ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive/Archive04

"W. Malcolm White"?

This byline was apparently used at least 4 times in the early 1950s. The ISFDB lists one occurrence when it was supposedly used by Don Wollheim, but I can't find this pseudonym either online or in Tuck. Anybody have a better source (like "Who's Hugh?") handy? Ahasuerus 15:51, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

"Who's Hugh?" doesn't list it, unfortunately. Mike Christie (talk) 18:26, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

Contento attributes White to Wollheim in his new FictionMags web site (see: [1]), as well as in Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Weird Fiction Magazine Index:

WHITE, W. MALCOLM; pseudonym of Donald A. Wollheim, (1914-1990) (chron.)
   * No Greater Glory, (vi) Dynamic Science Fiction Aug '53
   * Pallas Rebellion, (vi) Out of This World Adventures Jul '50
         o Perry Rhodan #22 '73 
   * The Poetess and the 21 Grey-Haired Cadavers, (ss) Dynamic Science Fiction Oct '53
   * Shoo Fly, (ss) Science Fiction Quarterly Feb '53
   * Signpost in the Sky, (ss) Science Fiction Quarterly Nov '52
   * War of the Marsh-Men, (vi) Out of This World Adventures Dec '50

Thanks, that does it! :) Ahasuerus 19:41, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

P.S. And note that they are in the process of moving to a new Web site. Ahasuerus 19:42, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

Renaming "Bibliographic Notes"?

Since we already have a "Note" field in the ISFDB proper, how about changing the name of the Wiki URL to something else, e.g. "Bibliographic Discussion(s)" or "Bibliographic Comments"? Ahasuerus 17:41, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

Works for me; I suggest you just add it as a feature. Mike Christie (talk) 19:15, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

I see that Al has already changed the label from “Bibliographic Notes” to “Bibliographic Comments:” for both authors and publications and that seems fine. I’m still uncertain about the need for the need for bibliographic comments in the wiki given pubs have a notes field. With authors there is no notes field and for titles there is no wiki and it’s only publications that offer both. Marc Kupper 20:43, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

Ideally, the Note field should be used to capture objective and immutable information about the Pub's contents, e.g. misspellings, conflicts between the cover, the table of contents and what's inside, etc. What has now become "Bibliographic Comments" (thanks, Al!) should be used for discussing our cataloging activities and secondary sources. For example, it would be a good place to sort out a conflict between two secondary sources.

There used to be a Note field for Author records in ISFDB1, but it was eliminated when Al decided to move all Author-specific free text stuff to Wikipedia. I have since suggested that there are occasionally bibliographic notes that don't belong (or would get lost) within Wikipedia, e.g. pseudonym warnings and house name attributions, and Al said he would think about it. The danger here is that any kind of free text Note field can easily deteriorate into a place for authors to post their complete bios/biblios as we have seen in the ISFDB Wiki. I suppose we could always move this stuff to the Wiki and then (one day) to Wikipedia. Ahasuerus 21:20, 28 Dec 2006 (CST)

Logging in

It seemed to me initially that once I set up my account I could log in several times a day and my identity was remembered -- I didn't have to log in again with name and password. Now it appears to me that I have to identify myself every single time (if I want to make an edit, or view my account, that is). Could a memory be set up? Yahoo accounts, I believe, demand your password about every 24 hours but short of that you can log in and out without re-identifying yourself. Wikipedia, of course, remembers your login until you tell it not to. Hayford Peirce 14:15, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

That's odd -- I never have to relogin. Al may have some ideas about what is going on, but in the meantime you might try logging out of both the ISFDB and the Wiki, and then logging back in to both of them, in case there is some cookie confusion going on. In any case, the feature you are asking for is supposed to already be there. Mike Christie (talk) 15:07, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

I think the MediaWiki only remembers your session if you check the "Remember me" box (I just popped over to Wikipedia, and indeed it doesn't remember me as I didn't check the box last time). The ISFDB should pretty much remember you until the unix clock flips over (December of 2037). Alvonruff 15:39, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

Apparent discrepancies in the ISFDB's login behavior may be browser- or LAN-specific. Some of my sessions never log me out while others force me to log in every so many hours. That's using both Firefox and IE from multiple different (often multi-tier) networks. Also, there was a report of login problems using Safari, but not Firefox - see http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/2cfe22df1184fa72 for details. Ahasuerus 16:53, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

I'll have to do some checking, but I *think* I was initially using IE7 to set up my account and log in. Since then I've mostly been using Avant -- which is an IE knockoff with some features I like better but also occasional quirks that show up from time to time. I'm pretty sure I did check off any "remember me" boxes that I saw. I'll experiment and see what happens. Hayford Peirce 17:17, 29 Dec 2006 (CST)

