Help talk:Screen:EditPub

There is no information on the HTML tags in the Note field

There is no information on the HTML tags in the Note field. I've noticed they are used in some publication, but is it official, and which tags should be used? --Roglo 05:01, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

It's not official, but can be useful. Break, paragraph and list tags are common and shouldn't cause too many problems IF you remember to close the tags correctly. Links offsite have been used, e.g. to pages that contain images that we can't link to directly. (Those are obviously less stable.) I wouldn't recommend trying to use any HTML outside the Notes field, I've seen a stray tag break a submission totally in such a way that a moderator can't remove or approve it. And DO check the publication after approval. BLongley 05:29, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Description of the Tag field is missing

Description of the Tag field is missing. Should we invent human readable tags, or use autogenerated tags? What happens if the tag entered is not unique? Also missing in Help:Screen:NewPub --Roglo 05:07, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Generally, let the system create the tag for you. If a tag is missing they can be entered manually, but should be unique. (You can search for a proposed new tag in advanced search to make sure in advance.) Duplicate tags do cause problems such as clicking on a title and have it take you to a totally wrong publication, e.g. try some of the Doctor Who tags mentioned here that still need fixing. BLongley 05:34, 16 Dec 2007 (CST)

Suggest definitions

Could I suggest that we add a definition of at least a couple of the fields that won't be clear to newer users (like me)? For example I'm not clear on the following, though I'll go look at some existing ones to get an idea from examples:

• Tag - no idea
• Pages - I assume this should be the actual count, not the last page number, but it might be good to be specific here
• Pub Format - not sure what this is -- book vs. online?
• Note - do we have a definition of legitimate uses for this?

- Mike Christie 00:10, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

I'm not the official guy, but from what I've seen, tag is an ASCII tag that used to be used to identify a publication; now it's an id field like every other table, but tag is still around for legacy purposes for incoming links. It can pretty much be ignored; the database doesn't even enforce that it be unique. (See Database Schema.) In the pubs table, 'pub format' is pub_ptype, which definitely has "hc" and "pb" as common values. There's talk of making it enumerated on that page; I've used "lb" for library binding, and "tape", "cd" and "mp3cd" for audiobooks, and "ebook" for books published electronically. (See Kings of the High Frontier for an example.) For pages, I'm currently using the page count given by Amazon, not the last page number in the physical book if I happen to be holding it; I do this because I can get Amazon pagecounts for many more books than I have on my shelf. It's not really defined anywhere as far as I can see; it's up to us to come up with standards and agree to all follow them to some extent. grendel|khan 01:19, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

Thanks, Grendelkhan and Al; I appreciate the response and updated page. I also hadn't bumped into the Database Schema page yet, so thanks for that too -- that's going to answer a lot of my questions. Mike Christie 06:04, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

First edition identification

I'm sure this is something that's been discussed already, but I was wondering if there is an established way to tag something as being the known first edition of a title. I know there are complexities with prior versions and so on, but more often than not there is a consensus on what a first edition is. Do we care? In my bibliographic use of the ISFDB I did occasionally wish for this, simply because I knew the list of publications was often incomplete and I couldn't tell from the list whether the earliest was the first.

If we do mark it, I'd assume we'd put a note "First edition" in the notes field. Of course this could be expanded to "First US edition", "First UK edition", "First hardcover edition" and so on. Mike Christie 11:54, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

Sounds like a good idea, but we will need some way of recording the source of "first edition" information as well. There are tons of places, from the Library of Congress down, that list first American editions as simply "1st editions", confuse the copyright date/year with the edition date/year, etc. Later editions can have similar problems -- especially when the book has "January NNNN" printed on the copyright page while the actual publication date was the December of the previous year -- but first editions tend to be more collectible and generally more thoroughly researched. Ahasuerus 12:06, 23 May 2006 (CDT)

Imprints

It's often possible to choose several levels of corporate entity for a publisher; e.g. Ace could also be Penguin (USA), and could perhaps also be Berkeley, though I don't have a recent Ace to hand to see if that's cited. I've certainly seen books with three levels of "publisher" frequently.

I suggest we use the imprint, if this is unambiguous and widely known, and particularly if it continues a name that was previously an independent publisher. "Ace" will still be "Ace", in other words. I'm about to enter some "John Spencer & Co." paperbacks from the fifties and sixties, and they are generally known to collectors as the Badger Books, because that's the name of the imprint. Hence I propose to use "Badger" for the publisher. Mike Christie 17:33, 24 May 2006 (CDT)

Added Level 3 and 4 Headers

I found myself constantly referring to this page and constantly scrolling looking for the right section. I added a bunch of Level 3 headers to the Publication data fields, and Level 4 headers to the contents data field areas. It's just two reversions if it a problem, but I think the improved TOC really helps in navigation. (Nothing was changed but the addition of the headers) Kevin 04:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)