (#20) and Polar Starlight (#4) have been released in the last few hours. Details and links here: http://polarborealis.ca/currentback-issues/. Greg--Explorer1000 22:47, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks Greg, I'll take care of them today John Scifibones 07:23, 23 December 2021 (EST)

Hallman

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?416139; You typed Tom Halllman in notes and cover artist instead of Hallman, the name all his other ISFDB credits are listed under. See back flap: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780399162503. --Username 23:55, 17 January 2022 (EST)

I submitted corrections, thanks for bringing this to my attention. John Scifibones 08:06, 18 January 2022 (EST)

Stone and Steel

Hello,

When adding OCLC numbers (and other links and IDs which are linked), don't forget to click on them once you had submitted them to make sure there is no typo or a copy/paste mishap (easy to happen). In this one you had 183421608 while the correct one is 1183421608 :) Fixed now. Annie 15:21, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for fixing 15:27, 23 January 2022 (EST)

Self-approving

You asked me about an opinion once and you know why I thought it was a bit too early. I said I will keep an eye on what you are doing :) If you happen to still want it, you will have my support - which may not be enough of course but FYI. What do you think? Annie 12:59, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Yes, I would like self-approval ability. It will markedly increase my productivity. My goal is still full moderator privileges. You can tell by my posts that I enjoy helping others. Thank you for your support, I won't let you down. John Scifibones 13:14, 26 January 2022 (EST)

If you will take an advice - take it slowly and don't rush it. I won't vote "no" if you go for full moderator even now but I am not sure I am ready to vote "yes" yet. Which may not matter if everyone else is ready to say "yes" so... your call to some extent :) Post over on the Moderator board the request for self-approval and the process can take it from there. Annie 13:50, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Mermaids Monthly, November 2021

Is "Ila, The Mermaid of Batticaloa" really an essay here? PS: It also had a minor capitalization issue ("Of" instead of "of") :) Annie 14:54, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for fixing, I actually saw it was an essay when I was entering it, I'm embarrassed I entered it wrong. John Scifibones 15:06, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Happens - that's the benefit of the two sets of eyes system :) Once you can self-approve, you will be checking and rechecking everything 11 times (And still mess it up). Always fun :) Annie 15:13, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Two entries on page 41? It is always a good idea to order them explicitly (41|41.1 and 41|41.2 based on how they are set on the page) :) Annie 15:58, 26 January 2022 (EST)

[8] fixes it John Scifibones 16:10, 26 January 2022 (EST)

"Ila, The Mermaid of Batticaloa" is still an essay? Is it really one? I only fixed the capitalization for it. Annie 16:42, 26 January 2022 (EST)

I misread your question initally, thought you were telling me I didn't have it as an essay. Yes, It really is an essay. Here is a link to the website showing their classification as an essay. John Scifibones 17:18, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Ha! :) PS: This is why I always ask and never change types unless I look at the source (which I looked at for the contents list but did not delve in). I think that all is sorted them here. Watch out for the capitalization though. :) Annie 17:20, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Mermaids Monthly, February 2021

Can you recheck the two "In the Sky, an Ocean" titles here? One of them is probably interior art :) Thanks! Annie 13:03, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Same question for the two "The Little Sea Maid" here. Thanks! Annie 13:05, 28 January 2022 (EST)

No question about it, the mystery is why that happened! Nevertheless, they are corrected in the edit for each pub which also loads the cover. John Scifibones 13:39, 28 January 2022 (EST)

They can be annoying to spot (short fiction being the default type when you work magazines/anthologies/collections). That is partially why we have a report for "same titles stories in the same container" - it is a common problem so I tend to look at these carefully when I add/moderate one of those. Annie 13:43, 28 January 2022 (EST)

While you are around

Missing pipe here? Unless you meant something with the number left naked (add a note in that case). Thanks! Annie 16:57, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Fixed, glad you spotted it, what brought it to your attention. (consider it a teaching opportuity) John Scifibones 17:04, 28 January 2022 (EST)

This is the same issue where the "Party" things were in. I saw those on the report I was ignoring things for you on so I buzzed you about it there. Later when you fixed them, I just looked at the publication to see if there is anything else there (in my experience, when there is one messed up thing left post moderation, chances are that the approving moderator was half-asleep/not paying attention so there may be others). It was pure chance. Plus I like checking publications post-approval, especially on title names changes and the like - to ensure that the notes are still valid, to see if there is any housekeeping to be done and so on.

