ISFDB:Help desk

From ISFDB

Jump to: navigation, search


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)

How the name "Louis L'Amour" is entered

I just submitted a new novel entry for Louis L'Amour's The Californios (as I described in the note field, it's a western with lost-race elements and mysticism). After submitting it, I noticed that another novel of his that's already in the database, The Haunted Mesa, has his surname as "L'amour". I thought that it might somehow be a deficiency in the software (not allowing an upper case letter after an apostrophe), but Madeleine L'Engle doesn't have this problem. It's possible that there's a good reason for L'Amour's name being this way, but I thought I'd point it out so that it can be corrected. Jayembee 06:03, 3 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

Right you are - that's the way it is on the official website. I updated the author data. Note: case is not taken into account when matching author names. The novel ended up being credited to the already existing author despite the case difference.--swfritter 15:20, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Would promotional giveaway samplers be included?

I have in my collection a number of paperback samplers published as promotional giveways. Most of them are non-genre (though some of those include at least one borderline SF title), though one is a sampler published by Bantam Spectra in 1985, with excerpts from eight then-forthcoming SF novels. If it helps any, it can be seen listed in the Locus Index. Jayembee 10:41, 4 November 2008 (UTC) Jayembee

If they were all SF, I would list them as collections of excerpts. If only some entries were SF, I would list only those entries, with a note that non-genre entries were omitted. In any case i would include a note describing the special background of such publications. -DES Talk 21:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. We already have a few promotional giveaways on file, e.g. Silverberg's Revolt on Alpha C. Ahasuerus 22:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
There are several "samplers of series" already on file - I know, I keep finding that a book I picked up at a car boot sale is actually a full "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Charmed" novel given away with some magazine. And there are samplers which are mostly Collections of extracts - haven't entered many of those as they're all new excerpts and a bit of a pain. But they're definitely printed SF. BLongley 23:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Ibid on DES' comments. I personally was wondering the other night, since we seem to be allowing electronic-only short stories to be added, if movies should be indexed... -Marc Kupper|talk 22:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
To me, e-texts are still texts, therfore written albeit not printed on paper. I see that as quite different from videos of any sort. Anyway, that is a different question from the sampler siutuation. -DES Talk 22:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Please NO! Let IMDB deal with those and we can link to them. It's bad enough when we have a Novel (in) of the Film (out) of the Short Story (in)... and there are no doubt Novels of the Film of the TV episode based on the Short Story, etc. (Twilight Zone stuff probably - and we've already had disagreements over the "audiobooks" of those.) BLongley 23:05, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I am afraid that we are not equipped to index movies simply because our software doesn't have support for hundreds of data elements that movies need -- just pick the IMDB entry for a random blockbuster! Ahasuerus 22:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Yep, and their rules for the fields are even more complicated than ISFDB's. I've tried to send in corrections at times and don't think I ever succeeded. -Marc Kupper|talk 04:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Fred Pohl's Hatching the Phoenix

Hi, I've just imported the contents of The Mammoth Bk of Best New SF 13 (Dozois), from the "... Seventeenth Annual Collection" and noticed that the Pohl story is type SERIAL rather than SHORTSTORY. Is this what people expect? (It seems it was originally 2 part serial in Amazing Stories.) ...clarkmci/--j_clark 05:15, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

It's not what I'd expect. Maybe if it was still in the same two parts, but once it's not split it's not serialised. BLongley 19:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't look long enough to be a novel either. It place 17th in the 1000 Locus poll for novellas.--swfritter 20:15, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
The 1000 poll? Yeesh, Locus has been going longer than I thought. ;-) BLongley 21:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"1016 to 1" vs "10 to 16 to 1" (James Patrick Kelly)

Also in importing the contents of The Mammoth Bk of Best New SF 13 (Dozois), from the "... Seventeenth Annual Collection", I notice that the James Patrick Kelly story is, in my copy, actually

1016 to 1

The story is in 5 other publications in ISDBF, all currently entered with title "10 to 16 to 1".

Will ISFDB break if I embed the superscript html in the title for my publication? If no, should I change it for my publication (in the usual way)? Does the actual title in the other 5 publications have the power of 10 superscripted? ... clarkmci/--j_clark 05:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

No, ISFDB won't break - see [1]. BLongley 22:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what people would search for: if I'd entered it from scratch I'd probably have entered it as 10^16 to 1, as that's what I use in most computer languages - but the "to the power of" symbol is highly variable, e.g. I think it was "**" on my first computer and "↑"on my second. But I really don't like using the same word "to" twice in the name, it makes it look like a ratio between three things rather than astronomical odds. Unfortunately "16 to 1" is probably the substring I'd attempt to search for if I didn't know a standard for the character, and the end sup tag prevents that search working. BLongley 18:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, can't answer the third question, I own none. BLongley 22:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

If changing a title's publishing date, should I also change the date in the Bibliographic comments tag?

Hi, This book Conan, by Robert E. Howard et al currently has a publishing date of 1969. This is a Lancer paperback. Lancer used catalog numbers to track publications; this pub's cat. no. is 75104-095.

I have a copy of this book. There is a copyright date of 1967 on the title page verso, but no other indication of when this book was actually published (that I can find, anyway).

My q's:

1. Unless there's a catalog list for Lancer somewhere that shows the publication date to be 1969, should I change the date to 1967 to reflect the copyright date?

2. If a publication date is changed this way, what should be done with the Bibliographic Comments tag, which contains the date?

e.g. for this pub, CNNZGTRDVM1969

Would this become CNNZGTRDVM1967 ? How would this change be implemented?

Note: The Bibliographic comments page currently has no entries.

Big Al Mintaka 22:33, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Copyright dates are, unfortunately, highly unreliable. The original copyright year often (but not always) reflects the year of the first publication, but copyright renewals throw another monkey wrench in the works. In this case, the Robert E. Howard bibliography site has reasonably complete information about the book except that the compiler uses the word "edition" where most publishers would use the word "printing" :
  • Year : 1968 through 1973 - See Notes
  • Book No. See Notes
  • Edition : 12 editions - See Notes
  • Format : Paperback
  • Pages : 221
  • Cover art : Frank Frazetta
  • Illustrations : None
  • 1st edition, 1968, 73-685, purple edges, 60 cents
  • 2nd edition, 1968, 73-685, purple edges, 60 cents, Canada
  • 3rd edition, 1968, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents
  • 4th edition, 1968, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents, Canada
  • 5th edition, 1969, 74-958, purple edges, 75 cents
  • 6th edition, 1970, ,75-104, purple edges, 95 cents
  • 7th edition, 1970, 75104-095, purple edges, 95 cents
  • 8th edition, 1970, 75104-095, purple edges, 95 cents, Canada
  • 9th edition, 1971, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
  • 10th edition, April 1972, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
  • 11th edition, Sept 1972, 75104-095, yellow edges, 95 cents
  • 12th edition, May 1973, 78744-125, yellow edges, $1.25
Does this help? Ahasuerus 23:01, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes it does help, thanks! For one thing, it tells me that I've been looking at the wrong "printing". It also narrows down the possible matches for my edition to two others in that list. I'll have to do a little offline research on that bibliography website, which I did not know existed. Thanks also for that link!
There are minor inconsistencies between that bibliographical list and the list at ISFDB. For example, the list above has two 1972 printings, whereas the ISFDB list has only one. In the ISFDB list, the Publication Listing for the 1972 edition says that page 221 has a "4-72" date code. Howard's biblio has no notation to that effect. My book doesn't have any date codes on that page either.
Taking the Lancer codes, page edge coloring, and lack of a date code into account, it appears that my book is either the 1971 or Sept 1972 printing in the Howard list. In the ISFDB list it is most likely the 1970 printing. The ISFDB list may therefore require both the addition and modification of printings.
If I can figure out what's going on I'll certainly post the info here before doing anything else.
Have a good one, Big Al Mintaka 03:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
As to changing the publication Tag from CNNZGTRDVM1969, I wouldn't bother. It's just a Unique Identifier, automatically generated, and you can actually break things if you change it to a non-unique value (so do an advanced search for the Publication tag you want to change it to if you must): e.g. there are so many "Doctor Who and the..." pubs that I had to fix many pubs with overlapping DCTRWHNDTH prefixes. Any link using such went to the first publication and ignored the rest. But it has no real meaning even if you can see how some of them were generated - see all the BKTGnnnnn entries as well. BLongley 19:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I would go farther, and say don't ever change the publication tag for any reason, unless it is currently non-unique. Outside sites, including wikipedia, and our own wiki pages, can and do link to records usign the pub tag, and changing the tag will break all such links for the pub in question..
It is worth noting that ther is no reeason to assume that the ISFDB list of printings is complete. if a printing appears in a reliable external list, feel free to add itto the ISFDB, with a note on the source, please. -DES Talk 18:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding a new Author

How??? Searched the 'Help" and it covers just about everything else...??? --Bluesman 01:13, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Because there is no need to add an author as such. When you add a work by that author, the author is automatically added for you, and if someone deletes all the works by a given author (perhaps they weren't SF) the author is automatically deleted too. Not that there aren't places where the help is lacking, but this is not a big issue, though perhaps the help ought to say what I did above somewhere. -DES Talk 01:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
And to quote Help:How to:
  • Note that there is no way to directly delete an author. If all the title information for an author is deleted, the author will disappear from the ISFDB, but there is no "Delete Author" function. Similarly, there is no way to directly create an author; once a work by that author is entered, an author record will appear automatically.
It was hidden in plain site/sight :) Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

So this is accomplished by adding a new title to any existing author and then putting in a different author's name in the field?--Bluesman 05:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

No! Please don't do that. Simply create a new record by going to the edit tools on the home page. Choose the type of publication: novel, collection, anthology, etc., and then add the info in the fields. If the author is not in the database, a new author record will be created. If the author is in the database, the new record will be added to his summary page. In other words, you can not add an author without creating a pub record which credits him/her as the author. This applies to shortfiction within the contents of a larger work as well (magazine, anthology, nonfiction). MHHutchins 05:33, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Mhhutchins is absolutely correct above. What may be confusing you, from any author's biblio page the "New Novel", "New Collection", "New Anthology", etc links are available. One might expect that these would create a new publication with the author's name already filled in, based on the page you were on. But the software doesn't work like that (maybe it should, but it currently doesn't). New novel (or new anything else) from anywhere that it is available creates a completely blank record for you to fill in all the data for, including the author's name. It doesn't matter what page, including an author's page or the main page, you may have been on before you clicked on The "New ..." link. All the "new" links are available from the main page to any logged-in editor. They are not available from every possible page, and I think there are some pages where some but not all of them are available. Since every page has a link to the main/home page, it is often simpler to go there first. -DES Talk 15:36, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Merging publications

I can't figure out how to merge two publications of a title. The help section only seems to deal with titles. My use case is the two pubs of Michael Swanwick's Moon Dogs: these seem pretty clearly identical (all the data, including the ISBN is identical). There were apparently two states of this book, issued simultaneously, and which had different ISBNs, so an alternative to merging might be just to change the ISBN of one of the two titles.Jefe 21:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, we don't merge publication records, which is why there is no help on it. If these two records really reflect the exact same publication, simply copy all the info into one of them, and delete the other. If we choose to regard the two "states" as different publications, because of the different ISBNs, then simply correct one or both of the records until each accurately represents one of the states. In such a case, a note in both pub records, each referencing the other, would probably be a good idea.
Do you have physical copies of the two different states with their different ISBNs? If not, do you have info from a reliable source that establishes that both states were in fact issued?
By the way, you can use the template {{T}} to link to title records. In this case, this would look like Moon Dogs. See Help:List of ISFDB Templates for other possibly useful templates. -DES Talk 22:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
It's not just "generally speaking", you CANNOT merge publications, only titles. As DES says, make sure one of the publications has all the data and delete the other. In this case the only difference is whether it's "NESFA" or "NESFA Press" for the publisher. We don't seem to have decided on a preferred option there, so no loss. However, we could usefully have the contents added (e.g. from here, or any other useful reliable source). That page also seems to give the two ISBNs and prices: "Hardcover edition, ISBN: 1-886778-22-1, $25.00. Boxed edition, ISBN: 1-886778-23-X, $36.00." Does this mean you SHOULDN'T delete one of them - no, it just suggests that it's easier to delete one, enter the contents for the other, and clone the other changing ISBN and price. Adding contents to both and merging all those titles is far harder. Changing the ISBN of one of them would be a good pointer to the existence of the other, but then you'd be skipping the hard work of entering contents, and we don't want to make life TOO easy on our editors.... ;-) BLongley 23:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I've marked one of them for deletion. I don't have the energy to enter all the contents (and then reconcile them later!) at the moment, so I'll leave that alone for now. Thanks for the templates pointer -- I didn't know about those!Jefe 01:02, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
It was only 5 minutes to enter the contents, so I've done that. (Another 15 for merges though!) BLongley 19:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I've dug up my copy, and polished up some of the story data.Jefe 00:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Pamphlet containing a single story

I have a pamphlet, published in 1975 by Charles Miller of the Robert E. Howard short story The Grey God Passes. The pamphlet contains only the single story with illustrations by Walter Simonson. I'd like to set it up in the database, but am not sure what type of publication to list it as. Should I add it as a publication to the shortfiction title record that already exists, or set it up as a new title? If it is a new title would it be a new novel, collection or something else? --Gloinson 02:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I would add it as a publication of the story, of type "CHAPTERBOOK". However, there are some significant implementation problems with this type (a fix has been requested, but we don't know when or if one will be available). Some editors would suggest setting this up as a collection with a single content item. That also allows specifying an editor, if there was one. Please don't enter it as a novel. -DES Talk 16:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I've set it up as a Chapterbook. --Gloinson 04:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

The Best of John Russell Fearn, vol 1-author removal

This. [2] . I just reread the author/collection instructions and finally I understand it, I think. Collections are entered under author, but not under editor. I entered the above wrong. It bothered me that I could not get it to appear under it's author. I just submitted the author, but I have no idea how to delete an erroneous author, (this case the editor). I understand the need to get it under the author so users can find collections and get them, but I do not understand why the editor would not be included. Even though this one is a Forry type, others have and do work at editing material for collections and I think they also need top billing. My concern being that Major Ingredients by Eric Frank Russell is a collection, but if the editor Rick Katze had not busted his buns, it might not be available. By not entering him also, we miss the opportunity to make connections to other NESFA/Katz projects. I admit I am quirky on how I find books, but I have searched editors for their material, just like I do authors, and sometimes they interconnect with my odd wants. Additionally, could the collection instruction be differentiated slightly, say by highlighting collection, on the help editing panel. With no separation, it was hard for me to parse personally. Sorry about this. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The ability to specify editors for single author collections and novels has been requested and Al has confirmed that he will implement it when he gets a chance. We have also talked about making the whole system more flexible and adding "roles" to books, e.g. "editor", "designer", etc, which is what library catalogs do, but nothing definite at this time.
As far as fixing this publication goes, all you need to do is replace the Publication Author with "John Russell Fearn" and everything will be right with the world again :) Ahasuerus 18:11, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Shudders, I will give it a go. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, forgot to mention that we will also need to correct the author at the Title level. A Collection Publication contains Contents level Titles (stories, essays, etc) and a Collection Title record. The latter is not editable when you are editing the Publication record, so it needs to be edited directly via "Epit Title". Ahasuerus 23:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Well, since The Best of John Russel Fearn, etc is on hold. That hold, has to be my add of JRF, with no deletion of Harbottle. Therefore if it should be done, by direct removal it needs to be rejected. Also the second one might also be too early.
To recap, I need to substitute JRF for Harbottle, first step. Then I need to change the title record from Harbottle to Russell, second step?. Sorry, but if that is not the "Epit Title" I do not know what it is and I may not have ever seen it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
No worries, I have approved your change to the Collection Title and then changed the Publication's author to "John Russell Fearn", so we are all set :) Ahasuerus 15:52, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Heartily. It looks much better with the author getting direct credit. I also think I am detecting a re-scripting of the notes formating. Is it your desire to have the {This Publication Record] on top line? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:42, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I always correct typos/punctuation/HTML, merge duplicate Notes lines, adjust related Title dates and such on auto-pilot without notifying the submitting editor. It's only when there are structural problems with submissions that I hop over to the Wiki side and leave a note to the editor. When the edition/printing information is buried deep in the Notes field, I usually move it to the top to make it readily available to our users, but we don't have hard and fast rules re: Notes. As long as the information is clearly presented and is easy to find, it's all good! :) Ahasuerus 21:58, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
No Problem with that. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:13, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Standards for Synopsis?

I've often used this site, but felt that a synopsis for works was needed to make it really useful. I was excited to see a synopsis appear here as i was wandering around. For my own sake, i've made small paragraph-sized synopses for a lot of the sci-fi i've read. I'd be glad to contribute these, but i wanted to make sure i was doing it right. I can't find any info on what is acceptable or desired for synopses.

Thanks.--Jwbjerk 19:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit Title Help has a very brief section. It's possible there might be entries elsewhere - anyone? In addition to what is mentioned in Help, copying blurbs and summaries from books is generally frowned upon for a number of reasons - the example you link to above looks like it might be just such an animal.--swfritter 21:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Ideally the synopsis is not copyright work. Using the provided example:
  • "Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when" is on 1250 web pages.
  • "With a dead-end job and a girlfriend who has left him for another man, Matt has nothing" is on 5 web pages.
It seems the synopsis was created by extracting two sentences from the front flap.
Publisher's web sites usually have a statement that all of the material on their site is copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission. I personally believe that copying an entire synopsis would not qualify as "fair use" it also seems publishers are not complaining that synopses appear on thousands of web pages. I'd still prefer to get feedback from a couple of the larger publishers, Penguin Group for example, to see what their thoughts are on this. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not very interested in adding in the blurbs from off the backs of books, the content i have in mind is original. Personally i think most blurbs were written by people who knew very little about the book, i don't have a high opinion of them.--Jwbjerk 02:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good. I know some people react with horror to synopses as sometimes they are spoilers. As part of verifying an anthology last night I added the synopses I wrote back when I read it but then decided to trim them way down to be more like teasers. --Marc Kupper|talk 03:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia might also be an appropriate place. There are well thought out standards which allow spoilers. Some significant shorter works along with novels are covered.--swfritter 18:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Board book?

I approved this submission from Fixer, but wondered why Amazon didn't show a binding format. After clicking to Amazon from the link in the pub notes, I saw they classify it as a "board book". Some abebooks.com dealers do the same, but their info may just be from the same source as Amazon's. So what sort of binding is this? Hardcover, trade paperback, or a strange amalgalm of the two? MHHutchins 22:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia says. Although I am not sure the example above follows the definition. Trade paperback seems to me to be the closest although it is not very close to being accurate.--swfritter 23:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, if Wikipedia's definition is to be believed, then it seems to be a hardcover book with uncommonly thick pages. Wouldn't it make it a "hc" in our world? Ahasuerus 02:23, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Sounds OK - although to me cardboard denotes something a little softer and the kid books I remember that might have been included were fairly bendable although they may not be what is being referred to.--swfritter 22:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Then I think you aren't remembering what's referred to. These have very thick pages, I'd say around 1/8" off hand, though it might not be much more than half that. The books are usually not tall but at least as wide as the average pb - maybe about 5" square?. (My sons now being in college, & no grandchildren on the horizon, I don't have samples on hand.) If you bend them, the cardboard would crease, very permanently. Intended to be handled by very young toddlers while surviving the experience. -- Dave (davecat) 01:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
There were several more Fixer submissions with the same description. If Wikipedia's definition is the same as Amazon's description, can you imagine how thick a 549 page book would be? Why would a large print book for adults be published like a child's picture book? There are plenty of books in the db published by Thorndike that are categorized as hardcovers. 'Tis a puzzlement, indeed. MHHutchins 03:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Amazon says "Board Book: Designed for infants, the pages of these books are made of thick cardboard that can support extra wear and tear" and doesn't mention the "luxurious editions of regular books" Wikipedia does. But I think what they're referring to in these many-paged examples are books with board covers but still with paper pages - the difference between these and regular hardcovers is mainly that the illustrations and blurb are printed directly onto the cover, not a dust-jacket. But I've never bought one from Amazon so am not 100% sure. A true board book (not a board book binding) would typically only be about 12 pages. BLongley 19:17, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
In looking at the available binding from Amazon I see we are missing out on a number of bath books and foam books. FWIW - I was dealing with a publisher the other day where "hardcover" meant that the cover art is printed on the board and they had another term for books with the artwork on a dust jacket. In this case it's not clear if "board book" is in error or the publisher's idea of what they are selling. It's late for me but I'd chase the book down on the publisher's web site and if needed ask them directly what the term means if it's not explained on their web site. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The Shadow Matrix---copyright crediting used for other author

This. [3] . The title page says only Marion Zimmer Bradley, but the copyright is to Marion Zimmer Bradley and Adrienne Martine-Barnes. The book shows both. What is the correct usage? Also it has the DAW ISBN on back cover and copyright page. No price. September 1997 printing date. DAW collector number of 1065. Actual page count is 510. 493 pages numbered. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Make the authors Marion Zimmer Bradley and uncredited for both the publication and parent title. From the parent title make that a variant title with the authors Marion Zimmer Bradley and Adrienne Martine-Barnes. Once you have the new title record, edit it and cite the source for the uncredited reference (which should also be noted in the publication notes). As it's a couple of steps I went ahead with this other than editing the parent title record. Harry, please review, and correct if needed, the note I added to the publication. Once the wording is nailed down we can copy/paste it here.
While it's not in the help I have lately been dealing with those extra pages using this syntax which I keep meaning to propose on the rules page; [10]+436+[6] which would be 10 unnumbered pages before page 1 and six after page 436. If there's material worth including in the ISFDB contents then I use page numbers such as [5] and [440] to reference them with [5] being the 5th unnumbered page in the block before page 1 and [440] being a few pages after 436 but it's in the unnumbered territory. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
Just my two-cents worth: I don't feel this is the way the publication should be recorded. Copyright has nothing to do with authorship. Is it not ISFDB policy that records should reflect what's on the title page? Otherwise, how would we handle all of those sharecropping works farmed out by Byron Preiss, Martin H. Greenberg and other packagers? How about a Nebula-award winning novel which is co-copyrighted with the author's sister-in-law? There must be hundreds of works in which co-authors are not credited for various reasons. When we have definitive proof of co-authorship then we can place that info in the note fields, but, even then, not in the author fields. (And there's no way that I'm going back to check the copyright of the thousands of records that I've verified. :) MHHutchins 04:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mike - uncredited co-authors/editors should have to live with a place in notes, if any. I know Locus keeps adding Martin H. Greenberg to Denise Little anthologies based on "copyrighted by Little and Tekno Books" but that doesn't reflect what the book says about the editors. I could live with it if additional authors and editors were credited elsewhere (e.g. I own several "The Best of X" books credited to X alone, but with covers saying "Edited by Angus Wells") but copyright statements don't indicate co-authorship or co-editorship, or we'd have dozens of authors called "The Estate of..." for a start. I can wait for the extra fields for translators, editors of collections of other people's work, etc, rather than introduce unverifiable co-credits. BLongley 19:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
The argument is not and has not been using copyright crediting to establish who is on the author line. It is what to do if others have added an uncredited in the book copyright only author. I would not have credited anyone on a copyright basis. Is Marc's solution wrong or not? I, in my ignorance, would have been happy to delete the second author, as I still can not definitively attribute the work to them. AT what point would you attribute a second author, not mentioned in the primary source. Along these lines an anthology is attributed to the writer of the stories, but rarely is that author the person who presented the anthology for printing. Hence we ignore an editor. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
If we're arguing, it's against the person that originally added the undeserved credit, which we seem to be guessing is due to a copyright credit. I'd delete the second author and leave a note. So I guess I'm saying Marc is wrong in his solution, if there's nothing in the publication that really suggests a co-author. BLongley 22:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
As to "an anthology is attributed to the writer of the stories" - no, it's usually credited to the Editor. It's only if there's no credited Editor that it seems reasonable (to me) to use all the Authors as co-Editors when there's a small number of people that may have organised it between themselves. 3 or 4 maybe, but a dozen or more is right out. BLongley 22:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Apologies if I'm guessing too much - but if you meant to say "A collection is attributed to the writer of the stories, but rarely is that author the person who presented the collection for printing", then I agree - see my comment on Angus Wells. BLongley 22:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
No apology as you are right and it proves my point that some of the terminology slips in my mind. I will delete the uncredited author in the version for my book and note that I have no substantive reference in the book to add her as an author. I also will note it in the title entry that it needs some verifiable data. I did look for the possibility of emailing the co-author All Tomorrow. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 00:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. As a sideline, I've created Author:Angus Wells with what I know about his editing credits so far, hopefully we'll eventually get that information into the database in something better than notes. But I think such pages are the way to go for now, rather than adding lots of "uncredited" pseudonyms. BLongley 20:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
I think I did not make the problem clear, though I think Marc got it. The book had two authors credited with nothing to support the second except a copyright. The second author was already listed in the db. I believe Marc made it uncredited to make it clear that the db has no support for the second authorship. I can find nothing definitive to establish the second authorship, but it undoubtably exists to an unknown extent. No one wishes to create new authorship by copyright crediting. Thanks for the warning though.
Will make statement in title record to the effect that second authorship is pending confirmation.
Apologies Mark, the other commentary was dealing with parsing DAW's SFBC edition from their hc market edition. I read the new SFBC help and parsed another edition out, so I get it. The problem is I bought my SFBC DAW editions at first time sales bookstores and not as a club product. I will not be truly satisfied until I physically have an SFBC and a DAW hc edition of the same book to look at. I feel slickered. LOL. I appreciate the help. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:07, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
My ISFDB time has temporarily (hopefully!) shrunk to a few minutes a day, so I can't comment at length at the moment, but my general approach is that copyright information can provide us with useful hints, but is rarely a definitive proof of authorship. Some pseudonymous romance novels print the author's real name on the copyright page -- presumably on the assumption that romance readers do not read copyright pages -- so that information is likely correct. On the other hand, the copyright to most sharecropped novels is owned by the publisher/packager, so it's totally useless for our purposes.
There are also many permutations in between these two extremes, e.g. in this case it's "well known" that Bradley was effectively unable to write after a stroke and that all of "her" post-stroke novels were ghosted by Adrienne Martine-Barnes (and perhaps others, although I don't recall the details), but I wouldn't rely on copyright alone for this information and would look for other, more authoritative sources. Still, copyright information can be useful since it can prompt an editor to start an investigation into authorship issues. Ahasuerus 02:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
It's late and I need to be up in a few short hours. I just wanted to add that I added the credit based on a "secondary" source much like the secondary source we had for that business with the Binary Star publications. As people already noted, after her stroke (actually, I think after the second one), MZB turned more and more to co-authors to do the heavy lifting. From what Elisabeth Waters has written it seems at times MZB sometimes only had the barest outline. At times I do record things in the notes and not as full ISFDB credits. For example, those Martin H. Greenberg/Teknow copyright credits are always in the notes as I feel his role in that case was more of an owner and overseer and not as a directly contributing editor. Again, it's nothing I can cite specifically. I guess I could e-mail him and ask. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
In thinking more about this I see it as a judgment call. We sometimes run across secondary sources for a bit of data and need to decide if it's reliable and based on that how to integrate the data in ISFDB. As it is, near the top of the to-be-verified stack is an anthology where I noticed they spelled a co-editor's name entirely wrong. The literalists will say, "no, there's a person we've never heard of" and the judgment call is I will be entering her as stated and doing a variant title based on secondary evidence of who the actual co-editor is. Adrienne Martine-Barnes as a co-author of The Shadow Matrix is a similar judgment call. Incidentally, I believe she's also an uncredited co-author for Exile's Song and Traitor's Sun though for the latter title I see I solved the issue in a different fashion - what do people think of Traitor's Sun (uncredited co-author?)? --Marc Kupper|talk 22:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I think it's fair to say that any time we create a Variant Title for a pseudonymous author or a ghost author we have to rely on some kind of secondary source for information. After all, if the real author were stated in the primary publication, he wouldn't be pseudonymous :) In many cases this information is reasonably unambiguous, say when it comes from a later reprint under the real author's name, but even that can be wrong or misleading, e.g. when a co-authored story is later reprinted under one of the author's names. In many other cases, this information comes from sources like encyclopedias or Web sites and, as we know all too well, everybody from Tuck to Clute to Don D'Amassa is wrong from time to time. Finally, copyright statements are an even less reliable source of pseudonym identification, but they can be a useful point of departure when searching for the Real Author (tm).
One thing that I find puzzling about Marc's experiments is the use of "uncredited" in this context. How can a title be attributed both to an author and to "uncredited"? This doesn't seem to compute, unless I am missing something. I also don't think that the use of "uncredited co-author" is superior to simply entering the author as stated on the title page, say X, and then, if there is reliable evidence that there was an uncredited co-author involved, say Y, making it a variant title "as by X and Y". Ahasuerus 04:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
My use of “uncredited” seems to be introducing confusion rather than indicating MZB and an uncredited co-author. It seems there will little loss of information if we remove “uncredited.” An alternative would be to change it to “uncredited co-author” or “Adrienne Martine-Barnes (uncredited co-author).” and “Adrienne Martine-Barnes (ghost writer).”
The original thinking was that when looking at a bibliography that people would see “The Shadow Matrix (1997) with Adrienne Martine-Barnes [as by uncredited and Marion Zimmer Bradley]” and that people would realize that AMB was the uncredited co-author.
It’s been my observation that copyright statements tend to be accurate, reliable, verifiable, but should not be taken as gospel. When verifying books I always take a look at them and will add notes if they differ at all from the credited author name(s).
With regard to this specific title.
  1. AMB is credited on the copyright page.
  2. MZB’s strokes and consequent use of co-authors seems to be well documented in Locus issues.
  3. I just took a look at the MZB Literary Trust site which is run by Elisabeth Waters and see that it lists one of the stories as “with” and the others as “by” Adrienne Martine-Barnes.
    • Exile's Song, 1996 (with Adrienne Martine-Barnes)
    • The Shadow Matrix, 1998 (by Adrienne Martine-Barnes)
    • Traitor's Sun, 1999 (by Adrienne Martine-Barnes)
That last bit introduces an extra wrinkle in that we find that The Shadow Matrix was ghost-written by AMB using the pseudonym or house name MZB. --Marc Kupper|talk 02:51, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Unindented. I verified the book without the 'uncredited', with MZB as listed in the book. I added noted that the MZB literary trust gave a by credit to AM-B. That seems to work at book level. I then probably messed the title record up. I put a note in it giving the MZB literary trust crediting. I then added AM-B back in the uncredited author block. My thinking was the book level is correct, though people may need to delete AM-B in future verifications to reflect what their book credits. I am unsure that the uncredited authorship is needed, when the title record gives a valid source for the second authorship. Please correct my interpretation. Sorry for the workout, but as will happen I have some of the other MZB books with that question also. I intend to do as I have here, unless you correct what I did above. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:23, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

The publication record looks good however something that came to mind is to remove statements such as "Adrienne Martine-Barnes is an uncredited co-author in the book, but the MZB Literary Trust Site says the book is by her." from the publication record. This way the publication record is an accurate and literal description of the book and we'll reserve "interpretation" and "explanation" for the title records.
I went ahead and changed the child title record so that it's "by" MZB only and thus matches the publications. I also moved the notes to the parent title, expanded on them, and added a link to the literary trust web site. The "uncredited" author is gone.
If that looks good to everyone then I'll clean up Traitor's Sun and Exile's Song to use the same method rather than the construction I'd set up last year for Traitor's Sun. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:30, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Looks real good to me, I think a db user will understand it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me too. BLongley 21:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Strong Arm Tactics not Strong-Arm Tactics

This. [4] . I realize this was probably iniated as an input by the computer catch system at Amazon. Problem is my first edition tp is without the -(dash). In fact my copy has much duller cover. When putting in the title they did not allow a title page look. My title page is Strong Arm Tactics, as is front cover, spine, and copyright line. and second reprinted title page on page 13. My inclination is to change the title record to omit the (dash). Also, my ISBN is the hardcover one according to the back cover. The copyright page has ISBN Hard Cover 1-59222-045-2 (over) ISBN Soft cover 1-59222-044-4. I wish to change to the soft cover notation??? My price tp is 16.95, but the hardcover is showing 25.95 instead of 30.00 at Amazon. The Hardcover look at backcover shows the same ISBN's for both books as my copyright page. Unfortunately the 'Look Inside' is the same scan. Bc scan price is the same as Amazon. My visual plan

Change title record to no (dash)
Switch ISBN to softcover/hardcover statements, note mine reflects hc (when verifying).
change hc price to reflect Amazon/backcover statements.
Verify tp.

Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 17:12, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes submitted. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Votes & Tags

I have tried several times to 'vote' or 'tag' a pub but it never 'takes'. What am I doing wrong?? Seems to be nothing in any help section, or I just can't find anything.--Bluesman 21:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Votes and tags apply to titles, not publications. Could you give an example of a title that you have voted or tagged? --Marc Kupper|talk 22:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
It's been months, but I'm pretty sure the last one was Alastair Reynolds' CHASM CITY or ABSOLUTION GAP. Tagging and voting is the easy part but there is no 'submit' button...? ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
This is a non-moderated submission which is automatically accepted by the database. Go to the title record and click on "Add Tags". You're sent to a page that list current tags, but you're not obligated to use one that's already been established. Even so check to see if there's one that's close to how you want to tag the work. You have to type in the tag name in the field at the bottom of the page. DON'T PRESS "Add Tag" unless you want to add an additional tag because it brings up another empty field. Press the "Submit Data" and the tag is then listed on the title record and added to the author's summary page to other tags. I've never voted, but looking at the submission page it appears to be rather simple. I'll try it out later tonight. MHHutchins 00:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
There is no "Submit Data" on the voting page.I can pick my vote but it doesn't go anywhere...??--Bluesman 05:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Strange indeed. I thought it could be your browser not being able to read the source code for the submit button, but I see it's written in HTML, so that can't be the problem. I'm stumped. Anyone have any other suggestions? MHHutchins 23:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Javascript disabled maybe? BLongley 23:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I see this problem while using Safari. Alvonruff 23:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
And that is my browser. What can I do? ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Safari - very fussy. Fixed. Alvonruff 13:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Signature identification?

I have just verified the second printing of the Fawcett edition of Thomas N. Scortia's Earthwreck!. There is no signature on the cover, but there is something that looks awfully familiar on the spine. As described in Notes, it's "a big "B" with a smaller "w" and an "o" (?) inside the B". I am sure I have seen it discussed here, but I can't recall who is behind this sig :( Ahasuerus 02:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like Wayne Barlowe's sig. Look at the bottom right corner of this cover. It's cut in half but it's Barlowe's sig. (His initials are W D B, with the W and D inside the B.) MHHutchins 02:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Here's a cover with the full sig. MHHutchins 02:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
That's the one, thanks! Ahasuerus 03:01, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
I did add him to the Artist Signature Library but perhaps "WdB" wasn't a very intuitive short-name. BLongley 18:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

Some time ago DES put an explanation somewhere on a page as to how to archive talk pages. Can't seem to find it or anything in the HELP. I am finding it's taking much longer to load or add to my page, over 150 entries so want to archive older stuff and see if it helps. How? Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 03:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Your completed 2008 discussions have been archived (and my rates are even more reasonable than DES'!) The key is that you can create as many Wiki pages under your User page and your Talk page as you want, so you can easily set up any project pages or archive pages by simply entering their URL into the browser. Ahasuerus 00:17, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Muchly appreciated!! Now if you could only explain that in english.... ;-). Creating the new page I think I get, but how do you import/export the contents? And be able to cut it off at a certain point (like you did with 2008 discussions)? This is not intuitive to me. My experience with computers is very spotty. My first encounter was about 1968 when they still used punch cards, and then absolutely nothing until 2000 when I bought my first laptop. My experience with this DB is all I know and that isn't much, as yet. I would love to navigate with the ease you do, but I'm still a kid that needs pointing/direction. Thanks! Can I assume the bill is in the e-mail?? ;-) Speaking of which, is there a way to put one of my e-mail addresses here so only moderators can know what it is? ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I've been wondering if there are tools available for this that DES used with the idea being to locate and extract all threads that have not had new content in the past N days. Usually I just archive from the top and just hope I don't accidentally archive an active topic. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:18, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
No special tools, just manual cut & paste, reading to check the date of the last post in each section. Can be tedious, but it works. Using a tabbed browser it isn't all that tedious, actually. -DES Talk 16:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Perry Rhodan- not cloneable

Apparently the change from novel to magazine has made them not cloneable. Is there a fix for the series. I am currently adding publication. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:33, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Magazines can't be cloned and so the "fix" would be to change it to any other type and then clone. It's a two step process. --Marc Kupper|talk 18:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Just keep in mind that Magazine Publications have a special (and usually invisible) EDITOR Title, which is automatically created when you use the New Magazine/Fanzine form. They are used to organize editors' Summary Bibliography pages, but there are still many old Magazine Publications that do not have EDITOR Titles. That's why playing with Magazine pubs can be both frustrating and dangerous, especially if you can't approve your own changes, so multi-step changes quickly become a headache. Ahasuerus 18:57, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
I wrote this so people would be aware that cloning was not working. Is there an objection to just doing add publication? That two-step process works out to 1) change type, 2) aw acceptance, 3) clone and 4) change back original. I have 5 sure non cloneables, at this point, probably 9 and this is only to PR#14. Actually a couple more, for covers, found of other printings. By using a second screen to compare/copy from Add looks easier. The good side is that the story text pages 1-whatever apparently are never changed by these reprintings. Advertisements do change, and so far no pages have been added. If they use all the allotted space for the book, then there is no ads. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
In terms of database design, Magazines have been assumed to be one-off publications, with no reprints. So you can't clone them as there was (theoretically) only ever one publication and creating a copy would be a mistake. OK, this was a short-sighted decision (it makes cloning US magazines to their UK version a few months later difficult for instance, and Book-size magazines like Destinies have to be kept as Anthologies to allow the multiple printings they actually did go through) but we're stuck with it for now. I don't have enough Perry Rhodan to really comment (two books maybe?), but if it's a problem keep them as Anthologies until you've got them all sorted. And maybe even later. BLongley 22:27, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
That is a good idea. Once I add, I will try to make sure the db has the other printing editions, clone them as the data stays the same in these Ace reprints. Then change them back. I think I have at least one copy of each, some doubles and triples of early years. LOL Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:07, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Nine Tomorrows

I have a slight problem with a pub that hopefully someone out there can help with. The pub record for the Fawcett Crest book NNTMRWS19X2 indicates that it is a 4th printing. In every detail, my copy of this book is the same, but there is NO statement of printing. Looking at the other Fawcett printings this would appear to be a third printing as the number falls after #T1344 & #T1632 but before #Q2688 It also places third by price increments. (Checking the ISFDB publisher info would place this in 1973.) It appears that Fawcett changed the catalog # with each printing, so it is unlikely this is a second printing under the catalog #M1971. As the pub record is not verified, can't ask for a check from a single individual. What do I do with this pub? Change the printing to unknown or 3rd? Create a new listing? Any other suggestions? Thanks. --Bluesman 19:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Since that pub hasn't been verified and everything except for the printing statement matches your copy-in-hand, I believe you should remove the statement, add a note that your update removed the statement, and then verify that pub record. Anyone object to that strategy? MHHutchins 01:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Seems like a reasonably safe approach. Ahasuerus 04:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Your note seems fine - FYI - some publishers only changed the catalog # when they changed the price. I thought Fawcett was one of those but this particular title shows two catalog #s at 75¢. Their catalog #s have an embedded price code (the letter) and the # part of the catalog # was a serial # that got incremented for each new title or edition. See Fawcett Gold Medal.

Tomorrow, the Stars

We have several title records currently: by Robert A. Heinlein, by Frederik Pohl & Judith Merril, and another Heinlein, a variant of the Pohl/Merril one. The variant seems to be because the Wikipedia article says Pohl and Merril did almost all the editing, but Heinlein's introduction does credit them, in addition to Truman Talley and Walter Bradbury. I'm not particularly keen on this as it seems we have either five editors or one title-page-credited editor. Does anyone have opinions either way? It's too late to undo the Author pseudonyms, but at this point it's easy to at least break the title pseudonym if we like. BLongley 21:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A little more info: Walter I. Bradbury was apparently the science fiction editor at Doubleday & Co around the time of first publication. Truman "Mac" Talley is apparently a respected New York editor and he has an imprint with St. Martin's Press. (Used to be with E. P. Dutton.) BLongley 22:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Regardless of acknowledgments, copyrights, award acceptance speeches, and death-bed confessions, we must stick with the title page credits. Then place all other information in the pub notes. (Anyone disagree? Meet me in the lower parking lot at 3:05.) MHHutchins 22:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I disagree. It should be in TITLE notes. ;-) But I'm really unhappy with the variant solution, or we should apply the same to Three for Tomorrow, and then Arthur C. Clarke becomes a pseudonym for Robert Silverberg. Far too messy for my taste. BLongley 23:33, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, the Publication record and the Variant Title record will certainly reflect what's on the title page, which is to say "Robert A. Heinlein". That goes without saying, but the question that Bill seems to be raising is who should be credited as the "actual editor". I think it would be best to list at least Heinlein, Pohl and Merril. If we don't list Heinlein as one of the actual editors, the book won't appear on his Summary Bibliography page, which will be counter-intuitive. And besides, he did contribute that introduction, if nothing else.
One caveat that comes to mind is that this anthology is used as an example somewhere deep inside Help. If we change it, we will need to find another example to use in Help. Ahasuerus 22:47, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

"Make Mine Homogenized"?

We seem to have two title records for the same title: [5] & [6]. The first is listed as a variant of the second. Any reason for this state of affairs to continue? I'd be inclined to just merge them, but maybe I'm missing something obvious here. Thanks. -- Dave (davecat) 20:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I discovered the same situation with a couple of Arthur J. Cox title records earlier in the week. Before you merge them you have to break the variant connection first (with "0"). But make sure the story didn't appear under a different name or author some time in it's history. At some point someone approved a submission that changed a content record which made both records the same title or the same author. That's the main reason a title record becomes a variant of itself. MHHutchins 20:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately it not always apparent that a story is in a variant title relationship from pub view. See the Robert Silverberg story on page 111 as by Bob Silverberg where the relationship is apparent. When the story is reprinted on page 126 under his real name there is no indication that it is part of a variant title situation and it would be difficult to do so in pub view because there might be multiple variant titles attached to the parent. Complicating the issue is the fact that much of the data was initially entered from secondary sources that used either real name or a different canonical name.--swfritter 01:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

David Brin's: "Otherness"

In checking the contents for OTHE1994 before doing a transient verification, came across a story listed as "NatuLife (R)" when it should be "NatuLife ®". The (R) was probably the closest way to represent ® on a PC without going through hoops. With a MAC it is simply "Option + r". Since no publication would have it with the (R) should I just change it, or do the normal delete/add/merge?? ~Bill, --Bluesman 16:11, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the title notes I'd get all the '(R)'s reconfirmed as it appears there's a 'TM' version too that should be split out and variants created. BLongley 19:35, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
As I was typing when Bill beat me to the punch. The title record notes that there is a TM in the original F&SF appeareance. It is not (TM) as the title rec says but rather a small TM raised above the title without parens - you can probably fix that one quickly with your MAC. Looks like it is a variant title situation in either case. Use of the ® seems valid if you can get confirmations for verified pubs. Also, some not so good news about F&SF going bi-monthly.--swfritter 20:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
The Alt-Keystroke combination for ™ is ALT-0153 but that certainly is a tiny couple of characters.--swfritter 22:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not keen on use of extended character sets here - I don't want people creating variants based on whether the TM or R was superscripted, level, or subscripted. Or a Graphic now available in your favoured font. The letters might be significant, especially in legal terms, the formatting isn't. If people really care that much, I could also add Font information for a lot of my publications. And I'd rather chew my own gonads off than redo all my publications with that much information! Can we agree that letter-differences are significant, formatting differences are NOT, and special symbols are in the "Bloody Unicode!" category that Al hates? Let's develop our own, SIMPLE, standard for such if we need too, like putting brackets around the "R" or "TM" or not. It won't solve all our problems (there are titles that are pure mathematical formulas, or continue over several lines to make sense) but let's not over-complicate yet. BLongley 23:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
It's not all that critical that we use them or just the bottom 128 codes since they are of no value for doing searches. There might be some environments where they do not appear correctly. Standardization would be nice.--swfritter 23:50, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The gist is "leave it alone, it's not that important"? Fine by me. Just hadn't run across one of these before and thought I would ask. ™ ® ¢ € and my favorite ¿ for those questions that really turn your head around! ;) ~Bill, --Bluesman 00:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

The Dreaming Earth

The pub record for THDRMNGRTH1974 has me confused (what else is new ¿). The notes just don't jive with the copy I have. Mine does have the first and third printing dates as stated but nothing for the second printing. My edition is printed in Canada, but the only mention of this is on the copyright page in a totally different type face (smaller and fainter) which is typical of Canadian printings. The rest of the copyright page is usually/always the same as the US edition. The same/duplicate plates are used. I can't imagine any publisher/printer deleting a reference to a second printing. I'm reasonably certain the note is wrong. Do I just change it or enter mine as a separate pub? It's not verified so can't ask the original submitter.... ~Bill, --Bluesman 04:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how the note can be wrong - how do you accidentally enter a second printing date that isn't there? I'd create a separate pub and note the discrepancy. BLongley 19:59, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, thought of that too, and likewise couldn't see any reason why it would be added if it wasn't there. An odd one! Maybe someday someone will Verify the US edition and we can ask. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Hopefully the editor will return to verify. There have been several editors that do one pass of their entire collection for editing, and you have to wait for them to finish their whole collection before they'll do a verifying pass. Given the care taken with the notes (HTML and all that) I suspect this is the case. BLongley 21:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Some publishers and editors are capable of amazing feats. One publisher apparently printed a duplicate "second printing", presumably because the record of the original second printing had been lost/mislaid. And we recently discovered that a story was published in Russian Science Fiction 1968 and in Russian Science Fiction 1969, presumably because the editor couldn't tell that he was about to publish the same text in a different translation. At least it was a decent story :) Ahasuerus 00:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
But it might be someone with a collection like Don Erikson's - he's been here almost 7 months and is still only up to 'P'. (Which is actually over two-thirds through if the distribution is like mine, the pain of 'S' to come is balanced by the lack of 'Q's and 'U's.) BLongley 21:53, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually I've been here since June of '07 except for Sept-Oct. when I was out for my heart & spine surgeries (all better now). I still have to go back and finish the rest of the DAW Gor books because they SOOO boring. I've stopped, for a change of pace, in the P's to do THE WHOLE SCIENCE FICTION DATABASE #3 covering the first half of "B". I may slow down some in the future to get back to some neglected interests, but you'll never be able to get rid of me. BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Don Erikson 00:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
We can do better than that. We can make you a moderator! BWAHAHAHAHA back at ya! MHHutchins 03:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Variant title/pseudonym/merge/???

