User talk:Gilgamesh

Welcome!
Hello,, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
 * Help pages
 * What the ISFDB Wiki is for
 * ISFDB FAQ
 * Help:Screen:EditPub - Warning and a note on how to update a publication's contents
 * Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~&#126;); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Marc Kupper (talk) 14:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Images
Hello - I approved your updates and addition of images. Three notes about the images.


 * 1) The image link need to be to the image itself and not the wiki page for the image.  From an image such as Image:MissionOfGravity1stEd.jpg you would click on the "Full Resolution" link that's just below the image.  That will take you to the image file itself where you can get it's URL. (or you can right click on "Full Resolution" and select Copy Shortcut or Copy Link Location depending on which browser you use).
 * 2) As you have probably noticed - we don't have the image scaling library installed meaning they don't display on the image's wiki page for now.
 * 3) Image uploading is fairly new to ISFDB and uploads remind me that we need to develop standards in a couple of areas.
 * 4) I've noticed that most people are naming them using the ISFDB publication tag.  Thus we will see an image file such as Image:RCTRSLNDNG1978.jpg and can translate that to the matching publication at .  This also means we don't need to get creative in figuring out what name to use.
 * 5) While I love the full size scans you did I suspect we need to scale them to be no more than 500 pixels high or wide. The issue is copyrights and fair use.  Amazon.com seems to have set a defacto standard of no more than 500 pixels though I have no idea if this has ever been tested in court. The law does not lay out specific sizes or percentages.  What you have uploaded so far at 800 pixels looks fine but this is a heads up.  I'll start discussions on the Rules and standards discussions page.

Here's the publication's you have updated so far. Could you also please verify then and mark them as verified? The link for this is at the bottom of the Editing Tools list at the left of the page. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Images of more than 600 pixels (in the larges dimension) will not display on the wiki pages, until/unless we add the "image magic" library that supports dynamic down-scaling (and other features). Therefore I for one prefer to keep all images under 600 pixels in each dimension if at all possible. -DES Talk 20:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Titus Groan
I have approved the addition of the 1983 Penguin edition of Titus Groan, but I am not sure I understand the comment in the Notes field, "1974 reprint". Is this printing a reprint of the 1974 Penguin edition, perhaps? Ahasuerus 06:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good, thanks! Ahasuerus 16:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Spacecraft 2000 to 2100
You submitted this as a publication of 902091. Is this book Spacecraft 2000 to 2100 a re-titling of Great Space Battles? In that case we will need to set up a varient title. (See Help: How to record a variant title.) Or does it incorporate Great Space Battles? Or just what is the relationship between the two titles?

I have placed your submission on hold, pending your response. -DES Talk 13:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * From the wikipedia article, it looks as if Spacecraft 2000 to 2100 and Great Space Battles are two different books in the TTA series. Is that correct? -DES Talk 20:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Spacewreck
A couple of points on thsi submisison:


 * We indicate subtitles with a colon, not a hyphen or dash. See Help:Screen:EditPub.
 * Is this actually a novel, as you have specified? The only description I could find, from a vendor, makes is seem to be a collection of short stories with lots of full-color art. Or is this actually a book of "collected art"? 98 pages is rather short for a novel, and the phrase on the cover "A Terran Trade Authority handbook" does not sound like a novel either, although who knows. -DES Talk 14:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * See Wikipedia - these appear to be art books with some fiction, but watch out if the RPG books start appearing in the submission queue. BLongley 18:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This could lead to an interesting use of multiple "coverart" records, too, as content. BLongley 18:20, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

The submission is on hold, pending your response. -DES Talk 14:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Starliners - Commercial Spacetravel in 2200 AD
This has the same issues as does Spacewreck (and appears to be part of the same publication series):
 * The sub-title should be separated from the title by a colon, not a hyphen
 * Is this really a novel?

The first is a minor matter of form, which i would have just corrected (and let you know about for the future). But the second requires knowledge of the contents, and is more important. Please describe these books, so that we can get their category correct. I have put the submission on hold, pending your response. Thank you. -DES Talk 14:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Space Stuff: A Reply
Guys, as I'm a newbie I'm going to make some mistakes. That's my (dubious) qualification.

