User talk:BLongley

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Welcome!

Hello, BLongley, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Mike Christie (talk) 15:51, 13 Jan 2007 (CST)

Contents

Delap's November 1976

I just noticed that you verified this issue of Delap's, and was hoping you could do me a giant favor. Could you scan the two Michael Bishop reviews (beginning on pages 11 and 26) and email them to me? I'd been looking for this issue as it's the only publication of the Lafferty review. When I was compiling Bishop's A Reverie for Mister Ray we were able to get a copy of the Wolfe review (from David Hartwell, I believe, or a friend of his) to include in the collection, and Michael revised it before I could get a copy of the original version. As for the Lafferty, I never got a chance to consider whether it should have been included. I'd hate to read it now and kick myself for not searching longer for it, but that's the chance I'm willing to take. That is, if you're able to send it to me. Thanks. MHHutchins 22:10, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a look for it, but don't hold your breath: that's "somewhere in the Stableford Collection" if I've still got it. BLongley 23:27, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you please cancel my last three edit submissions?

Bill It looks like you are online. Could you please cancel my last three edits on Weird Tales for date changes. I think it will cause problems if committed to the DB. - Thanks Kevin 22:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've gotten them. -DES Talk 23:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Intangibles Inc. and Other Stories

Bluesman submitted a pub-delete of NTNGBLSNCN1971 which was verified 2007-01-23 by Unapersson. The puzzle is NTNGBLSNCB1971 which you verified 2007-06-16 but it seems identical to NTNGBLSNCN1971. Do you know why you would have verified a second record rather than adding the cover artist to the first? I've left the submission on hold for you to approve/reject. Marc Kupper (talk) 02:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There's no comma between "Intangibles" and "Inc." in my copy. I seem to be the only person that noticed that, although my Wiki-search doesn't uncover me having asked anyone. I will now. BLongley 09:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Nebula Awards #18

Can you check to see how the Michael Bishop excerpt in this pub is actually titled? The way it is now looks rather strange. Thanks. MHHutchins 03:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Fixed - was a stray ")". I've added pub-level notes about ToC and acknowledgments for it too. (Might be accurate at title-level, can't say.) BLongley 09:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
If you can get a chance to look at this excerpt, can you verify that it begins with the sentence "For nearly eight months Joshua lived in a remote portion of Zarakal's Lolitabu National Park..." and ends with an excerpt from Poe's poem ("...a dream within a dream.") That's the novel's first chapter. Thanks. MHHutchins 19:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly it. There's a bit of bio blurb before the story starts if you want that. BLongley 20:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
No, I just wanted to verify which section of the novel it excerpts, so that I can update my Bishop bibliography. Thanks. MHHutchins 20:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
And after all that, I discover I already had that info. Oh well, the joys of Alzheimer's. MHHutchins 20:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Changed date on verified

I changed the date on your verified SWORDS AGAINST DEATH (SWRDSGNSTW1973) that I got from the 5th printing's copyright page. And added that it is assumed a 4th printing.17:58, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I've placed this submission on hold until you get a chance to look at it. MHHutchins 19:39, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Seems to be the sensible placing:
  1. Swords Against Wizardry, (1968, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #H-73, $0.60, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones - [VERIFIED]
  2. Swords Against Wizardry, (Jan 1974, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79161, $0.95, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
  3. Swords Against Wizardry, (Jun 1974, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79162, $1.25, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
  4. Swords Against Wizardry, (???, Fritz Leiber, Ace, #79163, $1.50, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones - [VERIFIED]
  5. Swords Against Wizardry, (Aug 1979, Fritz Leiber, Ace, 0-441-79164-6, $1.95, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
  6. Swords Against Wizardry, (date unknown, Fritz Leiber, Ace, 0-441-79165-4, $2.25, 188pp, pb, coll) Cover: Jeff Jones
It's a lot easier to do Ace books when you have the other editions! BLongley 20:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Image:Edgar Pangborn.jpg and images in general

I know that you think that Template:Cover Image Data is too much work, and have not been using it. But the case for fair use in a photo of an author is rather weaker than that for a book cover, and I think that including the source info and disclaimers is therefore more important. Also, while a book image page can link to the publicatiuon, and thereby provide much of the required info, that is not true for an author image.

Would you please consider using Template:Author Image Data on this and similar images?

