User talk:Biomassbob/Archive/2012Jul-Sep

Strange Notions & The Dark Ocean
I'm holding your submission to delete the record for this boxed set. It is not unusual for the ISFDB to contain records for multi-volume sets (e.g. the many slipcased sets of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings). In the case of this Vance set, it's my understanding that the two books were only available as a set, which would strengthen the case to keep a record for the slipcased set. It's also OK to create records for each of the two separate volumes because they have separate ISBNs and even more so because of the possibility of a person owning one and not the other (perhaps purchased as a single book from a previous owner.) I'll hold the submission if you want to start a discussion on the Rules and Standards page. Mhhutchins 20:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Does your copy of Strange Notions have an ISBN? Possibly 0-88733-015-0? Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 20:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Have you had a chance to consider the submission to delete the record for the boxed set? Mhhutchins 03:27, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking about it. What bothers me is the two different ISBNs and scans, of course.  I just don't know how to treat these things, yet see the value in listing them.  I'll cancel the submission for now. Bob 12:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

The Jack Vance Lexicon
I'm not sure if such content records are necessary in this publication record...but if you decide they're important you should disambiguate the generic titles, and correct several typos as well. And is there an actual uncredited essay titled "The Jack Vance Lexicon" or is that the body of the work? You'll also need to merge the content records with those in this record. It would have been better to import the contents from one to the other, if both records existed at the time you updated them. If only one existed, it would have been better to clone it. The title records will have to also be merged. Mhhutchins 20:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Don't know why I skipped disambiguating the titles, careless. I'm not sure why the Borgo Press copy came out 3 years after the UM version; both were credited as publishers in both books.  The essay "The Jack Vance Lexicon" is the way the pubs refer to the major portion of the books, both in the ToC and on the pages of the pubs as well.  I perhaps should have avoided the problems by not showing any contents, but I thought it was important to show the editor's introduction, and while I was there, the others seemed like a good idea.  Both pubs were in the data base as stubs, without any difference noted in the titles and without any contents.  Perhaps I should have done one then imported content, but in unmerging the one title so it could be corrected, I ended up putting in the contents for both. Now I need to merge the titles, and I still need to put the UM pub as an alternative title. Bob 20:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

UM edition of Cugel's Saga
In the note to moderator to update this record, you say you can't find a source for the publication date and that it's not on Locus1. I found it here. Mhhutchins 18:50, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I would guess Vance agreed to let UM publish at the same time as Timescape, but they couldn't get the book out quickly enough. So the book shows "First Edition" and a 1983 publication date, both of which proved to be wrong. Sigh! Bob 19:25, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

The Eyes of the Overworld
I had to reject the submission to update this record, because you added content records for the constituent parts that make up this "fix-up" novel. This title has been a thorn in everyone's side since the time I first arrived here. After several discussions, over the course of years, it was agreed that this was a NOVEL instead of a COLLECTION. The ISFDB standard for entering fix-up novels is to only link the constituent records in the novel's title record (which is here). Sorry I had to reject the submission because you added other data to it, but it would have been harder to accept it and then have to remove and delete each of the new content records. Please resubmit an update to make the other corrections/changes to the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:56, 4 July 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem. I left a note with the verifier of the Ace first edition asking if putting in the content was a problem, so I clearly was concerned about putting it in.  It's relatively simple to reenter the pub. Bob 20:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Star King
There's a submission in the queue to update this record but no change was made. What were you updating? Mhhutchins 02:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * New scan. I suppose I didn't need to "update", just enter the new scan? Bob 02:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * If you replaced the image on the ISFDB server, the URL didn't change. So there's no need to "update" the record. It simply displays the current image. If you upload a new image, the file gets a new URL and the pub record's URL will have to be changed. If the former, just cancel the submission. Mhhutchins 03:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Underwood-Miller or Underwood/Miller?
Because you have such an extensive collection of their publications, you're just the person who can solve a dilemma that's been bugging me for several years. I've seen the publisher's name used both ways, and it seems to be about evenly divided among the two choices. I think we need to merge all of the publications into one, or make a distinction between them if over its lifetime they made a conscious decision to change the way their name is presented. Or do you know if the records in the database are correctly entered and should remain as they are? I appreciate your input. Mhhutchins 03:11, 6 July 2012 (UTC)


 * One problem is that the publishers seem to be ambivalent about their name. I have tried to match however they presented their own name in each book.  I might have missed some, but in general, I followed their own designations.  I've always used the hyphen and started to change one of the slash versions, then looked at the pub and found the slash was consistent for that volume.  I've got about 13 left to enter and they are all hyphenated.  I think (but haven't counted) that's the most common form.  I would certainly select that as the canonical choice. Let me look at my library with an eye to that question, and I'll get back to you. Bob 12:04, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Miller ed. of Emphyrio
Concerning your submission to change the price of this publication: I'm just wandering if it were a typo, because $160.00 in 1995 seems like a pretty steep price for one of a 500-copy edition. (Hell, it's a steep price in 2012!) Thanks for re-checking. Mhhutchins 15:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm confused. I had thought that I had cloned the 500 edition pub to show a 26 edition version (like "To Live Forever").  The former cost $60, the latter $160. I will cancel the submission and go ahead and clone the existing pub.  I will have to remove my verification, but that's simple.  Thank you for catching this one. Bob 19:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Fantasy Tales logos
If these are the same illustrations, there's no need to update each record, because eventually you're going to merge them into one record. Then you'll have just that one record to update. Mhhutchins 03:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * They are the same, of course. I was a bit nervous about catching them all in a merge if I didn't "correct" them.  Anyhow, done now. Bob 13:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

C. A Cador [sic]
The author credit of this record should be corrected to "C. A. Cador", even if there is no period after the middle initial in the actual publication. ISFDB standards say we can normalize such usage. Mhhutchins 03:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Typo. Fixed. Thanks for catching it. Bob 13:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

SFBC ed. of Leviathan Wakes
Is the number (1338537) you added in the note field of this publication record printed on the back of the book's dustjacket? If so, it's the SFBC ID number, not the catalog number. Read this explanation of the difference between the two. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:58, 9 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Numbers, numbers, numbers. Fixed.  Bob 00:25, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Russ/Russell Nicholson
I have several of your submissions on hold. All of them depend on a determination that "Russ Nicholson" and "Russell Nicholson" are the same person. This seems plausible, but I can't find any source which explicit says so. In particular Russ Nicholson's blog profile and LinkedIn profile make no mention of his having used the name Russell Nicholson early in his career. Nor can i find any page which mentions one of the works we have listed for Russell Nicholson under the name "Russ". I don't doubt that you have good reason to believe that these are the same person, the dates make it look plausible. But before approving these, I would like to know your source. -DES Talk 02:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Source is that the publications are all the same fanzine/magazine, "Fantasy Tales". Up through the summer of 1981, he was credited as Russell, then the credit in the summer of 1982 switched to Russ.  He was a regular contributor, illustrating individual stories along with Jim Pitts, Stephen E. Fabian (always with the E.), Alan Hunter, Allen Koszowski and others.  And the style of the artwork is distinctive enough that I'm confident Russ and Russell are the same person. Bob 13:08, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Very well, I'll approve these and copy the above note to Author:Russ Nicholson for future reference. -DES Talk 13:18, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Meade and Penny Frierson's one-shot HPL
I'm holding a submission by an editor who makes a strong case that this publication was published in 1972, and not 1979. According to him the publication is not dated, and he links to this article written by the editors. The LCCN should not be used to determine a publication date. In this case, 79-189873 may have been assigned during the "Interim Period". According to the Library of Congress:
 * During the 1969-1972 period, a 7-series year number was assigned. In these numbers the initial digit of 7 was followed by a modulus-ll check digit. The year in which the card number was assigned can be approximated from the year portion of the Date entered on file. With the re-institution of the year series number in 1972, provisions were made to skip those individual card numbers which could have been assigned previously as a 7-series number.

Here are some pubs in the ISFDB that were published in this period and were assigned these LCCNs:, , and. I'll let you make any changes to the record if you agree it should be changed. Mhhutchins 21:05, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm glad someone caught this. I don't know where I got the 1979 date.  My own records (I record all my pubs in a Microsoft Office Access file) show 1972 as the publication date, so I agree completely with the editor who brought this up.  I've made the correction.  Thank you! Bob 13:31, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I hate to tell you this, but you're going to have to update the dates on all of the contents of the publication. Since most of them are original to the publication, all you have to do is an update to the pub record, and remove the dates of the contents. You don't have to give new dates, just leave the field blank, because the system will automatically date them the same date used in the metadata field (1972-00-00). Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:14, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

"Etchings & Odysseys #3 (Headache) "
Is this art or fiction? Mhhutchins 21:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Same question about this one. Mhhutchins 21:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been doing this with E&O with the load of interiorart. Both are art.  Usually, if it shows sf instead of ss, it means I missed changing shortfiction to interiorart.  I've caught others in #1; haven't reviewed #2 yet. Thanks for catching these! Bob 00:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I think Michael and I were viewing this at the same time and I put it on Hold while asking the same question. I'll reject so you can submit "Headache" again. Thanks. PeteYoung 00:37, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Relatedly, I expect this title in Etchings and Odysseys #4 was meant to be an essay, as with similar letters. PeteYoung 03:18, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Correct again! I should get through the first four E&Os today and will hopefully fix any similar problems not yet reported. Thanks for your help! Bob 13:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Joseph A. West = Joe West
Is there any particular reason why you chose Joe West to be the canonical name, rather than Joseph A. West? Mhhutchins 15:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. It appears that Joseph A. was only used in the first issue.  Since Joe will be the name used most often, and seems to be the choice of the artist as he matured, I thought Joe was the better choice for canonical name.  Strange - the editors got more formal after the first issue...  Bob 19:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Then it makes sense to keep the shortened name if that becomes the most common usage. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Titles of interiorart records in Etchings & Odysseys
I've noticed most of the ones that don't illustrate stories are titled with the name of the issue which is the standard, but you've appended parenthetically another name, such as "Etchings & Odysseys #3 (Traveller)" and "Etchings & Odysseys #3 (Celepod)". If that appended name is the one used to title the work n the publication then it's not necessary to add the issue to the title. That's only done for untitled works. Mhhutchins 15:36, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Beginning with the third issue, the editors apparently assigned titles to nearly all of the art work not associated with a story. These titles do not usually appear on the art work itself, but are in the ToC section devoted to the artwork.  I wasn't sure if the issue name was needed in this case.  I'll leave it out in future and remove it as I go through the existing issues.  Thank you for pointing this out -- it will ease the burden somewhat! Bob 18:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * And the page clutter as well! Even if the work isn't directly titled on the page of its appearance, I don't think using the TOC title is going to greatly break the rules. Maybe bend them slightly, but then every once in a while you have to bend something to make it fit! Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * You know you can do most of these changes in a pub update, and don't have to make a submission to update each one. Right? Mhhutchins 19:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. With #2 I'll likely do them one at a time as I make other corrections because I don't expect there to be many of them.  With #3 and #4, group correction is definitely the way to go. Bob 19:35, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

"The Cyclops"
In one submission you changed the credit of this piece from "uncredited" to "Steven Sinatra". But in the next submission to update the publication which contained the piece, the credit was reverted back to "uncredited". Was that intentional, or is the system playing games with us? If you make a change in a content record, and then update the publication record before the first submission is accepted, the system reverts the change because it notices there's a difference in the way it was, and the way it is at the time the moderator handles the second submission. It's best to wait until the submission that updates an individual title record is accepted, before making changes in the publication record in which it is contained. Or even better, make the changes in the content using the publication record update, not the title record update. Mhhutchins 20:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I should have made the change to the pub first, then to the content, or else done both changes to the pub.  Bob 21:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Fantasy Tales #1 (USA)
My copy of this is packed away, but I don't recall that David Sutton was credited as a co-editor. If you have a copy, please check again. If not, it may take me a couple of days to get to as I'll be out of town for the weekend. Mhhutchins 01:52, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * David A. Sutton is credited as "Associate Editor" all the way through. I left him off until I got to the professional mags, where they started giving him credit on the cover.  So I went back and put him in all the issues.  And honestly, he was clearly doing at least as much editing as Jones all along since all written content had to be sent to his address, not Jones'.  Robinson clearly recognized his role and gave him credit for it.  I could do no less. Bob 17:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * That's all very well...but the ISFDB doesn't have a field for that role. Any role other than editor is credited in the note field. Mhhutchins 19:57, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Caldron ?
Are the columns in Fantasy Tales titled "The Caldron"? Must be the British spelling. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 01:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I got caught at least twice spelling it cauldron and had to correct before I could merge. Definitely Caldron. Bob 17:14, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't say it's the British spelling - I am British and use the "u". I thought it was Americans that didn't like that letter! ;-) BLongley 22:15, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Probably spelled by an engineer the first time, then they were stuck with it. Bob 23:22, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's spelled as "The Cauldron" in the US printings, and in later UK printings. And both ways in this record and later issues. Mhhutchins 20:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * How embarrassing! I went back and checked them all, and they are all spelled correctly, Cauldron. No explanation, just a mistake. Bob 15:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

