User talk:Chavey


 * For older conversations, see: User_talk:Chavey/Archive

Pseudonyms
Hi Chavey. Before creating the title variants it's best to create the pseudonym relationship first, if not it leaves the name empty. It can be done afterwards but it's best to do it first. I'll approve the submission and let you see the authors page. If it gets forgotten it will be hard for most users to figure out. I and other mods know what they are and how to fix them but most users don't. Thanks!Kraang 03:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My mistake it's stay pubs that are created. Odddly the last lot you put through left the authors page blank? I wonder what the difference was?Kraang 03:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Found the difference shortstories leave blank author pages and novels leave stay pubs.Kraang 03:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that bit of information; I hadn't noticed the difference before, but it's useful to know it. Chavey 00:21, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is one of those unusual cases where the pseudonym is for two authors who are not in the database already, because their true authors don't have other publications on their own. Based on the advice of BLongley, in these cases I enter the variants first, that forces the authors to exist in the database, and then I can connect the pseudonym to the (now existing) authors. As you say, I have to make sure I remember to do that, but I have a system to ensure that I don't forget. Chavey 03:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And it leaves the author's page blank, because all of the titles are now assigned to the true authors' bibliographies, and there's nothing left to display here. Of course as soon as I assign the actual pseudonyms, then the "blank" page will be replaced by two links pointing to those two new authors. Chavey 03:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You know whats happening thats good. Thanks! :-)Kraang 03:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Charlotte Corday-Marat
I noticed your "discovery" of this pseudonym of Philip José Farmer. I should have noticed it myself of course, when verifying Pearls from Peoria, but it slipped past me. I corrected the credit ("The Princess of Terra" is on it's titlepage as by Charlotte Corday-Marat), and notified my friend (and fanatic collector of everything by Farmer) Rias Nuninga. This caused quite a stir in the Philip José Farmer universe (Rias, Mike Croteau, Paul Spiteri, Chris Carey, Win Eckert and probably others). My friend's website already has several items about "the other Charlotte Corday-Marat story", and the Official Philip José Farmer Home Page will devote it's february 9 update to it. They are now desperately trying to find out if "The Many Dooms of Harold Hall" was really written by Farmer. How a small stone in a pond can cause enormous ripples... :-) --Willem H. 17:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * A question, Willem: was the story "The Princess of Terra" actually credited to Farmer in Pearls from Peoria? Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:22, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it was (on the story's titlepage), I hadn't noticed it when verifying the pub. --Willem H. 10:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I see my response here was wrong. The story's titlepage credits Charlotte Corday-Marat, the pseudonym is explained in a note. --Willem H. 20:18, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Very cool! Thanks for letting me know about this sequence of events! I've been trying to enter all of the pseudonyms that Locus1 has that we don't (I'm alphabetically up to the M's). Of course most of them are fairly unknown authors, but I was a little surprised by this one not being listed. Which was why, for example, I tried to be careful about the bibliographic notes I added for Corday-Marat. I followed your links, and it will certainly be interesting to find out what their conclusions are. I hadn't remembered that Corday-Marat was a real person, and the assassin of Jean-Paul Marat. I probably should have, but it's been 35 years since I read Peter Weiss's play The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. I can certainly appreciate the excitement that a new story can bring. I'm a diehard collector of James Tiptree, Jr. material, and about a year ago I discovered that Alice Sheldon had submitted to Amazing, and had rejected, a short story under the name of "Ann Sheldon". No one knew about that pseudonym, especially since she never published anything under that name. The executor of her estate is a friend of mine, and he knew nothing about it either, but is convinced the signature on the submission letter is accurate. So now he has to try, once more, to go through all of her material and see if he can find something that might be that missing submission (which she summarizes in her letter). Knowing how exciting it would be to find another Tiptree story, I can appreciate the experience for Farmer fans. So I'm proud to be a small stone causing ripples :-) Chavey 08:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

John D. MacDonald = Scott O'Hara
It's hard to believe, despite Locus's assertion, that the writer of an original story in a 1997 anthology of gay supernatural stories is the mystery/sf writer who died in 1986. MacDonald used the pseudonym in some 1940s pulp mystery magazines, so that may be how Locus wrongly attributed the 1997 story. Mhhutchins 00:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that! I've been trying to watch out for some of the mistakes that Locus1 makes, but I didn't get this one. I'll cancel that submission and update the bibliographic notes to prevent someone else from the same mistake. Chavey 00:21, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Dear Monkey
All of the submissions were accepted but I made a few changes, added the interior art credit, and corrected the price of this pub from "0/35" to £0.35. (In 1975, the UK had already converted to decimalized currency.) Mhhutchins 19:42, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for those corrections! And apparently, I entered that British price incorrectly, so I'll correct it to £0.45. Chavey 19:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Mike, the bibliography for Alison Waley lists all of these 4 publications as "Stray Publications". I'm guessing that's a side effect of having a title by Wu Ch'eng-en have a variant that's by him and by Alison Waley. It seems there should be a way of fixing this, but I don't know how. Suggestions? Chavey 20:31, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * We're gradually moving toward better foreign language support and once we get "language" support for titles out of the way (only four more changes to go before Ahasuerus gets that testing headache!) then "translator" and "adapter" support may not be too far behind. (So long as we get volunteers to work on such.) Some of the recent improvements already help - e.g. you can now search title or publication notes for "translated by" or "translator" or "traducción", etc. I'm a bit reluctant to "clean up" things that will be improved shortly. (For a very large value of "shortly" maybe - I noticed when I submitted Step 2 of the changes that the plan was already 3 years old.) BLongley 04:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Death publication dates
Hi. I have your proposed publication date changes for the two Dr. Death novels on hold, but you should cancel them (or I can reject them). For books, we use the first book publication as the title's publication date, even if the novel appeared previously in a magazine. See Help:Screen:EditTitle. To record the magazine appearance, we make another title that is of type SERIAL (e.g., Dr. Death: 12 Must Die (Complete Novel)), with the date of the appearance, and make that a variant of the NOVEL title, which retains the first book publication date. If the novel appeared over several issues, we would do the same with each installment (e.g., Dr. Death: 12 Must Die (Part 1 of 5), Dr. Death: 12 Must Die (Part 2 of 5), and so on, each with its date of appearance). For an example of both of these treatments, see A Man Called Destiny. You can enter the magazine appearance without setting up the full magazine. See Help:Entering_non-genre_magazines. If you don't want to do that (you are under no obligation), let me know and I will accept your submissions and change the date back, keeping the notes about the first appearance. Thanks. --MartyD 11:57, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The Dweller in the Pot
Do you have ? I approved your "Dweller in the Pot" title change, and in researching it, I think the Frank Chimesleep Short "author" credit is mistaken and that Price should be the sole author -- the "by Frank Chimesleep Short" is part of the title, not an author credit. What do you think? --MartyD 12:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't have the book, but I was trying to reconcile what we have with what's in Locus1. But now I think they were just wrong. After submitting those changes, I also did more research, and I agree with you. The title of the story should be "The Dweller in the Pot (OR, THE PASTA OUT OF SPACE EATERS) By Frank Chimesleep Short", and the author should be "Robert M. Price". It's annoying that neither Google Books nor Amazon will show us the actual ToC, that we have no primary verifier, and that WorldCat shows NO library with a copy. But the publisher's web site listing of the ToC makes this conclusion pretty clear. I'll submit those changes. Chavey 13:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. I approved it.  The change in authorship removed the author, so I had to hard-reject the subsequent pseudonym removal (it couldn't be processed because Frank Chimesleep Short was gone).  --MartyD 13:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I also added a note to the title about the Locus1 discrepancy. Now the remaining question is whether "(OR, THE PASTA OUT OF SPACE EATERS)" should be added to the title.  In this case, I think it probably should, since it's in the middle of the title.  --MartyD 13:54, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you're right on the title for this appearance of the story. There is also the question of how to handle the other copy of The Dweller in the Pot in the system, without the longer title "... By Frank Chimesleep Short", in Blasphemies & Revelations. Almost every place I can find that has a ToC for that book (including WorldCat) lists it just as "The Dweller in the Pot". Librarything lists it as:


 * The Dweller in the Pot - (or, The Pasta Out of Space Eaters [parody], as by "Frank Chimesleep Short": Dagon (British) # 27 [90] - Crypt of Cthulhu # 74 [90] [revised version]) and THE TINDALOS CYCLE 2010 - 1990


 * So it may be that we need one to be a variant title of the other, but without actually looking at the book, it's hard to be sure, or to know which is the variant of the other. (At least this book appears in WorldCat, but the only library that has it is the Toronto Public Library.) Suggestions? Chavey 14:05, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the best we can do for now is record it as the other sources present it. You can always make a note in the pub and on the title about it.  I'd make "The Dweller in the Pot" by Price be the canonical title, and make the longer version be a variant of it.  If you put "By Frank Chimesleep Short" in the title, someone who has the book will understand and will be able to figure out what to do.  By the way, I found this stating that "Frank Chimesleep Short, Jr." is Frank Belknap Long, Jr., and I found this stating that Lovecraft called Frank Belknap Long "Frank Chimesleep Short".  There's also a little info in the Lovecraft Encyclopedia.  Unfortunately, none of that helps us know the title or attribution of this particular work in The Tindalos Cycle.  --MartyD 12:05, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not an authoritative source, but I also found this Cthuluwiki entry that interprets the "by Frank Chimesleep Short" as part of the title, with authorship attributed to Price. --MartyD 12:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I had noticed that one also, and it helps convince me that we are correct on the new listing for "The Tindalos Cycle". (But notice that they don't include the "PASTA OUT OF SPACE EATERS" portion of that title.) Unfortunately, that site doesn't have an entry for "Blasphemies & Revelations", the other place where this story appears, so it doesn't help us in resolving how the story should appear there. Chavey 14:22, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * You seem to have found lots of sources, haven't you found someone you can actually, you know, ASK? ;-) BLongley 00:50, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh sure, look for the simple solution! ;-) --MartyD 02:05, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

LeGuin pseudonym
Hi. I've put your proposed edit making a pseudonym of  on hold. It looks to me like "LeGuin" exists only because of two Analog reviews: this in August 1988 and this in August 1982. Both of these pubs are verified by Rkihara. We recently clarified the help (see "Author") to specify that the canonical name should be used (and the "correction" noted) when the review doesn't use an existing pseudonym. Here, I think the credit for the two reviews should be changed, which will delete the "LeGuin". If you would like to do it, just get the OK from Ron first. If you'd rather I did it, let me know -- I'm happy to take care of it. Thanks. --MartyD 02:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The name "Ursula K. LeGuin" existed solely because of these two review records. I corrected the records to reflect the author's canonical name, according to ISFDB standards, and noted the change in each of the records.  This automatically deleted the "LeGuin" name from the db. I made these corrections after seeing the submission, but before seeing this message.  I apologize if I stepped on anyone's toes in doing this, but it was the proper steps to take to remove the false name from the db, regardless of whether the appearances were in verified pubs. I'll let Ron know what I did. Mhhutchins 02:58, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * All fine with me! Chavey 04:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Not a problem. No toes were stepped on in the correction of these records.  --MartyD 10:32, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem with the correction, the reviewer in both cases spelled it "LeGuin," a note should be added to pub in addition to the review.--Rkihara 18:02, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've submitted those updates to the publications. Chavey 18:07, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Ghost Hunters
Hi again. I also have your proposed variant of Ghost Hunters on hold. On what basis do you want to have a canonical title using "Ed Gorman" in place of "Ed Warren"? I haven't been able to find anything supporting either the idea that Gorman wrote as Warren (or vice versa) or that Ghost Hunters was published with a different set of authors. Thanks. --MartyD 02:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * If that's what I submitted, it's certainly wrong. I had meant to use "Ed Gorman" in place of "Robert David Chase", per Locus. I probably re-arranged the order of the authors to agree with the alphabetical ordering required by the TitleFields:Author statement on collaborations, in which case it's possible that (i) I entered the wrong full set of authors; or (ii) that it looks like I replaced "Ed Warren" when I had just moved him to a different location in the list. My apologies for whichever mistake I made. Chavey 05:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the submission kept Chase and Lorraine Warren and replaced Ed Warren with Ed Gorman. I will fix it up.  By the way, there's no real point to reordering, and anything you read about "alphabetical order" is mistaken.  The software displays multiple authors (or editors or artists) in a fixed-but-random order -- they're always in the same order, but what that order will be is not easily predictable.  --MartyD 10:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * As a result of the current conversation in the Community Portal I've come to understand that that part of the Help page descriptions was wrong. Which simplifies some things, such as submissions like this one. Chavey 13:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Miranda Seymour and Locus date
I updated Author:Miranda Seymour to fill in more detail. You had created the original page and included on it "Locus1 claims (in 2002)..." Do you have a copy of the Locus1 CD from 2002? I'm trying to figure out where that date came from as the current database says "revised January 2, 2010" and does not indicate when a record, such as the Miranda Jane Sinclair / Miranda Seymour was added nor the source for that addition. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:00, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * No, I don't have a copy of the CD. I've worked strictly off the online version. It references her twice: in the 1984-98 combined index, and in the 2002 index. My reference to "in 2002" is just a reference to that 2002 online index, which was the last time they mentioned her. My experience, though, is that once Locus1 lists an alias for someone, they carry that through all later indexes without revisiting the question of whether that is, any longer, the author's actual name. My memory is that I did not look at any sources except for these Locus entries and her Wikipedia page. Chavey 01:27, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the response. Have you seen an example of where the pseudonym for someone changed from one index to another? I suspect there's a master db of all the authors and if we were to send in a correction about Miranda Seymour then presumably both the 1984-98 and 2002 would get revised at the next update. I've e-mailed Bill Contento about this.


 * Miranda Seymour's first marriage ended in 1984. Although that does not mean she stopped using Miranda Jane Sinclair it could be a basis for updating both the 1984-98 and 2002 Locus indexes. I found a 2001 interview in the Gale Cengage DB where she was addressed as "Ms. Miranda Seymour" implying that either she'd dropped the use of Sinclair or did not use it as she was being interviewed as the author Miranda Seymour. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Bill Contento responded with "I have one master database of pseudonyms and birth/death dates that's used when generating the indexes. There is a method to link name changes, but since there are no works in my databases by her with a name other than Miranda Seymour I think I'll leave the entry as is for now." --Marc Kupper|talk 20:56, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think both ISFDB and Contento have the problem that neither of us have good ways of dealing with a change in legal names during an author's life time. (And, having not seen any places where the names changed between indexes, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that this was how Contento did things.) Both ISFDB and Contento seem good at being able to handle the changes in the names under which someone writes, but we both keep a single "legal name"; even though ISFDB and Contento have different definitions of what "legal name means". In the case of my own obsession, James Tiptree, Jr., I have works by her when her legal name was "Alice Bradley", when it was "Alice Davey", and when it was "Alice Sheldon". But with many authors it becomes extremely difficult to know when they switched from one legal name to another, as witnessed by your attempts to identify such boundaries for Miranda Sinclair <--> Miranda Seymour. If we ever get the ability to include multiple legal names for one person over time, we will then be faced with a very daunting task of trying to identify marriage and divorce dates for all these authors -- not an easy task. Chavey 22:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In thinking about it more - it would not be hard to add support for multiple names. A precursor to doing that though would be to document the names in wikitext for various authors to see what information should be in the database. We can put those Author bio pages in a category to make it easy to find them. Wikitext may be better in the long run simply as it makes it easier to explain where/when/why a particular name exists. --Marc Kupper|talk 11:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that's a good idea. The documentation for the various name changes in an author's life is going to be too free form to fit into standard fields, and we will want to keep that documentation separately, e.g. in the "Bibliographic Comments" field. Were you thinking about putting them there, or is some other wikitext area? Assuming we put the data there, your idea of keeping their names in a "Category" is a good approach. Should there be a "sample format" that we generally imitate (e.g. a separate section in the "Bibliographic Comments", with multiple lines of [chronological data + documentation]), or just leave that to individual editors? I can imagine, for example, trying a variety of formats for such data, seeing what seems most effective, then eventually settling on one format, with a "Help" page, on how to list such name change data. Chavey 18:11, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I was thinking to use the Bibliographic Comments areas. I have no idea on if and what the format would be. My own style is to list the sources I have found and to document what they say. Sometimes it's that I looked and there was nothing but at least someone knows that potential source did not have anything. My own interest is in more on finding and documenting information and less on analyzing it. I try to chase things back to the original source. I suspect end result for something like a person's legal name(s) will often be inconclusive. We'll be able to say "this is what these sources say" but can't state firmly, for example, "this is when the name Miranda Sinclair was used." --Marc Kupper|talk 10:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Changes to The Best of Leigh Brackett
I'm holding the two submissions which will change or add a couple of records to this verified pub until you've heard back from the primary verifier. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Charlotte Stone
Did you put the notes on [this] page? There is a new [editor] wanting to make Stone a pseudonym of Maxim Jakubowski. I have his/her submissions on hold, unfortunately you can't look at them! The notes would seem to negate that relationship? Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I wrote the second note, but not the first one, so I don't know who the "source: e-mail from Maxim Jakubowski, January 2007" was sent to. I accepted that claim as authentic, but didn't research it any further. In doing a little research though, I notice that Wikipedia claims that Stone is a pseudonym of Maxim Jakubowski, with a note "pseudonym acknowledged by the author." However, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight (i.e. pretty darn definitive) says that their earlier claim that Jakubowski was Stone was in error. In particular they say "A former version of the addenda claimed that as Charlotte Stone, Jakubowski wrote Cheon of Weltanland: The Four Wishes (1983 US). This book was written by Charles and Dominique Nightingale; Jakubowski merely acted as agent." So it appears that "Charlotte Stone" is a pseudonym, but not for Jakubowski. (This may explain both the email someone at ISFDB received and a misinterpreted message that some Wikipedia editor received.) I would suggest that we change the pseudonym to the one that Clute, et. al. endorse, drop the first note, and add a comment that Wikipedia and many other sources are just wrong. Chavey 01:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Addenda: Silly me, the other comment must have come from Marc Kupper, the verifier in the same month and year as the email message mentioned. By the way, I know RedDragon, and have bought quite a few books from him. I suspect that he's here because I told him about this site as a good way to identify editions and data for books that he sells through his bookstore. Chavey 01:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thought it might have been Mark, but he's less active these days. I'll point RedDragon to this discussion and drop a note to Mark. Between the three of you this can be worked out to get the pseudonyms correct and probably rework the notes. Thanks for the feedback. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, Red Dragon Books here. Not sure what to make of this. I took my copy of the Charlotte Stone book to Jakuboski at a mystery convention and he inscribed it 'alter ego!' and didn't mention anything about not being the author. Not sure what year this was but it was sometime ago. I think the convention might have been the Bouchercon in Monterey in 1997. RedDragonBooks 02:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I checked my source for why I originally thought the book was written by MJ and took it to him to be signed, Hawk's Guide to Pseudonyms lists Charlotte Stone as his pseudonym. Hawk identifies his source as being another pseudonym guide with the title of Who's Hugh, An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms by Roy Robinson, 1984. Ron RedDragonBooks 02:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * (Hi Red Dragon! Still pleased with my 20 signed 1st editions :-)
 * It wouldn't surprise me that a 1984 book on pseudonyms would be wrong; or that it would be less authoritative than the current edition of Clute et. al. And it doesn't surprise me that Wikipedia is wrong. But the conflicts between Marc's email from Jakuboski, Jakuboski's signing of Ron's copy of the book, and the statement from Clute's encyclopedia are seriously problematic. I wonder if we can contact either Clute or Jakuboski for more precision? If we're lucky, Marc's email might have enough detail to specify what the story really is. Chavey 02:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I should be up front and say that I am the person that edited to the entry on Wikipedia with the comment mentioned above. It seemed to me that autographing a copy of the book and inscribing it with 'alter ego' is an admission of authorship. If the consensus is that that is unfounded, I will be happy to alter the entry again. I can't help wondering if MJ might have decided he now doesn't want to acknowledge authorship. I can't really remember if I ever read the book so I can't comment on the quality of the writing, but the book was obviously intended to be the first book in a series. However, no additional books were ever published. Was that because the author just lost interest in the series, or were sales so poor that DAW decided to not purchase any additional books in the series? Sales would have had to pretty bad if the latter, DAW published quite a few books that had fairly small print runs. RedDragonBooks 06:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) I was the one that added the note about the e-mail. I thought I added the second note too about the "Weltenland" spelling. Unfortunately, I did not document who the "some sources" are that claim Jakubowski is the author. Also, unfortunately, I can't find the original e-mail I sent to Jakubowski. He replied by creating a new message and changing the subject line. I'll assemble what I can find here.
 * E-mail to myself 1/22/2007 with subject "Maxim Jakubowski - Summary Bibliography."
 * Cheon, Witch Warrior (Paperback) by Charlotte Stone link to Amazon.
 * About the Author from the iUniverse edition: Charlotte Stone lives in England and has authored a number of novels, short stories and articles, in both English and French. Her interests include history, languages, art and science. She is married with two teenage sons. She is a frequent visitor to the far South-West of France.
 * pseudonym for Charles and Dominque Nightingale, according to the SF Encyclopedia
 * JAKUBOWSKI, MAXIM (p637): As Charlotte Stone, MJ wrote Cheon of Weltanland: The Four Wishes (1983 US).
 * STONE, CHARLOTTE: New cross-reference entry to Maxim JAKUBOWSKI.
 * E-mail to me from Maxim Jakubowski sent 1/23/2007. He's obviously replying to me but I can't find that e-mail.
 * Thanks for your mail.
 * The Cheon book has been attributed to me in the past, and I had some involvement in it (which caused the mistake) but I was not the author.
 * The Witch Warrior incarnation is the same text as The Four Wishes (Daw).

I'd e-mailed myself about Charlotte Stone as the bio is familiar. One of the ways I've tracked down pseudonyms is that authors rarely write completely false details about themselves.

The iUniverse edition has an Amazon Look Inside and the back cover says "Credit for Graphic: Charles Nightingale."

Hunting down the Nightingales seems easy enough. For example this seems to be one of their web sites. This page has an article by Dominique. At the bottom it says "Dominique Nightingale's first book, a fantasy for children was published in 1978, in France. She has had another fantasy published in the US, Cheon of Weltanland." While it seems authoritative, the note at the bottom is in italics and written in the third person meaning it's possible Dominique did not write it. I've e-mailed her asking about if she and Charles are the author.

Chavey, it's fine with me if you want to clean up the note that's on the ISFDB title record. I probably should have added a hint that I was the one who added the note. My intent at the time was documenting the source (Jakubowski) --Marc Kupper|talk 09:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have received an e-mail reply back from the Nightingales and so created Author:Charlotte Stone.


 * Something I did not add to the new Charlotte Stone page is an attempt to chase down the source cited by Ron. A Google search for "Hawk's Guide to Pseudonyms" only finds the Maxim Jakubowski Wikipedia article. That reference was added to Wikipedia 4-April-2011 with this edit. The same editor then added "DAW Books ISBN 0-87997-877-5 - pseudonym acknowledged by the author." Both edits have been reverted to remove the "Hawk's Guide to Pseudonyms" mention from the Wikipedia article.


 * Ron also mentions "Hawk identifies his source as being another pseudonym guide with the title of Who's Hugh?: An SF Reader's Guide to Pseudonyms by Roy Robinson, 1984."


 * Ron, do you have a copy of the Hawk's guide? If so, it would be great if you could document what it states on the Charlotte Stone page. If the title is "Hawk's Guide to Pseudonyms" then it may be worthwhile to fully document the publication as is not listed on Google, Amazon, AbeBooks, Link+, nor Worldcat.


 * If we really want to beat this to death it looks I can get this copy of Who's Hugh? though that page reports "c1987 1st ed." That confuses me as it's three years after the date Ron reported which presumably came from the Hawk book. Who's Hugh? is on ISFDB as 1987, Worldcat reports 1987, 1989, and 1990, Abebooks has 1987, Amazon(hc, pb) is 1987.


 * As an aside, there have been a number of edits to the Maxim Jakubowski Wikipedia article that attempted to make him the real author behind a number of people. In the edit history I see attempts to credit him as Adam Barnet Foster and M.A Foster, as Alan Bard Newcomer, and as Charlotte Stone. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ron, I'm not sure what to do with the 'alter ego' inscription. I guess you could document the facts on Author:Charlotte Stone. I'm guessing that he considered his role as agent as an author's alter ego. There is a possibility that the Nightingales are a false flag operation... --Marc Kupper|talk 20:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Marc (by the way, that is my grandson's name!) The entry in Hawk's Guide just has Maxim's name and under it Charlotte Stone with '[2]' after it as source. On the pages that list sources it gives the information I've already reported, it doesn't give publisher. I've emailed Pat Hawk to see if he can clarify the reference. Information about Hawk's books can be found on his website . The third edition Pseudonym guide that I have is pretty awesome, being over 1,600 pages and almost 3 inches thick. There are copies available on abebooks but only two are third edition, the rest are editions one and two. Each addition got progressively larger, as collectors and authors feed him more information and he included information for more writing genres (and make corrections to errors in the earlier books). Bye the way, the link on his website to send him an email doesn't seem to be working, so I sent my email the address he gave in the front of the book, hawk@koyote.com


 * Thank you. It looks like the title is Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms and not Hawk's Guide which is why I could not find this earlier. I'll see if I can get a copy of Who's Hugh? which is the source Hawk used.


 * I have removed my note from The Four Wishes which stated "Some sources attribute Cheon of Weltanland book 1: The Four Wishes to Maxim Jakubowski. He had some involvement in it (which caused the mistake) but was not the author. (source: e-mail from Maxim Jakubowski, January 2007)." This information is now on the Author:Charlotte Stone page along with a note about Hawk’s Authors’ Pseudonyms.


 * I made a pseudonym for Dominique Nightingale and Charles Nightingale. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * D**n you guys are good! And that's why ISFDB is going to become the definitive authority on such matters. Chavey 01:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I heard back from Pat Hawk, the copy of Who's Hugh that he used was in a library, he says that it is possible he got the date wrong. He will incorporate the changes for Charlotte Stone into the fourth edition. RedDragonBooks 18:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I got a copy of Who's Hugh? and so will be updating Author:Charlotte Stone. --Marc Kupper|talk 00:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure I have a copy of "Who's Hugh?" too - somewhere. I also have met the compiler/Editor many times - I've even stood in for Roger on some SF convention program items. (One tall skinny bearded four-eyed fan is as good as another at times.) It might be interesting to see if he now refers people to us rather than vice-versa. BLongley 00:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Jack variant
Hi. I rejected your proposed variant for James Frenkel's "Jack". It was a duplicate of one that was already a variant of the James R. Frenkel title. I merged it with that duplicate instead. "Check for Duplicate Titles" has the VERY unfortunate behavior of not showing you titles that are variants of other titles. You need to use "Show All Titles" to see all of the titles. They are sorted in alphabetical order, so the duplicates are usually easy to see. --MartyD 11:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that. I need to get better at checking for such things before creating a VT. Chavey 14:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Judgement Day
I'd prefer that spelling myself, but the cover suggests that "Judgment Day" may be more correct? BLongley 00:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I hadn't entered that book, but I should have caught that error when I verified it. I corrected it to "Judgment Day", which is the way it's spelled on both the cover and the title page. Chavey 02:00, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Bradley's The Forbidden Circle
Please check the Canadian price given for this pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks like my keyboard needs cleaning :-) -- I corrected the price from $1.99 to $10.99. Chavey 01:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Notes about author credit discrepancies
It would be better to note the differences between ToC credits and title page credits in the publication record itself and not the title records (here and here). There's always a possibility that the stories might be reprinted in another publication, and the notes in the title records wouldn't apply. Mhhutchins 02:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. Will do. Chavey 02:08, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Bradbury's The Illustrated Man
Several of the records you added for later Bantam printings retained the cover image of the October 1954 printing (showing the price as 25 cents). It's possible other editors may see this and try to "correct" the prices of the later printings to 25 cents. Mhhutchins 14:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll remove the covers, and the $0.25 price that I accidentally left on a couple of the clones. Chavey 02:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, two of the records (for the 2nd and 3rd printings of the new edition) are dated September 1963. Is this correct? Mhhutchins 14:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That is correct, but I'll add a note to the 3rd printing to the effect that it was the same month as the 2nd printing, so that others don't think it's an error. Chavey 02:53, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Map entries
I accepted the submission adding a record for the map in Walk to the End of the World, but changed it to the standard for non-titled entries: "Title (map)". We append the title of the book to generically titled entries, e.g. "Introduction (Title)" or "Afterword (Title)". Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:11, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The terms "map", "introduction", and "afterword" all seems to be equally generic titles to me, so I don't understand why maps are treated differently. Is it that introductions and afterwords apply to publications, while maps occasionally apply to series? Chavey 04:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * No. In this case, we're not talking about terms, we're talking about titles. Most maps aren't actually titled. If they are, then that's what you would enter in the title field.  Those that aren't titled should be handled like other interior art.  Interior art credits are given as only the title of the work, while maps are given the title of the work with the appendage "(maps)" to specify that it's a special kind of interior art.  This is the same method we use for that other specialized interior art, the frontispiece, which is titled the same as the novel with the appendage "(frontispiece)".  We enter introductions, afterwords, etc, exactly as they're titled.  So when an introduction is titled "Introduction" we add the title of the work to disambiguate it when searching for a particular work on an author's summary page. I know the Help documentation isn't very clear on this, but there are things you learn as you go along. Mhhutchins 06:17, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks much, that makes it clear. Chavey 21:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

List of primary verifications
I've submitted some improvements to the first attempt - I appreciate you're not feeling ready to attempt testing yourself, but any feedback on the first version (attempt 2) or discussion on the potential author-sorted second version (or even type-sorted version that Mike would like) are welcome. I don't want to waste time on coding something that will never be desired, and I'm sure Ahasuerus would rather not spend time testing such. But we do need more feedback on what's potentially coming, so please keep commenting! BLongley 23:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's now live, although we've discovered the first glitch already. What do you think? BLongley 20:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I checked it out, and added comments in the Community Portal discussion. Thanks! Chavey 21:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. Keep the comments coming - I'd rather fix/improve our software than work on "X, the Y Fairy" or yet more "Classic Out-of-Copyright novel, with Zombies/Vampires/Werwolves" submissions from Fixer.:-/ BLongley 23:14, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The Virgin by Coon
The pub record that gave the title as Virgin was in error and was a duplicate of a record which was properly titled The Virgin. So the former was deleted. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Mhhutchins 15:52, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I wondered about that, but I didn't have a copy of the '83 cover to check, so I thought it might have been a variant. But it was clearly the same book. Chavey 20:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Superluminal
Added a decent image to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:38, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

The Crystal Ship
There is a note in [this] record about the cover artist. Can you make out the signature on your copy? The style doesn't look like Szafran and the image is too grainy to make anything of the signature. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:59, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Here's a scan of the signature. It's too small for me read anything on the cover itself, and I can't make out what this is, even from the 600 dpi scan. But maybe you can see something recognizable in it: Chavey 19:28, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/0/07/Crystal_Ship_Signature.gif


