User talk:Swfritter

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Contents

Welcome!

Hello, Swfritter, 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! Ahasuerus 18:33, 18 Feb 2007 (CST)

Super-Science Fiction

Re: multiple pieces of interior art for a single story. Listing the first page on which a piece of art appears was the original approach that we took. Some moderators, including Al, our programmer, have an arts background, so they have been more diligent about entering detailed art data. But the ground rule is "if there [are] multiple illustrations a single entry would still suffice". Thanks for editing! Ahasuerus 00:01, 20 Feb 2007 (CST)

Imagination, October 1950

Re: the editor change in the October 1950 issue of Imagination, that was one of the issues that were edited by Hamling anonymously since he was still officially employed by Ziff-Davis, right? If so, then Locus states that "[t]hey do not, however, list an editor, allowing readers to assume that it was Palmer". If that is the case (and I can't check at the moment since I am away from my collection), wouldn't we want to change the editor's name to "uncredited" and then make it into a Variant Title for Hamling? Ahasuerus 01:12, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)

Thanks for the clarification! I haven't read Transformations yet, so it's all news to me.
Take a look at Doc Lowndes' Dynamic Science Fiction, e.g. the June 1953 issue, especially the Notes field, to see how we have handled anonymous and "initials-only" editorials so far. The approach is a bit labor intensive, but it seems to be fairly exhaustive and not very confusion-prone. In this case I think we can attribute the editorials and the "EDITOR" records to "RAP" and then make it into a Variant Title as by Palmer+Hamling+Mahaffey with an appropriate explanation of what various sources claim about this murky situation. That way all three biblios would link to these 2 issues and theit associated explanatory notes. Perhaps we should copy this discussion to the Community Portal and see what other editors think?
As far as letters go, the Rules of Acquisition section of the ISFDB Policy page (item #9) boldly calls it "Debatable" and I tend to agree :) Ahasuerus 18:38, 6 Mar 2007 (CST)

Rainbow's End aka Afternoon of a Fahn

I approved your changes to Imagination, April 1951 a few minutes ago, but then I reverted the "Rainbow's End-to-Afternoon of a Fahn" change. This is a common problem with works that have changed titles and requires some finetuning due to the way the ISFDB software works at this time. Here is what I wrote on another editor's Talk page the other day:

There are really just two things to keep in mind when changing a Title in the Contents area of a Publication. The first one is simple: you can't delete a Title from a Publication by overwriting its data with another Title's data. That will just change the first Title. You will want to use "Remove Title from Publication" option instead.
The second thing to keep in mind is that ANY change in the Contents area will be applied to the underlying Title (story, essay, etc) being changed. This includes the year of publication, the spelling of the title, SHORTFICTION length, etc. The only field in the Contents area that is specific to the Publication is the page number :) So if you change, say, the spelling of "Nightfall" to "Night Fall" because that's how it's spelled in the publication that you are verifying, the change will affect the underlying Title record for the story and from that point on it will appear in all Publications as "Night Fall". If that's not what you want to accomplish, then you will want to remove "Nightfall" first (see above), then add "Night Fall". Finally, you will want to check to see if "Night Fall" already exists. If it doesn't, then you can make it into a Variant Title of "Nightfall". If it does exist, then you can merge the new Title with the pre-existing "Night Fall" Title and make sure that the Variant Title relationship is set up.

Does this make sense? And thanks for all the hard work on Imagination! Ahasuerus 13:32, 9 Mar 2007 (CST)

Robert Sheckley's "Feeding Time" and "The Demons"

I've placed on hold your submission that these are variants of the same story. According to Erwin Strauss's index both stories appeared in the same issue (February 1953) of Fantasy Magazine, but "Feeding Time" was published under Sheckley's "Finn O'Donnevan" pseudonym. This was confirmed in the Sheckley bibliography in Mike Ashley's History of the Science Fiction Magazine, Volume 3. Mhhutchins 16:17, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

The Black Stranger by REH

I could find no difference in your submission for a variant title to this story. Perhaps you intended to merge this title with this one? Thanks. Mhhutchins 17:10, 9 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Rocket Stories, September 1953

Tymn and Ashley's guide to the SF magazines confirms that the last and final issue of this magazine was edited by Harry Harrison, still using the "Wade Kaempfert" pseudonym. I'll ask around to see if anyone knows how to assign a house penname to multiple authors. Mhhutchins

You can use the "Make This Author a Pseudonym" option multiple time per Author. See, e.g., Manning Coles for a joint pseudonym example or Alexander Blade for a house name example. Note that we shouldn't use this option when setting up vt relationships for Authors who actually exist(ed) and wrote under their own names, but whose names have also been used by other authors, e.g. V. C. Andrews, Lester del Rey, Ellery Queen and other ghosted writers. Come to think of it, we should probably update our Help pages since this functionality was added only recently. Ahasuerus 14:19, 11 Apr 2007 (CDT)
I think you'd better - I thought I was getting to grips with it, but those last three examples confuse me! V.C. Andrews existed but the name was used by someone else later, and we show that: we don't for Lester del Rey: and I thought Ellery Queen NEVER actually existed! My brain hurts, and I still have to do "Grant Naylor" at some point... :-/ BLongley 16:09, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Sorry, Ellery Queen was a bad example since it was originally a joint pseudonym (which we don't support as canonical names) and then became a house name. And yes, at some point we will need to add the ghosting data for del Rey starting with Clute/Nicholls. I had started a special project page for Grandmaster cleanup, which I had to effectively suspend when beta started. Ahasuerus 23:27, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Toffee

FYI, I have changed the title type for Toffee from Novel to Serial as per our policy re: novels published in a single magazine issue. Also, the submission that attempted to make it into a Variant Title apparently escaped from your keyboard prematurely as the two titles that it tried to link were identical. Could you please explain what you were trying to link this serial to? Thanks! Ahasuerus 15:37, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the heads up, I will make sure to update the Help pages shortly! As far as using the record number goes, it should work, but keep in mind that there are two "Submit" buttons on that Web page and you need to click on the top one when using tyhe record number.
Also, re: Robert Bloch's "Black Magic Holiday" in the Jan. 1955 Imaginative Tales, you have changed the title's date to August 1950, but I can't find the publication that it first appeared in. Do you happen to know what it was? Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:32, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Oh, I see re: Bloch! Thanks for the update :) Ahasuerus 19:37, 12 Apr 2007 (CDT)

How to merge Howard's story

Please see Michael's Talk page for an explanation of how to merge Title records. Ahasuerus 12:23, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)

"Nursemaid to Nightmares"

Before we proceed with creating a variant title for "Nursemaid to Nightmares" (currently on hold), could please you take a look at the way "Mr. Margate's Mermaid" is listed in Imaginative Tales, March 1955? It looks like it was entered twice, once as a novella "by Robert Bloch (aka Nursemaid to Nightmares) [as by Robert Bloch ]" and once as "interior artwork by Robert Bloch (aka Nursemaid to Nightmares) [as by Harold McCauley ]", which looks very suspicious :) Ahasuerus 13:16, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Oh, OK, that makes much more sense! :) I have zapped the variant title relationship between the artwork record and Bloch's story by setting the Parent Title number (in the Make Variant screen) to 0. As far as I can tell, verything seems to look fine in Bloch's biblio now. Could you please check to see whether the last variant title submission that is currently on hold is still needed? If not, I will reject it. Thanks! Ahasuerus 13:35, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Done! Next question: In the Imaginative Tales, May 1955 submission you entered two INTERIORART pieces thusly:
  • Ladies, has dishwashing become a nightmare in your home?
  • Pardon me, but I live up on the hill and there's something I want to talk to you about!
Was the use of lower case intentional or was it some kind of cut-and-paste gone awry? Ahasuerus 15:47, 13 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Keyboard Macro Key

