ISFDB:Help desk

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This page is for questions about how to do something, either in the ISFDB or the ISFDB Wiki. This includes both questions about how to do a specific task, and also more general questions about what should be done about particular situations where the information is clearly wrong and the solution is not obvious. For other specific requests, see appropriate places listed at ISFDB:Community Portal.

For older, answered queries, see this page's archives.

Use this link to add a new section at the bottom without having to edit the whole page; don't forget to fill in "Heading/section"

Contents

Old, but never answered queries

(None currently)


Three Colin Harveys - mistaken identity and false listings

In your listings there are three Colin Harveys, one of whom i work for. I noticed that two publications ('Thermoclines' and 'On the rocks') are listed under http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Colin Harvey where i am certain they should be credited to http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Colin Harvey (1960 . Is it possible to ammend this mistake in any way? Im a novice at editing and wouldn't want to muddle things further.

thanks x x

Steph171717 2/1/2010

The stories have been moved to Colin Harvey (1960-). When you get a chance could you please update the author data for this author? The Geocities site no longer exists, and if you know the link to another website it would help to try to keep the two authors' work separate. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I guess this is his blog. Are blogs valid as webpage entries?--swfritter 16:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks everso for that. He's due to launch a new website at some point this newyear, so i will update as and when. Oh and that is his blog. Apart from the usual networking sites that is Colins biggest web presence at present. Thanks again steph171717 18:02 2 January 2010
Guess it should be no problem linking his blog to the author data record. At least it gives some information until something else comes along. Thanks. MHHutchins 18:25, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I've been (fairly) happily adding author's blogs in lieu of other web-sites recently - indeed, several authors have given up their domains and moved wholesale to blog-only. What I do check is that it does have some bibliographical data on, and that such is open to all to view - I've added no Facebook sites as I have no desire to sign up for Facebook, for instance. And no Twitter feeds as they'd never have enough info in any one post. BLongley 20:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
The Facebook pages for professionals are actually very similar to blogs. It would be nice if we could format the weblink entries in wiki manner so that the web addresses would be visually replaced by user designated text. Facebook - the place where almost anybody can become your friend.--swfritter 16:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Message from a new user

Hi! I just wanted to add some short stories to an authros web page. Do I have to pick the add new maga zine or anthology or is there some way I can just add the stories and their references. Terry Cooper —The preceding unsigned comment was added by terrycooper (talk • contribs) .

You'll have to create a record for the publication in which the story was a content. For magazines and anthologies, the minimum info required is the title, the editor and the year of publication. Choose "Add New Magazine" or "Add New Anthology" from the left-side menu of the main page of the database. For more information use the links at the top of your user talk page. Here's the link on entering a new pub. Also see here about how to use these wiki pages for communicating with moderators and other editors. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

More Colin Harvey stuff!

Hello again!

I have just a couple more questions then i promise i'll leave you alone. How do i alter the publication date on an existing listing? In this case 'Vengeance' was published in 2001, and revised in 2005, not published in 2008 as the listing cites.

Also, how do i enter an essay? Colin not only wrote the intorduction for 'Killers' but for 'Future Bristol' as well, and i'm afraid i have no-idea how to add this in.......i'm a luddite. Forgive me!

Thank you again Steph171717 14:09 3 January 2010

Go to the title record for Vengeance and choose from the Editing Tools menu "Edit Title Data". You can then change the date to 2001. You can also add the 2001 publication by choosing "Add Publication to This Title" (back on the title record page). There's a help page that starts you on the way to entering publications here. In order to add the introduction to Future Bristol, go to its pub page (which I linked there), and choose "Edit This Pub" from the Editing Tools menu. Go down to the bottom of the edit page and click on the "Add Title" button, which will open a set of fields which you will complete the page number, title of the work [if it's only titled "Introduction" add the title of the book in parentheses to distinguish it from other generic titles as in "Introduction (Future Bristol)"], enter the date (if it's not the same as the pub's date; if so, leave the field blank), choose ESSAY in the drop-down menu, leave the length field blank, and then enter the author's name in the Author1 field (it has to be Colin Harvey (1960-) to distinguish it from the other author). Hope this helps. MHHutchins 16:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC) 
   Thank you thank you! You've been so very helpfull, and it's much appreciated.
   Steph171717  17:39    3 January 2010

Darrel Andersen

Both Darrel Andersen and Darrel Anderson are credited with the cover for Gibson's Neuromancer. I suspect the latter is correct given the number of entries under that name, etc. I believe the Andersen credit only comes from Locus which lists him as a cover artist for this edition. Can anyone verify if this is an error or an actual variant? Jonschaper 04:09, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Parent Name: Gerald Heard or H. F. Heard?

