User talk:Zapp

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2015-2021

Exhalation

Regarding this submission: I'm not seeing any artwork at the provided source that is titled "Exhalation". There are only 2 clear book covers, but neither are for a book titled Exhalation. Can you please clarify? -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:00, 5 September 2022 (EDT)

Artworks on that site are not entitled. Count #14 is this one. --Zapp 13:22, 5 September 2022 (EDT)

That is the cover for Faction: Kiwi Comic Anthology, Issue 1. It is also the same artwork used for CoNZealand: 78th World Science Fiction Convention (which credited Broadmore for it). What is your source that this same artwork was used for a book titled Exhalation and that it is the Exhalation that appeared in CoNZealand: 78th World Science Fiction Convention? Have you checked with Rtrace? He is pretty detailed and I would think that if the coverart for CoNZealand: 78th World Science Fiction Convention had appeared within the pub twice, he would have varianted it. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:24, 5 September 2022 (EDT)

Ups, I confused coverart and interiorart, Sorry. --Zapp 14:32, 5 September 2022 (EDT)

Varianting into another variant

Hi, I rejected your varianting a Swedish John Rackham title into a Swedisch John T. Phillifent title not only for the reason stated here (top), but also because you have put the translator only into the new variant. If the John T. Phillifent title gets varianted against its English original we'll lose the translator, because the then empty Swedish title has no publications and gets deleted. Always put the translator in the original translated work, and preferably variant against the original title.--Dirk P Broer (talk) 03:52, 13 September 2022 (EDT)

Excerpts?

I'm holding these two submissions, Das dunkle Feuer & Riley : Das Mädchen im Licht. Are these excerpts? You refer to them as 'appending advertising' in the notes to the publications in which they occur. Since the titles are exactly the same as the related titles, we append " (excerpt)". 'Das dunkle Feuer (excerpt)' & 'Riley: Das Mädchen im Licht (excerpt)'. (note my removal of the space in the second title). No need to resubmit, let me know and I will approve your submissions and make the changes. John Scifibones 16:30, 14 September 2022 (EDT)

Yes, these are indeed excerpts as previews for the complete novels. --Zapp (talk) 16:46, 14 September 2022 (EDT)

Approved and updated. In the future, consider adding identifying information in the excerpt title note. 'First chapter', 'first 8 pages' 'the first story in the collection', etc. Any information which can help to determine whether subsequent excerpts need to be merged or disambiguated. Thanks, John Scifibones 18:12, 14 September 2022 (EDT)

Self-moderation

Hello Zapp,

Had you thought about asking for getting permissions for self-moderation? If you prefer to stay as you are or to just wait a bit longer, that's ok but you are familiar with most of the DB, understand our varianting, pseudonyming and dating rules (which are usually the major problematic areas for most editors) so I am comfortable supporting an application for self-moderation from you if you wish to do that. :) Annie (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2022 (EDT)

I am surprised by your offer. The following questions arise: What happens to my current pending edits if I accept the self-moderation? is there a control of the self-moderation edits? Can mistakes or errors be discovered? --Zapp (talk) 04:35, 17 September 2022 (EDT)

Continued there. --Zapp (talk) 17:13, 19 September 2022 (EDT)

Sorry, took the weekend off internet :)

Why would you be surprised? You are one of the better editors around here, you know the DB and you rarely mess up. :) It is a community process - if you decide you want it, you post the request on the Community Support board and it will take a few days for people to say if they agree or not and so on before you get the flag (if people do not disagree too strongly).

• The existing pending edits already submitted at the time of the adding of the flag will need to be handled by a moderator. Usually you can find a willing moderator to clear them for you (ping me if it gets to that).
• Control is similar to the control for new moderators - the community assists - expect a moderator or three to stop by your page occasionally with a question about some of your edits or reminding you of some rules. Note that self-approver's edits CAN be approved by a moderator if needed and you can always just ask someone for assistance (before or after an edit) if you are not sure.
• Errors and mistakes: the same way it happens now - either via a cleanup report or via someone seeing it in the Recent Changes (or stumbling on it later)

If you prefer to still stay under moderation for awhile longer, that's ok as well. Annie (talk) 18:32, 19 September 2022 (EDT)

Okay, I'll post a request on the Community Support board. Thanks. --Zapp (talk) 16:54, 20 September 2022 (EDT)

Congratulations, you are now a self-approver :-) Ahasuerus (talk) 16:08, 29 September 2022 (EDT)

Magazines series

Just as a reminder: the magazine name forms a series and not a publication series. We have some of these entered in both places - the pub series field needs to be cleaned up for these. Thus this rejection :) Annie (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2022 (EDT)

