User talk:Marc Kupper/Archive2

 Notice - Limited time on ISFDB

March-2007 - I’ve gotten busy with a project that is not giving me a lot of free time for things like ISFDB. My time here will be sporadic/limited for at least a month or two. 16:59, 17 Mar 2007 (CDT)

December-2007 - Sadly, my unavailability continues and seems to have no end in site as I stagger from one project to the next. I even missed the main library book sale this past weekend. I used to have a little more time waiting to pick up my daughter after school but most recenty traded off with some other parents and now only read in short brief snatches with the pile currently
 * The Book of Brian Aldiss - I'm having a hard time with this collection as I'm not enjoying some of the stories but suffered though them hoping they get better. The current story though started out "strange" but is turning out fine.

Templates
To reply to this just click on the "talk" that is after my name. Thank you. ~

Managing/Merging Publications

 * The Morphodite by M. A. Foster shows two publications for 0879976691. I need to understand which one is "better" and why. Marc Kupper 19:32, 3 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * I noticed your question on "The Morphodite". Here's my take on it, in case you're still looking at this.  This one has a type of "pb", and a cover artist of "Michael Whelan", both of which are correct.  They agree in all the other data.  So I'd just merge the two of them; the merge will preserve the additional data.  It doesn't really matter which one you make the target as all the links will be preserved.  Hope that's useful. Mike Christie 08:13, 5 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * Keep in mind that we can't merge Publications; we can only merge Titles. If you find two Publications that have identical data except that one of them has additional data element(s) -- in this case "pb" and the cover artist -- you can simply delete the one with fewer data elements. Ahasuerus 14:12, 5 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * Thank you guys - Is a “diff” mechanism available within isfdb for publications? For example there are apparent visible differences between Morphodite publications 1 and 2 but I'd want to make sure of catching the difference I may miss when eyeballing the two pages.  I can download the pages and diff them.


 * There is nothing within the ISFDB software proper at them moment, but it's fairly easy to download the whole MySQL database (see the Backups page) and then massage it any which way you want. So far, I have created one Wiki Project page for this kind of activity and more are likely to follow.. Ahasuerus 01:55, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * Second - What's the process for approving changes in the New Submissions queue? There's one dating back to May by Grendelkhan and three that I have put in. Do I approve my own edits or if not then what, if anything, should I do?


 * This particular submission by Grendlkhan managed to break the ISFB software (as it existed 6 months ago) in various interesting and creative way. So much so that even Al couldn't delete it. Thus it remains in the queue, frozen in time. Normally, moderators create and then approve their own submissions within seconds, that's why you don't see many entries in the queue at any given point in time. But if you check the "Recent Edits" list, you'll find hundreds of items added or modified (or deleted) in the last few days. Ahasuerus 01:55, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * Third - I had wanted to verify (physical) "The Morphodite" but saw that the publication date was wrong. The correction is in the New Submissions queue and assuming it's approved could I then verify the publication?  The problem is I'm then verifying my own work (the edit to the pub-date) and ideally someone else would need to verify this.  I could verify that the title, author, artists, etc. matched my book but the pub-date is now "mine" meaning one set of checks-n-balances is gone.


 * Well, ideally we would have multiple editors cross-checking each other's work, but I don't think it's realistic at this point in time :( Ahasuerus 01:55, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * Agreed; and I'd add that anyone trusted to be a moderator can be trusted to verify their own subs. Mike Christie 06:04, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * In theory, the Verification Flag can serve two different purposes. The first one is to confirm that the information comes from a reasonably reliable secondary or, better yet, primary source and not from a webbot slurping in dirty data from Amazon.com. The other purpose is to enable cross-checking and minimize the likelihood of typos, which, as we know, happen to all of us sooner or later. Given our current manpower limitations, we are using the Verification Flag primarily to address the first set of issues, but it's conceivable that at some point we may try to use it for cross-checking as well. One never knows :) Ahasuerus 11:28, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)

Publication Listing Audit Trail
This may be more of a wish-list item but I don’t see anything that states the source of a publication record and/or the fields for that record. For example, a publication added by a sysop based on a physical copy of a book should carry more weight than a record scraped together by one of the web-bots.
 * Hmm. Doesn't the verification flag serve this purpose?  I know it doesn't indicate which fields came from where, but if there are discrepancies with a source, the publication biblio page can record it.  By publication biblio page I mean e.g. this page, for this recent addition.  I have used this a couple of times: here for example.  These pages are linked from the "Bibliographic notes" field in the ISFDB page for the publication.  Anyway, I think that's the closest we have to what you're asking for.  Mike Christie 17:15, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * I’m mainly thinking of “edit wars” where two or more people (or bots) believe they have the correct information about something. Right now when I look at a Publication Listing I can’t tell who or what created it and/or what its edits have been. I’ll often have a book, or information about a book, that does not exactly match what’s in a database. It then turns into a research project of tracking down who or what was the original source for the data and figuring out of there was an error or that I have a new/unique publication that can be added to the database. I could always put something in the notes explaining “this does not seem quite right” but that does not solve the original discrepancy. Marc Kupper 22:36, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)

Page Numbers
I seem to recall somewhere in the wiki a thing about collections and page numbers where I should not enter the page numbers unless they were stated. I can’t find that page at the moment and have a collection that has three stories but no table of contents. Marc Kupper 03:17, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * Assuming the book is paginated, I think you're fine entering the page numbers. I haven't seen the page you mention about not entering them, but I can't see a reason not to. Mike Christie 06:04, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * What Marc may be thinking of is the note in the Editing Guide to the effect that we shouldn't create artificial page numbers for Publications that do not have explicit page numbers. Also, tables of contents have been known to be in error, e.g. at one point I had a devil of a time finding a Frank Belknap Long story in "Unknown" because it wasn't listed in the table of contents. Ahasuerus 10:42, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * That's correct - I had remembered something about “not creating information” wrt page numbers (or anything else). My book has page numbers but no table of contents and so will go ahead with filling in the page numbers in isfdb plus figure out where to file a comment about this in the wiki-help. Marc Kupper 16:55, 6 Nov 2006 (CST)

Moving Titles/Publications
I need to dig through the isfdb manual a bit more but spotted a couple of out-of-place records. On Isaac Asimov's page are “Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Science Fiction Stories (Vol. 6)” (1981) filed under Novels and “Isaac Asimov Presents the Great Sf Stories #20” (1990) filed under Anthologies. Both of these belong in “The Great SF Stories” Anthology Series but I did not see how to move the underlying publications so that they get linked up with the Bibliography records that are already linked up with the series. Marc Kupper 11:01, 9 Nov 2006 (CST)

Trying to understand the # of pages field

 * Template talk:PublicationFields:Pages - Define Page

isfdb wiki related items

 * isfdb wiki does not seem to have a sandbox. Marc Kupper 18:58, 3 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * isfdb wiki does not seem to support footnotes. Marc Kupper 19:34, 3 Nov 2006 (CST)
 * I'm still struggling with how to do this. In the DAW List I'd like to be able to drop in notes about various items without adding a entire column for this. For example, with DAW UQ1050 (“Strange Doings” by R.A. Lafferty) it seems DAW’s first printing states “23456789” and there are no copies that state “123456789.” Ideally the Printing column for this book will just say “2nd” and also link to a footnote that explains why the table does not list a 1st printing. Marc Kupper 15:08, 7 Nov 2006 (CST)


 * Add a page for “new authors” that explains things such as setting up a wikipedia page that does not look like self-promotion and the purpose/role of ISFDB's author-wiki pages. Marc Kupper 22:51, 29 Nov 2006 (CST)

Baen's Universe
My last post on the Community Portal got not response and I think the general consensus is that I either do Baen's Universe or shut up. With your permission I would like to accept the submissions. Unless you have reservations about the arguments in my Community Portal post I will be happy to take this problem off of your hands.--swfritter 09:28, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I finally found a moment to respond to Stephen's post on the Community Portal (so many Wiki pages, so little time...) Also, I believe Marc's availability is rather spotty at the moment, so we may have to wait a day or two for his response. Ahasuerus 17:02, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Yes, my time will be very spotty for a while. I'll head over to the community portal to see what this is about.  01:46, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Ahh, Paula Goodlett stuff. I was waiting to see what developed on if we would allow eZines. I simply parked the submissions as Paula did put a lot of effort into adding these entries.  My personal inclination is to approve them but also knew that at the time they ran against the ISFDB policy on eZines. It looks that's been figured out.  swfritter - they are all yours now.  Thank you.


 * Thanks. I am sure you a glad to have these off your hands. I will ask for one final confirmation and then approve them.--swfritter 11:55, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Also, could someone please take over the two Dsorgen submissions that I have on hold? I held them because of changes to the contents and I wanted to research that. Thank you.  02:02, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * I will also take at a look at these.--swfritter 11:55, 25 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Help Update
I've adjusted the help page on Cover-Art images to cover "AA240" as well, and removed my prior recommendation to search all the ZZZZZZ options. If I had more time I'd probably change it to a complete "Don't use the ZZZZZZZ crap!" rant but I'm always cautious on help changes. (It takes me ages to find the little sods in the first place.) I think you and I are the main new Image-providers, so any other advice is good, but it's not urgent. I'm adjusting my own pubs, obliterating the useless, but not interfering with the hopeful. BLongley 16:35, 26 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * A couple of things.
 * It seems you you replaced discussion about removing "_SS500_" with discussion about removing "_AA240_". The images are
 * ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/21lOVFWZHSL._SS500_.jpg
 * ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cXim2+wSL._AA240_.jpg
 * The reason I chose the original image was that the first was a 96x160 pixel high image inside a 500 pixel square. There was lots of white space. Your example uses a 305x500 pixel image in a 240 pixel square meaning that Amazon scaled the image to 146x240 and then padded the left/right sides with 47 pixels of which to make a 240x240 pixel image. The help text is about seeing a postage size image with lots of white around it while your example image demonstrates that Amazon scales down and pads the edges with space to make a square.  Actually, what got my attention was the file name you picked had a + sign in the middle which is %2B in the URL. It made for a slightly non-standard looking URL.
 * I would not sweat this stuff too much as I'd rather put time into adding code to cache so that if Amazon changes one we will detect it and be able to then locate and swap in the correct image. Plus I might as well look at code to detect and remove image file names that contain the embedded scaling stuff. Both of these can be done "off line" and don't need Al's involvement. 21:54, 27 Sep 2007 (CDT)

City of Golden Shadow
Dgeiser13 added to this pub if you wish to check it. BLongley 15:33, 27 Sep 2007 (CDT)


 * Thank you for the heads up. I assume you would have held the update had the editor been overwriting data rather than adding data. I see that the XML blob has the following implying these fields were added.
 * year: 1998-01-00
 * Artist: Michael Whelan
 * Image: g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/36/fa/014c808a8da0a0acb2745110.L.jpg
 * Note: Stated 16th printing.
 * I think I know what happened. I got a grocery-bag of books and did a fast first pass of verifying that the information already in ISFDB was correct but did not add any additional data or notes. The bag is still sitting here next to my desk and I never got around to doing a second pass to fill in the full details.  I have a 7th printing and so decided to unverify the publication and at some point I'll clone this record and reverify it.


 * Something you may want to bring up with the editor is the distinction between a first and later printing date. He/she set the year to 1998-01-00 and stated "16th printing."  In this case the first printing was 1998-01 and it should have been entered in ISFDB as an undated (0000-00-00) 16th printing.  Or, the editor could do what I do which is I set the date to 1998-01-16 along with something like this note.
 * The printing date for this publication is unknown. Rather than using 0000-00-00 this publication in ISFDB has been dated using the YYYY-MM of the first printing and the day of the month is set to the printing number to get the publication sorted into a reasonable spot relative to other printings for this edition. 22:28, 27 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Scholastic's number line
Stolen from community Portal but it's something I need to research... 00:34, 29 Sep 2007 (CDT)

I am not sure I understand Scholastic's number line conventions. Could somebody with a clue take a look at this Laurence Yep Publication and clarify what the number line is trying to say? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:52, 29 May 2007 (CDT)


 * The pub-notes say "No price or cover artist stated. "Book Club edition RL5 010-012". Copyright 1991. "First Scholastic printing October 1992." Number line: "12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 (spaces) 2 3 4 5 6 7/9"."
 * "RL5 010-012" -> Reading Level 5 (5th grade) or ages 10 to 12
 * "12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" -> This is the printing # - 1st printing in this case.
 * "2 3 4 5 6 7/9" -> This is the year of printing - 1992 in this case with the "/9" signifying is 199x.
 * Do we have a help page somewhere with number lines? I know there was a community chat a while back where I documented various number line formats and we might as well add this to the list.  14:41, 30 May 2007 (CDT)


 * That would be great! Ahasuerus 15:10, 30 May 2007 (CDT)


 * The old discussion is at ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive06 and so I'll see if I can convert that into a help page this weekend. BTW, my most recent convention has been to just state the whatever is in the publication much like what you have at that started this thread. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons. 1) It keeps publication entry objective. 2) There may be something in the wording or number line that means something to others.  20:44, 30 May 2007 (CDT)


 * I realized I did not understand the structure of the help pages and so have started a Site Map and once I have that filled in I'll hopefully see a good place to insert publisher help pages. Of course, like any old-house remodeling project, once I dug in I then saw that help pages were never created for the title-merge pages (Titles and Dup Candidates). 03:39, 3 Jun 2007 (CDT)


 * A new complication: it seems there's now a LETTER-line to consider. :-(
 * I invite you all to go to this book, go to Copyright Page, and see the "A C E G H F D B" for yourself. Head-Desking and Weeping-in-Frustration may follow. BLongley 15:28, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Darwinia
Welcome back, Marc! I see that you have verified Darwinia, but I wonder if Teresa Nielsen Hayden's name is missing a letter or two? Ahasuerus 19:23, 26 Oct 2007 (CDT)


 * I'm sorry but I'm not really back. I'm not sure what you meant.  The comment I wrote is about my hardcover edition only credits Patrick Nielsen Hayden for editing.  Orb later did a paperback edition  that credits both Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.  See the Amazon Look Inside for the paperback edition where you can see on the copyright page "Edited by Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden".  It's possible the error is by Orb in that they assumed both Haydens worked on it when it may only be Patrick.  As for missing a letter or two,  and  both seem to link correctly.


 * The last line of the Note field spells TNH's name "Tersa" :) Ahasuerus 12:37, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Thank you for the reminder that I need new glasses... :-) Actually, I had not liked the way I worded the comment about the editors and so rewrote it.  01:21, 8 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I still get time to read when waiting to pick up my daughter from school but am still quite swamped in work stuff. I've pretty much lost all of my ISFDB and other personal time for the next few months. Thus I read when I can, try to write reviews, and to verify the books I'm reading on ISFDB.  The review process is sadly getting behind.  I've read eight books recently that are stacked here on the desk waiting for time for me to write the review.  I guess I could bring a laptop and write reviews in the car when waiting at the school.  01:59, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Sorry to hear about the work situation, but I understand the need to feed the next generation of ISFDB editors! ;-) Ahasuerus 12:37, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

One Against Herculum / Secret of the Lost Race
I've added art to your verified pub if you'd like to check. BLongley 08:18, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT) Also here. BLongley 11:12, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)


 * Thank you Bill - there was a day where I got a nice stack of books at the library sale. I did a 1st pass verify and now the books are just sitting in grocery bags here on the floor and I never got a chance to improve the ISFDB entries.  The only good news is I have a few minutes per week to read with this week being Aldiss' Starship.  After reading all of my books with author last names starting with "F" I'm now working on "A". :-)  02:06, 7 Nov 2007 (CST)

Traitor's Sun
I really don't like the state of this. Co-credit done as a separate Novel link? Jacket and book designs done as Interiorart? (And sneaking two credits into one Author entry for the book design anyway?) I hope this was an experiment that will be fixed when you get time, or that such conventions are going to be put up for discussion - or have I already missed that discussion? BLongley 16:02, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)

No hurry on this though, I've seen far weirder today. BLongley 16:02, 10 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Regarding the Adrienne Martine-Barnes credit - I personally thought it was a cool way to credit her without putting her on the masthead for the publication or title. Had Martine-Barnes not been an author listed in ISFDB I would only have noted her in the notes but as she does have other works in ISFDB I included this so that people looking at her bibliography would know she had a hand in this MZB work. The book has no explanation for why Martine-Barnes' appears on the copyright page meaning we don't know what her actual role was in the book.  I did revise the title note a little to hopefully make this record clearer and am thinking of changing the (sub-title) thing to say (uncredited) and people would click to learn what that means.


 * Jacket and book designs done as Interiorart? Yes, I've been doing that for a while.  I use Interiorart records to handle credits for  miscellaneous people until ISFDB adds support for user defined title types.  The goal being that someone can later look up something like  and will know when that company was active and with a few clicks you will be able to tell what publishers they worked for. I tend to only do this for people I see a lot.  The only person I normally don't credit is the photographer of the author's portrait on the back flap.  My general rule is if someone's credited on the cover and title page I credit them in the meta record otherwise I add content lines. The only exception is collections which always (per ISFDB rules) get credited to just the author and not an editor, even if he/she is listed on the title page.  I do add credits in the notes in this case.