Thanks for the pointer, I'd been looking for that one. I certainly didn't want to have to create one myself. I thought I might have to justify one as an explanation of why a cover photograph credit was imprecise, and the other to confirm pseudonyms we haven't got yet. I've no plans to add any others. BLongley 17:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, what would it take to create a varient of Template:Cover Image Data that you would think is worth using? What is the most info you are willign to fill in on the image description page? (please note requested Feature:90159 Link locally hosted images to their wiki description pages.) If I created a version of the tempalte that required only the pub tag or ID, and advised viewers to follow the link to the pub record for the rest of the date, would that do it for you? -DES Talk 17:30, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably: I do tend to use a Pub Template for now. BLongley 17:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
I have created Template:Cover Image Data2. It requires no more input than Template:P, but provides much the same boilerplate as Template:Cover Image Data. I have used it on Image:BKTG05639.jpg‎ as an example. Will this be workable for you? -DES Talk 00:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
It definitely needs a shorter name. "P" I can get right 99% of the time. "Cover Image Data2" I'd keep going back to help for, and discovering it isn't easy to find in help either anyway. I tried "Author Image Data" for both author pics though, and in neither case was the result satisfactory to me: do the results look OK to you? BLongley 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
They look reasonable to me. What don't you like? Nothing is graven in stone, changes can certainly be made. What would you like? -DES Talk 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, "Source" and "Publication" were pretty much the same thing for me, so felt stilted to enter. I added a bit to the template in case Publisher owns copyright. And my "Rationale" in these cases was rather non-standard but I had to put it into "Portion used" to get it in at all. It might have been nice to make "Publication" a true Publication link as well - I can't be sure based on a sample of two, but I suspect if I ever need to do it again it'll be a scan from a publication I'm entering here. But all this can wait till a few more people have tried it: I suspect my reasons are going to remain uncommon. BLongley 17:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
The reason why "Publication" was not set up as a link to a DB pub record is that a picture might well not come from the back cover of an SF work, but from a biography, or a newspaper, or a convention program, or some other such place that does not have a DB record. The reason for specifying it is that the Fair Use rules are different for unpublished works -- it is much harder for the use of an unpublished work to be held fair use. Thus I thought we want only pictures that have been published, and to know that they have been, we need to say where the picture has been published. I thought of "source" as being different, meaning where the uploader specifically got the image. If it was copied from a website this would be the URL. If the image was a scan, I would have put for Source "scan by X". But perhaps "source" is redundant -- its use could be changed or even eliminated.
I could add an optional "Tag" field which, if specified, would be a publication link. Unfortunately the MediaWiki extension which supports true "If" logic in templates has not been added to our installation -- only a few templates would use it, and I guess AL thought it was too much trouble (probably has several dependencies) for the value-added. So a tag field will leave a non-working link when omitted.
I could certainly add a field for an optional additional Rationale. Would that be a good idea, do you think? That could take the kind of things you were putting into "portion used". -DES Talk 20:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm REALLY trying to think of any future use I'd make of this, and so far the only thing I can think of is a picture of "Kilgore Trout" that I could scan from the publication. That would make it 3 out of 3 "from publication" sources. But an Author Image on a Pseudonym probably isn't supported. I'm happy to provide feedback on what you're doing, and agree the two examples I uploaded needed a bit of justification - but so far the templates aren't helping me, I only upload in weird cases. Questioning might be better directed at people providing images just because they want to see themselves, or actually care to see a favourite author presented a bit better, despite the image having no real bibliographical use. For the vanity-press authors we seem to be getting more and more of appearing briefly, a direct upload rather than questions about "are you the author, and are you giving us permission?" would be the main use I can see for this sort of thing. BLongley 20:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. My goal is to see an image on every author page (and on every publication page). Obviously this is impossible, in some cases there is no image to use (consider an obscure 19th C. author, for example). In other cases no one will bother to find one. But that is a goal to measure success by. Perhaps others do not agree with this goal. Anyway, my object with the templates is to make sure that we have all the info needed to make sure that our use of the images is legally defensible, and such additional data as will be useful for research purposes, without making the templates too unwieldy to be used. I'll take suggestions from anyone. No one person has, or ought to have, ultimate say, but quick response probably do tend to set the terms of the discussion, and so get extra weight -- that is the nature of discussion, in person as well as on a wiki, i think. Not fully fair, but all too human. -DES Talk 21:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I frankly can't see people adopting such templates until they're 1) SHORT and 2) IMMEDIATELY available from help. But thanks for trying, keep it up. BLongley 00:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
It is essy to create an alais (redirect) for this or any template, to give it a shorter or better name. How about Cover, or Cvr, which is shorter but IMO not as memorable, or even C if you like.
As for available from the help, does Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki do the trick? If not what m,ore is needed? As for findign that, it is listed in Help:How to, which seems a pretty obvious place to look. How can we make it more obvious? -DES Talk 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Well, until recently, the "How to" section was purely for the ISFDB, NOT the Wiki. So 'What the ISFDB Wiki is for' might have been a better starting point. A "How to" section under that seems an appropriate name, but "How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki" is no good - I don't think anybody has needed help with that so far, this particular bit comes AFTER that and most people skip it. I think you want a "What you should do when uploading images" which covers the naming standard(s) for uploaded files and any templates you want applied afterwards. But I digress - it's the whole issue of template help being hard to find that needs addressing. Put template info in "Help:Editing" and people might find it in one or two clicks rather than three from a main page they aren't actually on when they need it most. BLongley 17:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I'll gladly add a link from Help:Editing, or from Help:Contents/Purpose or both.
I note that not everyone seems to find the templates as onerous as you do. Mhhutchins just added Template:Cover Image Data2 to about 30 images, and left a skeleton on User:Mhhutchins#Useful Templates. But i have no objections to making them as easy to find and use as possible -- quire the reverse. I welcome any suggestions on how to make them better, simpler, easier to find and to use. -DES Talk 20:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Mike took a lot of gentle persuading to start scanning and uploading, I think. This might have been the tipping point? Uploading images is easy, but any sort of "these are the other rules" puts people off. The fact that he's needed to leave a skeleton on his page makes me think that it's STILL not totally intuitive, though. I try to use templates when they make my life easy - P, A, T are mostly OK now, C might be good too. I know there's lots of others, but I can never find them easily even when I know one exists. And if I haven't used one for a while I'll forget the parameters, get lost in help, and do it without templates. Aim for the one-click help and we might use more templates. And if we use more templates, we might even start to use the ones only you are really pushing. (I still don't care if I'm legal because it's Fair Use, Public Domain, Out of Copyright, Copyright granted, etc - all I want is a Yes or No.) BLongley 21:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I use such skeletons (mostly off the template doc pages), not because I find the templates non-intuitive, but so that the unchanging parts can be quickly pasted in, not re-typed. I find that more complex templates often make my life easier, but obviously that doesn't mean they make everyone's life easier. As to not wanting to know why an image is legal, but just Yes or No, the problem is that they only way to determine whether is to find a why that works, in the absence of a correct why the answer is "No". The uploader must choose the proper template, or at least provide the data from which one can be chosen, or we will never know if it is legal or not. For book covers it is generally easy -- if it doesn't fit Fair Use, the answer is almost surely "No". There are exceptions (books published before 1923, for example) but actual cases where they apply are very rare in the ISFDB. -DES Talk 21:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Whereas I'd say that we should just ask that all uploads be legal (which I think we more or less do, if not going into much explanation of how they could be legal), and if anyone complains THEN we can check WHY it was (or wasn't). Adding the template at creation time doesn't give us any extra protection that I can see - possibly LESS, if we claimed something was Public Domain and then had to change our defence to "Creative Commons" or "Fair Use" . Or is someone CHECKING all these claims as they're made? BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Labelling every single image at upload is a lot of work that will probably never be needed - I'd like to see every publication we have get a cover-image, but even if we did that only for verified pubs that's nearly 20,000 images already. If those were all here, and all had a template filled in at say 15 seconds per template, that's about three and a half solid days of work done to preempt a problem that could be solved with a few seconds of "Don't like it? Fine, I'll delete it" or a few minutes of checking for "sorry, that looks like fair use to me". It's not as though we're inundated with complaints, is it? Yes, there's a small chance that somebody will be litigious enough to pursue a complaint further even after rectification of the problem, but they could always do that anyway - given enough resources you can destroy anyone with legal matters. My personal effort/benefit analysis says it's not worth my doing. My personal risk analysis says it's not worth doing. I won't stop anyone else doing it if they find a benefit. If Al or anyone else at risk thinks it needs doing then they can do it to my uploads, or ask me to stop adding covers to their contributions or just request I stop uploading here at all. Even if it DOES need doing to cover someone's arse, then a publication by publication basis STILL might not be the way to go: if an artist or publisher gives blanket permission for certain-sized images to be used freely, or within constraints we already impose on ourselves, then we might be better off recording such at Publisher or Artist level. BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I will admit that I was taking my cue from Wikipedia here. They have far more images on file than we do, and they do not only ask but insist that every single image be tagged with source and license data. If an image is uploaded untagged, a bot spots this and puts a msg on the uploaders talk page. If the license is still missing 7 days (or it may be down to 48 hours) later, the image is tagged for speedy deletion, and is generally deleted within hours. They do this in significant part because they found that if they didn't, images that were pretty clearly not legal were uploaded in large numbers. We are not as visible a target, but still... As to whether it really is legally required (Wikipedia is very cautious on such issues) I offered to consult an actual lawyer on what was actually required, offered to pay for a written opinion out of my own pocket, and was fairly strongly discouraged from doing so. My amateur legal reading suggests that attribution and a reasonable rationale would make it significantly harder for anyone to win a suit, and thus make it less likely that a lawyer would take it on. Total protection? No of course not. As you say anyone can sue over just about anything, if s/he is willing to spend the money. But it does decrease the risk. I think it also makes the images more valuable to have a minimum of identifying data attached directly to the image. Whether the benefits are worth the costs is a judgment call, i can't quantify either. -DES Talk 20:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd suggest 1) improve Help links - I can't even find bits I wrote easily now - and 2) work on some other Wiki indexes we need: e.g. how do we find the Publisher pages we've already created? Or if we uploaded an Image and forgot what we called it, how to find it now? BLongley 21:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
I'll try to do at least some of what you suggest. Let me know what you think of the results, please. -DES Talk 21:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh, on finding images, that is one advantage of Template:Cover Image Data. it puts every image into a catagory for the artist, and another category for the publisher, automatically, as well as a general category for fair use images. Take a look at, for example Category:Artist:Bob Eggleton Images or Category:Publisher:Baen Books Images, and don't forget to look at Special:Categories. -DES Talk 15:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Not really the sort of thing I'm thinking of - I'm thinking of how to find something I uploaded last week that I really MUST add some extra data to. Or all of somebody's images that may not have been named with the Publication Tag. (I think that was almost recommended as a standard for magazines, wasn't it?) And the "Publisher" Category makes me think we've got yet ANOTHER set of stuff to keep in step - people have already been breaking the links between publisher records and publisher Wiki-pages. :-/ BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Still, when you can do templates that give ME a benefit then it's fine if you also get something out of it yourself. And if other people are searching by Artist or Publisher then maybe we should be using those categories on artist or publisher ISFDB entries or Wiki pages? BLongley 20:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
On finding recently uplaoded iamges, the upload log can be useful. (You can get to it via Special:Logs or the special pages link on the left of every wiki page (in the toolbox section).) You can filter this on the user name of the uploader, also. If you wnat to find an image older than that, you may be able to use the image list, which you can get to via Special:Allpages (or the special pages list, then pick "All pages") and select the "Image" namespace. If you know any piece of text that is on the iamge description page, you can use Special:Search and select the "Image" namespace as the search target.-DES Talk 20:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I've added a large wiki-list to Publishers, listing the publishjer wiki pages now on file, to make it easier to find them. Let me know if this looks helkpful or not. -DES Talk 22:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[unindent]Please indulge me as I barge into your conversation, as my name has popped up a couple of times. Here's the sequence of events that led me to uploading images:

  1. Bill asks a question about my verified copy of one of the Corgi SF Collector's Library edition, with a casual aside about creating a gallery of covers for the series. I think to myself, why not just go ahead and upload the cover image of that particular pub? So, I do.
  2. Wow, I say to myself, that wasn't so hard. Why don't I do a few more? So after uploading a few more, I'm beginning to feel smug and self-important. Me can do it all (as Tarzan would say). Create the pub, upload the image, verify the pub, all the time approving my own edits. Talk about feeling superior. Who needs the rest of these mugs when I can do everything on my own?
  3. David comes along and softly, tactfully, diplomatically tells Bill about a template that makes adding the fair use and copyright disclaimer even easier than before. "Uh-oh," smug Mike says to himself, "I've forgotten to use the template for data info when uploading images."
  4. Meek and humble Mike goes back and adds David's wonderful new and user-friendly template to each of the images that he uploaded. But wait, he forgot to change to template's <TAG> for all of the images. So he goes back to add the tags, and realizes "Hey, this isn't as easy as I thought it'd be. Maybe I should think twice about uploading more images, or just wait until I've got all the time in the world." (December 31, 2008, Retirement Day!).

BTW, after uploading all those images, the template is now ingrained in my brain. The skeleton on my user page was placed there before I started uploading. I just have to remember to add the tags! MHHutchins 00:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Tor UK

I added Publisher:Tom Doherty Associates as a stub article. I see that earlier you had added Publisher:Tor UK. My question is - do you know of any publications that use the Tor UK imprint? Marc Kupper (talk) 23:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I know I've seen "Tor UK" as the publisher of record on several pubs, but they all seem to have disappeared. What happened? Did someone do a publisher merge for those titles? MHHutchins 00:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Just checked again. It appears that they've been changed to Tor / Pan Macmillan UK. MHHutchins 00:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
The imprint on the spine is Tor just like the US publications, the difference is the ISBN# is unique to the UK editions(hc & pb). These are sold in UK and Canada and have a UK and Canadian price. On the copyright page it has "First published 2007 by Tor an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd" as an example(Neal Asher's Hilldiggers). I'm not positive about this but I don't believe they're sold in the US.Kraang 01:46, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I also moved all the UK Tor's that were listed under the US Tor name awhile back. I also merged them all under the Tor / Pan Macmillan UK name, this was the more common form at the time.Kraang 01:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
There's more that are listed under the US Tor that probably should be changed. Do an ISBN search for "03304", and you'll find titles by Asher and others that are probably published by Tor / Pan Macmillan. MHHutchins 02:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I thought I had done them all, it now looks like I missed some and a our wandering bot has added some more. I'll put a list of the known ISBN's in the Wiki and then fix it to 2009. Thanks!Kraang 03:42, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Wow, what a lot of discussion before I even see the first message! Yes Marc, I do know of publications that use the Tor UK imprint (sort of). They do look like the US ones from spine imprint (as Kraang says) but from my small sample they are NOT sold in Canada - presumably if Tor US handles the Canadian edition Tor UK doesn't, and vice versa? I'm not totally sure it's worth a separate imprint but the books do reference www.toruk.com and www.panmacmillan.com (the former diverts to the latter though, and I suspect it's forcing a UK Tor page on me - or is there no true Tor US line mentioned there now?). I don't think "Tor / Pan Macmillan UK" is the right way to go though, if there's country separations at the "Tor" level but "Pan Macmillan" is global. It looks as though Tor (US) was actually "Tor / Tom Doherty Associates / PanMacmillan" for a while? (Not that I recommend such long publisher names, or even adding a parent publisher if it's not needed for disambiguation.) I'm not sure where Kraang's intending to put the ISBN notes, but can we keep the publisher names and wiki names in step please? It's not a difficult edit, although we may end up with lots of 'REDIRECT' pages till things settle. BLongley 18:45, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

All the Tor UK hc & pb's that I've seen sold in Canada have both the UK & CDN$ price on them, but no US$ price. I believe Tor/Tom Doherty Associates is still part of Pan Macmillan. If it helps I can leave the ISBN's in notes and in the Wiki.Kraang 22:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Here's the US Tor site[1].Kraang 22:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Changes to your verified pub Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, October 1975

