User talk:ArtZub

Mhhutchins 18:32, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Issues of SFRA Review
I've accepted the submissions adding issues of the SFRA Review, but have had to made several changes in order for them to comply with ISFDB standards. These standards are explained in the Help pages which are linked in the Welcome section above.


 * You added contents records (either NONFICTION or SHORTFICTION) in order to create a record for the editor or magazine title. This is not necessary. The software automatically creates a separate record, which is a title reference record (for magazines, it's called an EDITOR record). It is this record which will be added into a magazine series that will link it with other issues of the magazine. So in the future, only add records for contents such as stories, essays, interior art, interviews and reviews. The system does the rest. (I have removed and deleted the extraneous content records.)


 * If two books are reviewed in one review (such as the two by Cherryh in Issue 297), you should create two review records.


 * Speaking of Cherryh, her name was mistakenly entered as "C.J. Cherryh". For ISFDB purposes, add a space after each period in an initialed name. (Same error happened with "S.M. Stirling".)


 * Names which have a suffix, like Jr., Sr., II, or III, require a comma and space between the name and the suffix. So "Isiah Lavender III" should have been entered as "Isiah Lavender, III".


 * Be careful when entering reviews, and try to avoid typos. The system automatically links review records to the book's title record, but only if the title and author match exactly. One missing or typoed letter and the review will have to be manually linked to the title (e.g. "The Moon Gaze Game" instead of "The Moon Maze Game". Come to think of it, I like the first title better!) Also, when entering titles with a colon, only enter one space after the colon, not two. Some of the reviews didn't link and I could find no other reason why. I'm not sure if you did this or not, because the system only displays one space. This is just a preemptive warning.


 * In the price field, there should be no space between the currency symbol ($) and the first number. So a free publication published in the US should be entered as $0.00.


 * For magazines, every page including the covers should be entered into the page count field. So a page count of "67" in a quarto publication (like this one) is incorrect. (By their nature, quarto publications have a page count in multiples of 4.)


 * If a book is a collection of stories by a single author, then the author is credited as the author, and not the editors. So I corrected this review to credit Bradbury, and not Touponce and Eller.

I have merged the title references (EDITOR records) of the issues you have entered into annual records, which have then been entered into the magazine series. If a magazine changes editors, their title references remain separate. (You had tried to merge those issues edited by Embry and Davis with the one edited in the same year by Jacobsen and Hellekson. Look at the magazine series to see how each have their own record, but both give the year as 2011.)

It is understandable that new editors would have difficulty in creating new records, and there are mistakes that some are likely to make due to the complexity of the database. If you continue to edit to database, you will learn how to avoid most of them. The more you edit, the easier it gets. All contributions are appreciated. Thanks and welcome again to the ISFDB. Mhhutchins 16:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguating column title
If a magazine column has a generic title or one that retains the same titles from issue to issue, the title have to be disambiguated to keep them from being accidentally merged. In the case of this issue you'll have to add the issue title parenthetically to the "President's Message" which would be "President's Message (SFRA Review #262)". And in this issue you'll have to disambiguate both the "Editor's Message" and the "President's Message" (which also appears to be misspelled). In this second issue, you dated the new contents as "2003-01-00" while the issue is dated "2003-03-00". This discrepancy will have to be resolved, unless you're certain that those contents were previously published before appearing in this issue. Mhhutchins 21:34, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Same two situations with the contents you added to this record: the titles need to be disambiguated and the dates need to be reconciled. Mhhutchins 21:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I've corrected the title of the work reviewed in issue #266 from Decoding Genre... to Decoding Gender.... Mhhutchins 21:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

SFRA #271
In this issue, I changed the author of I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey Into the Mind of Philip K. Dick from "Emmanuel Carrere (translated by Timothy Bent)" to Emmanuel Carrere. Only the author is credited, and not the translator.

I also changed the author you entered As Timeless as Infinity: The Complete Twilight Zone Scripts of Rod Serling (Volumes One and Two) from Tony Albarella to Rod Serling. And the author of The Twilight Zone Scripts of Charles Beaumont from Roger Anker to Charles Beaumont. For single-author collections, we credit the authors and not the editors. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding nonfiction reviews
When adding reviews for nonfiction works to issues of SFRA Review which previously only had fiction reviews, be sure to remove the note that states that, like here for instance. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)