Not related to how I saw this one but related to the topic: I also tend to always open any publication I was adding after it is approved (annoying back in the days when I was not self-approving but I still did it), click on every link/external ID again and make sure there are no silly mistakes. Technically the moderators should have done that post approval (or on approval) but it does not always happen. You catch a lot of things that way - call it looking at it with fresh eyes if you want. :) Annie 17:14, 28 January 2022 (EST)

This is a good tip. When I fixed the serial nomenclature, I pulled up the parent and just used that to click on the titles that needed to be fixed. I will work on making it a habit to review any publication in which I make a change. John Scifibones 17:27, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Yeah, that's why I did not see the page number thingie earlier either - I looked at the parent to see if all of them were like that and glanced at the notes of the publication just to see if you added a note explaining the naming - did not scroll down to see the rest (thus the "tend to", sometimes when in the middle of something else, I don't look). When I approved the two edits, I did look though - the link is right there so I click before I approve usually ;) Multiple sets of eyes are helpful; or the same set looking more than once. Everyone does typos and has copy/paste mishaps. Annie 17:55, 28 January 2022 (EST)

Oliver Hunter

Regarding this submission: Seems like there are two Oliver Hunter artists given some of the credits pre-date the given birthdate. Do you know anything more about the artist that would help disambiguate the non-Goblin Fruit credits? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:56, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Only other thing I read about him was his bio here. Looks like I should disambiguate everthing Goblin Fruit related as Oliver Hunter (I) (and move the metadata). Do you agree wwith this solution, or is there a better alternative? John Scifibones 14:30, 29 January 2022 (EST)

P.S. Everything post 1997 is from 3 sources. GoblinFruit magazine, Mythic Delirium magazine (Goblin Fruit staff switched with Mythic Delirium staff for one issue), and The Honey Month (Amal El-Mohtar's collection). All would be credited to Oliver Hunter (I). John Scifibones 15:14, 29 January 2022 (EST)

If you will change Oliver Hunter to Oliver Hunter (I), I only have to edit 16 titles to get everything disambiguated properly. Thanks John Scifibones 16:05, 29 January 2022 (EST)

As there are more of the GoblinFruit artist, I would recommend he be the primary and make the earlier artist Oliver Hunter (I). If you are good with that, we can just change those 16 titles. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:34, 29 January 2022 (EST)

I agree with your suggestion. In light of the discussion going on in Rules and Standards, I wasn't sure if changing the name of an artist in pv'd pubs would be acceptable without notifications. Hence, my suggestion. I'll go ahead and submit the changes. Thanks for catching this. John Scifibones 16:41, 29 January 2022 (EST)

Self-approver flag set

Congratulations, you are now a self-approver :-) Ahasuerus 09:57, 31 January 2022 (EST)

OCLC numbers

When we add OCLC numbers, we only add the number and not the whole string. I fixed it here. As a rule - before or after approval, always click on the links you just added to make sure you do not have a copy/paste problem. Especially now when you do not have a second set of eyes checking your work.

Also the Locus links (such as http://www.locusmag.com/index/yr2000/t10.htm#A464) are unstable - if they find a book they missed and add it to the index, the pages change and that address is not valid anymore for that book - they go strictly by the number in whatever index you are in (the 2000 alphabetical one in this case). So we do not add them as links to it in our books - it can point to a totally different book tomorrow. I pulled it out.Annie 13:47, 17 February 2022 (EST)

I'll go back and remove the Locus links from all the pubs I have put them in. Anyone will still be able to trace my source since I also state it in the notes. Thanks for pointing this out. John Scifibones 14:54, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Yep, we add a note that we had used the Locus Index but we just do not put the link itself - the things move. I usually add the link in the moderator note - it won't be valid half of the time but it will put you in the correct neighborhood and you can move a page up or down (or on the same page) if you are tracking it. But it is a bad idea in the links/notes directly - or you end up someone updating them every few weeks (or when they discover them changed) :) Annie 14:59, 17 February 2022 (EST)

While I have your attention, re: my question on the help desk earlier. Since it won't be obvious where the ISBN came from, should we create a template for a consistant note? It could say something like "ISBN derived from Audible ASIN." Similar to the incomplete template.

Not really. It is pretty obvious: it is the Audible policy to use the ISBN10 (when they use non Bxx ASINs). It is a housekeeping task - I don't add a note on where it is coming from for Audible books which have the Audible ID any more than I add that it is from the backcover/copyright page for paper books. It is not really derived per se - it is a question of using the correct form (as we would do if a source has only ISBN10 for any 2020 book). The reason the report was added now (and the rest of these) is simply because I was tired of fixing these adhoc (and we have more people adding them now). And most of these are foundable on the publisher sites and/or catalogs anyway. So if you want to help it it, convert, add to the field, approve, move on. :)

The incomplete template is needed because we need a way to differentiate between books which have only partial contents (so someone still need to work on them) and complete ones. Annie 15:18, 17 February 2022 (EST)

Award updates

You know that you can just reLink the awards, right? You do not need to do a delete+add. Go to an award page such as this one. Click on "Link Award" which opens here. Swap the ID. That way you do not lose the history of the award (which may or may not have something interesting but I don't like losing histories - in the very least it tells us who added the award - aka knows the source for them).