 * "And sneaking two credits into one Author entry for the book design anyway?" - Hmm, maybe I should be clearer. That's literally how the credit is stated in the publications.  It's nearly always "" but I don't know if Folio Graphics is a one man shop or if they have other artists.  Google up "folio graphics" Drate and you will see that he's done work on things like Hardy Boys books.  I don't know if www.folio-graphics.com is the company.


 * Largely though, this is an experiment as I was looking in to ways to credit the secondary players. The Drate/Folio one is messy and I personally don't like how that part is turning out.  For example, for some reason I did one of them as .  I'll need to dig up the publication again to see if that's the way he was credited and if I should normalize this into .  Even then it's messy but I can't think of a way to show that he was doing this work on behalf of Folio Graphics as he may well show up some day working on his own or for another company.  02:45, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * To quote a 7 year old post by Heather Rose Jones:


 * Laura Burchard  wrote:


 * I thought it was pretty well-known that for years, nothing under Bradley's name, 'collaboration' or otherwise, had actually been written by her; I'm not sure about the Darkover anthologies; the first stroke was in 1989 and pretty much killed her ability to write at any length, and about half the anthologies were done after that, with a story or two under her name in each one. Perhaps early on she could still manage short stories, or at least rewrite old scraps, or perhaps they were also written by others. I'm


 * It is an exaggeration to say that nothing in this period that appeared under MZB's name was written by her. I have first-hand knowledge of this because I worked for her magazine for several years in the mid '90s. What is true is that pretty much anything she wrote had to be heavily edited to turn it into readable English -- in part because she couldn't be bothered to polish things up beyond a very rough first draft, and in part because she no longer had the acuity of mind to do so.


 * But the editorials and short stories that appeared under her name in the magazine during the time I was there were all, in major substance, MZB's writing. They were all, also, heavily edited.  I know, because when I was working there, I was one of the ones doing it.  Sometimes they only needed very heavy-duty copyediting; sometimes one had to deal with eliminating repetitions, turning fragments into sentences, and fishing an identifiable theme out of the prose and then making the rest of the work relate to that theme.  But the result was always based on her substance.


 * (The only thing that occasionally got her name attached to it in the magazine that she hadn't actually written were occasional replies to letters to the editor.)


 * ...which explains the semi-credited collaborators. Ahasuerus 02:58, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Thank you for that Ahasuerus. I've often wondered how much of MZB's co-authorship was because she was mentally or physically not up to it and how much was because her values included supporting other or new authors and thus she would loan her name, and perhaps a story outline, to people. In looking at the Chronological Bibliography it looks like there was not much co-authorship before 1989 implying most of the post 1989 co-authorship was either a change of heart or that she was not up to her previous level of work.  18:55, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Well, it's certainly an interesting experiment. I must admit I have a preference for keeping the humans separate from companies, but seeing "BlackSheep", "blacksheep Design", "blacksheep Design UK" and "www.blacksheep-uk.com" in a name search shows it isn't that way for everyone. :-/ I don't particularly care about the design companies, and although I WOULD like to see lots more options for covers that's mainly for people like Robert Rankin, who SCULPTS items that get Photographed and then Designed into covers... I guess I'm a people person, and think any PERSON that deserves to be here should be credited for all the things they did for a pub entry. For instance, I'm sure that yesterday I left Haldeman with a cover-art credit for a photograph he provided, but left a note for that. Perhaps this is the way forward for now, it stops overuse of ESSAY at least: I don't think I've accused anyone of overuse of INTERIORART before though! Still, continue the experiment and put it up for discussion later: that's what I did with my "Ace Doubles"  work! BLongley 14:37, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I've just found a perfect example of "Too Much Information". Here is a pub where I could credit "Cover design" ("www.blacksheep-uk.com" again), "Clock Photography" ("ImageState") and "Genetic Profile"(!) ("Science PhotoLibrary"). They're so useless to me that I'm not even going to add them to notes. BLongley 16:25, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Yes, like movies the credits list keeps bloating and I agree with in not recording to that detail. It's not specfict and hence no link but I just looked at a copyright page of a book I'm reading and the upper half was done "movie credits" style with bold/centered text, crediting translators, relettering, retouch, editor, assistant editor, consulting editor, book design, and art director and that's not even counting the author, illustrator, cover artist, publisher, etc. BTW, Is using INTERIORART for a translator abuse? (I did not do that one...)  18:43, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Oh, definitely abuse! Ahasuerus 18:54, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Yes, I'd say so. (We've probably abused most available fields now, and I've no idea how we could programmatically get the data back into usable form for most of those.) I've moved several translators and illustrators out of "co-author status" and back to notes, after using such links to find similar problems.
 * With "translator" I can see why somebody wanted a pub_content level entry, as although "title_translator" exists, it's inaccessible via the software: and it could never work with the way we're recording foreign translations of books under one canonical title. And even if we DID have all foreign titles set up as variants, there's no guarantee that different editions don't have different translators. It might be a useful field though, I can see myself wanting to know whether an English publication of a foreign book was translated by someone that can write good English, or someone that translates hardware manuals for Far Eastern computer companies. :-/ BLongley 15:29, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

Publication Level Series
I know you've been active in DAW books, which is obviously a (very long!) publication level series. I've come across several other examples today (due to me finding a book-shop that was offering all "outside" books for 10p each, or 12 for a pound - after a couple of trips between bookshop and car I rescued 60 SF books for a fiver (under ten US dollars?) - but I digress).

Can you think of a good way to categorise book series, rather than title series, under current ISFDB constraints? E.g. "The Corgi SF Collector's Library", or the "Venture SF" series, or even the infamous "Science Fiction Special" omnibuses? I'm thinking the Wiki way is the only way to go, but that gets ignored in backups and so is comparatively vulnerable... BLongley 15:31, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Oh no, the Wiki (including all revisions) is backed up nightly, which is why our backup file is over 1Gb. Even the publicly available backup file contains the current version of all Wiki tables. Ahasuerus 16:22, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Please give me some pointers then? "mw_cur" has data, "mw_user" doesn't. Is that all there are? BLongley 16:37, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * That's right, "mw_cur" has the current contents of the Wiki, including Marc's DAW tables. "mw_user" has user settings that get expunged when the "raw" backup file is converted to the publicly posted backup file. Ahasuerus 16:45, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Yeesh! Sorting out "mw_cur" data into something like our Wiki pages from the backup alone looks nigh on impossible. Particularly as "cur_text" insists it's Swedish. BLongley 17:19, 11 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Cool! A new backup!  I also thought the backup is missing some mw_* tables.  I know I was not able to reconstruct things earlier when I looked into this.  I'm downloading the new backup but won't have time to explorer it right away. I just looked at old notes and earlier backups did not include mw_cur but it sounds like that's been fixed.  19:28, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Yes, mw_cur is now a part of the publicly available backup. I am working on a new version now and, with luck, should be able to post them weekly. Ahasuerus 20:11, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Getting back to the original questions
 * 1 "due to me finding a book-shop that was offering all "outside" books for 10p each" - I love it when I see those. I even have a grocery bag full of 35 cent era Ace books that set me back by about $5 but is still awaiting processing.   19:28, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Best find of the year - it's the second time I've seen a shop with ridiculously low prices, but this was a) cheaper and b) had looked after the books better. I could probably sell two and have covered the cost of the other 58! BLongley 14:54, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * 2 "Can you think of a good way to categorise book series" - I have used the Wiki in a number of places including the DAW list thing. I also like this approach as it allows me to write introduction/explanation text.  Solving this in the ISFDB database will not be easy.  19:28, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * The downside with the Wiki (apart from our current link problem) is that it sounds as if it's going to be tricky to upgrade, which we'll need to get a decent search going. I still can't search the Wiki one tenth as well as I can ISFDB, and that's with all the broken ISFDB searches I have to turn to SQL for! BLongley 14:54, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)

King of Argent
I've just acquired what seems to be the first Daw edition. It's got a confusing/interesting printing number paragraph rather than number-line, if you're interested. (And find time - no hurry, I'm keeping it.) BLongley 16:09, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Good find! DAW did that for a very brief time.  Here's a time line.
 * April 1972 - Book #1, Spell of the Witch World by Andre Norton - DAW did not have any printing indication at all.
 * September 1972, Book #22, The Return of the Time Machine by Egon Friedell - DAW started saying "First Printing, 1972" and there was no number line.
 * December 1972, Book #33, Transit to Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers - DAW added the month and it says "First Printing, December 1972" but there was still no number line.
 * January 1973, Book #40, Planet Probability by Brian N. Ball - The last of the books with the month/year but no number line.
 * February 1973, Book #41, Changeling Earth by Fred Saberhagen - DAW added a "number paragraph" spelled out in English as you noted.
 * March 1973, Book #46, King of Argent by John T. Phillifent - You just added a new data point on how far the "number paragraph" system extends.
 * April 1973, Book #52, The Light That Never Was by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. - First confirmed sighting of the number line format that DAW has continued to use to this day.


 * Between #46 and #52 there's
 * March 1973, Book #47, Time Story by Stuart Gordon - no one has a copy of this


 * I only have the UK version, no information about the US printings in it. BLongley 14:03, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I can't check at the moment, but I am pretty sure that my edition was published by DAW. I'll add it to my list of things to check on November 29. Ahasuerus 15:48, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Better a month late than never! Turns out that I do have the first printing of this edition and it uses the "number paragraph" system. I have verified the pub and added a note about the way printing numbers are recorded in the book. Ahasuerus 23:34, 29 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * March 1973, Book #48, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip José Farmer - Don Erikson has a copy of the 1st printing.


 * I only have the UK version, no information about the US printings in it. BLongley 14:03, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I am afraid Don ran into rather serious health problems a couple of months ago -- see his Talk page -- and may not be in a position to do much checking in the foreseeable future. I am pretty sure that my copy was published by DAW and will check on November 29. Ahasuerus 15:48, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * April 1973, Book #49, The Suns of Scorpio by Alan Burt Akers - Don Erikson has a copy of the 1st printing.
 * April 1973, Book #50, Strange Doings by R. A. Lafferty - No one has a 1st printing. I have a 2nd with a standard # line.
 * April 1973, Book #51, Where Were You Last Pluterday? by Paul van Herck - No one has a 1st printing. I have a 2nd with a standard # line.


 * DAW seems to change their stuff between months meaning it's most likely that the transition from "number paragraph" to "number line" is from book #48 to #49 meaning Don Erikson should be able to confirm this. 18:28, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)
 * Bill one other thing you might note is if its a Canadian or US printing. The printings are usually identical, but sometimes there are differences between the two.Kraang 18:48, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Printed in USA, no Canadian price. BLongley 14:03, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Marc I'm just about finished finding all my other Daw books, so I'll spend a bit of time updating the Daw list and will sent it to you. May take a couple of weeks but it will arrive.Kraang 18:48, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I don't organise my Daw books in any sort of order, but I've only verified 36 or so it seems. Assuming I've been beaten to verification on several, I doubt I have more than 50-60. BLongley 14:03, 13 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * My copy of The Other Log of Phileas Fogg has the number paragraph. Dana Carson 02:18, 14 Nov 2007 (CST)
 * Excellent as that fits in with the theory that the switch was done between March 1973 and April 1973. 02:14, 13 Dec 2007 (CST)

Serial in The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh
I am kind of wondering about the 7 part serial in this verified pub. I have been working on applying the date of pub to serials contained in a pub and I can't figure this one out.--swfritter 19:56, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * I've been thinking about it myself. Would a "short fiction series" be a better solution? Ahasuerus 20:09, 12 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * Unfortunately, I had not written up notes on why I picked SERIAL other than I had numbered the segments much like a serial. I agree that they are technically not a "serialized" story in the sense of being published in two or more magazines or other publications.


 * I just changed it to shortfiction in a series. Apparently Al took out the display logic for shortfiction series as they are down at the bottom of the shortfiction section of (being sorted down there as the display logic prioritizes series stuff over dates).


 * Short fiction Titles are only grouped together at the beginning of the Summary page if there is at least one book length Title in the series. For example, G. C. Edmondson's Mad Friend series is grouped together because the stories (well, the first 7 stories, to be precise) were collected in Stranger Than You Think. OTOH, Kuttner/Moore's "Hogben" stories are not displayed together because there hasn't been a book length version. (Which reminds me that we are missing "The Old Army Game", the very first Hogben story which has only been reprinted in Kuttner Times Three.) Anyway, I have asked Al to change the software's behavior so that series data would be grouped together even if the stories haven't been collected in book form. Ahasuerus 16:51, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * I'll leave it this way for now so others can see the results but in looking at the Shortfiction list for Cherryh I see that in 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1991 she must have done similar things in other publications and so once everyone's had a gander I'll change the titles from Untitled: Visible Light (part 1 of 7) to Untitled: Visible Light (#7) and also get rid of the series plus series number from each title. That'll display the Untitled: Visible Light stories in a way that consistent with the other stories.  02:33, 13 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * That looks better. It might be a good idea to place a note in the pub to indicate the purpose of the 7 entries. I am assuming that they somehow serve as bridges between the stories?--swfritter 18:06, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * There is a pub note but maybe it should be clearer as, more specifically, there's a rather long pub note at Publication:CLLCTDSHRT2004. It's like a story with an introduction and seven parts but it also relates closely to the story that it's interleaved with.  Story number 1 is about an author writing about where authors get ideas to write about and story #2 is the story the author wrote with the stories weaving together as the author gets her ideas from the local environment which is also ends up being the environment of story #2...  02:57, 20 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * Hey, that's a great note; exactly the way I would like to use the Bibliographic Comments. Make the pubs notes pithy and expand upon them with Bibliographic Comments. My only concern about them is that they are not true database records - and if somebody changes a tag they become orphans.--swfritter 11:58, 20 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * Yes, I have been thinking about it lately. Putting supplemental data in the Wiki seemed like a good idea at the time, but it makes it more likely that important information may be missed by our users, most of whom have no idea that the Wiki even exists. For now, we probably need to run periodic scans for orphaned Bibliographic Comments. I'll add it to my ever growing list of scripts to write... Ahasuerus 12:26, 20 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * And maybe eventually a bibliographic notes table with a more secure link? And a widget on the pub screen to indicate that there is a record attached? And caviar on the side - and I don't mean the collection by Sturgeon - unless it's a rare first edition.--swfritter 12:35, 20 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * The widget already exists. If you look at the publication you will see that the link for Bibliographic Comments: is in blue or purple because the comments exist. Go to a publication that does not have wiki-comments and you will see that the link is in red. The ISFDB display logic checks to see if a wiki-page exists and displays the link in blue or red depending on the results.  02:48, 25 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * Very helpful although I would also wish there were some kind of graphic symbol that appears only when there are bibliographic notes attached. It might be more obvious to the casual user and people as unobservant as I am.--swfritter 15:21, 26 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * How about if you develop the graphic and send it to Al as part of a feature request? The code is already there to change the link color and so I'd imagine adding a graphic would be very little extra work.  03:50, 27 Dec 2007 (CST)

Review of Poul Anderson's Vault of the Ages
I have just stumbled upon Vault of the Ages and it looks like the Synopsis consists of a review of the book written by one Marc Kupper :)

The first (long) paragraph looks fine, but the second one seems to be more of an assessment of the book than a plot outline. Do you think that's the direction we want to take our Synopsis data in? After all, "enjoyable", "believable", "well paced", etc are very subjective and could lead to numerous reverts as each new editor looks at it. It would make it hard to follow the current Help dictum re: "This is not a place for criticism or reviews, and should maintain a neutral point of view", wouldn't you say? Ahasuerus 22:23, 24 Nov 2007 (CST)


 * It does state "Book review" at the beginning. :-) What happened is that I started to put a review on Amazon but next to the submit button was a readme link that says anything submitted becomes the property of Amazon to do with as they see fit, etc. and so I put it on ISFDB under Synopsis for lack of a better place.  I agree that it does not fit within the definition of "Synopsis."  Maybe I should start blogging but in the mean time will move the reviews to http://marc.kupper.googlepages.com/bookreviews.