 * Love those puzzles. It's Norman Adams. See here. First row, 6th image. --Willem H. 19:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Great! I submitted the appropriate update and note to the book. Chavey 19:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Changeling artist credit
I noticed your note [here] when you submitted the change. Take a look at the [SFBC] cover, which includes more of the painting than either the trade paperback or the MMPB editions. Maroto's signature is clearly visible on the bottom right. Just an FYI! Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 20:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I submitted a correction to the notes on the verification of the artist. Thanks! Chavey 19:31, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Krensky's adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and db shortcomings
I accepted the submission adding, what I thought, was a new publication of this title. Then I saw it was already in the database, and saw from the note what you were intending to do. The biggest problem was that you can't have the same book in the database with two different records, just so that it would display differently, depending upon how it's credited. The book has to be recorded as credited. The trouble is due to the database's inability to handle adaptations of another work. A field for the role of adapter, as opposed to author, is not part of the database. I personally would like to have it, but it's been on the back burner for awhile. I did a little manipulating and got the title of the chapterbook to Krensky's summary page, but the content record for the fiction can't be displayed because it is a variant of a title which already exists in the database, i.e. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Variants for text also don't exist in the database, and is handled here as if they are identical except for the author credit. (That's why it doesn't appear on Krensky's page, because the system thinks it really is the Dickens story, but it's credited to him and another author in these chapterbooks.) Now if we made the chapterbook title record into a variant, it would also disappear from Krensky's page. But, because chapterbooks title records represent the book and not the content, we are able to make it a unique title and not a variant. Hope this explains what I did and why. Maybe one day the db can handle variants in text and different roles other than author. Mhhutchins 01:18, 30 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to handle this right. Seems the chapterbook appears on Krensky's bibliography, I think that does a pretty good job of handling the problems with this: Anyone looking at Krensky's stuff can follow that link and see the other publications associated with it. But I agree with the idea of supporting a more general "adapted by" field. There seem to be a lot of "Stray Publications" that arise from not being able to properly handle such adaptations. (E.g., Alison Waley's entire bibliography. Chavey 05:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Aventine
Hi, I uploaded a cover scan for Aventine. I saw that the OCLC was already supplied by you, so I leave you up to it to verify that.--Dirk P Broer 21:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's the cover. Chavey 19:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Shadow Matrix
Does the title page of this book credit anyone other than Marion Zimmer Bradley? (It's come up as a pub/title author mismatch.) Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 02:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The title page credits only MZB. Adrienne is credited only on the copyright page. I assume that means it should be listed as by MZB, and then be a variant of one by MZB and Adrienne, or something like that? Chavey 03:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, just update the pub, remove Adrienne Martine-Barnes, and nothing else needs to be done. It's title record is already a variant of of a record crediting both MZB and Martine-Barnes.  Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Chavey 11:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Better Days
Please add the source for the data in the note field for this pub. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Chavey 13:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The Professor's Experiment
I removed the city name from the publisher field of this pub record so that it would link to all other books from the same publisher. We only add the city to disambiguate publishers of exact or similar names. That doesn't mean you're not going to find them in the database, as that was how many records were created before the database became open to the public. When I see them now, I usually correct it. Also, again, add the source for your data in the note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I changed the publication date to 1895 based on the listing in Reginald1. Mhhutchins 05:23, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem on the publisher, but are you sure this is the same edition that Reginald1 has listed? The AbeBooks listing clearly claims an 1898 publication date, so I was assuming this was not a first edition, but rather a first edition thus. That was also encouraged by that book seller listing it as a "New Edition". Chavey 13:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Even if there was a new edition in 1898, there was still an edition published by Chatto & Windus in 1895. In addition to Robert Reginald's listing, there's also a OCLC record. Feel free to add a record for an 1898 edition if you can find corroborating evidence of one. Bookseller listings tend to be less reliable than they should. Mhhutchins 07:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Peapod Classics
I accepted the submissions too quickly to make Peapod Classics into a publication series. It's pretty obvious from the Amazon look-insides that it's an imprint, not a series. Look at the copyright page and back cover of Travel Light. Where did the series numbering come from? Mhhutchins 06:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Small Beer Press describe Peapod as a "line of numbered trade paperbacks". The numbering comes from the chronological ordering for the two I don't own. "Carmen Dog" has, at the top of its spine, the phrase "Peapod Classics No. 1", which makes it look like a publication series. The copyright pages do, however, use the term "imprint". What do you think? Chavey 07:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I should add that on the site link above, "Peapod Classics" are listed on the same level and in the same way as their "Chapbook Series", which are clearly described as a series, with numbers listed for many (but not all) of the books in the series. Which probably means I should construct a Publication Series for them as well. Chavey 07:33, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I just took another Look-Inside of Travel Light and it gave the title page (unaccountably, it wasn't part of Amazon's Look-Inside last night, do they change which pages are visible?) Small Beer Press is not mentioned at all on the title page, only "Peapod Classics" (over) "Northampton, MA". You can always ask Willem H. how his copy of Howard Who? is credited.  I should not have accepted the submission changing the publisher without asking him in the first place. His designation of "Peapod Classics / Small Beer Press" seems to be the correct way to enter the publisher. I'm going to change it back and let you two work it out. Mhhutchins 15:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Howard Who? has "Peapod Classics No.3" at the top of its spine, making it i.m.o. part of a publication series. this looks right to me. There seem to be no more than three according to the publisher's website. --Willem H. 10:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

2nd printing of Sarah Canary
You'll need to remove the bullet point about "Month of publication..." as it doesn't apply to your record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "Month of publication from the code "1091" printed on the front flap of the dustjacket." Interestingly, that code is still printed on the front flap. But presumably that's like saying "First published ...". So I'll remove that note. Chavey 13:42, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Gate of Ivrel
Scanned in an image, added the interior artwork and expanded the notes for [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Good additions, and a nice cover scan. Chavey 01:28, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * One of about 200 I picked up in the last week, most with nearly flawless covers. The DAWs were simply outstanding! --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * 200? Is that your usual weekly shopping or are you just upset about the changes to "Top Verifiers"? BLongley 15:48, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A couple of people 'dumped' about 700 books at a local store. The manager calls me when even one full box comes in. I'd have bought twice that if I could afford to. Picked up a few for Willem, too. And I asked for the changes to Top Verifiers, remember?? :-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Remember? If I had a memory I'd... actually, I can't recall what I would do. :-( Sourceforge says DES and MartyD asked for something like what I did. There's probably a load more suggestions here that I can't find (Wiki searches are not my speciality by any means.) Nowadays, I just code the improvements I want, or think someone else wants, and wait for complaints about how I could have done it better. BLongley 22:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My 'request' was in a discussion somewhere... I have no idea how to make a Feature Request, and can't think of any off-hand anyway.... --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, "somewhere" is what I guessed when you mentioned it. The 'new, improved' method of making a request is to go to Sourceforge here and use the "Add new" option. You don't even have to admit who you are, unlike the old method where people just logged into this wiki and moaned on ISFDB_Feature_List. Before that, people just bugged Al directly I think. I guess that if the new process is still too technical you can bug me or Ahasuerus directly, but that won't always be the case. BLongley 23:55, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I should probably leave my details with local stores like you did - it seems pointless me visiting them just on the off-chance now, they have so little. I don't know if there's another collector that gets there first or if Luton just has no other SF fans, but the last visit I made I bought half their entire stock of SF and Fantasy, and it fitted in my pocket. :-( BLongley 22:49, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The one store I mentioned has four outlets, maybe 10,000 titles [rough guess] between them? Another single store has nearly 5000 in boxes. They have no idea what's there. Later this summer I've made arrangements with the owner to set up and scan them all, listing them and giving him the scans on CD. Entering them all here will take months. There's also a 'chain' [family-owned/operated] of 9 stores and they have a warehouse just for the duplicates in Calgary [three hours away]. I get down there maybe once a year. Always happy to shop for others, though that's nowhere near the same as hunting for yourself, is it? --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm always more interested in something I didn't even know existed until I saw it, which kinda makes it important to do the searching myself. I can't go to Amazon and search for Category "SF" and "Author" NOT in the thousands I already have books by. BLongley 00:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes! Love that A-HA!! feeling of new discoveries. Well, when you get tired of finding nothing much, come on over the pond, breathe some fresh Canadian air and of course that wonderful aroma of old books. --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:05, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Beauty
Another editor, Herzbube has submitted a clone of [this], making his an undated later printing. I think yours is the unknown printing based on the price and the price differential between the US and CDN prices. His edition has $4.95/$6.75, yours $5.99/$8.99; both state 'First Edition'. Locus1 has the '93 with a price of $4.95.. does yours have an ISBN 13 anywhere? A $3 differential wasn't usual until around 2000, about when ISBN 13's began appearing. For now I'm going to put Herzbube's submission on hold and direct him here. Maybe you can compare the books and see if there's a way to tell what's what? Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)


 * My edition states: "First Harper Trophy edition, 1993", but of course that's not quite the same as saying "This is the First Harper Trophy edition". So I would suspect that he has the true first edition, and mine is an unstated later printing (there is no number line, or any other indication of the printing). His edition should be accepted as an apparent 1st printing, based on the Locus information, and I will correct my edition to specify it as an unnumbered later printing. Chavey 00:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, and no, there's no ISBN 13 on my edition. Chavey 00:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with your conclusions that my book is an earlier printing than yours. I was already suspicious of the statement "First Harper Trophy edition, 1993" when I noticed the price difference between our two printings. Despite Locus' price information, I am not entirely sure whether my book really is the first printing - after all there might have been more than one printing with the same price. I'm no expert, though, so if you think that the Locus information is sufficient to mark my cloned pub as the first edition I am happy to re-edit the pub record once the submission has been accepted. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 19:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I'll accept the edit as is and you can tweak it! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:14, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, if there's no way to tell the difference between your edition and whatever the actual first printing looks like, then you might as well assume you have a first printing! There are certainly books around that must have gone through multiple printings, but without a price change, that their owners have to assume are 1st printings. If there's no number line, no gutter code, and no other way to distinguish a 1st and 2nd printing, then no one can have any evidence that you don't have a 1st printing. So if your edition agrees with Locus, which usually does get a 1st printing (except when printings are spread several years apart), then all of your data should be identical to that first printing, and you should verify it as such. Chavey 19:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Thanks for your assurance. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 20:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Award Editing
Thanks for all the pointers. I think I've fixed a few of them: I've removed the "Special Award" listed to Angela Carter. I've changed the date on "Pinkland". And I deleted the "Unconquered Countries" award and added it to "Unconquered Countries: Four Novellas". Let me know if I've got any of those wrong. BLongley 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You got all of those correct. Chavey 17:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good, it seems I'm not as unwell as I thought. BLongley 18:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

As to "Retroactive" or "Retrospective" - I think that's fixable - it seems to be a free-text field. Are there just those 5 entries that need fixing, or were they awarded in other years? (I'm not going to attempt to fix those 5 plus the 20 Nominations until I've had a bit more sleep though.) Separating them out as a different award type will take some code changes - and I think I'd rather do it right rather than bodge it for just one award. We (well, probably just Mods) should be able to add and maintain Awards dynamically rather than have them hard-coded in the software. BLongley 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's just those 5 (and those 20); that was s 3-year effort to decide what belonged in those categories, we made those awards in that year only, and we do not expect to do it again. Chavey 17:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the 5+20 as best I can under current software. "Honors" instead of "Nomination" will have to wait. Again, please check if I've got it right. BLongley 18:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Giving the award to the English title shouldn't be a problem, but I have a vague recollection that there's a recorded bug which means it wouldn't display on the canonical title. If that's still the case, then we'd want to fix that first. BLongley 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That would probably be more of a problem than having the award listed under the foreign title. It seems like maybe a "Feature Request" for sometime in the future, rather than worrying about it now. Chavey 17:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I found the bug record - - but haven't checked out whether it's still a problem. We may have fixed it during other recent work. (I hope so, as the Display logic is some of the stuff that still baffles me!) BLongley 18:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

As to adding all the missing years - I'd be very happy to let you do the work! ;-) Ahasuerus and I just want to make sure there's no possible data-corruption involved with the current tools, which are theoretically restricted to Al von Ruff alone, before we make them more generally available. I've raised the possibility of having you as one of the interested guinea-pigs - it doesn't have to be a Mod-only tool, Award Edits go through Moderation like most other types of submission, so we could allow selected users to submit such. There'll be a bit of a learning curve for the Moderators anyway, and the current approval screens are frankly baffling - but again, I have ideas for improving those. BLongley 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is certainly wise to tread carefully here. But I'll be ready when you are. I'm also on the board of advisors for the Carl Brandon Society Awards (for Spec-Fic by authors of color), so at some point in the future I'd like to work on getting those awards listed as well. Those awards didn't start until 2005, so we don't have a page for them yet, but I think they deserve one. Chavey 17:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We're inconsistent about how up-to-date we are with various awards - we do have some now more up-to-date than 2005, but those seem to depend on Al's time and priorities. New Award types like ones from the Carl Brandon Society are fine by me, but as I mentioned before, we probably need to make these more easily added and maintained than waiting a month for the back-log in development to be cleared. (OK, if I code this, there'll probably be a two month backlog, but it's all good in the longer view.) And we probably need to update various help-pages - I think one new paragraph should cover "If you want a new Award, fine, but YOU get to populate it!" ;-) BLongley 18:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, thanks again for all the comments - they've been really useful. They'll give me an excuse to avoid moderating all the Fairy books and Paranormal Romances for a while - too busy coding! ;-) BLongley 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Boy, what people will do to avoid the things they don't want to do :-). I, for example, should be finishing grading those final exams. :-( But I'm surrounded by books to enter &amp; verify! Chavey 17:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no rush - I've been here over four years and haven't verified all my stuff yet. Some newcomers are filling up all the "Primary" slots before I get to them, and I invented the extra ones! :-/ But I'm cool with that - I have 10 books next to me that I accidentally acquired on the way back from the doctor's today, and I can leave them for later. I think. BLongley 18:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

((Unindent)) If Ahasuerus got it right, you should now be our first Award-Editing-capable volunteer. If you can check it out and provide some feedback it would be appreciated - I presume the missing Tiptree awards will come first? I'm going to look into adding "Carl Brandon Society" as an option too, but there's a LOT of improvements still to be made, and much data-entry to be done. BLongley 10:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've entered all of the Tiptree Award winners and nominees that I can. I have a few books that I had to add to the system, and then I'll "award" them. I can't tell how to handle the two graphic novels that won, since we don't include them in the ISFDB. The system seems to work easily, although I'll make a few suggestions on the "Community Portal" discussion thread. Chavey 23:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Please do - sometimes our development and testing effort gets no comment, and we don't know if it's because we got it perfectly right or if it was just something that people are ignoring. Having moderated most of your "New Awards" though, the only complaint I have is that you got them all right - it's not till we have some people doing them wrong that we find out the big problems! ;-) BLongley 00:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * As to the graphic novels - you're right, we don't usually include them. There seem to be a few exceptions creeping in - authors "above a certain threshold" like Neil Gaiman, or really, really well known ones like "V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen" which got made into movies and probably have a novelisation of such. I don't want to open the floodgates on such, but perhaps we could allow just those two in. BLongley 00:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't know if you've had the time or inclination to look at recent software changes, given your self-imposed exile for January, but the Carl Brandon award is apparently now available. I haven't had time to test it out on the live server, so just thought I'd point this fact out to you directly, as the most-interested party ((IIRC). Hope the book is going well for you. DO remember to give us some feedback on the change, we've no idea whether it's what people (well, you alone, to be honest) actually wanted! BLongley 21:14, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The Fiction of James Tiptree, Jr
Added (poor quality) scan for your verified here. Not surprised that you're primary verifier ;-). Hauck 16:22, 19 May 2011 (UTC)


 * But even you may be surprised that, of a 1000 print run copy, I ended up with 4 of them :-)
 * I do have a ridiculous number of items in my Tiptree collection. Jeff Smith, who's the executor of her estate, might have more -- but I know that I have dozens of things he doesn't have, and a few publications that neither he nor her biographer knew about. Eventually, I'll get around to scanning in my covers, and I'll replace your scan, but that's going to take me a while. Chavey 22:54, 19 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I would recommend adding the stuff we haven't heard of before more editions of things we do have. No hurry - you do realise this is a job for life? ;-) BLongley 23:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Right now, I'm going through my "Spec-Fic books by women" in alphabetical order (I'm up to "Diana Wynne Jones"), entering stuff as I get to it -- both new works, extra editions, or whatever. Much of the Tiptree stuff that I have that others don't are things like letters in fanzines that ISFDB hasn't gotten around to indexing yet, where it doesn't make sense to start on a fanzine when I only have 1 or 2 issues. Other things I have, such as a movie of Alice (Sheldon) Bradley on her childhood trip to Africa, or a Canadian movie adaptation of a short story, or non-genre articles by Sheldon, are things that aren't appropriate to list on this site. I do have a bit more than half of the non-English translations of her books (43 such), and international collections that include her stories (105 such), and those are things that I should get around to adding. Of the 148 non-English items I have listed in my Tiptree bibliography, only 12 of them are listed in ISFDB, so I know I need to get to adding them, but handling all those anthologies & journals in languages that I don't read, or barely read, is going to take some work. But it is one of the things that's fairly high on my "ISFDB To Do List". Chavey 01:06, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I imagine Diana will keep you busy a while! A lovely lady, sorely missed. :-( I remember a time when she and I and my girlfriend of the time were breakfasting together at a convention - my girlfriend was totally tongue-tied at sitting down with a real-life author and I was just chatting away as normal. I think we spent more time discussing soy-milk than writing, she had no pretensions at all. BLongley 11:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree; a wonderful woman, although I only had a chance to talk to her a little once. From an indexing standpoint though, my collection of her books (somewhat light) was pretty gentle compared to Marion Zimmer Bradley and C. J. Cherryh. And the elephant in the room comes up in the M's, with Anne McCaffrey and Judith Merrill, not to mention Vonda McIntyre, Robin McKinley, and Patricia McKillip, followed very shortly by Andre Norton! Chavey 15:38, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I never met Bradley or Cherryh, although I do recall talking to Leslie Fish about how CJ was getting filkers published so they could join the SFWA. I think she might well be responsible for Mercedes Lackey getting started for instance, with "Merovingen Nights". Anne is another lovely person, so much enthusiasm - I have a feeling that age may be getting to her though, judging by the increasing number of collaborations. :-/ BLongley 16:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Here's a great MZB story. At the 1992 World Fantasy Convention, there was a Friday night gathering where all of the contributing authors to the convention's book who were present at the convention were supposed to sign copies.  Well, the conventioneers' copies of the book had not arrived, and everyone was grumbling about it.  I overheard Ms. Bradley, upon learning that the publishers went by the name of "Unnameable Press", said "I could think of a name or two for them!" Fortunately, the books arrived on Saturday so I was able to get my copy signed by about two dozen contributors. Mhhutchins 17:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)


 * A complete aside - do you think there may be a surname gender bias? My gut-feel is that there's a lot of "M" female SF authors whereas "S" is mostly male. BLongley 16:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Usually such impressions come from a limited sample space, and there aren't enough particularly well-known female authors for our intuitions to be an accurate measure. Some of the reasonably important female "S" authors are: Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Rhondi Vilott Salsitz, Pamela Sargent, Elizabeth Scarborough, Victoria Schochet, Jody Scott, Melissa Scott, Sheila Schwartz, Pamela Service, Nisi Shawl, Mary Shelley, Wilmar Shiras, A. E. Silas, Johanna Sinisalo, Joan Slonczewski, Kay Nolte Smith, Kristine Smith, Melinda Snodgrass, Midori Snyder, Nancy Springer, Margaret St. Clair, Mary Stewart, Charlotte Stone, Idella Purnell Stone, and Susanna Sturgis. But none of these authors fit under the "ridiculously prolific" category, which includes people like MZ Bradly, C.J. Cherryh, Anne McCaffrey, Ursula Le Guin, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jane Yolan, and maybe a few others. But the fact that there are so few such very prolific female authors means that our impressions aren't statistically very reliable. Chavey 16:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

The Starry Rift
Hi, I added a scan for The Starry Rift (SPhere 1988). I also gave Dave Archer as artist, the same artist as the Tor edition, as only the design of the Sphere edition differs from the Tor ones, it is the same illustration.--Dirk P Broer 09:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good. The design of the covers is so different, that I hadn't noticed that it was the same underlying artwork; thanks for pointing that out. Chavey 13:41, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I saw the Make Variant submission that you cancelled. I was going to put it on hold and ask: why not just merge the two?  I figured I might as well ask anyway. :-)  --MartyD 01:47, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think the art is close enough to do a merge. If someone else wants to, they can. But I won't. Chavey 01:52, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Tiptree
I guessed the missing graphic titles were "Ooku: The Inner Chambers, volumes 1 & 2" by "Fumi Yoshinaga" and "Y: The Last Man" by "Brian K. Vaughan"? I've added those so they should appear on the annual awards page, and in the latter case on the author's award page. What were the other things you couldn't add? BLongley 16:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and while checking some of the above, I found that in 2007 "Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom" by "Karen Miller" was listed. That looks like two books to me? BLongley 16:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You're correct about the two graphic novels. We could add them to the database as "exceptions" to the rule about not including graphic novels, or leave them as you have them entered. I'm unsure myself which way to recommend. You were right about "The Riven Kingdom", and I've submitted a NewAward to correct that. I have a few other publications which I'm still working on (going through NewPubs, MergePubs, Variants, etc. before actually entering the awards). The other oddity is a "Special Mention" award given to "Regender", a software program at Regender.com. The award is mentioned on the Tiptree "2005 Long List", but was presented separately as a "Special Mention" award, along with Nisi Shawl's "Writing the Other", which I'll be adding shortly. Another one that's odd is the "Special Honor" award given in 2009 to L. Timmel Duchamp's Marq'ssan Cycle title series, i.e. to the series, and not to the individual books in the series. By the way, I meet with the Tiptree Committee next weekend, so I'm going to be really pleased to pass on to them what you and I have done here. Thanks! Chavey 17:28, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * You're welcome - it's always good to work with an enthusiastic editor on a new area. I'll see if we can address the remaining problems before then - if it's a mod-only thing it should be possible, it it requires software changes they'll take a bit longer, we have a bit of a back-log there. But don't let that put you off suggesting stuff! BLongley 18:07, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm holding off on actually creating any formal Feature Requests, since you're working away at so much of what I've suggested, but eventually I'll turn remaining suggestions into FR's. And I'll admit to being enthusiastic :-) Last night we had our weekly D &amp; D game, and I was showing off the ISFDB &amp; the awards pages to them. They approved, and the Big Time Fan there (3-time Fan GOH at various cons) was particularly impressed. Chavey 18:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, and I think you mentioned a web page that won an award, or is that actually for the software program? I think we'd either treat it as a publication, now some web-based stuff is allowed, or try and allow awards for entire sites, like here. And I'm sure Al von Ruff would like us to be considered for other awards, we haven't won anything for years! BLongley 18:07, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the "Regender" web page I listed above. It's both a web page and the software behind that page. And while we haven't won anything for Al (et. al.) lately, we did get that great comment in Locus about us being the place to go for such questions! Chavey 18:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) In related news, I have approved the addition of Writing the Other and changed the title type from NONGENRE to NONFICTION. "NONGENRE" is currently limited to non-SF novels, which is somewhat limiting, but it's the best we can do with the current database structure. Ahasuerus 23:13, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. It's of particular interest to writers of spec-fic, so it seems appropriate. It also won a "Special Mention" from the Tiptree Award, one of only two non-fiction books to get such an award (the other being Tiptree's biography). Chavey 23:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Another question: Do you happen to know what kind of work "Five Guys Named Moe" by Sean Klein is? You entered is a non-bibliographic award, so I assume that it's a comic or some such. I see that it's listed in the Locus award database and elsewhere, but there is no indication whether it's prose or something else. Ahasuerus 23:13, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It was on online publication, originally hosted on SciFi.com, but they removed all their online writing back in 2007 or so. The short story is still available at the SciFi.com archive maintained by other folks, but that's not one of the websites that we include in the ISFDB pubs, so it seemed inappropriate to add it as a publication record. But if you wanted to add a link from the award list to that web site, I would endorse that step. Personally, I hate the graphic background on that page; it makes reading a pain, but I don't know of a better site to link to. Chavey 23:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I have made some changes and posted the results on the Moderator Noticeboard for discussion. Ahasuerus 02:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I see that it features President Joe McCarthy, an interesting twist. I guess June-July 1953 would be a plausible point of divergence. Suppose (1) it's Roy Cohn who resigns instead of RFK (so no Dave Schine episode and no Army-McCarthy hearings) and (2) J. B. Matthews never makes the "Reds in Our Churches" faux pas and succeeds in bringing order to PSI. McCarthy manages to keep his high approval rating (50% in January 1954) and is well positioned to become a viable candidate after Ike's heart attack in 1955, splitting the Catholic vote and so on. Hmm, it's a thought. You'd have to do something drastic to get Joe to stop drinking in 1953, though, or else he will self-destruct by 1956 one way or another. Ahasuerus 23:13, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Diverges on April 23, 1955. And Joe dies of liver failure in 1957. So you got those points right :-) Chavey 23:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I just read the story and April 23, 1955 is when it starts rather than the point of divergence. The POD is apparently early 1952 since the story mentions that "some have wondered how the world would be different if General Eisenhower had accepted the GOP's offer to run for president instead of remaining the leader of NATO." The next sentence, however, is so bizarre that I am not sure what to make of it: "But after McCarthy cleaned up commies in the Senate, America decided he was the man to take on Khrushchev". At the time of the 1952 election the Soviet leader was Stalin, not Khrushchev. Stalin died in March 1953 and was succeeded by a "collective leadership" headed by Georgy Malenkov. Malenkov, however, failed to consolidate his position and was demoted in early 1955. Khrushchev eventually emerged victorious, but in 1952 he was just one of Stalin's minions. Oh well, another AH that gets its history wrong, nothing to get excited about... Ahasuerus 02:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

ISSNs
should not be entered into the ISBN/Catalog # field. Feel free to record them in the pub's note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Got it. I'll probably move it to the general page on the magazine. I just couldn't figure out what to put in that field. Checking other examples, I see that field is normally left blank. Chavey 01:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It doesn't really do any harm to leave it in, it's just that it varies so infrequently it seems pointless to record it on every issue. We must get round to suppressing the "Bibliographic Warnings: Missing ISBN/Catalog #" message that comes up when you don't put it in though. BLongley 21:10, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Paradox
Can you check the spelling of the cover art credit for this issue? Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * PS Will you be entering the contents for these issues? Mhhutchins 01:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I copied the cover art credit from Locus1, but as you noticed, they spelled it wrong. I corrected that. Yes, I intend to be adding the contents, as I said in the "Notes to the Moderator" :-) Chavey 01:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed the note. Gonna have to start paying more attention to the new features we're getting slammed with lately.  Love it, though. Mhhutchins 01:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I approved the content additions, but I think some of the interviews -- those credited to "Anonymous" and to "Miscellaneous" -- should be recorded differently. I doubt either of those is the actual credit in the magazine.  If there's no apparent credit, I think these should all use "uncredited" until/unless we can find out otherwise.  It may be possible to contact the editor and ask, if you want to try that.  --MartyD 10:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Kissing the Witch
Would you object to my adjusting the publisher of this book to "Joanna Cotler Books / HarperCollins"? Yours is one of the few primary verified books under this imprint and I thought you should know of my efforts to bring them all under the same name. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem! Chavey 01:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, just need one more verifier's OK and I'll do a mass change for the publisher. Mhhutchins 01:13, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Completed Sidewise Award, and Paradox Magazine
I've finished entering all of the Sidewise Awards, except for one which requires a content listing not in the ISFDB nor in Locus1. My local library has the book ("New Amsterdam", by Elizabeth Bear), but it's checked out. I have it on reserve. In the process of entering these awards, I needed 3 entries from "Paradox" magazine, which we did not have in the system. So I entered all of the issues, and essentially all of the contents. That felt good. Chavey 01:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Quite satisfying, isn't it? :-) Almost makes you want to tackle this site and cope with the other dozen or two awards we don't have yet. :-/ BLongley 23:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, yes, I've been thinking about it. I off to WisCon tomorrow, but I've been thinking about doing some analysis of what other awards we should include. For example, should we do national awards from other countries? (I spent a few hours yesterday cleaning up the Wikipedia category listing on this, but there are some Wikipedia doesn't know about.) What about regional awards? Awards for best fanzines? Should we include awards that go to authors/artists, as opposed to their books &amp; stories? I'd asked you before about adding the Carl Brandon Society awards, but it seems that before you do that, we should have a more general discussion about what classes of awards we want to include. Chavey 23:42, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * "Carl Brandon Society awards" would be fairly easy to add, but only if Ahasuerus puts a code-change in. Or several - I think we could split it into those using the web-interface and those using the Web-API for instance. And make the list of allowable awards maintainable - we could add one at a time as we find volunteers. I've just called for one more to join in, as he seems to have "Tagged" a load of stuff that we're now covering with Award-Editing. Still, we're only just getting to grips with all the recent improvements, we might need to pause a bit and let people catch up. BLongley 00:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Worlds End And After
I have the submission that would add this as a new pub on hold. It looks like it may already be in the database as Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past . Its pub record (verified by you) was under the parent title, though, so I have moved it to the Variant Title. Or did I misunderstand and there is another publication for this title that you were trying to add? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks like I tried to do too many things at once. I was trying to update the publication record, but also correcting the title. The book listed as Worlds End And After should not be listed that way. Both the cover and the title page list it as Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past. That pub record should exist, as a variant of The Turning Place. There should be no pub record for a book titled Worlds End And After (by Jean Karl). I realize now that I should have changed the title in the title record, not in the publication record. I can clean that up with a few more submissions. Chavey 23:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (Unless you want to fix it up) Chavey 23:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I am probably too tired tonight to do it justice, so I simply let it through for your review. Looking at the result, it would appear that we want to change the title of the verified pub from Worlds End And After to Worlds End And After: Stories of a Future Past and delete the unverified pub. Ahasuerus 02:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. Chavey 03:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Rider & Co.
Hi. What do you think about making the publisher on be just Rider? --MartyD 01:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. Chavey 01:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Artwork in The Land of Really True
Should the interiorart in be titled "The Land of Really True" instead of "The Land of Never Was"? --MartyD 02:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. That's what I get for re-starting a second NewPub by using the first one :-(
 * I'll fix that up. Chavey 02:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

"Katherine kerr" pseudonym submission
I'm going to reject the submission making "Katherine kerr" [sic] into a pseudonym of Katharine Kerr. There are no records published under that name. It exists in the db solely due to a review in this pub. You'll need to contact the verifier of that review and ask that he adjust the review to credit it to the canonical name. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Fixed. I apologise for the non-regularised form of the name - they really did did call her "Katherine" though. No contact necessary in this case, although I would appreciate such in future. I'm only human and do need to learn from my mistakes still. BLongley 23:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Shaper's Legacy
Added an image [not the greatest but best of the four I could find] to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Ditto for [Shaping the Dawn] --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Emma Donoghue's The Tale of ... stories
There are quite a few duplicate title records for 's short fiction. They are all associated with the two publications of this collection (the second of which you verified). The records for the first publication list the dates as "1997-05-00" and the lengths as "ss". The records for your verified publication list the dates as "1997-00-00" and the lengths as "sf". I believe the dates should be "1997-05-00", but am uncertain about the length. As modifying these records would require notifying you as a verifier anyway, I thought I'd just bring it here and ask if you wouldn't mind double checking and then merging these. Thanks. --JLaTondre 13:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for pointing that out. I have verified the "1997-05-00" date and the "ss" listings on all the stories, and done the title merges. Chavey 02:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Acolytes of Cthulhu
Accepted update for [this]. Locus has the contents, artist [Gahan Wilson], though a different month. FYI --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * This evening I'm just working on Amazon covers. One of these days I'll spend more time on Locus content copying. But I updated the cover artist, publication month, page count, and cover price (the previous entry disagreed with Locus) from Locus. Chavey 02:35, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Possible Aldiss vt
Hello Darrah. In your verified here, the Aldiss story is titled _Ten-Story Jigsaw_ but in the first publication here, it's _Ten-Storey Jigsaw_. Can you have look at your anthology to see if a vt is needed. Thanks. Hervé Hauck 15:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)


 * In both the table of contents and the title page for the story it's "Ten-Story Jigsaw", so the VT is necessary. It looks to me like someone has already set that up. Chavey 17:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks. Hauck 17:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I should have mentioned that on the copyright page, it lists it as "Ten-Storey", so they appear to have recognized the difference between British and American spelling, and made the change consciously. Chavey 17:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The Dazzle of Day
I saw the two pub records, and  you verified for The Dazzle of Day. One puzzle is the statements
 * does not include a dedication "For Ed  kamarado"
 * does not include the dedication to "To Ed"

I grabbed a random book and was astonished to see that it too does not include a dedication "For Ed!" Maybe you meant that one of the two does include the dedication? FWIW, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031286437X has an Amazon Look Inside that seems to be different than the two you verified.