If you cannot figure out how to do something without deleting and recreating, checking before you start deleting is always a good idea - someone MAY know a way. Annie 23:21, 22 February 2022 (EST)

You are correct, I rarely delete a record. In this case, I know that awards are their own title records. Many of the records had no edit history. It didn't seem that there was anything of value to loose. I'm sorry, I will relink in the future. John Scifibones 07:23, 23 February 2022 (EST)

It also minimizes the chance for a typo, selecting the wrong category and so on. I know you are careful but a finger can slip and after 10 awards in a row, mistakes do happen. Plus every time you delete a record, you are running the risk of a link to our DB outside of it becoming obsolete (or even in our DB - we do link in notes occasionally) -- which is inevitable for things like review -> essay conversions or when we merge but when possible, keeping the same IDs is always a good idea. :) Annie 13:06, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Something else that came up. Some awards are for both the writer and the illustrator, 'Best Art Book' for example. (Not the awards which are clearly for the illustrator). We can only attach one title record to each award record. Looking at many of the exising records, the awards are attached to the writer. I followed the same procedure (15). One solution is to add a duplicate award record for the artist. I've seen this in a few instances. Using my recent edit list I could do this for the applicable records. Other editors have created 'dummy' title records with both credited as authors. (yuck). Or, we can leave as is, hoping that sometime in the future, the ability to add a second record to one award will be implemented. I will hold pending further input. John Scifibones 08:19, 23 February 2022 (EST)

We attach to the title, usually the non-fiction record. We are a publication based DB - our author records are a side effect of that. That's why we have no awards which are solely for authors. So no - the award is not for the author and illustrator, it is for their book - which we link. I know that you are thinking of the awards tab on author pages but you do not solve a visualization problem with messing up the data. If the art is added as 100 separate records to the art book, which one do you propose to link? :) If you want to change the policy on what is linked for artbooks, open a discussion, get support and change the way we do things but don't just come up with a weird idea and implement based on that. Now - if the artist is as important for the book as the author, which is often the case for artbooks, they probably should be co-authors to start with - which will solve that problem better... Annie 13:06, 23 February 2022 (EST)

I'm not trying to change anything. As I said, I followed what appeared to be the predominant method. (I agree, I should have relinked not replaced.) I merely pointed out a couple other methods I saw while doing this. Here was the example that surprised me. I have a list of those that are linked to the fiction title, if that should be changed, let me know. John Scifibones 14:26, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Different editors have different ideas and occasionally make up rules on the fly. Sometimes these get codified, sometimes they just exist out there until someone brings them back to policy :) Plus the DB is old enough to have so many different policies on top of each other from different times that it takes awhile to get all to policy. Every time we get a new report, we discover things like that (and sometimes reports are created because we discover these). It's the nature of a long running volunteer project - we do the best we can to keep it consistent and when it slips, we find a way to reconcile. I'll look at that one in a bit. Annie 14:36, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Here is one I haven't moved yet. John Scifibones 14:47, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Leave these in the report as they are for now so we can see how many we have like that and eventually have a discussion on how to handle? Annie 14:49, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Okay to finish the non problematic? John Scifibones 14:50, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Absolutely. Just leave anything which looks... too weird - especially if you see repeatable patterns and someone doing things on purpose like here. Thanks for working on this report! :) Annie 14:56, 23 February 2022 (EST)

An advanced search of titles looking for "dummy " in the title note results in 20 titles, all by a former moderator Clarkmci. It is more difficullt to find the instances where a duplicate award record was created to show both recipients. A report looking for duplicate records of the same award with the same recipient will find unintentional errors, it will not identifiy what we are looking for (probably should add it just for cleanup purposes). Short of plowing through the whole award database manually, not sure what else we can do. Any ideas? John Scifibones 08:53, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Let me think a bit about that. Annie 13:06, 24 February 2022 (EST)

(unindent)Annie, Upon futher consideration, I think some of the awards were moved in error. I followed what I percieved to be the practice. Chapbooks should be treated as regular publication titles for any award category which is publication specific. Best Art Book, Children's (8-12 years) Illustrated Work / Picture Book, etc. These awards should be left in the Chapbook title record. It makes no sense for those to travel with a content title. If there is no flag option to clear them from the cleanup report, one could be added. Forgive my ignorance if this is already the policy. If it is not, I would argue it should be. I know you are busy, there is no rush. I won't change anything until you have had a chance to consider. John Scifibones 15:27, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Nah, I said I need to think above because I literally need to wrap my head around what I think about these :) I mean - I am busy but that's normal :) I am around if I can help.

Chapbooks are a bit of a red-haired child around the DB if you had not realized that yet. They are an artificial construct to allow us to have single stories recorded when they are published on their own. Incidentally, they ended up catching a lot of the children fiction because these are rarely long enough to be novels. If these were long enough, the reviews and awards will be on the novel level. As they are not, we usually put them on the title level - because had they been long enough, you won't have the double layer. The problematic awards are the ones where the award is not just for the text but for the combination of text and art (what would you do for these if they are novels or non-fiction anyway? There the award will stay on the text entry - same way as it does here when put on the short fiction). Our DB is not really well-suited for that kind of records because of how we handle our art titles as separate entities. So the question really comes down to what we want to do with these. I don't think we really have a good policy on that (which is why you are finding all kinds of creative solutions all over the place). Hope that makes some sense.

Write up your concerns and ideas with a few examples and bring them up in R&S - and let's see if we can come up with a policy.