Would you please share where you found the Macro you mentioned on Ahasuerus' Talk page, I'm desperatly in need of it. CoachPaul 17:10, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Thank you very much. CoachPaul 21:57, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Space Science Fiction, July 1953

I have approved Space Science Fiction, July 1953, but I was wondering if "Alan E. Norse" was supposed to be "Alan E. Nourse" and whether "Straight, Place and Show (Mar issue reader poll)" was supposed to be "Straight, Place and Show (March issue reader poll)"? Ahasuerus 17:24, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sounds good! :) Ahasuerus 22:43, 17 Apr 2007 (CDT)
Looks much better now! I have deleted the "Norse" title, so we should be in good shape :) By the way, if a Title record in the Contents section is in error (like this one was), it is safe to correct it directly instead of going through the remove/add process. The main reason to follow the remove/add routine is to avoid affecting other Publications where the current title may be valid (e.g. a story published under a different pseudonym or under a different/misspelled Variant Title), but with outright data entry errors like this one there is no adverse impact on other publications. Ahasuerus 00:30, 18 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Ralplh Burke

Is this a variant or a typo? BLongley 13:27, 24 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Worlds of Fantasy, Winter 1970-71

There is an entry for this issue, but it doesn't include the artwork. It does includes some book reviews that are not in your submission. Would you like me to approve your submission and then you can add the book reviews, or would you like to update the current entry? I'll place your submission on hold until I hear back from you. Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:40, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Orphan magazine issues

Re: "orphan issues", there may well be more, I am afraid. Old (i.e. ISFDB-1) magazine records didn't have an EDITOR Title, so they can't always be found via the regular Title search. You have to use Publication search (Advanced Search, bottom third of the form) to find them, which can be flaky. We really need to identify all magazines without an EDITOR record and fix them or else we will keep running into these problems. I will see what I can do on Tuesday-Wednesday. Ahasuerus 21:37, 30 Apr 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, haven't had a chance to write that script yet, things are a bit hectic at the moment. Later in the week, perhaps... Ahasuerus 15:53, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Infinity Science Fiction

I see that you have marked all but one issues of Infinity Science Fiction as "verified" in the Wiki, but they are not marked as physically verified in the database. Do you need help with verifying them? If you do, I believe I have all Infinity issues in my collection and can verify come May 25. Ahasuerus 15:52, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Ah, I see! Do you want to mark these 3 issues as "verified" in the database as well? I can do the August issue at the end of the month when I have access to my collection, at which point we will be all set with Infinity. Thanks! Ahasuerus 16:17, 8 May 2007 (CDT)

Entries attributed to "swf editor"

Quick question: do you still need swf editor entries for testing purposes or can they be deleted from the database? Ahasuerus 10:20, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! :) Ahasuerus 11:20, 9 May 2007 (CDT)

Robert Sheckely

Typo? BLongley 13:13, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

I did a Google for

"Ask a Foolish Question" Sheckely

and it found zero pages. I'm assuming it's a data entry error into ISFDB. I approved the submission but wanted to know the source of "Sheckely" and if we should add a pub-note to 188761 asking whoever verifies the pub to inspect the author's name carefully to see if it's Sheckely or Sheckley. In fact, I started to add the pub-note anyway and then figured I'd check here.

Double check the spelling of the author's name for Ask a Foolish Question as it may be mis-spelled as Robert Sheckely.

Marc Kupper (talk) 23:58, 10 May 2007 (CDT)

I saw Swfritter enter the one variant spelling while approving it, so just thought I'd ask directly. Our shorthand seems to have confused people though! BLongley 15:56, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Lowndes and George Smith

I'm not ignoring your submissions, I'm just a bit scared of them and would rather leave them to a more experienced mod. :-/ Most of the Lowndes changes look OK, but one is a two-person make-variant of a single person entry: and there's double updates to 'George H. Smith' record 1504 which look as though they'll break the link from Wikipedia - I'm hoping we have a Mod for this site that can also go fix their typo of "Doomday Wing"... BLongley 15:56, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

OK, first George Smith submission rejected as requested... if "Smith, George Hudson" is OK as Legal name rather than Canonical then I can clear a few more too? BLongley 16:25, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
OK, a few more cleared. BLongley 18:18, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

Moderator Nomination?

You're getting to the stage where I'd rather nominate you as a Mod rather than Mod your submissions - I don't know how much of that is due to you knowing more about magazines (my major weakness here) than I will ever do, but I suspect you'd be as wary of stomping on other people's edits in their own field of expertise as I am. (Although I'm not sure WHAT my field of expertise actually is, apart from being pretty sure about spelling both US and UK style, and owning a lot of books to do Primary Verifications from.) Does the idea of becoming a Moderator appeal to you? I must admit it's from MY lack of experience in your field that I suggest the idea, and maybe the other Magazine-Specialist Mods have a different view of your work, but I regard it highly so far. BLongley 18:18, 12 May 2007 (CDT)

I am always on the lookout for potential moderators and Swfritter has been on my short list of editors to ambush and moderatorize for some time now. He (I assume the gender here since the ISFDB seems to be an almost exclusively gentlemen's club for now) has done a lot of good work on the magazine side of the database and understands EDITOR records, variant titles and other beasties quite well. He is also quite familiar with the ISFDB Wiki, which is always a plus.
My only concern is Swfritter's sometimes lapidary communications style. Although not an insurmountable obstacle, laconic messages can be hard to decipher on the Internet where we don't have the body language to provide context and non-verbal cues. As long as Swfritter promises to use subjects and predicates in his messages to ISFDB editors, I am all for it :) Ahasuerus 22:32, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
Ya, gotcha. ;-)
Although strangely, I've never had problems understanding him/her - which tends to add evidence to the "must be male" case, as I don't understand women at all. ;-) BLongley 16:27, 13 May 2007 (CDT)
My goal right now is fill in the gaps of data for the 1950/1960 mags which means filling in my own collection using dollars that are not in great supply. There are about 15 short run titles and the 40+ issues of Other Worlds with no data at all plus about five other titles which are only partially done. I need to enter about 225 issue in all. I am missing about 75 of those magazines. I am also working on a side project that is taking up a lot of time right now and it depends somewhat on the magazine data being as complete as possible. Thanks for the suggestion but perhaps at the end of this year.Yes, just another nerdy guy, a retired computer programmer.--Swfritter 16:52, 13 May 2007 (CDT)
No worries, certainly understandable! I have over 95% of all US pulps and digests published in the 1950s and 1960s (probably 98%+, but I would have to do a bit of housekeeping before I could be sure) and I will have about a week of relatively free time at the end of May when I will have access to my collection. Feel free to post a list of magazines that you are missing on my Talk page and I will see what I can do. Ahasuerus 22:57, 13 May 2007 (CDT)
Remember, the moderator role doesn't mean you have to tackle everyone else's edits - if you just want to do your own, that's fine. I do look at your edits to learn some stuff myself (magazines are not my speciality at all) but so far the only value I've added to your submissions is catching a couple of pretty insignificant typos. Whereas I know me leaving your submissions unapproved might be holding YOU up with getting things done. (OK, this only seems to happen on Saturdays, we have pretty good Mod Cover the rest of the week.) But if you'd approve most of your own submissions, that would help me and some others, and I'm fine if you leave the awkward ones for other Mods. Just drop a message into the Moderator board that you don't mind some help! BLongley 17:32, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Silverberg/Lowndes' "Last Word" and Lowndes' review of Knight's Hell's Pavement

