User talk:BLongley/Archives/Archive01

This is an archive of discussions from User talk:BLongley. Please do not alter it.

Capitalisation

 * Regularized case means that the first word is capitalized, and all later words are also capitalized except for "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". Hyphenated words have the first letter after the hyphen capitalized.


 * Just had a query on merging these: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/edittitle.cgi?65173 and http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/edittitle.cgi?295941 - has "It" been verified as one of those little words that must be Capitalised? It seems too short to bother with to me, but if that's the rule I'll learn it eventually. BLongley 14:04, 17 Jan 2007 (CST)


 * Ok, now the questionable words are "my" and "with". BLongley 14:10, 17 Jan 2007 (CST)


 * All three should be capitalized according to the current definitions. I wrote the initial help screen (not that long ago) and have edited it a couple of times to include other words to be lowercased.  Since I wrote it I've been keeping an eye on the capitalization conventions in the books I enter data for, and I think it's pretty close to final.  One way I check on consistency is to enter " my " (with the leading and trailing space) in the search field on the ISFDB screen, and choose "Title" search.  Looking at the results tells me what the usual capitalization has been.  It seems clear from that that "It" and "My" should be capped; "With" has more equivocal results but I've only seen one story in a magazine with a lowercase "with", so for now let's stick with capitalizing that too.  Mike Christie (talk) 14:33, 17 Jan 2007 (CST)

Converting Novel records to Anthologies
Bill, you have changed a few Witch World books from Novels to Anthologies. It looked like you were trying to change the Publication record in one submission and the associated Title record in another one. Keep in mind that you can change both in the Publication Edit screen at the same time. Not only is it faster, but it also makes submissions more self-contained, which helps moderators to decide whether the change makes sense.


 * OK, will try, but it seems the more I do in one edit the less popular it is. :-/ I seem to have lost a series link and some page numbers in those edits too. :-(  BLongley 15:55, 10 Feb 2007 (CST)

There is a caveat, though. When you are changing an "OMNIBUS", "COLLECTION" or "ANTHOLOGY" Publication record to some other type, you don't see the associated Title record in the Publication Edit Screen and have to change it separately via Title Edit. The reason for hiding the associated Omnibus/Collection/Anthology Title records in the Pub Edit screen is that we thought that letting the editors see/change both the "container" Title records and the individual stories contained therein would be too confusing. After seeing some of the problems with Publication type changes that it has caused, I am no longer sure what is more confusing :( but that's how it works for now. Ahasuerus 18:27, 9 Feb 2007 (CST)

Use of NA for Page Number
From the above it looks like you are denoting titles that need to be dropped from a cloned pub by marking the page as "NA". When you do this, do you intend to come back and delete the titles, or do you expect the moderator to do so? Alvonruff 19:44, 12 Feb 2007 (CST)


 * I do it when I come back to verify, but if the mod feels like doing it, it saves me some time. If all the mods are agreeable, maybe we should document it as a convention? (Or let me know what the normal convention is, if there is one.) Ideally I'd like a "delete entries from pub while cloning" feature at least, I think, although a "replace title with a known variant" would be better still. But there's so many considerations on that page that I've been trying to gather a bit more experience before making a feature request. BLongley 14:08, 13 Feb 2007 (CST)


 * Delete-while-cloning by putting a special value in the page number field seems like a good idea for an ISFDB convention. I personally have been blanking out the page # field for titles I need to delete because then in remove-title the blank's are very obvious in the list of titles but in thinking about this using "Delete" or "Remove" would make it clear and could also be a code word for ISFDB to auto-delete while cloning. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:25, 15 Feb 2007 (CST)

Strange Norby submission
Did you do anything unusual while submitting the Title Merge request for "Norby's Other Secret"? The reason I am asking is that it is showing up with only one Title, which obviously can't be merged with itself:

Column 	KeepId [3083] Title 	Norby's Other Secret Author 	Isaac Asimov+Janet Asimov Year 	1984-00-00 TitleType 	NOVEL Series 	Norby Chronicles Seriesnum 	- Storylen 	- Translator 	- Synopsis 	- Note 	- Parent 	-

I wonder what may have caused this strange behavior? Ahasuerus 19:02, 13 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * I think I've figured it out. Do an advanced search for title "Norby's Other Secret" and Author "Asimov". As BOTH authors are Asimov, it shows up twice. Not ideal search behaviour, duplicating records: and even more confusingly, it allows you to submit a merge of a record with itself. Reject the edit and feel free to add another "Advanced Search don't work" bug report if one's not there already. BLongley 15:44, 14 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * Thanks, I will keep the submission in the queue for now and leave a note on Al's Talk page with a pointer to your explanation :) Ahasuerus 19:39, 16 Mar 2007 (CDT)

Here I am Again
You have verified a couple of anthologies  that contain the Asimov introduction Here I am Again - I just verified a book titled The Hugo Winners, Volumes One and Two. This is an omnibus of anthologies and my question is about the introduction for vol. 2 which is titled Here I am Again. Here are the relevant titles: What I had done was to change the title from Here I Am Again to Introduction: Here I Am Again (The Hugo Winners, Volume II) and then I realized the essay is included in the books you verified. In looks like Sphere took the Doubleday volume 2 and broke that into two separate volumes and so I unmerged these and stuck them as publications under vol 2.
 * The Hugo Winners, Volume I (1955 to 1961) (1962) published by Doubleday
 * The Hugo Winners, Volume II,(1962 to 1970) (1971) published by Doubleday
 * The Hugo Winners, Volumes One and Two (1972) published by Doubleday - I have this
 * The Hugo Winners Volume One 1962-1967 (1973) published by Sphere - you verified this
 * The Hugo Winners Volume Two 1968-1970 (1973) published by Sphere - you verified this
 * Is the same essay in both volumes one and two by Sphere? That's the way it's linked up at the moment. In the Doubleday editions volume one Introduction is titled just that and is an Asimov ramble. The introduction for Doubleday volume two is titled Here I Am Again and starts out “Some nine years ago” indicating it was written in 1971.  00:36, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, it's the same, that's why I merged them. It does indeed start “Some nine years ago” and ends "Here I am again then, and here is The Hugo Winners Volume Two ". Most confusing for those that are holding Volume 1 of the British edition! But there is then a publisher's note explaining that the US book "The Hugo Winners volume two" was published as "a single, giant book" which needed to be split up for the UK market "in order to offer this excellent collection at a reasonable price". I dread to think how thick your publication is! BLongley 14:16, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm trying to decide if there should be a better name for this essay. I had added the prefix “Introduction: ” as that's in the table of contents but not the story title and had appended "(The Hugo Winners, Volume II)" as that's the name of the original Doubleday publication. Normally I only suffix when it's a very generic name like Introduction and am thinking maybe I'll go back to Here I Am Again though it is an Introduction. 00:36, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * I'd avoid "(The Hugo Winners, Volume II)" suffix as it has two different meanings: 1968-1970 or 1962-1970. (Actually, 1963-1970, unless some edition actually includes the "Hothouse series" that won in 1962: in which case there might be ANOTHER variant that split 1962-1970 at a different year!) "Here I am Again" looks fine to me. BLongley 14:16, 27 Mar 2007 (CDT)


 * You can add,

as another relevant title. CoachPaul 22:26, 5 Apr 2007 (CDT)
 * Stories from the Hugo Winners, Volume 2, (1973, Isaac Asimov, Fawcett Crest, pb, anth)

The Man from Uncle
I have all 23 titles (sans the famous unpublished manuscript of The Final Affair), so if you need help with verification, I could be a resource. It looks like there will be 3 days in late April and about a week in late May when I will have access to my collection. Ahasuerus 22:22, 4 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * You may have noticed a few edits in that area from me today. ;-) (More than there should have been - I went word-blind between "Souvenir" and "Sovereign" at one point and had to redo several :-( If you see "Sovereign" on any remaining UK pubs, please point it out.)
 * I only have 18 pubs, and some are duplicates, but apart from 13, 14 and 16 (UK numbering) all the "Man from UNCLE" UK ones are from Primary Sources: I've added stubs for the other 3 and for some first printings. I also did "Girl from UNCLE", one Primary Source only, but the series should be in reasonable shape. (Let me know if you don't like the arrangement.)
 * There's some Variants to deal with: title-wise, number one I left alone as the Canonical title is probably one that ruins the "The .... Affair" pattern. There's a query over [Sun]glasses on a later one.
 * Author-wise there's a bit of a mess: I found some extra info on most authors, but the Ron Ellik collaborator is a major mystery!
 * I think it's mostly over to you now, as you have pubs and references I don't, but let me know how you deal with the variants: I mostly like the way the SERIES appears, but there's some gaps in the "real authors" history at the moment.
 * Still, it's been fun today, and it's been quite quiet and I got back to some editing rather than moderating for once: was there something else happening? ;-) BLongley 15:03, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * Nicely done! I will add physical verification of the series to my list of things to do when I am reunited with my collection on April 28. It's a rather collectible series, so we probably have a few editors here with a full set. Ahasuerus 00:10, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * The good news is that I have verified about a dozen Man from UNCLE Publication records, but the bad news is that my copies of US issues #5-13 plus #15 are currently not accessible, so I can't verify them. I have also discovered that my #4 is actually the UK #4, i.e. the same as US #22 :( It's amazing what a decade of neglect can do to a collection...