Juvenile Flag

If the fiction title in a CHAPBOOK is flagged juvenile, then the container tile must also be flagged (and vice-versa). I fixed this one. They appear on the exception report here. John Scifibones 11:29, 27 September 2022 (EDT)

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2022

Please be careful when adding external IDs - they need to match the edition. This ASIN is the paper issue, not the ebook (the fact that Amazon adds shipping tells you it is a physical book and not an ebook - among other clues on the page). I removed it from the ebook record. Thanks! Annie (talk) 11:46, 4 October 2022 (EDT)

Same for the March/April issue. If you had done a lot of these in the last days, you may want to recheck all of them (welcome to self-moderation - you always recheck your work because you do not have someone checking every edit) :) Annie (talk) 11:49, 4 October 2022 (EDT)

I saw but You've been faster. --Zapp 12:32, 4 October 2022 (EDT)

I am the PV of the first (thus seeing the change as soon as I opened the site for the day) and I just checked the rest of 2022 while I had the EDITOR record open anyway :) Annie (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2022 (EDT)

Avi Loeb novel?

Hi, it seems you established all the variants of titles by Avi Loeb. But judging from Amazon and Loeb's Wikipedia entry "Extraterrestrial" ain't a novel but "a popular science account" (Wikipedia), and thus not eligible for our database. From where does the NOVEL title type stem? Christian Stonecreek (talk) 01:46, 21 October 2022 (EDT)

The German version also was reviewed as a piece of nonfiction in an issue of "Spektrum der Wissenschaft". Christian Stonecreek (talk) 04:23, 21 October 2022 (EDT)

As I understood from the reviews, it is a speculative text about extraterrestrial technology based on interpretations of astronomical observations:
"Harvard’s top astronomer lays out his controversial theory that our solar system was recently visited by advanced alien technology from a distant star.
In late 2017, scientists at a Hawaiian observatory glimpsed an object soaring through our inner solar system, moving so quickly that it could only have come from another star. Avi Loeb, Harvard’s top astronomer, showed it was not an asteroid; it was moving too fast along a strange orbit, and left no trail of gas or debris in its wake. There was only one conceivable explanation: the object was a piece of advanced technology created by a distant alien civilization.
In Extraterrestrial, Loeb takes listeners inside the thrilling story of the first interstellar visitor to be spotted in our solar system. He outlines his controversial theory and its profound implications: for science, for religion, and for the future of our species and our planet. A mind-bending journey through the furthest reaches of science, space-time, and the human imagination, Extraterrestrial challenges listeners to aim for the stars - and to think critically about what’s out there, no matter how strange it seems."
Maybe it's NONFICTION ? Or an essay ? I'm going to read it. --Zapp (talk) 11:56, 21 October 2022 (EDT)

"speculative text about extraterrestrial technology based on interpretations of astronomical observation" will be etranslations ligible ONLY if it is fiction. Non-fictional speculative accounts (historical What-If, "is there life on other planets" and so on) are not eligible - the only non-fiction eligible to be added is non-fiction related to speculative fiction. Annie (talk) 14:40, 21 October 2022 (EDT)

The review describes it partly as an account of the obect's discovery and partly as a discussion if it might be an alien artifact (and that's the part where the speculation comes in, as Loeb is in favor of this interpretation); so, nonfiction it is. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 04:53, 22 October 2022 (EDT)

FYI, all these titles showed up on Publications with Invalid Page Numbers exception report. Only Arabic numerals are allowed in the pipe sort field. I fixed them before I saw this thread. John Scifibones 08:13, 23 October 2022 (EDT)

I've got a copy of the German edition at hand, and it is a (non-eligible) piece of nonfiction, so I'm going to delete some of the publications & titles (the other translations). Would you please help to delete (perhaps the English ones)?

For future additions: please apply more caution when entering new titles (just because something looks like a novel doesn't mean it has to be one). Christian Stonecreek (talk) 09:20, 3 November 2022 (EDT)

And one more thing: we do enter subtitles without a space between the title proper and the colon, so the title should have been entered as "Außerirdisch: Intelligentes Leben jenseits unseres Planeten" instead of "Außerirdisch : Intelligentes Leben jenseits unseres Planeten". Christian Stonecreek (talk) 09:27, 3 November 2022 (EDT)

By now, I've deleted all the titles, and read some relevant chapters: it seems to be possible that it was in fact an artifact that passed in 2017 through the Solar System. It's really a pity that we'll never know! Christian Stonecreek (talk) 11:47, 8 November 2022 (EST)

I've been very busy the last time, so I paused here. I read the book, too, and found out it was in fact a nonfiction scientific book with parts of the author's biography. It comes close to other UFO declearing texts.