I just had four edits, all involving works by John W. Campbell, (Jr.), all approved but not getting the result I had hoped for. There must be another step, but the "Variant/merge dance" as it has been so aptly described, still mostly escapes me. I have followed the help pages but always seem to get somewhere else. Case at hand: I have four early ACE editions, none of which have the "Jr." designation. I want to change the author to reflect that, but only for this pub. I'll just use one as an example: SLNDSSPC1966 "Islands in Space". I don't have the other three listed pubs, from different publishers, so don't really want to change the complete title record. There doesn't seem to be a way to accomplish this. Submitted a title/pseudonym variant so now the title record is changed but not the pub record. What step in the dance am I missing? After causing a lot of unnecessary work a while back with some Vonnegut submissions, I want to be clear before doing anything more here. [Vonnegut: this one won't go away, either. After Jr.'s father died, he dropped the "Jr.", which he called "an act of freudian Cannibalism". No publication since then has the "Jr.", including reprints of earlier works that were released with the "Jr.". I have checked this at new bookstores. Only the works up to and including "Breakfast of Champions" should have the "Jr." and then only for printings up until his father's death. Now that's a mess!!.] The Campbell adjustments seem benign by comparison. I await my enlightenment!! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I had approved the variant titles so you could see the results and fix things if needed. Right now the Islands of Space publication says the author is John W. Campbell, Jr. and its title record has the same. You have the publication and it credits John W. Campbell (no Jr.). The steps are
  1. From the publication's parent title record you click Unmerge Titles and select your publication. This will create a new title record that has this single publication. Wait for this to get approved.
  2. Edit the publication and fix the author name in both the top (metadata) and in the Contents. This will update both the publication and title record in one shot. Wait for this to get approved.
  3. From Advanced Search look for that title and maybe a generic author name like Campbell. The only reason to include the author in the search is it'll weed out coverart record, etc. Look for the title you just added and also see if the same title/name already exists. If so, you merge them. If the same name/title does not exist then look for the a title record that should be its parent, #1698 seems to be the case there, go to the new title, and from the "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work" you would enter 1698 for the parent title record. --Marc Kupper|talk 19:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I am so getting a headache....... ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I had to run for a bit but an easier solution is to do a pub-update to correct the name in the top part. Ideally the moderator is paying attention and does the unmerge/merge for you but you could give them a nudge with a publication note at the same time you do the name change. The moderator will do something along the lines of 1 to 3 above. The most confusing aspect is the Unmerge Titles as I have not figured out the pattern to what author name it picks for the new title record. Thus I pay attention to the SQL dump when approving the Unmerge Titles to figure out the new record number. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Marc's advice may seem counter-intuitive, particularly as we warn all new editors not to adjust contents. But unmerging a publication does create a new title that will be safe to edit. However, it can be hard to find as it will look just like the original one! It will be the one with the highest title id though. So I'd recommend an Advanced Publication search rather than a Title search. Additionally, if you've edited the Publication (but not contents) to the desired author before the unmerge, the corrected author record will be more visible. Of course, that would mean yet another step... maybe something to try for the first few attempts though. BLongley 20:34, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
The Vonneguts could be a bigger problem. It's possible to unmerge many publications at once, so if there's a definite date for the change then we can unmerge all printings of a title after that in one go. But every single one of them gets a separate title. OK, we can also merge all the unmerged ones again in one go, but it does get a bit messy in the meantime. Leave those for now. BLongley 20:34, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Now that's the best advice so far. I only mentioned it as possibly the worst example out there. And now what is the canonical, as he may have legally changed his name?? I'll leave this to braver souls! ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I repeat: "Leave those for now". We're currently stuck with Canonical Authors - we can fix publications at title level if they're attributed to the wrong real author of a "House Name" (set variant title to 0), but "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr." is canonical and we have no way to fix that yet even if his "No Jr" version is actually more prevalent. Which I guess it will be in time, if not already. Something to address in the long term, as more and more people change from names like "Arthur C. Clarke" to "Sir Arthur C. Clarke" and so on. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was lucky, getting his knighthood before ISFDB started... and I dread to think how long it'll be before "Sir Terence Pratchett" or "Terry Pratchett, K.B.E." starts appearing on title pages. BLongley 23:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
To add to the confusion... I should comment a bit on the words "publication's parent title record" I used in #1 above. When you are looking at a publication there's usually a line at the top that says "Title Reference: ..." This is a bit misleading. A publication record has zero (though usually one) or more title records associated with it. The publication display code gets the publication's type, NOVEL for example, and scans the contents looking for a record with a matching type. It takes the first one it finds and calls that the "Title Reference". It grabs the first matching title type and there is no attempt to match the title or author. The display logic also does not display any records with a matching title type in the Contents section. This works well most of the time but can cause confusion if someone were to add a second NOVEL to the contents. It won't show up. This happens most often if you have an omnibus of anthologies you want to include the original anthology titles within it. The correct way to do this is you have a title record of type OMNIBUS, make the publication of type OMNIBUS, and then you can include anthologies in the contents. The instinctive thing is to call the publication an anthology as that's most likely what it looks like but then you'll find you can't see the child anthology records. You can also run into a situation where there is no matching record. In that case there won't be a Title Reference: line. Thus there is no "parent" title record in the strictest sense of the word but the code takes a guess that ends up being right often enough that people assume publications contain a pointer to their "parent" title. --Marc Kupper|talk 20:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I've set up an example for you, Bluesman. Do an Advanced Title Search for "BL TEST 20" and see 3 titles that look identical. Try again with an Advanced Publication Search for "BL TEST 20" and see the difference. The second record (279029) is one I unmerged from the first (279028) without making any changes before the unmerge. The third (279030) is one where I edited the Publication Author ("in the top part" as Marc says) before the unmerge. It's safe to edit the author of the title ("in the lower part") in either 279029 or 279030, but I think it's clearer that 279030 should be adjusted. Feel free to edit either 279029 or 279030 or both for practice. After that, make either or both of them a variant of 279028. BLongley 20:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
And I do this from where? (I've read all this three times and I'm more confused than ever... and I mean the entire thread, not just the last part). ~Bill, --Bluesman 23:21, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Go to [7] (It's where any "Advanced Search" link should take you.) There's three sections: "ISFDB Title Search Form", "ISFDB Author Search Form" and "ISFDB Publication Search Form". The last section is famously broken in many ways, but it still has its uses. Try "BL TEST 20" in the "Enter Term 1" fields without changing the type in the dropdown list on the right. Sections 1 and 3 are the useful ones in this case. BLongley 23:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Perry Rhodan #55: The Micro-Techs

I could not search title and it is missing from the Perry Rhodan series. I also can not get AT a title record to enter it in series. I found this through a serial entry, but I can not 'twist' it into an editor title record. This. [8]. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC) P.S. Also PR#56 & 57 are playing delinquent also. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, I added an "EDITOR" record for #55 and it should be findable through normal search now. If you go for "Mirco-Techs". Should ALL the titles be "Micro-Techs" instead though? I'm always reluctant to "fix" translations that may have been done incompetently. BLongley 00:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I found the editor and submitted a change to 'Micro-Techs' and put in the series designators. I will change or delete/change all the 'Mirco's' to Micro's. Sorry, I could not see that. I agree calling it to my attention, so that I fix it is best. After reading the bollux, I went and triple checked the book even though I was 'sure'. LOL. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
"Mirco"s all gone now. (I removed pubcontent you marked "del", and deleted the stray titles this left.) BLongley 21:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

apostrophes?

I made a minor change to a note in a pub. When I looked at the submission, it showed a bunch of additional changes. It looked as though each title with an apostrophe was changed, the apostrophe going from something fancy (concave on the left, like half of a close quote) to a straight vertical apostrophe. I'm guessing that the new ones are the simple non-extended ASCII apostrophes, but haven't taken steps to check this out.
If this is something automatic happening to regularize apostrophes so that searches work right etc., then I'm all for it. But I thought I'd mention it since I haven't seen this before. I did go ahead & approve the submission (& am going to do a bunch more similar ones). -- Dave (davecat) 15:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, there are snippets of Python code whose only purpose in life is to convert apostrophes and handle other Unicode weirdness. It's not pretty, but it works. Most of the time... Ahasuerus 23:07, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Dee Henderson - any spec-fic at all?

I'm doing a bit of cleaning up and this writer has been popping up more than a couple of times. I've been unable to find anything which could remotely be called spec-fic. Not even paranormal romance (a genre which is beginning to peeve me off more than a bit. I just re-joined the SFBC after more than twenty years and it's unbelievable the number of paranormal and vampire romance novels in their latest catalog. Does the Science Fiction in SFBC mean anything?) Someone has taken the time to put some of her titles into series, but for the life of me, I can't find anything close to SF. I did learn a new TLA (three-letter acronym): CBA, standing for Christian Booksellers Association, a group to which she belongs. It was created to fight the ungodly members of the ABA. Anyone prepared for the Rapture? (Another subgenre of literature that gives me the creeps.) MHHutchins 05:20, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Her website seems to indicate there's no spec-fic in there at all. BLongley 15:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
So does anyone object to my deleting those records? MHHutchins 16:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
No objection(the people that write this drivel are mostly out in space, maybe that's the connection to spec fiction), flame away! :-)Kraang 04:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
No SF contents that I can see, so an obvious candidate for deletion. Sometimes we hesitate to delete lovingly compiled bibliographies of non-genre authors if it looks like our version is the only one readily available on the Web, but Henderson is very popular and there are better biblios out there.
As far as the "drivel" aspect goes, there is no way around listing what some (or even all) of us consider to be drivel if we want our coverage to be comprehensive. We just need to make sure that it's specfic drivel :) Ahasuerus 05:17, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Believe me, I've entered my share of drivel (90% of the Robert Hale publications, for example), but as long as it's spec-fic it's going in. In any case, Dee Henderson is no longer an SF writer. She'll be happy to know that. MHHutchins

Entering shillings/pence

I have a book that is priced 3/6 with the slash small and up high and a comma under that. It's not clear from Help:Screen:EditPub#Price how I'm supposed to enter this price. Is it just 3/6 without a currency lead-in? Thanks --Marc Kupper|talk 06:34, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's how it's entered. See this help page for further info. MHHutchins 06:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe this should get shifted to rules & standards. At issue is that the page you referenced has "Enter a single price, preceded with a currency symbol" at the top but does not give a symbol to use with a shilling/pence price. wikipedia:Pound sterling#Pre-decimal says the symbol is "s" implying I should enter s3/6. I don't have my database server up at the moment to see how shilling-priced publications are entered with or without this prefix. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I can see how the help page could be mis-read, and it probably needs to be clarified. Perhaps just to say "All pre-decimalization British prices should be enter "s/p" without the use of a symbol". I don't recall seeing any British publication that uses a symbol other than the pound sign in post-1970 editions. Maybe one of our British editors can step up and clarify the help page. (I'm talking about you, Bill Longley.) I think it's past the point for a Rules & Standards discussion, unless the current records can be edited in one grand swoop. MHHutchins 01:33, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've had a stab at clarifying help on British prices as to what you might see, what it means, when the formats were likely to be used, and what all the other prices are for. I do feel I've rather taken over the section though, but I am speaking for multiple countries they were sold in. I'm a little unsure on whether the pennies-only price advice is what we actually have been doing though, I own very few books or magazines that old, but it does seem to be aligned with the shillings and pence prices. I also resisted the temptation to explain the "Guinea" (21 shillings) as that's an uncommonly high price for a book. BLongley 14:49, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Re currency symbols - I guess we don't use anything apart from the "£" in ISFDB, unless you count the "/" and "-" separator and zero conventions. But the books and magazines themselves may use "p" and "d" symbols which I hope I've clarified enough. I presumed that Maltese Pounds and South African Rand and Spanish Pesetas and other oddities were not worth explaining as they're secondary prices I'd recommend leaving "as is" in notes. BLongley 15:00, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
The British generally didn't use a symbol, it's assumed anyone seeing 3/5 knows what it means. Their coins and stamps are also issued without the countries name on them, again the assumption is everyone will know where there from.Kraang 03:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, "3/5" would indicate a typo. ;-) When books were priced at about that amount the granularity was usually in half-shillings, so 3/- or 3/6 would be far more likely. Older books and magazines would be in quarter-shilling ranges, e.g. 1/3 or 1/6 or 1/9. And you'd probably have to go under a shilling before you got to penny granularities - e.g. 3d to 6d is too much of a price-hike, so 4d might be seen. Of course, nowadays the increments seem to be in whole pounds and it's only the kibblesworth that means we don't get nice round prices. BLongley 14:53, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
I took a look at the updated Template:PublicationFields:Price and it seems clear enough now. Thank you. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Revert Damaged Page?

I seem to have made this page un-editable. It appears to be normal, but in the edit mode, there are no entry fields for content and the html source code for the remainder of the page appears in the comments box. Is there any way of reverting the damage or should I delete the pub and reenter it?--Rkihara 19:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete and reenter it - at worst, I'd create a new magazine and try and import the contents from AMAZJUL1929 first, rather than retype them all. (It looks as though the page numbers need redoing anyway, as they're all too high for a 100 page magazine?) Alternatively, if you can see what went wrong we can try and fix it with a web-service API submission as I can't think of a way to do it from the front end. I can't see what's causing it though - invalid HTML in the notes can cause odd displays, and the missing Bullet Point before "Bibliographic Comments" seems to confirm that, but I can't see the error. I could try and just zap the notes? BLongley 20:43, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
The page numbers are correct. The early pulps numbered pages contiguously across the issues of each volume. Consumer Reports numbered their magazine pages like this until the nineties. The problem happened after I pasted the Nav Bar, and the only thing that I can see is that I left the right caret off the end comment of the code. The page is still usable, although not editable, hopefully someone knows how to fix this.--Rkihara 21:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, approve this submission if you want to try zapping the notes. BLongley 21:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
That did the trick. Thanks!--Rkihara 21:29, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Yay! Data Thief did something right! (At second attempt, anyway.) BLongley 21:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
As to the original error - well spotted. I didn't check the comments, it's normally a problem with other tags, e.g. missing an end italic tag or making it another start italic tag, which leaves the whole page looking off. But missing a ">" can mean breaking all HTML until the next ">", which I guess is what happened here. And when it's the last tag in notes that's missing, you're going to remove an essential part of the Form HTML that follows. BLongley 21:18, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Harry has helpfully submitted an example of a minor error of this type, see here. Look at the 'Telepathic Piracy' line. It's a rather subtle mistake to spot when moderating, isn't it? I can understand these getting through occasionally. :-/ Still, it shows up better on approval - although by then it might be too late. I've documented what Data Thief did, hopefully Fixer and Dissembler and all our other Web-API users will learn this trick soon too. BLongley 22:11, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Is "Fearless" Spec-Fic?

I've read Wikipedia:Fearless_(book_series) and am still unclear as to whether I should Zap the two pubs I've found, leave them, or add the other 34/38/42. BLongley 16:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, the plot device that the series is built around ("a girl born without the fear gene") was speculative as of the time of the writing, which is one of our major eligibility criteria, so I would be inclined to include it.
As an aside, there has been a lot of seepage over the last ~25 years, with the likes of Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts and Stephen King blurring the lines between different genres as well as between genre and non-genre fiction. As a result, there are quite a few otherwise run of the mill works of mimetic fiction that freely incorporate speculative elements. More headaches for us, but I suppose we can at least semi-facetiously claim that we are slowly absorbing the mainstream :) Ahasuerus 16:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, I've arranged what we had and set up the one known variant title, perhaps Fixer can add the rest? Author "Francine Pascal", but please no "Sweet Valley" books. BLongley 19:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
A quick check finds 154 "Francine Pascal" titles in Fixer's database, most of them in the Sweet Valley universe. I was going to ask Fixer to ignore the SV books, but according to the Sweet Valley Wikipedia article, books 104-106, Love and Death in London, A Date With a Werewolf and Beware the Wolfman, deal with a werewolf and there is also a vampire in at least one of the books. Oh well, I guess we will have to identify/enter them manually. Ahasuerus 01:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
All known SF books in the SV universe have been entered manually, although there may be more vampire/werewolf/magic ones in the wild. Fixer is about to upload about 60 non-SV ones. Ahasuerus 03:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
All known Fearless books have been uploaded, have at it! I have also found other specfiction sub-series in the Sweet Valley universe, e.g. Sweet Valley Twins Super Chiller Books, but that's a headache for another day. Ahasuerus 04:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, we're over 2/3rds of the way there now. I'll have a look for the missing ones after I've eaten. BLongley 15:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
All main Fearless titles now present, including the Doubles. Which seemed to be necessary as the later titles appear to have been released in the double format before they were released as singles. We don't have the last two Super Editions "The Silent Hand" and "The Screaming Heart" as Amazon data looks particularly incomplete. Somebody could go through "Amazon look-inside" to confirm/correct dates and add Canadian Prices, but I've had enough for now. BLongley 19:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I have added The Silent Hand and The Screaming Heart as 8888-00-00 titles based on what has become a familiar OCLC pattern: a record with no page count or dimensions supposedly owned by just a few libraries. Ahasuerus 22:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

W. E. B. Griffin

Can anyone tell me which, if any, of W. E. B. Griffins work is Spec-Fic? BLongley 23:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Not me. And such a pretty page. Be a shame to zap it, but I can't find anything that would make me want to keep it in the db. If you look into the title pages, you'll only find a single pub for each title, so it may not be too hard to zap. I had too much fun with Dee Henderson to steal that pleasure from you. MHHutchins 00:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I'm thinking this is something Data Thief should learn to do. Not being able to submit the title delete until the pub-delete is approved is a pain. BLongley 00:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd want to hunt through the logs and see who did all that work. They may know why it's specfict. I can't see anything that looks like specfict on the Wikipedia article. --Marc Kupper|talk 06:01, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
"The Wonders os Astonomy [sic](1964)" and "The Wonders of Rockets and Missiles (9164) [sic]" looked mildly of probable NONFICTION interest, but only "Dave White and the Electric Wonder Car" looks possibly Spec-Fic to me. How futuristic were electric cars in 1974? "Marty and the Micromidgets" doesn't appear to involve shrinking the kids or suchlike though. BLongley 18:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I have created a brand new "Biblioholics" site for these non-genre bibliographies that we don't necessarily want to keep within the ISFDB. See the W. E. B. Griffin page for an example of how these biblios can be copied over with a single cut-and-paste. Ahasuerus 20:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Looks good, but if it all links back here we can't delete our entries without breaking those links? BLongley 20:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to move all Author-specific Title- and Publication-level bibliographies without a lot of manual edits which would effectively replicate the existing ISFDB functionality. I suppose I could teach Fixer to crawl all Web pages for a given author and create a new page over on Bookaholics that would look something like this: 
Badge of Honor

    * 1 Men in Blue (1988)
           Men in Blue, (Feb 1991, W. E. B. Griffin, Jove Books, 0-515-09750-0, $7.99, 352pp, pb) 
    * 2 Special Operations (1989)
           Special Operations, (Mar 1995, W. E. B. Griffin, Jove Books, 0-515-10148-6, $7.99, 368pp, pb) 
    * 3 The Victim (1990)
           The Victim, (Oct 1994, W. E. B. Griffin, Jove Books, 0-515-10397-7, $7.99, 352pp, pb)
but it may take a couple of days to code given my other commitments this week. Would it be useful? Ahasuerus 22:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be useful - but not for us. If we want to rid ourselves of non-Spec-Fic we can just zap it. If we're being nice and letting other people have our nicely-organised data, we can point them at our backups. I don't think this warrants any extra effort on our (OK, your) part. Be slightly nasty at times, it's not as though we owe any non-Spec-Fic-interested users anything. BLongley 23:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, our backups are not something that 99.99%+ of the world is likely to use whereas a Google-indexed Web page is only a few keystrokes away. And besides, I am sure some of us have created bibliographies for all kinds of non-SF stuff as well, e.g. one time I compiled a list of books by and about John Randolph of Roanoke and posted it on Wikipedia, only to see it deleted by a "minimalist" editor. Hm, come to think of it, let me post it on the Biblioholics site :) Ahasuerus 23:56, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, we don't have to zap our stuff anytime soon. We can hold all deletion projects as long as we like. (They're a major pain anyway, especially for non-mods.) And "data donated by ISFDB" might be a plus point for us in future. Making an effort to preserve such for other sites just seems a little unnecessary at present - just don't delete them, add a note that we're not actively encouraging additions, go back to Spec-Fic work. Working on another site to preserve stuff that may be deleted here eventually still seems wrong to me. I prefer additions rather than deletions: I usually only support deletions if their presence is encouraging the wrong sort of additions. BLongley 00:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be useful to copy one or two non-genre biblos to Biblioholics as an experiment so that our editors would see what kind of data is preserved/lost. I think I can create a workable script fairly quickly by running against the backup database; we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Ahasuerus 04:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe I should have left the Brother Cadfael series a bit longer then... but it was no better than the Wikipedia version, and all the publications were gone anyway (if we ever had them). Still, Data Thief has had one good stab at seriescide now, maybe that's slaked his thirst for blood wood-pulp. And you can get what we had from the backups. BLongley 21:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
No worries, not a big deal. However, I have learned to distrust Wikipedia's stability, especially once they deleted a biographical article of mine after a year+ of generally trouble-free existence. Obscure genre (western, thriller, romance, etc) authors are particularly susceptible to the "sudden Wikipedia death" syndrome, so it's probably best to err on the side of caution and copy them over to Biblioholics. I will open the site up for editing by ISFDB contributors once things look stable. Ahasuerus 01:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Variant Titles in Series Display?

Please see The Lost Fleet Series. Book 3 appears only once, while books 1,2, and 4 appear twice, once with the published pseudonym, and again with the canonical name. I could not identify a difference in the titles listed.

Is there an official preferred way this should display (each book once with canonical name, each book once with published pseud., or each book multiple times for each variant)? How do I implement the preferred official way? Kevin 16:55, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

One entry, under the canonical name, is all you need. BLongley 17:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
So how do I go about removing the double entries in this example? (and how did they get created?) Kevin 17:09, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I think I figured it out.... the Varient titles for the three dupes had the series data, but the variant title for number 3 did not have the series data... I just had to navigate until I was looking at the variant title record, and then edit it to see the series data to remove it... At least that's what I what I think I just did. Thanks! Kevin 17:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, looks fine now. I did get surprised when you were editing Fearless and I was editing Fearless around the same time - some titles are just too common! BLongley 18:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony Hillerman

Another nicely organised author, but which (if any) is the Spec-Fic for Tony Hillerman? BLongley 20:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

He wrote a series of mysteries about a Navajo tribal police detective. It's my understanding (I've never read any of his work) that occasionally the stories would involve Indian spirits, ghosts, shamen, and the like, but I can't say if the resolution of the crimes were supernatural or mystical, or if there were a rationalization of the events. It's another case of spec-fic leaking (every so lightly) into the mainstream, and not the other way around, as he was basically a mystery writer. MHHutchins 21:48, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Have read them all - not really Spec-Fic - the fantastic aspects are usually red herrings. Including them is the same as including mainstream novels with Christian miracles. In some ways it's kind of too bad we aren't a combined s-f/mystery site. When I read modern novels I am as likely to read mysteries as s-f. I am obviously not the only one but I already have enough to do with the s-f.--swfritter 22:54, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I do read outside the Spec-Fic genre - Jonathan Gash is a particular favourite as Lovejoy is based around the town I grew up in. To keep our workload manageable, I'd sacrifice all those too though. I can't support its inclusion above and beyond much children's fiction that definitely IS Spec-Fic, even if it's below my own interest level. I would like a way of donating our data to another more appropriate site before mass-zapping, but Data Thief has learnt how to kill and wants some action! BLongley 23:30, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
I have read all the Hillerman novels. Several of them evoke various spirits or beings from Navajo myth or superstition, or in some cases from the beliefs of other Native American groups. In some cases various characters believe that supernatural events are occurring. In some cases the reader may believe this for a time. However, all such events are eventually explained as misinterpretations of natural events, or as people intentionally faking supernatural manifestations, or both. These are not, IMO spec-fic of any kind. They are however, very well-written mysteries. I would like to have somewhere to save the data we have before deleting it, but IMO it clearly doesn't belong here. They aren't even the same as "including mainstream novels with Christian miracles", but rather more like mainstream novels where someone who is Christian believes that a miracle has occurred, but all events have natural explanations. -DES Talk 16:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Andrew M. Greeley

Once again, Andrew M. Greeley has a nice bibliography, but his science fiction has been limited to a couple of novels, God Game and The Final Planet, according to his Wikipedia article. His fantasy output consists of the "Angel Fire" series, at least as far as I can tell. Does he have any other specfic projects aside from a couple of anthologies of fairy tales and such? If not, we may want to zap all of his non-SF, but even if he is over that "certain threshold", we will need to change many of his "novels" to "non-genre"/"non-fiction". Ahasuerus 03:02, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"The Magic Cup" seems to be Fantasy, according to Tor and Amazon. But I don't think he's over the threshold to warrant a full bibliography. BLongley 19:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm... the Nuala McGrail series may be borderline. She's "more than a little fey" according to one blurb, and "sometime psychic" according to another. Anyone read any? That description could put it about the level of "Lovejoy". BLongley 19:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

signature help, please

Does anyone recognize the signature on the artwork in the HTML version at PG Simak Hellhounds of the Cosmos? I'm clueless about artists from the period; the signature is fairly legible but stylized, & I can't quite be sure what it is. Thanks! -- Dave (davecat) 15:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The Title page doesn't give a credit. Astounding 1932 Title Page but the higher resolution scan (It's Fuzzy from microfiche though) appears to read Astounding 1932 page 336 as H H Harcini 31 or M Marcini 31 or something like that.... ISFDB search for 'marchi' yields M._Marchioni and Marchioni as a very likely suspect (Though this appears to be a very early credit for that artist... 2 years earlier than anything on these two names. Kevin 23:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
That is M(ark) Marchioni's signature.--Rkihara 00:49, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you both, very much. Dave (davecat) 18:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Variant Title - New Date? Re-Verify?

I'm entering a collection where a story is published under a variant title. No big deal. This was one of the 'many' where Campbell picked a title he liked, but every collection published afterward uses the Authors working/preferred title. I'm thinking that it's correct to have the original publication under 'Campbells Title' (1967) with the Variant title showing as 'New Title' (1969) since the new title was first published 2 years later. My concern is that the New Title has been republished a dozen times, and every editor has gone with the original 1967 date, and several of those instances appear in Verified publications. If I make this change (in date of the titles original publication) via title merge after entering the collection I am working on, is that going to require a bunch of re-verification requests? (Or am I mistaken and the Variant title should be shown with the first date, not the new date). Thanks - Kevin 02:36, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

According to Help:Screen:MakeVariant, "For works that have had variant titles, the date to enter is the first under any title and any pseudonym; variant titles do not have their own dates". This was primarily done to ensure that our users see the first publication date when reviewing Collection/Anthology Contents section where only one date is displayed, but it has its drawbacks, which have been hotly debated over the years. But then again, what hasn't? :) Ahasuerus 03:52, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Okay. I've seen it both ways. I'll go with the guidance as stated (But I personally prefer the two date format, but I understand the limitation we are working within). Kevin 04:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer variants to have date of first variation, but can see the problems (mostly display issues that could be sorted). If it was an absolutely solid rule, then I'd expect "Make Variant" to adjust the dates accordingly, but it doesn't and we'll keep having the debates. I do take a small delight in fixing titles that use the "Title X^Title Y (UK, 19zz)" format without "correcting" the date of the UK variation (or US variation if it was originally British) but I usually have to do that by entering a new publication that ISFDB1 didn't have before. So ISFDB gains overall and my point is lost... :-/ BLongley 23:35, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Python error

I submitted an edit of this pub, and can't figure out what I did wrong. But please tell me if there's a way to save the info sent in the submission without having to re-enter it. MHHutchins 21:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

After some manipulation, it's fine now, and I didn't have to re-enter the contents. There was a problem with one of the contents (which had duplicated in the submission), and once it was removed everything else showed up. MHHutchins 21:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Can you be more specific? Which title was duplicated? I looked at it for ages and all I saw was that "Once Over Lightly" by "Gene DeWeesse" probably has an extra "S". Actually, that's still got two essays so might be the problem, but I've never seen a Python error because of it. BLongley 22:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
When the pub record page was displayed, a python error (you know that pink and pink madness with all of those characters only a programming geek would be able to understand) blocked all of the contents. Even though the contents weren't visible they were still there when I went to edit the record. One content entry (the Piers Anthony profile) appeared twice in the edit record, one of which was correct, and the other was ANTHOLOGY type instead of ESSAY with no author credit. I wasn't able to edit the record (when I tried the python error still displayed.) So I chose the "Remove Titles" tool, removed the erroneous record and it was accepted. After I approved that submission everything appeared as it should. You must have came to it after I'd made that last submission. And thanks for pointing out the extra "S" in DeWeese. MHHutchins 00:18, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
The real annoyance is you fixed the issue before I could document a bug report. :-) I stared at the XML for a while and everything looks fine other than I see that the code is failing to escape < and > that appear in the body of the notes. As it was all new content I'm confused by "There was a problem with one of the contents (which had duplicated in the submission), and once it was removed everything else showed up." --Marc Kupper|talk 07:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to have annoyed anyone by actually fixing it. :( Let's start from scratch: after approving the submission, I viewed the pub record page. Everything below Contents showed a python error. No contents were displayed. I chose to "Edit This Pub". All of the content records were there in the edit mode, with the only difference between what I entered and what was in the record was an additional record for the Piers Anthony profile. This record was of the ANTHOLOGY type with no page numbers, no dates and no author. I wasn't able to edit the record, so I backed out and chose "Remove Titles from This Pub". Both of the Piers Anthony profile records showed up on the contents list in the edit mode. I checked the box for the bad record, submitted it, accepted it. No python error. No problem. Next time something like this happens I'll keep mum about it until I'm pretty sure I won't be able to fix it. MHHutchins 02:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, BAD Mike, don't fix things till a "programming geek" like me can have a look. ;-) And I think the "Gene DeWees" with a shortage of "E"s might be one of yours too. (Although I still find it amazing that somebody's name is 50% the same vowel and that's not enough!) BLongley 01:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, it was one of mine. I'll fix that record. Woulden'te won'te toe deenye aeneyone alle the "e"s fore whiche hee's eentitled. MHHutchins 02:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
"E" is a Class A drug in the UK, so possession of too many might turn someone into a Dealer rather than a User and get them banged up for years. "L" has no such reputation, but I've noticed that as my name gets shorter the percentage of "L"s goes up. At one time I'd have happily married an "Allen" and taken her surname, which would put me up to 44% or so "L"s. At which point you're not worried about drugs, you might feel you're turning into a small Welsh village though. ;-) BLongley 02:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Credits on audio books

Should the narrator be listed as an author on a audio CD? I wouldn't think so but a few are. I'd think that is a notes matter or a db entry when we get the relationship field. Dana Carson 22:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I put them in notes. For example, the four CDs on our home page today that looked incomplete (unknown binding) that I felt I should tidy up. Which have you found listed as (co-?)authors? BLongley 22:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah that's where I got started on this also. The one I noticied that made me think of this is the Courts of the Crimson Kings which has both as authors. Went and looked at the publisher page to see what others were missing. Dana Carson 23:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Ah, "Todd McLaren" then? I should probably look more carefully at "co-authors" I demote to "Reader" or "Narrator" or "Translator" in notes. Artists I normally put back to Cover Artists or Interior Artists, so they don't get lost. But it might be time to do a search of notes for a list of "The Usual Suspects" that WILL come back from obscurity when we get such sorted out. BLongley 00:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I exile them to Notes as well. I hope they find it comfortable there! Ahasuerus 02:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Well, I've not yet seen an audio reader/narrator or translator come here and try to correct their entries, although it seems to be increasingly common for an author to do so. I think all such should get some credit (particularly as some big-name authors like Brian Stableford are missing a lot of credits for translation efforts) and I'm mildly interested in audio readers - it seems some only do abridged works, and some do unabridged works, and I'm wondering if these differences could be used to guess abridgement or not. And authors reading their own audio-books might be of some special interest. BLongley 03:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Need to think about how we enter the ones with a ebook included. Do they get two entries? Dana Carson 23:49, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. Are these CDs with an audio track (possibly an MP3 version, still "audio" in my mind) and a text version (might be ASCII, HTML or PDF or something else, but silent)? BLongley 00:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
If you see the cover for Chessmen of Mars it says in the top right corner, INCLUDES eBook. According to the ad copy pdf on the publishers site, Tantor Classics now include PDF eBooks, each of which contains the full text of the book. Dana Carson 01:04, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, I think I'm getting there. Your links aren't working though - you can't add a "|title" to a "pl.cgi" link, although you could to a "{{" "P" link. Bit of a mismatch - In the Courts of the Crimson Kings works and so does In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, or The Chessmen of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars. BLongley 01:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I swear I made those links just like I always do. I was checking during a slow time in a 7th Sea game so I was distracted. Looks like those all need more "printings", they seem to come in three versions, audio CDs, audio CDs in a library binding and MP3 CDs. Still thinking is there is a good way to show that the "book" has two copies of the story, one audio, one PDF. Dana Carson 22:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

"Buried" pubs

Two pubs VCSFRMTHSK1967 & VCSFRMTHSK1971. Both should be in the non-fiction section of Arthur C. Clarke's bibliography page. They aren't. The only way I could find them was through the cover art after doing a title search. The same search listed the preface and essays (though the pub has no essay of that title). How do I get them unburied? --Bluesman 04:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Clarke has two "Voices from the Sky" Title. One is a 1962 Essay and the other one is a 1965 (?) Non-fiction book which collects various essays. Unfortunately, someone must have merged the Essay Title and the Nonfiction Title, so all we have left now is an Essay title. Consequently, the Nonfiction Title is gone and Nonfiction pubs no longer have a Nonfiction Title to link back to. Let me run a couple of Unmerges and re-merges... Ahasuerus 05:10, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, everything should be back to normal now. And the morale of the story is to be VERY careful when merging different Title types, e.g. Essay/Nonfiction, Collection/Novel, Shortfiction/Novel, etc. To paraphrase a children's ditty, "Don't ever merge a crocodile, no matter friendly how" :) Ahasuerus 05:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The Sword and the Sorceror---proper crediting

This. [9]. My copy says Norman Winski wrote the book based on the other's screenplay. Is there an objection to me deleting the others, or did I miss something. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd move the "Based on" information to title level notes and leave Winski as the sole "author". Although if you also add the title level Wikipedia Link then people can go off and find far more information about screenwriters, producers, editors and such that we're not especially interested in. I find such a useful copout when there's a book of the film of a book by a different author - it saves trying to link dozens of authors to Philip K. Dick for instance. BLongley 19:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Ernest Bramah

Does anyone think Ernest Bramah has got to the level of notoriety that means we should keep A Guide to the Varieties and Rarity of English Regal Copper Coins: Charles II - Victoria, 1671 - 1860 ? Ironically, I only found this book when looking for malformed prices, and it no doubt would tell me exactly how many copper coins of various eras it would take to purchase the book. BLongley 21:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely! He is one of the founding fathers of the genre, after all. A slightly unusual one, to be sure, and perhaps not as influential as some other folks, but still. The biggest problems with his Kai Lung books are that:
  • They are usually novels-cum-collections-of-linked-stories and many stories-cum-chapters have been reprinted in various collections and chapbooks, so they are better off as ISFDB Collections even though you could argue that they are closer to Novels than Collections
  • Most of the stories have two titles, one for the framing story and one for the "story within the story". Naturally, half of our pubs are entered one way and the other half are entered the other way... Ahasuerus 21:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Is that a vote for keeping his NONFICTION? BLongley 22:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Yup! Not that there is much of it... Ahasuerus 23:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
I daren't look at his actual fiction. (ISFDB details scare me away from even attempting one of his works!) BLongley 22:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Most of his stories are about a "China that never was". They are cleverly done, but if it's not your kind of thing, then it's definitely not your kind of thing. Ahasuerus 23:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Images

Have finally got my scanner up and running. Uploaded my first image and , of course, problems. In the HELP, Step 9: "When the image description page appears, click on "Edit" at the top." There is no "Edit" at the top, and yes I am logged in. Had a similar problem with "Votes" that was corrected by Al (my browser is Safari). Is this the same problem or is there something I'm missing? ~Bill, --Bluesman 18:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it's the same problem as that was the ISFDB software and this is the Wiki. Can you use this link? BLongley 18:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Don't tell anyone, but I haven't added the license tag for the past few dozen or so images that I've uploaded. I stop at Step 8. I think Dave (DESiegel60) was trying to protect us against lawsuits by copyright holders. My take is this would fall so securely under fair usage that even if the image isn't tagged with the fair use label, I can't see anyone taking any action. MHHutchins 19:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Forgot to add: if you choose to add a license, go to the "Edit This Page" link. I use the Cologne Blue skin so my link is on the left sidebar. Yours may be in a different place on the page, depending upon what skin you've chosen in your preferences. I just checked out the default skin and saw that there are tabs at the top of the page. Unless you've changed your skin from the preferences page, you should have an edit tab at the top of every wiki page you access. After you've chosen "edit", you'll get a box which will contain the description you gave the image. Just add the template which applies to your image and save. When I was using a template I used Cover Image Data2|<TAG>, which I believed was the simplest template. Go here to see how to fill in <TAG> part of the template. MHHutchins 19:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, when I gave you this advice I may have hinted that I find it acceptable to ignore all the Licensing stuff. (Preemptive justification just seems like unnecessary work to me. I don't go to the police station and show my driving license before every car journey, for instance, I just know I have one if it ever gets demanded.) I do leave a minimal note on my uploads though so I can find where in ISFDB the image is being used, if I need to. BLongley 20:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Which one is a pseudonym?

I found that Anthony R. Lewis and Anthony Lewis have separate entries. I think it can be assumed with fairly good confidence that this is one person. I was going combine them - but which is canonical name, and which is pseudonym? Tpi 18:38, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

As Anthony R. Lewis is already the canonical author with respect to Tony Lewis, it should be the canonical author for Anthony Lewis too. Or we can ask Al to break the Tony Lewis link (I don't think it's practical to do via the web interfaces) and start over with the most-used as canonical to minimise the work. But as some people have already have put both pseudonyms into the same series, it's a lot of work to do right in any case. BLongley 19:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and someone ought to look at Anthony Lewsi too. BLongley 19:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
And after that, how about doing Tom Easton (Thomas Easton is already done), and checking the suspicious Tom Eastman?
I fixed the Thomas Eastman and Anthony Lewsi records. All were typos. MHHutchins 03:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Another pair which should be combined: David Mattingly and David B. Mattingly . About same amount of artworks. Which should be canonical name? (And how the combining works, if I just mark one name as a pseudonym of another, is that enough? Or should every single one of his works (attributed to pseudonym) to marked as variant/pseudonymn after that separatedly?)Tpi 10:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
Don't forget 'Dave Mattingly'. This. [10] . 'Dave Maddingly' [11] . The problem is that many times the variants are variants created by the inattention of the copyright page writers. I question what is really the correct way to credit them. You can not stick with signatures as some use initials, but it is unreasonable to create pseudonyms for the 'errors' of others. The only true real name is most probably what the author uses to credit himself, but that changes as in 'Romas Kukalis' vs 'Romas'. Sorry this is not helping, but I am following the 'discussion'. I also, (beat me on the head) have been trying to 'note' as given in the book, and then correcting to what seems the best true identity. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I think in most cases it's best not to attempt to assign a canonical name. The database is not complete, and as many authors/artists are still producing work under various names, their canonical names can be indeterminate. I'm holding off on assigning pseudonyms or canonical names until we can easily reverse the relationship between the two.-Rkihara 17:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Links in Notes

HELP does not seem to tell how to put an internal or external link in the Pub Notes. How do I do that? Thanks. ~Bill, --Bluesman 20:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

You learn HTML and pray you get it right, as you can make a pub totally uneditable if you get it wrong. :-/ This may be why it's not in Help, it's a bit dangerous. BLongley 20:44, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
Also, keep in mind that Web pages can disappear or change over time, e.g. our Title records can be merged, Locus Index pages slowly mutate over time, etc. There is no guarantee that any links that you enter today will be still pointing to the right data this time next year. Ahasuerus 20:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
So, for the nonce, learn more try less? I have seen links in the notes but did not look at how the HTML was formatted. I'll pay close attention next time I see one. Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 22:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
You are also welcome to take a look at User:Kpulliam/Temps where I keep several 'templates' that I cut and paste. They should give you a general idea of some simple html. Kevin 23:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Edward E. Smith?

