ISFDB:Moderator noticeboard

ISFDB Discussion Pages and Noticeboards
Before posting to this page, consider whether one of the other discussion pages or noticeboards might suit your needs better. If you're looking for help remembering a book title, check out the resources in our FAQ. Please also see our Help pages.
Help desk Questions about doing a specific task, or how to correct information when the solution is not immediately obvious. • New post • Archives	Research Assistance Help with bibliographic projects. • New post • Archives	Rules and standards Discussions about the rules and standards, as well as questions about interpretation and application of those rules. • New post • Rules changelog • Archives	Community Portal General discussion about anything not covered by the more specialized noticeboards to the left. • New post • Archives	Moderator noticeboard Get the attention of moderators regarding submission questions.   • New post • Archives • Cancel submission
Roadmap: For the original discussion of Roadmap 2017 see this archived section. For the current implementation status, see What's New#Roadmap 2017.

Archive Quick Links
Archives of old discussions from the Moderator noticeboard.

---

1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · 21 · 22 · 23 · 24 · 25 · 26 · 27 · 28 · 29 · 30 · 31 · 32

---

Expanded archive listing

Moderator Availability (edit)

Moderator	Current Availability	Time Zone
Ahasuerus – Talk	Daily. Mostly working on automated submissions and the software.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Alvonruff – Talk	Daily. Working on a major overhaul of the isfdb infrastructure, staged at isfdb2.org. Self-moderating only.	US Central (UTC-6)
Annie Yotova: Annie - Talk	Most days, wildly varying hours. Working mainly on Fixer and international titles but available for questions.	US Mountain/AZ (UTC-7)
Chris Jensen: Chris J - Talk	Available sometime everyday.	Pacific (UTC+12)
Desmond Warzel: Dwarzel - Talk	Most days, wildly varying hours.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Dirk P Broer: Dirk P Broer - Talk	Self-moderating only.	Netherlands (UTC+2)
Jens: Hitspacebar - Talk	Self-moderating only.	Germany (UTC+2)
JLaTondre - Talk	Intermittent, mainly evenings.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
John: JLochhas - Talk	Intermittent, mainly evenings and weekends.	Germany (UTC+2)
Kevin Pulliam: Kpulliam - Talk	Often missing for weeks and months - Best to email	US Central (UTC-6)
Kraang - Talk	Most evenings	CDN Eastern (UTC-5)
Dominique Fournier: Linguist - Talk	Off and on most days, with occasional blackouts (like now); can help on French or other outlandish titles.	France (UTC+1)
Marc Kupper: Marc Kupper – Talk	Low but not quite zero	US Pacific (UTC-8)
MagicUnk - Talk	Intermittent. Occasionally going into an editing frenzy.	Belgium (UTC+2)
MartyD - Talk	Sporadic, but most days.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Mhhutchins - Talk	Self-moderating only	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Nihonjoe - Talk	Weekdays. Sometimes evenings.	US Mountain (UTC-6/-7)
Pete Young: PeteYoung - Talk	Most days, although time zone frequently varies.	UK (UTC)
Ron Maas Rtrace - Talk	Most mornings and evenings.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Rudolf: Rudam - Talk	intermittent	Germany (UTC+2)
John: Scifibones - Talk	Most days, some evenings.	US Eastern (UTC-5)
Willem Hettinga: Willem H. - Talk	Most days, unpredictable hours.	Netherlands (UTC+2)

Currently unavailable

• Dcarson (Dana Carson) - Talk - Not seen since 2021-02-20 (marked inactive). US Eastern (UTC-5)

Lewis and Maniacs

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?137888; I added the 1964 ed. of Two Thousand Maniacs! but trying to link it with editions already on ISFDB didn't work because I never understand exactly how varianting works, so I mentioned this on the boards; mod told me I almost got it right and fixed it so all editions were together. Now I see another mod approved an edit by someone else which separated them again. What's going on? --Username 11:00, 2 September 2021 (EDT)

With no answer within three days I played it safe and merged the titles again. If somebody thinks they should be separated, please tell so (and then maybe a moderator can add a note or do something about it). Christian Stonecreek 10:44, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Moderator available to approve a couple submissions?

[1],[2],[3]. I appreciate it. John Scifibones 18:23, 4 September 2021 (EDT)

done. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 21:41, 4 September 2021 (EDT)

Just a couple more, please [4],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10].Thanks John Scifibones 12:14, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

I have approved the New Award submissions. Just to be on the safe side, is this award not title-based or do we need to create a title record? Ahasuerus 12:28, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

The original publication of that title is in "The British Haiku Society 2020 Anthology". I haven't been able to find enough information to create a record. I submitted an entry to create a title record in the awards overview for the sake of completeness. The other three unprocessed submissions are the original source publications for the last three finalists. After those three are processed , I will submit edits to add the awards to the three titles. The awards will be announced any day now. One of the nominated poets reached out to me and asked that I complete the list. John Scifibones 13:04, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

OK, everything has been approved and minor corrections (page numbers/capitalization) have been made. A few questions:

I think ""As soon as I could walk"" in "Cough Syrup Magazine, Spring 2020" should not have been changed.

• In Rune, 2020, is "How to Tidy the Asterids" spelled that way?

No. This will fix it.

• In Hallowscream, October 2020, does "Home Sweet Home" have only one quote? And is "Sppoky Boi" spelled that way?

Home Sweet Home should have no quote Fix. Yes "Sppoky Boi" is spelled that way.

Ahasuerus 17:12, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

The three finalist awards are at the end of my submission queue. Thank you for taking care of this. John Scifibones 17:43, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for submitting the corrections! I have approved everything. Re: changing "As soon as I could walk" to "As soon As I could walk", Template:PublicationFields:Title says:

• all later words are capitalized except for "a", "an", "and", "at", "by", "for", "from", "in", "of", "on", "or", "the", "to", and "with"

which doesn't include the word "as". Also, I didn't think it was one of those titles that use all-lowercase because it includes two words with a capitalized first letter. Does this match your understanding? Ahasuerus 18:06, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

For stand alone titles, our case regularization standards are fine. For untitled poetry, particularly Haiku, Tanka, etc. I believe sentence case (capitalize the first word and proper nouns) is correct. However, most of what I see is to use all lower case. I think that's fine also. I have been thinking of bringing this up in the Rules and Standards Discussion page. The objection I have to the above mentioned title is that we are mixing both. By our present standards, would it not be "As Soon As I Could Walk"? John Scifibones 18:28, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Oh, right, I completely missed the forest for the trees there. I'll head back to bed now :-) Ahasuerus 19:16, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Regardless, I think it reflects well on us that you processed everything so quickly. We have posted the complete results before the SFPA has updated their website! John Scifibones 18:28, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Dead User

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?12066; he's Budwebster on his user board. --Username 10:01, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Done; thanks for the heads-up. Ahasuerus 11:19, 5 September 2021 (EDT)

Cold Dead Hands

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?324622; I did a major add/fix session a while ago for Robert Aickman's books, and today stumbled on a copy of his 2nd collection, Dark Entries, on Richard Dalby's site, which revealed the month it was published; that allowed me to fix date for the book and several stories in it. I decided to check Aickman's other books and found something odd, the 1993 reprint of Cold Hand in Mine by Lightyear Press. Cover is the same as original Scribner's edition but didn't list Edward Gorey as cover artist so I added him, thinking I added another Gorey credit here since I added a bunch recently. However, always being suspicious, I looked closer and discovered that if you enlarge the Lightyear cover you can see an "RS" at bottom of spine, so editor just added Scribner's cover without making sure it was the right cover. Problem is they uploaded it to the Wiki so simply deleting it like an Amazon link or something won't work. Checking Lightyear's entries here, most of the covers are missing, many records have notes saying OCLC doesn't mention it, etc. It seems to be tied to Buccaneer Books in some way, so is probably an instant remainder type of publisher. So mods may wish to delete Aickman's image from the Wiki and determine if those records which have cover images also have the wrong cover and delete those, too. Searching for ISBN's on Google Images either brings up nothing or editions that clearly aren't Lightyear, so where the right covers can be found is unknown. --Username 23:59, 7 September 2021 (EDT)

Canonical name edit

Jason Mccall should be Jason McCall. Thanks John Scifibones 18:13, 9 September 2021 (EDT)

Is now. Annie 18:18, 9 September 2021 (EDT)

Huan Mee

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?854886; I corrected a couple of dates for stories by this author who is actually 2 guys who wrote 100+ years ago; after approval I stumbled on the fact that an editor named Toff entered another story by them for a 2021 anthology, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?854886. Somebody asked him on his board about varianting stories with their original appearances but more than a week has gone by without a response. So if anyone wants to correct Huan Mee's story and variant names or dates...; also, there may be other stories in same anthology that need the same. --Username 14:32, 10 September 2021 (EDT)

Kudos to the moderators

I felt guilty, making hundreds of submissions while the queues were already piled up in the hundreds over the last couple of weeks. I see the queues are now down to double/single digits this morning. All this without a single plea for mercy, understanding or sympathy. To all the moderators grinding away at the queues, I salute you. (And feel a bit better about submitting another few dozen) ../Doug H 11:37, 11 September 2021 (EDT)

Jovanovich

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?850823; publisher's page says Jovanovich was added in 1970 and this 1963 book has an ISBN which didn't exist back then, so this is likely a post-60's printing. --Username 15:37, 13 September 2021 (EDT)

Farrar

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/note_search_results.cgi?OPERATOR=contains&NOTE_VALUE=straus+and+giroux; Publisher section has error wherever Giroux link appears, taking you to Young page instead. --Username 16:59, 13 September 2021 (EDT)

Whitney Award

This is a non-genre award that often awards to genre works. You can read more about it here:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Awards
• https://whitneyawards.com/

Here's the info for it:

• Short Name: Whitney
• Full Name: Whitney Award
• Awarded For: Novels by LDS authors
• Awarded By: Storymakers Conference
• Poll: No
• Covers more than just SF: Yes
• Webpages: see above

Nominations are from anyone. Once a work receives at least five nominations, the Whitney Awards Committee verifies eligibility and narrowing nominations to no more than five per category. An invitation-only group of authors, bookstore owners/managers, distributors, critics, and other industry professionals, collectively known as the Whitney Award Academy, then vote on the finalists.

If the award is added, I will populate it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:31, 14 September 2021 (EDT)

Wow, that's a lot of speculative fiction categories for a non-genre award! I guess it just goes to show how popular speculative fiction is these days. (No objections on my side.) Ahasuerus 18:42, 14 September 2021 (EDT)

I think they created them because specfic was overwhelming the regular categories. (^_^) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:51, 14 September 2021 (EDT)

And done. In the future, we may want to post proposed additions to the Award Type list on the Community Portal. This one was pretty straightforward, but there may be cases where non-moderators may have additional insight into award eligibility. Ahasuerus 08:30, 16 September 2021 (EDT)

Okay, these are all entered through 2020. The 2021 awards haven't been given out yet. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:08, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Fetching the Dead

I added cover and fixed dates for stories in this collection, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?289989, since all had the date of the collection but most were actually published in non-genre magazines years earlier. Edit was approved but only the cover is there; dates are the same. No explanation from moderator, and I'm not entering them again, so I'll just mention here that the last story, "Time and Again", was reprinted in a genre magazine, F&SF, under another name which the copyright page doesn't mention, but ISFDB says is "The Sleepwalker". It comes from Tracks (Spring 1978), so "The Sleepwalker" is actually a variant of "Time and Again", not the other way around as it says on ISFDB. So if anyone cares they can fix that. --Username 14:53, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

And you look at the note of the update, you will know why the dates were reset. We date variants based on the first time that specific title and author form showed up. In this case it is not clear if the original publication were under the canonical author name (Scott Russell Sanders) or under that form (Scott R. Sanders) - so it is unclear which of the two titles needs a new date (or both if it was published under the variant author name). If you want to try to track down the magazines to see if we can discover which form was used, we can fix the dates in the proper variants (and add the notes where they belong for first publications). As it is, I have it on my list for this afternoon to update the dates up on the canonical titles with notes on where they were first published; the dates of the variants will remain the same as the ones of the publication until we discover otherwise.

Careful when collections/anthologies are not under an author's canonical name - you need to account for that when dating stories. Annie 15:05, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

Here's something interesting; I was looking for more info about this book online and found an Archive.org link; I checked Open Library earlier and found nothing, which is why I had to get info from the copy on eBay. Turns out there's a Fetching the Dead: Stories by Unknown author and Publisher unknown and no ID #'s except for Open Library and the Archive link. I added page numbers to the stories and a link to Open Library in an edit, awaiting approval. I wonder how many people have looked for this book and couldn't find it because it was hiding on that almost empty page. --Username 16:42, 15 September 2021 (EDT)

1 story in this collection, "The Fire Woman", comes from an anthology, Cross Fertilization, which is on Google Books, and he's credited as Scott Sanders. --Username 18:32, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

Author delete

This author was created by typo, please delete. John Scifibones 11:54, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Authors get deleted automatically when nothing holds them. If it is still there, there is a title somewhere. When it looks like that, it is a review where the author is a "Reviewed author". These do not show up on the author pages - Advanced Search finds them though. I fixed the offending record.

Next time this happens, keep in mind that moderators can change the name inside of the Author record - so you can ask us to do that instead of changing each title. Annie 12:11, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Got it. In fact, I just saw it work in another situation. Thanks John Scifibones 12:29, 17 September 2021 (EDT)

Accidental deletion

Accidently deleted This anthology. Please process whenever you have a chance. No rush. Thanks, John Scifibones 17:33, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

Deletion cannot be undone. Rejected submission is easy. :) All sorted. Annie 18:21, 19 September 2021 (EDT)

Oops!

When I added Plagueborne to this site, and didn't realize that it was a collection instead of an omnibus until I imported the contents. Can this be changed by a moderator, or do I have to do it all over again? MLB 03:44, 21 September 2021 (EDT)

Done! It was also my fault. I've overlooked it when i approved the title. Regards Rudolf Rudam 07:14, 21 September 2021 (EDT)

I'm pretty sure anyone can do it. It takes multiple edits, unfortunately, and leads to a bit of transient inconsistency, so it's a little easier for a moderator to do it. In order to change the publication's type, its contents must include a title of the desired changed-to container type. So one way:

• Edit the title record and change its type from OMNIBUS to COLLECTION (with a moderator note explaining what's going on).
• Once that is accepted, edit the publication record, changing the publication type from OMNIBUS to COLLECTION. You cannot do this in parallel -- it needs the title's type change in place.

Another way:

• Edit the publication record, changing the publication type from OMNIBUS to COLLECTION and also adding a new content title of type COLLECTION with the appropriate details (with a suitable note to the moderator). If you don't add the COLLECTION title, you'll get an error about changing the type.
• Remove the old container title from the publication. This can be submitted in parallel. I forget if this will delete the title when processed or if then a follow-up deletion is also needed.

This same process applies to changing from any container type (ANTHOLOGY, CHAPBOOK, COLLECTION, OMNIBUS) to any other. --MartyD 13:53, 21 September 2021 (EDT)

You need a follow-up deletion. Whoever fixed it did your second plan - I zapped the now empty omnibus this morning. However - why overcomplicate so much when you have a single publication? A single edit fixes both (see this cancelled example and omnibus to collection one). Then all you need is to clear the omnibus contents field and move that into a note instead (because that field is only for Omnibusses). Annie 14:01, 21 September 2021 (EDT)

I could have sworn it doesn't let you edit the container title, even if only one one pub. Obviously, if it lets you do that, a single edit is the way to go.... --MartyD 13:45, 22 September 2021 (EDT)

I think that there is/was? an iteration where it is a problem - if I ever remember which one, I will post back - that's why I did the tests to make sure these were in the clear before posting :) But collection/omnibus/anthology swaps had been on my list so often lately (juvenile 96/128 pages "novels") that I knew that one works (and still decided to verify). :) Annie 14:04, 22 September 2021 (EDT)

La città della paura indicibile I fixed your Chapbook update to a novel. Needed to remove the extra title and move the note about translation.Kraang 23:20, 21 September 2021 (EDT)

Not a Variant

The title I changed it to is the correct title as shown in the photo on Fantlab which I referenced in my note; it's not a variant. Why it was changed to a variant is unknown. "Farway House" is the title; "Faraway House" shouldn't be there anymore. --Username 22:23, 23 September 2021 (EDT)

Approved your edit and fixed it to just a name variant.Kraang 22:48, 23 September 2021 (EDT)

This is the same case as above. It was a variant before you edited it. When you edited the pub, you only changed the variant. You also needed to edit the parent. Same title with different author credits is still handled as a variant. If you see "by NAME [as by OTHERNAME]" in a pub listing, the pub contains a variant based on author name. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:08, 24 September 2021 (EDT)

Publication Record # 647654

Found Légendes du mythe de Cthulhu 2 (listed in data base as La chose des ténèbres) on NooSFere (https://www.noosfere.org/livres/niourf.asp?numlivre=2146617548) There it lists the price as €6.00 and the original English title as Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos. The primary verifier is Hauck, who is listed as no longer active. I believe this should be attached to Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos Series Record # 28724, but A) not sure how to go about it and B) don't want to step on toes. aardvark7 16:46, 25 September 2021 (EDT)

"Fixing" My Edits

I entered a bunch of stuff for Ramsey Campbell books today, and 1 minor edit I made was adding ID # to Jove's edition of The Doll Who Ate His Mother, since some other editor added it to the other Jove Campbell book on ISFDB, Demons By Daylight. Oddly, when a moderator got to my Campbell edits, that one wasn't approved until long after the first few. Since it was just adding an ID and not something that needed to be double-checked, as some moderators bother doing, I looked over the approved edit and it didn't seem exactly right. Then I realized my note, "ID on left side of cover", had been "fixed" to "Catalog ID on the left side of the cover", with a note from moderator, "Clarifying which ID was that about and fixing the language so it reads like a proper English sentence". Besides the fact that none of the many editors and moderators who worked on Demons By Daylight ever entered a note about where the ID came from, unlike me, the fact that there's nothing on the left cover except the ID and the price means there was no reason to enter the word "Catalog", and adding a few "the"'s to my note changes nothing; the way I wrote it (as I've written it for countless other notes) is perfectly acceptable English; when you enter as many edits as I've done, you need to use shorthand where applicable. If y'all want to spell everything out in your edits, fine. Don't tamper with mine. --Username 17:13, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Part of the job of the moderators are to make sure that the notes are readable and understandable. We have a lot of different IDs on the screen. Your note was ambiguous so needed fixing. The edits are not "yours" - this is a collaborative project and you do not own the notes -anyone can improve your notes. Had you used "Catalog ID" instead of ID, I would not have fixed the sentence; as I had to fix that anyway, I also made sure that the sentence reads smoothly. Annie 17:22, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Moderators frequently tweak or expand submitted notes as needed. In this case, we support ISBNs (the most commonly used type of book ID these days), "Catalog IDs" and "External IDs". Some parts of our software also also refer to internal record numbers as "IDs", e.g. see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/rest/getpub_by_internal_ID.cgi?100 . Given this variety of "IDs", it helps to clarify what kind of ID we are talking about.