 * {| border=1

! Publication !! Price !! First hc !! First tp !! Dedication
 * || $12.95 || mentioned || April 1998 || does not include a dedication "For Ed   kamarado"
 * || $13.95 || none   || March 1998 || does not include the dedication to "To Ed"
 * Amazon      || $13.95  || May 1997  || March 1998 || unknown
 * }
 * Amazon      || $13.95  || May 1997  || March 1998 || unknown
 * }
 * }
 * }

Perhaps you mean for 38125 "That edition does not mention the earlier hc edition" rather than "This edition does not mention the earlier hc edition?" --Marc Kupper|talk 03:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for pointing out that I had flubbed those two comments. I have re-written them to be more accurate and, I hope, easier to figure out. Please let me know if I was succesful. Chavey 12:42, 5 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's better plus you apparently found that the they have different first hardcover edition dates too! I suspect it would be less confusing if you just documented what each publication says and don't try to compare the two. We know we have:
 * First Hardcover Edition: May 1997 First Trade Paperback Edition: March 1998 Printed in the United States of America  D10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 * And to note there's another Tor Trade Paperback edition that also reports it's a first printing though it has a different price, a different First Hardcover Edition date, and different First Trade Paperback Edition date. The local library has copies of the hardcover edition and so I'll take a look to see what it says. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The library book came in but it turns out to be a trade paperback edition. This one is the $13.95 version. I've e-mailed them to see if the copy they have at another branch is the hc or tp edition. --Marc Kupper|talk 22:36, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Dark Universe submission
Your Dark Universe submission from Stealth seems to be a duplicate of, although yours has October instead of September and doesn't have any price. What do you think? --MartyD 10:52, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * And the Leisure Books submission likewise seems to be a duplicate of . --MartyD 10:54, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * You're correct, of course. I was mislead by the title page for Dark Universe, which had no entries in it, so I checked it out and added a couple -- while blindly not noticing that it was a VT. It does seem odd, though, that it's a VT with no entries. I assume it's because of a review, or something. But if there's a way to fix that, I suggest that you might consider it. Chavey 13:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Another example of the same phenomena is with the title page for Great Science Fiction Stories of 1939 as by Martin H. Greenberg. No actual editions are listed there, and it looks like a spurious record, until you follow the VT. This seems like the type of record that's ripe for confusion. When I run across such books, is there anything I can do to fix them so they look more natural? Chavey 14:04, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Dark Universe exists because of the reviews (this and this). According to Help:Screen:EditPub the reviews should use the canonical title instead, with a note in the pub containing the review stating the title used on the review.  We could then delete the variant, as nothing will use it any longer.  Your Asimov / Greenberg example is more complicated, but similar.  There are three reviews of the title as by Martin H. Greenberg, but no publication.  You'd have to seek further opinions about this one.  I'd go with the use-the-canonical-name-and-note-the-actual-name-used approach, but it may be you should do something else (like record the name used, since we have a pseudonym set up, but link to the canonical title).  But I am not an expert on review handling.  --MartyD 02:47, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Treading the Past
I accepted the submission for this pub, but feel a few changes are in order. The publisher should be Enigmatic Press based on this Amazon.co.uk listing. The Amazon.com listing for a distribution of the UK printing by Firebird in the US. You will find corroboration and additional information in the OCLC record. You should also note the source for your data or do primary verification if you have the book in hand. (I noticed the absence of source on a few submissions for these award-nominated pubs you've been entering lately. Can I assume that Amazon was the data source for this record?) Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:58, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you had a chance to look over this message and be able to respond? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 14:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I missed this message; thanks for the reminder. This last week I was looking for collections &amp; anthologies without cover images, and adding those images when Amazon had them. That doesn't require source data. But I also ran across several of those "empty record" entries (from a book review or an award, when the book isn't in the system), so I added those books when I found such entries, but on several of those I forgot to add source data. A check shows I forgot to source the data on 8 of my last 21 NewPubs. I'll try to do better on that. (I added that note to those 8.) Chavey 02:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Christmas Trees and Monkeys by Daniel G. Keohane
I'm holding a submission adding a new pub to this title. It's very similar to the other one that you submitted here. The difference is the date (January/November) and one has an ISBN while the other has an ASIN in the ISBN field. This submission appears to be based solely on Amazon's stub record here, which may have been based on a publisher's announcement. This would have been followed up by a listing of the actual published book. I don't believe both Amazon listings should be reflected as two different records in the ISFDB. Mhhutchins 21:10, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That seems like a likely explanation to me. I'm cancelling the submission. Chavey 00:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Endless Voyage
New image, slightly expanded notes, artist from secondary source for [Endless Voyage] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Stormqueen!
New image, slightly expanded notes; added interior art and author's note to contents for [Stormqueen!] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

We Who Are About To..., or, When It Changed
Hi, I have a question as to which of the above mentioned publications received a retro Tiptree Award. here says When It Changed, but here says We Who Are About To... Would you know what is true here?--Dirk P Broer 15:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * When It Changed. There was some confusion, even among members of the Tiptree Motherboard, and it got listed incorrectly in various places (even in their own material, as you noticed). But I forced the issue with them, and they finally went back to their original notes (last month!) and verified that they had voted in When It Changed. They are aware that they have an error on their web page. They're in the process of changing the company that handles their web creation, and will probably fix that after they've completed the change. Chavey 16:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I should add that the ISFDB awards list has it right! Chavey 16:36, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Gosh, that means that I edited both Wikipedia and the FeministSF Wiki to contain wrong data about both "When It Changed" and "We Who Are About To...". Never too late to make my wrongs right though! Thanks for solving this matter, --Dirk P Broer 18:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * And I'm glad you caught that! Chavey 19:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Day Dark, Night Bright
I had to reject your update of this pub. It would have added this illustration, which is clearly not from a Leiber book. The ISBN is probably wrong (I think we got it from Locus1). I found this amazon title, and added the illustration and a note about the ISBN. Can you agree? Thanks, --Willem H. 12:42, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. I found another bad ISBN as I was looking for covers, but apparently I missed this one. Thanks, Chavey 14:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Retief!
Turns out that the secondary image on Amazon was the correct one, not the "Search Inside" image. I've added it to the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I wondered about the difference between those two pictures, but I thought the "official" one would have been correct. Thanks for finding that. Chavey 00:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Miracle Workers
Did you intend "464" to be the page count and not the artist in the update for this pub? Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:26, 10 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup. My bad. Correction submitted. Chavey 00:09, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The World Wreckers (cover artist)
Hi, cover of The World Wreckers is signed "Melvyn", as used by Melvin Grant (he did quite a few covers in this series).--Dirk P Broer 13:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for solving that mystery! Chavey 13:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Dirk had submitted an update to the notes identifying the signature, which I accepted. Then I came across your similar update.  Since the first was a little more specific, I left that and rejected yours.  Please adjust the notes if you think what is there is not appropriate.  Thanks.  --MartyD 14:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. Chavey 16:02, 11 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Supplied a scan as well for .--Dirk P Broer 15:28, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Asimov's Undergraduate Award
I'm afraid you've run into two known bugs. You can't have an ampersand in the award category so "Undergraduate Excellence in SF & Fantasy Writing" is a no-no: all the Moderator will see is "XML PARSE ERROR". And apostrophes are out too - '--- 'Honorable Mention' ---' gets the software confused as to where the string terminates. BLongley 14:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, how did you even submit the 'Honorable Mentions'? I get a Python Error if I try to replicate it. Did you use backslashes to escape the quotes? BLongley 14:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I submitted it as: 	--- Honorable Mention ---, trying to get italics. In other words, no backslashes, but a double apostrophe. I now realize that I shouldn't have expected that to work. I just resubmitted the winner and runner ups, using &amp; amp; in the award category. If that works, I can resubmit the honorable mentions using 	--- Honorable Mention --- . Basically, I'm just trying to imitate what had been set up for the previous years awards. But I was careful to only do one year, 'cuz I thought there might be problems. Chavey 14:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I approved the three new additions but they don't seem to have taken. I'm not sure why yet, will try and replicate it locally. BLongley 15:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Darkmage by Hambly
Can you see if the statement "Book Club Edition" appears on the front flap of the dustjacket of this pub? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 13:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes it does. Chavey 17:14, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking. I'm trying to determine the approximate period in which the statement was removed from BCEs. Mhhutchins 02:26, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

'Ware Hawk
New image and added notes [there were none] to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Award submission rejects
I had to reject several submissions due to a bug, which is discussed somewhere on the community pages. Even when they were accepted, they remained in the submission queue. Please resubmit once it's been determined what may be causing the error. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No problem. After seeing the discussion on the moderator board, I expected that. Chavey 04:31, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think I've solved it but Ahasuerus still needs to check it. In other news, I'm close to overloading him with a mass of changes that will allow new Award Types to be created as and when we get volunteers to work on each one. But Ahasuerus is also looking at improved foreign language support which might be a desirable feature before we open up the flood-gates to lots more non-English awards. BLongley 16:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

What If?
I accepted the submissions of the What If? anthologies, but still wonder if the contents should be entered as short fiction or essays. I'd asked as a response to your original inquiry on the Community Portal page if you were certain because you had primary evidence of their nature or based on other secondary sources. Most of the sources I've been able to check give them as essays. Even the titles would suggest that, unless most of the authors have a serious deficiency in the naming of fiction pieces. :) Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:06, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I just got copies of the books from the library today (which shelves them as non-fiction). I'm going to look at them in the next day or so to see what their format is, then update them appropriately. Chavey 05:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Format for map entries
Re this recently accepted publication: as discussed earlier, the format should be "TITLE (map)". Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:04, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I keep confusing it with "Intro (Title)". I know you gave me the reason that they're different, which made sense at the time, but it just doesn't sink in. Chavey 20:59, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Think of a map as an illustration which types it as interiorart. All interiorart gets the name of the work which illustrates it...thus "TITLE (map)".  All essay types are given the exact title which is stated in the publication.  So if an essay is titled "Introduction" we have to give it that title.  We only add the title to disambiguate it, no other reason.  If an introduction is titled "You're Gonna Love This Book" that's how we title the essay record without having to disambiguate it.  The "(map)" at the end of an interiorart record isn't there to disambiguate...it's only there to indicate that this is a specialized interiorart record.  You'd do the same if it were a frontispiece as in "TITLE (frontispiece)". Mhhutchins 21:18, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll explain it the same but differently. We append the publication title to the Introduction essay otherwise when you looked at an author or editor's bibliography you'd see Introduction, Introduction, Introduction, ... and would need to click on each to discover what they are introductions for. The word "Introduction" is taken from how it's titled in the publication. If someone calls it "Author's Note" then that's what we would record an in the case of the book I have in hand at the moment it would be "Author's Note (The Dazzle of Day)".


 * Interior art is more complicated. Most illustrations do not have a title meaning we enter the the title from the publication or story the illustration is with. If an illustration has a title then we would use that. We don't have sub-types in ISFDB to allow us to note that it's a frontispiece, map, etc. and so append the type to the title. I can't think of *why* we append the type other than that's the way someone did it long ago and we adopted it as a convention. Just to mess with our heads, COVERART titles are constructed with "Cover: " followed by the publication title. That's a historical thing and, fortunately, ISFDB takes care of it for us. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:40, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * To some extent anyway - it seems clear that COVERART has a whole set of bugs of its own. :-/ (Dates not automatically adjusted when you adjust the pub date, "authors" left behind after removal as cover artist, etc.) I tried some Award editing for Artwork and found that we are sadly lacking in recording artists even for work in publications we DO have. Not a priority for me, but something to bear in mind. BLongley 03:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you, this makes it clear to me -- especially the rule "If it has a title, use the title; otherwise use the publication title." I think I can grasp onto that :-) Chavey 00:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The Dazzle of Day (cover artist)
What's the source of the Shelley Eshkar cover artist credit for your verified ? I have a copy from the public library and can't spot the cover artist credit. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:43, 15 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The artist was already listed when I verified the book, it wasn't something I added. And neither of my editions credit the cover artist either. The source of the credit appears to be Locus1. Chavey 00:34, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

My Death
What is the source for the price you've provided in this record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:27, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The price was already in the record for that book. Presumably, that price was posted from Locus1. I'll add that source to the record. Chavey 05:49, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #1
You updated this pub twice. Both submissions added "Poems of Robert Burns". Mhhutchins 06:04, 16 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops. When I change a submission to add more data, I usually remember to cancel the earlier submission. Chavey 06:23, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The Secret River
There's already a record in the database for this publication. I know, because I created it last month based on a review in the May issue of Locus. Mhhutchins 20:46, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that a 56 page book should probably be entered as a chapterbook, not a novel. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, of course. I looked under "Marjorie Rawlings," so I missed the entry for "Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings". And you're right, of course, about the chapterbook entry. I don't enter those very often, so I forget about them. Chavey 20:52, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I've done the same thing a time or two when I'm searching for authors. You ever notice how many spec-fic writers use middle initials? It doesn't seem to be as prevalent in the mainstream. Mhhutchins 22:10, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Orsinian Tales
I'm assuming you meant "wraparound cover art" in the note field of this publication. :) Mhhutchins 22:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's true. I hadn't thought about the difference before. A quick check shows 122 books listed with "Wraparound cover" and only 28 listed with "Wraparound cover art", so it seems I was using the norm. Do you think we should change them all to "cover art"? It wouldn't be that hard to do, and it's more grammatically correct. Chavey 22:11, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd never noticed before this submission. It's understood by most of us that it means that the artwork wraps around the cover.  I pity the person who is so unfamiliar with books that they wouldn't know that all covers wraparound. :) Feel free to change the records if you have the time and inclination to do so. Mhhutchins 22:18, 19 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, but lots of books warn you, essentially, that if the cover doesn't wrap around (to the front) that "you should be aware that this book is stolen property" :-)   And we certainly wouldn't want to encourage that type of behavior! Chavey 22:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

"The Word for World Is Forest"
This story was discussed several years ago with the conclusion that the book publications are the same as the novella. Thus, all book publications should be entered as chapterbooks, with a content record for the novella. If you believe they're different and have done a side-by-side comparison of the two texts (the novella and the book version) we would have to change all the book publication records from chapterbooks to novels. Was this the basis for your submission to change this title record to the NOVEL type? Mhhutchins 00:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It was just hard to believe that a 169 page book would be called a Chapterbook. If that's really the case, then it seems like there's an awful lot of other books that should be converted to chapterbooks. Maybe I'll take on the comparison with the novella version. Chavey 00:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * If a story is first published in an anthology and wins a Hugo for best novella, is nominated for a Nebula as a novella, and comes in first place in the Locus Poll in the novella category, we handle it as a novella. If it were first published as a 169 page book, we would have probably left it as a novel.  For example, most of the halfs of Ace Doubles are actually novellas, but they were published first as novels and that's how we kept them.  There was a tremendous debate years ago that pretty much divided the editors down the middle.  It got to the point where we started labeling the split: the Lengthists versus the Bookists. :) The compromise between the groups was the creation of title records for chapterbooks. Mhhutchins 00:45, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The foregoing is moot if it's determined that the book publication expanded upon the novella version. I don't have a book of the story, or I would have done a comparison before now. Mhhutchins 00:49, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I did a comparison by counting paragraphs, which should be accurate insofar as deciding whether Ursula expanded the work. I counted 665 paragraphs in the "Again, Dangerous Visions" anthology, and 659 paragraphs in the book version. That's clearly within the accuracy of doing a quick count by hand, so it's obvious that the book version is not an expanded version of the novella. So, abiding by the previous compromise, it must remain a Chapterbook. Thank you for the explanation. Chavey 01:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for doing the comparison. That pretty much settles the debate about this title. Now about the other hundred or so... Mhhutchins 01:36, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Catwings Return
The submissions changing the pubs of this title into chapterbooks were accepted, but I had to go back and add a chapterbook content/title record for each one. In order for a chapterbook to be complete, it has to have both a shortfiction content record and a chapterbook content/title record (if it's fiction.) Mhhutchins 00:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I wasn't sure if that was handled automatically, so I was going to check on that afterwards. Thanks for correcting that, and I'll try to remember that. Chavey 00:35, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The change in chapterbooks that I spoke of above resulted in the automatic creation of chapterbook title records when a new book is entered into the database. But it must be done manually when a record is changed. Mhhutchins 00:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Stellar #2
Replaced the amazon scan for your verified here. Hauck 14:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Much nicer. Chavey 14:14, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Testing?
I know I mentioned this on Talk:Awards, but thought I'd repeat the question here. Do you, or any of your students/colleagues/acquaintances have the skills and time to try out the backlog of Development Changes we have? You're obviously interested in the Award Changes, but you have also mentioned knowing people with more language skills than I have. (Which isn't that difficult to be honest, I was only ever taught French and Latin as additional languages and failed both.) We're close to improved Language support and improved Award Support and I know that both will stretch our current set of Editors and Moderators, so the earlier we get people on board the better. I'm already dreading what Alibinoflea will do when the tools come online, as his native language isn't even in an alphabet I can read! ;-) BLongley 19:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Right now my students are all away on summer break, so aren't available for such work. The SF fans in my club have competence in languages such as French, Spanish, Croatian, Serbian, Arabic, Japanese, and probably others as well. I have lots of Chinese speakers, although not SF fans, but there will be little enough work in Chinese that I'm sure I can get some of them to help me. I'm pretty good at French, and can handle most of the Romance languages as well. I can do work now, but I won't really be able to get students to work in the other languages (except for Spanish -- I have one student who might be willing to start work right away). Chavey 01:08, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The next big change for Language support is now live - people can record a language against a title. We haven't done any mass updates - Ahasuerus is wary of such, and I am too when it comes to languages - but if you can identify the sort of things you or your fellow fans could work on I can try and do project pages for the manual workarounds. The simple ones are just changing the title language, if that's originally not English. The more complicated ones are finding the non-English titles that until now have had to be under the English Title. We could do something with ISBN prefixes fairly easily, non-ISBNed titles will be much harder. And we haven't done the Award improvements yet, so although I have played about with "Imaginaire" awards today I haven't been moving awards to a French Variant of an English title or vice versa - yet! BLongley 23:29, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Robert Burns' Poems of Robert Burns
In, there are duplicate entries for "Poems of Robert Burns". Is that intentional? --JLaTondre 20:37, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * No it wasn't. There are three poems, and if they were spec fic, I would have listed them separately, but since they aren't, I only intended to list it as a single item (with a title note about the three titles). Thanks for catching my mistake. Chavey 00:35, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Moongather
Added an image and expanded notes slightly for [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

High Sorcery
Added month of publication to [this]. '79 fifth printing has a complete printing history. --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Interiorart title record unmerge
Before accepting the submission to unmerge an interiorart record, I need to know if there will be a follow-up submission. 99% of the time, it's better to remove a title from a pub, rather than unmerge a pub from a title record (which is basically what this function does.) There are particular bugs associated with this function that might make it better to use the remove function. Mhhutchins 21:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The submission is gone. I see you cancelled it.  In the words of Emily Latella, "Never mind." Mhhutchins 21:45, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I realized I had confused the cover artist with the interior artist. Chavey 21:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Voodoo Wife
I accepted your submission before realizing you'd made this title record a variant of itself. I've remove the variant and deleted it. Mhhutchins 22:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops! I've tried that one again, this time I'm pretty sure I connected it to the correct parent. Chavey 22:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith: His Universe and Times
A few months ago you started this discussion. I wasn't sure then, but something was wrong with the solution. So I ordered a copy of the Vorkosigan Companion, compared this with my copy of Dreamweaver's Dilemma and did some additional research. I.m.o. the confusion lies in the fact that "timelines" has two different components. First there is the (uncredited) essay Miles Vorkosigan/Naismith: His Universe and Times and second the "interior art" piece by Suford Lewis. Authorship of the essay is best explained on Bujold's website here, where is stated that it was originally created for Baen's website in 1996, and later additions were by Michael Bernardi. Lower on the page is © 1996-2002 by Lois McMaster Bujold & Baen Books / Current version by Michael Bernardi. I think this means the printed versions of the essay are by Lois McMaster Bujold and Michael Bernardi (as uncredited). Before I change anything, does that make sense? --Willem H. 18:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks to me like you have found the correct answer to this bit of confusion. I encourage you to go ahead and make your suggested changes. What I don't know is whether it's worth the effort to construct two title records, one "by Bujold" and one "by Bujold and Bernardi", or whether it's better to create a single title record by both and include a title note that "some early versions of this are by Bujold only". It seems likely that different printings of the same book might have different versions. I have two copies of Falling Free -- a 1991 version with no included timeline, and a 1999 printing with one. So they were certainly updating whether or not a book included a timeline, and hence probably updating the timelines with later printings. I did a check of the 3 timelines that I have, comparing them to the web page you linked to, and got the following versions:

 1997: The Warrior's Apprentice, 6th printing. Has all Web timeline entries up to age 29. 1999: Falling Free, 5th printing. Has all Web timelines up to the first age 30 entry. 2001: Ethan of Athos, 6th printing. Same as previous one, but also has the age 31 entry. 
 * But, as I say, I don't know how we would be able to assign some versions to Bujold only, and some to Bujold/Bernardi. Chavey 23:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response. I asked Hervé and Dana Carson to comment, and if they don't disagree I will make the neccesary changes (and add notes, good suggestion). I'll keep you informed. --Willem H. 19:20, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hervé agrees, and Dana Carson didn't respond, so I made the neccesary changes. I added notes to essay. Is that enough? (I tend to use as few words as possible) :-) --Willem H. 15:23, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The notes look good. But I wonder about which publications are listed under the Bujold/Bernardi credit title record and which are listed under the uncredited title record. As I understand the situation, pretty much all of them should be listed under the uncredited title record, with the VT connecting them to the "true authors". Chavey 19:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * All publications are under one of the three "uncredited" variants. I agree, there's no easy way to check this, just count the pubs under the variant titles (3 + 4 + 20) and compare with the Bujold/Bernardi credit (27). Thanks, --Willem H. 19:28, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Mary (Hunter) Austin
I've jiggered the way the db handles the story "The Readjustment" and its author. Because "Mary Austin" was used as a pseudonym by another author, I chose to make it a pseudonym as well for this author, making her full name, instead of the dated one, into her canonical one. Let me know what you think. If you feel the dated one is better, we can always switch it back. Mhhutchins 23:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that was a good solution. Chavey 01:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Data from book sellers' ads
If at all possible, please use book sellers listings as the last resort when you're researching publication data. Some are more reliable than others, e.g. Lloyd Currey, but most are not as dependable. Your note that the source is a book seller does nothing to help subsequent users of the db determine the record's reliability. There is an OCLC record for the 1875 Harper & Brothers edition of The Little Lame Prince and another one for an undated Manhattan Press edition of The Little Lame Prince and His Traveling-Cloak. The latter is part of the Wonderland series, according to OCLC. Research has shown many books in this series published by Manhattan Press. Perhaps it was a subsidiary of Harper & Brothers? Mhhutchins 23:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Michael, I was going to do more digging after approving the submissions, but got distracted. COPAC lists quite a few editions, so it would be a good place to check. Ahasuerus 01:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak
I'm holding a submission that wants to add a book with this title to the title record for The Little Lame Prince. This should have been entered as a new novel, and then its title record should be made into a variant of the original title, or vice versa, depending upon which is the canonical title. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, you fail to give the source for your data. Mhhutchins 23:57, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Archer's cover art for The Starry Rift
I'm holding the submission to make one of two identical records a variant of the other. In ISFDB terms variant means one of two things (99% of the time): 1) there is a change in author/artist credit or 2) there is a change in title. Because these two records are identical in both credit and title, the best procedure is to merge the records. The art work is identical as well, but I see that the two publishers have chosen a different approach in how to present the work in each publication. We ordinarily don't consider this as a reason to variant the records. It would lead each editor in cases where art is used on a later printing of the same title to make a subjective decision about how much a difference one work is from the other. Perhaps the color tinting and/or shading is different, the text is placed in a different area, much of the original artwork has been cropped, etc. That would be overkill. We don't even make a variant when a story has been revised, if it keeps the same author credit and title. Artwork is even less important than that in the ISFDB scheme of things. It would be too much to ask an editor to choose which variant to place an artwork record under. Mhhutchins 23:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Submission cancelled. Chavey 01:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Links to Locus1
Interior links to the Locus online database are not stable. They move based on additional data being continually recorded to each page. So if a page in the Locus database has particularly heavy edits, it's possible that the anchors placed on records at the bottom of the page will not shift when the records move to the next page. That's why we recommend that you not place links to Locus within ISFDB records. You can still link to Locus records in Wiki discussions, because it's not necessary for the links to be permanent here, unlike links in the ISFDB records. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:54, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reminder; I'd forgotten that. I'll just change it to "Locus says...". Chavey 01:58, 1 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I accepted the submission, but dropped the link and gave Locus1 as the source. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:04, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Heir of Sea and Fire
I was going to put your proposed edit to on hold, but I see it got accepted. I have a feeling the December month isn't correct. Monthless dates and dates having both month and day are usually suffering from a limitation of the source (either the book has just the year, or the date came from Amazon, which supplies a day), but when a date has year and month and no day, you have to wonder where that month came from. Unfortunately, the transient verifier isn't active, but I suspect November might have come out of the book. I found this transcription of the 7th printing, which states the 1st Ballantine printing was November, 1978. Corroborating that, I found a Google Books snippet view (top half and bottom half) of what appears to be the first edition (unlike the transcription, it has no "nth Printing" line between the "First Ballantine Books Edition: November 1978" and the cover art credit).

For further evidence, I also found this cover on Amazon, where the person who posted it labels it as from November, 1978. Of slightly less use, I also found this listing on Amazon giving 1978-10-12, which could be consistent with an announcement/advance copy date for a "November" publication.

I suggest reverting the date to 1978-11-00 (since it was transiently verified as such) and adding a note that the 6th printing claims December. I will drop some notes on talk pages of verifiers of some of the other later printings and see if they can shed any light on this from their copies. Thanks. --MartyD 11:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops. Never mind.  I see this is the Canadian printing.  Sorry about that -- no coffee yet this morning.... --MartyD 11:24, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Robert Louis Stevenson
I wouldn't put too much effort into his works, unless you're really finding the Speculative Fiction within. You might want to talk to User:Kraang, who has done some work on deleting the irrelevant. BLongley 23:34, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not adding anything, I just thought I'd put in a bit more data about some of the items we already had listed. I just found an album version of "A Child's Garden of Verses" by R.L.S., went to check on whether it was listed as having any spec fic (I didn't think so), and decided to do a little clean up. (Which does not include adding my audio version of a non-genre work.) Off-hand, it looks like there is more stuff still listed in his bibliography which is non-genre, but I wouldn't want to check that until we support non-genre short stories, so we can record properly that almost nothing other than "Jekyll and Hyde" (and a few supernatural stories) are spec fic. Chavey 23:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Just thought I'd let you know that it might all get deleted so don't put too much effort in. BLongley 00:35, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I deleted most of the non-genre that was obvious but stopped at the short stories. If you know of any short fiction that is definitely not spec fic submit a deletion and I'll approve it. Thanks!Kraang 01:51, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the main problem now is that there are lots of non-genre stories that appear in collections that contain "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Since we probably want to include those other stories in the content items, it won't be easy to remove the non-spec fic titles from the bibliographic listing. It seems we have two choices: (1) Wait until we can support the classification of non-genre short stories (esp. those in collections; or (2) Move lots of content items from the actual contents into the notes. I suspect all of the stories are available through Gutenberg, so then we just have to get editors to read the various stories to see what else is spec fic, but it doesn't seem worth doing that until we know whether we're going to use approach (1) or (2). Chavey 03:49, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Black Rainbow
Did the fourth printing indicate which printing [this] is? --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * "First Berkley edition, Jan. 1991" -- so this data is certainly correct for the 1st printing. I suspect that's the cover for the first printing also -- it comes from Amazon along with their publish date statement of, and is the same as the 4th printing except for a line of text at the very bottom with ISBN/price data. I'll add that to the pub notes. Chavey 03:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

L. W. Curry
I have approved the last batch of submissions, but I wonder if we may be crossing some kind of line when we copy a complete (albeit brief) synopsis from Curry, e.g. The House of the Wizard. Ordinarily, all synopsis data is created by editors or comes from unrestricted sources like the Library of Congress or publisher blurbs.

Would you happen to know if we may need permission from Curry to reprint even one-line synopses? Or are you paraphrasing them from longer descriptions, in which case we probably want to modify the way he is credited? Ahasuerus 04:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In most cases, I'm compressing his descriptions somewhat, so we could credit them as "extracted from L.W. Currey". One of the shorter descriptions is an exact copy from his posting on a book he has for sale. I'm composing an email message to him/the bookstore, will point to the five books where I've done that, and ask if this is ok (and ask about how to credit them). I've bought books from them before, and was looking at their catalog again to buy a few more, so my name will at least be in their database, in case that makes a difference. If they object, I'll remove the descriptions. (And I'll hold off on adding any more until I hear from them.) Chavey 04:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, thanks! Ahasuerus 04:57, 7 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I sent you a copy of my email to Currey this morning. I will, of course, let you know if/when I hear from them. Chavey 16:00, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Dark Sister deletion
Hi. Take a look at the two editorial reviews on Amazon and see if you think the LOC's classification is correct. It sounds like a novel to me. --MartyD 10:41, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right. She's writing a fable from another viewpoint, so it should qualify. I'll cancel my Delete, and add a comment on this to the Bibliographic page I started for the author. Chavey 13:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The Hunting of the Snark
I found a full scan on Google Books. I will add to the entry you created. --MartyD 10:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Too bad we don't have permission (AFAIK) to borrow that book cover. Chavey 19:01, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

And Then There'll Be Fireworks
Scanned in an image and added minimal notes to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:53, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Another Women in SF project
Or maybe just a "Meme" rather than a project. James Nicoll has been posting lists of female authors on his Livejournal, e.g. here. I've provided him with some Debut-dated pages Authors_By_Debut_Date and Authors_By_Debut_Date2 and he's done some gender identification - and people following his meme have added more or corrected him. Maybe you have an interest in common? BLongley 15:53, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Dates in magazine titles
Hi. For, I don't know if it is officially documented -- I couldn't find anything with a quick search of the help -- but I think you should spell out the months in magazine titles. A search for "Nov." turned up 9 hits, while a search for "November" turned up almost 2700. --MartyD 00:14, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'll correct that. Chavey 00:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy: 4th Annual Volume
After this discussion I added the Asimov essay after the poem "The Thunder-Thieves" to this verified pub under the title "The Thunder-Thieves (afterword)". Hope you can agree. Thanks, --Willem H. 14:10, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I doubt it will be a problem, but I'll check when I get back in the US (see note 2 later). Chavey 17:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * No hurry, have fun in Portugal. It's a great country, especially the north (people are more friendly there). --Willem H. 18:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * And, not surprisingly, I agree with how you've handled that. Chavey 05:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Doctor Transit and I. S.
I approved the spelling change on, but I think this publication is not captured in accordance with ISFDB standards. It should be recorded as by "I. S." I. S. should be made a pseudonym of Isador Schneider, and then the I. S.-credited title should be made a variant of the Isador Schneider-credited title. We then also wouldn't need the notes telling us it is published as by I. S.... --MartyD 10:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, but I tend to be reluctant to change things that others have entered deliberately. Since you agree, I'll go ahead and fix this up. Chavey 17:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Doctor Transit
I accepted the submission adding this new pub, but it should not have been entered under the title record crediting the author as Isidor Schneider. It would have been better to enter it as a new pub (which creates a new title record as well), then make the new title record into a variant of the existing one by Schneider. It's going to take a few submissions to get this in shape. Do you want to undertake the task, or should I? Mhhutchins 23:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Fireship / Mother and Child
Hi, I have given the pagination for and, as I have a copy with price, could verify your original £1.10, adding the Australian and New Zealand prices. --Dirk P Broer 16:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Judith Merril's 6th Annual Edition: the Year's Best S-F
In this verified pub I changed the author of "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" from 'Holly Cantine' to 'Holley Cantine', and added a note about Fredric Brown. Thanks, --Willem H. 19:43, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Fowler's Author's Choice Monthly
I've added a cover image and notes to the record for this title. Mhhutchins 21:04, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Don't Bite the Sun
New image and slightly expanded notes for [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Stories from The Faerie Queen Told to Children
The OCLC record which you link to for your proposed variant title record actually only credits Jeanie Lang as the author (look at the bottom of the record under "responsibility".) This is another example where the ISFDB software cannot adequately convey the connection between two different works, but one of which is derived from the other. It appears that the book you wish to make as a variant is an adaptation of Spenser's stories for children. If so, I would suggest creating an entirely new pub record, crediting Lang as the author. What do you think? Mhhutchins 04:29, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right. I'd looked at one other example of a children's adaptation, and it used the VT route, so I did here as well. But looking at more examples now, I see that the separate pub record is more common, so I'll use that instead and cancel the current submission. But other children's adaptations (Dr. Jekyll &amp; Mr. Hyde, Voyage to the Moon, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Time Machine) tend to use both the original author and the adapter, so I would prefer to do that. I'll make that submission. Chavey 12:04, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Submission was accepted, but the OCLC links are empty. Mhhutchins 15:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry 'bout that; it should be corrected now. Chavey 01:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern
I've expanded the notes and did a second primary verification of this record. Mhhutchins 00:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Scanned a new cover image and removed the note about the image being the SFBC edition. Mhhutchins 03:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Metropolis
I'd already created a title record for the German publications. The English title record is now a variant of that, a la ISFDB standards (German was the original language, of course.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:59, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * OK, I hadn't seen anyway to record the fact that those two 1926 editions are in German, and I still don't see any way to notice it now, other than the comment in the "Notes" field. Also, the title of the "[English]" version just changed it's appearance. It had been:
 * Metropolis [English]
 * and now it's
 * Metropolis [English] [English].
 * That just looks weird. But I don't know how to fix that up. Chavey 02:03, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It can be fixed by anyone, at the moment. It's a software display problem.  If I remove "[English]" from the title, the software thinks it is a variant of itself (because the title and author credit is identical, regardless of the language it was published in.)  This may work itself out when the foreign-language publications feature has been fully implemented.  As it is now, click on this link to see all the English titles, and this link to see ALL publications of this title.  There's currently no way to see only the German publications, but that's the same way with all variants in the db. Check out the same situation with the other von Harbou title: Die Frau im Mond.  There's no way to display ONLY the German language titles.  Just as there is no way to display ONLY the English language publications of Clarke's Prelude to Space.  This will only happen when the software changes to allow users to set language preferences, and that's a little bit down the road, from what I understand. Because only certain parts of the feature have been implemented, you'll find these problems. Perhaps Blongley can explain it better. I'll ask him to join the discussion. Mhhutchins 02:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Strange Awakening
You've added a note to this pub record that "The title misspells the author's name as "Dorthy" Quick." I'm not sure what this means. Did you mean the "title page"? If so, we need to adjust the author's credit on the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll correct that note. It's the cover the misspells her name -- the title page has it right. (Although from her signature on my copy, you wouldn't be able to tell which is the correct spelling :-) Chavey 14:29, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Citadel of Fear
Scanned in an image and corrected the title of the introduction [it was entered as The Woman Who Wrote "City of Fear"] for [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:48, 23 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the catch! Chavey 03:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Frankenstein
According to this OCLC record, this book is credited to "Mrs. Shelley", as does this Abebooks.com listing. Does your source give further information on how the book's author is credited? Mhhutchins 18:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It looks like "Mrs. Shelley" is the correct attribution, and I have corrected the listing. Heritage Auctions credits it to "Mary Shelley", but the cover lists "Mrs. Shelley" so, in the absence of being able to see the title page, "Mrs. Shelley" it is. Chavey 22:16, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've created the pseudonym and variant records. Mhhutchins 22:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm currently editing your talk page regarding a problem with a Michael Bishop story, so I suspect you'll want to look at that when I submit it (shortly). Chavey 22:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Readercon 5 Program Book
Please check the spelling of the author's credit on page 9 (his real name is Stephensen-Payne.) Also, are the pieces on pages 26 and 58-61 actually credited to "Editors of Readercon 5 Program Book". And I don't think you should disambiguate John Anderson's name in that way. Just add "(I)" after the name. I also don't believe this should be typed as an anthology, as the majority of it is nonfiction. I may have created the record that way, but I didn't know it had so little fiction. Another question: does the piece by Michael Bishop on page 48 have the subtitle: "A Personal History of the 1992 Townsend Fiction Awards"? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 00:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * (1) It is listed as "Stephenson-Payne" on the article title page. There is no credit listed in the TOC. I've submitted a VT and pseudonym to connect this to his actual name.
 * (2) They are not formally credited to "Editors of Readercon 5 Program Book", should they be listed as "uncredited", or as "uncredited" VT's to "Editors of Readercon 5 Program Book"? John Anderson is not credited in a byline or TOC, but in the introduction they basically say "We got everything from John, then edited it down". How should that be handled?


