User talk:Uzume

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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 01:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

John Norman's The Chieftain

I have rejected the submission which updates this publication for a couple of reasons. This is a second printing and the submission would give it the same date as the first printing. You also wanted to change the tag which is rarely a good idea. Most tags are automatically generated when a record is created. This ensures that no two records have the same tag. Is there any particular reason why you wanted to change the tag from "THTLNRNHST0000" to "BKTG12553"? I just checked and discovered that the latter tag is already assigned to another record here (the first printing of the same title). Having two records with the same tag would screw up any links that use the tag number (such I've just done above). If you have any questions or concerns you can ask them here on your talk page, as I've placed a watch on it so that I can respond. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You will notice the only method for asserting this is a second printing is via the number line. I am not convinced that it is in fact a second printing. There us nothing in the other publication record by this publisher (for this title) to suggest it was first. I was changing the tag because I also submitted a deletion of the other "first printing" record as this was meant to me a merge of the two records. I chose to merge to this one because it had a primary verification I thought would be best to keep. Uzume 17:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

We can only go by what's stated in the pub itself. A publication with a numberline which omits the "1" can only be entered as a second printing, regardless of whether or not there was a first printing. Do you have evidence that there never was a printing that contained a "1" in the numberline?

It is also ISFDB policy that when changing a record with a primary verification, the submitting editor should first contact the editor who verified it (see the policy here). Unfortunately, the person who verified this pub is on hiatus and may not be able to respond to any inquiries. Do you have a copy of this pub? If so you can do a second primary verification and add further notes to the record. I also see that you did Locus1 and OCLC verifications. Looking at the Locus1 listing I don't see any indication of a second printing. Because it's a record for the second printing, you should remove the verifications from this record, and I see there are already Locus1 and OCLC verifications for this record. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I just checked on Abebooks.com and there are several dealers indicating that their copies are first printings. Mhhutchins 19:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

My point is you have as much data to indicate there was a second printing as you have that there was not one. Does this mean you should reject edits for adding a second printing or reject edits for merging and deleting a second printing? I only verified the "2nd" because I was trying to merge it into being a "1st". I can remove my verifications if the edits are sure to never go through. It is obvious there was a first printing so it is easy to say there was one. It is much harder to prove a second without verification. As you well know verifying something to be a first printing can be daunting at best. The fact that some listing on Abebooks claim first printing means little for this discussion—either there was only one printing and thus they are all first by definition or there was more than one and only the original copyright is listed and thus it is misidentified as a 1st. The number line methodology (which I am familiar with) is interesting but not verifiable unless you have specific data about the way the publisher handled things during that time frame (as I am sure you are aware there are many types of number lines that can and do mean different things). Uzume 21:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Norman Invasions

Is the price and/or pub format correct for this pub? It seems rather expensive for a "pb", unless it's trade-sized and should be entered as "tp" for softcover or "hc" for hardcover. Also, by 2009, most publishers had converted to the ISBN-13. Should the ISBN of this one be 978-0-7592-9577-3? (Only the ISBN as given appears on the pub listing of the title record's page. Both ISBNs show up on the publication record's page when the system automatically creates both based on the ISBN entered.) Of course, if the publisher only gives the ISBN-10, we go exactly with what is stated in the pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I believe you are right—this is a trade paperback and not a mass-market paperback (my sources tell me 8.5×5.5×1.2 in.). I submitted a pub update for such. The back cover seems to list an ISBN-10 (but has an EAN-13/ISBN-13 in the bar code right under it). Uzume 00:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Also you added an extra content title record for the collection itself, which is not necessary. The system creates a title record automatically when a new pub is entered. I'll remove it from the pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. That was my first collection submission. I should have figured it would auto-create the collection title just like it auto-creates novel titles for novel pubs (but not essays like a foreword included in a novel pub, etc.). I was sort of concentrating on all the details of the pub and short fiction titles (30 titles!). It is easy to overlook things. Uzume 00:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Adding data that is not in the primary source

Whenever you update (or create) a record with information that is not stated in the pub you should always give a source for the information. In the case of this record you updated it by giving a day of publication. Because the only note states that the info is from Locus (I wrote that note), a user would assume that Locus gave the day of publication, which it doesn't. Please add the source for the date in the notes. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:43, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

That is the problem with moderation. Now, I do not recall where I got that from. As memory serves, I noticed it at a number of places but I could not tell you which they were now since I have researched many pubs since then (not to mention other events in my life offline). As far as I know, Locus never gives the day of publication even if the copyright page for a pub blatantly states it (perhaps I am wrong here but I have never seen such listed for any pub). Without having a primary verification there is no way for me to know what information is stated in the pub so there is effectively no way to implement what you request unless I add a reference for every update that is not based upon a primary (at the risk of being redundant with a primary). For a single pub update I might research 25 different sources for consensus—you really want notes that long? Uzume 11:53, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

No. Just one source for each field that is not present in the book is good enough, and there are only ten fields in the record. That means no more than three sources are ever required for a book in hand (assuming the title, author, publisher, page count, binding, pub type and the ISBN/catalog # are present). That leaves price (for those uncommon books that don't contain a printed price), publication date and cover artist, and most of these might be present in one single secondary source. Not as big a deal as you seem to believe it is. Regarding the statement "Without having a primary verification there is no way for me to know what information is stated in the pub": only update the fields for which you have a secondary source, and note the source in the note field. If you don't have the book itself, nor willing to note the source for your information (even if it takes 10 sources for each of the 10 fields), you should not attempt to update the record. Mhhutchins 23:43, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, so only one—just how would you, like me to choose which one to list (provided I have 10-25 sources for something)? Uzume 17:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Choose the source(s) which you used for each of the fields that you updated. If you updated three fields and all are from the same source, note the single source. If the three fields are updated from three different sources, indicate the source for each field. You can abbreviate many sources to save time: online sources include OCLC = Worldcat/OCLC, Locus1 = The Locus Index to Science Fiction, BLIC = British Library catalog. Printed sources include Tuck = The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Reginald1 = Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature. CD-ROM sources like Miller/Contento = Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index. Some lesser known sources may have to be spelled out completely. Mhhutchins 18:11, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I often end up adding data for something from a consensus of many lesser sources. I might update three fields and have 30 sources combined (some fields only using 25 and another also only 25 but some overlapping but not the same). I find this especially true for language translations for which most of the "major" sources here just have little to no information about. Uzume 18:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that one can make some assumptions about what a primary contains but they are still just assumptions. The pub date, price and cover artist are often present in the primary—but pub dates are not always and not always as specifically as listed elsewhere. Uzume 17:48, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

We try to make as few assumptions as possible. Without the primary source (which hopefully someone has physically verified), we have to be more careful when accepting submissions updating records. When the submitting editor notes sources in the record, it becomes easier for a moderator to accept the submission and go on to others. I would rather spend more time on my own research than doing it for unsourced submissions, especially in areas which I have very little knowledge or interest. You may find some moderators are less picky than I am about sourcing. And others who are even more picky. Ideally, if you continue to contribute, you'll find it less a chore than it may appear to be now. Even I occasionally find it tiresome to note sources, and as a moderator who moderates his own submissions, I could easily forego the practice without anyone else being aware. My conscience wouldn't let me. I couldn't ask others to do what I wouldn't do myself. Thanks for your efforts in building the database. Mhhutchins 18:11, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I can certainly understand the need for sources and can appreciate a moderators job/position but some there has to be a limit—some line in the sand where enough is enough. Uzume 18:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Worldcat/OCLC verifications

It is a very good idea to add at least the number, preferably a link, of the OCLC record to the notes when verifying from that source. Unlike Locus, there can be several OCLC records for apparently the same edition /printing. Just accepted your change to the Encyclopedia of SF [Clute] and there are three OCLC records tied to the year in question and 15 records for other editions of the book. When there are multiple records I try to pick the one with the most data [there are an enormous amount of 'stub' records on OCLC] and then link to that record. For the same pub record, you added the month, probably from Locus. Since UK editions rarely ever have the month on the copyright page, it's also preferable to note the source of the information. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and sometimes I find OCLC records to just be patently wrong (the same can be said of Amazon, etc. though too). I too have noticed there were many OCLCs for that title—considerably more than the number of pubs isfdb has for the title. Luckily pubs for that title seem to almost always have a new ISBN for every edition/printing so it was not hard to differentiate them (that is definitely not the case for other titles in Worldcat). I usually do not find Worldcat strong enough to cause me to generate updates here but I don't mind doing verifications. You are right—I submitted my changes to that pub based on Locus. One problem I find is that changes are moderated and verifications seemingly are not (and even if they were they are a different record/change). If I added an OCLC note every time I verified from Worldcat I would either have to verify ahead or wait for moderation and the possibility of rejection. The same can be said for multiple moderated pending edits to a record. Sometimes one edit depends on another. If during the course of researching something, I change something and notice further updates I have to wait for the first one to be accepted by moderation before making further changes or risk them being based on older data and essentially erasing the old change. I can only imagine the problem is worse when multiple contributors are trying to edit the same records. I originally was adding an OCLC number to the note a upon Worldcat verification but it became very cumbersome so I ceased. Uzume 11:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Verifications are not moderated. You can do so without someone having to approve them. Bill is asking that you record in the notes field the number of the OCLC record which you used to verify the record. Otherwise, simply noting that the record is OCLC verified has no real value, unlike Tuck, Reginald, Locus, et al verifications because there's only one record for each pub in those secondary sources. If it's too much of a burden to record the OCLC number (which I fully understand), don't do an OCLC verification (which I don't do...unless I record the OCLC number in the note field.) Mhhutchins 23:54, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

So effectively you are asking for OCLC verifications to be moderated since you want to require an update to do such. Should one verify before or after the edit is accepted/rejected? Uzume 17:38, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

It's best to leave it till afterward, just in case the edit is rejected. BLongley 18:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(Unindent) So the consensus is to essentially moderate Worldcat verifications by requiring the OCLC to be edited into the note prior and trying to make sure to remember (sift through committed edits after moderation) to verify them later. If this is the case, why not just add the field to the record (instead of within the note) and do away with Worldcat verifications in general? It seems like a clunky interface for such and if an OCLC field existed a direct OCLC link could be provided. Uzume 13:59, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I sometimes verify against Worldcat/OCLC without notes if the only entry I've used is the one that we get from the ISBN link anyway. If there's some controversy and I've used multiple sources instead, then I'll note them before verifying. BLongley 22:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That is exactly what I was doing—so now I am confused. Uzume 23:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Publication series links

I'm not sure how it's done, but the links that you added to the wiki's Publication Series pages don't link to the database's Publication Series pages. Does there need to be a change in the header or the template on the wiki in order for the link to work? Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I am aware of that. The header template is broken (and when it is fixed they will link right). See discussion here: Template talk:PubSeriesHeader#Broken! Uzume 00:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I responded there, weakly I admit because of my ignorance in the matter. Our wiki guy has been on an extensive leave. If you know how to fix it, I'll try to find out if we can bump up your role in order to access the template. Mhhutchins 00:28, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I see a link on the bottom of Template:PubSeriesHeader that allows me to "Unprotect this page." If I do so, would it allow you to correct any errors there? Mhhutchins 00:31, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably—I do not know as I of course do not have access to that feature to know how it works for certain. Uzume 00:35, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I've changed the protection level (I hope). Can you see if you're able to edit the page? Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that changed the protections and I made the fixes to the template. Incidently you mentioned "bump up your role" but there are only two wiki bureaucrats that can assign/change wiki adminship/sysop privs and they are Alvonruff and Ahasuerus. Uzume 01:04, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That's true. I didn't say I could personally change your role, that I would "try to find out". And I meant the editorial "we". Sorry for the mix-up. Now I know that even us lowly moderators have the power to unprotect a page. I appreciate your efforts in correcting the error. Mhhutchins 01:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

In the Wet by Shute

I accepted your submission adding the catalog number and price to this record. Then checked out the listing in Tuck which confirmed it. I removed the link to the bookdealer's listing and gave Tuck as the source. We discourage linking to bookdealers because the listing can be very unstable. Once the book is sold the seller will naturally remove the listing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:28, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I agree with discouraging such things but I did not have another source (sorry I do not have a copy of Tuck to use as a reference). Uzume 19:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't hesitate to ask either on the ISFDB:Verification requests page or on my talk page about any 1968 and earlier pubs for which Tuck might have a listing. Mhhutchins 20:07, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks—I appreciate that and shall likely take you up on that offer. Uzume 22:09, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Indicating Canadian dollars

When adding a Canadian edition (or the price to one like this one), give Canadian currency by adding a "C" before the dollar sign. Help Page Source Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It is a Canadian printing that is for sure but I am not sure that is specifically a Canadian price as the price is the same in other US prints of this both before and after that date (with even the exact same cover including the price tag) so methinks this is the exact same edition—just printed at a different locale. Thanks for the pointer though as I have run into a few things that seemed to be priced only in Canadian money and it might nice to know how to denote that (I was already aware of the help reference and how to denote prices but nice to reiterate it under the circumstances). Uzume 19:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Anthony's 0X / OX

I don't think we should make make Ox into a variant of 0X. Looking at my copy of the first edition, I concede that the title should be changed to OX (the capital letters "O" and "X"). In the body of the text, the "O" in the character's name is identical to the letter "O" and not the number zero. Do you believe it was Anthony's intention that the title be a zero and the letter "X"? I think we should first change the titles of the current pubs, based on the published text and then later decide what Anthony's intended title is. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:13, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is my contention that it should be named 0X. I felt making the current title a variant of the more canonical title useful because this is a common confusion and people will search for OX and Ox (and possibly even ox or oX) and expect to be able to find the work record. I figured we could then move and rename some of the pubs to the new title then (many changes I want to do require multiple edits and I have to wait for moderation before I can move forward more). BTW: thanks with Dream Makers (at some point perhaps I can get you to include the interviews in Dream Makers, Volume II: The Uncommon Men & Women Who Write Science Fiction; I can see some of that in Worldcat but seeing as you have a primary copy I figured you would have the complete details). Uzume 20:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we can both agree the book title is directly taken from character's name so I shan't go into that. I base my contention on what the character's name is upon quotes like the following: "the code designation of Zero X, or Arabic numeral nothing multiplied by the Roman numeral ten, themselves symbols for frame-representations that cannot be expressed in your mathematics. Zero time ten is nothing in a single frame, and dissimilar systems can not interact meaningfully; but in the larger framework the result is both infinite and meaningful, expressing sentiences" (from chapter 16). It is very clearly spelled out as "Zero X" here and not the letter "O" (nor a lowercase "x" as it is to represent the Roman number ten). The name literally means "zero·ten" but also wants to include the concept of dissimilar systems by representing zero in Arabic number notation and ten in Roman number notation. Uzume 21:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I have the book, but never read it. Your explanation is clear and the rationale of making it a variant of Anthony's intended title makes sense too. Few users would actually search for 0X (zero X). I'll accept the submission.

Also, it was your submissions for Platt's interview series that prompted me to pull out the three books. I've been working off-and-on throughout the day putting them into better shapes. All of the interviews have been entered and I'm in the middle of reconciling the records both with each and any pre-publication of the individual pieces. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I am going to move Of Man and Manta: A Trilogy pubs to 0X title—sadly there is no way to change the contained titles in a single transaction so I have to add or delete first followed by the opposite (and wait for moderation on each). Uzume 02:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the purpose of this. I thought we decided to keep the pub titles as OX (letter), and to make their title record a variant of 0X (number-letter), their current status. I'm not sure why you want to add a shortfiction content (titled 0X) to this pub or why you want to remove all three novels from this one. Submissions are on hold. I've also placed on hold the change in title of this pub. I approved the changes of the others because the verifier is no longer active, but Marc Kupper should be notified about the change in his pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought 0X looked a little strange with "only appeared as". I had planned to leave the stand alone novels with OX title both in the pub and in the variant title. Since Of Man and Manta: A Trilogy omnibus pubs have no such name in their published titles I thought I would change their contents so they references the X0 title. I had not intended to add a short-fiction named X0 but rather the already existing X0 title—perhaps I did it incorrectly (I might have to merge the titles later). I just deleted from one pub and added to the other. I figured once I got one right I would import/export the contents to the other—that is why I emptied one of the omnibus pubs. I have no qualms with Marc Kupper looking at it before the change. Uzume 02:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The "only appeared as" statement is how the software displays titles that have never been published with the parent name. The only way to get around this is to break the variant and change the original title record (the one that contains all the pubs, including the omnibus pub) to 0X. We dismissed that because of the search problem. I have no problem with the way it's currently displayed. Also, we can't change the title records for the omnibus appearances because that would make it appear that these are the only publications which use the zero-letter title. The only solution I can see is to have the books all published as letter-letter, but that they contain the text which the author intended to be titled with the zero-letter name. And that's the current state of the title relationships. I've left notes on Marc Kupper's and Willem H.'s pages, but keep in mind, it's the submitter's responsibility to notify verifiers of major changes in verified pubs. Changing the title is quite major. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not see why this is a problem: "Also, we can't change the title records for the omnibus appearances because that would make it appear that these are the only publications which use the zero-letter title." That is exactly what I was proposing (but the interface makes me do it in piecemeal fashion; is there a better way to change the title contents of a pub?). If you really think it is better as-is where all pubs use OX title (even ones that do not have anything OX in their pub title) then I can understand (but mildly disagree) with such. I realize the only way to maintain the OX title is to have some pub use it and there are many stand-alone pubs that have pub titles that do very much look like such and thus are often confused with such (this is why we agreed to leave those alone and only cap the "X"). Uzume 03:36, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe all publications of the title should be handled the same and see no reason why the omnibus pubs should be treated differently. Even though the omnibus does not contain 0X in its title record, it is a container for the title record which is shared by all publications of this novel. This title record (OX) has been made a variant of the "true" title. Again, I see no problem with that. Feel free to carry the discussion to the larger group if you disagree. I will go along with whatever the group decides. BTW, when you change content titles you also change every publication of that title. This caused so many problems in the past that a couple of years ago the software was changed to deliberately make it difficult to change content titles. I thank God this change was implemented. You'll never know the hours of frustration spent in repairing pubs that were mistakenly changed by a submission updating another pub. Mhhutchins 06:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify: Edit Pub will let you change Contents titles that have only appeared in that pub. If a title has appeared in multiple pubs and you want to change all occurrences of the title, then you can do it via Edit Title. Ahasuerus 06:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) Yes, I realized changing the contents of a title was likely submitted improperly and cancelled the submissions. That said I still believe it does not make sense to leave works under an incorrect (but perhaps useful for searching) title (i.e., OX) when they have no reason to be so misinterpreted (i.e., have nothing in their title names even resembling "OX" or "0X", etc.). Ahasuerus: A moderator's interface might be different than mine but I do not see any method to change a title's contained titles from the Edit Title level (other aspects of a title can be edited however). Perhaps I am mistaken but pubs are the only containers for multiple titles (even so called "container title" types like collection, anthology, omnibus, magazine, etc. still rely on this mechanism (so two publications of the same anthology title could have different sets of short-fiction titles contained within—and actually this is the recommended method for magazines as usually there is only one magazine title per year or other time frame depending on frequency and each monthly magazine pub then references the same container magazine title and contains different content titles such as short-fiction titles, etc.). The interface for adding titles to a pub however is not very good when one wants to add an existing title to a pub (this is why I erroneously ended up trying to add a short-fiction version of 0X to one of the omnibus pubs instead of the existing one)—especially when the title is referred to by no pubs but only variant titles (I cannot import or export a variant title's "contents" to a pub's contents). How does one go about saying "add this title to that pub" (export title vs. export pub) or "add that title to this pub" (import title vs. import pub)? I cannot import or export a title that has no pubs (but has variant titles). It would also be nice to have a method to change a pubs contained titles without going through the restrictive "add" and "delete" so that multiple submissions are needed—it is hard for a moderator to see and accept such an action when it is obviously not a completed thought. Uzume 12:14, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Responding to your comments and to answer your questions:

• A moderator's interface might be different than mine

No, ours is identical. We have to go through the same steps as any other editor when we are editing. The only difference is that we can accept the submissions, but the process is the same.

• I do not see any method to change a title's contained titles from the Edit Title level (other aspects of a title can be edited however).

Only publications contain titles. You can change a publication's contained titles by clicking on that title, going to its title record, then choose "Edit Title Data".

• I cannot import or export a variant title's "contents" to a pub's contents.

A title doesn't have contents. Only the contents of a publication can be imported or exported. A title being a variant has nothing to do with importing or exporting.

• How does one go about saying "add this title to that pub" (export title vs. export pub) or "add that title to this pub" (import title vs. import pub)?