A search for "Skylark Three (Part 1 of 3)" finds two title records, apparently identical except that one is a variant of the other (#113602 & #193255). (Or am I missing something?) I haven't looked in detail at parts 2 & 3, but I'm guessing that they're in the same situation; a search for "Skylark Three" shows two entries for each, both by a non-doctoral Smith.
At a guess, one was originally "Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.", which is what the magazine showed; & then someone changed that to plain "Edward E. Smith" in one record somewhere. (Or am I missing something here?)
Is there any way to fix this short of deleting title from pub & adding a new one, making that a variant, breaking the existing variant relationship, & deleting the (newly orphaned) title? Of course, that would only fix up this one pub (or the three pubs if I do all installments), not any other titles which were by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D. before this happened.
Am I missing something (he says hopefully)? -- Dave (davecat) 20:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

A variant of an identical title is obviously a problem, but what are you aiming for? You can just adjust the 3 variant titles back to "Edward E. Smith, Ph.D." if that's what you want. But all I can see is the cover credits, no indication of the "correct" author, and I can't tell if that's what you want to do. If it's really "Edward E. Smith" inside then we'd want to make sure that version is in the publication, and delete the variants. So it could be as simple as three title updates, or three merges NOT retaining the variant link. (I think - but I'm tired and won't try anything like this myself just yet.) BLongley 21:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
According to Day the serial was credited to "Edward E. Smith, Ph.D." so that's the way they should appear in the magazines. All that needs to be done is edit the magazines and changed the author to the Ph.D. version.--swfritter 22:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. It was definitely "Edward E. Smith, Ph.D." in the magazines (or at least the first installment.) I kind of thought that changing the author's name in the title was like changing a title in a pub - that it would change the author's name everywhere. (My guess was that this was what had happened.) Since you say not, I'll make a note to do it when I have a bit more time. -- Dave (davecat) 19:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
You can also change the variant title directly. In this case, when you change the title in the pub you are actually modifying the variant title record. If the canonical/title author was listed in the pub it would change that title.--swfritter 21:15, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, done. My confusion was partly due to the analogy with changing a title from the pub & all the warnings surrounding that, & partly from the fact that it's not straightforward to tell which title is the one listed in the pub. Or maybe it should have been, but I wasn't quick enough to figure it out; the pub said it was by Edward E. Smith [as by Edward E. Smith], but each title listed the pub. That's surely the way we want it to list, but in this case it confused me. The "as by" should have told me that the variant was the record in the pub. Again, thanks. -- Dave (davecat) 22:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
The warning is still relevant - whether you edit the magazine and change the content record, or edit the title direct, you ARE affecting ALL publications that contain that record. This is not a problem when there IS only ONE use of that record though. It can be tricky (as you've seen already) to tell though. :-/ BLongley 00:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Being able to tell what effect an edit like this will have is probably the major hurdle to overcome before "self-approval" moderator status (which we've been granting to reliable editors that know their limits). There are many other problems that a moderator can cause when they start approving things beyond their knowledge, or that ISFDB doesn't flag as a potential problem. For instance, editors get Big Yellow Warning signs on some merge attempts - but Moderators will get no such warning when approving such. I don't think there's a single moderator that is competent to approve ALL types of edit - even the founder and programmer isn't up to date with all the bugs and the workarounds we're using in the meantime. We are very much relying on each other's competence, and self-limitations, and agreements on standards. This is not perfect - for instance, today I've had to undo a situation caused by three approvals from two fellow-moderators of well-intentioned edits by one editor. Each step looked logical, and I'd be hard-pressed to explain exactly when the problem should have been caught. By moderator or by software. OK, I think the software will take longer to update, but moderator education is lacking a bit too. I know I don't know what the Magazine standards are now, or what the conventions for SFBC books are, so I leave those alone. I do try and warn everybody about the major bugs - Chapterbooks for instance - but even then I get surprised by things that DO work. The submission queue may get long when we don't have the right specialist Mod available, and I apologise if people are thinking "Bill is approving all those other edits, why isn't he doing MINE?" But I recognise my limits (mostly - I do like to experiment, and I am supposed to be an IT expert in my day-job) and if we all do (Editors and Mods alike) we'll muddle through this. We have done through the last couple of years at least. BLongley 00:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Original Story - ebook only publication - Adding to a Series

My understanding of the current state of chapbook support means that it is not currently possible to enter a chapbook as the only publication of a work, and to enter that work as part of a series (since editing the title record converts it to an Anthology)? Or am I confused? Kevin 21:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

A true Chapterbook entry can be submitted and approved, but cannot be edited while keeping it as a chapterbook, as chapterbook is no longer an allowed content entry type and will get converted to an Anthology, often unwittingly. But if you recognise that the content entry is going to changed anyway, you can keep publication and title types in step and at least make sure that it's findable again. Some people are using the Shortfiction content type with chapterbook publication type, which seems to work with single content titles of the same name as the encompassing title - but I wouldn't recommend it. (You can't add introductions, interiorart, etc.) I'd recommend Novel for now, unless it naturally is a collection or anthology. You can edit those into a series at least. But please try to keep title and publication type matched, it makes it so much easier all round for now. BLongley 22:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
What do you recommend for this work? Down on the Farm Kevin 23:28, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
I recommend leaving it completely alone and using it as an example of how Chapterbooks can work! :-) See the author page for Charles Stross. They get their own little section between "Collections" and "Nonfiction". Unfortunately, as it's unpaginated, nobody can tell how long it really is. :-/ BLongley 19:04, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I just read it here. I was only trying to guess what series you wanted to put it in, but got a bit engrossed. The "Laundry" series I assume? I think I'll be buying the others. And not just because I have fond memories of IBM mainframes. (The 1402 is before my time, I started on 3033s and helped migrate to 4381s.) Very English though (nationality, not language) and I can see it having a high confusion quotient. If you want to add it to the series, just make it a Novel for now (suitable for single-content titles published alone, IMO, however short) or a single content Collection (allows you to put a length category on the contents, which pleases the lengthists). I think it's worth promoting a bit, but I like Tech/Demonology mixtures anyway. And laughing at Sybil Serpents/Civil Servants is a good British pastime. BLongley 21:21, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
As shown, that's exactly how I've been indexing individual short fiction items published as ebooks. The new problem with this one is because it's a new work that doesn't appear elsewhere so there is no other title record to hold the series data (and work length). I started to put in a dummy second record of a single work Anthology...but I'm not sure where I'm going with it yet. I want to see what kind of warnings I get when I try to merge the titles of the short fiction and the chapbook... but keep the CHAPBOOK pub... letting the work length and series data merge into the original Chapbook. Then remove the merged work from the dummy Anth. and then delete the dummy anthology. Kevin 02:59, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
No warnings appeard on the editor side when I attempted this merge. So we'll see if this displays as desired. Kevin 03:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Not bad, it's joined the right series. But no indication of length that I can see. BLongley 18:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Actually the length is there, but its not being displayed. If you edit the title the length is already filled in. (sigh) IN the end It's better than nothing, but we also lost the nice Chapbook listing on Stross's Bibliography. I also notice that while I did manage to shoehorn it into a series, the [SF] identifier isn't appearing so it looks like a novel in the series. But I guess I can't complain, my two objectives in listing it were achieved. It's Listed, and its in the right series. Everything else is display / storage semantics that don't impact the fact that the data is in the system. Kevin 04:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

How to enter Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur?

I have a book, ISBN 0-451-62567-6, that has this title page:

Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur
King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table
A Brilliant Prose Rendition by KEITH BAINES

The preface (by Baines) says "The edition on which this rendering of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur is based.... The purpose of this book is to provide a concise and lucid rendering of Le Morte d'Arthur in modern idiom.... My procedure throughout has been to retell each tale 'in my own words'...."

Should this be entered as Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur by Baines, as Le Morte d'Arthur by Malory and Baines, or as Le Morte d'Arthur by Malory and note it's a Baines "translation"?

--MartyD 12:49, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello MartyD. I am butter fingered about these things, but the printings of all the "Le Morte D'Arthur" are "builds" of the original work. I believe ISFDB uses the author in this type of case, not the editor/compiler/magician/translator. So, the author field is Sir Thomas Malory.
All the available printings are some kind of translation, As for crediting the translation, first state it as they do in the 'notes field'. I have been told several times that translators are not supported in the format. Personally, I wonder if we included all the "extras" of publications if the form could be filled out.
Here I believe, is your start point. [12]. Do an add publication there. Correct the title to read as your edition states it.
I just re-submitted my entry and it may look a little clearer after it is accepted or edited by a moderator to meet the DB's needs. Enjoy yourself, as the reworkings of publications are challenging. Notice mine has a variant title. Sorry, if this is confusing, but the mods should correct me. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:24, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
That's not a book, that's a Can of Worms. ;-) As the title page is so non-standard, we'll have to break some rules. "Author exactly as stated"? Not clear - "Malory" or "Keith Baines". Title? 'Le Morte d'Arthur' or 'King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table'. Again, not clear. For a book several centuries old we get some leeway, I think. I'd put it under the "Sir Thomas Malory" title with notes for "Keith Baines" - but only as "Keith Baines" doesn't seem that notable here already. BLongley 22:10, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
My edition has a Bibliograph with this. "1962, Baines, Keith, Le Morte D'Arthur, Translated into modern idiom, with an introduction by Robert Graves, London, Harrap". Do you think this is the core of your book? I read the start and it was a change in wording, but not real content. The question thus becomes did "Signet" artistically change the titling? or did the editor of my addition short change the title? What is shown in my book is technically a re-translations which still means it is Malory's work. Agreed, it is a 'big can of worms'. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:32, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
At least it wasn't a simple question. I will follow the suggestion to use Malory as the author and just note Baines. Yes, the bibliograph info matches my book. It has the intro by Graves (also credited on both cover and title page). FWIW, the preface mentions this is based on the "Winchester Ms." edited by Eugene Vinaver and published by Oxford in 1947 and 1954, as distinguished from the "Caxon Ms." 'known popularly through the Everyman edition, differing as it does in both content and layout.' This is copyright 1962 by Keith Baines with 1st printing listed as July, 1962 (mine's 14th, alas). Thanks for the help. --MartyD 00:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I need more help with this. See this title. In entering LMRTDRTHRN0000 and adding its content, I tried to make the content title be Le Morte d'Arthur as well. I added it as content, then went back and made that title a variant of Le Morte Darthur. But I can't remove the Le Morte Darthur content, and as you can see the LMRTDRTHRN0000 entry appears twice (with the same link) under that title. I wish there were a way to submit an explanation with an entry to be able to tell whichever moderator looks at it what I'm trying to do.... Anyway, can someone tell me what I've screwed up and suggest how best to fix it? Thanks. --MartyD 11:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you did - did you "Add publication to this title" and then also add details of the title you wanted to use in contents too, or something like that? But I think I've fixed it, have another look. BLongley 18:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I did. (And thank you for fixing it!) I thought I was not supposed to edit the content title directly because that would change the title everywhere, which of course I did not want. Was that a mistaken understanding? I thought I could add my actual title, make it a variant, then remove the now-parent-but-undesired title from the content list. So how should I have gone about achieving what you finally made, which is what I wanted? --MartyD 04:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
If you'd used "New Novel" rather than "Add publication to this title" then you'd have just your desired title in the publication, and that could be made a variant. "Add publication to this title" created a Novel with the undesired title in, then you added the correct one, so ended up with two unnecessarily. BLongley 18:34, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Got it. Thanks for the explanation and the help. --MartyD 20:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Need to delete bogus artist (author)

In editing a cloned pub, I mistakenly pasted the URL for the cover image into the Artist field. I submitted the pub with that in it, and the addition got approved. Going back to verify, I noticed the mistake, which I have corrected in the pub, but it also made this author entry. I see no way to delete it. Help? --MartyD 03:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

If all records attributed to an author/artist/editor is deleted (or changed as in this case) then the name will be automatically deleted from the database. When you click on the link above, you get the message that no such name exists in the database, which means your correction fixed the problem. MHHutchins 04:13, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Makes sense, and very handy. Thanks. --MartyD 11:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Where the date seems to disappear?

Sometimes when I have submitted something new, the date field have seemed to empty itself, so that the date in approved submission has been 0000-00-00. Often I have been fairly sure that I have entered the correct date, but then thought that probably I have been mistaken after all. But now I was able to capture it. I enterd a new edition: as you can see. After I submitted it I noticed straight away, that the date field was empty. Here. And the edition has an empty field for publication year. I believe this has happened before for me at least for a few times. Tpi 07:46, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

This happens if there is a trailing space after the last digit. Unfortunately, they are hard to spot... Ahasuerus 02:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

One Artist is listed as two separate Artist-resulting in inaccurate credits and biography.

I am new to ISFDB and extremely unfamiliar with your system, procedures and methods.

First of all, welcome to the ISFDB! We don't bite -- at least not very often -- so feel free to ask any questions you may have. We have an extensive Help system, which explains how to edit the database, but if all you want to do is correct your own data, just let us know what needs to be done and we'll make the necessary changes. Ahasuerus 04:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I have noticed that there is a mistake in your records resulting in one artist (along with his credits) being listed as two separate artist because his name was credited at various times with his middle initial and then without. It seems like an easy fix but I am not a writer or confident enough to start altering your entries.

Unfortunately, it's a very common problem. With over 54,000 author records (the term "author" also refers to artists and editors in this case) on file, it can be hard to tell whether "John Q. Public" is the same person as "John Public", so a number of our bibliographies end up being split. Once we confirm that both forms of the name are/were used by the same person, we pick one as the "canonical" name and link the other forms of the name as pseudonyms. Let us know which form you would like to be the canonical one and we can clean up your bibliography quickly. (The rest deleted after edit conflicts with Michael.) Ahasuerus 04:48, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Also I noticed there was no Biographical information listed for him. Is there a way to submit a biography for editing or approval without actually posting it? I am the artist and do not want to upload anything that is not proper or following your normal guidelines. I do not even know if it is proper for someone to add their own personal Bio but it is another good reason for having it checked first.

Thanks, Gary —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Evilg (talk • contribs) .

First things first: Give us both names under which the artist is credited. Once it's been determined which one is the canonical name, we can create a pseudonym relationship between the names, then make variant records so that all of his credits appear under one name. And to be clear, ISFDB policy is to record credits exactly as they appear on the publication. If he's credited differently in various publications that will be how it is recorded in the database. They're only inaccurate credits if the editor enters the wrong information.
Second issue: Bios can be created by clicking on the red-linked name after Biography. You'll be led to a blank wiki page, click on "edit this page", then enter the biographical information. Before writing the bio please read this short guideline for biographical entries.
P.S. Please sign all comments with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks, Gary, and welcome to the ISFDB. MHHutchins 04:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for the assistance and especially the patience. I'm not sure which name would be considered the "canonical" name. One is “Gary L. Freeman” and the other is “Gary Freeman”. It seems arbitrary to me but while “Gary L. Freeman” is more formal and complete, far more work is listed under “Gary Freeman”. BTW, I didn’t notice any thing credited to it in your list but a great deal of art work (by same artist) has been signed with my alias “Evil G”. Thanks again (Evilg 19:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC))
I think going with simply "Gary Freeman" would be the best going forth. I will make "Gary L. Freeman" the pseudonym and create variants for those titles. That will get everything onto one page. If you're aware of any book / magazine covers or interior work in which you used "Evil G", you can make changes yourself or give us a list. As a personal aside, let me say how much I admire the work you did for Asimov's and Amazing. The moment I turned the page and saw it, I knew immediately that it was a Gary Freeman work. Thanks and with much appreciaton. MHHutchins 20:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again for the assistance. I'm honestly flattered by the compliment considering how much talent you must encounter through your efforts here alone. I feel like I'm getting a lot better so sometimes its painful for me personally to look at some of my older work. I admire what you and everyone here are doing and YOUR contribution to this field. It seems an overwhelming task and is much appreciated!(Evilg 22:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC))

Recording Maps as Content

I have a copy of The Illearth War that contains a 2-page map that is separately credited and copyrighted. In addition, the Table of Contents has an entry for it:

What Has Gone Before.... xi
Map..................... xiv

I entered it here with a title "Map (The Illearth War)" based on that entry, the copyright page's "Map Copyright (c) 1977 by Lynn K. Plagge", and also the map's own "Map by Lynn K. Plagge" signature -- these latter two with the capital "M". In looking at the page for the artist, however, I find several other map credits using "title (map)", including "The Illearth War (map)" used here for a different printing of the same book.

Is there a preferred way to record maps, or is the case where the map is semi-formally labeled "Map" different from an unlabeled map? If the latter, should I make the new "Map (The Illearth War)" title a variant of the existing "The Illearth War (map)" title? Thanks. --MartyD 11:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't recall any discussions of map standards beyond "Sure, let's include them as Interior Art", so, unless I missed something (and there have been a lot of discussions over the last 3 years), I don't think we have a standard at this time. Ahasuerus 03:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
I have put the "Make Variant" submission on hold since I suspect that we simply want to merge all maps that have been identified as identical. Any other ideas/suggestions? Ahasuerus 01:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I kind of thought we would want to standardize as Map (TITLE) or Maps (TITLE) (depending on whether there is one or many) since that matches the form of Introduction (TITLE), Afterword (TITLE) etc....but thats just me wanting to make the listings look symmetrical. Kevin 02:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Kevin here, and it follows along with the general rule (stated or unstated) about adding information that is not present in the title itself in parentheses. (Such as the name of the book or magazine to disambiguate generic titles from others.) But what if the map has a title? I came upon a few awhile back and I placed "map" in parentheses, here and here. Regularization (or regularisation, as our British pals, might spell it) should be simple. Perhaps this discussion should be moved to the Rules and Standards page? MHHutchins 03:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea! Ahasuerus 03:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Done. Moved here. --MartyD 10:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Making additions which are doubling themselves as defective clones

Apologies, but I just had a spate of duplicates created which are not complete. These two were clones. The ones before did not do this, and the ones after did not. Here. [13] top two, and [14] top two. I did the first one from title search and the other from the series list. One title, Captain, did not have problems. I never had partial clone cloning before. What is the suggested fix? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There have been occasional reports of duplicate records created upon submission approval, but nothing definite has been identified so far :( Ahasuerus 03:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Apparently, I am balmy as they appear to be new additions and they were done at the same time I did mine. One though is the same printing. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 17:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Variant Covers

I have a copy of Stross' Saturns Children (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?STRNSCHLDC2008) which, other than the cover appears to be identical to the cited entry. The cover art is even credited to the same artist (Grimando). The actual art is significantly different. I have a scan I can throw online if useful.

What to do??

First of all, welcome back! :) As far as the cover goes, a number of possible scenarios come to mind. The current scan comes from Amazon, which has been known to continue using pre-publication cover art for years even though the released book had totally different art. On rare occasions, this caused us significant problems because the credited author was changed prior to publication: in one case a co-author was added/deleted and in another case a different pseudonym was used. However, in this case the book has been verified, so I would start by asking the verifier (Al). Perhaps the book was released with two different covers, a known marketing gimmick. Ahasuerus 03:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I think I remember seeing both covers on HB's of this title. I'll ping Al to see what he wants to do. It also wouldn't hurt to scan the ENTIRE cover. The artwork is continued onto the back. The painting is quite stunning compared to the original.
Regards - --Dsorgen 02:26, 11 March 2009 (UTC)----


I haven't added any cover art to ISFDB yet. The instructions seem to point to adding art to the wiki, not the ISFDB. Did I miss something?

Regards --Dsorgen 02:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

That's right, our Wiki software has built-in file upload capabilities, so we decided to use them instead of re-inventing the wheel. All cover scans are first uploaded to the Wiki and then linked from the ISFDB side. Was the Help page on the subject clear? Ahasuerus 03:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Hmmmm... Just skimmed it (since I didn't find info on uploading to the ISFDB directly); so, I think I need to reread. Then again, if it had been REALLY clear, I probably wouldn't be asking this question. Sigh... I'll give it another shot and let you know.
--Dsorgen 20:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Chapbook Editing Support?

Did I miss the announcement? It seems that chapbooks can now be edited (Chapbook has been re-added to the list of possible PUBTYPES when editing a Pub?) I was updating an ebook tonight and was halfway through the edit when I thought to myself... Huh...This isn't supposed to work... I'm supposed to clone and update... but there it was in the drop down box 'Chapbook'. I submitted the update and waited to see if it would take or if it would revert o Anthology somewhere else in the approval process... but there it is NGHBRHDWTC2006 newly updated with notes and coverart. Thanks for the upgrade! (or was I just confused?) Kevin 03:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind - I realized it's editing 'TITLES' with type set as Chapbook that is unsupported... not editing PUBS with type set at CHAPBOOK. - Move along, nothing to see here. These are not the droids your looking for. Kevin 03:31, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Problems Uploading Images

I've suddenly started getting error messages when uploading images. The images upload, but the template reports errors, and doesn't display the uploaded image.-Rkihara 07:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

That's because you've uploaded an image of 404 × 623 pixels - the maximum is 600 if you want to avoid the preview error. It doesn't affect final use of the image though. BLongley 11:55, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll have to readjust my Photoshop macro. I didn't know the max image size was red lined in the template. My previous scans were maxed at ~550 pixels, so when Asimov's changed size I figured 623 was close enough to the "suggested" max.-Rkihara 16:16, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

How to handle conflicting data in same pub?

In verifying HRLFKRKS1973, originally entered by someone other than me, I encountered a note that the cover art is credited to Allan Mardon on the copyright page (which it is) but "looks like Bob Pepper." While investigating, I found the cover is in fact clearly signed "Pepper". It's all one wrap-around (front, spine, back) painting, so it doesn't look like there is any other cover art to which the copyright credit could be referring. I updated the notes and changed the artist from Allan Mardon to Bob Pepper, but how should this situation of truly conflicting data in the pub properly be handled? --MartyD 16:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you did just fine, you changed the database and documented why, and documented the incorrect information so someone else doesn't change it back. At most, I would have amended the comment to something more like "Copyright page states 'WRONG NAME', but the artwork is in the style of 'RIGHT NAME' and 'RIGHT NAME' is confirmed by the signature 'PART OF RIGHT NAME' at 'LOWER/UPPER/MIDDLE' 'LEFT/RIGHT/CENTER' of the cover art." But like I said, what you did was just fine and documents the discrepancy. Cheers! Kevin 20:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Richard Powers vs. Dick Powers

What is the difference between the artists Richard Powers and Dick Powers? I want to verify this THSNFTRZNX1963 1st Ballantine printing The Son of Tarzan. It does not credit the artist, and I don't see a signature (in contrast to other books, where I've found a "Powers" signature). Googling for the F748 edition finds many references, all crediting "Richard Powers", but none particularly authoritative as far as I can tell. Later verified versions credit "Dick Powers" and have cover images with the same painting, so I don't really have a problem with the existing "Dick Powers" credit. I just want to understand the difference if they are two people. Thanks. --MartyD 10:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

They're the same person. The art on later printings must have been credited on to "Dick Powers", because there'd be no reason for someone to use this variant otherwise. The problem is that no one has made "Dick Powers" a pseudonym of Richard Powers. Once that is done someone will have to create variants for all of the "Dick"s (looks like about 50 credits on his summary page.) In the meantime, credit "Dick Powers" on your pub, and note that the book contains no credit and give the source as a later printing. Then merge the newly created record with that of the later printings. That will cut down on the number of variants that will have to be created. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:08, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Many of those credits were duplicates. After merging them the page appears more manageable. MHHutchins 05:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm game. I'll give what's left a shot and ping you on your talk page if I get stuck. Thanks. --MartyD 10:36, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Image Linking Permission - Ace Image Library

Did anyone ever ask for a blanket permission to reuse covers from the Ace Image Library? I just came across a linked cover and checked ISFDB:Image_linking_permissions which lists the Ace Image site under the 'list of sites granting permission' BUT it also says we do NOT have blanket permission. Should Help be updated to show blanket permission yet, or should it be rearranged to show that they have not (yet) granted or been asked to grant permission? - Thanks Kevin 23:42, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has ever asked for blanket permission for the Ace Image Library, but people have asked on a case by case before (and help suggests we should still do so). But I seem to recall that the site-maintainer was known to be on hiatus and probably wouldn't respond anyway? I think all off-site links should be discouraged if you can add to the ISFDB library anyway: I know cloning will increase the problems, and our bots still link to Amazon by default, but I think "upload your own image here" is best, "link to explicit permission sites" is next, "implicit permission" last. No permission - don't do it. I seem to be the only person that's asked other sites for explicit permission recently though, judging by the state of help (the last three sites were from when I worked on van Vogt before I got ground down by "fix-ups"). :-/ BLongley 00:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Recognizing that 'upload your own here' is now the preferred / long term method, what is the 'official ISFDB' email address that should be inserted into the form email on the image linking help page? Kevin 02:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
AFAIK, we don't have one. I don't think anybody's ever used the form letter, it was suggested by an editor that's no longer active, and it does make some unwarranted assumptions like "we are organised". ;-) . As I seem to have been the most recent person to get permissions, I'd suggest ignoring the form letter and write something less formal. I tended to start with complimenting their site, explaining how I found it and what the common interest is that led me there, pointing them at ISFDB's entries on the same subject and asking them what they think of us bibliographically, and pleaded with them to allow us to deep-link to the images we couldn't get from any other source. I couldn't promise a credit on every image we used like we do with Visco (that requires software changes), but did say we'd add some links back where possible. (I'm not a fan of HTML in pub notes, when it goes wrong it can go SEVERELY wrong, but I think most sites I used are linked to from the Wiki somewhere.) BLongley 20:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Nowadays, I guess I'd add that as we have image uploading capabilities ourselves then we'd be bothering them even less (only our scanner-impaired editors need such), and would invite them to reuse the ones we've uploaded too - a sort of swap-shop deal. Whether that's by mutual deep-linking or downloading one site's images and uploading at the other is a bit open to question. I think there's benefits either way - deep-linking MIGHT lead to people discovering the other site, and is simple, but copying the image and giving credit and a link on the Image's Wiki page here would probably make such associations more visible. But people are not doing much with extra data on Images uploaded here - I can understand that, "fair use" or "out of copyright" or "creative commons" justifications on every single image are a pain and IMO unnecessary - but to maintain friendly relations with other sites it might be wise to make some effort. BLongley 20:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
For the record, one person recently used the form letter as a template for a message trying to get permission to link to images (not to the ACE site, but to The Trash Collector). I did edit heavily and adorn with compliments. No response, alas. --MartyD 00:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
An interesting site. I've rarely seen a seller go to that much effort, and it should be applauded. However, it looks like they only give images for books for sale, so once they've been sold the image is unlikely to be available? The images are also a little smaller than I like - ideally our images should make catalogue numbers and prices readable, IMO. So I suggest we don't link to their images. Whether you want to take a copy of their images for books we don't already have images for is another matter. We've been advised that "slavish copies" of covers aren't copyrightable, the copyright remains with the original book publisher or artist, and we could use the same images under the same "fair use" rules that other sites publish them under. I've never been totally comfortable with that - I don't use Amazon Images where somebody has added a "image provided by XYZ" section to the image, and there are sites where a good cover image has been "watermarked". I don't think that's the case here, but as it's a commercial site they may be able to afford lawyers. :-( BLongley 23:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

How to read "broken" number line?

I've stumbled across this situation a couple of times now, where a book a number line like this: 

 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16          6 7 8 9/7 01/8

How do I interpret this? Is it a 16th printing? Something else? If it is a 16th printing, is there any meaning I should infer from the trailing numbers? Thanks. --MartyD 11:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a 16th printing. The rest seems to be an indication of year (possibly month): does expanding "6 7 8 9/7" to "1966 1967 1978 1969 1970" and reading it as "1966" make sense in this example? BLongley 20:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
The " 01/" might also be further year information, for "1970 1971" but that looks stilted to me. But it's for future use, not important in determining the date of this pub. BLongley 20:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
There's been some discussion on whether the final "/8" might mean "August" but such usage seems to go against the point of number-lines: you erase a number to indicate a later date/printing. BLongley 20:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Finally, just out of personal interest - would this be a Scholastic title? As I only ever seem to get that problem with that publisher. BLongley 20:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
It's a Scholastic title. TK-210 Ten Great Mysteries by Edgar Allen Poe (Conklin, ed.). It's undated, except for the 1960 TAB copyright, which is why I was hoping there might be some meaning in the number line. Below the number line is "Printed in the U.S.A", centered, and on the line below that, right-justified is "06", which I suppose might be a month. I definitely got this book in the 70s. 1976 is possible. --MartyD 00:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
This page seems to confirm 1976. As it's not a first printing, there's no Month encoded in it. The "06" is a red herring it seems. One slight niggle - is there really no space between the final 0 and 1 in your book? BLongley 19:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Really no space. You want it to be /7 = 1970 and /8 = 1980, don't you? I do! Maybe that's the right way to read it. I'm going to dig up a couple of others I have and see what their lines look like. --MartyD 00:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
One other thing I can tell you is it's definitely earlier than a 1980 printing, so that page's analysis that would have this be a 1980 edition of a 1976 first printing doesn't seem quite right. --MartyD 00:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Thousands of books and yet pathetic reading comprehension skills. Sigh. I re-read the reference, and I can see this is a 1976 dating, with the /8 covering the 01 for the 80s and the lack of space probably a small typesetting error. Thanks for digging it up, and I will go with that dating and also check my other Scholastics. --MartyD 10:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The Complete Pegāna

I seem to have gotten a stay record in my edits this title. Somehow I've ended up with a second title record here. Part of what I was doing was converting the book from a collection to an omnibus. In the course of that I was also adding the constituent collection records and I suspect that's where something went awry. Regardless, I can't figure out how to get rid of the extra title. I get all sorts of dire warnings if I start a merge of the two titles. Any help on how to proceed would be appreciated. Thanks. --Rtrace 00:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. You have to "Remove title from this pub", but you can't see the Omnibus titles when they match the Publication type. I temporarily changed the pub to "Anthology", removed one of the Omnibus titles, changed the pub back to Omnibus, and merged the two Omnibus titles (which is allowable when they're not in the same pub). Please check. BLongley 17:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Also, are you going to add "Beyond the Fields We Know", as one of the title notes suggested is also in there? BLongley 17:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I also adjusted the date of the title record for the omnibus. I wasn't going to include Beyond the Fields We Know since it is only a small subset of the stories from that collection that are included as opposed to The Gods of Pegāna and Time and the Gods which are completely included in the omnibus. The stories themselves are included.--Rtrace 18:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I've clarified the title notes to explain why it's an Omnibus of two books rather than three. BLongley 20:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

How to move pub to existing variant title?

I've read Help:How_to_unmerge_titles and am wondering if there's a better/simpler way to handle this case. The bottom-line question: Is there a way to move a pub from its current title to an existing variant of the same title, i.e., to change its title reference? The background: In re-checking my copy of Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet (ACE G-723), I did a title search for "Star Hunter" and discovered both Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet and Star Hunter / Voodoo Planet. The former is a variant title of the latter, but G-723 does not appear in its pub list because it is linked to the latter title (the other Star Hunter & Voodoo Planet pub appears in both lists, as I'd expect). The DBA in me thinks this must be a simple id/reference update, but I don't see a way to do that. And I confess to being afraid to push the "Unmerge Titles" button on Star Hunter / Voodoo Planet to see what would happen; if I should have tried that, I apologize in advance. Thanks. --MartyD 11:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It should just be a simple update, yes, but unfortunately it hasn't been coded for. The Help looks a bit out of date actually - you don't have to unmerge all publications and remerge all the ones that didn't need to be unmerged. You get a set of checkboxes that allow you to select which one(s) to unmerge. You can unmerge G-723 alone, adjust the new publcation/title it creates as necessary, and remerge with the correct parent. Yes, still a bit of a pain, but not as bad as help makes it look. BLongley 12:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Not scary at all! Guess I should have gone ahead and tried it. Thanks! --MartyD 13:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


Orphan publications (Eidolon magazine)

Hi, If I search for the title "eidolon", I get the covers for 20 or so issues of this magazine, plus a few interviews, but no titles for the actual issues. If I click on a cover at random, it gives me a publication associated with the cover. I click on the publication, I get the publication record (with a contents list so someone has labouriously entered data for the issues), but the publication seems to be an orphan - no title record associated, as far as I can tell. I haven't delved into magazines/serials much in ISFDB so I'm not sure quite what to expect. ... but I think there should be title records? How do I get them back/create them? ...clarkmci/--j_clark 05:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Magazines are very different from books here. With a simple search, you're not looking for a NOVEL or COLLECTION or ANTHOLOGY in the results, you actually have to look for an EDITOR record. It's further complicated by the fact that to keep Magazine Editors author pages short, all the magazines for a year are sometimes merged under one EDITOR record for that Year of that Magazine. Or, in other cases, nobody has got round to adding the editor at all and they won't show up in the search results. In the case of Eidolon, a) the Editors seem to be unknown and b) the magazines don't even have an EDITOR record for "unknown". :-/ BLongley 18:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
All is not lost though - do an Advanced Publication search for "Eidolon" and you should see the desired titles, helpfully labelled "MAGAZINE". Or start from the Magazine:Eidolon wiki-page. BLongley 18:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Things are getting better, though, with more and more Magazine Pubs getting proper EDITOR Titles. There are still a few thousand EDITOR-less Magazine Pubs, so perhaps we could mount a concerted effort to clean up this area. Ahasuerus 19:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
There's even a sort-of-project hinted at in Bibliographic_Projects_in_Progress (look at the "Other" section, first entry). But EDITOR records need a bit of explanation before we invite people to help fix them. And the standards/guidelines for unknown Magazine Editors could probably be a bit clearer. Or "Existent" - I think it's only when we got to Fanzines that we learnt to cope with such? Still, if people are interested in a particular Magazine with missing editors, and are willing to learn, some sort of Crash Course might help with the massive data-entry required. If we're not going to script a solution, documenting what needs to be done manually might get some more volunteers on board. I did some Kyril Bonfiglioli titles and some of the missing John Carnell titles but am not up to giving guidance on "unknown". BLongley 20:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, we could slap the editors mentioned here. I think nearly all of the prozines have editor records. When I glanced at the semipromizines I realized it was going to take a lot of potentially fruitless research which would likely not result in particularly accurate results. Even those semiprozines that do have editors listed need to be thoroughly researched. Some of them have as many as a seven editors listed. --swfritter 21:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Slap away, if it helps. I think the requirement for EDITOR records before the "simple" database search software works suggests something is fundamentally broken and would prefer to see MAGAZINE as a "container" title like we have with books: but that requires big software changes (far more than fixing CHAPTERBOOK even) so educating more people in how to deal with them is all we can do in the meantime. I know the magazine editors tend to get together directly and educate each other, but Help updates lag behind (same as with books - we're afraid to change stuff without consensus) and maybe we could usefully do some small updates for small parts of the process. But to a new ISFDB editor, EDITOR records are a mystery and even to an experienced ISFDB editor, spotting when the problem(s) even exist(s) is tricky. But underneath there is a small, simple fix that just needs to be applied to thousands of records: EDITOR merging and Series for regular magazine columns, etc, can wait. Even establishing what kinds of Editors get a credit can wait a bit - yes, there are often multiple editors, and I could probably find ones with more than 7, because you can get managing editor, fiction editor, nonfiction editor, poetry editor, art editor, review editor, and all those might be shared by co-editors or even subdivided (reviews of books, reviews of magazines, reviews of computer games, reviews of RPGs...) BLongley 22:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I think I just made a simple task sound very complicated. :-( But there are simple tasks that can be done before you have to go down the "what are we doing this week that will make me go revisit all the magazines I've ever looked at before?" route. Maybe some guidance per currently-imperfect title is a start? BLongley 22:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Checking the last backup file, I see that we have 1,277 Magazine Pubs without EDITOR records, including a number of New Worlds, Interzone, Weird Tales, Locus, Nebula Science Fiction, Omni, Science Fantasy and other well known magazines. All of them have editors defined at the Pub level, so I believe it should be possible to write a script to insert an identical EDITOR record into each pub. There are a few that clearly credit the wrong person(s), but that's a problem with our Publication level data which needs to be fixed anyway. Also, there are 146 missing "unknown" EDITOR records, which should be, in more than 50% of all cases, changed to "Editors of ...". Let me see what I can do tonight. Ahasuerus 22:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Based on XML:PubUpdate, it should be a simple enough task. I'll ask Fixer to create a few submissions later tonight to see how it goes. Ahasuerus 22:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
It might be a good idea to work on the pubs first before invoking Fixer otherwise any errors will have to be updated twice since the editor title entries are not updated when the pub editor entries are updated and vice-versa. Most of the pubs mentioned above should be easy to verify. With Omni it might be a good idea to include both the main editor and the fiction editor. Did all of the British s-f fans throw away their mags once they read them? It would sure be nice to get some primary source data in that area.--swfritter 16:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, doing it manually would also allow the missing months to be put in. There's one gotcha to watch out for on old New Worlds - the Pub Format or Binding of 7¼" x 9¾" (for instance) gets cut off at the first double quote when displayed for editing, and needs putting back before submission. BLongley 17:24, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I've also noticed that several prices need regularising, e.g. "2s" to "2/-". BLongley 18:06, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
The Pub Format should probably be the closest equivalent we have with the actual size put in the notes. Of course, the stories, if they are not reprints, should have the month of the pub - and also any variant titles attached to them should have that date unless a variant was printed earlier in which case the story in the mag should have the date of the earliest variant. Fixing the editor data is not dependent upon fixing the other data although it would certainly be nice to see all this data cleaned up.--swfritter 18:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
I did the Science Fantasy manually as a lot didn't have Visco covers or prices and I could fix those on the way. BLongley 19:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) I have a fair number of British magazines from the 1950s and 1960s, but I haven't gotten to them yet and at the rate it is going I doubt I will until 2011. In the meantime, I think it may be better to have Fixer create EDITOR records, which will allow "normal" searching and prevent duplicate pubs from being created. Ahasuerus 03:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's an oddity. This magazine shows no contents. It should show Lifeboat by "Will F. Jenkins" and sure enough if you look at it from the Lifeboat title this magazine is shown. I know there's a missing editor record, but is there something special about the "unknown" pub editor as well? BLongley 18:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just fixed a load of "Cavalier" magazines with Stephen King short stories that had the same problem, using the "Editors of Cavalier" convention, but it might be wise to address these sooner than later as the stubs look useless and might attract an unwanted deletion. BLongley 18:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Seen it before myself - if there is only one entry and no Editor record I don't think the one story shows up.--swfritter 22:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Not good. We should fix those before the deletions get submitted. I suspect Fixer won't fix "unknown" editor? Or if he does, we'll still have to go rescue those. (There's not a lot so far though.) BLongley 22:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Since there are less than 150 Magazine pubs edited by "unknown" which don't have an EDITOR record, the easiest thing to do would be to generate a list and fix them manually. Ahasuerus 23:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

(artist)

Somehow I missed that (artist) is being used when there is an artist of the same name as author. Is this common? Example Robert Hunt (artitst). Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Not very common, but when there is a collision of two names we add a suffix to distinguish them - sometimes the country, sometimes the date of birth or period of activity, sometimes the role they have in publications, sometimes just a number. Do a simple name search for "(US)", "19" or "[1]" for examples. BLongley 18:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, Bill. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:49, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Another unknown sig

Any ideas on Image:P Losso.jpg this? BLongley 21:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Just found a similar project. If your unknown artist ever worked on Life magazine, you might find some help there. BLongley 20:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
How about "P dell'osso/"? --MartyD 20:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Possible. "dell'osso" seems a valid surname, but when searching for an artist like that I keep getting dragged to Italian sites. And I don't read Italian. :-/ BLongley 21:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

How to enter omnibus of collections of unpublished letters and stories?

I could use some guidance on how to enter Lord Halifax's Complete Ghost Book. The publication seems to contain two books, Lord Halifax's Ghost Book (1936) and Further Stories from Lord Halifax's Ghost Book (1937), each with its own introductory material.

The first book describes itself as "a collection of stories, haunted houses, apparitions and supernatural occurrences made by Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax". The foreword describes how the man was fascinated by ghost stories, and people would send them to him. Each story has some sort of attribution, such as "Mr. X contributed these experiences" or "Related in a letter from Ms. Y", and Lindley's hand varies from pure collector -- letters from others are (apparently) reproduced -- to documentor of word-of-mouth. Lindley treats them as true stories. The second book is more of the same, although it also includes stories (according to the foreword) whose provenance is less certain or even unknown.

The first half contains some 22 major groupings (some stories, some collections of letters), comprising some 34 TOC entries; the second half is similar.

So it looks to me like the book I have in hand should be entered as an omnibus of the two other books. But how do I then do those? As collections/anthologies? As something else? If collections/anthologies, what then to do about their content? Do these types of titles have to have content? To the best of my limited knowledge, none of the stories was published separately elsewhere. Obviously, individual letters wouldn't be appropriate, but do I do the major groupings, and, if so, to whom do I attribute them, Lindley? If not collections/anthologies, then novel or nonfiction?

Thanks for any and all help. --MartyD 11:25, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a gray area even though the issue comes up from time to time when entering folklore anthologies edited (sometimes quite heavily) by a professional editor. Should the stories be attributed to "unknown" or to the editor? Somewhat similarly, less savory pulp magazines were known to incorporate "stories of apparently supernatural occurrences from our readers" in their articles, which often seemed as authentic as the famous Penthouse "letters".
In this case, the book is clearly an omnibus of two collections/anthologies and should presumably be entered as such. When entering individual stories, I suppose the easiest way to handle the inherent complexity would be to attribute them to Lindley and explain any peculiarities, e.g. "related to Charles Lindley by Mrs. Y in a letter", in the Notes field. As long as this information is captured, we can always go back and change the attribution if and when we come up with a standard. Ahasuerus 02:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I did enter them that way. FWIW, I stumbled on another omnibus issue of the same stories, The Ghost Book of Charles Lindley, Viscount Halifax on Locus1, listing as authors the people to which Halifax attributes the stories, even in cases where (according to my book) he wrote down a verbal telling or retelling. --MartyD 11:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Are Roc printing dates legit?

I have entered numerous Roc pubs, which were published by FASA on the same date. FASA is spectacularly lax in it's documentation and I have few to cross check. Though it is suspicious that many of the 'Battletech' first printing dates match Roc. Now I am suspicious of this one which Amazon gives a May 1990 date and it shows a September 1991 date here. I match ISBN but the copyright page is showing First printing August 1987 with a first printing number line. That date would match this from Signet [15]. While it is possible Roc and FASA would print the same time, why would you print a same cover Signet and a Roc. In the FASA cases I am concerned with the 1991 datings, but this one jumps to 1987. Any sagacious comments? I really just have a gut feeling I am being misled. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 21:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, Signet and Roc were successive imprints of New American Library (NAL) and Amazon doesn't do a very good job of keeping track of changing imprints. Checking OCLC, I see that the 1987 printing appeared as a "New American Library / Signet" book and the 1990 one as a Roc book. Ahasuerus 02:19, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Thst's what I got, but my copyright page says Fist printing August 1987 and first printing number line for a Roc book. Add to this when Roc took over much of the Signet SF role it took over the Signet number system at top spine etc and the changed it to their own letter number sequence and then dropped it. This book has no letter numbering. In fact it is using only ISBN 13. It's number sequence should have been AE or LE 5070. My price is $6.99 and I do not think that matches 1987 either. The Signet example is priced at $3.50 and the Roc example for 1991 is $3.95. My point is this is a case of the written dates are incorrect, but people always believe the written one over something else. What do I do? Should I enter the data as given and add notes saying Roc is bunking it's data or should I guess/unknown the data field and note that what was given is erroneous? As you see, the more I look at it the more obvious it is that they are not following our rules. LOL It all reminds me of the old record scam of not changing the data and selling product under the same agreement. Millions of records sold with no way to check if they paid taxes or royalties. Again LOL. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
I added my copy with an unknown date and notes. Please check. Thanks, Harry --Dragoondelight 12:00, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Author credited solely by Title?

I have run into another situation I need help with/guidance on. In both of the Lord Halifax's... collections is an introduction by his son (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood), who succeeded him as Viscount Halifax after his death. The introductions are credited to "Viscount Halifax, K.G." (and are signed "HALIFAX"). No mention of the son's name is made anywhere. I know we're supposed to follow the book's credit, but do we really want a title recorded as an author? Do I take liberties here and use the son's name instead? Do I credit the title and make that a pseudonym? --MartyD 01:08, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this settled through the submission, but just in case anyone reads this: MartyD entered the piece as credited ("Viscount Halifax, K.G.") and made that into a variant of the author's true name. That would follow all the current ISFDB standards. MHHutchins 20:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, even though it isn't a role, it seemed analogous to "The Editor", so I went that route. --MartyD 02:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiousity: out-of-print books as eBooks?

I was wondering if this idea has already been done. I was just noticing how films would lose their copyright, would thus become public domain (i.e. Night of the Living Dead) and would easily be accessible through Archive.org or distributors at a low price (in NOTLD's case: DigiView being sold for a dollar). Would this hold true then to out-of-print books and the possibility of their appearing in eBook format?--DrWho42 18:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

We have too different ways of documenting Project Gutenberg ebooks. See this example. Most of those that are not in the database have a tag which begins with the first letter of the author's last name followed by "pg". See this example. My page has a section which links to those titles. There are also public domain ebook entries in the system which are the product of legitimate publishers. We generally try to avoid the entry of illegally produced publications.--swfritter 18:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I misunderstand the question, but are you suggesting that any book out-of-print could be subject to e-book publication? Out-of-print is not the same as out-of-copyright. There are hundreds of thousands of books that are not currently in-print, but are still copyrighted. We're talking apples and oranges. I'm wondering which fruit you're referring to. Or are you thinking about the hybrid that Google Books is concocting in its laboratory? MHHutchins 19:06, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Since the first sentence mentioned public domain I was assuming the question pertained to public domain ebooks? If that Google Books project goes through there may well be perhaps millions of out-of-print books of all types available for publication although those that are under copyright won't be free because authors and publishers will still need to be reimbursed.--swfritter 21:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Mhhutchins answered my question. I was wondering if there was a project similar to what I was talking about, but apparently Google Books have been propounding the idea.--DrWho42 16:44, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Infernally Intertwined Pseudonym Relationships

William H. Keith, Jr. and his brother Andrew Keith have collaborated many times, both acknowledged and unacknowledged in several books. I have two situations in three books that I would like to run by the vocal crowd here to see if I am falling into any pitfalls. My concern is that if I create the variants below, then each author will show up in the list of 'Used These Alternate Names' and in the 'Used As Alternate Name By' fields in a normal summary bibliography for each other (thus making the waters very murky). Two questions... am I understanding the results of these edits correctly? Is documenting the fact that they are brothers on the Wiki sufficient to help keep things clear? Kevin 02:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

  • March or Die and Honor and Fidelity were published with credit to both brothers. One has been verified. William's website indicates "My brother Andrew wrote these three. All I did was help design the aliens, but someone goofed and stuck my name on two of them as well." speaking about the 'Fifth Foreign Legion' series of books. I believe this is enough documentation to variant these two books and create a single author variant pointing at Andrew.
  • Blood of Heroes is currently indexed written by Andrew and verified, but per Williams website he indicates it was 'with J. Andrew Keith', and he claims it as a book. I believe this is enough documentation to create a dual author variant pointing to both William and Andrew.