 * I label everything as "uncredited" if there's no stated credit on piece's title page and it's not credited on the contents page. You might add a note about the assistance from Anderson credited in the introduction. Mhhutchins 01:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * (3) I agree with you about the anthology/non-fiction, and I'll submit a change for that (I'm about to upload a cover scan, so I'll combine those updates).
 * (4) Looking at it again, I see that the article on p. 49 should be listed as "Living By the Word: A Personal History of the 1992 Townsend Fiction Awards", and I will make that update. Chavey 00:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The note in this record says the piece was reprinted in Readercon 5 Program Book as "Everything but the Name Is Me". If this is wrong, please merge the two records and correct the note field. If it's correct, update the title in the Readercon 5 record and make it a variant of the original record. Mhhutchins 00:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Another bibliography had claimed that the title in Readercon 5 used the word "Name", which was the source of that note I had included before. That bibliography was wrong, and I will make the appropriate corrections.


 * Aside: There's a lot of stuff in this program book by or about Michael Bishop. Do you want me to send you a scan of the journal for your own records? Chavey 00:56, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That would be greatly appreciated. Please scan pages 4-13 as I already have the story on pages 14-20, the Tiptree appreciations on pages 30-35, and the essay on pages 49-55. You can use the email link under my user name. Mhhutchins 01:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I couldn't locate an "email link under [your] user name", so I used the email address you list on the Michael Bishop website. I also included p. 14, since it has a new introduction to that story. Deleting all those other pages reduced the size of the scan from 29 Mg to 5 Mg! Chavey 01:31, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Great. I look forward to getting it (I'll check my email soon.)  There should be a link on all user pages "Email this user".  But now that I think about it, you can only send messages, not attach files.  So thanks for being clever enough to use the email on the website.  Thanks again. Mhhutchins 01:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Mike, one problem remains, which I'm unsure how to resolve. In the Readercon 5 contents list, the entry for the artwork piece titled "Richard Powers", when clicked, leads to a modified form of the entry previously used for "Cutouts". As I mentioned before, that title record then became orphaned, but the system then "adopted" that title record for this art piece. I'll submit this as a bug report, for the general problem, but I'm hoping you can fix up the particular problem here. Chavey 01:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not a system bug, but a user-generated error. As I explained in the response to your note on my talk page, you should not have overwritten the original record.  It's easily fixed.  Go to the title record and make the corrections, removing the series, the story length, and the note. Mhhutchins 01:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

"A Glossary..."
Hi. I had to reject your proposed variant of Akers' "A Glossary..." essay because the one you used got deleted by the merge you submitted and was no longer available. So I rejected that and did the same variant with the surviving Akers title, giving this. I hope that is what you intended. --MartyD 10:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Perfect! Things now appear as they should. Chavey 12:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Time Storm
What is the source for the info on this pub? Mhhutchins 13:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * And this one? Here's a link to a better cover image: Beyond Forever. Mhhutchins 13:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * And this one? If you have the book in hand, indicate that in the Note to the Moderator field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Both of the last two books said in the Note field "Data from Amazon". I had forgotten that with the first book, and have now added that note. Story summaries are from the publishers description, as listed on Amazon. I don't have the book in hand -- I don't collect SF romances, except for some of the very early ones. Thanks for the better image for "Beyond Forever", I'll correct that. Chavey 17:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed the note on the latter two. Thanks for making the corrections. Mhhutchins 18:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Illuminating Torchwood
It would have been easier to clone the first pub record than to create a whole new record for the second pub record. You'll have to make a few merges to get it into shape. Mhhutchins 00:12, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hold on. They seem to be identical, except one has the price. Was it a duplicate submission? Mhhutchins 00:14, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * My mistake, I thought I was editing the existing submission. I'll correct it. Chavey 00:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, Amazon gives the price as $35.00, not $44.50. Mhhutchins 00:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, but that's their price, which is always less than the list price. Powell's gives both their price and the list price, so I trust that price. Chavey 00:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The Amazon listing doesn't specify that it's their list price. I've always thought Amazon posted both as well. You'd think they'd want the consumer know they're getting a discount. Guess I've learned something. Mhhutchins 00:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Another thing: you're giving the ISBN-10. This was published in 2010, well after everyone's switched over to ISBN-13.  Amazon's look-inside shows that the book itself gives only the ISBN-13. Mhhutchins 00:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yeh, I've gotten in a habit of always entering the ISBN-10. I need to correct that flaw in my personality. Chavey 00:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not a personality flaw, we've all got our bad habits. I often enter the ISBN-10 just so I can use my bookmarklet to grab the Amazon image, then put the ISBN-13 in. And I sometimes forget. Sometimes I wish other Mods would still moderate some of my submissions, it would keep me on my toes a bit better. None of us are perfect and I really don't want people to revere Mods too highly - Michael and I point out errors in each other's verifications quite often, and we haven't killed each other yet. (OK, maybe that's just because we're on different continents, but I like to think that we've learned a few diplomacy skills in the years here.) BLongley 01:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's been a number of years since I wanted to swim the pond and strangle you, but I've become a much more mellow person. Darrah wouldn't recognize the person I used to be. (I'm thinking about the knock-down typing wars that I had with a couple of editors who shall remain nameless.) Mhhutchins 01:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I suspect I can guess one of the editors, based on a few conversations I saw online shortly after I started, and just before he resigned ;-). I hope that I'm more mellow about suggestions y'all make to me than he was, especially since I don't have a pond to protect me from Mike :-/ Chavey 02:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Aw, he's harmless. Well, "Mostly Harmless", as Douglas Adams put it. And he can't fit any more corpses in the trunk of his automobile till he gets those two out, anyway. (I'd say "boot of my car" but I really don't have any dead editors to dispose of here in England.) ;-) BLongley 04:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The publisher sells the book for $35.00, the same price as Amazon. Looks like Powell's is cheating someone, or maybe the book has been re-priced since it was first published.  Stranger things have happened. Mhhutchins 00:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, I wonder what's going on there? Possibility 1: Powell's is cheating their customers (unlikely); Possibility 2: This is the McFarland ebook price, which is listed on the same page (unlikely); Possibility 3: McFarland is discounting their own book (more likely, but still odd). So I sent an email to them asking what's going on with the price. Let's see if they respond. If not, we should just delete the price. Chavey 00:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If I had to overpay a book seller, it would be Powell's. I order a lot of books from them, usually signed editions at full list price, and I subscribe to their Indiespensable program.  They're good guys, and one of the last independent book stores around.  Mhhutchins 01:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


 * We have a couple of weekends at my college where outstanding prospective freshmen come to campus, meet and greet, and get interviewed by teams that help decide how large a scholarship we're going to offer them. Teams of {staff member, faculty, student} interview each prospective for about 45 minutes, and make our recommendations. A standard question we ask is "If we were to come to your town to visit, where would you take us?" One student last year was from a small town in Oregon. Her response was "There's not much in my town to see, so I would take you into Portland and take you to Powell's bookstore." She had my vote on the spot. Chavey 02:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

"A" writing as "B"
Hi. I am in complete agreement with your conclusion that "'A' writing as 'B'" should be credited to 'B', but that is not current ISFDB policy. 'A' should be credited instead. See the Pseudonyms bullet of Help:Screen:NewPub and Rules_and_standards_discussions. I've left the two submissions on hold to make it easy for you to find them, but you should cancel them and do the change the other way. Thanks. --MartyD 11:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Changing Women
Hi, I've left a cover scan and notes for. Why is it dated 1992-06-00 instead of 1992-07-00? --Dirk P Broer 13:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Because apparently some days I can't count up to "July". It's been corrected now; thanks. Chavey 03:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Dian Girard = Dian Pelz
What is the source for these submissions? I looked on Locus1 and wasn't able to find it (I knew you were getting some pseudonyms from there.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Check out the Biographical Notes I wrote for Dian. You can get a lot by Googling "Dian Girard Crayne" and "Dian Pelz". Chavey 22:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I will add one more name: Where does the "J" in J.D. Crayne stands for? Gives an author with exact the same face as Diane Girard Crayne. --Dirk P Broer 22:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Jeraldine D. Crayne is the pseudonym currently used by Dian Girard Crayne for the mysteries she writes, as indicated in her online bio. Thanks for pointing out this connection! She mentions in her bio that the first story she wrote was "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry", which we attribute to Dian Girard. As further evidence of the connections, the root website is www.pacificsites.com/~ccrayne/, where the "ccrayne" refers to Charles Crayne, and the main page for "J.D." is www.pacificsites.com/~ccrayne/dian.html, where the "dian.html" kind of seals the connection. Chavey 22:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There's also a Dan Girard in the database, and he/she has a book credited to him/her, but written as by Dian Girard. No did I say something seems wrong here? --Dirk P Broer 23:47, 29 August 2011 (UTC)


 * That looks like it must be a typo. Searching the web gives one reference to this story as being by "Dan Girard" (with copied links to that one), but dozens of references to this story as being by "Dian Girard", including Locus1. There are 5 appearances of the story "No Home-Like Place", with verifications by Kpullium, BLongley, Mhhutchins, and Hauk. We need to get them to check how this story is credited in their verified copies. I'll direct them to this discussion. Chavey 03:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Ever who entered the original record for The Endless Frontier must have typoed the name. Those of us who entered the story as published in Laughing Space gave the correct credit.  Someone later came along and made it into a variant.  It's a variant because of the different title, not the different author.  That was a typo, and it's been corrected. Thanks for finding it. Mhhutchins 03:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Alpha-II
I'm holding a submission that wants to change the author credit of this title record, by saying in the Note to the Moderator that the Amazon Look-Inside gives the author as "Thomas J. Hubschman". Title records don't have "Look-Inside"s, only publications, and there is no Look-Inside for this 1980 Manor book, which has a record verified by an active editor. Perhaps you should contact him to ask him to check. According to him and the OCLC record the author is credited as Thomas Hubschman. You have to be careful about changing title records, because it affects every publication published under that title. Thanks. (BTW, the Amazon "Look-Inside" is for a much later printing. Amazon frequently doesn't match the "Look-Inside" with the exact printing you're looking it. You have to be careful about making changes based on this feature. ) 20:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I'll check that out some more. The cover they showed also had "Thomas J.", but that wasn't the Manor cover either, AFAIK. Chavey 20:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

William Sharp and Fiona McLeod
Because most of his fiction was published as "Fiona McLeod" it would perhaps be better to make "Fiona McLeod" into the canonical name. (Changing 1 record instead of 16.) This happens quite frequently when an author uses a primary pseudonym for most of their fiction. Think of Hal Clement, William Tenn, James Tiptree, Jr.... Mhhutchins 20:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'll re-do that. Chavey 20:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I had to reject the submission to change William Sharp's name to Fiona McLeod.  By changing the canonical field in author data, you will be changing every publication under which that name was actually used. For example, the author of the story "The Graven Image" in this record would be changed to "Fiona McLeod".  We know it's actually credited to William Sharp (according to this source). You should remove all data from William Sharp's author record except for the canonical name and the last name fields. And make variant records of the two titles under his name. Mhhutchins 21:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I wonder if the "Fiona MacCleod" listed as co-author of "Soulless in Seattle" is really William Sharp, or a different author. Thoughts? Disambiguate? Chavey 20:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * According to the address you placed in the title record, the co-author is "Fiona MacLeod". Different name. Mhhutchins 21:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, it's always "Fiona MacLeod". And I think I've got Sharp/MacLeod fixed up now. Chavey 21:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Wizards.pro and house names
You shouldn't use this website as a source. Their data is cloned from the ISFDB. The display "Pseudonym of..." erroneously makes it look like all Frank Johnson stories were written by Oscar J. Friend. Our display reads "Used As Alternate Name By: Oscar J. Friend". Big difference there. Johnson may have been a house name, and it's possible that not all stories were written by Friend. We need a more reliable source that Friend wrote this stories. The verifier of the magazine record that you wish to change wasn't able to determine the authorship. You might want to pass along any sources to him. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I also wasn't able to find any more definitive sources, so we may need to leave this pseudonym "Un-FIXED". Chavey 20:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid that in the zeal to remove titles from pseudonym pages, many of these quick fixes aren't really fixing the problem. There's nothing wrong with having titles on pseudonym pages if we don't know who the authors are.  I hope the editors working on that project realize that. Mhhutchins 21:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been trying to verify the attributions I'm making, as I hope is apparent from the extra notes I've been adding to the Project Page when I find pseudonyms that I don't think we can really deal with at present. Chavey 21:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking care. I did a quick pass (well, over 3 nights or so) to take care of the "easy-wins" where another bibliography or OCLC or some other reliable source confirmed an author, but I am a bit worried that some people are cleaning these up so fast. BLongley 01:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Hubschman
Sorry, I rejected the submission to make the non-initialed name as the pseudonym. I see now you want to reverse the relationship. Please proceed and I'll accept. Mhhutchins 21:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

"Your Name in Gold"
According to this source the author's name is correct, which means our listing is in error. I'll reject the submission to make it into variant and correct the listing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Dernières Nouvelles de King Kong by G. O. Châteaureynaud
This is not a collection by G. O. Châteaureynaud. It is an anthology that includes a story by George-Olivier Châteaureynaud. (Check this out.) According to OCLC, there is no stated editor. I'll repair the pub, which will make your submission moot. Mhhutchins 22:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Your second link makes it appear that the story was credited to "Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud", and not to "G. O. Châteaureynaud", as we currently have it credited. Did you mean to change that author attribution? Chavey 23:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No. I meant to remove him entirely as the author of the book (which I already have). He's only the author of one story in the book, not its editor. Your submission wanted to change the author credit to Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud. Once "G. O. Châteaureynaud" is removed as the author of the book, then your submission is unnecessary. Mhhutchins 03:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, now I'm confused. The story Quiconque inside that book is now credited to "G. O. Châteaureynaud". So either the story should have its author changed to "Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud", which that link seems to imply, or else we still need to set up a VT between Quiconque by G. O. Châteaureynaud and Quiconque by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud. I don't know which is correct, but it seems that an additional submission is still necessary. Chavey 04:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Pinnacle
Hi. I notice you used "Pinnacle" on the Destroyer books, but it looks like we have been using Pinnacle Books. In fact, I think there used to be a "Pinnacle" that someone merged into the other(s). Any objection to my changing Pinnacle to Pinnacle Books? Thanks. --MartyD 10:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Not a problem, or I can change them as well. I'll make sure I use "Pinnacle Books" from now on. Chavey 11:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I changed them. Quick and easy!  Thanks.  --MartyD 00:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Destroyer author credits
Hi. I thought I understood what you are trying to do with the Destroyer author credits (change all of the books to be credited to Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir), but then I came across your proposed removal of the variant relationship between "Assassins Play-Off" credited to the pseudonyms and to the canonical authors with its note to the moderator about wanting to go delete the parent with the "incorrect" author attribution. That is in place due to the pseudonym relationships, not because the title is published as by Warren B. Murphy and Richard Ben Sapir. In fact, you'll see on either canonical author's page that the title says "only appeared as ... [as by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy]". There are a couple of other cases along those lines, displayed using "only as by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy" (or vice versa). This is normal way we work with pseudonyms. So I want to make sure I understand what you are trying to do with those titles (not having seen that one submission, I might have accepted the ones you did and then gone and made them variants of the now-missing canonical-author parents). Thanks. --MartyD 11:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I was just unsure how to deal with that particular book. I've cancelled that particular submission, and I'll wait to see if things resolve themselves with the author "corrections" on the title records. Chavey 11:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks. I will go through them and approve each and make a variant.  It might take me a little while.  I see you submitted the updates to the publication credits, too, which is great.  Then I can make sure each one is consistent as I go along.  Thanks.  --MartyD 20:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that you not make them variants. I'll be checking some more, but all of editions I've checked so far should be properly credited to "Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy". In other words, they aren't variants of the title, they are the same as the title recs (after I fix the title recs). I assume that I need to change both the title records and the pub records, and they will then be properly aligned. But making the currently entered pub records variants of the titles seems to be the wrong way to go. Chavey 23:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Pub records can't be made into variants, only the title records under which they are found. As long as you're making sure that the pub records are correct, we can always go back and correct the title records. I've accepted the submissions to change the title records ONLY when there are NO pubs under them, or when the pubs under them have the same credit as the title record. Mhhutchins 23:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I am currently unbreaking the variant relationship between the titles of the early books in the series. After that we can determine the canonical/pseudonym merits of the names to see whether we should make variants.  But I agree that we shouldn't make any variants until the canonical names have been firmly established. I think that may have been the cause of the mess to begin with. Mhhutchins 23:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll stick to the pub records and the title records that have no pub records. Chavey 23:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I made a few before I saw this. I won't touch anything else.  --MartyD 00:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Destroyer #37: Bottom Line
According to this OCLC record, this title is Murphy solo. Your submission wants to make it Sapir and Murphy. Are you sure? (Cover may credit both.) Mhhutchins 23:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * You are correct. #36 is credited to both on the cover and title page; #38 is credited to Murphy only on both cover and title page; and #37 credited to both on the cover, but was written only by Warren Murphy. My apologies for editing too fast. I've cancelled that submission, but I'll add a note about the disagreement between the cover and title page. Chavey 23:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. And you're a brave soul to take on this monster. Mhhutchins 23:45, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I was a big fan of the series back in my younger days. Back then I was into martial arts, and my teacher (8th degree black belt) was about as close to Chiun as it's possible to get in the real world. And acted sort of like him. So I still have a fondness for that series, even though it ended up going seriously xenophobic after awhile, and driving me away. Chavey 00:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Taking on a black-belt may or may not be braver than tackling such a bibliographical task. ;-) My Sensei was only 3rd Dan, but I rapidly learned that books don't fight back, and he and most of his students certainly could - my nose still shows that even now. I think I have some Destroyer books somewhere in the as-yet untouched boxes from the last move, but it's not a set I've felt the need to find again. Maybe if our Tenth-Dan Bibliographers would put us through our paces I'd feel a bit more competitive again. ;-) BLongley 02:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Making ISBNs from SBNs
If you have an SBN, such as 523-40894-3, you should turn it into an ISBN by adding the leading zero and note that this was derived from the SBN on the book. Thanks. --MartyD 00:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * See next note. They usually were putting the ISBN on the spine, but faked me out on this one publication. Chavey 00:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

#18 Funny Money
None of the three records are complete ISBNs. Is that how it appears on your copy? If so, we need to add the # before it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oops! That's how it appears on the spine, but I should have realized it didn't start the same as their other books. On the copyright page there's a "0-" before that: 0-523-40894-3. Chavey 00:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you can keep both Michael and me happy by converting the SBN to ISBN-10, and adding a note that you've derived the ISBN. (Am I right, Michael?) Unlike Title and Author, we can't go back to "it's on the title page, it must be true" and ISBNs / Catalogue Numbers / DAW Collector Numbers / LCCN Numbers / OCLC Numbers are always going to be a little controversial at times. If in doubt: record everything. Actually, record everything anyway - I'm pretty sure Michael would object to many of my submissions if he was the moderator and I wasn't, but we've learned to get along somehow. BLongley 02:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't derive the ISBN, it was listed on the copyright page. Books #26-44 all list the SBN on the spine and the ISBN on the copyright page. Should I note that for each of those books? Chavey 02:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Nope, that's not necessary. Only note when you derive an ISBN from an SBN.  I personally don't mind having the derived ISBN.  Looking at some of the early years of Pinnacle Books, it's easy to see why.  Check out 1973. There are five different methods of entering the catalog number! Mhhutchins 03:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, having just entered a bunch of Pinnacle numbers from that time, I'm familiar with the variety. Many of them have the added variety of, say SBN "523-00992-5" on the spine, with "P523-00992-5" on the cover. Plus, that one would have been listed in their catalog as "P992", and those numbers were used early on in the advertisements for books at the back of the book. Chavey 03:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The Last Temple
Have your submission to 'correct' a bad ISBN on hold. Does the book have the correct ISBN anywhere else? [back cover/spine]. If not the number as printed should remain in the field, though to avoid the red error message put # before it and put the correct ISBN in the notes. I know how hard it is to resist trying to 'correct' mistakes, but if that's what's there, then the field gets the 'wrong' data. No different really than when an author's name is misspelled [though I hope we never do Variants on ISBNs!! ;-) ] Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The book does not have a correct ISBN anywhere. However, it does have a correct SBN, and hence I can easily insert a "derived" ISBN, which many other editors have done. Does that affect your recommendation? (See the immediately preceding discussion on my talk page.) Chavey 15:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Weird how adding a '0' can give a different checksum. I agree with the above discussion re adding the zero if that doesn't alter the number in any other way. I know from many previous discussions that recording the number as listed is preferable to changing it [with the above practice the exception]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Same for Ship of Death. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * And the same issue arises for the next 3 books in the series. At least they were consistent :-) Chavey 15:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've submitted updates with all 4 numbers in the notes: Their catalog # (on the cover), the SBN # (spine), the incorrect ISBN (copyright page), and the correct ISBN. I've listed only the catalog number in the "ISBN or Catalog #" field. Chavey 22:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Approved. But didn't you mean 'SBN' on the spine... and not 'SSN'? The correction of the notes is left to you if you meant something other than 'SSN'. Thanks Kevin 23:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Absolutely right! Apparently, I've been working with social security numbers too much lately. I'll fix those up. Chavey 01:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Balance of Power
In this record, is the piece titled "Forward" instead of "Foreword"? Mhhutchins 04:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yup, it really is. I even put that in the "Note to Moderator" :-) I think he was referring to "Moving forward in the series, even without Richard Sapir", or something like that. Chavey 05:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed the note. This word is so often misspelled that it always jumps out to me now. Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

"Warren Murphy" essay
Hi. I have on hold your submission that would make the essay Warren Murphy a variant of the essay Forward (Balance of Power). I see that both of these appear in, though, on different pages. Are they really the same piece, printed twice? Thanks. --MartyD 10:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * They are in the same book, one on the inside cover, and one in a regular "Foreword" location. The one inside the cover has a photo of Warren Murphy not in the "Forward"; the "Forward" has one paragraph (out of 6) not in "Warren Murphy". I'll document those differences, but it really seems that one should be viewed as a variant of the other. There's not a major justification for deciding which is the "primary" and which is the "variant", but that 1 paragraph longer was why I listed "Forward" as the primary. Chavey 14:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I approved it. Notes in the titles and in the pub would be helpful, I think.  Thanks.  --MartyD 10:14, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Done! Chavey 20:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Hostile Takeover
There's [this] record? Of course LOC doesn't state a printing.... but who would send them a second?¿? ;-) --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I think that's good evidence. Destroyer #80 was at a $3.95 price, and #82 was at a $4.50 price, and the 2nd printing of #81 was at $4.50, but the LCCN record is good enough for me to accept adding that price. Then if a verifier some day knows otherwise, they can always change it. Chavey 01:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sinanju
Shouldn't some of the contents of [this] be essays? --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right; one of them was ("The 10 Best Destroyer Novels"), and I've submitted the change. There are several others that look like they should be essays, but really aren't. I'll look again at "Inside the Destroyer: The Good Guys" and "Inside the Destroyer: The Bad Guys", but these are, essentially, the origin stories of these various characters, all written as "in-universe essays", hence are fictional, and hence should almost certainly be listed as fiction. Chavey 19:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The one on "Ten Best..." was why I asked. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

A Dream of Things That Were
Added an image to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:12, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * My book has a brighter blue in the middle, but it's certainly the same book. (I've got to get around to scanning in some of these books.) Chavey 03:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Daisy Meadows
I was surprised to see you tackle even a little bit of that "author" - I gave up after wasting just ONE evening on it! :-/ Are you waiting for the award or language improvements to go in? As I'm sure I could give you another project in the meantime... BLongley 03:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I figured I had to put my time in on the chain gang to qualify to be a moderator :-). Plus I'd volunteered to do "C-F" of the Data Consistency Project:Pseudonyms_With_Titles, not knowing what I'd gotten into by including "Daisy Meadows" in there! Chavey 03:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've had my eye on you for months - see User_talk:Ahasuerus. But yes, some time on the chain gang always helps, especially if you spread that time over all the types of edits you can do. By the way, what's happened with all the student labour you thought you might be able to bring? As at the moment I really could do with more "foreign-language" help. BLongley 16:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Cara the Camp Fairy
As much as it pains me to have to deal with these books, there's a few things to keep in mind. Re this record: "Library binding" usually means hardcover, although the Amazon listing ambiguously lists it as "pb" in its title (but not in its description). And I'm assuming your source is Amazon, since it's not noted in the record itself. If so, they give a price of $17.20. I've also noticed that you're capitalizing the central article ("The") in your submissions adding new publications, although most appear to not be capitalized. No big deal, but I'd hate to have to deal with later submissions that changed the titles. Mhhutchins 06:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I wondered about that Library Binding. At first I put in "hc", but the Amazon record seemed pretty clear that it was a library binding on a "pb", and I have certainly seen some of those myself, so I changed it to that. My apologies for "The" instead of "the"; it came from copy and paste from the title records on the Orchard Book website. I added the price. Chavey 06:12, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Every book "published" by Turtleback is actually a rebinding of the original softcover edition with a hardcover for libraries. Thanks. 06:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, I'll change it to hc. Chavey 11:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Izzy and Inky
Having fun with the fairies? Please take a look at Izzy the Indigo Fairy. You made Inky into a variant of that one, but there's now a lost title record for Inky by Narinder Dhami. Is Dhami the real author? --Willem H. 16:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * There are going to be a couple of lost title records for Dhami as I go through this. I'm entering the 1st editions, and as I understand it I need to enter those as "by Daisy Meadows", then after they're approved, make them variants of ones by "Narinder Dhami", then (I hope), all should be good. But then I'll have another step of going through and removing the orphaned Dhami variants for later editions. (Unless I misunderstand how the variant stuff works, which is certainly a possibility.
 * And I wouldn't describe my time with "X the Y Fairy" as fun, but I did volunteer to try to clean up the pseudonym relationships involving Daisy Meadows (along with other authors in the range C - F), and this is a necessary part of that. Chavey 16:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Your reasoning is ok. The one thing that went wrong, is that you made Inky (by Daisy Meadows) into a variant of Izzy (also by Daisy). I suspect both should be variants of Inky (by "Narinder Dhami"), that's why I asked. You volunteered for a heavy one. Most of us would rather not touch the fairies. :-) --Willem H. 16:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is making "The Destroyer" series look like an afternoon stroll. But I'm getting close. I've entered all the 1st editions, organized the sub-series, and I'm nearly done checking the "Bibliographic Warnings". Then I'll tackle the actual assignment of ghost-writer pseudonyms, and see if the problems like those you just mentioned resolve themselves (I hope!), or whether I have to go in and fix up all the two-way VT's (A is a variant of B; B is a variant of C). My sincere hope is that when I start with one and add the second, that the software inserts the short cut. But I suspect I am being too optimistic. (In which case, I'll have a FR to submit!) Chavey 16:44, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I haven't found any shortcuts here, but it gets easier when you can approve your own edits (no waiting). It now involves undoing the variant relationship of A and B and then making both A and B variants of C. --Willem H. 16:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * If B is a variant of A and you make A into a variant of Z, then the software will automatically turn B into a variant of Z to avoid "chained variants". But that's the extent of what it can do on its own -- anything more complex and you need human intervention. Ahasuerus 03:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I had noticed that this happened, and solved all of the re-assignments I had to do for the Fairy series. I went ahead and checked, but everything I expected to have to do, you had already done for me automatically! Chavey 03:17, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It does happen on occasion. Of course, we wouldn't want to make a habit of it! Ahasuerus 03:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1 cm
If you're looking at the product sizes on Amazon UK, this indicates tp size rather than pb. BLongley 17:56, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That's frustrating. I saw some Orchard editions entered as "pb", and I followed that lead instead of stopping to think about it myself. Now I have a bunch of corrections to make. Oh well, ... Here goes. Then I think I may be done! Chavey 01:22, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry I didn't spot them earlier. :-/ I corrected a few while I was checking your variant creations - and did a few "The" to "the" standardisations too. I haven't touched the US editions as the few I looked at seem to be confusingly marked as "mass market paperback" on Amazon despite being slightly larger than normal. I find that Wikipedia does have have a good definition of A Format (pb) and B and C Formats (both tp) for the purposes of British paperbacks: on Worldcat those tend to be rounded. BLongley 02:10, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Weather Fairies
The cover image doesn't match the title of this pub. Mhhutchins 00:56, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * And $14.99 for a book clearly marked "£1" on the front cover sets my alarm bells ringing too. ;-) BLongley 01:02, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Image corrected. Sorry 'bout that carry-over from the previous book. Chavey 01:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Do you think you're ready to be a Moderator?
Hi Darrah, I personally think you should have been nominated for moderator months ago, and your recent posts and activities make me think you're more than ready, but we have to ask if you're willing. Take a look at the Moderator Qualifications and the Moderator Helpscreen, and let me know what you think. Being able to approve your own edits makes things a lot easier (I do remember :-). --Willem H. 19:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I noticed your response here, and started the nomination process. You can follow it on the Community Portal. --Willem H. 13:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

The Casitians Trilogy
Do you have copies of these books or is your information from a secondary source? If the latter, it should be recorded in the note fields. Here's a trick to remember to record your source: Before hitting the submit button take look at the note field. If it's empty, something is wrong with the submission. Mhhutchins 15:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I remembered it on the 3rd book in the series; I'll go fix it on the other two. But that's a good pointer on remembering to do this. Chavey 19:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

ASIN
The ASIN is Amazon's catalog number, not the publisher's catalog number, and as such should not be placed in the ISBN/Catalog # field. There was a discussion earlier this year, but it came to no definite conclusion, except that ASINs are not assigned by the publisher, only the merchant (in this case, Amazon). It was also determined that this number is not part of the ebook's file, so it can't be used as a identifying or unique number for the ebook. When or if a Kindle-ready ebook is ever sold by another merchant it would not have the same number. If you feel that the ASIN should be part of the record, it can be recorded in the note field. Mhhutchins 19:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I remembered that discussion, and was looking for the current policy. So I went to the ISFDB Policy page, where it says:

Rules of Acquisition, IN: e-books with a unique identifier such as an ISBN, ASIN, EAN, or catalog number (note: software support added in mid-2006, non-ISBN identifiers allowed in March 2011)
 * This quote seems to treat ISBN #s, ASIN #s, and catalog numbers alike, all in the same breath. And since that field is where we put both catalog numbers and ISBN numbers, it seemed like that was telling me to put the ASIN number there as well. And I said to myself "Well, the ASIN number is essentially Amazon's catalog number, so I guess they want me to put that where the catalog number would go." If our actual policy is different, maybe it would be helpful to re-word that part of the "Policy" page. Chavey 20:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * There's nothing wrong with the policy as stated. It doesn't tell you where to record these "unique identifiers", because that's outside the purpose of a policy statement.  The field is clearly labeled ISBN/Catalog #.  Any other unique identifiers should be recorded in the record's note field (LCCN for example, or a second publisher's catalog number when an ISBN is also stated).  The same leap of logic that you used to place the ASIN in that field would lead another editor to believe he could put the catalog numbers from Currey's latest catalog into that field.  After all, Currey's a merchant and has "unique identifiers" for his books. Why should he be treated differently than Amazon? Mhhutchins 21:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