"Sword of the Necromancer" essay? in E&O #8
Hi. I accepted, but I'm wondering if the "essay" on p. 23 should be interiorart instead. --MartyD 22:30, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Yep, sure is. Fixed.  Thank you for spotting it. Bob 23:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

II
When an author is a second, as in "George Diezel II", the ISFDB standard is to enter all credits with a comma, even if the credit in the publication doesn't have it. So, I rejected the submission to make "George Diezel, II" into a pseudonym of "George Diezel II" and the subsequent submission to make variants of the title records. Instead, I corrected all of the title records, adding the comma to the author credit. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Same situation with "Jnr." which I normalized to "Jr." Mhhutchins 21:03, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * O.K. All were entered as in the pubs, of course.  I kind of liked the II without the comma, but that was just a mild preference. Bob 23:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * And I agree. I've never seen anyone use "II" with a comma. But that standard was decided before I came on the scene. Mhhutchins 00:28, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Arkham Sampler
You give the date of June 1983 in the title field of this record, but go on to say that the date is approximate. If so, you shouldn't give June in the title. Feel free to give the date as "1983-06-00" and add notes to explain how you arrived at that date, but the title field should only reflect what is actually stated in the publication. Mhhutchins 00:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I found the date at the last minute, not in the pub itself, but in an ad for the pub laid in. So the date is no longer approximate. Bob 14:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * It's unstated, so it should not be used in the title of the record. As I said, you can record the unstated, now sourced, date in the date field, but it is not appropriate to title this issue as "June 1983". Mhhutchins 14:58, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I see you've done the same thing with all of the issues of Etchings & Odysseys (and perhaps in other magazine/fanzine records). The dates placed in the title field of magazine records are there in distinguish the issues. Adding this extra data to the field makes sure that no one will confuse one issue with another. It's not there to record the publication date. That's what the date field is for. Mhhutchins 15:09, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Will you be making submissions to remove the unstated dates from the title fields of the publication records, or would you want to start a discussion on the Rules page about changing the standard? Mhhutchins 22:03, 16 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The Strange Company is unusual in that each issue of Etchings & Odysseys gives the publication date for the following issue, frequently to the day. As far as I know, they only once failed to meet these dates, when they switched to a printer in India they did not allow enough time for shipping.  That slippage was discussed in the publication.  Now the Arkham Samplers are not dated; I'm confident that the dates are correct, but they don't appear in the pubs.  So I'll remove the dates from the titles of the Strange Company items since you insist.  Other fanzines I've done didn't operate this way. Bob 22:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization in names
You can make updates to title records' credits for "Natalie hartley Wooley" until the end of time, but they will never become "Natalie Hartley Wooley". Once a name is in the system, that's the way it will always be recognized as far as capitalization goes. You can enter it in all caps later but it's still going to be changed to match the name as it was first entered. You'll need to edit the author's name. Go to and click on "Edit Author Data" to change the capitalization in the canonical name field. Mhhutchins 01:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I thought I had tried to change that before, but wasn't sure.  I entered her name 4 times in that one pub, and missed the capital h every time!  Now I can change those entries to her canonical name, which is Natalie H. Wooley! Bob 11:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * How did her name appear on these publications? If it was "Natalie Hartley Wooley" then the records should not be changed to "Natalie H. Wooley". However if is to be the canonical name, then a pseudonym needs to be set up and variant title records created. See Help: How to record a pseudonym and Help:How to enter works published under a pseudonym for more details on this process, and feel free to ask for assistance if those are not clear. -DES Talk 12:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * That's a separate issue, David. This one concerned the editor's attempting to correct an earlier error in which he failed to capitalize the author's middle name. He's very familiar with creating pseudonyms and varianting title records. Thanks. Mhhutchins 13:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * My apologies for unnneeded advice. I'm sure all will be handled correctly. -DES Talk 21:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * No problem! I know the advice was well meant, and appreciate your reaction to help.  I did set up the pseudonym and create the variant titles.  I touch type, so I make a fair number of typos when I enter information, but this was the first time I entered one person's name wrong 4 times in one pub, all the same mistake!!!  And because her name was not entered correctly in the data base, I didn't know how to fix things until Michael explained.  It was particularly frustrating because I knew after the correction was made, I then had to create the pseudonym, create the 4 variant titles, then merge at least one of them.  That many steps frustrates me!  Anyhow, thanks for trying to help.  Bob 00:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I do understand the multiple steps frustrating one. Something in the way you phrased your remarks above made me think you weren't going to / didn't know to set up the pseudonym -- but I shouldn't have jumped to a conclusion, particularly when Michael was already involved. I am only a 4-finger typist, sometimes 2, so i copy & paste wherever I can. One does eventually get used to the sequence of steps, and some software changes have reduced the burden and automated or semi-automated routine procedures. You should have seen what uploading cover images was like before the semi-automated procedure, for example. Thanks for pitching in. -DES Talk 00:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Spearman ed. of Burn Witch Burn
Are you certain of the date of this record? In 1975, the UK had already converted to monetary decimalization. Mhhutchins 21:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Good eye! Typo.  It's 1955. Bob 00:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Creep Shadow Creep series
I have your edit to place this title in a series "Creep Shadow". First of all, it looks to me as if this is a duplicate (or perhaps a variant) of Creep Shadow! from 1934. That novel is already #2 in the series. A novel cannot be in two different series in the ISFDB (which is sometimes unfortunate).

I think you first need to settle the relationship between the 1934 and 1972 titles, and do the merge or variant as needed. Then the question of the series can be properly addressed. -DES Talk 01:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * That is what I was trying to do; I just went about it wrong. I've made the pub a variant title of "Creep Shadow", which is where I wanted to put it all along.  Bob 02:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That is fine. Do you want to cancel the outstanding edit, or have me reject it, or will it still be useful in some way? -DES Talk 03:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I withdrew it when I made the variant. I need to get past my confusion about what is a merge and what is series!  Thanks for your help on this one. Bob 16:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Always happy to help when I can. Of course often enough I mess up too. -DES Talk 19:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The Metal Monster pagination
I am holding your edit of a pub of. You state in your notes "First 6 pages do not exist." Are there un-numbered pages between the roman-numbered pages and the page numbered 7? if so are there 6 of them? or is page xxi directly followed by page 7? or what exactly is the situation? I want to get this clarified for future users of the record. -DES Talk 03:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry I wasn't clear. When pubs are photocopies of earlier editions (like this one), the original page numbers are part of the photocopy.  But the first few pages of the original pub are not part of the new one, presumably title page, copyright page, maybe ToC -- whatever.  In this case the new pub did not contain pages 1-6 of the original pub, replacing them with the twenty-plus pages of Roman numerals. So, yes, page xxi is followed by a blank page (I suppose it could be xxii or 6 if it were not blank), then page 7.  I've run into these before and would appreciate it if you could tell me there was some standard way of handling this. Bob 16:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I would suggest a note saying "Page xxi is followed by a blank page and then by page 7" that makes it aboput as clear as it can be. in the page count I would use something like "xiii+7-203. But i'm not sure if there is a standard for this -- I think I'll raise it on Rules&Standards. -DES Talk 19:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I approved your edit, and added a note such as I describe above, and while I was at it, added a link to the Library of Congress record (which I usually like to do when an LCCN is given). Since you verified this, please look it over and make sure I haven't done anything inaccurate or that is a problem for you. -DES Talk 20:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me and should certainly be clear. Thank you for your help. Bob 21:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Placing a number in the page count field in brackets indicates that the pages aren't numbered. So roman-numeraled pages in brackets make no sense at all. Mhhutchins 02:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Michael. Fixed. Bob 17:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Letter by Alan Hunter.
Hi, changed pub type to ESSAY for this title in your verified pub. Cheers, P-Brane 01:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC).


 * Thank you! Another typo!. Glad you spotted it. Bob 17:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Lyonesse: Madouc
I'm holding a submission to add a new publication of this title, but it seems to be a duplicate of this record. Author, title, publisher, binding, ISBN, price, and cover artist are identical. The only difference is a few days off in the publication date and the added pages in the page count field. Mhhutchins 00:49, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Withdrawn. I see what happened.  I found the pb copy from Grafton and didn't see the earlier tp and hc.  Mea culpa. Bob 13:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Crypt of Cthulhu, #27
If no editor is credited in this issue, then the record should show the editor as "uncredited". Then a variant record can be created giving credit to Steve Behrends who was the uncredited editor according to the notes. Why should Price also be given credit? Mhhutchins 21:20, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, O.K. Price clearly retains control.  The same citation that was used to identify Behrends as editor says that Price included a story that Behrends meant to be left out.  No matter who Price credits as editor, he retained control over content, which is the editor's job.  The same should apply to #21, where Josti is credited as editor.  Behrends and Josti might have done all the dog work, but when it came right down to it, the 'zine was Price's.  I have left notes for the primary verifier, but no response yet. Bob 21:28, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * "He retained control over content, which is the editor's job." That's also a publisher's job. I'll let you and the other verifier make the final decision, but ISFDB rules are pretty clear. We give credit as stated and put any speculations in the note field. Mhhutchins 21:35, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Michael, I do believe you work hard to find ways to irritate me. Let me give you two quotes.  First from "Editorial Shards", Crypt #26 discussing the inclusion of "The Brahman's Wisdom": "Behrends had not intended to include it, and now he and Roy A. Squires have set your meddlesome editor straight."  Meddlesome editor, not meddlesome publisher.  Second, from the back cover of Crypt #27 itself: "Cryptic Publications/Robert M. Price, Editor".  Editor, not publisher.  Price is named as editor of the publication in question in both issue 26 and issue 27.  Bob 21:59, 23 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Bob, why didn't you say that to begin with? Read again what I wrote above "We give credit as stated." At no point in this discussion did you say that Price is credited as the editor. Why did the original ISFDB editor actually make a point that there is no credited editor? And since we're trading barbs, why do you always find a way to be so disagreeable? I have gone out of my way to try to work with you as cordially as possible, but you seem to be able to push all of the wrong buttons, and I refuse to allow it to happen any longer. Your submissions can sit and rot in the queue as far as I'm concerned. Look! I've found another way to may you irritable! Mhhutchins 22:34, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

