User talk:Ahasuerus
See User talk:Ahasuerus/Archive for discussions prior to 2024.
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If you're writing to inform me that you've either added a COVER IMAGE or NOTES to any of my VERIFIED PUBS, please follow THIS LINK and add it to the bottom of the list. A link to the pub record would be appreciated. Once the pub has been reviewed, I'll remove your note from the list. Thanks! |
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Corrupted publication record
I saw this one on one of the cleanup reports. The software will not allow corrections. Do we need to create a new publication record and delete this one? John Scifibones 08:53, 27 January 2024 (EST)
- Could you please clarify what you mean by "the software will not allow corrections"? The External ID field had a very long URL (instead of an ID), which distorted the display in some browsers, but I could still access the "Edit" link by scrolling to the right in Firefox. I then found the right PORBASE ID and replaced the long URL with it. It seems to have fixed the issue. Does it look OK now? Ahasuerus (talk) 10:28, 27 January 2024 (EST)
- When I entered the correct PORBASE ID, It reverted back to the incorrect previous link when looking at the Proposed Publication Update Submission' screen. As a result, I cancelled the edit. Not sure why that didn't happen to you. Regardless, it is correct now.
- P.S. It probably was allowing the change but the proposed changes column was likely off my screen. Thanks, John Scifibones 12:37, 27 January 2024 (EST)
Human-Machines
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?17511; Archive.org cover has a price sticker so you may want to find another image to replace the unstable Amazon one that's there now. --Username (talk) 18:22, 2 February 2024 (EST)
Hidden World
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5884849; PDF, cover, Mantong. --Username (talk) 23:14, 7 February 2024 (EST)
Deryni Magic Question
Hi Ahasuerus -
Annie has posed this question on my talk page. I found that original edits may may have been yours back in 2006. Could you take a peek when you have a moment (and if you can remember why you did something 18 years ago!). Thanks. --Ron ~ RtraceTalk 21:18, 13 February 2024 (EST)
What we enter in the "Artist" field
Ahasuerus: The table 'What we enter in the "Artist" field' which you created in your post 11:33, 19 February 2024 (EST) under this thread is very useful. It is much easier to follow and understand than the wording under bullet point "Artist" in Template:PublicationFields:CoverArt. I recently referred to the table for a separate issue about cover artists here.
Could you please add the table to the help page. Teallach (talk) 17:04, 24 February 2024 (EST)
- Thanks for the reminder! I have been sick most of the last week and didn't want to touch Rules and Standards discussions until I was back up to 100%. Once I feel better, I'll make sure to check on the R&S page that it's OK to add the table to Help. Thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 17:50, 24 February 2024 (EST)
Image backups
Hi,
I see you updated the downloads page to note that image backups are being redone. This reminds me of something that's puzzled me for a while, and which I meant to ask you about months (years?) ago.
Am I right in thinking that when those zips are generated, it's not an incremental backup style thing where you just need to download the changes/deltas, but rather that they are completely regenerated, and that you'd have to download the full set of zips to have an accurate and complete collection? I vaguely recall that at some point in the past, I'd been downloading the zips in a fairly leisurely manner over a period of days/weeks, and had got maybe 80% of the way through them, and then the zips were regenerated, and I assumed that I had to restart the set.
Would it be possible to have a bit more information on the download page about how they work? NB: I haven't actually ever done anything with the zips I downloaded - I rarely run the full Apache website locally, which I imagine is the main intended use case for the image backups - but I always thought they had the potential to be the foundation of an interesting project. Thanks! ErsatzCulture (talk) 04:35, 5 March 2024 (EST)
- That's right: the images hosted by Google Drive are a complete copy of the images hosted by the live ISFDB server. I have added a few more details to the description. Does it make more sense now? Ahasuerus (talk) 14:31, 5 March 2024 (EST)
- Thanks. What you've added makes sense, but it's still not clear (to me at least) from the text there that the directories all get updated when new zips are created. Are the 0-9/a-f (and the 2 digit subdirectories) just arbitrary hex digits, maybe the first digits of a checksum or something like that? (That question is slightly rhetorical; I imagine I could find the answer out for myself if I looked through the source code.)