Gerald Heard and H. F. Heard (both the same person) seem to have relatively equal numbers of entries. Are there preferences re which one to make the parent? Jonschaper 08:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

My gut feeling is that many of the titles attributed to H. F. Heard should actually be attributed to Gerald Heard. See this example from Google Books. And this one for books on the H. F. page which should be on the Gerald page. Most of this data was probably entered from secondary sources and those sources may have changed the credit from Gerald to H. F., which closer approximates the author's real name. Also, Wikipedia suggests Gerald. If Gerald is used then the biographical links on the H. F. page should be moved to the Gerald page. Looks like a mini-project.--swfritter 15:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I fixed those titles that were misattributed, based on OCLC, Abebooks.com , and Google Books searches. Looking over each summary page now, it appears he used "H. F. Heard" for his horror and mystery, while "Gerald Heard" was used for his science fiction and popular science. (Although one novel, Doppelgangers, was published in the US by H. F. and in the UK by Gerald.) I say make "Gerald" the parent name. It was the one he used the most in his native country. Any objections? Mhhutchins 16:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Also, an instance of the same title by H. F. and Gerald which may require some research. It could be another UK/US issue.--swfritter 17:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I just added the pubs of that title from OCLC, abebooks.com and Tuck. Author credits are based on more than one secondary source. Once it's decided which is the parent I'll make one a variant of the other. Further research has shown that genre was less a determination in authorship than the country of the publisher. US publishers (mainly Vanguard) used "H. F." from the 40s onward. UK publishers all used "Gerald" (I've not found one title published by a British publisher as by "H. F.") I'm more convinced than ever that "Gerald" should be the parent name. Mhhutchins 17:53, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
There's an official website under the name Gerald Heard. Mhhutchins 18:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll go ahead and submit Gerald as the parent and perhaps leave creation of variants to whoever researches each title. Jonschaper 00:36, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Two Jack Andersons?

I've entered biographical info for Jack Anderson, the author of the satirical novel "Millennium" here. That Jack Anderson was a muckracking journalist who also wrote several political non-fiction books. I have found no info that he also wrote poetry so I suspect the poems may be from another Jack Anderson. Jonschaper 02:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. It's not likely that the journalist was the author of the poems in the Umbral anthology. I suggest changing the author of those to "Jack Anderson (poet)" or something similar, until we can get more biographical detail. He may be the author of this poetry collection. If so, there is a wikipedia page. Or he could be someone entirely different. That's what happens with such common names. Mhhutchins 04:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the poet looks to be the Wikipedia's "Jack Anderson (dance critic)" per Google Books. The Wikipedia article credits him with Traffic: New and Selected Prose Poems which can be found on Google Books here. If you preview the book, the table of contents lists The Mysterious Sound. The preview also includes the back cover which has his picture which is different from the journalist. --JLaTondre 04:35, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
There's also the Jack Anderson who presents The Young Astronauts. BLongley 19:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
Besides the fact that all but one of the poems appears in Umbral, most of the other poems turn up in other collections by "Jack Anderson" I've just located on Google books. "Aesthetics of the Moon" (the only one not in Umbral) is in "City Joys", which is at least tenuously connected to the other Jack Anderson collections in being given the same subject headings by Google books (gay fiction, gay men, etc), and in being "Original from the University of Michigan". "The Lost Space Ship" and "The Mysterious Sound" are also listed together in an excerpt if you search for "Jack Anderson" here, and "The Mysterious Sound" is already connected to the dance critic, so I think it's very safe to conclude all or most of them are by Jack Anderson (dance critic) until any conflicting info comes along.Jonschaper 01:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
(Safe unless, of course, I'm perpetuating an error found on wikipedia) Jonschaper 01:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Now that we've determined that he is most likely the same person as Wikipedia's "Jack Anderson (dance critic)", perhaps we should change his name to "Jack Anderson (1935-)" to disambiguate him from the other Jack Anderson (who was born in 1922). We generally give the lesser known the birth year as part of their name. (Or is "Jack Anderson (poet)" sufficient? We might find a short story from him one day.) Mhhutchins 02:04, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
Technical question: Would each of the titles need to be updated separately, or does editing the canonical name take care of that? Jonschaper 02:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Changing the canonical name will change how it's displayed in all records, including title records and pub records. Mhhutchins 03:16, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Dominick vs Dominic vs Domenick D'Andrea