"A Memory" and "A Fragment"
I found the issue of The Californian in which A Memory appeared to be Vol. 3 No. 3, Winter 1935 from a listing on Homeville. I updated the title's note and changed the date. --MartyD 10:51, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Likewise A Fragment. --MartyD 10:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Marty. I couldn't figure out what "The Californian" was, although a magazine seemed likely. Sometimes the references in "Crypt" to sources are really skimpy. Bob 13:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Studies in Weird Fiction #3
While reviewing your submission of Studies in Weird Fiction #3, I was struck by the use of "Nonfiction" for the publication type (thinking it should perhaps be a magazine or anthology). In looking into it further, I found we have a couple of later issues (see this series) as Fanzine. Should that perhaps be the classification for this one as well? --MartyD 11:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * While I've never seen this pub, I knew exactly what it was - a typical Necronomicon stapled chapbook, probably A5 size. And obviously #3 might make it a 'zine, although I didn't know how many there were.  I'm happy with fanzine, and will make the change. Bob 13:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I've accepted it and will change it to FANZINE and stick it into that series. --MartyD 13:29, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Once again, thank you, Marty. I appreciate your help. Bob 16:56, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Placement of commas in magazine issues with issue numbers
Hi. It seems counter-intuitive, but when you make a magazine/fanzine with an issue number in its title, it is better to put the comma BEFORE the issue number. E.g., instead of Lovecraft Studies #16, Spring 1988, you should do Lovecraft Studies, #16 Spring 1988. The reason is that everything AFTER the comma is used to produce the magazine "grid". So if you put the issue number before the comma, there's no issue number in the grid, but if you put it after the comma, the number will show up in the grid (in this example, "#16 Spring" instead of "Spring"). This is generally useful in any case, but it's especially helpful when the date in the title does not contain a month and the issue ends up in the grid's "No Month" column; if there's more than one issue in the year, they all end up stacked there and it's harder to count/distinguish them. It's hard to remember and hard for moderators to notice, so I'm sure others have gone through with no comment. I did change this one, even though it's not yet in a series. --MartyD 19:24, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * In the same spirit, I moved the comma back to its original, pre-# location after accepting your edits to . --MartyD 20:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Learn something new every day. I changed a bunch of commas for earlier Crypts, thinking it should be after the issue number.  Appreciate the instruction. Bob 21:30, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Variant reviews based on non-matching titles
I have your proposed variant on hold that would take a review of "Lovecraft Studies 16" and make it a variant of a new title matching the magazine's title. What we do in cases like this is use the canonical title in the review itself and just make a note of how the publication actually gave the title. See Help:Screen:EditPub. Magazines with editor records collapsed into a single one for the year don't lend themselves well to review linking. I would use the title given the magazine (e.g., "Lovecraft Studies, #16 Spring 1988") and then manually link to the "Lovecraft Studies - 1988" editor record. I have left the submission on hold for your reference, but please cancel and change the review's title instead. Thanks. --MartyD 19:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Some days you learn two new things. Will fix. Bob 21:38, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Kenneth W. Faig[, Jr.]
You made one submission with Kenneth W. Faig as the publisher, and I have two on hold that would use "Kenneth W. Faig, Jr.". Are these the same? If so, any thoughts about which way would be more appropriate to use for all three? Thanks, --MartyD 20:09, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * They are certainly the same, and are entered as they appeared in the pubs. I was going to eliminate the Jr. in the canonical name (not for any good reason, really, just because I prefer it) and enter variants for the existing Jr.s.  No strong feelings if you think I should prefer the Jr. in. Bob 21:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Given that we have the canonical author record with the "Jr.", seems like we may as well go with that for the publisher record. BTW, you couldn't make a variant to capture alternate publisher names because variants are only for titles, not for publications.  I will accept the two with the Jr. and go change the other one to add it.  Thanks.  --MartyD 22:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Just fine with me. Thanks again for helping. Bob 22:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Review problem
The author of the reviewed work in this review is Necronomicon Press instead of Robert E. Howard. That looks like a mistake. But if it's not, even if the only credit in CofC uses Necronomicon, I think you should record Howard, the editor, and make a note. --MartyD 10:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * The reviews for Necronomicon Press items in Crypt sometimes use the publisher as the editor for some reason I haven't figured out. This particular item confused me.  I entered all the REH Fight Magazines and named Howard as editor, but the actual editor was Robert M. Price.  It looks funny to me to see Howard as the editor of a magazine, particularly one published long after his death.  I was going to go back and put Price in as editor instead, even though all the stories and poems are by Howard.  If these had been collections, putting Howard as editor would have been unquestionable.  But for a fanzine?  What do you think I should do for these four fanzines? Bob 12:04, 31 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Magazines and Fanzines are different from collections. For the former two, we expect and editor (as we do for anthologies).  For collections, we pretty much ignore the fact that there's an editor and treate the contained works' author as the "author" of the collection.  It is not consistent.  Is Price credited?  If so, you should use him.  If not, I suggest you use the non-genre "Editors of Xxx" standard (instead of "uncredited").  --MartyD 03:31, 1 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Price is credited; I'll change them over to his name. Thanks!! Bob 03:37, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

The Stars Are Right!: Nine Modern-Day Adventures for Call of Cthulhu
This seems suspiciously like a set of RPG scenarios - is it? If so, they're not to be included here even if they've been reviewed. BLongley 22:30, 1 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Same question for the other 4 I've held. BLongley 22:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Yes, they are.  I'll pull them and revise the pubs.  There are other, earlier ones as well.  Live and learn.  Thanks for pointing this out.  Bob 22:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Stefan Dziemainowicz
I think you've entered most titles by this author. Can you please double check and see if they're actually Stefan "Dziemianowicz"? BLongley 01:15, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Stefan was s "contributing editor" to Crypt and does much of the reviewing. And yes, that's how his name is spelled. No Daz. Bob 12:42, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you mean by "No Daz". Do you mean he's Dziemainowicz or Dziemianowicz? BLongley 13:35, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry. I recently corrected one entry where his name was spelled "Daziemianowicz".  I thought you were nervous about the "Dz" combination up front.  The name is spelled "Dziemianowicz" in every issue of Crypt, including the first 75 issues where I was the second verifier.  If I put in "ai" instead of "ia" somewhere, that's an error.  I touch type, so I make typos reasonably frequently, but for some reason that name just flows off my fingers, and I don't think I've had to correct it even once (that I caught). That's very unusual for me. Bob 15:03, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Alerted by your question, I found a bunch of the "ai" misspellings, of course. Fixed. Bob 16:21, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think we've got them all now, thanks! BLongley 22:28, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Lowndes' Annals of Arkya
I'd like to suggest that we change the titles of the poems in Lowndes' Annals of Arkya to omit the number currently in the title by moving it to the series number on the title record. For those titles in the first 3 Lin Carter edited Weird Tales, I probably entered these some time ago as I did with other poems presented in the same manner. However, in discussions with other editors I recall that we decided that the number is not really part of the title. Other examples of this sort of series are Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth, Wandrei's Sonnets of the Midnight Hours (I see you've made an variant of #8, which we also wouldn't need) and Carter's Dreams from R'lyeh. For books we do have a policy of not considering the series name and number as part of the title even if presented on the title page. These poetry series would seem to me to be a similar situation. If you agree, I can make the changes, if not, we can open this to a wider discussion. Let me know what you think. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 01:46, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Ron, I put the numbers in since they were in the pub, but I wasn't entirely comfortable with it. Of course, I was completely unaware of your earlier discussions on the matter.  I was aware of the Carter poems, since I had entered information on them as part of my entries on "Amra".  I agree that removing the numbers is a good idea.  Please go ahead and fix my entries. Bob 12:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Sherlock Holmes merge
What are you trying to do with your proposed merge of this as by Ralph E. Vaughan with its variant, this as by Ralph Vaughan? The merge would lose the title as by Ralph Vaughn, which seems to be the credit used in the chapterbooks, so it's probably not the right thing to do, but I can't quite figure out what you intend. Thanks. --MartyD 02:10, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Marty, I can't figure that out either. I guess I went merge crazy.  Thanks for catching this silliness. Bob 12:50, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

"Cold Print, Complete Edition"
I am afraid I had to reject the submission which would have linked 's review of 's Cold Print to 's The Castle of Otranto. I think you entered the publication number of this pub rather than the title number of the collection. I have linked the review to the title record instead and it seems to look OK now, but could you please clarify whether the review record calls Campbell "Ramsay" rather than "Ramsey"? TIA! Ahasuerus 03:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * P.S. Ditto 's review of 's Crawling Chaos}}. Ahasuerus 04:02, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The "Crawling Chaos" was just an error. I thought at the time I might have messed up and was kind of surprised when I didn't get an error message.  But I figured no error message, no mistake.  Wrong again!  So then when I came to the Campbell case, I thought maybe I could do the same thing.  The problem with the Campbell review (other than misspelling Ramsey) was that the review itself was specifically of the pub I tried to link it to.  Apparently this version was somehow "more complete" than earlier versions of the same title, even though the titles are merged.  I wasn't sure how to deal with that, and obviously made a mistake.  Mea culpa. Thanks for fixing these.  Bob 12:33, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * We definitely have a gap between "Title" and "Publication" level that we don't cover well - for instance an "Uncut Version" or "Author's Preferred" edition. In the meantime, all we can do is link to the title level, with extra notes in the review or title if there is a significant difference. We will get round to abbreviated, expanded or revised versions eventually, I think, but don't hold your breath - we're beginning to struggle with moderator availability and Developer/Tester/Implementer availability is even lower. :-( BLongley 22:39, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

"Richard M. Tierney"
I have approved your submissions which changed all occurrences of "Richard M. Tierney" to "Richard L. Tierney". I assume that all of them were originally entered in error and you were just correcting your typos, right? If so, then do we also want to change the "Note" field for Crypt of Cthulhu, #86 Eastertide 1994 which currently says "Richard M. Tierney" issue? Ahasuerus 03:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Absolutely, I mixed up Richard L. Tierney and Robert M. Price. I made as many fixes as I could with merges, then changed the rest.  After I made the changes, I noticed the note and was ready to change it today.  Thank you as always for your help with my dumb mistakes. Bob 12:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds good, thanks! Ahasuerus 06:43, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Letter: Shortfiction or Essay
Should this letter in CofC #93 be an Essay instead of Shortfiction? --MartyD 10:29, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Thanks.  Fixed. Bob 12:43, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, your edit would have made it an EDITOR record, which would be even worse. I've done the change for you. BLongley 16:45, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Incredible. Thanks.  By the way:  Mark Riley is a frequent pseudonym in "Crypt" for Stephen Mark Riley.  I've been putting in variants in the "Crypt" items, but I notice there are dozens of instances where no one has done this in other publications.  Should I do so? Bob 22:27, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If you mean Rainey then yes, someone should. BLongley 11:02, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


 * All "make variant" submissions have been approved. Ahasuerus 06:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Stephen Mark Rainey's stories
I see that we have "The Spheres Beyond Sound" and "The Sphere Beyond Sound" by. We also have "Festival of the Jackal (Off Broadway)" and "Festival of the Jackal" by the same author. Would you happen to know if these are the same stories and whether the titles were entered correctly? Ahasuerus 06:08, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I don't have any of the pubs these stories appeared in so I'm unaware of the correct titles. I agree these four stories must be really two, but can't help. Bob 14:43, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I have set them up as variant titles for now. Ahasuerus 18:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Ahem
Bob, I took the liberty of correcting what I trust is a typo in this record just submitted, previously "Virgin Finlay Remembered". If that correction was in error and you need to reclaim Virgil's virginity please go right ahead and change it back... :) PeteYoung 08:26, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Pete. I missed that one; no wonder the reference to the pub failed! Bob 14:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Reviews
You don't have to make a review title exactly the same as the title we have already - the link is enough. The reviewed author though should be adjusted to match one of the already present names. I hope this saves you a few edits! BLongley 15:58, 5 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That makes a lot of sense. Thanks! Bob 16:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

ISBN in The Fantastic Worlds of H. P. Lovecraft
I changed the ISBN in your from "1135646309 1999" to just "1135646309" without the 1999. I found a couple of references that seemed to confirm it. --MartyD 10:32, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Marty. Copied too much! Bob 21:40, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Wilum Hopfrog Pubmire, Esq.
Are you sure it's Pubmire rather than Pugmire? BLongley 13:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thanks.Bob 15:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

