User talk:Gamaliel

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Contents

Welcome!

Hello, Gamaliel, 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:

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --MartyD 10:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Author Data

When updating author data be sure to set the working language of the author. Otherwise the system defaults to English. I've updated this author's language, based on an assumption. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:58, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't always remember to check, so ill go back through my recent edits to make sure I catch them all. Gamaliel 22:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm holding to change the working language of José María Barrios de los Ríos to English. Is that correct? Mhhutchins 22:35, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
It's Spanish. I just submitted the change. Gamaliel 23:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
That wasn't necessary. I'd already set it to Spanish. That was the purpose of my original post. Mhhutchins 23:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Two comments about The White People and Other Weird Stories

Hi. I accepted your changes to The White People and Other Weird Stories, but I wanted to mention two things that might save you some effort.

For the Foreword, if the title already contains something that looks like a unique title to you (in this case, "The Ecstasy of St. Arthur"), you don't need to add further disambiguation by including the collection/anthology title in parentheses. That practice is meant for titles that will be used as-is in other publications (e.g., "Foreword", or "Introduction"). Another moderator might disagree, but it doesn't bother me that you included it, so I have left it.

And when you deal with a collection of works previously published, assuming we already have instances of the titles captured elsewhere, we want to "merge" them (easy way is to go to the author's page and use Check for Duplicate Titles) so that we have a single title with multiple publication appearances. Part of that merging includes getting to choose what data to keep from each copy of the title, which means if the title is already entered with the proper date, there's no need to go change the dates on the titles in a newly-added collection or anthology. The proper date can be preserved during the merge process. Setting the dates can be helpful during the merge process, but it's usually extra work. I did accept the date updates, and I will do the title merges.

Thanks, and thank you for contributing. --MartyD 11:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I tried the merging via Check for Duplicate Titles but I thought I got an error message because of the different dates. I think I just got confused about what step to take next and thought I had taken the wrong step initially. Anyway, next time I'll go through CDT and ask if I get lost again. Thanks. Gamaliel 18:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I submitted a new table of contents and once the edit is accepted I'll use it to try merging titles the proper way. Gamaliel 19:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The Book of Fantasy

I've accepted the submission adding the contents to this record, but have corrected the spelling of the name of the authors who use initials. It is customary to give a space after each period of an initial. I have also merged the title records of those that had one already in the database. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll remember the space after the initial. Gamaliel 22:04, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Author Data

Be sure to enter the legal name field in the format LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME MIDDLENAME. Both date fields should be in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Also, the place of birth field should indicate the name of the place at the time of the person's birth. In the case of Martin Buber, I've corrected the birth place to Vienna, Austria-Hungary, which was the name of the country in 1878. Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Ooops, must have missed one of the dates. Sorry. And I'll make sure I stick to historical locations instead of current ones for the birthdates. Gamaliel 02:06, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Please correct the legal name field of this author data. Mhhutchins 02:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Fixed. Gamaliel 02:57, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Title field changes in Book of Fantasy

Do the changes to the titles as given in the update for this record reflect those used on the title page of the work itself, i.e. is "Fragment (excerpt from Don Juan Tenorio)" the title used on page 382 of the book? Thanks for checking. Mhhutchins 21:03, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The changes are not what is used on the title page of the book. The information regarding excerpts comes from the copyright page. I thought that was the proper way to handle it based on other entries I've seen in the database, but I'm perfectly willing to do it in another manner. It's not a big deal in the case of Fragment, because Zorrilla is generally non-genre author, but some kind of clarification is needed for something like Olaf Stapeldeon's "Universal History", which is not a story but a small excerpt from Star Maker. Gamaliel 21:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
In that case, you should update the individual title records, giving further information in the note field, and leave the title field as given in the publication. The only time to disambiguate a title is when the title of the excerpt matches the title of the whole work (which in most cases, it does.) I'll accept the submission and ask you to update the titles and add notes to the title records (not in the publication record.) Thanks. Mhhutchins 22:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I just submitted an edit for Fragment using this method. I'll continue this way for the other excerpts in the book. Gamaliel 22:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