More on author credit for the pseudonymously published Destroyer novels
I just got a copy of Reginald3 and he gives credit to those authors who actually wrote the books (up through 1991). Let me know if this will help in your research, or I can email you a scan of the pertinent pages. Mhhutchins 21:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Please do! I've had trouble finding authoritative sources for those ghost-writers, so it would be great to have them from Reginald. I only have Reginald1, so if you can send me a scan of those pages it would be great! Chavey 22:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll try to get to it later tonight. You can email me using my ISFDB email link so that I can have your email address. (The ISFDB email link doesn't allow attachments.) Mhhutchins 23:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Using Amazon data on books pre-2000
Don't use Amazon for publisher credit on books published before 2000. I'm giving the year as roughly 2000, but it may even go back further. In fact, I wouldn't use Amazon as the sole source for any data other than current publications. For an example, you (I'm assuming it was you because you were working on the series) entered this record as published by "St Martins Press" (actually St. Martin's Press), which was probably based on this Amazon listing. The book was published by Pinnacle. How could Amazon make such a mistake? By convoluted logic, that only Amazon's software writers could explain. Back in the early 80s, Pinnacle was a viable publisher of paperback books. In fact, they were so good that Tom Doherty used them to distribute his books, published under the Tor imprint. When Pinnacle went belly-up in 1985, Tor was left high and dry (and probably a few dollars poorer), so Doherty went to St. Martin's, a respected hardcover publisher who wanted to get into the paperback business. St. Martin's would distribute Tor and other Tom Doherty Associates books, and several years later bought the company outright...along with the ISBN range that Tor had used when it was being distributed by Pinnacle: 0-523-XXXXX-X. So Amazon's software has many books published under this ISBN range as "St Martins Mass Market Paper". And this isn't the only example. Look for hundreds of books published by Signet and you'll find them as "Roc" books, decades before the Roc imprint was ever imagined. Books published by Harper & Row are given as HarperCollins or even Collins! With all of this in mind, and having years of experience, I've found that the most reliable source is OCLC, and I only use Amazon and Abebooks listings as a last resort. (Many Abebooks dealers feed the ISBNs into the same database that Amazon gets its data from without even looking at the actual book they're selling. That's a reason to always question an Abebooks dealer before ordering a book from them.  I've been burned once because of this and will never let it happen again.)  For the book in question you'll find this OCLC record. Mhhutchins 21:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That explains a lot. If the ownership of an ISBN range was transferred from one publisher to another, then it would be very easy for Amazon and others to get confused about who published the book. And I wondered about those books being attributed to St. Martin's. So I'll go back and check those. I found an interview with Murphy where he talked about the move from Pinnacle to Gold Eagle with issue 95, so that would seem to give some definitive evidence for the actual publishers to that point. Chavey 22:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * We should probably put our heads together and explain our experiences with Amazon Publisher data, then build in a few more warnings. For instance, there is no reason to accept "Wizards of the Coast" as a publisher for books published by "TSR" before WotC even existed. British pubs by TSR were often badged and co-credited with "Penguin". A big warning sign on British publications is a publisher of "Littlehampton Book Services", that as far as I know never published anything, but supplied Amazon UK with (surprisingly accurate) publication dates. There's a lot we could do with our accumulated knowledge, but we seem to have given up after a few edit-wars over publishers, imprints, etc. I did a lot of Wiki-work on publisher and imprint documentation, and Al gave Mods the tools to mass update and merge "publishers", but we've never really agreed how to use such. BLongley 02:40, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It would be useful to collect such information. One problem, of course, is where to put it. As a relatively new editor, I've realized that there's a ton of information (and precedent, decisions, and "rules" not in the rule book) that are in the wiki pages and nowhere else. Mhhutchins was recently complaining about not being able to find anything on the wiki pages, and I've had some of the same problems. The help pages are good, but somewhat intimidating, just from the number of such pages that an editor should try to understand before getting going. And, of course, they just don't include all the rules/decisions/hints, etc. So figuring out where to put such collected knowledge is, I suspect, a challenge. Chavey 02:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * A lot is recorded on the Wiki, but unless we can standardise publisher names a bit more then the information either needs to be duplicated or it can't always be found. For instance, there's enough information about "Borgo Press" that anyone moderating a 2002 publication for such (as Fixer did twice today) will know it has to be an error - and a further check via OCLC shows that they should have been "Wildside Press" at that time. It might be worth putting start and end dates for imprints and publishers and using those to flag up the most obvious errors. BLongley 17:46, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That seems like a really good idea! Would that be a flag to the submitter, or a flag to the moderator? (Either way seems useful to me.) Chavey 18:05, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually they switched to Signet first, just before Pinnacle bankrupted, starting with No. 59, and it looks like that one came out before No. 58, the last from Pinnacle. Mhhutchins 23:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I mispoke myself. I have many of those Signet editions myself, and as soon as I got home from work I went upstairs to verify that they really were Signet editions :-) Chavey 01:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Taboo
You made "Paul Neimark" the anonymous editor of this anthology. There's a story in it by "Paul Niemark". Surely it must be the same person and the names should be reconciled (either corrected or varianted.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:16, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Also instead of "Author's true name from Contento1", perhaps "Editor credit from Contento1" would be more fitting. (It was uncredited, not pseudonymously edited.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I would agree that this seems incorrect. However, it is what is listed in the Contento online database, and it's how this is listed in Ashley/Contento's The Supernatural Index: A Listing of Fantasy, Supernatural, Occult, Weird, and Horror Anthologies--the editor spelled Neimark, and the short story writer being spelled Niemark. Searching for the names online doesn't give me much evidence: There's a writer named "Paul Neimark", but he writes very little fiction; and I am unable to find a writer named "Paul Niemark". My guess is that until we find a verifier for this, all we can do is to add a note that this is what Contento says, but it looks suspicious. We could VT one to the other, but I don't know which to make the canonical. Suggestion? Chavey 17:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * We can leave them as stated in the secondary sources until we can get a primary verifier. Just record the sources and how they differ in giving the name of the editor and the author. Mhhutchins 18:37, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. I've made "Niemark" a pseudonym for "Neimark", and added more detail on the Bibliographic Comments page for Neimark. Chavey 23:00, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Rod Serling = ghost-edited by Dickson
Shouldn't we have a more definitive statement of editorship than "apparently" before changing our records? Mhhutchins 17:26, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * They use the word "apparently" in the online database. In their print version they just say that Dickson ghost-edited these books. Is that enough? I can change the note. Chavey 17:49, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The link didn't reveal anything to me. "Apparently" I've reached my quota of looking at Google Books for this title. If Ashley/Contento states it straight out, credit them as the source. (BTW, Contento1 and Ashley/Contento are two different sources. The first is an online version of the combined 1978 and 1984 indexes for Science Fiction anthologies and collections. The second is only available in a book version and covers Horror and the Supernatural.) Mhhutchins 18:33, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I updated the notes so they refer to Ashley/Contento instead, with the straight-out credit. And while I knew these were different sources, I didn't quite realize the time difference -- i.e. since Ashley/Contento is a decade later, it's more likely to be accurate. Too bad the didn't fix Neimark/Niemark though :-) Chavey 23:07, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Worlds of AE Van Vogt
The Contento date is wrong, due to ACE being mental midgets when it comes to copyright page data. The real Jan '74 edition is already in the data base under the correct number 22812 and at the lower price of $1.25. I've let Bill Contento know about it before, but the Index doesn't get updated very regularly. It's unlikely the year is correct in our record, price would put it maybe '75-'76?? Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Is there something about being a Bill that makes you lean toward Bibliography? I haven't quite got my father (also a Bill) to join us yet, but he was a professional librarian and has access to my mother's SF&F books... BLongley 00:31, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Not that I know of? Though by the time I was 12 I had read nearly everything fictional in the local library.... does that count? The more Bills the better, hijack Dad! --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * 12? You were obviously a slow reader, I'd finished the children's section when I was about 9. ;-) Anyway, I think we might persuade Willem to become a Bill, then we work on "Bill Kraang" and "Bill Tpi". "Bill Ahasuerus" might take a bit of work. :-/ BLongley 02:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't read the kiddie section, read all the adult fiction the librarian would let me have [loved Eric Ambler, Ian Fleming] then ran into HP Lovecraft at about 12, never quite been the same since..... not that you could tell, could tell, could tell..... --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:10, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Maybe your "kiddie section" didn't go as high as ours? I know I encountered Nicholas Fisk, Robert Heinlein, Mary Norton and Andre Norton (presumably no relation), Hugh Walters, and even Terry Pratchett in the children's section. I even got the complete "Sherlock Holmes" stories from there, although I read the "Professor Challenger" stories first. Mum was very good and let me get four books for her, and then use my, my Dad's, and my sister's library tickets to get 12 for me. I think I'd finished all the Big Yellow books of Gollancz SF available before I was 11. BLongley 03:05, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've just realised that we have multiple Rons as well. So we might need to quote the song "I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still. Da do ron-ron-ron, da do ron-ron. Somebody told me that his name was Bill... BLongley 02:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Bill, (whichever Bill :-), Contento1 also lists a 1977 edition of "Lost: Fifty Suns", which we do not have in the system, but gives essentially no data about it. Do you know if that's an error with them? (I see at least two other date errors for them in van Vogt books alone.) They also claim that "The Gryb" is the Same as The Proxy Intelligence and Other Mindbenders, except replaces the story "The Proxy Intelligence" with "Humans, Go Home!", which might be worth adding as a note (I see you're the verifier for that). Chavey 02:32, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The '79 edition seems to be the first under this title, though the verified copy is the fourth printing. I found a different cover with a $1.95 price [same artwork] that is likely the Canadian one and the printings usually went 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 etc with the odd #s being the US and the even #s the Canadian printings [not always, but mostly]. Since Van Vogt was a Canadian, maybe we got dibs on the third printing??¿?? Actually Hérve Hauck has verified a third printing so the Locus date may simply be a typo as the magazine is the source for the date in the fourth printing. The note on The Gryb is correct, plus the order of the stories was altered. As Bill says, ISCHI is quite good. I've been through the Storysource, though not in a fine-combed manner. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:34, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Icshi has been pretty good at van Vogt data. The Storysource download is probably worth a look still, despite the web page redesign. BLongley 02:50, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks much! Icshi verified that the '79 edition of "Worlds of A. E. Van Vogt" that we have listed is the first one, and that Contento1 is wrong about a '77 edition. They also listed the 3 printings of "The Book of van Vogt" which preceded the first appearance of "Worlds of A. E. Van Vogt", which is why it's listed in the verification copy as a 4th printing. I updated the link from van Vogt's page in ISFDB to point to the new location of Icshi, I'll add a note to "Worlds..." about the error in Contento, and I'll add that note about "Gryb" almost = "Proxy Intelligence". Chavey 19:16, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Destroyer listings from Reginald3
Just checking back to see if you'd received the pdf that I emailed to you last week. Mhhutchins 16:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * My apologies for not responding. Yes I got them. Insofar as they go (vol. 86), they are in complete agreement with sinanju.com, including the one place where sinanju.com and sinanju.net disagree. Combining this with an essay by Will Murray, where he claims books 74-107, this gets the true writers for about 3/4-ths of the series. I'll see if I can get more verification on the later (apparent) Jim Mullaney volumes of 111-131, and maybe some of the others as well. But I'll probably have to leave some as bibliographic comments, and not author credits. Chavey 21:06, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've finished my research on the ghost-authors for the Destroyer series, continuing where Reginald3 left off. If you have the time, I'd appreciate your looking at my analysis in The Destroyer series' Bibliographic Comments page before I continue with setting up (or removing) the VT's for these books. Thanks, Chavey 00:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The series bibliographic comments page really spells it all out, so proceed to variant the title records based on the information you've researched and noted on that page. We'll just have to deal with "Special Thanks..." pages when or if we ever get primary verification of those records. Good job. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I just verified #110 and it does thank Mike Newton on the copyright page. Ahasuerus 02:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Aha! One down and, really, only two to go. Chavey 02:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Hm, #112 thanks James Mullaney and Daisy Snaggers, but there is no mention of Snaggers on Mullaney's page, although he describes how someone tried to sabotage the book. Interesting... Ahasuerus 02:25, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * P.S. I don't have #111, but Gary Jonas' biblio page mentions that it was written by "James Mullaney & Daisy Snaggers". Ahasuerus 02:34, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I had just found that reference myself, and a couple of others that mention "Special thanks" to both of them in #111. But Daisy Snaggers really sounds like a made up name. In particular, it was used in the mystery short story "White Elephant" by Theodore Tinsley. The agency is actually owned and run by a woman, who pretends to be a secretary "Daisy Snaggers", because clients expect to see a man as the detective. So she's hired a good looking man to pretend to be the main detective. If Mullaney knows this story, then he's probably commenting that a woman helped him with the story (or did all the real work), but not necessarily someone by that name. Chavey 02:43, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * A clever way to credit the editor, perhaps? Mullaney's comments re: 112 read, in part, "There was some mix-up with an outgoing editor who thought it was too similar to a Remo chapter in a book that came out just before I took over, and so she removed it." Note the use of the pronoun "she". Ahasuerus 02:47, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me. And as an editor, we don't need to credit her, although we probably should add notes about this on those titles. Sheesh, I finally think I have the book closed on Daisy Meadows, and another Daisy comes along to torment me :-) Chavey 02:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Al, Chavey 20:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh no, I have been promoted! The Peter Principle in action! :-) Ahasuerus 02:46, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. I thought I knew your True Name. I got called "Bill" a few days ago, and had the same reaction to that promotion :-) Chavey 03:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * could you look at the note I added to Destroyer #112 and see if you think that's appropriate? Chavey 20:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * It looked pretty good, so I just added a reference to the Web page where Mullaney discusses the incident. I also removed the word "snide" because I don't think we know who is responsible for these acknowledgements. It may have been done by a third party or there may have been other reasons not to use the editor's name. Ahasuerus 02:46, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, that's an improvement. Chavey 03:41, 1 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There's still to do - we only have her dead-tree books so far, her "Love-Bots" series still needs entering at some point when we can agree on how to do Kindle books. BLongley 15:28, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * He says with a grin on his face, as he tries to trap me into doing another series. I have this vision of Bill, when we both volunteered to do alphabetical batches of the "Pseudonyms with Titles" clean up, grabbing letters later in the alphabet and then cackling when he saw me select a range with "D" ... knowing what I was getting myself into. But did he warn me! No, he did not. And now he's trying to trap me into another one! I see right through you Bill ;-) Chavey 17:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Just thought you might like something else to look at while waiting for Ahasuerus to test the changes that will allow you to start your Carl Brandon award work! ;-) There's nothing worse than sitting in front of ISFDB with nothing to do. BLongley 18:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Editor credited novel record
The editor should not be given credit in the author field of this publication. I discovered this because the record came up as an error when matching pub record credits with title record credits, a script that Bill Longley wrote awhile back to find such potential errors. Mhhutchins 19:20, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I wonder if my real error was in listing this as a novel instead of as non-fiction? Very slightly more than half of the book is a reprinting of the novel, while most of it consists of essays about the novel. And it's those essays that make the book significant. Thoughts? Chavey 19:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The book is promoted and sold as an edition of Shelley's novel. I can't think of any other way to type it.  We have this same problem with all "critical editions" that include essays.  Regardless of their significance, the essays are all in support of the novel, without which the book probably wouldn't have been published. This is another case where the ISFDB software fails to fully support such hybrid publications. One day we're going to be able to give editors credit, but until then we muddle through. Mhhutchins 19:46, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I moved Joanna Smith's name to the notes, with a slight additional description of the "hybrid publication". Chavey 19:59, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Approved. And that may be the last of your submissions that I'll ever have to approve.  I see you're officially a moderator. Congratulations! Mhhutchins 20:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I hadn't heard. Half-an-hour ago I know I wasn't. But I doubt you'll get rid of me that easy; I suspect I'll still leave some submissions in the queue to have someone else look as well -- especially until I feel more confident about the various types of approvals. Chavey 20:07, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good plan. If I see any that are in the queue for more than a few hours, I will look them over and discuss them with you. Mhhutchins 20:10, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Congratulations indeed! Help:Screen:Moderator just called and asked you to stop by and read it :-) Ahasuerus 20:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Congratulations! Good to have you on the team. --Willem H. 20:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * .... and if I remember correctly, don't the rookies have to buy the beer?? :-)) --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I've got 8 bottles of a local brew. Where should I email them to? Chavey 23:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Just send them to the Moderator Group's Gmail address and we'll fight over them. (8 really isn't enough to go round, but some may be lesser drinkers than I am.) Welcome aboard! BLongley 00:46, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That's OK, Bill, you can have mine. Ethanol is for those who can't handle quinine, the real thing! Ahasuerus 01:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll save up my beer money for the next of those infamous "moderator retreats" I've heard so much about :-) And Ahasuerus, I'll have you know that under doctor's orders I drink a large glass of tonic water, with quinine, each evening. And if that stops working, he's prepared to move me to quinine injections! Chavey 10:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Quinine was very popular in the 19th and early 20th century, but it has lost much of its luster within the medical profession over the last few decades. It looks like your doctor may be one of the holdouts. But regardless of its health benefits, the taste can't be beat! Ahasuerus 23:01, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Of course one glass of tonic water a day isn't a lot of quinine, but as it turns out, it's one of only two known folk remedies to prevent leg cramps during sleep (the other being a bar of soap under the sheets). No one seems to understand why either folk remedy works, but medical science has been unable to find anything better. The soap didn't work for me, and I would still wake up in agony every other day or so, but the quinine has stopped it cold. One of my dance students had the same problem, I suggested the tonic water to him, and it has also stopped his evening leg cramps. Chavey 23:11, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Checking Thorpy/Plazzi's recent The Parasomnias and Other Sleep-Related Movement Disorders, I see that double blind studies of quinine's effect on nocturnal cramps have been inconclusive so far: there is a strong placebo effect, but some studies also suggest that quinine is somewhat effective even when you account for the placebo effect. The big problem with quinine, however, is not that its alleged effectiveness may be attributed to the placebo effect (no harm in that), but rather that its side effects can be serious in some patients, which is why the FDA told manufacturers to stop marketing it back in 1995. On the gripping hand, although certain other medications (diltiazem, verapamil, etc) look promising, the studies have been small and not exactly conclusive, so if tonic water (which contains a miniscule amount of quinine and is extremely unlikely to be harmful) works for you, then so much the better! :-) Ahasuerus 03:25, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

(unindent) I've read the same studies, and I have real trouble attributing the physical changes to a placebo effect. Given that the leg cramps happen while I'm sound asleep, the normal mechanisms proposed for a placebo effect aren't present. And the physical effects are pretty dramatic (e.g. I wake up screaming), so various other explanations of placebo effect aren't particularly viable. What I am confident of is that quinine will not solve the problem for all people who suffer from this. And if it is true that quinine works for only a modest sub-set of people with nocturnal cramps, it is possible to have run studies that would confuse this behavior with a placebo effect. My suspicion is that the fact that it works for me may be connected to my having diabetes. One effect of diabetes is that my body has trouble getting enough blood circulation to the ends of my legs, which is where the cramps are occurring. And this is particularly a problem at night when my heart doesn't have gravity working with it to get the blood to the legs. Since quinine is a mild muscle relaxant, it is a reasonable hypothesis that relaxing the leg muscles allows the blood to flow more easily to those extremities. If this hypothesis were correct (fairly easy to test, although I am unaware of any relevant studies), this would explain why the people for whom the tonic water would be an effective treatment might be limited to those who have circulation problems (diabetes or otherwise) in their legs. Now if the FDA runs a placebo test on that particular population, I conjecture that they would get different results than their previous, more general, studies. Chavey 03:45, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * P.S. Which reminds me that I need to update the distribution list over on Gmail... Ahasuerus 01:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * And when the new Mods have recovered, ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard needs a couple more entries. BLongley 01:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Albert Paul Blaustein = Allen DeGraeff
Even though DeGraeff is a penname for Blaustein, we consider it to be the canonical one (he never published a genre work as Blaustein, probably trying to separate his "ghetto" work from his respectable work as lawyer, professor, and government consultant.) I think we should give Davenport's ghost editor credit to DeGraeff. What do you think? (Check out this additional source that credits his ghost-editing.) Mhhutchins 16:18, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with you. I'm glad you had that other reference -- Contento1 was misleading on the status of these books. I'll cancel those submissions and submit replacements. I'll leave those replacements in the moderator queue so you can look at them first. (Took me a bit to get to this -- I spent my evening ISFDB time on one Fixer submission, adding and organizing all of the books by Adrienne Wilder.) Chavey 02:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The three submissions look good enough to accept. We'll need to record our source for the ghost-editing attribution. Mhhutchins 18:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * These have been sitting in the queue a couple of days, and I wasn't sure if you'd wanted me to accept them after looking over them, so I went ahead and accepted them. Mhhutchins 05:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I got side-tracked. I've added attribution notes to all three DeGraeff/Davinport books, using the same note for all 3. Chavey 23:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * About the Wilder books, especially this one. I find it hard to believe that 6 novels could be printed in 338 pages, regardless of the type size. From the title, it's clear that each of its contents are novellas.  I suggest changing them to SHORTFICTION, with novella length.  Their individual publications as ebooks will have to be changed from NOVEL type to CHAPTERBOOK type, and a content entry for the SHORTFICTION record will have to be added to each CHAPTERBOOK record.  Then these will have to be merged.  If you agree with these changes, I can walk you through the steps if you need assistance. (It's going to take quite a number of submissions.) Mhhutchins 18:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I found actual word counts on all of the "Darwin's Theory" books; 3 were novellas and 2 were novelettes. The other books all have page counts on Amazon, and are novels. The one that still looks suspicious to me is "Stained", which Amazon lists as 230 pp., but which sells in ebook format for $0.99. But I guess we should go with Amazon's page count unless somebody actually verifies the book. A question I have is how to list Darwin's Theory: Complete novella series (Volume 1). It's currently listed as an Omnibus, which is wrong because none of the books inside were novels (although they were published separately). The novella descriptions show that it's a series of linked novellas, and I suspect it's really more like a "fixup novel", but I'm guessing that I should list it as a collection. Recommendations? Chavey 23:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds closer to a collection than a fix-up novel, so I'd go with collection. Mhhutchins 01:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The 10th Kingdom
Could I get you to take a look at your copy of The 10th Kingdom. My copy has the same ISBN as yours and is a mass market paperback. However, mine does not have any pages numbered with roman numerals, nor any pages preceding the numbered pages. Also, it has 479 pages as opposed to your 421 and the photos are between pages 240 and 241. The price on mine is $6.99/C$8.99. The copyright page on mine mentions a simultaneous hardcover printing. I'm wondering if perhaps yours is the hardcover, or maybe a trade paperback, though it would be unusual for two different bindings to share the same ISBN. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 00:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for catching that. My copy is, in fact, a trade paperback with the same cover but a different ISBN. I don't know how I made that mistake, except possibly that an Amazon search for "10th Kingdom" only shows one book with that cover: the mass market paperback. (A search for the correct ISBN then finds the trade paperback edition.) I've created the appropriate tp edition and moved my verification to that one, then deleted the data that was (or may have been) incorrect on the version you have. You should be able to finish the data on that one and verify it. Chavey 16:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Ann MAxwell - Dancer's Illusion
I added amazon art to your verified pub. Thanks - Kevin 14:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Charmed Destinies
Can you confirm that this pub gives only the ISBN-10? If it has both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, the latter should be the one stated in the ISBN field. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 20:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right. In fact, the book doesn't even include an ISBN-10, so that must have been entered from Amazon. I've corrected it. Chavey 02:01, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Notes for Publication Series
You can add notes, web page links, links to a Wikipedia article, etc to publication series. I've updated the Novacon publication series based on the note on your user page. Mhhutchins 04:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Aha! I was expecting to see a link near the top of the page (as with "Bibliographic Notes"), but now I see where that link really is. I've got a few other series that I may add notes to as well. Chavey 04:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * A question about the series: the Ken MacLeod book seems to be out of place. Shouldn't it be dated 2006? (He didn't publish his first fiction until the mid-90s.) Might have to ask Hauck to recheck the pub's date. Mhhutchins 04:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I already have a note into Hauck asking him to check. It certainly does look like a data entry error to me. Chavey 04:36, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Scribner
Please look at this topic when you get a chance. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

SFBC dating
Original offerings of SFBC editions are dated by when they became available to club members, not by the gutter codes. A book could be printed weeks or months before becoming a selection. Locus/Contento may have received some before the offering dates but the recorded date will still be when they were 'published/offered' to the club. Saw the change for [this] but couldn't hit hold quick enough. Later printings that have new SFBC #s or new covers are dated by gutter codes as they usually weren't re-offered officially, just became the new stock for any orders received. --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:21, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for correcting me! I'll revert the two changes I just made, and inform the verifiers of my error. Chavey 23:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * But how could Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars be offered to SFBC members in Jan. 1973 if the gutter code, 20 P, implies it wasn't printed until May 1973? Aha! Checked our gutter code page and found that the true 1st printing has gutter code 49N. I'll update the notes for that book. Chavey 23:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't know who, but someone mistakenly changed the publication date of Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars from January 1973 to May 1973. The first printing of the title had gutter code 49N (December 1972) and was published in January 1973. Do you recall seeing a submission to change the publication date? The two primary verifications were done years ago. There's a note that the verification copy has gutter code 20P, but that was a reprint and doesn't reflect the publication date.   The date should be changed back to 1973-01-00. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Seeds of Yesterday
Added an okay image to [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:58, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Arabian Nights Entertainment
A search on OCLC found dozens of editions in English, but I can't find any evidence that Galland translated his own work into English. The OCLC record for the 1783 Longman edition doesn't explicitly claim Galland is the translator either. Why would it take 70 years after his death for his English translation to appear, especially from the same publisher who'd published it in an anonymous English translation? Personally, I would create a record for the first complete 12-volume edition, credit Galland as the author, but note that his work was anonymously translated into English. I wouldn't even begin to touch any later reprints, but that's your fish to fry. (An aside: I highly recommend that you only source dealer listings as a last resort.) Mhhutchins 05:33, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the recommendation. I'm trying to fill out the Windermere publication series (since I just got one of their books), and while doing that I'm also trying to put in "first editions" of some of those books. (For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1851 book "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" showed up in the ISFDB with a 1968 title date.) But how to handle Arabian Nights is a little above my pay grade. So I'll rethink it. And those versions that claimed Galland had translated it into English may be wrong, but it looks more like they're just reprinting some substantially earlier Galland English translation. Chavey 05:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I've spent the better part of the last hour trying to find any evidence that Galland translated his French translation into English. This Wikipedia article claims that all English translations that credited Galland were anonymously translated and credited to Galland only in order to cash in on his name and the reputation of the original (French) edition. It's rare for an author to translate his own work into another language, but I'm sure it's possible. Mhhutchins 05:58, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Well that is certainly believable! There seems to have been a bunch of that type of thing going on around that time. I think I may stick with adding some of the particular versions that the Wikipedia article references. It seems to me, though, that we don't really have a way to deal with "meta-titles", i.e. if I add the Galland, Lane, Payne and Burton editions, that seems like they need to be 4 different titles, since they have 4 different authors. I don't see any way to "connect" them to each other, except possibly to create a title series into which we put them all. Is that appropriate? Chavey 06:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There are many issues with older books. For example, the University of New Brunswick record for the "third edition" says:


 * Uniform Title: Arabian nights. English. 1706-1717.
 * Title: Arabian nights entertainments [microform] : consisting of one thousand and one stories told by the Sultaness of the Indies to divert the Sultan from the execution of a bloody vow he had made to marry a lady every day and have her cut off next morning, to avenge himself for the disloyalty of his first sultaness, &c. / translated into French from the Arabian MSS by M. Galland, of the Royal Academy, and now done into English.
 * Publisher: London : Printed for Andrew Bell, at the Cross Keys and Bible in Cornhill, 1706-1717.
 * Phys. Desc: 2 v. in 1 : ill.
 * Note: "In two volumes."
 * Note: "Containing a better account of the customs, manners and religion of the eastern nations, Tartars, Persians, and Indians, than is to be met with in any author hitherto publish'd."
 * Note: Volume [II] is marked: Vol. III. The third edition.
 * Note: Reproduction of original in the Bodleian Library.

The date alone -- 1706-1717 -- is headache-worthy. Ahasuerus 06:59, 16 October 2011 (UTC)


 * There are several books which, when published in multiple volumes, have a "multi-year publication date". And that doesn't just happen with older books. Having just been working on filling out the Pharaoh Audiotapes spec fic works, I saw a few of these where the audio tape for a single book was published over a year or more. I've gone on the assumption that we would post these with the publication date of the first volume, and then note the time span. I doubt, however, that we have a policy on this -- and it seems that we should. Thoughts? Chavey 21:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I've made a stab at the earliest editions of Arabian Nights (working in chronological order), based on too many hours of research through WorldCat and Google Books. If anyone wants to take a look at this start, I'd appreciate your thoughts. Chavey 02:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks pretty good, but the work is outside my interests so I'm not the person to ask advice from concerning which editions to include. The only edition that I feel should definitely be included is the first one that contains all 1001 stories.  But bibliographically, your work is excellent, based on the notes you've added to the title record and the pub records.  No one's gonna fault you on that count, or expect you to add all editions! Based on an OCLC search for English translations of Galland's version, I came up with 53 editions. The 5000+ figure you cite in the title record's note field is for all editions of all versions of the Arabian Nights stories in all languages, but only 2000 of those records are for books in English. Did I really just say "only 2000"??? Mhhutchins 03:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, "only 2000". Except aren't we supposed to be trying to integrate other language editions as well? Nevertheless, I think I'm going to work my way through all the 18th century English translations, add a couple of important 19th century editions, and leave it there. But I was just having second thoughts about listing the anonymous translations from Galland as by "uncredited". If we have a regular book translated into another language, we still credit the original author. And while Galland was himself a translator, there's more than that at work here: (i) He mostly translated one particular edition, but he did include some stories from other places and (it's conjectured) added two stories from an Arabic tradition that he had heard orally; (ii) Most other versions that get listed by the author's name are really a translator's job there as well. So I'm thinking that I should change all of those "uncredited" to "Antoine Galland", with a note that the English translator is anonymous. Chavey 17:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're correct, of course, about crediting Galland, regardless of who the anonymous translator was. Being anglocentric, the thought never even entered my mind.  I agree the "uncredited" records should be changed to credit Galland. As for "trying to integrate other language editions" that's only in the experimental stage with several editors boldly going forward. Until it's completely phased in, I'm going to stay away as much as possible from that can of worms.  Who knows if what's being done today will have to be changed before complete integration of non-English publications? Mhhutchins 17:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree completely on holding off on the non-English editions! If I experiment and add my dozen or so international Tiptree's, it won't be hard to change them if necessary. But if I spent hours wading through international OCLC records, I want to be sure it's in the final form! Chavey 17:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Camelot / Avon
How committed are you to using "Camelot / Avon" as the publisher of this book? At the moment, it's the only record under this publisher name. Most are entered as Avon Camelot, which I believe is the actual imprint name. If you were to enter the "imprint / publisher", it should be entered as "Avon Camelot / Avon Books". Not that I want you to do that! In this case it would be overkill to enter the publisher name as well. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You are correct, I misread how the imprint and publisher were listed. I have corrected it to "Avon Camelot", since I agree that "Avon Camelot / Avon Books" would be overkill. Chavey 02:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Eisenstein's Born to Exile
The note on Pyhllis Eisenstein's Born to Exile states that it is a "Stated 1st printing". I can't find a statement of printing in my copy and I'm fairly certain (and secondary sources agree) that there was only 1 Arkham House printing. Could you double check your copy to see if there is a printing statement in your copy? Congratulations on your signed copy. I also got mine signed at LA Con IV in 2006, so it isn't much use in dating the publication. However, I did have a nice chat with her about how much she enjoyed working with Arkham's Jim Turner, as an editor. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My copy doesn't have such a statement either, so I wonder where that note came from? (From the "Information ... from ABE"?) It just doesn't seem that I would have added it. Since we're the two verifiers, I've removed the note. It's neat that you got a chance to talk with her. I've met a reasonable number of authors, had lunch or dinner with a few, but haven't met Phyllis. By the way, the actual signature on my copy says
 * "For Steve - who believed Jerry Pournelle. Read and enjoy! Phyllis Eisenstein Iguanacon Sept. 3, 1978".
 * It really makes me wonder who "Steve" is, in particular whether it might possibly be Stephen Fabian, the cover artist. That would be cool! (But unlikely, I suspect.) Chavey 14:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think "read and enjoy" in the inscription makes it unlikely to be Fabian, who hopefully had read the novel before he did the drawings. Perhaps he did the art from the original short stories and had not read the fix-up?  If you ever get a chance to meet her, she is quite accessible.  I usually am a little in awe of meeting authors at signings, but she initiated the chat and put me at ease.  Anyway perhaps she can tell you who inscription is for, and why they believed Pournelle.
 * I made a few more additions to the notes. I also removed the ABE note.  I can't see anything in the OCLC record that is incorrect.  I should have mentioned my intended changes in my first note.  Do let me know if you disagree with anything.  Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 04:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I just checked my copy and couldn't find a statement of printing either. I suspect that the source may have been Currey or another secondary source. Ahasuerus 04:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * A question: what is the publication series Arkham House Science Fiction Novel? Never heard of it. Mhhutchins 07:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * "Arkham House Science Fiction Novel" is at the bottom of the half title page. There also appears a "SF" near the top of the spine.  I probably would have ignored it, but Sheldon Jaffery in The Arkham House Companion discusses the reason for the "SF" and speculates that it indicated a new Science Fiction line.  Jaffery doesn't mention the statement on the half title.  Regardless, he states that this is the only book that AH ever marked as such.  So, if this is a series, it is a series of one. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Preceding comment added, nearly verbatim, to the notes for this publication series. Chavey 14:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Tanith Lee's Dreams of Dark and Light
I added further notes to this record, added the extended title, and created individual records for each of the illustrations. Mhhutchins 06:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

additions to Help:How to convert a novel to a "chapterbook"
You added the following text: "When you edit this publication record, and look at the 'Contents', you should see two copies of the title of the book in there: One as a 'Chapterbook', and one as 'ShortFiction'."