According to Locus, both "Against the Tide of Years" and "The Conqueror's Child" have covers by "Dominic D'Andrea". The unverified entries for "The Conqueror's Child" match this, but "Against the Tide" has entries verified by two different people with his first name spelled "DominicK". "The Legend of Tarik" features art in a similar style as these two books (complete with horse) by "Domenick D'Andrea. As per the two verifiers and Random House's info about a cover artist for "Black Beauty" here I believe "Dominick" is correct and wonder which other spellings are variants and which are just typos. Help? Cheers Jonschaper 03:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that "Domenick D'Andrea" should be the parent name. You can go ahead and make the others pseudonyms. You probably should ask the verifiers on their talk page about the "Dominick" credits (in case they don't look at this message). Mhhutchins 06:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Andrew Bronsnatch vs Brosnatch

Going by the info here"Bronsnatch", the artist for "The Loved Dead and Other Tales" here is the same person as Weird Tales cover artist Brosnatch. Can anyone verifiy if the former spelling is actually used in the actual publication? Jonschaper 04:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The publisher's page gives the correct spelling as "Brosnatch". This should trump a dealer's listing. Go ahead and correct the ISFDB record since it hasn't been primary verified. Mhhutchins 06:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Lea vs Leah Bodine Drake

Can anyone verify if Leah's name was credited as Lea for two Weird Tales poems? Jonschaper 04:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

This secondary reference has them both listed as "Leah". --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 06:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Two Andrew Collins?

I've just entered biographical info for Andrew Collins, the author of "From the Ashes of Angels" here. I note that the rest of the entries for "Andrew Collins" are short stories related to Doctor Who. I cannot find mention of fiction by "Ashes of Angels" Collins. There is another Andrew Collins listed on IMDB here and wiki here with his own webpage here who has written for British TV and played himself on "Doctor Who Confidential". I haven't found anything yet stating that Andrew Collins the broadcaster is the same Andrew Collins who wrote the Short Trip stories but I think this is strong circumstantial evidence (certainly a stronger case than for "Ashes of Angels" Collins who just happens to have that common name). Any opinions / detective work? Jonschaper 02:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you've built a good case for separating the author of the Doctor Who stories from the author of From the Ashes of Angels. I would suggest changing the author of the book to Andrew Collins (1957-), and leaving the other as simply Andrew Collins. Mhhutchins 03:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Bug in changing cover art credit.

I was doing a second check for verification of this pub and noticed that the cover artist was credited as "Rick Sternback" instead of the record's then credited "Rick Sternbach". Before I changed the pub record I went to the cover art record and noticed that there were at least four more pubs that credited it as "Sternbach". I was worried that changing the credit in my pub record would affect how it was credited in the other pubs. And it did. Once I approved the edited pub record, I went back to its title record and saw that every cover art credit had been removed, except for the one I just edited. (Stupidly, I forgot to note which pubs had cover credits.) Now I worry that this must have happened in the past when I've changed cover art credit, and there's no telling how many records that I (and other editors) have affected by this bug. If the cover art credits of these pubs had not been merged this would not have happened, so I'm thinking we should hold over merging cover art records until this bug can be fixed. I'm going to do some tests to see if it affects other records. After others have had a chance to see the results of my blunder, I'll try to find out which pub records were affected. (Or can someone check a recent backup copy?) Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

