User talk:Dave888

Welcome!

Hello, Dave888, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Help pages
• Field-by-field guide to entering new publications into the database
• Help:Getting Started
• What the ISFDB Wiki is for
• FAQ
• Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.
• Wiki Conventions - How things are usually done on this wiki.
• Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! MagicUnk 03:19, 28 August 2020 (EDT)

Mathcing illustrations

Hello,

When you find an INTERIORART record which matches a COVERART one, you should connect them as variants :) For example, here - if the cover matches what is on page 8, you should variant them. Let me know if you want me to do it or assist with instructions. Thanks! Annie 05:00, 13 September 2020 (EDT)

Annie,

my thanks for that, as I did not know that. In this context, I was a bit vague here, and I can see I'll need to be more specific in the future. The interior illustration was not an exact match or excerpt of the cover, but rather a somewhat different view but showing the same tombstones as shown on the cover. With this info, I'll keep an eye out of matches that need a variant identification.

Dave888 16:40, 13 September 2020 (EDT)

Suspected so - so I did not connect them and instead left you a message so you know for the future (in case they match exactly). Thanks for adding the notes in all these magazines. Annie 16:50, 13 September 2020 (EDT)

It is my pleasure. I have been cataloging my SF magazines and using ISFDB as a source for correlating info, and I realized that occasionally there was fairly minor info in ISFDB that was either incorrect or incomplete (mostly volume numbers, cover illustration attributions, etc). I am both attempting to be very, very careful and to learn how to do this without making trouble for others.

I do have one question. When I looked at the Wiki on "how to update verified records" (or something like that), it mentioned that I should notify the primary verifiers even on minor edits. I did not see any obvious way to do that when submitting a suggested edit. Am I missing something? Dave888 16:57, 13 September 2020 (EDT)

You go to their Talk page (click on their name, then on the "Discussion" tab and then press the plus sign (read the top of the page though - some editors have other preferences on what to notify them). We had changed the policies a bit lately -- so minor changes like the ones you are making are ok as is (we have "Changed PV" list where the moderator note shows up so you are good (very good idea to write them)-- but anything a bit bigger, you should post on their pages. Hope this makes sense. Use your common sense on when to notify. Annie 17:13, 13 September 2020 (EDT)

The covers wording

One note on your replacements - if the text says "Cover illustration untitled" and the magazine is PVed, it means that there is no name for the illustration in the magazine. When you replace it with "Cover illustration for XX" and drop the original statement, you are removing data from the primary source (aka the magazine). So instead, use something like "Cover illustration untitled; it is for XX" or "Cover illustration for XX (untitled in the magazine)" or something along this line - which clearly explains that there is no credit in the magazine. Thanks! Annie 02:07, 12 October 2020 (EDT)

Got it. Thanks for the coaching. Will do.

Dave888 19:32, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

One more thing. I will go back, using my edit history, and revise these entries as you suggest. I could be wrong, but I believe I can do this. I'll let you know when I'm done, as it may take a while.

Dave888 19:50, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

The submission you can see on the Edit History does not have the previous text (a known limitation of the system) but if there is an edit before yours, the old text will be in that one so you can see it there :) If there is no previous entry (we do not have one for very old edits), then it is what it is -- we did our best. I hope the reasoning for the change makes sense. Nothing too problematic even if not changed; it just makes a bit more sense not to lose known information :) Annie 19:55, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

Page numbers

In cases like this one you can safely drop the values after | (and the | itself) unless you have two items on the same page. When we have actual pages, they serve both as values to show and values to so sort by :) Not that what you did is wrong but if there is ever a typo discovered and someone needs to edit, that someone will be very confused. Annie 02:40, 12 October 2020 (EDT)

The issue I struggled with was that some of the stories were in the wrong order and had the wrong page number. Upon looking at the ISFDB help areas, this seemed like the most likely way to resolve this.

In the future, I may ask for advice before doing the actual editing, as I'm still not clear how else I could have gotten this corrected.

Thanks.

Dave888 19:39, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

The easiest way to think of it is that "200|200" is the same as "200" - we show the first value, we sort by the second. The wrong order may be because someone added from a source that had a wrong order - it happens. So when you have a real paper book in your hands, you do not need | at all -- unless you have two entries on the same page. The | syntax is for ebooks and audio books - the ones that do not have real pages or for cases where we simply do not know the page numbers (and for the cases where you have two or more items on the same page - rarely in books, a lot more common in magazines (or poetry collections) :) If you ever have questions, just ask. Annie 19:59, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

Thanks. Dave888 23:25, 15 October 2020 (EDT)

Astounding

Hi. Please consider making yourself a primary verifier of those issues of Astounding where you added information to the notes. None of the original verifiers has been active in quite some time. Thanks. --MartyD 08:27, 20 October 2020 (EDT)

MartyD, thanks for the suggestion. I do have time and interest, and do like to make things better, which is how I first got into updating/adding cover story information for some of the ISFDB magazines. I can certainly go read all of the help pages that discuss primary verification. However, before I jump into this, I have two questions up front: 1. What does it mean to make myself a primary verifier? 2. How do I make myself a primary verifier for an issue of a magazine? (I'm guessing this is something I could figure out without too much work, but I'm already asking you one question, so I'll add this too). Thanks, Dave888 19:20, 20 October 2020 (EDT)