 * I also verified a couple of Girl from UNCLE pubs while I was at it, but we will need help with the rest of the menagerie. Also, the dates of later publications look messed up and I seem to recall that there were publication irregularities at the end when the sales were dropping and many issues came out out of order. I wonder if we have an expert in the house?.. Ahasuerus 21:44, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, we can call for verification on some I guess, it's a bit much to put out a blanket request for them all, maybe? You have reminded me that I haven't ordered any of my gaps yet though, might do that tonight. BLongley 13:35, 1 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Sure, we can post a request on the verification board, but after verifying a bunch of later, relatively rare, Ace editions, I finally recalled that the series publication order was somewhat messed up in later years, although I don't remember any details. The copyright dates certainly look suspect, but we would need to either do a fair amount of research or find somebody who is familiar with this area to sort it out. Ahasuerus 22:10, 1 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, I did some ordering, some receiving, and happily finished verifying at least one of each title of the UK Girl from UNCLE pubs. I only got one more Man From UNCLE though, but at least that casts more doubt on the "Splintered Glasses" (no "Sun") stray. I may order the last two UK Man from UNCLE ones, but I'm griping about the cost of retrieving one that reached New Zealand... :-/ BLongley 17:42, 6 May 2007 (CDT)


 * I've also got into the habit of scanning new arrivals of old books and uploading them to the Amazon pub I ordered them from - approval seems to take some time, so they're not all linked here yet. But they haven't rejected any yet, so this might be a good move for those of us that like the pretty pictures with our references. BLongley 17:42, 6 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, more bibliographic data, whether ASCII or pixels, is always a good thing, but I have seen so many Amazon.com URLs go belly up in the last few years that I am more than a little nervous about their images' longevity. There have been some discussions of "the best place to upload images to", but I don't think we have come up with a perfect match for our needs yet. Ahasuerus 20:35, 6 May 2007 (CDT)

(unindent)While looking for something else earlier today, I found and Verified a few missing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. publications. One of them was a juvenile hardcover, so I went ahead and created 2 more sub-series. You may want to take a look at the current state of the super-series when you get a chance and see if it makes sense. Ahasuerus 18:53, 27 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Looks fine - I verified one of the other Juvenile hardcovers after picking it up at a car-boot sale for 50p today. BLongley 12:22, 12 Aug 2007 (CDT)

P.S. There is more U.N.C.L.E.-related stuff at if you feel like entering it :) Ahasuerus 18:56, 27 May 2007 (CDT)


 * I thought about doing the A.B.C. (acquired at a car-boot sale for 50p LAST week) but it's really non-genre. BLongley 12:22, 12 Aug 2007 (CDT)

John Brunner, Times Without Number
Bill, I see that you've verified this publication this publication and I think maybe we've both fallen into the great Ace tar-pit. I have a similar publication, whose number is 441-81270-060, priced at $0.60 and also bearing the 1969 copyright date. I think yours is a later reprint, based on price and number, and the fact that Currey shows mine as the first revised edition. What do you think? Should we ask Marc, who seems to understand the logic of Ace numbering? (Scott Latham 20:58, 6 Apr 2007 (CDT))


 * Yes, I guess mine is later: does yours look like this with cover by John Schoenherr? Mine doesn't, but unfortunately that site doesn't have 81272. I've not found anything but copyright date for mine. :-/ BLongley 07:44, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * Just found another edition: this looks like mine but is 81271. Still no date. BLongley 07:48, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * There is a pretty decent source for old paperbacks: Jon Warren. The Official (R) Price Guide. Paperbacks, New York, House of Collectibles, 1991, ISBN 0876377932, 934p. $10-20 will get you a copy at used.addall.com :) Ahasuerus 10:46, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * I don't suppose you have a copy to hand to date mine, do you? BLongley 11:02, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * I have a copy in my collection, but I won't get back to it until late April. I am sure you have heard of the curse of the Wandering Jew :) but perhaps somebody else here might have one handy. Ahasuerus 15:32, 7 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * re: Should we ask Marc, who seems to understand the logic of Ace numbering?


 * The method outlined below will not work with Ace books with a letter code such as F-161 printing before 1969. If you have a book printed in 1969 to about 1980 then it will have either a five digit Ace # or an SBN that looks like 441-#####-PPP where ##### is the 5-digit number and PPP is the price in cents. Since ~1980 Ace has used ISBNs, 0-441-#####-x where “x” is the ISBN checksum, and it’s not clear if the method outlined here still works. The first four digits of the 5-digit number are essentially a hash of the first word(s) of the title excluding common words such as “The.” The fifth or last digit is the printing number starting at 0 or 5 and counting up. Thus there is room for five printings with the last digit being 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or it can go from 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. If there are more then five printings, or if two books end up with the same hash (the first four digits are the same) then Ace keeps incrementing the hash until it gets to an available one.


 * Anyway – the part we care about is the last digit – if it’s 0 or 5 then you probably have a first printing, if it’s 1 or 6 it’s probably a second printing, 2 or 7 is probably a third printing, 3 or 8 is probably the forth printing, and 4 or 9 is probably the fifth printing.


 * I used “probably” a lot because Ace has been known to start at 1 and also if a book goes into the 6th or later printing they go back to 0 or 5 though with a new hash # in the first four digits.


 * Thus for Times Without Number by Brunner


 * Ace F-161 is an Ace Double which has Times Without Number on one side. I believe this is a different story than the Times Without Number that this thread is about because the page count is 139 vs. 156 for the standalone novels and that the descriptions of the standalone novels seem consistent in their descriptions that they are “revised and expanded.” I have a copy of F-161 and the points of interest are “First book publication” in small print on the cover, 139 pages, 1962 copyright, and no mention of revised/expanded text. Had F-161 been a first-printing standalone novel and the text not revised/expanded then Ace would have started the 5-digit numbering with 81271.
 * There are many seller listings for #81270 / 441-81270-060. This is the first printing of the revised/expanded edition. I cloned #81272 to create . Scott, if you have a copy could you please verify this record?


 * I do indeed have a copy and I have confirmed the publication. The question left unanswered in all this is what are the real publication dates for the $0.95 and $1.50 publications? (Scott Latham 19:35, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT))


 * Anyway, as we have 81270 and 81272 you would expect 81271 which would be the second printing. That’s not found by Google but AbeBooks shows eight listings, one of that has a cover image that confirms 81271 and credits Don Punchatz for the cover art. Unfortunately, the price is blacked out but the seller’s description says “Cover price 95c” and says “Completely revised and considerably expanded edition.” Two other sellers of 81271 mention Don Punchatz and one other the 95 cent cover price. I cloned #81272 to create.
 * Publication is 0-441-81272-4 and would be a third printing.
 * 81273 would be the forth printing but this was not found by either Google nor on Abebooks. This might be an ISBN, 0-441-81273-2, but that’s not found and it’s assumed if there is a forth Ace printing it’s under some other coding system. 16:31, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm out of time at the moment but here's an Easter egg that needs more polish.
 * I unmerged the Ace-double to create this title 523049 but still need to think about how I want to go about renaming it to Times Without Number (1962). I want a title record for both the double Times Without Number / Destiny's Orbit and for the  1/2 of the double called Times Without Number (1962).
 * I renamed the original title 1001 to Times Without Number (1969 revised/expanded) and it contains the singles.
 * The headache will be that Times Without Number is sort of a collection and do we need to do 1962 and 1969 editions of all three stories?
 * Title 4946 is Destiny's Orbit by DAW. Title 188193 is a variant by David Grinnell which is the pseudonym DAW used. This part is ok.  16:31, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Unindent - the relatives left for a bit ;-)
 * I changed 523049 Times Without Number / Destiny’s Orbit into an OMNIBUS and added David Grinnell as an author. This creates a title record for the double.
 * For the publication that 523049 contains,, I added a new title, Times Without Number (1962 edition) COLLECTION by John Brunner. I also changed this into an OMNIBUS.
 * Finally, from 523049 I did a make-variant where I replaced David Grinnell with Donald A. Wollheim.

shows The relatives are back... 17:29, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)
 * Novel title 4946 Destiny’s Orbit (1962) [as by David Grinnell] . This only has the dos-a-dos publication.
 * Omnibus title 523185 Times Without Number / Destiny’s Orbit (1962) [O] with John Brunner [as by John Brunner  and David Grinnell ] . This only has the dos-a-dos publication.
 * Not visible is Omnibus title 523049 Times Without Number / Destiny's Orbit by John Brunner and David Grinnell.

shows The relatives are back... 17:29, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)
 * Collection title 523181 Times Without Number (1962 edition) (1962). This only has the dos-a-dos publication.
 * Collection title 1001 Times Without Number (1969 revised/expanded edition) (1969). This links to several publications.
 * Omnibus title 523185 Times Without Number / Destiny’s Orbit (1962) [O] with with Donald A. Wollheim [as by John Brunner  and David Grinnell ] . This only has the dos-a-dos publication.
 * Not visible is Omnibus title 523049 Times Without Number / Destiny's Orbit by John Brunner and David Grinnell.