 * Another reason for moving them is a while back someone wrote complaining that the tags were "spoilers" and so I had been holding off on writing synopsises until we figured out a way to have a "hide spoilers" flag though many of my reviews have a synopsis. 00:40, 13 Dec 2007 (CST)

Galactic Cluster by Blish
I added the cover art to your verified edition of this collection. As I have the very same edition, I can safely assume it matches yours as well. Mhhutchins 19:46, 4 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * I don't remember that cover but my copy is stored in a hard to get at spot and so it'll need to wait until I get to it. A little annoying as I read the thing in January and yet I don't remember the cover?  00:16, 13 Dec 2007 (CST)

Bow Down to Nul / The Dark Destroyers
Marc I added a cover image to your verified copy and made some changes to the note section. :-)Kraang 20:12, 5 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * Thank you Sean. I've added a note to re-check this once I find the book again in the piles...  I'm reading Places to Be, People to Kill at the moment - Many I'll get inspired.  01:32, 13 Dec 2007 (CST)

DAW (and Ace) MZBs
I picked up quite a number of Marion Zimmer Bradley books today (I guess "Geoff Roynon" doesn't need them anymore, judging by the previous owner's name scrawled in most of them), and as Eight were DAW editions and Five were Ace I've been merrily interfering with other unverified editions here, sorting out some covers and putting suspected printing numbers on. The one that worried me most though was that your Keeper's Price is quite dissimilar to mine, as if you'd cloned somebody else's edition that had been entered from the Contents list, carelessly: as I cloned yours to create mine, I've some doubts about mine still as I can't see where the 1978 dates come from. If you get a moment, can you please check that one again? BLongley 18:52, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * I'm really surprised I marked that as verified. The record does did have my "signature" notes. I think what I should do is to go through that entire bag of books this book was in and and unverify everything in it.


 * I compared your record against mine and agreed with most of your changes. I also added publication title notes as many of the discrepancies were between the table of contents and the body of the book.


 * Title - I corrected this plus added a pub-note.
 * Editor - I have "Marion Zimmer Bradley" and you have "The Friends of Darkover, Marion Zimmer Bradley." If you look at the title page it says
 * The
 * Keeper's Price
 * And Other Stories
 * by
 * Marion Zimmer Bradley
 * and the
 * Friends of Darkover
 * Edited by
 * Marion Zimmer Bradley
 * I'd interpret that to mean that the stories were written by MZB and others but that the editor credit is just MZB meaning that's all we'd credit in the metadata.
 * The Tale of Durraman's Donkey - Title corrected.
 * Circle of Light - Author name corrected.
 * The Keeper's Price - - Author name corrected plus made Lisa Waters a pseudonym of Elisabeth Waters.
 * A Simple Dream - Author name corrected.
 * A View from the Reconstruction: or, Happy Times on Modern Darkover - Title corrected.
 * I could not see any basis for the 1978 dates and so changed them to 1980-02-00
 * Could you mark as verified by you?  Then we could delete .  Thank you.  05:13, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)
 * OK, both done. BLongley 13:34, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)
 * Could you mark as verified by you?  Then we could delete .  Thank you.  05:13, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)
 * OK, both done. BLongley 13:34, 18 Dec 2007 (CST)

On the plus side, we've got some more primary DAW info, and I think some more evidence for giving early 1970s Ace books some printing numbers, if not yet dates. By 1979/1980 Ace seem to have been a bit more helpful. BLongley 18:52, 15 Dec 2007 (CST)

Andre Norton's "The Gate of the Cat"
I was verifying a stack of my Nortons and ran into your Verified paperback edition of The Gate of the Cat. The Notes field read, in part, "While sites like ISFDB and Fantastics Fiction have this title as part of the Estcarp series the publication says it's part of the Witch World series." There is no discrepancy here since the Estcarp series is a part of the Witch World super-series -- take a look at the series chronology at this Norton site. I have removed the above comment for now, but we can always put it back in if the circumstances require, although probably at the Title level rather than the Publication level. Thanks! Ahasuerus 19:25, 31 Dec 2007 (CST)


 * Something I've been doing with my personal book database is documenting the exact series indicator(s) in a publication. It looks like one of my series notes made it into ISFDB. People regularly group titles into series and what I had been working on was tracking down citable sources for a series name, numbering, and/or order. The goal is at some point people can better understand which series names are "official", or perhaps "canonical," and which may have been invented in the field to better explain or organize a set of books.


 * In this case I believe "Estcarp" was created in the field to help divide up a very large series while the publisher just calls them "Witch World" books. I agree that my publication note should have been clearer. Taking the note out for now is fine or maybe changing it to just state the exact wording of the series indicator will suffice.


 * Overall, I'm thinking of dropping the series project as I'm finding that with many publications the series indicator is buried in the flyleaf or back cover text. Or you will see it clearly noted on the front cover but if you removed the jacket then you'd discover there's zero mention of the series within the publication itself. Thus the series indicator could be subjective unless I want to get into defining rules such as "it only counts if it's on the front cover or there's a page that clearly names the series and lists it's titles." I've also carefully avoided the shelf that has Star Trek books as some of them have so many nested layers of series that I've stared at them at length wondering what the story title is.


 * Another reason for dropping is it seems the only time a citable reference is needed is if there's an edit war over what a series name, membership, or order should be. Fortunately, the wars are rare if one happens then people can usually find and research the publications to see if they provide clues. 00:37, 4 Jan 2008 (CST)

Bob Shaw's The Two-Timers
I added cover art to your verified pub of this title. Mhhutchins 14:56, 2 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Thank you - With my copy someone had written "50" with a black grease pen or black pen in the upper left corner and so it's not as clean as the one you found. 23:59, 3 Jan 2008 (CST)

Bob Shaw's Nightwalk
I think you might want to unmerge this edition of Shaw's novel and create a variant. The title on the cover, spine and title page is Nightwalk. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:04, 2 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Good catch - I also added a publication note about Nightwalk vs. Night Walk. 23:56, 3 Jan 2008 (CST)

Where Were You Last Pluterday?
The cover image link for your verified pub was broken, so I replaced it. Did I get the correct one? BLongley 07:59, 6 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * My copy is in a hard to get at location at present but I suspect it's correct as my DB references http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879970510 as the record that best matches this publication and that's the same record as the image you are using. 21:31, 6 Jan 2008 (CST)

The Four Forges
Marc, shouldn't the extraneous material included in this novel be considered ESSAYs rather than SHORTFICTIONs? I'm trying to clear the pub from the Short Fiction/Novel Inconsistencies page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 01:21, 16 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * You are right - that looks odd and I should have included a publication note explaining why they are listed as short stories. This was from a public library copy.  I'll check the book out again so I can write more detailed notes.


 * Help:Screen:EditPub seems to define "ESSAY" as being for non-fiction material but is silent on how to classify stuff on the blurry boundary. In this case it's a publication that has supporting material about/for an entirely fictional universe. They are not "essays" but also are not short stories either.  I'm surprised I used shortfiction/shortstory here as I normally use shortstory/- so that it shows as "shortfiction" but does not define its length.


 * Has there been a discussion about how to enter these in publications? 01:34, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * On a related note, about a year ago I was entering my Dynamic issues from the late 1930s and they contained a few (thinly) fictionalized essays. We considered creating a new "type" for them, but decided that it was a slippery slope, so I just classified them as Short Stories and added Notes. Ahasuerus 22:44, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * That's what we need, a title type called "Slippery Slope - Logarithmic Function Applied." :-)


 * I am on the slope at the moment dealing with The Four Forges of this thread and also Prince of Dogs which I entered today. Both of these contain supporting material such as glossaries, lists of characters, etc.


 * I'm leaning towards adding a publication note saying "The story ends on page 612 and is followed by six pages of supporting material that have not been included in the Contents section of this ISFDB publication record." I'd follow that with a bulleted list of the supporting material sections along with their page page numbers. That'll keep the material out of the author bibliographies. 02:09, 20 Jan 2008 (CST)

The Long Afternoon of Earth
Marc, we've been cleaning up Short Fiction/Novel Mismatches and your verified edition of this title is on the list. We've been removing the short fiction pieces from fixups like this one and placing them in the title record notes. Would you prefer to remove the shortfiction contents from this pub or just let it stand as is? Thanks. Mhhutchins 14:08, 16 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * I recall thinking long and hard about if I should include these as stories within the contents. I decided to include them as stories with the logic being that so that if someone was ever looking for the material, Nomansland for example, that they could see that it's in the publication. My publication note seems clear enough that the reader will not find a section in the book titled Nomansland and that as it's fix-up material it's possible that the magazine version of Nomansland is entirely different.


 * If you have agreed on a policy for dealing with this stuff then that's fine, delete away. I agree that fewer exceptions on your lists would be better and personally would lean towards deleting in this case as the stories are not named within the publication. Maybe something that would work would be to add a title note to each of the short stories explaining that it was involved in a fixup and pointing to the title records for the stories that include the fixup. That would allow for the cross referencing and for someone to locate versions of the stories.


 * In reading my publication note again I realize something I should have done is to read though the story and attempt to match up the chapters with the the stories. Aldiss books tend to have well defined transitions and so the process of assigning which pages are which story should be reliable.  02:01, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * I thought about this a bit more and 1) Added title notes to each of the short stories and 2) Removed the Contents links to those stories from the The Long Afternoon of Earth I had verified. BTW, there's no "publication verified" warning when you do remove-title.


 * A feature request that I'll think about is to add the title types "Supporting Role" and "Supporting Material" that would allow for linking in the contents to things that don't fit into strict short-fiction, interior-art, or essay categories. Supporting role would be used to credit a person that is not a headliner (on the title page) but was credited somewhere in the publication, a translator for example. Supporting material would be used when the main author includes things that are not part of the story itself such as a time-line or a foreword that reads nearly like a short story. I believe this will work well in the bibliographic displays too.  03:30, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * I believe there are outstanding requests for "translators", "narrators", "editors of Novels/Collections", etc. The MARC21 standard had a whole list/table of what they call "roles" and the list keeps getting longer. As far as fix-ups go, there have been discussions of a new relationship type for "based on", which, if/when implemented, would help a great deal. Ahasuerus 10:37, 17 Jan 2008 (CST)

The Alton Gift
Your verified edition of this novel contains content entries for both the prologue and the epilogue. Aren't both, in fact, part of the novel? Are we setting a precedent in which thousands of other records will have to be changed to allow for this rather common literary practice? I'm only asking because the record shows up on the short fiction/novel inconsistencies listing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:29, 18 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Please see Talk:Data_Consistency/Short_Fiction-Novel_Mismatches. 16:12, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)

HTML in notes
I really like the way the HTML looks in the notes and I got to thinking that we might be able to use a simple parser to create the HTML text. It would require writing a program with a notepad screen. Perhaps a simple one character notation could be used to format the lines with the appropriate HTML markup. The formatted text could be sent to the clipboard for pasting into the notes. It might not be that hard a program to write. If you like the idea I can suggest it on the Community Portal.--swfritter 20:23, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * I'm so-so with that idea. The reason is, that there are plenty of fine HTML editors already available and so there's no use in creating another.  I normally use notepad but just realized I probably could use an HTML editor and be a bit more productive as right now I need to manually take care of keeping the tags balanced, etc.


 * I had been thinking about what it would take to use the wiki as a storage mechanism for notes as that would get is a language syntax (wikitext) that's a little less prone to errors than HTML and also would have the edit history available.


 * Now, if you want to write the editor in JavaScript and have it be part of ISFDB then that would be cool. :-) 22:18, 19 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Something like this? My concern is that we need some improvements in the Submission checking - it's possible to completely break a submission with as little as a misplaced paragraph tag. Although I consider myself lucky to be able to use HTML at all - most sites are too scared of cross-site scripting vulnerabilities to enable it. BLongley 08:54, 20 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * It occurred to me that it would be more reliable if we could hide the HTML from end-users. The editor would be WYSIWYG meaning that the main security validation would be of the URL contents.  18:53, 20 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * It's always going to be a bit tricky protecting the site from HTML submissions created in Javascript - we really need as much validation at the back-end as we do at the front-end. (For instance, I'm fixing a bug at work where somebody could get something for free by abusing instant Javascript screen-updates versus Submitted database-based screen-updates.) And how we protect Moderators from a new Pub preview including a Goatse or Tubgirl image I don't know... (If you haven't been caught out by links to those before, please do NOT go search for them! They are truly nauseating.) BLongley 19:36, 20 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * After further thinking about this issue I am beginning to wonder if we should even be putting HTML in notes.
 * Using HTML in notes may make it difficult for a non-HTML savvy editor to add important data to the notes that are in HTML format.
 * The ISFDb has a Creative Common license which means people are encouraged to use the data in other environments - environments that may not support HTML display. That will require special coding either to format the text or eliminate the tags.
 * Tweaking systems is a headache for programmers. Also, The fact that a "solution" has been found to implement a feature may delay the implementation of a more acceptable solution.
 * I really like the way the notes look with HTML but I'm not sure if their value is greater than the potential issues.--swfritter 18:26, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Can you rephrase the good points you made without using markup? :-) I'd agree with you and the most important point to me would be that not everyone can read HTML (nor can some people deal with wikitext) meaning we either go with no formatting, build an editor, or support a simple subset of wikitext.  I just upped the ante with an HTML table to a publication note.  It is an awkward issue in that there seems to be a need to express complicated thoughts and that we would either need to refer people to the publication notes in wiki (titles don't have wiki notes) or to live with zero formatting. Wiki notes also means that someone using the ISFDB DB would also need to deal with the Wiki DB.  20:17, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * Just had a look at the new updated notes for Earthman, Come Home and it looks real good! One or two problems though, the title Okie does not link and it looks all right to me in the HTML, the other thing is two of the Avon(3rd 7 5th printing) pubs are still listed as collections? I thought I had changed them all.Kraang 21:32, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * Thank you for the title shuffle you did. I had been debating creating a new title for the "Novel" and leaving the unverified pubs under the collection but suspect what you did will result in far fewer errors in the future.


 * I fixed the Okie link - I had auto-wrapped the text and the URL got wrapped at a - which broke it. I also fixed the last two collections.  I thought you had fixed them all too and wondered why you had not changed the pub that triggered the discussion. :-)  23:56, 21 Jan 2008 (CST)

(unindent)HTML is nice, but please keep in mind that Title and Publication IDs can change at any time, so any hardcoded links to them may become broken at any time. Ahasuerus 10:12, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Yes, but hopefully people will put enough meaning in the alternate text that even if the hyperlink breaks the meaning is still clear. (I.e. no "Contents previously published as [1][2][3]"...)
 * Can we push for the "This title based on...." relationships to be bumped up the coding request list? We're almost coming to agreement on fix-ups at last - if we had automatically maintained links to the constituent titles of a fix-up it would dissuade people from trying to do this with contents entries. Of course, where sections/chapters of a fix-up match one-to-one with shortfiction I'd still like them represented as such, or variants at worst: I do need to know whether I've got most of a publication already or not. BLongley 15:41, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * "This title based on...." would be useful for recording novellas expanded to novels, too. --Roglo 16:07, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * And maybe novels rewritten or expanded later too... there, we currently don't get the title-length differences to persuade people not to merge them anyway, and have to work with clumsy "(rev 19xx)" suffixes. (Which often have the wrong versions recorded under them anyway.) BLongley 16:18, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * This has been discussed before and has been added to the Feature Request List. Mhhutchins 17:48, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

(unindent)Perhaps we can come up with a defined set of tags that we are limited to using. It's annoying to me that not even embedded Carriage Return/Line Feeds are not reflected in the Note display. And remember - if there is ever an update to incorporate the fixup information databasecally then there will have to be some cleanup work.--swfritter 15:03, 23 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Limiting it to CRLF is fine with me though the reason I started using HTML bullet lists rather than &lt;br&gt; was because they are more compact and readable than CRLF/CRLF pairs to create blank lines. With the pubs I edit I have tried to always use the same exact wording and have a boilerplate file of phrases that I drop in with the idea that the notes can be machine scanned if needed.  16:47, 23 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Don't tell anybody about this. Click on the note. I will probably take it off before long although the webmaster at Harry Harrison's site told me it is probably not a problem since it has been reprinted in a million places.--swfritter 16:59, 23 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Feature creep sets in and now we need URL/links too. :-) Maybe instead of linking to the image you could describe it."Two panels showing 41 authors arrayed about the club."  19:30, 23 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * What would really be nice is if we knew that interior artwork is out of copyright so that we could actually scan and display it when the user clicks on an art title. Maybe in a 100 years.--swfritter 17:51, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)

Data Consistency
I see that you have created a new Data Consistency page. Have you seen the ISFDB:Data Consistency page, which seems to list the same pointers? Ahasuerus 10:04, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * I was wondering why I knew there was root page for the Data Consistency project but yet it was not in the "obvious" place. :-) I've changed the page I added into a redirect though did not check to see if all of the pages under /Data Consistency/... are linked up.  16:55, 22 Jan 2008 (CST)

Marune: Alastor 933
Marc can you have a second look at your Canadian version of this title Marune: Alastor 933 DAW#416 and check the number line for me. The last known to me that starts with a "1" is book #406 and the first known Canadian printing that starts with a "2" is #411. All the CDN printing I've seen after that start with a "2". Thanks. :-)Kraang 08:08, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * Both of my books say "No. 419" and not #416.