"C38. J. Henderson"
Unusual name, sure it's correct? BLongley 14:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I've been using a laptop and sometimes it jumps spaces for reasons I don't understand. I'm probably hitting keys by mistake on the little keyboard. Bob 14:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Uncredited cover art
You should remove the "uncredited" credit in the cover art fields of issues of The Arkham Sampler per ISFDB standards. The cover art field should be blank if the cover art is not credited, but you can record that fact in the Note field. Mhhutchins 02:33, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Dumb; fixed. Thanks, Michael. Bob 15:46, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Lord of a Visible World
Hi. I have your proposed Lord of a Visible World submission on hold. There's a couple of problems with the submission as it stands. Minor is the ISBN is invalid (looks like a typo: 8213 -> 8214, although maybe CoC provides it incorrectly?). More significant is that there's a mismatch between the author credit and the type of work. A COLLECTION means the contained separate works were written by the collection's author(s). I found on Amazon the hardcover and the paperback, which suggest to me it is indeed a COLLECTION of works, but by Lovecraft, and that should be the author credit. We don't have a way to record editors of a collection, so Price and Joshi would have to be relegated to the notes. And then it also looks like "by H. P. Lovecraft" doesn't belong in the title. I think it'll be easier to redo the submission than to try to change those things after the fact if I were to accept the current submission. --MartyD 10:46, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The title and authors are what was given in the pub, of course. Surprisingly, so is the incorrect ISBN for the paperback. I know the pub's a collection of pieces of letters Lovecraft wrote rather than the usual collection of stories, but I was uncertain how much of the verbage was due to Lovecraft and how much to the editors.  No problem in making the changes, though.  Thanks for the help. Bob 16:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the intrusion, but a collection of letters should be entered as NONFICTION. The COLLECTION type is used primarily for fiction by a single author (although a collection of poems is also entered with that type as well.) And BTW, there's already a record for the title. Mhhutchins 18:28, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No intrusion, Michael. Thanks for finding the existing record!!  I think the reason I didn't find it was the damn spacing after the colon.  I was taught to put in two spaces, but the norm in the data base seems to be one space.  I also looked under Joshi's name, and of course it wasn't there.  I haven't entered a collection of letters before, and it seems appropriate that at least in this case the designation should be NONFICTION. Bob 19:56, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I was thinking it should be NONFICTION, but then I was wondering if the letters appear in other publications that we're tracking and if we'd want them then as separate content items. But I guess that would be a little too over-the-top....  Sorry about missing the existing title -- I should have caught that.  --MartyD 01:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Marty, I think a real problem would be that the letters in this pub are frequently fragments, not whole letters. I think the authors only used those parts of the letters that have to do with Lovecraft's own life history.  I don't think there is any way to link parts of pubs to the pubs themselves -- I know that we have excerpts, synopses, fragments that second authors completed, etc. that are not linked to the "pure" pubs. Bob 21:49, 10 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, not arguing at all. I was confessing to knowing better but having given in to a momentary lapse of misguided thinking....  --MartyD 10:32, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Post Oaks & Sand Roughs changes
Your proposed changes to would change the Phil Hill interiorart credit to the unrelated Index. Did you mean to do that or just add the Index? --MartyD 10:44, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * There is no interior artwork. There is an Index.  So I thought I could just convert the non-existent to something useful.Bob 18:29, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * That would have been a good moderator note! :-) I accepted it.  --MartyD 10:40, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Magicon Souvenir Book
I changed the author credit of three pieces in this publication by adding a comma between the last name and its suffix, per ISFDB standards. Mhhutchins 18:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Michael. Bob 18:37, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Did the same with this publication. Mhhutchins 18:42, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * About the last publication, there's a piece on page 41 credited to "Meade Freirson, III". Should it have been "Meade Frierson, III"? Mhhutchins 18:44, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be. I would correct, but don't know how to take care of the replaced name. Bob 19:11, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, "Meade Frierson, III" is the canonical version of his name. So, I've removed all variants, and then made a variant of the editor record and editorial to the canonical name. Mhhutchins 19:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fine. Thanks for the help. Bob 20:24, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Etchings & Odysseys #2
Can you confirm the credit for the two poems on page 89 of this publication? There are more pieces credited to "Diezel" (on "l") in the database. Mhhutchins 19:08, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Along the same lines, his name is more commonly suffixed as "II", but there are two pieces in this publication credited to "III". If correctly entered, please create a pseudonym and variant title records. (We'll have to determine if his credits with a middle initial should be considered the canonical version of his name.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:11, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The entries are all as given in the pubs. I will go with George C. Diezel, II as the canonical name -- seems a bit more common, and the double "l" and "III" seem less likely.  Guessing, of course. Bob 19:28, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

The Challenge from Beyond
Please join in this discussion when you get a chance. Mhhutchins 05:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

NONGENRE only works for NOVELs
I've had to reject the changes for several Howard COLLECTIONs. BLongley 11:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that; I haven't run into this before and didn't realize. I do understand why. Bob 12:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Gather Darkness
Added the price to [this], source Tuck. --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! My copy is price clipped. Bob 02:23, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Who is Richard Corbin?
Just a slip of the finger, or is he really credited that way? Most of the entries here are verified by you, could you check them? If it's really Corbin, that should probably be a pseudonym of Corben. --Willem H. 19:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Typically, when I make a mistake I'm consistent as can be. They are all Corben.  Thanks for finding this one. Bob 21:20, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

"Profit and the Grey Assassin"
When you have a minute, could you please check whether Profit and the Grey Assassin in your verified Fantasy Book, May 1982 is attributed to "Reymond" or "Raymond" E. Feist? TIA! Ahasuerus 19:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It's Raymond; fixed. Thanks! Bob 20:28, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Approved. Thanks for checking. Ahasuerus

Fritz Leiber and H. P. Lovecraft: Writers of the Dark
This publication's credit and pub type conflicts with ISFDB standards. Of the 323 pages, 79% of them are the work of Fritz Leiber, but because of the way the book is credited, it doesn't appear on Leiber's summary page. Because the majority of the book (64%) is fiction by a single author, the rules would make this a COLLECTION credited to Leiber, with a note that Szumskyj and Joshi are editors. Mhhutchins 20:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thanks. Bob 21:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Submissions accepted. One other thing: Amazon gives the hardcover edition with a ISBN of 978-0-8095-0077-2 and dated February 20, 2005. I know dating Wildside's POD titles is almost impossible, but can you check to see if your copy gives a different ISBN? Also, what is the source of your date? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 21:50, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Both the ISBN as shown(10-number) and date of publication are given under Szumskyj's name in Locus1. The ISBN on the back cover of the book is 0-8095-0077-9.  As the notes say, the date for the book on the title page is 2003.  I obviously trusted Locus over Wildside. Bob 22:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The stated data in a publication trumps every secondary source. The ISFDB record should reflect what's actually stated in the pub. If it's wrong, and you have sufficient reason to believe it's wrong, you can give the contrary data and its source in the note field, and even change the data field if the contradictory evidence is overwhelming. Mhhutchins 02:51, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

"Alleys of Darkness" variant
I had to reject your proposed "Alleys of Darkness" variant submission that would have created a new parent of that title by Robert E. Howard. The title record for which you submitted the new variant no longer exists (might have been merged away or deleted). I don't have an easy way to tell what you might have been doing, so if you can remember you'll need to go find the surviving title and re-submit the variant if still needed. Thanks. --MartyD 20:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Marty. Almost certainly I merged it away.  I've been catch most of these lately, but missed this one. Bob 21:07, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Waterfront Fists & Others
I changed the ISBN on your submission to of from 0-8094-3083-X to 0-8095-3083-X. Please double check the printed book to confirm this correction. - Thanks Kevin 00:25, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Kevin. Typo. Bob 00:43, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Edgar All?n Poe in E&O #2
In your verified, is Poe's middle name on The Light House really spelled All e n with an "e", or is it rather All a n with an "a"? Thanks. --MartyD 10:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, great catch! It's a typo.  Fixed. Bob 13:29, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Complete Conan
For, do you want to make the publication's title match your change to the title record? --MartyD 11:09, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Never mind. I found your submission to do that.  You weren't consistent about "E" vs. "E.".  I've made them be "E.", matching your change to the series.  Looks like other volumes could use a similar change.  I didn't get to them -- I'm out of time for the moment.  --MartyD 11:11, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I have one proposed edit on hold that would change the v2 title to Volume 3. But the pub record under that title is v2.  Did you mean Volume 2, or did you mean to edit a different title?  --MartyD 11:13, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The "3" is a typo, it should be 2. Sorry about the "E" vs "E." thing.  Typo again.  I also ran out of time and didn't get to everything either and will get to volume 3 today.  Once the pubs I have submitted are approved, I have to clone virtually all of them (and/or export the contents to other versions of the pubs).  Usually I don't mess with the title changes until I've got the pubs fixed, but eventually I have to change both volume 2 and volume 3.  I don't often come across titles in the data base that I think need to be changed to match the pubs. Bob 13:24, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I will accept and fix up. --MartyD 13:44, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Speaking of (I've fixed the title and the pub's title), I noticed the page count includes "+A20".  If you discussed it with someone and the conclusion was it's ok, don't pay any attention to me....  That's not a page count.  Are there pages numbered A1 - A20, or are you counting an appendix' pages?  If the latter, you should just put the page count in brackets: "+[20]".  If the former, A20 seems reasonable -- consistent with the roman numeral numbering treatment -- but I think it's worth bringing the question up on Rules and standards discussions to see if we can get consensus that it's ok.  If that's the conclusion, I could go update the help to reflect the practice.  --MartyD 13:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The pages are numbered that way in the Wandering Star pubs (A1 - A20); the Ballantine versions convert the appendix pages to Arabic number extensions on the body pages. It seemed reasonable to use the "A"(based on the Roman numeral practice), since I don't see any reasonable way to enter the page numbers for specific content in the appendix without using the leading "A". I don't object to a discussion, although the last time I brought something up there, nobody had any input.  Kind of discouraging. Bob 14:52, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The page count field can't be treated the same as the page field for the contents. This field gives the actual count of the number of pages in the publication, with separations if different sections are differently numbered. So in this case, there are three sections. The first is roman-numbered, the second is arabic-numbered, the third is arabic-numbered with a letter appended. So the page count field should be "vi+344+20" which gives the page count of each of the three sections. You can add a note about the last section's pagination adding the letter to the numbers. You only use brackets if the pages are unpaginated, meaning they are not numbered at all.
 * In the content page field, you should give the page as it appears in the publication. So if a work appears on page which has "A10" printed on it then that should be given in the record's content field. If the page is not numbered, you can interpolate the number by going forward or backward to the closest page which is numbered. Mhhutchins 18:17, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Michael! I'll change them. Bob 18:36, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I accepted the changes to and modified +A22 -> +22 and included a note that the appendix pages are separately numbered A1-A22.  Trying to save you an edit cycle.   --MartyD 12:21, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated, Marty! Thank you.  Unfortunately, I think there will be at least one minor change anyhow. Bob 15:10, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

A Gent from Bear Creek and Other Tales
It looks like my advice had some unwanted side effects. The problem here is, that a contents item type "Collection" in a pub type "Collection" immediately becomes a container title, and is not shown in the publication listing. For now I changed it to type novel, so it does show up, but I'll have to think about what to do next. To be continued... --Willem H. 20:03, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Willem. Just love unintended results!  Thanks for taking care of it. Bob 20:54, 19 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You could leave it a Collection and make the thing that contains it an Omnibus. Then it would show up there.  Trying to change the display logic would be tough: In the presence of two or more contained collection titles, one could always hide the one that matches the publication's title, but that would break if none matched -- and we do have cases where the title record's text is different from the publication's title text.   --MartyD 12:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately a novel with two short stories doesn't become an omnibus. It's not my favorite solution, but I guess it's the best one. I changed A Gent from Bear Creek from collection to novel, removed the contents from the pubs, changed the types and added notes all over. Please check the result, and add anything you think necessary. --Willem H. 10:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The Ultimate Triumph
You might want to expand in the notes for what the Axx pages indicate. Are these appendix page numbers? Thanks Kevin 15:15, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Kevin, Michael told me to eliminate the "A" from the page number (on "Savage Tales of Solomon Kane": all the Wandering Star books use the "A" nomenclature), but use it for the contents pages. I'll put in the notes that the appendix is numbered A1 through A whatever. Thanks for being so conscientious. Bob 15:24, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Fury
Added the price to [this], source Tuck. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

