ISFDB talk:Moderator noticeboard

THIS PAGE IS FOR DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THE MODERATOR NOTICEBOARD. LEAVE ANY MESSAGES FOR MODERATORS ON THE MODERATOR NOTICEBOARD.

Time-Zone, specialties, and HELP

I like the Time-Zone addition, although helping guess my waking hours isn't going to help anyone guess my availability hours. (Quite long this week, as I'm off work, quite short again from next Monday.) What do people think about a "specialities" column? (Or the opposite, for those of us still experimenting with advanced stuff.) I'm happy to add "U.K. Variant spellings" as a speciality for myself, for instance, or "Magazines" for the opposite: some of us seem clearly able to Search better than me, others know the programming languages (I know SQL very well, but can only work on the backup copies and can't translate that to Perl/Python yet), and some others have much better references. BLongley 17:34, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

At this point, given the current number of moderators and editors with overlapping areas of expertise and varying availability, I find it easier to post questions on the Community Portal and offshoots thereof rather than try to guess who might own what.

Having that said, some kind of a data bank may be useful for long term planning purposes so that we could identify our areas of relative strength/weakness. For example, at one point I planned to take a look at our Doctor Who records and try to whip them into shape using various online sources. But then I discovered that Chris J had what appeared to be a very comprehensive Doctor Who collection and understod the intricacies of the series very well, so I (very happily!) abandoned the project :) Ahasuerus 23:43, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Yes, the Dr Who looks pretty good now, and I learnt a lot when I did 50 or so of my pubs, particularly about publishers. I'll have to think about where to record some of the useful references, but more importantly the EXACT details of publishers will help date an edition if we record them right. That's why the different versions of "Target" turn out to be quite important: but it seems that Panther/Grafton/Granada/Fontana with Wm. Collins/Collins/HarperCollins details too would help with a LOT of British editions. I was a bit late finding that out, unfortunately. :-/ BLongley 06:19, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)

This page snuck in under the noise floor and I just noticed it. Rather than "specialties" it may be worthwhile to have some sort of "reverse specialties" on the queue where moderators could say "I'm not comfortable approving this - can someone please take a look?" There would be an ISFDB code change needed which would be a state much like HOLD but called something else (HELP?) where a moderator could flag that he/she finds a submissions troublesome and on the talk page would explain what's up. Right now items are just parked on the queue but it's often a pain to figure out why. Actually, I wish there was a way to link directly from the queue to the talk section as there are 12 parked items at the moment and it takes three clicks to get to the talk page and often times it's then a hunt to see if there is a talk section yet. Many of the parked submissions don't seem to have talk sections meaning I don't know why they are parked. Actually, this HOLD/HELP could work out where HOLD would mean a moderator has grabbed the submission and is researching it and HELP means a talk section has been created (using the title of the submission) and presumably any moderator that's interested can pick up the thread. Marc Kupper (talk) 15:33, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

I have been thinking along similar lines lately, but I am beginning to suspect that a new free text field for Held submissions would be a more robust solution. It would accommodate different "kinds of Hold" from a simple link to the editor's Talk page to "hm, I don't think this is quite right, but I don't know enough about the area, could somebody help?" to even more complex cases. Hopefully, it shouldn't be too hard to code. Ahasuerus 22:54, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

I've left some approvals to other more-experienced mods in the past, rather than hold submissions, but as time goes on I find there's an increasing risk of the new ones permitting things I'd at least question, and there are some unexplained holds I'd allow. So notes on HOLDs would be good. A HELP-type hold could be useful if the mods don't read about the changes and continue to ignore other mod's Holds, but mostly I know which mod I'm going to ask, and I can't see that a HELP-type hold will get a big consensus if the question is a general one. We don't in the Community Portal threads. :-/ BLongley 15:03, 8 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Emshwiller psudonym issue

I am going to be making a methodical search through my collection in order to attribute Ed Emshwiller cover art accurately so we will have a basis for determining what should be his correct canonical name. It might save a lot of work if we hold any pseudonym attributions for this artist until we have some valid data. Thanks.--swfritter 19:47, 5 Feb 2008 (CST)