In order to add a title to a pub record choose "Edit This Pub" go down to the Contents section and click "Add Title". If that title already exists in the db, you will have to merge its title record with the title record that was just created by the submission. You may have to reconcile any differences. To avoid a merge, you can use the import/export function. All of the titles contained in a pub are imported/exported. Do not use this function for NOVEL type pubs. You'd be importing the novel title record, which would be duplicated in the pub you're exporting it to.

• It would also be nice to have a method to change a pubs contained titles without going through the restrictive "add" and "delete" so that multiple submissions are needed

Yes, but as I attempted to explain above, those restrictions have been created to avoid the problems of changing titles that appear in more than one pub. If you'd been around before this restriction, you would have seen the havoc that was caused by unrestrictive changes. Yes, it requires more than one submission, and if you're uncomfortable taking the required number of steps, ask for help on the moderators page and one of us can make the necessary submissions. There have been many editors who have gone through this process, dealt with it, and who are now moderators. Learning this process leads to a better understanding of the database's structure.

• ...it is hard for a moderator to see and accept such an action when it is obviously not a completed thought.

Yes, occasionally it's difficult for a moderator to know the purpose of a submission. That's why the "Hold" system and the ISFDB Wiki was created. If we don't know what a submission is all about, we place it on hold and ask you on your Wiki user page. Frustrating perhaps for some editors, but just as much so for some moderators, especially when dealing with editors who haven't found their Wiki user page or fail to respond to inquiries. But that's why we get paid the big bucks. :)

Mhhutchins 18:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the details but I do not think that covered anything I did not already know. And by a title containing another title I only meant it either semantically (in terms of "containing title types") or in how a title can "contain" or link to a variant title (contain really only means link to as pubs link to their contained titles). Uzume 19:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to have wasted both our times. Perhaps another moderator can successfully answer your questions. Mhhutchins 20:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I did not mean to imply such discussion was a waste of time. I don't know what sort of "big bucks" compensation you get but you certainly get my kudos. Right now as I see it you are the most responsive person on ISFDB and I highly appreciate that (even if we "knock heads" in disagreement on a few issues). I like to think I am fairly knowledgeable about such things but you have more "on the job" experience here (staying with the work analogy) and certainly have a considerably larger SF library than I have (though I do have a fair one but not enough time to catalog it all—isn't that all our stories?). In a word: Thank you. To get back more on topic though, that is why I added 0X short fiction to the one omnibus pub. As it has been pointed out there is no other way to do that (and it requires a later title merge and a delete of the OX title). The title wipe of the other omnibus pub was in prep for an import/export from one to the other once I got one of them right (that is less steps once one is right). So it seems my implementation methods were not really wrong (we can talk further about if it should be done of course) even though I have retracted my update submissions (that you held). Uzume 20:38, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing white frame on Amazon images

There's a trick to removing the white frame from many Amazon images (look at this pub). If you drop everything between the two dots in the URL (and remove one of the dots), the frame disappears. So http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vjm-CmQwL._SS500_.jpg should be changed to http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vjm-CmQwL.jpg. Neat, huh? Mhhutchins 02:25, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Same thing with this pub. Mhhutchins 02:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I am familiar with this "trick" but I did not realize the images had white frames when I submitted the URLs. Thanks. Uzume 02:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

You can also use the same trick to get rid of the "Click to LOOK INSIDE" logo:

• http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41aIN5bjg9L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
• http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41aIN5bjg9L.jpg

Though I knew of the white border "trick", I only recently discovered this works for this too. Enjoy. Uzume 21:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Author's photos

The same policy applies for author's photos that applies for cover images plus one more. Not only do we have to get permission to link to another server's hosted image, because it's a photograph we have to get the permission of the owner of the image. If you contact Theresa Tomlinson and obtain both permissions I'll accept the submission adding the photo to her author summary page. Mhhutchins 07:22, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought that might be the case but was not sure. Where is this authorization list kept? I submitted that to open this type of conversation (which I figured you'd bring up). Where is the permission for this image linked on Piers Anthony? I know sometimes stuff is deleted from the DB to improve it but there is no way to remove such images to improve it if there is no place that lists such obtained permissions (who knows what should be in and thus who knows what should be removed?). Thanks. Uzume 18:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Info on image-linking is here. This page generally concerns rules about cover images. The same should also apply to linking author photos as well. Permission to post is different than permission to link. We consider the displaying of cover images to be covered under the fair-use laws. But I don't think fair-use would cover us when it comes to author photos. Generally a photographer retains ownership of the image, not the subject.

I'm not sure if anyone got permission to link to the Anthony site. If they did, I'm not even sure where they would have posted the info. Ideally the best place would have been on the Author:Piers Anthony page. This reminds me that I've failed to note the permission I received from the photographer (Beth Gwinn) for the Michael Bishop photo. I even paid her a nominal fee to post it on the website I maintain of his work.

I should bring this up on the community portal page. There seems to be a lot of author photos here that we are unlikely to have received permission to display. And we're linking to a lot of sites that are not on the list of permitting websites. I believe what happened in your case is the unluckiness of having me moderate the submission. There may have been another moderator who would have approved it. This inconsistency drives me nuts, and I'm sure it's just as frustrating to new editors, for which I apologize. Mhhutchins 04:54, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. A book cover would likely qualify under fair use without issue but a photo would not as it is the entire work (if the original was very large and we used a very significantly scaled and cropped version maybe). And hosting is another issue. One issue you have not brought up is permission to use ones likeness. I know people have sued others for using picture of themselves without permission (this is why spokes people get paid—to support a particular use of their image; use without permission could be considered defamation of character or a whole host of other things) I am not saying most authors would not welcome the publicity an affiliation with a bibliographic site like ISFDB is but that is exactly why permission should be required. In fact, we should probably have a place on the site where authors and photographers can donate such easily. Uzume 06:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Inspired by this conversation, I volunteered to update Author photos for ISFDB's Livejournal friends. Only 7 responses so far, but in all cases they preferred us to copy a picture rather than link to one. Only one mentioned a photographer credit - but most looked like self-portraits. BLongley 22:53, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

That is interesting. At least there are some results. I had considered another thing too related to this. What about say scanned photos from published books? There is often an "about the author" photo on a hardcover's slip or the like. This is usually small enough to hardly impact the photographer's copyright, already used for identifying the author and her works, and could be considered a "fair use" piece of a larger work (the book or at last the "about the author" blurb). Thanks for the update. Uzume 22:59, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The Best of Omni SF series

I'm holding a submission that wants to make "25305" the parent series of The Best of Omni Science Fiction. Is a puzzlement... Mhhutchins 05:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I got it. You entered the series number instead of the name Omni Science Fiction. I'll correct it. Mhhutchins 05:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Thanks. Uzume 15:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Magazine Series vs. Anthology Series

You've made a submission to make Omni Science Fiction, an anthology series, into a subseries of Omni, a magazine series. I understand the rationale to do so, but we try to keep magazine and anthology series separate. If you look at the summary page of Ellen Datlow, the one common person between the two series, you'll see my point. See how each of the two series is displayed on her page. Omni is under the "Magazine Editor Series" category and Omni Science Fiction is under "Anthology Series". If I accept you submission, the two would be displayed together, and I don't know which category it would go into. Either one would be incorrect. Mhhutchins 16:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You are right—I hadn't thought of that wrinkle (this is where your experience is most helpful). I need to rethink such things in light of that. Are webzine's considered magazines too for such things? I grouped them together as well—initially under a single series but that made the grid look ugly as in incorporated both and there was no way to view them separately so I restructured and put Omni magazine by itself and the webzine "Online" by itself and the both of those under "Omni". Thanks—I shall rethink such. Uzume 16:20, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we consider webzines and printed magazines to be the same type of publication, but we limit which webzines are allowed into the database because of their instability. Even though Omni Online no longer exists, the stories at one time were accessible through an archive site. Same thing with Datlow's Sci-Fiction webzine. Currently we allow only Subterranean, Clarkeworld, and a few others because they're recognized by the SFWA as professional markets. If we allowed anyone that had posted a story on their website to enter it into the database can you imagine the consequences? Mhhutchins 16:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I was not proposing to add webzine/Internet series/titles/pubs (just fill-in and clean-up the ones we already have). I noticed both magazines and webzines like Omni Online both have the same EDITOR title type and MAGAZINE pub type so I figured it out. Uzume 16:59, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually I noticed that the The Dark of the Woods OMNIBUS causes the Fairy Tales Retold anthology series to appear under "Fiction series" on Ellen Datlow's bibliography page so seemingly any series with mixed title types defaults to that. I imagine mixing an ANTHOLOGY series with a EDITOR series would result in similar (and thus not be useful). On that topic, should The Dark of the Woods be an OMNIBUS? The way I see it, it is a redited anthology that contains most of what the earlier works in the series already had but I do not have the works to confirm. Uzume 17:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

According to Locus1 it's an omnibus of the two previous anthologies, even retaining the individual introductions and separate pagination. You've come across a problem concerning the OMNIBUS type. The system has a hard time understanding that an omnibus isn't just a publication containing previously published novels, they can contain anthologies and collections as well. Because it can't choose which it is, if a series mixes an ANTHOLOGY record with an OMNIBUS record, it places it under the "Fiction" category on an author's summary page instead of the "Anthologies" category (which is where these three title records should rightfully be). Placing it under the "Fiction" category might lead a user to believe Datlow wrote fiction. Now if an omnibus contained a previously published NONFICTION record, I think the system would blow up. :) Mhhutchins 17:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I have serious doubts about the "blow up" angle but yes, it probably would not perform usefully. It is too bad there is not a way to groups/series dissimilar works (without issue). As a side note on this topic, I notice it comes up as them being "Authors" too and not "Editors" due to it being an anthology OMNIBUS. Uzume 18:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Locus1 also claims it is a "hc" "Bound in boards" and published by "Simon & Schuster/Aladdin" but Worldcat claims it is "Paper-over-board" and published by "Aladdin Paperbacks" and does not contain any references to Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales (2001) and Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold (2003). Worldcat instead has the contents directly with short story titles and introductions, etc. listed. So is it an omnibus or an anthology? Part of the problem is that both omnibuses and anthologies are "container" title so this is like a container container title, Anyone seeing this pub cannot see the short story titles contained and instead sees the omnibus contained anthologies which is not highly useful IMO. Uzume 18:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

In an OMNIBUS, it's more useful to include not only the ANTHOLOGY records but the contents of those as well. This is particularly important when there are versions of the ANTHOLOGY with different contents, e.g. when some titles have to be dropped for foreign editions for copyright reasons. BLongley 17:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That is a good point. So you think it makes sense to have an anthology omnibus pub that has its own omnibus title, included anthology titles as well as each anthologies contents (e.g., short fiction titles, etc.) all in one? I tend to agree with that. That way anyone looking at the anthology content titles (e.g., a short fiction) will see the omnibus and anyone looking at one of the anthology titles will see the omnibus as well. Uzume 23:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Pretender

I approved your change to this pub but as you can see the order of Author credits didn't change. We don't have any way to ensure the order of credits. People keep trying so it may be worth a Feature Request (if we haven't got one already) - though it's been considered of low importance for some time now. BLongley 18:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Uzume 18:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Dream a Little Dream

I have your submission for this title on hold. You want to change the date from 1999-00-00 to 1998-00-00. Is there a reason for this change? My copy of the paperback states copyright 1999 and first edition January 1999. --Willem H. 20:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The hardcover first edition was published in 1998. Uzume 20:29, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Is that stated in the pub? --Willem H. 20:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe so but do not have it to verify. Various sources online mention that date. Uzume 20:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't follow what online sources say, when there's a primary source (in this case my paperback edition) that tells something else. I'll reject the submission. --Willem H. 20:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Really!? What about the Library of Congress U.S. Copyright Office? Registration TX0004872456 says date "1998-12-17" for Dream a little dream / Piers Anthony [pseud.] & Julie Brady. Goto http://www.copyright.gov/records/ and look it up by record number TX0004872456. I did not try to change a publication date just the title date. Uzume 20:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I resubmitted the change with a more accurate date and included the U.S. Copyright Office registration number in the title notes. Uzume 21:07, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I placed this on hold again, wating for the discussion on the Moderator noticeboard. --Willem H. 21:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, but I resubmitted the request to match the earliest publication record date as per the current consensus (of course that may change). Uzume 22:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Volk

The ISBN provided for this pub record comes up as invalid. Also, did every copy have an autographed bookplate? Also, you should note the source of your data. Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed I somehow had a digit transposed. I do not have a copy much less every copy to verify the bookplate. I got the data from several sources including the publishers website, Amazon, and piers-anthony.com (who seems to have many copies of his works including at least the book-plated hardcover of Volk). Thanks. Uzume 06:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Cover images for non-genre magazines (e.g. Alfred Hitchcock)

On the help page about entering non-genre magazines, it states: Do not enter a cover artist, nor a cover image URL. Leave both fields blank. Exception: if the cover art illustrates the SF content, or is by a well known SF artist, enter the credit, and if an image is available, enter the URL. Mhhutchins 01:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That is good to know but now I need to know where the definitive list of genre and/or non-genre magazines is so I can know which is which. I was under the impression Hitchcock was horror and that was well within the speculative fiction definition (yes, I did notice the word "mystery" in the title though). I cannot say I know enough about the magazine to say one way or the other (but it was interesting to research a bit to learn about it though I cannot say I have found any data to say one way or the other). Uzume 05:52, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Hitchcock's full name is Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. It occasionally publishes pieces that are suspense/psychological horror, rarely supernatural stories and then only if there's a mystery/detective element. Here's the list of non-genre magazines, but strangely, Hitchcock's isn't on the list, which must be an oversight. But it's not on the genre magazine list either. Feel free to bring up its omission from either list on the community portal page. Mhhutchins 06:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

So you are asserting it is non-genre (I have no basis to argue either way; just an assumption based on the name and the cover of each magazine seemed to indeed have his face on it and he is rather well-known for horror and suspense). I might have to point that out and get a quorum determination and have it added to one of the pages (though I am sure your assessment is correct). I also recently added cover links for everything in Adventure (which I notice is on the "general interest"/nongenre list). I suppose that shall have to now be taken out. I am sorry and did not mean to cause more work. Thanks again. Uzume 06:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Hazel Adair

Thanks for catching that mistake on my Hazel Adair bio! That shouldn't have slipped by me, but it did. And it's nice to see that someone else actually looked at one of the ones I've added :-) Chavey 04:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure which mistake you are referring to. I just added some more information. I was trying to "kill" very old "living" authors by finding proof of their deaths (and entering their date of death into the database). And I suceeded in a few cases—her's being one. One can dig up a lot of obscure information when looking for a single obscure obscure fact.

Sadly, it seems I have not been able to have success with some of the "oldest". Some data is just very hard to find. Uzume 05:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I see you made several updates. I don't normally put in the family stuff, which you did, but my specific comment was about adding the alias "A.J. Heritage" as one of the aliases that she used in writing, which had just somehow overlooked. Chavey 23:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I see. I just put in the family stuff because finding stuff about her was not so easy and knowing those other names helps with searches. That is also how I stumbled on the "A.J. Heritage" name. Uzume 01:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

All I can do is ask...

Please give the source for the data (as here) unless you intend to do a primary verification of the pub. Thanks. My only other option is to hold the submission, do research myself, and then add the source. You should not expect moderators to do this. Mhhutchins 20:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I actually planned to do neither as I was planning to link the Wikipedia to the title record, which is where I got the data mostly from (and from links there of). But as you know I have to wait for the pub to be approved before the title exists for me to add the link. If you think I should add the Wikipedia link to the pub as well since there is where I got the pub data I can but that seemed overkill. I never expected a moderator to do such research. All I can do it wait... Uzume 01:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are linked to titles, not to pubs, using the title record field. This field can't be used to indicate that it is the source for the data of a publication of that title. You would have to use HTML in the notes to link the pub itself to the Wikipedia article if you're using it as your data source, and that could have been done on the original submission. But it appears from your statement on the Rules & Standards page (in an unrelated discussion about noting sources) that you oppose the use of HTML in notes. Or you could have simply noted "Info from Wikipedia article titled Earth Begotten" and that would have settled the matter from the start. Mhhutchins 02:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That can be easily added if you like. Uzume 06:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

After Dark

Good work on cleaning up this messy series. Some editors have a hard time figuring out how to fix chapterbooks, but you've done a fine job. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks but it is not done. I found I still have to swap some titles to retain the award on the short fiction title vs. the chapter book title (since I cannot move awards) and some other house cleaning with the series. But thanks for the kudos. Uzume 19:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Variant covers for The Plague and The Carriers

Hi. I have on hold your submission that would make Cover: The Plague a variant of Cover: The Carriers. I understand that the main titles are variants of one another, but these two covers look completely different. If the publication titles were the same -- giving us identical cover art titles -- we would not merge them because they are in fact different works that just happen to have the same name. Likewise, we do not make variants where the two works are different. I am not a cover art expert, but I think there is no need in this particular case to try to parallel the variation in main work title. Painting A appeared as the cover of an edition of The Plague, while Painting B appeared as the cover of an edition of The Carriers. But see what you think. --MartyD 12:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

And carrying on from above, your proposed merge of 1072909 and 1151786 covers for Tales from Outer Suburbia is not appropriate. The cover artwork is completely different (take a look at the covers for each of the pubs). So these should be left separate. I've put the merge on hold for the moment while you look at it, but I will have to reject this one. Thanks. --MartyD 13:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You are right about covers of Tales from Outer Suburbia—good catch. I somehow got overzealous in that merge and have now cancelled the submission. But interior art of The Plague being a variant of interior art of The Carriers is right. Note that those are not cover art but interior art (the cover art is indeed different). Uzume 18:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops, right you are! Don't ask me why I thought those were covers.... I will approve it. --MartyD 00:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Merging interior art records

It's not a good idea to merge interior art records unless you can verify that the works are identical. Because there's no set policy about how interior art is recorded there may be conflicts in how each of the verifiers entered the data. They have a choice to enter all pieces and give each an identifying number, or to just create one record that represents all pieces that are associated with work of fiction. Also, sometimes when a story is reprinted in a later issue of the same title (or from the same company) they may choose to use all or only some of the artwork that originally appeared with the story. You should only merge if you have both issues and can verify that the art is identical. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:03, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps such policy standards should be developed. I understand the danger in merging and I was careful to not submit any that did not look entirely like duplicates (even going so far and to make sure the accompanying stories were the same and already merged, etc.). I was trying to par down the list of titles that needed to be made variants from the pseudonym but if you would rather I just variant the whole bunch—so be it. I do not have the actual publications for the submissions you have held under this conversation—do what you want with them (Please excuse if this comes off a tad curt. Work has been reaming me just now and I am not in a very sound state of mind though I was when I made the submissions). Uzume 15:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

No problems at all. Concerning standards, the current policy arose out of some editors believing each piece of art should have individual records. We didn't feel we should REQUIRE it and that's the reason for the double standard. It's always been policy that an editor enter as much data as he feels comfortable with. We weren't going to establish a policy that required All editors to enter EVERYTHING in a publication. As it stands currently, an editor can enter 1) all interior art, 2) one record for each work illustrated, or 3) no interior art. Actually, they don't have to enter ANY contents at all, but we ask that they not do a primary verification on it otherwise.