- If the tarballs had date suffixes, similar to the database backups, then I think that would make it more obvious that the full set needs re-downloading. However, I guess the downside of that is that it would break any existing tooling for downloading the image backups, and that if you weren't careful you might end up with multiple dated tarballs and/or image directories. ErsatzCulture (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2024 (EST)
- Oh, oh... OK, I think I see what the problem is. "0-9" and "a-f" are subdirectory names created by the MediWiki software to store uploaded images. I am so used to this naming convention that it never occurred to me that it may be confusing. A blind spot, if you will. Let me edit the page and explain the naming convention. Thanks! Ahasuerus (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2024 (EST)
- Ha, I think this is also a blind spot on my part. Because I don't generally upload my own images (I think it must be in single digits) I forgot that that is all handled by the Mediawiki side of things, and it didn't cross my mind that the directory structure of the images was something that wasn't part of the core ISFDB code. Thanks for clarifying! ErsatzCulture (talk) 05:31, 6 March 2024 (EST)
New hotlink site permission
We have permission to hotlink cover images to a new site, possibly. You can see it here. If that is sufficient, can we add it to the list? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:18, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
- In anticipation of this being acceptable, there is one publication that is currently hotlinking to the site. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 13:29, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
- All done. The publication page now credits "Lawrence Dagstine". Template:Image Host Sites has been updated. Thanks. Ahasuerus (talk) 15:58, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
- Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:12, 21 March 2024 (EDT)
Place Submission on Hold
After placing a submission on hold, it would be nice if the resultant page had links back to the submission - both the moderator view and the public view. Currently, it only has a link to the Submission List. But usually when I put something on hold, it is because I plan to do something with that submission. Yes, I can just hit the back button to get the moderator view again. But I often want the public view so I can include the link in a question to the submitter so having that on the on hold page would save a click. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:21, 24 March 2024 (EDT)
Galactic Central
Given that the ISFDB is currently heavily dependent on Galactic Central images (12k publication images as of last database dump) and they seem to be in no hurry to implement HTTPS, -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
- Last I heard the owner had no plans to convert to HTTPS. It's possible that his plans may change at some point since browser manufacturers continue to add restrictions to HTTP-only sites. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
have you given consideration to implementing a proxy service? Apache has a mod_proxy module or it's pretty straightforward to implement your own[1]. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
- Thanks for letting me know about these options. I wasn't aware of them. I'll add it to my list of things to look into, but it's a long list, so I am not sure when I may get to it. Ahasuerus (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
Or should we create a clean-up project to start moving these images over to the ISFDB wiki? -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
- It would certainly make things easier, in part because of the HTTPS issue and in part because they would be incorporated into our publicly available backup files. However, 12K images is a lot images to migrate. Do we expect to have enough volunteer man-hours to make it feasible? Ahasuerus (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2024 (EDT)
Baen ISBNs
Toll of Honor just came out, and we have the ISBN formatted as 978-1-982193-31-7. The back of the book as well as the copyright page have it formatted as 978-1-9821-9331-7. Do we need to look at the code that adds in the dashes? This may affect more than just Baen books. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 17:33, 5 April 2024 (EDT)
- Checking the official "ISBN Ranges" page, I see that the hyphenation rules have changed and become more complex. It used to be that the rules for "978-0-" ISBNs had only 6 cases, but now it's up to 21. "978-1- ISBNs also used to have 6 cases, but now they are up to around 50 cases. Other language-specific ISBN rules have also been affected, although not as severely. Let me create a new FR for this change. Thanks for letting me know! Ahasuerus (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2024 (EDT)
Murder in Millennium VI
Please see this edit that impacts your verified pub. Let me know if you agree with changing the credit. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 08:41, 6 April 2024 (EDT)
- I don't have this issue handy right now, but the Archive.org copy is readable. Here is what I see:
- The title page of the review column, "Readin' and Writhin'" (p.46), credits "Damon Knight and the Editor".
- There are three reviews. The first two, "Murder in Millennium VI" and "Seetee Ship", are not credited. The third one, "Beachheads in Space" on page 67, is signed "RWL".
- Of the three reviews, only "Murder in Millennium VI" was reprinted in Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder.
- We currently credit "Damon Knight and Robert A. W. Lowndes" as the authors of the first two reviews and "RWL" as the author of the third review. We then variant them to their actual authors based on reprint history and textual research.
- The publication record has notes explaining who the actual authors are and what our evidence is, but individual REVIEW records do not.
- Based on the above, how about we use "uncredited" as the author of the first two reviews instead of "Damon Knight and Robert A. W. Lowndes"? The current variants would remain in place, but we would copy explanatory notes from the publication record to each title record. What do you think? Ahasuerus (talk) 10:00, 6 April 2024 (EDT)
Wily Writers
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2112269; The web page link gave me a red warning for not being safe. Also, shouldn't title/variant be 2013, not 2014? --Username (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2024 (EDT)
- It gives me a 403 error when I try to visit. There must be something going on with the server there. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:43, 15 April 2024 (EDT)
- Apparently the "Wily Writers"' Web site died at some point in the late 2010s. Eventually it was picked up by someone else, but the new owners didn't configure their security certificate correctly, hence the security warning displayed by the browser. I have changed the dates from 2014 to 2013 and replaced the affected links with Wayback machine versions. Thanks for the heads-up. Ahasuerus (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2024 (EDT)