"Lukundoo"

I mistakenly accepted the submission to change the date of this story to its appearance in Weird Tales. Several sources confirm that it was first published in 1907, although none gave the publication. I've returned the original date. Mhhutchins 00:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I assumed it was an error, thanks for clearing that up. Do we know where it was first published? Maybe it should be added to the database. Gamaliel 03:02, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, none of the sources for the date give the publication in which it first appeared. Mhhutchins 04:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Wow, I've had a long Monday. Sorry. Gamaliel 04:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Note field vs. Synopsis field

The former should be used to provide additional information about the title. The latter should be used to enter a short summary of the work's plot (without spoilers). Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:44, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm still getting updates to title records which are giving notes in the "Synopsis" field and not the "Note" field". Mhhutchins 17:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Dating translated titles

When a work has been translated from another language, the date of the record will be the date of its first publication in that language. For example, a work may be first published in 1919 in Spanish, but its first translation into English might be published in 1989. In that case the English title record is dated 1989, and it is made into a variant of a record for the Spanish title record which is dated 1919. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

EQMM, Nov 1945

A couple of problems with this record. The currency is missing from the Price field, and the magazine's title should not be in the publication series field. Magazines are not entered into publication series, their title records are entered into editor series. You have also failed to give your source of the data in the record's Note field. Mhhutchins 18:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've submitted the corrections. I missed the update to your comment in regards to the Note field, so I'll tell you here: my sources are this webpage: http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/t982.htm and the copyright page of The Book of Fantasy. Gamaliel 18:50, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
As I said above, the source should be given in the Note field of the record. I personally don't need to know the source (having a pretty reasonable idea about how to research it). The database user shouldn't have to do the research, so providing it right there in the record saves them the time and effort. Please keep this in mind any time you're creating a record for any publication not in your hand. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll update again with this information. Gamaliel 19:04, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories

I accepted your submission of Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories but made a few changes to it:

  • Amazon's Look Inside shows the title as using "Rashōmon" instead of "Rashomon", so I changed that. You had entered the first story as "Rashōmon", so now everything matches.
  • You gave content on page xix but a page count of "268". Based on the Look Inside, I changed this to "xli+268". If you have the book, please adjust that "xli" as appropriate (Amazon does not display page xli, so I cannot tell where the Roman numerals end). See Help:Screen:EditPub#Pages for more about page counting and entry of page counts.

While I was on Amazon anyway, I also captured a link to the cover image and added it. If you are planning to scan the cover, you can just replace it when the time comes.

Thanks. --MartyD 11:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I have the book at work, so I'll verify the page count on Monday. In my submission I just pulled the number from Amazon. Thanks. Gamaliel 17:59, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
The introductory material goes up to page "li", so I've submitted an edit accordingly. Gamaliel 17:31, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Are you certain that the title story is fantasy? This Wikipedia page would lead one to think otherwise. Mhhutchins 17:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree, but I included it because it was already in the database: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1323548. On a related note, is there a process for removing titles from the database? There's some stuff in here that is certainly not sf, such as http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?945702. Gamaliel 18:09, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Some shorter works are in the database only because they were entered as content records of a publication record (as in the case here.) It's easy to delete an ineligible title from the database, but only after it has been removed from all of the various publications in which it has been linked. But care must be taken. Some works may be borderline and should remain in the db since we tend towards inclusion when the work isn't clearly non-spec-fic. In other cases, a discussion on one of the community pages may be needed. When there's no doubt whatsoever, feel free to use the "Remove Titles from This Publication" function, and once approved use the "Delete This Title" function. One last warning: If a publication has been primary verified, it must be discussed with the verifying editor before making any changes. Mhhutchins 18:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Birth place missing country data

When updating the birth place field for US born authors, please add ", USA" after the state name. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that if you update an author's data without setting the language, the system automatically defaults to English. Don't ask me why. I didn't design the software. :) Mhhutchins 17:53, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