I checked each of the records for the held submissions, and determined it was safe to merge them based on the fact that in all cases the number of pieces for each work was identical, and that the reprint was a UK facsimile of the US edition. Thanks for the work you're doing on straightening out the Frank Kelly Freas/Kelly Freas/Freas situation. There were discussions years ago about which name should be considered the canonical one. When that was settled in usual ISFDB fashion (meaning: with grumbling consensus), no one took on the task of varianting the records of the pseudonymous titles. Some editors probably still feel that "Freas" is not a pseudonym, while some feel it's just a signature. I think some editors felt that credits for records would wind up being changed, especially the magazine editors who devoted thousands of hours in verifying those credits. Its clear that varianting doesn't change the actual credit, it only displays the canonical name along with the actual credit. Mhhutchins 17:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, since you accepted them (I too checked them carefully before submitting them) I shall likely submit some more along the same lines as most of these publications are very explicit and capture each internal art and seemingly all in the same way (or I stay away form submitting the merge). I am just saying I shall likely submit more. I would appreciate another set of eyes though as it is easy to make a mistake. Thanks again. Uzume 01:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

"Occasion for Disaster" merge

I have a submission to merge Occasion for Disaster (Part 2 of 4) (serial) with Occasion for Disaster (Part 3 of 4 parts). I think you meant to merge this one with the last record. Mhhutchins 04:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Better!? Unfortunately I cannot see the actual submission data after it is submitted (I can see the list of my own submissions but it does not give the complete XML contents) so it is hard to see that. Thanks. Uzume 04:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yep. That was the right one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

"Report on the Dean Drive"

I'm not sure what's happening with this pub, but it's strange to have two content records in the same pub with one being a continuation of the other. Since the pub isn't verified, I'm going to delete the second part ("continued") from the pub. I'll wait until you've had a chance to look at it. In the previous submission that I rejected, I chose to merge the two titles that were recorded (with slight variation in name), instead of making one a variant of the one credited to "The Editor". Mhhutchins 04:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks—I agree that is weird but as you said it is unverified. I was not entirely sure what the best course of action was. Sometimes it is a close call to merge or variant. Uzume 04:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Good. Then I'll reject the submission and delete the "continued" record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:01, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Cover variants

Thanks for all the submissions, but it would have been better if you'd checked which double-covers needed re-titling before the variant creation: e.g. Freas should just have "Cover: The Off-Worlders" whereas Gaughan gets "Cover: The Star Magicians". BLongley 14:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry I missed that. I was checking a lot of data. It seems I always need another pair of eyes. Uzume 14:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The changes should probably have been done at the time the artists were identified. Some doubles can probably be left as double titles for now, where the same artist did both sides. BLongley 15:23, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, Freas Coverart Doubles covered now (at least from the Freas side). Are you going to take on other cover artists now? BLongley 18:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Adding roman-numeraled pages

I've noticed a few submissions which give the page count, for example, as "[vi],248". If the pages before page 1 are roman-numeraled it should be entered as "vi+248". Ordinarily unnumbered pages before page 1 are not added to the page count unless there is data on those pages and you wish to create a record for it. In those cases you would enter it as "[6]+248". If the first numbered page is 7, you don't need to add the 6 unnumbered pages to the count. What is the case for this book? Mhhutchins 17:25, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I am aware of that. I added those because some of the pages before page 1 were numbered with roman numerals (like the TOC) but not all of them (and usually not the last just before 1). That is why I included them. Uzume 17:42, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Instead of the comma you should use the plus sign and not put the roman numerals in brackets (which indicates unnumbered pages). Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I can use plus if you'd rather but I put in brackets because the cited page was unnumbered. If the pages go: [i],[ii],[iii],[iv],v,[vi],1...248 etc. I state [vi],248 (or [vi]+248 since you seem to like plus better though I notice WorldCat and others use commas) since I had to infer vi from the previous page v. Del Rey seems to do that type of thing a lot but I have seen it with some others too. Uzume 17:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

The field is to record the number of pages (the field used to be labeled "page count"). Unlike WorldCat records, the field doesn't record how the pages are numbered. The plus sign has a specific purpose in the field. "vi+248" makes it clear that there are a total of 254 pages in the book (other than unnumbered pages in the back that may contain ads.) Mhhutchins 18:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

But it does record how pages are numbered or the value would just be 254 and not vi+248. That said, I agree it does not (have to) have the same meaning as WorldCat—that was just an example. Uzume 18:15, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

You're correct in one sense. But it doesn't say that the first four pages are unnumbered, only the fifth page has a roman numeral, the sixth page is unnumbered, and the seventh page is numbered "1". The field is for the page count and "[vi],248" isn't a page count, it's an attempt to show how the pages are numbered. Entering "254" into the field would lead a user to believe the last numbered page is 254. That's why the current standards were arrived at. At one point, all you had to do was enter the last numbered page. Here's the help page that states the standard. Unless you're adding content data that appears on the roman-numeraled pages, it's not necessary to record them at all. If you feel these standards don't work, you can start a discussion on the Rules and Standards page. Mhhutchins 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually in a few cases I was contemplating adding content titles for some maps and such left out. That is also why I added the page count thusly. And I was not attempting to show how pages where numbered in any complete sense or I would have mentioned that page "v" was numbered, etc. I was only attempting to show how many pages there were. If you feel what I entered does not do that and does not meet policy, you are free to change it and as a moderator even reject it. I too agree 254 would not be useful and certainly how all the pages are numbered is not very meaningful or useful in this context. That was not my objective. Uzume 18:55, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm "free to change it and as a moderator even reject it" but that's really not the kind of moderator I am. If I just keep going behind editors and changing their submissions, I'm not doing anyone a favor. In trying to explain the rationale behind my decisions, I'm hoping to lead the editor into becoming self-sufficient to the point where they can moderate their own submissions, and then become a full-fledged moderator (it's called mentoring). It would have been a lot easier for me to simply "change it and...even reject it", and I would not have spent so much time trying to explain the reasons. If you would prefer that I use an "approve or reject" approach to your submissions, just let me know and I'll accommodate you. Mhhutchins 19:58, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I hardly would like that as I appreciate your help. I am sorry I did not change it right away. I was sort of busy with Freas. Uzume 20:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

You certainly were - those tied me up for four hours! ;-) BLongley 20:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) You can only imagine how long it too me to enter all those submissions. All of the Freas family credits are starting to look very good now though. Uzume

Tag changes

When you get a chance, could you please add your changes to the Development page and create a Feature Request? TIA! Ahasuerus 05:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

You want a FR? I thought Bug 3153982 was enough (you already have integrated some work on this in r2011-01). I added Bug 3153982 to Development#Outstanding changes. I also added Bug 3183869 and Bug 3183863. Uzume 15:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that should be sufficient for our perfidious purposes. Ahasuerus 05:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

So far I believe I have only checked-in common/login.py on bug 3183869 (though that will need a lot more work before that bug is complete, however, that cleans up the login pages and works without anything else) and several small patches related to 3153982 (I shall have to search if you want a list of file and version numbers but as per my comments on that bug where I asked what it meant and got no answer; I have since extrapolated the meaning to mean expunging all references to pub tags until I get further feedback). Uzume 15:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

In the past, I received an e-mail notification whenever anything was checked in, but that functionality was broken during the Great SourceForge Break-In. Bill Longley is reporting that it may have been partially fixed recently, but I haven't received any e-mails so far. I could recreate the list of modified scripts manually by checking the check-in date in CVS, but if you could do it on your end and update the Development page, it will be appreciated. There is a description of the process at the top of the Development page. Ahasuerus 05:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand. I made a suggesting on your talk page so create an RSS thread instead of mail but perhaps it is working again. I shall try and make a list but without a baseline for what is already on the server it is hard to figure out. Uzume 13:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I have been meaning to ask you: How does one determine what versions of the files are running on the live server vs. the CVS? The patch tags seem to only tag the files modified. Is there a way to figure out what baseline the live server is running (like a comprehensive tag that patch tags are based on and can be applied to)? Uzume 15:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible under CVS or at least I am not aware of a way to do it. Normally, the delta between the live server and what's in development (including what's been committed to CVS) is documented on the Development page, and that's been the primary way of determining what's where. Ahasuerus 05:03, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well human comments on that page are hardly guaranteed to be up-to-date with the server and the repository but I understand. I believe there is a means of tagging all the files in a tree at a certain place/version (instead of just tagging a file files to represent a patch). The code could also be branched. This is a case where I wish we has a distributed revision control system (there could be an administrative repository on isfdb.org that was used to install the live version and was read-only for all but administrators and a public development repository people could check-in to and administrators could pull patches from and merge into the administrative one). Uzume 13:33, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand the problem - there have been many times in my career where I've found a problem is caused by the deployed code not actually being what the Source Control system thinks has been deployed. I can think of two possible solutions: 1) create a script that will search for the "$Revision" lines in the source code (a simple "grep"), and put a GUI front-end on that so developers can see what's really currently deployed (assuming the "make" worked): or 2) change every script so that it identifies itself when executed - which would make screen output even less friendly to the non-programmers. (And wouldn't work for non-executables like the banners.) BLongley 19:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I personally think just a baseline tag across all the code files in CVS by an administrator would be more valuable. What you are suggesting might have some value, however, it still makes it very cumbersome to do something like check a diff of what is currently deployed vs. what is checked-in. Your suggestion would be an ultimate test but it means one is only able to do it one file at a time and it is sometimes almost impossible with some files (like POST submission forms or modules that are not a CGI at all). Uzume 19:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm thinking of "grep $Revision isfdb2/*/*" which would do most files in one go - that performs perfectly well on my local system. I just don't know how to call such from a Python app. BLongley 20:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Well you'd be better off using something like "find cgi-bin -xdev -type f '(' -name '*.cgi' -o -name '*.py' ')' -print0 | xargs -0 grep '$Revision: .* $". Methinks it should not be that hard to do something similar as a Python CGI or similar. While we are at it I was considering adding a method to show the deployed Python version too, etc. Uzume 20:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

And on a different but semi-related topic, I noticed many of the module files (.py that are not renamed to .cgi) are copied around to many of the deployed directories. This seems very broken. These files do can be shared and actually do not even have to be installed in web accessible areas. I have also considered using more modules (probably even a group of them as a sort of Python isfdb site package) and merging CGI scripts. There are so many actual CGI script which makes for a rather large attack surface from a security perspective and such would be better from a maintenance and code development perspective too (though it might mean URL changes; I would probably try to move away from URL query arguments AKA CGI QUERY_STRING and into using relative sub-paths AKA CGI PATH_INFO). Uzume 20:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

And on top of all that, it might make sense to gravitate away from CGI directly and use WSGI with a CGI shim for now. Then at some point it could be made into a single application server. Uzume 20:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I noticed there is a bunch of client-side JavaScript in a few of the Python files. I have not had time to delve into them but it occurred to me that if we are already depending on client-side JavaScript, it would be possible to make a better API interface (XML read access to more than just title records, etc.) and make the application almost all client-side JavaScript and some static pages (containing some HTML, CSS and a bunch of client-side JavaScript). Uzume 20:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, I have rambled enough. I am now thinking I need a separate development discussion page. Uzume 20:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Astounding covers - Jan '59 and Apr '59 (UK)

Hi. I have your proposed merge of the Apr 1959 (UK) and Jan 1959 Astounding coverart on hold. Based on the scans, these are not the same artwork. They are similar, but the US one has the additional seasonal decorative items on the table, the man on the right has a cigarette in his mouth, and a "Kelly Freas" signature is clearly visible at the bottom left of the tabletop. None of these is present in the UK artwork. It looks to me as if Freas perhaps reworked an earlier version (seen on the later UK edition) into the one seen on the US edition. What do you think? --MartyD 02:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I've come across some Canadian printings of US pulps that have been completely "re-painted" without giving credit to the original artist. In the case of the UK printing of this issue, because Freas is given credit, perhaps making it a variant would work. Just like when an artist's cover artwork for one book is later used for a different title entirely. This is very common among European publishers who've used artwork from earlier US and UK editions. Mhhutchins 03:19, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You will notice I am only proposing to merge the top title not the variants Apr 1959 (UK) and Jan 1959. They were originally varianted for pseudonymous reasons so now I want to merge them so they essentially become sibling variants of one another. I am not proposing they have a single coverart title but just a single parent title since they are obviously based on the same art. If they weren't already varianted I would be proposing a make variant rather than merging the parent (but variants to variants do not make a lot of sense). Uzume 13:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You can make the UK record a variant of the parent title record without making it a variant of the pseudonymous title record. If you merge the UK record with the parent title, you're saying that each have the same artist credit and are the same work. For example this title record (UK Apr 1959 as Freas) should be made a variant of this record (the parent title as Frank Kelly Freas, Jan 1959). Mhhutchins 17:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, but merging the variant parents does the same thing. If 'a' is a variant of 'x' and 'b' a variant of 'y', you can make 'a' and 'b' be variants of 'x' by merging 'y' into 'x'. I am not proposing to merge the UK record, but rather to merge the UK parent record with the US parent record (leaving them both as variants to the US parent since it was first and the original publication of which both are derivatives of—both by pseudonymous name but the UK also because of similar content). I am not sure why this is an issue. I submitted several of these and others were accepted. Here is an example of what I want it to look like only with different month covers: 1244908 Uzume 05:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, work has cut into my time the past few days. The difference, in my opinion, is that in the case you cite, the two appear to be the same artwork. I don't think I agree with Michael's suggestion for the submission I have on hold. A canonical title supposedly represents a unique work. We do not use variants for content variations (except for translations). A merged art record at any level says this is the same artwork. We would use variants to show that the same artwork was used for two different purposes; e.g., it was used for the cover of publications of two different works. In the submission I have on hold, the art is clearly not the same -- it is more than just a repainting, it is a modification resulting in a different -- albeit related -- work. In our current scheme, I think these should be separate titles. We don't yet have a way to record derivations. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but viewing the canonical title would say "This same painting appeared as the cover on Jan '59 and on Apr '59 (UK)", and that's not true. --MartyD 11:31, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand about work, etc. Well you can clearly see in the pub note for the UK version this "This is a reprint of most of the Jan. 1959 and a story from the Jan. 1958 (US editions)". In all the other cases where this was true the coverart was the same too. And I wonder what you see different in the scans. To me they appear exactly the same save the text, the overlaid cigarette with nativity scene and black bar at the bottom with "Merry Christmas" and the light level/darkness of the scans (it seems like all the UK cover scans are lighter). The coverart itself is identical. To me this is no different from varianting interior art that was originally used as a cover. The interior art might not have text or other icons like the cover had. It might be a much better print (let's face it not all magazines are printed with the best quality to begin with). You said "repainting" but I don't see any evidence of repainting or modifications. I highly doubt the coverart credit given to "Freas" in the US version has anything to do with the overlaid nativity scene that was added due to the time of year it was published and I would be willing to bet any coverart collection it is published in will not have the nativity scene in it as the coverart is a science fiction topic most likely related to Eric Frank Russell's Study in Still Life which Freas also did interior illustrators for in this edition. Incidentally, here is another slightly lighter scan of the January '59 cover: Galactic Central If you really feel strongly about making this separate due exclusively to the overlaid nativity scene and the cigarette, I highly question that but I suppose shall have to accept that. Uzume 14:51, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If you read the background for the British reprints at Visco you'll see that there were clear reasons for repainting rather than reprinting - the covers were different sizes. Finding the artist that did the rework is far harder though. Another good site to look at is here. BLongley 19:58, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Bill—this seems like a much stronger argument but brings up the issue of coverart attribution as that page states that virtually all the UK covers are repainted and no one has been able to identify who has done the alterations. Visco's attribution solution was to just use "After <original artist>" (which is very reminiscent of a variant but evidently this usage is not currently policy). Uzume 20:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I suspect many British reprints' covers are misattributed and should properly be by "unknown", with notes saying they are copies: as I own next to none I don't know whether they were generally mis-credited in the publications themselves. I will dig out the few I own at some point and see what they actually say though. BLongley 00:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) Uzume, I understand what you are saying, but I'm sorry, I do not agree with your analysis of these two covers. You are right in that titles, cropping, rotation, logos, overlaid frames, lightness/darkness, and other mechanical things that are done to covers have no bearing on whether the underlying artwork is "the same". And we do ignore those things when considering whether merging is appropriate. So here, for example, the table border, the "Merry Christmas" vs. 'Conflict', the placement and color of the Astounding Science Fiction, the variations in date/price, and the "British Edition" logo are irrelevant. It comes down to the nativity scene and the cigarette. I don't agree that the nativity scene is an overlay -- it looks worked into the painting to me, with shadows incorporated using matching color, etc. But even if I accept your argument that it is an overlay supplied by the publisher to match the title and date of the magazine and is not part of Freas' artwork, that does not explain the cigarette. There would be no reason for that to be a seasonal overlay, so I have to assume it was part of the original drawing in the absence of evidence to the contrary. And that alone, in my opinion, would make the UK edition's cover an alteration. That I think the nativity scene was part of the original drawing merely reinforces my belief. --MartyD 12:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I was going to reject the submission, but I see you've cancelled it. Sorry my availability has been so sporadic; I did not mean to drag this out. Please also keep in mind my opinion need not be the final answer -- ISFDB content is not subject to Marty's whim. If you believe I am mistaken or even that I am correct but the two titles should be combined despite my points, please bring it up to a wider audience on Rules and standards discussions. The rules are open to interpretation, clarification, and even change. In fact, I have to bring something up there covering some of the interiorart and serial merges Mhhutchins and I approved. Thanks, and thanks for all of the hard work on Freas. It's looking quite good. --MartyD 12:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Though I am not sure agree with your assessment based purely on visual assessment, I actually agree with decision in general and am glad you caught that. BLongley's comments that refer to 3rd-party statements asserting that all the UK coverts were most likely repainted/edited brings this and all the UK covers into question about credit attribution. I do think there is a need for a generalized method to specify derived works such as these (including translations, etc.) but I agree the current policy does not address this well if at all (and now that I agree this is a derived work, this sort of submission currently does not seem to fall within the current variant policies...though perhaps it ought to—that seems to still be up for consideration/debate). Uzume 14:46, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Variants and foreign language titles

BTW, I was not aware varianting for translations was policy. Is this only when the title changes? In a variant a translator could also be credited (though we have no credit type for such things). Perhaps better spelled out rules on when how a variant should be used would be good since obviously they are only used for certain types of variations. Uzume 14:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Varianting for translations from something non-English to English are policy at present: the Non-English original title is the parent. English translations into other languages go under the English title. For contents, this means the only way at present to record the foreign name is in notes, e.g. this pub. There is a title_translator field in the database but it's not used - and it's arguable about whether we want it at title level rather than publication level anyway. BLongley 21:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

What about the other way around? non-English translations of original English material? I am interested and have been resisting entering such things as ゴルの巨鳥戦士 (which is a Japanese translation of Tarnsman of Gor) because the foreign language title support (both software and policy) seems rudimentary at best. Uzume 23:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

What other way around? I thought I'd explained both ways. Foreign characters support is minimal at present and will need a move to UTF or suchlike. I won't take such on as I am not expert in even the Western variations of the alphabet I know. (We don't use accents much in English English.) BLongley 00:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

No I did not mean it that way. I did not mean to imply you had not explained it but that the policy is incongruitious in that variants are used one way but not the other. I just meant that is why I have held off entering foreign language translations of original English works. Uzume 00:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Futuristic Science Stories

I'm holding the submissions that update and merge the editor records for this magazine. According to the Tymn/Ashley magazine reference, the editor was credited as "John Spencer Manning" but was really edited by the publishers, Sol Assael and Michael Nahum. According to the Miller/Contento reference, all but the last issue was uncredited (#16 was credited as edited by "John S. Manning".) What is the source for your updates giving Assael the sole editorship? Also, you can't update the editor records themselves, because, according to the current ISFDB record, the magazines aren't credited at all. So you would have to create a variant record to give the actual editor(s) credit, once we've determined who is the real editor. Also, you shouldn't merge title records in subsequent submissions without the submission to update has been approved. You never know which record the system will keep when it merges the multiple records. The record it chooses to retain may be the one that wasn't updated. Mhhutchins 17:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with "uncredited" varianted to the real editors but my real objective was to put them into a series to they can be seen on a series grid, etc. Actually one can sort of see which record is retained in a merge—especially when not all the data is the same as the editor record titles are different in this case. I was just trying to make things better. If you have input on how to make my suggestions/submissions even better—great. You always seem to have good input. My source of data for editorial credit was Galactic Central Futuristic Science Stories, which apparently is based on "Miller/Contento" and "Index to British Science Fiction Magazines". Uzume 18:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You can place the issues into series without changing the title record's editor credit, and without merging as well. Just place each of the editor records into a series "Futuristic Science Stories". That creates a grid. The purpose of merging editor records into years is to streamline author summary pages (imagine John W. Campbell's page being 12 times longer than it is now!) It seems everyone forgets this was the original purpose of merging title records. With only 16 issues with an uncredited editor, there's no need to create annual records for this magazine. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

This is true. I just thought I would fix the editorial credit as well and it was just as easy to merge a few editorial titles as it was to edit each. Uzume 19:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

You can't "fix" the editorial credit because the editors of the issues aren't credited in the issues. Once we've determined who the actual editor(s) are, we can create a variant, not update the current editor records. The series info will transfer as well to the variant title records. Mhhutchins 20:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I realized that earlier in this discussion. The fix for the editorial credit was not as well conceived as I at first though it was. The right "fix" is to leave uncredited and variant. Uzume 20:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing those. It is hard for me to see what I had submitted (I really wish we could see the XML content of submissions—at least our own) and try to remedy such. I also got rather busy to think too deeply about it (intermittent work interrupts, etc.). Uzume 05:27, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

UK version of Astounding/Analog

I just created this series, by unmerging all of the UK editions from the US series. This makes for a better magazine grid display. Together they were a mess. Mhhutchins 07:57, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I concur! I was watching. I had been making some submissions and determined it was futile because by the time my edits were moderated they would have already been done. I did add a few minor touch up submissions though (and cancelled a few of mine and backed off when I saw you doing the same things). Uzume 07:59, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

"Heretic in a Balloon"

I think this novella was fixed up with "The Witches of Manhattan" into the novel The Great Fetish. As such, its title record should not be made into a variant of the novel's title record. The title records of all three could be placed into a series, and the novel's title record should probably be updated with the information about the source stories. Mhhutchins 23:41, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, if you'd rather it was a series, I can do that but I do not think this would be an issue if the two short stories had been published with the same title as serialized parts. On what basis do you propose these were "fixed up"? Uzume 23:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

You're correct. It would not have been an issue if the two stories had been published as a serial, regardless of the title of the serial. A big "if" there. They weren't. We go with how it was published.