I don't have a copy of the 1969 edition and so it's not clear is what got changed between 1962 and 1969. The implication here is that Spoil of Yesterday may be just a new typesetting and that The Fullness of Time was expanded quote a bit. I'm not sure how to best deal with this. We could just document that they may be two versions of each of these stories or we could go ahead with creating 1962 and 1969 edition title records for all three stories. 18:32, 8 Apr 2007 (CDT)
 * Title 77887 Spoil of Yesterday changed from 45 to 46 pages.
 * Title 77886 The Word Not Written changed from 44 to 48 pages.
 * Title 77885 The Fullness of Time changed from 46 to 58 pages.

Heinlein
I am afraid it's a known display bug, DisplayBug 20048, to be precise :( Not much we can do about it other than bug Al to bump it up on the list of priorities. Let me see if I can leave him a message... Ahasuerus 16:41, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, thanks for the quick response! Should I leave these for now to avoid confusing people or will the data be useful and stop people merging authors quite so often? (I was SURE I saw Aldiss and Malzberg properly divided up with "W"s and "N"s, but I'm beginning to doubt my memory...) BLongley 17:14, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * I am somewhat torn on this one. On the one hand, the underlying data is accurate, so it's really just a display problem and it would be unfortunate if we stopped entering good data into the database because of a couple of lines of display code that can be likely easily fixed. On the other hand, it can be confusing, although perhaps not terminally so. If our users go to the Publication level for the affected Heinlein Titles, they will see that only 1 or 2 of the Pubs were published as by "Robert Heinlein".


 * Let's see what Al has to say about it since he should be around for a couple of weeks. Ahasuerus 18:27, 16 Apr 2007 (CDT)


 * Seems my update didn't get through - possibly I forgot it was only a preview. :-/ Anyway, I did a few updates to Heinlein pubs on Saturday with lots of notes, and nobody has complained yet. It seems a harmless thing to do after all. BLongley 14:35, 7 May 2007 (CDT)

Author links
As a FYI - I have been doing the link back to ISFDB from the author bio/biblio wiki pages using. For example generates. I usually copy/paste the author name with the underscores from the URL so that I don't need to manually overwrite each space with a _. 00:32, 15 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I know you can do a lot of Wiki things that are supposed to be easier, but it's currently easier for me to do HTML things. Those work here, unlike many sites that have their own posting limitations.
 * And I've recently had some bad experiences at work with Javascript bugs that came down to a "{" rather than a "(" - I wasted half a day on that, and I still have some of my colleagues trying to figure out how I solved it, over a week later. I'm currently using it as an example of why we should get 21" monitors rather than work-standard 15" or 17" ones, and they STILL haven't realised that that one bloody pixel (in the usual work-font) difference is important! If I don't get a better monitor, I'll campaign for a ban on "curly braces" instead. Although I'll probably have to buy my own magnifying glass to show them the problem.... :-(  BLongley 15:44, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * 'Work-standard 15"' monitors?! Ouch! You have my sympathy! Ahasuerus 18:37, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Fortunately I'm on a 17" at work, the 15" are only for the really old Windows NT machines. (Yes, they still use that for some systems that need maintaining until the XP version works.) But it's still a pain compared to the 19" LCD at home. BLongley 12:18, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

M81 / Intruders
Now that you mention it, I do recall noticing that one of the "M81" titles had no Publications associated with it and briefly wondering why that was the case. I don't think I have seen a Publication affected by a Title level operation like Merge or VT creation since mid-2006, but you never know... Ahasuerus 01:53, 15 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Maybe there's some over-zealous Variant-creating going on? I can understand people making sure that all titles go under the main Author-name(s) so that bibliography is complete, and we don't get left with stray titles, but I actually quite like to see the pubs under the variant titles left under their real names. They don't get lost, and they do separate US/UK editions nicely compared with the append a "(US)" or "(UK)" or a "(date)" suffix convention to titles that really don't have them... :-( I do find far too many empty titles for my liking. And an empty title is one that people try to delete, rather than explain. :-( BLongley 16:02, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, eventually we will probably want to eliminate all Publication-less Titles that do not explain their origins, but we are nowhere near that point yet. Much of the original Title level data came from John Wenn's bibliographies, which had almost no Publication level data, but it's very good, high quality data. We just need to find Publication data to match it. Ahasuerus 18:40, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

Welcome to the 1,000 club
Bill, I see that you've now entered the exalted realm of those with 1,000 or more publications verified. You are to be congratulated for your persistence, as well as the size and variety of your library! (Scott Latham 10:48, 16 May 2007 (CDT))


 * Ta muchly! I actually stopped at 1,000 verifications exactly (under this ID) for a couple of days to see if anyone noticed... you're the first that did. :-/ Ah well, when Al makes the next back-up available for download I can figure out what the next 1,000 should be. I know it's anonymised, but I can still pick out user-id 2781 and be pretty sure it's ME, as we only have one verifier allowed... I guess you're user-id 1631? BLongley 15:29, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * I noticed a few days ago but Scott built the clubhouse :-) Now we just have to get a few more members... --Unapersson 15:48, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah, I suspect Verifiers are under-valued... they don't really appear on the radar, and I wonder how many active people we lose because we don't encourage them enough. :-/
 * Still, Mhhutchins should be joining us soon enough, and I've only got to move a quarter-ton of furniture before I can get at the next set of books...:-) BLongley 16:45, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * We need to welcome Ahasuerus to the 100 club. :-) 17:46, 16 May 2007 (CDT)


 * Grats, Bill! (As your teenaged online customers might say :-)


 * As far as my low verification count goes, well, we all have our limitations. My constant travel has its side benefits, but it's getting a little old now that I have officially been at it for 2 millenia. I keep threatening to retire and end this travel business once and for all, but I am not sure I like the eschatological implications...


 * Anyway, I will get to spend a week with my collection at the end of May, so I may do more verifying at that time. However, my precious "collection time" is best spent on obscure magazines that few other people have access to and they take a while to do. Ahasuerus 18:35, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

isolationists
I am sure having trouble with this one. You are right. I will fix double check and fix it. Thanks!--Swfritter 16:17, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Cover art
It is the right image, but I have that concern as well. I found a copy of Dark Terrors recently that I'd entered and verified that had subsequently had the wrong cover art added. I simply removed it, but I can't help thinking it would be helpful if before adding things like cover art that a check is done with the person who verified the edition.

Rightly or wrongly I see verification as taking virtual ownership of an entry in the database, where it makes you at least slightly responsible for that entry. Mistakes or typos included. It also makes you a contact point for problems with that entry.