Anyway, what I did (and I shouldn't have..) is cloned the publication that was already there and didn't ensure all fields were completed correctly. I thought about that afterwards and I wanted to go back and view/correct my possible mistakes, but didn't know how.

So, what I think should be corrected:
 * The colon thing for the subtitles as you pointed out.
 * Spacecraft and Great Space Battles are different books.
 * Spacecraft 2000 - 2100 AD should have a publication date of 1978 (I suspect I didn't enter it correctly).
 * Regarding the content... Spacecraft and Starliners are really reference books as their names suggest.  SW and GSB more like a collection of short stories, (though they could also be thought of as a reference books of a sort).  I'm not sure how to classify them, though as 'Collections' might be the best bet.
 * Interesting suggestion about the Cover Art thing. There are many instances of cover art contained in these volumes.

Regarding familiarity with the content, I don't contribute anything that isn't in my collection. On a related note, should I be verifying things once they are accepted??

Gilgamesh 10:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As I held these, i will make the needed corrections, consulting you if I need to. In the current state of the software, once you submit an edit the is no way to change it except by waiting until the edit is aproved and re-editing, or asking a moderator to reject the edit, or to re-edit on your behalf. That is probably best done on the Moderator noticeboard, but could also be done with a personal msg to an individual moderator. The ISFDB software is complex (because the task is complex, with many possibilities) and not always obvious, nor is our help all that we might wish it to be. Feel free to ask for assitance, and to post when a task is unclear or the help isn't as helpful as you would like.
 * When you have a copy of the publication, do please verify once your edits are approved. Also feel free to verify any publication record for which you have the book/magazine and for which the data is correct and complete, even if you didn't enter it. (If it is incorrect or incomplete, please fix it first, of course.) If the book is one you expect not to have access to in future, plese use "Primary (Transient)" verification. You can also use "Primary (Transient)" as a "me too", to confirm an existing verification with which you agree.
 * Thanks for your contributions, and everyone needs time to learn this system. -DES Talk 13:48, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I have now made all the edits I think are needed (and that I have data for), including adding some other publications of these books, and adding them all to a series: . All of the various titles and publications can be reached from the series link. Please check them, and add such further information as may be appropriate, and verify what you can. Additional contents for 902091 would be helpful. -DES Talk 22:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Iceworld
I added the Pub= parameter to Image:ICEWRLD1953.jpg‎, to get the link from the wiki image description page to the db pub record. Please add this to images you upload in future if you can.

Please don't forget to notify the verifier of your additions to a verifed pub.

Thanks for your contributions. -DES Talk 02:41, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The Robot and the Man
I have approved/massaged The Robot and the Man and had a few questions/comments:


 * Is there a "Foreword" by Martin Greenberg in the book?
 * I removed the following note: "The dating of the individual stories may be inaccurate. Years are inaccurate and there is no mention of months in the book itself.  Those listed here may be sourced from elsewhere." Keep in mind that the copyright pages that you find in books typically use the copyright year for each story. Copyright dates are not always the same as the year/date when the story was first published since copyright can be secured before the story was published or it may be renewed later, so it's quite unreliable. Our month information generally comes from other publications, so you can click on one of the story titles, e.g. "Self Portrait" by Bernard Wolfe and you will see that it first appeared in Galaxy in November 1951.
 * You wanted to change John D. MacDonald's "The Mechanical Answer" to simply "Mechanical Answer". If you check the story's history, you will see that it first appeared in Astounding as "The Mechanical Answer", so what we want to do in this case is to create a variant title rather than change the title since changing the title would change it in all other publications. This is a well known "gotcha" in our design and we have documented the "safe" way to make these changes in Help. As Help:Screen:EditPub points out:


 * When you are viewing or editing an ISFDB publication record, the data in the upper part of the page is from the publication record and the data in the Contents section is composed from ISFDB title records. ISFDB has one big "gotcha" in that if you make changes to anything in the Contents section -- other than the page numbers -- you will be updating the original title record which can be referenced from multiple publications. Thus, ISFDB editors should keep in mind the following points:


 * The Page field for each title listed belongs with the publication record and can be edited without affecting other publications or author bibliographic displays.
 * The data for the remaining Content fields (Title, Date, Entry Type, Length, and Author) is stored in ISFDB title records. If you make any changes to these fields please be aware that these changes will be affecting all publications that reference these titles and you will also be affecting what’s displayed in the author bibliographic displays.