On a separate note - that is an Exhibit A on why the cleanup reports should be treated as "hey, look at this, something needs fixing - and it may actually be a policy and NOT the record or if it is the record, it may not be in the most obvious way" and not as "do something to get it off the report" kind of thing. Most of the reports which can cause real harm are moderator only but even the ones available to all can cause issues if one is not careful. If you are only doing a change to clear something off a report but you do not understand why it is needed OR it does not feel right, stop and think (or ask) -- clearing the report should be the secondary goal. Just thinking aloud on the topic - you did not do anything wrong here but new ability and so on - so just a cautious warning (because there is no approving moderator to stop you now) :) Annie 15:48, 24 February 2022 (EST)

Jim Butcher / Small Favor

I am PVing Small Favor. I will add pub notes and the Author's Note to the Contents. No changes to the existing information. I will add the Author's Note (where applicable) to all succeeding 1st ed hc's of the Dresden Files series. Teallach 11:52, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Any improvements are always welcome John Scifibones 13:43, 23 February 2022 (EST)

Duplicate poems

Hi John,

In case you miss my response here. The only reason not to merge/variant titles is that they have different contents. If it is the same contents, we always merge or variant - whatever is appropriate. In cases such as this, we rename one of them and variant them - software limitations don't allow us to have the same title twice. But that is not a reason to disregard how the DB works - same text means that the titles are always connected. I left the note in the title for now so you can see if you had done more of these - if so, they need fixing. Thanks! Let me know if you have any questions and/or concerns. :) Annie 18:55, 7 March 2022 (EST)

I'm glad you gave me this nudge. I saw Herb's answer and removed the disambiguation. I had forgotten that I should have just varianted the disambiguation to the original. Thanks for reminding me. John Scifibones 19:11, 7 March 2022 (EST)

You work magazines and poetry and these things happen mainly there - so figured I should make sure you are aware :) Annie 19:34, 7 March 2022 (EST)

Magazine titles

Unless this is an issue of a magazine called "Care", this is even worse title than we initially had and is out of policy for both a book or a magazine. Some more notes here. Just heads up in case you are not keeping an eye on the discussion anymore :) Annie 17:05, 9 March 2022 (EST)

Moderator status

The nomination was a success. Congratulations, you are now a moderator! As I always say when editors become moderators, please be extra careful when dealing with submissions in areas that you are not familiar with and don't hesitate to ask questions :-) Ahasuerus 10:35, 30 April 2022 (EDT)

Thank you. Don't worry, I wont let you down. John Scifibones 10:39, 30 April 2022 (EDT)

Congrats from me, also: well deserved, John!

(One thing to remark, though: I reversed this edit: we go by the title page, not by the copyright page (likely the copyright was assigned there to both: that's why I note this for publications); also, the book was primary verified.) Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 09:03, 2 May 2022 (EDT)

Are you PV or where did you get your information from? I am PV and my data are correct.--Wolfram.winkler 11:33, 2 May 2022 (EDT)

WW's last message on his board, after being made inactive by a mod in 2020, was in German, translated as: "The gray eminence in the background, who always talks past the topic...". He and Stonecreek seem to have had a feud going on before that, so be careful with altering his PVs. --Username 12:22, 2 May 2022 (EDT)

(Let me add that this, his last remark refers to Ahasuerus, and MagicUnk was the one who had enough of him in that argument). Christian Stonecreek 13:46, 2 May 2022 (EDT)

Continued on the editor's talk page Here

Reference to: Fairyland

Originally posted in the unrelated thread above

Reference to:

• Maybrick, there is no need to submit an edit with no changes in order to ask a question. In the future, just ask on the Help Desk or Community Portal. Look at the author's name for the answer to your question. This title is for the publications which credit 'Paul McAuley', one of the alternate names for 'Paul J. McAuley', as the author. John Scifibones 22:46, 3 May 2022 (EDT)

This is a merge-type edit not a question - it did get accepted not rejected. It shouldn't show rejected. Maybrick 14:09, 5 May 2022 (EDT)

David Hambling

Please see my response at http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:AlanHK

Neptune Rising

I made a bunch of edits for this title but it took so long for them to be approved that another editor "coincidentally" did some edits for it, too, so now I have no idea if everything is right. You seem to have rejected my Folk title change which came straight from the title page of the copy on Archive.org but then accepted it later, I think? Looking at the dates of submission of my edits and the edit history would show you that when my edits were made most info was missing from these titles, and then everything got confused. --Username 22:38, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Your initial submission changed the title record and the pub record. I thought you missed the cover art title so I changed that myself. Look at the rejected submission, here you accidently put 'people' in by mistake. Review the record, if I missed something, let me know. Thanks John Scifibones 22:48, 27 May 2022 (EDT)

Leisure Novels with Extras

Long Last Call edit was approved, but I noticed at least one of these later Leisure editions that included an extra story (or two) marked as a collection. Should all of them that include something besides the novel be made collections, too? That would require a bit of work finding which ones apply, and possibly which ones still don't have the extras added. --Username 17:51, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

A novel plus one work is a judgement call. My call is that this is a novel plus a 'bonus story'. Here is the help section for 'Publication Type. Read the bullet point NOVEL and tell me if you agree or not. John Scifibones 18:15, 1 June 2022 (EDT)