I say "fixed up" regardless of how much or how little work de Camp did in order to publish the book under a new title. It's a bibliographic term that means any work that is published as a novel that contains work which was previously published separately, even if they were originally written to be part of a larger work. Perhaps I was wrong to say it was "fixed up" until I've examined how each of the two shorter works relate to the novel. I do know that neither work should be made into a variant of the novel, regardless of how they fit into the novel.

The variant function should not be used to indicate a variant in text. It should only be used to indicate a variant in author credit or title of the work. Currently there is no way in the database to accurately and effectively indicate a variant in text and/or the relationship of one title record to another. The title record's note field is the only means to do so. Mhhutchins 00:01, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

How do you propose they were not published as a serial except that each part had a different title? Perhaps you'd rather The Great Fetish were a collection or an omnibus? Based on verifications, you have all the parts (both magazines and the first pub of The Great Fetish) so I shall go with whatever you say. Uzume 00:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of how it's defined, I know a serial when I see it...and this was not published as a serial. There's no mention at all in the first issue that the story will be continued. The only reference connecting the stories is in the blurb of the second story that they will "soon appear in hard covers from Doubleday as The Great Fetish." There is no "what happened before" synopsis in the second story. I made a cursory comparison of the texts and saw that there are only slight revisions, with the first story comprising the first eight chapters of the novel, and the second story became the second five chapters. I have updated the three title records. Mhhutchins 01:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

BTW, a collection usually gives each story its own title page and includes a table of contents. This book does neither. An omnibus must include, among other contents, a work which was previously published in book form (usually a novel, but not always). Obviously this book wouldn't qualify. Mhhutchins 01:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't serious think the omnibus fit but not having the book I was not sure about collection (but there were several verifications across two pubs and I would have thought they would have caught such). Thanks for looking into that. I find your choice of series title interesting. Instead of "Marko Prokopiu" I might have went with "The Great Fetish" or even "Kforri". Uzume 01:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Series titles are debatable, and easily changed. I personally don't like to name a series after one of the titles, but it's been done ad nauseum. If de Camp had written another book in the series, we would have had a stronger basis upon which to name the series, whether he would have used the same protagonist, or had chosen another character in the same setting. Mhhutchins 01:53, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Uzume 01:55, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Use of the HTML blockquote in db records

I've never seen this done before and it works well to quote a printed statement. Only trouble though is that the record's remaining data is overwhelmed by it. What do you think? Mhhutchins 16:38, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I have used it before in the past several times (e.g., here) but never for such a large print history. I think it is alright but perhaps we should be wary. The real problem is the default font for the <pre> tag. I only used it because it uses verbatim whitespace but I am not thrilled with the default monotype font. There is a way around this using CSS but currently the site has no such CSS. Blockquote really only adds margins. Uzume 16:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure about "no such CSS"? I'm no expert, but changing the font-size for "pre" in isfdb2\css\biblio_css_stub from 150% to 100% seems a step in the right direction. Maybe "font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" too to make it more standard. I'm not sure what else would be affected though. Can you test such? BLongley 18:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

No, the way to do it is to just use something like <div style="white-space: pre;">. That changes the white space handling on the div without changing the font like the pre tag does. I thought it might be useful to make the notes default to a div that uses a class that refers to CSS that does that in the main CSS code but never got around to that. It would make simple notes very easy as you could put multiple lines in without having to think about formatting much (and HTML tags like linking would still work). Uzume 20:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, this looked good to me but if there's a better way, go for it. BLongley 21:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is an example where I just attached the CSS directly to the blockquote tag instead of using the additional pre tag. You will notice the list is still very long but the font is no longer changed. Do we agree this is a better solution? Uzume 11:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's very much better. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:35, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, then I shall convert my earlier submissions to that format (which are now much easier to find thanks to the new user verification list). Thanks. Uzume 16:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

There's also FR 3279968, "Support for Title and Publication Notes search" which will hopefully allow us to search notes for undesirable strings. However, Ahasuerus is not yet recovered enough to test big changes. Glad to hear "My Verifications" is coming in useful though! BLongley 17:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that and have already integrated that code into my personal test platform (so I can already test it at least with older data from backup snapshots). Thanks. I know that will be very useful. Uzume 17:24, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Sands of Mars

Accepted the submission adding notes to this did a quick check of Locus1 and that's the date they have. Adjusted the note accordingly. There are probably thousands of records in the DB that have used Locus data without citing the source. For anything after 1984 [collections only pre-'84] I always check there. The online index is easy to use. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I have been busy entering many primary verifications (i.e., sifting through my library). Uzume 02:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Patrick Lee

Thanks for adding the birth year to Patrick Lee's record. I was at a loss at how to disambiguate him with the other Patrick Lee who wrote in the 1930's. I sent an email to the currently writer asking him for his birth year, but you beat me to it. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 01:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. It is publicly available on several sites including his own web page. It should perhaps also be noted that there is a "press picture" of him also available on that site under contacts which I expect would be acceptable to copy here and link in as it is specified for press (publication) usage and is also the same image as depicted in some of his books (in the about the author blurb). Uzume 02:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

"The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings" boxed sets

I accepted the submission making one record a variant of the other, then saw that they are all boxed sets and merged them into one record here. Mhhutchins 03:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

That sounds good and I considered that myself. Thanks. Uzume 11:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

"Minor Operation" by Aldiss

I'm holding the submission creating a new parent record for the serial "Minor Operation". This serial is an abridgement of a novel (The Primal Urge) published the year before. What are your intentions in making the serial into a variant of the same name (and that you've typed as shortfiction)? It may be better just to make it into a variant of the original title. What do you think? Mhhutchins 23:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

That works. I just thought it was better to not have the serials hanging in space and better to have them a variant of a SF so that it is a single SF with serialized appearances (I was going to variant the others to the same parent). If there is a better pre-existing parent I am all for it. I withdrew this submission and added more to make each serial entry variants (magazine appearances) of The Primal Urge Uzume 00:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

"Catmagic" by Barry & Strieber

It appears that several of the editions were credited to both, so they have to remain as credited, under their own title record, but made into a variant. We should remove those credited to Streiber alone and make it into the parent record. I don't believe there were any that credited Barry alone. Just because Strieber is Barry doesn't mean we can change the records of the publication's credits. I'll work on it and let you see the results. Mhhutchins 00:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Really!? I have not seen that. It seems to me more like Amazon or some large site incorrectly listed some publications as having both credits but I am unable to make any verifications where a publication actually had both credits. Even if there are some pubs with both credits it would be better to split and variant so there are titles with pubs correctly credited (some with one; some with the other; and possibly some with both). One other problem with this title is the name itself. Officially is is always Catmagic, however due to the way it is displayed on covers and title pages stylized with "Cat" and "magic" in such a way that it looks like two words where "magic" maybe capitalized. Every copyright page always seems to list it as either Catmagic or CATMAGIC Uzume 00:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

It looks like you did basically what I was proposing to do anyway but with a few different steps. Difference I would make is that the Tor HC editions were only credited to "Jonathan Barry" alone despite some crediting both. It would be pointless to have the pseudonym in the case listed in the comment I added to the title record if there was the real name also attached. Uzume 00:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Look at the image I just loaded of the Tor hardcover edition. Also look under "Responsibility" in the OCLC record. Mhhutchins 00:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. I concede to the cover. Thanks again. (I was planning to unmerge and variant in the opposite direction but the end result was the same—except the dual credit thing aside) Uzume 00:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Time Wars

Is Charles G. Waugh credited on the title page of this book, or is it "Charles Waugh"? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 20:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The cover (as can be seen on the cover scan) and the title page say:

CREATED BY

POUL ANDERSON TIME WARS

EDITED BY CHARLES WAUGH & MARTIN H.

GREENBURG

However the copyright page says:

Copyright © 1986 by Poul Anderson, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh

I hope that helps. Feel free to make such changes if you feel such are appropriate. Uzume 00:19, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

F&Sf July 1985

Replaced the Visco scan for your verified here. Hauck 17:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank for the heads-up. I have no issues with the edit. Uzume 00:20, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Strange Bedfellows

I made a few changes to this verified pub. The stories by William Carlson and Jack M. Dann were incorrectly credited to William K. Carlson and Jack Dann (see also here for Mike Hutchins'opinion). Corrected now, and I also added some notes. Thanks, --Willem H. 18:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Lazarus Effect

Added artist credit to this, cover art same as hardcover which does credit the artist. --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this looks like a good call even though checking my copy allows me to neither confirm nor deny such (no visible cover art credit given). Uzume 21:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Long After Midnight

I added the artist (Ian Miller) and a note to this verified pub. --Willem H. 19:19, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Planet Run

New image and notes (there were none) added to this --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Worlds of the Imperium

New scan, identified the artist from signature, for this --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Strange Bedfellows

Replaced the FF scan for your verified here. Hauck 17:00, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Sign of the Unicorn

I added a cover scan to this verified pub. --Willem H. 19:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Split Infinity

I replaced the Fantastic Fiction cover scan for Split Infinity (DelRey, Aug 1983) with a scan of my own copy and expanded the notes with a remark about the artist credits. --Dirk P Broer 19:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:21, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Tyranopolis

I expanded the notes for this verified pub. If you have a source for the publication month, please add it to the notes. Thanks, --Willem H. 20:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. No, I haven't a source for the month but the current notes record says "Publication month from Icshi". Uzume 21:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Juxtaposition - cover image, notes and page numbers

I uploaded a scanned cover image, added notes, and fixed the page numbers to denote the unnumbered roman numeral pages for your verified Juxtaposition. AndonSage 06:39, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:47, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Split Infinity - notes and page numbers

I added notes, and fixed the unnumbered roman numeral pages for your verified Split Infinity. AndonSage 01:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Jack of Shadows

New scan and identified the artist from signature [approx 1 1/2" up and 1" in from botto right, very tiny red lettering under 'globe'] for this. Adjusted notes accordingly. --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Last Knight of Albion

I'm standardizing various books published by "New Infinities", an imprint of Ace SF. Our standard for such things is "Imprint / Publisher", so I've changed the publisher listing for your verified book from "Ace/New Infinities" to "New Infinities / Ace" Chavey 15:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

That looks good--thanks. Uzume 21:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Groff Conklin - Selections From Possible Worlds of Science Fiction

I updated your verified pub Selections From Possible Worlds of Science Fiction with added notes, cover art photograph, and I also corrected the publication title by adding Selections From. This now matches my copy in hand. Thanks Kevin 03:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That makes me wonder if this should be split into a separate (but perhaps variant) title. I am not sure it worth it considering it seems several other editions are abbreviated with fewer stories as well (but this appears to be the only one with an acual different title prepending "Selections From"). Uzume 22:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Master Mind of Mars and A Fighting Man of Mars

You verified this book, which is listed with a print date of Jan. 1974. However it is also listed as having a gutter code of D51, which translates to Dec. 1973 (which agrees with Contento1, who just says "1973"). As such, I have updated the the print date for that book. Chavey 23:09, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Oops. Bluesman corrects me that we use SFBC catalogs to determine 1st publication dates, not the gutter codes, so I have reverted the change mentioned above. Chavey 23:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

No worries, I have done that sort of thing myself. Uzume 22:00, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Hand of Oberon Roger Zelazny 7th printing

Added cover artist for this pub BarDenis 17:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

That looks good--thanks. Uzume 21:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Courts of Chaos Roger Zelazny 2nd printing

Updated cover art with the correct one in this pub BarDenis 18:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 21:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The New Hugo Winners, Volume 1

Another editor has uploaded and linked the cover image for this record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks--that is the right cover. I wish this other editor would add himself as a primary then (it must be some big secret). Uzume 22:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Starcrossed by Ben Bova & Nomads of Gor by John Norman & Priest-Kings of Gor (11th) by John Norman

I just added a cover image to The Starcrossed by Ben Bova Ofearna 21:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. If you have a copy why don't you add yourself as a primary? Uzume 22:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I don' thave the book itself, but a scan I've snagged in my 22 year stint on the internet. O'Fearna 13:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Nomads of Gor 16th printing I added a cover image Ofearna 18:54, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Why not add yourself as a primary then? Uzume 22:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I don' thave the book itself, but a scan I've snagged in my 22 year stint on the internet -- this ones' from the website The Complete John Norman. O'Fearna 13:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I added a cover to the 11th US/Ballentine edition of The Priest-Kings of Gor, which you verified. Ofearna 09:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I checked and it was not there yet but I shall look for it. Thanks. Uzume 14:28, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Submission accepted. Please see if it matches your copy. Mhhutchins 18:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I have no problems with this submission. It matches the cover on mine except mine has considerably more wear (so that is actually a better scan that I could ever make). Uzume 20:07, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I don' thave the book itself, but a scan I've snagged in my 22 year stint on the internet -- this ones' from the website The Complete John Norman. O'Fearna 13:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

Hi, I've added a cover scan and expanded the notes for Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail (DelRey, 1988).--Dirk P Broer 13:44, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Uzume 22:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The Violet Apple & The Witch

Hello, I don't know what went wrong, but your add publication submission forced me to a 'hard reject', because the title wasn't any more in the database. However, there is such a title, but with a different cgi no.: better try this one if it fits. Stonecreek 14:04, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, thank you. Uzume 14:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

It usually happens when Merge, Add and Import submissions are approved out of order. Ahasuerus 02:45, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

"British Science/Space Fiction Magazine"

I see that you would like to merge 12 EDITOR records for "British Space Fiction Magazine" and "British Science Fiction Magazine", 11 of them published in 1955 and one in 1956. However, as discussed over on Help:How to link a magazine to its wiki page and add it to a magazine series, EDITOR records should be merged only when the magazine title, the editor and the year are the same. In this case the year is different and the title is different, so it would appear that we don't want to merge them. Ahasuerus 02:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Well the magazines are already in three different series by title so I thought the extra editor records were extraneous. Also you will note that these are all variant titles by means of the Vargo Statten editorial house name so really the title records are not going away entirely and people will still be able to search for these without issue. The entire magazine is only 19 issues long across three years (with one year only having a single issue in it) and it changed names at least three times (one could count the "The" at the beginning of the title as other variants as well). The main reason for merging the records to begin with was the fact that the first seven issues were incorrectly credited as edited by John Russell Fearn when it should be Alistair Paterson. If "the right thing" is something else that is fine with me. Thank you. Uzume 05:04, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Strangely enough, I submitted two title merges: one for the first seven issues, and one of the latter twelve. Hauck approved the first (submission 1897344) and you held the second even though they were submitted mere seconds apart. If you want to unmerge them that is fine but remember these are not so easy to unmerge as they are not titles the hold any pubs directly but rather hold variant titles (also please accept submission 1897920 first which changes the author/editor credit to Alistair Paterson). In some ways, the titles even under a different title could be considered a variant as they are all the same magazine. I always wondered why it was decided to have magazines be title series that have grids that sort of skip the editor titles and show the pubs themselves. Why not just make magazines be pub series? That is basically what they are. Of course the rest would be the same but it seems odd to have a title series for magazines that have editor titles. I understand that currently pub series cannot have sub series like title series currently can. Uzume 05:27, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Publication series are a relatively recent addition; they were not available when the original design decisions about magazines were made. It never occurred to me that magazines/fanzines could be handled as pub series, so I'll have to think about it. The first thing that comes to mind is that crediting editors on their respective Summary pages would be an issue, but there is no harm in mulling it over... Ahasuerus 16:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure how using a pub series to represent a magazine, etc. over a title series would cause issues with editorial credit. Pubs still have titles in the DB. I see no reason to deviate from having magazine editorial titles since pubs still need a way to represent the parties responsible for making it happen. And those titles can be in a series too if it makes sense (similar to how regular magazine essays can be in a series, etc.) but I do believe using pub series for magazines makes sense. Uzume 21:44, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

The code behind the Summary page is very complex (and fragile) and is also shared with the Series page, so any changes would be time consuming and potentially dangerous. The fact that nested publication series are currently not supported would also have to be considered. Having said that, moving magazines to pub series may alleviate certain other issues, e.g. lack of support for multiple printings of a single magazine issue, but we'd need to do a lot more analysis first. Ahasuerus 05:37, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree (I also considered reprintings), but part of the complexity and fragility is likely due to having to support the current magazine infrastructure which using pub series might well alleviate. It certainly needs more thought and perhaps some testing of prototype coding, etc. Uzume 10:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I've seen your two subs and approved the one that (IIRC) concerned issues for the same year, but perhaps was I too fast. The second (with different years) seemed to me debatable. Hauck 05:58, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they were all in 1954 but the magazine had at least three titles in that merge: Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine for 1:1 to 1:3, Vargo Statten British Science Fiction Magazine for 1:4 and 1:5, The British Science Fiction Magazine for 1:6 and 1:7. 1:8, 1:9 and 1:12 also have the title The British Science Fiction Magazine. It could be argued that 1:10 and 1:11 also have the same title but based on the cover art anyway the leading "The" is missing. All of 2:1 to 2:7 have the title 'British Space Fiction Magazine and all are published in 1955 but the last. Uzume 06:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

So if I ignore the leading "The" issue would be acceptable to have this as:

• Vargo Statten Science Fiction Magazine - 1954 (1954) [ED] by Alistair Paterson [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 1:1 to 1:3)
• Vargo Statten British Science Fiction Magazine - 1954 (1954) [ED] by Alistair Paterson [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 1:4 and 1:5)
• The British Science Fiction Magazine - 1954 (1954) [ED] by Alistair Paterson [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 1:6 and 1:7)
• The British Science Fiction Magazine - 1954 (1954) [ED] by John Russell Fearn [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 1:8)
• The British Science Fiction Magazine - 1955 (1955) [ED] by John Russell Fearn [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 1:9 to 1:12)
• British Space Fiction Magazine - 1955 (1955) [ED] by John Russell Fearn [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 2:1 to 2:6)
• British Space Fiction Magazine - 1956 (1956) [ED] by John Russell Fearn [only as by Vargo Statten ] (and containing 2:7)

I could break out 1:10 and 1:11 if you want to get picky about the leading "The" missing on those issues. I am curious what you recommend about the title series too. It is cumbersome to have three series even though they are now in a single super series (I did that just so I can actually see them on a single grid). Uzume 06:39, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

To be frank, the title changes weren't really bothering me especially when working only with the covers (even if it's not the strict ISFDB policy). I find the grouping by calendar year more pertinent. BTW I've approved your change of editor (as per Tymn & Ashley) but this data should probably also be changed in individual issues and sourced. Hauck 12:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I find the editorial credit more pertinent (since they are editorial work titles) but can understand wanting to maintain title names for possible title searches (I did not mind merging across titles though because these all have variants with titles intact for searching). No, I do not think such should be changed in the issue pubs as they all state the editor as "Vargo Statten". This is why they have title variants giving the true editorial credit to Fearn and now Paterson (thanks). Uzume 13:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, this magazine now looks like: Vargo Statten British Science/Space Fiction Magazine. Does this look alright now? I still do not like how it is cumbersome to get to the full issue grid. Does this really need the intermediate series? This is where a pub series (and pub series based issue grids) would really be useful, IMO. Thank you. Uzume 20:07, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Cover artist for The Sword and the Stallion

Hi. Would you check the cover artist credit for your 2-verified 1974 The Sword and the Stallion? I'm wondering if it might be "Johnston instead of "Johnson". I will also check with Unapersson. Thanks. --MartyD 11:55, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