At some stage it might be possible to fix this by providing notifications to verifiers when changes are made. Inserting a verifier into the moderation process might be going a bit far, as you can't guarantee it would be available, but at least providing a notification would let them double check any changes. Like checking cover art etc. --Unapersson 16:28, 6 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * There's probably a good case for changing "verification" to add what fields have actually been verified, but that's a big behind-the-scenes change even if it means the front end stays the same: i.e. you still do a Primary verification, but only for what the pub looked like WHEN YOU VERIFIED IT. A smaller change would be to say WHO verified the pub when a change comes up for approval - due to the delays for non-Mods, I see people verify their own pubs and assume their other edits will get approved too: but I don't get an easy link to check whether a verifier is adding more data, or if they're stomping on someone else's edits. That's why I passed Brin1's edit tonight, then used the quick-link and realised he was messing up MY work, which did annoy me somewhat.
 * I don't think we can demand that a verifier HAS to give approval to further edits - a) they may have stopped working here, and b) may not actually own the verified pub any more (I know my discard piles are getting huge, but I can still squeeze a cover-art scan out of them before they go!) but a better warning (easy coding) or a delay before the lack of disapproval from the verifier (more complex) should be possible. Notifying the verifier that a change has been made should be somewhere in between: I don't really want to see the mod queue get too long, so we'd probably need a separate queue of "waiting for verifier to object" submissions... big coding again. :-/
 * Anyway, thanks for sharing your concerns: I too do feel a bit possessive of my verifications, but for now I think all we can do is guide people on the etiquette of changes to verified pubs, and give warnings to moderators about which editors are doing something slightly suspect. And as always, TALK to the people that are doing things you don't like or don't understand: we'll never get anywhere if it's one step forward from editor A and two steps back from editor B, but I want editors A-Z to stay and learn, and Mods A-Z to deal with them, even if Moderator H wants to marmalise Editor T at times... ;-)  BLongley 17:12, 6 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Installing ISFDB
A couple of questions. What operating system did you install on? Did you take notes as you installed MySQL on what configuration options you selected for things like character sets, sorting order, etc.? Did you install 5.0.41 or something else? TIA 03:06, 7 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * It's on Windows XP, Service Pack 2. I didn't keep notes, just retried a few times with different options. I know UTF8 was my first choice but I now use Latin1. No Sort order option was offered. It's 5.0.37-community-nt according to the start-up messages. BLongley 12:55, 7 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Science Fiction Through the Ages 1
Bill, I see that you have verified this publication, so I am wondering if you could check whether the details provided by Contento are accurate. If they are, do you think we should add publication dates and "(from XYZ)" to each Title? Ahasuerus 11:29, 8 Jun 2007 (CDT)

You caught me just in time, this is on my discard pile and was going to go this weekend! BLongley 12:22, 8 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Contento isn't far off, I'll comment on each difference: • Secret Weapon [from Count Robert of Paris] • Sir Walter Scott • ex Pub mentions "Count Robert of Paris" was 1832. No mention of whether this excerpt was created only for this pub or something earlier. • The Vanished Civilization [from Timaios and Critias, 370 b.c.] • Plato • ex Adapted From "The Timaeus" and "The Critias", which appear to be two different "dialogues". • Interplanetary Warfare [from A True History] • Lucian of Samosata • ex, 165 No date given, even Lucian's birth and death dates are approximated. Taken from a translation by A. M. Harmon in the Loeb Classical Library. • The Moon-Voyage [from Somnium] • Johannes Kepler • ex, 1634 Adapted from Somnium, unstated as to who by. • Visitors from Outer Space [from Micromegas] • Voltaire • ex London: D. Wilson & T. Durham, 1753 Not stated as from Micromégas, might be the whole thing? • The Conquest of the Air [from The Balloon Hoax] • Edgar Allan Poe • ex The Sun Apr 13, 1844 Not stated as from The Balloon Hoax, I suspect this is the whole thing. • Into the Unknown [from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Nemo] • Jules Verne • ex Merlin Press, Inc. Mar 20, 1869 Acknowledgement given to Arco Publications for the excerpt from the "Fitzroy" Edition.

The rest look fine. I don't own any other editions of these stories to compare, and don't particularly want to read any of these ones! I wasn't confident enough to add dates or make (excerpt) variants or suchlike then, and without a few other editions to discuss I can't say that I am now either. What brought this title to your notice? Do you have one or more of the contents? BLongley 12:22, 8 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * One other thought: the Bibliography includes references to titles such as this award-winner and this stub title. Might it be worth recording in the notes? I'd prefer it if we could link these back like we do with reviews, but sometimes it's to a title, sometimes to a particular pub. And although I always check the Fiction bibliographies in my pubs, sometimes they are so dangerously wrong I put a warning on them! So I do waver on whether they're useful or not, what do you think? BLongley 12:37, 8 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Van Vogt - Collection or Novel?
Bill have a look at the title update and the Berkley(1966) publication i entered and its note. My next change would be to change the title from a Coll. to a Novel. The contents give the references back to the short stories. This maybe a solution to the "fix ups" :-)Kraang 21:42, 11 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * It's one way, yes: the other way I was thinking of was to use the Centaurus series to group them, I think if you put the novel title into the same series they would show up as a group without having to put the contents into each publication. (Which is a pain after creation, with no "clone contents into other pub" option.) By the way, did you not find the right cover in any of the sites I found? ;-) BLongley 12:33, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * Is that the japanese site? Is it safe to install the language thing?Kraang 20:04, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * I've not tried any "language thing" installations - there's no point really, "?? ??? ?????? ?????" makes as much sense to me as the properly-represented Japanese characters would! But I have English-language permissions received from all but the French site, so if you see the right picture, use it! (And do the crediting/informing as stated on the biblio notes.) If you have something they don't have, the Icelander wants the new scans most - the other two prefer to stick to editions they own.
 * Anyway, I'm off to bed with my new "Tyranopolis" for now... I seem to be buying books just for ISFDB research purposes, might as well READ them too! BLongley 20:22, 12 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Note to Self 2
Don't leave Notes to Self of things to do when a) people finally start discussing policies for once, and b) you get a set of new books arriving that make you realise you: 1) know nothing about Graphic Novellas and/or Graphic Short-Stories in Collections, 2) don't know what the policy is for abbreviated versions of classic novels that don't actually CREDIT the classic Author on title page, 3) have to enter 94 Essays by Spider Robinson, while checking whether any are actually short stories, and 4) now have to add notes to some cover-art URLs to explain that the "wear and tear" is actually PRINTED onto the actually pristine book cover, it isn't because you scanned a badly-kept copy. Oh well, ONE arrival was easily entered and verified, and two were non-ISFDB books and I don't work on the IDFDB. (The Internet Dick Francis Database.) But if over 50% of today's arrivals cause so many issues, I may yet wish I hadn't got another dozen books on order... BLongley 18:06, 20 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Amazon Image URL
I have cloned the Deathworld 3 publication that you verified and noticed that the pub record contains this cryptic Amazon image URL: http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/ciu/5a/cc/b6ddf96642a0c800a3b33110.L.jpg

Did you enter this URL? If so, can you give me a hint how you found out about it so that I could find similarly good images for other publications that I enter? The "New Novel" help screen that I usually consult has only one or two examples of a "benign" :-) URL that uses the ISBN as the key, but these examples have not produced anything useful for me so far. Herzbube 20:05, 6 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, I entered it. It's an Amazon "Customer Image" URL. (See Here for the source page.) You usually have to hunt them down as Customer images only appear on the product details pages, not on search lists: and there may be several to choose from as well. The US Amazon site has quite a few (thanks to people like Jim Gardner who has provided several THOUSAND of them!), for the UK site I usually have to scan and upload my own covers, as I did in this case. Once you've found them, just right-click on the large image and use "Copy Image location". BLongley 04:42, 7 Jul 2007 (CDT)
 * I try to add the covers to the page that the ISBN search turns up, but that's often totally wrong and impossible to get Amazon to correct, and preferably to the site of the country of publication - but it's often tempting to add them to the US site by default as the images get published there in minutes, rather than in days on the UK one. :-/ BLongley 04:42, 7 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, I'll see what I can do for future edits.
 * Btw: I agree that conversations should be kept together. Therefore when I add a comment to a page I put that page on my watch list so I will notice any changes when I come back to ISFDB. Unfortunately, I cannot visit the site very frequently so I am usually a bit slow in responding. I do try to come back 2-3 times a week, though. Herzbube 14:56, 10 Jul 2007 (CDT)

'Kjwalll'kje'k'koothailll'kje'k by Roger Zelazny
Bill, please check out this pub that you Verified, and then see the article with the same header as this one on Marc Kupper's Talk Page. So far every story we have found in a pub has had the "ï" instead of the "i". Thanks. CoachPaul 16:16, 8 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, answered there with a new can of worms opened too. ;-) BLongley

Expedition to Earth by Clarke
Bill, you verified this pub last week and I wanted to ask you about several stories and their Copyright dates.