Having said that, minor changes to Notes are not a reflection on the quality of the submitting editor's work. Most of the time it's just a case of "four eyes are better than two". Occasionally we get editors who have real trouble explaining what they mean, which can become a significant issue, but minor changes are just a fact of life. Ahasuerus 18:38, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

That's all true, except that the ID on the cover of a book wouldn't be related in any way to ISFDB, especially not a book like this one which was published decades before ISFDB existed. So specifying what type of ID it is in a note makes no sense since there's only 1 type of ID that could be there; other types of ID like External are an invention of this site, and if I got ISBN from the cover I would have called it ISBN and not ID. As far as tweaking or expanding notes go, I've done that probably thousands of times, but it's almost always fixing old info that was wrong or adding new info; adding a couple of "the"'s is meaningless and writing a sarcastic note in the new edit about "fixing the language so it reads like a proper English sentence" is just petty, especially since I've had to fix hundreds and hundreds of records entered or approved by the same moderators who complain about my work. This may all be moot soon, anyway, since the way things are going the internet will be shut down and we'll all be living in a "glorious" socialist "paradise". --Username 19:33, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Collaborative projects necessarily will have various people modifying various other peoples' edits, as has been explained. While we appreciate all that you've done here (and you've added and improved a lot of information), it is helpful to not assume the worst about other editors here. We are all trying to improve things, and every single one of us has had out edits modified in various ways and modified others' edits in various ways. It's just how things work here. The only time that's a problem is if the information was changed to be incorrect somehow (or deleted outright). That's not what happened in this case.

As for your concern about the "ID" issue, we try to make sure there's no possibility for confusion. While you are correct that the book may have only the one item labeled "ID" on it, when it's entered on ISFDB, that clarification is useful to avoid someone other than you being confused by which ID is meant in the notes. That's why the clarification was made. I can guarantee you it wasn't to put you down or attack your contributions in any way. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:45, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

And IDs are added to books daily - external IDs (such as OCLC for example), catalog IDs, ISBNs, some other type of IDs we may start adding in the future. Keeping the notes as unambiguous as possible makes it possible to track down information later and reduces the chance of mistakes and misunderstandings. Almost every record in the DB can be improved in one way or another. Annie 20:00, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Canonical name switch

Can I get an approval to switch the canonical and alternate name for Eugenia M. Triantafyllou. thanks, John Scifibones 20:33, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Oh yes - that one needs reversal.

PS: There is a one-edit way to remove all those unneeded parents (advanced search to get the parent and the variant into a merging position, then make sure the Parent ID is left as empty and the new canonical name is used for the record). If we already talked about that, then this is just a reminder :) Annie 20:38, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

For some reason, I'm not seeing it (figuratively). I've always done it one at a time. Will you show me the search criteria? John Scifibones 20:51, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Reading how I wrote it again, it sounds like you can do multiple titles with one edit which is obviously not the case. It is still one per title but it is faster than breaking a variant and then deleting the old parent. With someone with as little number of titles as hers, I would do a title search for both her names, ordered by title. You get this. Then just start merging the pairs and in each pair, make sure that "title_parent" is set to the empty string (the default will always be the non-empty one) and the correct author form is used. Hope that makes sense. I wish we had a "flip the canonical" one step that takes care of all titles. It had been requested but... not trivial to say the least. Annie 21:04, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

That's what I do. Only variants I break are when the title appears as both canonical and alternate ways. John Scifibones 21:08, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

As I said - if we had discussed that/you knew that, it was just a reminder. All set then. :) Annie 21:09, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for processing them so fast, I owe you one. At least! John Scifibones 21:18, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

I am working on a project so between my own edits, I am keeping the queue clear as well :) You need to redo one of those variants - I think you hit the wrong button on the screen - been there, done that. And "Is" is always capitalized so you may want to do something about a couple of titles. Also - the "first published in" notes needs to bubble up on the parent as well on the ones where you varianted. Annie 21:20, 27 September 2021 (EDT)

Publisher name change request

Since inception, Uncanny Magazine has been published by "Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas". Unfortunately, someone started using Uncanny Magazine as the publisher and everyone followed suit. The Our Staff page of the magazine's website is quite clear. As this is a moderator only function, I'm asking that the publisher name be changed to the quoted name above. Much more efficient than 41 publication level edit submissions. John Scifibones 10:37, 28 September 2021 (EDT)

Actually the Our Stuff page is irrelevant - what you need is to see the credit inside of one of the magazines (all of them really in case it changed) (as these are the ebooks, not the webzine records). I will pull out my kindle later and check how the publisher is credited in there. If the publisher is credited as "Uncanny Magazine" there, that's what it needs to say (and I cannot remember off the top of my head). Annie 14:59, 28 September 2021 (EDT)

Also, I think there may be terminology confusion here. On ISFDB, "Publisher" always refers to the company, not the person/job title (except in cases of self publishing without a publishing company name). ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:23, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, there is that as well.

Looking at a real magazine:

Copyright is to "Uncanny Magazine" which implies that there is such company.

No publisher credit besides "Publishers/Editors-in-Chief" heading inside of the "Editorial Staff" for Thomas&Thomas which is just naming what people are doing IMO.

I'd keep the publisher as "Uncanny Magazine" under these circumstances, maybe add a note on the magazine level (or the publisher level) explaining the attribution. Any other opinions are welcome. Annie 13:26, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

The couple also runs the Kickstarter campaigns, at least implying this is their magazine. I'm fine with leaving it, if that's the decision. John Scifibones 19:07, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

Amazon lists publisher for the Kindle editions as "Uncanny Magazine" (e.g., here). Since they're alive and well, one could contact them and explain/ask, and we could preserve their response as documentation. --MartyD 12:32, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

No one argues that they publish the magazine. The question is if there is a company they own they actually do that under. The Copyright page strongly implies that yes, there is one. Or are you saying to ignore the company names of publishers and to use the names of the people who run them for all our publishers? :) After all these people are also called publishers. Annie 12:53, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

No, I am saying ask them if it is published by the company or published by them personally. "Uncanny Magazine" seems right to me, given the copyright statement, but here we could ask instead of making our best assessment. --MartyD 15:12, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

I was responding to John's comment that it is their magazine - thus the number of : I used. I agree with you that asking them may be the cleanest way based on what I am seeing inside of the magazines. :) Annie 15:56, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

I have reached out and am awaiting a response. John Scifibones 17:53, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

Cynthia Asquith Collection

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?216049; added better cover from Fantlab, then noticed contents page photo shows that 1 story, "The Follower", isn't in the book and "In a Nutshell" is on a completely different page. PV, Chavey, hasn't responded to anything in years, so I'm leaving this here in case anyone feels like investigating further. --Username 19:12, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

Web API access

Hi. I'm wondering if I could be permitted submission access to the Web API. My intention is to automate the clearing out of this cleanup report. The code I'm intending to run is here (effectively add_librisxl_id.py:run()).

As per the API instructions I'd run 20 records at a time then wait for these to clear moderation before doing the next 20. If desired I could add a particular moderator as holder to effectively move these submissions out of the normal queue. /Lokal_Profil 06:33, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Sure thing. FR 1447 has been created. Ahasuerus 20:26, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Done. Please give it a try and let me know how it goes. Ahasuerus 21:00, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

BTW: The moving the submission part is not really moving - it just makes it untouchable by anyone but the moderator it is held for AND it is not counted in the few places we count how many we have pending. Additionally, the "next submission" link does not work for these so processing them can be a pain as you need to pick then one by one as opposed to going one after the other. So drop them in the real queue - just not all of them at the same time. ;) Annie 21:11, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

@Ahasuerus: Thanks. I submitted 3 edits via the API. I've used the publication title as "Subject" as per what I see when I look at the xml of edits done through the normal interface. Don't know how this field is surfaced in the moderation queue so let me know if it can fill a more suitable function.

@Anniemod: Thanks then I won't use the Holder feature. /Lokal_Profil 08:11, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

The submissions look fine, no problems that I can see.

As you said, the "Subject" field is what's displayed in the list of submissions; the pub's title is the best choice for Edit Publication submissions. Other types of submissions like New Award or Remove Alternative Name would use other types of values. Ahasuerus 11:43, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Canonical name switch - Urlaub

Can I get an approval to switch the canonical and alternate name for Patricia Urlaub? Thanks John Scifibones 08:27, 3 October 2021 (EDT)

Yep, go ahead. Seems obvious. Annie 18:58, 3 October 2021 (EDT)

This one is done. When it is this obvious, should I go ahead and submit the changes without getting prior moderator's approval? John Scifibones 19:52, 3 October 2021 (EDT)

I’d post for a second set of eyes/objections (it was never about an approval really - it is just so people can see it before it happens. That’s why I would always add the author names in the topic name as well). Sometimes something may seem obvious until someone else takes a look at it. The only case where I would reverse with no post is if there are 2-3 works only and I am about to add a boatload into the pseudonym. Once it has more, I’d post before I switch it around and wait a day or so. Annie 20:24, 3 October 2021 (EDT)

Makes sense, John Scifibones 21:09, 3 October 2021 (EDT)

Merging publishers

Could someone please merge Kindberg and Kindbergs Förlag. The first is the name which best fits how other Swedish publishers have been named (i.e. omitting the "Publisher" part of the name). Cheers /Lokal_Profil 17:47, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

So is it "Kindberg" or "Kindbergs"? As there is only one book, editing that book is better than a merge because that will keep the change into the pub record (and if the PV ever comes back, they can figure out what happened). But I need to know which form to use :) Annie 18:22, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

sorry for being unclear, "Kindberg" (the "s" is used for the genitiv case in Swedish). I assumed that just modifying the pub would leave the publisher as some sort of ghost in the directory. / Lokal_Profil 04:27, 5 October 2021 (EDT)

Nope. Publishers, authors and pub series just disappear when the last thing attached to them is deleted (which also means to be VERY careful to move any data out of them before you submit the request to update the last record carrying them). Series and titles need to be manually deleted when the last title/publication respectively is removed from them. All set now, right? Annie 18:20, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Kissing the Coronavirus

I just want to apologize to the moderator who has to okay the Kissing the Coronavirus series that I'm entering to the ISFDB database. I was just sipping some hot tea while browsing these books, then I blacked out, and the books were up for acceptence. I don't even remember doing them. At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. There are more, sadly. MLB 05:14, 10 October 2021 (EDT)

So you had a Mini-Version of the second part of 2020. No worries. Hope you are feeling well though :) Annie 16:28, 10 October 2021 (EDT)

Wow. Thought I'd seen it all, am officially weirded out. :) PeteYoung 23:28, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Critic => Éditions Critic

This publisher's name should be changed from Critic to Éditions Critic.AlainLeBris 10:46, 10 October 2021 (EDT)

As we already had both, a rename could not work but a merge does. Done. Annie 00:23, 12 October 2021 (EDT)

Signing In

Curious why I had to sign in to upload a cover image; I resisted checking the box to keep me signed in since I joined last December until several weeks ago when I got tired of having to sign in constantly and finally checked it, but tonight I had to sign in again for the first time since then. Is something going on behind the scenes? --Username 23:40, 12 October 2021 (EDT)

There have been no recent software changes that would affect the sign-on process. Keep in mind that when you sign in, you actually sign in twice: first on the database side and then, separately, on the Wiki side. The sign-on process adds a "cookie" to your browser which contains your log-in name. It also tells the browser to keep you logged in until the cookie's expiration date. On the database side, the expiration date is set to 2037, so you won't have to worry about it for another 15+ years. On the Wiki side, it is set to a few months and then you have to sign in again. Ahasuerus 00:16, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

The Wiki kicks you out now and again - just sign in again and you are good for awhile again. It can be a cookie expiration or it can be your browser deleting the cookie because it did not like its age, while you updated or because something else happened. Permanent sessions are not really liked by modern browsers - they facilitate man in the middle attacks. So browsers can decide to be "helpful" sometimes. Annie 00:22, 13 October 2021 (EDT)

Moderator available?

If a moderator is not too busy, please process these three unmerges. [11], [12], [13]. Thanks, John Scifibones 15:15, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Done Annie 15:32, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Thank you Annie. John Scifibones 17:19, 14 October 2021 (EDT)

Canonical name switch - Gabriel Silva de Anda

Proposing to switch the canonical name from Gabriel Silva de Anda to Gabriel S. de Anda. Note, I'm adding 6 more titles under the proposed name. Feedback is appreciated John Scifibones 14:41, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Yep. About time. All his books seem to use it and the Author site also uses it - add it to the correct author record while you are there, please :) Annie 14:54, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

All records for the full name probably came from Locus (see this) and the 1993 one is even credited here with the S. One do wonder what the magazines actually said. Hm. But yes - for now, let's reverse, we can investigate that later. Annie 14:58, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

A little digging is always fun. I'm entering a serial for him, this will make the variant cleaner. Edits submitted. John Scifibones 15:28, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Bewildering Stories? I knew the name rang a bell from somewhere - I saw him on the schedule there. Annie 17:06, 15 October 2021 (EDT)

Bedlam

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?7067; I filled in info for Dead Cats Bouncing using Locusmag.com, which was by Necro on ISFDB but was really by their Bedlam imprint, and I see that Bedlam has lotss of books with a note saying they're an imprint of Necro, so I think they should all be by Bedlam Press / Necro Publications, which is what I changed Dead...'s publisher to. --Username 08:42, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

Son of the Lamb

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Inspired_Lamb; Hugh Lamb's son entered some new anthologies recently but made some mistakes; mod tried to help him, then I tried. He responded back in February, then nothing until yesterday when he entered a new anthology, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?863926. I fixed format and made essay dates match book date, plus added book title after Introduction and Afterword. Also, he entered stories with their original dates, except Hodgson's The Phantom Ship for some reason, so I merged that. He still seems to have problems with how to enter things, and I can't remember what exactly I helped him with 8 months ago, so if mods want to check his previous work and see if anything else needs fixing/merging I'm sure he'd appreciate it. --Username 11:42, 19 October 2021 (EDT)

I randomly came across the new anthology again and now I see that Mr. Lamb just entered stories already on ISFDB without merging, so there's many duplicates, and at least 1, Northcote's story, has the wrong date. So this record really needs some help. --Username 08:54, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Missing King

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Tjacksonking; added cover to a mag and this guy entered another issue that needed some work so I fixed it; he hasn't been here since 2016 so should probably have one of those no-longer-active notes. --Username 09:54, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

Length mismatch warning

I entered a publication which contained The Girl from the Sea, an English translation of La niña que salió en busca del mar. After submitting this edit to add the translator template and setting the juvenile flag, I submitted [14] linking the translation. What is the best way to handle the warning regarding length mismatch? The translation is slightly more than 1900 words, a short story. No length is specified for the parent. John Scifibones 21:02, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

The length of the original determines the length of all the variants even if any of them wavers across a border. So usually you need to research the original. However at that length of a complete translation there is no way the original to be long enough to be a novelette (7500 words) so we know it is a short story so set the short story length to the parent and we are all set. Annie 21:13, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

Cover Problem?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?6229+3; I see 1 cover and then next row has the other 3. If it's the same for mods, is that OK or is there some formatting problem? --Username 20:41, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

I am seeing the same. My first thought was that it is because of the numbering (we have 4 and then a few in 10+) but [15] does not do that and it is even more weird numberwise. Let me ping our Developer. Annie 20:54, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

It turns out that it's due to the first pub not having mouse-over transliteration while some of the subsequent ones have them. If all pubs have them OR none of the pubs have them, then everything is displayed correctly.

The easiest way to address the issue would be not to display mouse-over transliterations for covers. Other solutions are presumably possible, but will require more digging. Ahasuerus 21:11, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

I vote for dropping the transliterations showing in cover arrays (under publications or in the +3 for pub series. They don't really add anything to the site - you can click on it and go check it if you need to. Annie 21:46, 21 October 2021 (EDT)

I agree with Annie. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:45, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

Done. Ahasuerus 12:47, 22 October 2021 (EDT)

L'Oeil du Sphinx => L'Œil du Sphinx

This Publisher's name should be changed from L'Oeil du Sphinx to L'Œil du Sphinx. AlainLeBris 11:44, 24 October 2021 (EDT)

Done. As you are the only active PV on any of the verified books that got changed with this update, no need to leave courtesy notes on editors' pages. Thanks! Annie 12:51, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Changes to PVed publications

I really don't know how can Zapp be allowed to add data to my notes in this fashion. First he/she adds ("- No ISBN") without respecting my usual layout ("ISBN = None on book") which is just impolite, but more importantly this is done without having the book. Is it a case of divine prescience? To take the liberty of modifying data pertaining to a PVed publication without any physical evidence and without discussing the matter with the verifier is simply not acceptable. AlainLeBris 12:46, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

I've unverified the publication. Let any questions about it be directed to the person who knows best. AlainLeBris 13:04, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Hello! I've approved this update after some hesitation.

1. There is no existing policy for the layout of the notes. Everyone can do additional notes in his own way. If they do not correspond to your personal rules, you can change them anytime.

2. It's very obvious that it wasn't a divine prescience, since you didn't enter the ISBN field yourself. It can be assumed that you did it deliberately, since you always enter your entries very accurately. Furthermore, all external IDs indicate that the book does not have an ISBN, so without question this addition is helpful as information.

3. Nevertheless I agree with you, it would have been more polite to contact you. Everyone makes mistakes, but you don't have to react so harshly. Regards Rudolf Rudam 14:05, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Merging alternate names of Jon D. Swartz

Could the following forms of Jon D. Swartz's name be merged, please?

• Jon D. Swartz: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?176983
• Jon D. Swartz, Ph.D.: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?334557
• Jon Swartz: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?334552

These are all variants used by the author in the fanzine, Tightbeam.--Explorer1000 14:25, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Nope, they need to be pseudonymed, not merged and works varianted into whoever becomes the canonical. We record author names as used and then use the alternative names system to connect them. Do you want me to do it or do you want me to teach you how? Annie 14:28, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

I wouldn't say no to learning how. :) Is it too early to establish a canonical version given that there are still quite a lot of issues of Tightbeam to get through in which he has probably had some contribution or another?--Explorer1000 15:31, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Jon D. Swartz seems to be the clear winner - he even published a book under that name and has a fancyclopedia entry. So I would call that the canonical - and we can always change it later.

So for each of the other two: Go to their pages -> left menu. Locate "Make/Remove Alternate Name". Using either the ID (176983) or the name (Jon D. Swartz) submit the form. That connects them. Submit also edits on the two alternative names to set the language to English.