Title Merging

I ran across a couple recent merges where the wrong values were selected:

• For this merge of For the Blood Is the Life: ISFDB standards are that "Is" should be capitalized.
• For this merge of Luella Miller: ISFDB standards are that we date variants based on the date the variant was first published, not the first appearance of the story overall.

I have updated both records. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:22, 27 November 2022 (EST)

Murder and Magic - Coverart Record - Incorrectly Varianted

I recently created this new pub: Murder and Magic - Ace fourth printing with a new Coverart record by R. Adragna. I see from the edit history that you have varianted this to the artist's canonical name: Robert Adragna. However, all is not well. As you can see from this search result, there are now two parent records for this coverart under the artist's canonical name. I think you varianted it to a new parent title whereas it should have been varianted to this existing parent title. I have submitted an edit to correct this by merging the two parents. NB: if you do not see this post until after the merge has been approved, then the search result above will only show one parent. Teallach (talk) 14:03, 8 January 2023 (EST)

Sorry for causing that confusion. It came from the existing of more than one alternate name. But that's no problem. As You found out all four records here can be merged together. Go ahaed and try. --Zapp (talk) 14:35, 8 January 2023 (EST)

Perry Rhodan #500 / German Science Fiction Times Nr. 118/19

Hi, you may be pleased to know that I have managed to get my hands on the Feb/March edition of the German Science Fiction Times for 1971. On p. 39 it states that (a) with the beginning of February 1971 Moewig changed its day of publication from Wednesday to Friday and (b) that Perry Rhodan Nr. 500 was to be published on 26 March 1971. This means that the 'missing week' or surplus issue did not occur in 1972. Instead Moewig must have changed its day of publication at least twice, i.e from Friday to Wednesday sometime in the late 1960s and the back to Friday in Feb 1971. Which is very similar to what Pabel-Moewig did in December 2003, when the day switched from Tuesday (PR 2206 / 2 Dec 2003) back to Friday (PR 2207 / 5 Dec 2003). Now we 'only' need ebven older editions of SFT to pinpoint the preceding change(s). Cheers, John JLochhas (talk) 03:59, 24 January 2023 (EST)

That's interesting news. I have to think about again after a long period of resting. At the moment have a look here. --Zapp (talk) 17:19, 24 January 2023 (EST)

One question is: The Changing from Wednesday to Friday means the Friday after Wednesday or the Friday before Wednesday? I'm confused at the moment. --Zapp (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2023 (EST)

Without any further data it's going to be difficult to confirm. My personal assumption is that there would have been two numbers in one week, as happened in 2003 - but that's only guesswork. I'm still searching for older Science Fiction Times to confirm what really happened. Sadly, back in the day no references were made inside the actual publications. JLochhas (talk) 05:08, 25 January 2023 (EST)

#500 on Friday, 26 March 1971; scheduled #493 on Friday 5 February 1971; on beginning of February (Monday, 1 February) changing from Wednesday (3 February) to Friday (5 February). I guess that means 2 days later, and no second issue the same week. It was not known a publishing day as of Wednesday, see table of publication days here. Anyhow, #500 is a new fixed point. --Zapp (talk) 06:28, 25 January 2023 (EST)

Exactly, at least #500 is fixed. JLochhas (talk) 08:37, 25 January 2023 (EST)

I copied Your statement into https://www.perrypedia.de/wiki/Diskussion:Sie_kamen_aus_dem_Nichts . My interest is in the exact words the information is published in SFT 118/119. Is it part of an essay or an advertisement by Moewig? I took a look into the ISFDB magazine page 'Science Fiction Times (German)'. There are a lot of issues missing. Is it possible for You to contribute the #118/119? --Zapp (talk) 01:40, 26 January 2023 (EST)

Continued there. --Zapp (talk) 10:16, 5 February 2023 (EST)

Cloning for an earlier edition

Just a hint, if you clone a publication to add an earlier edition (like you did here and here, sometimes it's smarter to change the title dates before cloning. If there's only one edition in the database, the dates of all contents can be changed in one edit. Now it takes 22 edits to correct them all. Cheers, --Willem (talk) 08:45, 1 February 2023 (EST)

Yes I know, I forgot to change the dates. Thank You. --Zapp (talk) 08:59, 1 February 2023 (EST)
Done --Zapp (talk) 09:12, 1 February 2023 (EST)

