User talk:JesseW

Kraang 01:59, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Re Welcome

 * Thanks! I don't know how active I'll be, but I'm glad to pop in and out. JesseW 02:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The Callahan Chronicals
I approved two of your edits to this publication, but then made a few changes. You wanted to change the date for two of the essays. For titles we use the date of first publication see this help page. I had to reject your edit of "Foreword (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon)". You wanted to change the date to february 1976, but the first publication was in june 1977. You also wanted to add a note about the essay (Postscript states: February, 1976 Phinney's Cove, Nova Scotia) to the title record. A title record can have more than one publication however, so general notes can be added, but notes about a single pub should go with the pub. Hope you're not depressed by this. Thanks for editing, and again, welcome. --Willem H. 18:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "Backword (The Callahan Chronicals)": The essay is dated January 1997, but the date of first publication is october 1997. This should not be changed.
 * "Spider Robinson: The SF Writer as Empath": I changed the date to June 1977, then made it into a variant of this title.
 * All of those things make perfect sense. Thanks for your time checking them -- I'm certainly not depressed by the corrections!  I wondered why I couldn't find the corresponding publication records for the previous publications of the SF-Writer-As-Empath introduction -- thanks for finding that.  Regarding the note, I'm still slightly confused -- I (now) understand that we don't use the date-as-written but instead the date of first publication, so the postscript (including it's date) isn't particularly relevant, but it does seem like it should in the title record, not the publication, as it's part of the text -- more like a synopsis -- rather than a fact about a particular publication, like a price or publisher.  Do I have this right? JesseW 04:44, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you're right. Didn't see it that way at first. I dug out my copy of Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, which has the same dating. This suggests there was a 16 month time lag between the writing and publication. I added your note again, see here. Thanks, --Willem H. 11:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

A Phule and His Money submission
Hi. I have your submission of A Phule and His Money on hold. It is trying to change a 9th printing to a 4th printing. It looks like you meant to Clone this but ended up editing it instead. You should cancel this and re-submit as a clone (you can copy and paste the notes and other info before cancelling). Thanks. --MartyD 17:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Will do, sorry about that! Maybe this will motivate me to send in the patch I was thinking about, to change the look of the clone page... JesseW 08:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

ISFDB banner
I am reviewing and testing your makefile/css changes and one thing that I am wondering about is the replacement of "IsfdbBanner.jpg" with "IsfdbBanner.gif" in biblio_css_stub 1.2. The software currently uses IsfdbBanner.jpg as the image at the top of the page. There is a nightly rotation process that replaces the current IsfdbBanner.jpg with one of the 10 composite images that Al created a few years ago -- see "updateBanner.py" in the "scripts" directory on Sourceforge.

Does this make sense? If so, I will drop the proposed change. Thanks! Ahasuerus 04:16, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, I think I have sorted everything out. The "jpg" version of the banner file has been uploaded even though it's just a placeholder which will be quickly replaced by the nightly rotation process. All references to the "gif" version have been reverted to the "jpg" version, but the replacement of "www.isfdb.org" with localdef data has been kept. I also updated a few out of date copyright dates and made other cosmetic changes. The changed scripts have been committed and installed on the live server. Everything looks good, thanks! Ahasuerus 05:34, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Development - December 2010
Sorry, haven't had a chance to review and test your changes yet. Hopefully, I will get to them in the next 2-3 days. Ahasuerus 22:17, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Analog Jan-Feb 2011
I add the cover scan to this verified publication. Tpi 19:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it looks correct to me. JesseW 22:15, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I corrected the title of the McMullen story, from _Enimga_ to _Enigma_. Hauck 13:59, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This one? Looks good. JesseW 22:15, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Chanur’s Legacy
What evidence do you have that the third DAW printing was also 1993? BLongley 17:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As it's been a month since I asked, I'll reject this and let other moderators possibly see an empty submission queue. ;-) Feel free to resubmit later if you get time. BLongley 22:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I should have seen this earlier. I don't remember what the change was now, but I'll try and look at the book again and see if I can figure it out, and re-submit with more evidence. JesseW 19:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

page count for Analog May 2011
Should the page count for the pub be 116? The page count for magazines should also include the covers.--swfritter 14:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Linked the Sawyer review to the novel. We have it in the DB as "Wonder", Kevin Kelly the artist is not the same as the author of "What Technology Wants". I think the non-fiction book is a legitimate entry because it is reviewed in a major s-f magazine and covers information of interest to s-f fans but in order to add it you will have to use an author name the disambiguates it from the artist. Are you going to enter the artwork? I get the ezine version and I think it would be better to enter the artwork from the physical pub. Thanks.--swfritter 14:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I doubt if I'll be able to scan the cover, sorry. JesseW 05:49, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