A couple of questions:

  1. You would like to make "The Last Word (Letters to the Editor)" by "The Editor and Bob Silverberg" into a variant Title of "The Last Word (Letters to the Editor) by The Editor and Robert Silverberg". Since the editor in question was Robert A. W. Lowndes, shouldn't the parent title be "by Robert A. W. Lowndes and Robert Silverberg"?
  2. You have created two seemingly identical submissions that would make a Review of Damon Knight's Hell's Pavement by Robert W. Lowndes into a variant Title of the same review as by Robert A. W. Lowndes. Was the second susmission an accidental duplicate? Also, the resulting parent Title has a blank "Book Author" field, but as far as I can tell that's a problem with our software, not with the submission. I will experiment a little and create a bug report if one doesn't already exist for this type of problem. Thanks! Ahasuerus 21:40, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
Thanks for the clarification! I have rejected the duplicate Hell Pavement submission and redone the Silverberg letter as "uncredited/Silverberg". I agree that Doc Lowndes was likely the culprit, but it could have been somebody like Bob Madle, who was helping him edit various magazines, so better safe than sorry. Ahasuerus 22:39, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

Variant for the story by Binder

I always though that Earl and Otto Binder used the "Eando Binder" only on collaborative stories. Are you certain that this story was solely written by Earl? Or were you also intending on adding Otto to the variant as well? Thanks. Mhhutchins 18:01, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

You wrote that "Based upon the Locus database, most of the stories were by Otto only. Locus designates which stories were colloborations and which were by Otto alone.--Swfritter 18:44, 14 May 2007 (CDT)" But that particular story isn't listed in the Locus db, or am I missing it? Also, your submission credited Earl only. Did you intend the opposite? Mhhutchins 19:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Science Fiction Stories, November 1958

I'm OK with "The Illustrationists" to "The Isolationsts" but isn't it "The Isolationists"? Or is there a typo? BLongley 15:16, 19 May 2007 (CDT)

Entering 3 missing magazines

I believe I have all 3 magazines that you are missing, so I should be able to enter them some time after May 25. Finding them in my somewhat disorganized collection may be a bit of a chore, but with any luck it should be doable. Ahasuerus 00:21, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

No worries, I should have some time :) I have already entered Space Stories, February 1953 and created a Magazine page for the mag. Ahasuerus 00:37, 26 May 2007 (CDT)
OK, the two missing Space Stories issues have been entered. Let me see if I can find the other two... Ahasuerus 19:44, 26 May 2007 (CDT)
Oh no, Morrison's novel doesn't end with the cartoon on page 55, it goes all the way to page 86 :) Ahasuerus 16:28, 28 May 2007 (CDT)
Sounds good! :) Ahasuerus 17:47, 28 May 2007 (CDT)
I spent some time looking for the other two "missing" magazines in my collection last week while I had access to it. I found 3 Saturn issues, but not the one I was looking for :-( On the plus side, I built two new bookcases, which helped organize another 500 volumes. If I get to spend more time with my collection later in the year -- which looks increasingly likely at this point -- I will probably be able to have the magazine part organized by January, at which point I should be able to enter the "missing" magazines. It's amazing what 10 years of neglect can do to a collection :( Ahasuerus 12:15, 5 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Science Fiction Stories, January 1959

I have approved the latest Virgil change, but I was wondering if it is correctly listed as "shortfiction" -- as opposed to "interior art" -- in the issue? Ahasuerus 12:58, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

No Star Shall Fall

I approved the date change from 1959 to 1941 for this Interiorart record and then wondered if that's what you had in mind. Could you please check the magazine record and see if it looks OK? Thanks! Ahasuerus 11:45, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

Thanks! :) Ahasuerus 12:18, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

Dream World, August 1957

I'll delete one if you like, but you currently want to delete 195157, which seems to have a little more information? Or is that coming in another edit? 

195157 	Dream World, August 1957 	Paul W. Fairman 	1957 	132 	DRMWRLDAUG1957 	Digest 	MAGAZINE 	? 	$0.35 	Ziff-Davis Publishing Company
195153 	Dream World, August 1957 	Paul W. Fairman 	1957 	132 	DRMWRLDAUG1957 	d 	MAGAZINE 	? 	? 	Ziff-Davis Publishing Company

BLongley 14:27, 1 Jun 2007 (CDT)

OK, message received and understood. Before I do that though, you may want to look at these links: 
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/editpub.cgi?195153
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/edit/editpub.cgi?195157

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?DRMWRLDAUG1957
I only caught it because of the trivial difference shown in the post above: and if you go to the pub via the 195157 link or the 195153 link, you can clearly see the difference. However, if you click on the title instead, you see what that third link gives you - BOTH pubs take you to the "good" data. In which case it might look like a minor change that can be fixed with a "d" -> "digest", add "0.35" price after approving the delete - whereas I'd actually have deleted all the contents. I think I now know why some of my older edits disappeared - I deleted some nearly exact duplicates, and someone approved them. :-( Anyway, just a heads-up - you'll have to look at this sort of thing yourself in 5 days, hopefully! BLongley 15:15, 1 Jun 2007 (CDT)
Oh, and we ought to reach a consensus over whether we play ping-pong discussions or watch each other's pages and keep conversations together in one place rather than two. As the number of moderators increases, things could get a bit complicated. BLongley 15:15, 1 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Moderatorship

Congratulations; you're now a moderator. Mike Christie (talk) 22:15, 6 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Mega congratulations! Feel free to approve, or reject, any of my edits as you see fit. CoachPaul 23:21, 6 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Beyond Infinity page count change

No worries, I suspect these minor tweaks will go on indefinitely and asymptotically :) Ahasuerus 18:21, 7 Jun 2007 (CDT)

Future Science Fiction, No. 47, February 1960

I hope I am doing this correctly. I am new to this and not entirely sure if this is the correct way to respond to messages. And I have been on a learning curve in the right way to edit and contribute data. I appreciate any guidance you can give me.

1. I didn't know about crediting the editor if the editor repsponds to the letters. I'll watch out for that from now on.

2. How do you handle pseudonyms? I've been entering the name as it appears in the publication in the author box. In one or two cases, I have followed up by making the name a pseudonym to the "parent entry" Is that all there is to do?