Thanks Kevin 02:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Bump! - I'm going to go with the above if no-one comments soon. Thanks Kevin 03:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
It's been done before (someone crediting authorship based on an author's website claims), just be careful that the pub records themselves aren't changed, only the title records. And well document the source for authorship. Go for it! MHHutchins 17:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Forgot to add: I know what you mean about "incestuous pseudonyms" but when it's between two authors who actually are brothers your metaphor becomes, shall we say, "too close for comfort"? MHHutchins 17:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
That's what makes it actually appropriate (in an inappropriate way). Titled 'adjusted' for appropriateness. - Kevin 17:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Dontcha just love the English language! What's better - the Eskimos having fifty words for snow, or the English use of the same word for such varied and nuanced meanings and interpretations? MHHutchins 18:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
"Eskimos have fifty words for snow" is about as valid a claim as "Europeans have fifty words for 'dinner'". And it pales into insignificance when apparently the word "set" has four hundred and sixty-four definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary. (Another internet "fact" - I don't own a copy, I lean towards the Cambridge University definitions. Modern upstarts though Cambridge are.) English-speakers can out-confuse Eskimos/Inuits/(whatever the PC term is) any day! BLongley 23:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I have a copy right here, but I can't confirm the exact number since the definitions are not numbered sequentially. Still, the whole thing covers 25 pages, so I wouldn't be surprised if 464 was about right. Ahasuerus 23:48, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Those lazy Oxford guys and numbering... ;-) I believe my father has at least one edition of a/the fuller OED, though he qualified from Cambridge. "Chambers" is the authoritative British source for "Scrabble" though, so I have a few of those. Not much point using any dictionary here though when SF tends to create the words and the dictionaries catch up later. BLongley 00:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Ghost Authors, but not on the 'due to review' list?

I have been trying to 'complete' [William H. Keith, Jr.'s] bibliography. I found something in the database that I don't know how it got there. Two of his non-genre pseudonyms H. Jay Riker and Keith Douglass are already present and marked as pseudonyms, but with no titles present. The only scenario I can imagine that could create this scenario is that some of his non-genre works were previously in the database, and the pseudonym properly marked, and the works were later deleted leaving the pseudonyms defined for an orphan author. Two question... Anyone know of a different way (I already checked the Authors in only due to reviews list) that this situation was created? Any reasons not to enter this info and mark the works as non-genre?.. at 50 or so novels in plus assorted short fiction, I felt that he was above the 'uncertain' threshold for a complete novel length bibliography. Thanks Kevin 03:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Bump! - I'm going to go with the above if no-one comments soon. Thanks Kevin 03:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The only way I can think that these pseudonyms were created was with a publication record. But if the pub records were deleted the pseudonyms would go with them. There must be some "hidden" titles. (Don't ask me how to get to them. I don't know how to get to the records for reviews of titles by non-db authors!) I say go ahead and add the non-genre titles under these names. MHHutchins 17:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Hm, let me check my local copy of the database... Ahasuerus 17:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I can't find anything in the database that would reference these two Author records. I could try searching the main submissions file, but it's huge and unwieldy and probably not worth the effort in this case. My best guess is that there is a bug in the code that deletes pubs or titles and it doesn't always delete Author records marked as pseudonyms when the last pub/title is deleted. I concur with Michael re: adding the non-genre stuff for these two pseudonyms. Ahasuerus 20:10, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
As creator of the "Authors that only exist due to reviews" list, I wish I could do more than confirm that that isn't the issue here. But I wish I knew what was. I could experiment, but that would possibly only create more problem authors. For now, I agree with Michael and Ahasuerus - add the Non-Genre. If anyone deletes them later then at least we'll have some more info on the problem. BLongley 22:59, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I could add one and then delete it to see if that removes the author? Kevin 23:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Sure, it seems harmless enough. My latest theory is that the system works differently when deleting the last Title associated with an Author record and when deleting the last Publication (if it's a stray pub with no associated Title.) Probably worth a try too. Ahasuerus 23:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
While deleting some manga authors pages I found the strays only appeared after all the pubs with title records were gone. After deleting the stray pubs the author then disappeared. One stray author I found only by looking from the direction of the Publisher. How this would work when there's a pseudonym involved I couldn't say.Kraang 01:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I can confirm that for H. Jay Riker, the record and the psuedonym connection disappeared after adding a test pub, deleting pub, and deleting title, so there were no stray publications, it was a stray author. This seems to confirm the idea that somewhere there is a bug in the author deletion process. Thanks Kevin 16:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Bogus Poe pub?

Would anyone care to offer an opinion about THNNRRTVFR1856? I think it is a bogus publication. I believe the real publication is The Select Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume II, and "Pym" and "Eureka" are but two of the entries (or perhaps are the sole entries) in it. Here is the OCLC entry cited in the notes. This is documentation I found on the Edgar Allan Poe Society site:

The Select Works of Edgar Allan Poe, (with Griswold's memoir of Poe and an excerpt of that by N. P. Willis) 2 volumes bound as one, Leipzig: Alphons Durr, 1856. (This edition was printed as volume XIII of the Standard American Authors series, published under the superintendence of Dr. Karl Elze. It includes a selection of Poe's poems and tales, with "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" and "Eureka." A brief editorial note, introducing excerpts from the article by N. P. Willis, states "Dr. Griswold -- if these pages should ever meet his eye -- will certainly pardon the present editor for having ventured thus to tone down a highly colored picture of one of the most gifted poets of America." This comment strongly suggests that this volume was prepared without Griswold's knowledge, although the text is clearly lifted from Griswold's edition as published by J. S. Redfield except for Pym, which does not contain the various changes in Griswold's text and is instead reprinted from the American edition of 1838.)

I have not been able to find a definitive listing of either volume. I noticed this pub because it is listed as containing "Eureka", which is not the full title of the essay (it is "Eureka: a Prose Poem", as used in the pub's title). I am inclined to delete this record rather than trying to imagine how to fix it up, but I figured I can't have been the first person to run into something like this.... Thanks. --MartyD 22:06, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I tend to leave pubs alone unless they really need deleting in favour of something we already have. And even then I'd probably add a suggestion of it being vapourware first unless I really knew better. As this has "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" and anything with "Nantucket" in the title will cause amusement to limerick-lovers, I wouldn't delete just yet. BLongley 00:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, as far as we know, the publication does exist, although the only library that admits to owning a copy is the National Library of Australia, so I don't think we want to delete it. The only reference to the single word version of "Eurika" that I can find is in a secondary OCLC field, which is not supposed to be an accurate representation of what's on the title page anyway, so I would simply merge it with the main "Eurika: a Prose Poem" Title. We should also mention that the contents may be incomplete, which happens fairly often with older books and magazines. Ahasuerus 00:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Their record is for The Select Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. II, not The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym / Eureka: a prose poem as used in the pub title, although their record does include that as either a sub-title or a description (hard to tell -- do you know how to interpret the "|p" record?). Anyway, I think I will change the pub record's title to match that (making the existing title a subtitle for now, if the field is long enough), add a note, and then merge "Eureka". Coming soon to an approval queue near you. Thanks for the help. --MartyD 11:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, that's what I meant to write, but I wasn't very clear. As far as interpreting bibliographic codes goes, library catalogs mostly use the MARC21 format or one of its relatives. The Library of Congress has a page which links to detailed descriptions of each field and sub-field that are allowed in MARC21 records. Field 245 is the title field and the "p" sub-field is "Name of part/section of a work". Ahasuerus 17:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I misspoke about "Eureka", so no one get excited. I meant make it a variant -- it did appear published that way, so I have no way to know what's actually used in The Select Works. --MartyD 12:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
A follow-up on this pub: It has no title record that I can find. Before I go editing anything, how does one fix that? Thanks. --MartyD 12:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
You edit the publication and add the Omnibus as new content. (Same title and author as the publication.) I would guess this was entered as a NOVEL originally then half-changed to an omnibus - i.e. the Pub type was changed but not the title type. BLongley 13:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Authors that won't delete

This is just on example of an author that after all titles are gone won't disappear Seth Green[16]. I've tried merging them with other author names with the same problem and they still persist. Any ideas on why they appear?Kraang 18:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe try updating the author.. with a fake birth year say 2009 .. to make the system 'rewrite' the author record. Then add and delete a test title again? Then again this [Seth Green] did at least have two published works - Maybe someone thought it was SF (hah) - Kevin 19:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Tried that and a few other things, nothing worked.Kraang 20:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
I just checked the last backup (which I have installed locally) and this author is linked to Title record 774393. However, Title record 774393 doesn't exist, which suggests that there is indeed some kind of problem with Author deletion when the last associated Title/Pub record is removed. Let me write a simple script to see how many "dangling" title records we have in that table... Ahasuerus 19:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
And the answer is "there are 1,093 deleted Title records linked to Author records". 204 Author records exist solely due to these non-existing titles. Now to figure out how to fix the problem... Ahasuerus 20:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
If you find a way and it requires a one at a time approach I'll do the grunt work.Kraang 20:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh, a volunteer! Excellent! <he said rubbing his hands> Ahasuerus 21:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Foreign editions (translations) of English novels

Hi.

If I understood this page correctly foreign editions should be added as new pubs of the original (English) novel title. But the new pub's title should be the translated one - as written on the book. Did I get this right?

What about short story-collections that are complete translations of existing English collections? I'm talking especially about collections containing exactly the same stories in the same order - all by the same author.

I've found not many of such pub entries, so I'm wondering whether or not this is of any interest for other users. I do not intend to flood the DB with German pubs - my spare time is pretty limited at the moment and besides I don't own that many books at all. But I could add one from time to time if you want. Phileas 22:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Add the foreign language editions under the parent title record, which is usually the English-language edition. For example, if you were entering the German-language edition of Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise you would go to this page and click "Add Publication to This Title". The system automatically enters the title and author, so you'll have to overwrite the title field with the title of the book as it appears on the title page of the German-language edition. Then continue to fill in as many of the fields as you can. Do the same thing for collections but with one big exception: do not create new title records for contents (such as stories or essays). When you start adding new publications, and if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. MHHutchins 22:36, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Forgot to add: the translator goes in the note field, not in the author field which is for the author of the original title. MHHutchins 22:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. That's about what I had in mind. Phileas 23:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Stuart David Schiff and Whispers

I'm seeing some unusual behavior with Stuart David Schiff and with a particular issue of his magazine Whispers

  1. Schiff appears to have two records here and here. It's only when I cut and paste the links that I was able to discover what the difference is between the two, i.e. the first record has a space preceding his name. Is there a preferred way to fix this, or do we need to manually edit each record removing the leading space? --Rtrace 19:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
    I checked and his is the only author record starting with a space. I could write a script that would identify all Title records for the bad version of the name and create a submission correcting it, but since it's just one author, it's probably faster to change them manually. I have another script that finds suspicious Author records (e.g. two spaces in a row), but I haven't run it lately since I have been busy working on Fixer. Soon, though... Ahasuerus 20:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
    "two spaces in a row" is something that we can search for here already, it doesn't need a script. I do that for authors and titles occasionally. Particularly after a lot of copy'n'paste submissions where the spaces may not have been obvious in the source. "No space after a period" is doable too, but takes 26 searches and you have to let off people like "N.A.S.A.". BLongley 23:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
    There are a number of things that you can do with the regular search, but my script is much more sophisticated. It searches for initials without a period after them, all-uppercase names, etc. I just need to find some time to clean it up and get it to work with the latest version of my databases... Ahasuerus 01:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
    No negative criticism intended, I just want to separate what we can do already from what we need experts to do. Hopefully I'll become one of the experts one day, if the super-duper experts don't fix it all before I get a chance . BLongley 01:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
    Not a problem, I always assume that written communications make comments sounds harsher than they were intended  :) Ahasuerus 17:42, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
  2. I'll start off by admitting that I don't fully understand the EDITOR record yet. Especially since this help page admonishes us not to use it and says the record type is going away. However, Schiff has a title record of type Editor for Whispers #10. The title record has a pub named Whispers #11-12. What I suspect is going on here (based on what I've been able to glean about the EDITOR type from the help pages), is that every magazine has an EDITOR type, and in this case they are mismatched. Being that the title record has an award attached to it, and the pub record doesn't have any contents, it would seem that the easiest way to fix this situation would be to edit the publication to match the title record, i.e. make the publication Whispers #11-12 into Whispers #10. Whispers #11-12 could then be added as a brand new magazine creating a new pub and title (EDITOR?) record. Happily, I've got both the issues at hand (and I'll add the date while I'm in there). I just want to make sure I'm approaching this the right way.

Thanks.

--Rtrace 19:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

To fix 1, editing each record is safest. The completely wrong way would to be to edit the author with the leading space to remove the space - you'd end up with two identical authors and ISFDB would hide one of them. The middle way would be to do an author merge - but that screen doesn't show which one would be kept, and there's a variant of one of them. So I'd recommend record-by-record if you're going to be working on some of his publications anyway. BLongley 20:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
As for 2: yes, changing #11-12 to #10 will be OK. EDITOR is a sort of Title record for Magazines, but it gets used in different ways: for instance, we'll often have the same EDITOR record in multiple Magazines. (Not like here, though.) We sometimes group long runs of Magazines by merging all the EDITOR records for a given year together and retitling it with a more generic name: for instance, see 999627 - one editor record for an entire year of Interzone, which makes David Pringle's page a bit more manageable. BLongley 20:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
That Help page was rather misleading, so I have changed it to explain that EDITOR Title Types are (typically) not entered manually and that our software creates them automatically for new Magazine publications. Ahasuerus 20:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I merged the two author records for Schiff (had not seen this discussion at the time), but when there was another submission for another issue of Whispers, all of the new records created another EXACTLY-NAMED author, which I merged again. What's the deal with this name and why do new records create a new author and not merge with the existing author? MHHutchins 22:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Just created a test pub and it created a Stuart David Schiff. Freaky bug or what? MHHutchins 22:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I believe the Author Merge screen doesn't display leading spaces (if any) in the author's name, so when you merged the regular "Schiff" with the space-enabled Schiff, everything got moved to the space-enabled version. I first changed the "spacey" version to "test Stuart David Schiff" and then merged it with the regular Schiff and everything seems to be OK now. Spaces -- leading, trailing, duplicate, etc -- are troublesome since the software doesn't display them well, which makes it hard to see the underlying problem. Ahasuerus 22:34, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Yep, the fact that the author-merge wouldn't show which author would be retained is why I advised against it. I could only find one other author in my last loaded backup with the leading space problem and it turned out to be all blank. So I've changed that to literally "Blank". But now we have authors 37486, 109663 and 112137 with that name. We should probably establish why we're getting such (reviewees by pseudonymous reviewers might be a related problem) as obviously many people don't know how to fix them. And I for one don't know how to find them except from the backups - which I'm reminded I should refresh while ISFDB is up. BLongley 23:01, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Which reminds me that I posted the latest version of the ISFDB backup file a couple of hours ago :) Ahasuerus 01:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
OK, I shall discard the one I downloaded three hours ago. :-/ What is the schedule these days? Given the limitations of the Web API, I'm scared to submit anything automated from the backups unless I'm pretty sure they're up-to-date. BLongley 01:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
I try to generate a new backup file and upload it every weekend, usually on Saturdays. I have automated much of the process, but the elapsed time is still significant due to the size of the files involved. Ahasuerus 01:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ballantine in US/UK

As many of you know, I have been trying to teach Fixer to combine data from Amazon.com and Amazon UK to create a single submission. Unfortunately, it's not a simple task since the same ISBN/ASIN can have two different:

  • prices (to be expected)
  • publishers (when another publisher distributes the book on the other side of the pond)
  • authors (different capitalization, different middle initials, etc)
  • titles (usually due to misspellings)
  • bindings (different coding conventions)
  • etc

I have made some progress, but it's a major pain.

My current conundrum is Alexis A. Gilliland's Lord of the Troll-Bats. The ISFDB record states that it was published by Del Rey/Ballantine and that the ISBN was 0-345-37467-3. Amazon UK lists what appears to be the same book -- although it mangles the author and the title -- but the ISBN is 0099192810. According to Publisher:Ballantine, Ballantine's book have been distributed in the UK as by Pan and Futura, but do we know whether they assigned new ISBNs to them? TIA! Ahasuerus 22:10, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I see the Publisher:Ballantine page was created by DES. I suspect that was just because he was an expert in creating Wiki pages, which most of us weren't when he arrived. I see no evidence that Ballantine have actually been distributed by Pan or Futura - "distribution" doesn't tend to lead to anything noted on the publication here in the UK. Exceptions might be "World Distributors" (of London, or Manchester, depending on how you read title and copyright pages and addresses) and "Titan". But the hybrids he created don't seem to actually exist any more? BLongley 01:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
The Amazon.uk listing must be a mistake. OCLC has only one record, the Del Rey/Ballantine 0-345-37467-3. Abebooks.com only has two listings for the 0-09-91 ISBN (and one of them has a non-stock photo of the pub which unmistakably has catalog number 37467). That prefix (0-09) belongs to Legend/Arrow which are/were distributed by Random House (same as Ballantine). Perhaps the US printing was distributed in the UK, assigned a new ISBN, but not overprinted (maybe stickered?). MHHutchins 22:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Both of the Abebooks.com dealers are UK based. MHHutchins 22:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
It's been a while since I bought imported new US books (there's little point now most publishers are global), but even when I did the sticker tended to have the same ISBN on the sticker as underneath. Only the price was changed. I don't have this book, but if you can give an example of a more current book I can go check what's available in stores at the moment. BLongley 23:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
As to other differences: "different middle initials" may NOT be an error. I've said many times, for example, that Dean Koontz and Stephen Donaldson do NOT always have a middle "R". I don't collect either, but I'm willing to go check some examples if you think the same ISBN is getting different results in different countries. BLongley 23:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, "different middle initials etc" was shorthand for "all kinds of headaches". Here are some random example of the US/UK differences:

Arthur Conan Doyle vs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

P. B. Kerr vs. Philip Kerr

Val Thame vs. Valerie Thame

Harry, G. Haberman vs. Harry G. Haberman

William Shatner vs. William Shatner+Judith Reeves-Stevens+Garfield Reeves-Stevens

Betsy Cromer Byars vs. Betsy Byars

R.L. Stine vs. Carolyn Crimi (sic!)

R.l. Stine vs. R. L. Stine

Clark Ashton Smith vs. Robert M. Price (sic!)

Jack G. Voller vs. Voller

Geaorge R. R. Martin vs. Clive Barker+Lisa Tuttle+Ramsey Campbell (sic!!!)

JHHK vs. Alicia Coston

In other words, there are so many discrepancies and they are so pervasive that I can't handle them programmatically. The best I can do is to use the publisher (or some other field if we can find a better one) to guess the book's country of origin, populate all submission fields from that country's store and move the other country's discrepant data to Moderator Notes. The sooner I teach Fixer how to do this with minimal intervention from me, the more sanity I will keep for what appears to be much more interesting work on library catalogs :) Ahasuerus 01:24, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
And for bindings - well, the UK has long had a difference over "trade" versus "mass market" paperback versions. The trade size is actually more "mass-market" here (as in "more generally available") - than the standard paperback size. Bookshops will handle hc, tp, and pb - supermarkets might stock the tp size but not think the pb size with smaller margins worthwhile. Amazon UK doesn't really help unless it gives dimensions - they're just "paperback" normally. I hate it when I get a tp and expected a pb. I've bought some clothes entirely on the basis of whether I can fit a paperback in the pockets. And I'm not burly enough to wear jackets that can cope with tps. BLongley 23:33, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
I might need to clarify that "smaller margins" means "profit margins", not "area around the text that you can scrawl notes in". BLongley 23:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
Upon further review it looks like this Amazon UK record was in error, so it has been rejected. Ahasuerus 17:48, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

More Whispers

First, thanks to all who helped correct the Stuart David Schiff records. I was certainly willing to manually edit them, but they were all fixed by the time I got back to do more edits.

I'm not sure if this question is more approropriate for Rules and Standards, but posting it here as a continuation of the previous Whispers discussion. I have three issues of Whispers (#19-20, #21-22 and #23-24) that were issued in a limited, signed and numbered state. Essentially, the perfect bound "magazine" was placed in a cloth binding with a limitation statement and signatures on the end paper. I had intended to treat these the same way I would a book, i.e. clone the "trade" edition making a new pub under the title for the limited state. However, the software won't let me do that. My assumption is that I am prevented because of the EDITOR type of the title record. My questions are:

  1. Should we make additional pubs for variant states of magazines?
  2. If so, is this accomplished by editing the title to a different type, then cloning, then reverting the title record back to EDITOR when done; or some other method? Also, would a pub type of HC be appropriate in this instance (as opposed to Digest).

Thanks for your help. --Rtrace 03:33, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I created those placeholder records this morning, after coming back and seeing that you'd added some of the missing issues and contents to others.
  1. Yes, these variants should be entered as new records.
  2. Unfortunately, magazines are not clone-able. (Because of the lack of a title reference record for magazine-typed pubs.) But you've already figured out how to get around it. You change the pub's type from magazine to anthology, but remember to change it back once it's been cloned. You'll also have to clean-up the editor records after the new pub has been cloned. This is a multi-step process that will be difficult for a non-moderator, but if you're up to it, I can lead you through it.
MHHutchins 04:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm certainly willing to give it a try and I've submitted the first round of edits (changing the pubs to anthologies).--Rtrace 04:16, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
We'll do one together and you'll see if it's too much trouble. I'll lead you through. Next step: add a editor record to the changed to anthology pub. 1.) Edit this pub. 2.) Under "Content" click "Add Title". 3.) In the title field enter "Whispers #21-22", in the type field choose "Editor" , in the Author1 field, enter "Stuart David Schiff". 4.) Submit
MHHutchins 04:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Done, though that's not what I expected the next step to be (thus the delay)--Rtrace 04:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
You're right. I screwed up. Instead of an editor record, I should have told you to create a title reference record. Let's do this again. 1.) Edit the record. 2.) Under contents choose "Add Title". 3.) Enter "Whispers #21-22" in the title field, choose "Anthology" in the pull-down type, and "Stuart David Schiff" in the Author1 field. MHHutchins 04:31, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Now it's clone-able. Do that and when we've created the new pub, we'll go over cleaning up the editor records. MHHutchins 04:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Clone submitted--Rtrace 04:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
You'll have to change the new pub to "hc", add the price if you know it, and change it's type back to "magazine". Also change the type of the original record. MHHutchins 04:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Done. Alas, I don't have a price for them.
Next step: Remove the extraneous title record. Choose "Remove titles from this pub", and then check the box for "Whispers #21-22, ANTHOLOGY, Stuart David Schiff". Do this for both pubs. MHHutchins 04:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
That's it. If you look at the editor record on Stuart David Schiff's summary page for "Whispers #21-22", you'll only see one title listed. But if you go to one of the stories, The Bone Wizard for example, you'll see two pubs, one digest and the other hardcover. Do you feel like doing the other two issues now? MHHutchins 05:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)If you don't mind approving them, I'll start submitting the next steps.--Rtrace 05:15, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Two Titles with the Same Pub

I have been trying to clean up this title. When I started the title was listed as an Omnibus with the title Behold the Man and Other Stories. The pubs listed are primarily the novel Behold the Man. I recall that there were 3 pubs listed that were true omnibus (there may have been 2, if my actions caused a third to be created) and my thinking was that it would be easier to unmerge the omnibus pubs, edit the original title to be the novel, and merge the new titles created by the unmerge. This last step is where I'm running into a problem. When I attempt to merge this title with this other title, I get a warning because they both contain this pub. I'm not sure what the best way to fix this would be. Should I ignore the warning and proceed with the merge cleaning up any issues after it is complete? There is also a third title to be merged and the shared pub seems to be missing its eponymous novel record, but I know how to handle these and will do so after I figure out the merge.--Rtrace 05:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

You've run into the "one pub with two title records" situation. You'll need to remove one of the title records from the pub, and because title records for collections, omnibus and anthologies are hidden when edited you'll have to change the type of one of the title records. Doing this will cause it to show up on the list of removable records when you use the "Remove Titles from This Publication Tool". I usually change one to a POEM so it stands out from the other records (unless it's a book of poems!) Choose either one of the records and then "Edit Title Data", change the title type from OMNIBUS to POEM and submit. Once you've removed the record you'll have to delete it from the system as it will have no pubs associated with it. (It will also stick out like a sore thumb on the author's summary page!) MHHutchins 13:35, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
BTW this was caused when someone changed the content record Behold the Man to Behold the Man and Other Stories, duplicating the name of the title reference record with a content record. Now that the second one has been dropped from the pub, you'll have to edit the pub to add the novel content record. MHHutchins 14:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Ahh, that explains why the novel was missing. Thanks for your help in cleaning this one up.--Rtrace 15:38, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Variant behavior 101?

I realized there are far more pressing issues in the world, but I think I need help or an explanation about variant titles. Poe has a bunch of titles that change over time and also change the author credit over time. In the simple case, I have a title, say "Bon-Bon" with author Edgar Allan Poe. I subsequently record "Bon-Bon" by Edgar A. Poe (set up as a pseudonym), and the bibliography display shows me something like: 

Bon-Bon (1832) [as by Edgar A. Poe]

I now find an earlier publication of this story has the title "The Bargain Lost". So I make a parent for the existing Edgar Allan Poe "Bon-Bon" title, and now the bibliographic display shows me something like: 

The Bargain Lost (1832)
  o Variant Title: Bon-Bon (1832)
  o Variant Title: Bon-Bon (1832) [as by Edgar A. Poe]

Ok, I think I see what happened: making the new parent made it the parent of both existing titles. Fine, but not really right. So I now go and make the Edgar A. Poe "Bon-Bon" be a variant of the Edgar Allan Poe "Bon-Bon" as I had it originally. And the bibiliographic display gives me: 

The Bargain Lost (1832)
  o Variant Title: Bon-Bon (1832)

with no mention of the Edgar A. Poe variant. Only if I go to the Edgar Allan Poe "Bon-Bon" title do I see the Edgar A. Poe variant. Everything seems to be inter-related correctly, and the contents of the Edgar A. Poe pub with the Bon-Bon content looks the way I think it should.

Is this set up correctly and just too bad about the bibliographic display? Or should there be just one level of variant, with everything having a common parent, despite the then-duplicated identical titles with different authors?

Thanks. --MartyD 22:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Much of what you've encountered has to do with how the software displays variants, but one thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't make a variant of a variant. As you've discovered, that will cause various display issues. You must first determine the canonical title record and have all subsequent changes in either title or author be a variant of that ONE record. MHHutchins 22:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
More re-reparenting is in my future, I see. Thanks for the explanation. --MartyD 22:56, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
And now a follow-up question. Since I've moved on to Variants 102, it's a multi-parter. I was under the impression that when dealing with a pseudonym, we want to record a work as published under the pseudonym, then make a variant of that same title under the canonical author even though the title might not ever have been published using the canonical author's name. Is that understanding of what should be done correct? If so, do we still want to do that in a case such as the one above, where now we end up with three title records: the parent title w/canonical author, the actual title w/pseudonym, and the actual title w/canonical author -- neither linked to any publication nor directly to the title record that led to its creation? Or should the actual title/canonical author piece be omitted (or deleted) if the actual title/pseudonym is going to be a variant of a different title? (I hope this makes sense). --MartyD 23:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
It's already established that "Edgar Allan Poe" will be/is the name of the canonical author record. All pieces (stories/poems/essays) will have a parent record as by "Edgar Allan Poe" even if there is no publication with that byline (unusual but possible). Next we must establish the canonical title of every piece. That will become the name of the parent title record. Every publication of that piece will be listed when a user clicks on the parent title record. If a piece is published under another authorship or another title, a variant will be created that will link it back to that one (parent) title. Is the first appearance always the parent title? Not necessarily. You must decide for the database users what the parent title will be, but common sense and a general knowledge of an author's work will be your guidelines. If "The Tell-Tale Heart" first appeared as "Revenge of the Murdered Soul" you wouldn't make that first title the parent title record, because 99% of users will look for "The Tell-Tale Heart". If the story was first published as by "Edgar A. Poe", a parent title should be created and have "Edgar Allan Poe" as the author. If we wind up with three (or ten) variants it shouldn't matter because publications of the story will be listed when clicking the parent title. To answer your last question, it depends on what you call the actual title. As the editor you decide what the parent title is, even if there has never been a publication with that story/author combination. Once you've decided what the parent record is, the system won't allow you to delete it if variants exists. You'll have to break the variant relationship first (give "0" as the variant record number.) Hope this answers your question. MHHutchins 00:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia

This is in "The Butcher's Bill" it is corrected from this "Introduction: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia" which is here [17] . Obviously, "Foreword: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia (The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 1)" was the variant, but it should now go to the corrected [18] . After deleting the Introduction version, I submitted an "unmerge" for all three components, under the assumption that once they were separated all I would need do is make the others a variant. Since this was 'rejected', what is the least entangling method to right the situation? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:59, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the reject list, the reason given is that the field was empty. This means you were under the wrong variant when you submitted the unmerge. (There are no pubs under this title record.) It's actually better not to unmerge contents from publications. Use the "remove titles from this pub" tool. The "unmerge" tool should only be used to separate pubs from titles. This isn't clear in the help pages and the function should be disabled for content removal. (That's an opinion.)
First thing to do is to break the original variant relationship. Go to either title record Introduction: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia or Foreword: Becoming a Professional Writer by Way of Southeast Asia (The Complete Hammer's Slammers: Volume 1) and choose "make this title a variant" and enter "0" (zero) in the parent # field. BTW, this last title's appendix is entirely superfluous. If an introduction has a title it isn't necessary to add the title of the book. A book's title is appended only if it has a generic title ("Introduction", "Foreword", "Afterword", etc.) Once the submission is accepted and the variant is broken, delete any title records that don't have pubs. Then create another variant with the older title becoming the parent title. MHHutchins 15:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks greatly. Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Braided stories

I was starting to fill out the contents on Busted Flush, and I found this is a more complex work than i had expected. The copyright page lists 10 stories by 9 authors. There is no ToC. The title page calls this a "Mosaic novel". I call it an anthology with briaded stories -- It reminds me of the Merovingen Nights books.

To be more specific, most (perhaps all, i'm not done with the book yet) of the stories included have multiple sections, which are indicacted in different ways. "The Tear of Nepthys" has "The First Tear: Isis" and the 2nd and 3rd. "Double Helix" has several (many) sections of the form "Double Helix: Subtitle in several words". "Political Science" has "Political Science 101", "Political Science 201", etc. "Dirge in a Major Key" has "Dirge in a Major Key: Part I", "Dirge in a Major Key: Part II", etc. Then whe have the storie listed on the copyright page as "Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda" which never appears as an entity on an individual title page, inst4ead three are three stories entitled "Shoulda", "Coulda", and "Woulda" all by the same author.

My inclination is to enter each section as a separate shortfiction title. Note that the separate parts of a story are generally non-contiguous. That is, we have story A, part1, then story B, Part 1, etc, before getting back to the 2nd part of story A, nor is the order or number of parts the same for different stories. If I enter each "story" only once, the page numbers will be highly misleading. There is no way, aside from notes, that I can see to indicate the obviously intended linkage of the individual stories listed on the copyright page. Without notes, even the author credits don't do this, as some authors have more than one credit on the copyright page.

Comments on this situation would be welcome. -DES Talk 17:43, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like R.R. is at it again. Here's what I did for one of the early Wild Cards "novels". For Down & Dirty I did it this way, while someone else did the second printing of the same book another way. MHHutchins 18:07, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the first method looks the best. The second method is a little too complex while the third is a little too simplistic.--swfritter 15:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure of your meaning. I only suggested two methods: 1) Each section as a separate work; 2) Each copyrighted story as a separate work, with a single entry, and possibly notes to spell out the pagination of later sections. I cant see what third method would be reasonable. I am inclining to the first of these: each story section as a separate work. I have partly entered this along those lines. -DES Talk 15:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I was referring to MHHutchins' examples.--swfritter 17:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
The first two examples were really the same method. (It's just that the stories are even more interwoven in the second book.) The last example I gave was how another editor did a later edition of the second example. So I think you're saying that you preferred my method, recording exactly how the stories are broken up with the book. Right? MHHutchins 17:39, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I must admit I pretty much went cross-eyed at the second example, hopefully worst case. If they were as simple as the first example I would say a very positive yes. The biblio pages for the authors are going to look a little odd but I can't think of any other way to accurately display the the contents.--swfritter 18:35, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I wound up entering the various story segments as separate stories, with notes. See the results at Busted Flush. I considered using series to unify each braided story, but there are already a good many sub-series for WildCards, and i don't know this series well enough to be sure i wasn't messing things up. -DES Talk 17:18, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

How to record a standalone Essay?

I've come across the original Eureka: A Prose Poem by "Edgar A. Poe". In author Edgar Allan Poe we already have the title Eureka: A Prose Poem and some variants as Essay, due to its publication in various collections. Essay seems to be the appropriate type for the content (see this scan if you want to judge for yourself). But this version of the work was published standalone, and there is no pub type of Essay. What's the preferred way to record this? Make a Nonfiction pub and make the title type be Essay (if that's even allowed)? Make a non-fiction pub and title and change the existing title types? Something else? Thanks. --MartyD 10:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

A nonfiction work can contain one or more essays, just like a collection or anthology contains stories. look at ISOWN1967 for an example. Or you could use the CHAPTERBOOK type for this, or make it a one-item collection. Having looked at the beginning of this via your scan link essay is reasonable, although there is a lihtly fictionalized cover which would support an argument for "shortfiction". I would myself incline to go with a non-fiction publication, containing 1 essay. But other 4 methods could well be defended. -DES Talk 15:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree with DES assessment that NONFICTION would be the best approach. Using this type gets you around the CHAPTERBOOK pitfall (reverting to ANTHOLOGY if a subsequent edit is made on the record.) MHHutchins 17:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Poe collection pub title and type

Moderators everywhere will be thrilled to know I'm up to 1850's The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe. This was a four-volume set, with the first two published nearly together in early 1850, the third in the fall of 1850, and a fourth in 1856. The title page of the first volume has this structure: 

                  THE WORKS
                   OF THE LATE
              EDGAR ALLAN POE:
                     WITH
         NOTICES OF HIS LIST AND GENIUS
                      BY
 N. P. WILLIS, J. R. LOWELL, AND R. W. GRISWOLD
                IN TWO VOLUMES
              ------------------
                    VOL. I
                 T A L E S.
              ------------------

The "by" credit is somewhat misleading. This is really a Poe collection. Willis and Lowell contributed introductory "notices", essays about Poe. Griswold is the editor. What do we think about a title for this pub? The most meaningful title would probably be something like The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. I: Tales. FWIW, the second volume's title page is the same, with "TALES" replaced by "POEMS AND MISCELLANIES". The third volume is completely different (doesn't even refer to "Works"), and the fourth is similar but has an additional "with ... by ..." for Griswold and drops his name from the "Notices" part and just uses "IV." with no "Vol." label. I will make canonical title records in the "..., Vol. X: xxxx" format. I'm wondering to what extremes I should go in recording the pub's title as printed on the page. (Also, should this be an omnibus because of the introductory, non-editor essays?) --MartyD 11:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Lots of more recent SF single-auhtor collections have introductory essays by someone other than the author, and are not changed from collections thereby. Look at TBSTRNDL198 for an example. If there were fiction by another author I would make it an anthology, but not an omnibus unless at least one of the pieces was ov novel-length, or had been previously published as a separate work.
I read the title page as having the "by" apply to "notices" anyway, si don't find it too misleading. I would standardize the titles, probably as ''The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. nn: subtitle but it is up to you. You cna always add notes about the exact form of the title page if you think warrented, or even a link to a scan if one is freely available online, or if you upload one to the ISFDB. Anyway, that is my personal view. -DES Talk 15:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Script request

I've been (randomly) going through the database looking for magazine records that don't have editor records. Is it possible that a script can be written that can find such records and a list generated for a side project for those of us who have so little to do? :) Thanks in advance. MHHutchins 17:31, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I've done one of those already. And fixed a few years of titles, so I'll exclude those here as the backup is a bit old. And I'll exclude the unknowns so you'll have some clue as to which editor to put in. 
select DISTINCT pu.pub_id, pu.pub_tag, pu.pub_title 
from pubs pu, pub_authors pa, authors a
where pu.pub_id = pa.pub_id
and pa.author_id = a.author_id
and a.author_canonical != 'unknown'
and pu.pub_title NOT like 'The New York Review of Science Fiction%'
and pu.pub_title NOT like 'Omni%'
and pu.pub_title NOT like 'Interzone%'
and pub_ctype in ( 'MAGAZINE', 'FANZINE' ) and
         not exists (select * from titles t, pub_content pc
                     where pu.pub_id = pc.pub_id and
                           pc.title_id = t.title_id and
                           t.title_ttype = 'EDITOR')
order by pub_year;

BLongley 18:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Page created, with hyperlinks to make it a little easier. Feel free to break it up into smaller chunks. BLongley 18:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the fine job. I've broken it into sections in case more than one editor wants to work on it at the same time. I've also marked those pubs that I'd already created editor records for, assuming that you created the list from a version earlier than yesterday morning. Thanks. MHHutchins 23:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Lost Publication

I cloned DMSDYWPN1979 in an attempt to create a record for the 4/79 printing (ISBN 0-523-40566-9). The new pub appears to be listed correctly on the title page: 10599. However, clicking through to the publication takes you to a publication for a different title by the same author DCTRWHNDT22222222223333333338197. Clearly, something has gone awry here. There is also an introductory essay 1006353 which also appears to have the correct pub on the title page, but links to the incorrect pub. Any thoughts on how to fix this? Thanks.--Rtrace 22:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

You have encountered a problem I was aware of and fixed a lot of (but obviously not enough). You may have noticed that Publication tags vary a lot - e.g. some are "BKTGnnnnn", some are "DCTRWHNDTxxxxxx" - at times the publication Tag is created as the beginning of the title, with vowels removed, capitalised, then a unique identifier added (involving the year, maybe). What you have encountered here is a Pub Tag at maximum length (32 characters) so when you clone it doesn't create a Unique Tag. So a lot of the links that work with publication Tags rather than Publication IDs (which are unique) are picking up the first Pub they find with that Tag. BLongley 22:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
The temporary solution is to edit the Pub Tags to something unique and shorter. I suspect not just in this case, but for all Pubs presently with Maximum Length Tags. I think the huge number of "Doctor Who and the" pub titles meant something broke and created some really weird long Tags (there's definitely not 22,222,222,223,333,333,338,197 of them) so the Tag generation was changed in new pubs but not in clone pubs. I feel another project coming on.... :-/ BLongley 22:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm... it gets weirder. My local ISFDB can't reproduce the problem but gives big Purple Python errors instead. Definitely needs attention, but not tonight. I need to look at how the Tags are being generated, I'm not sure they're coming from the Pub Tag you clone, maybe from a pub under the title you clone or something. BLongley 23:43, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Oh, no hurry on this. I'm actually off to a convention for most of the weekend, and physically away from the book in question. I'd just set it aside anyway until we can figure out the best way to fix it. I probably should have cloned a pub with a closer title, but I usually look for something close in date and publisher. Thanks for looking into this.--Rtrace 23:48, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I think I see what it's doing. The "random characters" added to Tags aren't that random and for titles like this there is an extremely finite set of possibilities, a lot of which are along paths that are exhausted. In this case the default tag is DCTRWHNDTH1979 but that's taken. The software then cycles through 20 possible consonants to use as the last letter i.e. DCTRWHNDTB1979 through DCTRWHNDTZ1979 (missing out DCTRWHNDTY1979). These are all taken. Then it gives up using the letters and uses the 'try' number, for DCTRWHNDT201979. That's taken. For some reason it doesn't reset the try number so it doesn't start at 'B' again: and it doesn't recognise that it's added two characters rather than one, so it keeps the first digit and tries DCTRWHNDT2211979. That's taken. Next is DCTRWHNDT22221979, DCTRWHNDT222231979, DCTRWHNDT2222241979, etc. It rapidly runs out at DCTRWHNDT22222222223333333371979. The oddity is that the live ISFDB can then go onto to DCTRWHNDT22222222223333333338197 so there's obviously a limit applied there that isn't in the code from Sourceforge. But we're getting collisions and the tags need to be more random. I'll see what I can do. BLongley 13:49, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
Bug 2795822 recorded and partial fix submitted. BLongley 14:23, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that Al improved the tag generation logic shortly before he became unavailable. I wonder if that change didn't make it to Sourceforge, which raises another question: what else may be on the live server that is not in Sourceforge? Ahasuerus 21:27, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
It might be time to recover the code from the live server and do some comparisons. Assuming the source is there? BLongley 21:46, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
We can (and should anyway) compare the installed files from the live server to an installation of the SourceForge files. We'll be able to recover any missing source changes from that, even if the source files are not present. --MartyD 01:35, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
All files in the CGI directory have been zipped up and sent to the usual suspects, er, I mean the development team. Ahasuerus 03:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
The publications all look good now. Thanks. --Rtrace 18:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Sticky Deletes

I've just submitted a third attempt to delete contents from this pub. With each attempt more titles appear to be deleted, but not all the ones I've marked. In fact, with this latest submission, there were four titles left to delete, all of which I marked, yet it appears in the confirmation XML that only two of the four requested deletes were actually submitted. I'm not precisely asking for help here, but wanted to report that the delete titles from pub tool is behaving oddly. I'll keep submitting until they're all gone. Thanks.--Rtrace 03:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I Do believe you have found some secret limit in the system for contents. Whew 400+ Contents Items. I'll see if Can delete them one at a time for you. Kevin 03:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
But is Rtrace trying to remove all of them, in which case Delete Pub would work better, or just a subset? Ahasuerus 04:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Bug Confirmed. It appears that attempting to delete items past 400 in the alphabetical list of contents causes 'problems'. When attempting to remove contents both before and after SOME LIMIT (Presumed to be 400) some of the removals happen and others get dropped. Bug #2: When attempting to remove a single or a multiple item from above SOME LIMIT in the alphabetical list of contents, the Moderator Approval page is Blank for what we are approving. I have submitted a single edit to remove the last two titles you want gone from this Pub, and placed it on hold for the more knowledgable moderators to have a look see at. Thanks! Kevin 04:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I was going to post on the moderator board, but since Ahasuerus is on the case now, I'll just leave it in his capable hands. (And I just noticed that it's not 400 items - it's just up to 400 pages and it felt like 400 items as I scrolled - A quick count yielded 217, so perhaps the problem is deleting more than one at a time above 100, and deleting anything above 200 items in a contents listing. Kevin 04:20, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
No, not trying to remove all the titles, just the ones that I marked "delete". Howard and Lovecraft are listed with their full names in the book, so this is a delete and add with the variant name. Thanks for everyone's help.--Rtrace 04:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
The bug/limit is in /edit/submitrm.py - "while entry < 200". There 's a 200 limit on titles, 200 on reviews, and 100 on interviews. Easy fix: just decide what the limits really should be. I guess we need over 500 to cope with things like this. BLongley 09:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone think of a good reason to have a limit? --MartyD 09:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
3 infinite loops would take a long time to run? ;-) BLongley 12:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I will eventually have over 2500 reviews in this pub.--swfritter 13:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Can the code be something like "while entry < maxEntry+1", having previously read MaxEntry from the current state of the DB pub record? or doesn't that work? -DES Talk 15:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
At one point I asked Al whether there were any limits on the number of Titles in a Pub and he responded that there should be none (although it may take a while to file a pub with 10,000 Titles), so I assume that the limit should be removed. Ahasuerus 17:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Can be done, but it's no longer an easy fix ("change some numbers, make them bigger"), just a small fix if you don't look at potential other (unlikely) consequences. I think DES is on the right lines, but there's three MaxEntry values to derive. Fairly simple SQL - selecting COUNT(*) for a particular title type in pub_content for the pub_id in each case. Unless somebody plans on trying to break the limits anytime soon, just changing the limits to 999 in each case has worked locally fine for me for now. Finding whether there's other limits involved rather than just in this script would take longer, and need some major stress testing. BLongley 21:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Real life example: at work I removed some limits on the amount of expected data from a "calls to a particular telephone number" query. Works fine for 99.9% of all queries. Not so good when you consider how many people call customer services each day, or the emergency services. And I found that it wasn't just the slow-down from massive results that was a problem, I found limits in the Oracle database software itself - more than 64K XML nodes and it broke. (There was a 64k limit on each node too, but that didn't affect us.) But "unlimited" is dangerous. BLongley 21:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Any idea what the high realistic limit is? I will not be entering the entire 2500 reviews anytime soon; it will probably take me more than a year as I am only processing two pages a day.--swfritter 22:26, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Entering shouldn't be a problem, but I can go check if there's any obvious limit on that. (But I'm not an expert on ISFDB coding in any way yet, I'm strictly "can grab low-hanging fruit" so far.) This problem only affects removing titles. So if you get them all perfectly right, no worries AFAICS. By the time you exceed 999 titles I should know more: if people don't go for the quick fix then worry if you make a mistake after the 200th title. But there's probably workarounds for that too - the API might allow deletions that the Web interface can't deal with. And 2500+ titles in a pub is probably a concern for our bandwidth-challenged users anyway. In this case, Rtrace has a current problem - we could of course give the Tommy Cooper response "It hurts if I do this - Well, don't do that then." But there's a quick fix, an equally quick fix for your future problem (let's make it 9,999), and a future-proof fix. I know my local server doesn't worry about counting to 200, 200 and 100 much, and 999, 999 and 999 are fine. But only I use that. Can our live server cope with many users doing such? BLongley 23:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I can propose a workaround that I believe will work: Temporarily change the titles to something that comes earlier in the collating sequence (prepend an underscore?). Then delete (since they now sort within the limit). Then revert the titles to what they should be. I haven't tried that yet (nor have I done the make variants that are still required) so that I don't muddy the situation while folks are still looking into it. I've got it sitting in my "more to be done" pile and it can sit there for a while longer if needed.--Rtrace 02:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Poe's collected reviews -- content volume handling

The bulk of The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe,Vol. III is a series of short-ish passages, mostly identified by a person's name. See [19]. The first group of 3+ dozen was published as a 6-part series ("The Literati of New York City"). These are presented with no over-arching title, each having a separator and the person's name in small-relative-to-other-headers font. They are sketches of individuals. The next group of another 3 dozen or so is reviews. Some are of books or other substantial works, some are of smaller works such as poems. Except for the fact that they were written by Poe, they have nothing to do with SF. They are mostly titled using the reviewed author's name, sometimes a bit more, in normal header-sized font; starts can be in the middle of a page, however.