Basil of Baker Street

Hi, It appears that you converted all of series The Great Mouse Detective from novels and NOVELs to novelettes and CHAPBOOKs, perhaps based on my January beginning for the inaugural story T1987061 with 12000-word estimate. That was near top of my list to do after becoming a "self-approver", when I nominated myself last fortnight.
By the way, the 12000 estimate is rough, but I'm certain #1 is well below 15000 and 90% sure #2-5 are below our novella threshold 17500 words, because they share publisher and illustrator, with page counts not very different. Anyway, here's letting you know that I did estimate, in case you missed it, and anyone asks you. Thanks. --Pwendt|talk 16:37, 19 February 2023 (EST)

It occurs to me also that you may be working on one of the auto-generated Cleanup Reports.

Exploring the list of reports last hour, I see that you and I appear responsible for all 3 Juvenile/Non-juvenile Mismatches --all concerning the Nancy Drew short stories and collections, at the top of my list-- and 1 of 2 Invalid Title Content Values --I infer you should have removed "1-5" after Basil OMNIBUS conversion. --Pwendt|talk 20:24, 19 February 2023 (EST)

Yes, You are right, I'm working on the cleanup reports. So I was directed to the Basil series. The titles' length should be more than 40,000 words or raughly more than 100 pages for a novel. The earliest printing of every volume of the series have all less than 100 pages. Since juvenile books usually have more illustations and less words, I assumed there was no indication of a novel length. If You have printed copies in Your hands and the opportunity to count the numbers of words exactly, so do it and change again. Maybe I overlooked or missed some other changes. Great if You found them and put them to the right. --Zapp (talk) 03:02, 20 February 2023 (EST)

Terry Pratchett

Hi, thanks for correcting the pub Dem Tod die Hand reichen [1], i was unsure how to add this one. Welo (talk) 12:15, 25 February 2023 (EST)

Vernon Bowen

Hi, Zapp. Concerning Bio:Vernon Bowen (I fixed the "OCLC/WorldCat" link): There you conclude "(Original Source: University of Wisconsin)". Do you mean that UWisc is the original source for 1905 year of birth, or that OnlineBooks (now at UPenn) originated at UWisc? Is UWisc the publisher of An Encyclopaedia of Flying Saucers which probably-you cite in the Bowen author Note?

Library of Congress LCNAF now identifies Bowen as "Bowen, Vernon, 1899-" but LCCatalog records [!]use "Bowen, Vernon, 1905-", which should match LCNAF. I suppose the latter remains by failure to update fully after 2006 email communication.
[!] except one record of Ting Ling under "Bowen, Vernon. [from old catalog]".

Probably I will write to LC and ask about the "1905" --after I know what you mean. --Pwendt|talk 16:56, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

Some time ago I found the author's birthdate in the ISFDB entry as of 1905 (by an unknown user, the Bowen author note was not created by me). Searching for more details I found different dates I put into 'Bio:Vernon Bowen'. The Online Books Page gives the author's year of birth 1905. The title 'The Emperor's white horses' (published by D. McKay [1956]) is to see on the HathiTrust website as a scan. The original book is owned by UWisc. So I guess the information about the year comes from 'The Online Books Page' (unknown source). No reference for DOB inside the book scan. My conclusion of the original source UWisc is apparently wrong. So go ahead and change it. Best source seems to be here, good finding. 'An Encyclopaedia of Flying Saucers' (no ISFDB entry) seems to be the source for the first name "A." --Zapp (talk) 17:33, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

I guess 'An encyclopaedia of flying saucers', Author: A. Vernon Bowen OCLC was created by a different author concerning the publication date. See: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=vernon+bowen&author=Bowen%2C+Vernon --Zapp (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2023 (EDT) - 'An encyclopaedia of flying saucers' entry at Amazon.com has a memory of the author in Look Inside an on back cover scan but no DOB. On front cover there are the author's addresses. Maybe You can use that for further researches. --Zapp (talk) 18:07, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

The text of that book is here. Inside: "Bowen went to^the public school# in his tetive village of Newtown, Ofeio" ... "He was graduated from Marietta in 1927", but no birth date. He wrote that in 1960, died at an age of 78y in Connecticut. --Zapp (talk) 18:22, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

How many people named "Vernon Bowen" may have lived in the USA You can see here. --Zapp (talk) 17:57, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

Now I guess that's him: "BOWEN, VERNON was born 11 February 1905, received Social Security number 268-07-3663 (indicating Ohio) and, Death Master File says, died March 1982 Source: Death Master File (public domain)". --Zapp (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2023 (EDT)

According to the address on the cover of the 'encyclopaedia of flying saucers' (Old Greenwich, Fairfield, Connecticut) I found this entry that confirmes my previous guess. --Zapp (talk) 02:51, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Yes, I agree that must be him. Death Master File is not likely off by one on year of death, so I think the open question about his vital numerical data is whether he lied about his age, actually born 1904 (and thus died at 78yo) or born 1905 (and thus died at 77yo).