You might be due for an Archive page! --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The [record] for the UK Dobson edition has a price of 15/- which seems really high for a '54. Tuck has 8/6. --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:46, 20 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I rechecked, and the price given is indeed "15s. net." at the bottom of the front jacket flap. It's right in the center of the flap.  The bottom corner of the flap is clipped off, like a typical price clip.  I notice that another book is advertised on the rear flap (a mystery) and that pub is priced at 8/6.  And a third (large) book is advertised on the back for 10/6.  This made me wonder if the price Tuck gave is correct, and the 15/ price on my book wasn't somehow printed there by a reseller.  I ran my finger over the price, and I can feel the printing; I can't feel the other printing on the same flap.  I have to conclude that this 15/ price is not the original price. I'll change the price to 8/6, credit Tuck, and note the 15/ price on my copy. Bob 23:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Cover artist for 1951
Could you double check the cover artist for 1951. His first name is usually spelled Earle. Regardless of whether Haffner misspelled the name, we should probably make a variant of the title record of the cover art to the canonical name Earle Bergey. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 02:16, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My mistake, Ron. It is Earle.  Thank you!  Fixed. Bob 03:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Archiving your talk page
If you need assistance on how to create an archive of messages from your talk page, just ask. At 300+ messages, it's getting rather long. Mhhutchins 18:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, please. I tend to ignore archiving, but it would be a good idea, and I do not know how it's done. Bob 18:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll create the first one for you, and it should be easy to add additional pages. Because of the volume of messages, I would suggest quarterly archives, so the first will be from January through March. After a month or so, you can add another one for April-June. It's a good idea to keep the messages from the past month or two on the current page before moving them to a new page. Mhhutchins 19:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The first page has been created and the messages have been moved there. Here is a link to your archive page. I've created links to the first four pages of the archive (quarterly installments for 2012). When it comes time to move the next quarter's worth of messages, do the following:
 * Click on the "Edit" tab at the top of this page.
 * Move your cursor to the first message you want to remove, left click on your mouse and move down to the last message you want to remove (make sure you include any response to the last message). All of the text should be highlighted. Copy the highlighted text using whatever method you use to copy text (I use the CTRL+C method).
 * Delete the highlighted messages and save the page. (Be sure to copy the highlighted text before deleting it!)
 * Go to your archive page and click on the page you wish to move the messages to and which correspond with the dates of those that you've removed from the current talk page.
 * In the blank message box that opens, paste the text that you'd copied and removed from the talk page. (I use the CTRL+V method.) Save the page.
 * Once you've done all four pages (through 2012), you can add other links to the archive page that corresponds with the quarterly collections of messages for the coming year, by editing the page, copying the links that are there, but changing "2012" to "2013", and then saving the page.
 * Mhhutchins 19:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Michael. I appreciate the help. Bob 19:26, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The Glory Game
Does your copy of [this] have a gutter code on page 186? Just picked up a copy that has "O6" and don't want to verify the existing record if the codes don't match. Thanks! --~ Bill, Bluesman 02:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Bill, the gutter code on my copy is N45, which I take to be November 1972; yours would be February 1973 I guess. Seems likely yours is second printing. Bob 15:29, 23 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Will create another record, then. --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Hard Reject for cloning The Conquering Sword of Conan
Sorry, Bob, but one of your submits lead to this message: '''Error: Title 1483294 is no longer in the database. Please use Hard Reject to reject the submission.''' - which is what I had to do. I guess somehow one of your later submits to delete this item got earlier handled by somebody (could have even been me). Sorry, again. Stonecreek 09:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow! I doubt I'll ever figure out what I did, but it's no big problem to work around the problem.  Thank you for helping. Bob 15:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn by Gianni & Complete Conan of Cimmeria, Volume Three by Manchess
Hello, Bob. I've put your two submissions on hold: by standards of the ISFDB they should not be marked as COLLECTIONs but as NONFICTIONs (like all art books). The second submission had the unknown binding 'plates'. I guess that should be 'ph' to meet our standards (the notes clarify the binding). Stonecreek 19:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I did enter some art books before, but forgot they were considered NONFICTION, which strikes me as a particularly silly designation. You may not have noticed, but I tried to arouse some discussion of art books and portfolios under Rules and Standards and got no response whatsoever.  Grouch, grouch.  O.K., release the pubs and I'll fix them (or if you prefer, correct them yourself).  Another thing that baffles me.  How does holding submissions for errors help?  Seems to me that it would be less trouble and speed things up if the moderator would pass on the submissions and tell the submitter what needs to be fixed.  Sorry for the gripes -- thanks for taking care of these. Bob 19:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)


 * A submission is placed on hold by a moderator so that another moderator doesn't accept it while there is a discussion being conducted between the submitter and the moderator. I would think that you'd appreciate a moderator taking the time to discuss the matter without outright rejecting the submission.


 * To your other points, because this is the ISFictionDB, we've defined a publication of short fiction by a single author as a COLLECTION. Collections of art and essays are typed as NONFICTION, because they're not fiction. Recording collections of fiction, art and nonfiction under the COLLECTION type would really mess up the category displays on author's summary pages.


 * "Portfolio" is a binding format, not a publication type, and there's nothing prohibiting you from using that term in the pub format field. Some moderators will insist that you use one of the designated formats, even though the publication may not be close to any that are listed (such as a portfolio of unbound art prints). I think the field is more free-form and can accept any values you choose. We've narrowed down more than 95% of all publications to four basic terms (hc, pb, tp, ph), but the other 5% should be up to the editor. (This is my personal opinion, but one I use in accepting submissions by others.)


 * And don't take it personally that no one responded to a topic you posted on a discussion page. It's happened to me often enough that it doesn't bother me. Mhhutchins 00:09, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Michael, thank you for your comments, they are much appreciated. A couple of comments that are really personal opinion, not criticisms. I agree that rejecting pubs for a single error, no matter how egregious, would not be a good idea.  But why not approve them while discussing the point of contention?  I understand there are times to hold submissions, but most times holds just cause delays.


 * It seems to me that fantastic art is just as much fiction as the stories, and a portfolio is a collection of artwork. I can certainly live with the nonfiction designation, but I honestly don't think they are nonfiction.  Strictly my opinion, of course.


 * I will try using portfolio in the binding format field. Interesting approach!


 * Finally, I take the lack of response to mean that others don't care much about the question raised on a discussion page. Hard to take that personally.  I entered "plates" to see what response I would get.  I saw. I suspect that "portfolio" might have provoked a similar response, but maybe not.  I'll have to try it.


 * Again, thank you for taking the time to make the thoughtful response. Bob 00:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks to both of you for your comments. I have approved of the two submissions, so you can correct them. Stonecreek 08:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your patience with me. Would you accept the "portfolio" binding designation?  I'll use "ph" if you feel strongly about it, but I have a bunch of portfolios to enter eventually, and would like to use that designation -- I think it's a lot clearer to the user than the much broader "pamphlet". Bob 15:45, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Merging the Letters from Crypt of Cthulhu, #31ff., by Charles Garofalo
I can't believe that this is really the same letter every time (or is it?) - but only then the titles should be merged (submission is set on hold by me). Stonecreek 08:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No, it's a different letter each time. I was trying to merge them like we do series of magazines, change the title to "Letters to Crypt of Cthulhu" and the date to that of the first letter.  The alternative is to change the title on each letter to group them under one heading, but that doesn't reduce the clutter under the author's list of publications.  I presume from your response to this attempt that I can't do things like this? Bob 15:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No, I am afraid, that this isn't possible. It's only possible and makes sense for series of publications like magazines. Sometimes I'd like to do the same (for example for this series), but it really doesn't make sense. Also think about that there's always the possibility of a reprint of one single letter or of a review as part of one letter. As in my example you can put them in a title series, though (but for a possible reprint of one letter the title series would show up for it, too). I'll reject your submission. Stonecreek 10:48, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Cover art that is not credited
Hi. Don't use "uncredited" for a cover artist credit. Just leave it blank. I don't know why we do it this way, but we do. I removed "uncredited" from. Thanks. --MartyD 11:19, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Same with . BTW, if Wildhern Press is an imprint of Echo Library as the notes say, you should enter the publisher as "Wildhern Press / Echo Library" (imprint + space + slash + space + publisher), and then you wouldn't need the note.  --MartyD 11:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Marty. I realized I'd entered the "uncredited" incorrectly, but too late to change.  Sorry about that.  Good point about the publisher; I'll fix that.  Appreciate your help! Bob 15:31, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

2 x Three Tales of Conan the Barbarian
I have a submission on hold for Three Tales of Conan the Barbarian that seems to be an exact duplicate of an earlier submission of yours,. Am I missing something? Thanks. --MartyD 11:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No, you caught another error of mine. I would guess that I thought that I had omitted something and didn't cancel the first submission (maybe cancelled a different submission by mistake).  On the other hand, it was pretty late when I entered those pubs and it could have just been a duplicate.  I'll cancel the submission and check to see if I missed something on the approved one.  Bob 15:41, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Merge Double Checks
There are two proposed edits where you are merging title records with different titles: Is this really what you intend (delete the second titles and replace with the first)? -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:39, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Jewels of Gwahlur and The Servants of Bit-yakin
 * Shadows in Zamboula and The Man-Eaters of Zamboula


 * Sort of. Many of Robert E. Howard's stories had more than one title, depending on the publications.  The most recent collections have tended to use Howard's original titles instead of those that the first publications used.  I've generally chosen to use the most common titles as the canonical ones, as in the two you cite.  I don't want to delete the second titles, just make them variants.  I thought the merges would do that. Bob 01:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Merging titles combines the two entries leaving only the selected information and deleting the unselected information. By merging, the "The Servants of Bit-yakin" title would be deleted and replaced with "Jewels of Gwahlur" in the publications that had "The Servants of Bit-yakin". Merging titles is used to combine identical titles (or variations that should not exist like database typos). You need to variant these, not merge them. I've rejected the proposed edits and you can redo them as variants. -- JLaTondre (talk) 01:43, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I'll variant them, then merge. Bob 01:50, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Five Tales of Conan the Barbarian
From your submission it seems to me that Howard should be solely creditd as author of this pub and (since it seems to be the only known publication) of the corresponding title. If that's the case it's better to just drop Colbron as author of the title: probably she edited the book, but that could be just made into part of the notes. I'll wait for your OK and then reject your submission. Stonecreek 10:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I wasn't sure what to do with this. I don't think Colbron had any function, but was a flat-out error by the publisher.  The other pubs from this publisher had gross misspellings and errors in the titles as well.  The woman's name is on the cover and title page, so I thought ISFDB standards required listing her as an author.  I have no objection to just eliminating her entirely and putting in a note if that's acceptable. Bob 14:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, her only reasonable role would have been as an editor - and even then we wouldn't list her as author & only put the name into the notes, because it is a COLLECTION by Howard. If there's no hint of any such role, please just put an explaining note into the entry. Stonecreek 18:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Will do! Bob 18:13, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Kull: Exile of Atlantis import
I had to reject your import into. One of the titles involved in the import was gone, and the only option the system allows in that situation is a hard rejection. Sorry, you'll have to submit it again, I didn't have any other choice. --MartyD 14:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting. No big problem, I'll resubmit.  Thanks, Marty. Bob 14:25, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Double whammy. The same thing happened to the import into . The system forced me to reject it, and it'll need to be resubmitted. Sorry again. --MartyD 14:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