Rather than creating separate content entries for the sketches (which were never published separately), I took a small liberty and made a single "The Literati..." content entry to cover those, documenting it as untitled in the notes. (Here's your chance to object!)

Does anyone have an opinion about the reviews? Do we want them captured separately? Unlike the sketches, these were published separately elsewhere (although determining when and where is going to be difficult or impossible in some cases). Is there something clever and space-saving I could do that wouldn't be too much of a deviation from ISFDB Standard? Thanks. --MartyD 11:30, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Well you could, if th4ese are reveiws of non-SF works, as I tke them to be, simply list them as "The reviews" or "Poe's Reviews" or some such as a group, much as you did for "The Literati..." again documenting that this is an invented group title in the notes, and ignore the separate pubs of what are, after all non-ge nre non-fiction. -DES Talk 15:48, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

dating / numbering interpretation on library edition

I've got a Scribner's library edition of Heinlein's Red Planet (actually Red Planet: A Colonial Boy on Mars), illustrated by Clifford Geary. The only explicit date is the 1949 copyright. But the copyright page has this cryptic code where a line number or pub date might be: 

L-4.66[V]

Does anyone know what that means? I'm sort of wondering if it is "Library, April 1966, fifth printing". Or perhaps it means something else entirely or is pure gibberish. Thanks. --MartyD 15:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

The Library of Congress Classification system assigns the letter "L" to "Education" (warning - a PDF file). Since Red Planet was a juvenile, I suppose it could be seen as "educational material", although the LOC catalog entry puts the first edition under "science fiction" (PZ7.H368 Re). Ahasuerus 15:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
It's a Scribner's code. The first letter is the printing # with A being 1st, 4.66 is the month and year of printing. I'm pretty sure "[V]" is for the Juvenile series. This coding was used from 1929 to 1973. Often times for the "A" printings they copyright page also had a seal. A quick scan finds these for Red Planet: 1st A, 8th H-6.59[V], 10th J-?-62[V], 12th L-4.66[V], 13th M-7.67[V], 15th 0-1.72(V). Prior to 1929 and for a long time after this the title page had the printing date. After 1973 they used a number line. --Marc Kupper|talk 01:31, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Someone certainly earned his bibliography merit badge. Thank you! --MartyD 01:49, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Advanced search and multiple pages of results

When I do an Advanced Search with multiple criteria and there are more than 2 pages of results, it appears to drop all but the last criterion after the 2nd page. For instance, if I search by Title_type = 'NOVEL' and Year = '1966', on page 3 (200-299) it will start showing other title types than Novel but will retain the 1966 criterion. If I use Title_type = 'NOVEL', Year = '1966', Title_type = 'NOVEL' (again), on the third page it will start showing other years than 1966 but will continue filtering on Novel. The first two pages of search results appear to use all the criteria. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment added by Connelly (talk • contribs) 11:03, 16 June 2009

There are known to be several bugs in the Advanced search logic, i am afraid. I have encountered this error also. As you can see on Development, work on advanced search is already planned. Bug 1836458 deals with the "AND NOT" search, which does not currently work. This may be an instance of Bug 2797518. Bug 2797544 also deals with advanced search.
Ah! I have now found Bug 2799421 - Adv. Search with multiple parameters: param ignored on p. 3 which seems to be exactly what you are reporting. It appears that User:Roglo is working on this, see Development#Roglo.
I fear that i can't think of a good workaround for this until code fixes have been made, but at least fixes seem to be in progress. You can see the current bug list if you wish.
I hope this is helpful. -DES Talk 16:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh by the way, please sign discussion page msges (like this one) with four tildes (~~~~). The software will convert it into a link to your user page with your User ID displayed (or your custom signature, if you set one in your wiki preferences) plus a timestamp. Thank you. -DES Talk 16:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Yup, a known bug. Roglo has coded a fix for it, but it's linked to another, more problematic fix, so it probably won't be installed this week. Ahasuerus 16:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

query from an amateur who hasn't a clue how to edit ISFDB

How do I make a very simple bibliographic correction? -- to wit, that the book Perceptualistics (referred here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?23076) is by John Grant !1949-) (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?John%20Grant%20(1949-)) and not by the John Grant who did the cover for New Moon (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?John%20Grant). —The preceding unsigned comment added by Realthog (talk • contribs) 19:17, 19 June 2009

It isn't hard, once you know how, You have to make two changes. First go to the TITLE record, click "Title data" (which really should say "Edit title data" and soon will). On the form, in the "Author:" field, change "John Grant" to "John Grant (1949-)". (make any other needed changes too.) Then click "submit data". Then you need to go to the PUBLICATION record, click "Edit This Pub" and make the same change, and again click "Submit data". See Help:How to update a publication and Help:Screen:EditTitle for more details.
Once the info is correct and your edits have been approved, you may want to verify the book -- mark that you ahve checked the record and it is correct.. See Help:How to verify data.
I hope this helps. -DES Talk 00:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh and please remember to sign your discussion page postings, like this one, with four tildes (~~~~). The software will convert them into your User ID and a timestamp -- or you can set a signature in your Preferences. -DES Talk 00:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Overlapping Title Records

179655 and 969849 are both for the collection The Draco Tavern, and should be merged. However, the publication THDRCTVRNZ2006 appears to belong to both titles, and a merge attempt gets the big yellow warning msg. Remind me on how this is best handled, please.

By the way, we should remind our verifiers that checking for and merging duplicates is highly desirable. One of the publications of this collection seems to have been entered and verified without merging the many dups created. -DES Talk 14:44, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is that this Collection Publication contains two The Draco Tavern Collection Titles. Since Collection pubs are considered "containers", our software hides any Titles whose type matches that of the Publication (something that we may want to consider changing, but that's a different story.) The easiest way to see all the Titles in a container Publication is to change the pub to a Novel or some other non-container type. I have just turned it into a Novel and now you can see that these Titles. Interestingly enough, one of the Collection Titles has a page number, 15, associated with it, so I wonder if it may be a short (2 pages?) Essay or Short Story rather than a Collection. Something to ask the verifier, I assume. Ahasuerus 15:50, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. Now I think i see. One of the collection titles had been entered as an ANTHOLOGY -- I thought it was just a typo and had changed it while I was doing the various merges of content records in this collection. I'll now bet it was entered on the initial line that defaults to ANTHOLOGY type -- I used to assume that I was supposed to make an entry for the overall pub on that line, and quite probably so did some other editor. I have changed the entry on page 15 to an essay so it doesn't cause a problem for now, and will leave a note on the verifier's page. -DES Talk 16:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
The good news is that the ANTHOLOGY default was changed to SHORTFICTION in patch r2009-04, which was installed 2 minutes ago :) Ahasuerus 16:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
And if you like that, we can sort out some other defaults - e.g. NOVEL contents might be a better default for a new Omnibus than SHORTFICTION? That will need a new feature though, 2803759 has been closed. And not just yet, I want that module for the Chapterbook fix(es). BLongley 21:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Sure, NOVELs for OMNIBUSes and ESSAYs for NONFICTION is probably our best bet. I will create a new Feature request, thanks! Ahasuerus 23:25, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
Feature request 2809620 has been created. Ahasuerus 01:48, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks again. -DES Talk 01:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Changes for 2809620 have been submitted for testing. BLongley 20:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleting images

As a result of copy&paste and multi-tab-browing I uploaded an image file twice (once with the wrong file name). Can somebody please remove this one. Is there an official procedure for deleting uploaded files (like mark for deletion)? Thanks. -- Phileas 13:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. We don't get enough deletes for a formal procedure to be needed. Ask here or at the zmoderator's noticeboard -- any mod can delete images (and other wiki pages). -DES Talk 13:08, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Painter != author?

Hi. As I understand the guidelines, painters and illustrators aren't credited as authors. I'm about to enter this pub. But most catalogues list the painter as an author (often with a note): example. The proper way to enter this would be using Clarke as author and adding note to give Bonestell credit as painter, right? Thanks. --Phileas 19:44, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If I were entering this book, both Clarke and Bonestell would be entered as authors, with an additional credit for Bonestell for INTERIORART. This is based on the OCLC record which makes it appear to be an artbook with text by Clarke, instead of a book by Clarke that just happens to be illustrated by Bonestell. The cover even credits Bonestell first. (Even books [20] [21] [22] in which Clarke provided the idea or at the most a plot outline, give him a larger credit than the actual author!)
Those guidelines you refer to are incorrect if they say not to credit the artist for a nonfiction artbook. (Admittedly, there's much in the guidelines I've never read.) MHHutchins 20:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
Not to forget the Rama sequels. ;)
The guidelines don't have to be wrong - I'm sure it's just me misunderstanding it. I throught that part There is currently no support in the ISFDB for translators, or photographers; this information should just be entered in the notes field. (from Help:Screen:EditPub#Author) would apply in this case.
I'm glad you'd enter him as author, because according to instinct I would too. --Phileas 20:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) Not so fast. In the normal case, where an artist (such as a painter) simply illustrates a boook, the artist is given an art credit (coverart or interiorart or both). In the case of most "art books" the artist also wrote the text, or much of it, and so is clearly also the "author". Here assuming that the text is by Clarke, and the art by Bonestell, what Bonestell really is, in addition to the illustrator, is the subject, IMO. A recently written and published work on The Art of DaVinci, with reproductions of many of DaVinci's paintings, would not be credited to Leonardo DaVinci as a coauthor. For example, see Federico Barocci : allure and devotion in late Renaissance painting; Barocci is not listed as an author.
A suggestion has been made recently that we add an optional "subject" field for books about an author, including critical studies. If we had such a feature, this would IMO be a good case for using it. But we don't, at least not yet.
I would be inclined, if I were entering this, to credit Clarke as the author, and Bonestell as the illustrator, with a note indicating how much of the book is his art. Note that OCLC often credits illustrators at the top of the record as co-authors in books that are not art books but have an illustrator credit on the title or copyright page; it is only when you get to the "responsibility" section, as here, that actual contributor roles are spelled out (N.B. "Responsibility" often lists the form of the author's name form the title page, while the top of the record gives OCLC's canonical form). I take "author" to mean "the person who wrote the text".
However, i don't know of anything in the help pages that even purports to deal with this case, and i just looked. I don't think specific help for this situation, or for "art books" in general, has been written yet. (The only mention of art books i could find was that they were still TPs if not HCs, in spite of their extra-large sizes.)
By the way, no one said "not to credit the artist for a nonfiction artbook" the question is whether to credit the artist as author when the artist apparently did not write the text, but did create the art, or whether to credit the artist as illustrator instead. -DES Talk 20:51, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've always found the rule clear: "take the name from the title page". So I do, but it is a bit flexible. ;-) For instance, The Josh Kirby Poster Book clearly has the name "Josh Kirby" on the title page. Only as part of the title, mind you, but there's no author credit otherwise and it would be silly to make it "uncredited". (Actually, checking my copy, it does have the name "Terry Pratchett" on it as well, but that's only because Terry scribbled his name on it with a "p.p. Josh Kirby" - the unadulterated version wouldn't have any author credit). BLongley 21:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I bend the rules a bit, I guess, but I'm always happy to allow an SF artist to be a co-author on a book dedicated to his or her work. I see we have Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell: The Ultimate Illustrations on our front page at the moment: even if there's another person with an Editor credit on the title page I wouldn't remove Boris and Julie, it's obviously their book. Reflections: The Art of Stephen Bradbury would be another example. Single-artist SF art-books aren't a huge problem here, I think we can bend the rules, especially when "title-page", "title-page!", "'title-page!!" can be refuted with "Er - it doesn't say anything about the authors on the title-page". BLongley 21:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
For Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell: The Ultimate Illustrations, Worldcat says "Responsibility: Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell; text by Anthony Palumbo." so it seems to me that Palumbo is at least a co-author. Before this discussion i would probably have made him sole author. But if we want to establish the principle that, for us, the artist whose work is the subject of an "art book" is the co-author, I don't object. Shall we insert a passage into the help to clarify this? -DES Talk 22:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I find parts of this discussion quite incredulous. I can't imagine a case where an "art book" devoted exclusively to the work of one artist, where the artist would not be credited as the author. I'm not talking about a biography or a textbook discussing techniques, but a book that simply reproduces the art work with an introduction, and perhaps captions or other accompanying text. In the case Phileas brings up, it's clear that Bonestell is the author of the book. If the rules declare that Palumbo would be the only author of the book that DES cites, then the rules should be changed. MHHutchins 22:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
So far as I know, there are no "rules" in the ISFDB help that specify any such outcome, beyond the general rule "credit the author as listed on the title page". I gave it as my personal view that the author is the author of the text, but I do see that the case where the vast majority of the space is devoted to the art is an extreme one. I suppose that you are thinking of the case where pretty much every page was a plate, with some caption text. What would you say to the case where roughly every other page is a painting, with the facing page describing the history of the creation and publication of the art? i can recall a book about Norman Rockwell that followed this format. What about a book where roughly 1 page in 3 or 4 is art, the rest being text about the art -- The Fantastic Art of M. C. Esher follows this pattern, and enough of it has been used in SF that perhaps it should be IN. How much of the book must be devoted to the art for the artist to be the (or an) author? Does it matter if the artist is long dead before the text is written and the book is published? Note also that I suggested adding a passage to the help to explicitly confirm that the artist should be considered as an (if not the) author in such cases -- I am not trying to rob Bonestell or any other artist of credit, merely trying to better define how we will handle such cases in general. -DES Talk 22:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I think that if I were a user looking for Bonestell's collected art, I would expect to find it under Non-fiction rather under Interior Art even if there was a fair amount of additional text in the book. If we agree that this is the preferred way to handle this class of cases, we may need to update Help to clarify the data entry rules. Ahasuerus 00:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
A case or two in point. I was tempted to add the artists as authors of both of these. Both have a substantial amount of text but a picture is worth at least a thousand words.--swfritter 01:26, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if it's been suggested before, but imo this calls for a "subject" field for all things published about an author or artist. Not only for books (art or otherwise), but also for articles, interviews, reviews etc. I would like to see this presented on the author's page as "works about". The whole discussion about crediting the artist as co-author would be resolved I think. I tend to agree with DES, an artbook can have an author, who writes the text (or an editor who gathers the art and writes something interesting about it). I would not credit the artist as co-author unless he did some of the writing (which would most likely be a foreword or something). As user, I wouldn't expect to find Bonestell's collected art under Non-fiction (not under Interior Art either) but I would expect it to have a prominent place on the author's page. The Ed Emshwiller case is even more sad. The book doesn't show on his page at all. If I was looking for his work, I wouldn't be able to find it! Willem H. 11:29, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Subject field would be a nice addition. It solves part of the problem. But in this case it occurs to me Bonestell's work is not the subject of the book nor it is some additional art without which the book would still tell the same "story" - it's an essential part of the book, like the diagrams in a science book. Well, I can't tell for sure, since I don't have it. But let's assume this book is about something "Beyond Jupiter" (or whatever). The text would be about the subject and the paintings would be about the subject. The pick up DES' example from earlier: if a book is about the paintings of Leonardo DaVinci he would be the subject, no doubt. Now imagine: if he was still alive and contributed some paintings to a book about the planet Jupiter (he made those especially for the book and they are an essential part of the book), then I'd rather enter him as a co-author than as the subject. Because the text wouldn't work without the paintings and the paintings wouldn't work without the text - at least not the way it was intended. But on the other hand, an author has to write some text to be an author, right? --Phileas 11:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
See ISFDB talk:Proposed Design Changes#Subject for more on how a subject field might work. Feel free to comment there. -DES Talk 14:49, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
As a consequence (and additionally to the subject field) I would come up with a "role" field attached to every author field. Default would be "empty" or NULL and interpreted as normal author. After introduction of such a field every current author would be a normal author until further changes. The role field could cover things like (editor, interior illustrator, cover illustrator, photographer, translator... or whatever somebody could have done to be credited on the cover, the tile page or the copyright page). Of course this would make the "artist field" obsolete and that data would had to be transformed/merged. Also a decision had to be made about how the pubs are presented on the title page (or where ever a short form is used). Some contributors shouldn't be displayed there (translator for example) - only the detailed pub view would display all the contributors. So from all the possible roles the "most significant" had to be chosen for an abstract view that would be used in lists or something. However, as a result of subject and role field the book I mentioned would normally appear on Clarke's page, but on Bonestell's page it wouldn't appear as Nonfiction, but under "As painter" or something like that. While a book about Bonestell's works would appear under "Titles about this person". And while I'm still fantasising: every role could have some checkboxes - that could indicate where the contributor's name appears (Cover, title page, copyright page). I don't don't know if anything of all this could be useful - I just wanted to throw in my ideas. --Phileas 11:53, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Contributor roles have been discussed at ISFDB:Proposed Design Changes#Roles. That is probably the best place to propose ideas on how such a feture might work. The current discussions there envision something that is a bit different from what you describe above, but serves soem of the same purposes. You might want to post your ideas there. -DES Talk 14:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

My Votes page has an error

I log in, click the My Votes link on the Home page, and some of the votes I've given appear, while the rest of the list isn't there. Here's what it says anyway:


"<type 'exceptions.IndexError'> Python 2.5: /usr/bin/python Wed Jul 1 23:38:32 2009

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/myvotes.cgi in ()
  84         color = 0
  85         while record:
  86                 PrintRecord(record, color)
  87                 color = color ^ 1
  88                 record = result.fetch_row()

PrintRecord = <function PrintRecord at 0xb7b7609c>, record = ((6233L, 183093L, 8689L, 9L),), color = 0 

/var/www/cgi-bin/myvotes.cgi in PrintRecord(record=((6233L, 183093L, 8689L, 9L),), eccolor=0)
  32         title = SQLloadTitle(record[0][1])
  33         print "<td>%d</td>" % (record[0][3])
  34         print '<td><a href="http:/%s/title.cgi?%d">%s</a></td>' % (HTFAKE, title[TITLE_PUBID], title[TITLE_TITLE])
  35         print '<td>%s</td>' % (title[TITLE_TTYPE])
  36         print '<td>%s</td>' % (title[TITLE_YEAR])

global HTFAKE = '/www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin', title = [], global TITLE_PUBID = 0, global TITLE_TITLE = 1

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


So, is there a way to solve this problem, or do I have to just forget about it? Thanks HellCold 05:12, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a bug in the display, and looks like it has to do with some missing data (perhaps a pub or title that was deleted). I will look into exactly what's wrong. In the short term, we should be able to fix up the data and let the display work for you. In the long term, we should be able to fix the display to avoid getting into this state. Stay tuned.... --MartyD 10:27, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, one of the titles you've voted for does not exist anymore (perhaps merged?). I will see if the back-ups can tell us which title it was. I'll pass the info along to Ahasuerus, a moderator who will be able to do a short-term fix for you. I will also log the bug. --MartyD 10:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
I logged the display bug as 2815724 in the SourceForge Tracker database. --MartyD 11:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, worked. Good job! HellCold 08:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I see you saw the fix for this was put up this last night. Thanks for confirming that it did the trick. --MartyD 10:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Thomas Barber, Jr, Thomas Barber, Tom Barber versus artist Thomas Barber

Moved to Rules and standards discussions#Pseudonym assignments -DES Talk 13:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Removing links from Zelazny's "Dawn"

The entry for Zelazny's short story "Dawn" (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?53824) contains links to each of the four parts of Dean McLaughlin's serial in Analog of the same name (there's zero connection between the two). I could not figure out how to edit this. Jonschaper 22:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)jonschaper

That is, unfortunately, a known bug. It is a result of what is called the "Lexical match" logic -- meaning that in trying to match up serials with novel publications, the application looks only at the title, not the author, and takes the first exact match it finds. A Feature request to fix this is at FR #2823387 Remove "lexical match" for Serials on Source Forge. I hope that the fix will be implemented soon. -DES Talk 22:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
A full fix is unlikely to be any time soon - but a partial fix that covers most situations should be possible. The tricky bit is when there are multiple authors involved - e.g. a Kuttner & Moore title being compared with a Moore & Kuttner one. But an improvement shouldn't be that difficult for the obviously wrong (No authors in common) although it might be tricky to deal with pseudonyms (as in, they are the same author(s), but it isn't easy to prove). BLongley 23:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Danny Dunn series

Hi, I wasn't sure where else to raise this: Although Raymond Abrashkin died in 1960, Jay Williams continued to list him as co-author of later books in the Danny Dunn series (up to 1977), so I assume it is more accurate to list some of them with Jay Williams as sole author (writing as Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams). However since I have no definite information regarding where Abrashkin's contributions to the series ended I am reluctant to submit edits (especially since Jay Williams apparently desired to give Abrashkin co-credit), so I raise this here as a possible item for research. See e.g. the Wikipedia entry for both authors.

Is there a more appropriate forum for posting this sort of issue?

Jonschaper 00:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a fine place to ask. In general if Abrashkin is listed on the title page of a book, we would list him here, perhaps with a note about his death. We don't know, and generally won't try to guess, how much writing Abrashkin did before he died. We follow the title page of the book, whether there is a ghost writer or a sympathy credit or whatever. If we have a reliable source that tells us who the actual author is we can set up a pseudonym or variant title. -DES Talk 01:04, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
This can be a trickier issue than it may first appear. Some writers continue tapping into their archives, which contain jointly written texts, even after they stop actively collaborating. See Author:Eando Binder for a particularly complicated example, which took us a while to sort out. Ahasuerus 03:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Publication Listed Under a Noted Pseudonym

"Wynne N. Whiteford" is listed as a pseudonym of "Wynne Whiteford" and most of the publications under the former name are therefore already listed under the latter. However there is still one publication of The Doorway listed under the former name. I assume this should also be listed under the parent name instead so they're all in one place. What is the best way of editing this? Would using the "Make This Author a Pseudonym" feature be redundant? Jonschaper 02:11, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

No, that has already been done. Simply making one author name a pseudonym of another does not automatically move all titles onto the "parent" author's page. There are good reasons for this, for one case see V. C. Andrews.
To make the title display on the parent author's page, and not on the pseudonym's page, a variant title must be used. If the title was also published under the canonical author's name, find that record and note its record number (at the end of the title display URL). Then on the title page of the work using the pseudonym, select "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work", and enter (copy if possible, to avoid typos) the record number into the "Parent #" field, and click the "Link to existing parent" button. (See Help: How to record a variant title for more detail)
If the title was never published under the canonical name (as far as you can determine) then go to the title record of the work and again choose "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work". In this case wqork in the lower section "If the parent title does not exist...". Normally you need only change the Author to the canonical name. Then click "Create New parent title. See Help:Screen:MakeVariant for more detail.
Works with multiple authors follow the same basic rules, but you must be careful to get all names into canonical form.
In cases where a name is both a canonical name (for some works) and a pseudonym (for others) an editor must be careful not to create variants for works where the name is actually canonical (not a pseud). Such cases are luckily not too common.
I hope this makes things a bit clearer. -DES Talk 02:34, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
Note that making a variant, as discussed here, is not the same as merging two titles. A merge results in only one title record, with all publications under it. It is done when there is only one work, published under the same title and author credit, but which has somehow been entered separately (this often happens when entering reprint anthologies and collections). See Help:How to merge titles for more details. Creating a variant, on the other hand, leaves two title records, but with a link between them. It is used when the work has actually been published with different title and/or author credits, or when the work has been published only under a pseudonym. -DES Talk 02:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

e-books

Do these have ISBNs? Working my way through Star Trek and with a particular series, all 9 books have an e-book 'edition'. OCLC does not list them. Only a couple of the records show an 'unknown' binding pub, but the ISBNs on those just bring up the paper version on Amazon and nothing on OCLC. Since we recognize the e-book format, it would be nice to enter them as I go, but with no data..... Thanks! ~Bill, --Bluesman 14:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Under discussion. You might want to wait a little bit. E-books are supposed to have their own ISBN numbers but quite often bear the ISBN of the print edition.--swfritter 16:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I came across the discussion after posting. Waiting is! ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Unlink a serial

Somehow [this] has a 1953 serial by Poul Anderson 'attached' to a 1995 Star Trek novel. How does this link get severed? ~Bill, --Bluesman 17:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Serials have been lexically matched since before I started here. And there's many that are incorrectly linked. There's pending changes that will break this and allow editors to link serials to the one true title, but I think it will be done as a variant. Currently the system does it automatically, by matching titles. As you can see, this doesn't always work very well. MHHutchins 17:32, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
That's right, it will be done via VTs. The first set of changes was delivered this morning and I will be testing them later this week. There is more stuff that needs to happen to fully implement it, but with luck, the conversion to the new methodology will be completed in a couple of weeks. Ahasuerus 18:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Will the system unbreak the current matches, or will they have to done manually? MHHutchins 18:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
All Serials that have uniquely matching Novels (as in "the same Author(s) and Title") will have VTs set up for them automatically. Multiple matches, pseudonyms, matching Shortfiction, etc will not be done automatically, but we will have a list of possible matches generated to review and set up VTs manually when warranted. Once all changes are in place, the lexical match logic will disappear and new Serial records will need to have VTs set up for them just like we have to set up VTs for everything else. Not only will it eliminate false matches for wrong authors, but it will also enable us to set up VTs for Serials which appeared under a different title in book form. Ahasuerus 18:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
Thank you gentlemen! ~Bill, --Bluesman 19:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Nelson Tremaine / F. Orlin Tremaine / Warner Van Lorne

F. Orlin Tremaine is credited with writing one story as by "Warner Van Lorne", whereas all of Nelson Tremaine's stories listed in the database (16 total) are as by "Warner Van Lorne". However the "Warner Van Lorne" page only lists it as being a psuedonym of F. Orlin Tremaine. Can someone advise me on how to edit the "Warner Van Lorne" listing to include Nelson as well?

Given my ignorance about both authors, I'm certainly not disputing the listing, but I'm also curious if anybody has definite information that F. Orlin wrote the one "Warner Van Lorne" story -- it does have a certain logic since it is the only story listed as being published by F. Orlin in Astounding while he was editing that magazine, so he'd have the same motive as Nelson (presumably a relative) to use it at that time. Jonschaper 02:28, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like the correct attributions have been made: one story by F. Orlin and sixteen stories by Nelson. The only trouble is, whoever made the attribution stopped in the middle of the process. They should have created another pseudonym of "Warner Van Lorne". Once that is done, all sixteen of his stories will now appear on Nelson's summary page. Go ahead and make a submission making "Warner Van Lorne" a pseudonym of Nelson Tremaine. Notice the warning that F. Orlin Tremaine is already set up as a canonical author. That doesn't mean other writers haven't used the name as well. Just enter "Nelson Tremaine" in the Parent Name field, and submit. I'll approve it. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Cheers. On a similar topic, I notice there is an "Orlin Tremaine" listed (with one story from 1940). Anyone have knowledge if this is F. Orlin Tremaine? Jonschaper 03:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
According to Donald Day's index, the story is by F. Orlin Tremaine, but I've seen incorrect credits that he'll change into the correct author's name without noting it. It's possible that he was credited as "Orlin Tremaine". Let me do some further research. Anyone have a copy of Fantastic Adventures, March 1940? MHHutchins 03:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Paydirt: cover image for that issue. Look at the top at how the story is credited. Now if we could only look inside and see how it's credited there! MHHutchins 03:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
I have a copy, but that part of my pulp collection is a mess :( Ahasuerus 04:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
Teamwork! I'll go ahead and make Orlin a pseudonym of F. Orlin on the basis of the cover and Day's info then. Jonschaper 05:12, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Richard Tierney / Richard L. Tierney / Robert E. Howard

Hi I was trying to verify if "Richard Tierney" and "Richard L. Tierney" are one and the same. Richard Tierney co-wrote "For the Witch of the Mists" (his only entry) with David C. Smith. "Richard L. Tierney" has co-written numerous novels with David C. Smith. A quick websearch showed that both "Richard Tierney" and "Richard L. Tierney" are credited by several sources as having cowritten "For the Witch of the Mists". Case closed? Not yet. In trying to determine if "Richard Tierney" should be made a psuedonym or deleted, I did an image search which only revealed that "For the Witch of the Mists" (on covers at least) has been credited to Robert E. Howard.

So two questions: Can anyone determine if he's ever been credited in print as "Richard Tierney"? And, could I be directed to the policy re how ghost written material is handled? Thanks. Jonschaper 05:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

According to the OCLC record for the Ace edition the book was credited to "Richard Tierney" (look down to the responsibility credit). You'll also notice that the title you're talking about is a "Stray Publication", meaning that the author as credited in the pub doesn't match the author as credited in title record for that pub. Looking at the OCLC record for the Zebra edition, it was also credited without the middle initial, meaning our record is wrong (even though it was verified by someone no longer actively editing.) Here are the steps needed to get these pubs (and pseudonym) into shape:
  1. Make "Richard Tierney" a pseudonym of "Richard L. Tierney"
  2. Change the author of this pub to "Richard Tierney"
  3. Change the author of this title to "Richard Tierney"
  4. Create a variant of that same title (once the name-change submission has been approved) for "Richard L. Tierney"
Also, don't be fooled by cover credits. There was a time when there were dozens of titles being released based on characters created by Robert E. Howard, and his name was bigger on the cover than any of the authors. Also, never use cover title or credit as the sole basis for an ISFDB record. We have to use title page credits. We also can't be concerned if a work is ghostwritten. The record must reflect the book as published. If there's enough evidence that someone else wrote it, then we create variants, but the original record must show EXACTLY how the book was credited. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that we "can't be concerned if a work is ghostwritten", but MHHutchins is absolutely correct that the publication record should show exactly what is on the title page of the published work. When there is good reliable evidence for a ghostwriter or ghost (uncredited) co-author, we can create a variant to show this. If the evidence is quite strong, and particularly when the same ghost wrote multiple works under the same name, we can also create a pseudonym relationship to show this, but since currently there is no easy way to undo a pseudonym, that step should be taken only after careful and through research and often discussion. -DES Talk 16:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
You're right. I should have said "we should not be concerned if a work is ghostwritten until it's been determined through reliable sources who the actual author is." (Just being lackadaisical.) Thanks Jonschaper for bringing the stray pub to our attention. The submissions have been accepted and everything looks fine. MHHutchins 02:33, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Ahasuerus and I today discovered an example where we shouldn't always use title page credits: see here. And recently I was reminded of The Worlds of Robert Heinlein, where there is no title page credit unless you assume it from the title. I think we need a backup plan for exceptions where title page credit is wrong or absent. I used copyright page in the latter example, and dismissed printer errors in the former. Is that right? BLongley 22:36, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I think you were right in both cases. I'm not sure that such exceptions are common enough, and fiollow a sufficiently regular pattern to really have a rule other than "Discuss exceptions on the wiki and do what seems reasonable after discussion". I would agree that if there is no author credited on the title page, the copyright page is a reasonable source, particularly in cases where there is no serious dispute as to the actual author, as with the "Worlds of RAH". We could doumnt that, i suppose.

W. J. Stephens(with Ralph Harding)

How did we get "W. J. Stephens(with Ralph Harding)" set up as a pseudonym? BLongley 22:23, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

By typing letters into submission forms? :) It seems a poor choice, however. -DES Talk 23:50, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Larry Niven's "Flare Time" in Analog Anthology #5: Writers' Choice

I think Niven's "Flare Time" should be deleted from the listing for Analog Anthology #5: Writers' Choice. It never appeared in Analog (it was in Andromeda 3 and subsequently reprinted in Amazing Stories) and it is absent from other TOC listings for that collection (generally the hardcover version) I have found online. Anyone have a copy handy? Jonschaper 01:59, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

#5 is the only one that I don't have in this series, but we have a verified record for the hardcover version and it doesn't include the Niven story. Contento doesn't list it either, so I think it's safe to remove it from the Publication. Also, if you run "Diff" on the two Pubs for this Anthology Title, you will notice that the verified Pub lists Dickson's "Steel Brother" while the other one lists "The Steel Brother", a variant title of the same story which is also presumably in error. Ahasuerus 03:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Dave Stone 1950s Art?

I highly doubt that this Dave Stone http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Dave%20Stone both wrote for Judge Dredd and Dr. Who since the 1990s and did art for US magazines in the 1950s with a gap of over 30 years in-between. Anyone have the necessary references to check this? Jonschaper 05:55, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

My guess is that this is the artist http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?David%20Stone either going by "Dave" or with his name incorrectly listed here. Jonschaper 05:57, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Checking the titles that we currently have on file, it certainly looks like the 1950s version of "Dave Stone" is the same as "David Stone". Ahasuerus 13:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I've met Dave Stone many times (he was a housemate of a former girlfriend of mine) and can confirm he's not old enough to have created 1950s artwork of any kind. (Unless they give Doctor Who writers their own TARDIS for background research purposes, but I saw no evidence of that: if anything, the house was smaller on the inside than it appeared to be from the outside.) BLongley 19:11, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
However, that leaves the question of how he was credited in various pubs, or how he should be credited if the art is attributed based on a signature only, with no copyright page or otehr text credit. In short, what is the canonical name. -DES Talk 05:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Fantastic Adventures, January 1953 - credited as Dave Stone on the toc; no credit on the title page or signature on art. Considering the time frame and publications involved assumed to be the same artist as D. Stone, perhaps the same artist as David Stone and Stone.--swfritter 13:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Please don't make any more changes. This is pseudonym situation.--swfritter 13:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The submissions have been rejected and I have changed the artist's name to Dave Stone (50's artist) pending further review of Canonical Name decisions. Still to be verified is whether all these various Stones are actually the same person. It would be kind of nice if we had some kind of nomenclature rather than pseudonym to describe this situation. Variant credit is actually more accurate.--swfritter 15:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
"Variant credit", "variant name form", "Multiple name form", "Multiple form of name" all work for me. -DES Talk 15:46, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the notice about the changes. I guess I should have been clearer about possible solutions to the problem. My accidental approval of the first submission may also have misled you.--swfritter 16:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Andrew Stephenson / Andrew M. Stephenson

Both Andrews appear to be writer / artists published in the UK, and both have done art for Christopher Priest's Inverted World. Anyone know if one should be a pseudonym, and if so, which one? Jonschaper 05:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I think they're probably the same. It might be better to ask Dave Langford though: he mentions "Andrew Stephenson" as a leading Fan Artist at times (nickname/signature "Ames" it seems) and in this piece there's a reference to his first novel "Nightwatch". BLongley 19:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Audio vs Text Versions

William Shunn's "Observations from the City of Angels" published 2003 was made into an audio recording in 2006. Should these be merged, made variants or be left alone? Jonschaper 01:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

If it's a reading of the story and not an adaptation, you can merge the two title records. I believe that the Escape Pod downloads are complete readings, so go ahead and merge the two records. The person who entered those Escape Pod recordings is usually pretty good at merging records. The problem may have been that the capitalized "From" in the title would have kept it from showing up on a search for duplicate records. I don't believe "from" should be capitalized, but go ahead and merge the two, choosing either one, and we can decide the proper title later. Thanks. MHHutchins 04:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete "L. Shepard's" "The Dragon Criaule"?

I found a highly dubious name and title listing here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?L.%20Shepard

Although a web search seems to turn up an ISBN for this book, the entry here lacks any details, I have never seen Lucius Shepard credited as "L. Shepard" in print, it is not listed on Lucius Shepard's webpage or wikipedia page, the character's name has always been spelled "Griaule" elsewhere (not "Criaule"), there are zero cover images online, and I have been unable to turn up evidence of a single copy ever being printed online (all booksellers like Amazon have it as unavailable or out of print). Note: I cannot find a book entitled "The Dragon Griaule" either. Anyone with more info? Should this entry be deleted?Jonschaper 03:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, delete the title record, as there is no publication record associated with it. Must have been snagged by a bot and allowed to get into the db. Good catch! MHHutchins 04:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Pulphouse cleanup

I found this duplication of entries for issue 4 of Pulphouse with the title entered in two different styles:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?PLPHSFOUR1989

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?PULPHSUM1989

It does not appear as if these should be considered two separate publications. This has also created the situation of a Robert Sheckley story being entered with two variant titles (apparently the same publication with one of the titles entered incorrectly):

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?100964

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?76641

It would therefore appear that some cleaning up may be necessary for Pulphouse. I do not have access to any issues so I propose that someone else take up this task. Thanks Jonschaper 05:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Pulphouse has always been a difficult publisher to deal with here on the ISFDB. Most of their pubs don't have ISBNs. Almost all pubs have two or three variant states (trade paperback, hardcover, leatherbound). They've published many single story chapbooks, a monthly magazine-cum-author's collection series, and their novella-length books have caused more than a few headaches about whether they should be classified as SHORTFICTION or NOVEL. Their magazine in its first incarnation (there were several) was published in a hardcover trade edition and a leatherbound signed limited edition. When I get a chance I'll work on those pubs that you've pointed out, possibly making one of them the trade edition and the other one the limited edition. Just got to figure out what was the actual title of the Sheckley story. I'll let you know when it's in better shape. Thanks. MHHutchins 06:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Rick Sternbach

I'm dubious that Rick Sternbach (born 1951) wrote The Hands (published 1953). QMacrocarpa 14:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

You are pretty clearly correct. It is, of course, possible that there was another "Rick Sternbach" who wrote this story. The actual publication appears to be credited to "Richard Sternbach", and I suspect that the link betweeen Richard Sternbach and Rick Sternbach is a mistake. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. -DES Talk 15:21, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes. Richard Sternbach is actually the same person as Richard A. Sternbach. Will fix.--swfritter 15:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Howard Schoenfeld's "Built Up Logically" vs "Build Up Logically"

Are these variant titles of the same story, two different stories or a minor spelling error in one case? Both versions of the title appear in different editions of the Aldiss edited Penguin Science Fiction Omnibus, and I believe that "Built Up Logically" is the original title. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Howard%20Schoenfeld Jonschaper 05:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave at note on Bill Longley's page. He verified two of the three appearances of "Build...". There's a very good case that this is just a variant title of "Built...". Thanks. MHHutchins
It's definitely "Build" in my Penguins. I have no "Built" to compare with. BLongley 13:16, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
Variant created. MHHutchins 18:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Is "Built Down" a sequel or another variant? I don't think I have that. BLongley 22:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm assuming it's a sequel, as it appeared only a year later in the same magazine. And both appear in an author's collection. MHHutchins 16:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
I have the F&SF with "Built Down Logically" so I'll see if they have any descriptions of it as a sequel or whatever. The wikipedia page for Schoenfeld refers "Built Up Logically" as his most reprinted. Jonschaper 06:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
From the Dec 1951 F&SF intro to "Built Down Logically": '...you'll remember Howard Schoenfeld as being singularly successful, in his Built Up Logically, at creating a world which, like that of Lewis Carroll or that of the Marx Brothers, has a madly plausible coherence of its own. In this latest anecdote, Mr. Schoenfeld has done it again...' This suggests to me that "Built Down..." is the first 'sequel' (Build and Built both being dated 1949), so that further supports the conclusion they're variant titles. Built Down appears to only be a sequel thematically. Jonschaper 22:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the research! I must reread "Up" and see whether I want "Down" desperately. BLongley 23:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Jack Vance in Ellery queen omnibus

I have an Ellery Queen omnibus where only one (of two) is by Jack Vance. So how do I do a nongenre omnibus where there is only one pseudonymous title?Don Erikson 17:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

If the writer of the second title is not in the db with a substantial proportion of spec-fic, don't enter the title as a content. Record it in the notes field. At least, that's what I would do. Anybody else have a suggestion? MHHutchins 18:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
That works for me. Or just record it as a publication of the Vance novel, with a note about the other content. I am assuming that neither novel is SF. -DES Talk 19:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I think an Omnibus with a single Non-genre pseudonymous Title (with the other one in Notes) would be a more accurate representation of the pub. Ahasuerus 20:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Reasonable. Just a thought. -DES Talk 20:21, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hilbert Schenck

I notice Hilbert Schenck is listed as a pseudonym (with no parent). Am I correct in my guess that this is a known issue and not easy to correct? Jonschaper 06:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It's obviously an error, or a bug in the system. I don't know how to correct it. Any other editor have an idea how this happened and what, if anything, could be done to correct it? MHHutchins 12:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The database has a table recording pseudonym relationships between author records. There is an entry in that table that has the Hilbert Schenck record a pseudonym for a no-longer-existing author record. The rendering of the search results scans this table to populate the "Pseudonym?" column and does not verify that the parent record exists (it shouldn't have to). Other parts of author-related display most likely work directly with the author records (i.e., "get me the author for which Hilbert Schenck is a pseudonym") and consider finding no parent to mean it's not a pseudonym. Looks like there are 62 such problems in the Aug 1 back-up. 
select count(*) from pseudonyms where not exists
 (select * from authors where authors.author_id = pseudonyms.author_id);
these can be cleaned up: 
delete from pseudonyms where not exists
 (select * from authors where authors.author_id = pseudonyms.author_id);
It seems likely that merging or deleting an author is not (or was not at one point) managing this table properly. --MartyD 17:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I can confirm Marty's clean-up script works. In addition to fixing the "Pseudonym?" column it also fixes the "Used As Alternate Name By: blank" line. Now, how to convince Ahasuerus to run it? BLongley 18:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I'll test it tonight locally and add it to the next patch. I'll also try to recreate the problem (Author merges?) if it still exists and log a bug report. Ahasuerus 15:05, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The script looks and runs fine. I'll do the rest tomorrow. Ahasuerus 03:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Additional testing confirms that merging Authors doesn't touch the pseudonym table. The exact results vary depending on which Author record is dropped during the merge, but it's always ugly. Bug 2834693 created. A data cleanup script, delete_defunct_pseudonyms.sql, has been committed to the repository and associated with Bug 2834027, "Delete defunct pseudonyms". It will be run as part of r2009-17. Ahasuerus 02:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
I think this used to be a circular pseudonym, or maybe a chained one, or just one the wrong way round. Such is only partially fixable - you can rename the authors on lots of titles and pubs until the author no longer remains, in which case it's deleted: and then when you rename them all back it's under a new author id with no pseudonym associations. However, the original pseudonym connection is still there, pointing to a non-existent author. In this case, "Hilbert Schenck, Jr." is now 121330 whereas he used to be 21677, but there's still a link between 21677 and 1559 (the "No Jr." author). There needs to be a better clean-up when an author record disappears, but there's also the stray records to clean up. BLongley 17:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be possible to improve this by renaming both authors completely until they disappear, and then rename both back, so the stray link is from a non-existent author to another non-existent author and shouldn't bother anyone. But that's too much effort for me to bother with. Maybe if there were only a couple of titles I'd try it. BLongley 17:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Adding in an ISBN/Catalog#?