Belated Congratulations

Hi John, I was away from the database for three months and, in the meantime, you got to be a moderator! Just wanted to congratulate you on that. How do you like modding? --Explorer1000 11:33, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

Thanks Greg, I enjoy the challenge! John Scifibones 11:39, 5 June 2022 (EDT)

Polar Starlight #6

Hi John, Polar Starlight 6 was released yesterday. If you have a lot of stuff on your hands at the moment, I would be happy to index it. Greg--Explorer1000 11:58, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

I'm actually entering it right now! John Scifibones 12:00, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

Excellent! It's nice to see the entry on PS #6 up! Sorry for not getting back to you sooner today. --Explorer1000 18:40, 20 June 2022 (EDT)

FP

I saw that you're fixing incorrect pipes (?) but also any FP abbreviations you're finding; while the first one I noticed, A Haunting Beauty, apparently was entered by me, the next one I saw, Discoveries, was by JLaTondre, who's been here since day 1 (U-SO), and I also just saw one, Angels and Visitations, by Ofearna, who I believe is another veteran here. So when you're done fixing all that you find, are you going to break it down by who entered them, because I'd be curious to know how many I entered? I was a bit surprised to see people so experienced here entering it unlike an amateur Luddite like myself. Maybe one of those is where I first saw it and thought that was the proper way to enter it. --Username 14:19, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

I know you started using it because you had seen it in use. I stated as much to Ahasuerus when I requested the changes to the cleanup report. I started working on it because I wasn't sure if you were upset with me and weren't interested in following through. If you would rather take care of them, I'll be glad to just approve. Assuming you want to handle, do you want to do the whole report, or just the 'fp' items? It is housekeeping, so you won't need to send PV notifications. Use verbage similar to mine in the note to moderator. If I handle them, I will only make a mental note of repeated use by an editor, and post on their talk page. John Scifibones 15:15, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

Upset? Dude, I don't care about any of this or any of you enough to get upset; I'm just continuing to do it because it keeps me busy and away from doing other, less positive things that could be harmful to myself or to others. Actually, I think it would be better if you just keep on doing these FP fixes since you've already started because this kind of minutiae isn't really my thing, my brain not being as sharp as it used to be, and any individual day in the near future could be the last I decide to do any regular edits for this site anymore, so it would be silly to start something and then leave it hanging. If you wouldn't mind, though, when you're done I'd still like to know how many were entered by me; I'm wondering why long-time editors and mods like the ones mentioned above would've entered them incorrectly. Seems weird, since you'd think they'd know what the right abbreviations were. --Username 15:37, 7 July 2022 (EDT)

Black Leather Required 2022 Edition

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?3056843; Should that be this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63711? --Username 21:16, 12 July 2022 (EDT)

Thanks for the heads up, didn't see it when I looked. John Scifibones 21:22, 12 July 2022 (EDT)

Robert L. Forward / Dragons' Egg

I am editing and PVing Dragon's Egg. I intend to replace the cover image with a scan from my copy. The current image is not quite correct. It does not have the blurb by Arthur C. Clarke underneath the author's name. I suspect the image has been re-used from the SFBC edition. Does your copy have this blurb? Can you please advise the correct way to go about replacing the image because I am concerned that if I just use the standard "Upload new cover scan" option then the new image will also be applied to the SFBC edition. Teallach 06:55, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

Yes, my copy has the Arthur C. Clarke quote. You are correct, Bluesman used the same image for both editions. I have resized and moved a copy of the SFBC image. You can upload the correct image and it will not affect the SFBC edition. Thanks for finding this. John Scifibones 08:56, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

I've just submitted the edit to replace the cover and add a minor pub note. I see that you created a copy of the cover in a different filename. That makes perfect sense to me. In case I come across this situation again in the future, can you explain how you did this so I can do it myself. Or does it require moderator intervention? Thanks. Teallach 16:29, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

You can do it yourself. Go to the image you wish to edit (and in this case move) and download it. I modified the size since one side was longer than 600px. I then uploaded it and edited the link in the SFBC edition to point to the new image.

If you wish to simply change a cover for a given publication you can do it without any edits or moderator approval necessary. Here is the cover you just uploaded. To change it, select Upload a new version of this file located in the File history section. That's it. To save disk space, you should alert a moderator to delete any unused images once you are satisfied. John Scifibones 19:42, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

P.S. Using this method, you still need to communicate with existing P.V.'s John Scifibones 20:05, 22 July 2022 (EDT)

Margaret (P.) Killjoy

Thanks for sorting these out - I did have them on a personal TODO list, but other things had drawn my attention the past few days :-) ErsatzCulture 07:26, 16 August 2022 (EDT)

I happened across the record while looking at some of the other issues of Steampunk. I didn't want to pester you over a couple edits, so I just took care of it. John Scifibones 08:02, 16 August 2022 (EDT)

Infinity Three

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?35035; The edition on here says no printing or edition stated; the Luminist copy says Printed in Canada, as I noted in my edit. Isn't this a separate edition that should be entered, like all the other Canadian Lancer editions? --Username 19:17, 17 August 2022 (EDT)