A PV means that you have the magazine at hand and you had checked the information we have about it in the DB against the magazine itself. Here is the help page and How To. When you verify, if someone has any questions, they can come to your page (this one here) and ask you about what is in the DB and what is in the magazine - that is why Marty mentioned that most of the other PVs are inactive -- we cannot ask them for clarification if they are not around :) It is a simple radio box (using the "Verify This Pub" menu on the left menu on the publication). Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. And thanks for all the updates! Annie 02:09, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

Annie, thanks for the explanation. I have definitely had the magazines at hand, although for many of them it has been easier to refer to the scanned versions on Archive.org or on Luminist.org. (and there are some where I don't have the paper magazine, but only access to the scanned versions). I assume that we can treat those as essentially the same thing?

My only other concern is the extent to which I would be verifying the magazine info. To date, I have definitely been verifying all of the info that I have been updating, and the data that was related to that (like cover story titles, for instance), but I have not been verifying the entire magazine contents. I could definitely go back and do that, but would prefer to finish my current pass on updating the cover attributions, just to stay organized. I could either wait to verify the entire contents and then add myself as a verifier (preferred) or add myself as a verifier now and come back to finish verification. I would appreciate your advice on this.

Thanks and best wishes, Dave888 13:07, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

That's a whole new can of worms - which we had had multiple discussions about. Some people verify based on scans (the notes should ALWAYS explain if that is the case). Some don't. I personally do not consider a scan to be the same as the magazine/book so I would update based on a scan and explain it is from a scan but I would not PV. We had been discussing a new type of verification based on scans (as we have more and more of them) but it never panned out (yet).

Do things in your own schedule/pace. NO hurry. :) Annie 13:27, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

Annie, one more question. When I get to updating from scans for magazines I do not physically own, you mentioned that it would be desirable to note that the information came from a scanned copy. Is there any need to note the origin of the scanned copy, such as archive.org or luminist.org? Not a hurry on this - I probably won't get to this for a week or two, at least. Thanks Dave888 17:21, 31 October 2020 (EDT)

Up to you how much information you want to add. If the scan is available officially, adding a link to it in the Web Pages field of the magazine may be the best course of action in addition to the note. Then just mentioning that it is from a scan is enough but if you feel like identifying the scan, it also works. Think of the next person who sees the record - if you were opening the record, would you like to know where the scan is? :) Annie 18:52, 31 October 2020 (EDT)

Great. I'll do that. One question regarding adding a link to the actual scan, to a "official" site such as archive.org or Luminist.org. Has anyone been doing that and what has the experience been?

Dave888 10:44, 1 November 2020 (EST)

In what regard? The Web Links section on the publication was added to allow us to add links to pages about the books (or with the books foe scans from libraries and the like). As long as the link is to a legal site, adding it is ok. Annie 11:00, 1 November 2020 (EST)

Annie, thanks.

Boy, that is a can of worms. I just spent about 2 months cataloging my almost 800 SFF magazines and then re-filing them horizontally to avoid wear/bending. This cataloging is actually what led me to start editing the ISFDB entries, as I noticed errors (a very, very, very few) and omissions (especially on the cover story attribution). I am sorry, but I'm not planning on getting them out again for this. I will admit that I get there are scans and scans - I am especially suspicious of some of the earlier Astounding "scans" I've seen, which appear to be from microfiche or something of that nature. Those are hard enough to see and read that I would not verify from them. However, 99% of the scans I've seem appear to be good enough for me in terms of completeness and readability.

If this ever changes and using scans for verification becomes acceptable, I would be happy to take on verifying.

Pending any definitive direction on that, I'll continue to use the scans and will reference the scans as the source of info. Would it be appropriate or desirable to reference the detailed source, such as "scan of August 1945 Astounding on Archive.org"? If you have any examples of how this should be done, I would be interested. I will go back and reference the scans on all the magazines I've used them for.

Thanks for all your guidance and enthusiasm. Dave888 17:33, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

Yours is a different case though. If you have the physical magazine, you still can verify, using the scan as a reference - if there is a disagreement, you still have the magazine to pull (even if it takes time). You do not need to have the magazine on your desk while verifying -- it is really a "I have the magazine and can check it if really needed". In reality a scan usually has all we need - except things like exact size for example or anything that did not scan well. So in your case, I would verify without a second thought. Annie 17:38, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

Thanks. That is helpful and under those circumstances I will be happy to add myself as a primary verifier when I actually own the magazine. I'll probably finish my current run of editing the cover attribution to clarify if there is an explicit source for the info, as previously requested. I will then go back and add myself as a primary verifier.

That probably (without adding them up) leaves several hundred issues of Astounding/Galaxy/F&SF/Amazing/If/etc that I edited for added cover attribution solely on scans, without personally owning them. I will mention on them that the cover info attribution is from scans.

I may have mentioned this, but I really appreciate the guidance on how to do ISFDB in a helpful fashion. I really do want to make things better, but don't want to screw up what is working and do want to work within the system.