Now that they are connected, you need to get all titles on the canonical page. For each title under one of the other names:

• Check if the same title is on the canonical author page as well and if so, get the ID.
• Locate "Make This Title a Variant" (on the title in the alternate name page):

• If you found an ID in the previous step, use that in Option 1. I did not see any that match but I may have missed some.
• If you did not, use Option 2. Leave ALL fields the same except for the author name where you replace the alternative name with the canonical name. If there are coauthors, leave them as they are.

All these edits (the pseudonyms and the edits and the variants) can be submitted in parallel. When all of them are approved, you are all set. Annie 15:54, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

OK. Done! Thanks for your instruction on that, Annie. :) --Explorer1000 16:38, 25 October 2021 (EDT)

Hayford

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Hayford_Peirce; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1223. He died last year. --Username 19:15, 27 October 2021 (EDT)

Updated his talk page. Thanks. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:59, 27 October 2021 (EDT)

Hachette

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?246377; added cover to original American HC, used ISBN to get French cover with no luck, then got it by entering the title (also entered pub. series, which prior editor entered in notes but not in the series field), but got yellow warning about incorrect price entry; whoever entered it didn't do it right, but looking at Hachette's non-series books alone prices are entered many different ways; F before, F after, no F, $, £, decimal/no decimal, etc. So I'm not touching it, but I'm sure mods know what to do. --Username 11:22, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

For future reference, the price should be entered "F8.60" per the example at Help:List of currency symbols (which is linked from the Template:PublicationFields:Price page you go to when clicking on the ? icon next to that field). I've fixed the price. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:28, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

Great; however, what about all the other books' prices? --Username 16:41, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

You can submit the changes if you want to clean them up now. If you decide to do that, be careful with the era for the currencies that changed with time (French, UK ones for example) and to adjust the notes where required. The yellow warning is very new - most of those were added long before we had it.

As you had been told a few times, everyone works on their own projects in the DB - people often assist when someone asks for help but we also try to explain and teach people how to finish their own projects when it is a job that does not require a moderator edit to be completed. If you are not interested to fix these now that you know how, then this request will stay here until someone is interested in it or until it becomes irrelevant because these are fixed by other channels.

You cannot expect people to drop everything they are doing and rush to fix things you can fix on your own just because you happened to find them now but do not want to work on them. That's not how the site works. One book (or a few) - sure, we will assist. As Nihonjoe just did - fixed and explained how you can fix the rest. There are a lot of places where an editor can spend days and weeks cleaning up something and all of us have long todo lists as it is. Why would this be more important than any of the other 100+ things in one's list? :) Additionally, we have a big prices cleanup project going on at the moment so at least the ones that have the wrong format for their listed currency will be resolved while these are being cleaned up. Annie 17:10, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

I wasn't asking anyone to fix anything. Editors who occasionally stop by to add a cover image or think adding the word "the" to people's notes is something important can fix something like this at their leisure, but when you add as many edits as I've done every day for nearly a year now you have to offload some of it. I've fixed thousands of other editors' (and moderators') mistakes here, so obviously I have no problem doing that; however, this "foreign prices" issue is one of many I have no interest in or can't figure out (like varianting) because mods who've been editing here for a decade or more can't quite figure out themselves, so I was dropping it here so when someone who wants to/likes to work on that particular topic feels like doing it they'll know it needs doing. --Username 18:06, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

When you come across data quality issues or gaps in our coverage which you are not in a position to address -- perhaps due to lack of time/energy/knowledge/interest -- please feel free to raise them here or on the Community Portal. Sometimes other, better positioned, editors will be able to help right away while other times it may require a new cleanup report. In this case we have a cleanup report which looks for invalid prices. A month ago it was updated to be more comprehensive. 600 of the 1,680 problem prices identified in late September have been corrected since. Hopefully, the rest will be cleaned up in the coming months. Ahasuerus 19:10, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

And as I've said before, you don't tell me to do anything because this is a volunteer-only website; when you start paying people a salary then you can tell me what to do. You can bully others (and I've read ample evidence of that) but you ain't doing it to me. --Username 18:06, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

ISFDB moderators work with editors and explain the rules which all submissions should follow, i.e. they do tell them what to do. We try to be accommodating and professional about it, but sometimes the same points need to be made over and over again until the editor understands and internalizes them. It's the only way to ensure consistent data quality.

If you believe that a moderator has not been communicating with you in a professional way, please post a complaint here. Stating that a moderator has been "bullying" editors in passing is not the way to approach grievances. Ahasuerus 19:10, 28 October 2021 (EDT)

I don't understand, why there is no space between F and 8.60?--Wolfram.winkler 11:59, 7 November 2021 (EST)

To quote Help:List of currency symbols:

• F: Franc (French). Used in France prior to the transition to the euro in 1999-2002. For consistency, prices should be entered as in "F6.50", though the price may be listed on the publication as "FF", "Fr", or just "F".

Note that there is no space between the "F" and the digit that follows it. This was agreed upon on the Rules and Standards page some years ago. Ahasuerus 12:44, 7 November 2021 (EST)

I can remember me, that between normal letters like DM, F, and so on we must have a space, only symbols dont't have a space like $, € and so on. Look here: When using an alphabetical (non-symbolic) form or abbreviation of the currency (e.g. DM, Lit, Ft), enter a space between it and the numeric amount--Wolfram.winkler 16:15, 7 November 2021 (EST)

It is not about normal letters vs special characters - the difference is about characters vs abbreviated currency names. F is treated as a character and not as the short version of Franc. Once the community agreed on that, it was added specifically into the rules so there is nothing to understand in that case - we have a spelled out rule. Annie 16:38, 7 November 2021 (EST)

I agree that was what as decided and what was documented in Help:List of currency symbols. The wording in Template:PublicationFields:Price could be improved though, especially for non-English first speakers. It currently states "Do not enter a space when the currency is represented by a symbol (e.g. $, £, €, ¥, ℳ). When using an alphabetical (non-symbolic) form or abbreviation of the currency (e.g. DM, Lit, Ft), enter a space between it and the numeric amount." Symbol is a bit ambiguous, especially since all the examples are non-letters. Since F is also a alphabetical and an abbreviation, that makes it more confusing if you don't realize a single letter can also be used as a symbol. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:47, 7 November 2021 (EST)

That’s true. Any proposals on how to reword it? Annie 16:50, 7 November 2021 (EST)

We should generally put a space between the abbreviation and the value. It's simple and logical.--Wolfram.winkler 17:12, 7 November 2021 (EST)

We could add a "Type" column to Help:List of currency symbols. The value in each row -- "symbol" or "abbreviation" -- would make it clear whether it needs a space. "F", "$", "¥", "ℳ", "A$", etc would be "symbols" while "DM", "Lit", "Ft", etc would be 'abbreviations". We would then update Template:PublicationFields:Price with an explanation and a link to Help:List of currency symbols. Ahasuerus 19:58, 7 November 2021 (EST)

Sounds like a good idea. Annie 22:34, 7 November 2021 (EST)

But the point is that it is not an an abbreviation anymore than ℳ is. It just happened to be a letter of the alphabet. Annie 22:34, 7 November 2021 (EST)

I don't understand, why we must have a difference between symbols and abbraviations? We can change the rules. --Wolfram.winkler 16:15, 8 November 2021 (EST)

I don't think inserting a space between the dollar/pound/etc sign and the numeric value would be advantageous, but we can certainly restart the discussion on the Rules and Standards page. Ahasuerus 16:48, 8 November 2021 (EST)

(the rest of the discussion has been moved to the Rules and Standards page) Ahasuerus 18:07, 9 November 2021 (EST)

Canonical name switch - Eric T. Marin

Proposing to switch the canonical name from Eric T. Marin to Eric Marin. Feedback is appreciated, John Scifibones 12:42, 30 October 2021 (EDT)

Writing under one form of the name and editing under the other (with a few slips on the writing side which you may want to recheck by the way) from the looks of it. And I suspect you have more poems coming from him so sounds like switching it over is not a bad idea. Annie 06:16, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I was able to verify the Eric T. Marin outliers published in Scifaikuest: Online. Unable to verify the one title from Star*Line, however, the relevant issue is PV'ed. Submitting the switch, John Scifibones 11:06, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Editions Métal => Éditions Métal

This publisher's name should be changed to "Éditions Métal".AlainLeBris 09:58, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Done! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:07, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Mikael Bourgouin => Mikaël Bourgouin

This artist's name should be changed to Mikaël Bourgouin as credited on books.AlainLeBris 13:05, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Fixed. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:32, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

One of the books that got changed here has a different verifier and the back cover is visible in Amazon France (it is Mikael Bourgouin). I think the publication note there covers the case but I'd leave a note to the PV about the change as it won't show up in their changed notifications and they may want to revise that note to point out the difference between the note and the credit and the reason for it. I've added a note on the author page about the two forms of the name needing to share the same page due to how the software works. Annie 16:25, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I've updated that one so it shows as a variant. See here. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:07, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

This took a bit of work, too. I had to change it to "Mikaal Bourgouin", variant that to "Mikaël Bourgouin", then correct the variant spelling back to "Mikael Bourgouin". This means that "Mikael Bourgouin" and "Mikaël Bourgouin" now exist simultaneously in the database. Not sure if this is significant somehow. Ahaseurus should probably look at it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:11, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Ha, that's new - we were unable to do that before (and I had tried it with another author a few years back).

The question is which one the titles will go to when you type an author and if that won't cause issues elsewhere - because chances are that these may read as the same author in some parts of the code. Annie 19:57, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

Yes, that's very much a concern. Let me try to replicate this sequence of events on the development server. Ahasuerus 20:37, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I have replicated the behavior on the development server. It looks like a bug in Edit Author. Investigating. Ahasuerus 20:53, 1 November 2021 (EDT)

I believe I have fixed the bug. The following author records will be affected:

• Ed Acuna / Ed Acuña
• Edgar Poe / Edgar Poë
• P. J. Herault / P. J. Hérault
• Mikael Bourgouin / Mikaël Bourgouin

Next, I will need to fix similar (but not identical) flaws in Edit Publisher, Edit Series, Edit Publication Series, Edit Award Type and Edit Award Category. Luckily, it looks like no existing records are affected by these bugs. Ahasuerus 16:49, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Fixed by allowing us to use separate authors this way or by closing the loophole allowing them to exist? If we can use the authors that way, will also EditPub and so on honor what you type and get you the correct author? If you closed a loophole, should I go and clean up these 3 (uhm 4 - I cannot type apparently) and warn the PVs on what happened and why? Annie 17:10, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

I am afraid I wasn't clear. I meant to say that I fixed the bug in the software that allowed these author name pairs to be created. Prior to this fix, if you created a new author record, e.g. "Test", and then used Edit Author to change its canonical name to "Jules Vérne", the software would let you do that. Post-fix, the software will produce an error and explain that you can't do that because we already have "Jules Verne" on file.

Please note that, since the author name "pairs" listed above are not supported by the software, you may need to change one of the names to something different like "Ed Acuna1" first, fix everything, then change it back. Ahasuerus 17:44, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. Suspected so - that's why I asked for clarification - I know that e/é and the rest of these pairs are indistinguishable for our software (until we get to Unicode anyway) and we rely on these names being unique in some places of the code so wanted to make sure where we are at. I was having a small hope we can now do these but oh well :)

Author merge should sort them out as well:) I will fix these, add notes explaining why they need to be together and notify all the PVs (and any other active editors who worked on the titles) involved whose record change due to this. Thanks! Annie 18:04, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Sure thing. Ahasuerus 18:11, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(edit conflict) How difficult would it be to change the software to allow both by switching everything to use UTF-8, and therefore allow different entries such as "Mikael Bourgouin" and "Mikaël Bourgouin"? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:07, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Full Unicode support is certainly our ultimate goal. Unfortunately, it's one of the biggest tasks on the To Do list. Ahasuerus 18:10, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(conflict...) I remember asking that 5 years ago - we need that so that small and capital letters in Cyrillic are treated as the same letter from search (the same way A/a a are treated as the same Latin letter) - which makes capitalization of Cyrillic titles more important than anywhere else - because otherwise you cannot find them (unless you search for the transliteration instead - you are still better off searching via google though so that's why there is that secondary google search if the local one does not find something). So I will be the first to say that we really really need that. But I also know it is not trivial :( Annie 18:16, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

(unindent) Edit Publisher, Edit Publication Series, Edit Series, Edit Award Type and Edit Award Category have been updated to prevent editors from accidentally creating duplicate records. The bugs were even worse than in Edit Author, e.g. you could change an arbitrary publisher name to "ACE Books" (note the case.) Hopefully all fixed now. Please let me know if you come across any issues. Ahasuerus 19:14, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

And unlike the author names, some of these could have been changed by anyone. Thanks or fixing the bug! Annie 21:32, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Goodreads

Just a heads up that I tweeted a request on their Twitter asking if ISFDB can use their cover images (many not on Amazon) without having to save and upload to our Wiki; doubt they'll respond/agree but if they do, great. --Username 18:23, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Cool. Let us know if they reply. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:41, 2 November 2021 (EDT)

Odd Mods

So I noticed someone the other day entered some info for an Evergreen (division of Grove) book, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?424, and as usual I check to see what other related books may need entering/fixing, and noticed 1 book had the wrong format, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?286274, so I changed it to TP. Then I got this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+R, where the top rejection --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/myrecent.cgi?0+R shows a list of recently rejected submission for the logged-in user. For you, it shows your recently rejected submissions, for me it shows my recently rejected submissions, etc. Only you can see that list for your rejected submissions. Please provide a direct link to the rejected submission. Ahasuerus 12:09, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

is from a mod I had problems with months ago when he threw a tantrum because I fixed some info he got wrong and then recently when I did the same again. He's rejected my edits twice recently, once to reject an updated picture of Donald Trump which showed him full-on and happy instead of sideways and sad, adding "No politics on ISFDB!", as if an image is political, --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

The submission in question would have replaced our current image of Donald Trump from the back cover of a book with a 2024 campaign button pin, which is clearly political in nature. Ahasuerus 12:17, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

and then rejecting the 1 above, which is a mistake because as can be seen here, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/Template:PublicationFields:PubFormat, the dimensions are clearly those of a trade paperback (and none of the other Evergreen books are PB, either). --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I have found the submission in question. The Publication Note field in this primary-verified pub says "This edition is 17.7 x 10.5 cm". Template:PublicationFields:PubFormat says:

• pb - paperback. Typically 7" × 4.25" (18 cm × 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper

Since 17.7 is less than 18 and 10.5 is less than 11, the format should be "pb". Ahasuerus 12:24, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I didn't even notice it until now, but the PV for the Evergreen book is this same mod, so it's another case where he doesn't like me fixing his info that needs fixing. I like how this guy doesn't approve any of the other edits I have in the queue but only picks those he can reject, even though neither of them should have been rejected. It's almost as if he's doing it out of spite because he's still angry about our past dealings; nah, that can't be it, that would be childish and unprofessional, right?. On a related note, the first few edits in my queue relating to Shroud Magazine were "put on hold" recently by another mod until I answered a question he had for me, but since then more recent edits about Shroud have been approved while those remain; was the hold really taken off after I answered his question or are they still on hold? --Username 09:51, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Yes, I removed the hold after you answered my questions. Ahasuerus 12:10, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There was no Trump image at all until I added 1 a few months ago, then added the current 1 because it seemed to be a rare 1 and was bigger and easier to see; I was never happy with the sideways view and unhappy expression so decided to replace it with a full-view happy photo, and that was the first 1 that came up; no political intent was intended. Since you obviously disagree I will leave it as it is now. The Evergreen books are all TP except for a couple of supposed HC, so I find it hard to believe they switched to PB just for this one (might be a trimming issue as mentioned above); if so then all the other TP should be PB, too. As for my remaining Shroud edits, I'm just going to cancel them and do them again so they'll go to the top of my list since they seem to be lost where they are now. --Username 12:47, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

I've grabbed a PD image from Wikimedia Commons that shows him smiling, and put that in place. That should also avoid the problem of using a campaign button. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:48, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There are two issues here. First the Trump image that is so clearly political, that only a completely blind person would not notice it. I was probably the first moderator to see it, so I was the one who had to reject it, as any moderator would have done. In my opinion there should never have been a picture of that horrible man uploaded, but opinions don't matter here.

Second is the submission to change the format of a publication that has a primary verification by an active editor. As has been explained to you again and again, for this kind of change you need to contact the verifier, so start acting like the professional you claim to be. After I rejected your edit, I added the dimensions to the notes, because the Library of Congress has them wrong. On reviewing this pub, I noticed it should have been moved to Evergreen Black Cat / Grove Press, when this form of the publisher was entered in ISFDB in 2018. I corrected this now. --Willem 15:35, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

All authors should have a photo if one is legitimately available. To not have one for Trump would be just as political as trying to use a campaign button (just in the opposite way). I'm no fan of the man, but having a picture of him here has nothing to do with anyone's opinion of him or what kind of person he is or isn't. Let's try to keep that in mind. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 15:43, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Just like I said, opinions don't matter here. --Willem 15:48, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

As I mentioned on Username's Talk page the other day, political statements are not allowed here and that includes statements posted on the Wiki. There are plenty of other places where people can share their opinions of politics and politicians. Ahasuerus 16:44, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Point taken. Sorry, won't do it again. --Willem 16:47, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Submission Search implemented

The "Moderator Links" section in the navigation bar has been updated with a new option -- Submission Search. At this time it lets you enter a user name (case sensitive due to Wiki limitations) and then gives you a list of the most recent approved submissions created by the user. The table layout is the same as what you get on the Recent Approvals page. You can page through the displayed results 200 submissions at a time.