There is no way to undelete the publication. You will have to redo the submission. John Scifibones 21:11, 17 August 2022 (EDT)

So now you're saying that it does belong here, is that correct? The Luminist copy either was photographed badly or, less likely, the Canadian edition had no price info on the cover, so I'll wait until I (or someone else) locates another copy so we can see if the cover really had info on it; if so, info entered, if not, note about no info on the Canadian cover. --Username 21:51, 17 August 2022 (EDT)

I'm not saying it belongs. All I said was that if you think it belongs, you will have to submit it again. John Scifibones 23:19, 17 August 2022 (EDT)

Orgy of the Dead

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?700871; You approved my ID for this book, but I just noticed that a previous person (MLB?) included a link to the full cover in the notes that's not actually a clickable link; is there a way to fix that by adding tags or whatever is needed? I don't know much about that kind of stuff, which is why I don't do it in my own notes and just let people copy-and-paste my links if they want to. --Username 13:48, 19 August 2022 (EDT)

No problem, John Scifibones 13:54, 19 August 2022 (EDT)

Application

Hello, John! I don't know if you have seen my application for self-moderating. Would you mind to leave a comment? Regards, Christian Stonecreek (talk) 12:31, 23 September 2022 (EDT)

ISFDB wiki and database code

Two technical points --generated for me at User talk:Pwendt#B Magical but unrelated to its substance:
1] Concerning "(outdent)": Last night (here in North America) I did compose using template {{outdent}}, and learned that is a Wikipedia template not available here. Do you know a list of such ISFDB wiki templates?

Template:Test

Template:Outdent

Template:Ping

✓ done {{done}}

2] Now I "draw a blank" on database Notes markup. Does the Note to Moderator differ? Here is the one I submitted 10:36:21 EDT this morning, Approved Title Update Submission 5465728:

Note to Moderator

1st of 4; later<br> • child #1 needs capital Ms (NOVEL and COVERART)<br> • check all child COVERART (import, merge?); juv<br> • expand series Note

--Pwendt|talk 13:28, 27 October 2022 (EDT)

I saw all the notes to mod in the submissions (wiki markup has no effect in the note to mod field). It is my style to note what I see when I'm communicating with an editor. If I didn't believe you were going to address them, I would have corrected them as I was reviewing and approving.

The list of wiki templates is here. Available templates for use in the note fields is here. John Scifibones 16:20, 27 October 2022 (EDT)

SS-GB Knopf Date

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5484237; I added an Archive.org link to the second printing (not PV by you) and added the exact date to your PV. There's also a fifth printing on Archive.org, so they reprinted this a lot. --Username (talk) 11:59, 10 November 2022 (EST)

I disagree with your submission. The correct edit is to add a note with the exact date (February 26, 1979) and source (title verso of the second printing). Let me know if you change your submission and I'll approve it. John Scifibones 12:37, 10 November 2022 (EST)

Precising the date based on secondary sources is permitted as long as the new date does not contradict the primary source. 1979-02-26 does not contradict 1979-02-00 (same month and year) so it is correct to update it and add a note on the provenance. We do not do that if you had 1979-03-00 in the book itself (then the note route is used due to the contradiction between publishing date and printed date) but as there is no contradiction, the date belongs in the field. Annie (talk) 13:12, 10 November 2022 (EST)

Ok Annie, since bullet point three under our general dating policy agrees with your analysis, I have approved the submission. John Scifibones 13:28, 10 November 2022 (EST)

We had a pretty heated discussion around exact dates while back (which are much easier to find these days but occasionally foundable for old books as well) vs using incomplete dates as printed inside of the books which led to the help page changes to reflect current policy. It is optional of course but I am always for more precise dates and more data (we are a DB after all) when known (and properly documented). Thus me chiming in. :) Annie (talk) 14:22, 10 November 2022 (EST)

The Canterville Ghost

Why are this and this marked as do not merge with each other when the artwork is the same? -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:35, 27 November 2022 (EST)

I have no explanation. It's corrected now. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. John Scifibones 08:03, 27 November 2022 (EST)

Polar Starlight #7

Hi John! Haven't been on here in a while due to real life distractions. Hope you had a nice Christmas. :) Thanks for covering Polar Starlight #7, which only came out a couple of weeks ago. Just one thing, though - my first poem in that issue is actually called "Tasty" rather than "Fear"! :P I think you might have been influenced by the name of the previous poem in that issue (called "Bear" by Irena Nikolova).--Explorer1000 (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2023 (EST)

Sorry Greg, it's correct now. I don't know where 'Bear' came from. Thanks for the holiday wishes, hope you have a prosperous new year. We have modified the policy regarding webzines since you were last here. Non-genre webzines are now eligible for inclusion. If you have any speculative work in non-genre poetry webzines, please enter them. Alternatively, provide me the information and I will take care of it. John Scifibones 08:01, 2 January 2023 (EST)

Hi John. No problem about the error - thanks for correcting it. I'm sorry for not responding sooner - my mom passed away on January 3rd and I just wasn't in the right headspace to come back here till now.