I changed "fep" for content on the front inside cover. I also put Callahan's place story in a series. For some reason the short stories aren't in a series yet, I plan to add them to series when a see them. Tpi 19:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Why anyone would ever want to convert a nice logical, sortable, integer database field value to a TLA that 99% of people have never heard of is beyond me, but if the Masochistsgazine specialists want it that way it's OK by me. Putting the Callahan's stories into the Callahan series looks sensible though. BLongley 20:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
It's why I avoid the magazines as it seems like they have their own set of rules. Marc Kupper (talk) 22:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm in agreement on the page-#-vs-"fep", when it fits into the numbering scheme (as these do) without going negative or requiring made-up roman numerals or anything. (Which is why these things showed as page 2 instead of fep originally, since I was the one entering many of them in the first place.) I've been approving Tpi's changes on them, though, as I see them. It's a legal code, documented in the help; it does give the location more readily (to anyone who knows the code!), since it's not written on tablets of stone that the front cover is page 1 in a magazine; & Tpi is working hard at adding & cleaning up a lot of stuff in these Analog issues (& mostly doing very well, now that he's getting over the hump in the learning curve). Dave (davecat) 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, I don't really recognise "legal codes" here if they're nonsense: particularly ones that I COULD change to match what I do, rather than change what I do to match what one or two people wrote about before and then left before they could defend it. But changing stuff that people are using and you're NOT does not seem polite or productive, so I let a lot of weirdnesses slip by as they don't really affect me. My magazines are being moved to near-inaccessibility to make room for more books, but as there are significant overlaps I have to know something about the magazine data-entry standards - titles and dates are important, page numbers much less so. But I doubt I'll be very vocal about anything that only affects magazines unless someone does something silly like assume all UK printings match the US ones exactly, so they should be combined. Or tries to convert "Destinies" to a magazine (which it technically is) before we get printing number support (which "Destinies" needs). And I know I have UK magazine oddities that I will be questioned about eventually, but as even the sellers sold them to me as paperbacks the confusions are understandable. But I'd always recommend questioning the standards as early as possible: hence my activity on non-genre magazine entry, even though I doubt I'll primary verify many of them. I will add many secondary ones though, so if you feel you can fix the "missing or variant date" ambiguities and omissions in Template:PublicationFields:Title please do so! It's not a purely genre magazine issue any more. BLongley 20:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Strange thing, BTW. I'd seen this entry, meant to get back & respond, couldn't remember right off whose talk page it was on. I tried searching user talk pages (& then help pages too) for "fep", & turned up absolutely nothing. Anyone have any idea why that would be so? Dave (davecat) 19:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Apart from "Wiki-Search is fundamentally broken"? :-/ I think it only works with significant keywords that it decides, not us. I usually get better results with Google and "site:isfdb.org" qualifiers, but even Google don't scan us often enough to be really sure if something is here or not. Maybe this is another Wiki thing to bug DES about? BLongley 20:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
By default, wiki-search only searches "articles" -- that is, pages in the "main" namespace, like Publishers. You cna change this is several ways. After every search, there is an area at the bottom laped "namespace search" on our wiki, and "advanced search" on some other versions of the software, where you can do a search and sepcify the set of namespaces to be chaecked, which can be quite handy. You can get to this directly, via Special:Search or by clicking "special pages" and then "Search". You cna also set what the inital defualt is for you personally in your wiki-preferences, whcih yoiu cna get to via Special:Preferences.
All that said, searchs are not the wiki software's strong point. A google search such as Bill suggested is often a good idea. I don't know anything much about how the wiki search is implemented, or what sorts of things it looks for, sorry. -DES Talk 21:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
According to this help page, the folowing are true of wiki-searches:
  • Only the article content is searched - the page title is ignored.
  • The article content is searched in its raw (wikitext) form - i.e., it searches the text that appears in the edit box when you click 'edit', not the rendered page. This means that content coming from an included template will not be picked up, but the target of piped links will be.
  • Even if you enclose a phrase in quotes, the search looks for each word individually. e.g., if you enter "world war 2" it will return pages that contain "world" and "war" and "2".
  • The search is not case-sensitive, so "MediaWiki", "mediawiki" and "MEDIAWIKI" all give the same result.
I'm not sure how much help that is, but, there it is. -DES Talk 21:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
See also Help:Wiki searching. -DES Talk 21:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Not much help, in this case. "fep" (I searched without the quotes) appears a number of times in this user talk page. I checked the user talk page box. It found absolute zilch. I think the search is broken, & I'm curious as to why & how. (When I want to do fancier searches that it doesn't support, it's broken in another way, but I understand why & how.) I did realize that in searching the help pages it might have missed the edit_pub help page etc. because "fep" probably is buried in a template & so not on the help pages themselves; but that doesn't apply to Bill's user talk page, this item. Dave (davecat) 21:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I get the same (non-)results. I don't know way. The only thig I can think of is thet the help result says "Unsuccessful searches are often caused by searching for common words like "have" and "from", which are not indexed...". Why "fep" is a "common" word i don't know - a few tests suggest that any and every three letter word is not indexed. -DES Talk 21:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
"fep" is not a common word, and there's very few words that short we'd actually want to be common even in ISFDB terms. (Magazine editors may disagree.) Although "Tor" and "NEL" or "NAL" are ones that I think we might want from the book side... can we add TLAs to the search within this site? (Wiki side - the database can cope, the ISFDB presentation layer gets too generous with matches...) BLongley 22:21, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree that "fep" is not a common word, that should be ommitted from search indicies. But a number of tests have suggested to me that as implemented the wiki search engine fails to index any three character word. Nothing in the documentation says that this is true -- indeed what doc I can find says that this is not true. But that is whow the ISFDB wiki seems to behave. I don't see any way documented to specifically add (or remove) words fromn the lsit of words indexed for search, nor to change the logic of the search engien in any way. Ther are various alternate search engines that can either replace or be avaialble as alternates to the default search engine -- all require installation, soem look simple, some do not. Most if not all are implemented as extensions to the Mediawiki software. I'm no sure what to advise at this point. -DES Talk 23:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Bill, I'll leave this and this on hold for you to look at. Marc Kupper (talk) 19:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The latter is fine, but what has the former got to do with me? BLongley 20:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Aha! My mind is less looney than I thought! The former was a pub verified by Hall3730 that Tpi was doing a title-remove from that looked a little odd. I knew I'd dropped a note about this somewhere... Marc Kupper (talk) 22:48, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure your droppings are being left in the right places, but so long as it all works out and I'm not left with the pooper-scooper duties I'm happy. (Actually, I'm more happy that I've found another dozen books bibliographically useful, and another dozen worth reading, which will give me some pleasure tomorrow when I have to shut down the computer for thunder-storm reasons.) BLongley 22:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Book club edition of Shaw's A Wreath of Stars

Can you verify whether the publisher of this edition is the Science Fiction Book Club or Readers Union? Sometime in the mid-70s, I believe the UK SFBC changed the publisher of record to Readers Union (the parent company). The only UK SFBC edition I have is from the late 70s and shows Readers Union as the publisher with the SFBC logo only on the inside front flap. Take a look at this list and you'll see that your pub would fall into the November 1976 slot. Thanks. MHHutchins 21:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