3. I've currently got about 1,000 science fiction/fantasy issues from about 1933 to July 2007. The bulk is the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. I've sort of settled into adding or editing about 5 issues a day into isfdb once I saw that there was data I could add. But I am aware that I've been making some unintentional errors through ignorance. (For instance, I added uncredited to some covers, and then found out you're not supposed to do that)

4. What issues are you interested in? Can you give me a list so I can check my holdings?

5. Do new issues added automatically link to the magazine page or do you have to edit that page to add the link? I've started adding the TAG field following styles for other issues, but I think the first two I did I left that field blank.


Thanks for you message. Alibrarian

Heads up on deleting duplicate titles

I approved your three title deletes but I believe it would be better to merge rather than delete duplicate titles as then both you and the moderator get to see the side-by-side diff and can see that they are in fact duplicates. TIA. Marc Kupper (talk) 13:20, 9 Jun 2007 (CDT)

In this case I am both. Another duplicate magazine addition which I caught when moderating a new pub added by someone else. You got there before I could approve my own delete. Agree though that a merge is the best way in most situations.--swfritter 13:26, 9 Jun 2007 (CDT)
oops - I have not had my morning coffee yet and forgot you are moderating now. I'm kinda used to "Swfritter ... auto approve" :-). FWIW - I'm going through the Dissembler's results now and leaving talk as needed on it's page in the theory that Al or Ahasuerus will respond. For the Dissembler things that we do approve we most likely need to edit the pubs, merge the titles, etc. as it's doing things like making narrators into authors, keeping stuff like "Low Price!" in the title, etc. Marc Kupper (talk) 13:33, 9 Jun 2007 (CDT)

1950's/1960's Magazines Needed

These are the magazines we need to fill in the gaps for American mags for the 50's and 60's. I have put my name on issues and complete runs that I own. If you own some of the issues that I don't and intend to enter them in the near future please put your name in the empty () so I will know which issues I need to buy at outrageous prices. My next projects will be entering data for Cosmos, International Science Fiction, Marvel Science Stories, Science Fiction Adventures, Science Fiction Plus, Science Stories, Spaceway, and Universe. Feel free to enter data for any and all issues even if I own them.

Fantastic Story Magazine

1950 Sum()

1953 Sep(swfritter)

1954 Win(swfritter) Fall()

Fear!

1960 May() Jul()

Future Science Fiction(1950-1960)

1951 Nov(swfritter)

1952 Jul(swfritter) Sep(swfritter) Nov(swfritter)

1953 Jan(swfritter) May(swfritter) Jul(swfritter) Sep(swfritter) Nov(swfritter)

1954 Aug(swfritter)

1955 #28(swfritter)

1958 Oct()

1959 Jun(swfritter) Oct(swfritter)

Gamma

1963 #1() #2(swfritter)

1964 #3()

1965 Feb(swfritter) Sep(swfritter)

Monster Parade

1958 Sep() Nov() Dec()

1959 Mar()

Science Fiction Digest

1954 #1() #2()


I believe I own at least one copy of all of these except for Monster Parade. Finding individual issues in my currently rather messy magazine collection may not be easy, though :( If I am lucky, I will be able to spend a non-trivial amount of time with my collection after August-September, in which case I should be able to get organized and enter a bunch of missing issues. If I am not lucky, then it will be another round of wandering for 6+ months. Ahasuerus 19:03, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Thanks! I will be updating this page as I fill in my collection and add titles to the database. I think by the end of this year we will have every issue of every 50's & 60's American magazine listed in Ashley's Transformations.
Which reminds me that I need to grab a few of my magazine checklists next time I have access to my collection (2007-07-28, most likely) and see if I can identify any additional magazines that we may be missing. And then there are foreign language magazines, but that's fodder for another discussion on the Standards board... Ahasuerus 12:40, 16 Jul 2007 (CDT)
It may take a really rich fan to get Monster Parade. I can find only one of the four issues for sale and it goes for about $250. The magazine is only marginally notable as science fiction because it was edited by Larry T. Shaw and had a few pseudonymous Silverberg stories and a John Jakes story.--swfritter 12:53, 16 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Talk page

I see that you are deleting old sections from your Talk page, presumably to make it easier to navigate. Although the deleted exchanges will be still accessible via the Talk page's history, they will be no longer easy to find, which may or may not be a problem. In case you haven't run into it, there is an easy way to archive old discussions -- see the very top of my Talk page :) Ahasuerus 18:25, 26 Jun 2007 (CDT)

I also routinely delete sections of my talk page. I used to archive the stuff but feel there's more value-added in the long run by improving the main help pages based on talk discussion rather than hunting through dozens of user talk pages and their archives. Something we could try is if a policy/help thing does end up being discussed on a user's talk page to archive that into a common archive. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:36, 16 Jul 2007 (CDT)
I would actually like to see an issue-based system with check-points indicating issue progress. It would be nice if there were a central locaton to list numbered issues with links to discussions.--swfritter 09:51, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Well, we have something similar at ISFDB Bug List and ISFDB Feature List, but it's been somewhat inactive since Al's availability took a nosedive earlier this year. Ahasuerus 11:20, 18 Jul 2007 (CDT)

"M. Yemstew"?

I see that you did some work on International Science Fiction (1968) a few days ago. If you have the issues handy, could you please double check whether the name of one of the co-authors of The Last Door is spelled "M. Yemstew" or "M. Yemstev"? Thanks! Ahasuerus 18:55, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Actually it's Yemtsew. But please don't ask whether whether Nathalie Charles-Henneberg should be Nathalie-Charles Henneberg.--swfritter 19:20, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I will set up a variant title as part of the Yemtsev/Parnov cleanup. Ahasuerus 19:31, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
P.S. While we are on the subject, could you please verify if Wanderers and Travellers was published in International Science Fiction, November 1967 as by Arkady Strugatsky alone? Our other publications have it listed as by both Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which makes sense since the Strugatsky brothers always used pseudonyms when writing solo. Did Pohl accidentally omit Boris' name? Ahasuerus 19:42, 12 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Arkady only, although the same title was published elsewhere under both names. It does not looks as though I did a merge on the two. It's already confusing enough.--swfritter 11:25, 13 Jul 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I have set up a Variant Title and added a note to the magazine Publication to indicate that the story was misattributed. Ahasuerus 12:23, 13 Jul 2007 (CDT)

ISFDB Moderator e-mail and availability

Swfritter - I don't have your e-mail handy but am setting up an e-mail account so that people can contact the moderators as a group to help with things such as wiki-blocks. Can you please contact me via http://marc.kupper.googlepages.com/contact and I'll forward the e-mail to you that I've already sent to those moderators for who I know their e-mail address?