Incorrect and/or derived information

When I started out with the DAW list and book verification I was using the practice of filling in the DAW list and ISFDB fields with exactly what is shown in the book and then having notes/comments about those items that are wrong. For example, with Angado by E. C. Tubb published by DAW (0-87997-908-9) states the cover artist is “Ken W. Kelley.” I’ll assume this is a misspelling of “Ken W. Kelly” who created many covers for DAW. Initially I would have filed this as “Ken W. Kelley” (the misspelled name) and the record would have a note about the correct name. Lately though I have been leaning towards putting "Ken W. Kelly" (the correct name) in the cover artist field and putting a note that the name is spelled incorrectly on the book's copyright page and that the correct spelling was used in the ISFDB record. I believe this will result in better data for ISFDB.

A similar case exists with another cover artist, Kelly Freas, who from time to time gets credited as Frank Kelly Freas. In that case I believe it’s better to use “Frank Kelly Freas” but also to include a note that the name was stated as “Frank Kelly Freas” on the copyright page so that someone does not mistake me for a dope smoking penguin.

The third part of this post concerns derived information. Specifically, that from 1972 to November 1976 DAW did not state ISBNs in the books. Initially I was filing these books with the DAW Order # such as UY1261 in the ISBN field but lately what I have been doing is putting the derived ISBN in the ISBN field and including a note that reads something like “The ISBN is not stated in the book but was derived from the spine code 451-UY1261-125 for this ISFDB record.” My thinking behind this is that all of the early DAW codes could be translated directly into an ISBN and that Amazon (and thus nearly all of the Internet) has records for those books using this derived ISBN even though the ISBN itself was never printed on a book.

The questions I have are 1) Do people think I’m on the right track or if I should change some of my current practices? 2) Should these be documented as standard ISFDB practices? Marc Kupper 00:07, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

For the first two cases, I would enter them as what's seen on the book -- I think there is a lot to be said for an invariant principle of documenting what you see in front of you. The problem with correcting mistakes is that it becomes much harder to draw a boundary between what changes can be made as corrections, and what are just deductions. Also, for new editors, it's easier to explain the rule that way (and easier for them to acquire the right habits).

However, where a data item is just plain missing, then I think you can enter it, and I think ISBNs fall into that category. If they listed an incorrect ISBN, that would be a harder case, because there could easily be other sources for the ISBN and reader might legitimately search for the correct ISBN. Even then I'd be disinclined to enter a corrected number in the ISBN field. But in the case you're talking about, there is no ISBN to correct, so you can derive it, enter it, and document it in the notes. Mike Christie (talk) 07:56, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

One of the main reasons to enter Publication data as it was (mis)attributed by the publisher is that we want our users to be able to start with Publication data and quickly find Title and Author level bibliograhies. For example, the second issue of Dynamic Science Stories has Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr.'s name consistently misspelled throughout the magazine as "Fredric Arnold Kummer, Jr.". If an ISFDB users reads this issue and wants to find out more about the author, he may well enter "Fredric Arnold Kummer" in the search box. If we hadn't documented the name as given in the magazine, then the user would have no way of discovering what Kummer's real name was or what else he wrote. The same problem would arise with the DAW artist Ken W. Kelly mentioned above. That's why we have the "as by" mechanism in place. Ahasuerus 09:46, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Thank you for the feedback. The current help for title and author fields already ask that data get entered exactly as shown but gives editors leeway for the cover artist and illustrators. I suspect what can get revised is if an artist is credited to enter the name exactly as stated in the publication. If you recognize that the name is misspelled you would still enter it exactly as shown but should also add a pseudonym link from the incorrect to correct spelling of the artist’s name.

Just a note to the effect that sometimes it's not clear whether the name was misspelled accidentally or on purpose. For example, Alex Schomburg occasionally did work as "Alex Schomberg" and it's not clear whether it was a misspelling or a "variant name" that he used for some reason. Anyway, just a minor point in support of the notion that we should capture whatever is stated in the book as accurately as possible, including artist names and ISBNs. Ahasuerus 19:11, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