 * 1. Inheritance
 * 2. Nemesis
 * 3. Encounter in the Dawn

You have the dates down as, in order, 1954, 1954, 1954, yet other editions of the same book, and other books too have the dates as 1947, 1950, and 1953. Could you please double check these dates? Thank You. CoachPaul 23:45, 9 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, there's no copyright dates for the individual stories in my pub, so I'm pretty sure I didn't enter them. Let me see what I can sleuth. BLongley 13:07, 10 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Ok: there's some missing merges:
 * For Inheritance - 1947 was by "Charles Willis", 1954 would be the first UK publication under Clarke's own name. Scott Latham has a dubious Willis sighting from 1953 though. So the Clarke variant will eventually end up as 53 or 54 when he's checked that.
 * Similar for Nemesis: it wasn't called that till 1954, it seems. But I'll ask Scott to check that too in the same pub.
 * Encounter in the Dawn has a variant Encounter AT Dawn but that's not the first use according to my "Time and Stars" pub. Unfortunately that's not verified in the original magazine yet, and I can't say my Encounter AT Dawn is the first. It's more likely to be the Gollancz hc one at least.
 * For now, I'll do the merges and leave notes on the variant titles/authors. BLongley 13:47, 10 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Of course, I've now broken all your examples except the pub you mentioned - but is it clearer now? Or more confusing? We've not yet totally agreed on how variants should be displayed. :-/ The data is still there, though the display may not be as you wanted/expected. BLongley 15:38, 10 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Matrix
Bill, I see that you are entering Matrixes as Magazines. I wonder if they may be fanzines rather than magazines for our purposes. According to the BSFA Web site, they are "free to members of the BSFA or can be purchased at genre conventions and BSFA event". What do you think? Ahasuerus 15:22, 15 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, the ones so far have ISSNs and were published more broadly than that site suggests - e.g. I used to pick up the occasional copy at Forbidden Planet in London, who are not known for selling magazines they don't make a profit on. I'm sure earlier issues will prove to be more Fanzineish - mainly because I've seen some of them already. Still, they had ISSNs right back into the Duplicated-and-stapled days so ISSN isn't the only requirement, I'm sure.
 * Incidentally, I'm stopping entering the stubs for now, the next lot need contents recording whereas the ones I've entered can be filled in later from here for instance. I'm very aware that I only have the BSFA fanzines/magazines temporarily, but maybe I can shame the next owners into entering their contents here.... BLongley 16:17, 15 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Makes sense -- the divide between fanzines and semiprozines has been getting fuzzier over the last few decades. I guess we will just have to make "executive decisions" from time to time :) Ahasuerus 16:57, 15 Jul 2007 (CDT)

The Devil's Day - missing and duplicated pages
My Baen pb edition is a first printing. It is missing pages 193-224 and pages 225-256 are duplicated. Any chance your copy has the same problem. I remember having to dig out the magazine serial to finish reading the book. It's amazing how many differences there were in the serial and the book with the book having more explicit language.--swfritter 19:26, 17 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * No, my first Baen printing is complete. I guess yours is a mis-binding rather than a mis-print? BLongley 01:29, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Thanks. I may make an entry in the notes indicating that some books from the print run are mis-bound.--swfritter 09:46, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Expedition to Earth by Arthur C. Clarke...Again
Back to this pub you Verified again. I'm trying to determine if the short story "History Lesson" is a variant of the short story "Expedition to Earth" on page 80 of this pub. Does the story start out "No one could remember"... and then end with "A Walt Disney Production"? Thanks, CoachPaul 12:22, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, it does. There's one other small clue in the pub. ;-) On the page after the contents list there's a statement: "Expedition to Earth" appeared in Science Fantasy under the title "History Lesson". I missed it before, presumably because I'd expect such a statement to be on the Copyright page. BLongley 12:32, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * It gets worse! I found this little tidbit on an Arthur C. Clarke fansite. '"Expedition to Earth": This is not a new story. Depending on publication, it is either "History Lesson" or "Encounter at Down". To make things even more confusing, "Encounter at Down" is also sometimes published as "Encounter in the Down".'  "Encounter at Down" being a misspelling of "Encounter at Dawn".  This may explain why this copy of "Expedition Earth(COL)", Verified by Scott Latham contains both "History Lesson" and "Expedition to Earth(ss)", but not "Encounter at Dawn".  I haven't noticed anything from Scott for about a month now, but I have to assume that the "Expedition to Earth(ss)" in that pub is really "Encounter at Dawn".  Any ideas how to handle this problem? CoachPaul 13:21, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * I thought we had two separate Title records for "Expedition to Earth" as recently as a couple of months ago when I was last working on Clarke's biblio. I wonder if somebody accidentally merged the two thinking that they were duplicates? Ahasuerus 13:53, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * We apparently did, until nine days ago when it appears I merged them after adding another title, but there were no notes nor was either a variant of anything. I'll straighten it out and make notes so that it doesn't happen again. CoachPaul 14:18, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)

OK, I'd like some of the more experienced mods to go and check out what I did, here, then here, and then here. Feel free to massage anything that you feel needs clarifying. CoachPaul 15:13, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Spectrum 4 anthology
Bill, can you check to see if this verified edition had an ISBN? I'm verifying our database against Tuck (three days and I'm already up to Amis on page 8 of 500+, *sigh*), and he shows a catalog number of M193 for this first Pan printing. It seems way too early for an ISBN. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:03, 22 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Keep in mind that Great Britain was an "early adopter" of ISBNs in the 1960s, so it's possible that a somewhat later printing had an ISBN, but retained the original publication date. Also, Tuck is strong in some areas, but weak in others -- see Author:C. S. Lewis for an example of a comparative analysis of different biblio sources. Ahasuerus 15:29, 22 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * I saw that the catalog number does connect to the ISBN, but just wanted to make sure. And it's news to me, according to Wikipedia, that the ISBN was created in 1966! I'd have guessed the mid-70s. As for Tuck, I marvel at what he accomplished from Tasmania, and without a computer!  Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:58, 22 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, it has a real ISBN on the bottom left of the back-cover - "0 330 20193 X" - but it's not a first printing, it's a second. Give me a few minutes and I'll go check the rest of the series, but supper is ready. BLongley 16:56, 22 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, I think all my Spectrum editions are 1971 bar the fifth. All but the 4th dates the printing it actually is, the 4th seems to only have date of first printing but it's not stated as a first printing date - but if it really was 1967 it would have a pre-decimal price too and it doesn't. BLongley 17:47, 22 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Since it doesn't have the decimal price can we then assume that it's a later printing? Should we add a 1967 printing with the M193 catalog number? Mhhutchins 15:53, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, that sounds like it would be the first printing. Does Tuck show a price for that? BLongley 15:55, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Tuck shows the price is 5/- Mhhutchins 16:12, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * That's at the high-end of believable, but not unlikely given the size of the collection. I think it's safe to create the stub and hope some older British fans turn up here sooner or later. BLongley 16:19, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, that's a high price. Most of the British pbs that I've been verifying through Tuck have been around 3/6 (or 2/6 earlier in the decade.) But all of the Spectrum series from Pan were at 5/-, even the first published in 1964! I'll go ahead and create a new pub of the first printing with a verification through Tuck.  Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:14, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * After the next backup, I should be able to improve the price cheat-sheet back a few years. Actually, I could probably improve the British prices already, but the pre-decimal format is REALLY hard to work with in SQL! :-/
 * Oh, and if you have any suggestions on where to put suchlike into the Help pages proper, rather than taking up screenfuls of the community portal, feel free to suggest where I stick it. ;-) BLongley 20:45, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)

George H. Smith [2]
I think the underlying problem with George H. Smith is that his middle name was reportedly Henry, but he wrote as "George H. Smith", "G. H. Smith" and "George Hudson Smith". If you check swfritter's note on this page from a couple of months, there is evidence that his legal middle name was actually "Hudson". If true, that would mean that "Henry" was just some eager bibliographer's assumption, which then spread all over the Web. Ahasuerus 13:42, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Not just all over the web, but into Clute/Nicholls too, and the interview with George Henry Smith I'm holding here. :-/ Can you interpret swfritter's comments as to his sources? So far everything I've seen, Web and paper, still says "Henry" is the legal name and "Hudson" is the pseudonym, which is why I'm checking everything I can find. BLongley 14:04, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * The Locus database seems to suggest that the middle name was Henry. The aka site says:


 * Smith, George H(enry) (1922-1996) -- [M.J. Deer, Jan Hudson, Jerry Jason, Clancy O'Brien, George Hudson Smith, Jan Smith, Hal Stryker, Diana Summers]
 * Smith, George Hudson -- George H(enry) Smith