The Conquering Sword of Conan
Take a look at. It seems a bit messed up, with several double entries of the same titles. An import might have done this. I see that in some cases there are double entries for variations of the works (although these are given different titles from one another). Does it look like the true duplicates can be removed? If so, I can take care of it. Thanks. --MartyD 14:34, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I've had this problem earlier. I though importing content wiped out the old content, but apparently not.  I need to go through all the Conan books, Ballentine and Wandering Star, and wipe out duplicate content.  I avoided this and imported instead to try to cut down on edits needed, but obviously it doesn't work that way!  Thanks for the flag. Bob 14:48, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Complete Conan, Volume 1
I accepted your modifications to, and something odd has happened that I really don't understand. All of the "dele" page mods took, but the other titles and their page mods disappeared. One title is left with a page number, all the rest are "dele". And I don't see any duplicates. I didn't go remove the "dele" ones for you, as I'm thinking now they should be given the proper page numbers instead. I'm going to see if any of the other moderators can explain the behavior. --MartyD 23:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think I see what's going on. Multiple instances of the titles are still there, they've just all been given the "dele" page number, and the editing display and Remove Titles from the Publication show them.  Leave it be for now.  I am asking for help.  --MartyD 23:37, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think I have this one fixed up, apart from the page numbers. Would you go through it and see (and fix the page numbers again)?  If it's ok, I'll deal with those other couple I have on hold -- I just didn't want anyone to do anything with them until we figured this one out.  Thanks.  --MartyD 11:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * O.K., page numbers entered. Bob 12:24, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Volume 2
I accepted the edits to and this time saved the page numbers that got stomped. I've removed the extra titles and put back the page numbers. Please double-check it. Also, I notice there's one piece of interiorart in it with no page number entered. --MartyD 10:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks great! The unnumbered interiorart is for all the interiorart in the volumn.  Thank you, Marty.  Did you find out why this happened?  I've certainly learned not to import content when content already exists! Bob 14:00, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * No, other than that the publications had the same title records in them multiple times. I think Import will not do that, but perhaps a merge or something else was involved between when the import was submitted and when the import was accepted, sort of the flip side of the other problem where the import couldn't be processed because some of the to-be-imported titles that were present at submission were gone at (attempted) acceptance.  Anyway, Ahasuerus thought I might be safe removing them, which turned out to be the case.  Sorry about the extra work.  --MartyD 17:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * p.s. That interiorart piece has a title "The Bloody Crown of Conan", which doesn't match the volume's title, so it isn't set up as volume-wide, scattered artwork.... --MartyD 17:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * This happened because the artwork in the Ballantine and Wandering Star books is the same. When I get to it, I have to merge the artworks in each of the three volumes and figure out titles for them. For the first two volumes, Wandering Star published first; for the third Ballantine did.  It's taken me forever to get all copies of these things entered because of the mistakes I made along the way, but eventually I'll get it all straightened out!  Bob 18:08, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Volume 3
Likewise, should be all set. Again, please double-check. Thanks. --MartyD 10:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks good, but I have to add the interior art to this one. Thank you for taking all the trouble you had to go through with these, Marty.  Much appreciated!! Bob 14:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps
I have this submission on hold. Are the stories in More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps speculative fiction? What little I could find did not sound that way to me. Thanks. --MartyD 00:10, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't honestly know. The reviewer says that these stories may have been "no more than a gimmick to revive reader interest in the redundantly formulaic Weird Menace Pulps."  And "More Tales is obviously a must for Weird Menace fans".  So the book is classified as "Weird Menace".  Is that speculative fiction?  The entire Shudder Stories series is classified that way, and that fanzine features authors like Carl Jacobi, Robert E. Howard, Manly Wade Wellman, Hugh B. Cave and other speculative authors.  The particular issue where More Tales is reviewed has "Tales of Degenerate Horror" printed on the cover.  While I am far from an expert in Weird Menace, it seemed to me that "More Tales" could be classified as speculative fiction. Bob 03:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, I accepted this and the other detective one. "With an inclusionist bias" and all that. :-)  I added "State" to the publisher name, as we already had many entries using that name for it.  --MartyD 10:08, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Chants de guerre et de mort
Hello, I've put your submission on hold pending some clarifications : 1) a price in Euros for a 1987 publication is very unlikely, 2) the rules of capitalization in French are different than in english (first word and proper nouns only), 3) the publisher should be either Néo (an acronym) or Nouvelles éditions Oswald, to indicate "NéO / Nouvelles éditions Oswald" is a bit like to indicate "DAW / Donald A. Wollheim", 4) "Uncant des Cosaques du Don" is perhaps "Un chant des Cosaques du Don" and "La derniè heure" perhaps "La dernière heure".Hauck 18:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Your corrections of my two typos are correct. I know that NéO and the longer name are the same thing, but I didn't know the canonical name.  One or the other should be removed, but which one?  So far as I know, the price in Euros is correct - this is a very high-quality publication. I paid that price when I bought the book (new)in 2006; the fact that it was still available at that time shows that the price was indeed very high 20 years before. The trade version, which I will clone from this one, was much cheaper.  I though I capitalized correctly, since I followed the text.  The French titles are initial cap only (plus proper names), the English follow the usual rules for English.  That's the way the pub presents the titles. Bob 18:32, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The Euro was introduced (IIRC) in 2001, so there's probably no price on the book itself (as is customary with french publications), so the price field should be left blank. For the capitalization, french publishers are sometimes creative but in this case it's an improper use (e.g. "Guerre" and "Mort" should be capitalized in the extreme case of a personnification), BTW it's more "île" than "Ile" in both cases. I think that the complete publisher's name should be used (like here), but it's up to you. I'll approve your sub, letting you make the adjustments. Hauck 20:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll blank the price; I know I got the price from some source, but cannot remember where. It may be improper, but both the cover and the title page capitalize Guerre and Mort. This is not true on the trade edition.  As for Ile, I thought "Ile de Pâques" is a proper name for Easter Island; the Island is part of the proper name in English, certainly. And it's definitely capitalized in the pub.  I'll go with the entire name of the publisher since others seem to use it. Bob 22:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The Short Victorious War: Schwinger or Mattingly
Hi Bob, we both have this title with the same cover, but you have verified it as drawn by Lawrence Schwinger while I have David Mattingly as the artist, and I just double-checked... Can you please look again? Thanks in advance.--Dirk P Broer 20:06, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Lawrence Schwinger is indeed credited as the cover artist on the copyright page of the Baen hardcover. But I think this is a mistake.  The cover illustration for earlier versions of the book was by Schwinger, but it's not the same illustration.  I would guess that nobody changed the attribution text, just used the existing text for the earlier pb editions.  So I will change the artist to David Mattingly with an explanatory note. Thank you for catching this! Bob 20:23, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Note that if it had been Schwinger that the correct name would have been Laurence Schwinger, not Lawrence, all typo's -imho-.--Dirk P Broer 20:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

French and German poems by Howard
You should go through the contents of this collection and this one in order to change the language of certain content records to English. Currently they are all either French or German, and your notes say the poems appear in both English and French (or English and German). The also applies to any nonfiction in either of the collections as well, unless they only appear in the book's main language. For example, is the introduction by Glenn Lord in the latter collection in German? Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the flag, Michael. I intend to do this, but so much got approved in one night that I just haven't gotten around to editing these pubs.  I've probably got a week's work to do catching up. I tagged these pubs as French and German to alert the moderators that someone familiar with these languages should review my nonexistent language skills. Bob 16:09, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * P.S. Should the foreign language version of poems translated from English into German be merged with those in English?  If the answer to that is "no", should two different translations in German of a poem written in English be merged? Bob 16:21, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * No, don't merge the German (or French) title record with the English one. They should be varianted to the English title record. If there are two different translations into German (or French) each one should maintain their individual title record, with notes explaining to future editors that they shouldn't be merged just because they have the same title and language. Mhhutchins 17:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Seems logical. Bob 17:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Speaking of French poems: Your last submission would merge the following 4 versions of "The Ghost Kings": 1, 2, 3, and 4. 1, 3 and 4 look OK, but 2 says that the language of the poem is French. However, since the text appears in Chants de Guerre et de Mort, a bilingual collection, and the French version, "Les rois fantômes", is right next to it, is it safe to assume that this version of "The Ghost Kings" is actually in English rather than in French and therefore should be merged? Ahasuerus 18:59, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That's a correct assumption. Instead of doing two submissions (correcting the language to English and then merging the records), he's doing it in one submission. Mhhutchins 19:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, approved! Ahasuerus 20:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The Man Who Went Back
The submission to update this record can't be accepted because it was merged in an earlier submission with another record. Please cancel the submission and make a new one to update the merged record. Mhhutchins 14:57, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Done. Thanks for letting me know the submission failed. Bob 16:19, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Complete Conan v2 vt. of Bloody Crown
Shouldn't the title record of the Ballantine edition (December 2004) be a variant of the title record of the Wandering Star edition (May 2003), and not the other way around as given in your submission to variant? Mhhutchins 18:37, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought about which one to make the variant. The first two in the series were published first by Wandering Star, the third by Ballantine.  But rather than pick by which version was first, I thought it was better to pick the version that would be the most common as the main one, and variant the Wandering Stars. One thing I wanted to avoid was mixing which to make variant in the series, and keep either the Ballantine or Wandering Star as first for each of the three pubs. Bob 18:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The series name will be carried over to the variant titles, so they can only have one series name. I'll accept the submission and then let you choose which series name should be used. Mhhutchins 19:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I did that when I eliminated "(Ballantine)" from the title of the "Conan of Cimmeria (Ballantine)" series, which I did before I started the merges. Bob 19:05, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually they're still in two different series, which will have to be reconciled. Look at each of the title records I linked above and you'll see the different series names. Mhhutchins 21:02, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Missing content record
This record is missing a content record for the title story. Any record typed as a CHAPTERBOOK should have a matching content record. Mhhutchins 04:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

This one as well. Mhhutchins 04:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

And this one. I'm surprised the moderators who accepted these missed that they didn't have content records. Mhhutchins 04:23, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Thank you for catching these. Bob 15:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Etchings in Ivory
Hello, Bob. I accepted your submission for this pub.. Note that there's another publication by Hall (Publications), see here. This could be the same publisher, and if so, I'll leave it to you which one should be the canonical name: Hall or Hall Publications. Please submit at your preference. Stonecreek 10:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll keep the Hall Publications on the one I've entered and change the other one; I just haven't gotten around to entering that pub yet. Bob 15:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

The Dance with Death
I have put your submission on hold in which you want to make the 2007 POEM The Dance with Death by Howard into a variant of (seemingly) the same. Did you want to merge the two? Stonecreek 10:17, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll cancel it. I was trying to make that poem a variant of "The Adventurer's Mistress" and somehow screwed it up. Sorry; I was doing a bunch of these poems at the time and obviously got confused.  Bob 15:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, the second attempt is identical to the first. Go to the title record, click on "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work". On the next page go to the first section and the Parent # field. Enter the record number of the title record for which this is a variant title. If that title is not already in the databse, go down to the section section, and replace "The Dance with Death" with the name of the poem. Submit. Mhhutchins 16:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm really baffled; this is exactly what I thought I did before. I tried a third time.  Please let me know if it fails again.  The parent is 1488443.  Bob 16:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

German misspellings?
I have put the common German spelling for the three following titles in brackets after the spellings you submitted (which might be the stated spelling in the book - I just suggest a double check):

Wo sind deine recken, Donn Othna? (Wo sind deine Recken, Donn Othna?) - Schwrzer Nacht Triumphgesang (Schwarzer Nacht Triumphgesang) - Der marschgesang von Connacht (Der Marschgesang von Connacht).

I heard nothing about this publication before. I guess the publication was by a very small publisher? Stonecreek 10:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you for catching these! All three are typos, my fault, not the pub's.  I'm really grateful that some of you moderators know enough French and German to catch typos!  Three seems to be my number -- three in German, three in French on my entries so far.  Bob 15:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The individual behind this publication, Thomas Kovacs, has published REH material under other banners in the past: Dark Carneval Press, Neve Bücher AG, T. & D. Kovacs (D. is Denes) and his own name.  All out of Zurich.  I don't know if he has ever published anything other than Howard material.  I have a couple of his bilingual pubs to enter which I will probably screw up because so much is in German.  Please keep an eye out for these, maybe late this week, maybe next week.  I've never met Mr. Kovacs, but have corresponded with him on-line and paid a lot of money for some of his more obscure publications. Bob 16:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

La haine de l'homme mort
You've tried to make this poem a kind of variant of itself. I've corrected the situation (but not link it to its english counterpart), same for _Crète_ (sub rejected). Hauck 12:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Too many variants and I screwed some up. Sorry.  I'll redo, hopefully correctly this time. Thank you for flagging these for me. Bob 16:08, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

ARC/Uncorrected proof
There's a discussion currently on the rules page which was prompted by your verified record. (I'm not sure why a moderator would accept this submission without discussion.) Please feel free to join in. Mhhutchins 17:34, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Howard's poetry collections
The titles that have been placed into this series do not fall within the ISFDB standard definition of a series: titles which "are linked by common characters, story lines or settings." Placing these titles into a generically titled series does further harm by removing them from their category (COLLECTIONS) on an author's summary page and grouping them with other titles with which they have very little in common. I would recommend that you suggest a new category in a feature request: POETRY COLLECTION, which would remove them from the COLLECTION category, a move that I would support. Mhhutchins 18:24, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * When I first set this series up, I though POETRY COLLECTIONS would appear under COLLECTIONS, especially since they all were labelled COLLECTIONS anyhow. Bob 20:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The series function is not a publication type but a field in the title record (like "author", "title", "year", "type", etc.) It's not the same as a publication type, like COLLECTION, NOVEL, ANTHOLOGY, the display of which has been determined by the developers: i.e. where they appear on an author's summary page. Mhhutchins 22:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The Howard letters I pulled out of ESSAYS stayed under ESSAYS. Bob 20:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually, they're under a different category: Essay Series. Mhhutchins 22:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * But the POEM SERIES I entered did not come out under POEMS (although adjacent to it). How do I go about making a feature request?  Should the POETRY COLLECTIONS be under COLLECTIONS, or adjacent to it? Bob 20:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * That would depend upon how the programmer (or the software designer) does it. If the group comes to a consensus, and the developers can eventually get to it, your input (and others') could help determine where it would go. Just start a top on the community portal page. Mhhutchins 22:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I saw this in the queue, and I also saw a potential problem with namespace collision. I went ahead and approved adding another collection to the series, but I then changed the name of the series to "Robert E. Howard - Poetry Collections". That's probably the best solution we have to offer until a a software change can be selected, designed, tested and implemented. Thanks Kevin 03:39, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Changes to your verified records of two Howard titles
I've changed the pub types of The Return of Skull-face and Bloodstar from NOVEL to CHAPTERBOOK. Mhhutchins 18:27, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree completely with the Bloodstar designation. These were stubs with a NOVEL designation, and I just didn't change it; lots of pages, but graphic publications have to be longer.  I'm ambivalent about The Return of Skull-Face; it's 96 pages long, which could be a short novel like those in the old Ace doubles.  But if you feel strongly about it, fine. Bob 20:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Merging records with different titles
In order to merge two or more title records both the title fields and the author fields must be identical. Even if the text is identical, that alone is not sufficient reason to merge the records. I'm holding a submission to merge this record with this one. They have different titles and you want to retain the title of the latter record. If you mistakenly entered the title of the first record, then it's OK to merge the two. But if the title as given in the publication was entered correctly into the record's title field, you should create variants, if the text of the work is the same. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm holding some other merges or updates to other title records for REH letters. In one submission you want to change the title of the record from "Letter: Robert E. Howard to August Derleth, July 1933" to "Letter to August Derleth, July 1933 ("Dear August: Thanks immensely for the opportunity...")" Was the title incorrectly entered when you verified the record back in April? Also, it's not necessary to disambiguate the title with the first line of the text, as long as the title itself differs from other titles. We only disambiguate if titles are identical and the text is different. I really can't understand the need to change titles in order for them to comply with pre-set patterns. That's what it appears you are doing here, and it' really rubbing against the ISFDB standard of recording titles as they appeared in the publication.