This seems to me to imply that the CHAPTERBOOK title and the SHORTFICTION title are always the same. That is most often the case, but I have seen instances where the pub has a title different from the title of the included work of shortfiction. Perhaps this can be revised to somehow mention that possibility? -DES Talk 06:13, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Good point. I updated the wording on that item, see if you think that covers it. Chavey 06:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes I think it does. -DES Talk 02:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I created a draft revision for this section at Help:Converting a NOVEL publication to a CHAPTERBOOK/Conversion-draft including a new example sub-section with lots of screen shots. I would appreciate some feedback before I move this over the existing section. -DES Talk 03:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The Ship from Nowhere / The Moon Mirage
This pub record has different author credits than the title record it's under. (It shows up on the stray publication author clean-up script.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:25, 6 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I checked my copy, and "Raymond Gallun" has no middle initial on either the cover or the story title page, so I corrected the title rec. That should remove it as a stray. Chavey 02:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Next step is to make "Raymond Gallun" a pseudonym of Raymond Z. Gallun. Then make variant records of both the book and the shortfiction record.  Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:10, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for reminding me, I overlooked that. Done now. The other thing I need to do is scan in the covers of that series. Chavey 14:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Branca de Neve e os Sete Ananos
This record shows up on the Stray Authors list because the author(s) credited on the pub doesn't match the author(s) of the title record. Can you re-check to see if the pub record is correctly credited and make the title record's author credit match? Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I've made the title record's credit (Brothers Grimm) match the pub record's credit. Mhhutchins 22:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yarbro's False Dawn
Another editor has added the gutter code to this verified record. Can you check to see if it matches your copy and determine if the note should be altered or kept as is? Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It took me a while to get to checking this -- that box was buried deep. I have the same gutter code, but apparently on a different page than that editor, which seems suspicious. I've asked him to check the page number. Chavey 20:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Two Tom Allens?
Before this discussion I thought it was clear that there's only one of them and already made vts for one anthology and one introduction of Tom Shippey. But Ahasuerus is right in mentioning the possibility of a second Tom Allen. I wonder if the Locus note/obituary could shed some light into the (double) identity. Stonecreek 09:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for bringing this discussion to my attention -- I hadn't noticed it was based on a note I had entered. Comments added to the Moderator thread. Chavey 15:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Broken Amazon Image Links & Missing Images
You have 1330 verifications of which 303 are without images and 2 have errors. Giving the large number, I placed the list on a this subpage so as not to clog up your talk page. If additional data or filtering would make it more convenient, let me know and I'll see what I can do. -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:30, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks much! I'll get to work on those. Chavey 02:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I've updated the listing based on yesterday's database dump. While I normally wouldn't update it (if you ever do want one, just let me know), I added a check for 1x1 images as discussed on another page so I re-ran it with that (detected two). -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Italian collection of Moore stories
This collection and its contents are in the db as English. If you don't change the language at the time of entry, the system automatically defaults to English. I choose not to have any other language than English displayed so that it's easy to spot titles that have not been language-defined. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The title is listed as being in Italian. The publication has no place to post a language. You are correct that I had forgotten that entering a collection in Italian does not make the stories in it default to Italian (a bug, IMO), so I have corrected that. But I don't understand why you say that the collection is in there as English. Chavey 23:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I meant to say the title records were in English. Before you corrected them the titles were displayed on Moore's summary page when an editor chooses only to see English titles. So they had defaulted as being English. All titles in the database that have not been assigned a language defaults to English. If that's a bug, then how should the thousands of records that have not been assigned a language be displayed? If you added the content records after the pub record had already been created, then there is a bug in the system, because you weren't given the option to assign a language when entering the contents. That should be addressed. I've washed my hands with dealing with translated publications and personally don't care how they're displayed as long as my user-assigned preferences are honored. Mhhutchins 23:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, that makes sense. When I created the anthology publication record, I created it as Italian, and entered the titles of all the stories at that time. I had expected that they would inherit the language of the book, and didn't notice that they hadn't. So you think that if I did that in two steps (create the anthology; submit; add the stories) that they would get the correct language? Chavey 01:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * No. The only time you have the option of selecting a publication's language is when it is first created. I've just been handling a few Italian magazines submitted by Pips55. They're all entered as Italian, with the contents added at the same time. All of the content records "inherited" the language given to the pub record at the time of their creation. There was one submission in which the language wasn't selected, (well it was left as English), and all the content records that were created with it automatically became English. So I don't know how you could have created a publication record as Italian and all the contents became English. If you did, then that's a bug. Mhhutchins 01:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Since I have a several dozen non-English anthologies to add eventually, it would be nice to find a route that works. (Going to each story and changing their languages one at a time seems like an unnecessarily tedious step.) Chavey 01:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I would suggest leaving a message on Willem, Hauck, or Stonecreek's page presenting them with this problem, and see if they've come across it in their work with non-English titles. Mhhutchins 01:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I did a few tests and came to this pretty dismal result: if you don't create the content records at the same time that you create the publication record, the records are defaulted to English, regardless of the language of the title record. If you add contents after the publication record has been created, it doesn't matter if you've changed the language of the title record before or after adding the contents, the only option you have of changing the language of the content records is to update each one to assign the correct language. I created a pub with a language other than English and entered one content record. Here's the title record. The content record that I added at the time of creation has the same language as the title record. The content record that I added after pub creation has the default language. I'm surprise that with so many people working on non-English publications, this problem never arose. Mhhutchins 02:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm aware of such limitations (chiefly annoying is the obligation of entering everything in one pub in only one attempt) and have to work around them every day (IIRC they've already been evoked in diverse places), but everything can't be perfect immediately, so I'm doing my best under the present constraints.Hauck 06:48, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I expect then that when I entered this book, I made one of the mistakes: (1) Created it, forgot to change it to Italian, went back and changed the book, but not the contents; or (2) Created it in Italian, but didn't add the contents until later. Either "error" seems possible. And it doesn't seem that's the way the system should behave. I'll do some searching in the "Bug Reports" and "Feature Requests" to see if fixing those behaviors is in there. If not, I'll add them. Thanks for figuring out what was going wrong! Chavey 02:11, 22 March 2012 (UTC)


 * This is and on my list of things to fix once I wrap up my current project at work. The project will be finished on March 29, then I need to catch up on my sleep (48 hours would be nice) and then I plan to attack these bugs. Ahasuerus 02:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Mass change in a publisher name
It's possible, as a moderator, to edit the publisher name of all the publications from any given publisher in a single edit, without having to change each individual record. Click on the publisher's name, then choose "Edit This Publisher" under the editing tools menu. I would not suggest doing this if there are any primary verified records in the group without first talking it over with the verifiers. Mhhutchins 04:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I thought I had tried that before, and it didn't work, but that must have been some error I made. Chavey 04:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Other than the caveat about changing verified records, you have to remember that the edited publisher record retains its ID number, and you may have another publisher with the identical name but with a different ID number. Those will then have to be merged, but that can only be done if the names are exactly the same. Mhhutchins 04:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Just tried that with "Vertigo", after verifying that all of the titles by that "publisher" were from the imprint of DC Comics (and that none were verified), and it worked just as it should :-) Chavey 04:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Donor by Robinson
Can you confirm the publisher given in this record? Both Forge and Tor are imprints of Tom Doherty Associates, and neither are imprints of each other. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 22:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Same situation with this record. Mhhutchins 22:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Corrected. They were both "Forge". Chavey 20:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Red Moon and Black Mountain
For this verified pub I added some notes and changed the pagecount from 244 to xii+244. Thanks, --Willem H. 19:09, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Merril's Shadow on the Hearth
I saw your message about updating the notes of this record. Would you be able to do a larger, higher resolution scan of the entire dustjacket and email it to me? I want to create a cover for my jacketless copy, and I promise not to make it so good that I'd be able to sell it as an original. :) Mhhutchins 18:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll take it down to my office tomorrow so I can do it on the scanner there. It's a really nice copy of the DJ, with just some minor flaws on the spine. Would you like a copy of the title page, with Judith's signature :-) [As you can guess, I was very pleased to get this copy!] Chavey 19:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

A fun day at the ISFDB
A good day. I received an email from a researcher who had heard (somehow) that I had identified, and written a bio of, the "Tremlett Carter" who wrote the 1895 book "The People of the Moon", so I directed him to the ISFDB pages I wrote for his biography, and the evidence for his identification. Then I got to verify a 1st edition of Judith Merril's first anthology in the "Year's Best" series (from a Gnome Press file copy, no less). And I finished the evening with verifying the 1st edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A fun day. Chavey 08:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)


 * That is a good day! Kevin 02:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

M. S. Waddell
When you have a free minute, could you please review this discussion? The fact that and  appeared in alternating "Pan Books of Horror Stories" (as pointed out by P-Brane) may be sufficient circumstantial evidence (in addition to what Vault of Evil and Pan Horrors claim) to link the two authors. Ahasuerus 00:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Turning Schwartz into Black?
Just joking! (Schwartz is nearly the German word for black). But I'd like to turn Schwartz into Shwartz in your verified pub.. See this question about the background of my suggestion. Would this be okay for you? Stonecreek 06:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * There have been some occasions when Susan's name has gotten spelled wrong, so I need to check whether this is such an example, or just a mistake. It will take me a couple of days to get to that particular book, but not too long. Chavey 01:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Non-genre titles
I see that you have created. Unfortunately, it's a design limitation: at this time we only support "non-genre" novels. All other types of non-genre titles -- collections, non-fiction, short fiction, etc -- have to be entered as "collections", "non-fiction" and so on. The right way to address this problem would be to create a new field in the Title table where we would store a flag determining whether a title record is "GENRE" or "NONGENRE", but that will require a fair amount of work... Ahasuerus 04:59, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I recognize that it's a design limitation, and that it will be a while before it percolates up to being very high on the priority list. But I still think it deserves to be on the list of hoped-for capabilities. Chavey 11:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, sure, it's certainly desirable! But as long as it is a "hoped-for capability" rather than a bug, we probably want to move it to the "Feature Request" tracker :-) Do your user rights on Sourceforge allow you to move tickets between trackers? If not, I can do it with a single click. Ahasuerus 15:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The reason I had this listed as a bug is because there is no link from a Non-Genre publication to the title record that contains it. And while adding the NONGENRE feature is one solution to that problem, it's probably not the only solution. But the fact that a (certain type of) publication record cannot contain a link to its title record seems like an honest bug. Chavey 15:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is how it works internally: the publication display script scans all title records in the current pub, finds the first title whose types matches the type of the publication and links to it. In this case there is no match, so no link is displayed.


 * Since the NONGENRE title type is currently limited to novels, it looks like the software is working as intended, we'll just need to change the pub type to NONFICTION and the link will reappear. Ahasuerus 01:51, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * So I take it that the workaround is that a Non-Fiction, Non-Genre book should be listed as "Non-Fiction", with a Note that it's Non-Genre? Chavey 01:54, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Exactly! The same workaround can be used for non-genre collections and other non-genre books that are not novels. Some editors have been known to add suffixes like "(non-genre collection)" to titles, but that's not ideal. Ahasuerus 03:58, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Reviews
BTW, did you notice my explanation of reviews over on the Help Desk? Ahasuerus 05:53, 27 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes I did; thanks. It seems that help page needs some substantial revision. But at least now I understand the intent of that odd section. (Even if only momentarily :-) .) Chavey 11:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Ayn Rand's Anthem
Following ISFDB standards for stand-alone publication of novellas, I changed your verified record to a CHAPTERBOOK and added a SHORTFICTION content record. Mhhutchins 13:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Good call. A verification from before I understood ChapterBooks. Chavey 13:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * No prob. All of the pub records were entered as novels, and I converted them all. Mhhutchins 14:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Star Man's Son
Can you confirm the publisher's name as given in this verified record? Before the company merged with World Publishing in 1960 it was known as Harcourt, Brace & Company, which became Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1970. In the early nineties "Jovanovich" was dropped from its name and it became just "Harcourt Brace" (no comma). Your record is now part of those listed with this later incarnation. I'm assuming it should be with other 1950s publications grouped with this earlier company. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 05:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking. It's officially "Harcourt, Brace and Company", and I hadn't noticed the distinction between that and "Harcourt Brace". Since the name with "and" spelled out isn't one of our existing publishers, I corrected the publisher to "Harcourt, Brace & Company". Chavey 12:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

In Conquest Born
I've uploaded and linked the full image of this record's cover art, and added more notes. Do you know the source that said the cover image was reversed on some copies of the first printing? Mhhutchins 00:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * No, it wasn't me. My cover looks the same as yours. Chavey 03:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps [this] is the image referred to? --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Psion
Added the Author's Introduction to the contents, Roman Numerated pages to the page count, notes and a new image to [this]. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Zelerod's Doom
I've corrected the interior art credit for your verified pub from "Gain Bennett" to Gail Bennett: it's barely visible in 4pt type, but it's there. Also notifying DESiegel60 (P1). Cheers. PeteYoung 17:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Binary Star No. 4
Please see [this] discussion. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Henderson's Pilgrimage
Can you confirm that Hector Carrido is credited with the cover art in your copy of this title? My copy of the 11th printing has the same art (different cover design), but is not credited. Also, my copy doesn't give the subtitle ("The Book of the People") on the title page, just the front cover. Does yours? Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 18:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, the cover is credited to Hector on the copyright page. The title on the title page of this edition is just "Pilgrimage". The cover includes "The Book of the People", and my first Avon edition has that subtitle on that title page, but this edition doesn't. I corrected the title (should we make a VT?), and added a note about the cover credit. Chavey 00:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Technically, yes. But I'm a little lenient when it comes to subtitles like this (I never make variants for subtitles that are just a statement of the series, e.g. "The Eighth Novel in the Neverending Series, or At Least Until the Buying Public Realizes They're Being Ripped Off Because the Paucity of My Creative Imagination Has Become More Evident With Each Volume".) I'll give your edition as a source for the cover art. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 00:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, and prefer somewhat more use of "The Pub title doesn't have to be the same as the Title rec" and somewhat less use of long lists of VT's. Chavey 00:57, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I can always use that to support my decision. I'd never thought of that one before. Mhhutchins 01:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Dreams of the Raven
Just added/cloned a record for the Canadian edition of [this] which contains an excerpt not noted in the record for the US edition [it may not be there, but ...] --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:07, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

New Worlds 9
New image, expanded the notes and added one missing piece of interior art to [this]  --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:22, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Twisting the Rope
I've added the subtitle which appears on the title page of this edition and added further notes. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:04, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The Bloody Sun
Replaced the amazon scan and added an interior art piece to [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

A Place Beyond Man
Scanned a new image and added an interior art piece to [this] --~ Bill, Bluesman 01:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

DAW Collectors publication series
I've added a reply to your comment at User talk:Marc Kupper. --Marc Kupper|talk 17:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Fury
Added the price to [this], source Tuck. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Dorothy Daniels
I've added a comment to Author talk:Dorothy Daniels. --Marc Kupper|talk 16:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Priestess of Avalon
The maps in this record should be treated as "uncredited". The "courtesy of" notice doesn't imply creation, only permission. And personally, I try to avoid any corporate credits as much as possible. Mhhutchins 18:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Corrected. And I agree with you about corporate credits. I think these notes were from earlier in my "career". Chavey 18:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Janus #1
I've corrected the spelling of "Dhalgren" (was "Dahlgren") for its review in Janus #1, and linked the review to the title... also, in case you don't know already (you probably do) the complete run of Janus/Aurora is now up at SF3.org here, the majority as PDFs. I expect I'll be working my way through indexing these in the near future. PeteYoung 04:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know those are posted. I've been working with the editor (Jeanne Gomoll) for the last year on getting those ready to be posted. We had dinner together a few weeks ago while planning strategies for contact the contributors to get permission for posting the issues. A few things had to be blacked out from contributors who didn't want their writing to be online. I have the originals, which I was working from, and she's giving me some additional data about the issues which I still have to enter on the main page. What you might not know is that she's been trying hard to get all of these posted in time for the announcement that she's the fan GoH for WorldCon 2014 (for founding Janus, WisCon, and the Tiptree Award). Chavey 04:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not on the Loncon 3 committee although I have several friends who are, and because I've been doing some assisting on the website design I knew she was to be fan GoH but had to keep it to myself until the announcement. Glad she finally got them up... plenty of good reading there! PeteYoung 12:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Jeanne's pretty happy that she can finally talk about it too. People would ask her "What's new?", and she'd have to think about something else to mention. By the way, another reason for Jeanne's push to get these available online came from Roxanne Samer, who's doing her Ph.D. research on the early feminist SF zines, and hence volunteered to do all of the scanning of the Janus/Aurora issues. I have a partial collection of the first such zine, The Witch and the Chameleon, and scanned those issues for her. But her work with Janus/Aurora made it possible for Jeanne to take on the task of getting everything online. My wife is a professional at locating people, so she got involved in the process of finding contributors to get permissions to put their contents online. The "Google compromise" means that we have to make a good faith effort to find all of the contributors, and delete content if the contributors object (two people so far). And we must make it possible for contributors we haven't located to see these and ask for their content to be deleted, but we can post the contents until then. The net effect is that a year from now we may have some other contributors who have asked Jeanne to remove their contributions, in which case future online versions may have slightly less content than those there now. Summary: If you want those pdf's, download them now instead of bookmarking the site :-) Chavey 14:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Caldwell's Your Sins and Mine
I don't believe the date as given in this record is correct. Publishers did not start using the SBN assigned publisher codes (445 for Popular Library) until the late 60s. And the price of 60 cents for such a slim volume in 1961 is not in line with other prices for that period. The OCLC record you cite as a source for the year is also probably wrong. Is your copy part of the Popular Giant series? Mhhutchins 04:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You must be correct. I looked at Biblio.com for first edition books from Popular Library that had photos, and looked at 100 book each from various years up to 1966. From this research, it seems that they began using SBN's in 1966. Going back to my book (which is not part of the Popular Giant series), the ads in the back of the book were for Popular Library editions of some Thomas Costain historical novels, which didn't exist until 1964. I've updated the record for the book, with an "0000" date, and a note about some of this, along with a conjecture that it's a 1966 publication. Chavey 13:52, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for zeroing out the date. Looking at the list of Popular Library pubs on the ISFDB, it appears that they didn't use the SBN code until 1970, so your book may be later than you might think. Mhhutchins 17:13, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Valente's Guide to Folktales
Can you confirm that this book doesn't have an ISBN-13, and only has the ISBN-10? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 14:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Back cover, which was what I looked at, has only the 10-digit ISBN. The copyright page has both. I assume that means I should correct it? Chavey 15:11, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * If it has both, it's better to enter the ISBN-13 into the record. I would advise not using an ISBN printed on a back cover or dustjacket unless that's the only one in the book. The one on the copyright page trumps any other in cases where the numbers don't match. But there are exceptions, especially if the one on the copyright page is a misprint or an invalid number.


 * Corrected. I spent a few hours on the contents, including getting original attributions for things, and I think I overlooked some stuff on the copyright page. Going back, I added a note for the name of the cover piece, listed on the copyright. Chavey 17:19, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The Beast Master
Added an image and artist credit [from the Ace Image Library] to [this]. --~ Bill, Bluesman 15:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Market Forces
I'm suspicious of this record for several reasons. The ISBN-13 did not come into wide use until 2007 (publishers were required after December 2006 to use it). Also, the price is very high for an ebook, which is the same price as the trade paperback of this edition. And the OCLC record that's been linked to the record doesn't give a publication date (March 2005), only a copyright date. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 22:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * You are correct. WorldCat gives both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, but does not say which actually is in the book. Amazon verifies that they used the ISBN-10. And on the price, I had misread the Amazon listing, which included both the Kindle price and the print price. Both have been corrected. Chavey 23:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Corrigans Homunculi
Hello, Darrah! I have added a ISFDB-based cover image to your verified pub and I also changed the month to July based on the listing published in the magazine I mentioned in the notes.

In addition I put the title into this anthology series, so that now the subtitle seems somewhat superfluous and out of sync with the other anthologies in the series. Would it be okay for you to shorten the title to just Mr. Corrigans Homunculi? Stonecreek 10:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Update look good to me. I changed the title as you suggested. Chavey 14:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Your question about "The Faded Sun" on my talk page
You asked a question on my talk page regarding the DAW Collector's Number on C. J. Cherryh's. It's been a while since you asked, so I am responding on your own talk page. I hope the answer is still useful despite the long delay. The collector's number appears in my publication in three places:
 * 1) In the bottom-right corner on the front cover, together with the DAW icon. Have a look at the cover scan on the pub record to see what I mean.
 * 2) In addition to this, the same number and icon also appear on the inside of the front cover page, this time in the upper-left corner of the page
 * 3) Finally, the phrase "DAW Book Collectors No. 1143" is printed on the copyright page

Hope this helps, Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 11:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks much, I appreciate the help. The common wisdom that the DAW number only appeared on the first printings seems to have been shown to be quite incorrect. Chavey 13:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed :-) By the way, if you would like me to record DAW-specific attributes in a certain way in my pub notes, just let me know. So far I have been aware of only Marc Kupper's special interest in DAW (this page is tended by him), but I'll gladly help you or other DAW experts as well. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 14:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems that there is some interest in the question of which DAW books are listed with the DAW publication number, and which are not. They have always done so with first printings, but not necessarily with later printings. As such, it's probably useful to add a note along with the DAW number as to whether the number appears on the cover, on the copyright page, both, or neither. As best as I can tell, the DAW number always appears on the copyright page after some particular date, and not on reprint editions before some date, but we don't really seem to know when that transition happened. So with later DAW printings, I would invite you to add a note such as I did with C. J. Cherryh's . I don't think there's any need to get detailed about the locations of the DAW numbering, but whether it occurs on the cover and/or copyright page may be useful. Thanks, Chavey 19:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The Silverleaf Syndrome
Replaced the amazon scan and added notes [there were none] to [this]. Posted a Verification Request re the initials. --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! It's an older verification of mine, and I wasn't as thorough then as I should have been. Chavey 18:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The Spellstone of Shaltus
Replaced the amazon scan for [this] and added the artist from a signature [bottom left] with note. --~ Bill, Bluesman 05:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Gaskell's Strange Evil
Can you check to see if the publisher as given on the title page of this record is "E. P. Dutton"? I've started to separate those books published after the publisher became an imprint of the Penguin USA Group as simply Dutton, when previously it had the full name of E. P. Dutton. I'm assuming this 1958 edition gives "E. P. Dutton" as the publisher. Because it's been primary verified, I've not updated the record, but am asking you to do so, if the publisher as given in the record can not be confirmed. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I finally got into the storage boxes and found this. As you expected, although it says "Dutton" on the spine, the title page has "E. P. Dutton". I corrected the publication, and the publisher page for "Dutton" now has no entries prior to 1989. Chavey 09:30, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The same situation with this 1984 publication. Mhhutchins 03:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

FR 3585574: Allow "MAGAZINE" as title type in Advanced Searches
Re:, I believe the functionality is already available. The title type for magazine titles (as opposed to publication records) is EDITOR and you can use EDITOR as a Title Type in Advanced Search. Perhaps you were referring to the fact that Advanced Publication Search doesn't let you search by Publication Type (which includes MAGAZINEs)? If so, then this functionality was previously requested in. Ahasuerus 04:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Where I got confused, I guess, is that if I go to a standard book publication, e.g. here, it says it's of type COLLECTION, and that's how I would search for it, either as a pub or as a title. If I go to a magazine, e.g. here, it tells me it's of type MAGAZINE. It doesn't give me an option of going to a "title rec", so I assumed that the "Type" was "MAGAZINE". Certainly nothing there tells me that the "title" associated with this pub is of a different "Type" than the publication, and that doesn't seem to happen anywhere else. So, apparently, I was mislead into thinking that's how I should search. There is nothing on the Advanced Search page that would lead me to the correct way to search for magazines; there is nothing in the FAQ list about doing searches; and the Help page on Advanced Searches contains essentially nothing. So I guess I don't see how I could have figured out that to search for journals/magazines, I should use Type EDITOR. If appropriate, I'll gladly change that FR to "Users should be able to figure out from the documentation how to do a search for magazines." Chavey 05:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The first thing that comes to mind after reading your explanation is that we may want to ensure that Magazine pubs are directly linked to their respective EDITOR titles :-) But yes, you are quite right about the underlying problem -- the Magazine/EDITOR mismatch is pretty much unique and poorly documented. A simple band-aid would be to add "(for magazines)" next to the word "EDITOR" on the "Valid title types are" line at the top of the Advanced Search page. Would that work? Ahasuerus 07:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * That seems like a reasonable band-aid; should lead the user in the right direction, without requiring solving the larger problem yet. Chavey 16:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Both done. And happy birthday! Ahasuerus 06:54, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for both :-) I hadn't thought about the fact that my name would now show up for a day on the front page. Chavey 07:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Dragon Wing
Hi. This title appears in that you verified. I wanted to notify you that I submitted a change that fixes a typo in the title: Prevously it contained the word "Escerpt", I fixed this so that it's now "Excerpt". If you have the time could you please verify that this is really how the title appears in your copy of the book? Could you also please verify I'm asking all this because I suspect that some of the errors discussed here have propagated to your pub by cloning. Thanks Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 18:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The spelling of the cover artist's name on the copyright page: Is it "Parkinson" or "Parkenson"?
 * The "Music copyright" statement: Is the year 1990 or 1989?


 * My apologies. I'm currently re-organizing my books, and am unable to find this one right now. I will get back with you as soon as I am able to locate it. Chavey 07:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Bug 3397761: Changing contents re-used a title display
Re:, the current behavior (or at least the current intended behavior) is what we agreed upon back in 2009 when this question last came up. Prior to September 2009 it was possible to use Pub Edit to change Title records which existed in multiple pubs and that could wreak havoc in various ways. We then modified the Pub Edit logic to gray out any Titles that appeared in multiple pubs and "yellow out" any container titles, making them in-editable, which addressed the immediate problem.

So I guess the question is if you happen to remember what the "various oddities in the appearance of that title record" were. Did the software let you change a Title record that existed in multiple pubs (which would have indicated a bug)? Or did the changed Title record only exist in the pub that you were editing? Ahasuerus 06:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * That was a while ago, so my memory is hazy. But I think that what happened was that the fields that weren't given new data (so they looked empty), ended up inheriting the values of the fields from the old record. Chavey 06:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hm, I am trying to recreate the problem (as I read it) on the development server and I don't think I am seeing what you are describing. For example, if you edit this pub, scroll down to the Content section and blank out the value either of the Title field or of the Author1 field, the submission will be rejected. Do you recall any additional details of the oddities that you saw? Ahasuerus 07:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I went to that test book you link to above. I added a short story as a content item. Then I went to that short story and added a synopsis and a web link to go with the short story. That's the initial scenario. Then I carried out the action of the bug: Went to the book and changed the title & author of the short story as if I were replacing that content item with another. Then I went to that short story. Instead of seeing a blank slate (other than the new title and author), it had inherited the synopsis and web link of the previous story. That's the behavior I was referring to. Chavey 14:53, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh, I see. . I think the problem is that there are really two separate use cases here. In the first case a user is making cosmetic changes to a Title record in the Content section, e.g. "Robert A. Heinlein" instead of "Robert Heinlein" or "The Roads Must Roll" instead of "The Roads Must Role". When this happens, we want to preserve all other data associated with the Title record. The other use case consists of the user replacing a Title record with a totally different Title record, so we would want to blank out all of that Title's associated data.


 * Unfortunately, I can think of no way for the software to tell whether it's dealing with the first or the second use case. I guess we could disallow editing ALL titles when editing pubs, but that seems like overkill. We could also add a JavaScript pop-up notifying the user that Title data has been changed and asking whether to proceed anyway. Would that work? Ahasuerus 02:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the pop-up could work well enough, if worded carefully. Instead of saying "The Title data has been changed", I would suggest asking something like "The Title Mary Poppins Goes to War will be registered as a minor variant of Mary Poppins Comes Back. Was that your intent?" Chavey 08:03, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * But changing a Title record wouldn't create a variant, right? It would simply change the title's title and/or author(s). Ahasuerus 08:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, my wording isn't right either. But as I understand it, this is an appropriate way to get the phenomena seen regularly: A publication that doesn't quite match the title record, because it has some slight variation that isn't sufficient to create a VT. (If I'm wrong, and this is actually changing the root title record, then this is a worse bug than I thought: Someone who thinks he's just changing the contents of one anthology would change the name of that story in every other publication it was in.) If I'm right, and this is just creating a publication that's a variant of the title, then this is what I mean, informally, by "a minor variant". Chavey 08:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)


 * If a Title record exists in multiple pubs, then it will appear greyed out and the editor won't be able to change it. My Heinlein examples were probably poor because pretty much all of Heinlein's works have been reprinted. Here is a more realistic scenario: Fixer submits a new pub, but you notice that the author's name is missing her middle initial and the title is missing an article. You approve the submission, then pull up the new pub in Edit Pub in order to change the title and the author's name. The way the software currently works, it lets you make your changes to the Publication record and to the Title record at the same time -- because the Title record exists in only one pub. Ahasuerus 09:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I realize that this is, more-or-less, the correct way to go--force the user to delete bad contents and add the new. And with more experience, I wouldn't do things that way any more. But if it's not too hard, it would be nice for the system to be able to recognize when someone was trying to do that and take some more appropriate action. "More appropriate" might be to warn the user that they're taking dangerous action and really should ..., with a "Go ahead anyway" option; or it might be to erase the previous data from the record (if my memory of the problem is correct). I'm not sure. It just seems there should be a better way to respond to this problem. Chavey 06:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Dutton
Your two pre-1990 records are the only ones that remain that credit Dutton as the publisher. As requested in this message, please take a moment when you get the chance to see how the publisher is credited in your copies. Thanks. 14:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Beauty's Punishment corrected. Strange Evil is in storage, and I'll look for it in a bit. Chavey 15:23, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Cover artist identified
My copy of this title has the artist's signature at the bottom, but it is mirrored! It may have been cropped from your copy, so I replaced the note about there being no visible signature. Mhhutchins 17:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I uploaded a scan of the cover of this book, and speculate about who the artist may be. I can't find a signature, but perhaps you have a keener eye. Mhhutchins 17:25, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I asked Somtow over on Facebook, he confirms it's Don Maitz. PeteYoung 10:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * FB to the rescue! God job. Chavey 13:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for confirming my educated guess, Pete. I'll update the record with the author as the source for the cover credit. Mhhutchins 17:21, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Interview entry standards
When entering an interview, you should enter the canonical name of the interviewee regardless of how it is given in the actual interview. The title of the interview is still entered as stated. So this review should give "Clifford D. Simak" as the interviewee. Also, about the format used to enter the letters in this publication record: Unless each letter is titled "Letter to the Editor", they should be titled in the format "Letter ()". Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the corrections. Will do. Chavey 08:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Janus, June 1976
Can you look at the review for "Perchance to Dream" in this issue and determine if a review record is necessary? I can not find any evidence that the title was ever published. Perhaps the essay record will suffice. I'm trying to get rid of the publess author that this review creates. If it is a work of spec-fic, would you create a pub record for it? Thanks. Mhhutchins 06:14, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The story was published in "Tales", V.3, #1, Summer, 1976. This appears to be a small circulation journal, i.e. WorldCat has only two records of it: OCLC 17268315 at the NY Public Library, and 35012274 at Iowa State. (At least I think this is the journal; the journal had a P.O. address in St. Louis, MO, but the OCLC records say this journal was published out of Syracuse, NY. I have a researcher trying to verify this for me.) According to the review, they were paying $125 per story (it was actually $25 per story), so they were a substantial magazine, but I'm guessing it's a non-genre magazine. I can't find almost no information on the magazine itself. In particular, it's not in Contento's general fiction magazine index. Not that it should make a lot of difference, but the review is about what a terrible story this is, and bemoaning that a "high circulation magazine" would pay good money for it. So I'm not sure what to do with this. Probably convert it to an essay, then add notes to the essay about what it is? Chavey 16:01, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, you already have an record for the essay, so it wouldn't be necessary to create another one. Is there a possibility that this may be a spoof? Mhhutchins 16:21, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * No, I really don't think so. The author spent way too much time on his essay for that to be the case, and he had several other contributions to the zine. I can go ahead and create a record for this along the lines of other stories in non-genre magazines. Chavey 17:09, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Go ahead, but only if you have a credible and verifiable source for the publication. But honestly, I don't see the point of adding a publication record for an obscure story by an obscure author in an obscure magazine that's only reviewed in an obscure fanzine by an obscure author. How many degrees of obscurity does it take to make a record pointless? :) Mhhutchins 17:32, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Since Janus was nominated for the Hugo Best Fanzine 3 times, I wouldn't call it exactly obscure, but I agree with your overall point. I guess I misunderstood your previous comment. So I'm not exactly sure what you're recommending. Convert it to an essay with notes? By the way, my researcher verified the journal issue, found 4 copies of it, and is requesting a photocopy of it, so I will have a "credible and verifiable source", if that makes a difference. Chavey 19:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * As I pointed out, there is already a record for the essay itself. It's not necessary to create a review record for a review contained in an essay unless the title is already in the database and you want to link the title record to the review. Mhhutchins 19:42, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Review record removed. Notes added to the essay record. Chavey 19:57, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Slightly Behind and to the Left
This should be typed as a COLLECTION and not CHAPTERBOOK. The ISFDB definition of the latter: This format is primarily used for separate publications of a single work of short fiction. Mhhutchins 05:09, 6 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the catch. (An old verification.) Corrected. Chavey 18:57, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Crisis on Doona
You have varified this book as complete. However, the Amazon image is not accurate (as stated in the notes). I have found an accurate image here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdrummbks/5224377467/  I also have the first printing. I'll let you update the image as you are the primary varifier.--Astromath 15:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


 * We cannot use the image that you have linked to, because it retains copyright licensing to the photographer of that image. The Amazon image as used is flawed (as you note), but we are allowed to use it. To correct the flaw, we would either have to use the ugly low-res Amazon picture here, or else you or I would need to scan in our covers. At some point I'll be scanning in a few hundred books that I verified but whose covers ISFDB doesn't have, but that time isn't yet. If you're willing to scan in your cover, that would be appreciated. Chavey 03:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Get Off the Unicorn by Anne McCaffrey
I see that you are the primary verifier for this pub. I also notice that there's a watermark on the image. Does your copy have that watermark? Mine doesn't. If your copy doesn't have the watermark, shouldn't the image shown be replaced with yours? (Or mine if you want me to replace it.)