 * So it would appear that the sources that swfriter cited above all suggest that the middle name was actually "Henry". I wonder if it was a typo of some sort and we should double check with him? Ahasuerus 14:30, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, I thought those were the sites he meant, only the 'Barry McGhan' comment was a complete 'huh?'. I've looked at a couple of dozen cover-scans now and seen "Henry"s and "H."s but no "Hudson"s, it appears that was only used in so-far unverified magazines (although the "Henry" magazine entries mostly are verified.) We don't have a G. H. Smith here, but we do have 'Hal Stryker'. I think I'll leave it for now and ask swfritter to look here before fixing any more. BLongley 14:46, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * I believe "Barry McGhan" was a reference to McGhan's Science Fiction and Fantasy Pseudonyms. Of, course, "McGhan" may be a pseudonym :) Ahasuerus 12:10, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)

van Vogt's Enchanted Village
Bill, can you verify that the story in this edition has "The" in its title? Thanks. Mhhutchins 10:49, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, on both contents and title page. BLongley 13:34, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * Thanks, I've created a variant for the title. Mhhutchins 14:27, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)


 * I can confirm the other variant too. Yeesh, that has an AWFUL cover! No wonder it's not credited.... BLongley 17:28, 31 Jul 2007 (CDT)

SQL to approximate my own list from my ISFDB Verifications
select DISTINCT p.pub_title, a.author_legalname, a.author_canonical, p.pub_ctype, s.series_title, t.title_seriesnum, p.pub_isbn, p.pub_price from verification v, pubs p, pub_authors pa, pub_content pc, authors a, titles t left join series s on t.series_id = s.series_id where v.pub_id = p.pub_id and v.reference_id = 1 and v.user_id IN (2781, 4121) and pa.pub_id = p.pub_id and pc.pub_id = p.pub_id and pa.author_id = a.author_id and pc.title_id = t.title_id /* and a.author_canonical like 'A%' */ and t.title_ttype IN ('NOVEL', 'ANTHOLOGY','COLLECTION') ORDER BY 2,5,6,1 LIMIT 5000;

I need to fix some legal names, get a new backup, and to rewrite the above to include ALL pubs by authors I've verified at least one pub by, with a Got/Not Got flag. THEN I can threaten bookshops again! Mwa ha ha ha HA! BLongley 16:21, 1 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Star Mouse - Frederic Brown
Bill, I added the contents to Space on My Hands for the Bantam edition (the hard way) copying the data from the verified version already in place. In a different volume which you verified, the entry is marked as a short story while in the verified volume for this title it says novellete. There is also the title "The Star Mouse" for which this title is a variant and that Kraang verified - marked as a novellete. So now I'm not sure what to do. I've held off verifying this in hopes you can give me some direction. Thanks,TFRANK 01:27, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm not too bothered which way it goes - to me, a story is short-fiction until it gets big enough to be published stand-alone (older books) or counted as a short novel in an omnibus (later pubs when they can't get away with such a slim volume any more). I usually leave new entries as 'shortfiction' and let someone else's counting stand when the title gets merged. It seems that on this occasion I created it by cloning, or it still wouldn't have a sub-category. I think it probably came from this pub - it's much easier to clone and remove titles than to enter from scratch. Which is were the problem arises, that's only 16 pages and mine is 25: and help says:


 * 1) ss - Shortstory - A work whose length is less than or equal to 7,500 words. (Roughly, 20 or fewer pages in a book.)
 * 2) nt - Novelette - A work whose length is greater than 7,500 words and less than or equal to 17,500 words. (Roughly 20 to 50 pages in a book.)
 * I'm happy to change mine to novelette and leave the hardcover owner to decide if his or hers is a cut-down version though. It's too borderline for me to care much: I rarely worry unless an award was given for a particular length story. Feel free to do an exact word-count if you care more though! BLongley 12:20, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I decided to give my copy a quick count and in this size paperback the 25 pages yield about 6600 words. So Short Story it is.TFRANK 22:27, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)

"April Fools' Day Forever" by Kate Wilhelm
Bill, you verified this pub with the Title of the Story listed as "April Fools' Day Forever", but the Title is listed under the Nebula Award Nominations, and in my copy of "Orbit 7" as "April Fool's Day Forever". Could you please double check to see if the apostrophe comes before or after the "s". Thank you. CoachPaul 15:38, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * It's after, on copyright page (referring to the Orbit 7 publication), contents, and title page. I haven't read it to check if it's mentioned in the story, but all the usual places say after. BLongley 15:50, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Are you referring to the hc Orbit 7? CoachPaul 16:11, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * It refers to "'April Fools' Day Forever' from Orbit 7, copyright 1970 Damon Knight. Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons." Probably a hardcover but I can't say from the edition I have. Most UK first paperback publications will refer to the first hardback edition, even if published by a different company altogether, as they've dickered over the publishing rights. It's not absolutely guaranteed that a hardback came first though, especially in these days of trade paperbacks possibly being the first version: but in this case I'd be about 95% sure the Putnam edition was a hardcover. BLongley 17:12, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Also, what are "The usual places"? Contento lists it as before, as does The Nebula Awards pages at Wikipedia, Locus, and Award Web (Which is a direct link from the SFWA Nebula page).  CoachPaul 16:11, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I meant "usual places on the publication itself". For instance, a shortfiction title is 95% sure to be listed on the contents page, 98% on the first page of the story entry itself, and 80% sure to be mentioned to SOME extent on the copyright page. The UNusual places would be in a "Bibliography" or an "About the Author" section, for instance. Although those are VERY useful sections at times. BLongley 17:12, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm afraid I don't rate secondary sources as highly as some here do. Locus, Contento and Tuck seem up there in the 90-100% range, but I wouldn't waste my own time verifying those sources here, if there's a chance we'll get a primary one instead. When it comes to small matters of punctuation I don't think they're as diligent as we at the ISFDB are becoming. I'm not sure if that's a totally good thing - personally I don't care where the apostrophe appears in this example, until I get round to reading it then I may have an opinion on grammatical grounds maybe. Which won't change the bibliographical grounds at all. I'm in favour of accuracy, but I'm also in favour of keeping this site usable - so create as many variants as are needed, but when we start breaking the search facility I think we may be going too far. So go ahead with as many "Fool's", "Fools'", "Fool's'", or "Fools" as required in this case, just make sure they all link up! The apostrophe is becoming a major nuisance here - anything with an apostrophe in seems to get regarded as a change and needs reviewing. :-( BLongley 17:12, 3 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Digits and Dastards
A small detail: I have a copy of this pub that you verified. On the back cover of my copy the front cover illustration is credited to someone named "SOLUTION". Can you confirm this? Herzbube 13:04, 8 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, it has that. Is "SOLUTION" a known artist or a design company? If you don't know, I suppose we could ask Unapersson about the only other reference... BLongley 13:34, 8 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I have no idea about who or what "SOLUTION" is. I suppose we could ask Unapersson, but is it really relevant to know more about the artist (or design company, or whatever it is)? I am rather indifferent in this case, I just want the information to be recorded in the ISFDB. Herzbube 13:59, 9 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * "If in doubt, add notes." I'd like the Cover Artist field to be kept for Artists, but I know we have photographers and design companies in there too. And there's cases where the author is the sculptor of the model photographed by someone for the design company that created the cover... :-/ I suspect "SOLUTION" isn't an individual artist so I'd go for notes, but like you I'm rather indifferent. I lean slightly toward the "SOLUTION will never get his own birth or death dates recorded if he's not an individual, so I don't really want an automatically created Author entry for him" side. Although he already gets one thanks to Unapersson. BLongley 14:25, 9 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I've added the cover to this one. It says "illustration by Solution", which suggests an individual rather that a company though I guess they might have taken turns with the pen. --Unapersson 17:05, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * In an attempt to finish this business, I have taken the liberty to add an explaining note to "your" :-) publication. Maybe the explanation should have been more detailed? Please feel free to modify the wording, or even investigate further. Herzbube 11:57, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * That's fine. I'm not that possessive about my verifications - in fact, I've already proposed another verification level for "OK, this matched my pub, but I'm not going to hang onto the pub for other people to question me about it forever". So long as it's factual and correct for all copies of that edition I don't mind edits - if you add a personal comment like "This book is rubbish", or "a price-sticker wrecked my copy" then it's best signed. If in doubt: ask first - but you know that already. BLongley 15:08, 16 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * If a pub is verified, I always ask first before I edit. Even if the proposed edit is something simple, I regard this as a kind of courtesy (and it's always possible to make a mistake, so double-checking is better).
 * Regarding your comment about signing post-verification edits: Would you agree that such signing is necessary only if the verifier is not available for dicussing the edit before it occcurs? My reasoning here is: if the verifier is available, and if I have discussed the matter with him/her and got his/her consent to make the edit, no signing should be necessary because the verifier practically could have made the edit himself/herself. Herzbube 13:25, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Well, how long do you wait to see if they're available? And if the original verifier didn't care enough to add the note themselves, do they really care enough to keep explaining it when someone else was actually the person that cared to do it? I think in those cases the person(s) adding extra information should take responsibility for at least what they added, if not for the whole publication. Some records are a combination of SEVERAL editor's work, much unattributed: e.g. some of my verifications could have a date that's not on the publication, and an artist I can't see credited, and an obliterated price. I just leave notes about what's on my pub, and what's NOT, but if someone wants to say they think they have the same edition WITH a price, and someone else thinks the artist is so-and-so, and someone else says the date came from a later printing, that's fine. But we'd NEED four people signing it in some way (verification counting as one) to answer all the questions.  BLongley 14:12, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)
 * Someone with ALL the above knowledge could come along and "take over" responsibility I suppose. I can and will eventually unverify my "BillLongley" pubs and reverify them as "BLongley" for instance - I'm not sure if that's just because I'm a moderator or if anyone can do it, but I suspect it's socially unacceptable to do that to another person, and definitely not acceptable if they're active. At the moment, "Top Verifier" looks a bit competitive and I don't want to encourage "Verification Theft"! BLongley 14:12, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Another question: Was it ever discussed to let more than one person verify a publication? I am thinking of something like a "me too" verification level, that I could use to say "I also own this book and can verify that the data presented here is correct, but you should treat the first verifier as the authority if you have questions". If the first verifier then drops out of the universe, one of the "me too" verifiers could be promoted to be the authority on the pub.
 * Herzbube 13:25, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Oh, it's been discussed and officially requested :) Ahasuerus 13:50, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, Multiple Verifiers is an open Feature request. But we've also discussed what verification actually means a few times too - I can't always verify every field available, and certainly won't have verified any new fields that get added in future to pubs I've verified NOW. "Printing Number" is something I'm adding a lot of notes about for instance: but if we add it to all pubs, then almost everyone else suddenly has verified a pub with a default printing number, or a calculated number, or as having NO printing number. Similarly if we add a field for "Translator" - none of my verified pubs would actually have verified that field, whereas some do have that. BLongley 14:12, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)
 * If we went to field level verification we could avoid all that, any new fields would start unverified: but it makes verification far slower if you have to choose which fields you ARE verifying. And we still couldn't convert all the current ones if we don't agree on WHAT we've verified. So DO join in the discussions: we're not yet totally fixed in our ways, and people with opinions NOW will help form the standards to be followed for generations yet to come. ;-) Don't think in terms of "there's a helpful bunch of people creating a great resource" - think in terms of "this data will be around forever, and the people won't", and help create the legacy! Maybe your descendants will look back at great-great-grandad Herzbube as an important historian - I doubt they'll be unfreezing you from your cryogenic coffin to ask you about that remarkable comment you made about a block of paper though. :-/ BLongley 14:12, 22 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Variant Title
Bill, I was entering data for John Carnell's "Lambda I and Other Stories" for the 1964 edition and I see that the edition you have lists the essay as Introduction while mine lists it as Forward. Both appear in the data base and I'm thinking one should be the variant of the other. What do you recommend?TFRANK 23:05, 9 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * I don't think they're the same piece of text, unless your foreword refers to stories not actually in the book! Also, the Introduction to the English book is dated as written after the US book was first published. So I don't think we want variants in this case. BLongley