This is beginning to freak me out. Within minutes of my asking this question, you updated this pub and uploaded the cover image. Did my question prompt this or did that psychic connection kick in again? MHHutchins 22:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
The Pub was updated by your prompting. (You're lucky, that's in my swap piles, not usually somewhere I can easily find it. Oh wait - it's been on my first swap pile for months - nobody wants it. :-/ I think I've only managed to get rid of one of such titles in the last year. ) It's Reader's Union, I think most of the other data is secondary. Like the #1118 - nothing on the pub suggests that to me. It's available (as are most of my other book club editions of anything) for swap - postage costs probably make it undesirable though. I know I don't tend to buy many books from the USA unless I'm REALLY curious - I can still acquire plenty of curiosities locally. BLongley 22:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Your Verified Pub - Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror, Second Series

In GRTSHRTSTR1949 could you confirm that the short story The Haunted Ships is listed as by 'Alan' Cunningham and not 'Allan'? Thanks Kevin 03:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's single L, even in ToC. BLongley 17:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Drat. Thank you for checking though! Kevin 01:06, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

UK pb of Merril's 10th Annual

Tuck gives the year of publication for this edition as 1967, but doesn't have a listing for the 9th Annual (which you state was published by Mayflower in 1967 also). MHHutchins 20:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the 9th is stated as 1967 by Mayflower-Dell. So if I make the 10th 1967 (which isn't stated) as well it makes them look like liars about how "Annual" it is. If Tuck had both I'd tend to trust him. But I'd kinda like to hold out till I see 11 and maybe 12, you know? If the UK editions exist, of course. BLongley 23:03, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The Galaxy Primes by Doc Smith

Locus #175 (June 24, 1975) gives a price of 40p for your verified edition of this title. I can't say where they got it from if it's not visible on your copy. MHHutchins 03:47, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

For export only I guess, although it doesn't state such: I just can't see any signs of a UK price being obscured. Why I've got one meant for export I don't know, but living so close to where the publisher was I guess there's plenty of second-hand copies from employees and such-like. BLongley 18:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Inconstant Moon

Bill, could you please "compare and contrast" my verified 1974 printing of the Sphere edition of Inconstant Moon and your verified 1977 printing? In particular, could you double check if the erroneous claim about abridgment (11 vs. 7 stories) in the 1974 printing was corrected in the 1977 printing, as seems likely? Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

It definitely was corrected, if it was wrong in the first place. I've added a note to mine but obviously can't check yours. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
By the way, do you find that the Acknowledgments page only lists SIX? BLongley 23:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
That's right, it's six in my copy as well. I don't know what they were smoking, but hey, it was 1974! Ahasuerus 23:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I wasn't smoking anything in 1974, but maybe they had to use source's paper to roll a proper "60's" joint or something? :-) BLongley 00:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, as per Help:Screen:NewNovel, "It is fairly common for the last page of text in a book to have a different graphic layout which may not include a page number. The "last printed page number" rule would then use a page number before the end of the work. In these cases, count forward to the end of the text and use that as the last page number," so if the last page of your printing is unnumbered (like mine is), then we may want to change the page count from 199 to 200. Thanks! Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, have done. I normally do this automatically now, but this was one of my early submissions. OTHER Significant content after the numbered pages doesn't apply in this case, but I know I've dithered over "excerpts from the sequel" at times. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I may need to get a scanner to upload this printing's cover. Eddie Jones' art is the same as the one on Amazon.com, but it's arranged differently. Ahasuerus 22:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Please DO get a scanner and USE it! It'll stop me annoying you with verification requests for such at least! And then maybe we can reduce the number of COVERART entries that come up in "simple" title searches if we agree when COVERART actually has the same ART and can be merged... or we can decide it's Cover IMAGE and demand each is exactly as seen. BLongley 23:21, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I think I have mentioned that I am color deficient -- who the heck designed this body anyway?! -- so art of any kind is generally not a priority. If I were to start spending my limited ISFDB time on scanning covers, I would have even less time for verifications :( On the other hand, I can see how having more scans would help with cross-verifications. Decisions, decisions... Ahasuerus 23:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't recall you mentioning a colour-deficiency (except that you obviously have a lack of "U"s :-) ) and in fact I think you've mentioned that some covers I've uploaded are less "vibrant" in colour than yours.
When you are color-blind/deficient, you generally go by intensity rather than by (too often unreliable) color. Some tests use this fact to identify different types of color-blindness, e.g. see the last test on this page. Ahasuerus 20:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Interesting page, thanks, I think I'll explore more. I recall doing some colour-blindness tests as a child but my myopia and astigmatism were considered more severe: e.g. in one test they said "remove your glasses, have a look through this and read the top line". To me, there were three orange bars labelled A, B, and C: I couldn't even see that there WERE letters in each orange bar I was supposed to be able to read. (And I extrapolated from the "B" that might have been an "8" to me as well.) BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
When I look at that page on my 19" monitor at my normal distance, I pass the tests. Without glasses, I can read ONE set of numerals and that's it (Top Left). At six inches, I can read all but Top Right. The one at the bottom is interesting as without glasses I can see either the 2 or the 5 with some sort of mind-switch - I'm usually the odd person out that can see both sides of an optical illusion before I'm even told it's an illusion, so my mind is doing SOMETHING to correct faulty inputs. My eyesight is pretty faulty but fortunately correctable with the right instruments - can I assume that if I invented colour-blindness correcting specs I'd be pretty wealthy? (Or do they already exist?) BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I am unaware of any way to correct for color-blindness with lenses or anything else, for that matter. Genetic engineering may fix the problem in the future, but for now most folks develop coping mechanisms when driving etc. Ahasuerus 22:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Correct. My Father was an experimental psychologist, specializing in color vision, so i know a little bit about this. In theory a virtual reality system using false colors could convert red/green differences into some other color dimension that the person involved could see, but its not really practical just yet. Actually, not a bad background idea for an SF story, but there needs to be a story there before it works. -DES Talk 23:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
There probably are SF stories already, but they might be in the "Synesthesia" area. "It smells purple!" or "It sounds green!". When it comes to "looks (fitb)", "fitb" probably is covered by something else with colour and/or scent and/or taste: "Lavender" or "Lemon" or "Strawberry" for instance. "I see - Marmite!" doesn't really astound. If someone has expressed the taste of Marmite in visual terms I haven't seen it yet... but I avoid "Horror" works anyway. BLongley 23:57, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
My big worry is that after the myopia and astigmatism I apparently can look forward to the macular degeneration that my father is suffering. :-( BLongley 21:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I was resistant to the extra work of scanning and uploading originally, but it is actually fairly easy and I can let the scanner work while I'm editing. My problem with Amazon UK taking DAYS to update was solved by uploading to Amazon US instead (seconds for them to update, minutes at most) and made me start doing it more often. Uploading HERE is even better (slightly larger images allowed, self-approval OK) and I even got Mike Hutchins doing it. Except that you get nagged to add extra info. Which I ignore and just add the link to the pub I want it for, as the use in the Pub record won't show as a link back to the wiki image page. DES can fix the rest if he thinks it's needed. BLongley 00:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
If you add the link to the pub record using Template:P I can semi-automatiacally convert this to Template:Cover Image Data2 using AWB, as I have done for a significant group of images in the past. -DES Talk 16:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Verification request

Could you please check this discussion when you get a chance? Thanks! Ahasuerus 23:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, another lazy edit on my part (or someone regularised it). No hyphen in mine. Fixed now. BLongley 00:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Ad Astra?