P.S. I've asked elsewhere what isfdb's policy is about watermarks on images are.--Astromath 02:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for noticing that copyright watermark. I was not the person who added that image, and when verifying it I had not noticed that watermark. (The ISFDB policy is that we don't use such images, unless we have express written or emailed permission from the copyright holder to use it.) I replaced that with an Amazon image of the book.
 * As an aside, when you're discussing a book like this, it would be very helpful if you would include a link to the book. There are 11 publications of that book listed, 5 of which are verified. So I had to go searching through them to figure out which was the publication that I had verified. Chavey 03:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. I'll do better next time.--Astromath 13:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Camber of Culdi
Please see this discussion. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Fires of Azeroth
Hi -- haven't been here in a while, but if you still want the answer to this question, I checked my copy and the number is on the front cover, in the yellow DAW=sf box. Mike Christie (talk) 13:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks much! The traditional wisdom that reprint editions didn't include the DAW number has now been quite overthrown, except for early reprint editions. I updated the notes a bit to record that data, in case it ever comes up again. Chavey 15:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Love and War
Re: DragonLance Tales Volume 3: Love and War

I believe that "DragonLance Tales Volume 3:" should be dropped from the title. No other book of this series (or any other DragonLance series) include anything like that. This is for the sake of consistency in the titles. Do you agree?--Astromath 13:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. Since I saw some clean up that I wanted to do to the notes, I went ahead and made that change. (P.S. Thanks for adding the link.) Chavey 15:15, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A Fistful of Sky
Just checking to see if you have had a chance to review User:Ofearna's submission that would change your primary verified record? Ahasuerus 01:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I hadn't seen that. Looking at the submission, he doesn't seem to be changing anything about the record. Since it appears as a change to the notes, I suspect there must be some formatting change he wants to make to the notes, but I can't tell what by looking at the submission itself. I am unable to detect any change to the text itself. Can you tell what he's trying to do? Chavey 02:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Andrea Hairston's Griots of the Galaxy
You verified which contains Griots of the Galaxy (shortstory) and  which contains Griots of the Galaxy (novelette). Is the latter truly an expansion of the former? Or are the same work? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:42, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * They are the same work. There was some modest editing between the "So Long Been Dreaming" version (short story?) and the "Impolitic!" version (novelette), but there were only changes in 4 or 5 paragraphs that I could find. What was really different was the number of words per page. Picking a random page, covering the same text, the former printing approximates to 22 pages of 450 word per page (9,900 words); the later is 37 pages of 286 words per page (10,582 words). Both are obviously in the novelette range (17,500-40,000 words). Locus called the first publication a short story, which is obviously based on the page count only. They are wrong. I suspect they are wrong about the length standing of a very large number of trade paperback stories, at least ones like this with so many words per page. I am re-evaluating all of the stories in So Long Been Dreaming based on my "words per page" count, and will correct this one and others. [Added: Only one other story changed to a novelette.] Of course that doesn't address the larger problem of Locus specifying story length by doing a page count. Chavey 03:06, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Beyond Earth's Gates
Hi, I just added cover artist Harry Barton for Beyond Earth's Gates cover of this Ace Double. Horzel 10:07, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The Last Planet
Modified cover artist of this edition from Barton to Harry Barton. Horzel 14:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

LeGuin: typo or pseudonym?
Hello, Darrah! I came across this title, published in one of your verified publications. The right name would be Le Guin, of course. But where did the typo creep in?


 * It is listed as "LeGuin" in both the ToC and at the actual article. Interestingly, the article has a graphic signature from Ursula, where the spacing in "Le Guin" is obvious. But following our standard, I left it as "LeGuin" and VT'd the essay. Thanks for noticing. Are you correcting, or VT'ing, the two editions of "Die Erzähler" that are listed under "LeGuin"? I see you verified one of them. Chavey 21:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

And now for something completely different: I added some notes (and corrected the WorldCat error Gustav Lühhe to the canonical Lübbe) for the two publications of Der Stein der Keuschheit by Margery Sharp - never heard of the novel before. Is it recommendable? Stonecreek 20:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the publisher correction. I wondered about that name, and glad to see you correct it. I don't own the book, and haven't read it, but ran across its existence in an auction of Jack Cordes' SF collection. Checking up on the plot, it certainly seems to belong here, even though her more famous series, "The Rescuers", does not. The author is well-respected, and this book was reprinted many times (as indicated in the 15 English & German editions I posted, so I suspect it is an enjoyable little fantasy farce. I also suspect that I can predict the ending of the book just from the reviews I've seen. But I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point. Chavey 21:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Darrah, you might be interested in this discussion which took place several years back. Although it was never codified, it seems to have become the de facto standard that we don't create pseudonyms based on spacing in an author's name. It's too hard to determine if the space (or lack of one) was intended, or a typesetter's choice (most likely in error), or whether it was caused by "justification" of margins. I've seen cases where Le Guin's name didn't have a space and are recorded in the db using the canonical form of the author's name (such as early stories published in magazines). Just as we don't create pseudonyms and variants based on capitalization (e.g. A. E. Van Vogt) or lack of an accent (e.g. Philip Jose Farmer). Sometimes the hard and fast rule about recording credits exactly as given becomes a straitjacket. Feel free to start a R&S discussion if you think it's necessary. I see that you've created a variant for the title record but the name itself has not been made into a pseudonym, which creates a stray author. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:43, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I did not know about that policy, but I heartily approve of it. I have corrected the record to reflect this, added the note, and once again Ursula LeGuin has disappeared. Chavey 16:21, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Cloudcry
Added a full cover scan and expanded the notes a little for []. The record had Richard Powers as artist but the credit in the book is to 'Dick'. Changed the record and varianted/merged. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:06, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

The Christening Quest
Changed Artist credit for to Kevin Johnson per copyright page, will make it a variant for Kevin Eugene Johnson. BungalowBarbara 06:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm holding the submission until Chavey responds. In cases where you are changing data in a primary-verified record, you should discuss it with the verifier before making the submission. (Most editors are content with simultaneous notification of submissions which add data.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:16, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Also added note about author name -- different on cover & title page -- per earlier discussion above. This is an addition and not a change. BungalowBarbara 21:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have removed my hold on the submission to allow Chavey to handle it. Mhhutchins 06:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I won't be able to get to that book until Sunday, so I will verify the change then. Chavey 02:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The change is fine with me. That left 4 Italian covers attributed to "Kevin Johnson". I found the English covers (by "Kevin Eugene Johnson") that they all came from, and made those VT's of their original art. So "Kevin Johnson" now appears as a proper pseudonym. Chavey 22:37, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, and good work with the Italian covers! 23:46, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Author mismatch
It appears that you may have recently made some changes to this publication record or its title record to make it show up on the author mismatch list (clean-up script). The author credit of the title record should match the author credit of the publication record. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 05:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The authors are pretty clearly credited on the book, so I don't know how the title and other publication record came to be "uncredited". I'm guessing that someone said "The editor of this 'anthology' is unlisted, so I'll put it down as 'uncredited'. But my understanding is that for dos books, such as this, we list both authors as the author of the dual book, as opposed to looking for an editor. Is that correct? Chavey 06:04, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. The authors should be credited in ANTHOLOGY doubles, but it appears that this has been typed as a CHAPTERBOOK. The publication may be a chapbook, but it's not a CHAPTERBOOK. ISFDB standards would make it an ANTHOLOGY with two stories. Either way you decide to handle it, the author credit for the pub records and their title records should match. Mhhutchins 20:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe I have corrected the problems. Chavey 03:16, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Janus V3 #1
The review of Extrapolation on page 38 of this publication should be converted to an ESSAY record, as the ISFDB currently has no other way to handle reviews of periodicals. Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, done. Chavey 02:30, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The Red Magician
Re: The Red Magician

The printing is not indicated in the notes. What printing do you have? I have the 2nd printing.--Astromath 04:27, 31 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I added notes to this pub, including that it's a first printing. Chavey 17:19, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts
I'm assuming you created this series. If not, pardon the assumption. Several of the variant records were given series data and not the parent title record (because of the pseudonymous editor credits). This causes the title to show up twice on the series list. I've moved the series data from the variant title record to the parent record. That having been said, I'm not sure that these rightfully form a title series, although I suppose a case could be made for it when you think that Orbit, Universe, and New Dimensions, along with many other anthology series have been placed into a title series. The problem in this case is that there are two titles numbered "1" in the series, and it comes up on the clean-up script which finds errors in the numbering of title series. I can't think of a way around it, because it appears they've been numbered based on the conference in which the papers were presented, with two volumes published from the first conference. Alas, the system doesn't allow anything other than a whole integer in the field, so it will have to remain as an error. Mhhutchins 04:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I created that series. I apologize for the parent record / variant record problem. I had added several of them as new pubs in one pass, checked on which pseudonyms I broke on a second pass and fixed them, then forgot to go back and fix up the series info.
 * One possible solution for the "Conference #1" problem is to view them like 2 volumes of a single title -- such as we might do for a book that has been published in both a 1-volume set and a 2-volume set (e.g. The Night Side of Nature: Ghosts and Ghost Seers). Each publication could still go into its own slot in the publication series, but they would be merged into a single title, which would go into slot 1 of this title. Should I do that? Chavey 04:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a reasonable solution. You'd have to variant the two existing title records to one newly created title record, remove the series data from the two individual title records and add it to the (new) parent title record. That might work. Go ahead and try it so that we can see how it displays. Mhhutchins 05:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Done. I think the conference series looks pretty good with these changes, esp. due to the way it shows variants. Does it remove the problem with the clean-up script? Chavey 15:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes. Works for me, even though when you get to the bottom of it, it's only a band-aid for an unfixable situation. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

"Automerge failed" (Bug 3598892)
Could you please list the steps that led to ? Was the "Automerge" option that you referred to related to "Find Duplicates" or perhaps some other menu option? Ahasuerus 04:18, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Looking here, I had created pub records for the 1812 and 1815 publications (1st edition, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). I added a new publication to the title, and created the 1819 edition of Vol. 1. I added 86 short stories to the contents of that publication. I saved the publication. If automerge had been functioning correctly, it would seem that since there was an overlap of 50 (or so) exact title/author duplicates, that the system would have merged those short stories in the 1819 edition with the ones in the 1812 edition. It did not. I repeated this process with the next 11 publications, again with no automerging of titles occurring. (The 1813 publication was a clone, and hence had no problems.) The "Find Duplicates" function worked perfectly, and allowed me to then do a manual merge "relatively" easy -- if we view 300 uses of such merges "easy". (Aside: I am not yet done with this project, and have not identified variants within the short story titles, nor converted these titles into VT's of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.) Chavey 04:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Hm, I wonder if I may be confused. If the term "automerge" means that new Title records whose author(s) and title match an existing Title record are automatically merged by the software upon submission approval, then this functionality doesn't exist at this time. Or did you have something else in mind? Ahasuerus 04:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I thought that was a feature. (facepalm) Using the voice of the church lady from Saturday Night Live -- "Never mind". Chavey 05:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * No problem! If I had a penny for every time I was hopelessly confused, I would be retired now. Er, wait, I am retired ;-) Ahasuerus 05:14, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * P.S. But it brings up an interesting point. Should it be a feature? Ahasuerus 05:15, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It would certainly make entering anthologies and collections easier. I wonder how many editors entering them now bother to go back and try to "Find Duplicates" on all authors in an anthology whose contents they've just entered? I haven't been. Chavey 05:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It may be too dangerous to merge titles automatically, but perhaps we could provide a list of possible matches for every entered Contents title (assuming there are any) and let the editor choose which one the entered title should be auto-merged with. Ahasuerus 05:33, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * That does seem like a much safer alternative. It does seem that a fully automatic merge on contents has the potential to be dangerous. Chavey 05:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems we have half a new FR here. I don't know if we should try and improve "Import" so you can do a lot of content entries in one go, automerged. Or work on "Find Duplicates" and enable mass submissions of such when you've just entered (and have had approved) a lot of contents that are similar to an existing pub. Or is there a third or fourth or more option I haven't got to yet? BLongley 21:28, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Exile Waiting
Found a signature on the cover of [this], bottom edge left of the leading figure is 'Kresek' in a faint lilac print, hard to make out. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 03:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Wolverine's Daughter
In your verified, there is a listing for "Wolverine's Daughter (Map)" which is marked as an ESSAY. Should this be INTERIORART instead? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:57, 12 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Certainly should. Thanks for correcting that. Chavey 22:49, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The Work of a Modern Occult Fraternity
The Work of a Modern Occult Fraternity is dated 1926 which is before Gareth Knight's birth. From the notes in your verified, it sounds like the date should be 1962 (i.e. original to that publication)? Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that. I've corrected it. Chavey 23:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8
Quick pointer to some possible omissions: does the title page of your verified hc of The Sirian Experiments also have the subtitle "The Report by Ambien II, of the Five",


 * This edition has two title pages, one without the sub-title, and with it. The title page that includes it is the more involved of the two title pages, so I will add that sub-title to the PR. Chavey 23:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

... as with other editions, and does your verified hc of Making of the Representative for Planet 8'' have the Afterword? My UK hc has it beginning on page 123. PeteYoung 09:17, 14 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes it does; I hadn't noticed it. Added now. Chavey 23:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Tanith Lee's Volkhavaar der Magier & Leigh Brackett's Alpha Centauri sehen und sterben
Hello, Darrah! I just saw that you entered and verified Lee's novel. I'd suggest the addition of the pub. series Bastei Lübbe Fantasy (#20010) to the record and the change to publication date 1979-00-00. Both stem from this, the price and the design of the cover does mark it also as from the beginning years (1978-1980) of the series. See this example from 1983, where 'Science Fiction' has already left the cover (amazon is sometimes - much too often - unreliable in this regard). The pub. series and its no. should be noted on the back or on the spine, I hope. Stonecreek 07:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The book says "Lizenzausgabe 1979", which would seem to me to imply that there was a 1979 publication, but would not seem to imply that this edition is from 1979. Am I wrong on this? You say that the design of the cover marks it as from 1979, but Amazon.de shows exactly this cover, and claims a publication date of April 1985. So I'm still uncertain about this. However, the original seller of my book, from Germany, did claim it was a 1979 publication, so I'll agree with you on this. But I still wonder if I've misunderstood the word "Lizenzausgabe"? [[User:Chavey|Chavey] 23:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * And another one: The Leigh Brackett novel was published in 1978 according to this source and also according to DNB. I'll change the pub. date, okay? Stonecreek 19:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Again, "Lizenzausgabe 1978"; no other date. Amazon-Germany shows my cover and claims it's Dec. 1982. The original seller agree with 1978. So I'll accept 1978 as valid. Chavey 23:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I changed the date for Volkhavaar der Magier and added a note after obtaining a copy of the book. Stonecreek 14:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Should I be going back and looking at other books that gave a "Lizenzausgabe" date? Chavey 23:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, if you have the time and patience for it. In general Bastei Lübbe has had some problems in stating some data correctly: they didn't sign a first printing as such directly but they always did so (as fa as I know) with higher printings. So it is safe to assume the year stated with "Lizenzausgabe" as the actual year of publication for the respective book. And Amazon really isn't helpful in determining the real publication date of a book - they don't source their information and don't seem to update. Stonecreek 15:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks much! I'll keep an eye out for that problem with Bastei Lübbe. Most of my German titles are Heyne, and they don't seem to have the same problem, but I'll check on the other titles. Chavey 16:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Mondadori publisher
Hi, I am re-organizing the italian publications of Mondadori, and I plan to merge these    publishers under 'Arnoldo Mondadori'. There are two pubs you verified that would be involved in the change: this one (publisher from 'Mondadori' to 'Arnoldo Mondadori') and this one which apparently belongs to the 'Oscar Narrativa' publisher series (#1062) of Arnoldo Mondadori. If it is ok for you, I could perform the modifications and add the name of the translators and a cover to the second one (from Fantascienza.com, ). Btw, is the name of the Artist of the second pub 'Andreas Fröschi'? Fantascienza.com reports 'Andreas Fröschl'. Thanks --Pips55 22:47, 26 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Looking more closely at the publishers of those two books, it's appropriate to change them to "Arnoldo Mondadori". The former book says 'Oscar Mondadori' on the title page, but 'Arnoldo Mondadori' on the copyright page. The later says 'Oscar Mondadori' on the cover, but also 'Arnoldo Mondadori' on the copyright page. I have corrected each of them. You are correct that "Aliene, Amazzoni, Astronaute" is Oscar Narrativa 1062, but we do not currently have that as a publication series, so I have not listed it as such (feel free to do so, esp. if you know more books in that series that are in our databas). Fantascienza was correct about "Fröschl"; I had read the name wrong. I have corrected it. Chavey 00:51, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Verification question
This C.J. Cherryh book you and four others verified as being the 1st printing as per number line with "Printed in Canada". My 1st says printed in the US. Now there is no entry for a US printing. So is the there a Canadian printing with with a number line starting with a "1"? Is it a contributor's typo? Could five verifiers made the same mistake? Seems unlikely. I'd like to enter the US printing if these aren't the same book. I'm sending this to the other four verifiers to help figure this out.Don Erikson 00:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)


 * My edition is the U.S. edition; I don't know why I didn't notice that this was a Canadian edition before. I moved my verification from the Canadian edition to the US. B the way, in all the work you did, you didn't verify it. So I left the "Primary 1" verification slot for you. You should go back and verify it. Chavey 01:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

A Romance of Two Worlds

 * " http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images " was in the ISBN field and the Image field was blank. I assume the software truncated the URL when it was mistakenly put in the ISBN field. I found your uploaded Image:RMNCFTWWRL1898.jpg and updated the publication to clear the ISBN field and add the image. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:16, 3 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching that and correcting it. You were, of course, correct. I guess I was getting too excited about another 19th century verification :-) Chavey 01:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Fanzine title
Is this issue correctly titled? The name on the cover is "Janus" while the publication and editor record are titled "Aurora". Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 20:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for catching the mistake. Odd mistake for me to make; Janus became Aurora with vol. "7", #1, not with vol. "6", #1. The editor record was correct (AFAIK), and I fixed the publication record. Chavey 01:14, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd created a magazine series for both Janus and Aurora, and I figured that issue must have been Janus and placed it into that series. I then made both series into sub-series of one titled Janus/Aurora. Mhhutchins 01:53, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that was the right way to do it. The last issue was listed, on the cover, as "Janus: Becoming Aurora", but I don't think we need to list it differently. Interesting politics behind the change in the title. Decades later I think they've patched it up. Chavey 02:08, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Welcome back!
Hopefully you came out victorious in the battle with the book :-) Ahasuerus 01:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I still have to write the foreword. But I got the translation completed, and the appendices where I proved two of the author's conjectures. And got a research paper written and submitted for publication. I also have one more research paper with a deadline of March 4th, so there's still too much writing to do. But at least I have time to take the occasional break for some of the fun stuff over here :-) Chavey 02:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Dupes that you were checking
Hi Chavey, there are several comments by you on the dupes project page Fuzzy_duplicate_finder_on_all_Authors, fo example look for "Chavey sent email to her asking about this" do you remeber how it ended and did you get some answers? I am tring to update the project with all the new data. Thanks, Qshadow 16:54, 19 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I emailed Alexandra Sokoloff on Aug. 23, 2011, at alex@alexandrasokoloff.com. No reply.
 * I emailed Anna Windsor the same day, at windsoranna@yahoo.com. No reply.
 * I emailed Blythe Ayne, and she responded that the story by "Blythe Ann" was by her, so I corrected that with a pseudonym (assuming that it was a misspelling in the actual publication.)
 * Thanks for asking, since it made me go back at look at the results/non-results. Chavey 19:44, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The Seduction of Miranda Prosper
The trade edition of this title wasn't published until January 2011. It's possible that this book club edition may have a 2010 copyright year, but was simultaneously published with the trade edition. Mhhutchins 07:29, 22 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The date had been entered before I verified it; I don't know where they got it from. There is no publication date in the book, and the listed copyright date is 2011. So I changed the publication date to Jan. 2011. Chavey 19:06, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Jirel Delle Lande di Joiry
Hi, I corrected the title of the first story in this pub you verified from "Il Bachio del Dio Nero" to "Il Bacio del Dio Nero". --Pips55 23:15, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Arrow Book of Spooky Stories
Are your copies of all three printings "pb"? Also, you might want to remove the Amazon cover image link of the the 1996 printing. There's a visible price, and you might find a user or other editor questioning your note about it being unpriced. Mhhutchins 02:04, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Cloning too quickly. All pb's changed to tp's. Note added to the 14th edition that the cover is correct except for not listing the price. Chavey 02:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Artist signature
I added a proper license to. Did you ever determine who the artist was? It looks like "Burleson" to me so it may be. Mhhutchins 23:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Below is my attempt at an enhanced version of the picture, using brightness and contrast adjustments. Much of it is unreadable to me, but the last two characters certainly look like "en", which would rule out Burleson. The rest of the characters, however, seem to align correctly with that name. Chavey 22:35, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/0/0b/CrazyTime_sig.gif

Janus, Winter 1977
Can you confirm the artist credit for the piece on page 27 of this record? Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:45, 24 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. Corrected (to "Barry Kent MacKay"). Chavey 20:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Critical Insights
I saw that you'd created a wiki page for this series, so I'm assuming you placed the title records into the series. It seems to me that this is a publication series, and not a title series. But I'd like to hear your reasoning in the decision to make it into a title series. Also, what was the basis for creating the subseries (i.e. "Themes", "Works", and "Authors")? None of the sources, including the publisher's website, breaks the series into these parts. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I see now that the publisher does split the series (the webpage you linked to on the main series wiki page lists them all together). This gives even stronger evidence that the series is a publication series and not a title series. A question one should ask to determine which series to use is: "Could this work be reprinted by another publisher and still be considered part of this series?" The answer in this case would be "No." Mhhutchins 05:14, 21 March 2013 (UTC)


 * At some formal level, these works could not be reprinted by another publisher. Since I've written essays for other series by this publisher, I know what the contract looks like, and it really does prohibit it. But still, I agree with your point that the contents of these series should make them a publication series. But because of the way that the publisher groups them into the three sub-series, and since publication series do not yet support hierarchical series, the only way to maintain that structure was as a title series. I have included on my Non-Fiction Series project page the task of converting this to a publication series when that feature is added. Chavey 20:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Has the feature been requested? One other thing: I would not think that "Critical Insights" is part of the works' titles. Looking at the OCLC records for many of the titles, I could find none that included it as part of the books' formal title. Also, do you plan on adding the content essays? Most of the OCLC records that I checked included them in the record. Mhhutchins 21:50, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


 * (i) This feature is FR 3566805, filed last Sept. by Ahasuerus.
 * (ii) The New Pub help page says "The title page may show the series name, ... It is left to the editor's discretion as to whether this should be part of the "title" that you enter for the publication." Amazon's "Look Inside" showed me title pages of 11 of the 19 titles, all of which had "Critical Insights" on the title page, albeit in the format "Critical Insights: Stephen King". In this case, it seemed that there could be enough books under the same title (e.g. "Stephen King"), that it would be helpful to distinguish books of equivalent, or similar, titles. Only two of these books had been previously entered into the system, one with "Critical Insights" as part of the title, and without; neither verified. I went with included the title series for the disambiguation reasons.
 * (iii) Thanks for reminding me about adding the contents; I nearly forgot to do that. WorldCat gave me contents for 15 of the 19 titles (those not yet released did not have contents listed), so I added all of those. (I love my macros for doing that!) Chavey 03:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)


 * BTW, I just noticed that the message "Artist Signature" (two topics up) never got a response. Have you had a chance to look at it? Mhhutchins 21:52, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment posted in that thread. Chavey 03:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Ugo Mursia
There are two records which you have primary verified as by that have come up as stray publications. The problem is the editor credit of this variant title doesn't match that of the parent title. The only way to correct this is to make Mursia a pseudonym of "Editors of If". Since it's obvious that he was not the actual editor of these anthologies, I would suggest crediting him only in the Note field (as you've done), and not in the Author/Editor field. If no editor is credited then it should be credited to "uncredited" per ISFDB standards. One other thing: the cover art is credited to "uncredited" in this record. That doesn't follow the ISFDB standard of leaving the field blank when the work isn't credited. It is also unusual to create a single record for the headnotes (here given as "Headlines"), something that is usually only recorded in the note field unless they are substantial enough to create records for each introduction. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll change Mursia and the "uncredited" note, and continue that with Vol. 3. With the "Headnotes", I was simply following the lead of The Best from If, Vol. I. It seems off from what we normally do, but it seems (1) worth crediting Frenkel for what's normally done by the editor; (2) not worth crediting Frenkel once for every story. Chavey 20:38, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

On the Night of the Seventh Moon
Changed the date for [this] as I found a copy with an earlier code. Thus altered and fleshed out the notes as well. The 'P' gutter codes were a little wonky, spread over two years, so both our assumptions about the year could be wrong but the months should be correct. Cheers! --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Anya Seton's Avalon
Does your copy of this BCE have a gutter code? There's an Abebooks.com listing that offers a copy with code "17H" on page 437 which would indicate a printing in April 1966. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 19:17, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Alien Sex
Hi, I think there is a small typo in the publication series of this pub you verified: instead of 'Piccolo Biblioteca Oscar' should be 'Piccola Biblioteca Oscar'. Is this the case ? Thanks --Pips55 19:48, 27 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You are correct; thanks for catching that. I have corrected it. Chavey 05:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Postmarked the Stars
Does your copy of [this] have any ads in the back? Mine has 11-72-14C and 15A. Stuart Wells has 03/1971 for this catalog# which I think is reasonable for the linked record, but there's no way it would have a 1972 ad. I think Ace may have printed this twice without changing anything except the ads, pattern that is showing up a few times as I go through. Thanks for looking! --~ Bill, Bluesman 19:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Turns out [Willem's] copy has different ads and there may be a third printing as well. --~ Bill, Bluesman 20:26, 28 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The only numbering on the ads in my copy are "14" and "15". The last book listed on ad "14" is World's Best Science Fiction: 1970 (publ. in 1970), and the last one listed on ad "15" is The Wizard of Venus (Aug. 1970). The penultimate book on ad "14" has a publication of Feb. 1970. So this would seem to imply that the copy I have is probably a 1970 printing. Chavey 04:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * At the very least the existing record linked above should not have a 1969 date. The numbered ads were not even used until November '70. Your copy is the same as Willem's. --~ Bill, Bluesman 16:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * So unless someone finds an apparent earlier edition, it seems that we should note the 1969 copyright, but list it with a 1970 publication date (all the books in my ads appear to be 1970 or older), and list Bill's copy as a known later printing. Then add sufficient notes to clarify this book's status. Is that right? Chavey 19:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Touch base with Willem. I've already created a new record for my later printing. --~ Bill, Bluesman 08:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"I keep dancing on my own"
I find it amusing that a certain editor continues to post on his talk page (the last one is as hilarious as it is illogical). Posting messages on your own talk page is like calling yourself on the phone and having a deep conversation, or the drunk guy at the end of the bar talking to himself... This whole situation only proves that authors make bad ISFDB editors. Mhhutchins 15:16, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In addition to not being able to find the ~ key, he still really has no idea how to use a Wiki. And he insists on not reading (or at least not comprehending) the how-to pages we suggest to him. We have another editor who also only posts to his own talk page. But he's important enough that folks like you and me keep a watch on that page to see if he needs anything. I did like our new editor's comment implying that folks who were publishing in mid-80's fanzines are something like "the old guard". Chavey 02:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Afterwar
Came across [this]. For a short time the greying/blacking out of the US price was how Baen did printings for Canada. Preceded dual pricing. So it's not an unstated second printing but a first Canadian, same date as the US one. Think they did this for a little over a year?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:35, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that insight! That explains what was going on. I'll update my record, and the ISFDB record. Chavey 02:38, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Latest rant from our favorite editor
This has really riled me up. If it were solely within my power, I would suspend his account immediately. I'll pass along my feelings to Ahasuerus. Mhhutchins 16:52, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, to me that does look as somebody in or with serious troubles (I suspect at least a mild case of persecution mania). Stonecreek 17:04, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, most regrettable. I have left a warning on his Talk page as per our Blocking Policy (we all know that capital letters make things look More Official!) Ahasuerus 17:31, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I had thought that my posts on his page had been carefully worded so as not to cause offense, especially after he got angry at Mike. It seems like he is taking offense at my suggestion that we would want a source before we pulled the existing date of death from Everett Cole, even though in the previous sentence I acknowledged that the change in SFE implies that "it may be that there is some doubt to that date". The wording of his most recent posting seems fundamentally sexist. He believes that I am a woman, who is also younger than he is, and his wording: "your OWN efforts might not be considered to be of all that much value, lady", emphasizing the "lady", seems, IMHO, to be a demeaning use of the term. I suspect he believes that as a younger woman I should "automatically" assume the implicit value and accuracy of the contribution of an older, wiser man. I suspect Stonecreek is right in saying he has "at least a mild case of persecution mania". All of us make mistakes here sometimes; e.g. of the four posts made on my talk page above this topic, three were to point out mistakes I had made. An editor who has trouble with moderators pointing out mistakes to them (or learning from those mistakes) seems unlikely to develop into a valued resource. Chavey 22:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * To paraphrase Protagoras, "I am the measure of all things", therefore all characteristics which distinguish others from me constitute conclusive proof of my superiority -- I hear it's a popular argument in kindergarten :)


 * I guess we'll find out soon enough how the situation resolves itself. Ahasuerus 22:39, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I have blocked the user for 24 hours based on the last response. It wasn't as offensive as his earlier responses, but I don't think we want to use them as our standard of offensiveness. No need to make this project more stressful than it has to be. Ahasuerus 23:16, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I found it interesting that he said that his confusion about my gender and age meant "Perhaps you need to update your page, friend; [I] think most of the fault lies there, not with me." I looked again at my ISFDB home page to see what he might be referring to. Since I say "My specialty is SF by women authors", he might have presumed that to mean that I was a woman, as if a man would not be interested in women authors. But there's no indication there of my age. However I do have a link to my professional home page, and I looked there again with fresh eyes. I hadn't noticed before that since the only picture I have there is one of me dancing with my wife, if you didn't know who I was, my gender remained ambiguous. That's amusing. So his comment that "I" looked much younger than him is actually a compliment about my wife. (She's slightly younger than him in that picture.) I will pass that compliment on to her. Chavey 03:53, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Considering that your home page states that you received your PhD in 1984, it means that he assumed that you were 18 or younger at the time. That's even more complimentary and puts you in the same league as Norbert Wiener! Ahasuerus 04:05, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Don't I wish!! I was reading Norbert Weiner when I was 15, but I am certainly not in his class! It took me two attempts to get my Ph.D.: My first thesis was close to done when some guy from Australia published an even better result than the one that I thought I was going to get. So I had to pick a new area and start over. Didn't get my Ph.D. until I was 30 :-( I was at a "Math and Arts" conference once, and got talking to a guy who seemed to not know anyone else there. Thought maybe he'd appreciate a friendly conversation. I welcomed him to the conference, we talked a bit about the art exhibits, I asked him where he was from. "Boston". It didn't click that he meant "Harvard". He was Noam Elkies, the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard. Embarrassing. Chavey 04:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

(Unindent) The conflict between him and me seems to have been generated due to his claim that our death date for Everett B. Cole was in error, that he was historically the cause of that error, that he now disowned that claim and we should erase that death date. He objected to my suggestion that we should get verification for this change, other than just his say-so. Since then I have spent far too much time verifying his claim, and was able to locate the correct "Everett Cole" through a genealogical site posting from his son. I have corrected our Summary Page for Everett, and added a basic biography (with citation) for him. Chavey 17:53, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Great genealogical snooping there! I think I've hit on something else that will be of interest. During the discussions with Starseeker 2065, it came to light that his real name was Jeffrey S. Fisher, but that he'd wanted Garnett Radcliffe to be his canonical name because he'd published a collection under that name. (Since there was an early-to-middle 20th century author with that real name, his penname had to be disambiguated.) When the topic arose about how the ISFDB recorded the death date of Everett B. Cole, he mentioned that in 1996 he was new to bibliography and made several errors in Locus. This nudged a hidden memory, so I pulled out my 1996 issues and found this little "Anti-Obituaries" piece by Charles Brown in Locus #429 (October 1996):


 * Several of the obituaries taken by Jefferey S. Fisher [sic] from the CD-ROM Death Index in the past two months are wrong. Both C. B. Gilford and Frank A. Javor are still alive, and understandably annoyed at our error.