I am not a FamilySearch.org subscriber. Do you use that much?

I do believe that later yesterday I learned several biographical tidbits but not to the point of vital dates. Apparently son Patrick H[arvey] Bowen, and grandson Harvey Bowen, are the sources cited by the Encyclopaedia publishers for 78yo, and by Jane Badger Books for yob 1905. Perhaps the FamilySearch mentions them?

SortedByName.com is also new to me. Do you know the timespan for deaths that are on file?

I will not write to LC soon.

I guess the data from Social Security Death Master File are valid. The parent of SortedByName.com is http://ssdmf.info/ The age of 78y is apparently spreaded by the relatives, but either discalculated, forgotten or it means his 78th year of life. Yes I'm researching databases in case of my ancestors in Germany and some missing relatives in the US. If You'd like to know some more about that, ping me at 2.zapp(at)web.de --Zapp (talk) 19:30, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Here: Patrick H. Bowen and on this page: BOWEN, PATRICK H. was born 16 January 1941, received Social Security number 258-60-1930 (indicating Georgia) and, Death Master File says, died 28 June 2003 Source: Death Master File (public domain). --Zapp (talk) 19:42, 16 March 2023 (EDT) But the sortedbyname entry seems to be another person according to the obituary. --Zapp (talk) 19:50, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Just to let you guys know, I have pending edits adding the '52 Dodd, Mead edition (seems to be original judging by '53 being the first date stamped on the library thing in the back) and also the '69 Young Readers edition. The original has pictures of author and illustrator on back flap, https://archive.org/search?query=ting-ling+bowen. After my edits are approved maybe you can add something further to your bio. --Username (talk) 19:55, 16 March 2023 (EDT)

Excalibur Lost incorrectly changed to a Collection

I see you changed "Excalibur Lost" pub and title from a CHAPBOOK to a COLLECTION. I don't think that's correct based on the Help for Publication Type here. Specifically, "The following types of SHORTFICTION titles are ignored when deciding whether the publication is a CHAPBOOK: Supporting and incidental material such as excerpts, synopses, and fictionalized essays". Ignoring the excerpt, there is only the one novella in it so it is a CHAPBOOK. As the sole PV, I wished you had asked me before making the change. Please change it back. Phil (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Oh, excuse me, I didn't know that exception. For shure I'll chance it back. --Zapp (talk) 16:02, 3 June 2023 (EDT)
Done. --Zapp (talk) 16:08, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

Thanks. Would you please merge the titles back together as well? Phil (talk) 16:18, 3 June 2023 (EDT)

excerpts and series numbering

I noticed you are adding series and series numbers for excerpts. Adding the series is correct. Where are the numbers coming from? If you are making them up, I'm not familiar with that practice. John Scifibones 11:04, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

My idea is, since the 'novel (excerpt)' is part of the 'novel', so it seems to make sense to place the excerpt in order after the novel. For example if the novel is #1, the excerpt could be the #1.1. I know it isn't practice, yet, but I tried it. If there is no consent, i'll remove that. --Zapp (talk) 17:17, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

I find this to be an extremely bad idea -- think of the user experience. Someone who wants to see the actual stories and novels in a list will need to deal with all the excerpts popping up in the ordered list. If the excerpts are in their own subseries, go ahead and number them but not in the series where the full works are IMO.

As a side note, if you have an idea on how to improve/change the way we record data, the correct approach will be to bring it up for discussion and get people's opinions before you start restructuring and changing the data based on your own preferences. :) Annie (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

I took that as a kind of test and excuse for my haste. I'll remove that. --Zapp (talk) 17:47, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Done --Zapp (talk) 17:52, 28 July 2023 (EDT)

Musings

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?961823; I've noticed for a while now that you follow up a lot of my edits with your own and when you just add Goodreads ID or other minor stuff like that it's no big deal but in this case I'm wondering why you changed Musings to a novel when title note I wrote and archived copy I linked to clearly state that it's a journal Matheson wrote; you even wrote your own note in Musing's record saying the same thing. Can you change it back to non-fiction? Thanks. --Username (talk) 18:12, 30 July 2023 (EDT)