If you could check on this, I'd appreciate it. Unapersson doesn't seem to be active these days. Thanks! --MartyD 11:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I am active but much of my books are archived in boxes and not available for me to check right now. Unfortunately this item is amongst those. Uzume 12:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I was asking because an editor wants to make Johnson a pseudonym of Johnston, yet this is the only record as "Johnson". I poked around a little and found several secondary sources giving "Johnston", none "Johnson". So I think for now I'm going to reject the pseudonym submission and change the credit to "Johnston" instead. If you come across this and can check it, we can always go back to Johnson and make the pseudonym after all. Thanks. --MartyD 02:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I finally got around to digging this out, however, it is clearly printed on the back cover "COVER ART BY DAVID McCALL JOHNSON" and not "Johnston". Perhaps the pseudonym route was the best. Uzume 23:34, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

SFBC reprints

I see that you created a new record for a later printing of a SFBC edition for Simak's Cemetery World. The ISFDB standard for SFBC editions is to only create new records if there is a change in the edition, such as catalog number, cover art, etc. It appears that your copy is a later printing according to the gutter code with no changes from the first printing. The information on this new printing is added to the record for the first printing. For example, add a note that says "Reprinted in October 1983 with gutter code "N43" [verified by Primary 3]". Once you've done that do a primary verification of the record, and delete the duplicate one. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I have moved my verification and made a submission to change the first edition pub adding this printing's information. The submissions rules are sometimes highly nonintuitive--thank you again. Uzume 16:20, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Luther Cox

What is your source that "Bigby" is not the author's middle name? Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Ellis, Frances. "First Novel Represents Three Years of Study". Florence Morning News. January 7, 1968, p. 12

A newspaper article printed during the period when The Earth is Mine was published. I do not have a source that Bigby wasn't his middle name but I noticed another Luther Cox that did have such a middle name and a different birthdate. I am assuming it is conflated with such. I can find no evidence that the author of The Earth is Mine had a name "Bigby" (middle or otherwise). If you have some please share. Uzume 16:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't. If I had I would have just rejected the submission outright. The submission has been accepted. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Change in the Help:Contents page

The change you've made in this page makes the display less visually appealing than it was before. The list appears to be "squashed" where previously there was space around each item. I also feel such a change should have been presented as a suggestion to the group before making it. All of your changes over the past week or so (changing links to local ones) have had no actual impact like this one. If you wish I could bring up the subject on one of the community pages in order to get other opinions concerning the change. Mhhutchins 16:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I tried to make it more similar to the main page but if you find it visually less appealing I am sure that can be worked on. I am not sure what you want to take to community pages but the way I see it the more participation the better. Uzume 16:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I returned it to a series of centered paragraphs (which have larger vertical margins) instead of a semantic and bulleted list (though I do think it is semantically a list of links and not a series of paragraphs). Uzume 16:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not the centering that made it better, just the spacing. Is there a way to keep the bullets, but space them out? Still, I do like the idea of making it similar in design to the main page. Mhhutchins 16:58, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is possible, however, not easily—at least not by me. There are three possibilities:

1. Directly write it as a set of paragraphs and just add visual bullets to the items (not semantically a list; this is the least appealing in my opinion)..
2. Directly use HTML markup to make a list and change the style for every list item to increase the vertical spacing (sort of ugly and painful).
3. Get an admin to modify the common user interface style-sheet to add a class that would increase spacing on lists and then modify the page to use a MediaWiki markup list and attach the class that increases the vertical spacing.

Unfortunately, none of these is very nice but long term the common interface style-sheet is the right way to go about it (I have wanted to make some nicer table styles as well but perhaps one day). Uzume 17:05, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I returned it to a bulleted list using option two above. On my browser, the vertical spacing is visually the same as the centered paragraphs. I personally think it is less visually appealing than the tighter list but let me know what you think. Uzume 17:32, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks fine on my screen, but the font appears a little large. I'm using Google Chrome with the Cologne Blue skin (in case that makes a difference). Your first revision (with the bulleted list) would be fine if it had the same size font as this revision, which would make the list less cramped. Is that possible? Mhhutchins 18:21, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

That is very odd as I did not change the font size. I have been using Firefox but I shall try Chrome. Uzume 18:45, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I checked into this using Chrome and I cannot see any difference in font sizes. Methinks it is your skin or some other setting. I know that page markup is setting font size to "medium" which maybe controlled by the browser. It may also be affected by a style sheet in your browser (e.g., a local or skin one, etc.). Uzume 18:50, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is related to the MediaWiki skin as I have now checked into that. These are the same links you quoted me with forced skins (you can also logout to view with the default skin without changing your preference):

1. first revision in mononook first revision in cologneblue
2. later revision in monobook later revision in cologneblue

So it is the skin and not he browser. Uzume 19:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think skins would make such a difference. Thanks for pointing it out. (So now you see what I meant by the lines cramping each other!) The first revision (with bullets) in monobook actually looks pretty good. Sorry to have put you through this trouble. But at least we both learned something. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:14, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I shall try to work on it in cologneblue and see if something can be done. Uzume 19:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Well I found the cause of the issue. It seems MediaWiki Cologne Blue skin style-sheet has a very specific style selector for list item elements that sets the line-height property to a fixed value (almost always a bad item without also setting the font size at the same place). So the font-size is inherited from the size specified by its surroundings (in this case a font-size was specified on the table cell element) but then locked to a fixed size by the style cascade. I tried using HTML list markup syntax (number two above) to override the line-height to a font-size relative ratio but then I ran into an issue where MediaWiki did not want to allow me to save it due to some spam filter. So for now the current work-around of overriding the top and bottom margins will have to suffice unless I remove do something with font-size to make it match the fixed line-height. Uzume 13:21, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. I prefer Cologne Blue because of its cream background which is softer on the eyes than the harsh white of Monobook. If you brought the problem with the Cologne Blue style-sheet to the attention of Ahasuerus, would he be able to fix it? Mhhutchins 14:09, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

BTW, the most recent revision reduced the size of the font of the list items and gave reasonable space between them. It looks very good under Cologne Blue. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

The Labyrinth of Dreams by Jack L. Chalker

Uploaded new version of cover (wraparound) for this pub BarDenis 19:29, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I would ask you to add yourself to the primaries but it seems they are currently filled (this should be fixed someday as it seems like an omission/bug in my opinion). Uzume 22:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Ray Bradbury

I've added Dean Ellis as cover artist to this record. The cover is shown in Infinite Worlds by Vincent Di Fate.--Teddybear 17:12, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Uzume 22:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Tarnsman of Gor

What is the source for the data that created records for the 12th and 13th printings of this title? Mhhutchins 04:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There are cover scans for each printing. Uzume 04:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

• http://work.tcjn.info/g01bal12.htm
• http://work.tcjn.info/g01bal13.htm

Then all you would have to enter in the notes is the following statement: "Data from the Complete John Norman website at work.tcjn.info". Giving the source for your data saves the moderator from having to do research, and speeds up the acceptance of submissions.

Is this the same source for the updates to the 8th, 15th and 17th printings? Mhhutchins 04:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Uzume 04:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I await your submissions to add the source to those five records. By now this should be second nature. You should not have to be reminded to note your sources. Mhhutchins 04:45, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

That is not a problem—it was already on my TODO list (so of course I do not need such a reminder). Uzume 03:23, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to remind you, but can I assume you've not got to this part of your TODO list? Mhhutchins 21:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

No, sorry, I haven't gotten back to entering ISFDB data. Do you need this done soon for some reason? I suppose I can try and make it a priority if necessary. Uzume 05:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I was afraid that it would slip your mind. It takes less than a minute to do this, just slightly more than the time it took to respond to this message. And with copy and paste you could do several records in one minute. I don't understand your resistance to do a simple request. Mhhutchins 16:00, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

There, I've updated all five records giving the source. Mhhutchins 16:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! There was no resistance. I just have been very busy offline lately (job interviews, etc.) and I do come to ISFDB for more than just bibliographic record updates (I have been working on the code side of things more lately). I doubt it would slip my mind as there is this comment/talk record and I have a very long TODO list with regards to John Norman (many printings and translations are still missing).

I noticed the records you marked made it look like all the data came from that site which in many cases was not true as there was a preexisting record (however, I did make some new pub records for some). Thanks again. Uzume 12:25, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I assumed that when you added or updated those records that you checked all the particulars with the source. If the source had differed in any of the fields, I believe you would have corrected them. If this isn't true, you should note which of the fields contain the data that come from the source you used to update the record, e.g. "Price from the Complete John Norman website." or "Cover art credit from the Complete John Norman website." Mhhutchins 16:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I of course am careful about bibliographic data. I usually have no means to update the source. I am not entirely sure what you mean but unless I have good reason to question data within ISFDB, I usually try to just add data and not replace it. Uzume 17:48, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

No one has asked you to "update the source". You should update the ISFDB record to indicate the source of your data, which is entirely within your power. And when you do replace data (as the artist credit in Ghost Dance), you should note the source for that specific data field, just as I stated above. Mhhutchins 18:27, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Of course, that goes without saying. Your statement "If the source had differed in any of the fields, I believe you would have corrected them." was confusing as it made it sound like you wanted me to try and update the source (but I assumed I was misinterpreting that). Uzume 18:35, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I made the submissions to rectify this (where you had not already made such). (So far) I only made new pubs for the 12th and 13th printings (from TCJN). The 8th, 15th and 17th were preexisting and I just made updates adding data. I shall probably try and push the rest of the Ballantine prints in eventually but there are many on this title alone (without even mentioning hist other works). Uzume 12:43, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

You also spurred me to finally getting around to making submissions for the source for the Japanese's translations of Norman's works. I should work on other translations of his works (e.g., finish up French and move on to German, Spanish, Russian, etc.). I go back and forth between his translations and tackling the sheer volume of his English prints. Uzume 13:10, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Norman's Ghost Dance

Your updates to two pub records of this title change the cover artist from Thomas Beechum to Frank McCarthy, and you give your source as TCJN (which should be spelled out completely as in the example I gave you above, because the average database user would not be familiar with the acronym.) I'm holding the submissions because they conflict with a previous source (The Whole SF Database 7). I'll get back to it when I contact the editor who gave that source. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:04, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought I was more explicit than just "TCJN" and gave the full domain name as well (this is where it would be really nice to be able to see the contents of my own submissions). This is one of the few cases where I suspect the cover art credit within ISFDB to be incorrect. I suspected you would want to investigate. Thank you. Uzume 17:50, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll accept the submission so you can see what was submitted and make the necessary changes. Once the editor who gave the original cover credit responds I'll make any further changes. Mhhutchins 18:21, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

In the submission to edit this record, you made no mention of your source at all. In the other one, you add "TCJN" to the list, but don't specify which information you changed based on that source. Mhhutchins 18:23, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Well you make some interesting assumptions about what the average database user knows and policy based on that but you are right that TCJN might not be in some people's vernacular. I am not sure how I missed the other entry (I think I got the cover art for the other one form one of the sources already listed so I did not need to update the source references but I now forget which). Uzume 18:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I've been around here long enough to make many interesting assumptions, but this isn't one of them. You even agree yourself that "TCJN" should be explained. Mhhutchins 14:54, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Тан publisher

Hi. For your proposed addition of Тан, I was wondering if the "-классика" on "Азбука-классика" might indicate an imprint or series (Classic of some sort). I noticed we also have Azbuka-Terra, with a single publication, but I don't really know what "Азбука" means in the context of these names: Could the publisher be "Азбука", with publisher series "Азбука-классика", "Азбука-терра" (sp?), and so on? Thanks. --MartyD 12:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Азбука-классика is a pb series by publisher "Азбука". But also it is publisher itself from 2005 to 2009. "Азбука - Tерра" (or "Терра — Азбука") was the publishing name in 1995 - 1998. From 2010 "Азбука" is imprint of "Азбука-Аттикус" (in Russian)Denis 19:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Танец духов is a 2005 Russian translation of John Norman's Ghost Dance by «Ольга Андреева» (Olga Andreeva). I believe the publisher is «Азбука-классика» and it is in a pub series «Хозяева прерий». «Азбука-классика» maybe an imprint of «Азбука». If you want to change the publisher to something else like «Азбука-классика / Азбука», I would not have an issue with that.

I too am not that educated on Russian language or publication history but I believe «Азбука» is usually translated as "ABC" or "Alphabet". You can find an entry about the publisher on Wikipedia: wikipedia:ru:Азбука (издательство) (albeit in Russian). Similarly there is also an entry for wikipedia:ru:Азбука-Аттикус.

Here is the Amazon record for the publication: http://www.amazon.com/dp/5352012336 Uzume 23:07, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I have left it as you submitted it (Танец духов -- don't ask me why I only saw "Тан"). From what Denis says above, sounds like it was the publisher's name in 2005. --MartyD 00:15, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Uzume 00:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Only one. There is error: "series: Танец духов" Denis 17:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Dennis—that is a good catch. I made a submission to fix that. It could be made a proper pub series by filling in that field but since there is currently only one work by that publisher it seemed a tad overkill (so I just fixed the note). Uzume 20:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Translator credit

Thanks for adding the Dutch John Norman translations. It will take some time before I get to the Scala series. I had to reject your submissions to add the translator credit to the title records. These should be (and already are) in the pub record. --Willem H. 15:06, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, I prefer the translator credit be in the title record since it is possible to have multiple translations to the same language with the same title but different translator and it is at the same time possible to have multiple publications of each of such translations. I would logically make such two different variant titles of the main work. Realistically, titles should have different contribution credits such as author, editor, translator, etc. but since the DB does not currently support that and such is not policy yet, I prefer to add translator credits to the note on the title record (and also the pubs in case such get messed up; at least until a stable means to credit such things arrives). Uzume 16:26, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

To re-enforce Willem: the current ISFDB policy is to credit translators in the note fields of the pub record and/or title record, but not in the author fields of either the pub record or the title record. Translators aren't authors. If you disagree, bring up the topic on the Rules discussion page. Mhhutchins 21:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I was trying to credit translators in the title note record in addition to the pub note record and not via any author fields. He rejected four submissions of mine to add "Translation by ..." notes to title records. Having the translation credit in the pub note is fine but I believe such better belongs in the title record (but still as a note at the moment of course). Uzume 00:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Here are my four submissions to add translation credits to title note record that he recently rejected:

• http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_update.cgi?1976941
• http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_update.cgi?1976943
• http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_update.cgi?1977011
• http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/tv_update.cgi?1977012

I believe these submissions are still within policy. Thank you. Uzume 00:48, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Unless I am confused our current policy is still Help:How to enter foreign language editions with the relevant section being: 'There is currently no support for a "translated by" field in the database. Translators should be recorded in the Notes field.' No where in there does it say pub note only and as such I believe the proper place is the title note (though I have no issues with redundancy within the pub note, especially in light of prior policy where translations did not get their own titles unless they were translations to English). Uzume 01:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread Willem's note as "title field" instead of "title record". I apologize. I don't think there's any problem with adding translator credit to title records, and there's no policy that I'm aware of that prohibits it. I've done many of them, so I don't understand his objection. Quite often a work will be translated more than once into the same language, and each will require a different title record. Look at this recent addition of two different records for Italian translations of this title. Mhhutchins 01:36, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to convey and why I believe currently the best place for translator credit is in the title note field (and as I have said I have no objections to redundancy in pub note fields). I believe I shall run into that same issue with German translations of John Norman's works (but I have not gotten to such as of yet). Uzume 01:56, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as somebody that's already worked on adding translator support, I agree title level is the best place for it and that multiple translations into the same language by different translators will end up as separate title records, with appropriate display of the translator(s). It's proven a bit tricky and I haven't taken it beyond recording the translator for now, it still needs work on the displays of pseudonymous translators and an entire new 'translations' section on the bibliographic displays, but we will get there. Recording translators in notes either at title or pub level will help when we need to rework existing notes into proper software-supported fields. BLongley 11:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I have not really looked into how you plan to implement this but I recommend some method to tag "author" fields with a type to effectively make it a credit field. Make it default to "author" type and allow other types like editor, translator, etc. Then variant records can differ based on a translator and language and one can make such derivative works correctly show up at translations in the display (would can sort of be done now if one detects a difference in the language field alone but obviously one cannot display translators as it is not yet in a machine readable field). Uzume 15:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

If you think it's that important to have the credit in both places, re-submit, I won't touch them again. --Willem H. 13:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Willem. Uzume 15:00, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I added Foreword

I added the foreword and adjusted the page count to your verified.Don Erikson 17:49, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Uzume 22:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Deriving ISBNs

You should not change a catalog number into an unstated ISBN unless it is an early version of the ISBN. In 1969 Ballantine had not started using the SBN which became the precursor of the ISBN. If an SBN is stated on the copyright page, it's OK to derive an ISBN from it. But don't do the same for catalog numbers. Mhhutchins 01:18, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

That is not true. Your own verified pub, from October, 1969 states otherwise. Ballantine was already using SBNs in 1969. There is evidence showing Ballantine had started using SBNs as early as February 1966 (of course this was mostly restricted to Tolkien's The Hobbit). In terms of Norman's works the earliest evidence is Nomads of Gor, November 1969. I was very careful to not covert arbitrary catalog numbers to ISBNs without ample evidence. Uzume 01:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Those are not SBNs. They are catalog numbers with a price code appended. That catalog numbering system was abandoned with the advent of SBNs, which eventually evolved into ISBNs. There is no "evidence" in the link you provided to the 1966 use of SBNs. If it's there in the record and I missed it, please point it out. So again, please do not derive ISBNs from catalog numbers, only SBNs. Mhhutchins 02:36, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Really? Then why does this have "345•01744•075" on the cover? 345 is quite obviously Ballantine's SBN prefix from that era. What is the purpose of such a prefix if they were not using SBNs by that time? You also rejected the ISBN 0-345-01924-5 for Ghost Dance, 1970 but I am not the only one saying it is an ISBN: see Amazon for example. Uzume 04:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Blockquotes

The use of HTML blockquotes creates too much white space in a record's metadata. (For example.) We recommend in our pages when using HTML to stick with either line breaks or unnumbered lists. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering about that myself. I was thinking to use a div to make less vertical space/padding. However that is not the issue—it is the extra newlines that are kept. I made some submissions to help rectify that. Thank you. Uzume 02:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

ISBN for French ed. of Norman

Can you please add the source for the ISBN you added to this record when you get a chance? Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:11, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. I did not think an ISBN would be that hard to find. Uzume 15:20, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

That's not the point. You updated the record. You should provide a source. It's not the moderator's duty to research your submissions. Mhhutchins 16:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to intrude but the fact that the ISBN is hard to find is simply caused by its total absence of on the book itself (I've just extracted it from my shelves), the sources given seems to lack reliability. Hauck 15:37, 31 October 2012 (UTC).