 * There are letters in this issue by Javor and Barry Malzberg (on behalf of C. B. Gifford [sic]) pointing out the errors. Brown responded:


 * We've discovered we can't trust Jeffery S. Fisher's notes from the CD-ROM death list. We hadn't realized he is apparently guessing from similiar names.


 * In an editorial in the same issue, Brown writes:


 * The problems with the CD-ROM death list obituaries are chronicled in the letter column. We won't be running them any longer.


 * Apparently, the CD-ROM Death Index was published by the US Social Security Administration, and it was from this source that Fisher drew data. Locus had ran three individual obituaries from Fisher in the August issue and a column in the September issue.


 * I have to then conclude that Starseeker 2065 is also . This may explain his reaction to your reluctance to accept his data about Cole. Perhaps it was his personal history and the public dressing-down in Locus which may have made him sensitive to criticism, whether it's constructive or not. What he fails to realize is that we all make mistakes.   (Look at my talk page. Half of the posts are from other editors pointing out my mistakes!) Mhhutchins 18:50, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I also began with the CD-ROM Death Index from the US Social Security Administration. It lists four different people named Everett Cole who were born in 1910 (see here, and search for "1910"). One is easily eliminated (died too young), and the correct one would not have been there when Jeffrey was doing his research, because he wasn't dead yet. (Another example of his problematic methodology.) I don't know how he chose between the other two. I used these dates as a starting point, but didn't settle on one person until I had some seriously convincing evidence. I suspect that you're right about him still feeling badly burned by this past, and that this may be a part of the source of his hostility. It also means, though, that we may need to be cautious about accepting submissions from him without pausing to consider their veracity. Chavey 23:02, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Still on Alien Sex
Hi, I think I have found the series number and publication month of Alien Sex in Ernesto's Catalog. I am going through all the Arnoldo Mondadori publications, harmonizing wherever necessary the editor to 'Arnoldo Mondadori Editore' and I was wondering if it would be ok for you to change it in the cited 'Alien Sex' and in Aliene, Amazzoni, Astronaute you verified. Thanks --Pips55 22:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't have any problem with you adding the month and publication series number to those books. I don't think you should change the editor though. I'm sure the (unknown) Mondadori editor did logistics work in, for example, overseeing the translation of "Alien Sex", but it was Ellen Datlow that organized the project, who selected the stories, and who then wrote the introduction, so I would not want to replace her name as editor. And I know she wouldn't want me to. A similar statement holds for Oriana Palusci in the second book, although I don't know her. Chavey 01:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My fault (a 'false friend' case, Editor is close to the italian 'Editore' which means Publisher): 'Arnoldo Mondadori Editore' is a publishing house, so I should have asked you about changing the publisher not the editor ... --Pips55 19:10, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Ah, that's fine then! I am certainly in favor of consistency on that. I'll change the publisher. Chavey 20:58, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Added month and publication series number to Alien Sex; thanks for changing the publisher. --Pips55 20:45, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Follow-up when disambiguating names
You created three disambiguated names recently by adding "(Italian)" to the end. The system can't recognize these as disambiguations and treats "(Italian)" as the author's last name. When an editor creates a disambiguated name, he must follow it up by manually updating the author's data, removing the disambiguation from the LAST NAME data field and replacing it with the true last name. For example, the author data for  must be updated to make "Lane" the author's last name.(The reason I've noticed this problem is because the three names appears on the Invalid Last Name clean-up script.)


 * My apologies. I'll try to remember that in the future. They've been repaired. Chavey 21:32, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I added a note about this to Help:How_to_separate_two_authors_with_the_same_name. Might I suggest you change "Italian" to "Italy"?  There's some precedent for using country name -- e.g., search for "(US or "(Canad" or "(Austr" -- instead of nationality.  There's even one "(Italy)".  Some other entries do use nationality, so there's counter-precedent, but country seems to be more prevalent.  --MartyD 10:54, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Excellent suggestion. Corrections made. Chavey 20:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Too Long a Sacrifice
I added the introduction to this verified pub and changed the pagenumbering from 210 to x+210. Hope you can agree. --Willem H. 19:01, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * An earlier verification of mine. Thanks for filling that out. Chavey 19:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Review of: Repel
Your (transient) verified contains this review. The review is dated 1937. However, the credited reviewer was born in 1953. I suspect that the date of the reviewed publication (which is also 1937) was mistakenly given to the review also? If not and this is a re-printed review, we have two "Will Murray"s that need to be distinguished. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * When I entered the review, I entered no date, assuming it would default to the date of the publication containing the review. Apparently, it defaults to the date of the publication being reviewed instead. I've corrected that date. Chavey 16:16, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting subtly in the software that I wouldn't have expected either. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:23, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Quark 4
My copy of [this] is CDN, so PV1 spot is vacated. --~ Bill, Bluesman 17:29, 28 May 2013 (UTC)


 * My copy doesn't specifically say the text was printed in the US, but: (i) The back cover says "Printed in U.S.A."; (ii) The title page says "Paperback Library: A Kinney Service Company: New York" (i.e. does not list a Canadian city. Are either of those 2 items different than on the Canadian edition? If not, then it may be that the indication of the US edition is just the absence of the notation about Canada, in which case we should note what page that's on. Chavey 19:37, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

The Twisted Root by Anne Perry
A quick question about your verified The Twisted Root by. Would you say that this author is above "the threshold"? Ahasuerus 17:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * No I wouldn't. I verified that book, out of my wife's mystery collection, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who added it. In general, I'm pretty reluctant to delete books that others have added. (Which is why "Publication Delete" is the only category of "Major Contributors" for which I'm not in the top 25.) Chavey 17:23, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I share the reluctance to delete pubs entered by other editors, but keep in mind that a significant number of our pubs were created by robots in the early 2000s, back before we had a review/moderation process in place. Their inclusion criteria were rather primitive: is this book labeled "fantasy" or "science fiction"? and "do we have other books by this author on file"? The result was that we ended up with thousands of RPG modules, comic books and other ineligible items, which took me months to find and delete in 2006. Similarly, the robots added hundreds of non-genre pubs by Robert Louis Stevenson and other non-genre authors because they couldn't distinguish between their SF and their non-genre work. And, since The Twisted Root was published in 1999, I suspect that it was yet another victim of a well-meaning by overzealous robot :) Ahasuerus 21:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that background. I'll try to be somewhat more pro-active about deleting books that, IMO, don't belong. (With a note in the bibliography page.) Chavey 01:02, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for giving the pub/title a decent burial :) Ahasuerus 01:23, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The Sword Smith
Hi, I'm about to change the cover artist of this publication from "A. Echenammia" to "Abe Echevarria", based on the same signature occurring on the cover of The Soul of the Robot (also Condor 1978) and in Ian Summers' Tomorrow and Beyond, where it is attributed to Abe Echevarria. Horzel 20:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree with your interpretation of that signature. Chavey 02:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Flannery O'Connor
I'm familiar with most of the work of Flannery O'Connor, and would not have thought her stories would qualify for the database. What criteria was used to enter this publication into the database? Thanks. Mhhutchins 23:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not familiar with her work, and I'm pretty sure that (1) I'm not the person who added that book; (2) I picked it up because it was listed here; (3) I verified it, intending to read it, but haven't yet. Looking at some reviews of the collection, I see that several people refer to these stories as "horror", but that O'Connor disagrees with that assessment. So I don't really know if it belongs in. Chavey 23:40, 14 June 2013 (UTC)


 * None of her stories have a supernatural element. If there is any "horror", it's the horror of the human soul and the horror of living in a world without the knowledge of God's existence and outside of His grace. Some I suppose would consider God to be supernatural, but he doesn't appear onstage in any O'Connor story. (But he lurks!) Mhhutchins 02:12, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Nacht in den Ruinen
Hello, Darrah! Well, this book actually belongs to a long series of anthologies, that presented selections from MFSF and I have put the title into the according series. This one seems to have been accidentally numbered as #68 on spine and back, since the actual #68 was already entered. And it does seem that by chance all texts are from 1983: usually the selection is taken from various issues of MFSF from more than one year. The price should be mentioned on the spine (as an example 680 would stand for DM 6.80). You might want to adapt the notes. Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 13:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help, I didn't think of "Die Besten" as a title series, but that makes sense. I believe I have updated the book correctly, and added a better picture while I was at it. I think I've got another couple of books in this series, so I'll try to add them as well. Chavey 22:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It really looks good now. More issues? That sounds great. Stonecreek 07:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Gaiman's "Troll Bridge"
Can you confirm that the story has "The" in the title in its reprint in this anthology? If so, it should be varianted to the parent title [69551 here]. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is "The Troll Bridge", in both the ToC and the story title page. Variant constructed. Chavey 01:03, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Restoree
PV1 is open for [this], my copy is CDN. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, I moved mine up. Chavey 02:59, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Bantam Classic
I saw in the queue that you were updating records for this publication series, when I noticed that among them was one that I had failed to primary verify. (I recognized my notes.) Pulling out my copy, I can find no use of the words "Bantam Classics" anywhere in the book. The front and back covers state "A Bantam Classic", the spine states "Bantam Classic", and the copyright page states "Bantam Classic edition". It's quite possible that this series eventually became "Bantam Classics", but I'm unsure whether we should make all records conform to one series name. Do you not think there's value in keeping them separate? Mhhutchins 19:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I was going to check on this -- my apologies for not doing so first. There were two publication series in our system: "Bantam Classic" and "Bantam Classics". They clearly are the same series. The note that I added to the series itself says: "Individual books are labeled as "A Bantam Classic"; the full series is "Bantam Classics"." This at least is the strong impression I have from the Wikipedia page on the series. I don't have a strong preference, but it really seems that they should be listed as only a single series, instead of the half-and-half we had. What would you suggest I do? Chavey 19:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I went through the dozen or so titles in our db and found that the later ones who had cover images invariably carry the banner "Bantam Classic", with neither "A" at the beginning, nor "s" at the end. I could live with that since it's what is stated in half of its appearances in my copy. Mhhutchins 19:51, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll change them all to "Bantam Classic" then, and check with verifiers on the (former) "Bantam Classics" then. Chavey 19:52, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The only "Bantam Classics" that was verified has a cover image that clearly showed it as "A Bantam Classic", and was verified by an editor that said (in their 'what to tell me about') not to bother telling them about Publication Series data. Chavey 20:02, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Changes to Sword and Sorceress XXI
I have a first printing of Sword and Sorceress XXI, and the title on the title page is just "Sword and Sorceress XXI." The cover does say "Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress XXI," but ISFDB standard is to use the title on the title page, so I have put in a request to make that change.

I have also updated the link to the cover image (same image, more stable link), and added a couple of "Notes."BungalowBarbara 04:40, 20 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Good changes. It would be helpful, though, if when you made such changes you included a link to the publication you're changing. To do so, use the format:

Sword And Sorceress XXI where you copy the URL from the page you're changing, and its title. Chavey 22:37, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

NYRSF, July 2000
I've added the Hartwell editorial to this record. Mhhutchins 16:19, 22 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Chavey 17:11, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

(The) Yellow Inferno
I changed the title of this pub from "Yellow Inferno" to "The Yellow Inferno", as it is on the titlepage, and added notes. Thanks, --Willem H. 10:01, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Adding license to uploaded author image
I reloaded, adding a license which properly attributed the photographer and his permission for its reuse. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Chavey 12:07, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

McIntyre's "A Farewell"
Is the title given in this record exactly how the work is titled in the publication? Ordinarily we don't add a disambiguation unless the work is an excerpt from a work of the same name (to avoid accidental merges). Otherwise, such information is usually provided in the title record's note field. BTW, do you know if "The Clouds Return" was ever published? Mhhutchins 22:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * In the ToC, this title is listed as:
 * A Farewell, from The Clouds Return
 * On the title page, it's listed as:
 * A FAREWELL from The Clouds Return
 * I didn't want to capture the underlining, but was trying to capture the font distinction.
 * And yes, "The Clouds Return" was published, after being renamed to "The Exile Waiting". I've updated the record to more closely indicate the way the title was shown, although I've left the quotation marks as a replacement for the underlining, and added a note about its published name. I can imagine that there would be a way to list it so that a reader interested in "The Exile Waiting" would see it, but I'm left grinning over calling it
 * A Farewell, from "The Clouds Return" (extract from "The Exile Waiting")
 * which just seems silly. I also added a title note to "The Exile Waiting" about its pre-publication name, but doing anything more to connect these records would seem unnecessary. Is there a better way to handle what I've left as the quotation marks? Chavey 13:49, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Quotation marks are normally used in a reference to indicate a contained work, so a short story, essay, or poem would be in quotation marks, while the container (book or magazine) would be italicized. The ISFDB title field allows the use of HTML, which could accept italicization (using  ), but we discourage the use because it plays havoc with searches. In this case, the use of quotation marks would lead a user to mistakenly believe that the excerpted work comes from a contained work (a piece of short fiction) and that the marks were present in the published title (they don't). I would personally drop them all together, but since there is no documented standard (that I'm aware of) on how to handle such a case, it's pretty much up to the individual editor. Mhhutchins 02:00, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The Riddle-Master of Hed
Can you confirm if this printing was published under the Del Rey imprint? The cover scan appears to have the Del Rey Fantasy logo at the bottom left. Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 04:22, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Cover has Del Rey Fantasy logo. Title page says: "A Del Rey Book (over) Ballantine Books". Copyright page says: "A Del Rey Book (over) Published by Ballantine Books". Spine says "Del Rey Fantasy". Chavey 04:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Correcting the publisher field to "Del Rey / Ballantine" would group it with other publications from that imprint (instead of just "Ballantine Books"). Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:52, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Done. Chavey 05:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Best of Planet Stories #1
Added the artist to [this], Contento had Freas credited but to be sure I emailed Freas' agent and he confirmed the credit is valid. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:58, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Chavey 05:27, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Hot & Cold Running Cities
I'm trying to determine the edition statement practices of Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Can you look at your copy of this book and see if it has a complete number line? I just accepted a submission from an editor for another Holt publication which has the "First Edition" statement, but a number line ending in "2". Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 02:41, 15 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It has no number line. It says:

Printed in the United States of America: 065/074 First edition
 * and that's it. Chavey 02:48, 15 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Damn! That was fast. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:50, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Waste Not, Want Not
Can you confirm that there is an ISBN-13 in this 2003 publication? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 16:59, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Same question for this publication, and this one. Mhhutchins 17:00, 18 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The two Destroyer books have ISBN-10's, and I have corrected those (I suspect they were originally entered from Amazon, and I'm not careful enough about checking the -10 vs. -13 ISBN's). The third one is down at my office, so I'll check it tomorrow. Chavey 01:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

ISBN-13 and OCLC
I'm working on a script that finds pre-2005 publication records which have an ISBN-13 (they didn't exist before 2005). I've found a pretty large number of them have been OCLC verified by you. If you use OCLC to create or update a record, there's a way of knowing which ISBN is printed in the book: on the ISBN line of an OCLC record the first number listed is the one that appears in the book itself. Their system then automatically generates the opposite ISBN which follows immediately on the same line. Sometimes a single OCLC record will represent two simultaneously published editions of the same title, usually the hardcover edition and the trade paperback edition. This is especially the case if both editions are listed on a single copyright page of the book being entered by the OCLC editor. I haven't been able to determine which order these are listed in the OCLC record, but it may be the same order as they are printed on the copyright page. Another good rule of thumb: if the book was published before 2005, it won't have an ISBN-13. If it was published after 2007, it should have an ISBN-13 (some publishers were late in converting so that's not as hardfast as the first rule.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:24, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

A further concern: I'm also running across records (like this one) which not only have an anachronistic ISBN, but also have a price in Euros, before Euros existed. (And oddly priced, at that.) Mhhutchins 05:01, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Since the Notes field mentions that the data came (in part) from Amazon.es, I suspect that it may have been a copy-and-paste artifact. Ahasuerus 17:03, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * That's possible. Still, when an editor copies and pastes they should be aware of the data they're copying and pasting. Mhhutchins 21:57, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

La Divina Commedia
Checking submission history, I see that you worked on Dante's The Comedy in April 2013. As far as I can tell, the four 1472-1529 pubs under this title are in Italian, so I wonder if we should change the title from The Comedy to Commedia? Also, La Divina Commedia (1472) and La Divina Commedia (1551) should be presumably changed to Commedia because the first use of the title La Divina Commedia apparently occurred in 1555. What do you think? Ahasuerus 17:32, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I spent a little time going back to the original sources of that data. Some came from Wikipedia, which is unreliable because they don't care about the original title; some came from WorldCat which occasionally lists things as "[Divina Commedia]", i.e. telling us that's not really the title, but without additional elaboration. I found copies at various auction houses which were much more careful about actual titles. Turns out that the 4 pubs listed under "The Comedy" had titles of "La Comedia di Dante Alleghieri", "Comedia", and (twice) "La Commedia". I also changed those two early "Divine Commedies" to "La Comedia di Dante Alleghieri" and "Con Nuove et Utili Ispositioni", their actual titles. I'll mention that I don't, my any stretch, have all of the early editions of this yet, but I'll fill it out more later. I was focused on entering the earliest editions first. Thanks for pushing me on the actual titles. Chavey 03:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! BTW, would you say that the three NONFICTION titles adapted by should be changed to NOVELs? Ahasuerus 06:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I checked various online descriptions of those three books, to verify that they were editions of those books, and not about those books. They certainly are, hence they qualify as fiction. However, my impression has been that of the three books of The Divine Comedy, we view the first ("The Inferno") as genre, due to the large number of fantastical beasts and monsters, and list the full "Comedy" as genre because of its inclusion of The Inferno, but list the 2nd and 3rd books as Non-Genre because they are primarily religious books, or religious speculation. So I changed those three Non-Fiction titles to one Novel and two Non-Genre. Let me know if you think that's not the right way to handle them. Chavey 20:32, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Works for me! We can always change it later if and when we revisit the issue. Ahasuerus 03:07, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Astro-Adventures
This title is indexed by Miller/Contento. Back in February I created this checklist so that editors who need information about the contents of Miller/Contento would know I could help them. It probably would have been better if I'd let everyone know about the list. (Maybe I did, just can't remember now!) I'll pull out the CD-ROM and see if I can provide further data on the issues of this title. Mhhutchins 06:37, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

BTW, I noticed that some of the issues you've added abbreviate the month in the title field. It is ISFDB standard to provide the complete month in the title field of magazine records. Documented on this Help Page in the subsection "Missing or variant dates" (don't ask me why it's given here and not under the earlier magazine subsection): ''The date part of a magazine title should be given after the title, following a comma and a space. The month should be given in full and then the year in full.'' Mhhutchins 06:45, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

One last thing: in the Note field of this record you say we usually don't count covers. For magazine records, we always count covers and always have. It's documented here. Mhhutchins 06:49, 28 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll go check Contento and use that to fill out the contents. I figured I probably needed to check there, but hadn't done so yet. Thanks for the note on the month abbreviation. I actually searched the help pages to figure out what formatting to use, but I check the "Title : Magazines" section, and it was not clear there. I would never have thought to check that particular section. That's not a good organization for the page. I'll correct the page counts. I can see the reason for that policy, but didn't remember it. Chavey 16:08, 29 September 2013 (UTC)


 * My mistake. I had checked the online Contento/Miller, and they do not include this magazine in there. Their magazine checklist includes some basic details about these issues, but no contents. So I am left with no idea how to expand the contents beyond what I put in there last week. Chavey 16:20, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Bug 361 "Curly apostrophes display wrong"
Could you please provide an example of this Bug? At one point Al added special logic to convert "right curly apostrophes" to plain apostrophes because so many of our editors were using copy-and-paste and creating duplicate records for identical pubs/titles. However, I don't think we do anything for "left curly apostrophes" at this time. I'd like to review the current behavior and see what our options may be. TIA! Ahasuerus 02:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, prior to submitting that bug report, I did a search for such quotes, and corrected all the ones that existed :-) . To demonstrate the problem, though, I just created a test title record, where you can see the effect of the problem. One oddity about Al's patch from before seems to be that if you do a title search (title rec or pub rec) for ‘, you will find this test record. But if you do a title search for the matching ’, you will get no records. Chavey 02:58, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I should add that to see the effect, it's useful to increase the font size for your browser. Chavey 02:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I see what you mean now. I see the problem with "left curly quotes" and I think I can fix it rather easily, but how did you get a "right curly quote" character into that field? I didn't think it would be possible given that Al's logic is supposed to change all occurrences of "right curly quotes" to apostrophes at data entry time. Ahasuerus 03:31, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * P.S. Never mind, I figured it out -- it was a display artifact :) Let me see if I can fix the left curly quote problem... Ahasuerus 03:51, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, I think the patch that I installed a few minutes ago resolved the problem -- the curly quote disappeared once I pulled up your test record, made a change and re-filed it. I then created a new pub record with curly quotes in the title and they were all automatically converted to regular apostrophes. Ditto with the single affected Author record that we had on file.


 * Just to be on the safe side, could you please try entering another "curly quotes-enabled" record to see if you get the same results? TIA! Ahasuerus 04:15, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems to display consistently, although there are some oddities. In this publication, all of the curly apostrophes (‘ and ’) are shown as straight apostrophes. All of the curly quotes (“ and ”) are shown as curly quotes. So that is a slight inconsistency between how those two characters are handled. When I do in to edit the publication, though, all of the left curly apostrophes in the main fields have been turned into right curly apostrophes, but in the "Notes" field, both types of curly apostrophes have been turned into straight apostrophes. Apparently, Al's earlier patch means that all of the curly apostrophes are now shown straight, but it's an odd effect within the editor itself. (updated) Chavey 04:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh, you mean "curly double quotes" in names like Anastasia “Balaa” Korochansckaja? I think this is the first time that the question has come up. Hm... I guess we would want to convert them to regular double quotes just like we convert single curly quotes to apostrophes -- our Help already tells editors not to use double quotes in authors' name. Does it sound reasonable? If it does, I'll ask on the Community Portal before I change the software. Ahasuerus 05:16, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's what I meant by that reference. I suspect we should convert them. I have a slight preference myself for the curly quotes, but I think standardization is more important than a "slight preference", and it's much easier to standardize on straight quotes. But there is still the oddity that you're not really replacing the curly apostrophes with straight ones -- you're just making it appear as if they had been changed. Chavey 05:19, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The conversion from curly apostrophes (left as well as right) to regular apostrophes occurs between the time the editor submits the HTML form and the time when the data is filed into the database, so the data that we have on file should be curly-free. Well, in theory anyway. However, when you pull up a record in an edit form, apostrophes are displayed using "&rsquo;", which browsers render as "right single quote", i.e. a curly quote. Perhaps that's where some of the confusion comes from? (Not that it's hard to confuse me at 1:30am :-) Ahasuerus 05:28, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

(unindent) It seems that this isn't quite the right explanation of the apostrophes. I edited that test document, and added some additional single apostrophes, both curly and straight. Saved, then edited again. In the editor that time, most but not all of the single apostrophes were being rendered as curly ones. Those that were straight were: the ones inside the note field; those in the "Author1" field in the Contents listing. One odd effect was that the name listed at the top didn't look quite the same as the name listed in the Contents. I went to a +200% resolution to be sure of what I was seeing, but the apostrophes are not being rendered the same in these various fields. It seems, then, that this cannot be an effect of how my browser is rendering the character, but must be an effect of what characters the system is sending to the browser. Chavey 05:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Hm, curiouser and curiouser... I will need to play with it some more to see if it's just a display artifact or if it may cause duplicates and/or confuse the search logic. Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Good luck! I don't think it's a substantive bug, or high priority, but it would be nice to have it working the way it should be. Chavey 16:26, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Publisher: Panini
Hello, Darrah. I saw your comment on this publisher and would like to propose a change of name to Panini (Germany). The reason for this is that the individual branch for a country is a legal entity on its own and that the individual publishing policy will differ from country to country (also the respective ISBN is only valid for a given country). What do you think of that? Stonecreek 19:23, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree completely. We certainly do that with other publishers that have branches in multiple countries. The only two books we have from Panini are both in German, so I invite you to make that change. Chavey 19:26, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Darrah. I changed the name to 'Panini (Germany)' and added some more comment. Stonecreek 08:09, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Tuberculosis Bacteria Join UN
Hi. I have found two similarly titled stories by Joan Slonczewski, this and this. Is there possibly some indication of the latter being a republication of the earlier Story or is it in fact a new or revised take? Stonecreek 05:40, 19 October 2013 (UTC)


 * They're the same story. Thanks for catching that -- I've merged them. Chavey 05:54, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

S-F: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy
I've altered the title for Merril's S-F: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy adding the hyphens where they appear on the title page. I also made a similar change to the summation essay on page 343. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 12:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Crossroads
I've created a record for Crossroads, v1 #12 July 1970 http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?431213 Prof Prof beard 16:00, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Yandro
I have a couple of 1967 issues of Yandro - shall I do the same for them as I did for the Crossroads issue? Cheers Prof Prof beard 16:02, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, please do. I'm surprised we don't have Yandro included yet. I have some issues of it that need to be added as well. Chavey 19:50, 31 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The second of my copies has been added: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?431388    Prof Prof beard 13:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Science*Fiction
I've placed this editor record into a series which generates an issue grid. I also changed the title to the standard "Title - Year" format. Although in cases where there's only one issue, it's not necessary to change the title field of the publication into an annual record. (But nothing in the rules prohibits this.)

One last thing, according to ISFDB standards (look under the "Missing or variant dates" subsection), the month given in a title field should be full (completely spelled out). So this publication's title would be "Science*Fiction, #1, January 1946". Most editors don't add a second comma in the title field after the issue number (see Interzone as an example), but there's nothing in the rules that require it. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:31, 10 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the correction. Issue title corrected. Chavey 07:25, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

The Immortals of Mercury
You've started me poring over my Clark Ashton Smith bibliographies and as a result, I've added the price to your verified The Immortals of Mercury. I've also noted the source of the price and added the Reginald1 catalog number. The Sidney-Fryer book is invaluable and I'm slowly correcting many of the dates of Smith's poems. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 06:54, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Wonderful! He is certainly an author we want to have good data about. Chavey 00:37, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

They Fly at Çiron
Does your verified copy of They Fly at Çiron have an author's note about the history of the story/novel? I just added it to the Tor paperback. Thanks for checking, --Willem H. 14:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Van Vogt and Hull's Out of the Unknown
Could I get you to check if the jacket of your copy of Van Vogt and Hull's Out of the Unknown. I just acquired a copy an mine has a different jacket. I believe that I have the first state book mentioned in Currey (light blue mesh weave cloth). Currey also mentions two states of the dust jacket with the A state having a price of $2.50 and with the rear panel having biographical sketches about the authors. The B state has a price of $3.00 and a blank rear panel. My copy is unfortunately price clipped, but it does have the sketches on the back panel. My theory is that perhaps the second state dust jacket is what we have pictured.

I'm also going to start a Rules and Standards discussion about whether this should more properly be an anthology and how the authors should be reflected. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 23:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * My copy is signed by both authors, and V.V. dated it Feb. 13, 1948 (i.e. 2 months before the official release date), so it's pretty certain to be the first state. It's the light blue mesh weave. The dj, of course, is not guaranteed to be the one from the original book, but appears from other evidence to be that one. It is unclipped, with a $2.50 price. The back of the dj has biographical sketches of both authors, the back dj flap has "forthcoming" advertisements for "The Sunken World" (1948) and Death's Deputy (1948). The cover is the same green/black/white image and lettering as yours except that under the title is a thin white band with "STRANGE • UNUSUAL • STARTLING • BIZARRE • STRANGE " on it. Does yours have that and just get clipped in the scan? Chavey 22:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * We certainly have the same book (mine, alas, is not signed) and I think we have the same jacket. I've scanned my actual cover and posted to my Library Thing account here.  Aside from the potential cropping cutting off "strange, unusual, etc." band, mine has a different lettering of the authors' names.  Additionally, the title is in a green that is used for the moons, columns and the vulture in the cover illustration.  The pictured cover appears to have the title in white, but that may be due to fading of the copy that was scanned.  If the lettering of the authors' names matches that in the record then we actually have two different jacket states and I'll upload my scan as an alternate cover.  Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 23:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Quinzinzinzili
A 1935 publication wouldn't have an ISBN, much less an ISBN-13. The OCLC record you link is for a 2007 edition. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:54, 22 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Odd that I somehow switched from the oldest WorldCat record for that title to the newest. Thanks for catching that, it's been corrected. Chavey 05:37, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Dogland
Before I make a variant of the cover artist, can you confirm that they are credited without the "Inc." in this publication? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 23:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The only place the cover artist is credited is on the inside back DJ flap. It says only "The Chopping Block", i.e. no "Inc.". Chavey 00:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Misaligned ISBN
Can you check to see if the ISBN-13 is given in this book? Thanks. Mhhutchins 07:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Same question for this book. Mhhutchins 07:44, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Both corrected. Chavey 08:58, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

KHM (Kinder und Hausmärchen)
I believe you were working on this series. It came up on a cleanup script as having two duplicated numbers (103). I know nothing about it or I would fix the numbering myself. Thanks. Mhhutchins 09:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Not surprisingly, one of them was supposed to be the missing "113". I checked the German sources and corrected that. Chavey 18:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I've been (slowly) working on these from a Fixer submission credited to the brothers Grimm using their full names. I got all of the contents entered and have the varianting in progress.  As I've made the variants, I've been putting the German titles into the series.  A second pass will be to go back through the other titles and make more variants where there should be.  I'd like to say 1 -> 0 was fat fingers, but even my fingers are not that wide.  Thanks for catching/fixing.  --MartyD 17:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for working on this. I kept meaning to come back and work on the varianting for these German titles, but hadn't got to it. It will be nice to have those set up right. Chavey 20:25, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

(unindent) While we're on the topic of this series.... Apparently there's an original 151, but Bell in 1897 decided to break them into two (see this -- search for 151 and look at the "Front Matter" results). So, do we want to have two 151s (as done, for example here), which I have done for the moment, and then continue on with 152 through 210? Or do we want to do as in that Look Inside's book and make the second 151 be 152 and then number through 211? Although I guess it'll bring itself to Michael's attention, I'd prefer the former approach (even if we end up with three 151s). Then there's only one anomaly, and it's easy to explain. What do you think? I've paused at the 2 x 151 point. Thanks. --MartyD 12:58, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Synopses in CHAPTERBOOK records
Here's another one that was found using a cleanup script. This CHAPTERBOOK title record contains the story synopsis. The ISFDB policy is to enter the synopsis in the SHORTFICTION title record and not the CHAPTERBOOK title record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 09:59, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I should have realized that. Corrected. Chavey 18:53, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

The Fall of Atlantis
After adding Contents items to our 6 editions of 's The Fall of Atlantis, I realized that one of them had a verifier. Hopefully it's not one of those no-goodnik contentless omnibuses :-) Ahasuerus 04:57, 5 February 2014 (UTC)