Best wishes Dave888 17:51, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

You are always welcome :) We work as a team here - if you ever have a question, just ask - someone WILL help sooner or later. :) And sometimes you step in gray areas and we have lengthy discussions - community ran projects are like that. :) Plus it is easier to try to steer new editors than deal with the old patterns of the old hands :) You are doing fine - most of the suggestions you are getting are of the "your work is great, here is an idea of how to improve a bit" variety. So it is easy to post recommendations. Annie 17:58, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

Hi, sorry about somewhat sporadic availability. But you're in good hands with Annie! One additional point about making yourself a primary verifier: Think of it more as an "I have this publication" than "I have painstakingly gone through every bit of data and matched it against my pub-in-hand." While we certainly like the latter, it is much more useful for the community to know you can be a resource for questions. So do as thorough or cursory a "verification" as you are able and care to do. --MartyD 20:00, 21 October 2020 (EDT)

MartyD, thanks also for your insights and guidance on what it means to be a primary verifier. Dave888 12:20, 22 October 2020 (EDT) (unindent) AnnieK, I have finally gotten back to the question of adding links to scanned copies of Astounding. These scanned copies are at either archive.org or luminist.org (mostly archive.org). I see a few (2 perhaps) examples such as this in the March 1930 Astounding Notes, of a link to archive.org:

   The full text and images of this edition are available at The Internet Archive.

With a live link in the original.

From what I took earlier from you, the web page feature is more aimed at sites about a specific publication, and not so much for links to scanned copies.

Accordingly, my plan is to add similar live links in the Notes to specific Astounding issues from either archive.org (my preference) or luminist.org (when there is no archive.org copy).

I would appreciate your feedback before I get started.

Best wishes, Dave888 15:48, 26 December 2020 (EST)

Reorganizing this a bit so it is clear who is responding to whom. :) The full text of the issue is exactly what we have these links for (they are for pages about the issue/book and pages containing the issue/book) - in a way a scanned issue is "a page about the issue" more that a page about it is. The links inside of the notes are for things like crediting an artist based on another site or something along these lines. So add the text but instead of incorporating a link, add the link in its proper field. :) Annie 16:01, 26 December 2020 (EST)

Ok. I'll add the text, and add the link to the Web Page field in the Edit form. I am planning on doing this for all the Astoundings I can find on archive.org (or luminist.org if not on archive.org), so it's really good to get it right to start with. If this goes OK, I may do the same thing for Galaxy, F&SF, etc. Best wishes Dave888 19:05, 26 December 2020 (EST) I did finish updating the Astoundings with links to archive.org (mostly) and Lumnist.org (a few where there was no archive.org), along with an update to the Notes. Next, I think I'll do the same for Galaxy. Best wishes and thanks again for the coaching. Dave888 14:53, 9 January 2021 (EST)

In this issue...Coming next month

Hi Dave, when entering a title that is common across several publications (here magazines), but that have different contenst, then you'll need to disambiguate them by adding the Magazine's title between parenthesis, lest they risk being merged into one single record. I've done a few as an example, see here. When approved, will you go back in and submit these disambiguations? Regards, MagicUnk 08:15, 21 November 2020 (EST)

Now that you mention that, I see what you mean in other entries for F&SF, Analog, etc, for these kinds of repetitive and perhaps non-exclusive titles, such as might appear in any SF magazine. I also see the entry on this subject in the Help Wiki. Looking at the entries that I see, I assume that an entry like this would be acceptable, "Coming soon (F&SF, January 1971)". Yes, once I confirm I have it right, I will be back and separately revise the ones that have already been submitted and accepted, etc. I don't know if there are any still pending, but it would be more straightforward for me to go back and edit those entries after the pending edits have been approved for now, compared to re-submitting all of them).

Thanks for the coaching.

Dave888 15:06, 22 November 2020 (EST)

That's exactly what I wanted to hear :) And you have it understood correctly. I have approved the submissions that I had on hold. Don't wait to submit the update, otherwise you may risk having someone merge all these identical records, and then you'll have to submit an unmerge first before you can correct the titles. For clarity's sake, you know you can either edit each individual 'In this issue...Coming next month' title record, or alternatively update the title by editing the pub record? MagicUnk 12:56, 23 November 2020 (EST)

I'll get on that today. I like the idea of doing the pub record edit, but I have not done that and will need to read up on that. I know the format I need to follow is pretty much "(F&SF, XX, XXXX)" for the month and year. Does the pub record edit accommodate that, or would I still need to edit each by hand to get the correct month and year in the title record? Thanks! Dave888 13:19, 23 November 2020 (EST)

No automatic adjustments (the system does not know what title will appear in other magazines) so you will need to add the correct differentiator manually. Please note that it is not always "Magazine, Month Year" - it is usually the publication title as is. For magazines with longer names, shorter versions are acceptable. Most older magazines already have a few essays with the correct titles so look at them and use the same differentiator inside of the magazine for consistency. :)Annie 14:18, 23 November 2020 (EST)

I've done an example for you here. MagicUnk 14:48, 23 November 2020 (EST)

My thanks to both of you for the coaching. I should be able to get this done (all the prior F&SF issues edited to reflect this on the "Coming soon", etc, title entries) by tomorrow at the latest. Dave888 15:37, 23 November 2020 (EST)

One more trick. If you go to the recent edits page, scrolling down you should be able to find your approved edits (at around 2020-11-23 12:58:16 timestamp). If you then hold ctrl and click on each 'Affected Record' (last column) in succession you'll open new tabs (at least it works like this in Chrome) for each pub you'll have to edit. Makes it easier on the routine - of course, you could also use the regular search as well... ;) Have fun! Regards, MagicUnk 17:09, 23 November 2020 (EST)

I have taken care of these edits, along with getting my references to luminist.org changed to archive.org (I found out in archive.org that the F&SF issues were mostly there, just indexed in a non-obvious way). Now, I'll be moving forward from 1962. Thanks again for the coaching. Dave888 14:53, 24 November 2020 (EST)

Coming Soon et al.