No intrusion at all. I appreciate the input. It seems my insistence that editors give a source pays off sometimes. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed—no intrusion. If you have the pub, please consider adding a primary verification. Thank you. I would much like to know if you believe that ISBN is propagation of misinformation. I know many of the ISBN's of OPTA prints from that era are frought with issues. I was not aware this was one of those, however. Uzume 18:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree OPTA really has issues when it comes to ISBNs. It was the situation with this pub that brought to my attention four OPTA publications from 1986 that have the same ISBN! Even worse, it's an invalid ISBN to begin with. Mhhutchins 04:42, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

OPTA (and its diverse incarnations) has never been very good with ISBNs (see my comments here) and there's always a kind on "amateurish" feel to their products. As they (mostly) used the newspaper distribition system, they were probably under the pressure of stricter deadlines. For the propagation of information, it's probably a piece of data which came from a official source (e.g. the BNF), it's even perhaps the correct one as 1) 0214 & 0216 were given to CLAs of the same time period, 2) OPTA gave ISBN in sequence and 3) they were producing very few titles at the time. Hauck 08:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Verification Sources

I don't understand the reason for removing all cellspacing in the table on this page. Under my skin (Cologne Blue), the rows are so tight that there's hardly no space at all between the text and the table. What's wrong with having a little space to separate each row? Even using the default skin, the rows of the table are cramped, so what's the point? The table isn't so large that the normal monitor can't display it all in one screen without scrolling. Mhhutchins 15:33, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I reverted it but we already determined that skin is sort of broken with regard to spacing and font sizing, etc. Uzume 18:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Great Time Machine Hoax

Added cover for your verified here. Hauck 19:33, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Nemesis

Re: Nemesis
Replacing Amazon image with one scanned from personal collection. Notifying all verifiers.--Astromath 03:54, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Cachalot

Re: Cachalot
Clarifying no number line in notes, adding LCCN from copyright page. Notifying all verifiers.--Astromath 14:49, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Starquake

Re: Starquake
Updating/adding notes. Notifying all verifiers.--Astromath 15:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The Integral Trees

Re: The Integral Trees
Redoing/adding notes. Notifying all verifiers.--Astromath 02:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Clash of the Titans

Re: Clash of the Titans
Adding artist. Signature found on full movie poster here.--Astromath 23:22, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Maori

Re: Maori
Adding artist found on copyright page, deleting accompanying note.--Astromath 02:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Daughter of Regals and Other Tales

Re: Daughter of Regals and Other Tales Adding notes.--Astromath 03:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Star Bridge

Re: Star Bridge Adding LCCN to notes.--Astromath 14:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Damnation Alley

Re: Damnation Alley
Replacing Amazon image with one of better quality.--Astromath 15:01, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The Ringworld Engineers

Re: The Ringworld Engineers Replacing Amazon image with one of better quality scanned from personal collection. Reformatting/adding notes.--Astromath 01:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The Return of Nathan Brazil

Re: The Return of Nathan Brazil Added LCCN to notes.--Astromath 00:32, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Twilight at the Well of Souls: The Legacy of Nathan Brazil

Re: Twilight at the Well of Souls: The Legacy of Nathan Brazil Adding LCCN to notes.--Astromath 00:39, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Laumer/Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude

Hi -- you verified this publication as an OMNIBUS; see this conversation for why I think it should be a COLLECTION. If you agree, would you change it to COLLECTION? If all verifiers agree I can then change the title record to COLLECTION also. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 18:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I see this conversion has already been completed, however, I thought I would add that I have no issues with it. Uzume 19:25, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

CVS commits

Please note that CVS commits have been suspended until the current crop has been sorted out and the rest of the Bugs/FRs have been prioritized. There is a bit of a collision with the monthly Fixer run, but hopefully it won't take too long to eliminate the backlog. Ahasuerus 00:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Reviews of series

This record is for a review of a series of short-short stories, and it should remain an ESSAY. If it reviewed the titles of the series individually, it would be OK to create separate REVIEW records for each title. Here is a link to the original 2002 publication. If you read it, you'll see that it is not a review of the collection published in 2005. So I've rejected the second submission for the same reason as the first. Please don't make a second submission for one that was rejected before posting a message on my talk page if you have any questions about why I rejected the original submission. Or post it on the Moderators Noticeboard, if you want other moderators' opinions. Mhhutchins 01:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually read the review!?--blasphemy! More seriously though, you are right, however, this review covers Michael Swanwick's series of short stories as originally published in Sci Fiction: Periodic Table of Science Fiction. That said, if you read the series you would see that the titles are in fact the same as those in the the 2005 collection making the 2005 collection a reprint of the series--the contents are identical so in many ways this review is no different than Graham Sleight's, Peter Young's, Niall Harrison's and Sandy Auden's reviews except that this one happens to come before the completion of the series and the publication of them in a single collection in 2005. The contents are the identically same 118 short stories (one for each element). I am sure Willem H., our only primary verifier of one of the 2005 collection publications, can verify the contents against the contents of the Sci Fiction web site contents if you want bullet proof verification of my assertion on the matter (he might even see evidence of earlier publication of the stories on the copyright page in terms of copyright dates, etc.). Technically, since this review is before the publication of the collection you are correct and I shan't bother to press the issue but I do not see a semantic difference in the series and the collection. Uzume 04:22, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

So you eventually agree that this is not a review of the 2005 collection, the title record of which you had intended to link to the review, according to your note to the moderator. I'm not going to argue that the review isn't essentially of the same stories that were reprinted in the collection. That was never my point. But would you not agree that it would be strange to see a review of a title published three years before the title was published? And if the same set of stories had been published under a different title would you expect that the review be linked to that title? I don't think so. So there is a fundamental difference between a review of a series of stories and a review of a collection of those exact same stories. And the ISFDB recognizes the difference. Mhhutchins 05:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course! Although I see no semantic difference in their content, I agree we should document technically how the items were published (as always). Again I am appreciative of your catching me on such. My point was just to document the source of my confusion. Methinks this will spur me to put those stories into an actual title series too. Thanks again. Uzume 13:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I made submissions for the first two rows of the table (which is not saying much as that only covers the first ten elements but it is a start and I have to get to work). Incidentally, I also noticed this interesting title which seems to be some sort of temporary title entry to represent the series. Uzume 14:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you're correct. The individual pieces of the series were first published online on the webzine Sci Fiction, but that website no longer exists. There is currently no way to determine the dates each of the pieces were posted. Maybe some research on the Wayback Machine might be able to uncover the dates? Mhhutchins 15:39, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I've found all 118 stories are available online, posted on the author's blog. But nothing to say the days they were originally posted on Sci Fiction, only the copyright year. Mhhutchins 15:48, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is the results of the Wayback Machine search. All stories again are available as they were published, but, alas, no date of publication for the individual pieces. Mhhutchins 15:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Ooo! I did not find/look for the author's blog--that at least gives copyright year (unfortunately these entries all say copyright 2002 even though they supposedly were published weekly between 2001 and 2003). I shall try to update those too when I update the titles to put them into the series. Uzume 00:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Since the Wayback Machine archive has multiple snapshots, I can infer some things:

• 2001-06-15 3 Li "This week's element is Lithium"
• 2001-08-01 9 F "This week's element is Fluorine"
• 2001-12-05 25 Mn "This week's element is Manganese"
• 2002-01-24 31 Ga "This week's element is Gallium"
• 2002-02-06 33 As "This week's element is Arsenic"
• 2002-06-03 48 Cd "This week's element is Cadmium"
• 2002-08-02 56 Ba "This week's element is Barium"
• 2002-10-12 64 Gd "This week's element is Gadolinium"
• 2002-12-08 72 Hf "This week's element is Hafnium"
• 2003-02-05 80 Hg "This week's element is Mercury"
• 2003-04-12 90 Th "This week's element is Thorium"
• 2003-06-03 96 Cm "This week's element is Curium"
• 2003-08-01 104 Rf "This week's element is Rutherfordium"
• 2003-10-01 112 Uub "This week's element is Ununbium"
• 2003-12-03 118 Uuo "This week's element is Ununoctium"

Uzume 00:58, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Add a story to a collection

I added a story to your verified printing of Harry Harrison's collection from TOR, ONE STEP FROM EARTH [1]. The story "In the Beginning" appeared in May, 1986 edition of AMAZING [2]. This would explain the additional 1985 copyright.Don Erikson 22:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Cover artist for The Space Frontiers

Markwood has discovered the artwork for your 2-verified The Space Frontiers is the same as that for Beyond the Moon, credited to Stanley Meltzoff and has added that credit and note. --MartyD 12:22, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks. Uzume 16:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

SFBC reprints [2]

This seems to be the same [other than gutter code] to this. Unless I missed something? --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. I should probably move my verification and have the pub deleted then as per our current SFBC acceptance criteria. Uzume 18:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

The Science-Fantasy Publishers

Your source gives a dash in the title, while none of your updates did. I have made the titles consistent with your source. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:07, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks. It is easy to overlook minor details and another pair of eyes is always welcome. Uzume 21:15, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

So true. And that's coming from someone who has been paid to do such things. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:01, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"ebook" editions of the Supplements

You'll have to change the publication dates of the five records you created for the pdfs. It's not very likely they were "published" in the 90s. If your source doesn't give a date when they became available, perhaps as a download from Chalker's website, then the date field should be zero-ed out, and their first availability, if known, should be noted. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Good point--I shall make submissions to kill the dates (and just leave as unknown though I do believe most were posted at or around the same time as initial printings; there might have been some exceptions in the early supplements but regardless I personally do not know). Uzume 22:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. And BTW, this is a case when you can link the PDF in the webpage field of the title record. Mhhutchins 22:22, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

That is what I did and you rejected the edits with "Field should be used to link a website about the actual publication, not to a another publication which lists it." so I just made ebook pub records instead. Uzume 22:26, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Beautiful Creatures" series

You may have to do some more work on this series. The latest submissions (both accepted) separated part of it from the main series. Mhhutchins 17:24, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

OK--thanks (I figured this might not be done). Uzume 23:51, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Piers Anthony Race Against Time

I have replaced the Amazon image in this pub with one I have scanned. Doug 20:59, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Piers Anthony Vison of Tarot

Replaced the Amazon image of Piers Anthony's Vision of Tarot with one I scanned. Doug 14:05, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Jack L. Chalker When the Changewinds Blow

Replaced the Amazon image of Jack L. Chalker's When the Changewinds Blow with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 22:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Alan Dean Foster's The Day of Dissonance

Replaced the Amazon image of Alan Dean Foster's The Day of Dissonance with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary2 reference. Doug 14:17, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Alan Dean Foster's The Hour of the Gate

Replaced the Amazon image of Alan Dean Foster's The Hour of the Gate with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 15:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

New image for Alan Dean Foster's The Moment of the Magician

Replaced the Amazon image of Alan Dean Foster's The Moment of the Magician with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 15:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Jack L. Chalker's Midnight at the Well of Souls

Added an image to Jack L. Chalker's Midnight at the Well of Souls. You are listed as Primary reference. Doug 13:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Jack L. Chalker's Vengeance of the Dancing Gods

Replaced the Amazon image of Jack L. Chalker's Vengeance of the Dancing Gods with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 00:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Alan Dean Foster's Clash of the Titans

Replaced the Amazon image of Alan Dean Foster's Clash of the Titans with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 18:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Calix Stay cover artist and image

You are listed as primary verifier for Calix Stay. I have access to the same printing. I can upload an image if you like. I also found a secondary source which identifies the artist as Gervasio Gallardo. DStandsh 21:09, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no issue with such changes. Thank you. Uzume 14:52, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Squaring the Circle cover artist and image

You are listed as primary verifier for Squaring the Circle. I have access to the same printing. I can upload an image if you like. I also found the artist signature "Gallardo" on the cover near the lower right corner. This identifies the artist as Gervasio Gallardo. DStandsh 21:16, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no issue with such changes. Thank you. Uzume 14:52, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Lyndon Hardy's Secret of the Sixth Magic

Replaced the Amazon image of Lyndon Hardy's Secret of the Sixth Magic with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 00:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Roger Zelazny's Frost & Fire

Replaced the Amazon image of Roger Zelazny's Frost & Fire with one I scanned. You are listed as Primary3 reference. Doug 03:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposed Make changes

As I recall, you had some thoughts re: the installation process, so I thought I'd mention that a new contributor, Mike Arnautov, has posted some suggestions. Ahasuerus 01:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I shall likely try to participate in that (but I have other things to do just now so it will have to wait until another day). Uzume 17:13, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I know you are busy, but just FYI I have responded to your comments on the Proposed Design Changes page. We don't really disagree very much. :-) MLA 21:23, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Advance Reader's Copies

As a rule, we don't include ARCs unless there is an extreme reason for doing so, e.g. the book itself was never published or the first retail edition is given as a second printing. Is there a reason for including the ARC for The Book of Shadows in the ISFDB? Mhhutchins 02:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

OK—I was not aware of such a rule. Why do I see nothing about this in our Rules of Acquisition? I just bought it at a library book sale and it seemed to have a different ISBN than the others listed (ISBN 0-06-008335-2). I can understand not wanting to catalog unpublished works but considering it had its own ISBN and ISBNs are specifically about enumerating published editions (the last section of an ISBN identifier before the check digit is called the publication element so I would expect publishers to only allocate them to items they actual considered published). I just assumed it was acceptable here. The rules of acquisition even cover e-books with a unique identifier such as ISBNs (and one could debate which is more published). Perhaps I am wrong. Uzume 12:59, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

We go around on this topic every few years. If you'd like to read up on some of the more recent debates about including ARCs, check out this 2009 thread, and (somewhat less general) this 2012 thread. Executive summary: Some editors would like to include ARC's, but not enough to change the (unstated, but well-known) policy of not including them. Chavey 18:10, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

About the Rules of Acquisition: it's hard to list everything that should be excluded, since that could include anything short of an author's grocery list. Here is the last discussion of the matter, with links back to previous discussions.

If you believe the ARC you want to add to the database is an extreme exception, please present your case on the Rules & Standards discussion page. I'll hold your submission if you wish to do this, or if you don't feel strongly enough about the issue you can cancel the submission. If you feel that there should be an explicit policy concerning ARCs, Uncorrected Proofs and Galleys within the Rules of Acquisition (and I agree that it probably should), that can also be part of the discussion. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I feel strongly that if the publisher is issuing a publication an ISBN (or other significant identifier) then it should be included regardless of how it is otherwise labelled—e.g., ARC (provided the content is also within our rules of acquisition). I agree truly unpublished works do not belong within the main catalog. I do not however feel strongly about this particular submission. Thank you for holding it. Uzume 20:53, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, after having read up on the history of ARC discussions here (at/on ISFDB), I believe we need to qualify what constitutes an ARC and what constitutes publication (vs. just printing). Since we already allow extreme exception ARCs this needs to be defined (and documented within our rules of acquisition). I do not believe we should consider all media that happens to be labelled ARC by the publisher to be an ARC just because it is so labelled. I believe the difference lies in how media is handled. In my opinion, the difference in the handling of the media where something becomes a publication seems to be where the publishing authority decidedly records something as a publication via some method such as issuing it a unique identifier (e.g., ISBN) or carrying it forward in publication histories (e.g., number lines), etc. Obviously this is based on interpreting a publishers intent which could get sticky but usually can be understood with hindsight. Some ARCs are truly unpublished works but some seem to be labelled such more as an marketing methodology (not unlike trying to get more for something due first edition labeling). I do not think the availability (either in printed copies or restricted markets like book clubs, friends of the author, etc.) or pricing should be a deciding factor in what constitutes "publication". In my mind publication is determined by two factors. First, is the source a "publisher"? This can be sticky in itself but should be based on notability (number of notable published works). Second, how is the media handled by the publisher? If they do not include an edition as part of their normal publication history (as determined by handling not labeling) then it is unpublished. If they give an edition identifying marks of publication (e.g., ISBN) or otherwise keep a record of the publication then it is published. Obviously this can be subtle. Feedback welcome—thanks. Uzume 11:00, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Publisher Catalogs and Print Series‎ wiki pages

The pages which are linked to this list haven't been updated for a decade. They all really should be deleted, as they no longer serve a purpose, since most of the data can be obtained directly from the database. The publication series data was also moved to the database. Just thought you might like to know. Mhhutchins 00:56, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I am well aware those are links to old static pages from 2005. That was sort of the point. Thank you. Uzume 08:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Reversing of date periods

Re the changes in this page: A range of "2014-08-31 to 2014-05-01" just doesn't make sense, unless you're using a system I've never seen. Wouldn't "2014-05-01 to 2014-08-31" be better? Mhhutchins 04:38, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh? So 2014 Aug, 31 to 2014 May, 1 does not make sense? I can imagine ranges 3–5 as well as 5–3 being the same but in reverse order. Since the way the actual posts on the archived pages seems fixed in a chronological order I have no qualms with reverting it but I thought it made more sense to make recent items more accessible than very ancient items. Uzume 14:21, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

So if the earliest to the latest makes sense, why not reverse the order in which the messages appear within each page of the archive? I'm looking for consistency, and the way the pages were archived before was consistent. You should have posted a message on one of the community pages before making this unilateral decision. Mhhutchins 15:52, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

It would be difficult to reverse all the threads and posts within threads to accomplish such (the MediaWiki software does not make a very good forum tool which is part of the reason they are looking for better solutions themselves). Uzume 16:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I was being facetious, but I guess that didn't come across. Mhhutchins 16:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

It was easy enough to revert the change. I am not sure what unilateral decision you are talking about. Uzume 16:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The decision to change the order of the date ranges was done by one person, you. That makes it unilateral. Mhhutchins 16:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

It was one edit so by the same measure I would have to unilaterally decide to make a post to discuss the matter or even to revert it (since no consensus was reached since I started this and you brought up the topic). I am open to dicsussion on anything that happens here—not just things I do. I would not consider such openness "unilateral" but more collaborative. Uzume 17:23, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

When the things you do affect everyone else who works on this website, you are obligated to discuss it. Who do you think has to archive those discussions? Shouldn't they have a role in deciding how those archives are listed? (BTW, you have no idea what "unilateral" means, do you?) Mhhutchins 20:30, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I only changed the data range order (briefly) on one page. Uzume 16:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

And stopped when I pointed out how silly it is. Or perhaps you would have gone on to re-order the other archives. Mhhutchins 16:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure about silliness but I was questioning how useful that really was and was considering reverting already. When it was brought up by you, it was only confirmation so I just reverted it immediately. Call it an experiment to see if that was better (and apparently it was not). Uzume 16:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

If you are referring to the archive page orderings themselves you can see some were changed almost four years ago, e.g. http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=Development/Archive&diff=222138 I was just trying to make them consistent. Uzume 16:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

And it was you who made that change. Still, I have no idea why you're linking to a development archive page (not an archive of a community discussion page) and can not see how that is relevant to this discussion. I was only questioning why you reversed the order of the date ranges of the archive page links on this single page, not the order of the links as posted. I see now that you've changed them back to a more sensible order. Thank you. I still don't understand the necessity to show the most recent archive at the top instead of having them listed chronologically, but I'll let that go for now. I would suggest in the future to bring such changes before the group for discussion. Mhhutchins 16:47, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I am looking for consistency in archiving not on just one forum but in general. Uzume 16:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

So you changed the five archives of discussion pages to match one (not an archive of discussions) that you had changed four years ago. That's what you call "consistency"? You're joking, right? Mhhutchins 20:30, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's been 4 years, so Uzume may have forgotten that it was his change. That said, I agree with Michael that the attempted format seemed counter-intuitive. Occasionally I try something new, then look at it in the morning and say "Um, that doesn't make any sense" :-) Ahasuerus 21:50, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I just found that most people when looking in the archives are looking for things recently archived (and not things from the beginning of time) and having to scroll to the bottom of large lists to get to the most recently archived entries seemed less than useful. After that, I noticed the archives seemed inconsistent in how dates were handled and yearned to make them better and more consistent. I tried reversing the date ranges in that spirit but I was not convinced that was actually better so when Michael brought it up I figured the date range reversal experiment was done and reverted it. It seems the discussion of this has grown long in the tooth for such a minor thing (but I suppose it is better to be clear than confusing). Incidentally, here is another example where the newest items are first and the history is even older and Al did it: What's New (the history of when it was first done has been purged but all the entries were by Al that far back). Uzume 22:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Language preference

Because your language preference is set to English, any time you update a title record which hasn't been assigned a language, the system automatically makes it into English. Be sure to pay attention to the Language field in submissions as these. I changed these titles from English to Japanese: 1 and 2. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:55, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Uzume 02:56, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Mistakenly rejected

Sorry, I clicked the wrong button and rejected your submission to make a title a variant of another. I went back and added another submission to correct my mistake. Mhhutchins 06:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

No worries—the point is it got done. Thanks for all your work. Uzume 06:43, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

インビジブル

A quick question about インビジブル -- is the date 8888-00-00 or 0000-00-00? Ahasuerus 03:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I noticed you held it for a while. According to the publisher's website the original untranslated Japanese is unpublished

http://www.kurodahan.com/mt/e/catalog/jp0024cate.html

TACHIHARA Toya 立原 透耶
"Invisible" インビジブル (unpublished in Japanese)
translated by Nancy H. ROSS

Uzume 03:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, updated! Ahasuerus 03:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Proposed change to "The Inō Residence"

Hi. I have on hold your submission that would change The Inō Residence from English to Japanese. It looks to me like the English translation should be made a variant of a Japanese title instead. The book in which it appears is English, and all of the other titles are recorded as translations, not original Japanese. Would you please double-check and let me know if having it be Japanese in that publication is correct? Thanks. --MartyD 11:40, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

If you look, the English translation is already a variant of this title (which itself has no pubs short of the English language translation variant's). Apparently there is a known bug in the moderation interface (see User talk:Mhhutchins#Author names) with regard to variant parent's appearing as if they change a pub's contents (which they do not except for ancillary information like variant accreditation or title variants like in the case of a translation, etc.) Uzume 11:47, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

You're correct. My mistake. Sorry about that. I've accepted the submission, and it looks fine to me. --MartyD 01:42, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

No worries—you weren't the first to be thrown by that (and why they are calling this interface feature a bug). Thank you. Uzume 01:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Japanese titles in Night Voices, Night Journeys