I have Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle which includes the essay Ad Astra? including the question mark in the title. Does your verified Vector 65 have Ad Astra or Ad Astra? with the question mark? Locus and http://www.mjckeh.demon.co.uk/vec73may.htm say there's a question mark.

Does the essay start out "At the age of 14 I decided to become an astronomer" and end with "You couldn't buy dreams like that."? The reason I ask about the contents is my publication states

“Ad Astra?” copyright © 1986 by Bob Shaw. First appeared in Vector.

At the time I verified Messages Found in an Oxygen Bottle I also added a note about that copyright "implying it was published in a 1986 issue of Vector. Further research finds that it appeared in the May/June 1986 issue." Unfortunately, I can't figure out how out I came up with May/June 1986. Marc Kupper (talk) 04:51, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I've no idea where the magazine is but fortunately I scanned the article. It has the question mark and starts and ends as you say. I don't know of any reason to change the copyright date unless it was revised? BLongley 15:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I guess we'll chalk it up as a mystery from Bermondsey Triangle. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:25, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Driftglass

This submission is an edit to your verified pub. I'm inclined to reject it but will run it by you to see if the edit adds useful data. Marc Kupper (talk) 03:26, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The Space Circus by Steffanson or Raymond

Your edition of this title is credited under the Con Steffanson title record. But there is a listing in Locus #207 (December 1977) that the first Star edition was published as by Alex Raymond. I see that the cover of yours shows Raymond as the author. Is the title page different? Thanks. MHHutchins 17:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid my TV & Film related books are inaccessible at the moment, but from what I remember of the series the true writer is listed on the title page, "Alex Raymond" appears to be on the cover just because that's who you EXPECT to write Flash Gordon stories. Hopefully those books will be accessible again in another week or two. BLongley 17:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
You're correct that "Alex Raymond" wouldn't be the true author (he died in 1956). The true author is Ron Goulart. The credited author may be Steffanson as that was how the US edition was credited. Perhaps the Locus listing was based only on the front cover credit and not the title page, which probably states "written by Con Steffanson based on characters created by Alex Raymond." Oh well, no rush. MHHutchins 18:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
OK, my cleaner recovered the set for me. The title page says "Alex Raymond's original story: Adapted by Con Steffanson". I think my thinking at the time is that even if Alex Raymond wrote a story like this, it was probably a comic strip we'll never add. (Although I see we seem to have four books of such here now - no contents though.) I've added a note about the title page credits but haven't promoted Alex to Co-Author status. Similar to me not crediting script-writers for film-adaptations, or TV script-writers for Buffy and X-Files books: although I think I have done such in the past, either with title-level notes or Wikipedia links to the TV shows. It just got too much work for titles nobody else seems interested in. BLongley 22:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Out of Phaze 6th printing

I have the 6th printing I match you, but I thought it should be 0000-00-00 as there is not printing date to match. Also Rschu verifies Michael Storrings as a second cover artist. I know he did the maps, but my edition does not state thw cover art. Thanks, Harry.

Date fixed. If you have the same edition, the cover artist is credited 3 lines below that date. Storrings signed the maps but is not credited for either those or the cover. BLongley 18:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
My bag I have Sweet as the ocver artist and I found 'Storrings' on the map. I appreciate the clarification. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 20:21, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Sir Douglas M. Price"

By the way, Bill, following up on our discussion of legal names and titles, take a look at this book by one "Sir Douglas M. Price", currently sold by Amazon. As the product description says, "You will NOT be able to put this book down until You and Your Family Experience the Full Spectrum of its' Mythical, Magical, Life Changing Events." I am sure the fact the two lonely five-star reviews, one of them calling the book "a future Pulitzer Prize winner and big screen movie", are by readers from Alabama is just a coincidence... Ahasuerus 03:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Dark Universe by Daniel Galouye

Tuck gives a date of 1967 for the first Sphere printing. Everything else (page count, price, catalog #) matches your 1970 verified edition. Could yours be a second printing? MHHutchins 05:37, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, it definitely states "First Sphere printing, 1970" but I'm pretty sure Tuck wasn't psychic... BLongley 18:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Probably not, but the first volume didn't come out until 1974, so he (or his sources) had plenty of time to get confused :) Ahasuerus 16:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Lifeboat

This [2] . I transient verified my copy and added my price. £0.65 . Thrash me if my wrong. I did not remove note. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 23:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, you can take over Primary verification on it. I'll only keep the 1985 edition. BLongley 13:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Lifeboat

Dragoondelight has updated your verified Lifeboat to change the price from blank to £0.65. I approved this and re-edited to remove your note "Price obscured." Marc Kupper (talk) 00:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The Best of Leigh Bracket.