I wanted to add an ISBN for the October 12, 1981 edition of Analog, but I can't find where to do it. Can I get some help? Thanks! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Asuyuka (talk • contribs) .

Go to the pub record for this issue. Click on "Edit this Pub". Fill in the blank records (or change them if incorrect.) This pub has been primary-verified, meaning that another editor has determined that all of the information is correct. Before making any major changes to a verified publication you should write that editor (post a note on his user talk page.) Also, magazines ordinarily do not have an ISBN, so I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to add. Some issues now have ISSNs, but we've determined that the ISBN/Catalog# field is not a good place to record them. Also, remember to sign all of your comments on the Wiki using four tildes (~~~~). There's a list of helpful links that's been added at the top of your user talk page. Please don't hesitate to ask if you're unable to find the information you're looking for. And welcome to the ISFDB. MHHutchins 12:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The print my dad has has an ISBN specifically listed, so that's all I'm trying to do. Thank you for your kind help, though. Asuyuka 21:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)Asuyuka
I've placed your edit on hold and will have the original verifier look at it. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Asuyuka, I think you may be confusing Bar-codes with ISBNs - there is often a relationship, but not in this case. I'm tired and can't respond fully tonight, but will try to tomorrow. (I scanned the relevant sections then got side-tracked.) BLongley 23:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
OK, there's not much point uploading the scan. "0 71486 02028 41" is indeed present on the cover. But that's not an ISBN: ISBNs were only 10 digits long in 1981, not 13: 13-digit ISBNs start "978" (or soon, "979"): and magazines usually have ISSNs instead, but those are only 8 digits. BLongley 18:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
So well done for spotting the number, but I don't think it's one we want. It's about as useful as me telling you I'm drinking "5 035766 040088". BLongley 18:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

How to handle non-genre magazine title change?

In trying to enter some non-genre magazines for SF works of Poe, I've run across the United States Saturday Post, which was an earlier name for The Saturday Evening Post. See [23] and [24] for some documentation. How should one of these issues be treated? As a completely separate magazine with a note about the relationship to SEP? With the USSP title and matching editorship, but then put it in the "Saturday Evening Post" series? With the USSP title but SEP editorship? Thanks. --MartyD 11:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

That's the method I have been using with Blue Book. --swfritter 13:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The Montly Story? :-) Ahasuerus 16:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Language and spelling do change over time. Or perhaps Montly was an editor and they titled the mag after him.--swfritter 19:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
If you combine the titles by editor name you may want to put links to the same editor records for each different title.--swfritter 13:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
This prompted me to make a similar change to All-Story/All-Story Weekly. This mag was particularly problematic in that many sources refer to All-Story Weekly simply as All-Story. Also, I am not sure that it is necessary to put the title records in a series. It really does not make it that much easier to determine whether a particular issue is in the database.--swfritter 15:48, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't find the series approach to non-genre magazines particularly helpful. If we are using a a consistent "The editors of" wording for the editor spot, then searches on the magazine name find those records. But I don't see that the series does any harm, if people are willing to take the trouble of updating it. -DES Talk 16:04, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
When dealing with non-genre magazines that published a fair amount of SF over a long period of time, e.g. Argosy, I find that Series grouping can make it easier to find the right year on the Summary page. Ahasuerus 16:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
As the issues accrue it will definitely be of value to merge Editor records by year. If that is done then an Editor record for a specific year will only have to placed into a series once. Subsequent merges will combine the Editor records with an Editor record that has the series value. Really not that much work. This will also make it possible to search by series. It would definitely be nice for a weekly like SEP to have the Editor records merged by year.--swfritter 20:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
In a similar vein, it occurs to me that for magazines with a large number of issues, a series per Volume, actually numbering the issues, and a master series, with each Volume as sub-series (perhaps someday to be number-able), might be a useful organization. --MartyD 10:31, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Unless something has been fixed lately, there are problems with sorting a series which has sub-series. Many orphan series have been created as editors learned that lesson. The work on non-genre magazines should definitely not take any more work than is necessary to determine whether a specific issue has already been entered. Our primary interest is not the non-genre magazines themselves but the stories that appeared in them.--swfritter 18:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Robert W. Wood vs. Robert Williams Wood

Now, this person was a physicist, not really an SF author, but he co-wrote two books (The Man Who Rocked the Earth & The Moon Maker) (with Arthur Train, also not normally an SF writer except for these two books). The former, which I entered from the PG edition, lists him as Robert Williams Wood; this is what the PG edition says (and, I'd hope, the source publication, but I have no direct evidence of this). The latter, supposedly a direct sequel published a year later, says (in our database) Robert W. Wood.
It seems to me that it would be well to make one of these a pseudonym for the other, establishing a canonical name, but under the circumstances I'm not really sure which way we'd want to go. Thanks. -- Dave (davecat) 19:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia titles its article "Robert W. Wood", but uses "Robert Williams Wood (May 2, 1868 – August 11, 1955)" as its lead. A google search on "Robert Williams Wood" or "Robert W. Wood" seems to indicate that a majority of web sites use the "Robert W. Wood" form in their page titles, but the "Robert Williams Wood" form early in the page, possibly in many cases following Wikipedia. I think we could pretty well flip a coin on which form to make canonical -- either would be just fine. -DES Talk 20:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
OCLC doesn't know how the 1916 version of The Moon Maker was credited, but the 1958 reprint was apparently attributed to "Robert W. Wood". However, most of his books, including The Man Who Rocked the Earth and the recent omnibus reprint by Lulu, apparently appeared as by "Robert Williams Wood", so I have made it the canonical name and set up a pseudonym and a VT. Ahasuerus 16:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
You not only made the decision, but did my work for me? Thank you!!! -- Dave (davecat) 00:56, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Work? Updating the database is how I relax after working on ISFDB software development, testing, deployment, maintenance and arguing about our rules :) Ahasuerus 02:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Other Non-Genre Magazine issues

Prompted by Mike's stated intent to Americanize all magazine titles with days in I did some investigations and discovered we 1) still have no documented standard for dates in titles with day of month in them, then 2) "Science Fiction Weekly" is here, with lots of missing review links, then 3) they have missing Editor records, and then 4) judging by the Magazine Index we don't want them as it just cross-references to "scifiwire" and not to publications. And 5), we still have the bug that makes a Magazine with only one review in appear without contents that really are there. BLongley 19:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and 6) we still haven't fixed all Reviews with missing reviewed authors. :-( BLongley 20:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) On your first point only, Help:Entering non-genre magazines#Steps to take says: "The ISFDB standard format for this field is "Magazine Name, Month Day, Year" for dailies or weeklies, "Magazine Name, Month Year" for monthlies, or "Magazine Name, Month1-Month2 Year" for bimonthlies. See Help:Screen:EditPub for more details. Follow the ISFDB standard insofar as possible." Help:Screen:EditPub does not seem to mention dates with day numbers. Still this is a standard, IMO. It may be the wrong one, but I think it constitutes a "documented standard". I think we should either a) make Help:Screen:EditPub consistent with this standard, or b) discuss the matter (probably on Rules and standards discussions, agree on a standard, and make both help pages conform. Any views? -DES Talk 20:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
OK, it's documented, although somewhere nobody will find it. I see I did have a brief input to that help but I don't recall a consensus. I think swfritter wanted a consistent rule for both genre and non-genre, so Rules and Standards would be appropriate. BLongley 20:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Some of the other issues probably need discussion elsewhere (I think two are definite bugs, but I don't have time tonight to check whether they're recorded at Sourceforge, or just here, or nowhere). Sorry to open such a big can of worms, but as people seem to be actively working on some of these areas it's probably best to hold up the "Whoa!" flag before people put too much effort into stuff. BLongley 20:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Since the majority of pubs with valid dates to the day level seem to be non-genre magazines (at least in my limited experience), this seems not such a horrid place, but I agree, let's have a rules discussion. -DES Talk 20:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I have no objection to raising issue that may need to be dealt with. -DES Talk 20:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Rules and standards discussions#Date formats including Day of the Month discussion section created. -DES Talk 21:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Entries for Plagiarised Stories

Irwin Ross' "To Kill a Venusian" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?54502 is plagarised from Boucher's "Nine-Finger Jack" as per the notes for the issue of If it appeared in http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WOFIFSEPOCT1971 and the issue of If in which this act of plagiarism was revealed http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WOFIFJANFEB1972

This raises some questions in my mind about how cases of word-for-word plagiarism should be handled (since I don't have "To Kill a Venusian" and "Nine-Finger Jack" to compare, I'm only raising this theoretically). In such a case, is there a way to add the former publication to the actual author's story's publication history (e.g. the listing of appearances of Boucher's "Nine-Finger Jack") without making the plagiarist a pseudonym of the actual author? If not, I imagine this is an issue that wouldn't come up often enough to justify a software rewrite. I suppose an alternative might be to add a note to the "Nine-Finger Jack" page noting that it also appeared in the plagiarised version so someone looking up the story can have a complete history of its publication.

I think it would also be appropriate to add notes to the pages of known plagiarists stating which stories are plagiarised (otherwise, e.g., just looking at Ross' page it appears he wrote three original stories when that isn't the case), and that a note should also be entered onto the story's page noting it was plagiarised from the original so one doesn't need to go to the publication's page to discover it was a copy and not an original story.

Feedback and comments? Jonschaper 05:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm the editor who wrote the notes to that issue of If in which the story appeared, but I wasn't as knowledgeable about the workings of the database at the time to carry through on it. I later came upon this act of plagiarism, and you can see I handled it differently. I made the author of the plagiarized work a pseudonym of the real author, and then made the title record of the work a variant of the original title. That's the best way I can see to handle it. Now that you've brought the other case back to my attention, I'll look it over and see if the same approach would work. If I handle it the same way, the plagiarized story will disappear from Ross's page, but the other stories will remain (until it's determined that they're also plagiarized!) Thanks. MHHutchins 05:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

User: Scott Latham - Note of 19 July 2009

Morning! This. [25]. I am confused by the ErnestoVeg note. Why/What/Where??? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me as if that note was intend for the talk page, not the user page, and was reporting a broken cover link on a pub verified by Scott Latham. -DES Talk 14:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Series within a series

[This] 1914 publication poses a problem I'm not sure how to solve. It is in the DB as an omnibus, in spite of never having been issued as separate novels before the one edition was published (magazine serials were its' origins). That is not really a problem. Between 1965 and 1967 Avalon Books reissued the 'omnibus' in FIVE parts, even though the original book only had three. The first part of the 'omnibus' and the first Avalon book are the same. Each of parts 2 and 3 have been split into two parts each. One part retains the title of the original section of the 'omnibus' while the other parts have new titles. They aren't/can't be considered variants. I don't think.... What I would like to do is create a series 'tree' that looks like this: 

          1: Darkness and Dawn
          2: Beyond the Great Oblivion
                    1:Beyond the Great Oblivion
                    2:The People of the Abyss
          3: The Afterglow
                    1:Out of the Abyss
                    2:The Afterglow

I think even the first 'book' has been split. How do I do this? Thanks for any input. ~Bill, --Bluesman 01:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe that the series method is going to help this. The first thing to do is remove the same titled Avalon books out from under the record which they're presently recorded (titles 2.1 and 3.2 shown above). I think they should be made into variants of the original titles, just as 2.2 and 3.1 should be made variants of their respective titles. Let me work with it awhile and see if I can come to any satisfying solution. If not, I'll let somebody else take a whack at it. MHHutchins 02:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Take a look and see what you think of how it's displayed. The variants are not numbered (the system can't do that), but at least they're under the titles from which they were split. MHHutchins 03:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Not comfortable with 1/2 a book being a variant of a whole one, but the only other solution, since the system can't do the sub-series in a numbered fashion, would be changing the over-all series to a five-part. Then it conflicts with the original 'omnibus', though. I had already put notes in each of the five Avalon releases as to which part it is. Will add an over-all note to the series title, as well. I see you beat me to it! Thanks for the time and effort! ~Bill, --Bluesman 13:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I think maybe a title note on the sub-books (2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2) would further improve clarity. -DES Talk 08:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
On looking further I see that there are notes, but only at the publication level. I think they would be helpful at the title level in this case. Do you disagree? -DES Talk 14:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of a book being a variant of half of itself either. Our help currently says:
""Split" novels. Occasionally a novel will be published as a single volume, and then republished (perhaps in another country) as two or more separate volumes. For example, Peter Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy was republished as six volumes in the US. The first book, "The Reality Dysfunction", was republished as "The Reality Dysfunction, Part One: Emergence", and "The Reality Dysfunction, Part Two: Expansion". The other two volumes were treated similarly. In these situations, the books should be treated as novels, even though they form only part of a work published as a novel. Also note that the original book is still treated as a novel; it does not become an OMNIBUS because it contains two works later republished as novels. Situations like this should be documented in the notes, and if necessary discussed on the bibliographic comments page for the publications." (See Help:Screen:EditPub#PubType.)
I think I wouldn't try to make any of these variants of any of the others, just have them all as novels, with proper title-level notes. I would also rename 1.1 to "Beyond the Great Oblivion (short version)" and 3.2 to "The Afterglow (short version)" or some similar form. That isn't perfect either, because in the series dispaly it won't be clear what is a part of what until you look at the individual titles. I don't think there is a perfect way to handle this sort of situation with out current software. IIRC there is a pending feature request to allow sub-series to be numbered within the parent series. That might help. -DES Talk 14:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Sounds like a "Windows" patch. Hopefully we don't have to do that. It's an oddball situation, for sure. The current 'solution' with the notes should be a sufficient 'patch' for now. ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This issue will have to be tabled until we come up with a variant based on text and not title or author. Until then anything is just a fix. Anyone looking at the notes I placed in the title records should be able to figure it out. The variant solution is as viable as the series solution. You're welcome to try your method. MHHutchins 15:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I did something similar with a Star Trek 'sub-series' recently, and it displays almost the same as what I had hoped for this one. The thing is, if one chooses to make a title a series, what would happen when one of the 'components' of said series has the same title? Might create a feedback loop that could destroy civilization as we know it!!! Kidding aside: the ST thing goes as such: VOYAGER: Homecoming [2] has two titles, numbered, with a third title (not numbered) that has two numbered 'sub' titles. If I had thought it out, I would have made the third title #3 before creating/adding the other two titles. Now, that is impossible as the DB does not recognize "Spirit Walk" as a title at all. The order this works in is very sensitive, so it seems. It was an alternative to what Mike did but without being able to 'see' the end results I didn't want to attempt it as series stuff is so impermeable to change at the moment. I think the DB can be fooled if it's done in the correct order, just no way for me to test that theorem. ~Bill, --Bluesman 21:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
A screen shot of the variant solution as a record in case you attempt the series solution:
Darknessanddawn.jpg
MHHutchins 15:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Also don't forget that we use the first date of book publication for Novels :) And yes, this is a known limitation of the software and one of the most awkward ones. I expect that we will add sub-series numbering over the next few months, but I am not sure that it will get us where we want to be. Suggestions more than welcome! Ahasuerus 21:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Reviews with incorrect book author credits

When a review incorrectly credits the author of the work being reviewed, I seem to recall that we simply altered the review to the correct form, possibly with a note. Have I remembered correctly? Is this still the case? Or do we construct a variant review? or what? -DES Talk 01:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. In order to avoid the creation of a variant based solely on a mistake printed in a review, we enter the author (and title, if incorrect) as credited on the book, not the review. I will go back later and record the error in the note field of the review record. Some editors prefer to mention it in the notes field of the pub record. Either way is fine with me. MHHutchins 02:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. -DES Talk 08:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Changing author names

I was trying to change the name of Agnes Dodart to Agnès Dodart (with the grave accent), but get an error reading "Error: Canonical name 'Agnès Dodart' already exists, duplicates are not allowed." How can I change an author's name?Jefe 20:53, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think, that this is essentially another instance of the problem discussed in FR 2800891 Allow editing Author name caseas modified by the effects of implementing FR 1743274 Two Authors With The Same Name Are Allowed.
As I understand it, the software checks for an "Identical" name, ignoring differences of case. If it finds one, it disallows the edit, for fear of creating duplicate authors. The "ignore case" code s probably also ignoring the difference between an accented and an un-accented character.
If I am correct, there is nothing to be done until a software fix is made. If I am mistaken, one of the active developers will no doubt correct me. -DES Talk 21:06, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
It's related to the FRs that DES lists above, but the bug itself is new and was introduced when we disallowed the creation of duplicate canonical names. The problem with accents is that the software uses a standard lookup which doesn't distinguish between "è" and "e", so the software thinks that "Agnès Dodart" is already on file. I will create a bug report, thanks! Ahasuerus 21:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
P.S. Bug 2839253 created. Ahasuerus 21:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Richard and Rick Parks

"The Passing" and the accompanying bio essay listed under "Rick Parks" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Rick%20Parks were definitely written by Richard Parks http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Richard%20Parks as per his website's bibliography http://www.dm.net/~richard-parks/biblio.html , but "Daughter of the Heartwood" and the review aren't listed on his page so it looks like it's not as simple as just making Rick a pseudonym. Anybody have info tying Richard to the latter titles? Jonschaper 06:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"Daughter of the Heartwood" is listed as a Richard Parks story by the Locus Index. Reviews are harder to attribute since many bibliographies omit them, but given the publication date, it's probably a reasonable guess (I know, famous last words) that it was written by the same person. When we set up these variant titles, we may want to make a note that these texts are not listed on the author's Web site, though.
Having said that, we do have a number of cases with different people using the same name and they are always painful. If you do a search on "David Alexander", you'll see what I mean :) Ahasuerus 11:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Russ Winterbotham adds became R.R. Winterbotham instead

Morning! Mess up once, maybe, twice no. I added two priory printings. First. [26] , Red Planet which I know I put Russ Winterbotham as author, but it know says R. R. Winterbotham. Went crazy and changed both top and contents today. Second entry, [27] , The Space Egg, which again popped the Russ and changed to R. R. What the heh? Both were add publications and both my memory swears were Russ's. Thoroughly disgusted. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you didn't mis-enter them, which is possible but unlikely, I can only assume that some other editor changed them from "Russ" to "R. R.", which is the canonical name. Or is it possible you've misremembered which pub you entered? This pub of Red Planet is recorded as by Russ, as are THSPCGGCDB1958 and THSPCGGQCG1962 for The Space Egg. Although again that would mean you made two separate mistakes on works by the same author, which seems unlikely. I'm leaning to the "someone else changed them" theory, but if there is an easy way to determine who, i don't know what it is. Sorry not to be more help. -DES Talk 15:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
If you were on the title page of the canonical title by R. R. Winterbotham and clicked on "Add Publication to This Title", then the software associated the new Publication record with R. R. Winterbotham Title rather than with the Russ Winterbotham variant title even though you changed the "author" field of the Publication record. The way to add this Pub to the "Russ" Title would have been to go to the variant title page and click "Add Publication to This Title" there. This is a rather messy part of the system and we will need to redesign it sooner rather than late. Ahasuerus 15:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
In the meantime, I have moved the Pub from "R. R." to "Russ". The submission that you created earlier today would have changed both the Publication author and the Title author. The latter would have changed the canonical "R. R." title to "Russ" and caused a problem. Have I mentioned that we really need to redesign this area? Ahasuerus 15:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Sory but "the Space Ege" [28] is still stuck under R.R. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Oops, forgot the other one. Fixed now, thanks! Ahasuerus 16:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Brian Ball series to Brian N. Ball

Morning! If Brian N. Ball is the canon name [29], should not Brian Ball [30], be there? Yet I do not see how you move the series to it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes those works should appear on Brian N. Ball. This is done by making each of the works listed under Brian Ball a variant. Go to the title page for each work under "Brian Ball", and click "Make This Title a Variant Title or Pseudonymous Work". If a given work was also published under the canonical name (check first), make it a variant of the title under the canonical name. If not, use the lower part of the make variant form, enter the canonical name for "Author1", and click "Create New Parent title". Once the edits creating the variants are approved, the various series will appear on the canonical page Brian N. Ball automatically, there is no need to do anything specifically to the series, just to the titles under them. I hope this helps. -DES Talk 14:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I was worried about the series. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
It would have made more sense to make Brian N. Ball the pseudonym. Most of his works appeared in the UK as Brian Ball (or "B. N. Ball" earlier in the magazines and one book). "Brian N. Ball" was used for the few US publications. Too late to change now. Maybe later when we have the ability to reverse pseudonyms? MHHutchins 17:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
We have the ability, if not the desire to put all the effort in, as it means editing every single title and publication and variant. We did it for John Grant at his request. BLongley 19:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Also series do not get transferred to the canon author's summary page. The title records of the variant title will have to be swiped clean and the canon title record will have to be updated with the series information. MHHutchins 17:03, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that's one of the pains I've gone through several times when I've discovered a pseudonym. :-( Maybe I should work on a pseudonym reversal script. BLongley 19:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
My error about the series, sorry. Another thing that could use improvement. -DES Talk 19:56, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm beginning to think we need this pseudonym reversal script urgently, as there's several authors that should be sorted out and only the dithering over canonical author is delaying it. Having a quick reversal option would make me happier in fixing H. F. Heard and Gerald Heard, or Christopher Blayre and Edward Heron-Allen, to use just a couple of examples from tonight's work. The problem is that it's easy to do a simple reversal, slightly more complex when there are series involved, rather more complex still when there are multiple pseudonyms (I haven't mentioned E. Heron-Allen yet have I?) and when there are shared pseudonyms/house-names or real people have things ghost-written for them, or joint authors have multiple pseudonyms , it's going to be next to impossible. I think I'd like Ahasuerus to chime in here with a view on what sort of script would be approved for use. (If a script would be acceptable - unfortunately adding this sort of edit as a totally new type of edit with approval steps by a moderator adds complexity too, whereas a "simple" A/B swap script is something I'd look at.) BLongley 20:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
"One time" aka "conversion" scripts are useful when we need to change hundreds and thousands of records in a predictable fashion, e.g. links Serials to their parent Novel Titles. However, we can't use scripts as a substitute for new options -- that way be [big and hungry] dragons.
Having said that, I agree that we definitely need better tools to handle pseudonyms. I think that the most natural first step will be to create a simple "remove pseudonym" option, which will help us clean up a lot of accumulated debris, including circular pseudonyms. Once that is out of the way, we can create a relatively simple "reverse pseudonym" option, which may not let you handle multi-pseudonym records, but will flip flop simple "one to one" relationships. Creating new options is not that terribly complicated, although the first one is likely to be a little painful since we will need to learn submission formats and such. Ahasuerus 22:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
I think I'll look into the script anyway. Even if you're not willing to run it on the live database, it'll show the SQL necessary to accomplish the task, and people can try it out, and hopefully it will show all the checks needed or people can advise on others. It would also be easier to convert into a stored function or procedure, which I think will be needed for the big-ask tasks. There's no point me trying to develop the whole thing in one go - I don't know enough Python, and we haven't agreed on any new XML submission formats before - but if I can offer a "Call ReversePseudonym with Author_ID1 and Author_ID2 parameters" option to the other developers it can only be a step forward. BLongley 00:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Sure, sounds useful! Ahasuerus 01:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Having said that, what version of MySQL is the live database running on? BLongley 00:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC) 
Server version: 5.0.45 Source distribution
Ahasuerus 01:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

H. P. Lovecraft and alternate name

I have some problem with the author “H. P Lovecraft”. If you take a look to the author page, you see that there are many alternate names and many of them are real authors.

Example : Ashes

1 .Title : « Ashes » and author « H.P. Lovecraft » date 1924 (first publication), (Weird Tales, March 1924,)

2. Variant title (1) : “Ashes” and author “C. M. Eddy Jr”

3. Title : “Ashes” and authors “C. M. Eddy Jr” and “H.P. Lovecraft”, with no publication, date 1923 (writing date)

4. Variant title (3) : “Ashes” and author “C. M. Eddy Jr” (The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions, (1989, H. P. Lovecraft,) and reprint

5. Variant title (3): “Ashes” and author “C. M. Eddy Jr” (The Loved Dead and Other Tales, (Feb 2009, C. M. Eddy, Jr.)

Action to do : make 1 Variant title of 3; delete title 2, merge title 5 to title 4.

Can I do that ?

Thanks, ChanurBe 09:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for my bad english, I’m french speaking.

I do not think you will see anyone complain about your English! You have nothing to be sorry about. (And we would all be very sorry if I tried to speak French...). As for Lovecraft, I am not a moderator, so you will get some more experienced and official help later. It looks like you know most of this, but here are some comments:
  1. You want to have one instance of each of the authorships. There should be one title by "H. P. Lovecraft", one title by "C. M. Eddy, Jr.", and one title by both "C. M. Eddy, Jr." and "H. P. Lovecraft". Two of those titles should be variants of the third (the "parent").
  2. Right now, there are two parents (1) 85569 and (3) 978388. You must decide which of these is what is called here the "canonical" title -- the master title, the title that will be the only parent. I do not know enough about Lovecraft to suggest which one; I suspect it should be (1), but I do not know. I am sure someone else will have an opinion.
  3. (2) 191677, (4) 977638, and (5) 1029521 are all the same title. You should merge all three, and keep the title_parent you identified above (either 85569 or 978388).
  4. If you decided (1) should be the parent, make (3) a variant of (1). If you decided (3) should be the parent, make (1) the variant of (3).
  5. When all of the merging is done, check that all three titles have the same date.
I hope that helps. --MartyD 11:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I actually entered The Loved Dead and Other Tales and did merges on the title story -- obviously I didn't do enough on this one. I found some online sites that regard this as by HPL and Eddy, and some as by Edy alone "incorrectly attributed to HPL" -- but I am not a Lovecraft expert, and I suspect that there are more reliable sources that I didn't check.
I agree with what Marty said above. I would incline to make (3) the parent, because the publisher's site for The Loved Dead and Other Tales says that 'all stories in that volume were set from handwritten manuscripts by Eddy, which strongly suggests that Eddy had a hand in this story, at least. It may be that there are actually two texts: one written by Eddy, and one re-written by Lovecraft. But someone would need to compare texts to establish that. -DES Talk 13:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I find in Locus index (search on Eddy) that “Ashes” is ghost written by “H.P. Lovecraft”.

The presentation on Arkham House for “The horror in the museum“ say : “It was not the creative work under his own byline that was H.P. Lovecraft s major source of income, but the revising of manuscripts submitted by hopeful authors, young and old, that supplied enough income to enable him to eke out a living." ChanurBe 14:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good reason to make (3) -- 978388 -- the parent. I also see in H. P. Lovecraft frequent use of joint authorship as the canonical title, so you would be following precedent. Variant relationships are easy to rearrange (unlike pseudonyms), so set them up the way you think they should be; it can be changed later. --MartyD 09:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

DAW Books Series

I've carefully read archives, but I've not find anything about this argument. I hope that this would be the right site.

The reprints are not dated, but is indirectly possible to define the year of publication. Starting from the # 9 in the series, appear on front cover a six digit code. The first two are price code Ua (where a varies from Q, J, Y, E etc...) the second four are a progressive number. First editions have the number series; reprints lack the number and have only the six digit code. I've verified many volumes (between 1972 and 1992) and was always true that reprints are chronologically numbered with first editions.
This is the situation:

Year 1st# #Series
1972 1001 1
1973 1037 37 (3 Cap. Kennedy unnumbered; 1 unknown reprint)
1974 1085 89
1975 1150 133
1976 1213 177
1977 1275 224
1978 1350 272
1979 1435 320
1980 1508 360
1981 1584 415
1982 1694 464
1983 1789 512
1984 1895 560
1985 1989 609
1986 2104 658
1987 2178 696
1988 2254 731
1989 2319 768
1990 2401 803
1991 2460 838

If you agree, it is possible to use this table to date DAW Books reprints. --ErnestoVeg 15:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Marc Kupper's DAW Book List attempts to record the books exactly as shown in the books themselves (correct me if I'm wrong, Marc). So that may be why he doesn't list the dates of reprints in his list (if the books don't state the date, then his list doesn't show them either). But as far as the database is concerned, I think this list can be very helpful in determining the dates for the database records. Thank you Ernest for supplying the information. (I changed the range of years to "between 1972 and 1992", assuming the previous dates were a typo. I also note for those unfamiliar that the second column is the DAW catalog number and the third column is the DAW Collectors Number.) Thanks. MHHutchins 17:54, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
It just occurred to me that sometimes DAW will reprint and NOT change the catalog number if the price remains the same. In that case Ernest's list may be misleading. So it may not be as useful as I first thought. :( MHHutchins 18:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps this table should be reproduced on Publisher:DAW? -DES Talk 19:02, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
The period 1972-1985 has an high rate of inflaction. A reprint with the same price means that the reprint is probably in the same year. The table is useful only for the year, of course. I don't like "publication date unknown". No problem to reproduce my table.--ErnestoVeg 06:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't love "publication date unknown", but I prefder it to an incorrect date. While inflation was fairly high during that time, I have plenty of cases in my own collection of books purchased two years apart, from the same publisher, and of the same size, with identical prices. I don't think "no change of price" confidently can be equated to "published the same year", although it does limit the time lapse. -DES Talk 14:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Magazine covers that illustrate specific stories

When a magazine cover illustrates a specific story in the magazine (as is often the case) and this is stated in the magazine, or can be reliably determined from another source, how do we indicated this? In pub notes on the magazine? in a note on the cover art record? some other way? The help seems to be silent on the point. -DES Talk 15:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've only ever seen it noted on the publication. BLongley 17:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
That seemed reasonable, but I haven't done many magazines, and i wanted to be sure. Thanks. -DES Talk 18:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Transfering award listings

While working on the ISFDB:Serial Cleanup project, i came upon this title record. I would delete it as a a placeholder no longer needed, but it seems to be the anchor for an award listing. I'm afraid f i just delete it, the award listing will be lost. Should I merge it with 193169 this title? Or what action should I take? -DES Talk 19:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Merging a record with another preserves any award that's linked to either one, or at least, that's been my experience. Not that I'm in a hurry to deal with them, but maybe one day we'll be able to edit awards. MHHutchins 21:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. -DES Talk 21:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
I suspect merging a "best serial" award record with the first serial record is the most sensible. I would advise that people take the publcation date rather than the award date though, Al seems to have assumed all awards are for the previous year, whereas some are actually awarded at the the end of the year for titles published that same year. I would also encourage people to find publications we record awards for, but don't have yet. But ignore the media awards: unless, maybe, we have a book or magazine version? (That may need to be taken to rules and standards.) BLongley 21:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

1 serial + 18 authors = 1 python error

I tried to create one record for the serial Cosmos so that each of the parts can be made into a variant, but the system wouldn't allow 18 authors for one record. Any suggestions on how to do this? MHHutchins 23:59, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide more details about what you did? In a local copy, I was able to create a novel with 18 authors, so that there's 18 of them may not be the key.... --MartyD 10:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
It may have been because I was creating a parent variant from an existing record. Could you try that? Take this record, choose "Make This Title a Variant..." and on the creation page add seventeen entries using the "Add Author" function. Thanks. MHHutchins 13:29, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Here's the error I get:

<type 'exceptions.IndexError'> Python 2.5: /usr/bin/python Wed Sep 2 08:31:17 2009

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/submitmkvar2.cgi in ()
  31         
  32         new = titles(db)
  33         new.cgi2obj()
  34         
  35         if new.num_authors ==0:

new = <titleClass.titles instance at 0xb770e22c>, new.cgi2obj = <bound method titles.cgi2obj of <titleClass.titles instance at 0xb770e22c>> 

/var/www/cgi-bin/edit/titleClass.py in cgi2obj(self=<titleClass.titles instance at 0xb770e22c>)
 194                 while counter < 100:
 195                         if self.form.has_key('title_author'+str(counter+1)):
 196                                 self.title_authors[self.num_authors] = XMLescape(self.form['title_author'+str(counter+1)].value)
 197                                 self.num_authors += 1
 198                         elif self.form.has_key('review_reviewer1.'+str(counter+1)):

self = <titleClass.titles instance at 0xb770e22c>, self.title_authors = ['Ralph Milne Farley', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n'], self.num_authors = 15, global XMLescape = <function XMLescape at 0xb770cb54>, self.form = FieldStorage(None, None, [MiniFieldStorage('titl...ERIAL'), MiniFieldStorage('title_id', '956071')]), builtin str = <type 'str'>, counter = 15, ].value undefined

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

I used letters "a" - "q" instead of authors for this example. I see the report stops at "n", so maybe 15 is the limit. MHHutchins 13:35, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
That's the problem. It works with 15 authors, but not with more. MHHutchins 13:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I recall Al mentioning that at one point the limit on the number of authors was 10, but I don't know how it was enforced and whether it was applied consistently in all screens. Ahasuerus 13:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
I remember that someone, I think Bluesman, said he could do only ten additions at one time. I am unclear as to what exactly, but it begs the question can you do 10 or 15 and then add later? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:01, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
It looks like title editing, which is shared by Make This Title a Variant and also Edit Title Data, only allows 15 authors. We should be able to fix that. A workaround, however, seems to be to add a publication with the desired authors. That doesn't have the limitation and gets you a title with as many authors as you please (well, at least 18 of them). You could do that, then make the variant of that title, then delete the pub you just created. Much easier if you're a mod, of course.... All that said, you won't be able to edit that title once it's there, as it won't handle the 18 authors. --MartyD 15:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
p.s. I will log a bug for this and fix it. --MartyD 15:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
Logged as Bug 2849218 and fixed for whenever Ahasuerus includes it in a release. --MartyD 15:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
The change looks good -- thank you! -- but I'd like to test it thoroughly since the impact can be fairly significant. Ahasuerus 03:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The fix for this was put up last night. Let me know if you see any further trouble with it. --MartyD 10:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Italian series: I Romanzi di Urania / Urania

Books in this series are recorded in different ways:
With the name of the series in the "Publisher" field or as Arnoldo Mondadodori Editore, Mondadori (Italy) and so on.
I'll wish to verify this publications, using the name of the series as publisher and the series number in "Catalog" field. I'll wait for suggestions.--ErnestoVeg 12:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a good idea, but there may be a problem or two. I think some of the numbers in this series contains more than just novels, appearing almost like a magazine in a paperback format. Placing content other than novels into a NOVEL type may cause problems. Is there a credited editor for such issues? If so, we could change them to the ANTHOLOGY type. Also, do any of these contain ISBNs? If so, there may be a conflict in placing the issue number in the Catalog #/ISBN field. If not, I'd rather see the actual publisher placed into the publisher field, and "Urania #245" (for example) into the Catalog #/ISBN field. I believe that Mondadori publishes books outside the series and should be credited as the publisher in this series. Another thing (before someone suggests it) these should not not be placed into a title record series because Urania is a publication series. MHHutchins 15:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I Romanzi di Urania / Urania don't have a ISBN; from # 1231 they have an explicit ISSN (1994). The series has an editor. Anthology are credited usually to the original editor. Sometime were published Anthologies or Collections never published in English.
The tipical structure shows a NOVEl with some short stories or essays to fit the standard pages. When I had verified some entries, I've not changed the choose of the compiler. If you agree I can modify Italian publications with publisher Mondadori (Italy) and in the Catalog #/ISBN field, Urania o I Romanzi di Urania #nnnn.--ErnestoVeg 19:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
(After edit conflict) I take it that this is a "publication series" not a content series? (See Publication Series for more detail.)
Most such are recorded with the series mentioned in the notes, and a wiki page is used to organize the series as a whole. But in a few cases (such as the "Tor Doubles") the publication series name has appeared in the publisher slot.
Is the series number printed in the books? Is there no other catalog number or ISBN? If so, using the series number as the catalog number seems reasonable to me -- assuming that this is a publication series.
The number was ever printed on the spine and in the copyright page. Now also on the cover. There are not any other number.
In any case, a wiki page seems like a good idea to me. -DES Talk 15:53, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I tend to agree with MHHutchins's comments above. He seems to know more about these publications than I do (which isn't hard) -- my comments are from general principles only. -DES Talk 15:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
No problem to made a list of all the 1550 Urania (to date) if I have a page. A little problem with the links. But probably it is possible to made the link atomatically. Some editors report the data from the Tuck. In this case there are other series in the same situation.--ErnestoVeg 19:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
If you were to choose one name for the publisher which would you choose? Here's all that appear in the database:
  • Arnoldo Mondadori -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Arnoldo Mondadori Editore -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Grijalbo Mondadori, S.A (a joint venture with a Spanish Publisher until 2000)
  • Mondadori -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Mondadori (Italy)
  • Mondadori (IT) -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Mondadori Editore -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Mondadori, Milan -> Mondadori (Italy)
  • Montena Mondadori (a joint venture with a Spanish Publisher until 2000)
  • Random House Mondadori (a joint venture with a American/English Publisher, in Spain, since 2001)--ErnestoVeg 19:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Should any of these remain a separate publisher? (The last is the only one that looks like a separate publisher.) About the Urania series, as DES suggests, a wiki page may be the best approach. Check out this one (currently in progress) as an example. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I will change the publishers to "Mondadori (Italy)" and merge the publication records to that one publisher name. Would you like me to set up a Wiki page for the Urania publication series? I could do a few pubs so that you can see how they are listed and linked. MHHutchins 19:55, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Since you've started adding "Urania" to the Catalog #/ISBN field (because there's not an ISBN for these books), we may not need a Wiki publication series page. That field is searchable. Do an ISBN search for "Urania" and you'll see the first five numbers from the series published in 1952. These were created from your website and verified through Tuck. Please check these out to see if they're OK. They are also seen in this publisher search. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) These entries are listed as novels under Mondadori or Urania Publishers. Would be interesting if you transform in MAGAZINE these entries.

If you agree I can submit all I romanzi di Urania/Urania if you explain me the format that you need or I can send you my database (in Access format) and then you will be able to extract the data yourself.--ErnestoVeg 06:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I will convert those pubs above into the magazine format that was used for the earlier issues. Maybe another editor would know whether your database can be extracted for data. (I do not know how this could be done.) If you wish to continue adding further issues of I romanzi di Urania and Urania, you can use the "Add a New Magazine" entry tool (link on the menu of the front page and others), which will bring up the format required for magazine data entry. If you need assistance or have more questions you can ask them on this help page. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

System display for the Italian lire

There's a problem with how the system displays "Lit.", changing the "L" into the symbol for the British pound. See this example. Is there anyway to get around this? Perhaps we should advice editors to use "Lire" instead of "Lit."? MHHutchins 16:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia suggests the use of "₤", but how could that be easily entered by an editor without copying and pasting (as I had to do)? MHHutchins 16:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
This is unicode character 20A4 (hex) (8356 decimal). In MS-Word one can type 20A4 followed by Alt+X and Word will convert this to the unicode character, which can then be copied&pasted. I don't know a quick&easy way to enter a character into a browser edit field given its unicode number. -DES Talk 20:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
The easiest way I've found is to use the Windows Character Map, but this symbol isn't included. Or if it is I wasn't able to find it. MHHutchins 22:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I don't know off-hand about the Lire symbol, but two I know-off-by-heart how to type directly into the browser field are the English Pound - hold down ALT key & then, on the numeric keypad, type 0163; also copyright symbol - ALT key + 0169. (The symbol appears when you release the ALT key, usually.) (You might need to toggle Num Lock first.)
One way to get others of these codes is to go into Microsoft Word, do Insert Symbol. Locate your symbol & then, down the bottom right of the dialogue box, select ASCII (decimal) from the "from" box [Word 2003 anyway]. The leading zero is needed for English Pound & copyright symbol; I'd guess that if Word shows only 3 digits for the ACSII, add a leading zero.) ...clarkmci/--j_clark 22:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Later: The Lire symbol can be found in Word Insert Symbol. It doesn't give an decimal code for it though, and ALT+8356 doesn't work ...clarkmci/--j_clark 22:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
Windows Character Map has it ("Lira Sign"). It's approximately 3/4 of the way down, shortly after a full line of U and Y with various diacriticals, just before 1/3 2/3 1/8 3/8/ 5/8 7/8 in both Courier New and Arial fonts (I didn't check any others). --MartyD 10:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
So It does. i missed it before, because I had character map set to a different text font, which did not include this symbol. -DES Talk 14:57, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

And / &

Quick question: If "and" and "&" create variant titles, and both versions of the title are verified for two different publications (so the title page vs TOC rule of thumb doesn't apply), are the separate spellings kept as variants, or is one chosen over the other? Jonschaper 01:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

They should be variants, and the first appearance would be the parent record. For example, "Bed & Breakfast" and "Bed and Breakfast" by Gene Wolfe has appeared in three different verified pubs (all verified by me). The parent is Bed & Breakfast because that was how it was first published. It later appeared in his collection Strange Travelers as Bread and Breakfast. It's been reprinted with that same title in his most recent collection. This may eventually become the "canonical" title (as it appears to be the author's preferred title), and if so, we can easily reverse the variant. MHHutchins 02:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Inheritance-- wrong series

I do not believe that the magazine serial "Inheritance" by Robert Wells from the 1973 "Worlds of If"[31] has any relation to the 2002 book childrens series "Inheritence" by Christopher Paloni [32]. The former is placed within the Inheritance series biblography [33] in the database. I do not know how to remove it. Could someone check this, and possibly remove it. JosHil 22:55, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

This situation is a known system bug that will be resolved soon. The system automatically links serials with title records, checking only lexical matches between titles without considering authors. Currently this can't be corrected manually, but within the next week or so (hopefully), this will be fixed. Thanks. MHHutchins 23:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
This should be behaving properly now. --MartyD 10:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

John Langdon - Split?

Part of me doubts that the John Langdon who published 2 short stories in 1947 and 1953 is the same John Langdon who did the cover for Dan Brown's Angels and Demons in 2001. Are there any objections to the creation of "John Langdon (Artist)"? Jonschaper 04:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Since the 1947-1953 author was born in 1913, your doubts seem to be well founded :) Ahasuerus 05:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Novel to Collection

The books in this series (including this pub, which is not currently in the series, but should be) have been added as novels, whereas they are really collections (or arguably, omnibus, though I'm leaning towards calling them collections). My chief reason for this post is to ask what is the preferred method for converting a novel to a collection. I was originally thinking that I would edit the publication and convert both the pub and the title (appearing as contents of the novel pub) to collections with one edit. However, I'm thinking it is safest to ask first, to ensure I don't make a mess of the records.

It's safe to change the Pub record and the Title record in one submission since in this case the Title exists in only one Pub. It can get (much) trickier when there is a Novel and a Collection of the same name and when some pubs point to the wrong Title record. Ahasuerus 04:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll also mention that the fix-ups are presented as their constituent parts more than is usual. e.g. from this book, the fix-up Stormbringer appears with a title page on page 213. It is followed by a two page introduction to "Dead God's Homecoming" which describes the story as a novelette and lists its original appearance in Science Fantasy. There is a one page prologue to the story followed by the story itself on page 218 and which lists "Book One" above the title. The remaining stories are treated similarly (and introduction to the story listing where it first appeared). The table of contents lists both the fix-up and the individual stories. In this instance, should the contents be listed as individual stories, rather than novels. If they should be novels, presumably these would be omnibus rather than collections. This is probably more a question for Rules and Standards, and I'll link to this post there.