 * A general rule of thumb is that if you need to make a change to a title or author name, no matter how minor, then you should use the [Add Title] button and set up the new title record which matches what's in your publication. You can then remove the old/incorrect title record using the “Remove Titles From This Pub” option which is available from the publication display screen.


 * If you need to change an attribute which is about the title, such as the Date, Entry Type, and/or Length fields then you normally make the changes without going through the add-title/remove-title route. However, please be aware that your changes will be visible in all publications and author bibliographies which reference the title.

We also have a separate page at Help:How to change a story in a collection which describes the same concepts in greater detail and gives step by step instructions on how to make Contents changes. If you have any questions, please post them either here or on the ISFDB:Help desk and we can discuss them further. No worries, it's the biggest "gotcha" that we have and one that all new editors run into eventually :) Ahasuerus 02:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is indeed a foreword by Greenberg.
 * Thanks for putting us straight on that other stuff. It's a nightmare being a newbie here, you mods must have a fulltime job correcting newbies and numbskulls alike...  Hats off to ya.


 * Oh, sure, that's what we are here for! I have added the foreword to the book, could you please enter the page number for it when you get a chance? I don't have this anthology in my collection, so I can't check. Also, is it "Mechanical Answer" or "The Mechanical Answer" on page 13? Thanks! Ahasuerus 04:07, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * It is indeed "Mechanical Answer" Gilgamesh 08:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

The Mixed Men
After reviewing the The Mixed Men submission, I approved the submitted changes to the Publication record. However, I didn't approve changing the Title record from The Mixed Men to The Mixed Men: An Interstellar Adventure since that would have affected all editions of this novel -- see the section immediately above for details.

I suppose one way to handle it would be to create a Variant Title for The Mixed Men: An Interstellar Adventure, but I am not sure we want to do that either. After all, "An Interstellar Adventure" is a subtitle and although we don't have a well defined policy re: subtitles, this one seems to be fairly generic and not something that we would typically include in the Title record. If you think that it makes sense to include the subtitle in the Title in this case, we can discuss the issue further on the Rules and standards discussions page. Thanks! Ahasuerus 05:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Storeys from the Old Hotel
Added page numbers to the contents of your verified pub and added the introduction which also meant adding "xviii" to the page count. Cheers! ~Bill, --Bluesman 06:21, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, User:MA Lloyd added "Continuing Westward" on page 35 and "Parkroads -- A Review" on page 146. The latter is apparently a short story and not a review as previously indicated. Ahasuerus 03:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Endangered Species
Added notes to your verified pub re: first PB edition and number line as well as the $C price.--Bluesman 06:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

The Dawning Light
Hi Gilgamesh, thanks for the cover image. I've moved the LCCC# to notes. The "ISBN / Catalog #:" field is only for the ISBN or the publishers cat# such as ACE's "#F-143" for example. We also put "#" before all non ISBN's so the data base recognizes it as a non ISBN number. Thanks for editing!Kraang 02:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The Dawning Light
 * Apologies, cheers. Gilgamesh 08:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Devil in the Forest
Could you check your verified copy of as to printing date. The listed price, Ace # indicate a later printing, and the first Ace printing of this pub was Nov.'77. Thanks. --Bluesman 19:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Travellers in Space
I'm going to accept your changes to this pub, but I'll have to revert your retitling of a content record ("Contact, Incorporated" to "Action on Azura"). If you change the title of a content record you're changing its title in every publication in which that story appears. There's a preferred method of changing contents record in our help pages that doesn't affect other publications. I'll make the changes that will correct the title of the story in this publication. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It turns out that this is the only appearance of the story under this title so it wasn't hard to get the record back into shape. It's still a good idea to use the method linked to above unless you're sure that it's the only publication record in the database.  Thanks.  MHHutchins 16:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Space, Time and Nathaniel
New editor JLochhas has added a cover artist to. Please take a look. -DES Talk 21:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Space Lawyer
You just did a Currey verification of [this pub]. Are you working from a revised Currey? This author does not exist in the first edition, but Currey did update in the second edition. I've been curious if he added more authors than the original set? ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