Thanks for letting me know about the USA bit, I'll be sure to do that from now on. And I've been keeping my eye on the language thing since I've been working with a lot of non-English authors. Gamaliel 18:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Lady Churchill's #28

This record accepted. If the piece on page 30 is fiction, you'll need to change the type to SHORTFICTION. The NONGENRE type is reserved solely for novel-length fiction. If it is non-fiction, you should change the type to ESSAY. The NONFICTION type is reserved for book-length works of non-fiction. A short work of non-fiction which is contained in a larger publication is typed as ESSAY. Also, I'm assuming your source is the website whose link you give in the Note field. You should state that as well, not just give a URL. Thanks. Mhhutchins 02:45, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

thanks, I misunderstood the use of the nongenre type. Also, my source is the mag itself, which I'm reading now, Gamaliel 03:03, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
That should have been mentioned in the Note to Moderator field, and the record should be primary verified. There's no need to give the URL in the Note field. Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:45, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, I had assumed those verification fields were a mod-only thing, but I read up on them and I think I get it now, so I marked LCRW 28 as primary verified. Gamaliel 13:26, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Colson Whitehead

Sorry, I had to reject your submission for Colson Whitehead. The proposed website remains inactive (and it does seem doubtful if we should maintain the archived version: there seems no real information about the author and it also seems to take a rather lonf time to restore the information.). What's your opinion? Stonecreek 10:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings either way. I agree about the archive link, it seems silly to keep that. The semi-active real page was last updated 2/13 so that seems recent enough to be worth keeping, IMO. Gamaliel 16:05, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
Well, it does seem that the inactive status was only temporary, so I did change the site as you proposed. Thanks for being insistent. Stonecreek 16:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Farthing

Do you have copies of the issues for which you created records? Mhhutchins 20:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Re this record. The URL should be removed from the Note field. The Locus database has floating anchors, which means the URLs change when updates are made to its pages. If Locus is the source of your data, (I can only assume that since again you didn't note you had a copy of the issue in the Note to Moderator field), just note "Info from Locus1". Mhhutchins 20:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Same situation with this record. Mhhutchins 20:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I had to do a "hard reject" of four submissions to update these records (meaning I could neither accept them nor reject them). You had merged some of the content records in previous submissions. When two title records are merged, one of the records is deleted from the database. Unfortunately, you made submissions to update publication records which contained records which no longer existed, causing a Python software error. In the future you should wait until a submission has been accepted before making another submission which involves the some title record. Now that the merge submissions have been accepted, you can now make submissions to update the publication records which contain them. Thanks. Mhhutchins 20:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I have accepted your submission for updating Farthing #5, January 2007, but I have changed the page count from 71 to 72. Please read this help text to understand why the page count should usually be a multiple of 4 for magazines. If the actual page count should be higher than 72, please re-submit the correct one. Thanks, Stonecreek 09:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Mexican Short Stories

I'm holding the submission to add this book to the database for several reasons:

  1. The publication format "sc" is not a standard format. Please use those that are listed here. If it's not listed, leave the field blank, and describe the book in the "Note" field.
  2. You've given an ISBN-10, but by 2008 most publishers were using the ISBN-13. According to the OCLC record, this has an ISBN-13, and that should be the number given in the record.
  3. You have not given the source for your data. If you're working from a book-in-hand, you should tell the moderator that in the "Note to Moderator" field. If you're working from a reliable secondary source, you must give that source in the record's "Note" field.
  4. According to the OCLC record, the page count is xii+287. Since you gave the count as 240, I can only assume you're working from another source and not the book itself.
  5. If you're only entering the spec-fic stories (as you should), that should be noted in the record's "Note" field.
  6. Are there two versions of the story in this publication, one in English and the other in Spanish? If so you should create title records for both. Because the system can only handle one language per pub, you'll have to update the title record of the one that doesn't match the language of the publication record.