 * Both the USA and Canadian editions say "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9". With the Canadian edition the Canada stuff seems like it was added later.
 * On the bottom of the title page where it says "DAW Books, Inc. etc. the Canadian copy has this section shifted up about 1/2 inch and in a different type face, and also slightly crooked, is "Published by / The New American Library / of Canada Limited."
 * On the bottom of the copyright page the neatly printed "Printed in U.S.A." is replaced by what looks like typewriter type that says "Printed in Canada / Cover Printed in U.S.A." This addition is also slightly crooked compared to the text immediately above it.


 * That is interesting about the Canadian editions tending to start with two. The reason it's interesting is that it's quite rare to find a 2nd DAW printing. Here's a distribution of verified printings from the DAW list. Of the ten 2nd printings, one is Canada, five are USA, and of the remaining four, one is a hardcover.
 * Are they really that rare? I come across them all the time on my hunting expeditions... and, of course being Canadian, the majority are CDN editions.--Bluesman 18:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll let the numbers speak for themselves in terms of how common a 2nd printing is. I very rarely run across them and of the hundreds of DAW books I own there are three pb and one hc 2nd printing.  Two of them are UQ1050 and UQ1051 implying there was a small window window around 1973 where they used USA 2nd before we jump to 2006 and the third pb.  I know 2nds are much more common in Canada.  18:40, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * {| border=1

!Num!!Printing
 * align="right"|799|| 1st
 * align="right"| 10|| 2nd
 * align="right"|115|| 3rd
 * align="right"| 62|| 4th
 * align="right"| 53|| 5th
 * align="right"| 27|| 6th
 * align="right"| 14|| 7th
 * align="right"| 8|| 8th
 * align="right"| 9|| 9th
 * align="right"| 8|| 10th
 * align="right"| 8|| 11th
 * align="right"| 3|| 12th
 * align="right"| 2|| 13th
 * align="right"| 5|| 14th
 * align="right"| 4|| 15th
 * align="right"| 2|| 16th
 * align="right"| 3|| 17th
 * align="right"| 3|| 18th
 * align="right"| 1|| 19th
 * align="right"| 1|| 20th
 * } 23:50, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * It looks like the transition from one printing style to another was not a clean one. Did you receive the update to the DAW spread sheet?
 * align="right"| 3|| 12th
 * align="right"| 2|| 13th
 * align="right"| 5|| 14th
 * align="right"| 4|| 15th
 * align="right"| 2|| 16th
 * align="right"| 3|| 17th
 * align="right"| 3|| 18th
 * align="right"| 1|| 19th
 * align="right"| 1|| 20th
 * } 23:50, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * It looks like the transition from one printing style to another was not a clean one. Did you receive the update to the DAW spread sheet?
 * align="right"| 3|| 17th
 * align="right"| 3|| 18th
 * align="right"| 1|| 19th
 * align="right"| 1|| 20th
 * } 23:50, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * It looks like the transition from one printing style to another was not a clean one. Did you receive the update to the DAW spread sheet?
 * align="right"| 1|| 20th
 * } 23:50, 24 Jan 2008 (CST)
 * It looks like the transition from one printing style to another was not a clean one. Did you receive the update to the DAW spread sheet?
 * It looks like the transition from one printing style to another was not a clean one. Did you receive the update to the DAW spread sheet?


 * Yes I got your e-mail - thank you. I've been busy with a project and letting my in-box fill up.  Maybe what we should do is to copy/paste your e-mail to Publisher_talk:DAW as you brought up some interesting issues.  I'll see if I can read the e-mail and think about it over the weekend.  03:01, 26 Jan 2008 (CST)

Indirect/sneaky methods to check for customer images
I agree the final URL for the image is not immediately derivable, but the EXISTENCE of such should just be a quick link to see if there's anything at the gp/product/customer-images/ISBN sub-directory? Or even gp/product/customer-images/ASIN if you're not being purist about ISBNs? BLongley 15:00, 25 Jan 2008 (CST)


 * It's more painful than that. Amazon almost never does a 404 and instead serves up a page or an image (sometimes a 1x1). If you go to the customer-images page for a publication that has no images you get pretty much the full page about that pub and buried on it, in rather small type, is "Sorry, there are no customer images to display at this time."  The indirect methods involve asking for the page and parsing the HTML.  I believe from the main page I should be able to figure out the URLS for publisher, book seller, and/or customer provided images though if there's more than four images they are not all on the main page.  The rollover thing only supports up to four image meaning I may also need to check the count of customer images and then go to the .../customer-images/... page too.


 * It's more painful than that in that I wanted to do this in client side Javascript. If I could do server side code with GooglePages it'd be easier for me as Javascript is not my first language and I'm not even sure if it can issue an HTTP request to another site and get the results back as either text or a parsable graph.  Amazon's HTML is not quite XHTML which also adds to the parsing difficulty.


 * Maybe I will do a server side thing on another server as something I find myself doing is given a book title and publisher to search Amazon for records with either publisher, bookseller, or customer images and looking to see if any of those images match my publication. The first search would be with AWS and then I'd need to pull the pages using HTTP to take a look at the HTML.  02:52, 26 Jan 2008 (CST)

Transcience/Transience
Can you please double-check Transcience in this pub please? Someone merged the variants and I know the "Transience" variant should still exist, I'm not sure which you had though. BLongley 14:13, 7 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * Yet another feature request - a way to flag a name or title as "pay extra attention" and for this one a note about Transcience vs. Transience as that's something most people would miss. In this case the verified pub was/is correct and it's Transience.


 * Contento lists Transcience in
 * Transcience, (ss) Startling Stories Jul 1949
 * Looking Forward, ed. Milton Lesser (Beechhurst Press, 1953, $4.95, 400pp, hc)
 * The Other Side of the Sky, Harcourt Brace World 1958
 * From the Ocean, from the Stars (Harcourt Brace World, 1961, hc)
 * The Nine Billion Names of God (Harcourt Brace World, 1967, hc)


 * I have From the Ocean, From the Stars (Harcourt Brace World, 1961, hc) (printed November 1961 per the gutter code) and that uses Transience on the copyright page, TOC, and in the body of the publication. From the Ocean, From the Stars is an omnibus that contains The Other Side of the Sky meaning I probably have exactly what's in the Harcourt Brace World 1958 edition of The Other Side of the Sky.


 * It sounds like the merge was correct and if Transcience exists it's a publisher's typo. Do you want to e-mail Bill Contento with the correction? 18:56, 7 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * I think it would be better coming from you as I have none of the editions he lists. Mine's the 1974 Corgi SF Collector's Library version of The Other Side of the Sky, containing "Transience" but listing "Transcience" in TOC. (It was this discrepancy that made me notice the merge.) BLongley 13:06, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * I've e-mailed Bill - Good eye on spotting the Transcience of Transience. :-) 15:16, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * Bill checked his U.S. publication of the July 1949 "Startling Stories" and will be updating his database to use Transience. 14:57, 9 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * It looks like the July 1949 Startling Stories will be a hard one to track down for cheap as it has an L. Ron Hubbard story in it. Maybe you can e-mail a bookseller that claims "Transcience" and they will take a peek for you. 19:04, 7 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * I have all issues of Startling Stories in my collection and most of them are readily accessible, so with luck I should be able to check on February 16. Ahasuerus 14:32, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * Thank you - I e-mailed a seller of the Canadian edition of the July 1949 Startling Stories who mentioned "Transcience" and he replied back that it actually stated "Transience" and will correct his listing.


 * FWIW - I just read the story and Transience fits well meaning we're just looking for the exceptions where Transcience was used. 15:16, 8 Feb 2008 (CST)

The Overlords of War by Klein
I updated your verified copy of this title with the month of publication and adjusted the notes accordingly. I noticed something strange though. There's an interiorart record attributed to John Brunner, who was the translator. Mhhutchins 21:51, 12 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * Thank you - That publication happens to be on the stack that's about to be verified or re-checked next though it's on the very bottom of the stack which recently has been growing rather than shrinking the way well behaved stacks do. :-)


 * The Brunner interiorart was an experiment to see how it looks (and the reason this book is still in the to-verify stack). I agree, it does look strange and but I'm also trying to figure out a way to do these credits - particularly this one as it's on the title page. ISFDB used to have a translator field but something was broken about it and the edit field was removed. I looked over the list of the currently available title types and none of them are good.  In looking at other records I see
 * Canadola (trans: John Greene) SHORTFICTION
 * Hide and Seek (trans: John Brunner) SHORTFICTION
 * The Annunciation (trans: Mary Jane Tracy) SHORTFICTION
 * A few five more like that and then
 * Die Pfeiler der Macht (translation / narration) INTERIORART
 * Les Guérillères (translator) INTERIORART
 * Thus it looks like the precedence is to not add a title record but rather to use (trans: /name/) in the main title. The downside with that is it does not show up in the translator's bibliography. Maybe what I should do is to change it to shortfiction but also to add a title note explaining why the record exists..  23:50, 12 Feb 2008 (CST)

Andre Norton - The Crossroads of Time
I think I have the same copy, but one difference. My price is $1.25 and you list the price as $1.95. Your comments make it seem like it should be $1.25. Can you check your copy? Thanks -- Holmesd 21:34, 18 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * It does look rather suspicious - the "125" at the end of the spine number should match the price, in my experience. And $1.95 is high for an early seventies printing according to my cribsheet.


 * I'm also a little suspicious of the printing numbers: while I know you can usually order Ace printings of a book by the #XXXXn serial number, morphing into #441-XXXXn-zzz serial numbers, morphing into 0-441-XXXXn-C ISBNs (where XXXX is the title number, n is the printing number, zzz the price, and C the check digit for an ISBN), I don't think they always counted the Lettered serial numbers as prior printings - and I'm especially unsure when there's an Ace Double involved. E.g we currently have:


 * The Crossroads of Time / Mankind on the Run, (1956, Andre Norton, Gordon R. Dickson, Ace Double, #D-164, $0.35, 169+151pp, dos, omni)
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1962, Andre Norton, Ace, #D-546, $0.35, 169pp, pb)
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1966, Andre Norton, Ace, #F-391, $0.40, 169pp, pb)
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1969, Andre Norton, Ace, #12311, $0.60, 190pp, pb)
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1972, Andre Norton, Ace, #441-12312-125, $1.95, 190pp, pb) - [VERIFIED]
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1978, Andre Norton, Ace, 0-441-12313-9, pb)
 * The Crossroads of Time, (Feb 1980, Andre Norton, Ace, 0-441-12314-7, $1.95, 242pp, pb) Cover: Dean Ellis - [VERIFIED]
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1981, Andre Norton, Ace, 0-441-12315-5, $2.25, pb) Cover: Dean Ellis
 * The Crossroads of Time, (1985, Andre Norton, Ace, 0-441-12316-3, $2.50, 242pp, pb)


 * Mine is the seventh on the list, but claims to be the Fifth printing, and the "12314" supports the Fifth printing of the edition starting 12310 - we have 12311, 12312, 12313 as well. 12315 is obviously suspect when we haven't got the author! BLongley 15:06, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)
 * An interesting puzzle, and one of the reasons why concentrating on Publishers for a bit might reveal some useful tips. BLongley 15:06, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)


 * The $1.95 was my mistake. It's $1.25. As for the printing #. Ace doubles were not counted but they did count the lettered singles.  That said, something is amiss here as there were two lettered singles. It looks like Ace either does not count the second lettered printing or forgot when they did the first printing with a 5-digit code. I corrected the record for 0-441-12315-5 based on AbeBooks seller listings.  17:22, 19 Feb 2008 (CST)

missing publisher pages
Creation of publisher pages to replace any of the temporarily missing (due to the new namespaces) pages will cause problems reclaiming the old pages. Please be careful not to create pages for publishers unless you are sure that there was not a page existi,g by the same name as of yeasterday. See ISFDB:Community Portal for more detail. -DES Talk 17:05, 1 Mar 2008 (CST)


 * Thank you for the heads up David. I'm not sure in this case and will check out the Namespace thread.  17:07, 1 Mar 2008 (CST)

Perry Rhodan
I have moved this thread to Series:Perry Rhodan. 14:48, 19 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Approved your submission
Sorry, I was too fast on the mouse trigger and approved your creation of the Ackerman pseudonym. No one had been around for the last hour or so, and I was automatically approving the last sub. It made me realize that I should slow down and actually look at the submissions. :-) MHHutchins 14:55, 19 Mar 2008 (CDT)


 * Ahh - thank you! I was a little puzzled as I thought I had added that, did not see it in the queue, and then saw that Ackerman  already had a pseudonym set up.  Shrug - brain's fried but everyone knows that already. :-)  15:02, 19 Mar 2008 (CDT)


 * Oh, fried brains, yummy! Ahasuerus 15:14, 19 Mar 2008 (CDT)

PW changes
I have found some info on how to change wiki passwords, see my comments at ISFDB talk:Community Portal. -DES Talk 10:57, 20 Mar 2008 (CDT)

Orbitsville Departure
Your verified pub has had the Cover-art link go bad. Any idea why? BLongley 21:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you - One possibility is that uploaders to Amazon have the right to delete any or all of their images. For the past few months when I link to an Amazon image that's filed under an ASIN I've been adding a note about which record the image is filed under. Unfortunately, Orbitsville Departure is an older verification and the pub is currently in a hard to get at spot. When it surfaces I'll scan in the cover and upload it.


 * Not too long ago Ahasuerus said he was going to download all of the current covers into a local cache on his machine. Maybe he has this cover. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am afraid I have been so busy with travel and ISFDB migration issues lately that I haven't done anything about images yet. Hopefully, things will be a little calmer now... Ahasuerus 14:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I've got 1400 cover files totalling 380 Megabytes so far locally - but those are originals rather than resized Amazon ones so little use for comparison/spotting-changes purposes. They're not recorded in such a way that we could automatically reattach them to the pub I linked to Amazon from though. And I've linked to other user's covers as often, I think - mostly Jim Gardner's but there have been other users that seem to be pretty reliable. Ah well, it's an encouragement for me to scan more, and gives me something to do when I run out of simple things to do here. The Publisher changes mean I can do a lot anyway without more primary references arriving - add ISBNs where publisher is known, or correct pubs where the ISBN is obviously wrong - I might reduce my 20-new-books-a-week habit yet. BLongley 22:17, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

SFBC edition of Clarke's From the Ocean, From the Stars
I've updated info for your verified copy of the SFBC edition of Clarke's omnibus (and adjusted the first bullet point in the notes accordingly). Month and price taken from Tuck. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Publisher pages
(Moving some of the talk here as otherwise we're discussing generalities on specific but possibly-transient pages.)