Help with Python error

I updated this mag, adding the contents and here's the results. If you try to edit it, you'll see all the contents I added, but they're doubled. Nothing shows up on the pub page under contents except for the Python error. One of the contents (Waiting) appears as an ANTHOLOGY but with no author or date. It also appears correctly as SHORTFICTION and INTERIORART. What did I do wrong? HELP! MHHutchins 17:47, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

I think we have seen occasional "contents duplication" problems, but it's hard to tell how it happened after the fact. Sure looks like a job for Super..., er, I mean for Al, though. I'll leave him a note on his Talk page. Ahasuerus 18:01, 8 Mar 2008 (CST)

Archives of this page

The Moderator noticeboard page was getting rather long. I have archived 47 sections onto two archive pages, and set up an archive system for the future, i trust no one objects to my doing this or the way in which i did it. -DES ^Talk 16:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

UK reprints of SF mags

During the 1950's the major US mags were not distributed in the UK, but were reprinted. This applies to (at least) Astounding/Analog, F&SF, Galaxy and IF. The UK edition is typically fewer pages and missing some stories or articles. All this is well known. My question is:

Is it appropriate to add some comment to the contents of the US mags to show what's missing from the UK version?

I've been prompted to asking this when I noticed that my UK copy of Galaxy May 1958 (actually printed in the US for UK distribution) is missing the Hugo winning "Or All the Seas with Oysters" by Avram Davidson. (What a choice for omission!) Mrb3.14 15:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not an expert on magazines, much less the matters of UK/US differences, although i know that others have discussed the amtter here. I would think a note would be acceptable, but it would be well to wait for a response from soemone more knowledgeable in this area. By the way, I question such as this ("What do i do about X" or "How do I accomplish Y") is probably more likely to be responded to promptly on the Help desk. -DES ^Talk 16:06, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I've more or less stopped working on Magazines, but note that in some cases, e.g. If, the UK versions have been given their own section. Also, that "Astounding Science Fiction, May 1956 (UK)" is one of the bigger worm-cans of a submission that nobody has volunteered to work on several months. I couldn't say for sure at which point notes become inappropriate, but suspect that different prices alone would be worth a note, different content would be worth a separate publication. But I'm not sure if we have any Mods working on such. BLongley 19:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

There should be a separate pub for the UK edition. There is already one issue of Galaxy out there. I found this one by doing an Advanced Search - ISFDB Publication Search Form. I searched on both 'Galaxy' and 'UK'. Because there are so few Galaxy UK pubs a wiki page for the UK edition has not yet been created. The two quickest options for entering data into the new pub are by standard windows copy/paste from the U.S. pub or the new export/import function. The first is simpler and less prone to data corruption while the second is much faster if the data is essentially the same. The second method automatically merges titles but it may take a fair amount of clean-up work if the contents of the two pubs are significantly different. There is also the prospect of corrupting data if the user is not careful when modifying the resulting data. Since the publication data is automatically merged the editor must un-merge data before making any changes. Un-merging data from magazines results in the corruption of publication data in one pub - story length and page number are lost and sometimes even the story title is corrupted. I have created a stub issue for the Galaxy issue. If the copy/paste method is used the titles in pub must be merged after the fact. It suspect it might make sense for a new editor to use the copy/paste method at first. --swfritter 16:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The Chronicles of the Round Table-differences

Pardon. This anthology had only three matches with the contents of other examples with that title. Rather than import and delete so many titles, I added each title as shown on the title story page. I believe the other examples used a table of contents listing to enter the titles. I also opened one title field in error and blanked the data. I then entered it as an interview. The dates in the content fields are the same as those I did not import from and those dates check with the Acknowledgments pages, except for The Fight for The Queen which read "First published in The Book of Romance edited by Andrew Lang(London:Longmans, Green, 1902); copyright expired in 1962." This showed a 1997 date and that example was followed. Humble opinion. The titles in the other examples are probably wrong as this DB enters them. Awaiting commentary on my page. In all cases of the knight name edition, they will be variants of the original title (IMO). Messy, be warned. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:43, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine - 1990

The issue of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine - 1990 are listed twice, but the links arrive at the same page. This situation is repeated also for all other years. I've seen the page with Firefox and Chrome.--ErnestoVeg 17:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