In this publication, do you have a secondary source which provides the original Japanese title of these English translations? Or are you simply translating the English titles back into Japanese? If the latter, I would advice you to not do it. Mhhutchins 03:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I am obtaining the original titles from the publisher's web site. I would not attempt to reverse translate the titles (translating is tricky to begin with; expecting to get the original title would be a very risky gamble indeed). Uzume 03:38, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I was suspicious because they aren't dated. Did the publisher's website not give the original date of the publication? Mhhutchins 03:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Sadly, it did not in this case. Although it does give the authors in their original script as well which is very handy for accurately identifying and finding data on them (Japanese has a huge number of homonyms and peoples' names also have a large number of esoteric pronunciations). Uzume 03:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding the romanized name in the Legalname field

Please start a discussion to create a standard about how to enter the romanized version of Japanese names. I suppose this can also apply to other alphabets as well. Or there may already be a documented standard which I'm unable to find. It should be added to this help page template. I've accepted submissions today that do it differently, and it should be standardized before it gets more complicated. Thanks. (I left this same note on the talk page of the other person updating authors' data.) Mhhutchins 21:13, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Mark left this note on my page too. I enter Japanese legal names as '大江 健三郎 (Ōe, Kenzaburō)', while you do it as 'Iino Fumihiko / 飯野 文彦'. My choice is based upon what I think the author would consider his/her legal name and than giving a translation in English of that name when it is needed to transcribe the name due to the different alphabet used. You may have perfect valid reasons to choose your method as well, but me must create a standard as Mark states above, so please let me here your arguments.--Dirk P Broer 23:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

And let me add that the format that I use was not invented by me, I mostly merely copy the content of Wikipedia about the legal name of (in this case Japanese) authors.--Dirk P Broer 23:49, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I was doing it based on records I had already seen in the database (I did not want to invent anything but apparently even this is not formally accepted here yet). I too believe the native script format first is better (though I am not a fan of using parenthesis to delineate. Since Japanese names are traditionally presented '<surname><given name>' with no delineation between them (and with no other names), I believe '<surname> <given name>' is the best compromise (i.e., with a single space for delineation; this format can be seen in many native Japanese contexts too; e.g., Japanese Wikipedia typically has the page named in an undelineated format but uses a bolded space delineated format in the first part of the lead section). I believe the Western '<surnames>, <given names>' format was devised because there are cultures with multiple surnames and given names (Mexican comes to mind where I hear two of each is standard/commonplace). Even the NDL uses '<surnames>, <given names>' in their authority control. Uzume 00:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

What are we going to use as standard: '大江 健三郎 (Ōe, Kenzaburō)' or 'Iino Fumihiko / 飯野 文彦'? The parenthesis in the first are used to distinguish two type of alphabet (which in this case is more clear than in e.g. Romanic and Cyrillic). To avoid a tangle of standards I have taken the English Wikipedia as example, where '大江 健三郎 (Ōe, Kenzaburō)' is used to make it easier for people not able to speak or read Japanese to comprehend what the name is, both in original language and transcribed. Yours truly, Broer, Dirk Pieter...--Dirk P Broer 20:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I've copied this discussion to a community page. I've just accepted a submission that changed the Legalname field from "Tanaka Kōtarō / 田中 貢太郎" to "田中 貢太郎 (Tanaka, Kōtarō)". There must be a consensus reached by the group to avoid each of you changing the other's format. This shouldn't be decided between just you two. Mhhutchins 04:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I am sorry I have not had time to address such things recently (work has become oppressive lately). I fully intended to bring this to Rules and standards discussions. Hopefully, I can soon get time to post there all the facets on this front as I understand them soon. I am not a fan of using parentheses and would rather use a single delimiter/separator (I am not convinced it needs to be a "/" however). I also believe we need to adhere to "<family names>, <given names>" in both native/non-roman script and its romanization (I admit I was not doing this before with regard to Japanese author records). Thank you. Uzume 15:12, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Legal names

When you get a chance, could you please review this section of the Community Portal? (I am leaving this message on the Talk pages of the editors who I believe are interested in internationalization issues.) Ahasuerus 02:06, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

There was only one I knew about but I replied—thanks for asking. Uzume 14:58, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Non-Latin characters in author names

Unfortunately, we are not quite ready to start using non-Latin characters in canonical names. Earlier this year the "Legal name" field was used as a guinea pig and now supports both original and transliterated values, so it's just a matter of time before I can make similar changes to other fields. Ahasuerus 01:30, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

So you are saying I should variant titles to non-Latin characters but not authors? Uzume 16:14, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

"Chapter Fourteen"

In this publication, are you certain that "Chapter Fourteen" is a separate work and is not intended to be the fourteenth chapter of the novel? It appears to be a literary conceit, not a separate work. Mhhutchins 19:15, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

It maybe literary conceit however it is listed as a separate work and even has its own page numbering (both The End and "Chapter Fourteen" start at "page one" but different ones of course). Also the rest of the publication's contents is listed as part of "Book the Thirteenth" whereas "Chapter Fourteen" is listed as a part of "Book the Last". Please refer to: "Chapter Fourteen". Uzume 08:58, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Epilogues (regardless of how they're presented) are generally considered part of the novel and not requiring a separate content record. I would hate to imagine that others might see this and start adding content records for prologues, chapters, parts, books, etc. of a novel. It's your verified record so I'll drop the issue. Just be prepared for inquiries from other editors. Mhhutchins 16:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not see it much different from something like "Dream Dark" (the only difference there was that it was previously published separately as well). Uzume 17:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

There's more difference than that. The story you refer to is considered a "bonus" story and not part of the novel. There are editions of Beautiful Chaos which don't include that story, so it is not now nor ever will be considered part of the novel. You might have a case if the Snicket novel is ever published without that last chapter. (Something that seems to be impossible.) The way it is presented is a literary conceit, and nothing to do with marketing (as "Dream Dark" appears to be). I'm not sure how one can really consider the two cases as analogous. Do you personally consider "Chapter Fourteen" to not be part of the novel? I don't think the author would. Mhhutchins 18:11, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I have not had occasion to ask the author but I do believe it to be 14th entry in the series though it could perhaps also be considered the 14th chapter to the 13th entry in the series. Uzume 04:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

The Number of the Beast

I added the cover artist to The Number of the Beast that you verified. Bob 21:07, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks—that works for me. Uzume 17:55, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Japanese publication series

When you have a free moment, could you please take a look at this discussion on the Community Portal? TIA! Ahasuerus 17:24, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Atwood's Dancing Girls

Re this record: at 21 cm, it should be "tp". Also, you'd save some time and effort by cloning the records that have matching contents to create these new records. One last thing, don't let Amazon be your only source for data. Especially for books more then ten or so years ago. I found out the dimensions of the book above by going to OCLC, which in my opinion should be an editor's first source for data. It even gives you the contents. Mhhutchins|talk 23:24, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I already noticed the binding/format issue but it is hard to edit outstanding submissions. Thanks. Uzume 23:29, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Not just hard. It's impossible. Sorry. You have the option to cancel the submission and resubmit, or if it's too complex to reconstruct, just wait for it to be accepted and update it afterward. Some moderators might not have even noticed something this small. But isn't it good that someone did, just in case you'd missed it? Mhhutchins|talk 00:27, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Definitely! Even though I feel I know my way around ISFDB fairly well, I still appreciate another pair of eyes looking at my submissions. I have and do try to merge submission sometimes by cancelling and resubmitting but it seemed much work to change just the binding. Oh, and I was trying to get most of the important editions in and still be careful about the contents on this work as apparently the contents changed (there seems to be two major editions with respect to contents where two stories are swapped out but always 14 entries). Uzume 00:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Format for noting an OCLC record

According to the help page, the format for entering an OCLC record should be "OCLC: 1234567". Adding "WorldCat" before it is redundant. Removing the colon between "OCLC" and the number will make it not searchable. This will also force the record to be updated manually if we ever add a dedicated field for the record numbers of secondary sources like OCLC, LCCN, etc. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 17:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I shall keep that in mind, however, that help page only says the simplest way not the proscribed way. I am not sure how it would make it not searchable as one can still search for "OCLC" and the number (as separate terms which seems the safest way). Uzume 17:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Takeyuki Umemura illustration in the Baum Bugle

I'm going to reject your edit to make this illustration into a variant of this interior art record. The problem is that the record from the Bugle represents a single drawing whereas the one from the book represents all the illustrations for the book. We don't use variants to indicate the reprint of only part of the collective title. I've added a note to the single illustration with a link to the larger work. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 02:07, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

That is fine. The only reason I was handling it the way I did was because originally they shared the same title and I split them for native script on the Japanese pub so I figured variant them back but if they were wrong to begin with so be it. Uzume 04:02, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Galaxy of ghouls

Hello, I've approved your submission but shouldn't it be changed to "anthology" ? Hauck 06:57, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Definitely! Thanks. Uzume 07:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

The Murakami collection Men Without Women

I recently came across a Brazilian/Portuguese translation of Murakami's new collection Men Without Women and have entered it into the database here. As you probably know, this collection has not yet appeared in English. Based on the information at this webpage are you able to add the original titles in Japanese, in order to make the Portuguese titles variants? Even if I had a Japanese keyboard, it's not something I'd have any confidence to attempt. If you're able, thanks for having a go. PeteYoung 09:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

PS. The titles 'Drive My Car' and 'Yesterday' are titled that way in the Portuguese translations (they're the names of Beatles songs). Nor am I sure how many of these titles would be considered genre. PeteYoung 09:15, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

As memory serves, I had not entered「女のいない男たち」because it was borderline genre and I had so many other things to enter/do instead. The Japanese Wikipedia page ja:女のいない男たち has good information (and apparently Japanese Wikipedia has entries for each story published within that book as well) and aligns with Maynard's blog entry and also mentions Homens sem mulheres (also translated by Eunice Suenaga) being published by Alfaguara on October 10, 2015 (meaning you entered an earlier edition from another publisher and/or imprint so perhaps Japanese Wikipedia does not have the best information on Brazilian Portuguese editions). Of note is the fact that you entered Homens sem mulheres containing seven stories whereas「女のいない男たち」appears to contain six. My Portuguese (Brazillian or otherwise) is far from good but based on what I can discern I entered variants for six of the stories. I shall dig around and see if I can find "Samsa apaixonado". Uzume 14:27, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

The copy I had was dated 2014, and has Alfaguara on the cover and copyright page. Digging around, I see it is an imprint of Objetiva (a deduction based on this page), so I have changed the publisher field to reflect that. The 10 October 2015 edition must be a later one.

Regarding 'Samsa apaixonado', fortunately I still have a photo of the copyright page. It states (in Portuguese) "The tale "Samsa in Love" was originally published in 2013, in Japan, in the anthology 'Koi shikute' by Chuokoron-Shinsha Inc, Tokyo." Hope that helps you track it down. With a title like 'Samsa in Love' it's likely to be a Gregor Samsa/Kafka reference, and therefore possibly genre. Thanks for your help with this! PeteYoung 14:56, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

That helps. I found OCLC 858267086 with the title「恋しくて」published by 中央公論新社. It seems to be an anthology edited by Murakami (he does translation work too). The Worldcat record has a contents and mentions one story by him entitled "Koisuru Samuza". His Japanese Wikipedia mentions the anthology and his one work there and has a page for that ja:恋するザムザ. The Japanese Wikipedia page for the collection「女のいない男たち」states「恋するザムザ」is being included in translations of the collection (I missed that originally). I deduced the imprint from the publisher's website (which also mentions the October 2015 date) as well. I am not sure of the legality of such but apparently one can download this work from here (I did not attempt it as it seemed ad heavy). Uzume 15:10, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Changing the Amazon.jp dates

I see that you're changing the publication dates which were sourced from Amazon.jp, and removing it as a source. Does that mean that all data comes from JPNO and OCLC? Including the month of publication? Mhhutchins|talk 04:13, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

When available (NDL has month information; I do not see that much in Worldcat), yes. Uzume 04:15, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

What is NDL? It's not sourced in your notes. (I rarely see month publication cited in OCLC records.) Mhhutchins|talk 04:23, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

NDL=国立国会図書館 (National Diet Library) the institution that maintains JNB=日本全国書誌 (Japanese National Bibliography). Index identifiers into JNB are part of NBN=全国書誌番号 (National Bibliography Number) and are called JPNO. Notice the JPNO links are into the domain ndl.go.jp (NDL government Japan). It is like comparing Worldcat vs. OCLC. I was noting as "NDL: JPNO ###" and "Worldcat: OCLC ###" until you asked me to simplify to "OCLC: ###" so I did the same with JPNO as "JPNO: ###". Uzume 04:33, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

But I don't understand why you're actually removing information, which is essentially what you're doing by changing the date of publication to a month-only publication. If you choose to do that (and I can't see why), then make it clear where the month comes from, since it's not on OCLC. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 18:33, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by month-only publication (it would be odd to have a date with a month and unknown year and day but I suppose it is possible). Uzume 01:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that would be odd, so odd that I never thought that someone would take it literally. :) What I meant was that the publication gives the date as "January 2000" and not "January 1, 2000". In other words, only the month is given...thus "month-only". Mhhutchins|talk 00:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

In most of the records I have been updating/adding, the month (like all the rest of the data, e.g., I also never find cover prices in Worldcat but NDL often has such) has come from NDL and I provide linked JPNOs and OCLCs for reference. I have only removed Amazon citations in the note in a few cases when all the data was present or wrong/conflicted with the NDL source (I believe there were a few cases where NDL had a different month so I switched to that and removed the conflicting citation from the note) which I consider better (the one exception is the actual cover image which is auto-cited differently). I have noticed a very large number of Worldcat publication records seem to be mirrored from NDL (it is quite evident when NDL has erroneous or slightly strangely cataloged values and Worldcat ends up with the same wrong or idiosyncratically cataloged values as well). That is also why I listed the JPNO references first but if you'd rather I can opt to not include the OCLC references since my only actual source is NDL and I am just providing OCLCs for reference (I bothered to look them up and provided them because I figured they would be useful secondary references for those that do not read Japanese). I could have also looked up and included (Amazon-JP linked) ASINs for reference as well but I find those have less value (and I tend to search Amazon-JP later more for cover images). Uzume 01:06, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

No, continue to give both secondary sources, even if one is your actual source and the other is used for non-Japanese readers. My point is that since you don't have the actual publication, and can't know what date is actually stated in the publication, then why not use a source (Amazon.jp in this case) which provides more precise date of publication? Mhhutchins|talk 00:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Secondary Sourcing

In your recent native script updates, you have been removing the "Data from Amazon.jp" statement and the replacement notes only state "Art credits from Amazon". Since you are not primary verifying these, there should be a statement as to where the other information is coming from. Secondary sources should always be noted. Since you gone to the work of making these edits, I have approved them, but please add the sourcing for future ones. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:28, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I see Mhhutchins touched upon this above. Even if the info is coming from the secondary source links you list in the notes, there should still be an explicit statement of that. Otherwise, people are left guessing. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:31, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I did provide JPNO links to my NDL source. Is there something else I need to do (most of the content is not in English however but then neither is the content they catalog)? Are you wanting to see something like "Data from NDL" (I thought that was obvious but perhaps it is not)? Uzume 22:49, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I am willing to change my submission template (let me know what you want to see) but you and Mhhutchins are the only moderators to complain so far and I have several hundred pub records formatted like that (so it will take me a while to update them all). I already made one change for Mhhutchins where he thought I was being too verbose with OCLC references (see #Format for noting an OCLC record) so I dispensed with the words "WorldCat" and "NDL" just listing the identifier names instead of the database/organization names. Uzume 23:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

You don't need to go back and update the previous ones. As for the other moderators, the standards are very clear - secondary sources are supposed to be cited. It's even built into the edit pub screen. I suppose some moderators could be interpreting the external identifiers as sufficient sourcing, but I've seen problems with that assumption (ex. cases were books had an OCLC external identifier, no other sourcing, but the OCLC record didn't contain all the data listed in the pub). As for format, your recent "Data from NDL with art credits from Amazon." is perfectly fine. -- JLaTondre (talk) 01:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I am of course aware of the need to cite sources (secondary or otherwise; I have been doing so here for years). I was not really sure what specifically you were looking for. Thank you. Uzume 01:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Multi Volume Novels

I approved your addition of the 3 volume publication of Haggard's Dawn. After doing so, however, I wonder if adding it as 3 separate publication records is the best way to go. I believe that the three volumes were probably published simultaneously and were likely sold as a set. When I've encountered other multi volume novels in the past, I've generally added them as a single publication (for example here). I don't know that we have a stated standard, but a single publication record always seemed to me, the best way to handle these. If you disagree, we could try to start a larger discussion to see how others think it should be handled. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 20:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I too questioned this recently but apparently we do have a (rather weak) standard: ISFDB:FAQ#How does the ISFDB deal with "split novels"?. I personally believe they need to have separate pub records (each has a different page count and someone might come across just one volume, etc.) but I am not sure they need separate title records. I am open to discussing it, however. Uzume 20:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

This is not a "split novel". It was a common practice in the 19th century to create multi-volume editions of longer works. By "split volume" we're referring to a previously published novel which has been split for individual publication, i.e. separate ISBNs, separate pricing, etc., with the possibility that one could buy one without buying the others. Thus the need for separate ISFDB publication records. That edition of Dawn was published as a single publication in three volumes, much as the recent Subterranean Press edition of A Game of Thrones. You wouldn't expect that we'd create two different publication records for that edition. Mhhutchins|talk 23:44, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

After conflicting with Micheal's edit.

I don't think either of those situations is the same. The discussion you started deals with novels that are serialized over time. And that help page deals with novels that are subsequently split into several parts. In both those situations, the parts were published and sold separately. I would expect that other library catalogs (Worldcat, the Library of Congress) would have separate records for each of those parts. However, for these novels published in several volumes in the 19th century, I believe that's merely the format in which they were published. i.e. all volumes were published together and sold as a single unit. In these cases, other library catalogs will have a single record for the novel. In place of a page count, they will generally state "3 volumes" (e.g. this for the 3 volume edition of Dawn). There is a modern example here. In that case, they volumes were issued in a slipcase, so it's clear that they are a single publication. Another clue is that the title page of each volume of Dawn states that it is being published "in three volumes". However, if you still feel they should be separate, I'll start a discussion to solicit other opinions. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 00:32, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

OK, I can merge them, but my original discussion was not specifically novels split over time (though that is certainly true of the first set of examples). I know of several examples where they were split published together, e.g., P558790 and P559524 are published at the same time but I do not think anyone would have me merge them (they do have separate cover art and ISBNs however). Uzume 01:23, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Publication records can't be merged, so no one would expect you to merge the publication records for the two publications you cite, because it follows the ISFDB definition of a "split" novel. Your description makes that clear. You should delete two of the records for Dawn and update the third one according to Ron's examples. Mhhutchins|talk 04:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I already made title merge submissions and I am just waiting on moderation to make the pub record update/deletion submissions. Uzume 07:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

This is why I am confused on how I should enter these and why I asked to begin with. What about this pub: HathiTrust: 100827461 (currently as P562112)? There is only one volume of the three available. It was published in much the same way as Dawn by the same publisher just a year later so I expect you'd want me to handle it the same. The point is, I want clear definitions of how to identify and enter such works (when are they "split" and when are the "multi-volume", etc?). Uzume 01:23, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

We've already given you clear definitions of each. If you're not sure if a publication is a "split" novel or a "multi-volume" novel, inquire on the Moderator Noticeboard. Over time, the distinction should be pretty obvious, with only an occasional rare work that requires discussion. This record should be updated to represent all volumes of the work, and its title record should be merged with the existing one for the complete work. Mhhutchins|talk 04:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I already made merge submission 2971694 and will update the pub record after it and the Dawn merge submission 2971701 are committed. I think it should be clearly documented for others too though (I doubt I will be the only one confused by split vs. multi-volume publication differences and the best way to enter those here). Uzume 07:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I was able to find scans of the additional volumes of The Witch's Head at Google Books and The Internet Archive. Those are both good sources when looking for scans of out of copyright publications. I actually prefer them over Hathi as they allow you to download a PDF copy. In any case, I've added the missing page counts and linked to those scans. Thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:00, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Great, but HathiTrust also has links to download PDF copies (look for "Download this page (PDF)", "Download pages (PDF)", and "Download whole book (PDF)" on the left of the the view). BTW, mixing and matching volumes like that from different places is not always totally correct as some can be reprints with different publication dates (but it is better than what we had before and certainly substantiates first print details of such editions even if they are not). Thank you. Uzume 14:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Hathi sometimes requires a login before downloading. I'm not sure precisely what their criteria is for doing so, though it may be related to copyright. There isn't a problem with linking to scans from various sites. We should only link to scans that match the edition from which they are linked. Which is what I've done here. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 02:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