Hello Dave, I've accepted all of your submissions, but you'll have to review all Coming Soon and similar titles, as you'll need to capitalize them. So not Coming soon but Coming Soon. This because we standardize capitalization for all titles (per the capitalization rules for the language). You could use advanced search on titles to retrieve a list of all that you'll need to update. Regards, MagicUnk 13:49, 28 November 2020 (EST) Thanks for catching that. I had read that, but then I managed to confuse myself and convinced myself, incorrectly, that the Contents page vs. title page title case governed. My bad, and thanks for accepting the rest. I'll get it right going forward, and I'll let you know when I have re-done these for correct case per ISFDB standardization. I will try the advanced search on titles, but we'll see about that. I have not had as much success with that as I have been hoping for. Either way, it will get done. Dave888 19:05, 28 November 2020 (EST) I gave it one pass through, and am done with updating the case on those records. I'll re-search to ensure I have not missed anything after the pending changes are approved. Thanks. Dave888 00:52, 29 November 2020 (EST)

New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird

I had to reject this submission. We already have a record for the tp version you are trying to create. Please edit that version instead (which is a different version than the ebook you were cloning). Let us know if you have questions. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2020 (EST) Thanks for catching that. I sure missed that entirely - an unfortunately too human moment! Yes, I will edit the tp version to get the complete TOC and get them in the right order for the tp. Dave888 10:38, 8 December 2020 (EST)

If/Worlds of If

I'm currently approving your submissions with the web page reference for on-line versions of the magazine, but I have to say that if you were not going to specify the particular link to the individual issues, it would have been simpler and adequate to go to the heading for the series of magazines and enter the link there. What you've done is acceptable, but not the best way to have handled giving users of the website information about the magazines. Bob 15:22, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Bob, I need a some help here. Looking at my Rejection Log, you rejected a number of these Worlds of If edits with the link to individual issue scans between 1952 and 1960 or so. Your comment was "Put the link in: link descriptor."

I need some help on what that means, especially given that the suggested edits all included links to scans of specific issues.

Thanks.

Dave888 00:46, 23 January 2021 (EST)

I think Bob was expecting this link to be in the notes as an HTML link. He seems to have overlooked that you put them in the web page field (which is the correct location for them). As Bob has not responded in the last three days despite being active, I will un-reject the edits and approve them since they were valid. There is no point in making you do it all over again. -- JLaTondre (talk) 18:15, 23 January 2021 (EST)

Thank you. I appreciate your insight and your help. Dave888 12:45, 24 January 2021 (EST)

If they are not to the exact issue of the magazine, they should really not be in the publication links - that's what title and series web pages fields are for... :) Annie 15:30, 20 January 2021 (EST)

My thanks to both of you for the guidance. Every single link added to all of these magazines by me has been specific to the issue. Among other reasons for doing this on a per issue basis are a) many people I know are looking for specific issues, and b) for most (if not all) of the SF magazines I have done this for, there is not a single source for the magazine that is complete, well organized and easy to search, and with a desirable interface for access. This pretty much drives the decision to do it on an issue by issue basis.

Dave888 16:25, 20 January 2021 (EST)

Non-genre magazines

They do not get a cover record or a cover image UNLESS it illustrates our contents (think of Playboy and how many SF stories are there - while we do not have issues with covers of our books that are risque, cataloging these would be sending a wrong message so the decision was taken to treat non-genre magazines in a special way compared to any other publication) :) So I pulled it out from here. And I did the yearly record update (changing the date and the title) :) Annie 13:41, 4 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks for setting me straight on the cover record. I'm sure that info was somewhere. sorry. On the yearly record update, thanks. I believe you mentioned that this would be created automatically (maybe I'm wrong) when a 2nd issue for 2019 was added. Am I confused?

Dave888 13:48, 4 February 2021 (EST)

No worries on the cover. Common oversight :)

Let me try again: When you create the magazine, the EDITOR record is created with the title and the date of the issue you just added. So if it is the first for the year, we need a rename+redate TitleUpdate post approval. If it is a second or later issue for the year, we need a merge to bring it to the others. You will notice that unlike other records, an EDITOR does not have "Add Publication" and Clone does not allow a title change - so if you go for clone instead of a new+merge for later issues in the same year, then you need to rename the new issue once it is approved (the clone is useful for things like the ebook/webzine double formats or paper/ebook double formats). There is always a second step with magazines. :) Hope that made more sense now. Annie 13:55, 4 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks! That is very helpful. I'm guessing after I go through this a bit it will become obvious to me. I will be referring back to this. I was kind of wondering if cloning would be useful for adding, say, the November 2019 Nightmare, which probably shares a lot of content and format with the September issue, or if it was better to just start from the beginning and be careful? Seems like a style difference, and it does seem like it is a more obvious choice for different printings/versions of the same publication. Any thoughts on cloning vs adding for the November Nightmare issue?