 * Many or all of these are likely my fault. I checked the first couple of submissions and found they were indeed ambiguous, and did not check the rest of the ones in the same submission batch.  Sorry about any confusion and/or extra work.  --MartyD 11:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I hope you don't think that this is a personal attack. I'm only pointing out ISFDB standards, and if other moderators are lenient in upholding those standards, please don't think my bringing them to your attention is something personal. Just a casual reading of the messages I leave for other editors should make that clear. Mhhutchins 04:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem I ran into is how to merge the letters in different publications. When I started entering letters (I think with Amra), I didn't enter enough data so that I could later match and merge the letters to other sources.  So my recent edits are to disambiguate so that the letters can be matched.  For example, the more recent publications have estimated dates for letters that earlier had just been labelled "undated" or "no date".  Without the first words in the letter,there is no way to match the content.  Sometimes the the date is "ca." some date, sometimes "circa" a date.  So I have tried to change the titles from the earlier-entered publications so that merges are possible (using those first words as the search information) while still maintaining the information as given in that publication.  I may have merged some titles I should have made variant.  In the letter Michael cites above, "Letter:  Robert E. Howard to..." is redundant with Howard as the author.  And since the date is a month without a day, the quote may be needed to disambiguate.  So far as I remember, both my original submissions and the recent changes I have submitted don't violate the ISFBD standard of "as they appeared in the publication", they are just alternative ways of entering the same thing.  I apologize for my failure to anticipate the information needed in my earlier entries; as you know, it sometimes takes me a while to figure things out when I run into new situations.


 * So far the letters entered are somewhat limited. Eventually, I'll be entering major sources of Howard letters and having to merge the contents with letters already in the data base.  I want to make this as simple as possible. Bob 16:19, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * How can there be "alternative ways of entering the same thing" when the ISFDB clearly requires that you enter titles as they appear in the publication. I'm forced to believe that you misunderstand the basic ISFDB principles of "merge" and "variant". I keep repeating myself and becoming more frustrated with each iteration. I'll be releasing the holds and let some other moderator handle them. Mhhutchins 17:27, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand that entering letters that for all intents and purposes were vaguely referred to in publication can be frustrating. I agree with Michael that we should strive to document what was published, even if the different between the same letter being titled "Letter From X to Y" and in another book "Letter To Y, From X". I also can see however that (especially in the undated ones) that including the first line, just like we use the first line of untitled poetry, is one way to know that a letter 'From X' in book 1, is the same as the letter "To Y" in book 2. (This might also be accomplished by putting the first line in the notes of each title. Yes it may not be immediately obvious, but it will be in the database and filed). These different titles should then be variants of the primary. Kevin 03:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've approved an edit you've submitted correcting the Preece letter title. I also went back and removed your note. (You submitted a note to the moderators in the 'notes' field and it was published in the database when the edit was approved. Thanks Kevin 03:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * When it's time to actually start entering the duplicate poems, and you want to link them, the proper way at that time will be through a Variant relationship - see Help:Screen:MakeVariant. (I came back because I realized I left that part out / hidden in the middle of my response). Thanks Kevin 03:58, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Verses in Ebony
I'm holding the submission to merge this title with this one. The contents of the collections are entirely different and have nothing in common, so it would seem they are two different collections with the same name. ISFDB rules require that they have separate title records. Mhhutchins 04:41, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Fine. One was a mock-up in practice for the other.  Yes, the contents are different; so is the size and the quality of construction.  But HowardWorks.com puts them on the same page.  It would be useful for them to be linked in some way, so I suggested a merge, with the 1975 date rather than the 1974.  But I'm not hung up on it. Bob 16:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you meant by /mock up/. I'm also going to point out that when you submit an edit to the database it is far more than a 'suggestion', (See above where you say "so I suggested a merge"). It's in fact a statement that 'This is the way these books are, and someone looking at this record will understand what is in the book'. With that said, I'm going to reject this submission. May I suggest that you could change the title of the later book to "Verses in Ebony (1974 Revision)". I would also suggest that you put a note in each title record, and in each pub record "There is another book, with the same name, same author but totally different contents, and only 1 year apart" or something like that. For other examples of this, do a title search for "revised" and a few more under "revision" Thanks Kevin 03:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * By "mock-up" I mean that the editor/publishers were new to publishing. They knew they were going to publish previously unpublished Howard poems, but wanted to try out printing and assembling a publication first.  So they used previously published material to make a mocked-up version of the eventual publication, in the same way editors of newspapers or magazines mock up pages or covers of their publications.  They ran enough copies and sold them so that the mock-up can be considered a publication.  I don't know what arrangement they had with the owner of the copyrights.  But they purposely avoided using the unpublished poems in the mock-up version.


 * And I will continue to consider any submission I make as a suggestion as long as moderators can decide whether or not the submission will make it into the database. Yes, I believe that my submissions are accurate reflections of the publications.  I would still merge these two publications if it were up to me because that would more accurately and easily reflect the relationship between the two.  But as I said above, I'm not hung up on it, and I'll enter note material instead. Bob 20:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I understand now what you meant... it was a 'mock up, performed by the publisher'. When I read what you wrote initially, I took it as a statement that it was a mock up in some fashion that 'you' had performed. - Crystal clear now. Kevin 22:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * As stated before, these are separate publications. Even though one was 'for practice' it is different and distinct from the later version. We don't have a satisfactory way to display complex 'parent child' relationships beyond the simple 'variant' and it is often times overused as is. Perhaps we will develop this ability over time. The software is always in development. Cheers Kevin 22:47, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Collections containing Collections
... don't work. Can you look at again and see if you can put the Fanzine contents into a more reasonable state? BLongley 17:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I wanted to label them FANZINES, but that isn't a choice. There is no good choice.  What will happen when they are merged with the fanzines?  Will that then replace whatever label I choose for the collection with a FANZINE label?  Given the choices, I'll try ANTHOLOGY since there are multiple authors involved.Bob 20:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Are these Essentially Omnibus's of Fanzines.. collected (and probably bound)? The database has very limited capability to properly display that type of collected collection. May I suggest that you save those types of artifacts and see if we have software support for them in a few more years? Until then, just get each of the individual collections/fanzines into the database. If you want to document the collected fanzines, you could create a wiki page or something similar in your own user space. - Thanks Kevin 03:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Not really. It happens to have 3 fanzine facsimiles as part of the content.  The rest of the content, the vast majority of it, is a collection of other stories, essays and poems.  The common thread is that the material was fairly difficult (read expensive) for new collectors to find before this publication.  The three fanzines are already part of the data base which is why I asked about what will happen with a merge.  Incidentally, there are four of these pubs, hc and tp and first and second editions of each.  Bob 20:57, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well it wouldn't be a 'merge' per se... it would be a second publication. The problem is that (as you've discovered) we cannot handle collections (or rather Containers), in side other 'Containers'. Kevin 22:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh also, don't for get to indent your responses so they are easy to find. I've gone ahead and added a level of indent to your response. Kevin 22:43, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
I've added a few notes to Howard's The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane. I've stated the edition, linked the LCCN and added an OCLC link. I'd also like to question the title of the variant of the poem "Solomon Kane's Homecoming". It's listed here with the disambiguation of "(variant version)". I'd like to change it to simply "(variant)" as it is listed in the book. However, the same poem is listed 5 other books that you own. Does it appear with the title "variant version" either the title pages in either The Howard Collector or any of the Wandering Star editions? I assume the SFBC edition is identical to the Del Rey trade edition. I'll also ask the verifiers of the one appearance that you don't own. If it appears under the title "Solomon Kane's Homecoming (variant version)" in any of the publications, we should probably set up variant titles for each way it appears. It's a little tricky because we would ordinarily add "(variant)" to disambiguate it from the other version of the poem. I can bring that up at Rules and standards discussions if it becomes necessary. Thanks for checking. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 00:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It appears as "variant version" in The Howard Collector fanzine, the first appearance of the item. It is almost certain that The Howard Collector book will be the same.  I should note that in the ToC of the fanzine, there is no indication that it's a variant, just the name of the poem.  It appears as "variant" in all editions of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, both Wandering Star and Del Rey.  HowardWorks.com refers to it as "variant version" and The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard (not yet entered) refers to it as "variant".  If you want to change it to "variant", it's fine with me. Bob 02:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

West is West and asking for help
Hi Bob. If you need help working with something, don't use the notes-to-the-moderator on a submission to ask. Those notes are meant to help the moderator with your proposed changes, not to be a general communication mechanism: there's no way to respond to them, they're not preserved for posterity/future reference, and your submission isn't actually a change to be accepted/rejected. For general help, use the Help desk, and to request help specifically from moderators, use the Moderator noticeboard. Either would have been appropriate in this case and would have gotten you help.