Thanks for your help so far, but I'd suggest that you DON'T try to PERFECT anything I'm posting on these just YET. Your publication details are something that I think we could all aspire to, and I'd be glad if you started work on what you think SHOULD be recorded on Publisher pages in the long run. I know my iterative "it's better data than before" approach doesn't match with your "squeeze every bit of data out of a book before you put it down", but on months-long projects over many publications, titles, publishers, imprints, et cetera, I don't think we want to rework all the intermediate stuff too often. BLongley 00:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to rearrange ANYTHING I'm posting - so long as I can find it again I'm not too worried. But please don't spend too much time on linking: e.g. your work on Futura means that after another three clicks on the last entry people can read "Notes: "A Quantum Science Fiction Novel", "An Orbit Book", "Futura Publications" - by "Imprints to make your brain hurt" maybe? Apparent first printing." I think you can guess that that's NOT going to be a stable link much longer... ;-) BLongley 00:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Organizing my "Chaotic Good" entries too soon is just going to mean more work in the long run, but I appreciate guidelines in the meantime - for instance, I've been working on adding ISBNs that were missing but easily findable: is "common/usual ISBN ranges" something that could be added to publisher pages even if you don't have the data, just to prompt someone to add such if they do know? "Earliest Date" that makes sense for a Publisher? Owners of the imprint/publisher in certain years? Where to find the registered trademarks? I'm looking to you as someone that can suggest what we should be aiming for rather than someone that can organize my works-in-progress. But as my works-in-progress will take months to finalize otherwise, and I don't want to hold back on what I've found in the meantime, I'm afraid I'm going to stay a BIT messy for a while. BLongley 00:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Your work on Publishers is much appreciated, Bill, and I'd love to help out, but the last few weeks have been very hectic. We have been juggling three hosts and copying data, setting up backups, scripts, accounts, passwords, ssh, etc has been a pain, especially considering that Al is doing it from Texas and I have been bouncing between the US coasts in addition to everything else. Hopefully, things will settle down, we'll catch up on a few dozen hours of sleep (thanks, Marc, that was great advice!) and re-join the battle against entropy with renewed vigor! :) Ahasuerus 00:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Sleep is good - I seem to waste half my weekend on catching up on it though. :-/ Still, that stops me from travelling too far to good bookshops, and I have to settle for the small trickle of books through the post (I'm down to about 2 or 3 a day now). An ISFDB interface suitable for mobile phones, late-night openings at bookshops, and a good data plan might get me out a bit more often eventually though. BLongley 21:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * And I understand the pressures: I'm currently without my Team Leader and Business Analyst (gone for good, unlikely to be replaced) and my Delivery Manager (just on holiday for a week), am short on support (I now have one, new, junior developer, but he needs me to train him), long on commitments (total rewrite of the front-end system to go live in 13 days, along with an upgrade of the RDBMS and a quadruple-version upgrade of the development tool used - closely followed by rearchitecture of the web-server pool and a system security upgrade that takes away control of such) and with more work interrupting (sudden PCI-DSS audit) and people clamouring for some extra help (Test team don't understand the system, live users can't articulate their Change Requests, Systems we link to are informing me of changes they're making next month that will need me to change our end of the link). I come to ISFDB to RELAX now - 275,000 titles look a simpler challenge! BLongley 21:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I see from recent-changes that several people are handling the publisher pages like talk pages for now and so I won't worry about it. Today I went to a library book sale/store and someone had constructed a very large ball out of rubber bands.  Obviously they had free time!  I bring it up as it's sort of like a hairball that bounces well which is exactly how I feel about publishers in that they are a hairball that'll bounce away as soon as you try to pin something down.  Oddly, both of the specfict books I got were new titles to ISFDB.  I thought we had 100% coverage by now! Marc Kupper (talk) 08:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My now-departed Team Leader actually had a rubber-band ball like that. Mostly constructed sub-consciously as he stared at a screen of emails wondering "HTF do I deal with THAT?". In fact, his departure now means I have too many rubber-bands - the Royal Mail have been very active in delivering me several that bound together various small packets, before they had to separate them to push through my letter-box. BLongley 20:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Careful there Bill - you are headed for a trip to the rubber room! :) Marc Kupper (talk) 20:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If I ever feel the need to construct such a ball, I at least have an assistant to do it... ;-) BLongley 21:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, there are huge gaps in our coverage in a number of areas. We are missing a lot of recent "paranormal romances" (aka "vampire shaggers" and less complimentary names), YA fantasy, etc because Dissembler wasn't catching them for a while. We are also missing many older US (and especially UK) Titles, even something as basic as Avalon :(


 * I can do without the Vampire-Shaggers until we have editors that want to work on such. :-/ I do like to go find missing SF titles from an under-represented author, or an incomplete series, or a specialist SF publisher, or even just UK/US editions where the balance is one-sided so far. But those disrupt the Entropy Stats... I can't win! BLongley 20:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I have been slurping in library records that are cataloged under "SF subjects" like "Fantastic Fiction" and "Life on Other Planets -- Fiction" -- see the Library section on my User page -- and have accumulated something on the order of a gigabyte of raw data so far. Once I finish importing this data into a temporary database, I'll try to match it against what the ISFDB has and post the differences here. It's proving to be a more time consuming project than I expected, but then what else is new? :) Ahasuerus 18:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just don't post them all at once! BLongley 20:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes to your verified pub
Marc, I've put this submission on hold The Glass of Dyskornis, its one of your verified pubs. Based on the new note you may want to rewrite yours.Kraang 22:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I suspect Don was flummoxed by the HTML formatting and just deleted whatever was there but I wonder why he did not change the cover artist credit. I decided the cleanest fix was to open the publication up in the editor, copy/paste in the new artist credit info, approve Don's submission, and then to save the publication record overwritting Don's edit leaving me with 19999 moderator approvals. :-) Marc Kupper (talk) 07:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Congratulations on joining the 20K Club, Marc! Now you've overcome that hurdle, perhaps you'll join me in the 25k club and keep pushing Al - I'm sure he only does Dissembler runs now to keep ahead of me... ;-) BLongley 22:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * But then again, if we counted the number of lines of codes (written and rewritten), Al would be uncatchable :) Ahasuerus 03:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I was hoping to stay at 19999 edits for a while but a strange compulsion kicked in. :-) Maybe I'll stop at 29999. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The Search for Kä
I've updated your verified pub The Search for Kä. Changed from The Search for Ka to The Search for Kä. Probably need to add a alias for the map work. In that book the name is Robert A. Sabuda. In the others I've been verifying it is Robert J. Sabuda, he also has one other map under that name. So thats probably enough to make the A. initial a alias, possibly a publisher typo. Dana Carson 03:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * That's bizarre - I wonder why I used "Ka" when it's pretty clear it's Kä? I know I finally gave up and went in for an optometry appt. a week later but did not realize I was not seeing spots...  The 2008 glasses experience was painful (actually the saga continues) with three redos of the prescription (it can be really disorienting when a prescription is wrong!).


 * As for Robert _ Sabuda - there's a Wikipedia article for Robert Sabuda that makes a claim for Robert Clarke Sabuda. But, the talk page for that article reveals that perhaps the middle name is James... Anyway, the article credits him with the interior-art for The Gandalara Cycle I and I'd have to imagine he did the work for Gandalara Cycle V which is The Search for Kä  His web site, http://www.robertsabuda.com/, does not shed light.  Maybe the best course would be to e-mail him via his web site to see if A, Clarke, James, and blank are all the same person and if he'd prefer just Robert Sabuda as that's what his web site uses and we'd make that the canonical name. Hopefully he can explain why the publisher sometimes credits him with "A." and other times with "J." Marc Kupper (talk) 06:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I emailed him and got a response.

Dana, There is indeed one book in the series that incorrectly has my middle initial as A. My middle initial  is J. This was a series of sci-fi books that I illustrated maps when I was still in high school! Take Care Robert Sabuda
 * Dana, that's great though that you tracked this down. I see that you already set up the variant title. I tracked down the probable source for Robert Clarke Sabuda and have added Author:Robert J. Sabuda with notes plus updated Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) 17:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Locus 2008 ?
Do you mind if I enter issues of Locus from this year? Alvonruff 12:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem. Thanks! Marc Kupper (talk) 14:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Ultimate Weapon by Campbell
The publication date of your verified edition of this title is stated to be May, 1976 in Locus #189. Just thought this would help update your verification. MHHutchins 19:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you - I updated the publication record. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:39, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Your Locus project
Marc, I've started entering my copies of Locus, beginning circa 1975 (with some gaps here and there). I saw that you have a project of indexing Locus, so I've gone back and changed the tags to match those that you've set up (format: LOCUSmmmddyyyy). Yesterday I received a copy of the Gregg Press two-volume reprint of issues 1-207 through an Interlibrary Loan, which means I have about three weeks to enter as much info as I can before I have to return it. So far, I've entered 1974, 1975 and most of 1976. I've stopped entering those issues that I have on hand so that I can do as much work as I can using the Gregg Press reprints. If you like, I can update and add issues that are missing from the early years of your table of issues. Just let me know. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I should move that project back to the main Magazine:Locus page. I have the magazines right here but other projects keep popping up and I have not gotten to the Locus project in a while. Yes, filling in the missing pieces would be great.  Thank you. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I have a large (and quite heavy) box full of 1980s Locuses somewhere, but it's relatively low on the list of priorities. If everything goes according to the plan, I'll take a break from my wanderings at the end of the month, in which case I should be able to review the Locus situation some time in July, possibly taking care of a few lacunae. As we have all learned by now, variety is a good thing if one values one's sanity :) Ahasuerus 05:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't Bite the Sun
Just a quick FYI that Michael has identified the publication date of the third printing of this DAW book. Ahasuerus 22:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you Ahasuerus. Does your copy have a yellow spine?  One of my lists says "yes" and another doesn't list it. Marc Kupper (talk) 23:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh yes, the spine is deliciously yellow! :) Ahasuerus 23:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

The Door Through Space
I edited to change the cover image URL from

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/6c/0f/372c820dd7a0e8aeecb8e010.L.jpg

which seems not to be working at this time, to

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/1/11/DTSRZLW1961.jpg. I hope this change is consistant with your copy. -DES Talk 19:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Grumble - why do people ask about the hard to find books? I have the 1972 edition too and found that no problem and believe the F-117 copy is within arm's reach but the arm does not bend in enough ways to get to it... Marc Kupper (talk) 03:13, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Mind you, I'm pretty confident about thsi one, since the image has the catalog # F-117 visible. Source is the PG edition, which was trascribed from the F-117 edition. -DES Talk 14:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe you but I normally remember all of my book covers and I could not remember that one... It motivated me to look again and of course F-117 was at the very bottom of a stack next to The Door Through Space as a standalone book.  I did remember the flip side cover for F-117 and so at some point I'll scan that and we'll have both sides available on the ISFDB image. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

John Brunner and The Overlords of War
I have noticed that there is an INTERIORART record for The Overlords of War (translator) and that one of your verified publications includes this Title. I seem to recall that we discussed this issue a while back, but I don't remember what, if anything, we decided to do about it. Would you happen to have a better recollection of the discussion? Thanks! Ahasuerus 03:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm hoping support for secondary credits will be added at some point and then I'll hunt down the INTERIORART records. I suppose a quick fix would be to add a CONTRIBUTOR type and it would follow the same display rules as INTERIORART. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:24, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Translator is Number 3 on Al's To Do list. When he reaches numbers 6 & 7, Publishers should improve too. BLongley 20:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Bio:Sasha Meret
FYI the standard header (generated by Template:BioHeader includes a link back to teh db author biblio page. it was already on this page. -DES Talk 20:02, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I missed it with that lovely green on green. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The color is an experiment, if anyone has a better idea I will change it in a flash. Any sugestions? -DES Talk 21:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd been thinking along the lines of a wording change as I missed the link. I see Wikipedia is using #F8EABA for the mbox but the green on tan does not look good.  Wikipedia also uses a very light tan and this is what the green looks like but if we used that they the border becomes important..


 * I'm wondering if this template should go on the talk page though I believe it's a good idea it's smack on the main article as then the person who added the text is more likely to notice. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the light tan, so I have changed to it for the moment. I do not thiunk the header should go on the talk pages. Even on Wikipedia many users never visit talk pages, and here such a notice might almost never bee seen. -DES Talk 01:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

query re a story in Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh
Hi Marc, This publication record that you verified [], lists a story titled "Wings", with publication date 2004. I am entering the contents of an anthology Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three" (1990) which also has a story titled "Wings" by Cherryh, of about the same length (6 and a half pages of a pb size book). I wonder if it is the same story? In Carmen Miranda ..., the story starts "At 13:05, on September 3, 2152, two ..." and ends "... the world, the station, and all." Thanks --j_clark 02:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I should be able to track this down Saturday. Thank you for the heads up. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:14, 26 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Wings I have is the same as yours. It turns out that the title page for each story in my collection also has a first publication date and so I verified this for each of the stories.  Wings is reported with an 1989 date which fits with your publication's printing date.  I decided that 1989 was in error and so used 1990 date as 1989 was probably a magazine publication date or when Cherryh wrote the story while we use the first book publication date. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:45, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Sword and Sorceress II
When you get a moment, can you look at your verified copy again? It looks as though it has some of the same errors in ToC as my version - but mine seems to have even more. The last story in particular may be significantly different. BLongley 22:38, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you - I rescanned and it seems both my ToC and body match yours exactly meaning the list of errors is the same. I ended up adding three more items to the error list including the bit about the last story's title. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I think my volume 1 had a couple more pagination errors than yours too. Volume 3 (I know you don't have it) looks correct though. I'll probably have another check later with fresher eyes, but too much sword and sorcery at once makes my brain melt. BLongley 16:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I have III along with the original "I" before they started numbering, "I" (with numbering), II, III, IV, VI, IX, and XV. What I don't have is time and it seems many times when I start verifying a publication it turns into a saga... At present I've verified about 25% of the collection. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Andre Norton's "The Crossroads of Time"
According to Locus #162 (July 20, 1974) your verified edition of this title was printed in June 1974. The catalog number, page count and price all matches the Locus listing. MHHutchins 01:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

ISBN 13s
On User talk:Patrisha, you wrote "we are still using the old 10-digit ISBNs. I think this is incorrect. Help:Screen:EditPub says "''Some books printed around 2007 specified both the 10 digit and the 13 digit version of the ISBN. The ISFDB software supports both formats, so if two forms of ISBN are present, you can enter either one.''" My experience supports this. If I am correct, either an ISBN-10 or an ISBN-13, can be entered in the ISBN field of a pub, and if the number is valid, the page will display both (but show only the one originally entered when in edit mode. If this is correct, there is no need to convert ISBN-13s to the 10-digit form (although no harm in doing so). -DES Talk 20:44, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

ISBN-13
Marc, I noticed you're advising the used of ISBN-10's still, but I believe ISBN-13s have worked for some time now. If they're not in some cases, please let Al and the rest of us know when they don't. BLongley 20:47, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see DES beat me to it. BLongley 20:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * (from User talk:Patrisha) DES - we crossed up approvals and notes. I need to run - can you please finish up with this?  Her web site is http://www.reecedavies.com/, the book has a site, http://www.mullerysagas.com/, and the author page is http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Patrisha_Reece-Davies.  Thanks! Marc Kupper (talk) 20:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Will do. Sorry, thought I put a hold on. -DES Talk 20:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. The author page is, the title record display is 911732 and the publication record is . Please check that all informnation is correct. -DES Talk 20:23, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I had put a hold on it too - the software must not warn you if the state is not NEW when applying the hold. No problem there and thanks for the heads up on the ISBN-13.


 * looks good. I suspect we should find out what the publication states as far as the publisher goes.  I'm pretty sure it'll be Lulu Press but another issue is the stated ISBN as because the author provided us with ISBN 0-9559773-0-4 / 978-0-9559773-0-5 which does not exist yet per Google and it's on Amazon.com from Lulu Press at 1-84799-557-8 / 978-1-84799-557-5.  Too bad there's no way to look up an ISBN prefix to see who 0-9559773 is registered to.  I suspect there have been two "publications" as the Lulu edition is $25.50 while the Books From the Village edition is $10.95.  Lulu has three books
 * http://www.lulu.com/content/680237 - Little Poems for Little People
 * http://www.lulu.com/content/775770 - Books, Birthrights and Beginnings 978-1-84799-557-5
 * http://www.lulu.com/content/3237161 - The Mullery Sagas (Books, Birthrights & Beginnings), second edition - 978-0-9559773-0-5
 * That explains the two ISBNs and adds the mystery of if "second edition" means "revised text" or a second release or printing. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyright issues
One other comment is that we should not be copy/pasting text from web sites and then onto ISFDB. Bio:Patrisha_Reece-Davies is largely taken from http://www.reecedavies.com/ (or http://www.drprd.com/) which is copyright material and 911732 is from http://www.mullerysagas.com/whoismullery.html which is also copyright material. As the text-content of ISFDB must be creative commons we should get written consent from the copyright holder, Patrisha Reece-Davies. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:34, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "Written consent" sounds a bit extreme. Who is keeping all that paperwork? Who would people justifying their entries send it to? Not me, nor anyone else involved in ISFDB, I suspect. If we get bogged-down in Lawyer-speak then we'll just give up and die. "Publish and Be Damned": we're a useful service and if anybody wants to sue us out of existence then it's the world's loss. If someone complains about their entry, just fix or delete that bit. We don't have the Scientologists after us yet, do we? BLongley 23:42, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's Al's butt on the line and so any relaxing of the standards would need to be done by him. At present the system is configured so that right below the edit box it says DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION! and so I'll assume that's the standard Al is looking for. I agree though that your questions are valid and so far we avoid the need for figuring out where to send paperwork, etc. by asking that people don't submit copyright work and if we see it showing up then we ask for clearance to use it (and will need to figure out at the time how to implement this clearance) or remove/the added text so that ISFDB does not infringe. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That bio was near the line, but given that it was released by the subject as a publicity piece (which normally inplies permission to reprint) I thought that I was within the permissible limnits of fair use and/or re-use of a publicity piece/p[ress release. (I would not have hesitated to submit it to Wikipedia, if the person were notable enough, but then there would be multiple sources to use.) i will re-write it further so that it is far enough from the original not to be a copyright violation. Publiser's and author's blurbs, when being used to describe the work in question, are i think clearly within fair use, they are published precisely with the intent of being reprinted in reviews, ads, and descriptions of books. -DES Talk 17:37, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Rewrite of bio page done. Remembering that facts are not subject to copyright, and that "obvious" ways of arranging them are also not copyrightable, I think this is far enough from the source not to be actionable even if the author objected, which is IMO highly unlikely. -DES Talk 17:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks - I agree it sucks in that an author or publisher will write a promotional piece but then fail to clearly release it to PD or a GDFL/CCL that we or the Wikipedia can use. It seems obvious that they would like to get the word out but without the release it's copyright material.  Probably in this case it would be easier to explain the issue to the author and to ask her to write the blurbs. She can plagiarize herself all she wants.