Thanks. --Rtrace 04:04, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

"Philip" (vs Phillip) C. Jennings

There are two entries for "Philip" here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Philip%20C.%20Jennings which I suspect should be entered as "Phillip". Can anyone verify if these are legit variants or not? Jonschaper 01:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen physical copies, but for what it's worth, the NYRSF's own spreadsheet lists both with the double L. I'd go with that if no primary verifier says different. BLongley 17:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Sounds good enough evidence for me as well. MHHutchins 17:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixing mistakes in publication record

I've noticed that the pub record for the Millipede Edition of Some of Your Blood by Sturgeon (SMFRBLDZZQ2006) is in error. Steve Rasnic Tem is listed as an author, but he only wrote the introduction. Can I just edit the pub by removing him as an author? Also, this edition includes a bonus short story by Sturgeon. Does this make it a Collection or Omnibus now? Nowickj 15:50, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you can just remove Tem as Pub author when you add the introduction. And I'd leave it as a Novel with a bonus short story, as it's non-genre. BLongley 20:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Cannot create thumbnail

I have attempted to up load a picture to [34], but an error screen comes up saying that it cannot create thumbnail. Do you know why? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JosHil (talk • contribs) .

Our software can only create thumbnails for images that do not exceed certain dimensions. I think 600 pixels is the current limit; I am sure one of our frequent uploaders will correct me if I am misremembering. The upload process did succeed, though, and you can see the results at [35], so you can now link the appropriate publication record to it. Automatically generated thumbnails are nice to have, but their absence doesn't prevent Web browsers from displaying appropriately rescaled images.
On the other hand, very large images are a bad idea for three reasons. First, they take longer to download, so our users have to wait longer for pages to load (although many browsers use various tricks to make the process faster.) Second, they take up more disk space and our image library is already approaching 800Mb, which makes it harder to maintain, back up, etc. Third, very detailed images that approach the quality of the original cover may not be considered "fair use", so we may run into legal problems.
The good news it that the image that you uploaded is only 124Kb in size, so I don't think it should pose any problem. Ahasuerus 01:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Ahasuerus is correct that there is a limit of 600 pixels in height for the system to display the image on its wiki page, BUT that doesn't mean you can't upload one that is greater than 600 pixels. If the image is larger, the system can't create the wiki page thumbnail, but you can click on the full resolution link to see the image. It will be thumbnailed despite its size when you add a link to the Wiki image in the publication's ISFDB record. I agree for the same reasons Ahasuerus gives that the limits be adhered to. An uploader is given a warning about file size, but not dimension size. I personally recommend that this warning not be ignored, even though the option to ignore is there. MHHutchins 04:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I Romanzi di Urania / I Romanzi del Cosmo

It is not possible to search I Romanzi di Urania as series.
As I Romanzi di Urania, I Romanzi del Cosmo is a series magazine with a catalog number and without ISBN.
If some editor tranforms the two entries below in MAGAZINE, I'll be able to edit them:

Thanks--ErnestoVeg 10:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Done, if I understand you correctly. Please check. BLongley 11:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Perfect. I've uniformated the entries. Many I Romanzi del Cosmo are listed in Tuck. Thanks.--ErnestoVeg 13:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
I've held the corrections as they also change a NOVEL used in multiple places into a SERIAL. I think the correct move now is to add the SERIAL, remove the NOVEL, and make the SERIAL a variant, but I haven't looked into that deeply yet so will leave it to another moderator. BLongley 21:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
That's the correct procedure, the one I used on converting some of the earlier records for the periodical that were entered as novels but are being changed to magazine records. In the contents area, add the serial record, add an editor record, submit update. Then remove the novel record. Last step: make the serial record a variant of the novel record. MHHutchins 03:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Sorry, but I've found others title to convert from NOVEL to SERIAL. I've also forgotten that I Romanzi di Urania magazine starting from #152 changed his name in Urania. I've corrected these entries. Sorry for extra-job.

  • [I giganti di pietra] transform in: I Romanzi di Urania #120, editor Giorgio Monicelli.Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [Addio alla Terra] transform in: Urania #175, editor Giorgio Monicelli. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [Le spirali del tempo] transform in: Urania #179,editor Giorgio Monicelli. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [I figli di Matusalemme] transform in: Urania #262, editor Giorgio Monicelli. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [L'uomo che possedeva il mondo] transform in: Urania #275, editor Non credited. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [B.E.S.T.I.A.] transform in: Urania #457, editor Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
  • [La spirali del tempo] transform in: Urania #457, editor Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini. Publisher: Mondadori (Italy)
--ErnestoVeg 12:07, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm trying to follow the procedure :-)--ErnestoVeg 13:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Golem 100

The Computer Connection is not a variant title of Golem 100 [See]--ErnestoVeg 16:20, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Correct, and it shouldn't be. Unfortunately we haven't got an award editor. BLongley 18:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Al was putting finishing touches on an award editor when he became unavailable, but, unfortunately, there are still unresolved (major) bugs which means that we can't activate it yet. At the rate we are going, I hope to know enough about the application to be able to tackle it in a few months, but I may not have a whole lot of free time this fall. Clearly, I need more surgeries :) Ahasuerus 20:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The Humanoids

[The Humanoids] was not automatically linked to Fiction Series and thus, in my opinion, don't appears in the list.--ErnestoVeg 16:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe you have to link serials manually now. BLongley 18:37, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
That's right, the new method is described in Help:How to connect serials to titles. Ahasuerus 20:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Can you demonstrate with submissions 1224521 and 1224530 please? The edits to the publications look fine (as far as I can tell) apart from the NOVEL to SERIAL conversions. It's getting late, and I don't feel like dealing with multi-step fixing edits at the moment. But I'm too nice to reject them to be redone, especially as I have far less Italian language skill than ErnestoVeg has English. BLongley 21:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
Sure, I'll take a look at them shortly! Ahasuerus 21:26, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
OK, all of Ernesto's submissions have been reviewed and integrated. It occurs to me that they come at a very good time. Now that we have learned how to create new options, "User Preferences" is #3 or 4 on my list of "big" things to do. Once User Preferences becomes a reality, we can add a "language code" to each Title and let our users decide which languages they want to see. Ernesto's submissions provided a treasure trove of examples of the types of permutations that we will have to sort out, e.g. an Italian magazine which publishes translations of English, French and German titles. Something to think about while getting ready to implement User Preferences. Ahasuerus 03:43, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Things are more complicated. Many English title were translated from French translations (i.e. Wandrei, Statten), in the beginning.--ErnestoVeg 12:11, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
We can work around that. All serial records should be linked to the parent title record, regardless of the language of the first publication. If Urania reprinted a novel by Jules Verne, it should be linked to the original French language title. The parent title record for the Wandrei novel is the English language title. Did it appear in French originally, or was the Urania version translated from a French translation? Even so, we would still link it to the original English title record. MHHutchins 18:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The Italian edition was translated from French translation. It is correctly linked to English title.--ErnestoVeg 11:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
As an aside, eventually we plan to add a Title level field for "translators", in part to distinguish between different translations, but I think we will want to add a Title level "language code" field first. There are a few outstanding issues that we need to resolve first, but I'll raise the on the Community Portal, a more appropriate place for these types of general discussions. Ahasuerus 19:30, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
Well. Now is very expensive to enter information in note, and practically we lost, the foreign title appeared in magazines (that are not searchable).--ErnestoVeg 11:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Robert Lory: Dracula Returns and Dracula's Return

"Dracula's Return!" is listed as the first in Robert Lory's The Return of Dracula series here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Robert%20Lory

I noticed the similar title "Dracula Returns!" and managed to find a scan of the cover and references to it as the first of the Return of Dracula series. I also found references to "Dracula's Return!" (no scans) so I don't doubt its existence. It too is mentioned as being first in the series. Is anyone in the position to confirm these are variant titles, or is this enough evidence? Jonschaper 00:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have a copy of the first printing of the Pinnacle edition of this immortal classic, so I corrected and verified our record. As the Notes field now says: ""Dracula Returns!" on the cover and on the spine but "Dracula Returns" on the title page and on the copyright page."
I don't have the New English Library reprint, but Worldcat confirms that the title was also Dracula Returns and Reginald-1 doesn't list the "Dracula's Return!" version, so it is apparently apocryphal. I went ahead and merged our versions. Ahasuerus 01:19, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
The NEL cover seems to agree. Got to love those crazy Vault of Evil guys at times. BLongley 20:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Malformed author name

Found this author "Adri?n Ferrero" that will not display. Search using "Adri". Can't fix it at my end. Thanks.Kraang 02:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem was introduced with the addition of Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing. The contents section was using bad Unicode codes, probably due to cutting and pasting from another source which doesn't use the standard Windows alt codes (OCLC?). We had 2 bad Author names and one bad Title record, all fixed now. Ahasuerus 03:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Neil Gaiman variants?

Hi, can anyone check if these are actual variants for Gaiman http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Neil_Gaiman

"The Fairy Reel" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?857348 vs "The Faery Reel" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?286331

and (my favourite)

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?857351 vs "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?869926

Thanks Jonschaper 05:21, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they're both true variants. The titles in the Fragile Things collection are the variants. The ones in Gothic and The Faery Reel are the parents. MHHutchins 05:35, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Fleuve Noir

This Publisher is listed in 8 ways:

  • Éditions Fleuve Noir: 1 title
  • Editions Fleuve Noir: 2 titles
  • Fleuve Noir
  • Fleuve Noir, Angoisse: 3 titles
  • Fleuve Noir, Anticipation: 17 titles
  • Fleuve Noir, Lendemains Retrouvés: 1 title
  • Fleuve Noir: Angoisse 1 (France): 1 title
  • Paris: âEditions Fleuve Noir: 4 titre

I think that would be e good thing to uniformate to Fleuve Noir, and report the series name and number in note.--ErnestoVeg 11:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the publisher name should only be Fleuve Noir and the series names should be removed and placed in the notes along with the number. I was going to do that for you with a publisher update, but I see you've already changed each of the pub records (which I remember approving this morning). Sorry I didn't notice this earlier, or I could have saved you some time in editing (the series would still have to be placed into the note field.) MHHutchins 05:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
There are eight or nine hour gap. When I sleep, you work. :-); no problem.--ErnestoVeg 14:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Jeffrey Ford - Variant?

Can anyone check if these are variants:

"The Drowned Life" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?867760 vs "Drowned Life" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?951957 Jonschaper 05:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be "The Drowned Life". The contents of the collection were taken from OCLC where librarians are apt to leave off leading articles. If you submit a merge of the two records as "The Drowned Life" I'll accept it. MHHutchins 05:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Alien Harvest

I think (see for covers at: [fantastifiction]) that all three title novel [Alien Harvest] must be the same: Aliens™: Alien Harvest. The correction is quite complicate because in an entry is indicated as co-author the author of the graphic novel. Seem me strange... --ErnestoVeg 16:41, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The record that credits Prosser was probably created from a robot that patrols Amazon, who will frequently give author credit to other roles in the creation of the book (artist, editor, even introducer.) I have fixed the pub record giving Sheckley as sole author of the novel, but noted that it's based on a graphic novel by Prosser. As for the three records, there are one each for the US and UK editions, and a higher priced US edition which is probably a reprint. I changed the date of that one to 0000-00-00, indicating an unknown printing date. Thanks. MHHutchins 17:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Kendall or Kendal Evans in Spring 88 Absolute Magnitude

Can someone check if Kendall Evans is actually credited as "Kendal" here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?108092 Thanks Jonschaper 03:48, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Locus lists it with two Ls. --MartyD 10:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

"Kandis Elliott" covers for Tomorrow Speculative Fiction

Hi, can someone double check if she is credited as Elliott or Elliot for these two entries http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Kandis%20Elliott Thanks Jonschaper 04:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Locus has Elliot with one T for June 1996, November 1996, and February 1997. It does not list an October 1996 issue (which makes sense, as it was bimonthly). This index concurs. --MartyD 10:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking of not making sense, I guess November would be the odd month out if June and February are right.... Sigh. --MartyD 10:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Elliot or Elliott

Can someone double-check if these entries for "Elton Elliot" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Elton%20Elliot (June/July 1969 Galaxy; March 91 Amazing; and Spring 1990 Science Fiction Review) and "Elton T. Elliot" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Elton%20T.%20Elliot (Sep/Oct 1979 Galaxy) are actually spelled "Elliott". If so, that would eliminate 2 of the variations in Elton T. Elliott's name. Thanks Jonschaper 05:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the SF Review credit, and I have the other three magazines packed away. If the verifiers of each don't respond soon, I'll dig them out and check the spelling. MHHutchins 14:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
You might want to place a note on Rkihara and Swfritter's pages in case they miss this one. Thanks. MHHutchins 14:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Galaxy, June-July 1979 - Should be "Elton Elliott" rather than "Elton Elliot". Galaxy, September-October 1979 - Should be "Elton T. Elliott" rather than "Elton T. Elliot".--swfritter 00:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Amazing, March 1991, should be "Elton Elliott." Corrected entry.--Rkihara 02:11, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

BUM Mondaodri

Series name[BUM Mondaodri] is wrong. I'm not able to edit series. Please correct: Biblioteca Umoristica Mondadori--ErnestoVeg 11:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

That appears to be a publication series. If so we should just delete it entirely. For the purposes of the database, a series is based on the contents of the book (characters, setting, plot) and not by who publishes them or how the publisher markets the books. The one exception is that we also use it for editor records to create magazine series. Is Biblioteca Umoristica Mondadori a magazine series similar to Urania, or would it be similar to the Bantam Spectra Special Editions or the Corgi SF Collector's Library? If the latter, the series should be deleted, and a Wiki page can be created to record the books in the series. The hope the meaning of each kind of series is clear, because I don't know if it's really been sharply defined in the help documentation. There are publication series in the database now, which were set up through the publisher field (for example: Tor Double and Ace SF Special), but these will eventually be changed (to "Tor" and "Ace") once a publication series Wiki page has been created for them. Feel free to use "Biblioteca Umoristica Mondadori" in the publisher field to keep the publications together until a Wiki page is created, or until the database supports publication series. Thanks. MHHutchins 14:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
BTW, I updated the series record to "Biblioteca Umoristica Mondadori". Click on the series name from any link in the database and you're carried to the series summary page. In the editing tools menu there's a link "Edit Series" from which you can change the name of the series and/or place it as a subseries of another series. MHHutchins 14:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
We do use series to connect sequential anthologies. For example There Will Be War, Full Spectrum, or Sword and Sorceress. These might be called publication series, but not only do we permit them, the display code has a special section for them/ Much the same might be said for series set up to handle recurring magazine columns, such as Brass Tacks. The help probably needs to cover all these cases better. -DES Talk 14:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I suspected there would be more exceptions if I thought longer about it. This Italian series looked more like a publication series and not like any of the ways we currently use "series" in the db. If it doesn't do so already, I agree that the help pages need to explain the different ways to use series. The thing that separates these uses is that they're all on the title level, while, by definition, the publication series is on the publication level. I wouldn't call an anthology series a publication series, because it doesn't matter who published them. All three of the major series of the 70s (Orbit, New Dimensions, and Universe) changed publishers in their run. It's the title records that make up the series, not the publication records. The connection from one issue to the other was more like a magazine than, let's say, the Avon SF Rediscovery series, or the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which, for the most part, reprinted titles. One rule of thumb: if a title was published in a series by one publisher but reprinted by another publisher in another series, and you can't place the title record into both, then it's probably a publication level series. That being said, we could probably find an exception if we looked long enough. MHHutchins 19:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
There's probably lots of examples where any definition of series breaks down. And many will probably be found on Michael Moorcock's page. (See the two different "The Tale of the Eternal Champion" series for instance.) Or look at how much effort it took to put Star Trek Pocket Books in order when they were republished by Titan. We work around it for now. BLongley 19:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Mike above that if different publications of the same title are in different series, or not all in the same series, that would be a publication series. The only cases where I think we might have this in the db is for essay series that represent magazine columns. If such essays are later reprinted, say in a book of collected essays by the author, they might not be in the column series. But such essays are often revised, at least slightly, for republication anyway. -DES Talk 19:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
In Italian we have two different words for series: "Collana" (many Italian books have a publisher series name, numbered or unnumbered and after 1976 with or without ISBN) and "Cicli" for series in usual way. As the fans use in special way the publisher series, I've in my database a field for ISBN/Code (before 1976 many publisher used internal code, now only Book Club use internal code) and two field for Publisher Series and for number. Also French and German organize the data by Publisher Series.--ErnestoVeg 13:59, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Ward & Lock & Co.

There are three variant for this editor: Ward & Lock & Co.(most used); Ward & Lock; Ward, Lock. Would be a good thing to uniformate.--ErnestoVeg 18:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

There was only one title for each of the variant spellings, and after checking on OCLC, determined they all should be "Ward, Lock & Co.". I let "Ward Lock Educational" stand as is, because it seems to be a separate imprint. There was also a "Ward, Lock & Bowden" in the mid-1890s that I let stand. MHHutchins 20:08, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Shuttle Down by Lee Correy (AKA G. Harry Stine)

Can anyone confirm if Ballentine really did credit this to "Correy" without the "Lee" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?30606 I find that doubtful. Thanks Jonschaper 05:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

That was a stub record that someone let through. There was a more complete record for the same ISBN, so I deleted the stub. That leaves only one credit for "Correy" which I've asked the verifier to double-check. Thanks. MHHutchins 06:24, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Uomini di altri pianeti/Men of Other Planets by Kenneth Heuer

This book was published in I Romanzi di Urania in 15 parts. Can I register it as Men of Other Planets (x Part of 15) as NON FICTION?--ErnestoVeg 11:56, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

No, NONFICTION is reserved for book-length works. Non-fiction contents should be entered as ESSAY type. BLongley 12:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks--ErnestoVeg 13:29, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Cawthorn vs Cawthorne

Hi, is anyone able to verify if the cover here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?SCIFANTOCT1962 is credited to "Cawthorne" or "Cawthorn"? "Cawthorn" would mean one less variant for James Cawthorn. Cheers Jonschaper 03:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Visco lists it as "Cawthorn", that's good enough for me for now. BLongley 17:31, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Stepan Chapman variants

Can someone check if Stepan's name is spelled "Stephen" here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?913117 in the Steampunk anthology? If so, that would make it a variant of this: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?806621

I also suspect that "Stephan Chapman" (credited with "The Man Who Built Half of Oz" in the Spring 1996 Science Fiction Eye) is a variant or mispelling: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?120999 Thanks Jonschaper 01:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The OCLC record records the author in the anthology as "Stepan". The only website that doesn't copy our data gives the SF Eye piece as by "Stepan". Go ahead and change both and that'll get rid of one false name and one false variant. Thanks. MHHutchins 06:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Suzy McKee Charnas' "A Musical Interlude"

I suspect that this http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?51224 is the same as this http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?920665 and that they should be merged with "excerpt: Chapter 4 of the Vampire Tapestry" being made a note instead of part of the title. Can anyone confirm? Jonschaper 01:07, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I think they should be merged also, but without the (excerpt) as part of the title. That can be placed in the note field of the title record. MHHutchins 06:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

John Christopher's "Balance" and "In the Balance"

Does anyone know if these are the same stories? They came out around the same time, the former in a UK mag http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57777 the latter in a US mag http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?84088 and have similar titles and page length. Jonschaper 01:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Pseudonym?

Anyone know if "Dr. John Clark" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Dr.%20John%20Clark is also "Dr. John D. Clark" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?John%20D.%20Clark,%20Ph.D. ? I'd be particularly cautious here since John and Clark are common names. Jonschaper 02:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a tough one. The only piece being in a British magazine makes me suspect it's not the same guy. Perhaps leaving this alone would be for the best. MHHutchins 06:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Roy L. Clough vs Roy L. Clough Jr.

Can someone doublecheck if he is actually credited without the "Jr." here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?98871 If so, the non-"Jr" Clough should be a pseudonym and this publication should be a variant of http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58690 Thanks Jonschaper 03:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The only source I have for the anthology is Tuck, and he gives the author as "R. L. Clough", as he is apt to abbreviate first names. But he ordinarily would give the "Jr." if it were present. Go ahead and make it a variant of the Jr. title record. MHHutchins 06:23, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I neglected to link to the actual story (just updated the author) with my first edit of the story. Jonschaper 22:39, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Does This Book Exist?

As far as I can tell, "A Dangerous Malice" by D.G. Compton here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?6329 doesn't exist. There is no publication info. See also http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.sf.written/2005-09/msg06972.html Jonschaper 05:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't exist as that title. It should be A Dangerous Magic by Frances Lynch. See the OCLC record. I'll use that for the basis of a record of the work, changing the record to the correct title. Good catch. Keep it up the good work. MHHutchins 06:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Also look at this Google Books search for Compton credits. MHHutchins 06:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that all of the "Frances Lynch" titles are non-genre, but I'll leave that to someone else to sort out. MHHutchins 06:32, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Cheers. I'll have to keep those links in mind (I was unable to locate the "magic" title either in a quick search). Is there a page where usefull links like those might be listed? Jonschaper 22:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
There is Sources of Bibliographic Information linked from the main Wiki page -- feel free to add to it :) Ahasuerus 23:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Storm Constantine: Variant Title or Merge?

"As it Flows to the Sea" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?100235 vs "As it Flows to the Sea. . ." http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?917920 Thanks Jonschaper 06:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Locus1 gives the title in Tarot Tales with the ellipsis. If you merge the two, I'll accept the submission. MHHutchins 06:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Nouvelles âeditions OPTA

Nouvelles âeditions OPTA would be: Nouvelles Editions OPTA; but in France, is only OPTA (as Edition OPTA).--ErnestoVeg 13:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Is "Nouvelles Editions OPTA" a separate imprint of the publisher, or it simply a series (like Fleuve Noir's Anticipation)? If it's an imprint we need to keep them separate, if not we can merge the two publishers. Thanks. MHHutchins 15:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

National Geographic

I have a National Geographic magazine (July 1976) that contains a SF short story by Issac Asimov titled "The Next Frontier?). This is the only SF content in this magazine. How should I add this?--JosHil 02:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, non-genre magazines, one of our favorite bibliographic mini-nightmares! :) There is a Help page that describes how we handle them at Help:Entering non-genre magazines, hopefully it's reasonably clear. Ahasuerus 02:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
(after edit conflict)
There's a help page written just for these cases. In a nutshell:
  1. Choose "Add new magazine" from the menu on the home page.
  2. Complete fields for the header from info obtained from the magazine: Title (National Geographic); Editor (this is open to debate, but if there's not a credited Fiction Editor just enter "Editors of National Geographic"); skip Tag field; Year, enter YYYY-MM-DD (if monthly, make the DD=00); Publisher (from the magazine's colophon); Pages (last numbered page, counting forward for any unnumbered page, add 4 if the covers are not included in the page count); Pub Format (leave blank); ISBN/Catalog# (leave blank); Price (from the cover); Artist (leave blank, unless the cover illustrates the spec-fic story).
  3. Complete one content field entry for each piece of spec-fic included in the magazine, also add a content entry for any illustration accompanying the story.
  4. Submit.
Any questions should be answered on the help page. Or ask here. Hope this helps. MHHutchins 02:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

James Herbert Brennan

I thought I should survey preferences for the parent name between "Herbie Brennan" and "J. H. Brennan" before I start combining them since there is a fair amount of material under either name. My personal preference is for "Herbie" since that's the name I grew up knowing, and I note his webpage is www.herbiebrennan.com/ Jonschaper 05:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

We generally use the most commonly used name to minimize the number of "as by" lines on Summary Bibliography pages, but when the ratio is close to 50-50, it's not terribly important, so "Herbie" should be fine. The important thing is to make sure that all books are accessible on the same page. Ahasuerus 00:28, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Since J. H. Brennan has "Maria Palmer" listed as a shared pseudonym, I'll add "Herbie Brennan" to the list of Maria's parent names, change the credits for the parent titles for the two books written by Brennan from J.H. to Herbie, then eventually remove J. H. as one of Maria's pseudonyms. Hopefully that'll go smoothly Jonschaper 01:15, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
That should work. Just keep in mind that we will also need to move all Series designations from variant titles to their (newly set up) parents. We will also need to blank out the Author level data for the "J. H." record once all "J. J." titles have been set up as VTs of "Herbie". It can get a little messy, but it's good practice :) Ahasuerus 01:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Ben Bova's "Cement"

Can someone check if this is an essay as per here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?540577 or a short story as per here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?48764 Thanks Jonschaper 00:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

According to Locus1, it's a facetious article, one of those nebulous types that is not supported by the ISFDB. The records should be merged, and personally, I'd go with fiction, but I guess it depends upon what direction you approach it from. MHHutchins 01:19, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
My prejudice is to go by the author's intent, so I lean towards "fiction" (ditto for Asimov's Thiotimoline shorts, Wellen's History of Galactic..., Clifton's "Dread Tomato Addiction", etc) since ultimately they're meant to be taken as creative works of the imagination or parodies. Serious quack articles I'd leave as essays. But I've always been conflicted about works by authors who likely knew they were making things up as they went along but hoped the public would take them as serious (I'm looking at you, "Shaver Mystery") Jonschaper 02:04, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
According to a number of independent reports, Shaver was an honest crank. Palmer, on the other hand, well, that's a whole different can of worms. Ahasuerus 02:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
But Palmer's theatrics pretty much doubled (or more) the circulation of "Amazing Stories" until an evil conspiracy forced him out. The continued suppression of Shaver's stories is proof of their truth and not evidence, as many claim, that they were badly written. Living within fairly close proximity of Mt. Shasta has left me in constant dread; expecting eldritch horrors any day. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!! Ouch! It's not a good idea to bite down when your tongue is in your cheek.--swfritter 14:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Identical Variants

For some reason "The Day After Judgement" by James Blish is listed as a variant of "The Day After Judgement" by James Blish here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?James%20Blish Would this be because both titles are listed as part of "The Devil's Day" series, and would they merge correctly if I remove the "variant" from the series? Jonschaper 01:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing what you're pointing to, it looks like the parent is spelled "Judgment" and the variant is "Judgement". Or is there something else? MHHutchins 01:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
The series shouldn't be touched. The Devil's Day consists of two novels that were published separately, but is considered as a whole the second part of "After Such Knowledge". In order for the two novels that make up The Devil's Day to become part of the series also, it was made into a sub-series of the main series. MHHutchins 01:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Mystery solved. I missed the difference in spelling Jonschaper 01:49, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Aaron Bank

The Aaron Bank in the linked wikipedia page here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Aaron%20Bank was 91 when the book was published. Is there a known connection? Jonschaper 04:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Based on Amazon's description of the book, it's the same Aaron Bank. It's a WWII-era action/adventure story and it doesn't seem to be particularly speculative except for the "what if the order to capture Hitler (which I was given at the end of WWII in Europe) had not been canceled?". Still, Kirkus calls it a "[p]onderous what-if? epic", so it may contain some elements of secret/alternative history. Ahasuerus 02:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Cheers Jonschaper 04:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Dating Art Credits

When an independently existing work of art is used for a publication, how should the art be dated? E.g., for Gary Kilworth's 2006 collection here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?933060 they used Abel Grimmer's 1604 painting "Tower of Babel" -- should the date be 1604 or 2006? Jonschaper 05:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe it should be the date of its first appearance as a book cover, but I don't know if that's ever been discussed before. If not, it may not be part of the help pages. If you can't find it there, you may want to start a discussion on the Rules and Standards discussion page. MHHutchins 05:56, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I've started a conversation here http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Rules_and_standards_discussions#Dating_Artwork (as you can see I'm of two minds myself) Jonschaper 06:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Title Merging Concurrent with Other Edts

Last week I attempted to import contents from an existing publication and noticed that several of the stories were missing when the import was approved. I decided not to pester anyone in case it was just a hiccup. Earlier this evening, I noticed that several titles did not appear when cloning this pub was approved to make this new pub. However, I think that I have discovered the culprit: Before I did the clone, I had merged several of the stories (and those that were merged appear to be the missing ones). Looking back at the earlier set of imports, there appears to be a similar situation with merges. Am I right in assuming that I should hold off on submitting either clones or imports (or presumably exports) until any pending merges have been approved? Thanks. ~Ron --Rtrace 05:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's best to wait until any merges or edits of contents (actually their title records) have been approved, before making a submission that updates a publication that contains those records. Merges always delete one (or more) of the title records, retaining just the one record. If you edited a title record and merged it with another, it's possible that a moderator may not approve them in that order. I will occasionally work from the bottom of the submission queue in order to avoid conflicts when I know another moderator is approving submissions. If I approve the submission that merges before the submission that edits, the record may no longer exist. I'm still not sure if this caused the problems you experienced with the clone pubs. I would think that this would cause a Python error, in which a submission can't be accepted because it edited a non-existent record. Perhaps the merges dropped the content title records that appeared in the pub record you imported from before the submission was accepted, making those content title records different than those that were there when you made the submission. (That makes me dizzy just trying to explain it.) In other words, it couldn't import records that no longer existed. In even other words, wait until submissions are approved before making submissions that edit the same title records. MHHutchins 06:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I will try to recreate this behavior tonight, but it sounds like a problem with the import approval logic. One would think that it should display an error if the submission contains a Title record which no longer exists in the database (similar to what happens when approving Edit Publication submissions.) Ahasuerus 11:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
A little experimenting on my local server helped identify the problem. Just like we suspected, the submission approval process takes the list of Titles in the submission and copies them to the new Publication record without checking to see whether they still exist in the database. The result is that the internal table of contents ("pub_content" for those who are familiar with the database structure) contains references to non-existent Titles. When the pub is displayed, the display process ignore non-existent Titles, which has masked the problem up until now. I will create a Bug report on Sourceforge -- thanks for finding it! Ahasuerus 01:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
FYI, a variation on this was (is) this case where I merged away a title, and while that was pending, I edited the pub where the title going away was recorded and added a page number to its content record. Apparently, after the merge was approved, attempting to view the pub edit submission suffered much heartburn. --MartyD 19:25, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
The big red "ERROR" that moderators see when this happens in Edit Pub was added a while back (beats getting a Python error!), but we need to add the same check to Import Contents. Come to think of it, once we have an audit trail of Title merges, it may be possible to make the approval process smart enough to use the Title record that the submitted Title was merged with. On the other hand, I suppose it can also be dangerous depending on the nature of the merge. Ahasuerus 21:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Lene Kaaberbøl vs Lene Kaaberbol

This http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Lene%20Kaaberbol and http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Lene%20Kaaberbøl are listings for the same Danish author. Should the two be merged or made pseudonyms, which should be a parent (not having access to the books I don't know if any show the accent), and (if the accented one is made a parent) should "Kaaberbol" without the accent still be set as the Last Name so it comes up in a search under that spelling? Thanks Jonschaper 01:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

According to OCLC, the 2007 "Macmillan UK" edition of Silverhorse used "ø" while all US editions have used "o" so far. The good news is that "ø" is a "well behaved" character in that it doesn't break author links or searches. Unfortunately, our search logic doesn't find "ø" when you search on "o" or vice versa, so the only way to ensure that our users find the author when they do a search on either form of the name is to set up VTs and a pseudonym. Ahasuerus 01:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Personal Book lists?

Hello, Everyone! Just changed out three computers Rt eye, car, and that pesky desk model. Problem is the desk model can not use Access 97 at all. My problem is that I therefore can not keep and update my book lists. After reading horror after horror story about using any Access product and that old forms do not convert well, I desperately need some suggestions. I hate redoing a just shy of 5,000 list from scratch and then finding it incompatible shortly thereafter. So in giving my personal problem some thought it is obvious that I need something less fragile. Personal note, I am a not a techie, so complicated systems are out of depth for me. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You may want to look at Open Office. Its free and there is an import function for Access although I don't not for sure that it will import Access 97 databases.--swfritter 15:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Very curious. Database for Open Office 2 allowed Access import. I just updated to 3 and it doesn't appear to do so. You might have to export Access 97 to a spreadsheet and then load into an Open Office Database.--swfritter 15:53, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I have been trying Open Office, but it actually does a conversion and does NOT import it to their base OD. I have played with it for three days and it appears it may be more fragile than I would like as I lost things on their side, but not on my Access document. Funny thing though, the first conversion allowed an Access base change, but the rest have not, and I can not get it to repeat any other time. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Have you looked atLibrarything? If you have listed ISBNs on your own database it should be fairly easy to import your data. Tpi 18:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Well Librarything is an idea, but I need something I can work on, to show the problems and things I have found here, not to mention, many of the books are pre ISBN. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
If you can run your old computer even once more, you should be able to export your access db into a CSV file, or similar text-based format, and then you should be able to import that into almost any DB program you like. -DES Talk 21:59, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I will give that a try! Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 11:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Variant Title in Awards Listing?

If the title of a story is given incorrectly in an awards listing, should it just be corrected/merged or should it be treated as a variant title? Example: this entry vs this entry, with the original awards list here. -Fsfo 23:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

We generally don't create variant titles when an award or a nomination misspells the title, so in this case we will want to merge the two titles. When titles are merged, all awards end up associated with the "surviving" titles, so there should be no problem on that front. (There is a full featured award editor on the works, but it's currently on hold.) Ahasuerus 01:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Adam Nevill vs Adam L. G. Nevill

Is anyone able to check how Adam is credited for his short story here? http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?947281 This would appear to be his only credit without the middle initials. Thanks Jonschaper 22:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

According to OCLC, the story should be credited with initials. I'll change it. Thanks. MHHutchins 23:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Python error on a cloning attempt

I'm linking SFBC titles when I realize that there is no record for the SFBC edition of Bradbury's collection The Cat's Pajamas. There's not even a record for the trade edition. There's not a record for any edition. So I create a record for the trade edition without adding contents, thinking I'll go back later and add them. So I go to clone the trade edition to create a SFBC edition, and it creates a Python error that won't allow me to submit the record. So I do a test and add a dummy content record to the trade edition, accept the submission and then go back to the record. This time it allows me to clone it. Could it have something to do with the fact that there were no contents? Why else would it reject my attempt the first time and accept it after I've added a content record? Strange. I've removed the test content record. Your challenge if you choose to accept it: clone this pub. The clock starts . . . NOW! MHHutchins 04:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It happened again when I tried to clone this pub. The only thing they have in common is that they're contentless container pub records (one a collection, the other an anthology). A definite bug, probably caused by the code that checks for content records that are contained in other pub records. MHHutchins 04:53, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Yup, it's a bug all right. I will fix it tonight -- thanks for finding it! Ahasuerus 12:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Bug squashed. Also, as I discovered a few days ago, Clone Pub doesn't properly clone pubs with multiple "container" titles that match Publication type (Bug 2873841 on Sourceforge), but that's an anomalous situation, so not a high priority. Ahasuerus 02:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Novel divided into two books + current author is a pseudonym

I planning on filling this author's bibliography. His most famous novel Two Planets is already there. Well, the novel was first published in 1897 as Auf zwei Planeten - divided into two parts and published in two books. How do you handle this? Add two pubs to one title and add something like ... (part one) and ... (part two) to the pub titles. Or just create one pub entry (and add a note that there are two books). In case of the latter: what about the page count - one of the very few things in which two pub entries of the parts would differ. --Phileas 09:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It was very common for 19th century and earlier novles to be issued in multiple volumes. The multiple volume works of such authors as Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens are normally treated as though they were one novel. If it appears that both parts were published at the same time and met to be sold together then one entry makes sense to me.--swfritter 13:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
They appeared at the same time. But I don't know whether they were sold bundled or separate. But they were surely meant to, because one doesn't make sense without the other and there was also kind of a tag-line, that reads literally translated: "A novel in two books". --Phileas 08:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Here in an example of a novel in two volumes. The page count could be done this way, which is the way Ace doubles are done. Now that the "pp" does not show up in the page count it looks a little better.--swfritter 11:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There's another thing about this author. Besides his legal name Carl Theodor Victor Kurd Laßwitz his works were first published as Kurd Laßwitz. The alternate writing of the surname Lasswitz was used for several later German editions and ultimately for international edition of course. Currently there's only Lasswitz in the ISFDB. I think it should be Laßwitz with Lasswitz as a pseudonym. How do I handle this correctly? Create an new title - like a German edition of Auf zwei Planeten that was published under the name Laßwitz then make Lasswitz a pseudonym of Laßwitz and complete the author's data of the new Laßwitz entry. Also Two Planets has to be made a variant title of Auf zwei Planeten. Would this be the correct procedure. Thanks for helping. --Phileas 09:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to have an author's canonical name include non-Latin characters if there is an alternative. With our current software, searching for such names is at best inconvenient and non-intuitive. I also suspect that, to English-speaking readers at least, this author is much better known as "Lasswitz", and our standard is that the best known name, not the legal name or the first used name, is the canonical name, and that English-speaking users are our primary audience, at least to date. -DES Talk 14:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
"ß" (alt-0223) is not as bad as it looks. Here is what I wrote about the differences between "Latin-1" and "Latin-2" characters a few days ago:


In theory, we support all "Alt-Number" characters (to use the Windows terminology) between 192 and 255, i.e.:

  • 0192 À
  • 0193 Á
  • 0194 Â
  • 0195 Ã
  • 0196 Ä
  • 0197 Å
  • 0198 Æ
  • 0199 Ç
  • 0200 È
  • 0201 É
  • 0202 Ê
  • 0203 Ë
  • 0204 Ì
  • 0205 Í
  • 0206 Î
  • 0207 Ï
  • 0208 Ð
  • 0209 Ñ
  • 0210 Ò
  • 0211 Ó
  • 0212 Ô
  • 0213 Õ
  • 0214 Ö
  • 0215 ×
  • 0216 Ø
  • 0217 Ù
  • 0218 Ú
  • 0219 Û
  • 0220 Ü
  • 0221 Ý
  • 0222 Þ
  • 0223 ß
  • 0224 à
  • 0225 á
  • 0226 â
  • 0227 ã
  • 0228 ä
  • 0229 å
  • 0230 æ
  • 0231 ç
  • 0232 è
  • 0233 é
  • 0234 ê
  • 0235 ë
  • 0236 ì
  • 0237 í
  • 0238 î
  • 0239 ï
  • 0240 ð
  • 0241 ñ
  • 0242 ò
  • 0243 ó
  • 0244 ô
  • 0245 õ
  • 0246 ö
  • 0247 ÷
  • 0248 ø
  • 0249 ù
  • 0250 ú
  • 0251 û
  • 0252 ü
  • 0253 ý
  • 0254 þ
  • 0255 ÿ

This means that our software should recognize, say, "é" and display Philip José Farmer's bibliography and any links to it correctly, including letting you search on "jose farmer" without the accent -- which it does. I am not entirely sure what will happen if you try to use something like "÷" or "æ", but we can certainly experiment. Come to think of it, we should probably test it thoroughly and then post a list of "approved characters" under Help.

As far as Latin-2 goes, it supports a number of Polish, Czech and other Central European characters that we can't handle, which is why we have an entry for Stanislaw Lem as opposed to "Stanisław Lem", the way his name is spelled in Polish.

(end quote)

So all Latin-1 characters are generally OK to use unless proven otherwise, but Latin-2 characters cause problems. We'll want to set up VTs and a pseudonym relationships between the two forms of the name, of course.
As far as the canonical name issue goes, if the "ss" form of the name is well known, then it's probably better to use it, but as long as you can search on either form of the name and get to the author's bibliography, we shouldn't have any major issues. It's the broken links and the inability to run meaningful searches that kill Latin-2 for us :( Ahasuerus 16:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
See Frank Schätzing for an example of how this can been done. Note that the UK publisher used "ä" while the US publisher changed it to "a". Ahasuerus 17:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Yes, we can enter "ß" and have it display properly, unlike Latin-2 characters. But most users won't know how to enter it, indeed won't know to enter it, so I am inclined to think it should rarely be used in a canonical name. Certainly when the "ss" form ("ß" is after all in origin a ligature for "ss", as I understand it, and many modern German names use "ss" in place of "ß") is in common use in the English-language publications, I wouldn't make a name using "ß" the canonical name. -DES Talk 17:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
It's more complicated. German spelling was changed a few years back - this is officially. A good amount of "ß" was changed to "ss" indeed. However the "ß" is more complicated, because there are two ways to pronounce it - depending on the emphasis of the preceding vocal it's either pronounced like "s" or "ss". The recent evolutionary steps replaced the "ß" where it's pronounced as "ss". Most uneducated people (and even some newspaper editors) think they can replace any "ß" to "ss" and that's what cause a lot of confusion. However doesn't affect names. Laßwitz's signature clearly shows the "ß" and afaik "Lasswitz" wasn't used before his death. That's why I think it should be "Laßwitz" and "Lasswitz" should be the pseudonym. As I understand it you can get to the author without entering the "ß" as long as there's the pseudonym liked to the author. --Phileas 08:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
That is interesting, and i didn't know all of that. It might well suggest that "Laßwitz" would be the proper title for a Wikipedia article about this author. But the prime rule here is that the canonical name is the name by which the author is best known, whether that is the author's preferred name or not, and whether it is the legal name or not. While we haven't explicitly decided the point in the past that I recall, the ISFDB is primarily an English language site, and English-language titles are privileged in some ways. This I think the name by which an author is best known in the English-speaking SF world, and which has been mostly used on English-language publications should be the canonical name.
I wasn't aware of that. Best known is the "ss"-version - even in Germany you'll hardly find "Laßwitz" in today's book stores. I'll set up the "ß"-version as the Pseudonym then. --Phileas 07:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
However, you are correct that if the "Lasswitz" version is set up as a pseudonym, anyone searching for it will be directed to the proper page, so a decision to go with "Laßwitz" would not prevent people finding the page. And since we can now easily remove and reset pseudonym assignments, any decision can be changed in future if we so wish. -DES Talk 20:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I think the key question here is whether you can search on the simplified version of the name and still get to the information that you are looking for. In the Frank Schätzing case you can search on Schatzing and get to the right bibliography page in two clicks since we have a pseudonym set up, so I don't think it makes a great deal of difference which one is the canonical name.
One thing to keep in mind is that names with some non-ASCII characters like "é" can be found by searching on their ASCII equivalents, in this case "e", so a search for "Jose Farmer" will find Philip José Farmer. Other characters like "ä" do not work that way, so you can't find "Schatzing" by searching on "Schätzing" or vice versa. We'll need to do additional digging to compile a complete list of substitutions that are currently in place and find out whether we can expand/adjust it. Ahasuerus 17:46, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Uh...the link for Farmer doesn't work. MHHutchins 21:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I seem to recall that our templates do not support accented characters "out of the box", but if you use the unaccented form of the name, i.e. Philip Jose Farmer, it will take you to Farmer's Summary page. Interestingly, the software will display "Jose" at the top of the page, something that we may want to change. Ahasuerus 21:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
The {{A}} template does not work in the usual manner for names containing some special characters. This problem is known to exist for names containing commas, parentheses, and apostrophes, and I wouldn't be in the least surprised to learn that it affects accented characters also, or some of them. The only characters I am 100% sure of are a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and space. if a character outside this set is in the name, use the altName parameter. Some accented characters don't seem to work correctly even then. -DES Talk 22:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Latin-1 has been confirmed as the character set used by all ISFDB tables. It turns out that in MySQL the default collation sequence for Latin-1 is "latin1_swedish_ci" (yes, Swedish) which helps explain why some accented characters are considered identical for searching purposes and some are not. I'll need to ask Al whether we should try to find a better collation. Converting from Latin-1 to a more comprehensive character set, e.g. UTF, which supports Latin-2, Cyrillic and a few other alphabets, may be desirable, but is unlikely to be easy. Oh well, one step at a time... Ahasuerus 18:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
I like the way it was done for Frank Schätzing - that's what I had in mind. Another note that may be useful. I grew up with 7bit Terminals. These days we used "ae" for "ä", "ue" for "ü", "oe" for "ö" and "ss" for "ß". That works pretty well, because "ae", "ue" and "oe" are naturally rare in German spelling - and so mostly indicate a previous substitution. And besides replacing "ä" with "a" makes the word sound completely different, because those two dots are not just an emphasis mark (e.g. unlike é->e). Maybe should be respected in the character mapping. --Phileas 08:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

How to enter a collection properly?

I just added a new collection [36] containing many stories that also appear elsewhere - the result is that these stories now have duplicated entries and therefore will have to be merged. This doesn't seem to be the right way to do this, but I couldn't figure out how to do it properly ... Should I use something like 'import content' here? Thanks -Fsfo 14:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at the Merge Help. If you have any more questions feel free to ask away.--swfritter 15:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The merge is not the problem - I was just wondering whether there is another way to do this? Thanks -Fsfo 15:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
If the contents, or a significant subset of the contents, appears as a group in another publication, Import Contents can help. But if the stories previously appeared in separate publications, using Import Contents to add them would be more painful than waiting for the original submission to be approved and then doing the merges (you'd have to find each pub, import, then remove the imported titles that do not apply). The idea of being able to import specific titles was brought up recently somewhere. That's what you'd need to make life easier. --MartyD 15:50, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I see - Thanks! Fsfo 15:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

BC Dates

Is there a way of entering birth and death dates for someone born BC? Jonschaper 02:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Our database, MySQL, doesn't support BC dates. There is a feature request to do something about it, but unless there is a newer version of MySQL that supports BC dates, there is not much we can do :( Ahasuerus 03:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Exists?