A little SQL says 1, 2, 3 seem to be the culprits.--swfritter 19:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
My backup (23-Jan-2003) says these five - note that one co-credits a (badly spelled) Murray Tinklelman, and notes suggest he did the border for later editions of Sternbach's original: 
   * A World Out of Time, (Sep 1976, Larry Niven, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 0-03-017776-6, $7.95, 243pp, hc) Cover: Rick Sternbach 
   * A World Out of Time, (Jan 1977, Larry Niven, Holt, Rinehart and Winston / SFBC, #3196, $1.98, 214pp, hc) Cover: Rick Sternbach 
   * A World Out of Time, (Jul 1977, Larry Niven, Del Rey / Ballantine, 0-345-25750-2, $1.95, 246pp, pb) Cover: Rick Sternbach 
   * A World Out of Time, (Oct 1978, Larry Niven, Del Rey / Ballantine, 0-345-25750-2, $1.95, 246pp, pb) Cover: Rick Sternbach , Murray Tiknkelman 
   * A World Out of Time, (May 1988, Larry Niven, Del Rey / Ballantine, 0-345-33696-8, $3.50, 246pp, pb) Cover: Rick Sternbach
BLongley 19:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I saw the typo in Tinkelman's name at the time of the first submission and corrected it. Perhaps all of the paperback editions should be credited to both Sternbach and Tinkelman, because the frame design is as prominent as the artwork. Thanks for checking your backup copy, Bill. Mhhutchins 20:23, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
I'll take a look at the deletion bug (and will log it, if no one has yet). I'll bet deleting a pub with a shared coverart title would do the same thing, so I'll check on that while I'm at it. --MartyD 11:08, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed pub deletion will do the same thing. Logged as #2942175. I will make a fix for this (probably tomorrow). While thinking about this, I wonder if we need to make the artist fields have similar treatment to other content titles: gray/not-editable if shared. Even in the single artist case, we have no way to know if the editor intends to change only this pub or all pubs. Right now (with the deletion prevented), the behavior will be inconsistent. For a single-artist record, only this pub will be changed. But for a multi-artist record, all pubs will get the old artist removed and a new one added. Guess I'll log that one, too.... (#2942192). --MartyD 12:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I lied about pub deletion. It does know about shared coverart. But the bad news is, I've discovered that updating a pub to ADD a second artist is also broken. Instead of putting the artist onto the existing COVERART record, it creates a second COVERART. This shows up in the biblio displays as Ivan Artist, Ima Painter instead of Ivan Artist and Ima Painter. This is independent of sharing of the COVERART among pubs. --MartyD 10:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Adding a new publication with multiple artists does the same thing: makes one COVERART per artist instead of a single, multi-artist COVERART title. Editing the COVERART title to add more artists of course puts the artists on that same title. Sigh. Logged #2943196 to cover new/edit pub with multiple artists. Since this is now way beyond "help", I've started this discussion: ISFDB:Community_Portal#Opinions_urgently_needed:_handling_of_Multiple_Cover_Artists about the add/edit problem. --MartyD 13:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[unindent] I've always wondered why some records show the and while others didn't. I even questioned it here before and only learned that it happens when a pub has been edited, but never knew what was the underlying cause. Hopefully, it can be resolved. I've responded to your inquiry on the community page. Mhhutchins 16:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I just checked in a fix for the deletion problem (and only the deletion problem). Editing a pub's artist has been modified to handle the removal of a previous artist ("changing" a name removes the previous artist and adds a new one) as follows:
  • A single-artist, unshared COVERART is deleted (unchanged)
  • A single-artist, shared COVERART is only dissociated from the pub (NEW)
  • A multi-artist, unshared COVERART has the artist removed (unchanged)
  • A multi-artist, shared COVERART is dissociated from the pub, and a new copy of the COVERART is added back, minus the artist being removed (NEW)
So in no circumstances should editing the artists at the publication level affect other publications. One can still edit the title record to affect all pubs. Watch Ahasuerus' announcements for when it is put up on the ISFDB server. --MartyD 23:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, Marty! With luck, testing will commence in a few hours. Ahasuerus 01:13, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, testing has been delayed due to very limited ISFDB time this week :-( Ahasuerus 05:02, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Tested and installed. The larger issue definitely needs to be addressed since the current approach results in a mess when adding/editing artists for multi-artist covers, especially when there are two covers and one of them is co-authored.
Also, Title Edit apparently has a problem when editing Cover Art titles. It deletes and then re-adds Authors, but it restes the Last Name field to the default value, so the last name of, e.g., "Michael Shea (1938-)" would change from "Shea" to "(1938-)". Ahasuerus 04:00, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Merging with a variant titles for pseudonym authors