If everything looks OK and we don't run into performance/other issues, we can consider adding additional functionality, e.g. the ability to display rejected submissions, limit the search by date, etc. Ahasuerus 18:38, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

There is a bug with names that have a space in them: try to search for Scriptor Praesensionium or Scott Latham. And no amount of quotes seems to help. Annie 11:43, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks, I'll take a look. Ahasuerus 12:39, 15 November 2021 (EST)

I believe the bug has been fixed. Here is what we get when searching on "Scott Latham". Ahasuerus 19:56, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Artist Chaffe

Author Record # 27922, Chaffe lists no other information and only one record for cover art Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1967. On Oct 4, 2021 Heritage Auctions sold the art that was used as the cover for that magazine. https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/doug-chaffee-american-20th-century-the-throwaway-age-worlds-of-tomorrow-magazine-cover-may-1967-gouache-on-board-17-1-4-x-1/a/8055-71064.s?ic16=ViewItem-BrowseTabs-Inventory-BuyNowFromOwner-ThisAuction-120115. They give credit to Douglas Chaffee and he signed the art in the lower right. I think this record should be merged into Author Record # 26145 and record 27922 be deleted. I have submitted a request to change the artist of Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1967 from Chaffe to Douglas Chaffee aardvark7 17:09, 6 November 2021 (EDT)

We credit as per the publication. I was able to find this issue at Internet Archive and the table of contents has "Cover by Chaffe". I rejected your edit and instead made it an alternate name. Please remember that, for cover artists, we allow the use of secondary sources to add credits (using the canonical name) for uncredited cover art; however, we don't replace credited art using secondary sources. Hope that makes sense. If not, please ask questions. Thanks for finding this. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:08, 7 November 2021 (EST)email

The main thing is that Douglas Chaffee got into the record as being the artist. aardvark7 13:58, 7 November 2021 (EST)

One Against the Legion

Hello Mods. I have a copy of [16] however although the prices on the back match those of the record the copyright only has "Published in Great Britain by Sphere Books Ltd 1977" and not the "Reprinted 1979". How should I enter this publication please ? --Mavmaramis 12:57, 8 November 2021 (EST)

Captive Universe

Publication Record # 262970 shows no data of publication. For this ISBN, Goodreads has a date of June 15, 1976 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2835449-captive-universe. ISBN Search also shows a date of 1976 but a month of January. Record show 2 primary verifications: Syzygy last action 2016 and Don Erikson last active 2020 aardvark7 15:51, 8 November 2021 (EST)

Resurrecting a rejected NewPub

As The Apollo Murders has been deemed OK for inclusion here, does anyone care to unreject my original attempt to submit it from last month? I assume the original NewPub (which adds a different UK edition) could be accepted, and then the duplicate title record merged with the existing one - as opposed to having to redo it all as a new AddPub submission? ErsatzCulture 19:14, 9 November 2021 (EST)

It is still borderline but it does get marked as SF everywhere so... let's keep it for now. Unrejected, approved and merged and I dropped a note to the original moderator so he knows what happened here and why. I have a very vague memory that Fixer actually sent that one in and I did not like it (too borderline that early on) so sent it to wait post-publication - and I had not gone back to the October titles again. Annie 20:30, 9 November 2021 (EST)

Everything about this book screams Techno Thriller, but at least his other book[17](ages 3-5) has some spec fic(advanced tech/magic gets cardboard box into space) in it, albeit for toddlers on someone knee.Kraang 21:22, 9 November 2021 (EST)

Two editors and one moderator decided that there is something borderline enough to include it. I’d rather err on the side of inclusion. We can always delete it when someone reads it and we decide it is not ours. :) Annie 01:21, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I actually picked this up yesterday when the ebook was dirt cheap in an Amazon daily sale (which is what prompted me to check if anyone else had added it here). Unfortunately there are several hundred other books that are prioritized above it in my TBR, so it'll be a long while before I personally get round to seeing how speculative or not it might be... ErsatzCulture 05:11, 10 November 2021 (EST)

You know, there is a small part of my brain that is screaming in my head that if it is in space (and set in 1973), it must be ours - even if all they do out there is grow potatoes or kill each other. Annie 14:35, 10 November 2021 (EST)

At the risk of getting way off-topic for the moderator page, I'm reminded that the Patricia Cornwell space-set mysteries puzzled me due their lack of inclusion. I did wonder whether to submit them - NB: I haven't, and am not likely to ever, read them - but I assumed that they'd maybe been picked up by Fixer and rejected? Although perhaps Thomas & Mercer isn't an imprint that Fixer watches? ErsatzCulture 17:48, 10 November 2021 (EST)

I haven't read them, but the descriptions I've read make them sound like near-future thrillers with some science fictionish elements. So, based on that, I'd consider them on the fence for inclusion. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:33, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Lloyd

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:MA_Lloyd; I came across a book with this editor's name and his ISFDB page has a stray comment from someone on the wrong page, in case anyone wants to move it to the right page. --Username 10:21, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Done. Thanks for the heads-up. Ahasuerus 20:05, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Dark Drabble Anthologies or Dark Drabbles Anthologies?

I'd like to index the third anthology of drabbles in a series edited by D. Kershaw for Black Hare Press. I have a contributors' copy for this volume and the title, as given on the title page, is Monsters: A Dark Drabbles Anthology (note the plural of 'drabble'). The page after this lists four other titles under the heading 'Dark Drabbles Anthologies' (again note the plural use of 'drabble').

However, two other titles in the series have been listed on the ISFDB (one of them by a contributor to the book concerned who has provided a primary verification) - Worlds and Apocalypse - with the subtitle of each volume given as 'A Dark Drabble Anthology' (note the singular of 'drabble'). They are together listed in a series called Dark Drabble Anthologies with 'drabble' in the singular again.

Looking up each title on Amazon and using the 'Look Inside' feature, both the Worlds and Apocalypse volumes are subtitled 'A Dark Drabbles Anthology' (i.e. 'drabble' in the plural) on their respective title pages (although Amazon has assigned them a variant subtitle for marketing purposes in its database). Also, the covers of the two books indicate that they are numbered 'Dark Drabbles #1' and 'Dark Drabbles #6', respectively.

My question is this: Should I submit an entry about Monsters using the subtitle as it appears on the book's title page or should I use the singular form of 'drabble' so as to make this volume conform with the existing entries in the ISFDB? Greg--Explorer1000 17:47, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Use what the title page says :) Annie 19:20, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks Annie! That's what I thought should be the case. I guess the titles of the other two books in the series and the series title should also be updated before working on the entry for volume #3?--Explorer1000 19:26, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Yep. Ping the PVs. There may be a different copy floating around as well (correction on part of the print run? - these are PODs most likely so easy to do). So we check with the PV even if we can see the book on Amazon now. Annie 19:29, 13 November 2021 (EST)

OK. That's reasonable.--Explorer1000 19:43, 13 November 2021 (EST)

Gorman Book and Other Problems

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?80385; Did some work on Ed Gorman's Sam McCain series since there was lots of wrong/missing info; this particular book I believe was missing the Carroll & Graf edition, although I'm not 100% sure because by the time someone got around to approving it I'd done a lot of other edits and couldn't remember anymore. However, I wondered why it was approved and yet there was still a pending edit on my list with the same title; when I looked at the record, Gorman's name is there twice. I highly doubt that I did that when I made the edit, so I figured I'd wait until someone approved the remaining edit. Someone just did, and all the info I entered is there now, I think, but Gorman's name is still there twice. I have no idea what happened, but someone might want to take a look and see where the chain broke. Also, while coming here to write this note, I had to log in again after not having to do it for a long time. I've also noticed recently that searching records is taking longer than usual; there seems to be a delay on pages that have more than a couple of entries, and when you go back to a previous page it takes a few seconds for the record link you just clicked to change colors so you know it's been clicked. I don't know if others are experiencing this, but other sites I go to don't seem to have a problem, so I don't think it's my laptop. I logged in again, so that's taken care of, anyway. --Username 12:33, 14 November 2021 (EST)

Hmm...simply removing the second one doesn't work, so there's something definitely fishy about it. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 14:06, 15 November 2021 (EST)

It is a kinda known issue - you need to replace one of the two with a different name (I add 1 at the end usually). Approve that. Then you can remove it with a second edit. :) Annie 14:54, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Yeah, I figured that would work. I wanted to make sure the right people knew about it. :) ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 16:30, 15 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for letting me know! I thought we had a cleanup report for this scenario, but maybe not. Let me take a look... Ahasuerus 16:43, 15 November 2021 (EST)

A new cleanup report has been deployed. I expect it to find 2 more pubs with duplicate authors when it runs tomorrow morning. Ahasuerus 09:12, 16 November 2021 (EST)

Serials without Standard Parenthetical Disambiguators

The following titles comply with standards and may be removed this cleanup report

• Castles in the Sky - 6 titles
• Creative Destruction - 48 titles
• Echoes from Dust - 60 titles
• Keepers of the Ageless One - 20 titles
• Near Zero - 46 titles
• The Cavern of Serpents - 5 titles
• The Night Companion - 9 titles
• The Voyage of the Princess Ark - 36 titles
• Trigger Warnings - 9 titles

Thanks in advance, John Scifibones 09:41, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Done. Annie 12:15, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Here are a few more

• The Witches' Bane - 21 titles
• My Name Is Daedalus - 6 titles
• Murder in New Eden - 22 titles

Apreciate your attention John Scifibones 14:49, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Done. I also fixed a couple capitalization issues ("With" is never capitalized in mid-title) :) Annie 13:40, 2 December 2021 (EST)

A few more which can be removed

• From the Ashes of Our Fall - 5 titles
• Living Standards - 32 titles
• The Dead Bine - 41 titles
• The Masterful Timepiece - 5 titles
• Volatility Cycles - 19 titles

Apreciate your attention, John Scifibones 08:37, 15 December 2021 (EST)

Just a reminderr John Scifibones 19:27, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Worldcon beats pressing Ignore I am afraid :) All done - although "The Dead Bine" was really "The Dead Bin" ;) Annie 20:32, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Better to misspell here than the actual title! Thanks John Scifibones 20:42, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Condor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?19977; 70's Condor was a cheap paperback house; 40 years later Condor is not the same publisher. --Username 13:34, 19 November 2021 (EST)

Sixth Month of the Condor

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?254915; Open Library page says June, copyright page of Archive.org copy, https://archive.org/details/waltdisneyproduc0000clar, has a 06 at the end of the page; is that what Scholastic used to denote month of publication? Also, the long-gone PV has a stray message on the wrong page of their board. --Username 16:18, 21 November 2021 (EST)

What Happened Here?

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?271797; One of the edits I made today was for an ancient Boy Scouts anthology of genre stories, but my edit field has been cleared and that book isn't in my approved edits list. Checking the book's record, my note about where I got info from is there but many of the stories don't have the page #'s I entered and the edit history doesn't credit me at all. What is this? --Username 11:04, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Looks like a system's hiccup (either of our software, or - more likely - of the internet / server connection). This happens very seldom, but it does. Stonecreek 11:12, 22 November 2021 (EST)

It errored out. Happens occasionally - not much anyone can do besides redoing the submission in case it did not get through (as usually part of it goes through and part of it fails). As you can see, it happens less than once a month usually. You just ended up being this month's recipient of the glitch. Annie 11:39, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I am afraid the linked page is moderator-only, so Username can't see it. Here are the dates of the 2020/2021 errored out submissions:

• 2021-11-22 09:17:07
• 2021-10-31 08:50:35
• 2021-09-03 21:40:09
• 2021-08-10 19:21:53
• 2021-04-09 19:03:27
• 2021-03-19 18:41:44
• 2021-03-13 18:45:32
• 2020-09-24 15:28:30
• 2020-07-02 01:38:06
• 2020-06-08 06:48:00
• 2020-02-25 01:03:37
• 2020-01-16 07:34:40

Ahasuerus 14:03, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for posting these - I totally forgot that this one is not visible. Annie 14:30, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I re-entered rest of info that got lost, so now it should be complete once approved; I also amended my note with today's date and my name so nobody working on this later (which is likely since almost every name entered on ISFDB is different in the book) doesn't think someone else entered partial page #'s and fixed some names and then I stumbled along and finished it off. --Username 17:17, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Today I clicked on my errored out edits and was surprised to see my edit that's mentioned here; does it go away by itself or can it be deleted, or does it just stay there? --Username 17:34, 19 December 2021 (EST)

My two from 2016 and 2017 are still there, so I suspect they will only go away if there's another glitch of a different sort. ../Doug H 09:50, 20 December 2021 (EST)

Author Merge Request

Hi.

For F&SF September/October 2019, SFJuggler is the PV.

I noticed a title " Films: Love Death + Some Regression", which is an essay noted as by "Karen Lowachee" at http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?738088. I believe the author name is a typo, and the author should be "Karin Lowachee". The Amazon kindle preview notes "Karin Lowachee". "Karen Lowachee" has no other titles in ISFDB, but "Karin Lowachee" does, and they appear in F&SF also, of a similar type.

I checked with the PV and SFJuggler concurs that a correction to "Karin Lowachee" should be made. I understand that the Authors must be merged, to the "Karin Lowachee" author name. There should be no records left for "Karen Lowachee".

My understanding is that a Moderator must do an Author Merge.

Thanks. Dave888 13:29, 22 November 2021 (EST)

A merge is needed if there is more than one title under the wrong author name and you do not want to update all records one by one. In the case of just one title, you can simply update the record here and the mistaken name will get auto-deleted as soon as it is approved. Authors are matched based on the name, not the ID. So:

• Check with the PV (there are two of them and both are very active) to make sure
• If one of them checks the magazine and agrees, submit the edit :) Annie 13:33, 22 November 2021 (EST)

PS: Even if we go for a merge and not an edit, the "check with the PVs" is a mandatory step :) So... start there. Annie 13:34, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I'll check with Rtrace also. I already checked w/SFJuggler.Dave888 14:13, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Rtrace OK obtained, and edit on author name submitted. Thanks for your help.Dave888 11:17, 23 November 2021 (EST)

Black and Blue question

Publication Record # 460949 is an ebook for Black and Blue by Gena Showalter. The record shows it has an ISBN of 978-1-4516-7162-9. The record also states from Amazon a KINDLE page count of 401. Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/23692680-black-and-blue shows both an ebook with ISBN 978-1-4516-7162-9 AND a Kindle version with an ASIN of B00BSB2AMG, the same ASIN that Amazon shows for the Kindle version. Aren't these two different books rather than what looks like one in the DB?? Audible also mentions the Kindle version and links to the Amazon page. Barnes and Noble https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-and-blue-gena-showalter/1114818769?ean=9781451671629 mentions an ebook (Nook) with the ISBN. Curious in Indy aardvark7 14:44, 22 November 2021 (EST)

It is the same book available in 2 formats. We don’t separate the ebook formats as separate records unless the publisher does with a separate isbn/cover/something else. There are a few publishers that issue separate ISBNs per format. For all the rest the ISBN is for all eBooks essentially - some stores use it, some (Amazon since last year) don’t. Until last year, the ASIN record in Amazon also carried the ISBN (and until a coupe of years ago, they were also visible on the Amazon page). :) Annie 14:56, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Many Goodreads records come from the Amazon database as it existed at a certain point in time. In a way, it's similar to our database since many of our records also come from the Amazon database as it existed at a certain point in time. The result is that our data and Goodreads data can vary -- even when the original source is Amazon's core database -- because we took snapshots at different times. Throw in the fact that our data entry rules differ and it can get confusing. It's one of the reasons why it's important to include the "snapshot date" when recording where our data comes from. Ahasuerus 15:33, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Annie from what I am hearing from you, unless the cover is different, treat Kindle & ebooks as the same book, right?? aardvark7 16:31, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Or unless there is a "EPUB ISBN" and "MOBI/Kindle ISBN" and "PDF ISBN" printed in there which are different or there is an extra story in one of them or extra excerpt or something along these lines. Officially each format is supposed to have its own ISBN but that's expensive and only a few (mainly children books) publishers do that. So everyone has an eISBN instead (which in theory does not exist but in practice does) and if there is a publisher site, they contain links to Amazon (with ASIN), B&N (based on the ISBN), Apple, Kobo and so on. See this one for example (I was just working on editions of this book so I had it handy). Look at "Product details" and the link on the right. The Amazon link is transformed into an ASIN link if you click on it because this is what Amazon wants these days :) But it is the same book even if Amazon does not show the ISBN anywhere on the product page anymore. Goodreads have two records for this one though: ASIN based and ISBN based - just like for the one we started the conversation with. It is how they do things these days - not very consistent but that is a somewhat common pattern with eBooks - they keep Kindle and eBooks separate for the most part. We don't. :)

Small publishers can be trickier (no site very often) but they are similar. Not all Kindle books have ISBNs (you don't need one if you are exclusively Amazon) of course.

Take for another example this one - I looked at the three available formats from my library (epub, mobi/Kindle and the Overdrive ebook (which is not sold - it is a library format)) - looked as in "downloaded all 3 and checked to see if they are the same). It is the same book inside. Hope all this helps. Annie 17:19, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Nathalia Sullen

Nathalia Sullen artist record 264974 is the same person as Nathália Suellen artist record 177821. All books in the data base are listed under Nathália Suellen except for the 7 books listed under "The Dark Queen" series. Bio information and websites are listed under Nathália Suellen. I am trying to check "Look Inside" for any books on Amazon to see how the name is listed in the book. I would say Nathália Suellen is her legal name. I have been able to check Black and Blue, Coral and Bone there and they show Nathalia Sullen. The Gathering Dark, Last Kiss Goodbye and Splintered either do not show the cover artist or there is no Look Inside. The artwork for these 3 can be found at https://www.kaifineart.com/nathaliasuellen and https://coverart.nathaliasuellen.com. I will see what I can find about the others. Dark Descendant uses Nathália Suellen aardvark7 16:28, 22 November 2021 (EST)

Part 2. All books in data base looked at on Amazon "Look Inside" Dark Descendant, Unhinged, Untamed, Ensnared, Roseblood, Odd & True show Nathália Suellen. Jinn & Juice, Illusionarium don't give cover artist. Wolf at the Door does not have database version on Amazon. All others show Nathalia Sullen aardvark7 16:59, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I would submit a request to merge these two records together but I am not sure how to go about it. As you can see from what I have found, books have used both versions of her name and some books that are under Nathália Suellen used Nathalia Sullen for her name. aardvark7 09:08, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Since the spelling is different (Sullen vs. Suellen), we would not merge these. We would pick one of the two as "canonical" -- usually the one she is better known by or has more credits as -- and make the other an alternate name/pseudonym. For any art record credited to the alternate name, we would make a variant title credited to the canonical name. Once all of that is complete, the alternate name's bibliography would appear empty and would point people to the canonical name, and the canonical name's bibliography would show the combined results, with anything credited to the alternate name tagged with a form of "as by xxx" ("only as by xxx" or "also as by xxx").

Any records we have not using the name as given in the publication should be corrected (and then variant made, if applicable).

If there is no explicit credit in the publication and credit comes from a secondary source, we generally would use whatever form of name the secondary source used (again, making a variant, if applicable), except we would NOT create another alternate name just to accommodate a variation used by the source but not any publication. In that case, we would use the canonical name and note the secondary source's form of the name. For example, suppose a secondary source called her "Nat Sullen". We would not use that as a credit, rather we would use whichever of "Nathália Suellen" or "Nathalia Sullen" we decide is canonical and record in the publication notes that the artwork is uncredited, but XYZ credits the art to "Nat Sullen".