I'll hold the submission until you're able to respond to this message. Mhhutchins 21:23, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I've added a new submission to address these issues. Since the page counts conflict, I've used the one from OCLC. Once the submission is through, I'll address the issues with the different languages as you said. Gamaliel 23:40, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Responding to a previous message

I've still not yet received a response to the concerns that I brought up in the message about Farthing. You should remove the link in the "Note" field and give the source as "Locus1". Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:26, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Spanish Stories

This publication added to the database, but I have a few questions:

  • What is the binding? According to Amazon it is a 8.5 inch paperback, which we would enter as "tp" which indicates a trade paperback.
  • Is the publisher given as "Dover Books" on the book's title page? (OCLC gives it as "Dover Publications", a publisher already in the database. We have no books under the name "Dover Books".)
  • Is the price of "$9.96" stated in the book? That's an unusual figure for US published books.

Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:02, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, I believe this story should be titled "El alacrán de fray Gómez". How is it titled in the book? Mhhutchins 05:19, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

  • I'll enter it as a tp, it seems to be about that size.
  • Huh, so I guess they've re-branded themselves. The book does say Dover Publications. It's the same entity, they've been around since the 40s or so.
True, but regardless of whether they have "re-branded" themselves you should give the publisher as it appears in the book itself. Occasionally we will "regularize" a publisher if the name differs slightly. Mhhutchins 15:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
Obviously I agree, which is why I already submitted an edit updating the name of the publisher. Gamaliel 16:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)


  • That should be a five, just a typo.
  • I agree, the "fray" should likely be lowercase in Spanish, as I've seen the title elsewhere, but the title page of this particular book capitalizes the "Fray" in the table of contents in both the Spanish and English titles, so I entered it that way. I don't care if we keep it capitalized or if we silently correct it, I'll leave that up to you. Gamaliel 15:12, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm referring to the spelling of "alacrán" as "alcarán". Not "fray". But if that is capitalized on the title page (not the contents page), that's how it should be entered into the database. All content titles should be entered from their title page, not the contents page. That is the ISFDB standard. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
I have the books here, I'll look into it. Gamaliel 16:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Great Stories of All Nations

Hello, I changed the publisher to just Tudor Publishing, which is a name already established in the ISFDB. Thanks, Stonecreek 08:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Works for me. Thanks. Gamaliel 15:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

"The Book of Fantasy"

in your verified publication of this book, you list the story "The Tale and the Poet" as being by "Sir Richard Frances Burton". His actual middle name is spelled "Francis" with an "i". Could you please check as to whether the book spelled his name wrong, or whether this was an accident in entering the data for the book? Thanks, Chavey 15:06, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I've returned the book to the library. I checked Worldcat, Amazon, and Wikipedia, but couldn't find an answer. I'll get the book out of the library next time I am there. Gamaliel 18:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
In that case, you should remove your Primary Verification and add it to the Primary (Transient) slot which indicates that the data came from the actual publication, but that you no longer have immediate access to the book. Thanks. Mhhutchins 21:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Done. Gamaliel 22:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Strange Forces

If you still have a copy of this book, please add a content record for the foreword. Thanks. Mhhutchins 05:00, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

No problem, consider it done. Gamaliel 18:20, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Cuentos Mexicanos del Siglo XIX

Hello, Gamaliel! You wrote that you have a copy of that book. Wouldn't it be possible then to determine the length of the shortfictions (short story - ss, novelet - nt, novella - nv). Usually we try to determine it, with only a few exceptions. Thanks, Stonecreek 07:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I still have the book here so I'll have a look. Thanks for the heads up. Gamaliel 15:36, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The White People and Other Weird Stories cover art

Hi. Added cover artist for The White People and Other Weird Stories, from later printings. Thanks, Linguist 12:36, 5 October 2016 (UTC).

Adding dates to Fundadores del cuento fantástico hispanoamericano

I have gone through Fundadores del cuento fantástico hispanoamericano and added dates of first publication where I could. Also added some information to author records. --Vasha 15:42, 9 June 2018 (EDT)

The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories

I corrected the publication date of Your PV publication according to the copyright page. --Zapp 08:39, 17 May 2019 (EDT)

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