My first anthology submission was accepted and I began merging the titles of the stories with their existing entries. I promptly encountered a title that is listed both as itself and as a variant of itself. (See "Hero" by Haldeman in Advanced Search.) The variant shows a pseudonym of the author (with a middle initial). Since my anthology entry also shows the pseudonym author, should I merge the newly added title with the "variant" title that has the pseudonym? PortForlorn 06:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you should only merge it with a record which matches exactly the name of the author and the title of the story. The easiest way to do this is to go to the pseudonymous author's summary page and click on "Show All Titles" from the menu. You get a list of all titles published with this pseudonym. Check the boxes for the records you wish to merge. There will be a conflict because one of them is already established as a variant record. Choose to keep the record with the variant title. Mhhutchins 07:08, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

"Anna Katherine"

This page confirms that "Anna Katherine" here is the pseudonym of two female authors. This page confirms that one of them is Anna Genoese. Can anyone identify the other author? (I assume she's named Katherine) Jonschaper 04:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

According to Publisher's Weekly as quoted by Amazon.com, the other writer is Katherine Macdonald. Ahasuerus 05:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! Jonschaper 05:13, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Anna Mnyuka vs Anna Mnyukh

This publication has one poem under each of the above names, so I strongly suspect one is a typo. Cheers Jonschaper 03:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but who's to say which is correct? The editor who entered the contents did not verify the pub, nor note the secondary source. An internet search was fruitless. Now it's a matter of flipping a coin. Anyone else have a better ides? Mhhutchins 04:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
These people have a copy. Perhaps they will respond to a request.--swfritter 14:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Broecker's Fantasy of the 20th Century done- next?

Morning! Big question. Do I variant the cover interior art to the actual cover credit, thereby creating a second source for the art and (in many cases) allowing a Broecker user to see the art of the original with least effort? Second question. What obvious tag-ends have I missed? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I tried something similar when I added the interiorart for a Kelly Freas collection and somehow it didn't display right. So I gave up. There have been a few changes in the software since then, so it might work better now. Only do a few of the records so we can see how they work out. Then you can determine whether it's worth the effort. (Great job, by the way. It's tempting me to do another collection of cover art. Over 300 works!) Mhhutchins 15:52, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, I started with Belarski, only one and then did Virgil Finlay, which should have enough to give a good or bad impression. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:02, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
As for "Tomorrow and Beyond" you stumped me till I found the appendix. Still it will call for much back forth, but still a most worthy effort. I do wish that he had done the titles on the page, but I presume spacing for art versus text was too much. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:08, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
The first thing I noticed was that it removed your entries from the INTERIORART section of Finlay's summary page and made them variants of the records under the COVER ART section. Which is fine with me, if you don't mind. Also look at your pub record and you see all of those AKAs. If you're willing to fill up the page with all of those, just say so and we'll proceed the remaining records. (Yes, it was great that the book titles of the artwork in Tomorrow and Beyond are credited, even if in the back of the book. I've seen many artbooks that don't even bother unless it's a single artist collection.) Mhhutchins 21:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
It does not bother me. All the others are cover merges elsewhere (except Belarski). I will await others who may find it inappropriate. So more comments requested. I will do the "Norman Saunders" tomorrow and see how that looks also. ( I just got a copy of Infinite Worlds and it reminds me of Broecker). When I look at the secondary AKA's though, it makes me want to get the originals or reprints. It de-emphasises the art and generates interest in other publications for me. I wonder if it affects others that way? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
Tom Kidd's "Kiddography: The Art and Life of Tom Kidd" has been variant connected through the art attributions. Here is Kiddography [1] and Tom Kidd [2] for comparisons. Comments/objections invited. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:13, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Talk Page

I've been asked to sign my name to a talk page with four tildes. I'm not finding tildes on my keyboard. Must be a special character. I suppose I could cut and paste. My main concern: do I hit "my talk" and then "edit" to access the talk page, or is it somewhere else? Ed DeGeorge. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by EDeG (talk • contribs) .