I don't know if I understand exactly what You mean. I'm working on "Cleanup Reports" extensively, for example Collection Publications with Invalid Title Types. That's why I sometimes get pointed to one of Your verified publications. It's not to criticise Your contributions or to stalk Your person. Here You can see my changes and contributions in "Edit History" (I added a note about the price, an image URL, and goodreads, OL IDs). According to this rules "NONFICTION is generally not used for content, since it refers to book length works. This might occur as an element of an omnibus." I changed the NONFICTION into a non-genre novel. I know I should have asked You before, shame on me. If You know 'Musings' or 'Leave Yesterday Alone' are not fiction at all, then they may be ESSAYs? In result the publication type would change into a NOVEl or NONFICTION (if both titles are essays). You may change any contributions I did by Yourself though I know that confirmations from moderators sometimes take a long time. You can also tell me the type of the titles and I'm going to adapt them. --Zapp (talk) 02:16, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

I didn't verify it, I don't own it, it was uploaded to Archive.org recently and was never entered on ISFDB despite being published nearly 10 years ago so I decided to enter it. Maybe you're right about the rules here for entering titles in a collection but as it is now it gives the false impression that Matheson wrote a non-genre novel titled Musings which will be a problem if anyone uses ISFDB as a bibliography of his works. So maybe asking about this on the moderator board will clear things up. --Username (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

The OCLC/WorldCat entry says: ""Leave Yesterday Alone," written in 1950 (just before Matheson's first professional science fiction sale), is a pulp novel about college student Erick Linstrom and his on-again, off-again relationship with friendly, sexy Sally Birch, whom he holds at arm's length for fear that a serious relationship will stifle his ambitions as a writer. Though unremarkably written, it might have held its own among the paperback-original potboilers published in its day. "Musings" is an autobiographical journal that Matheson kept between 1994 and 2003 to record recollections of his childhood years in Brooklyn and his career as a novelist and screenwriter. This book is strictly for Matheson's legion of fans, who will enjoy acquainting themselves with the man he was before he earned his literary reputation with works such as I Am Legend." After that I guess 'Musings' should be an essay. --Zapp (talk) 08:16, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

This appears to be a collection of two book-length works, and it should therefore be an OMNIBUS with NOVEL and NONFICTION containers within it. While NONFICTION isn't generally included in other works, the policy clearly states "This might occur as an element of an omnibus." ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:47, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

I agree about the NOVEL (non-genre) and NONFICTION typing. As for Omnibus, the help says, in part:

OMNIBUS. A publication may be classified as an omnibus if it contains multiple works that have previously been published independently.... However, generally this category should not be used unless the other categories do not seem appropriate.... A collection such as Robert Heinlein's "The Past Through Tomorrow" should be categorized as a collection, although one of the works is a novel.... If none of the contents have been published before, the inclination should be to classify the publication as an anthology, rather than an omnibus....

So I think having the container be COLLECTION is ok, if neither was published separately. --MartyD (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

That makes sense. I'm fine with it being a COLLECTION, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:38, 31 July 2023 (EDT)

I couldn't find any earlier single publication of none of both titles in OCLC/WorldCat, Library of Congress, The British Library, Open Library, books.google.com, goodreads.com, abebooks.com, google.com. Only news in Amazon.com that allow the assumption of no earlier publication. --Zapp (talk) 06:10, 1 August 2023 (EDT)

Excerpts

Just a reminder, the length field is unused for excerpts. John Scifibones 17:19, 5 August 2023 (EDT)

Ok thank You, I didn't know, yet. --Zapp (talk) 17:32, 5 August 2023 (EDT)

Periodicals

Greetings, I noticed you added the periodical Novel Nocturne, a few points.

• Periodicals are titled - 'Magazine Title, Date' So this one should be 'Novel Noctule, January 2020'. Issue or volume numbers and any monthly subtitles belong in the notes. See Magazines.
• Periodicals are dated by the cover date, not the date they are available. This one is still the January issue and should have the same title and date as the ebook. See Dating periodicals.