Dave888 14:02, 4 February 2021 (EST)

But it is not the same contents - they are different stories and essays (and if some are named the same, we still differentiate with the issue title if it is different contents) - remember that Clone will also bring in the contents of the issue, not just the data at the top. So start over :) If you clone, you will need to then remove all the contents and add the new ones... hardly useful. If it is a new issue, you add New. If it is a new format for an existing issue, you use Clone. Annie 14:23, 4 February 2021 (EST)

Notes and clones

When there is a note such as "Publication date from Amazon.com as of 2015-09-03." in a book you are cloning from, you want to remove that line for a new book - you are setting/checking the publication date as of the day for the NEW record you are creating when you are adding the record - so the as of will match your "data as of" statement. The reason why the book you copied from had that line is because the rest of the data there came from a real copy but the date itself is not printed there and was added based on Amazon at that specific date. Hope this makes sense. I had been cleaning up the lines as I was approving your clones. Thanks for doing them :) Annie 12:22, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks for letting me know. That was niggling at me a bit. One of my theories was that I needed to preserve the earlier info for a data trail, per se. But no. I'll do that in the future. When I'm citing that I have used info from Amazon and the kindle preview for an ebook, does it make any sense to note that the info is per the date I am doing it, or should I just leave all that out?

Dave888 12:26, 5 February 2021 (EST)

You do preserve the old dates and notes if you are editing an existing publication; you do not if you are creating a new one where it is not relevant and does not belong to the record you are making. When you are cloning you are creating a new book - you can add "data from the paperback edition" or something like this if this is where you are sourcing for example but the history of our record of the paperback edition is kinda irrelevant.

Yes - using "Data from Amazon.com as of TODAY_DATE" is a good practice. Then if someone corrects something, they can add the changes with "as of" as well making it a lot clearer of what came from where. It belongs to THIS record that you are now creating. Annie 12:32, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Don't forget the | for the pages on non-paper books :) I fixed it here and added the Narrators, Audible ID, ISBN and length - and removed the Recommended essay that is not in it as per your note. :) Annie 13:49, 5 February 2021 (EST)

And fixed the price: remember that we want the List price, so in this case: $41.99 :) Annie 13:52, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Got it. Thanks, and I will continue to do better. My goal is always to just have it approved without more work.

Dave888 13:57, 5 February 2021 (EST)

New formats are hard - :) You are doing fine -- the DB can be... interesting. That's why I am noting and explaining what I am changing. As always - if something is unclear or does not make sense, let me know. Thanks for working on these! :) Annie 14:13, 5 February 2021 (EST)

Slate, April 30, 2018

You create a chapbook when a story is published on its own and not part of a different publication; when it is in a magazine/collection, you create the magazine/collection - regardless if the story is already in the DB or not. I fixed the type here so now you can import the story -- and I also fixed all the other yearly records for Slate while I was there (the two new ones were edited and the existing ones got their other entries merged into them :) Annie 21:29, 6 February 2021 (EST)

So, I should have created the magazine issue for Slate for a specific date, but left it with no contents, and then imported the story. Please confirm, as I'd like to get this right in the future for all of the other issues/stories like this, as there are certainly more.

Thanks for taking care of the yearly records for Slate; I'm sure I'll get to trying to do that some day, and I'll keep the guidance and we'll see how I do.

Best wishes and thanks for the continued guidance and mentoring.

PS - when I get it back from the library, I'll be adding a good new novel which is definitely genre (fantasy perhaps?) but not currently in the DB. I'll go back and re-read all the guidance before doing that.

Dave888 12:42, 7 February 2021 (EST)

Yes. Or add the story and then we will merge. :) When it is a single story, either way works - there is always a second step - import or merge - so either way is fine. If you are adding contents to an anthology, importing is way better because if you add them otherwise, we will need to merge every story, one by one.

Compared to magazines and anthologies, novels are easy. Still, do not hesitate to ask. :) Annie 16:22, 7 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks.

Dave888 16:27, 7 February 2021 (EST)

Title date after publication date

When you see a message "Title date after publication date" when you are importing (or cloning) like here, you should also submit a change of date for the title record, with a moderator note that an import is pending so we know why you are changing it if the import is not approved yet. I am doing it now as I am approving (for example) but keep that in mind for the future. Annie 19:00, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks for letting me know. I was expecting to do that, and I was wondering if you were taking care of it. In the future, I will note that in the Moderator notes.

Dave888 19:04, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Sometimes you get the friendly moderator who does them, sometimes you do not. The two updates are not clashing so as soon as you see the warning, just submit the re-date as well -- that way the moderators know that they do not need to. :) Annie 19:06, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Got it. I certainly don't plan on relying on that. Will do. Thanks.