Also - could you please add a row for yourself at ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard#Moderator_Availability though if you want to be a stealth moderator that's fine too. Marc Kupper (talk) 16:49, 19 Jul 2007 (CDT)

George H. Smith

I don't know if you recall this conversation, but I wondered if you could clarify where the "Hudson" legal middle name came from? We've been discussing it again here and are a bit confuzzled. I've just been reading an interview where George Henry explains the difference between himself and another George H. but the Hudson never came up. :-/ BLongley 14:52, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Well, after a look at a.k.a. and Fantastic Fiction websites it looks like it should be George Henry Smith. His use of the George Hudson Smith pseudonym is well documented and it may have been an assumption that he was using his actual name on earlier stories. I will change the legal name to George Henry Smith.--swfritter 20:54, 24 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Orbit SF #2 (1953)

You seem to be the expert when it comes to 1950s magazines, so I've come to ask if you have this issue of Orbit SF. I'm entering the Satellite series published in Australia in the late 1950s, which drew its stories heavily from Orbit. Tuck and Contento both show that the story by H. B. Fyfe is titled "Lunar Escapade", but Strauss (and the person who entered the ISFDB record) say it should be titled "Luna Escapade". Do you have easy access to that issue of Orbit? Thanks. Mhhutchins 11:32, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)

I'm pretty sure I entered the Orbit issue. Title is "Luna Escapade" on both TOC and title page. I assume variant titles. First line starts "With over an hour to go before he needed...". I think that's the first time I have ever seen a story from Contento listed incorrectly. I have started checking stories with the same title by the same author a little more closely. I have actually found two authors who have published totally unrelated stories under the same title. This issue of Orbit also has Philip K. Dick's "Tony and the Beetles". How did he know the Beatles would be on an album with Tony Sheridan?--swfritter 17:18, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)
It worries me that I can look at something like this video and still understand most of it. It worries me MORE that YouTube has stuff we can't even make sure of a link to. It's DATA, dammit, we NEED this! BLongley 19:27, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)
The thing is, we can't be sure that Tuck and Contento are incorrect. Maybe the story is titled "Lunar Escapade" in this pub. I'll go ahead and verify the pub through Tuck, and create a variant for the spelling. Mhhutchins 20:56, 25 Jul 2007 (CDT)
I noticed there are other variant titles in this pub so there is every likelihood that the variant title is valid.--swfritter 11:07, 26 Jul 2007 (CDT)

Who was the second block for?

You cleared two auto-blocks

  • 16:07, 20 Aug 2007 Swfritter unblocked "User:#2001"
  • 16:23, 20 Aug 2007 Swfritter unblocked "User:#2005"

For #2001 you recorded the details on ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard#Unblock_log but do you have the details for #2005? Marc Kupper (talk) 20:28, 20 Aug 2007 (CDT)

Sorry, I don't. I'm trying to remember if the system was down when I attempted to document the block but even if it was I should have pasted it locally until I could enter it.--swfritter 09:02, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

No problem - lately I have been pasting the block log data directly into the unblock notes. If I see an autoblock in the log then I select/copy it, click unblock, and paste into the comments field. Marc Kupper (talk) 20:06, 21 Aug 2007 (CDT)

The Shadow Out of Space

Apart from the book being by H. P. Lovecraft & August Derleth, there is no mention of authorship or copyright on any of the individual stories. I do find the Lovecraft/Derleth situation a bit annoying, as I'm pretty sure a lot of them should just be Derleth. This was one of the early collections I entered, so I probably just picked up the existing titles in the database and left whatever authorship they had attached to them. There's nothing in the book that suggests they couldn't all be changed to be by Lovecraft & Derleth, so you can make that change if you like. I can see we'll wind up with the odd variant where they're listed as being by Lovecraft in some places and Lovecraft/Derleth in others, but these are always going to be a mess. I suppose we could add notes (where known) to the story title records saying they were written by Derleth from Lovecraft's notes. --Unapersson 04:35, 9 Sep 2007 (CDT)

'Worlds Beyond, February 1951

I just noticed that the review of H. G. Wells' Seven Science Fiction Novels Worlds Beyond, February 1951 is uncredited. Is it, by chance, one of your publications? If not, I can check it in about 3 weeks when I once again have access to my collection. Thanks! Ahasuerus 10:46, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Now credited to Knight - although that may have been a short leap of faith since the review column is not specifically credited to him. I'm fairly certain I put the reviews in. It might have been better to attribute them to 'uncredited' and then made Knight the variant author with an explanation. Fragments of some of the reviews appear in In Search of Wonder.--swfritter 13:21, 13 Sep 2007 (CDT)

Approving other mods holds/Journey Behind the Wind

I had a reason for putting it on hold. I don't question or approve other mods holds.Kraang 13:47, 23 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The Fiend

There are two entries with this title that look to me like they should be merged. One shows the author as "Unknown" and the other as "Editors of Playboy". The contents are the same. I had intended to verify this from the volume I have but was thrown by this duplication. I'm not exactly sure what to do here. Plus the contents listing shows a 'PARENT TITLE ERROR' for Frederik Pohl's Lovemaking. Can you advise me on what to do here or perhaps step in and resolve this one? Thanks. TFRANK 00:07, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)

The "unknown" entry and the "Editors of Playboy" actually pointed to the same publication. It was perhaps a technically correct method of making "Editors of Playboy" a pseudonym but it was actually more confusing so I undid the association and deleted the "unknown" reference. "The Fiend" was pointed to a record that did not exist. In the Make Variant Title screen I pulled up the variant title and entered a 0 where it says Parent #, making sure I hit the top Submit Data button, to remove the reference to the bogus record. I then had to redo the variant title information with the correct record number. Since Making Love is the most commonly used variant of the title I made it the master title.--swfritter 12:23, 28 Sep 2007 (CDT)

King Solomon's Ring

I've held this submission as it changes the story length of something you've verified. Please feel free to take over and reject or approve as you think fit. BLongley 13:11, 3 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The story is listed as a short story in it's original publication but Contento classifies it as a novelette. So I did a random word count of a couple of pages. I came up with a generous length of 8,100 words but it most probably is almost exactly 7,500 words. I went back and forth and finally classified it as a novelette but I also suggested to Rudam that borderline cases should not be changed without some investigation.--swfritter 14:18, 3 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thank you! I hope you don't mind me holding submissions like this for your expert opinion: you seem to be the most active Magazine specialist, and when something like this comes up that I have no primary sources for I prefer to leave it to someone else: a verifier at least, a verifying Moderator preferably. I love my shortfiction so do go look at these entries that affect both magazines and collections, but am always happy to give way to an expert on the originals. I suspect there are lazy moderators approving these changes without checking too hard: I'd probably be one of them myself if they were stacking up on the submission queue. We do have a few oddities such as a Short Story (by our standards) getting a Novelette award: and sources like Locus sometimes agree with both categories!
Personally, I think the story-length categories should be "Can you read this on a toilet-break", "Can you read this during a nice long bath", "Can you read this on a train-journey", and "Do you need to read this over a holiday?", but I suspect my preferences won't over-ride those of multiple Awards Committees. ;-) BLongley 15:37, 3 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Both the Hugo and the Nebula awards use the same standards as we do. The confusion comes in when the length is misclassified by the original publisher. I would imagine Contento probably uses the same rules. I do kind of wish we had a vignette ("Can you read it will walking to a toilet break") category. I usually go with the publishers category if it's close and bump it up the next higher length if it's on the borderline and is not categorized. The next time I get one of these I am going to ask the editor for a justification before I start counting words.--swfritter 16:04, 3 Oct 2007 (CDT)

The Crispin Affair

The Crispin Affair has two serial entries here - I presume the second is Interiorart? BLongley 06:50, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Thanks.--swfritter 14:24, 6 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Fantastic Jan. 1960

I've modified your verified pub Fantastic Jan. 1960 to link "Diplomat at Arms" to the Retief series.--Rkihara 13:34, 8 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for notifying me. I don't mind if you add series information without notifying me. You only need notify me if you modify existing series information.--swfritter 13:49, 8 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Fast fingers, slow brain

Sorry, I just approved one your submissions. Blame it on global warming. Mhhutchins 18:35, 8 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I hope it wasn't one I was going to reject. A quick look tells me no. I hate it when I have to reject my own submissions.--swfritter 20:03, 8 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Brimingham?