 * As it is, earlier this week I was reading on a rather complicated case where someone had posted something under GNU free license, someone else made extensive edits and released it under creative commons, and now we had a mixed license work where some words were GFDL, others were CC, and there were sections where people were not sure because it was sections of the original text only slightly edited meaning the original author's "artistic expression" was still apparent but not the words. Marc Kupper (talk) 06:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * My point is that when an author writes and distributes a promotional piece, that author has implicitly agreed to its reproduction, and so is not a violation of copyright. Even the quite strict Wikipedia standards explicitly permit use of such promotional or "press kit" works, on the theory that the author has granted permission by distributing it for such a purpose. In the case of blurbs, i think they are pretty clearly fair use, as well as coming under the "promotional piece" rule. In short, i don't think explicit permission is required for either category.  I agree that the kind of odd mixed licensing you mention above is tricky, or would be if anyone actually tried to enforce the licenses as they are written, but since the commercial value of such works is probably zero, any copyright suit to enforce the licenses would probably be thrown out as frivolous. -DES Talk 15:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Even the quite strict Wikipedia standards - Can you cite these standards? Google finds things like wikipedia:User talk:Janice.hally where an editor disallowed material from a press kit though failed to cite standards.


 * I agree that if someone releases something as a "press kit" then it's understood that material can and will be widely distributed. However, most author bios, book blurbs, etc. are not distributed this way. They are copyright material found on web sites or books. Some authors may not want their material taken and copied to another site, particularly something like ISFDB where the material is presented as Creative Commons free-license. Thus we can't assume that stuff found on someone's web site is "free for the taking."


 * Al apparently does allow for some data to be copied into ISFDB ISFDB:General disclaimer includes "Occasional text is quoted from blurbs, publisher's press releases, and similar sources. Such text is normally copyrighted by the original writer or publisher, and is used here under fair use." I need to be up early for and so don't have time to read over Fair Use to see if copying an entire blurb would qualify as "fair use." I suspect ISFDB should develop/use fair-use templates and that they would be used every time copyright text is added to ISFDB.  That way if someone wants to create a "free" version of the site they can remove the non-free sections. Marc Kupper (talk) 07:09, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The argument for publisher blurbs is pretty clear. First of all, they can reasonably be considered part of the book as a whole, (at least when published with the book, on the back cover, front flap, or the like) and so would not be a "substantial" part of "the whole work", and be quite plausible covered by fair sue (as they also in no way harm the market for the book). In addition publisher blurbs are normally distribvuted to various vendors and reviwers with the intent that they shall be quoted and reproduced, thus creating an implicit licence.
 * Author-written blurbs, found on an author's web site, are not quite as clear. They probably can't be considered as part of a book (although when an author self-publishes, that may not be true). Thay might be consideresd as only poart of the website about the book, and thus less "substantial" for a fair use analysis. Obviously such quotation does not harm the market for the book, and there normally is no "market" for an author's personal website, as it genrally takes in little or no revenue, except by encouragign book sales. As a blurb is supposed to be a more or less factual description of a work, the "nature of the work" test would include towards fair use, as factual works generaly have reduced weight here, because of the underlying principle that the facts themselves cannot be copyrighted. It can be argued that in seting up a site intended to promote a book or books, and publishing descriptions (blurbs) of thsowe books on the internet, the author intends that they be widely copied. That would be an implied license, and would also argue in favor of fair use. But the conclusion is not so clear as with a publisher's blurb.
 * On the wikipedia standards, they seem to have changed a bit since I was active in sauch matters there. The Tempaltes "Promotional" and "PromoPhoto" used to recognize both a claim of implied license and a claim of fair use for "publicity photos", "Press relases" and other content "intended for promotional purposes" but it seems that the standrds used have been tightened there.
 * On the question of fair use templates, templates can't be used in the db records, such as the synopsis field of a title record, where a blurb would most natuarally go. (An acknowledgemet could be inserted there, but that would have to be done manually.) On wiki pages such as "Bio" pages, a template could be used, and templates (such as Template:Cover Image Data, and other templates in Category:Image License Tags have already been created, and some editors are using them. But we currently have no policy requiring their use, and some editors object to Template:Cover Image Data in particular as requiring too much work. Unfortunately there is no way at present for a wiki page to automatically extract and displsy data from a specified db record on a wiki page, so that the data in Template:Cover Image Data could be filled in automatically. Also, currently the image displayed in a DB pub record, if clicked on, does not display the image description page when the image is hosted on our wiki, but rather the raw image page. -DES Talk 16:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I simplify the decision process - if it's copyright work I don't add it to ISFDB. Blurbs and things on people's web sites are copyright works.  Fair use exists so that you can quote portions of a work for scholarship, review, criticism, teaching, etc. If I copy a single sentence out of a book or from a web site or any other media then it's a copyright violation. It does not matter if that sentence is part of a literary work, promotional material, or something found on the wall of a bathroom stall. It's all copyright material.  If I were to write an article about that sentence then I'm reproducing it under fair use.


 * If someone intends that their work by reproduced by others then they should release it with an appropriate license. Marc Kupper (talk) 07:13, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you take too narrow a view of fair use. In the "etc" is "...scholarship, or research" (see USC 17 Sec 107). Creation and publication of the ISFDB is IMO both scholarship and research, and is also a tool for research by others. That brings it squarely within fair use, provided that the balance of the four factors is right. Note also that the list of purposes is introduced by "...for purposes such as..." meaning that the listed purposes are not exclusive. Copying a single sentance (with attribution) from a a book-length work is unlikely not to be fair use regardless of the purpose, although all the factors must be considered in each case. In the case of blurbs, though, I think the implied license is pretty clear, and trumps any fair sue issues. Courts have upheld implied licenses in such cases. I see no reason not to quote publisher's blurbs, from backs of books or publisher advertising, or as reused by vendor sites (when clearly publisher-provided blurbs) in the synopsis field, if identified as publisher blurbs. -DES Talk 15:34, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with you that creation of the ISFDB database requires scholarship and/or research and that it can be used for scholarship or research. However, as the database has existed for over 10 years without blurbs and it can be reasonably shown that this database is not about blurbs.  If we are to add blurbs under "fair use" we'd need to be doing scholarship and/or research on the blurbs themselves and even there could run afoul of "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" section.
 * I am quite sure that this is way too narrow an interpretation of fair use. If reproducing a blurb is an aid to research or scholarship, whether about the blurb, or about anything to which it is reasoanbly related (such as the book for which it is a blurb), then it can be a valid fair use provided that the four factors are weighed properly. In the case of a blurb actually printed on or in a book, at least, the nature of the use (both noncommercial and transformative) and the efect on the market for the oprigianl work (the book), which is either effectivly nil (in many cases) or slightly positive (in some cases), would clearly tilt towards the ISFDB. The "substantiality" factor would probably also tilt our way -- a blurb is a tiny part of a book. The "nature of the original work" doesn't seem to tilt strongly in either direction in such a case. For a blurb published only on a web site the facors would weigh out a bit differently, but the absence of any cognizable market harm, lost profits, or possible secondary market (there would not, i think be a market for a commercial competitor to the ISFDB -- even teh IMDB survivives only on ads and subsidies from the major movie distributors) would probably lead to any such suit being dismissed as frivolous. -DES Talk 01:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no implied license to reproduce blurbs and in fact it's quite the opposite. For example, Penguin Group is very clear that they don't want material from their web site copied without written permission. My point is, we need to seek permission to reproduce copyright work on ISFDB and that we'd also need to abide by any terms or conditions a copyright holder may impose as part of the permission to reproduce. Let's take a random blurb and I see that it's been copied, though truncated, to Amazon and B&N. Assuming both of those sites have permission it seems the conditions for using the blurbs are reasonable in terms of how they are formatted on the screen, etc.
 * Explict licenses or restrictions trump implied licenses, but do not mean that implied licenses don't exist in the absence of such explicit restrictions. in some cases, actions can create implied licenses even in the face of explicit terms to the contrary. In the case of the usual publsierh, who places a blurb on the back cover or jacket flap of a book, and also distributes the bluirb as part of "press kits" to reviewers, bookstores, distributors, and various other outlets, there is a pretty clear implied license to reproduce the bluirb in connection with any listing of the book. I think you will find that in the case of other promotional matieriel simialrly distributed without cost and as widely as the crator can, there is caselaw supporting an implied license. -DES Talk 01:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I might add that the PGI terms of use you link to above are a typical, overbroad, and unenforcable piece of corporate boilerplate. In particular the phrase "By accessing or using this site, you agree to be bound by and comply with these Terms of Use." is an attempt to impose a contract of adhesion, and would not be given legal effect by a US court. The terms as written would bar any fair sue, which makes them automatically a violation of public policy and unenforcable agaisnt anyone unless there is an individually negociated contract, and even then might be struck down as "copyright abuse". -DES Talk 01:47, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * A secondary issue is coming up with a standard method for allowing copyright text that gets added to ISFDB to be identified so that versions of ISFDB can be released that are 100% Creative Commons License. I'm trying to prevent the ISFDB CC license from bleeding over onto any material that has other licenses. That'll also make it easier to obtain permission to use author or book blurbs as we can show we have the framework in place to protect the rights of their works. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Frankly neither the creative commons license nor the GFDL licesne is very well suited to an open wiki, and in practice neither is enforcable for a project like the ISFDB. Even Wikipedia finds it pretty much imposible or at least impractical to go after even open pirates of their text, much less technical violations of their license. Indeed arguably all od wikipedia is regualrly in violation of its own license, as it is not clar that the history tab meets the GDFL standards for author attribution. Since blurbs and the like ar normally wanted in the DB proper, not on a wiki page, no template mechanism can be used. We could develoip a standard attribution note to place at the end of such text, but people would have to know about it and insert it. For content on the wiki license tags can be used, and i've already creates some (mostly for iamges), but we still would need to get people to use them. -DES Talk 01:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Anyway, in future I'll ask for explicit permisison for blurbs from author sites, and for bios will either ask permisison or rewrite to the point where it isn't a copyvio issue. I don't see any reson not to reuse publisher blurbs in the normal case, however. -DES Talk 01:38, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Nowlan's Armageddon 2419 A.D.
Locus #166 (October 23, 1974) confirms your approximation for the date of this edition. Its books received listing gives the publication date as August, 1974. Hope this helps. MHHutchins 22:53, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you - I'm happy that you are doing the books received project. Marc Kupper (talk) 06:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. Now if I only had the time to work on the other projects: verifying from Tuck, the SFBC listings, the IASFM and Locus magazine projects, etc, etc, etc. MHHutchins 14:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

They Shall Have Stars -- change to verified pub
I changed from publisher "Avon (5th printing)" to "Avon". -DES Talk 23:53, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I am about to make the same change to. -DES Talk 23:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem. I usually do the (# printing) when a title has many similar publications that would be difficult to distinguish when looking at the title record.  With those two there were other publications with the same catalog #/price but the printing date is different.  I think at the time I verified those the printing # field was "just around the corner" and so the (# printing) was essentially populating that field. I keep getting pulled into too many directions - maybe I should just drop the book related stuff for a while and focus on coding. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah I see. But now it looks as if publisher regualrization is comming sooner than the printing number field. I have never overloaded the publisher field this way, but I can see why you chose to do so. -DES Talk 15:09, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Assignment . . . . . The Cairo Dancers
Marc you have the publisher listed as "Gold Medal" but the cover image would suggest that it should be "Fawcett Gold Medal". Thanks!Kraang 02:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's an ISFDB standard as to where to get the publisher name from. I tend to use what's stated on the title page. In this case we have
 * The front cover has "A Fawcett Gold Metal Book"
 * The spine has "A Gold Metal Book"
 * The back cover has "Fawcett World Library"
 * The page before the title page has "Other Gold Metal Novels in the "Assignment" Series by Edward S. Aarons.
 * The title page has "Gold Metal Books / Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn."
 * The copyright page has "Copyright &copy; by Fawcett Publications, Inc."
 * Up to 1965 Fawcett consistently used "Gold Metal Books" on the title page. From 1967 on out Fawcett consistently uses "A Fawcett Gold Metal Book" on the title page. I'd need to do some digging to bracket this a bit tighter. In terms of numbering d1583 is "Gold Metal" and d1823 is "Fawcett Gold Metal."


 * FWIW - I've been thinking of deleting the entire "Assignment" / Sam Durell series from ISFDB though did create Series:Sam Durell about it. The author did not intent to write specfict. Some of the stories have elements that border on specfict which is why I included them at all. Marc Kupper (talk) 05:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It looks like they didn't know what publishers name to use so they put a different one on every page. I agree when in doubt it's best to go with the title page. Thanks for the info. Now all we have to do is fix all the other Fawcett / Gold Medal books.Kraang 00:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Editing the contents of publications
I think you forgot that communication is a two way process. If one person replies the other needs to reply back. When giving instructions you need to check that they are clear to the person that receives them. If they have points you need to address them. This is only fair. Every person is a trainee at some point, and as such one must take the position that sometimes we fail to communicate. A good rule is do one thing at time. Making rulings on two books one on hold and one accepted with commentary can confuse the trainee. Notice to all, I am self taught, what is clear to those in computerese may totally befoul the situation as I see it. Making reference to three other publications calling a 'Preface' by me an introduction by them and putting that on hold, but accepting another where I changed the title to the printed title and referencing four other sources saying that theirs was otherwise totally throws me. This is a way of mixing the message for the trainee. Integrity is the key note of doing anything at this db. Questioning it is all right. Telling me it has to be otherwise because you have an established work-around due to the computer program that the db is based on is another. Telling me a Preface that has a date published with it needs to be changed to the published date is questionable. If a story has a published date of the anthology you use it. When a publisher gives the dating on a preface or anything else it is a statement that he has made noticeable. Making a note to that effect, but not changing the date of the publication is a clear null redaction. It is a statement that you see it but do NOT believe it. It is the same as another advisory I received to the effect that bp means 'before pagination' to be used to indicate that the page number was not printed. A blank space says the same thing, yet spares the individual doing research to finding out what bp is. The noting of a date and then using a different date on a separate item in a book is the creation of an ENIGMA for the user of the reference. It also brings into question the totality of the effort. If the research db program can NOT tolerate entries in this manner, then a note would have to state something like this. DUE TO THE DB INABILITY THIS DATE WAS INCORRECTLY ENTERED INTO THE DB FIELDS. Is this acceptable? Is this what you would like to see when researching a topic? 'Editing' books is like finger painting by numbers. All too often I see differences that bring questions. If I fear to make changes to an entry, even though I have a source in front of me then I will alter the db product to a state where it is invalid My apologies, Please accept this with good humor. I am frustrated and you will be frustrated reading this. That is life. Thanks, Harry --Dragoondelight 13:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem - part of the problem for me is limited time while also trying to contribute via moderator activities. I was at work all day Sunday and too wiped out to check with ISFDB when I got home. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the single note that covered two publications at the same time.  Initially, both of them had the same problem and so I used the more generic "Editing the contents of publications" subject.


 * Note that with 200-million years while I approved your update I ended up undoing it and then splitting it out so that the other three publications were unaffected. I very rarely reject submissions because there's no way for the editors (or moderators) to remove rejections from the record. I need to think of a different wording than "I approved your submission" because it implies I accepted it as-is. Often times if I can figure out what an editor is trying to do I'll approve the submission and then clean things up so that it matches ISFDB standards.


 * On the date. ISFDB has two date fields.  In ISFDB title records the date is the date of the first publication of a story or essay. In the original design this was the copyright date and in the code the field is still called title_copyright. However, at some point (before my time) the definition of this field was changed to the first publication date. From a bibliographic viewpoint we are interested in publication dates. Sometimes we know that a story was written months or even years before the first publication and we'll add comments about this in the notes section - ideally with citations listing the sources used.


 * The second date field is the publication record's date which is the date that publication was printed which all too often is not stated meaning we need to either use 0000-00-00 or to derive a date.


 * I don't think it's necessary to use "DUE TO THE DB INABILITY THIS DATE WAS INCORRECTLY ENTERED INTO THE DB FIELDS." The definitions of what to enter into various DB fields is in the help at Help:Screen:EditTitle and Help:Screen:EditPub. The DB is not capable of handling some dates, specifically, books published before 1 A.D., but fortunately, there are not many specfiction publications from that time period.