The tilde is usually in the shift position of the first key to the left of the "1/!" key. Just clicking on the "My Talk" page from any other wiki page will get you to your talk page. To respond to a comment that's been left there (or on any wiki page) click on the "edit" link for that comment. Use a colon (":") to separate your comments from the previous comment, adding an addition colon for each new comment. You can begin a conversation by clicking on "Post a Comment" link or the plus sign "+", depending upon what skin you've set as a preference. Hope this helps. Mhhutchins 04:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
In the standard Wiki editor, there is also a shortcut button you can use -- the second one from the right in the set of small buttons that appears above the editing window, to the left of the "Horizontal Line" button. That button inserts --~~~~. --MartyD 10:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
In all my years of using a Wiki I never knew about that button, in fact, never even tested it out to see what it could do. Thanks Marty! --Mhhutchins 14:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Anne Brown AKA Anne K. Brown?

Both Anne and Anne K. produced stories for TSR series so I suspect they are the same person. Of course "Anne Brown" isn't exactly an uncommon name... Jonschaper 01:53, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how authoritative or complete this list is, but notice it does not list Bigby's Curse (which we have by Anne Brown). --MartyD 11:07, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Well, that site doesn't list any Endless Quest books - they're Choose-Your-Own-Adventure rather than RPG. BLongley 12:02, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
If they're not the same person, the Wikipedia link is on the wrong author. I have Pools of Darkness and the author bio states she's a TSR editor. The Wikipedia article also includes that pen-paper.net link which is the "Anne K. Brown" author. --JLaTondre 17:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
So that leaves us at this: I think there's agreement that "Anne K. Brown" is the same person referred to in the Wikipedia and pen-paper.net links, thanks to cross-referencing those pages and the author bio in Pools of Darkness. So I'll move the Wikipedia entry to "Anne K. Brown", whom I imagine would wind up the parent name at any rate if we combined the two authors. But since someone who is clearly "Anne K. Brown" is referred to as "Anne Brown" on both these links, I think that can be considered additional evidence that she's the same person. MartyD and BLongley's points considered though, this is hardly conclusive evidence. Jonschaper 00:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Cover Art variant of Interior Art

ChanurBe has noted that this cover illustration is the same as this interior art and wants to make a variant relationship (see this discussion). I'm not certain as to whether we can, or should, make COVERART a variant of INTERIORART. Has anybody attempted this before? Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 03:37, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Harry (Dragoondelight) has been doing this very same thing for the past week or so, and it seems to be working well. Check out this pub record to see how it is displayed. Mhhutchins 05:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Anthea Bell cover art credit

I believe that this is a typically screwy Amazon entry. Anthea Bell is a known translator and the book in question was originally in German, so my guess is that she translated this. Jonschaper 05:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thorndike Press publishes large-print editions, but I don't think they would commission new covers to replace the original publisher's editions. If the cover for this is correct, then it is the work of Don Seegmiller, who did the Chicken House edition. The English translation for Dragon Rider was by Anthea Bell, according to the OCLC record. I would suggest correcting the cover artist credit for the Thorndike edition to Don Seegmiller. Mhhutchins 05:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
The Amazon Look-Inside also confirms Anthea as translator. (I don't trust Amazon US much, but their book-scans can be useful). BLongley 17:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Anthony Hope's "Phroso"

From my quick skimming on Google books it appears that Phroso is an adventure story in the vein of the author's other works like The Prisoner of Zenda, and he does not appear to meet the threshold for inclusion of non-genre works. The note here says that it is not clear if it is SF but that it contains a ghost which may not be real. Is anyone familiar enough with the book to judge it more conclusively? Thanks Jonschaper 04:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I've not read the novel, but there must be many stories in the database in which the true nature of the possible supernatural element remains ambiguous. And many more in which the horror element is shown to be non-supernatural (e.g. Psycho, Misery). I'd draw the line at this novel and not allow any of the more obvious, non-genre adventure titles by Hope creep in through association. (Gotta be careful about the punks you hang around with. Some may follow you home.) Mhhutchins 23:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