Surely it's "Birmingham", or are there typos for cover and page 8 in the magazine? BLongley 14:00, 13 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Sruely it is.--swfritter 15:06, 13 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Hlaf fixed? BLongley 15:50, 13 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Yse! --swfritter 16:18, 13 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Suspense and Mysterious Traveler

Looking at the list of "missing" 1950s/1960s magazines, I wonder if we have Suspense and Mysterious Traveler in the database? You can't search for magazine Titles unless they have Editor records, but a Publication search suggested that we missing both of them. Admittedly, they were borderline for our genre, but still. I think I have all of the issues, but I won't have consistent access to my collection until at least December (more likely January) and my "obscure 1950s digests" are stuffed in a few dozen boxes full of pulps and other things, so it will take a while to sort it out. Ahasuerus 18:56, 16 Oct 2007 (CDT)

They aren't in the list of editorless magazines that I coaxed out with MySQL. I guess my SQL skills haven't totally left me because the results have been accurate so far. I have one issue of Mysterious Traveler which I got on the cheap from Ebay. I have only nine issues of Fantastic verifications left to do and I have managed to track down nearly all the magazines I was looking for. I will likely have all the obscure issues that I own in the databse by December.--swfritter 19:16, 16 Oct 2007 (CDT)

New Magazine Editor ;-)

I've left a Worlds of If Magazine submission on hold for you to look at, if you can spare the time, and would appreciate your comments on how damaging or useful such a submission is. Don't worry, this isn't a test on your Mod capabilities, it's a test of Magazine Entry abilities. And a check on what conventions I perceive there to be, as opposed to what's documented in help so far. BLongley 16:30, 20 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I can see a few problems such submissions would cause already - 4 variant names to start with, only one Interiorart entry listed, the publisher of this edition is actually a subsidiary of the US publisher, some reviews are from a column that isn't entirely based on reviews, do we need an overall title for a review section if the reviews are listed, what series do the regular columns need to go into, etc. There are no intentional mistakes to try and catch you out, any you find are indeed my own. If you like, I'll let you know what I check AFTER such a submission that affects us Book-Side Mods. BLongley 16:30, 20 Oct 2007 (CDT)

OK. I will wait to process it tomorrow and let you know what I find.--swfritter 16:43, 20 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thank you. There's no hurry on this, and if you want to hide my suggestions about potential problems and use this as a test case for newer Magazine mods, feel free. I picked this as a fairly uncontroversial example, but it's probably best to start with such a title that I THINK is similar on the US and UK sides for now. Other magazines where there is a major time-gap, or stories removed or added due to copyright reasons, and suchlike problems, can wait a lot longer. BLongley 17:06, 20 Oct 2007 (CDT)
This is kind of an interesting issue. Note where you probably have a circle with a star, the American issue has a Special Trial Offer Price of 59 cents. There is a classified section on the last page which has ads with American addresses. There are also a number of other ads which have American addresses. I am curious whether you have British ads in your copy. I am going to have Rkihara take a look at it also.--swfritter 11:50, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
All the ads are US ones, from Star Trek merchandise on inside front-cover to the "Record from the Future" in the Music section of the classifieds. BLongley
That is probably a strong indication that the inside contents are identical which probably means that the publisher of record should be UPD and the price should be the American price with the English price in the notes. I don't think I ever will understand the British money system especially since I think it has undergone a number of revisions through the years.--swfritter 13:55, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Does the US version mention the British publisher? If not, it might be safest to mention the British publisher in notes too, as one issue alone does not prove that it was always printed by a subsidiary of the US corporation. In fact, I suspect it may well NOT have been - from my recollection of looking at Doctor Who books and other British book publications of that time, the distinctions between "Tandem" and "Universal-Tandem" (with "Wyndham" being involved somehow) seem to have been quite important for early 1970s publications. I suspect there was an international publisher take-over at that point, maybe one of the first that significantly affects the ISFDB: it's certainly a major nuisance for RECENT books published as I can no longer necessarily tell a UK book from a US one, it might be priced for several English-speaking markets at once and yet be printed in Germany for instance. :-( BLongley 16:09, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
As to the British money system: there's only one been one significant change, "Decimalisation" in 1971. It was probably the most successful Government project of all time, as it went about with very little fuss (unlike the attempt to make us give up miles in favour of kilometres for instance). And for BIG purchases there was no difference: one old pound was still one new pound. It was done with plenty of preparation too (so a 1968 book with a post-decimalisation price is NOT necessarily an error), and a gentle let-down afterwards (a 1974 book listing pre-decimalisation prices is not necessarily an error either, but the post-decimalisation price should be the canonical one by then) - we dual-priced a lot of things, especially books, for some years. Unfortunately, books were one of the things that the publishers tried to screw the consumer over on: "2/6" was a common paperback price at the end of the 60s, "25p" was common in 1971. I think they tried to fool people, in that when you lose the punctuation marks and currency symbols "25 is less than 26" - some people might have believed they were paying a penny less, when in fact the price had DOUBLED. :-(
There ARE lesser changes that confuse people, but they don't seem to be relevant to the ISFDB. We reintroduced the half-penny at decimalisation (the old one had been retired as worthless a while before) and that was around for several years: but I don't recall that ever being used for a British book, although it was common for the Irish price also printed on the book (which we mostly don't record) as they had a different tax-rate on books that meant they were mostly 2 and 1/2p higher. We kept the old six-penny piece around for years too, which confused visitors that had a coin that clearly said "SIX pence" and was worth two and a half. But again, that's just the coins, the books shouldn't have those problems.
Pre-decimalisation prices might have more problems as there were more colloquial terms for small sums of money: the book might well say "2/6" but if you're trying to research the price and come across someone saying "I bought it new, and it cost me half a crown!" and someone else saying "it was a tanner short of three bob!" you might not realise that they're saying the same thing. I've never come across such a problem while checking prices for ISFDB though - I suspect the only one that MIGHT occur is explaining a "Guinea". I can write the help page for you if you like (I seem to have written half of it here already!) but we haven't actually moved on again to "galleons, sickles and knuts", that's just a vicious rumour put about by Harry Potter fans. BLongley 16:09, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Yes - the British publisher is credited on the left side of the table of contents. How many fingers and thumbs did the English have before decimalization?--swfritter 16:43, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Five fingers and one thumb on each hand, and we each had one finger cut off each hand over over that long weekend in February 1971. No anaesthetic either - I think it was meant to stop us from thinking how we couldn't split a bill for a quid three ways any more: six shillings and eightpence each was easy maths, but the pain of a lost finger made us all settle down to one-on-one dining dates at 50p each. When did the US start stitching on the extra finger to its people? I've seen the cartoons, but the REAL US people seem to have FOUR fingers now, and I'm not sure which work... BLongley 17:20, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
We are a Mickey Mouse society.--swfritter 17:23, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Also a Quentin Tarantino society, to overseas viewers. I suspect the middle finger is real, it seems to be extended often in movies. Probably the index finger too, especially when curved around to meet the thumb. Or pull/squeeze a trigger. That narrows it down to ring finger or little finger. The Australians seem to have a use for waggling the little finger, which leaves ring finger. It stays immobile so you can see the ring - that must be the artificial one. Am I right? BLongley 18:31, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Don't blame us for the violent movies. We are only giving the people of the world what they want. Don't Blame the Pusher.--swfritter 14:21, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Giving artist credit for individual pieces within one story