The Complete Book of Outer Space -- artist name?
I just noticed (and the related Image:CMPLTBKOS1953.jpg) in which the artist's name is given as "Chelsey Bonnestell" rather than "Chesley Bonestell" Was the extra N actualy present in the book credit, or was that a data entry error? -DES Talk 16:23, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Added month to date
I added the month to the date from the copyright page of your verified .Don Erikson 18:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The Forgotten Planet - interior art?
Morning! This. . I have a reprint interior art in "Emshwiller: Infinity X Two". Could you verify this please? Note added. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:23, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Gene Wolfe’s Book of Days
In added the coverartist, pagenumbers and notes to this verified pub to match my copy. Thanks, --Willem H. 14:30, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

"Travelers of Space", edited by Martin Greenberg
I have a copy with the blue Ric Binkley dust jacket, and would like to upload a scan but don't know right way to classify the edition. I'd appreciate some expert advice. Here's what I know by primary verification (I've got copies of both dust jacket variants): - Without doing a page-by-page check, the books appear identical. Both have same: - gray cloth boards with red cloth spine embossed in blind and silver. - title & copyright pages. - Contents page, with "Peebles" misprint. - same 3 titles listed on "Adventures in Science Fiction Series" page 14. - The front and back flaps of the dust jackets are almost identical, including same $3.95 price. The only difference is the Jacket Design credit at the bottom of the front flap: - on the Cartier jacket it's "Jacket Illustrations by Edd Cartier / with Design by David Kyle". - on the Binkley jacket it's "Illustrations by Edd Cartier / with Jacket Design by Ric Binkley". - The back of the Cartier dust jacket lists 10 titles, all printed in 1951 or earlier. The back of the Binkley dust jacket lists 30 titles, which are almost all the Gnome titles up through about half of the 1953 publications. (Possibly of interest: of the 4 pre-1953 titles omitted, 3 are the fantasy collections, and the 4th is Will Stewart's 'Seetee Ship'. Maybe Greenberg didn't consider it SF?) - There is one interesting difference in the spines of the dust jackets: although the title list on the back of the Binkley jacket was clearly printed after the back of the Cartier jacket, the Gnome Press logo on the spine of the Binkley jacket might be an older version than the logo on the Cartier jacket. The Binkley version has no 'space gnome' stamp, and "Gnome Press" is in Gnome's older-style serif font. The Cartier has the space gnome and san-serif font. I've compared these logos to the other 30 Gnome volumes in my library, and the Binkley logo matches several pre-1951 examples, but not any post-1951 examples.

So comparing these two books, it appears the Binkley-jacket variant is a first edition book distributed in 1953 with a second state dust jacket which might, possibly, have spine and artwork printed prior to the Cartier variant. If that is correct, how would the Binkley variant be classified in isfdb?


 * Gilgamesh hasn't responded to messages in awhile, so I think I can help you.
 * We don't create new publication records based on dustjacket variants. You can add a link to the image of the alternate jacket in the notes field.  Is the image that's currently displayed with the record by Cartier or Binkley?  Once that's determined, you can upload a file of the other image and it can be linked to the record using HTML in the notes field (but it won't be displayed. Only one image at a time can be displayed). Mhhutchins 22:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Space Lawyer
I added a note about the first edition statement for Space Lawyer. I'm also going to remove the Currey verification. I've got both editions of Currey and can't find this book listed in either. Let me know if I've made a mistake. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 01:45, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The Saliva Tree
Hi, I've changed the author for from Brian Aldiss into Brian W. Aldiss, because the title page has the "W" in the name. The title page is leading in this case. --Dirk P Broer 13:17, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, the same for the title for : The title page says "The Saliva Tree and Other Growths". --Dirk P Broer 13:32, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The Complete Book of Outer Space
I made some changes to The Complete Book of Outer Space. I changed the type from anthology to nonficiton, since it contains only essays. I also added the contents and expanded the notes. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 22:54, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
I expanded the notes for Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 16:48, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Travelers of Space
Just a heads-up that I'm going to create a separate listing for the version of http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?52251 which has the blue Ric Binkley title. It's got Gnome Press titles up to 1953 on back of dust jacket, so I'll create clone with that date. Markwood 04:49, 20 October 2013 (UTC)