For some reason there are two Editor records in each magazine. I will take care of it. Thanks.--swfritter 17:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. It required a number of multi-step edits. More than I expected at first.--swfritter 18:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, but 1988, 1989, 1991 appeared not fixed. 1990 e 1992 perform well.--ErnestoVeg 09:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit

This essay is in DB with three versions:

I've submitted a "Make Variant" for "Comment on “Fondly Fahrenheit” (The SFWA Grand Masters, Volume 2)" linked to 1976 edition. The submission was held for sometime, then released but not approved. I think would be better to uniform in "Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit" all the entries, according to the note in 1976 entry.--ErnestoVeg 10:09, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I will merge the three records, and reject your submission making a variant. Adding information in parentheses to disambiguate a title can also make it difficult to handle later printings of the same title. In this case, I don't believe the disambiguation is necessary, and feel it should only be used for generic titles ("Introduction", etc.) "Comment on Fondly Fahrenheit" is a fairly distinctive title. In doing the merge, I believe the essays have the same text. Thanks. MHHutchins 16:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks--ErnestoVeg 17:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Emily Devenport Hogan

As legal name is "Hogan, Emily Devenport" see there is a particular reason to indicate "Devenport" as lastname?--ErnestoVeg 14:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears that "Emily Devenport" may have been a maiden name, and that was how most of her fiction was published. After marriage, she may have kept her maiden name as her middle name (which happens often in the US). So, legally (in the US) "Hogan" would become her last name. (In some countries the last name would have been "Devenport Hogan", I believe.) MHHutchins 17:06, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks--ErnestoVeg 17:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Michael Scott "pseudonym" of Michael Scott Rohan

I am requesting the removal of "Michael Scott" as a pseudonym of "Michael Scott Rohan" since 1) Rohan used the pseudonym "Michael Scot" with one "t" not two, 2) Michael Scott is a separate author complete with his own pseudonyms and who is sometimes confused with Rohan, and 3) it appears the books listed for Michael Scott are by him and not Rohan (I'll check them more carefully to verify). Jonschaper 04:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it should be removed. There doesn't even appear to be any books by "Michael Scott" that has been made into a variant for Michael Scott Rohan. I'll remove the pseudonym since I can go ahead and approve the submission. Thanks for noticing this. Mhhutchins 05:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I had to hard-reject Jonschaper's removal submission, as the relationship had already been removed. --MartyD 12:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

merging two titles

under Michael Whelan, The Ruins of Ambrai and Exiles: The Ruins of Ambrai are the same book, but I can't merge them as they are -- limit of 100 makes them quite far from each other. Help? Ofearna 07:15, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

also Crystal Singer and {t|883997|The Crystal Singer}} Ofearna 09:03, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Do an advanced title search for "The Ruins of Ambrai" and they'll appear much closer to each other. BLongley 11:47, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I know this page has been misused in the past, looking at the messages left here, but it's intended for discussions about the Moderator Noticeboard. Messages for moderators should be left on the actual Moderator Noticeboard. Thanks. Mhhutchins 16:16, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Buried Secrets by Evelyn Vaughn

Is only showing up under Von Jocks, and it shouldn't! Help?

Yes, Von Jocks is Evelyn Vaughn and Yvonne Jocks, but Buried Secrets should show up with the other 4 Evelyn Vaughn books, shouldn't it? I don't know why it's "variant" ing. Buried SecretsOfearna 06:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's the other 4 that shouldn't appear - they need varianting back to the canonical author. BLongley 10:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

There were quite a few things that needed to be done with these titles, probably too much for a new editor to handle, so I went ahead and moved things around to set everything up. Ahasuerus 16:42, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Again, this message should have been left on the Moderator Noticeboard, not its Talk page. Mhhutchins 12:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

To your question: someone had previously determined "Von Jocks" is the canonical name. It appears to be a toss-up between the three names she uses. If you feel it should be one of the others, it's going to take a little work to straighten out all of the records. Mhhutchins 13:03, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The Renegades of Pern

