User talk:Remontant

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Welcome!

Hello, Remontant, 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! -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Two Publication Additions

I accepted your addition of The Time Keeper and 18 Things, but I made a couple of changes:

  • Source: You should list the source of the information. If you have a copy of a book and plan on verifying them, you can add a note to that affect in the note to moderator box when submitting. If you don't have the book, then you should state your source in the notes box. Since it was not clear from your submittal, I added a note sourcing Amazon. If you verify these book, you can remove that note.
  • Cover Image: The URLs were not from sites that have given us explicit permission to link to their images (see Help:Screen:EditPub#ImageURL). As such, I changed the image links to Amazon.
  • Completeness: A couple of the fields (page number, binding) had been been left off 18 Things. I filled these in from Amazon. We try to be complete as possible.

The ISFDB has a number of conventions and it can take a bit to become familiar with all of them. I encourage you to read through the help (see links in welcome message above). Also, feel free to ask questions (either here in response to this or if a new topic you can post questions at the ISFDB:Help desk‎). We appreciate your contribution. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:04, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Family and Run the Day

Hi, and welcome. Echoing the previous comments, I made similar changes after accepting your Family submission. Please remove the Amazon citation if you have the book and are planning to list yourself as a verifier.

One further comment/change: Series is very tricky and is presented in a misleading and error-inducing way. "Pub Series", which is the only thing you can record when entering a new novel, is meant for a grouping made by the publisher (e.g., "Classics" or "Adult Fantasy" or "Masterworks" or some such). "Title Series" is for a serial set of works or works placed in the same setting or something along those lines. So "The Girl in the Box" is properly a title series. Unfortunately, you can't add Title Series information until after the new novel submission has been accepted (because that then also creates the title record). So you have to go back and make a second submission to record it. I've fixed up Family, just something to keep in mind for the future. See Help:How_to_work_with_series for more details.

Thanks, and thank you for contributing. --MartyD 11:39, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Likewise, did the same thing with Run the Day. --MartyD 12:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The Seventh Mountain

Similar to both of the above, I accepted and fixed up The Seventh Mountain. One further note: By policy, we do not make image links to sites that haven't given us permission to do so (because displaying the image places a load on their servers). So I changed the link you provided, which used a site where we don't have such permission, to a link to the image on Amazon instead. See ISFDB:Image_linking_permissions for more details. Thanks. --MartyD 11:54, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Amazon's ID number

The ASIN (Amazon's ID number) doesn't go in the ISBN/Catalog # field, because it is neither one. You have the option of recording it in the Note field. I've done that for the last two submissions you've made. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 17:18, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Publication series

I'm having to correct several submissions in which you've entered the title series into the publication series field of the submission. A title series can only be added to the title record which is created after the submission for the publication record has been accepted into the database. For example: Alignment is the first book in the "Angels of Apocalypse" title series. This is not a publication series, e.g. Ballantine Adult Fantasy or Avon's SF Rediscovery series. Please read this help page if you're unsure about the different series. Thanks. Mhhutchins 19:43, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Copy that. Won't happen again. I did a batch in a row before I saw your message. Remontant
Thanks for the explanation. BTW, in responding to a message on a wiki, you should use four tildes which will both date it and sign it. (There's also an icon at the top of the entry box which will date and sign the message for you.) Also, enter a colon (:) to the start of the message, adding a new one for each successive message which will indent it and make it easier to follow the discussion. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Testing a signed note, because I've never done it. Remontant 20:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing and verifying data

Now that you have a few submissions under your belt, you've got an idea about how to create records. The next step: informing the moderator about the source of your data and to do a verification of the publication record.

If you're working from a book in hand (or in your ebook reader), let the moderator know that in the "Note to Moderator" field. A simple "Book in hand" will suffice. After the submission is accepted and the record is in the database, go to it and do a primary verification of the record. (There's a link in the Welcome section above for help on doing this.)

If you're working from a secondary source, i.e. the book is not in your hand, you must give the source of your data in the "Note" field of the submission. (There's a difference between the "Note" field and the "Note to Moderator" field. The first one is a permanent part of the record and is used to provide additional information about the publication which doesn't fit in any of the other fields. The second one is a temporary note to provide additional information about the submission which will assist the moderator in the decision to accept or reject the submission. It disappears once the submission is accepted (or rejected), so don't put anything in it that you want to be a part of the record.

One more thing: when adding the ASIN to the "Note" field of an ebook publication, make a note that it's Amazon's id number for the Kindle format, e.g. "Kindle format ASIN: B00BLRLLZO". Some users may not be familiar with the ASIN. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

CreateSpace and pub binding/format

The ISFDB standard name for CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform is simply "CreateSpace". That's all that should be entered into the publisher field. Also, you can determine the binding for books on Amazon using the title designation and the Product Dimensions in their listings. For example, this record is given as "[Paperback]" in the title of the Amazon listing and the dimensions are "8.5 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches". So for ISFDB purposes, a softcover book that's more than 7 inches tall should be entered as "tp" which stands for trade paperback. For more info on the standard ISFDB definitions for this field go here. I will update this record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:21, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

BTW, you gave the ASIN of the ebook in the submission for the trade paperback record. I've removed it from that record, and cloned the tp record to create one for the ebook, making the necessary changes, and added the ASIN to that record. Mhhutchins 00:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

How to link Amazon's cover image file to an ISFDB publication record

Go to the Amazon listing for the book, and do a right click at the bottom of the cover image. A menu will pop up (for most browsers). Click on the "Copy Image URL" link. Now go to the ISFDB publication record and click "Edit This Pub" under the Editing Tools menu. On the next page, go down to the "Image URL" field, place your cursor in the blank field and right click on your mouse and choose "Paste". You will get the complete URL of the Amazon image.