 * You wrote "'Editing' books is like finger painting by numbers. All too often I see differences that bring questions. If I fear to make changes to an entry, even though I have a source in front of me then I will alter the db product to a state where it is invalid." I agree - part of what happened is my fault in that I did not see your moderator note.  The moderators are also stymied in that we don't know if a particular editor is noting what's stated in a publication or is adding/changing information based on their own expertise or other sources. Thus when it comes to making changes to title records we tend to be more cautious about accepting changes. Marc Kupper (talk) 06:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the moderator's checking what I do. Everyone needs to know that they are making sense to others. The major problem as I see it is 'putting on Hold' leaves the originator questioning how to handle the 'Hold'. 'Moderator needs time to review submission in hold' would help tell the originator he has to wait and xdays would reduce the tension. I hate that would push the moderator, but even 10 days which would seem long to the originator gives the originator a cue to set back and the moderator will be back with them. My personal tension is not knowing what to do next. To be fair, I imagine moderators see originators dropping the whole issue into the moderators lap.
 * The originators need to know what was done to clarify the submission and need a 'push notice' to do it. That frustrates the originator, but hopefully promotes greater understanding of what is going on.
 * Rejections do little to promote understanding of all the factors. If I understand correctly the hold does not allow the the moderator to release the 'edit' back for correction by the originator. This has lead to two problems on the moderator level. The moderators are fixing most problems and the originators are not experiencing what they need to do physically to make a better edit. The second problem is the moderator allows the change and the originator can be unaware that more needs to be done.
 * 'Of Other Worlds'. I knew the 'Preface' would cause problems, but ignoring it was not an option. I am leaning toward leaving moderator notes to warn the moderator like I did. The dating of the Preface I will leave to the publication date, with a note to the effect of what actually is printed for the date written and that it is presumed that the subject (preface,intro, etc) was written for that publication. Read, My suggestion if holds can not be turned back for correction. Reject it, since I now know why, and I will change it to Preface changed to match this publication as printed, but may me named differently in other publications and printings. Preface dated 0000 but shown as the date of the first publication. If that works for you.
 * '200 Million A. D.' and .the Book of Ptath'. I noticed lots of problems and figured there would be problems between the Ace editions and this. ::I am glad you saw them also. Thanks for the fixes.
 * I will check back and sorry for the irritation, but I usually need to screw up to figure out what is right. I am being interrupted and loosing my train of thought. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:36, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * About "putting on hold". I, and i think other moderators, do it for at least two quite different reasons. In one case, more time is needed to do research and/or to determine how to handle a tricky or complex situation, or perhaps just to do multiple required follow-up edits. In the other case, the situation is not clear and a response is needed from the submitter to determine what the situation actually is. After this, there may still be further research or planning needed. For case one, it is often hard to promise just when the mod will get the research done, figure out the problem, and get the submission dealt with. Real life often intervenes. Still, most mods do seem to deal with most cases of this kind within a few days. For case two, generally nothing can be done until the submitter responds, which of course the mod has no control over. After that, a further response may be needed, or it may become a case one. In any case, it is hard or impossible to give a reliable promise of when a hold will be cleared.
 * I am more willing than Marc to reject submissions, because I don't see anything shameful in having rejections in one's record. They are mistakes, nothing more. We all make mistakes, particularly in learning a complex system such as the ISFDB. Please try not to get overly upset or frustrated when there is a delay. I, and I am sure all the other mods, will deal with tricky subs as quickly as we can manage. -DES Talk 15:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the result of this hold definitely pleased me. I think it gives the 'user' what they need. I will try to not let holds bother me. In fact, I will note it in my personal db to check later. Rejections are all right when I understand the cause. Though I have one, that I have to try make sure the moderator understands the full implication of his stated reasoning. Once assured he has the whole picture, then it's on his shoulders. Sorry, for the pushiness, it originates more with thinking I had to deal with the hold and was not sure of how to do it.

Thanks to all, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Feature list
When and where was it decided that the ISFDB Feature List had been deprecated and the active list moved to sourceforge. I understand that this had been done with the bug list some time ago, but the feature list remained apparently active. ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive09 says "Please note that we have an "official" bug list at SourceForge (and a deprecated one at ISFDB Bug List) and an "official" feature request list at ISFDB Feature List. Ahasuerus 15:58, 9 Dec 2007 (CST)" I find no other relevant mention of moving the feature request list to sourceforge, and i would significantly prefer to have it here. -DES Talk 22:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I rolled back the addition - I was not aware that the feature request page was still the official method. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The Risen Empire
I may have sandbagged you on this. I put a notice on the moderator board. This is the complete novel not book 1 of the succession series. Also there is at least one other that may be the complete novel. It is also not an omnibus. I just checked my copy of the The Killing of Worlds, book two of the Succession and found that it has an introduction and the word Prologue on the first chapter, both of these are not in my copy of The Risen Empire. My copy is therefore continuous and therefore a novel and therefore not part of a series. Sorry for the headache. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:05, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No problem - I usually just check that submissions are structurally correct and do not appear to be damaging existing information. I'll reply on the moderator page.  Marc Kupper (talk) 04:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No one could expect more than that, but I could see the problems and leaving everything as is only would compound it later. The data was correct, the choice of placement was difficult for me. The rest on moderator page. Thanks, Harry.

Category:Publishers
Discussion content moved to Category talk:Publishers

Category sorting
When you are adding pages to a category, it is wise to supply a "sort key", otherwise the pages will be listed under the wiki-mame of the page, generally including the namespace prefix, if any. This would mean that all Publisher pages would be listed under P, for example.

The way a sort key is provided is to list it after a pipe symbol (|) in the categopry link that puts the page in a category. For example, if I wanted to put this page in a (nonexistant) category "Moderator talk" I might do so with the wiki code:

which would make the page sort under K rather than M. If you want the page to sort under the page name, but without the namespace prefix, the "magic word"   can be used. This leads to a link such as:

I have added the sort key to the instructions for Category:Publishing Groups‎ and Category:Imprints.

As an example, the magic word, used on this page, gives:

Note that automatically adjusts if the page should happen to be moved. See Help:Category for more on all this. I hope it is hlepful. -DES Talk 19:01, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much - I just saw the edits to add the sort stuff and was going to ask you what it meant. What's the significance of a space between the "Category" and its name as in  ?


 * I just copied your Publisher templates to create versions for imprints. I thought about creating a shared template with parameters but the wording for the imprint version's going to be quite different and so it seemed simpler to just copy it. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

(note to self to read Wikipedia:Help:Variable and/or MediaWiki:Help:Variable)
 * 2024 2024
 * 2024 2024
 * 2024 2024
 * 2024 2024
 * 2024 2024


 * Marc Kupper (talk) 21:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No particular significance, a space there is, I belive, ignored. I agree that s different tempalte, starting as a copy, is better. If this wiki included the ParserFunctions extension that supports :IF and related constructs, it might be worth building these into a shared template, but not as things stand. -DES Talk 00:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Marc Kupper (talk) 21:17, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No particular significance, a space there is, I belive, ignored. I agree that s different tempalte, starting as a copy, is better. If this wiki included the ParserFunctions extension that supports :IF and related constructs, it might be worth building these into a shared template, but not as things stand. -DES Talk 00:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No particular significance, a space there is, I belive, ignored. I agree that s different tempalte, starting as a copy, is better. If this wiki included the ParserFunctions extension that supports :IF and related constructs, it might be worth building these into a shared template, but not as things stand. -DES Talk 00:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Fred Hoyle's Element 79
According to Tuck this edition was the October 1967 selection of the SFBC. Also, the original price was $1.70. Does your printing have a gutter code of "37I"? (This is the first printing's code.) And if you get a chance could you add the " / SFBC" appendix to the publisher? Thanks. MHHutchins 20:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you and yes, it's a 37I book. Marc Kupper (talk) 08:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

SFBC edition of Wollheim's World's Best 1970
When you get a chance can you record the gutter code for this printing. I'm filling in the gaps in the gutter codes on the SFBC listing. Thanks. MHHutchins 02:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * 31L Marc Kupper (talk) 06:27, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! MHHutchins 17:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Ref
The versuion of Template:Ref you have created uses the #IF parser function. The ParserFuntions extension is not currently installed on the ISFDB wiki, and until/unless it is #IF will be treated as an undefdefined template. I'm not sure just what #IF is being used for in Ref, but we will either have to rework Ref not to use #IF; find the older, deprecated, nested-template-based version of IF used on wikipedia before #IF was availalbe (most of the arguments afaisnt uit don't really apply to a smaller wiki like the ISFDB); or get Al to install the ParserFunctions extension. There are some things I could do with some of the license and linking templates more cleanly if we had a version of IF available, but it hasn't seemed important enough to pester Al. I don't have time to look into this more thoughtly right now -- possibly this evening. -DES Talk 18:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah - I just caught that and am stripping the templates down... Marc Kupper (talk) 18:10, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Verified publishers
On the Publisher:Verified publishers page, you say:

"To help support this project an easy thing ISFDB editors can do when entering and verifying publications is to make sure that the publication record's publisher name field accurately reflects what's stated on the title page. For example, rather than just 'Ace' you would use the full imprint or publisher name as stated on the title page such as 'Ace Books', 'Ace Books, Inc.', or 'Ace Science Fiction Books'."

I am not in the least convinced that this is desirable. I think it merely leads to further fragmentation in the publisher names, an impedes the movement toward regularization. Special questions of a few verifiers on a few targeted publications are one thing, but attempting to do this in general is quite another. For example, if a books as "Baen Books" I will pretty much invariably enter it as simply "Baen", "Tor Books" I always enter as simply "Tor" and I think this is a good thing, a positive virtue. Those publishers are IMO already verified, we don't need more data to know their canonical names, we should simply be using the canonical names. The same applies, I think to Ace, at least outside the "specials". Furthermore, i think that outside sources are FAR more useful than publication references in verifying a publisher's name or names over time, and should be emphasized at this stage.

I urge more discussiuon of what a "verified publsiehr" is and means, and how we will get and use the verification data, before proceeding with this project. -DES Talk 03:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree but at the moment there's no way to regularize publisher names within the DB, no support software, and there are no rules regarding publisher names. At present I'm unaware of any reliable outside sources other than one publication whose name escapes me a the moment but where the author/editor spent a few years documenting physical publications, writing letters to publishers, and phoning them. The results are copyright and could not be used in ISFDB. This project has similar goals to that book but will be available under creative commons. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The factual contents of a reference work are not and cannot be protected by copyright. We could not copy, in general, specific text from such a work. But if such a work states that publisher "James & Co." became "James & Johns" in 1945, "James, Johns, & Smith" in 1967, and part of ""JJ Communications inc"  in 1995, we can report those facts and cite that publication as a source, adn we should do so. The Fiest vs Rural decison very specifically said that soemone who published a directlry could not prevent others from copying information from that directory and using or indeed republishing it, even in a competing directory. Facts are not copyrightable under US law. -DES Talk 15:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I certainly intend to enter what I find from the "Dictionary of Trade Name Origins", where it covers an imprint or publisher. It certainly clarifies why Corgi and Transworld exist, for instance. BLongley 15:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Extracting and/or rearranging facts is fine but there's a slippery slope into copyvio. It's less of an issue when the source is data in tabular form.  If the data is presented in English sentences then the work is copyright though obviously the facts can still be extracted. "Joe was born in 1951" is copyright but it's ok to document that Joe's birth falls in 1951.  Obviously for copying "Joe was born in 1951" literally you would be looking at the portion of the work and the more subjective "is this an original expression?"  Anyway, the slope is there and FWIW, I'm fine with existing projects such as Don Erikson's adding/updating publication records based on a source reference as he's only filling in database metadata and citing the source for that data. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Note also that "obvious and natural" expressions of facts are generaly not protected either: "Joe was born in 1951", would, if factual, not be protected, as it is a very obvious and natural way of expressing that fact. The more creative and individual the expression, the more it is likely to be protected. But for straight facts, any significant paraphrasing is enough to avoid any copyright issue, and surely extracting facts from a set of sentances and putting them into tabular form or bulletted list form would be perfectly ok. Above you implied that the contents of reference works could not be used in this effort "The results are copyright and could not be used in ISFDB" you siad. That is incorrect, the results of any such project can indeed be used, but the words expressing those results may need to be changed. -DES Talk 15:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not my intent not my intent to create any new rules regarding publication entry. As noted earlier, the entire thing is an experiment.  I'm going to try it for a while and see if it implodes the way the existing ISFDB publisher names and to a lesser extent, the publisher namespace already have. I agree with you that the publisher/imprint names are fragmented and perhaps all we'll find out from the project is verification that the names are fragmented to the point that efforts to document them need another approach. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:36, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There's a big assumption in there too, that the title page HAS the information we want. Just picking up a few of my "to do" pile suggests otherwise: e.g.


 * 1) "Scholastic" is all that's on the title page, "Scholastic Children's books, an imprint of Scholastic Ltd" is on the copyright page. It goes on to state the book is published by "Scholastic UK Ltd" and that "SCHOLASTIC is a trademark of Scholastic Inc". We'd record a trademark and lose the stated imprint?
 * 2) "Ace Books, Inc" on title page, "An Ace book" on copyright page, "Ace Book" on spine, whereas "ace first in gothics" on cover  suggests (to me at least) that separating Ace Gothics from Ace Science Fiction might be something useful.
 * 3) "Ace Books, New York" on title page, references to "Ace" and "Ace Books" on copyright page, but "Ace Science Fiction" on spine looks more useful.
 * 4) Just a logo on title page and spine, from which you can pick out a single letter "G". Copyright page tells you it's Gollancz, from the time it was an imprint of Orion.
 * 5) "Fontana/Collins" on title page (one of the very few times I've seen a '/' truly used in a publisher name), "Fontana Science Fiction" on front cover.
 * I think you have to search the book a bit harder to discern imprint, publisher and publishing groups: and I think capturing all those in the wiki might help (despite the search problems we'll still have with Ace, Tor, NEL, NAL, etc) but what you're suggesting for the publisher field goes contrary to what's actually been happening for months now. Can we keep this experiment to the wiki for the moment please? BLongley 11:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, I would suggest moving Publisher:Verified publishers to ISFDB:Verified publishers project or just ISFDB:Verified publishers, as that is the proper namespace for a project page.-DES Talk 15:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I thought about that when creating the project but the existing projects all seemed to be data consistency cleanup related and this is about documenting the names in the wiki and not a database cleanup. If there is a "Publisher Names Cleanup" project then it could be patterned after the existing Project:Author Names Cleanup. In any case, I don't have strong feelings for where the project's home page should go and if it should be in the root or ISFDB namespace for example.  Technically it's not an ISFDB database project meaning I'd lean towards the root namespace.


 * Before someone moves the article - is "Verified publishers" an agreeable project name? I could not think of a single word that would apply to publishing groups, publishers, and imprints.  Calling it "Verified publishing group, publisher, and imprint names" seems like a mouthful. While the present output of the project is three categories it's possible more could get added.


 * Something I thought of this morning when falling asleep is to not bother with setting up verified pages but rather all we care about are verified names meaning the existing ref/note/etc. templates would be used on the standard publisher pages to flag "this is an actual name/address spotted in a publication." The big advantage of pages is that categories can be constructed from them. I don't think the Wiki offers a mechanism where on a page you can say "Include the name 'xyzzy' to the Verified Imprint category/list." Marc Kupper (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Based on the feedback so far I did an edit to Publisher:Verified publishers to
 * Remove the advice concerning what to put in the ISFDB publisher field.
 * Reword things to make it clearer that it's to document the names in a verifiable fashion on the wiki.

I'd like feedback on this. I need to take a break but I'll also tone down the wording about "don't make additions unless they are sourced" though ideally people would get in the habit of doing that automatically. As DES noted, very few use the tag and on Wikipedia one constant battle for their moderators is encouraging people to use and cite reliable sources (I suppose I should cite that. ). Marc Kupper (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "Verified Publishing Names" seems general enough for the project to cover groups, companies, subsidiaries, divisions, imprints, sub-imprints, etc. You could even start deriving "printers" from some stuff I've added. Maybe even publisher series, which are a bit lost at the moment - e.g. the "Corgi SF Collector's Library" fits fairly nicely on the Corgi page, but "Venture SF" moved from Hamlyn to Arrow. You seem to have a goal in mind already, which lacks some of those levels. We can probably bodge a few of them together to fit, but some idea of how to link up or down (or even when we SHOULD link - should we link verified to unverified or vice versa?) would be good. It's the lack of links I find particularly missing. It's obvious there are hierarchies involved, which currently cannot be represented in the database, but should be eventually: demonstrating those in the wiki would give a good guideline as to what people want. BLongley 21:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Verified Publishing Names is a good name and will allow for adding subsidiaries, divisions, publisher series, etc. I've moved the page. The links between articles will be added as the names get developed.  I don't think you will find a hierarchy except at specific instants in time.


 * I suspect what will happen is that some of the smaller articles will end up as redirects to sections of larger or canonical articles. For example the Yearling imprint may end up as a section on Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. and the Yearling page will be a redirect that also includes Verified Imprint so that it gets included in the Imprints category.  People would still reference Publisher:Yearling and the redirect will take them to the section about Yearling.


 * As for verified vs. unverified. Here's a thought - Right now we are linking to names directly, such as Publisher:Yearling. If a name is verified we can change these links to instead use  (or  and that will color code the links much like the existing a and p link-templates do.  We may even be able to add hover-text so that when the mouse hits it there's a "Verified Name" hover box.


 * I will be toning down the "do not edit this stuff" wording in the headers and may even eliminate the headers entirely though at present they serve to help me remember where the home page and categories are...