In checking my copy against your verification this. [3] . You have page 420 Map Margaret Howes. I am confused by this. The Addendum establishes the reality of the author of the essay and the maps starting on page 422. My thinking, and I fully admit I could/am completely wrong is this. Mars: By the Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars is a very short short story (fiction). The Maps would be separate as something like Mars (Maps) interiorart. Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 14:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I really don't remember doing that. Maybe I bailed over the question of "Margaret Howes" from the factual addendum as opposed to "Margaret M. Howes" from the fictional essay, with a fictional title? Or dithered over whether "Central Terran Administration" is part of the title? Either way, I don't care about Maps so adjust it whichever way you like. BLongley 17:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Harry dropped a note on my page as I had verified a copy the Doubleday hardcover. I looked at my book again and decided to do the following:
  • The map is "by" the "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars" with a variant title for Margaret Howes.
  • The short story Mars is more complicated. It's stated as by "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars", says "Margaret M. Howes, Secretary" at the bottom, but I'm pretty sure Leigh Brackett wrote it as her addendum reports that Margaret Howes did the map and "several closely reasoned detailed pages concerning the reasons for placement of the cities, canals, etc." but does not credit Margaret Howes for a preface to the maps. The copyright page seems to confirm this with a 1977 copyright by Leigh Brackett and a credit for the map to Margaret Howes.
I also found on Amazon The Wrong World by Margaret Howes where the "About the author" (probably copied from her book) says she did the maps and does not mention any other work for this collection.
Bill, I updated your publication but may have gotten confused on the page numbers. Could you and/or Harry please check this?
If all of this makes sense we can also make Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars a pseudonym for Leigh Brackett. Marc Kupper (talk) 00:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
The pages match my copy. The only question I still have is why name the essay 'Map' instead of Mars? Since the assumption is Leigh Brackett wrote this little bit, which I agree with. Do you think the M. inserted between the names was a pun for Mars also? Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 12:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - I was wondering why I fel6t so0 conf7used... I fixed the name of the essay. Yes, I was wondering if the M. was for Mars. It seems LB had fun coming up with a way to credit/honor Margaret Howes. Hopefully her name got put in to the publisher so she got royalties for both the Doubleday printing and Ballantine reprints.
Ahh, the bingo light just clicked on. The Table of Contents in my hb edition says "Map   366" at the bottom while the map itself says "Mars". I'll add a publication note to the hb copy. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
The page numbers are fine by me. The paperback has no ToC entry for this section to add confusion (as if we needed any more!) I don't know if the text is purely by Leigh Brackett, or a collaboration based on text by Margaret (possibly "M.") Howes. But as my interest in this is about the same as my interest in their respective shoe-sizes, Harry, please take over primary verification and do what you will. (Just don't spell "Brackett" the way you did in creating this thread! ;-) ) BLongley 20:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about the whole thing really, but in trying to avoid something coming out of left field, I did so myself. I will verify it if you wish, though the idea that a question and you tag out is making me reticent to say something. I do not wish to offend, nor do I wish to acquire more point value verifications. As for spelling Brackett, I noted that I do miss the second t in several instances where it is used. It is either a fingering issue or typing slower than my mind formulates the sentence. Lack of coherent message content construction is a serious issue of mine. I also admit parsing into subdivisions the Afterword is a stretch, and can see once it starts where do you end. Apologies to all, Thanks, Harry. --Dragoondelight 15:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(sticking my nose in) I must say, I dislike in general the idea of crediting fictional characters or entities (such as "Survey Commission Office, Kahora, Mars") authors in the DB. Yes, authors frequently assign "credit" for stories, parts of stories, or in-universe essays to fictional "authors" as a form of realism (or sometimes as a joke). But that is all part of the story. We wouldn't list the Sherlock Holmes stories with a co-author credit for "John D. Watson", nor do we list the Callahan's Bar stories with a credit for "Jake Stonebender". I realize this is an odd case, but I would prefer that this be discussed a bit more before this precedent is followed. -DES Talk 16:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In the Bone

Just a note that I have added a Note to your verified Ace edition of In the Bone. I also added a Note to the associated Title record, which explains why this collection is sometimes dated 1987 and other times 1978. Ahasuerus 01:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That's fine. I added cover, changed "Marcg" to "March" and added a note about the cover being signed as I've just added Corben to the Library. BLongley 19:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

RANKINE: INTERSTELLAR TWO-FIVE

Added $AUS & $NZ prices to the record, and noticed that the hyphen also exists on the copyright page, but didn't add that to the existing note.--Bluesman 02:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

May's Intervention

I wonder if the 3 main Titles in your verified Intervention are really novellas or if they started life as novels and then got changed by an accidental merge? Ahasuerus 03:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing is probably a novel (see here). It might be useful keeping the contents for now till someone can see if they match the split in the American editions (currently listed as numbers 1 and 2 in the series although they came later and should have the same content). Unfortunately nobody's confessed to owning them yet. BLongley 18:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I have the US edition! Let's see... <sounds of book stacks being moved around> The first US volume, The Surveillance: Book One of Intervention, has the following contents:
  • Prologue 1
  • The Surveillance 13
  • The Disclosure 161
  • Appendix: The The Remillard Family Tree (unnumbered pages following page 347)
The second US volume, The Metaconcert: Book Two of Intervention contains:
  • The Intervention 3
  • Epilogue 280
  • Appendix: The Remillard Family Tree (unnumbered pages following page 283)
The two "Appendices" are identical, so it looks like there is no new text and Del Rey simply split the text after "The Disclosure". Just in case, the first volume ends with the words "Both love and evolution act in an elitist way. And now, farewell." Ahasuerus 21:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, if you're going to read the FICTION for bibliographical reasons I guess I ought to as well - I can manage a few pages even though I haven't actually read ANY Julian May yet. Let's see... <grinding of mental gears as I figure out where the book actually IS... > OK, it's actually pretty easy, this room has books up to "Edmund Cooper", "May" should be in what used to be the dining room. BLongley 22:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's there, and not on one of the double-stacked bookcases either. I can confirm that the section called "The Disclosure" ends with the words "Both love and evolution act in an elitist way. And now, farewell." "The Intervention" starts with "Paul Remillard, my grandnephew, made an observation during his first address". Does that match? BLongley 22:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Yup, it matches perfectly. Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
If so, how do we now use this data? I think the sections are useful for the US/UK split, but are unlikely to be published separately. Some are NOVEL length. COLLECTION or OMNIBUS or just move to title notes and put it back to NOVEL? BLongley 22:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I would be inclined to make them all NOVELs -- which is how they were listed by Locus and other folks -- and add notes explaining how the original book was broken up for US publication. And to think that a 673 page book was seen by somebody as too long just 20 years ago! :) Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I still find it too long to start. Anything over an inch thick is too hand-numbing to read in the bath, and don't get me started on "trade paperbacks".... BLongley 22:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
As far as the quality of May's work goes, I am not familiar with the 200+ books that she wrote in the 1950s-1970s under a truckload of pseudonyms. Apparently many of them were juveniles, which may explain why I thought that her Saga of the Pliocene Exile sometimes read like a beefed up crossover between a YA novel and a romance novel, but it had its moments. The follow-up series, which starts with Intervention and continues with the Galactic Milieu trilogy, reportedly started well, but the resolution left a lot of readers somewhat unsatisfied according to rec.arts.sf.written reports in 1996. I am sure I will get to it one of these centuries... Ahasuerus 01:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully your inclination is STILL towards NOVELs as I've just edited, noted, re-seriesed and deleted stray contents. Please check. BLongley 22:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Looks good! I have verified my pubs, which should take care of this area for a while :) Ahasuerus 00:54, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I would love it if this became an example of Peace and Harmony amongst all our editors! BLongley 01:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, that reminds me! I have been meaning to mention that all upper case words like "STILL" are perceived as "shouting" in some parts of the Internet. It also makes posts harder to read, which may contribute to communications problems. I am not sure why that is so, but that's what a lot of people have observed. Perhaps a more judicious use of the Shift/CapsLock keys may help things a little :=) Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I never use the Caps Lock key, but yes I do tend to indicate a stressed word with shift. What do you suggest instead? I'm afraid most of my online habits were developed in environments without bold, italics, underlines, font-change options, etc. BLongley 15:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I tend to italicize words for emphasis and bold when something is really important. It looks like you have been experimenting with a similar approach for the last 24 hours :) Ahasuerus 00:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I tried to change, given enough practice I can usually relearn. I've even got used to DES's cover image template now he's shortened the name and I've had dozens of practice runs. That's probably easier though as it does actually save me some typing whereas italics here are more typing than just holding down shift. BLongley 19:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Tell me though - do you ever get accused of shouting when you capitalise ISFDB record types? I notice you picked on "STILL" but not "NOVELs", and have used "EDITOR" yourself today. BLongley
Yes, record types are problematic: damned if you capitalize (and shout) and damned if you don't (and confuse the reader). I suppose it's too late to ask Al to change them to 'Editor', 'Novel', etc... Ahasuerus 23:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It shouldn't be really, if we can cope with a few minutes downtime. For instance, I recently got PHONE, WEB, EMAIL, FAX, LETTER entries changed on half a million records at work to "quieter" names just because I didn't like them. (And also because some daft bint of a programmer before me had had cross-referenced the two fields using such to two different reference tables, as if one of our teams might be receiving information requests by pigeon or telepathy instead.) Nobody noticed the extra time involved. Took them quite a while to notice the change anyway, but when they did it was always considered a good move. BLongley 21:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes, the data may not be that hard to change, but what about the software? "Find-and-Replace" will probably work in 90% of all cases, but who knows where the other 10% may be hidden -- programmers have been known to use "creative" solutions in most unlikely places! :) Ahasuerus 21:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Phaid the Gambler