Now comes the tricky part. Amazon adds a lot of characters to its URL for different reasons and they must be converted to a simple URL for ISFDB purposes. For example, the URL could look like this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AjBmR2GkL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX285_SY380_CR,0,0,285,380_SH20_OU01_.jpg. You will need to remove all of the characters between the two "dots" or periods in the string (and one of the periods), and it would look like this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AjBmR2GkL.jpg. If you don't do that the image would look like this on the ISFDB record, when it should look like this.

Remember, not all websites will allow us to "deep-link" to their images, so you must first be sure that we have that permission to do so before you add the URL to an ISFDB record. The list of permitting websites are here. Thanks. Mhhutchins 00:40, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't tell you how handy this trick is about the Amazon covers. I wish I had known about this a LOOOOOOOOOONG time ago. Thanks! Remontant 01:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I know how you feel. I felt the same way when I discovered this several years ago. Stick around the ISFDB and you'll learn a lot of other tricks! Mhhutchins 04:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing

You need to give the source for your data in the "Note" field of this record.

Or, if you're working from the book itself, you should have said so in the "Note to Moderator" field. If that's the case, you can do a primary verification of the record. Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:41, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Same situation with this record. And as I said previously, you should indicate what the ASIN is for, e.g. Kindle format ASIN: XXX. You'll also notice that the date field was entered incorrectly, not using the YYYY-MM-DD format, so it defaulted to 0000-00-00 which is displayed as "unknown". Mhhutchins 15:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

If what I have is an e-version of the book, does that qualify for primary verification? I think the listing I created was for the print version, but I guess I could change it to the e-version. I just figured record of a physical copy of the book would be preferred over an e-text.Remontant 15:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
You should give the source regardless of the version you're working from. And you should only do a primary verification of the record for the edition you're holding in your hand. A subsequent submission of this record also needs sourcing or verification. Mhhutchins 15:57, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
I've edited the notes for these 3 titles. Please let me know if what I've noted is what you're looking for. Remontant 16:07, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Records shouldn't be personal. So "Data from Amazon.com as of 2013-04-10" is sufficient. I'll make the changes. Also, if by "non-retail e-copy" you mean a pirated copy, don't do a primary verification of the record. You must provide a reliable secondary source and record that in the record's Note field. Don't use the "non-retail e-copy" as the source for your data. Mhhutchins 16:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Linking specialized data

Some data is title specific, some data is publication specific, and some data is author specific. The first refers to information about the work itself (such as a link to a synopsis) and should be added to the title record. The second type refers to the actual book (publication) and can be linked in the note field of the publication record. And the last is for data which is author specific and should be linked to the author's summary page. In this last case, you can also create a biography page for the author and a bibliographic notes page as well, both linked to the summary page. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you tired of me not doing this right yet? :D I really am trying. Remontant 17:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Certainly not. There's a lot of things to know and it's all thrown at you at once. It's going to take some time to get it all. But it will eventually "stick". Just try to keep in mind what you're being told on your talk page, and keep referring to this Help page, probably the most important one and should be bookmarked. Mhhutchins 18:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Afterlife Academy

Submission adding this record was accepted. I added a publisher based on the Amazon "Look Inside" and made other adjustments to the Note field. Remember to add an HTML break (<br>) at the end of each line of the Note field if you want to start a new line. Otherwise all of the characters run together. Thanks for contributing. Mhhutchins 17:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The Road to Cordia

Submission adding this record was accepted, but I changed the publisher based on the Amazon "Look Inside" from CreateSpace to Red Dog Pub Publishing. Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Skull Island eXpeditions and Privateer Press

"Skull Island eXpeditions" is an imprint of Privateer Press (see this), making Privateer Press the publisher. We record this sort of attribution as "Imprint / Publisher" (imprint first, then space + / + space, then publisher). I added it. --MartyD 10:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Format/Binding: "pb" vs. "tp"

I accepted your submission of The Second Prophecy, but I changed the format/binding from "pb" (paperback 7" x 4.25" or smaller) to "tp" (paperback taller than 7" or wider than 4.25"), as Amazon says this is 8.9" x 5.9". See Help:Screen:EditPub#Pub_Format_.28Binding.29 for details about which format/binding to use. Thanks. --MartyD 10:43, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Similarly Seven Point Eight: The First Chronicle and Seven Point Eight: The Second Chronicle, both 8" x 5.2". --MartyD 11:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
...and others you submitted around the same time. --MartyD 11:10, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Anthology vs. Collection

Another gotcha for you.... We use COLLECTION for books containing short fiction where each work is credited to the same author (or, rarely, authors), and we use ANTHOLOGY for books containing short fiction credited to different people from one work to the next. So Ad Nauseum is a COLLECTION in the ISFDB world. I have changed it. I will add the contents, based on the information from the Look Inside, if I get a chance. --MartyD 12:06, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

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