--MartyD 11:58, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Marty, I am finding her name spelled 4 ways. I believe Nathália Suellen is her proper name. If you go to the "about" section of her website https://gallery.nathaliasuellen.com/about. it shows Nathália Suellen

All of the books listed under the Nathalia Sullen listing, show Nathalia Sullen in the text shown in the Amazon Look Inside. However I know that this person is Nathália Suellen as the artwork for these books can be found on her website at https://coverart.nathaliasuellen.com/page/5. These are the only books I have found so far with the spelling Sullen

All of the books under the Nathália Suellen listing have one of 3 configurations shown in the Look Inside: Black & Blue has Nathalia Suelle, 7 of them show Nathalia Suellen, 8 show Nathália Suellen (Stain shows nothing in the English version but Nathália Suellen in the Spanish). (NOTE a vs á) 3 others do not state the artist in the Look Inside. The books Wolf at the Door and Coral & Bone shown on Amazon are different printing. I have a list of who is who. The art for these books can be traced back to her websites https://nathaliasuellen.com and/or https://www.deviantart.com/lady-symphonia listed under the Nathália Suellen record.

I agree with the "canonical" vs alternate name/pseudonym solution. I guess I am putting in my 2 cents for Nathália Suellen to be canonical with Nathalia Suellen, Nathalia Sullen and Nathalia Suelle being alternates. aardvark7 17:29, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Yes, that seems fine, although I am pretty sure the software will consider Nathália Suellen and Nathalia Suellen to be the same and will not produce a second record based just on the differing diacritical. If that proves to be true, you would need to note it appears as "Nathalia". --MartyD 10:02, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I am willing to try to link all of the books to the name listed in them using Nathália Suellen as canonical. What I don't know is how to link alternate name Nathalia Sullen to Nathália Suellen. After the names are linked, would those 7 books also show under Nathália Suellen? (Are those the "also as bys?) For those books showing Nathalia Suellen as the artist, (currently are all listed under Nathália Suellen), it is easy to make a note that they state the artist as Nathalia Suellen. I assume nothing else would need to be done since you think Nathalia Suellen would not be set up as seperate from Nathália Suellen.

Actually there is a lot of work done when you create a pseudonym. The titles won't show up on the canonical author page automatically - you need to create new parents for each of them (Make Variant, Option 2, all remains the same except for the author where you put the canonical name). Annie 16:17, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well I am missing something or not understanding. The names Nathália Suellen and Nathalia Sullen currently exist. If Nathália Suellen is canonical, how do I go about making Nathalia Sullen a pseudonym of Nathália Suellen? (This is the cover artist not the book author) Am I understanding that I would take the 7 books listed under Nathalia Sullen and reenter them using Nathália Suellen? The would I take the books under Nathalia Sullen and make them variants of the books under Nathália Suellen? And if that is the case, the book Black & Blue is already listed under Nathália Suellen. I would need to make a version where the artist is Nathalia Suelle and make this a variant of the book under Nathália Suellen? Or am I completly out in left field here?? aardvark7 22:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

No - nothing new needs to be entered except for the parents at the end. We just need to connect the existing records. Two steps needed: make a pseudonym (starting form the to-be-pseudonym record, look in the left menu and locate “Make/remove alternate name”. Follow the prompts there. This will make the second author form an alternate/pseudonym for the first. The second step (can be submitted at the same time and is technically multiple steps) is for each title in the pseudonym page, to create a parent record (Open the title record, look in the left menu and locate Make variant, Option 2, change only the author name). let me know if you would like me to do this one so you can see the steps or if you want to try. Or I can give you a step by step with links so you can do it while following them. Annie 22:29, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I gave it a try. It seemed pretty straight forward. Once I got in I think I also saw by what you ment by Option 2. Hopefully I did right. aardvark7 16:54, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Black & Blue is the only book having Nathalia Suelle. It is currently listed under Nathália Suellen. Would one delete the current record then reenter it under Nathalia Suelle? Then Nathalia Suelle would also need to be linked under Nathália Suellen as an alternate name. Or instead of deleting the record can you just change the artist name to Nathalia Suelle? aardvark7 15:01, 3 December 2021 (EST)

No need to delete anything - just update the book (or the title record)'s author field to what it needs to be. Annie 16:17, 3 December 2021 (EST)

PS: And yes - Nathália/Nathalia will be treated as the same name due to how the DB is setup. Annie 16:20, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I will at least go into the books where Nathalia is shown as the artist in the Look Insides and make a note in the Pub Notes that the book shows Nathalia Sullen. All of these books are currently listed under Nathália Suellen. I don't want to mess with Black & Blue until I understand what is going on to get that name as a pseudonym of Nathália Suellen. aardvark7 22:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I didn't see a way to change the artist on Black & Blue so I made a note in the Pub field. This is the only book I can find using Nathalia Suelle and it's a note from the author thanking her for the wonderful cover. I also made notes for the books where for name was spelled Nathalia instead of Nathália aardvark7 16:54, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Annie I have to apologize, I screwed up. I did a wrong cut and paste. On the books where I state "Book text credits Natalia Suellen for cover art", it should read "Nathalia Suellen". I thought I checked and double checked, but I missed it. Fortunately I always check everything one last time after it goes through you folks. I will be fixing these and I again apologize for the extra work I put on you folks. I will now go stand in the corner. aardvark7 19:32, 6 December 2021 (EST)

The only people who do not make mistakes are the ones doing nothing. Let me know if you need me to fix something - if not, submit the changes you need, add a moderator note explaining that you are correcting a copy/paste mishap and we are all set. Annie 19:37, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Syzygy

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Syzygy; added issues of Crank from Archive.org and this PV did #4 but entered a couple of titles wrong; I fixed them and then got nervous because I anticipated the usual complaining about not checking with PV first before changing anything. I was relieved to see the PV hasn't responded since 5 years ago, but now that I think about it they should probably have 1 of those "no longer active" things on their board, right? --Username 21:22, 23 November 2021 (EST)

Francois Roca => François Roca

This author's name should be changed from "Francois Roca" to "François Roca" (see here for example).AlainLeBris 04:06, 24 November 2021 (EST)

That one is a bit more complicated because of the English editions - no argument that this is the guy's name but we need to find out how he was credited (and if it does not have "ç" on the credits somewhere, we will need notes and so on...) I'll work on that in the next days. Meanwhile I added a legal name so we at least have it there. Annie 19:44, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Notes added. Name changed. Annie 23:59, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Fake

http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Verification_requests; Saw a couple of rare entries on this board, but they don't seem legit. --Username 07:36, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks for your open eyes. I have deleted the two spam entries. Stonecreek 08:17, 24 November 2021 (EST)

I blocked the account, too. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:56, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Editing My Edits

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?29309; Can any of you explain to me why, after I discovered there's a recently added Archive copy of Joseph Payne Brennan's rare 1963 collection Scream At Midnight and added it here, and then discovered there's another story in the book at the end that's not on the contents page for some reason and was never entered here until I added it, someone approved the edit of some other editor who entered the missing story again for some reason, removed my note about the handwritten dedication at the front with a 1963 date, and removed my note about the missing story and then slightly rewrote it and entered it as his own note? It's not like he owns a copy; he used Google Books as his source. Can someone remove the duplicated story and reinstate my note about the dedication and my note about the missing story? Didn't the mod who approved this guy's edit notice any of this? --Username 23:32, 24 November 2021 (EST)

Done. It might be that this just was a coincidence of simultaneous approaches. Stonecreek 12:52, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Was my approval and my mistake. With hundreds of edits to approve there are a few that slip through. With no PV only the edit history is there to refer to. I'll remove the extra story.Kraang 13:12, 27 November 2021 (EST)

"Omnibus" of magazine/comic issues

Looking for some moderatorial opinions on handling of a submission that is for a book collecting a three-issue Marvel Comics series of H. P. Lovecraft adaptations. Each of the issues featured one short story and two poems by Lovecraft. The issues contained a new graphical/comics-style adaptation of Lovecraft's works and also reprinted the original works.

1. It seems to me the original issues, while technically comics, should be "in", since they reprint the Lovecraft works. Would they be MAGAZINE?

2. Would we make this new publication an OMNIBUS? If the originals were ANTHOLOGY, I believe we would, but if they're MAGAZINE?

3. If we made this new publication ANTHOLOGY, would we still want to include the the titles of the three original publications?

I think there's also an issue with MAGAZINE/EDITOR and wanting to include that title record in another publication. Does anyone know?

Thanks, --MartyD 12:14, 27 November 2021 (EST)

I would guess that the original Marvel issues should be entered as MAGAZINEs. Reprints of MAGAZINE issues are typically entered as ANTHOLOGY pubs, e.g. see these Astounding reprints. Ahasuerus 20:03, 27 November 2021 (EST)

I’d add the reprints as anthologies - as the originals are magazines, we cannot import them so we cannot make an omnibus. The old comics are non-genre Magazines - just like newspapers are magazines in the dB IMO. My 2 cents. :) Annie 20:42, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Are we going to start adding comic books? I thought they were always out of scope. For an author like Gaiman, this would add quite a bit of new material. TAWeiss 08:51, 28 November 2021 (EST)

These particular comic book issues were a special case -- they contained not only comics but also reprints of the stories/poems which the comics were based on. Ahasuerus 10:09, 28 November 2021 (EST)

I was the one who submitted this. Please note this is a hardback book with ISBN. Do magazines or comics have an ISBN?? aardvark7 11:08, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Normally, magazine issues do not have unique ISBNs. Instead, the whole magazine run is assigned an ISSN. Occasionally, when a magazine issue is sold as a standalone publication, it may be assigned an ISBN.

Comic books follow the same paradigm. To quote Comics.org:

• There is no single identifier standard, today, for comic books. ISBNs are used for some trade paperbacks, original graphic novels and specials. ISSNs are used to identify some series but do not identify specific issues (generally the ISSN is used in conjunction with a publication date).

(emphasis added.) Ahasuerus 12:00, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Also let me note I am not advocating entering the 3 comic books that make up this hardback, only the hardback itself. I agree with the person about comics, they don't belong in the database. This hardback kind of reminds me of record 2556723 Stan Lee Presents the Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of Blade Runner aardvark7 13:07, 28 November 2021 (EST)

I was thinking this would be a collection like this.

Yeah, like that... aardvark7 22:24, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Sorry, I have been having cable problems.... This is definitely not a normal "comics" situation. Since the three issues printed the original Lovecraft works, they would be "in". So what I was thinking when I asked about this is what happens if/when someone decides to enter those three issues? Do we care to represent that this compilation collects those published subsets (and, if so, how exactly), or do we want to ignore that and only have the compilation linked to the three issues by common content? --MartyD 15:39, 1 December 2021 (EST)

We could list the comics and publications in the title description, and links to something like GCD

I agree with Annie's comment above -- I would enter them as non-genre magazine issues. Ahasuerus 17:35, 1 December 2021 (EST)

We have a similar problem with an omnibus including a previously published omnibus - you cannot have an omnibus inside of an omnibus per the rules here - you import the contents of it only instead (boxsets are prone to that). The only way to indicate the connection is via the notes - so that's the only thing we can do here when magazine issues are collected in an anthology... Annie 13:32, 2 December 2021 (EST)

(unindent) So what are the rules for comic books? If they reprint text stories/poems from other publications, then they are in? Do we add in all of the comics written by over the threshold writers. Are these in now, or only if they are reprinted elsewhere? Should we add all of the Sandman series for example since #19 won a World Fantasy Award ? I'm just trying to clarify the exclusion rules. TAWeiss 10:16, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Think of comics as non-genre magazines. See Help:Entering_non-genre_magazines. If an issue publishes a work that is "in", then we would create a record for that issue, but we would only create content records for the "in" content. --MartyD 16:01, 5 December 2021 (EST)

We actually do have a bit of a loophole here. For above threshold authors, everything is eligible except "non-genre (...) non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book." (thus us not indexing articles in random magazines which are non-genre even from Isaac Asimov). We had always had an informal rule not to allow single issues/floppies of comics even from the above threshold authors (kinda on the same premise) but if you read the ROA, they are not explicitly forbidden - they are not considered speculative fiction (so we are in the clear for non-above the treshold authors) but they are fiction so technically speaking they are as eligible as their collected variants and GNs are(which had been allowed so far)... We can get that clarified in the ROA and close the loophole completely by changing:

• "This includes any non-genre works published as standalone books as well as non-genre short fiction, but excludes non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book."

to

• "This includes any non-genre works published as standalone books as well as non-genre short fiction, but excludes non-genre non-fiction which was not published as a standalone book or a genre publication and graphic stories in non-genre magazines".

Or something like that. That covers it all because comics floppies and the UK/Japanese magazines are non-genre magazines under our definitions so we are all set. That also closes another loophole - if you parse that sentence in ROA in a certain way, that makes even genre non-fiction ineligible if it is not in a standalone book or genre publication (NYTRB and any other newspaper magazine with interviews and reviews and articles only and no fiction for example will be completely out which is not how we want to read line - and not how we had been reading it). Time for a R&S thread so we can hash out the wording? Annie 21:50, 5 December 2021 (EST)

Sounds good. I am thinking we should further sub-divide paragraph 4, e.g.:

Works (both fiction and non-fiction) which are not related to speculative fiction, but were produced by authors who have otherwise published works either of or about speculative fiction over a certain threshold (see below). Specifically:

• Included: non-genre fiction and non-fiction published as a standalone publication
• Included: non-genre short fiction
• Excluded: non-genre non-fiction which was not published as a standalone publication or in a genre publication
• Excluded: graphic stories in non-genre publications

We can discuss the details on the R&S page once the discussion has been moved there. Ahasuerus 11:32, 6 December 2021 (EST)

Moonsinger's Friends - inactive PV

I need to make changes to Moonsinger's Friends based on the copy I own. Once I make the changes, I'll PV it. The sole current PV is Bluesman who is apparently inactive so I can't get his consent. Along with needing additional titles and notes, it also needs to have the title changed to "Moonsinger's Friends: An Anthology in Honor of Andre Norton" to match what's on my copy's title page. I believe that should also be the canonical title. I asked the PV of this pub to check her copy and she has submitted a title change to correct the title on that pub as well. Since my corrected title matches the title for the hardcover edition of the same date that doesn't have a PV, is there any objection to me making the same change to this title record as well as the pub record? Phil 22:39, 27 November 2021 (EST)

Since it has been about 5 days since I posed this question and there are no objections, can I reasonable go ahead and make the changes? Phil 17:07, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Languishing submission

Can someone approve this submission that is languishing in the queue for two days. It'll allow me to continue my work on this issue.AlainLeBris 03:11, 28 November 2021 (EST)

No problem, looks good. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, sometimes the quantity of submissions overwhelms us [poor unpaid] moderators! ;) PeteYoung 07:14, 28 November 2021 (EST)

Mars Manual

https://archive.org/details/TheMarsOneCrewManual; http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?21494; Not sure this belongs on ISFDB, except for the reviews, since it seems like non-fiction, not a novel. --Username 00:03, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Well, it is described at Amazon as a flight manual for a fictional trip to Mars, and this would make it eligible and is correctly entried as fiction: it is written like a piece of nonfiction, but that's just a masquerade. Stonecreek 04:33, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Author Link Error

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?732%7C; That error occurs when you click the link on this page, http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User:Gengelcox, so something's wrong there. They made a rare edit on Community Portal recently, which is why I noticed. --Username 21:57, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Just a bad code on the user’s page - a | at the end of the link. The author page is fine: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?732

I’ll drop a note to the editor. Annie 22:13, 30 November 2021 (EST)

And fixed. Ahasuerus 22:18, 30 November 2021 (EST)

Links to file sharing websites

Should we have links to files on file sharing websites like here? TAWeiss 17:27, 1 December 2021 (EST)

It's a very good question. There are quite a few archival sites out there and their legal status is all over the place. Some, like Project Gutenberg, research the copyright status of each file ahead of time. Others, like archive.org, cover so much ground that they can't realistically contact every rights holder; they make things available first and take them down if the copyright owner asks them to. Then there are sites like the LibGen.* family of projects, which claim to comply with relevant copyright laws, but have been in and out of legal trouble for years -- see this Wikipedia discussion. We certainly wouldn't want to link to the last type of archival sites.

In this case all I can find is the following note by the site maintainer:

• please direct all inquiries & legal threats to collectfruit at gmail dot com!

Ahasuerus 18:07, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Since I'm the 1 who added it, I can say that since it's just a PDF I don't see a problem; anything that required signing up or something similar I would never add. As I've written here a few times, a site like Archive.org is more problematic because they add anything and everything, which is why they get complaints so often and have to take stuff down, so that's why I usually add an Open Library ID but not the actual Archive link; if people go to the OL page and decide to click the link that's their choice. A funny thing happened earlier this year where someone uploaded a 1984 issue of S.D. Schiff's Whispers Magazine (most issues of Whispers are very hard to find) to the Archive but when I went back to it a little while later it was gone with the usual notice about being taken down possibly because of complaints, etc. However, recently I saw the same issue again and pounced on it immediately, since it was not in the preview section but was 1 of those full PDF's; there are still several stories in that issue which have never been reprinted, at least not anywhere I know of, so I have several downloaded stories in my printed-out pile waiting to be read (along with countless others). It seems the only difference between the original URL for that issue and the URL there now was a single dash, which made all the difference. There's this message on Annarchive: "ABOUT ⒶNNARCHIVE: though many of the files hosted in these archives were donated or scanned by myself, many more were collected from file-sharing websites, some of which no longer exist. i don't take credit for these files nor do i in many cases know the identities of the original scanners - i'm just trying to make sure these files continue to be available." Since the last issue of Dragon came out in 2007, I doubt anyone complained about their hosting a PDF or it wouldn't still be there. The only reason I noticed this issue was because I got on a run of adding/fixing stuff for books with hologram covers and saw that Amazon's cover image actually displayed the hologram better than the other cover image, so I replaced it and then found the other stuff. --Username 18:46, 1 December 2021 (EST)

Converting NOVEL to NOVELLA / CHAPBOOK (plus more)

Les chevaux de Soulimane: one would think that it's unlikely that this publication holds a novel — looking at the page count: even at 300 words per page (which seems not very common for a text aimed at adults, and quite unlikely for a juvenile) this would well be under the threshold of 40,000 words. So it seems more likely that it's a CHAPBOOK containing a novella.

In addition, shouldn't the publisher be the commonly known Albin Michel? It is according to the OCLC entry I linked to (and according to the ISBN range 2-226-). Also, there's the question what the source for the note that it's not the first printing is: the copyright date is not sufficient when there's no other earlier publication to be found (or is there?) It still might be the first, and the note should reflect this.