Lankar of Callisto
Bill I added the cover artist to your verified pub .Kraang 19:22, 14 Aug 2007 (CDT)


 * Yep, that's the right one. Although at some point I might exchange it - I've got half the series in Orbit and half in Dell and I prefer consistency. BLongley 12:56, 15 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Three for Tomorrow
You verified Three for Tomorrow with that title. Does the cover or spine of your edition say "3 For Tomorrow?" The first printing's cover uses "3 For Tomorrow" though Sphere switched to a different cover art for the edition you have and may well have switched the cover title to "Three For Tomorrow". 18:17, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Is this your cover? 18:25, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)

One irritation with Amazon is that back-to-back searches may return wildly different results. A few minutes ago I had looked for Dell editions, found one that had the cover that matched mine, and needed to find the original Amazon record again. No luck! But, I did find http://www.amazon.com/Three-Tomorrow-Arthur-C-Clarke/dp/B000PD72NK which has a fine cover scan downloaded by a Mr. Bill Longley that identifies this as "Sphere 1973 paperback reprint." - oh - you must have just added that as now the cover shows on the ISFDB listing.... :) 18:33, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Yep, I added that as evidence... now I have to rewrite the post I was going to make as you've just disrupted my talk page again... :-/ BLongley 19:08, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)
 * "Three" is spelt out in full on spine, cover, title page. I've updated the pub with a scan of my version. BLongley 19:08, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * You have a comment against another edition: "One AbeBook seller of what looks like this edition says the ISBN is 0-7221-2411-2. This looks like an unusual code and would also pre-date when ISBNs came in common use. This code needs to be double checked against a physical publication."
 * It actually looks fine to me: Sphere are often (usually?) "07221" prefix, "#24112" matches the rest. Remember that the ISBN standard was derived from the SBN standard, and many publishers in the UK were using it in the late 1960s. (I think it was almost REQUIRED before "W. H. Smith" would stock a book at some point.) So although the physical editions may have a shorter version printed on them, they were already "uniquely" classified. "Sphere" + "1972" + "24112" is as good as "7221" + "24112" later.
 * It's possibly only when the "1" prefix became a necessary option rather than "0", that things started getting really complicated: and nowadays an ISBN won't distinguish a US version from a British version, or, I'm sure, many others. I'm verifying a lot of US books that just got a UK price stickered onto it. And it seems from the Bantam/Corgi editions of the Blish Star Trek books that over-printing of prices means a lot of publications are actually down to one publisher alone. So this confusion may go back to 1973 or so at least. :-( BLongley 19:08, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, I wandered off and posted some other examples of differing editions of a title for review... but back on topic, it may be that we need to make it clearer when an ISBN (useful entry) is actually derived from an SBN (as it's a No-Brainer for British editors). When I derive it from less than nine digits I add the reasoning, and check that the result Googles correctly. I actually use your tool to start with. BLongley 19:55, 8 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * &gt;nowadays an ISBN won't distinguish a US version from a British version
 * Actually, you can tell the UK and US (and many other English language) editions apart from the ISBN.


 * I don't think that is true anymore. See titles like . I've checked enough Buffy novels recently to prove that there are both UK and US printed and priced Pocket Books sharing the same ISBN. Further back, even in the 1970s US-published Bantam books were being over-printed as Corgi books, so UK books appeared to have US ISBNs - I can't see any signs of these being included in later printing Histories, but do they count as UK publications? BLongley 13:20, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * However, a full treatment of how to do this is a novella in itself. I have the code and it's being used on www.fantasticfiction.co.uk to display ISBNs as being US, UK, Canada (English), Canada (French), etc.  In summary, there are blocks of ISBN group codes (that's the part that's just after the initial 0 or 1) assigned to individual countries. Countries in turn hand out (or rather sell...) sub-blocks to publishers.  It's my intent to put this code on the ISBN tool thing at some point. Bill, I'm happy to hear that you are using it.  Google does not provide people with log files and so I have no idea how popular or unpopular parts of the web site are.  One of the other things in the "idea bin" is that the ISBNs blocks are often assigned to publishers.  Oddly, there is no public database that maps from "0-441-xxxxx-x" to "Ace Books" for example. Years ago I started to create a database but realized that my main source (Amazon) was very dirty when it came to publisher names. Now that ISFDB has a fair collection of verified publications I'll revisit the effort as this can also be used for integrity checking. For example, of someone enters 0-7564-0043-0 as an Ace book I should be able to pop up that "0-7564-" is nearly always DAW Books and to please recheck the ISBN and/or publisher.


 * re: 0-7221-2411-2 and the 1972 date being embedded. Hmm, that's an interesting theory but I don't think it's correct.


 * I know it's not correct as that's not what I meant. I mean you have to consider the Year when determining whether it's an (I)SBN - too early a date and it obviously can't be one. But 1972 is well into the UK usage period. BLongley 13:20, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * 0-7221-2411-2 happens to be a valid ISBN and is part of a block (0-7205-xxxx-x to 0-7221-xxxx-x) assigned to the UK (0-7222-xxxx-x is the USA and the UK gets 7223 to 7239). Going back to 0-7222-xxxx-x that seems to be a publisher called "Library Reprints" and they have books in there published from 1877 to the present.  (I assume some those dates are the original publication dates and Amazon is not showing the Library Reprints date...).  Anyway, I know that SBN was around in the 1960s and often ended up looking just like ISBNs.  That's why I added the note to  asking that it be double-checked for 0-7221-2411-2.