Updating image in verified record by Dragondelight. Amazon.com's image is inaccurate. The "price" line beside the logo is different. Uploaded scanned image from my collection.--Astromath 16:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Submission accepted. In the future, providing a link to the ISFDB publication record would be very helpful. Also, in the case of this record, it's not mandatory that you notify verifiers if you're replacing an Amazon image with a scan of the actual book for a record which you will be doing a primary verification. It's only a courtesy that some appreciate. You'll find most editors provide a notification preference at the top of their talk page. Thanks again. Mhhutchins 16:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Dragoondelight's page requests notifications of updates or additions to his verified pubs to either notify the Primay2 verifier or if none, then to notify here because he is no longer on this site.--Astromath 04:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Return of the Jedi

Re: Return of the Jedi
I have a problem with the titles of the various printings/editions. I don't believe that "Star Wars" should be part of the title. If it was, then "Star Wars" should be part of the title for The Empire Strikes Back. In The Empire Strikes Back "Star Wars" is nothing but part of a frame that surrounds the title. The same logic follows for Return of the Jedi. "Star Wars" is part of a frame that surrounds the title. In the editions that do not have the frame surrounding the title (e.g. Return of the Jedi), "Star Wars" does not appear as part of the title. I propose that "Star Wars" be dropped from the title (at least for the english editions).--Astromath 04:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Forgotten Realms: Pool of Radiance

Re: Forgotten Realms: Pool of Radiance
Deleting "Forgotten Realms" from title. This is the universal series logo. All pubs of Forgotten Realms universal series include "Forgotten Realms" at the top of their title pages. Adding cover image scanned from personal collection. Adding notes. Notifying moderator board per verifiers wishes.--Astromath 03:49, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

The rules allow such titles to be entered either with or without the series title, but there is value, IMHO, in having all of the "Pools" sub-series treated the same, and the other books in this series do not have the series title. Chavey 14:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Children of the Rune

While putting some of the stories in the anthology Worlds of Their Own in their respective series, I discovered that there are two entries called Children of the Rune. One here and one here both have identical contents. Shouldn't one be deleted? MLB 07:38, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be right on this one! They were probably just accepted by moderators at different times and nobody noticed because of the different titles. Please proceed with deleting one of them. Thanks for catching this, Stonecreek 10:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Fuzzy Sapiens

This record has an incorrect ISBN. The copy of the tenth edition that I have lists the ISBN as 0-441-26196-5 on the title page, the spine, the front cover and the back cover.TAWeiss 01:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

If the ISBN is the only difference, make a submission to change it and do a primary verification of the record. Mhhutchins 23:05, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Cemetery Dance #72

It’s been three months since Cemetery Dance #72 has been listed on this site by this verifier. Unfortunately it is missing huge amounts of content, like the cover image, column titles, illustrations, reviews, and interviews. I asked the verifier if they were going to complete the listing and offered to do it for them. I’ve been a lifetime subscriber, and a one-time contributor, and I would like to complete this posting. Should I, and then notify the verifier that I have done so? I understand the protocol of adding a review or an illustration, but this is a lot of stuff, and I'm not sure of the protocol on this. MLB 00:21, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Please proceed to update the record. Adding missing data to a record isn't changing the existing data, so there's nothing beyond notifying the verifier of your intentions (as I see you've done) and then updating the record. Don't forget to do a second primary verification. I also subscribe to this periodical, but usually wait until it's clear that no one else is going to enter it. I'd seen in the past that you were creating records for the issues as they appeared and didn't bother to see if the latest had been entered. Thanks for keeping an eye on this periodical. Consider yourself its "caretaker". Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Der Darfsteller, wrong title?

Hello, it seems that this title is wrong. I know the word "Darsteller" (Schauspieler, actor) but "Darfsteller" is unknown.--Wolfram.winkler 05:52, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello Wolfram! I've just checked it again and the spelling of the title is correct in all three publications. Rudolf Rudam 16:16, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello Rudam, it is strange, here I see the title "Der Schauspieler", Schauspieler = Darsteller. I believe it is a misspelling or what is the meaning of "Darfsteller"?.--Wolfram.winkler 05:20, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Just I see this cover and the title is indeed "The Darfsteller and Other Stories". I can't believe it.--Wolfram.winkler 05:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

There's an explanation of how the author may have come up with the title in the Wiki article about the The Darfsteller.--Rkihara 16:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

That explains everything, thanks.--Wolfram.winkler 05:47, 12 August 2016 (UTC)