On Company Time by Kage Baker
I accepted your submission adding a new record for this title but have a strong suspicion that it's the same edition as this record. The only difference is that you state there is no SFBC ID # on your copy. At that time, the number was usually printed at the bottom on the back of the dustjacket, and most of the time in a white box. Can you check to see if "05525" is printed on your copy? Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have access to it right at the moment, and I think I did check there, but I'll look again as soon as I can. JesseW 05:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Analog, June 2011
Hi. I accepted your submission of, but I see a couple of likely typos/problems in the reviews: If you need help straightening out that review, just ask. Thanks. --MartyD 10:10, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "David Webber (ed.)" -- Don't use the "(ed.)", only the name, and I have a feeling "Webber" should be "Weber" with only one "b"
 * "Galaxiki" -- "Gal e xy" most likely should be "Gal a xy". I was going to complain about using a website as an author (which you shouldn't do), but in looking more closely at this, I think that since this isn't a review of something we would track as a publication in the ISFDB, you should change this from a REVIEW to an ESSAY (I think you'll have to remove the REVIEW and delete it and add an ESSAY separately).  Add a "(review)" to the end of the essay's title and explain in the publication notes that it's a review of a website.
 * Great, thanks. I'll look into those.  Sorry about the typos, it was rather late at night when I was entering it, and I hurried too much. Regarding the review of the website, that makes sense. JesseW
 * First set of edits submitted; I'll come back in a few days and do the other part. JesseW 08:10, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Intelligent Design
Replaced the amazon scan for your verified here. Hauck 16:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Godspeed
I changed the publication date of this record from 1994-11-00 to 0000-00-00 which is displayed as "unknown". This is the ISFDB standard of entering the dates of undated printings. (The first printing was dated, not this second printing.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that. I'm still a bit uncertain about the preferred way to handle distinct printings of the same edition. JesseW 01:24, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Linking OCLC records
There is no need to either note or link OCLC records to ISFDB records if there is a valid ISBN stated within the ISFDB record. For example, in this record, all a user would need to do is click on the "WorldCat" link under the "Other Sites" menu on the left side of the page to go directly to the OCLC record for this title. That doesn't mean you shouldn't link them, but in most cases it's redundant. Some editors do it regardless, but I personally feel it's unnecessary "extra credit". The only time that I recommend that you do this is when a publication 1) doesn't have an ISBN, 2) states an invalid ISBN, 3) has more than one OCLC record and you want to link to a specific one. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 01:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Good advice, thanks! Hm. I wonder where on the wiki this should be mentioned... I'll see if I can find a relevant place. JesseW 01:36, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Cover art credit for Stand on Zanzibar
Please do not make submissions that remove data from a primary verified record until you've discussed it with the editor who verified the record. I'm holding the submission to remove the cover art credit of this record. Please leave a message on the verifier's talk page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 07:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * "It can't be any of our secondary sources" from your note to moderator on the submission. My first instinct used to be that if data wasn't sourced, delete it. Sometimes it's left over from cloning a different printing/edition. However, by noting that a piece of data is not in/on the edition in question will sometimes spur a reader to check it out. And we NEVER cover ALL the secondary sources. Especially for art, there are hundreds of sites/blogs/galleries. The credit to Savage [and it doesn't look like his work] could have been there for years. The stress placed on citing secondary sources is far greater now than it used to be [this case being a prime example of why]. With, as yet, no contradictory evidence, the credit should stay. --~ Bill, Bluesman 18:49, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I'll reject the submission. Should you note in the record that the source of the current cover credit is unknown? The contradiction between the note and the credit may have been what prompted the editor's submission to remove it. Mhhutchins 18:59, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks to you both -- sorry I didn't check with Bluesman first. I think adding the note as you did is certainly the best outcome. JesseW 03:47, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Helping ISFDB developers/testers/requesters
I just found this page (rather late) and realised it could be very useful in passing on knowledge to a new generation of software-improvers. Do you have any plans to update this? If not, do you mind if I encourage our now-rather-small pool of workers to gradually improve it and/or make updating it part of the official development process somehow? BLongley 02:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)