Dave888 19:08, 8 February 2021 (EST)

Now I am bored.... No updates needed after this one. :)

Let me know if you want a tip on how to merge titles with different titles so you can get the two 2014 issues together without the need to rename both (you still need to rename one of course) :) Annie 20:51, 9 February 2021 (EST)

I will still need to deal with the 2017 issue also. Yes, I would love a tip on merging, I do not think I have done that. My thanks on all your patience here. I have only read 1 of the Future Tense fiction works (it was quite good), but I am sure impressed with the authors I know, and need to try the others. I am pleased to add these to ISFDB, as they are certainly worthwhile.

Dave888 21:06, 9 February 2021 (EST)

Well, yes but you had done that before :) You need to do it on one of the 2014 issues as well :)

Two ways to merge titles that do not come up on the duplicate check (if you go to any book, title or author, there is "Check for Duplicate Titles" links on the left menu with various settings that will find most of the similarly named ones - although the ones on titles and publications can find more in the aggressive option). When that fails, you have two options:

• Go to the author page. Find "Show All Titles" in the left menu. Now select what to merge, make sure you pick the correct title and date in the next screen :).
• If the author has more than one page of titles and the things you want to merge do not show up on the same page, go for Advanced Search -> Titles (which opens this). Build your scenario - it can be as easy as "Title1" or "Title2" or it can be "Title starts with Slate and Title Year is 2014" or anything in between. The goal is to get them to a merge screen - do no worry about not filtering enough -- you need the ones you want to merge on a single page so you can select them; any additional ones showing you just do not pick :) Then select the ones you want to merge and make sure you pick the correct titles.

For magazines, the Author -> Show All Works as a charm (as long as the editor is not a major author as well of course). As always, if you have questions, just ask :) Annie 21:15, 9 February 2021 (EST)

Looks like DirkP got there first, so this appears to have been taken care of. That's it for Slate for today. Thanks for all the help.

Dave888 11:11, 10 February 2021 (EST)

Gehman's 'The Machine'

Thanks for the additional information on the story's first publication. I transferred it to its title where it properly belongs (and I adjusted the date to the exact day that you found out about). Stonecreek 02:35, 12 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks for taking care of those corrections. I'll take note of that for the future, and attempt not to make the same mistake again.

Dave888 11:14, 12 February 2021 (EST)

Page numbers and order

When adding real pages (like here) there is no need to do things like "407|22" - just put 407. :) If a mistake is corrected later, we can end up with things sorting weirdly (for example if it is discovered that this 407 is 408 and the editor doing the change does not understand what that 22 means, they will leave it as 408 only... and off it will go to the bottom). Trying to figure out why this happened can be... interesting :)

The system will sort based on the number itself if you do not add a | explicitly (think of 407 as a 407|407 essentially); add the | and value after that only when either you have two things on the same page or when it is an ebook/webzine (so you use it for ordering only) or when we simply do not know the page numbers (same as ebooks). Hope this makes sense. Thanks for fixing the order in this one! Annie 11:57, 8 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the help. I think I forgot that. I can see how that could cause problems.Dave888 14:25, 8 March 2021 (EST)

One more question on page numbers. I am in the process of importing the ebook "Sense of Wonder" titles into the tp version. I do not have a copy of the paper book, nor have I found a copy of the actual paper TOC with page numbers for everything. I do have one appendix in the ebook which does give page numbers for the fiction titles, but not for the essays or author bio essays. I am thinking that there is no point in adding the page numbers only for the fiction titles, but I am interested in your opinion. Thanks.Dave888 16:35, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

Just leave them with the page markers from the ebook :) If/when someone has the book, they can fix the page numbers. As long as everything is in order, we are good in this case. Annie 16:43, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

I thought so. Thanks.Dave888 16:47, 18 March 2021 (EDT)

Audio books

A few more things about audio books:

• We have a Narrator template :)
• Audible IDs (from Audible.com) are external IDs, if it is from another Audible, the link goes into Web Pages
• Modern digital audio books have ISBNs (not all but the major publishers and the last couple of years do). Three easy ways to find them:
  • If the Audible ID does not start with B, it is ISBN10 - so convert to ISBN13 and you are good. If it starts with B, the book does not have ISBN but you may check the rest of the sources (there are a few weird cases). But when I see one of those with B Audible ASIN, I generlly assume no ISBN and stop chasing it.
  • Kobo has the ISBNs (Search by title and make sure you grab the one for the audio and not the ebook). If it does not start with 978/979, we do not want it (they use 123 IDs for internal purposes when no ISBN is there; these are not ISBNs and we do not record them).
  • The publisher site.
  • Careful if you find an ISBN on a library site - some publishers have two ISBNs and two separate versions of the audiobook - one for public consummation and one for libraries. The library ones won't show up in Amazon/Kobo but will show up in OCLC. It is ok to add both - just do not add the ASIN and Audible ASIN to the second (add OCLC number instead) :)
• We want the price list. So in Amazon, you see two radio boxes: "Buy with Audible Credit" and "Buy with 1-Click"(or something like that). Not the button - just the radio box. When you switch to the latter, the list price appears. You see something like this (from the book linked below):
  • Buy with 1-Click $29.39
  • List Price: $41.99 You Save: $12.60 (30%)
• Alternatively, get it from Audible: For example: "Regular price: $41.99; Member price: $29.39 or 1 credit" - you want the regular price. Or get it from the publisher site (if they are different, publisher site wins, the note specifies that this is where the price is from and you can add Amazon/Audible price in the notes