I also tried to fix The Song of Phaid the Gambler today. If that looks good too (I don't know if you have examples to hand) we might have another example for the "split novels" discussions. BLongley 01:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

It so happens that I own both the US and the UK versions -- I recall purchasing both because the text was apparently revised by the US publisher -- but it may take me a little while to extricate them from the stacks. Hopefully I will verify them by the end of tomorrow. Ahasuerus 01:30, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
They're ganging up on me! I just found The Wind's Twelve Quarters Volume II - I didn't know it had ever been split. BLongley 15:04, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
No rest for the wicked or at least bibliographically deranged :) Let me see if I can get my Phaids now... Ahasuerus 00:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, found/verified my NEL edition and compared the text with the Ace version(s). Added the following Note to the UK Title record: "Later revised for US publication in 2 volumes in 1986-1987. Although the first volume of the revised version ends at the end of Chapter 17, the text is different from the text at the end of Chapter 17 of the original version, so it's not clear where the break is nor is it clear what the extent of the revisions was." Ahasuerus 03:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

template ping

Please look at three example pages where a new (draft) version of {{Cover Image Data}} is in use. If this meets with approval, I will copy it over the existing template, and adjust the documentation as needed. The three examples all use the data from a cover I uploaded last night.

  • User:DESiegel60/CID-test1 A page where a publication record number is specified
  • User:DESiegel60/CID-test2 A page where a publication tag is specified instead
  • User:DESiegel60/CID-test3 A page where neither record number nor tag is specified. This is what existing images will look like until/unless edited to insert the rn or tag, and what new images will look like if the pub rn or tag is omitted.

Please tell me what you think of these examples. This is copied from Rules and standards discussions#Template Use, because i wanted to be sure you saw it early. please respond there.

Also, i have created {{C}} as you suggested. -DES Talk 21:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a set of revised testcases linked from the template discussion, please do give me your views. -DES Talk 13:55, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

McDevitt: Hercules Text

Added $C price to HRTX1986 .--Bluesman 21:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine, but on rechecking I discovered mine is actually a second printing so you might want to verify this one. BLongley 13:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I came, I saw, I verified!--Bluesman 22:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ringworld Throne

Added $C price to BKTGA0821 .--Bluesman 22:35, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ship Errant

Added $C price to THSHPRRNT1997 .--Bluesman 17:17, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Fairy Tales

I see that you just uploaded a cover for Grimm's Fairy Tales, and that we have a record in the db. But the policy page says that we exclude "Fairy tales with no known author", and while the listing credits the Grimms as authors, my understanding is that they were more like folk music collectors -- they wrote down stories from the surviving oral tradition, they did not re-write them. Well, Wikipedia:Grimm's Fairy Tales says that later editions were paraphrased and rewritten, and multiple version combined. Perhaps these are not "of unknown authorship" after all. But still, just where do we want to draw the line on more or less classic fairy tales? -DES Talk 21:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

There is apparently a great deal of variety in this area. I was cleaning up Asimov/Greenberg's Devils the other day and spent some time digging up the first appearance of Leo Tolstoi's novelette. It reads like a fairy tale, but apparently Tolstoi was merely "inspired" by Russian folk tales and didn't base the story on any particular one. As long as the author is known, I would be inclined to include the Title(s). Ahasuerus 21:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
These had better be included, or I've wasted several hours on Grimm's Fairy Tales. The Grimms are already here - we've had the (pleasantly short) debate on Jacob/Jakob for instance. But such a book should be a good reference for people that wonder how on earth we get NOVEL entries based on such (which should please the lengthists), or want to point at the inspiration for another work here like Pâté de Foie Gras. I think the Grimms should be IN: some of their entries on grounds that they're often included in Fantasy Anthologies, some because they've inspired other SF stories that it would be useful to link back from, and some just because they're notable (or as you say, "classic") enough to get here. Hans Christian Andersen is the only other "classic fairy tale" author I can immediately think of in this area, but feel free to take this to a general discussion. There IS a line that should be drawn, somewhere:. e.g. is Baum's American Fairy Tales unwelcome? BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
What I am NOT going to do is go through every title and try and find the original German (or Teutonic, or whatever language was actually prevalent in the area at the time of collection, or publication) for each of these. I don't mind if someone else does (I can still use Jules Verne's page after such work). BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Eventually, I'd like to see all foreign language Titles traced back to their first appearances. The Locus Index and Contento often list the date of the first English translation, which is also useful, but can be misleading if we don't indicate when the story was written. In Tolstoi's case, the delta is only 4 years (1886 vs. 1890), which is not too bad, but in other cases it can be substantial. For example, we currently list Sannikov Land as a 1955 title because that's when the first English translation appeared, but apparently it was first published either in 1924 or in 1926. I am sure you will agree that it matters a great deal whether a "lost race" novel was first published in the 1920s or in the 1950s :) Unfortunately, it can take a fair amount of time to do the required research -- even the Tolstoi took 20 minutes -- but we'll get to it... eventually. Ahasuerus 14:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, you might: I have no desire to learn German, and without enough knowledge to check such I wouldn't even copy the Wikipedia entries, for instance. BLongley 18:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
But I think this is useful. I also think I was wise not to buy the "Andersen and Grimm " collected fairy tales at the same time. (Or maybe I did? I haven't finished Sunday's bag of books yet. At one book a day for things like this, it could take ages to be sure.) BLongley 22:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
The fact that many stories from Grimm's Fairy Tales have been the basis for SF stores deos not, in and of themselves, make them in. Otherwise Homer, Shakspear, and "Aesop's Fables" would all have to be in. Blish's A Case Of Conscience has a significant plot thread concerning the interpretation of Joyce, but that doesn't make the Joyce novel, nor the Homeric work it is in turn based on, IN. Grimm should be in or out on its own merits. I am not seriously arguing for tossing your work, but I was suprised you entered them, and i want to know where the line should be drawn. Is Robert Graves's Greek Myths in? It is also a classic that has