I wasn't able to find anything definitive in the help pages about this situation, but could you look at this pub that I approved from Davecat? Is there a policy about creating interior art records for each piece or for each story? Thanks. Mhhutchins 15:21, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)

In Help under Entry - Interior Art. "An alternate option is to enter the first page where artwork appears. Page 9 would also be acceptable in the above case. It is also acceptable (but not required) to enter all pages where multiple artwork appears in a story." I generally just enter the the first page where artwork appears.
Also in that section: "If an article is illustrated with diagrams, or with photographs, these do not need to be included; they are not "artwork" in the sense that we are indexing." Artwork for "They're Trying to Tell Us Something (2/2)" is not necessary.
If the essays were added they should be using the "(Analog, April 1969)" modifier, Analog being considered the canonical title. "Brass Tacks" has no comma. "The Analytical Laboratory" and "In Times To Come" should have "The Reference Library" should use the format. They are all series data. I don't know which ones DaveCat might have entered. There is a lot of non-standard data. I'm cogitating about methods of documenting these standards. The best place might be on the grid page for the individual magazines.
The illustration for "The Whole World Is Watching" is too trivial too include as artwork. It is actually a graphic title rather than an actual illustration - it is a graphic representation of a TV with rabbit ears and the title of the story inside. It takes up about an eighth of a page. This section of Help does not actually address the issue and probably should.
I see you have already gotten some other input.Remember. Be careful what you ask for - you just might get it.--swfritter 16:37, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thanks for the taking the time to clear up the several issues involved with this submission. It'll help me give Davecat a more definitive response. Mhhutchins 16:53, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)

SQL for newbies

I'd also like your opinion on this. Useful or dangerous advice? (And yes, the "I'll leave explaining those to a Magazine mod" is an invitation for you to add to it.) BLongley 17:59, 21 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I have a tendency to not be able to comprehend schema talk no matter how well it is done. The document looks fine to me but the only way I have ever been able to comprehend schema data is to grab a piece of scratch paper, make data boxes and then draw lines between the linking data elements. And I often have to do it over and over again. I think graphical representations are the best way to document schema data.--swfritter 14:19, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Yes, they're the best way, often. Unfortunately we can't upload graphics here and I don't think I can sneak a database diagram past Amazon. :-/
I'll see what I can do with ASCII-art and suchlike in the short-term, if this documentation-buzz continues. One of my big problems when starting to look at the database was that pub_content has two purposes - one to show "real contents" of a book (SHORTFICTION, ESSAY etc), and one to link to a title that needs no contents as it's a complete book as well (ANTHOLOGY, COLLECTION, NOVEL). As I can't redesign the schema, all I can do is try and explain the differences. Please do shout if I get anything dangerously wrong though.
I've deliberately left "EDITOR" records out so far as whenever I try to explain it in SQL terms I realise I don't fully understand them, and when I do them in "yes, we merge editor records into years because... " English terms I realise I don't fully understand THAT either. Searching for a magazine is so much harder than searching for a book I think there is still something fundamentally WRONG here. Still, it stopped me messing with things I don't understand for a while, that may be good news. BLongley 16:21, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)
The terms in which I would explain EDITOR records have nothing to do with SQL.--swfritter 18:10, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Hunting Alibrarian down

I think I may have found Alibrarian over at Librarything. I left him a message, so here is to hope! Ahasuerus 08:58, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Nobody can hide in cyberspace.--swfritter 13:58, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)
I seem to be doing it quite well. One of my other online personas used to get Death Threats from Lithuanians at least 10 times a month, but they haven't tracked me down to here yet. BLongley 14:06, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)
I have a website devoted to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, which I've not updated in a number of years. It had been awhile since I checked my messages for an email address that I placed on that site. Some internet savvy soul with a couple of questions about Candide was able to track me down through a series of searches all the way to my personal email address (curse you, Wayback Machine). So Bill (if you're the real Bill Longley) someone will eventually track you down and hang you for your evil deeds (maybe the fourth hanging will do the job). Mhhutchins 17:18, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)
And he is over 150 years old. Now he's probably on the run and we won't hear from him again until he finds another safe house.--swfritter 17:24, 22 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Sometimes it pays to have a lot of decoys. Hanging that guy three times probably saved my great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather :-)
Actually, though, does this mean I'm being set up to save my Dad or vice-versa? Who's still hunting us? Why do I have the right middle initial and my Dad doesn't? (Wherever my next safe house is, it probably WON'T be in Texas.) BLongley 16:58, 24 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Well Bill, are those drabbles you entered into the database really science fiction.--swfritter 13:16, 26 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Yes, they are, although friends there seem to be less forthcoming about their involvement than I hoped. :-( That's a bit of a dead end though, if you're trying to explain the Lithuanian Death threats. There's a much simpler connection. (Which I must try to follow sometime, as even I have forgotten some of the websites involved!) BLongley 15:17, 26 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Series Documentation for F&SF

I saw your series documentation for Analog (I thought it looked pretty cool). I thought I'd try modifying the magazine page for F&SF in the same manner, if you don't think it would give anyone heartburn. I've asked at Rules and Standards about using F&SF to i.d. the series entries, instead of the full canonical name.--Rkihara 17:23, 26 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Great idea. It would look much cleaner and "F&SF" is a clearly recognized alias for the title.--swfritter 18:20, 26 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Jim Baen (Obituary)

Talking of Obituaries with Rkihara made me go search for some, and I found several with this title. Is this a multi-part Obituary or the same one repeated? BLongley 12:52, 27 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Same one repeated. It needs to be merged. I think there is also a best of anthology that I will have to merge with some of the stories, too.--swfritter 13:40, 27 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Randall Garrett's pseudonyms

Are you familiar with Guy Gordon's Science Fiction Authors site, by any chance? It started out as The James H. Schmitz Encyclopedia a few years ago, but he now has pages on Randall Garrett and Howard L. Myers. Garrett's bibliography page is particularly useful if you are working on 1950s magazines since Guy lists pseudonyms for each published story and we all know that Garrett and Silverberg were responsible for well over 90% of the magazine SF published in the mid-1950s :-) Ahasuerus 15:37, 27 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I don't think I have seen that site but I have used this one. I have been meaning to document these links on the bibliographic page but like a million other things I haven't gotten around to it. There is also a good Harlan Ellison site.--swfritter 15:45, 27 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thanks, I have added the listed URLs to their respective Authors' pages. Ahasuerus 00:43, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)
I thought only one website could be entered and assumed that the entry should be reserved for the author's personal website. I learn something new everyday but I don't know if that makes up for the five things I forget everyday.--swfritter 09:14, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Checking the Help pages, I see that we cover the issue of multiple URLs, but we don't explain what to do if the author is dead and there is no official site. I think I talked to Al about it a while back and the thinking was that authorized sites were the way to go for living authors, but we didn't have to be quite as careful with deceased authors. Probably something to post on the Standards page and add to the Help pages at some point. Ahasuerus 10:24, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Made the following change while it was in my mind but was wondering if this is significant enough that I should have gotten opinions on the issue before making the change to Help. It is basically a clarification rather than a change in policy. I will still post on Standards to guarantee that is at acceptable.--swfritter 15:26, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Sounds good! Ahasuerus 15:28, 28 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Joseph F. Goodavage's essays