Unfortunately the entering & veryfying editor doesn't respond to my questions, posted here. So, how shall we proceed? Stonecreek 07:37, 2 December 2021 (EST)

As I don't want to contredict such a specialist of french publishing and a specialist of "first editions", I've unverified the publication. Do as you want, I strictly don't care. If Stonecreek without the book is better placed than me to determine what is exactly its publisher, so be it, it's not the first that he meddles with data (I remember something along the lines of "first printing"). Hail to your bibliographic genius that transcends time and distance... Note that I do not dare to answer to such luminaries lest I be eclipsed. On a more positive note, even a dimwit could have found this 1987 book that is the mythic 1st printing. AlainLeBris 12:22, 2 December 2021 (EST)

A few quick notes:

• The French "Dépôt Légal" is not the same as the Copyright date in English editions. It belongs to the book, not the text and as such can be used safely for dating of French books.
• A lot of publishers use the same ISBN block for all their imprints. The fact that we had not seen this imprint yet can mean one of three things: either someone was standardizing (we had seen that a lot) OR it is a rare one in our books OR there is a mistake in the record. BNF has the publisher as "A. Michel, 1987" (incidentally confirming an existing 1987 printing and that 1988 is a later printing). OCLC has Albin Michel with holding libraries in Canada and France (via BNF); if you look at OCLC's other editions, the 1987 ones with the same ISBN are also there so it also confirms that this is NOT a first printing. None of these exclude the possibility of it being out from an imprint. If a verifier says that is how the publisher is credited, I'd note a difference with the sources but won't destroy their data

FYI: The OCLC entry under 1987 with a Canadian library - the Canadian library in question actually lists this as the (c)1987, 1988 printing. The French library lists theirs as 1987. ../Doug H 14:40, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Yes but being a French book, I kinda trust the French record more than the Canadian one (which probably should be up on the 1988 record and not on this one but...) :) Annie 14:53, 2 December 2021 (EST)

• The only somewhat valid issue I can see here is the length. However - being a 1987/1988 book, I am not sure of the density of the print (we still have 90-100-pages novels at this point because of small and dense prints). Alain, can you count the words on a page? Just to see where the estimate is going? Thanks! Annie 12:46, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Alain, in your comment you totally missed out on the question that triggered the thread, and that is the length of the fictional text. Even a 'dimwit' like me is able to do a little bit of calculating, and while it's possible that there are about 350 or more words on every page, I strongly do think that this is unlikely for a juvenile at that time of publication, and that's why I asked about a word count or an estimate of it. The other questions arose while looking at the thing (and it was WorldCat that had put just Albin Michel as the publisher). So, please stay friendly in tone, and remember: it's highly ethical to answer questions when asked. Thanks in advance, Christian Stonecreek 13:35, 2 December 2021 (EST)

Kipling: Above the threshold?

Hi, I just searched for his novel "Kim", which seems to be nongenre, but I would have considered Kipling above-the-threshold. I'd estimate he'd be similar to H. G. Wells in the proportions of genre / nongenre works. Any input would be welcome. Stonecreek 11:46, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I'd consider him ATT. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 12:06, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Kipling was all over the place. He wrote a couple hundred pages worth of science fiction stories, another collection worth of supernatural stories, animal/children's fantasy stories like Just So Stories and The Jungle Books, some "weird fiction", horror, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, his popular novels -- Kim, Captains Courageous, The Light that Failed -- were not speculative. He also wrote a lot of realistic stories, but then again, some of them had at least borderline speculative elements, e.g. the "Boots" trilogy was narrated by a dog. Ahasuerus 12:56, 3 December 2021 (EST)

I take it from the answers that it'd be okay to add his nongenre works (?). I'll wait for the weekend to pass, and then add Kim if there's no massive contradiction. Thanks for your input so far! Christian Stonecreek 01:14, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Aberrant Dreams

"A Shogun's Weapon" entered by PV, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?270300, but "A Shogun's Welcome" here, http://www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/k/k00006.htm#A18, and here, http://darrkenium.blogspot.com/2006/01/some-publications-im-in.html. PV doesn't respond to messages, so what's to be done? --Username 13:37, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well, that seems to have changed. He last answered to a question in November, and is occasionally around (mostly at weekends, I think). So just try to question him about the piece. Stonecreek 13:57, 3 December 2021 (EST)

Well, I questioned him, but I see that a question I asked back in February was never answered so I'm not holding my breath for this one. However, I found this, https://web.archive.org/web/20060630044423/http://www.hd-image.com/aberrant_dreams/stories/spring_2006/a_shoguns_welcome.htm, so I think it's clear what the real title is. --Username 14:13, 3 December 2021 (EST)

So, the best you / we can (or should) do is: wait for the weekend to pass, and then act (if there's no answer and you don't wanna do it on your own, just give me a reminder on Monday). Christian Stonecreek 01:09, 4 December 2021 (EST)

I'm just going to change it to the correct title and add that archived link. If PV ever responds and somehow the title really was Weapon in the zine I can always change it back, although I doubt that will be needed. --Username 11:36, 4 December 2021 (EST)

The Future is missing

Hi, it seems one specific magazine issue is missing, according to this thread. Christian Stonecreek 04:56, 4 December 2021 (EST)

Not missing - just hiding between other things on the board. It had been found, brought to the light and approved. Annie 05:35, 4 December 2021 (EST)

The Problem

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5170361, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5170358; mod apparently needs to change publisher to preserve notes, so someone can do that if they wish. --Username 19:09, 10 December 2021 (EST)

I've done a bit more research and I can find Publisher Update submissions by non-moderators in the recent approvals. Are you certain that you are not able to update the name in the publisher record? @Ahasuerus, Is there a list of edits/fields within edits that are only available to Moderators? I know that an author merge is usually requested on this board, but am not sure what other functions require higher privileges. Are there any edits where fields are locked except for Mods? That seems to be the issue that Username may be experiencing. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:32, 12 December 2021 (EST)

As far as I know, we don't have a list of fields which are only editable by moderators. It's supposed to be covered in field-specific mouse-over and Wiki-based Help pages. In this case, the mouse-over Help reads "Only moderators can edit publisher names" and Help:Screen:EditPublisher says "Note that only moderators can edit this field once the publisher record has been created."

The other frequently used field which can only be edited by moderators is "Canonical Name" in Author Editor. Also, in Advanced Search, Author and Publisher merges can only be done by moderators. (The ability to edit Award Categories used to be restricted to moderators, but the restriction was lifted a couple of years ago.) Ahasuerus 13:08, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Thanks. That explains it. I've updated the publisher per Username's original edits. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 14:07, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Brazzaville

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?253751; This book got confused with another William Morrow book, and the 600 pages was actually 300+; I fixed that and other stuff but screwed up replacing the old cover image with what I thought was a better one because I forgot to delete the stuff between the dots; the old image seems to be gone from Amazon, so I found what I think is the only image online that shows the entire cover, front and spine, clearly and uploaded that to the Wiki, so whoever approves the 1st edit, ignore the yellow warning because next edit fixes that. --Username 15:41, 11 December 2021 (EST)

Approved and done. --Username 09:37, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Nick Rodgers / Nicholas Rodgers

Does anyone know whether Nick Rodgers is the ssme artist as Nicholas Rodgers ? --Mavmaramis 04:53, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Judging by a gallery on his website I would say yes, and Nicholas should be a pseudonym of Nick. Do you want to do this? I added the link to his (as Nick) author page. --Willem 05:34, 12 December 2021 (EST)

Could I leave that to you please ? --Mavmaramis 12:28, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Ok, and done. No problem. --Willem 14:17, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Puffin Plus

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubs_not_in_series.cgi?855; (UK) part prevents these 2 from being part of the other Puffin Plus series books; also this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisher.cgi?27275. Puffin Plus wasn't the publisher, just a series. --Username 09:36, 13 December 2021 (EST)

Dragondoom by Dennis L. McKiernan Title Record # 943551

In my search for art by Richard Bober, I can across a cover by him not in the data base. The cover scan I have, came from xigallery but a small version can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38408653-dragondoom They show this as being a mass market book printed in 1990 at 454 pages but they have no ISBN number. On the cover I can read "In US $5.50 (In Canada $6.50) A Bantam Spectra Book" and the book number 28837-6 which does not match the Publication Record # 276425 book with no cover. At a quandary as to what to do or how to proceed. Any suggestions?? aardvark7 10:25, 17 December 2021 (EST)

Well, for the years 1990 & 1991 OCLC as well as Amazon seem to have only the one ISBN that we have in the database. The variant cover might have been scheduled but never got published (or might have been published in a totally different - later - year. As Goodreads doesn't source their data, and has often found to be unreliable (even more than Amazon), my best guess is that this was in fact not published. Stonecreek 12:40, 17 December 2021 (EST)

J. Turner

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=mythos+in+h&type=All+Titles; James Turner at bottom should have a (I), and essay merged with other essay. EDIT: Also, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?80501; art credits probably belong to a separate James Turner. --Username 16:52, 18 December 2021 (EST)

Author email

You may have published a book by Nancy Macon, 703 how I lost a ton and gained a like. I just wished to tell her how much her book meant to me and how difficult it may have been to write it. She is a courageous successful woman.

Sincerely Edna Smith, Hamilton, Ont. ednajsmith@gmail.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ednachristy (talk • contribs) .

The ISFDB is not a publisher. We are a bibliographic site that indexes speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, & horror) works. It seems likely a web query has led you astray somehow. I'm sorry, but we are unable to help you with your request. If you search the author via Google, she may have a social media site via which you can reach out to her. -- JLaTondre (talk) 09:03, 19 December 2021 (EST)

Languishing submission (2)

Can someone approve this submission that is sitting in the queue since 2021-12-17 05:36:44 and will not disappear by itself? The ISBN entered is as on book.AlainLeBris 03:31, 21 December 2021 (EST)

The ISBN seems to have a bad checksum. Will you verify it's correct (see here)? I've approved the submission. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:30, 21 December 2021 (EST)

Dick Smith?

[18]; Exorcist makeup guy, not SF fan guy, added (make-up artist) to his name in an edit, PV'd by someone I don't wish to contact, it's at the top of my edit list with nearly 150 edits in front of it, so can someone approve this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5179291, before the others? --Username 19:03, 22 December 2021 (EST)

Happy Holidays to the Moderators

As I know from past experience it is a laborious avocation. Thank you.--swfritter 19:19, 24 December 2021 (EST)

Heaven

Can 1 of you un-reject this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5179360, since it IS the same art; you can see the girl's head in the hole of the Pocket cover; it's a step-back cover, and opening it reveals exactly the same art, just like the several other foreign Andrews reprints I added edits for recently. Here's a copy: https://archive.org/details/isbn_0671525425. --Username 20:10, 24 December 2021 (EST)

I unrejected & approved it. Please add a moderator note in cases like that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:09, 25 December 2021 (EST)

Jumbled Covers

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?6199+1972+1; I remember this disarrangement happening once before, so I'm sure mods will know how to fix it again. --Username 18:07, 26 December 2021 (EST)

I'm not sure what disarrangement you are referring to. Can you be more specific? You have selected the "View covers for this year" for the books published by Record in 1972. The three images match up to the covers for those three books. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2021 (EST)

Like the previous time this happened, the 3 covers, instead of being one after the other, are 2 in one column and 1 in the other. Whoever fixed it last time discussed it between a couple of mods and discovered there was some coding or other kind of problem and fixed it, so I assume it's the same this time. ALSO, can a moderator accept the 2 edits I made nearly 2 weeks ago regarding Richard O'Brien? The Rocky Horror actor was interviewed and hosted the TV show Urban Gothic, so those 2 belong to him; the PB horror novel is by some American with the same name, and he may have written the poems or not, but the interview and intro for Urban Gothic definitely belong to the actor. I don't understand why the dozens of edits I made today and most days are rushed through and accepted with barely a glance just to make the queue smaller, especially at night, but something simple and obvious like that sits there for weeks. --Username 22:38, 26 December 2021 (EST)

For software issues, your best best is to write a note on Ahasuerus's user page. He is our developer. A mod cannot help you with software issues. For your edits, some of your edits are easy to process, but a number you make difficult because you provide no sources or notes and are impacting verified pubs. Mods don't always have the time (especially during the holidays) to handle the difficult ones and will drift to handling the easy ones. Looking into this one, on 12/14 you changed the Richard O'Brien record to be the actor's biographical information. Five hours later you submitted these two edits which conflict with that prior change. In addition, if the actor is not the author, than the interview does not belong in the database. So, no, these are not easy ones. I will work through them. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Again, when this happened the last time where covers were misaligned, I left a note just like the one above, 1 mod discussed it with another one, they figured out what the problem was and then fixed it. I see that the 3rd cover has a little symbol after the title, and if I remember correctly that's what the problem is. I found it: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Moderator_noticeboard#Cover_Problem.3F. The O'Brien interview probably doesn't belong here, just like the Dick Smith interview I added (makeup artist) to recently because the same editor confused him with the Dick Smith who was a SF fan guy, and that interview was also deleted. So complain to that editor who doesn't check which name they're entering before they make an edit. Why would a horror magazine like Fangoria be interviewing someone in the SF field? Also, Dick Smith's name is on the cover of that issue of Fangoria, image available online, with "Makeup lessons from the Master". I wouldn't contact that editor anyway because they hacked my home page months ago and it had to be locked by mods so they couldn't do it again, in case you weren't aware. The intro I verified in a few seconds from the Wikipedia page for Urban Gothic which mentions that Richard O'Brien, the Rocky Horror guy, was the "Storyteller" of the TV series, thus also the author of the intro for the book version; the book isn't PV'd, anyway, so there was nobody to contact about that one. So no, this isn't something that should take any significant amount of time to accept. This has nothing to do with holidays because it happens regularly, holidays or not. I did a number of extensive edits yesterday (and most days), all of which sat there all day until the 1 mod who seems to work at night just ran through all of them in a few minutes like they usually do. But the Richard O'Brien one needed 2 weeks to think about? --Username 08:21, 27 December 2021 (EST)--

Regarding the covers: As per the discussion you linked to, Ahasuerus made a software change to fix that issue. I gave you the simplest & quickest way to handle software issues.

Regarding the edits: You made conflicting edits in the space of a couple hours. You did not provide sources. Yes, all of that can be looked up, but it takes times. Most of your edits provide sources and those will get processed more quickly. When you make the moderators do extra work for information you already have, there will be less moderators with the time (or even patience given you have been told many times) to deal with it.

I have provided feedback on how to improve responsiveness to your edits. You can choose to accept it or not. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:59, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Another, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?6335+1976+1. Now that I look further, Plon has several pages in the 70's where covers are misaligned, so it seems to be a general problem. --Username 19:22, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Minor Change to Canonical Name

Jess C Scott should be corrected to comply with standards. (Add the missing period). Faster for you to edit than for me to post three title edits and one author update to move the metadata. Thanks, John Scifibones 14:18, 27 December 2021 (EST)

The absence of the period is correct. The author does not use a period as per her website. As such the "However, when it is clearly the author's choice to omit the period, or when the author has a single letter name that is not an initial (e.g. "Harry S Truman") the period should be omitted." comes into play. -- JLaTondre (talk) 15:30, 27 December 2021 (EST)

No problem, I'll edit the titles I have added after they are processed. Thanks for looking at it. John Scifibones 15:45, 27 December 2021 (EST)

We probably need a note in the author note field that the name is per the author’s preference though so it does not get “fixed” by someone without them doing research. Annie 17:26, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Done, John Scifibones 22:37, 27 December 2021 (EST)

Author merge required: Paul Ma[r]gueritte

Spotted these in today's deaths: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?326688 , http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?322795

The former record (with the r) appears to be the correct one, per the links to English and French Wikipedia.

The incorrect version seems to be down to a transcription/data entry error - possibly at some other reference site? - rather than an error in the source pub(s). The author record has a single poem, from a single pub. That pub has a link to a scanned copy on archive.org, and the contents list (specifically page xiv) shows the name spelled Margueritte, so this seems to be a case for merging rather than varianting author records? IIRC author merges are only available to mods? ErsatzCulture 19:40, 28 December 2021 (EST)

The Internet Archive scan (the work is in public domain so the full scan is available without an account) shows the title page has the "r". The two records have been merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:48, 29 December 2021 (EST)

Missing N

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1155697; it's Payne, not Paye. I don't know if changing that would cause note to go away, so I leave it to mods to fix it in order to avoid the usual complaining. --Username 23:25, 28 December 2021 (EST)

Fixed. -- JLaTondre (talk) 07:44, 29 December 2021 (EST)

Lancer Duplicate

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?251+1971; The only book published by Lancer in 1971 that was missing the ID was The Baby Factory; I found a cover on Biblio.com and used the ID to find the missing cover on Bookscans, so that's now complete. However, the Alice Brennan book has a record with no cover but a cover artist mentioned in Paperbacks From Hell according to the note, while there's another record with a cover but no cover artist and a note saying the artist is unknown. So mods may want to decide which record and what notes to keep. --Username 11:11, 31 December 2021 (EST)

Rigby

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?148444; I did a lot of fixes for these magazines; the proofreading was terrible, with different titles in different parts, different names, etc. The editor who entered them here years ago made their own mistakes, too, so it was a bit of a mess. I think I got most of it, but someone may want to look at them to see if anything else needs tweaking. More importantly, the spelling of the editor's name as J.C.H. Rigby was wrong, with their name being JCH with no periods both in those old zines and their recent novels, which I also fixed. So mod will need to change the name to JCH on that page linked above. --Username 17:55, 31 December 2021 (EST)

J. C. H. Rigby and JCH Rigby merged. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:50, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Words Without Borders

I wanted to add the january 2015 issue of Words withojt Borders but spotted that the series entry has a note about first checking with the mods. The theme of the issue is Uchronia so it should be in scope. My personal interest in it is to add a missing short story to Karin Tidbeck's bibliography. /Lokal_Profil 06:46, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Go ahead and add it. I changed the note from "Non genre webzine. Check with moderators who deal with webzines before adding content." to "Non genre webzine. Only genre contents should be indexed." Our moderation system handles the "check with moderators" part. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks. Submission is now up. /Lokal_Profil 17:22, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Two Shadows

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/publisheryear.cgi?646+1997; I added the cover to The Shadow Over Innsmouth, coverless on ISFDB since 2007 when it was entered, but there's another record for the same publication, probably redundant and not needed if mods agree. --Username 18:20, 1 January 2022 (EST)

Duplicate deleted. It would be helpful if you just linked to the actual pubs when you post these type things... -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:34, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Nesbit Collection

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?783292; I wondered why the publisher, Methuen, didn't have any of the hundreds of other books published by them listed when link was clicked, until I realized whoever entered this spelled it METHEUN. Also, E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror is already listed by Methuen in 1983 on ISFDB, so why this was entered is unknown; this image, [19], from Dalby's site shows ISBN that's in E. Nesbit's Tales of Terror here, so where this other ISBN came from is also unknown; is there an edition from the same year where they changed ISBN for some reason? Edit History reveals this wasn't done by regular editors but by a mod and then added to by another mod; no PV, though, so whoever wants to look at it may find it doesn't really belong here, except maybe for the note. --Username 22:46, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Misspelled tags, and tags that are near duplicates

The tag "Detectve" is misspelled and is probably a duplicate of "detective". Also "fatasy" and "handicapt children" and "hyptonism" that I found with a quick manual scan.