John Scifibones 08:45, 28 August 2023 (EDT)

I was not quite shure about this, so I contributed the title from title page. Thank You for reminding, I'll change that. --Zapp (talk) 04:16, 29 August 2023 (EDT)

Done. --Zapp (talk) 04:36, 29 August 2023 (EDT)

Housekeeping edits

I noticed you are working on correcting case errors. I appreciate your effort. However, your note to moderator explanation 'lowercase' isn't good enough. Verifiers are getting change alerts and it's not obvious what you have changed. If you change 'The' to 'the' or 'From' to 'from', etc. put that in the explanation. Yes, it's more work for you, but you are the one making a change. Why should they have figure out what you changed? This applies to any edit where notification is not generally required. Again, thanks for your hard work. John Scifibones 13:05, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

OK --Zapp (talk) 13:12, 1 September 2023 (EDT)

Schwob

https://archive.org/search?query=schwob+d%27or&sort=-addeddate&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22texts%22; I have a PENDING edit adding Amazon cover and pub. series (Tasco #76) to the SugarCo edition of Marcel Schwob's collection that you entered recently; while doing that I found that there's a few other editions on Archive.org so I provided a link above in case you want to enter any of those. --Username (talk) 11:11, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Fine finding. I don't want to push myself in front, so go ahead and contribute them. --Zapp (talk) 13:43, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5791347; Original French edition, I added archived link in a PENDING edit, page count was wrong so I fixed it, a couple of the early stories don't match page numbers entered on ISFDB, feel free to fix any of those you find. --Username (talk) 17:58, 17 October 2023 (EDT)

Pirateaba

A quick question about your submission which added the following note to pirateaba's Author page:

• Someone posted: "Pirateaba's actual name is Ozamataz Buckshank. Prove me wrong!"

As far as I can tell, "Ozamataz Buckshank" is the name of a fictitious American football player from a 2013 parody which has become an online "meme":

• I forget exactly what prompted me to revisit the Key & Peele skit I reposted some time ago, in which the duo performed a thorough piss-take on the silly (and often self-inflicted) names one so often sees among American football players. Of all the daft monikers they introduced to the world, one in particular seems to have caught the public imagination: ‘Ozamataz Buckshank’. The name Ozamataz has been ‘repurposed’ for any number of online game characters and social-media personas.

It would appear that whoever made the comment that you added to pirateaba's Author page was making a joke. Would you agree? Ahasuerus (talk) 20:10, 22 November 2023 (EST)

Yes, my intention was to show that Ozamataz cannot be the legal name of the author, so no one might enter this by mistake. --Zapp (talk) 01:14, 23 November 2023 (EST)

Thanks for the clarification. I have reworded the note to make it clear what "Ozamataz Buckshank" means. Ahasuerus (talk) 08:44, 23 November 2023 (EST)

Variant Dates

Regarding this edit: Please remember that variants are dated at the first appearance of the variant's title and author credit. 1899 is the date of the original publication. As Doyle was not knighted until 1902, the story could not have appeared as by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle until after then. I have restored the prior date on this record. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2024 (EST)

Sorry, my concentration is sometimes too low. --Zapp (talk) 00:56, 21 January 2024 (EST)

BTW: The Knighting of Arthur Conan Doyle was 1902-10-24 because of his services to the Crown. Conan Doyle Info.com 01:09, 21 January 2024 (EST)

Erroneous language assignments

Hello! Why did you set the language to Japanese for several authors for whom it is most unlikely that they wrote in that language in this?. Nobody would think that A. Chumanov, W. Streiw, A. Graek, Harel Gabol or Simon Merril have that working language, since it is an international fanzine. Please do put some research into your edits before submitting something like this. This said, somehow this entry seems overall erroneous: if the language is Japanese, why aren't the titles in that language? Christian Stonecreek (talk) 14:05, 26 January 2024 (EST)

See here. The verifier Antunes submitted all titles in Latin characters. My Japanese is not that fluent to correct them in Japanese characters. Several authors of that fanzine weren't in the ISFDB before. So their working language is for the first time Japanese. I don't know if A. Chumanov, W. Streiw, A. Graek, Harel Gabol or Simon Merril are from US, Russia ore else where. Do You? Or do we want to make assumptions? --Zapp (talk) 14:13, 26 January 2024 (EST)

You posted Your submission before my research was done. I found the Latin TOC included at this moment. --Zapp (talk) 14:17, 26 January 2024 (EST)

If a publication is stated as international the items published within can safely assumed to be mostly translated; thus, there's some research due before adding a working language (to add Japanese as working language is then indeed an - ill-researched, and unlikely - assumption).

Please add comments or advice for this very curious publication record within this discussion item. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 14:35, 26 January 2024 (EST)

Well I said before I'm still researching. And pv submissions verified by moderators initially do not raise any doubts in my mind, I first take them as correct before I get suspicious. Maybe You are a bit smarter than me. User Autunes seems to have lost motivation because of the numerous criticisms he got. --Zapp (talk) 14:45, 26 January 2024 (EST)

Well, moderators do trust in the submissions and their following enhancements they are presented (and likely have to some degree), but that doesn't mean the entries are perfect. This example shows that quite clearly. Unfortunately, Antunes has taken to a quite complex issue, that of entering a multi-lingual magazine: if you do that you have to be quite well-informed or have the will to ask for help / willing to work on the entry further.