That's great news that non-genre webzines are now eligible for inclusion in the database. I can certainly add some stuff of my own but I'd like to tackle the behemoth that is Page & Spine before it goes offline for good in early May. Would you be interested in sharing in the project? There's a dedicated section - Outta This World - for speculative material that was published between May 2020 and April 2022, but I know that additional speculative content appeared in other sections and over a longer time period.--Explorer1000 (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2023 (EST)

Clarke - The Last Theorem - 'ambles

Hi John, you are PV here, could you check yours and have a look at this conversation. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 15:47, 24 January 2023 (EST)

The Crane Husband

At 128 pages, with this publisher, chances of this being a novel are slim to none. I've converted it to a chapbook and will keep an eye for a number of words in a few weeks. With modern publishers, the usual waterline is at ~150 pages (and with Tor.com, it tends to be even higher - their 176 pages books are often well under 40K words). Annie (talk) 17:28, 30 January 2023 (EST)

Email via ISFDB

Hi, John Scifibones Do you accept email via ISFDB.org? I have used email with two editors only, and years ago, and I don't recall how to do it. Visiting my user page can you see whether I accept email via this site?

Are you, or were you, a fan of Ann McCaffrey? I see that you own more of her first edition hardcovers than any other, by a decent margin. That doesn't seem to me a sound inve$tment strategy, so I guess you are/were a fan.

Reply in progress: re the Cat Who May Be a Detective. --Pwendt|talk 21:24, 4 February 2023 (EST)

Apparently, my email server is one of those that will not allow the confirmation process. Last I saw, Alvonruff and Ahasuerus were working on this issue. As a result, I can't see any user's email status. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. John Scifibones 21:37, 4 February 2023 (EST)

I've sent Pwendt a mail from the ISFDB page here. We shall see if he gets it. The way to see if a user can accept a mail is to go to their userpage and look on the left menu for the "Email this user" link. If it is there and the next page allows you to send a mail, it can go out. Receiving it is a different topic - it depends on the server the user is running and their policies... Annie (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Asimov - Second Foundation

Hi John, curious to know what you made of the couple of edits we did to this pub. What is showing now is not my cover, which you swapped back again to the Amazon image. It's possible that the cover for ErsatzCulture's printing is different from mine, but in all other respects they are the same (and I've now left a note with him asking for cover clarity). Please enlighten :) I've cancelled the cover swap for the ebook as I have no justification/verification for it. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 22:31, 4 February 2023 (EST)

I just posted regarding this issue on your page. John Scifibones 22:34, 4 February 2023 (EST)

Deryni audiobook/CD pubs

Based on the dates and the cover art, I think that the High Deryni audiobook and audio CD pubs you created last December need to be moved from the canonical title here to the variant revised title here. The same thing applies to the Deryini Checkmate audiobook and MP3 CD in canonical title here and the variant revised title here. What do you think? Phil (talk) 08:34, 6 February 2023 (EST)

If they need to be moved, do it. I have no knowledge of these pubs. Let me know and I'll approve the edits. John Scifibones 08:55, 6 February 2023 (EST)

OK. I'll do the unmerge/merge process for them. I think there may also be one for Deryni Rising as well. Phil (talk) 09:14, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Unmerge submissions here and here. Phil (talk) 11:04, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Approved. Ping me after you submit the merges. John Scifibones 11:08, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Merges: here and here. Phil (talk) 11:43, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Aproved. While down at the bottom of your queue, I was about to approve the 3 Deryni Rising clones. Check this one, appears to be the wrong cover. John Scifibones 11:53, 6 February 2023 (EST)

Nice catch. Both cover and price were wrong so I cancelled it and submitted a corrected one. I've been interrupted by contractors all morning so I think I'm done for now. Phil (talk) 13:50, 6 February 2023 (EST)

If Lions Could Speak

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5574118; the preview copy on Google IS the HC; scrolling to the end shows back cover with HC price and ISBN. --Username (talk) 17:21, 6 February 2023 (EST)

I've unrejected it. The next reviewer who looks at it can approve. On my computer the link is for the tp. The link to the hc record is https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/B9aTPQAACAAJ?hl=en, but it doesn't show the preview. When I look at the preview linked to the tp record, it stops at 57, so I don't see the ISBN or price. I believe you, but I only approve what I can see. John Scifibones 17:53, 6 February 2023 (EST)

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=uX-QdrhUqowC&pg=PA197&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U3UJdzavM5L93ehXZyPxrMPiquuRg&w=1280. --Username (talk) 17:58, 6 February 2023 (EST)

You link shows up as a large white page with "image not available"! John Scifibones 18:07, 6 February 2023 (EST)

That's odd; I see the back cover with info. Oh well, must be a browser thing, I use Chrome and Windows 8.1. Maybe someone else will see the same thing I do (although RTrace has been the only regular approver of my edits for a while now and he's on a 10-day vacation according to what he told me) and approve it. --Username (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2023 (EST)