I made these changes to this one so you can see there how these are used. Do let me know if you have any questions :) Annie 19:06, 8 March 2021 (EST)

A few more things:

• As the cover is the same, you could have left the checkbox clicked on the Clone screen - I merged them :)
• The Intro is there - Audible's sample (very useful occasionally - you can listen to it from Amazon or Audible and unlike ebooks samples, you can stream it without getting it first (so unlike your kindle (client), your Audible one does not get cluttered by these) starts at the film and TV section of it :) So I cleaned up the note. Thanks for adding this one! :)Annie 19:25, 8 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I will make a note of all of these things, and do better next time. On the cover, I felt that the cover base image was the same, but the overall image was a bit different. Not that important.Dave888 10:41, 9 March 2021 (EST)

If you never worked with those, some of these are not that easy to figure out (which is why I explained my usual process with audio books - hopefully it is useful:) ).

Yep - in which case we have one COVERART title but different images inside of the publications. For art we variant for changes in language, title or author form but not for different borders, colors and so on. So even if in black and white, this would have been merged again. Or mirrored. Or like here when it has the red borders. Hope this makes a bit more sense now. :) Annie 11:15, 9 March 2021 (EST)

I see. Thanks. I'll note that for the future, and hopefully get it right.Dave888 11:31, 9 March 2021 (EST)

Erewhon (Sense of Wonder Excerpt)

Does the book say "Erewhon (Sense of Wonder Excerpt)" or does it say "Erewhon (excerpt)" or something else (about this one? Unlike essays, we never add the book name into excerpts UNLESS the title is printed that way in the book. Annie 01:42, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Same question for this one and this one and this one? Annie 01:43, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks for the guidance. I assume that the other properties are enough to uniquely identify each excerpt. I missed that. I had added the "Sense of Wonder" to the titles of the excerpts to clearly identify that they were different versions. I will change them all back without the "Sense of Wonder" on the excerpts.Dave888 17:04, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Even if they do not, we just do not differentiate them (And we do not merge them if we are not sure they re the same). Just different rules across different types (yep, it can get confusing) :) Annie 17:21, 12 March 2021 (EST)

The full part of the help page is: "Excerpts. Sometimes an excerpt from a forthcoming book will be printed at the back of a book. This should be treated as short fiction. If the excerpt has a different title that the work from which it is excerpted, use that title. Otherwise, use the title of the excerpted work, but add " (excerpt)" to the end; e.g. "A Feast for Crows (excerpt)"." - and yes it applies also to books that are already published :) Annie 17:21, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks for steering me right. Making corrections now.Dave888 17:23, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Dave, (excerpt). Not (Excerpt). :) I will approve and fix... Annie 17:27, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Darn. Got it now. Thanks.Dave888 17:29, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Sense of Wonder - two more questions

1. After editing the "excerpt" titles, I'm seeing an number of entries like this, "The Last Man (excerpt) • short fiction by Mary Shelley (variant of The Last Man (Sense of Wonder Excerpt)) [as by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley]", where the listed variant is of the old, incorrect title. I am assuming that I inadvertently created the variant here. What do I need to do on these?

Yep - because when there is a parent because a pseudonym was used (someone created them to assist you), you also need to change the names of the parents now. Click on these weird titles and submit a new edit to fix their names now :) Annie 18:16, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Thanks. I will do that. Does this also mean that I'll need to do a merge to get rid of them after making them the same?

2. For the non-unique essay titles (author bio and others), I created them all as "XXXXX (Sense of Wonder)" to differentiate. Do I need to go back and edit all of these to "XXXXX" only? Sorry for the complications. Thanks Dave888 17:50, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Nope - the essays with common names DO get the name of the book at the end to protect them from merging. Excerpts don't. One of the oddities of the DB. :) Annie 18:16, 12 March 2021 (EST)

Great. With all of this, after I deal with this and a few other issues (there are still a few outstanding alternate names), I will be close to being done with the ebook edits. Once I get there on that, I'll import the titles into the tp. This has been an interesting learning experience for me. Thanks.Dave888 17:00, 13 March 2021 (EST)

Reversing these variants

These can be done with a single edit per title.

Let me explain with this one. Get the title "Sense of Wonder". Go to Advanced search -> Titles (here) and paste "Sense of Wonder" for Title and modifier exactly. It will find the results here. Find the two we are trying to reverse. On the next screen:

• Select the the Author you want to stay (the longer one here)
• Where is says "title_parent", select the empty and not the number.

When this is approved it will leave a single title where we want it with nothing to delete, rename or fix :) The second point above is important - if you leave the Number and not the empty, it will loop on itself (not that we cannot clean it after that but it defeats the purpose of the single edit idea). Let me know if something does not make sense and try with this one title. Once it works, you can do it with the rest - just use the different exact title in the Advanced Search :) Annie 13:10, 17 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! I should have asked you for this. I now see your advice on this in the "rejection", and I will proceed with doing this first.