Would you happen to know the status of Joseph F. Goodavage's early 1960s essays in Analog, by any chance? A number of them, e.g. Crucial Experiment #6, Report on Crucial Experiment No. 5--February and Report on Crucial Experiment--March do not belong to any publication. I also wonder if we need two series for these essays or whether one would be enough. Any insights? Ahasuerus 08:40, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Analog, July 1970

In preparing to edit the July 1970 issue, I see listed an essay "Some Like It Hot, Some Like It Cold", said to be by JWCJr. Looking at the magazine I see no such essay. The editorial in that issue is called "The Pot of Message". I suspect a typo somewhere, or conceivably a database issue that got fixed wrong; this probably belongs in some other issue. I don't find another instance of the title in the database. For the moment I'm going to leave it in; but do you (or does anyone) have information on where it should be instead? Thanks. -- Dave davecat 09:36, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)

It's not in the table of contents. It's on page 120 as by The Editor. I think there may have been a misunderstanding about creating a pseudonym for essays signed by The Editor. The specific line in Help that applies is - "If there is external evidence (such as a collection of editorials from a magazine, making it clear who the author was) that identifies the author, then you can add a variant title to that item". So if the essay does not appear somewhere else with his name it a pseudonym should not be applied. I have made the changes. Notice how I also included the quotation marks and note that the periods in the ellipsis have spaces in between them.--swfritter 14:21, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)
I have some of your current "The Editor" submissions on hold until the issue is resolved.--swfritter 14:35, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thank you. It sounded like an editorial's title, & (as you say) wasn't in the TOC. I flipped quickly through looking, but not thoroughly to check every page.
I will stop doing variants on The Editor at least for now, then. --Dave davecat 15:31, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Note that the submitted variants on "Rat Race", "Red Tide", "The Pot of Message", & "Cliff-hanger" are not for The Editor, but for John W. Campbell. (I see they're still pending.) --Dave davecat 15:37, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Yet another question posed by this issue, but actually by most or all of them I've looked at: the cover art attribution in the database says "Frank Kelly Freas", but the magazine says "Kelly Freas". Same for some other artists. If this were a simple title in the contents (an interior art thing), I'd be pretty sure I should be changing to the name from the magazine & then later making a variant. With cover art I don't know. As I go through these things should I be doing something? Thanks. --Dave davecat 15:48, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)

I was in a bit of a hurry and did not have a chance to approve the editorial submissions. I was pretty sure they were right. I will reject "The Editor" entries. Go ahead and leave the artwork the way it is now. The artwork entries are pretty much in a raw data state now. We couldn't really start making decisions about canonical names, etc. until we had some data to work with. Remember, there will be another pass and probably more through these magazines before final validation. Don't sell your magazines! The only data you are responsible for is the data you enter. If you see any questionable entries it is OK to leave them. And you don't have to enter any more data than you want to. Any valid data you add is a big help. The whole process can get a little addictive.--swfritter 18:19, 29 Oct 2007 (CDT)
Thank you! -- Dave davecat 10:09, 30 Oct 2007 (CDT)

Space Science Fiction, September 1953

I am working on my George O. Smiths and I have just checked his reviews in Space Science Fiction, September 1953, which you verified a few days ago. Aside from reviewing one of his own books (in jest, so I am not even sure that it amounts to a real review), he also reviewed The Sanger-Bredt Report: A Rocket Drive for Long Range Bombers. Our publication record currently lists the author as "Sanger-Bredt", but there is no such animal. The report was written by two German researches, Eugen Sänger (of the Rakatenflugtechnic fame) and Irene Bredt, and sent to the government in August 1944. It was too late to have an impact on the course of the war, but it proved very influential in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, which is why Smith reviewed the full English translation when it finally appeared. Would you like me to change the Publication record? Ahasuerus 21:04, 1 Nov 2007 (CDT)

I would leave the Smith review of his own book. It does have some valid information about the genesis of the book and his very short discourse on magazine vs. book versions. Sanger-Bredt - yes please. If I remember correctly I could not find much information about this book and I kind of threw in the towel. I made a pass through the magazines I have been working on and verified them realizing I would not be shot at sunrise if someone found an error in them.--swfritter 16:37, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)
Will do! (After I am done with verifications and back on the road, that is.)Ahasuerus 17:23, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)
P.S. Done while I still have access to the magazine. Ahasuerus 11:47, 4 Nov 2007 (CST)

Amazing Stories, December 1965

Jumping just for a brief moment off Analog. I found in with them Amazing Stories, December 1965, which I think I must have bought at a garage sale at some point. (I have one other issue, I know, no idea where; but this one I don't even remember.) Anyway, I thought I'd enter missing stuff from it, just for a little break, & I ran into a snag right off. The database lists here the editorial as being by Sol Cohen, who is indeed listed on the title page as "Editor and Publisher" (so should I add him as Publisher as well as Editor of the pub, BTW?). But at the end of the editorial it says "—JR", and one Joseph Ross is listed as "Managing Editor". I find Joseph Ross in the database, minimally (4 editorials from Fantastic, & The Best of Amazing), but no indication that he used JR as a pseudonym. I wish to check with you, before I do it, that I should make JR a pseudonym for Ross etc. etc. And (if so) to make sure I should use JR and not J. R. or something else.
(I'd assume that I put Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc. as the publisher rather than Cohen, as I read on through the fine print. I asked in the first place because that field is currently empty.)
Anyway, thanks. --Dave davecat 17:11, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

OK, I finally got around to entering additions & changes for this issue. Whenever the submission has been approved, you might glance at it. (My first non-Analog mag here.) Thanks. -- Dave davecat 21:04, 5 Nov 2007 (CST)

Hmmmmmm. I hope I eventually turn up that other Amazing. (It may actually be an omnibus of stories from Amazing or some such; it was a digest-sized thing bound just like this issue, though.) I can recall a couple of the stories, & it looks like it's not in the database at all. (And now I'm getting "Cannot connect to the MySQL database." errors. Does this happen often? How long does it typically last?) (And trying to save this edit right here gets "Sorry! The wiki is experiencing some technical difficulties, and cannot contact the database server. User 'isfdb' has exceeded the 'max_user_connections' resource (current value: 4)") davecat 17:42, 2 Nov 2007 (CDT)

I just made a complete pass through Fantastic and there are many issues from the magazine that are replicated in Amazing. In the early 60's Cele Goldsmith was credited with authorship of the editorials when they were actually