I have shrunk the back cover scan and uploaded it to https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/File:Back_cover_scan.jpg . Ahasuerus (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Thanks Ahasuerus. Now that I viewed the hosted image, Username's link works for me. I don't understand. John Scifibones 20:22, 7 February 2023 (EST)

It Google Books images are hosted on a separate set of servers, it's possible that the "image not available" message was due to the hosting server being temporarily unavailable. Many large companies have this problem: their infrastructure consists of thousands or even millions of servers which send data to each other and it can get tricky to manage the complexity. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Glukhovsky

Hi John, I've got myself in a bit of a fix here. Could you take a look and advise what steps I should take and in which order. Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 15:29, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Kev, it has some of the basic elements of a story, primarily setting and theme with hints of conflict. It lacks plot, characters, tone and point of view. It's the opening of the novel. In my opinion, you should delete the title and the Russian language parent. John Scifibones 19:11, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Appreciate you looking at that John; just what I needed... some good impartial advice (as always). Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 19:36, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Polar Starlight #8

Thanks, John, for indexing Polar Starlight #8! One small thing though - although "hefting chainsaws" is a haiku (or scifaiku), it does have a title ("The Scent of Pine"). The editor and publisher of Polar Starlight prefer to have titles for haiku-form poetry even though that's not the tradition. As you may recall, the title they gave for one poem previously was only "Horrorku" (it wasn't my idea as the poet in that particular case) and I think you were right to give the first line in brackets following that title for clarity. (Sorry to be pernickety!) --Explorer1000 (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2023 (EST)

Talon of the Silver Hawk

Minor tweaks to contents of Talon of the Silver Hawk https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?34446 if you have no objection. gzuckier (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2023 (EST)

Please describe your proposed changes in future notifications. How is GlennMcG supposed to give an opinion? Biomassbob and I can look at your submission, non moderators cannot. Re: the submission. The note is fine. However, a title is only allowed once per publication. There are two possible methods to accomplish your objective.

• Disambiguate the title "Talon of the Silver Hawk (map of Midkemia) [2]" and make it a variant of the original.
• Add a publication note such as, "The same map is used for both the front and back endpapers".

I prefer adding a note, the other PV's might disagree. John Scifibones 09:06, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Rides a Dread Legion

I made minor changes to contents of Rides a Dread Legion https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?274016 if you have no objection. gzuckier (talk) 00:49, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Your note is fine. Since there are no Roman numerals, 'pages: 366' is correct. The same map is used as both the front and back endpapers, I would use a note here. Looks like there are multiple names for the same map across many publications. Perhaps a cleanup project? John Scifibones 09:24, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Coverart varianting?

Hi John, as a result of this conversation I'm at a loss as to what to do, if anything, about these four covers; Flow My Tears v1 Flow My Tears v2 and Gladiator-at-Law v1 Gladiator-at-Law v2. The books' titles are the same. The artwork is essentially the same in each case but altered. I'm wondering why previous editors haven't varianted the changes. Any advice? Thanks, Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 11:03, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Quick review. We create variant tiles when the same work has a different title, author credit, language, or is a serial.

• Gladiator-at-Law. Clearly the hc has different artwork. It should be unmerged. Then we add a note to each title record that it should not be merged with the other. The note in both is necessary to make the situation clear whenever anyone checks for duplicates.
• Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. The artwork is essentially the same. However, it meets none of the requirement for a variant. A note as PeteYoung suggests is appropriate.

In summary, variating does not apply to either situation. let me know if anything is not clear. John Scifibones 11:47, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Just chiming in - art is a bit different that text in terms of what we consider the same. The Gladiator-at-Law 1955 hc cover should not be unmerged from the 1955 pbs as it is with different colors but the same art work. That is still not a variant (same title, author and language) but needs to stay merged as is. Unlike text, for art we consider it the same even if it has differences in color, orientation (upside down, mirror and so on), cropping and so on). Annie (talk) 12:05, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Annie, I'm glad you stepped in. I enlarged the pictures and now I see the that you're correct. Clearly your eyes are better than mine. John Scifibones 12:11, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Thank you both for your time. Looking at the covers for Gladiator-at-Law 1955, Gladiator-at-Law 1962 and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said my understanding of the principles is clear now :) Kev. --BanjoKev (talk) 12:40, 10 February 2023 (EST)

Kev, the main rule to remember about art is that we NEVER variant based on image differences (unlike text titles where we might for something like serials for example) - varianting is only for title/author/language (any of those being different means a variant). So when you look at the image, strip it down to line art in your mind and start rotating it and flipping it around (as in in a mirror). Is it the same picture? Yes? Merge/variant based on the 3 elements differences. No? Is one of them a cropped image by any chance? These also get folded into the merge/variant. Otherwise, they stay separate and we add notes and links. Some covers can be tricky - sometimes because someone was trying to hide that they stole a cover (ahem), sometimes, especially with European covers of certain times, because it is actually a redrawn cover based on the original. In such cases details matter. The redrawn is always standing separately. The slightly changed one? It all depends on how they changed. Always fun with these cases :)

John, the more the merrier when looking at art. :) Annie (talk) 14:05, 10 February 2023 (EST)