User talk:Teallach

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Welcome!

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

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

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

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

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!Kraang 23:22, 17 December 2021 (EST)

Dating and all that

First - welcome. :) Moving to your page so you can have a reference for later. The earlier part is here.

Think of ISFDB as a database - not as a site - if I do a query for all books in December 1973, I won't check if any of them are "arbitrary" months - I will assume that the DB has the correct data. Sorting and visualization are different problems from data validity and we cannot solve one of them at the expense of the other :) Hope that makes sense. We don't have a page specifically saying "don't use invented data" as it seems to be intuitive. And the project had been around for a very long time - things had changed, some editors may not have paid attention in some places. Part of the reason why we have moderation is exactly to try to ensure that everything follows the same rules (but we are human and that fails now and again) and to work with new editors on the less clear parts of the rules.

It does get easier as you get used to it, yes :) If you have any questions/concerns, don't hesitate to ask or use the help desk or the rest of the Community boards. Annie 11:21, 5 January 2022 (EST)

Oceans of Venus

Regarding this submission: The ISFDB is a publication based database. Instead of creating an empty variant first, you should enter the publication (using either the "Add New..." or "Clone" depending if it already exists in the database) first and then once approved, making any necessary variants.

In this particular case, we already have Oceans of Venus along with its foreword in the database so this new variant would have been a duplicate record. Please check whether you have one of the existing Oceans of Venus records. If not, please use the clone option. ISFDB has some conventions that need learning so please check out the help links in the welcome message above. And let us know if you have any questions (ISFDB:Help desk is a good resource for asking). -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:01, 7 January 2022 (EST)

As I stated in the Note to Moderator, the pub record to which I want to attach a Foreword already exists and it is this one: The Oceans of Venus When I looked through the existing records for Forewords associated with this novel, I found the one to which you referred: Foreword (Oceans of Venus) However, I could not find one called "Foreword (The Oceans of Venus)" so I tried to create it. I have read your comment and the related Help pages carefully but I still do not understand why what I did is wrong. Can you please clarify.Teallach 18:30, 8 January 2022 (EST)

Sorry, I misunderstood your note. You would edit the publication and add the foreword in the content sections of the pub record. That will create the new record and have it in the correct pub. That avoids having an empty title record that could get deleted. Once the pub edit is accepted, the new foreword would be varianted to the existing Foreword (Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus). In general, title records should be created from editing or creating a pub, not by creating an empty variant. Hope that makes sense. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2022 (EST)

I followed your instructions and updated the pub record directly. This is in submission 5192436 which has been approved. However, the new title record Foreword (The Oceans of Venus) is NOT a variant of the desired parent: Foreword (Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus). How do we rectify this situation?Teallach 18:39, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Go to the record you want to become a variant: Foreword (The Oceans of Venus). Look in the left menu and locate "Make This Title a Variant". In this case, it will open this. In Option 1, put the ID of the parent (751145 in this case) and click on "Link to Existing Parent" (careful - the button is in the middle of the page; the one at the bottom of the page will do something else as it is for a different usecase. Wait for it to be approved. Situation rectified :) Let me know if you have questions. Annie 18:43, 12 January 2022 (EST)

All looks good now. Thanks for your help.Teallach 13:45, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Prologue (Foundation's Edge)

I am creating and PVing a later printing of Foundation's Edge. Whilst adding the Prologue, I noticed that a Title record for it already appears to exist: Prologue (Foundation's Edge) and the only pub record it relates to is the first printing, which you have PVd. The Prologue is recorded as SHORTFICTION but I think it should be ESSAY. The giveaway is this first sentence of a paragraph toward the bottom the first page: "In the Foundation Trilogy, the story of the first four centuries of the Interregnum is told". Can you please check the Prologue in your copy to see if it is the same and let me have your thoughts on changing the Type.
Based on the Last User Activity Date, there are 3 PVs who are still active: Willem H, Taweiss and Nihonjoe, so I have posted this note to all your Talk pages. I am a new editor, so am not sure of the correct etiquette for handling this situation, but it seems desirable to have the whole conversation in one place. So may I suggest you reply on my Talk page. Thanks. Teallach 17:42, 21 January 2022 (EST)

I'll check when I get home. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:02, 21 January 2022 (EST)