To answer your question, the way to remove titles is via the cleverly named "Remove Titles From This Pub" editing fuction. Go to West is West, and you'll see the option at the left in the "Editing Tools" section. I assume you'll want to remove the three "The Howard Collector..." collection title records that appear in the top "Container Titles" section. Check off the ones you want to remove, and click on "Submit Data" at the bottom. As with all other editing functions, this is moderated, so you do have a safety net. --MartyD 11:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Marty. Too simple for me, I guess.  I'll take care of it. Bob 20:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Spears of Clontarf w/extra poem
I have one of your Spears of Clontarf proposed clonings on hold. This is the copy with "The Rhyme of the Three Slavers" bound in, according to your notes. Even though this physical format is nearly identical to that of the others, once there's more than one work in it, it should no longer be set up as a CHAPTERBOOK, but rather as a COLLECTION. Is/was your intention to add that poem as an additional content entry? (Seems like it should be added.) If so, then I wanted to make sure you were planning to convert the entry to COLLECTION. Or I can do it. Thanks. --MartyD 11:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what I was going to do. I recognized that it became a collection, but since it is a variation on the other "Spears" I was uncertain how to handle it.  It certainly isn't easy to handle some relationships in the database.  I guess the only thing to do is handle the relationship through the notes sections.  I'll do that. Bob 20:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)


 * It'll be a little unfortunate to have some be CHAPTERBOOK and one be COLLECTION, but we're sort of boxed in by practice and policy. I will accept the submission and turn it into a COLLECTION for you.  --MartyD 01:17, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * All set for the poem and notes. --MartyD 01:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you, Marty. I often think everyone is so hung up on policy that things get done in ways that limit the functionality of the database.  That certainly isn't unique to the ISFDB.  But it still bothers me. Bob 20:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Howard Collector variants
What are you trying to do with your submissions proposing to make the Howard Collector anthology titles variants of the Editorial Notes essays? A title's type is an essential part of its nature: If a work is an Anthology, it can't sometimes be an Essay. Variants only represent different naming and different author credits. So something different is needed, but I don't understand what you're trying to do, so I'm not sure what to suggest. Thanks. --MartyD 02:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * See "Collections containing Collections" above. The Collections should be removed and instead, import the contents of the Fanzines. You can note that the Collection reprints three fanzines, but you can't incorporate the whole Fanzines under any type. BLongley 16:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Bill, that's a great approach, wish I'd thought of it or that someone had suggested it before. I cancelled the submissions, which I had obviously screwed up anyhow and I'll import the content.  One reason I never thought of it is that until recently I thought that importing content erased the existing content in the "importee".  I found out the hard way that wasn't true, but I never thought to use importing the way you suggest.  Thank you!!  Bob 20:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I should have suggested it first time, but wasn't sure whether entire Fanzines were being reprinted or not. It's a rather novel situation that I've not come across before. BLongley 13:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Foster's Spellsinger
Can you confirm the ISBN as given in this record? The ISBN as seen on the cover scan is 0-446-90352-3, and there is already a primary verified record in the database with that ISBN, stating it is the first printing. Thanks for looking. Mhhutchins 03:47, 9 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I have the first printing, not the one I verified. I've changed my verification.  Don't know how this happened, but thanks for finding it. Bob 16:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The Weapon Makers
I corrected the page count for van Vogt's The Weapon Makers. I also linked the LCCN and added the publication series. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 13:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Untitled synopses
In, and the one in , you're not treating the synopses consistently. If they are all for identifiable works, what I suggest you do instead of trying to disambiguate within the titles (as "Untitled sysnopsis (TITLE)"), is to just have them be "Untitled synopsis" and make each a variant of a standard-format "TITLE (synopsis)". Then they'll show up disambiguated everywhere without the need for creative titling. The only ones that would need disambiguation are then the ones for which there's no identifiable work. For those I'd use the parenthetical quoted initial text + elipsis, as there's no other way to distinguish one from another. --MartyD 13:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Marty, I've tried to put the titles down as they are shown in the pubs. Whenever I try to be "consistent", I get flogged for not giving exactly what is in the pub.  These two pubs are not consistent in how they treat synopses.  Those that show "Untitled synopsis (TITLE)" are all exactly as given in the pub.  (I would have to check to be sure, but most or all of these are the first appearance of these synopses in publications.) I do add the first line of a synopsis or fragment to disambiguate when necessary.  But otherwise I don't change what is given in the pub on first entry -- of course, I sometimes make it a variant later.


 * The reason for the inconsistency is because the editors are what I call "true Howardheads", who insist on publishing Howard's exact phrasing. In these cases, Howard's typescripts do not show a title for these synopses, so even though they can be related to an existing story, they must be published as "untitled".  They also insist on using Howard's titles for stories, not necessarily the title they were originally published under.  An example from Spicy Adventures is "The Girl on the Hell Ship" which has always been published before under the title "She Devil".  Editing Howard is much more complex than any other author I collect. Bob 16:50, 11 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Exactly what's in the pub always wins. I mistakenly thought these were your own creation.  Sorry about that.  --MartyD 11:39, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Guns of Khartoum
Hello, Bob. In your submission for a title update the question is what is stated in the publication: Khartoum or Khartum? It seems to me that it is the first - and then this is to be made into a variant. I've put the sub. on hold.

A similar question arises with Daughters of the Feud. Stonecreek 16:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Howard misspelled Khartoum originally in the story he submitted for publication. Only one publication has corrected the spelling so far, all the others have kept the misspelling.  I don't remember which ones, but I know I put the wrong spelling in at least one of the other pubs.  I think I've submitter corrections for all of those.  After the corrections are approved, I'll do the merging and make appropriate variants.  I intend to keep the misspelled version as the parent.


 * Similarly, I mis-entered some if the appearances of "Daughters of the Feud" and corrected those in the recent submissions. Again, I'll have to merge these once the corrections are approved.  I obviously should have left notes for the moderator for these corrections; sorry about that!  Thanks for being alert! Bob 16:53, 12 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Bob! I'll approve of your sub.s. Stonecreek 06:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

"A Martian Glossary"
I accepted the modifications to A Martian Glossary, but either the date on the record or the date in the new note has the 1 and 3 swapped in the year. Sorry, but I didn't have time to go research which, and I figured you'd know. :-) --MartyD 01:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


 * And Arms and the Woman the days in the two dates don't agree (no dyslexia there, though). --MartyD 01:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Good catches! Fixed. Bob 02:45, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Response to an earlier inquiry
Grymsayre has responded to the message you left on this talk page a couple of months ago. Mhhutchins 03:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Updating a series name
Re "Letter(s) to Tevis Clyde Smith": Maybe you weren't aware, but you could have changed the name of the series with just one submission. There's no need to change every record within that series. Just go to the series, click on "Edit Series", make the change, then submit. Now there are two series and they can't be merged. So you will have to update every single title record in the series you want to remove in order to move them all into the series you want to keep. Mhhutchins 22:28, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought that changing each of the letters individually would move the letter from the series I didn't want to the one I did want to retain. Wasn't that the right move?  Your note seems to indicate that if I had just changed the name of the series I wouldn't have solved the problem. Bob 22:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Once you'd created the new series, you had no choice but to update each record you wanted to move to the new series. My point is that you didn't have to create a new series to begin with. All you had to do was update in one submission the name of the old series and not have had to update any other record.


 * I also see you're going back and retitling the letters themselves which I can only suspect is because you want each of them to conform to a pattern, and has nothing to do with how they're actually titled in the publication (i.e., like this). Why would you have entered them with the other title to begin with? You've been changing titles of records that were entered months ago when you were entering fanzines. A moderator can't help but feel you're disregarding ISFDB entry standards, and  think you're more concerned with display than you are with bibliographic integrity. That's one of the reasons I no longer handle any of your submissions unless it concerns something in which I'm directly involved. Mhhutchins 20:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Michael, I've never encountered anyone as sure of himself as you are, particularly when you're wrong. How are these letters titled in the pub?  They are not titled at all.  They have a number, a date [often in brackets] and begin.  I started entering them with the format used in the ToC, but then decided that the fact they were letters needed to be added.  I can't add that to the pubtype, I have to call them ESSAYs.  So I decided to put the word "Letter" up front.  The problem with using the number is that other pubs also assign numbers to the letters, sometimes the same, more frequently different. Since you object, I'll pull the submissions and go back to the ToC form.  Not that big a deal.


 * As for the corrections to older entries, there are two kinds of corrections: (1) You complained about some earlier entries. I corrected them, and again you complain.  (2) I do make mistakes occasionally.  Frequently I catch them when I merge or variant titles.  Then I fix them.  Frequently this involves whether or not the word "The" leads the title.  Would you rather I ignore the error?  I have delayed merging Howard titles until I enter most of his pubs so I don't have to merge the same titles again and again.  After I enter all of "The Collected Letters" (3 volumes) and "A Means to Freedom" (2 volumes, 2 editions), I'll merge/variant letters.  After I enter "The Collected Poetry" (1 large volume, 3 printings) I'll merge/variant poems and frequently add notes to titles.  I want to enter some more fanzines before I concentrate on merging Howard stories, particularly the less common ones and the fragments.  These merges and variants will undoubtedly uncover more of my mistakes.  Sorry, I wish I were perfect like you.


 * I appreciate that you no longer handle my submissions. Now please stop harassing me when you don't know what you're talking about.  I really don't mind questions other moderators ask -- if they don't understand why I'm doing something a particular way, they ask, they don't make snide remarks, they don't assume they know everything.  If they don't like the answers, then they can reject the submissions.  Fair enough.  You seem to be going out of your way to make my life difficult with other moderators.  Please stop. Bob 03:57, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

"A Warning" fragments and full poem
I noticed we have three titles for fragments of "A Warning" that might be for the same fragment: And while I'm asking about these.... Is the parenthetical first line excerpt from you or from the publications? If they're from you, I don't see any other titled fragments of "A Warning" from which we'd need to disambiguate this fragment, in which case we would not add the parenthetical excerpt.
 * A Warning (fragment) ("You have built a world of paper and wood…")
 * A Warning (fragment) ("You have built a world of paper and wood…")
 * A Warning (Partial verse)("You have built a world of paper and wood...")

And while looking at them, I also noticed the full poem's titles: About which I have similar comments/questions. Thanks. --MartyD 10:36, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A Warning ("I come in the wail of the broken skies…")
 * A Warning (Complete verse) ("I come in the wail fo the broken skies...")


 * The parenthetical first lines are almost always mine. In the case of "A Warning", the "(fragement)" is also mine but the "(Partial verse)" is from the pub.  I agree it's overkill, and when I merge poems, I'll do away with the "(fragment)".  I just wanted to be sure that I merged the right poems. (There are two poems titled "A Warning", one 16 lines which is the "partial verse", and one longer, which has a different first line.)  For that one, the "(Complete verse)" is in the pub, but the quote was needed in other pubs.  This latest pub The Collected Poetry of REH does some odd things, compared to other pubs with Howard poetry, like using first lines for titles whenever the poetry is untitled, and putting in partial verse and complete verse in the titles.  They use "Untitled poem" in the ToC, incidentally.  Just not over the poem.


 * I will begin merging/varianting Howard poems once The Collected Poetry is entered. While there will be other entries of his poems, the major ones that I own will be entered at that point.  I didn't want to have to do the merges over and over again, so I've been waiting until this point. Bob 12:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

"Settler's Well" or " Settler's Wall"?
Do you happen to have a copy of Crypt of Cthulhu, #62 Candlemas 1989 handy? If you do, could you please check whether 's "Settler's Well" is spelled "Settler's Wall"? I have left a message on the primary verifier's Talk page, but I am not sure if he is currently active. TIA! Ahasuerus 18:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Glad to help. And I do have a copy reasonable handy!  It's "Well" in the ToC, but "Wall" at the top of the story. Bob 20:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Great, thanks! I will make the change and notify the primary verifier. Ahasuerus 21:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * P.S. Also, could you please check if "On. H. P. Lovecraft’s Views of Weird Fiction" has a period after "On"? Ahasuerus 21:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


 * NO period either over the article or on the ToC. Bob 19:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Fixed, thanks! Ahasuerus 20:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Letters to Tevis Clyde Smith merge
You submitted a merge of Letter to Tevis Clyde Smith... and To Tevis Clyde Smith..., where the title text is not the same, and so one would be lost. Are both appearances titled "To Tevis Clyde Smith..." in their respective pubs? Sorry, I can't tell if this is an intentional correction and is ok or if it's a mistake and they ought to be variants instead. --MartyD 10:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Marty, I'm not sure what I was trying to do. I'll just withdraw the submission for now and sort it out later.  The letters don't have titles in some of the pubs, and I used whatever form was in the ToC.  In any case, merging those two titles cannot be correct.  Thank you for bringing this up. Bob 15:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The Moon Pool
There is a note on your verified copy of a Liveright printing of Merritt's The Moon Pool stating that the date is approximate. However, there is a date listed in the year field. When we don't know an exact date, our policy is to reflect "0000-00-00" in the year field, with any approximations reflected only in the notes. You should update your copy accordingly. You can also note your source for for the approximate date. I'll also point out that Tuck has a 1932 Liveright printing listed, but with a $2.00 price. Additionally, Facsimile Dust Jackets asserts that the jacket that matches your scan is from the 1930's and their facsimile has the $2.50 price. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 11:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The date came from several copies for sale on line, but apparently those dates were bad guesses by the sellers. Further examination revealed a date of 1934 on Amazon and several books for sale identified the cover artist.  Thanks for taking the time to look into this one. Bob 17:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Tough Guys & Dangerous Dames
In this publication, is Earl Stanley Gardner really spelled "Earle Stanley Gardner"? If so, this should be made a pseudonym? Thanks, Horzel 08:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Fortunately, the man's name is spelled correctly in the pub: "Erle". Typo on my part; thanks for catching it. Bob 22:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Cover artist for The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
Could you double check the cover artist for this edition of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane. Locus1 has it as Gianni. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 14:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, it sure wasn't Robert E. Howard! My mind is obviously rotting away.  Fixed.  Thank you! Bob 21:10, 29 September 2012 (UTC)