BTW, since we are looking at and talking about pubs from Hurst and Blackett are these the same and should they be merged: Hurst & Blackett and Hurst and Blackett? The books state "Hurst and Blackett" but I have noticed we often shorten such here using the ampersand. Uzume 15:12, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I have merged the two publishers, retaining the "and" since that is apparently the official name. Mhhutchins|talk 20:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I see you updated Publisher:Hurst and Blackett too. Thank you. Uzume 00:47, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

King Solomon's Mines

What is your source that this publication is paperback? In the HathiTrust scan it appears to be hardcover. Mhhutchins|talk 03:51, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

The HathiTrust record clear states it is only 16 cm (most hard covers are bigger than that) and all the Tauchnitz editions were paperbacks. Tauchnitz publishers: "These inexpensive paperbound editions, a direct precursor to mass-market paperbacks, were begun in 1841, and eventually ran to over 5,000 volumes." Also see more from the same series here: Collection of British Authors and here: Tauchnitz Collection of British and American Authors where every verified pub is listed as paperback (as well as several others). Cornell University may have had their copy rebound sometime before it was scanned in. Uzume 06:55, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Providing that information in the Note field would prevent any future questions by users. (e.g. "All the Tauchnitz editions were paperbacks.") Unless otherwise stated, a user must assume the data is from the given source, which shows a hardcover edition. Thanks. Mhhutchins|talk 08:42, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I made a submission to add such to the note. Uzume 23:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Entāburein

A quick question re: the Note field in the "Entāburein" record, specifically where it says "It is a brand of カドカワ (Kadokawa)". Does the word "brand" mean "imprint" in this case or does it have a special meaning? Ahasuerus 01:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

That is a very good question. In this case I believe it does mean imprint, however, that wording comes from the English Wikipedia. Unfortunately none of of our Enterbrain pub records is verified (so there is no one to ask about how it actually appears on the publications). Uzume 01:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I have updated the Note field to indicate the source. Ahasuerus 02:05, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I made a submission to add a similar note to アスキー・メディアワークス (ASCII Media Works); the same wording is used on that English Wikipedia page too. Uzume 02:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Japanese translation of an excerpt by Heinlein

Are you certain that the translated piece is the same excerpt that was published in SF Monthly? (Also, check your email for a message from me.) 02:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Same situation with this Clarke excerpt. Mhhutchins|talk 02:21, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I most definitely am not certain of those two (I did not enter them) and why I posted this: User talk:Nihonjoe#S-F Magazine 1975-07. My online sources indicate those those are actually serializations. Uzume 13:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I asked you because you were updating some of the titles in that publication. There's no simple way to search for accepted submissions. Someone has to go down a chronological list of acceptances. So when I saw your submissions I stopped searching. Thanks for asking Nihonjoe about the records. Mhhutchins|talk 16:29, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

In the meantime, I have removed the variant relationship of those two records. Mhhutchins|talk 16:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Language help page

I added you to the Japanese section, but I don't know your level of ability there. Based on the numbered list at the top of that page, feel free to clarify that. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:01, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Another End

Added better cover scan and some notes to Another End.SFJuggler 02:54, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Job: A Comedy of Justice

I've replaced the Amazon cover art for Job: A Comedy of Justice with a scan of my copy. I've also added some extra notes. --AndyjMo 09:09, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The Man Who Used the Universe

From a note by Bluesman on my talkpage: While the copyright page of [this] credits Barclay Shaw as the artist, the artwork [directly below the Warner logo] has Paul Alexander's signature. I changed the credit and added a note. --Willem 10:22, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

The Integral Trees

I've added the source of the Cover Artist to The Integral Trees. --AndyjMo 15:33, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

The Flight of the Horse

In The Flight of the Horse the Short Story Leviathan! is listed in the Contents without the exclamation mark. The Title at the front of the actual story does have the exclamation mark. --AndyjMo 16:38, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Reviews in Polygraff

Hello, I've changed two REVIEWS records into ESSAYS in the first two issues of Polygraff. I supposed that they were not really reviews of items titled Reviews (Polygraff, v1 #2) (as entered and showing on our cleanup reports) but reviews of other various titles. Hope that I was right. Hauck 07:27, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

That is fine by me. I was just cleaning some things up about that magazine (and its publisher) anyway (I noticed those two "reviews" as well but had not gotten to them yet). I noticed you made the reviews be credited to "various" but methinks it contains various uncredited reviews (meaning an essay or set of blurbs about various works without noting the author of such blurbs but presumably by the same uncredited person or persons). Uzume 07:47, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Clarksworld 2017 merges

Hi. You had a couple of Clarksworld 2017 merges submitted that the system forced me to hard-reject because the one of the titles involved in each merge was no longer preseent. I suspect earlier merge submissions got rid of them ahead of your merges. You may want to check the state of the titles and make sure everything is as it should be. Thanks. --MartyD 01:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

You are right, they are already merged. I suspect whoever submitted the new magazine pubs made subsequent merge submission that got approved before mine. No worries. Thank you. Uzume 02:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Createspace as publisher

Hello, I've approved your submissions but, if I understood clearly the conclusions of one of our debate (I may be wrong in this regard), we do no more credit Createspace as publisher, considering it as solely the printer and credit instead the author her/him/itself. I've thus changed some of the data in your recent submissions (like this one). Hauck 07:46, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

That is not a problem. I just did not know who else to credit as publisher and tried to capture what I could the best I could. What about Smashwords? Are those also "self published" (and should be so credited)? I ask because several of those are also published through them. Uzume 07:54, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

IIRC this specific point was not debated. Hauck 08:08, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Nyx: The Protectors

Hello, I've approved your submission but the ISBN given is the same as the one used by this book. Can you have a look? Thanks. Hauck 08:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that. I believe the other books must be in error but I can look into it more. Uzume 08:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

This is the only reference I can find to Christina's World by Simon. I cannot find any references to that ISBN for that book and in fact I cannot even find the contents for that collection (or I would enter it). Uzume 08:41, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I've deleted the ISBN and modified the notes for the Simon book. Hauck 10:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

OK, but you will note Simon's website links to the Amazon entry with her book's name and the Amazon entry does have a user submitted cover for that book on the entry (look way down the page on the right). Other things to note: Sam's Dot seems to be gone but taken over now as an imprint of White Cat (e.g., http://www.samsdotpublishing.com/ is not the same as http://samsdot.com/) even though Alban Lake also seems to carry much of their left over work (e.g., Smashwords has the entire Nyx series as published by Alban Lake Publishing but note the publisher link and if you open up each one in their online reader previews they say "Published by Sam's Dot Publishing at Smashwords"; I went with "Sam's Dot Publishing" for those). Uzume 16:04, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

The Wanderer

The signature of Bob Abbett is visible in the lower right corner of this hi-res scan of the cover of this novel. Horzel 08:22, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

French capitalization

Hello, I've rejected some of your submission (and corrected again somme Boulle's titles). In french the only capitalized words in a title are: 1) the first one, 2) proper nouns (e.g. places, names) and 3) "personnified" concepts (e.g. La Mort). Do not use noosfere as a guide to capitalization, as they use their own rules (as usual). Hauck 08:41, 10 August 2017 (EDT)

OK, fair enough. Thank you. Uzume 08:43, 10 August 2017 (EDT)

Double cover art

If I understand your note to the moderator about the cover on this, you could download each image and put them together side-by-side using Paint or some similar image editing program (copy one and paste it next to the other), then upload that as the cover image. --MartyD 21:59, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

Yes, one could do that, however, then it would not be hosted on Amazon and I did not want to work on untangling that (maybe another day when I feel like uploading covers; today I was just hunting them down). Uzume 22:01, 27 August 2017 (EDT)

Shelter of Daylight & Cover of Darkness Variants

I'm holding two submissions that would variant editor records. What are you trying to achieve? Are you stating that the magazine credits are incorrect? -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:03, 19 November 2017 (EST)

As per current rules/consensus I believe we organize magazine editor records by year. Our title variant system is decidedly designed for cases where the title record is the same "work" but has different title and/or attribution, etc. I am just trying to group the title records by year as per our current rules and making title variants where there are differences (e.g., title, attribution, etc. as I mentioned above). Is there some problem with my submissions? Thank you, Uzume 00:15, 20 November 2017 (EST)

Editor records are only grouped when they are the same editors. When the editors change during the year, the records are grouped separately. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 06:55, 20 November 2017 (EST)

Hungur #2, Walpurgisnacht 2006

Hello,

I added the note "Data from Galactic Central as of 2017-11-19." as a publication note (you had it just as moderator note). This way the source will be clear for anyone finding the record later on. Annie 12:00, 20 November 2017 (EST)

And I also changed the author of Night-Walk with Canine Late Summer 2003. We have a few authors under this name and this seems to be the correct one here. If you disagree, please let me know or submit another edit. Thanks! Annie 12:03, 20 November 2017 (EST)

I must have pasted/typed that into the wrong box. I did notice the author name issue after I submitted it and planned to change it anyway. Thank you, Uzume 07:18, 21 November 2017 (EST)

Future Affairs Administration

I'm told you can read Chinese, so could you take a look at the website of the magazine Future Affairs Administration? They're an SFWA-qualified market and they plan to publish at least some fiction in English, but being as their site is mostly in Chinese, I can't tell whether they've put out an issue yet. I think we ought to try to catalog them if we can-- at least if they do publish English-language stories. --Vasha 17:01, 29 January 2018 (EST)

I am not sure who told you I read Chinese. Uzume 23:55, 3 February 2018 (EST)

That would be me. Sorry about that -- I must have misunderstood some of your previous comments. Ahasuerus 08:59, 4 February 2018 (EST)

I know some Chinese characters by means of knowing Japanese. That said, 未来事务管理局 (Future Affairs Administration or FAA) does sounds like an interesting publisher. This page seems to list their published works. The top part specifies Chinese translations (mostly of western works but I see some Korean and other things in there too). Farther down in the "国内小说" (domestic novels) section is what appears to be native Chinese works. One thing however is the fact that though I see this list of publications I cannot find anything like an ISBN that matches up with any of their titles, so I wonder where and what form these publications might actually exist in--perhaps they are ebooks only or something. Of course I have not researched the Chinese book market much either so perhaps I am just not looking in the right places. I hope that helps. Uzume 23:55, 3 February 2018 (EST)

Thanks for looking into that. I guess we'll leave this be unless we hear more about them in English. --Vasha 12:04, 4 February 2018 (EST)

The Hobbit

Hi, as titles proper and their counterparts on publications should be the same, I removed the spurious (Revised edition) from your verified publication (it was also noted). Thanks, Stonecreek 09:29, 12 April 2018 (EDT)

That is fine by me. I think it already had that when I claimed the record by marking it verified. I know I updated the note but I must have missed that part. Thanks. Uzume 13:42, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

Welcome back!

Welcome back! :-) Ahasuerus 14:23, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

Did I leave!? I have been rather busy with work. Limited time but I don think I ever was gone entirely. Uzume 15:19, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

It depends on how your define "leave" :-) No Wiki comments since February made me a bit worried. (Perhaps my perspective is distorted because the ISFDB is my "job" in retirement.) I am glad that it was just being busy with work as opposed to something more serious! Ahasuerus 15:30, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

Just because I did not leave a comment did not mean I did not read things here. Perhaps someday I can "retire" to such a job. Uzume 15:32, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

Notes formatting

Hello,

When you are just adding a piece of information, unless you are verifying (I do not do it even then but in that case it is between you and the other verifiers), and especially to verified publications, please do not change the format of the notes: I restored the format here back to non-html from the ul/li that you added. We do not enforce formatting of the notes and cleaning up or adding a new note is not a reason to change the style (which the PV(s) may prefer). As a secondary note, when you are using html notes, please do not add /li at the end of each "li" - it is not needed and just makes it more likely that a further edit will make a mistake around them. Thanks in advance! Annie 21:02, 3 July 2018 (EDT)

Battlestar Galactica

FYI, the artist responsible for the cover of your verified Battlestar Galactica has been found (the same art was used by the Troll edition) and credited. Ahasuerus 18:26, 14 August 2018 (EDT)

Five Weeks in a Balloon: A Voyage of Exploration and Discovery in Central Africa

The span tag is not supported in notes so I cleaned it from here. I replaced the one that was calling for Italic with the good old i ->/i, feel free to add some more formatting if you want. The list of the supported html tags is here. Annie 17:43, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

That is fine although much of that was in all caps and I had entered the text without such and used CSS "text-transform:uppercase;" in the span tags you removed. I am not that concerned to go back and fix them (at least not soon). Thank you, Uzume 17:50, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

I saw that... but putting everything in all caps look ugly :) So I figured I will let you decide. It was not rendering it in caps on the page anyway and was going to come up on a cleanup report anyway. :) Annie 17:57, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

I sort of wonder why we do not support "span" since I could have almost just as easily put the same style on other tags (or are we stripping tag attributes too) but no matter. Uzume 18:02, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

You can always request it to be added to the supported list and if there is a good enough argument, it can be. The problem with span is that you need to be very html-literate to handle it properly - so if a non-technical person needs to edit the note later, it will look like a lot of gibberish to them. While things like i and b and strong are kinda more... user-friendly. Annie 18:08, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

Please tell me what is the "user friendly" method to specify small caps? *grin* Uzume 18:25, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

Take a hammer to the big ones and just hit them a few times until they shrink? :) It is not perfect but there is a line to be threaded between the tech-savvy and the not so tech-savvy editors. As I said - if you feel strongly about it, post in Community and if an agreement is reached... Annie 18:44, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

Of course--but that is a hammer of its own sort (I already have a post there trying to get an item added to the approved image hosting list which no one has bothered to respond to yet; one battle at a time and choose them wisely). If we want user-friendliness I recommend we go the route of making our own markup along the lines of our double brace "templates" Uzume 18:57, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

If only we had a team of 100 developers... Or at least 2. :) We do what we can with the resources we have - best solution and best reasonable solutions are two very very different things. Annie 19:07, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

Don't get me started. I have been trying to do serious development here for years but it is too hard to get access to the things that need changing and I have limited time (so often I lose to not having enough time to work the political side of things to get the access to make changes). A few examples, include our use of Wikimedia software which is an extremely old release candidate (and thus subject to bugs and security issues). We are running 1.12.0rc1 from Winter 2008 when the current version is 1.33.0 from April 2019—more than ten years out of date. On the main ISFDB side of things are not much better as I believe we are still running unsupported Python 2.5. And even if we upgraded to the latest Python 2—2.7, 2.7 will be unsupported starting next January 2020. Python 3 would be a big jump for our code base (not to mention our main developer! but it added many very nice features like much improved Unicode support that might finally let us serve pages in UTF-8 instead of Latin-1 with HTML entities; think getting rid of tall the &#nnnnn; you can see in foreign title edit submissions here). Currently we also store data in the database in the same way instead of directly using a Unicode encoding which makes database searching painful. Also we still have not managed to remove pub tags though they were deprecated a very long time ago. And those are just a few examples. Uzume 19:41, 8 September 2019 (EDT)

Directory Entry for authors

When adding transliterations for authors (thanks for that), can you also make sure you change the Directory Entry as well? It needs to be in Latin letters and is generally the last name of the author. Thanks! Annie 17:51, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

No problem: I am just researching and cutting and pasting lots of stuff so it is hard to remember everything. I am not sure how useful transliterated directory entries would be though (for Japanese I know a kana-based transliteration and directory would be useful but we are a long ways from there). It is not unusual for the same to be drastically different based on a mispronunciation of the name. Uzume 18:05, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

Well... the transliteration of a name such as Dozois in any language different from English is bound to be different. The Bulgarian version is Дозоа [Dozoa] and if someone searches for him based on knowing that, they won't look for Dozois. English names can be very creatively read sometimes. So for now - just use the same as used for the transliteration (minus the long vowels - either double them or leave them as short) and when and if we start accepting other alphabets, these will need conversion anyway. So for the time being - Latin name which is a transliterated version of what the non-Latin letters are saying is the best we can do. Annie 18:14, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

I assume you are talking about my doing something along the lines of this: submission 4409909 Uzume 20:20, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

Yup. I even smiled when I approved - one less thing to pop up on a later cleanup report:) Thanks for that! Annie 20:42, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

Are you sure here?

Are you sure here? Is that the transliteration of just the last name? Annie 21:07, 20 September 2019 (EDT)

Yes, the Japanese used the last name of one of his pen names "Philip St. John". Technically 2617366 is a translation of 265071 but we do not do double variants to I made it a variant of 597309 instead. Uzume 11:01, 21 September 2019 (EDT)

Aha. Did not think of that and did not recognize it as that. Thanks for the explanation. Annie 11:37, 21 September 2019 (EDT)

Actually I did some more digging and now I am more confused. I was trying to fill out 少年少女科学小説選集 and looking up entries in NDL. I was going from online lists (e.g., ameqlist and hh8m-iok) which list entry 5 as "消えたロケット" by "フィリップ・セント・ジョン(Philip St. John)" or "Ｐ・セントジョン" published in 1956. The 1956 entries for "消えたロケット" at NDL and OCLC (although for Japanese works, OCLC entries seem to just copy/follow the NDL entries) attribute the work to Patricia Mary St John (see NDL 000000830592 and OCLC 673300981). I doubt an English missionary nurse and writer who lived from 1919 to 1993 and never wrote any speculative fiction in English would suddenly have Japanese work entitled "消えたロケット" (something like "disappeared rocket"). I added a note to our pub record and I note the same issue with NDL's entry 000000830592 regarding 少年少女科学小説選集 #17. Uzume 11:48, 21 September 2019 (EDT)

Curious, but True

Hi, This was even a handful for a moderator, I hope you find the outcome correct. If I am not mistaken~, it would have taken you at least ten submissions.--Dirk P Broer 18:29, 6 January 2020 (EST)

No, I believe it could have been done in the three: a title remove, a title import/add, and a pub edit. —Uzume 19:37, 6 January 2020 (EST)

Worlds

Hi, the cover artist of this and this is Boris Vallejo, see ha.com which shows the original signed art. Horzel 15:12, 28 March 2020 (EDT)

The Return of Nathan Brazil new

For The Return of Nathan Brazil, do you mind if I change the page count to ix+289+[2], add title "About the Author (The Return of Nathan Brazil)" on page [291], and add missing title:
Section of Southern Hemisphere (map) (The Return of Nathan Brazil) on page viii
Thanks! Phil 08:44, 18 March 2022 (EDT)

Twilight at the Well of Souls

For Twilight at the Well of Souls: The Legacy of Nathan Brazil, do you mind if I change the page count to x+304+[1] and import missing title:
Section of Southern Hemisphere (map) (The Return of Nathan Brazil) on page viii
Thanks! Phil 08:54, 18 March 2022 (EDT)

Jack Chalker: Four Lords of the Diamond

In the Four Lords of the Diamond series, I would like to make the following changes:

For Lilith: A Snake in the Grass, change the page count to vi+248 and import the uncredited interior art title The Warden Diamond on page [vi].

For Cerberus: A Wolf in the Fold, change the page count to [8]+243 and import the uncredited interior art title The Warden Diamond on page [viii].

For Charon: A Dragon at the Gate, change the page count to [8]+289 and import the uncredited interior art title The Warden Diamond on page [viii].

Would that be OK? Thanks! Phil 12:32, 18 March 2022 (EDT)

月のプリンセス

Hello,

What is the source of this change and why would we have the title and publication records' titles different? As a rule, they stay the same for novels - matching the title page of the publication. So if the title page has that title, it needs to go both on the pub and the title level. Thanks!Annie 19:18, 7 April 2022 (EDT)

I figured someone would call me on that. The source is the difference between ameqlist sogen 601-28 (also look at ameqlist sogen 601-28 where the book title "月からの侵略" differs from the work it is named after "月からの侵略 ジュリアン九世の物語" for "The Moon Men") vs. NDL JPNO 78026899. Sogen translates the three parts ("The Moon Maid", "The Moon Men" and "The Red Hawk") as:

1. "月のプリンセス -ジュリアン五世の物語" (Princess of the Moon: The Story of Julian V)
2. "月からの侵略 ジュリアン九世の物語" (Invasion from the Moon: The Story of Julian IX)
3. "レッド・ホーク ジュリアン二十世の物語" (Red Hawk: The story of Julian XII)

It then publishes them in two publications with the shortened names of just "月のプリンセス" (Moon princess) and "月からの侵略" (Invasion from the moon); "Red Hawk" is included in the latter pub, making it effectively a collection (and why no one quested the name change there). The differences in the names could be considered effectively subtitles for the works that are not needed for the publishing container (but gets noticed in this case where is but a single novel in the first pub). Thank you, —Uzume 21:23, 7 April 2022 (EDT)