Dave888 15:01, 17 March 2021 (EDT)

Approved. See - 1 step only. :) Annie 21:45, 17 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. If I can't figure out what to do next, I'll check in and ask.Dave888 22:09, 17 March 2021 (EDT)

Well - you know how to do the variants of the ones that do not have the variants in the wrong direction (it will always be Option 2 for this author) and all the reversals will be exactly like this one. So you should be all set. But if you need help, just yell :) Annie 22:12, 17 March 2021 (EDT)

"Science Fiction in Western Europe (Sense of Wonder)"

Hi, my best guess is that the suffix '(Sense of Wonder)' is superfluous here and should be removed: it only should be indexed if it's printed in that way as heading for the essay, or if there are several titles 'Science Fiction in Western Europe' by Sonja Fritzsche. (And it's standard procedure for a generic title like 'Introduction', 'Editorial' or 'Afterword'. See also the last bullet under the sub-section Title here). Stonecreek 14:25, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

Good point. You are correct. Most of these had "Sense of Wonder" appended due to duplication with other titles with input by AnnieMod, but this one does not. I have submitted a correction. Thanks.Dave888 14:46, 25 March 2021 (EDT)

Thanks, Christian Stonecreek 11:04, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

Thank you. I sure tried to be organized and methodical on this one. However, with about 375 entries, I appreciated all the help I could get.Dave888 12:45, 26 March 2021 (EDT)

Galaxy 1963-10

Cover art of this issue is credited to Dember, but the same but differently cut cover art of Galaxie #1, Mai 1964 is clearly signed R McK, that is, Richard McKenna (not the writer). Horzel 11:08, 20 July 2021 (EDT)

I have checked my paper version of the October 1963 Galaxy. It is clearly listed as "Dember" on the contents/copyright page for the cover. I agree that it is the same image as is used for the Galaxie #1 (Maie 1964). I don't have a paper version of the Galaxie issue. The version I see online here at ISFDB does show that area of the cover that is omitted from the Galaxy cover, but the scale and resolution are not enough to see what the signature looks like. I do see that the flickr version linked to appears to show a Richard McKenna signature, but I was unable to find a version online that I had confidence in. Dember and Richard McKenna both did covers for Galaxy in this era. I don't see enough clearcut evidence to make a change here. You could put this to the moderators and see if they have a better idea. Thanks.

Dave888 00:30, 21 July 2021 (EDT)

If you click on the Galaxie link above, and click again on the image to enlarge it, you see a signature R McK, with an M which has a horizontal upper bar, and with a very small c. The best certified McKenna signature I can find right now is here, it opens a PDF for the whole If 1967-03 magazine, with signed cover and attribution on the contents page. Horzel 06:36, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

Thanks. I agree with you that the certified McKenna signature on the 1967-03 IF magazine does look like the signature on the online version of that cover illustration. At the same time, I would still be somewhat cautious about this. I would suggest editing the Notes for the October 1963 Galaxy to something that suggests that the cover may be by McKenna and not Dember, but that the lack of a paper version of the Galaxie cover makes it somewhat ambiguous. I would leave the Cover Artist noted as Dember.

Dave888 17:46, 23 July 2021 (EDT)

The Littlest People (Galaxy March 1954) =

The isfdb entry for the March 1954 issue of Galaxy SF lists 2 interior illustrations for the story "The Littlest People", though the story in fact only contains one. Just leaving this note to let you know that I'll rectify this issue soon. --Rreett 17:08, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for noticing that and taking care of it!Dave888 20:19, 4 November 2021 (EDT)

Talk pages vs User pages

Please be careful when leaving messages on other editors' pages - you want the discussion/Talk page, not their user page. I moved your message for C1 from their user page to their Talk Page. Thanks! Annie 14:30, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Darn it. My bad. I'll remember that next time. Thanks.Dave888 14:54, 10 November 2021 (EST)

No worries. Our links on the PV table put you on the user page (I've asked for that to be changed already) and if they had not filled in something in there to make you realize you are on a user page, it can be a bit confusing so it happens occasionally. :) Annie 15:50, 10 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks.Dave888 10:59, 11 November 2021 (EST)

Meditation

There is an active PV on one of the books on this update. So before we change the title, please check with them. Thanks! Annie 03:12, 17 November 2021 (EST)

I did check with Markwood, and he was OK. See bottom of his usertalk. http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Markwood

In hindsight, I should have checked with him first? Thanks.

Dave888 11:10, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Yep - first check with the PV, then submit it with a note that you checked with the PV as well :) Approved. Otherwise all I can do is to put it on hold until the PV responds or we determine they won't (in which case we will still correct but a note will need to be added so it is clear that the PVs did not verify that story title). Annie 14:19, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Great. I'll do that. Sorry.Dave888 16:53, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Contributor's Notes (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021)

We use the author name Anonymous when this is how the text is credited verbatim. When you want to say that there is no credit, we use "uncredited" (and we use "unknown" if we suspect that there may be a credit but the secondary source we have has no information about it). So this one is definitely "uncredited" and not by Anonymous :) Annie 03:01, 22 November 2021 (EST)

I knew that. Thanks, and I'll try to get that right next time.Dave888 10:14, 22 November 2021 (EST)