John Williams

So far under John Williams there are two music scores by the american composer of Star Wars, a science article from a 1951 Marvel Tales, a 1971 story which is included in a collection of "Australian writers", plus a story from 2000. This means there are at minimum 2 John Williams (american vs australian) lumped together, probably 3 (the 1951 science article). There is a 29 year gap between the two stories, plus only the 2000 story is listed under "John Williams" in Locus and only the 1971 story is listed under "John Williams" on www.philsp.com, but the 2000 story is included in an Australian reading text (it also has american and british content though) so they're probably by the same Aussie writer.

My personal feeling is that: 1) the music scores should be deleted, 2) the two stories be attributed to something like "John Williams (Australian)" and 3) the article left as is. Thoughts? Jonschaper 22:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Further to the music scores: I see no reason to include scores for 2 out of 6 Star Wars films when we exclude scores for Mozart's The Magic Flute, Berlioz' Symphony Fantastique, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, anything by Tangerine Dream, etc etc. Jonschaper 23:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts. Proceed submitting and I'll check them out. Mhhutchins 23:41, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
Hmmmm. I bought this two years ago, if I can find it the "Contributors" essay might shed some light on one of them. I've not yet got round to unpacking the Anthologies yet though. BLongley 21:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Birthdate/Deathdate Search

I'm trying to look up birthdates and deathdates in the ISFDB Author Search Form, and I am unclear on the format I am supposed to use. If I put in a year, I will get results, but any combination of month/day that I've come up with yields nothing. Anyone know what I should be putting in? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bojnberry (talk • contribs) .

Looks like you are out of luck. The search code specifically only compares the year of those dates to the value you entered. So any of yyyy, yyyy-mm, and yyyy-mm-dd will have all but the yyyy part ignored. Sounds like an enhancement request might be in order.... --MartyD 17:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
That's a shame. I just want to see who shared my birthday. I keep managing to miss it somehow :-). --Bojnberry 20:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I am trying to recall whether it was an intended change to make it harder to commit identity fraud (we have had some requests long those lines), but I'd have to check code history. Ahasuerus 22:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Adding World Fantasy Awards

Hello, All, I am interested in adding the World Fantasy Award nominees and winners for 2007-2009 since those pages are blank in the DB. In reading the site and the wiki I've been unable to figure out how exactly we can add Awards to titles. Is there currently a way for registered users to do this? Dgeiser13 22:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is - there was ongoing work on an Awards Editor at some point, but it hasn't materialised yet as far as I know. BLongley 19:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
At one point Al deployed an Award editor, but then had to pull it since some of the remaining bugs were destructive. Now that he is back, perhaps he is working on fixing it? Let's ask... Ahasuerus 22:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

<type 'exceptions.IndexError'>: tuple index out of range

Afternoon! Undoubtedly my errors, but there seems to be no correction available my end. Am I correct? What is the 'to do' for this?. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks like you have run into a new bug in the ISFDB software. Could you please describe what you did to get that error? TIA! Ahasuerus 22:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Just guessing, but I think I corrected the original twice with an inwork version being added to. With no pride of accomplishment, I think I created three errors. I can redo easily, but I am not sure of what happened. Here is the python error result.
A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred. 
/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/submitpub.cgi in ()
  80 
  81         new = pubs(db)
  82         new.cgi2obj()
  83         
  84         old = pubs(db)

new = <pubClass.pubs instance at 0x828528c>, new.cgi2obj = <bound method pubs.cgi2obj of <pubClass.pubs instance at 0x828528c>> 