 * Sphere seems to have the whole 07221 range. It's one of the more reliable ones: other publishers spread their ISBN allocation over several imprints. BLongley 13:20, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * This does bring up an issue in that often publications have the number formatted in several different ways. For example, it may state #2411 on the cover, 0-7221-2411 on the spine, and 0-7221-2411-2 on the copyright page.  Which should we use in ISFDB?  This is not covered in the help though my personal practice is to use the most "modern" version as the main number but to document all of the other versions in the notes. If an ISBN is not stated I will often check to see if an ISBN can be derived and add comments about this in the notes about the derived ISBN and if it's in use on the Internet.  The reason for this is sometimes a publisher will do an edition with just #2411 and later, during the ISBN era, they will reprint using 0-7221-2411-2. Thus the publisher's catalog # (2411) never changed and so I'll document that I have an edition that states just #2411 though 0-7221-2411-2 can be derived and is in use for later editions of the same book.   20:32, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I put the most modern version (ISBN, typically) in the Catalog ID field and record other identifiers in the Notes field. Thus, if a DAW Publication has an ISBN, a catalog ID and a "DAW Collectors No." listed, I enter the last two in the Notes field. Having said that, I still think that ideally we would have two separate fields, one for ISBNs and one for catalog IDs. It wouldn't cover all permutations (see my DAW example), but I believe that it would be better than the current convention. Ahasuerus 01:15, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * For DAW, I do put the other two references in notes. As I said, I'll create the ISBN where possible (if it's useful for searching) even if it's not quoted in full, but if it's anything more than adding the leading zero I'll add notes. There have been some oddities - e.g. my one German pub has an invalid ISBN printed on it that would make it a Japanese language work, so I entered the corrected one and left notes about the invalid one - the valid one works. Other pubs have invalid ISBNs that I can't determine a correct one for, so I just confirm that yes the printed one IS that bad. BLongley 13:20, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Going back to prefix-checking of ISBNs versus Publisher - yes, I'd like this but we'll need standardisation of Publishers/Imprints to some extent at least to use it. And it varies: the same ISBN can go through three or four imprints quite validly over a few years, whether the publisher has changed depends on how high up the level of company ownership you go. And we need to establish which things to record: e.g. a Spine Imprint may not match the Title-page Imprint or the Copyright page Imprint, and the details of the publisher may be country-specific or worldwide, or actually list EVERY Publishing company owned but not the owner... it's a real can of worms at times. E.g. This book is by Legend, Arrow, or Random House (UK): its reprint is by Orbit or Little, Brown and Company. Still, it's an interesting thing to look into and after the next database backup is available I'll give it another look from the UK POV. BLongley 13:40, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

De Camp's The Tritonian Ring
Bill, can you check to see if this verified copy is the novel only or the collection? Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:09, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I suspect Novel only, as there's no chapters with the other three titles. There's 19 chapters in all though, is there a specific way to check? BLongley 15:21, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * From the way you describe it, I'd believe it's the novel only. The three stories in the Twayne collection were separately titled from the novel. Now I'm rethinking if the Pyramid editions are novel only.  Tuck says they were reprints of the collection.  And Locus says the 1977 Del Rey is also a reprint of the 1953 edition, though doesn't actually call it a collection.  The Del Rey edition has the same number of pages as your verified edition.  Oh, well...thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 15:38, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I'll hang on to this one for a bit then, it was going to move to "Primary (Transient)" status soon, but as the others have only moved into bags and into the car so far, it may be available a while anyway. I'm finding it REALLY hard to part with books! :-/ BLongley 15:42, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Stone God Awakens
Is this a dupe or reprint. --Unapersson 16:23, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Duplicate. Gone now. BLongley


 * The Cover-Art host looks unfamiliar - is it yours? I can still upload mine to Amazon if required, though that one looks better. BLongley 17:00, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Yeah it's mine, I'm going to keep them there until there's a hosting solution in place. Then we can mass import them. --Unapersson 18:35, 10 Sep 2007 (CDT)

War of the Wing Men
Added a price to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WRFTHWNGMN1976 Dana Carson 06:23, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Small world - I started reading this today while waiting to pick up my daughter though have an Ace edition and not the Sphere that's referenced here. 02:35, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Hopefully you are reading The Man Who Counts as opposed to War of the Wing Men. Thankfully, Anderson resisted the temptation to "fix" a 20 year old novel with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but he restored some things that Don Wollheim had changed/added (e.g. the pulpy title) and did some minor cleanup. Ahasuerus 10:51, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I have both, but can't say I've compared the two. I'm not sure I've read EITHER in fact. BLongley 12:49, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * It's about management-techies relationship problems, among other things :) Ahasuerus 15:27, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * OK - when I deduplicate, which do I (as techie) keep and which do I leave on my manager's desk? :-)


 * I don't want to spoil anything, but I suspect that any self-respecting manager should be reasonably happy with either version. Whether a manager may want to be seen reading something as pulpy looking as a paperback titled War of the Wing Men is a different question :) Ahasuerus 16:27, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * It's been a LONG time since I saw a Manager read anything non-work-related. They don't even publicly read Trade magazines now. :-/ I wonder what happened to Bob, the Shift-Manager that twenty-years-back not only didn't mind me reading SF after I'd done all my work, but GAVE me the last two Spectrum Anthologies I'd been missing... BLongley 16:41, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Actually, it's been a good month. I was moved to a new department while on holiday, my team leader was on holiday at the time too and is now just "Principal Developer" for my system and a couple of others, but has had to leave me to it. And the new manager hasn't even SEEN me yet as far as I know. The Business Analyst is leaving, the Project Manager is reassigned soon, the Users love the last release... I think I'm back to "Guru" status. It's a shame I have to teach everyone new, otherwise I'd have time for here as well. :-/ BLongley 15:49, 12 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Achilles' Choice
Added cover image and some details to Achilles' Choice. Please check if thats OK.


 * Looks OK, but it might lead to more work. :-/ I guess we need a proper Interior-Art entry or several. And the Excerpt is actually a complete Short Story, I think (but can't confirm as I don't own the referenced title), so would need a retitling if not a full variant. I'm not sure on the credit for the "Steven Barnes on Larry Niven" either - "from a conversation with Steven Barnes" suggest it might be someone else writing it. Oh well, some useful examples for the standards discussions there... And I've learnt how to use the "Unsigned" Template at last! BLongley 16:57, 17 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * OK made some updates due to your comments. Dana Carson 00:04, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, approved, although I did go back and correct the spelling of the short story title, and put the Interiorart entry back from "illustrations" (which would be an EXTREMELY vague title for Boris!) back to the name of the publication. (Which I think is the current standard - I'm not totally sure, that's changed a bit recently I think. Must read up on that before I verify "Enchantment".) Have a look - I'm quite willing to unverify this pub (or move it to "primary (transient)" although I will be keeping it) if you'd like to take over responsibility for it! :-) BLongley 15:28, 18 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The Iron Thorn
I accidentally approved this before I realized it was yours. 16:58, 16 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I noticed - no problem, was going to do it myself anyway. BLongley 17:26, 16 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Moderatorizing ChrisJ
I am happy to report that the latest round of nagging was successful! Since you were the original nagger :), do you want to start the process on the Community Portal? Ahasuerus 20:58, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * OK, started. About time too... I got back home yesterday to see Dana and Chris as the major contributors to a queue of about 50 submissions, it'll be good to get them self-approving! Now, who do we nag next? It seems we have two nicely active magazine editors, but only one is communicating well so far... still, not my speciality, the blackjack should go to swfritter for that maybe? BLongley 14:41, 26 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Planets Three
Bill, I see that you verified Pohl's Planets Three the other day. Could you please check if the last two stories were published as by "James MacCreigh" or if that attribution was a carryover from Contento? Thanks! Ahasuerus 17:52, 30 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Whoops! I knew I put that aside for a reason, thanks for reminding me... It's a carryover from Contento I think, but technically if we go by the "Title page trumps cover, spine and copyright page" they're all by Frederick Pohl. There's no author mentioned on the contents page, or the title page or first page of the stories, to trump THAT, although the Introduction does say they were all published as by "James MacCreigh" originally. I've left it as a note though, it doesn't seem worth a variant for an inherited error.
 * I'd better go check the rest of the introduction, it mentions some other pseudonyms I was going to check. The sudden excitement of a new (to me) junk-shop locally that has yielded 65 SF pubs for a total of £6.50(!) meant I've been back to more basic scanning and entry recently. BLongley 13:09, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)


 * Hmmm... that didn't go quite according to plan... but "Warren F. Howard" should be fixed now. The others mentioned were already represented here although have fewer titles than the intro implies. BLongley 13:48, 1 Oct 2007 (CDT)