 * As for "You seem to have a goal in mind already" - yes - the goal is documenting when and where names were used as I've often run into a name and wondered where and when that name was used. ISFDB's publication field often contains too much noise though it's been helpful to at least point me in a direction. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, but you've only defined three types of name you want: I can already see up to eight possibilities. By defining just three it makes it look already decided that that's all we need. And sure, a sub-imprint like Publisher:Corgi Yearling can mostly be treated the same way as the parent imprint Publisher:Corgi, and "Divisions" and "Groups" might be equally treated. "Printers" might be discardable but as they are sometimes the only distinguishing text characteristic between two books they might occasionally be worthwhile checking. And some Publishers like Collins were also Printers for other publishers. BLongley 18:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * One of my major concerns is that you're often going to clash the working publisher pages with the verified publisher pages. (And similar for imprints.) I definitely don't want the pages for useful notes on future database entries suddenly becoming rule-bound pages that people are afraid to edit because it's too much trouble - we already have people too afraid of the ISFDB interface to use it, make that the case for the Wiki too and we'll lose another set of possible editors, and the data they would have provided. Maybe some guidelines on how to split a page into unverified and verified bits would help? BLongley 21:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree but also don't want to "encourage" that people just add stuff and so I'm trying to raise awareness and use of references/citations. Right now when people add what looks like unsupported material to ISFDB the moderators hold it up and ask "what does the publication really say?" I'd like to see the same mindset applied to wiki articles. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work. It's more fun to just write down when you know and spot via a causual scan of the Internet rather than plowing through 30 year old copies of Locus. My desk is a disaster of stuff to finish before the end of the day meaning I don't have a lot of time to edit the wording at the moment. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've worked through a few publishers now, which I do recommend people trying, but I doubt I'll do a lot of it for the stated project reasons. I'd like you to look at what I have entered under the new guidelines: I have identified some "publishers" and "publishing groups" and confirmed some imprints along the way. But where I've found "Verification Sources" to be useful, it hasn't been for ANY of those: it's been for addresses, logos, and artist signatures. I'd particularly like to know if what I've entered for Corgi, Carousel, Hamlyn, Bantam etc is data that would lead you to a DIFFERENT conclusion from mine as to what constitutes an imprint, or a publisher, or a publishing group. I think for a start we definitely need some regularization rules: why are your first examples "Inc." for instance, rather than "Inc" or "Incorporated"? Should mine be "Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd." with a full-stop that wasn't present in the source? Or "Limited" to give it the official name? BLongley 21:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Overall though, I still think the basic expressed desires of what data we WANT recorded is still too loose. I've messed up the Corgi page with all the logo data I found - it would be GREAT if Corgi was an imprint where publication dates were often missing, and a logo change would put a date-range to such a publication. But actually Corgi books are pretty good at recording that stuff, and such might be better used for Macfadden or Lancer, for instance. BLongley 21:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I tried to use the names/addresses exactly as stated. Of course, I spot a copyright page that says "New York, NY" at the top and "New York, New York" at the bottom for the same street address but at least the top was the address of the imprint and the bottom was the publisher group.  I'll need to think about what you added for Publisher:Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. There certainly do seem to be a bunch of names and I'm wondering if an "undefined" category needs to be added. For example STRHNTCKCK1985 mentions "First published in Great Britain 1985 by Hamlyn Paperbacks."  What is "Hamlyn Paperbacks"? Obviously we can add it to the name list but where?


 * From Duncton Wood evidence, it appears to be a "Division"', which is why I suggested you might not have defined all the levels we will require. Doubleday became a "Division" too - see Carpe Jugulum, but in that case "Doubleday" is also the imprint, whereas I would say "Hamlyn Paperbacks" printed books under the "Hamlyn" imprint. BLongley 18:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's possible we will change the page titles to use normalized names such as "Hamlyn Publishing Group" and under that verify sources for various suffixes rather than cluttering a category with variant names. I need to run. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm done with ISFDB for the weekend. I started with Publication:STRHNTCKCK1985, tagged names with vn, and then started clicking on red links copy/pasting in pages.  I'll clean this up some more when I get a chance as it looks to add a stub publisher, etc. page could be reduced to a copy/paste with the tricky part being to remember to change the publication reference. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:36, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Different corporate families will use different numbers of levels, and use different names for them. The levels and their names will also change at different times within the same corporate entity or related group of entities. I suggest that we use only three levels. The organizational structure of publishing is different enough in different firms, and has changed enough at different times, that no absolute rules can be made to separate these levels: assigning any particular entity to one of them is going to be something of a judgment call. But then, our goal is not to record all the twists and turns of corporate organization, but merely to record what the names printed on books mean; what you can tell about a book from those names, including using such names a clues to dating; what groups of books were produced by sufficiently similar editorial teams to be meaningfully compared; and to be able to match up physical publications, ISFDB records, and other bibliographic sources, many of which use some concept of "publisher" as one of their key fields. I think that the above three levels will suffice for those goals, and that trying to document not only every level in every corporate structure, but every name used for every level, will be counterproductive. What one corporate cluster calls a "Division" another may call a "group" or a "line". -DES Talk 20:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Imprint: A consistent name or line used in the marketing of books which is clearly part of a larger business entity. May or may not have its own editing staff and policies. Generally does not act as a separate business entity, and does not have separate legal existence.
 * Publisher: A separate business entity. The publisher's name is usually but not always used in some form on the publications, possibly in addition to an imprint name. Normally has its own editing staff and policies, and its own acquisition policies and budget. May control multiple imprints. In some cases, an entity that was formerly a publisher may become an imprint, often as part of a business merger or acquisition.
 * Publishing group: A business entity that owns or controls one or more publishers or publishing groups, but does not itself act as a publisher.
 * I can live with three levels - maybe even two. I'm personally interested in imprints, which often tell me what to expect from a book: so I'd personally like Ace divided into SF, Fantasy, Horror, Gothic and Other, for instance. Doubles are a separate problem but I'm not sure how often a Double mixes those categories. If the consensus is to combine all Ace Speculative Fiction under one imprint I can live with that, but I'd prefer we separate the imprints (whatever they are) and have a vague level of "Ace" that combines them all for people less fussy than me. If that's a "Publisher" that's fine by me too, I don't really care: if we haven't separated the Imprints then I'll search for the Publisher. BLongley 23:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Publishing GROUPS are very vague but might help me find the SF imprints used in various other countries: e.g. if an American was looking for the equivalent of "Bantam" 1960s/1970s books in the UK, he should be directed toward "Corgi". "Bantam" was also OK in the UK in the 1980s though. I don't actually see any harm in humouring Marc's experiment unless it starts interfering with our lazier, "unverified" Publishers - at worst any "publishing name" used will be a wiki page that nobody links to. And A verified source for something doesn't look like a bad idea - but as stated elsewhere, what I'd use it to verify is not necessarily what was planned. For instance, I found it useful for Cover Signature/Artist Credit cross-references - I can point people at a publication that confirms such. BLongley 23:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't say I like your proposed definitions beyond "Imprint: A consistent name or line used in the marketing of books" and "an entity that was formerly a publisher may become an imprint". We COULD divert into registered Trademarks and official Company registrations, but I'm reluctant to do so right now - let's figure out what we each want from this, EXPLAIN IT, and maybe we'll start moving towards an agreement. BLongley 23:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, perhaps some or all of this discussion should be moved or copied to Talk:Verified Publishing Names? -DES Talk 20:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Probably, but we're not very good at finding discussions. :-( Copy for now, and Marc can kick this out of his talk page when we find somewhere when we can remind people that there ARE discussions going on outside the main Community Portal areas? BLongley 23:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Copied and refactored into multiple sections. . See Talk:Verified Publishing Names. -DES Talk 23:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Zybahn's submission for Third Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories
I placed this submission on hold knowing you were working on a previous submission of this pub. Handle it as you see fit, but I would question removing the price, and placing a note to state that the verifier's copy wasn't priced. It's possible that he has an exported copy. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks - that one turned into a mini project. AbeBook seller listings showed copies of the second book in the series (Zybahn has the third) with apparent price stickers for either the UK or US market meaning it's quite likely Zybahn's copy had its sticker removed. I've added a page at Series:The Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories about this. Marc Kupper (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * ... which I've promptly argued with. :-/ Hopefully constructively, but I'm never sure totally about how my comments are perceived. I'll respond to your responses for the section above tomorrow evening, but I really have to go now, people are depending on me to be awake tomorrow morning. Well, THIS morning: I think I can still get 5 hours sleep though. Good Night! BLongley 00:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Your "arguing" was very subtle and it looks fine. I messed up in that I set up the VT, told the guy about it, but missed that it was still floating in the queue. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle
I was reviewing Bob Shaw's bibliography and noticed that we have two Titles records for "Ad Astra?" and "The Man in the Grey Flannel Toga", one listed as an Essay and one as Short Fiction, with different publication dates. Since you have verified the 1986 Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle collection, could you pease check if they are actually stories or essays? Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Both of them are essays. For some reason I did not like these essays when I first read them but this time around I found them quite enjoyable. I need to re-check the rest of the collection as it's likely there are other essays misclassified as shortfiction. Marc Kupper (talk) 05:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Refp
The documentation on Template:Refp is IMO unclear. Does "publication key" mean the TAG or the pub record number, or either? The required value should be explicit (and IMO tags should be discouraged in favor of record numbers).

Also, this template now displays as a superscripted bracket listing the date of the publication. On looking at a wiki page, it is not at all clear what is being linked to. I suggest that the title or title & date parameters be used to formulate the link text. i also suggest that Template:Linkcolor or else Template:VerifiedLinkColor be sued to give this link the same background as our other template based links. See Template:A for an example of how to use the linkcolor template. -DES Talk 21:08, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry - I should have checked a publication - the name should be "publication tag" and not "key". I need to deal with some other projects and will correct this later. ( reminder to self )


 * Record numbers would be better but when you are on an ISFDB publication, for example, and click on the "Bibliographic Comments" link you get taken to a wiki page in the Publication namespace with the publication tag being used for the pagename.  I started using the publication tags to link from Publisher articles to the source publications as that's what the DB side uses though as Category:Publisher verification sources looks so sucky I'm really temped to have the source pub articles filed by either name/author or author/name.


 * The goals for refp are
 * No "thinking" to use one. With ref people needed to manage the link numbers manually, and also to be keeping the notes section at the bottom of the articles in sync which discourages its use.  In line with "no thinking" I also added the full refp text to to use on the target publication articles meaning adding a new reference to that publication is an easy copy/paste.
 * That the links be as small and discreet as possible. Ideally they would be just 1, 2, 3, 4 but the date is sort of cool while also being small and semi-unique. See  where the refp links show the dates for Corgi and W. H. Allen.  Small and discreet was also so that refp can be used on canonical articles such as Corgi.
 * That when we get true that we only need to adjust the refp template to use and to add a at the bottom of every page that links to refp.


 * I saw the linkcolor stuff earlier - that was cool and I almost used it for vn. BTW - Thank you for the edits to vn.  I did one more edit after yours to remove the line break.  99% of the time the extra break does not matter but it shows up when vn is used in a bullet-list.


 * Anyway - I've off ISFDB for a few hours, and maybe the rest of the day, but will think about how to improve this. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

The Quincunx of Time
I think your cover artist is Chris Foss. Would you concur? BLongley 13:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Perfect plus it's the same style as what's shown on Chris Foss. I did a scan of the glyph at 1200 DPI and dropped it at on my web site. You can use it if you want.  It's a little less blurry than the scan you made but also has a brown blob in the upper/left corner. I then found the original painting on a fan site.
 * http://marc.kupper.googlepages.com/ChrisFossglyphfromTheQuincunxofTime.jpg
 * Marc Kupper (talk) 17:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Glad it helped. I've been concentrating on artist signatures today, preferably ones from books where there's a signature AND a credit. I'd call those Verified Signatures, whereas there's some others (like Joe Petagno) where I've not yet found both on the same book and so there MAY be another Petagno out there. BLongley 18:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a fun project assuming you find matches. Can you take a guess at what initials/letters are in ISFDB:Verification requests? Marc Kupper (talk) 18:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm finding some nice matches - not many as useful as PE in a box = Peter Elson, or F in a box = Chris Foss, (and A in a circle for Chris Achilleos still looks a bit dangerous but I know I can dig out some Doctor Who titles for more data there), but matches nonetheless. I guess the real test is whether OTHER people find such useful, but that won't happen till people start using the Sig Library: and I suspect they won't do that till it contains some useful data.. BLongley 21:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I have looked at the image you posted but it's unintelligible to me too. If I spot anything similar I'll let you know, but I'm concentrating on cover artists today. Maybe interior artists later - I don't worry about those as much though, they're often just for "Maps" that I'd rather NOT know about. BLongley 21:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The Best of Leigh Brackett

 * Here is my conversation with Bill Longley.

In checking my copy against your verification this. . You have page 420 Map Margaret Howes. I am confused by this. The Addendum establishes the reality of the author of the essay and the maps starting on page 422. My thinking, and I fully admit I could/am completely wrong is this. Mars: By the Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars is a very short short story (fiction). The Maps would be separate as something like Mars (Maps) interiorart. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I really don't remember doing that. Maybe I bailed over the question of "Margaret Howes" from the factual addendum as opposed to "Margaret M. Howes" from the fictional essay, with a fictional title? Or dithered over whether "Central Terran Administration" is part of the title? Either way, I don't care about Maps so adjust it whichever way you like. BLongley 17:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You also a verified copy of this. It also used 'Map'. If you are willing, will you let me edit the title to the above and make a separate Map entry in the version Bill and I share. If not, no problem. If you have any other solution I am willing to go with that also. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I responded on User talk:BLongley to keep the thread in one place. Marc Kupper (talk) 18:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

MACLEOD: ENGINE CITY
Added $C price to your verified pub record.--Bluesman 22:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you - I assume you updated . Do you know about Primary (Transient) verification? We are using this for both transient verification and as a secondary verification for publications someone has already verified. Marc Kupper (talk) 01:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Dragoondelight (Harry) mentioned the same thing and from now on I will use that. I'm going to have to go back to "A" and start all over again.......... sigh... !--Bluesman 18:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll
Just a note that I have converted Preface (The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits) from EDITOR to ESSAY. The idea that we may have a Carroll-edited magazine on file had me puzzled and excited for a second :) Ahasuerus 01:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Good catch and you got a Snark without too much agony! I was a hurry, hit "E" and forgot to look to see that the box landed on "Essay." Marc Kupper (talk) 02:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * One E always lands on editor, IME. I hit E twice for essay. -DES Talk 02:18, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Hell-Bound Train: The or That
Please take a look at ISFDB:Verification requests when you have a chance. You verified The Hugo Winners, vols 1&2, one of the titles that included the story in quewstion. TYour input would be helpful. Thank you. -DES Talk 17:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Destiny's Road
Added $C price to .--Bluesman 18:09, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Citations missing template
I urge that Citations missing be either deleted, or drastically revised. At prsent it tris to use the Wikipedia tempalte documatation mechanism, which we don't need on the ISFDB, More seriously, it urges compliance with the Wikipedia polices Wikipedia:Wikipedia:citations and Wikipedia:Wikipedia:inline citations, which are not policy on this wiki, and which i would object to. It attempts to create a catagory scheme copied from wikipedia which i think would be ill-advised here. In fact, i am not convinced of the need for "editorial" templates like this here at all, but if we do want this one, it ought to be rewitten to fit into the ISFDB in a much better way. I urge moving it to User:Marc Kupper/Citations missing until/unless it is ready for deployment. -DES Talk 21:38, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Done on the delete - I started to set that up as articles were being set up that were 100% unsourced and also appearing to be largely speculation but the lack of support for MediaWiki extensions Wikipedia assumes was turning that into a PITA and so I dropped it and instead deal with the offending editors directly. 01:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. -DES Talk 03:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I personally would like to move in the direction of adopting Wikipedia policy as far as encouraging citations, copyright free material, etc. The only difference would be ISFDB's notability standard would be "anything related to specfict" rather than the in-print recognition by uninvolved parties that Wikipedia tries to use though I personally disagree with that one as it means pages about entertainers and sports figures, and politicians are pretty much automatically "in" while everyone else, companies, products, are all "out" unless they commit mass murder or otherwise become "newsworthy." 01:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * While having some standards on citations would be a good thing, I would strongly object to simply taking over wikipedia standards as written. On cition their standars are becoming overly burdensome even for the kinds of things thy do (and are enforced very unevenly) and wopuld be IMO quite inappropriate for the kinds of things we do. On "copyright free material" I disagree in principle with their excessive restrictiosn on fair use. Retaining and using the right to fair use is IMO an important bastion against overreaching by corporate copyright owners. And there are othe aspects of wikipedia policy that are proper for their particualr mission, their status as a site that deals with many diverse and highly controversial topics, and as a very large and popular site that attracts much vandalism and spin, which are simply not needed or appropriate here. -DES Talk 03:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Star Guard
(copied from Ahasuerus' page as reminder to to track the pub down and add some notes)

Does your verified Star Guard have a Lin Carter essay? See my G-599 edition of Star Guard for notes about this. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nope, no Lin Carter anywhere in site, although "Introduction: The Mercenaries" is preserved. Ahasuerus 04:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)