Thanks for your corrections & enhancements you supplied. Christian Stonecreek (talk) 07:51, 28 January 2024 (EST)

Darrah Chavey's Talk page and ISFDB record

A quick note about your additions to User:Chavey's Talk page. The ISFDB database has an author record for him, so I have moved the two links to his obituaries from the Wiki to the author record. I have also linked the header section to his database record.

Going forward, could you please post about proposed changes to deceased editors' User pages on the Community Portal ahead of time? They are viewed as something like memorials, so we try to leave them untouched and document any posthumous additions elsewhere. TIA! Ahasuerus (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2024 (EST)

Well I didn't know. Thanks for the message. --Zapp (talk) 17:13, 26 January 2024 (EST)

No worries, thanks for finding the obituary links! Ahasuerus (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2024 (EST)

Steel Flea

https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5878860; I found a copy and made an edit. I cut and pasted text into wordcount.com box and got 14,000 and a few hundred words so it's definitely a novelette. --Username (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2024 (EST)

Well done! I was working on that this moment, but I'll hold back until Your submission is verifyed. Thank You. --Zapp (talk) 13:55, 1 February 2024 (EST)

Seaton's Aunt

When you merged Seaton's Aunt, you changed the length from novelette to short story. The Project Gutenberg version is 11,736 words which makes it a novelette. Was the merged version an abridged version? The record notes have "Revised when reprinted in Best Stories of Walter de la Mare (1942); this version appears in Short Stories 1895-1926." However both publications appear under this record. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2024 (EST)

Sorry! You are right. While merging I got two different length informations "short story" and "novelette". So I didn't know what was first. Looking at the anthology here I found the length of 24 pages. I should have taken a look to the other 63 publications of this title. Your information about the length of 11,736 words would be helpful to be put into note. So I'll do it and will put the Gutenberg link into web page. Thank You for pointing that out. --Zapp (talk) 06:56, 6 February 2024 (EST)

Timequake

I have restored the de Ford version of "Timequake" within Venture Science Fiction [UK, April 1964]. We credit as per the title page and not the cover. The story title page is de Ford as stated in the notes you added to both the pub and parent title record. If you believe de Ford and deFord should be standardized, please start a Rules and standards discussion. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:20, 18 February 2024 (EST)

Yes, I believe deFord should be regularized according to the ISFDB rules, see the fifth point "Spaces in Names": Spaces within a name should be regularized. If a name differs from a canonical name or existing alternate name only by the lack of, or addition of, blank spaces, it should be entered as the existing name or alternate name. For example, a book credited to "Ursula LeGuin", "Lester DelRey", or "A. E. VanVogt" should be listed by including the missing space, e.g. "Lester del Rey". Conversely, if a book were credited to "John De Chancie", the extra space should be removed, and the book credited to "John DeChancie". One effect of this rule is to avoid subjective judgements when there appears to be a "partial space" in a name.
The author's canonical name in this case is Miriam Allen deFord. So there is no need to start a discussion, "de Ford" is against the rules. The conclusion is: it does not need to make a variant. --Zapp (talk) 06:38, 19 February 2024 (EST)

My apologies. Somehow, in all my years here, I have missed that one. The proper solution would be to merge de Ford with deFord. However, I see many of the remaining records are verified. I will start a centralized discussion about merging at ISFDB:Community Portal and point the active verifiers to that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:12, 19 February 2024 (EST)

Nevermind. If some users aren't around any more, I can do that. --Zapp (talk) 06:19, 20 February 2024 (EST)

H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction Omnibus: The Early Years: 1908-1925

Hi Zapp -

I'm working on a collection relating to your verified collection H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction Omnibus: The Early Years: 1908-1925. I noticed that we have the editor, Finn J. D. John, listed as an author of the collection. For collections, our policy is to not list the editor. Could you remove John from the author credit for your collection? Since there are other publications for this title they need to be changed as well. If you'd prefer, I can change the others, or change them all including yours. Please let me know how you'd like to proceed and thanks. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:54, 13 April 2024 (EDT)

Thanks for calling. I don't mind if You want to change something. I found this pub in a library, so I could verify it. The editor as an author was submitted by user:Fixer when he added the new pub. But I didn't recognize. So go ahead and good luck. --Zapp (talk) 13:15, 13 April 2024 (EDT)