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/pubClass.py in cgi2obj(self=<pubClass.pubs instance at 0x828528c>)
 810                                         if int(newTitle.id) > 0:
 811                                                 oldTitle = titleEntry()
 812                                                 title_data = getTitle(newTitle.id)
 813                                                 oldTitle.setTitle(title_data[TITLE_TITLE])
 814                                                 oldTitle.setID(newTitle.id)

title_data = (1100788L, 'Foreword: The Artist Formerly Known as EMSH', None, None, None, None, None, '2007-07-00', None, 'ESSAY', None, 0L, 0L, None, 0L, 0L), global getTitle = <function getTitle at 0x8302224>, newTitle = <pubClass.titleEntry instance at 0x8317d2c>, newTitle.id = 721353 

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/pubClass.py in getTitle(title_id=721353)
  29         result = db.store_result()
  30         record = result.fetch_row()
  31         return record[0]
  32 
  33 def getPageNumber(title_id, pub_id):

record = ()

<type 'exceptions.IndexError'>: tuple index out of range

Hopefully, it is my inate idiocy. LOL Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:24, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
This error is because a title being referred to does not exist 721353. That title was "Forward (Emshwiller Infinity x Two: The Life and Art of Ed and Carol Emshwiller)". Could it have been removed and deleted or merged away while you had a pub editor window open that still showed it? --MartyD 02:02, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. I assumed it was cross working in the same item. Yes, there were two deletions, followed by a third. The good news is that it was nothing new I was doing and all I have to do is transfer the new data. If it was something else, I would be up the creek figuring it out. Thanks greatly, Harry. --Dragoondelight 10:55, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Vampire &/and/without Werewolf Stories

Hi, for anyone who owns copies, some cleaning up obviously needs to be done with these titles:

1) Vampire and Werewolf Stories (full spelling of "and" is as per the cover scan) has a cover attributed to Nick Hardcastle. It currently lacks contents listings, but are presumably the same as #2.

2) Vampire & Werewolf Stories (ampersand as per the cover scan) has the same cover as #1, but the cover credit is given to Mark Edwards instead of Nick Hardcastle.

3) Vampire Stories (variant title per the scan) has a different cover than either of the above books, but like #1 the cover credit is given to Nick Hardcastle. This cover credit ignores the change in title and gives cover credit for "Vampire & Werewolf Stories" vs "Vampire Stories". #3 is entered as a variant of #2, and other than the incorrectly titled cover credit being switched over to Nick Hardcastle, it lists the identical contents (werewolf stories inclusive) despite the notable ommission of "Werewolf" from the title and has the exact same pagination despite (going by the cover scan) the apparent change in publishers -- the scan shows the publisher to be Scholatic, but the credited publisher is Kingfisher (same as #1 and 2).

So at present, 1 cover is attributed to 2 artists, 2 very different covers are attributed to 1 artist, at least one cover credit has the incorrect title, #1 should presumably be a variant of #2 and/or #3, #3 appears to list the wrong publisher, and I am left wondering if "Vampire Stories" really does have the same content as "Vampire and/& Werewolf Stories". (Note: per the covers scans all three books are indeed edited by Alan Durant so it is probably safe to assume there really is at least some overlap between #3 and the other two) Jonschaper 01:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Despite it's title, #3 has the same stories as #2 (click on the "Worldcat" link on the pub record's page.) The cover for that pub is not currently credited (just the interiorart), so there's no problem there. Each of the books' titles matches those of the OCLC records. I don't see "Scholastic" credit on the scan of #3, just the "Kingfisher" at the top. The variants look OK, unless there's some nitpicker who wants to make the ampersand a variant. (If a nitpicker is reading this, go ahead and do it. I'll accept the submission...) Mhhutchins 05:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Just did a "Look Inside" on Amazon.com of the third title, and it has the werewolf stories, and the cover is credited to Simon Bartram. Mhhutchins 05:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Cheers, and mea culpa re the scan, the image didn't come up well and it looked like the Scholatic logo, but I've now taken a better look. I'll just merge in the other title then (oops, already done). Still the conflict with the first two covers though... Thanks all Jonschaper 21:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
Cover for both 1 and 2 should be by Mark Edwards (source: an Abebooks.com dealer.) I've corrected it and merged them. Someone must have saw the Hardcastle credit for interior art and confused it with cover art credit. Mhhutchins 22:06, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
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