Does anyone know if "Forty Years of the Damned" by Charles Aiken http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?FRTRSFTHDM1895 exists? I assume this is really "Forty Years with Damned" by Charles Aikin as per here http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Charles%20Aikin Jonschaper 04:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

According to OCLC, it does exist with that name and title. But the two are positively the same. Let's do some more research to see which one is correct. Thanks. MHHutchins 05:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Reginald1, the author is "Charles Aikin" and the title is Forty Years With the Damned, or , Life Inside the Earth. So it seems both records have something right about them, but neither is correct (that is, if Mr. R. is correct.) I need at least two corroborating secondary sources before choosing which is the true title and author. More research... MHHutchins 05:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Looks like I'm the one who created that second record cited, as I've already Reginald-verified it! MHHutchins 05:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
The answer to our question in black and white: a contemporaneous listing in Publisher's Weekly. I'll delete the wrong record. MHHutchins 05:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Good work! Cheers Jonschaper 02:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Poetry Journal

As far as I can tell this poetry journal http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?CRBCRKRVWQ0000 is only included because one of its contributors (S.D. Tullis) has written sf. All of the other contributors only have entries for their poems in this collection and no other issue of this journal has an entry. Does anyone know if this is an sf themed issue? If not, should there only be an entry for Tullis? Jonschaper 22:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I recall another moderator asking the editor who entered this pub the same question, but I can't remember the name of the editor, or if he ever responded to the question. It's likely that most of this is not spec-fic, but until we get a definitive answer, I guess we leave it alone. MHHutchins 03:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Here's the original post. It appears that Tullis him/herself was the contributor, and he/she is not aware of the remaining contents' fitness to be in the database. MHHutchins 03:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Alan Elms

I suspect Alan Elms http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Alan%20Elms is also Alan C. Elms http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Alan%20C.%20Elms Does anybody know with greater certainty? Jonschaper 04:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Irvin Lester & Fletcher Pratt, and Other Questions

Things have obviously changed since I've gone low level, so I need some pointers. I've just entered Amazing Stories, January 1929 and the story The Roger Bacon Formula is credited only to Fletcher Pratt in the collections, while it is credited to Irvin Lester & Fletcher Pratt in the pub. A note on the biblio page for the story avers that it is probably a self-collaboration. I can see that making Irvin Lester a pseudonym of Pratt could cause some strange self-referential things to happen, so what do you think should be done?

I've noticed that in some issues T. O'Conor Sloane has been replaced by Arthur Lynch as the editor of Amazing Stories. Is there a new rule relating to editors, i.e., the real editor vs the managing editor?--Rkihara 05:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

A quote from Ashley in "The Time Machines", Lynch "became the new editor-in-chief, but he worked primarily on Radio News. Though his name appears on the masthead of Amazing Stories he was never in practice its editor."--swfritter 13:25, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

How are the containers edited? The one for Amazing Stories, January 1929, seems to incorrectly entered.--Rkihara 05:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Use the "Remove Titles From This Pub" function on the pub record, and remove the current record which only credits Pratt. Then edit the pub to add a new content record for the story by both authors. (These submissions could be in any order.) Once the pub record is correctly crediting the story, go to the title record of the newly created story and choose the "Make This Title a Variant..." function. On the edit screen remove the credit for "Irvin Lester". You're creating a record that states that the author is really Fletcher Pratt, and there exists a publication which credited it to "Fletcher Pratt and Irvin Lester". If you go back to the magazine's pub record, the story should read something like "The Roger Bacon Formula by Fletcher Pratt [as by Fletcher Pratt and Irvin Lester]". At this point you can make "Irvin Lester" a pseudonym of Pratt. Actually, you could have made this submission at any point. If you don't Irvin Lester's author page will be a visibly recordless page. Making him a pseudonym will create a link back to Fletcher Pratt's summary page. Now you will have to merge the two title records of the same story that are credited to Pratt alone. Don't merge the one that credits Pratt and Lester. Hope this helps.
I'm not sure what you mean by the second part of your question. I don't think anything has changed about how container records are edited. Every pub record has the "Edit This Pub" link. We've been making chapterbook pub records into container records by adding a chapterbook title record, but that didn't effect how magazine records are edited. MHHutchins 06:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The above works, but you can save the merge step if you copy the title record number of the existing record that credits Pratt alone (the one that is in the pub at the start of the process). Then on the "Make This Title a Variant..." screen you can paste that into the "Parent #" field and click the "Link to existing record" button. This will avoid creating a new parent that will need to be merged. -DES Talk 15:37, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
You're correct. That's the way I would normally do it, working from two open tabs, by copying and pasting the record number. I should have recommended this short-cut, but became caught up in the step-by-step process in describing the purpose of each submission. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the input everyone.--Rkihara 15:32, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Giving away books for which I am primary verifier

I intend to give away a few books for which I currently am the primary verifier (this and this). Is it OK if I remove myself as the primary verifier? Should I add myself as primary (transient) verifier while I still hold on to the books, and remove myself again when I finally get rid of them? Herzbube 01:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Just remove your primary verification and do the transient verification. Even after you've given the book away, the transient verification can remain intact. That was the main reason behind creating this type of verification, but it evolved over the years. Because we now have more than one primary verification slot, perhaps it can go back to its original purpose. MHHutchins 16:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm doing similar, after a fortnight of denuding all charity shops within reach of all interesting SF I need the space. If there's a Primary Transient verifier I sometimes invite them directly to take over - there was a period where people used Primary Transient the way we use Primary 2 now, it's not always a sign that they don't really have it anymore. (If anyone did this and wants to review their Primary Transients, I can generate a list for you, just drop me a note on my talk-page.) BLongley 17:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I also suspect we've only lessened the problem, not solved it, as I've seen Quintuply Primary Verified pubs already with the Transient slot filled too. BLongley 17:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
At some point we will allow users to mark pubs as "owned by me" and print various "lists of books/stories I own". It's not hard to do, just requires some free time. Ahasuerus 18:17, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
"Free time" seems to be a theoretical concept most of us don't have. :-/ I really want this feature, and more complex options like "Do I have all the stories in Pub X already?" - but even if we can convert "Primary Verified by me" to "Owned by me" I still have to rework a lot. Ah well, I've revisited my meagre collection a few times over now to add other prices, cover artists, printing number details, cover images, etc: a full fifth or sixth pass is probably due. BLongley 21:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I am a bit compulsive when it comes to making lists (phew, glad I finally said that in public :-), therefore such a personalized "I own it" list would be very gratifying. Good to know that this is somewhere on the feature radar. Herzbube 21:58, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I doubt if any of the editors would be here if they didn't have a bad case of listitis.--swfritter 20:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, the most prolific editors, yes. It's capturing the passers-by that really only do want to add a little correction or two I think we're weak on. Maybe we can do something with a "send details to an editor that knows the ropes if you're frightened", but I'd prefer we keep trying to make it easier for new contributors to - well, contribute. BLongley 22:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
OK, feature request 2883592 has been created. I can't do much about it at the moment since I am knee deep in Foreign Language Support, but we'll get to it sooner or later :) Ahasuerus 23:24, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Invisible coverscan

I have uploaded a new coverscan for Retief at Large, but it does't show on the publication listing, and also not on the images wiki page. As far as I can see everything is correct. The link to the picture from the wiki page does work, but the rest doesn't. Any ideas? Thanks, Willem H. 19:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

After uploading a cover image, now or replacement, You must still edit the publication record and edit the Image URL field, inserting into it the URL of the image itself, <http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/a/ad/RTFTLRG4D1978.jpg> in this case. I don't see any such edit in the approval queue, nor in the recent rejects or recent edits, so I can only presume that you didn't make such an edit yet. Until that edit is made and approved, the image sits on the wiki but is not displayed with the pub record. See Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki#Step by Step Procedure, step 6 ("Once the file has been uploaded, the image's wiki page will appear. In order to get the URL (address) for the image you just uploaded, left click anywhere on the image and copy the URL from your browser's address window. (Or right click on the image and choose "Copy Image Location".) If you're adding a cover image to a pub record, this is the URL which you would enter into the pub record's "Image URL" field.") See also Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki#Semi-automated Procedure. You are apparently the fourth editor to be caught by this, see User talk:Kwikfoot‎#Semi-automated cover image uploads. -DES Talk 20:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I have replaced a number of existing images with new ones, and in my experience it is not neccesary to replace the existing URL with exactly the same one. In this case, the URL ([37]) was already there. The difference is, that the image doesn't show here and here, and I can't explain this. Willem H. 09:55, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I am seeing the image in both places you link to above. I can see both teh old and new versions of the image in the file history. I thought the URL was not there (in the pub record) when i looked yesterday, but may have been mistaken -- it is surely there now, and I don't see any edits in the applied list that would have changed it.
Could it be that your browser has cached the image-free versions of those pages? Try Clearing your cache. That is Ctrl+F5 for IE and Firefox (this clears the cache and reloads for the displayed page -- there are menu options to clear the entire cache). -DES Talk 15:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
You are correct that when a new version of an image is uploaded, the pub record URL does not need to be edited if the URL has not changed. -DES Talk 15:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Ctrl+F5 doesn't work, but if you can see the picture, there's probably something else wrong with my browser. I won't worry about it anymore. Thanks for the advice. Willem H. 18:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
It may also be network settings rather than browser settings. Two of the networks that I use exhibit minor quirks when handling images and URLs. Ahasuerus 23:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Cloning Perry Rhodan

I tried to enter some UK editions of Perry Rhodan 1 thru 5, but I wasn't allowed to clone an existing entry because these are considered magazines nor was I able to add a publication to existing record for the same reason. So what should I do?Don Erikson 18:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I think at the moment such have to be entered as separate magazines, but I'm not quite sure. One of the magazine or one of the Perry Rhodan experts should speak to this. -DES Talk 20:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
I have a few UK Perry Rhodan titles and entered those as novels, I think. At some point somebody might want to cross-match the UK novels with magazine publications but as far as I'm concerned they aren't closely-related enough to want to clone a magazine. Enter them as Books rather than Magazines, with as many details as you can provide in notes (translator, original copyright dates, etc) and let a polyglot Perry Rhodan enthusiast loose on them. Record what is there, you are not obliged in any way to try and make sense of it (but if you can, please do). I know Perry Rhodan is supposed to be a European SF Icon but it hasn't really made it to the UK in that way. Same as Doctor Who is a British Icon but isn't necessarily a European one. When in doubt, just record. BLongley 22:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
To clarify, what I was trying to clone were the Ace editions which appear to be the same in content and page number as the the UK Futura editions I was trying to enter. And there are also some Ace reprints of the earlier ones that also need to be cloned. Don Erikson 14:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
In the past, we used ANTHOLOGY to enter "paperback magazines" with more than 1 printing, e.g. Destinies. It's a bit late to redo Perry Rhodan since we already have 100+ pubs on file, but I seem to recall that the editors who worked on it came up with some kind of workaround. Ahasuerus 23:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
In checking the British Orbit/Futura reprints are no longer in the American Perry Rhodan Series. They are showing up only as 'novel' for the story titles. Example [38] shows here [39]. This is a change since I last checked. I do/did feel they should be separated because after the first few titles the American series started putting extras into them, which were only occasionally reprinted in the British edition. So in effect, the British edition is an edited reprint of the American. The problem with the 1-5 are that they are actually double novels with I believe one novels' title used as the printing title (1-4) (#5 used a part of the first novel's title) with the other novel hidden in the back of the book. I have no idea who culled the British entries. Bob Hall did have a magazine series talk page he was using to work of off, but being inept I can not find it. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
I remember I was advised to change the title to novel and then clone, but I think I tried three formats and none would allow that. What I did was add a new novel and then merge it with the others. Still, since the few British titles we had are now not showing up as elements of the series. I think that add new novel and then import contents (if possible), then merge the content elements. Hopefully, the editor who changed things is Bob Hall and you can get in contact with him. Maybe, he has thought out the solution to how to display the British series, which BTW is 1-39. Apologies for not being very helpful. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

short fiction variants -- storylen

When I am entering an anthology where shortfiction has been published under a pseudonym, and the work is not already on file under the canonical name, I typically enter it as published, and then go to the title display for the shortfiction and chose "Make this a variant..." and enter the canonical author name and click "Create new parent record". So far so good. But if (when) I have entered a story length for the story as published it is not picked up by the newly created parent record, which has a blank in the storylen field. One must separately edit the new title record to set the storylen. (I particularly noticed this when entering Glass Onion where every story was published uncredited.) Is this a bug, or a place for a feature request, or is it the desired behavior? -DES Talk 20:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's desired, but from someone who does a lot of variant making, I find it to be undesirable, and double work. I wonder why the story length can't be copied to the newly created record along with other fields associated with the parent record. MHHutchins 22:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
It's a bug or at least "undesirable behavior". Let's create a Bug report and I will fix it this weekend in the next minor patch. Ahasuerus 00:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
Bug #2884769 New Parents don't pick up storylen created. -DES Talk 15:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, when editing a title record, it would be nice if there was a pulldown for the valid storylen codes -- possibly the kind of pulldown that also allows typing, since this field can be overloaded for some title types. Ideal might be if the code reacted to the title type in populating the pulldown. Does anyone else think this is a good idea? -DES Talk 20:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a good idea. It took me a long time to get used to the ISFDB's "nt" for novelette and "nv" for novella. I'd become accustomed to the Locus standard abbreviations ("nv" and "na"). If I were bold enough at the time I joined here, I would have argued that "nv" is not such a good idea (novel, novelette and novella could be "nv".) But at least the ISFDB's novelette abbreviation is better than Locus's. With a dropdown menu we wouldn't have to remember any abbreviations. MHHutchins 22:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
The "storylen" field needs to be split into at least 4 different fields:
  • sf/ss/nv/nt
  • Omnibus contents
  • Novelization
  • Juvenile
It's not difficult to do, but it requires updating a number of different areas, including the Web API. Ahasuerus 00:27, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I've created FR #2884777 unload storylen field to document this for future reference. -DES Talk 15:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Omnibus VS Anthology

I got a book that is a German edition of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy omnibus. Additionally it contains (as an appendix) An Introduction to Psychohistory by Michael F. Flynn. If I understand the rules correctly this would be an anthology. But personally I still think of it as an omnibus - the appendix being some kind of bonus feature. --Phileas 11:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

If I found a pub of an omnibus such as that in English, with an additional essay, I would probably keep it as an OMNIBUS record. I think we have some such already on record. The like between omnibus and anthology is a bit fuzzy anyway. And particularly when it is a much-reprinted title (as this surely is), keeping all pubs under the same title, and thus of the same type, seems worthwhile to me -DES Talk 14:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
A single essay in a collection of novels would not make the book into an anthology. Neither would fifteen essays (q.v.). If you can point out in the rules that would indicate such, it needs to be fixed. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
When following the link in my first post you'll see that it is not classified a an essay but a short story. That's what confuses me, because... from the Help:Screen:EditPub: If a book of Conan stories contains stories which are all partly or wholly by Robert E. Howard, it is a collection; if one or more of the stories is by Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp, not in collaboration with Howard, then the book is an anthology. -- But after all the error probably lies within the title entry I suppose - because it doesn't seem to be a fictional story... but to be honest I'm not so sure about the amount of fiction in that one. -- Phileas 16:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Another one of those nebulous fictional essays or "in universe" non-fiction. Even if we choose to list it as shortfiction the omnibus would not be considered an anthology. Consider how many books are published that include excerpts in the back from another author's novel. Every book published by Baen would be an anthology! Thanks. MHHutchins 16:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Problem searching titles with apostrophes

I've been linking titles on the SFBC listings to the ISFDB pub record, and about every fourth title that has an apostrophe in the title doesn't come up on a search. For instance I search for the novel Darwin's Children by Greg Bear, and the only titles that come up are two shortfiction titles by other authors. But if I search for "darwin" Bear's title is on the list, BUT it's not in the correct order (alphabetically, a punctuation mark should come before the letters, right?) It must have something to do with a unicode character that resembles an apostrophe. Trouble is, when I try to correct the apostrophe (or character that looks like one), the submission looks like there's been no change in the title, and I'm right back where I started. Is there a way to do a mass search for this "character" and replace it with a true apostrophe? Otherwise, searches here are incomplete. Thanks. MHHutchins 22:10, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Checking the title in question (#23584), I see that the record does indeed contain a Unicode character rather than a regular apostrophe between "Darwin" and "s". Next we need to figure out whether it's:
  1. something that happened at one point in the past, but doesn't happen with new Titles, in which case we just need to change the data, or
  2. something that is still happening with newly added Titles, in which case we need to change the software as well as the data.
Let me see what I can do... Ahasuerus 22:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Good news/bad news. The bad news is that we have 325 records with this funky character. The good news is that we haven't had a new one created since Title record #859,147, i.e. 151,000 records ago. Now I am trying to figure out how to convert them without human interaction. Ahasuerus 23:37, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
All affected records were fixed in patch r2009-50 -- please let me know if anything is still outstanding. TIA! Ahasuerus 00:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the fix (said the junkie to his dealer...) MHHutchins 19:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
There's a few titles with (ampersand)"quot;" in if you want to look at double quotes next. BLongley 18:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Only 7 of them were left. All fixed now. Ahasuerus 01:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Accented titles hunted down and fixed as well. Ahasuerus 02:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Will do. We also have 251 titles with HTML-encoded characters, e.g. take a look at Berenicë or The Guiding Nose of Ulfänt Banderōz and then pull them up in Edit Title. I am still trying to figure out whether it's good, bad or just ugly. Ahasuerus 20:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Not good. Not ugly. Not really that bad either - there are far more important things to look at. 251 titles out of the umpteen-mumblety-thousands we have isn't bad really. BLongley 22:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Since we are currently working on improving our foreign language support, we will likely have many more titles with HTML characters over the next few months, so it's better to be prepared :) Ahasuerus 22:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Gordon Grant

I assume the Gordon Grant who did 2 poems in 1980 is different from the one who did artwork in 1915. Unless anyone knows better I'll separate the two: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Gordon%20Grant Cheers Jonschaper 23:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems likely that these are different people, but it is just possible that the 1980 poems are in fact reprints from long ago. I note that both of them appeared (only) in an anthology that seems to be mostly reprints from the 1960s and 70s. Since one pub is verified, it might be worth asking the verifier if there are any "about the contributors" notes or item intros which would throw light on the matter? -DES Talk 23:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Oops, the verifier is no longer active. -DES Talk 23:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
The anthology is a mixture (half reprints, half new material). The copyright page is detailed so I'll check it later. Jonschaper 00:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
If you have a copy you may want to add a verification, also. Thanks. -DES Talk 03:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
There is no contributors note but the poems are copyrighted 1980. Most of anthology is new material. I strongly believe the 1980 poet is not the 1915 illustrator. MHHutchins 03:35, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. -DES Talk 20:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Any objections to making Steve Hickman a pseudonym of Stephen Hickman?

I think Stephen, [40], is the author preferred and Steve [41] the occasional. What say Thee? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The canonical name is generally set to "the most commonly used within the genre" name rather than the "author preferred" name, unless it's a toss-up, in which case author preferences may influence the decision. Luckily, most of the titles are attributed to "Stephen", so he clearly wins on all counts.
Also, at one point we decided not to create pseudonyms and VTs for artists until we had enough Cover Art and Interior Art records to be sure that the sample is representative. It looks like what we have in Hickman's case is good enough to make an educated decision. Ahasuerus 15:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I did not know of the 'hold of'. I just took a look at how long one was comparitively, and thought it was time to recognize the trend. Still, I will await any objections. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 19:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The Dragonmasters publication cannot be cloned

This pub cannot be cloned. If I try I get the following message: "Error: This publication is not in a cloneable state." The pub type is NOVEL, which is correct. Ideas? Herzbube 13:29, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that it is a pub type of novel, with a content type of shortfiction. This is exactly what the CHAPTERBOOK type is for, IMO. Anyone object if I convert this to a chapterbook? It will then be cloneable. -DES Talk 14:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Since 1008953 has been verified as a chapterbook, I am going to go ahead with the conversion -- it can be undone if anyone objects. -DES Talk 14:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Interesting, I didn't know about the chapterbook type. Unfortunately, I now have made matters worse... I was impatient and, instead of waiting for the pub to become clone'able, added a new pub - of type NOVEL with a content entry of type SHORTFICTION. The resulting records are not quite what I intended, ahem... Hope I can fix the mess, otherwise I'll call for help :-) Herzbube 20:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
See the recently created Help: How to convert a novel to a "chapterbook". -DES Talk 21:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Deleting a cover image

I began uploading missing cover art images from my collection. The first did not work, but I learned and the second one went through. I do not know what I first did wrong. It is "hanging" in limbo. Can I delete it and redo it later? Sfbooks52 —The preceding unsigned comment added by Sfbooks52 (talk • contribs) 12:20, 27 October 2009

I see three scans from you, [42] , [43] and [44]. Presumably it's the last you are concerned with? If so, it's OK to edit the page and add the CID1 template. If there's something really wrong, you can delete the page, but the rest looks OK to me.. BLongley 18:51, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
However, I suspect you think that because the image links to the publication, that's enough? It isn't - I'm afraid you have to edit the publication and put the URL of the Image (not of the page the image is on, just the image) in the "Image URL:" field. After that's approved, the image will appear against the publication. BLongley 18:51, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I am afraid I may have confused Sfbooks52 by linking the first two scans to their respective publications and then vanishing before I had a chance to leave a welcome message or explain how to link images to pubs :( Ahasuerus 18:56, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah, that would explain some of it. Now can someone remind me how to add the "previous unsigned comment" stuff properly? It seems to be needed in this section... ;-) BLongley 20:22, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Use {{unsigned}} or {{unsigned2}}. The latter works with name&timestamp cut&pasted from a history page, the former is best for name only. -DES Talk 20:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Unable to Reject Submission

I think I improperly entered a correction and now I get a program error when viewing submission 1253367. I made the correction through another path, and I would like to reject the bad submission, but can't. Can someone remove it for me?--Rkihara 19:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Do a hard reject, a trick to removing bad submissions that can't be rejected in the normal way. Replace "pv_update" with "hardreject" in the URL of the submission: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/mod/pv_update.cgi?1253367 . MHHutchins 19:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Tsk tsk, Ron! It's all on the Moderator Help page, you should know these things already! ;-) BLongley 19:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Well, they do say that your memory is one of the first things to go when you get older 8>).--Rkihara 01:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
But I'd leave it a little while we try and find out what was wrong with the submission. Although we can view the submission later (via the dumpxml trick, also shown on that page) the exact error message could be useful too. BLongley 19:50, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
OK, I see what the problem is. It was introduced when I implemented the ability to Hard Reject Pub updates for deleted titles from the submission page. I'll fix it tonight and then we should be able to approve the submission. Sorry about the hassle! Ahasuerus 20:01, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
I've already taken care of the submission through another path.--Rkihara 01:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
The bug has been fixed and the submission has been rejected just to be on the safe side. Thanks for the patience! Ahasuerus 03:04, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Renaming an image file

I added the artist Bob Foster's signature to the Artist Signature Images, and would like to rename the image to Foster or Foster sig, but I have no idea how to do this. The help page refers to the "Move" button, but that's not there on the images page. So for now Bob Foster's signature is known as "Unknown Signature". Thanks, Willem H. 20:16, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe you can rename a file once it's been uploaded. This was done, I think, to keep links intact (someone could link a pub to it, and another person could come along, change the file name, thus breaking the link.) I think the wiki "move" function works only with pages and redirects viewers to a page that's been renamed. The only thing I could tell you to do is to re-upload the image as a new file. Perhaps DES, our resident wiki expert, can be of more help. MHHutchins 21:07, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
In the meantime, "REDIRECT" might be useful. Create the page for Bob Foster then put #REDIRECT [[Image:Unknown_Signature.jpg]] on it. I used that sort of thing a lot when we worked on Publisher regularisation without actually wanting to over-ride Verified Publishers too much. BLongley 21:56, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Images can not be moved or renamed. The best solution is to download the iamge and re-upload it to the desired name. I did this with several signature images recently so that images that had been identified had names that reflected the known artists. -DES Talk 04:57, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it was the rule back to when images couldn't be undeleted either. It may be because an image rename/move would require moving both the wiki page and the actual image file, and the image file lives in a subdirectory computed from the image name. But that is just a guess. Anyway, that is the rule, for whatever reasons. -DES Talk 14:50, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
I have now re-uploaded this as Image:Bob_Foster-sig.jpg. (Image redirects don't work as well as redirs to ordinary wiki pages do.) -DES Talk 05:17, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't know all this. I'll try it the next time. Willem H. 09:22, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
For more detail, see Help:Renaming (moving) a page. -DES Talk 15:25, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Existing author name used as pseudonym

The story Reflected Light in the Steampunk Anthology is actually by Rachel E. Pollock, not 'Rachel E. Pollack' as given. However, the author name was apparently (see [45]) misprinted as 'Rachel Pollack' in the publication, who is actually a different author [46]. How is such a case handled? Using the existing author as pseudonym for 'Rachel E. Pollock' doesn't seem to be right, so I guess something like 'Rachel Pollock (Pseudonym)' would have to be created in order to distinguish between the two? Thanks -Fsfo 11:47, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I have corrected the listing in this anthology to match the OCLC record, which gives the credit to "Rachel E. Pollock". If someone should come along with a printing that credits "Rachel Pollack", we can create a variant of the title, without creating a pseudonym. Until then, let sleeping dogs lie. :) MHHutchins 07:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Alfred Kosterman vs Klosterman

Does anyone know if Kosterman here is a variant or typo of Kosterman http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Alfred%20Klosterman ? Jonschaper 01:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the Locus Index for 2002 (here), it should be "Klosterman". I've corrected the entry. Thanks for finding the error. MHHutchins 02:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

William Beckford's Vathek

I am currently working on this pub, which is under a different title than appears on its title page. I already submitted an edit from its parent title, but I believe I made a mistake. I unmerged it from its ultimate canonical title rather than from the variant title where it occurred. Now I find that the publication has what I think are two title records. A newly created one, as a result of the unmerge from the canonical, and another referring to the variant title from which it has not yet been unmerged. I'm hoping that I haven't made too large a mess here and want to ask how I should proceed to fix this. I expect that I should "Remove Titles From This Pub" to delete one of the title records, presumably the variant title. I don't think re-merging with the canonical title would produce the results we want. I'm asking to ensure that I don't make things worse in attempting to fix my error. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 06:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe unmerging a pub will add an additional title record. It should merely create a new title record matching the title of the pub. Go ahead and do the "Remove Title" function, and we'll proceed from there. MHHutchins 07:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't remove the current container record. We can always edit that if it differs from the title on the book's title page. Then we'll make the variant (or merge if one already exists). MHHutchins 07:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Done. Though it's difficult to tell which record I removed. I removed the regular title rather than the container. I should be able to figure out the remaining edits to be done. I just wanted to make sure I didn't create any hard to find orphan records. Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 11:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Map of Compact Space

Some of C. J. Cherryh's Chanur novels contain a piece of interior art which is titled "Map of Compact Space". In the past, I have edited this pub that includes the artwork under the title Chanur's Venture (map). Yesterday I added a new pub, accidentally adding the map under the wrong title ("Chanur's Venture (map)"). Today, when I went about correcting the error and had a look at the artist David A. Cherry, I noticed that the same piece of interior art now exists as four distinct title records:

  1. Chanur's Venture (map)
  2. Chanur's Venture (map) (my erroneous title)
  3. Chanur's Homecoming (Map of Compact Space)
  4. Map of Compact Space.

Adhering to the obvious pattern, I would have to fix my error by renaming the wrong title to "The Chanur Saga (map)", because the interior art appears in an omnibus publication of that title. This strikes me as inelegant, especially seeing that I have another omnibus to enter, "Chanur's Endgame", which also contains the artwork, so I would have to create another title "Chanur's Endgame (map)".

To make a long story short :-) here are my questions:

  • Wouldn't it be better to merge all those titles that refer to the same piece of interior art into one, preferrably the "Map of Compact Space" title (#4 above)?
  • Would I have to make sure, somehow, that there are no differences between the different publications of the interior art? Suggestions how I could go about this? (I see no differences when comparing those pubs that I own, the oldest being from 1989, the newest from 2007)
  • About half a dozen primary verifiers are involved, is it enough to notify them on their talk page, or should I wait for their individual consent before proceeding with the actual editing?
  • Last but not least: The existing title records appear under three different years: 1985, 1986 and 1987. Which year would be the correct one for the merged title record?

Thanks for guidance. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 11:26, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

If they're all exactly the same (and yes, you should be relatively certain that they are), there would be no problem merging all records to title #4, dated with the first year of publication. Because you're changing verified records, you should notify the verifiers. Just provide them with a link to this posting and ask that they give their input. It's unnecessary to repeat the detailed explanation that you give above. MHHutchins 18:06, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Chanur's Homecoming (Excerpt)

This title is an excerpt of the novel "Chanur's Homecoming", and currently it appears in only one pub. The title record has a note saying it "originally appeared as chapter 12 of the novel of the same name." I have another pub that also contains an excerpt of "Chanur's Homecoming", but this time the excerpt has nothing to do with the novel's chapter 12. How should I go about recording this? I can't just add the title to my pub, the information thus recorded would not be true...

Since I don't like excerpts (they are nasty ads that disfigure my beautiful books) my personal preference would be to simply ignore it, but I strongly suspect that you won't let me get away with this :-) The other solution that I see is to move the "chapter 12" note from the title record to the pub record. The note then no longer applies to all publications of the title, so that I am now free to add the title to my own pub. What do you think of this? Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 16:21, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I have the same feelings about these "excerpts" (read "promotional material") as you. I don't list them when entering books, and no one's commented about my failure to do so. (Maybe they don't know and I've now revealed more than I should!) The best solution you bring up is to retitle the one that is clearly designated as a complete chapter to "Chanur's Homecoming (Chapter 12)". When I've come across more than one excerpt from the same novel, I merge them if they're the same or, if different, I add a note to each title record that they are different excerpts with the warning: DO NOT MERGE. Thanks.
(Here's an example of what I've done when I am unable to compare the texts and am unsure if the the excerpts are the same: Dune (Excerpt) and Dune (Excerpt). This will prevent other editors from accidentally merging the two records.) MHHutchins 18:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm doing this to myself only because I try to follow the rules, and there is a note about excerpts on the EditPub help page. Personally, I don't see the wisdom of recording information about promotional material in a bibliographic project such as ISFDB, but I guess it depends on how strict one's point of view is. Anyway, since I brought this one up, I will follow it through to the end, but in the future I may silently ignore excerpts (or merely mention them in the notes) if this practice is not frowned upon (too much) by other editors. I will follow your advice to resolve the current issue: 1) Ask verifier if it's ok to retitle. 2) Retitle. 3) Add my own title record. Thanks very much for your help, Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 18:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Well, excerpts aren't always promotional, they might be bonus material, e.g. Star Fleet Year One was only available that way for a while. And when it's an excerpt from a Collection, it could be considered a bonus short story, e.g. The Mayor of Mare Tranq. Often I'm only adding excerpts to explain a page-count. I do find excerpts counted as short stories in anthologies annoying though. BLongley 19:14, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding an issue number to the title

I will get entries for Tales of the Unanticipated up to date. TotU started its life as a magazine, published every 9 to 12 months. It is now a trade paperback anthology.

The titles have been entered as Tales of the Unanticipated, followed by the season(s) and year, such as "Tales of the Unanticipated, Winter/Spring/Summer 1995". It would help disambiguate them if each title contained an issue number, maybe such as "Tales of the Unanticipated #14, Winter/Spring/Summer 1995" (which was published December 1994).

Do you have any standard for issue numbers in titles? WXRock 06:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Issue numbers are only used in the title if the periodical is not dated. Months and seasons plus years are considered dates. The standard on the help page states:
The date part of a magazine title should be given after the title, following a comma and a space. The month should be given in full and then the year in full. If the issue is a quarterly, or a bimonthly, give the date in the form given on the magazine -- for example, "Fantastic Universe, June-July 1953" or "Interzone, Fall 1979". A hyphen should be used between two months used for a bimonthly issue. If the magazine has an overprinted date, then use the later date; this happened, for example, with some issues of the pulps, which were delayed in release and were overprinted with a later date to keep them on the newsstand for longer. If there is no apparent date, or the date is incomplete, a volume/issue number may be substituted. The date is always preferable, even if the magazine typically gives the issue number -- Interzone, for example, frequently quoted the issue number on the cover, only showing the date on the contents page.
Having the dates in the title sufficiently disambiguates each issue. Are there any particular issues that have duplicate titles? MHHutchins 06:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding or removing editors

Looking at Tales of the Unanticipated publications that have been entered, all of them list the editor-in-chief, but only one lists the poetry editor. I think they should be consistent. Should I remove Laurel Winter as editor on that one aberrant issue? Should I add the poetry editors on all the other issues? I know this isn't a policy question, but do you have an opinion on what's best? WXRock 06:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

If Laurel Winter was not a co-editor with Heideman, then her credits should be removed from the editor record. If she were the poetry editor, she can be credited in the pub's note fields, but not in the editor fields. MHHutchins 06:36, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Fixed the co-editor, if you're referring to Tales of the Unanticipated, Fall/Winter/Spring 1997/1998. Notes still to be added, I presume? BLongley 21:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate Notes or Where do I Put This?

I'm working on Tales of the Unanticipated. I have a web-accessible index. Would it be appropriate to include the URL in the notes? Like http://www.totu-ink.com/ix/index.php?f=issue-1

I can also include a link in case someone wants to purchase a copy. Like http://www.totu-ink.com/bookstore.php?issue=2. The original publisher doesn't have them.

Or would there be a place to add the web site of the current publisher?

Also, I have scans of all the issue covers online. Should I refer to those URLS rather than upload the images? WXRock 23:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

  1. Yes, you can include the URL in the note field, even link it if you make sure it's proper HTML (otherwise the pub record may load incorrectly or not at all.
  2. Linking for commercial purposes is not a good idea.
  3. I see you've already discovered how to create a wiki page for the publisher, and placed a link to their website.
  4. Are the image files on your server, and are you authorized to give us explicit permission to deep-link to those files? (We will be pulling bandwidth from your server. Make sure you have that capability before linking even if you give us permission to do so.) Otherwise, just upload the images to our server. MHHutchins 00:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Now if only MnSTF would link to our site, people could FIND the back issues!
Our server is on DSL, so I guess I'd better upload the images. Thanks! WXRock 02:01, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Variant title / Pseudonym problem (The Congruent People, A. J. Budrys)

I am officially confused. The story The Congruent People, written by Algis Budrys, appears only in publications where it is listed under the pseudonym A. J. Budrys. I have edited ISFDB into a state which I believe properly reflects these facts. However:

  1. The title now no longer appears on the Algis Budrys bibliography page. This is certainly not what I had intended. The right thing would be for the story to appear in the same way as, for instance, the story "Firegod": It should be listed with the remark "[only as by A. J. Budrys ]".
  2. Publications that contain the story (e.g. this one) are listing it as by the pseudonym, while the canonical author name is nowhere mentioned. Again, this is not what I wanted to achieve. I would like the story to be listed with the remark "by Algis Budrys [as by A. J. Budrys ]"
  3. Another strange thing: On the Algis Budrys) bibliography page, I see many titles that are listed with the remark "[also as by A. J. Budrys ]", or "[only as by A. J. Budrys ]". However, the pseudonym bibliography page (A. J. Budrys) does not list those titles, it only lists "The Congruent People". Huh?

All this has got something to do with the way how variant titles and pseudonyms work, and which I don't seem to fully understand. A few enlightening words would be very appreciated by this bewildered soul. Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 03:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

That means that this title needs a (parent) variant, with "Algis Budrys" as the author. Titles that show up on the pseudonym's page do not have a parent under the canonical author. If there were already a "Congruent People" with Algis Budrys as the author, you'd make your title a variant of that. Since there is not, in the Make Variant page (go to your title and pick "Make this Title a Variant Work") use the section at the bottom to make a new parent. All you need to do there is change the "A. J." to "Algis", and you'll be all set. Once that is approved, the behavior will be as you expect. --MartyD 03:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Big question, easy solution. The joke is on me because the title that you mention was a variant and I edited away the variant's parent. I had assumed that it would not be necessary to keep the parent since the story had never been published under the author's canonical name. I now realize that this was a mistake - in my head I have started to use the expression "glue record", instead of parent title, because the parent title "glues" the variant title to the canonical author name. Thanks for the clue :-) Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 22:19, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Submission approved and every thing is now correct. Here's something to know, if you click onto a variant name and click "show all titles" in the tool bar it will display all the titles with that variant name only. This is quicker than scrolling down the main page of an author.Kraang 03:34, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Ah, finally resolved, thanks. Also thanks for that pointer to the "show all titles" function, I hadn't known that yet. Is there a reason why all titles are not shown by default? Expensive database operation? Patrick -- Herzbube Talk 20:00, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding author bios

We have bios for (almost) all the contributors to Tales of the Unanticipated. I was thinking of adding them where you have nothing. I add the bio, followed with the year the info was current, as in http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Bio:Adam_Corbin_Fusco and http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Bio:A._Lexa_Elg . These came from the most recent issue containing a work by the author. I have already edited them to make them less specific to the issue, some but do still have TOTU-specific text. Like in http://www.totu-ink.com/ix/index.php?f=person-170 . Would that be OK? WXRock 19:12, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

From our Policy Page: "When possible, the ISFDB will use biographies posted on Wikipedia. The ISFDB has a facility for adding a link to the Wikipedia article for each author from the author's database page. When such a biography is not available, a short, neutral, factual article, professional in tone, may be posted to a "Bio:" page. See Help:Contents/Purpose#Biographies for more on what is and is not appropriate in such articles." See also Help:Contents/Purpose#Biographies.--swfritter 21:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
I might also note that it is possible to link to author websites from the author's Summary Bibliography page. See two such links on Stephen Baxter's page. Only colors cues are used to indicate whether we have an ISFDB Biography entry. Note on Baxter's page that the color is red which indicates that there is no biography page. Casual users will likely not recognize the meaning of the color coding.--swfritter 21:12, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
Ah well, our bios don't come up to the standard. Too cutesy and content-poor. I edited the few I entered and ended up with things like ... she "lives in the Twin Cities." WXRock 01:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for touching bases here before entering more. Entering the data for the magazines will be of great value.--swfritter 16:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Links between Titles and Pubs

How are Pub linked to Titles? I'll be adding 12 more titles (1998-2009) for Tales of the Unanticipated. I see how to enter Titles and how to enter Pubs, but not how to link the two.

Issue #15 seems to have become unlinked from its Title. It must have been linked or I wouldn't have found it. Was it something I did? It's title.cgi?1006412 which should have pl.cgi?TALESUNAN151995 attached. It has pl.cgi?TALESUNAN141995. WXRock 02:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Magazine records do not have title records. Books (pubs other than magazines, like novels, collections, anthologies, etc.) are given title records based upon title (of course) and author (editor in the case of anthologies) and are created at the same time as the pub. Pubs can also be entered under a title record. Magazines are given editor records, which can be merged based on date (normally one year's periodicals). When you say you'll be "adding 12 more titles" you're actually adding pubs. The system will automatically create an editor record for each pub. 1006412 is the editor record for issues published in 1995. Currently there's only one issue under that editor record: TALESUNAN141995 which is the Winter/Spring/Summer 1995 issue. If you want to have TALESUNAN15995, the Fall/Winter 1995 issue, under the same year of pubs, the editor record for that pub must be merged with 1006412. Unfortunately, that issue doesn't have an editor record associated with it. When the database was first created there was no such record created when a magazine's pub record was created. A few years back this was remedied by the automatic creation of an editor record for all new magazines records entered. There are several submissions necessary to remedy this situation, so I'll do it and let you see the results. As you become more familiar with the database's structure you'll find this not to be as complicated as it may sound. Let me know afterward if the results are satisfactory. MHHutchins 02:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
I kind of think that TALESUNAN151995 maybe HAD an editor record, because I'm not sure how I would have found it otherwise. At least until I searched for a story in it.
Actually, the database looks pretty straight forward. Not too different from mine. I'd thought about asking if I could do some kind of direct transfer before I realized that you already have 18 issues. I have only 11 left ('cause #15 is there) and it's a pretty simple cut-and-paste from one web page to another. Easier than building the pipeline.
Thanks! WXRock 04:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
You probably found it through a search of a content record. There was a project awhile back to clean up pubs that are missing editor records, and that particular issue of TotU was on the list (I marked it "Done" after fixing it tonight.) Thanks. MHHutchins 07:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
There is a way to mass-submit, or "direct transfer", see here. I've tried it, and agree it's not worth looking into unless you have a lot of data to add. And as each submission is still lovingly attended to by hand, it's not necessarily much faster - our "Bots" Dissembler, Fixer, and Data Thief are all told to keep their activity down to avoid unnecessary stress on the moderators. BLongley 19:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Variations on Alan Gutierrez

Does anyone object if I change the spelling of the names of cover artists Allan Gutierrez, Allan Guitierrez and Allan Guiterrez to match cover artist Alan Gutierrez (which is definitely a correct spelling)? Besides the fact that none of the variants have been verified, I note the first two variants are both credited with covers for "House of the Wolf" by M.K. Wren, and the third with another book from the same series, so I should think it's safe to assume it's the same person. Jonschaper 02:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

No assumption necessary. They're definitely the same artist, but I would object to a merge, solely based on ISFDB principles. One of our goals is to record credits exactly as they're stated on the publication. It's possible in all of these cases that the record reflects how the work is credited. I see that only one of the pubs has been verified. Contact the verifier and ask for him to re-check his copy. From there we will either merge or make a variant of the that record. In the meantime, all of the others should be made into variants. MHHutchins 05:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Cheers, I missed noting that the one was verified and will follow up. Jonschaper 01:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, "House of the Wolf" is aLLan. Another copyright editor mistake. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 13:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Why are there differences in how multiple artists are shown?

I have seen that often when two artists are listed sometimes both are on the box and sometimes only one (the artist being referenced). [47] both artist shown in search for dupes. In searching for diffs this showed only one artist, though it has two on the book reference, [48]. What is up? From this dup search [49]. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 22:13, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Uploading Image query

This is day one using this database and i have already hit a stumbling block. i clicked on 'upload the image' and all was well, right up to the point of the compacted image being shown and then it came up with an error (no such file). if i click on 'full resolution', the image is great? - help would be appreciated. nw9sj

Welcome to the wonderful and wacky world of ISFDB! :) The problem that you ran into has to do with a display limitation of the Wiki-based image upload module that we are using. If one of the dimensions of an uploaded image is over 600 pixels, the software can't generate a thumbnail view of the image, but the actual image is still uploaded, stored and displayed properly. It's irritating, but, unfortunately, our only Wiki-savvy developer is current unavailable, so we are stuck with this bug for now. We do have developers who can (and do) address issues with the core ISFDB application, which doesn't use Wiki software. Again, welcome! Ahasuerus 00:31, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"Travis Tea" pseudonyms

Hi, I've just finished making Travis Tea the pseudonym of a plethora of authors (see this for the amusing story behind this shared name), but there are several other contributors (besides the Bonsai Story Generator) to Travis Tea's magnum opus who don't appear to have ISFDB entries yet so I have been unable to add them. I'll eventually create the parent title listing all the authors (yes, I just realised that is the way to go), but since they aren't actually credited in the book itself I'm wary of creating variants that don't exist, for example does anyone know if Danica West (credited in the Wiki article) is AKA D. West already entered here? The following are the names I need to check on:

Ted Kuzminski; Danica West (perhaps AKA D. West?); Rowan West; Deanna Hoak; and Judy B. Castro

Cheers Jonschaper 04:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I would make the variant title, crediting all of the authors. That will add an entry in each author's bibliography, and it will also create entries for the authors we don't have in the database yet. There don't need to be any publications using the canonical title + list of canonical authors; the various displays will show it as "only as by Travis Tea" because there are no publications of the parent title. --MartyD 14:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Which prompts me to start entering this monster.--swfritter 16:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to this experience, I know it's possible to enter as many authors as appropriate.... --MartyD 20:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Glad I didn't try this one earlier. I think I have 18 authors. Glad we have a fix.--swfritter 01:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Help_desk"
Personal tools