Each of these tags has a "near duplicate" that is identical except that it uses spaces instead of dashes:

• science-fiction
• young-adult-fantasy
• young-adult-sf
• near-future
• young-adult
• post-apocalypse
• action-adventure
• mega-engineering
• into-movie
• history-of-sf
• juvenile-sf
• african-american
• young-adult-ghost-story
• time-travel-romance
• occult-horror
• african-american-protagonist
• young-adult-historical-fantasy
• far-viewer
• post-apocalyptic
• post-holocaust
• Young-adult-post-apocalypse
• movie-novelization
• science-fiction-romance
• young-adult-paranormal
• high-fantasy
• sci-fi
• shape-shifting
• young-adult-thriller
• young-adult-alternate-history
• tongue-in-cheek
• African-Americans
• political-science-fiction
• alien-point-of-view
• body-switching
• techno-thriller
• Pre-WWII
• shape-shifters
• civil-rights
• cultural-identity
• out-of-body-experience
• Pre-apocalypse
• single-parent-families
• second-person
• X-rays
• near-death-experience
• South-America
• Middle-East-inspired-fantasy

If you're looking at ISFDB database, this query can be used to find them: select count(*), replace(tag_name, " ", "-") as flat_name from tags group by flat_name having count(*) > 1; Variations of this query can be used to find tags that only differ in capitalization, or plural versus singular, or ones that use apostrophes that aren't needed. --Colink 23:06, 2 January 2022 (EST)

Griff

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?3767; Fearn's Griff pseudonym was used for a cheap 50's novel; other Griff was used by an artist in the 2000's. --Username 12:36, 4 January 2022 (EST)

The Very Best of Barry N. Malzberg - table of contents corrections

Hi.

I have the paper copy of "The Very Best of Barry N. Malzberg", 2013, Nonstop Press. (1499157) http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1499157

I have made a comparison of the TOC and the actual stories in the paper version (in my possession today, checked out of the library) vs the current ISFDB entrees. The current ISFDB paper and ebook versions TOC listed essentially agree, and they are both missing stories and have 1 story in the wrong place/order/page number. If I am not clear, the corrections needed here are essentially the same for both the paper and ebook versions.

Bluesman is listed as the primary verifier for the paper version (none listed for the ebook). The Bluesman Discussion page states that Bluesman is inactive and that I should post about this here.

I am ready to make the edits (1 edit, a number of imports of stories that are missing but are otherwise in ISFDB, and one new entry for the Acknowledgements (i.e., copyright/source info) after I have approval.

Thanks for your help. Dave888 20:15, 6 January 2022 (EST)

We don't index the Acknowledgements as a general rule so that will be just in the notes :) Make sure that the story that is on the wrong page actually is on the wrong page (we go by the book, not its contents page) although a discrepancy should be in the notes. If you are sure that you have the same book and not a later edition/printing of it which added more stories (note that OCLC says "32 stories" so you may want to reconcile that and their list to ours while you are writing notes), go ahead and correct it, adding a moderator note explaining what you are doing and why. Annie 20:34, 6 January 2022 (EST)

1) Thanks for the reminder on the Acknowledgements. I'll handle that in the notes.

2) For the story on the wrong page ("The Lady Louisiana Toy", it appears that the page number entered was a typo. The number entered is "196", and the actual number is "296", both on the TOC and on the page of the book. This also puts it as the last story, which matches the ebook order. So, the ebook and paper TOC matches the corresponding locations in the book when corrected.

3) Regarding the copy I have, it sure appears to be the same edition noted for the tp. It has the same ISBN. It has the same "First Edition, 2013" with no number line. It has the same number of pages and the same price and cover. Checking a few places, so far all of the separate ebook version (Nook, Kindle) that I checked have the same TOC that matches as the paper version I have. In his review comments for Locus, Paul di Filippo's 2013 review notes "some three dozen stories", and mentions one of the stories ("Leviticus: In The Ark") that is in my copy's TOC and not the existing TOC. Taken together, it is likely that his ARC contained the same TOC at 37 and not 33 stories. I concur that the OCLC entry notes 32 stories, but looking at the actual list they have the same 37 stories as my paper copy, in the same order. So, it appears that the summary entry there for 32 stories is incorrect, although they have the correct TOC. What kind of moderator note would I need to use? Would noting that the OCLC summary total is is incorrect be sufficient?

Thanks.Dave888 00:15, 7 January 2022 (EST)

I'd say something like this in the Notes of the publication: "As of 2022-01-07, the OCLC record mentions that there are 32 stories but they list all 37 in the record details." (or words to that effect - feel free to rewrite) thus both dating the note AND explaining what the discrepancy is. If the record is ever updated, our note can also be updated and so on but if we don't notice, we have a record with a date. As for the moderator note - "Working off a copy of the book; to verify after all updates" (if you had not verified yet - some people don't want to verify until they know that all the info is correct because things happen...) is usually sufficient. :) Annie 15:45, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks. That all sounds good. I'll check in if I get confused, and you or someone else will see the edits for approval.Dave888 16:59, 7 January 2022 (EST)

Two related questions on the ebook version. 1) I see a dual ISBN number, " 978-1-933065-55-7 [1-933065-55-9]". Why are there two? Is this really for two different ebook versions, say the Kindle and the Nook? 2) Checking various sources, I don't find either of the existing ISBN numbers are correct for this book. I assume I should update it? Thanks.Dave888 00:08, 10 January 2022 (EST)

That's ONE ISBN only -- in its ISBN10 and its ISBN13 formats. Our ISBN field can contain only one ISBN and we always show both versions when they exist (aka all 978 ISBNs always have both - just look at the paperback as well).

Careful with updating - make sure that it was not there back in 2013 either - this was the ISBN of the epub most likely at the time. Removing ISBNs from old records because the current versions, especially because Kindle/Amazon don't carry them anymore is a very bad idea. If you have the kindle version, mention in the notes that the ISBN is not printed in the book if that's the case - but let's not destroy old data :) Annie 11:23, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for helping me with these ISBN nuances. I do wonder what source the original ebook ISBN numbers came from; I did not find it. The current ebook versions at Amazon and B&N list the same pair of "new" or current ebook ISBN numbers, neither of which match the original here, in addition to the ISBN for the paper version which does match. I'll eventually add the two ISBNs that are in the ebook to the Notes. It appears one is for the Kindle and the other for the Nook at this time. I'll hold off on this aspect a bit to ensure I've got it, and to give you time to let me know if I don't.Dave888 11:54, 10 January 2022 (EST)

The note tells you Amazon.com was the source. In 2014, Amazon still had the eISBNs - they stopped recording and using them in 2019 or thereabouts (making my life miserable for new books) :)

What two ISBNs? You listed just one above and it belonged to both eBooks editions at the time of the book addition (or at least it belonged to the Kindle version - if the publisher uses different ISBNs per format, then we record the ebooks separately). If the book is reissued with a new ISBN, then we need a new publication for that. :) Annie 12:11, 10 January 2022 (EST)

I cannot honestly tell if the current ebooks (same info) I see on Amazon and B&N are a new ISBN or not, as I was never able to find the original information noted. The ISBNs are definitely different than the original one on this ebook, although the book contents appear to be identical otherwise. 1) the "original" ebook ISBN listed here for the 2013-02-28 ebook is "978-1-933065-55-7 [1-933065-55-9]". 2) the current versions I find on the Amazon version are "kindle ISBN 978-1-933065-50-2" and "epub ISBN 978-1-933065-8". For the B&N version, I see a very similar but not identical (the kindle ISBN is different) "Kindle ISBN 978-1-933065-55-7" and "epub ISBN 978-1-933065-58-8". Looking back, I see that I was incorrect earlier about the ISBN info being the same listed on both ebooks. My apologies, and I will still appreciate your guidance on how to handle this.Dave888 12:25, 10 January 2022 (EST)

In 2013, the kindle version carried an ISBN 978-1-933065-55-7. If the current version in Amazon shows a different ISBN, then it is a reissue. :) Annie 17:04, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Not to be too dense here, but there appear to be two ebooks today with different ISBN than the original Amazon ebook. Does that really mean that I need to create new editions for those two ebooks? Sorry for being slow on this.Dave888 18:17, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Nah, you are doing fine - you are just overthinking it a bit. Unless the same book carried both ISBNs at the same time (Russian books often do that as they have multiple publishers and each of them adds their own ISBN on the same physical book), they are different books for us regardless of their format(s) and we want to record each ISBN separately. So we add them as separate records, each with their own ISBN, ASIN/BN number if available, notes and so on. The same way you would add them if they are paper books - these just happen to be ebooks. If the ISBN is the same (or there isn't one and the formats are the same book essentially), we lump them in one record unless it is a known reissue (so all formats stay together if the ISBN was shared/missing and no differences are known); if they are different ISBNs, we add each on their own. There are a few children's publishers that use different ISBNs for their MOBI, ePub and PDF versions so they get 3 records as well (in theory everyone was supposed to do that - use separate ISBN per format; in practice most publishers don't thus our usual policy). Hope that makes more sense? Annie 18:24, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Thanks for helping me get there. I think I have it now. Definitely new editions for the new ISBN ebooks. I'll take care of that soon.Dave888 12:21, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Clear Queue

I'm wondering if anyone's going to accept the 8 remaining edits in my queue; I'm not sending an e-mail to a mod for something so blatantly obvious, especially since the last time I contacted him on his board he was rude, so if you don't want to approve them they're just going to sit there. I'm tired of most of my edits not being approved except in little spurts throughout the day when some random mod has a few minutes of spare time, and then most of my edits get approved at night by the same mod who runs through dozens of them in a few minutes just to clear the backlog. --Username 09:17, 8 January 2022 (EST)

A few minutes is more like an hour or more and your not the only submitter their are about a dozen more. Anyways happy to plow through them.Kraang 23:00, 10 January 2022 (EST)

No offense, but unlike a lot of other editors here I actually double-check all my edits and make sure everything's spelled properly (by the way, you misspelled "your" and "their") and check them again after they're approved to make sure I didn't make any mistakes or didn't forget to add info, which sometimes I did. So it's kind of insulting when most of them sit there, sometimes for a day or two (with the usual excuses from mods about holidays even when the holidays are long over), and then you approve almost all of them in a very short space of time. It leads me to believe that you're not actually checking any of them for accuracy but simply fulfilling a quota, and the very rare occasions (twice, I believe) when you actually rejected my edits you were wrong and the rejections were un-rejected. I believe you only started approving my edits a few months ago after I added a cover image to a German anthology which you had worked on, so it's good that you feel like paying it forward, but I put a lot of effort into my edits and expect the same from whoever approves them. It's all moot, anyway, because the trend on ISFDB these days clearly is e-books and the like, with the mountain of missing/wrong info on older print books being mostly ignored. I've edited here pretty much every day for over a year now and still never have trouble finding plenty of edits to make, and this site was opened to public editors in 2006, so that should tell you something about the abandonment of the physical in favor of the virtual. I've planned to leave here a couple of times now with unforeseen circumstances getting in my way, so hopefully I will succeed shortly; when my edits suddenly stop for a while, that will be a sign. --Username 09:19, 11 January 2022 (EST)

Never mind, I just cancelled all of them. --Username 10:35, 9 January 2022 (EST)

Please remember that ALL edits are approved by moderators "when some random mod has a few minutes of spare time". This isn't our job, and we get to them when we have spare time to spend on ISFDB. I'm sorry you find that frustrating, but the whole site is run by volunteers, so you'll need to find a way to deal with it. It sounds harsh, but that's the way it is with volunteer projects. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:26, 10 January 2022 (EST)

Clarkesworld Magazine

Annie and Rtrace -- I'm looking to add new information for Clarkesworld but want to confirm some issues that you guys are having to deal with when you moderate my entries. Here's my current assumptions: (1) Title should be entered as "Clarkesworld, Month Year"; (2) The issue number goes in the Notes field; (3) Even though Sean Wallace and Kate Baker are mentioned in the masthead, we're just assigning editorship to Neil Clarke; (4) Even though Clarkesworld is published every month in a print, pdf, and ebook (both EPUB and MOBI) editions, for the purpose of the database we're putting it in as ebook. I think that's everything that I've been doing inconsistently. If there's something else you see, let me know. -- Gengelcox 13:10, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Actually, we want all 3 editions: Print, webzine and ebook (PDF, epub and mobi as one record unless there is a difference in contents) - 3 records per month :) However... there is a problem to be untangled first. We have two series: the ebooks and the paperbacks. These need merging and a bit of fixing but there is a problem in how the editors had been credited on some issues so it is not exactly trivial.

So yes for the title ("Clarkesworld, Month Year"), yes for the issue number (in the notes), the date will be YYYY-MM-00 only. If the three editors are credited, we credit all 3 IMO - see the links above - we had been a bit all over the place with that.

So if you want to add our missing issues, work in the series that now holds the ebooks - but feel free to add all three versions (add in one, import in the other 2 for the contents). I will see what I can do about bringing the ones from the print version series into the other one and we will probably need to add the missing webzines now that they are fully eligible as well. But one step at a time. Let me know if something does not make sense. Annie 13:21, 12 January 2022 (EST)

After edit conflict. I generally agree with Annie with the exception of the editors listed in the name field. Clarke is listed on their website as "Editor-in-Chief", with Wallace as "Editor" and Baker as "Non-Fiction Editor". My understanding is that when there is a hierarchy, we list only the main editor and do not list sub-editors. That being said, it's fine to list the other two in the notes. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 13:34, 12 January 2022 (EST)

When the magazine was up for nomination a few years ago, all 3 were listed as editors - I think this is where the 3 names being used came from. I am fine either way as long as we keep it consistent :) Annie 13:36, 12 January 2022 (EST)

That could arise in two ways. Either all three editors happened to be listed on the EDITOR record when the award was added; or if it was long enough ago, the award record was created with whoever was listed in the nomination. I don't think awards is a good way to look at this (See last year's Hugo nomination for Strange Horizons). I could have sworn this was in the help pages, but it doesn't appear to be there. There are a few discussions in R&S with the latest that I could find here. I don't know if that's a consensus, but the gist of the discussion would mean that we would definitely list Clark, with Wallace debatable. Listing a non-fiction editor would seem to be out by that discussion. Since it's been 8 years since this was discussed, perhaps it's time to bring it up again. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 10:53, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I just added two issues. I thought I had already added November 2021, and my browser seemed to confirm it by auto-filling the fields, but I double checked and couldn't find evidence of it in the current database, either approved or pending. Strange. In any case, I'm getting a message that says Unconfirmed for "Clarkesworld" in the Title Series field. Should I be leaving that blank? -- Gengelcox 14:15, 12 January 2022 (EST)

If you look at the links I posted, the series is actually called "Clarkesworld Magazine", not just "Clarkesworld". :) We will fix that when these are approved but for the future, always a good idea to see how we may have called the series.

I don't see an errored out submission either so maybe you closed the browser before submitting last time? I've done that a time or 6... Annie 14:24, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Doh! Of course (for both issues). Thanks! -- Gengelcox 14:26, 12 January 2022 (EST)

R. Levy

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?92474; This should actually be this, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1154861. --Username 16:06, 12 January 2022 (EST)

Fixed. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:45, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Dating publications

The help for entering the date of publications explicitly says what to use: For books, to identify the publication date, try to find a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001". This seems to be pretty clear, but in this argument a moderator has used an interpretation that contradicts the written rules, and is not in line with the latest outcome of a discussion on that topic. The end of that thread enclosed the agreement that a statement in a book should overrule an Amazon date, and I don't see that this has been outruled anywhere afterwards. Stonecreek 01:56, 13 January 2022 (EST)

One of my early difficulties in entering publications was matching a book with no publication date to existing publications of the same title. After failing to find a match in title summary list from the undated (0000-00-00) publications, I would have to search all the dated ones, as people would 'research' a date and use that. At the time I felt that such 'researched' values were misleading, even if the Notes pointed out where the data came from. But having no alternative to offer beyond creating multiple dates (e.g. publication as printed, publication as derived - possibly multiple, copyright - original and renewed) and the bulk of my books entered, I've left the topic alone. But it seems to me that two (?) exceptions to the "document what is in the publication" rule cause more problems (discussion, work, confusion, etc.) than anticipated when they were made. (The other exception being publisher). ../Doug H 08:28, 13 January 2022 (EST)

The help page text is showing one place to look for a date. It does not tell you that this is the only way to determine the date (if it was, we’d have a LOT more 0000-00-00 and YYYY-00-00 books). We allow that field to be filled in based on secondary sources - as long as that they are documented. The interpretation that the sentence means that this is the only way to determine the date ergo we need to ignore all other sources is just weird.

In addition - not keeping the day portion when it is verifiable is losing data which we can have and can be used for research and for differentiating sometimes. That had not been the practice the DB had used in years - we use complete dates for books. Reverting to “month only” makes no sense. Annie 10:41, 13 January 2022 (EST)

PS: More background for the decision above - the date change performed and being reversed by me was not in a single publication as the initial post here implies - all October 2020dates were annihilated with No note added anywhere (ebooks, audio books, audio CD, both US and UK hardcovers). Annie 10:50, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I believe there are a number of issues here:

• Librarians and bibliographers generally record both the "stated" and the "actual" data values when known. The latter are given in brackets, e.g. "Cambridge [Cambridgeshire"] for the place of publication. We do the same for authors and titles: we capture both the "stated" value and the actual value using our "alternate name"/"variant title" mechanism. Unfortunately, the software doesn't support this type of functionality for other fields like dates, publishers, etc, so we are forced to choose between each field's "stated" and "actual"/"researched" values, at least until the software can be changed to let us record both values.
• Template:PublicationFields:Date says:
  1. [top of the page] Dates are in the form YYYY-MM-DD, where month and day are filled in if known, otherwise they have the value 00.
  2. [second bullet] For books, to identify the publication date, try to find a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001"; the copyright date is often misleading, since works can be reprinted.
  3. [last bullet] Books with a January publication date may often be bought in the closing weeks of the prior year; they will show the later year's copyright date, even though that year has not yet started. In these cases, the convention is to use the official publication date rather than to try to identify when a book actually first became available.
• These three statements are confusing at best and contradictory at worst. The first one tells you to use "day ... if known", but the second one seems to tell you to use the month only. Then the second statement warns you not to rely on the copyright date, but the third statement tells you to use the copyright date even though it's possible for a book to say "Published in December 2020" and have a 2021 copyright date.
• The issue of using YYYY-MM-00 publication date values taken from copyright pages over more precise YYYY-MM-DD date values from other sources was debated back in 2006-2007 when ISFDB 2.0 was launched. At the time, the majority of editors believed that exact publication dates used by Amazon and other online booksellers were unreliable and did not necessarily represent actual publication dates. This resulted in a convoluted process of capturing the exact (YYYY-MM-DD) pre-publication date from Amazon, using it to generate the "Select Forthcoming Books" list on the front page, then changing the date to a YYYY-MM-00 date printed in the book when the publication was verified.
• To the best of my recollection, this practice was abandoned in the mid-2010s and we switched to keeping the more precise YYYY-MM-DD date when its source was properly documented in Notes, similar to the way we add and document other types of information -- like cover artist names -- from secondary sources. Unfortunately, I don't recall whether it was done as a result of a formal discussion or as a quiet acknowledgement that the transition to online sales had made full YYYY-MM-DD dates more consistent and reliable across the board.
• To check the current practice, I have compiled a list of primary-verified publications published in January 2021. Out of 126 pubs, only 30 (14 of them are magazines) have 2021-01-00 dates. The rest have full 2021-01-DD dates.
• Re: the 2012 Rules and Standards discussion, it ended with MartyD planning to come up with new Help language and post it for further discussion, which, as far as I can tell, never happened.
• Internally, publishers have always used full YYYY-MM-DD publication dates. The problem was that, in the past, they were rarely made available to the general public unless the book was the kind of bestseller that people lined up to buy on the day it was released (think Harry Potter.) With the proliferation of online sources like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Goodreads, etc, publication dates are now readily available in the vast majority of cases.
• Based on the above, I think it's clear that we need to have a Rules and Standards discussion. At the very least, we need to clean up Template:PublicationFields:Date and eliminate internal contradictions. Ahasuerus 10:55, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Apologies for butting into a moderator discussion, but as the person who kicked off the original talk page conversation about this (not linked in the initial comment for this item), and who inadvertently poured fuel on the fire by digging out the 2012 R&S discussion (that is linked above), a comment. (Some of this looks like it's already been pre-empted by Annie & Ahasuerus whilst I was editing, but I'm too lazy to remove any duplication).

On closer reading of that 2012 R&S conversation, the very first sentence invalidates it as being relevant to the edits that kicked all this off. It states (my emphasis): "If a book has a stated publication date, e.g., "First printing: April, 2010", and it has a known-from-the-publisher actual publication that that is different, e.g., "March 30, 2010", which date should be used in the "Publication date" field?" i.e. that discussion was based on scenarios where the month-and-year in the primary source contradicts the day-month-year from secondary sources.

The edits to (the title and multiple pubs of) The Ministry for the Future, were to change the dates from 2020-10-06 (or 2020-10-08 for the UK hc) to 2020-10-00. None of those yyyy-mm-dd dates (some of which originated from multiple sources, not just Amazon) contradict the yyyy-mm information on the copyright page these edits were based on, unlike the example I quoted from the R&S discussion. To my mind, there is negative value generated by making an edit like 2020-10-06->2020-10-00; some examples of how day-of-month information might be useful are given in my first comment in the discussion page I linked above. In cases similar to that hypothetical example where the entered yyyy-mm-dd value is in contradiction to the month/year value in the primary source, then it's perfectly reasonable to use the latter, but then this should be explicitly mentioned in the pub note, surely?

(This is before we get into separate issues outside the subject of this specific wiki item, such as the edits being done without updating the pub notes to say that the data was changed based on a source other the ones already mentioned in the note, and that those original sources had a different value from what had been made in the later edit, etc.) ErsatzCulture 11:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

My understanding of the previous discussions (2006/7 & 2012) is that the general agreement was to not use Amazon (or other vendors) dates, if there is a statement in the publication made. The help is quite clear on that, though the statement made after first bullet of the help to use month and day 'if known' can lead to puzzlement. The 2012 discussion made it clear that secondary sources may be used, but they should be dependable, in particular "that a statement in a book should overrule an Amazon date". Christian Stonecreek 12:51, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I always use the in-publication date. I also use the Amazon date if it's more precise and agrees with the in-publication date. For example, if a publication has "October 2021" as the date on the copyright page, and Amazon has "October 14, 2021", I'll use the more precise Amazon date. If the Amazon date was "September 27, 2021" instead (which happens all the time), I would use only the month and year from the publication and note the discrepancy in the publication notes. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:08, 13 January 2022 (EST)

Yep, my understanding of both the rules and our practice as well. Use the printed date if it belongs to your printing but if more details are known to complete the date, use them if they do not contradict the primary source information (and always document your sources). Annie 19:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

I am not sure what you find puzzling in the "where month and day are filled in if known" statement or why you believe that this part of the help page somehow does not apply and can be just ignored and disregarded. The day of these publication is known - so it can be in the field as per the help page text (and our current practice supports that). The bullet point after that provides assistance on where to look for the information in a book (but does not list the only place for that information or restrict other means of finding the data - not all books have the information on this page) and the third one is a clarification on resolving contradictions. Although I do agree with Ahasuerus that we need to clean up the language on these 2 bullet points. The 2012 discussion was resolving an issue with contradictions again - when primary and secondary dates contradict themselves - and not stating that the field can never be updated based on secondary sources.

You also keep ignoring the fact that the dates of the modern books are also fully verifyable on the publisher sites, Goodreads and other online platforms these days, not only on a vendor site (if you chose to still ignore Amazon.com and Amazon UK as valid data sources for English language new books in their respective countries (especially when that data is fully corroborated)). Deleting information from our records because you chose not to trust the source as listed and you would rather delete the information than either try to verify it yourself or ask the editors who had worked on it to assist, is even worse than applying an obsolete rule which contradicts the current practice IMO. Annie 19:13, 13 January 2022 (EST)

It is the other way round: if a current practice is against a rule, then the practice has to change (or the rule has to be discussed: that's what we are doing now). It is not okay for one moderator to declare a rule as obsolete. I do concede though that I should have looked at the publishers' sites. Christian Stonecreek 01:58, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Please note that of the 3 moderators who have posted so far, all agree with the current interpretation of the rules, so it's not just a single moderator going against the consensus.

Having said that, the scenario that Nihonjoe mentioned above -- a book published on 2021-09-27 with an "October 2021" statement on the copyright page -- is fairly common and leaves us in an inherently difficult position. If we enter "2021-09-27" as the Date value, we very visibly contradict what's stated in the book and violate the "principle of least astonishment". If we enter "2021-10-00" and move the exact date to Notes, we lose granularity and accuracy, especially when it comes to searching and data mining. There is really no good way of solving this conundrum as long as we have only one publication field.

The most obvious solution would be to create a new field for "Stated Publication Date" with the understanding that the current "Publication Date" would be used for "Actual Publication Date" values. This change would require updating:

• 5 edit forms -- NewPub, EditPub, AddPub, ClonePub, Import/Export -- and related post-submission pages
• "Publication table" shared by many Web pages
• Publication Display pages
• Forthcoming Books pages
• Advanced Publication Search
• the Web API

and probably a few other Web pages, but nothing insurmountable.

It would help with the difficulty that Doug H mentioned earlier and may also serve as a prototype for other, more involved, projects which will separate what's "stated" in the pub from our "normalized" values, e.g. publisher names. Ahasuerus 10:26, 14 January 2022 (EST)

This would be a nice & appreciated solution for the conflict. Christian Stonecreek 10:45, 14 January 2022 (EST)

In case I miss the discussion of the implementation of such a solution, a few of observations.

1. It would be nice to incorporate all changes separating "stated" from "normalized" values. It would also likely make it such a mess to discuss and implement that it wouldn't get done, so I'd 'vote' to use it as a learning experience for future changes.
2. It would be nice to know the 'source' for exact dates, which means another field or a Notes standard.
3. In the event of conflict, we should document both dates and the reason for picking one, either in fields or by a Note standard.
4. Since the fields serve different purposes and seeing both on summary listings is wasting screen real estate, I'd suggest either allowing one to pick the field either on the display or in one's profile.
5. Since it will generally be a case of one or the other, the preference would be which to show when they conflict and whether to show the value, possibly flagged, regardless.
6. Multiplicity of values (for disagreeing sources) throws a wrench into all the above...

/Doug H 12:57, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Re: (1), i.e. adding "stated" fields for other values, there is a certain amount of history there. For example, there is an outstanding request to add support for multiple imprints and multiple publishers per publication. That gets complicated real quick. A "stated date" field would be much easier to do.

Re: (2) and (3), i.e. adding a new field for date source(s), I think a separate field would be excessive. All other values are currently sourced in the Note field and I suspect that it's as good as it's going to get.

Re: (4) and (5), i.e. letting users decide which field to display in the standard "Publication table", my concern is that it would result in different seeing very different views of the data. That can get confusing.

Ahasuerus 18:40, 14 January 2022 (EST)

On (4) and (5), show both dates in a bubble on hover over the current date field - that way one can look at them from the table and not need to go inside to see what is what. I think we nee do retain real publication date as the date field in the tables (because that's better for sorting as well) - but the stated one can go in the tooltip. Now... if we can find a way to push there the printing information as well, that would solve the final issue in finding what book you are really holding on multi-printed books (what Doug is also trying to solve I think) but that's a different pony. Or maybe not - it is related to dating. Adding one more field "Printing/edition information" won't add too much effort compared to adding one. And we don't need to define what is in it strictly - just free text so it shows up on the tooltip for the dates in the publication table and people can fill it with whatever feels relevant for that specific book. Annie 18:50, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Printing numbers are a fairly big can of worms because we want both the ability to sort by the printing number AND the ability to tell what kind of "1st", "2nd", etc printing it is. The latest (and hopefully final) iteration of the proposal is documented in FR 794, "Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to pub records":

• Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to publication records. The first field should be strictly numeric, allowing values like "1", "3" or "27". It will be displayed as a new colum in the he standard Publication table. It will be used for sorting publications that have the same publication date and publisher within t.
• The second field will allow arbitrary value like "stated fourth Ace printing but actually at least the 6th printing because Ace reset its printing numbers at some point". The value, if present, will be displayed in a mouse-over bubble next to the numeric Printing Number value. (See http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Community_Portal/Archive/Archive48#.22Printing_Number.22_field_--_an_alternative_approach for further discussion.)

Ahasuerus 11:13, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I remember that. And that’s irrelevant to what I am saying above. I don’t want to make it absolute. I want to allow something to be visible when you are looking at the list of publications for a title without the need to open 11 0000-00-00 books to find out if we happen to have the printing I am holding. Assisting - not defining. Yes - all that stuff above is awesome to have but we never will most likely. So trying to assist editors and make the DB a bit more user friendly may not be a very bad second idea. Just saying. Anyway - let’s drop this for now and deal with the dates - or we will never get anything done. Sorry for bringing it up. Annie 12:58, 15 January 2022 (EST)

(unindent) Apologies to have dropped the ball after that 2012 discussion. What was proposed there, and what I believe was agreed to, is:

• The publication's statement is the base date unless that statement is known/demonstrated to be for some other printing.
• Missing date information (whole date or date details) may be supplied from other sources, which must be documented. Unreliable sources may be used if independent corroboration can be found.
• Where secondary source information is used, the publication's statement (or lack thereof) should be recorded in the notes.
• Disagreements between the publication's statement and other sources should be documented in the notes.

There was also a bunch of detail around the hierarchy preference for secondary sources. Unless someone thinks I should not, I can recover the ball and propose a wording change encompassing all of that. I believe current practice is usually in line with this. --MartyD 10:22, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Yep - thanks, Marty - although we also need to discuss some of these - unreliable in 2012 and unreliable in 2022 are two different things if someone has been paying attention. :) But getting a proposed language so we can work based on it is a good idea. Annie 12:58, 15 January 2022 (EST)

(Unindent)Re. Ahasuerus' grandparent comment "Add 'Printing number' and "Printing # Details" fields to publication records. The first field should be strictly numeric, allowing values like "1", "3" or "27", could this maybe be slightly relaxed for formats such as ebook? A few ebooks list a version number on their copyright page, which isn't (usually?) an integer, but probably is sortable, and so it would be nice to be able to store this in the printing "number" field rather than the free-text details field. This could be useful in cases where an cover image has been updated, but the ISBN has stayed the same. (Although I do have the sneaking suspicion that covers may well get updated without the version number being incremented, which would make this observation/request a bit moot.)

A couple of examples: decimal format, date format. FWIW I've just downloaded the latter on a different device, and it does indeed have a later/higher version value to go with the different cover image.

I don't know if other version formats are in use, and I appreciate there's probably not a (MySQL or Python) data type that covers integers and decimals and dates, so please take this as more of a comment than a formal request for any hypothetical implementation. ErsatzCulture 11:57, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I have seen ebooks with odd-looking printing designations like "1.2" and even "A". In addition, print-on-demand books occasionally use printing designations which incorporate dates, but can also include other characters. My current thinking is that they are not really "printing numbers" as we understand them, but the industry is changing and perhaps the concept will evolve in the coming years. Until the dust settles, I would be hesitant to add the kind of extra software complexity that would be needed to handle these designation in the same field. Ahasuerus 18:19, 16 January 2022 (EST)

Notes to moderators

I was wondering what "a" means in the case of the following self-approved edits [20], [21], [22] and [23]. As all those publications are PVed by multiple contributors, "a" seems to me quite a bit too light a justification. As I can't easily dig one book between a few tens of thousands to check what and why have been done, I suppose that I'll have to unverify those titles and I resent this. AlainLeBris 05:50, 14 January 2022 (EST)

When editing a primary-verified publication, editors are forced to enter at least one letter in the "Note to Moderator" field. My best guess is that Kraang thought that the edits were obvious and self-explanatory, so they didn't require an explanation. Let me ask him to stop by. Ahasuerus 10:32, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Title and Transliterated title were reversed on two pubs in another "et" was spelled "at" and the last "Bonhomet" was spelled with two mm's. Found these in the cleanup report. Obvious minor input errors with a simple fix. Do seem to rub a lot of people the wrong way since I returnedClear Queue.Kraang 11:39, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Once approved, the "old" value is not visible anymore - which makes these a lot less obvious when one checks them. Sometimes looking via some of the old edits can help find what changed but it is easier if the note assists. So even if it looks obvious, "values swapped", "et -> at" or something like which describes the change and helps anyone finding this later understand what happened and why is a better idea than just bypassing the mandatory moderator note software check with a random symbol. :) Annie 11:57, 14 January 2022 (EST)

Different statuses for the two collections of authors

In the light of the fact that the two allowed melting pots assemble many authors of diverse languages: shouldn't 'uncredited' (here an example) and 'unknown' have the same status, i. e. have no language attached? Stonecreek 06:34, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I don't think it is possible to edit an author to remove the language. Author records start out with no language when first added from a publication, but any edit to the author record adds one. "null" is not an option in the language pull down list. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 07:26, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Yeah, but I seem to remember that 'uncredited' once was the same way (or was it established when we had no language assignment around, but 'unknown' should have been around then also).

Also, 'uncredited' is virtually uneditable, 'unknown' maybe should have the same status. Stonecreek 08:23, 15 January 2022 (EST)

The difference between uncredited and unknown is not language. It is that uncredited has so many records the software prohibits viewing the author record. In the database, uncredited has a language of English, you just can't see that in the display. The software could probably be relatively easily changed to not display the language field on the unknown author record. By the way, you really should be putting topics like this on the Community Portal. Moderators opinions are not the only ones that count when talking rules / standards / how the software works. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:38, 15 January 2022 (EST)

I have copied this discussion to the Community Portal and will respond there. Ahasuerus 13:36, 15 January 2022 (EST)

Draft date help rewording available

Hi mods. Please see User:MartyD/ProposedDateHelp for the first draft of proposed date help rewording. I'm afraid it's a little TLDR, so any pruning help very much appreciated. I'll incorporate any comments received in the next few days and then publish on R&S and Community Portal. Thanks. --MartyD 11:38, 18 January 2022 (EST)

Affected Record

Somebody just made an edit for a Robert Hale book I made edits for months ago, http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pub_history.cgi?250039, and I thought it was odd that the original 2013 edit has that info under Affected Record instead of the book title. Don't know if that needs fixing by anyone. --Username 20:24, 20 January 2022 (EST)

YBHS Story Dates

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?75928; I fixed a ton of dates for the Year's Best Horror Stories series a while ago, and today I started on the remaining volumes. Is the procedure for the Sallee story linked above to change the retitling to the date of the YBHS reprinting or make it the same date as the original? I already fixed the date of original title to the anthology it appeared in. Sallee explains why he retitled it either in YBHS or the later collection it appeared in, but online sites that have that text seem to all be spyware sites I don't want to enter. --Username 13:46, 21 January 2022 (EST)

Unverifying publications

Just a FYI, as Stonecreek, using his/her moderator attributes has decided to change the author credits on some of my PVed publications regardless of my opposition to this move, I'm unverifying all the Perry Rhodan that I've entered and will not enter any more from now on. For all questions about this publications, now just ask him/her or any PV left.AlainLeBris 13:32, 22 January 2022 (EST)

I am trying to understand the scope and the nature of the issue here. Checking Wiki history, I see the following discussion starting on 2022-01-16:

• Stonecreek asking questions about "Perry Rhodan in French" on the Community Portal and a response by Linguist
• Stonecreek asking AlainLeBris about the way French Perry Rhodan books are credited and suggesting changing the credits, which AlainLeBris was opposed to
• A brief exchange between Stonecreek and Willem about creating variants for Perry Rhodan translations, Willem agreeing with the proposed changes
• Stoneckreek inviting Linguist to comment on the Community Portal
• Stonecreek changing the credits on Seul contre la Terre on 2022-01-22. Other publications may have been affected, but it's hard to tell now that AlainLeBris's primary verifications have been removed.

I am not sure if this covers everything, so I am going to ask the listed editors to comment. Ahasuerus 16:07, 22 January 2022 (EST)

Yes, that about sums it up, Ahasuerus. I asked about needed changes to have the French credits for a 'Clark Darlton' that has in most cases nothing to do with the real Clark Darlton. The author seems to be credited in each and every volume published in French because of merits as founder of the series (and mostly erroneously so).

I had taken action after two positive responses by moderators on the community portal. I have also changed the credit for 'Clark Darlton', added missing content and some notes for this, which also was primary verified by Alain (it seems that in each and every volume of the French series of translations as edited by Jean-Michel Archaimbault there's content missing).

I can see no reason for you, Alain, to unverify the publications. In fact, I would appreciate your help to have the data right. Christian Stonecreek 00:17, 23 January 2022 (EST)

I totally agree with Christian here. Changing erroneous credits does go along with the common practice and rules on ISFDB, which trump any individual practice or rule. This does not affect the data in any way, since the system automatically produces the “as by …” credit as well as the authentic one. I see no reason why Alain should unverify any pub of this series. Linguist 04:29, 23 January 2022 (EST).