The derived ISBN still bothers me because it means there’s no way to show the actual book identification on the title display. For example, a book may be coded “Ace 22576 95¢” or “SBN 441-22576-095.” The derived ISBN for either of these is 0441225764 / 0-441-22576-4 and if that gets entered then user’s see 0-441-22576-4 in the title display and may not realize the record is for Ace 22576 until they click and see the publication notes. Having 0441225764 in the ISBN field though is handy because that’s exactly where you will find this book filed on sites like Amazon. I’ve been able to take books from the 1950s and find a record on Amazon for the derived ISBN. This mainly happens with publishers that keep the same code as they reprinted and if the book continued to get reprinted into the ISBN era then book listing sites will have a record using the ISBN rather than ASIN or equivalent. I suppose that’s a case for a new field, “Derived ISBN/ASIN” that could get used in cases like this. Marc Kupper 17:59, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

I vote for what was on the book when published. That means we shouldn't see too many ISBNs before the early 70s (and even then they were pseudo ISBNs like 345-02671-3-125). I think if I have an ISBN for Carr's 1972 The Best Science Fiction of the Year, it must obviously be a reprint, as they weren't using ISBNs yet. The print bibliography for books published prior to the 70s should look a lot like Tuck's entries. Alvonruff 18:30, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Ok – I’ll drop a feature request into the queue for some way to link publications to Amazon that can bypass the ISBN field. I had started out putting exactly what was on the books in ISFDB but realized that, many sites, including Amazon are referencing the books using derived ISBNs. My experience has been that many publisher codes used from the 1950s on out can be translated into ISBNs and you will find a record in Amazon for it. Part of the reason this happened is publishers kept the same numbering codes as they reprinted and when they upgraded to the ISBN era they simply embedded the code they already had assigned to the title in the ISBN. Marc Kupper 21:22, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Fanzines

I see that Pagadan has submitted a number of fanzines. The Rules of Acquisition currently state:

1. In - Works of speculative fiction originally published in English, including works published within and outside the genre. "Published" is defined as published by:

• ...
• prozines
• semi-prozines
• ...
• fanzines??

Which doesn't exactly amount to clear and unambiguous guidance, to say the least. Should we update the Rules to state that we do not list fanzines? And that any fiction found in fanzines would need to have been reprinted in semipro or professional publications in order to be included? And if it has been reprinted, do we give the (semi)pro publication date as the Title date (plus a note in the Note field about the original fanzine publication) or do we do a partial listing of the fanzine publication like we do with non-genre magazines and anthologies? This will have various ramifications for H. P. Lovecraft, James Blish and other folks. Ahasuerus 17:25, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

As we all know, I do tend to be an inclusionist, so you may temper my response in that light, but I think it would be awesome to index fanzines. There is no such index that I am aware of, and I suspect that fanzines - many being memeographed - probably have a shorter usable lifespan than the pulps, as well as a smaller circulation (and a higher tendency to be tossed out when short on space). If someone is willing to punch in fanzines (and we can invent a new pub category if necessary, to segregate them into their own private ghetto), it would be a shame to put them off until some day after they've faded. They were an important building block of the genre, and they did give out Hugos for them, after all. Alvonruff 18:39, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Well, there is Fanac.org's (very) partial index, so we would be duplicating their work to some extent. On the other, one of the ISFDB's strengths is that it gives you a comprehensive and multifaceted view of the genre, and fanzines were certainly a big part of it at one point. I am not morally opposed to including them as long as we clearly label them as such.

Let's see. For Publication records, we would need a new type, FANZINE, right? Titles are publication-agnostic, so they don't really care whether they first appeared in Analog, Mimosa or hardcover. Other than that, I can't think of anything that we would need to add to the database structure. Display-wise, it shouldn't matter as long as the publication type is clearly displayed up top, although perhaps we would want to add a new fanzines-specific page to the ISFDB Wiki to mirror the Magazine page. Am I missing anything? Ahasuerus 19:08, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Well by grepping about for the MAGAZINE type, it took about 4 minutes to add FANZINE support (not online yet). The only question that arises is whether or not to treat the EDITOR title differently for FANZINEs that MAGAZINEs. At present ALL editor records would show up in the same place in the bibliography, although looking at a FANZINE would clearly show the FANZINE type. Alvonruff 21:12, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Personally I would not be very inclined to include fanzines -- I don't know that it does any harm, but it blurs the boundaries of what we include, to the point where we could never hope to be complete. If we do include them, though, I would suggest they show up at least in their own section in biblios. I also think that any of the contents of a fanzine should be marked in some way when displayed elsewhere in a biblio -- for example, if we list an essay by Damon Knight in a fanzine in the 1940s, it should not appear without any distinguishing marks in a list of essays in prozines. This is probably more important for fiction, than for essays but I think it should be done for both. I also think that fanzines will raise a lot of bibliographic difficulties that are likely to be more trouble than they're worth.

However, I could see us entering some specific fanzines, or at least some of their contents, in the same way we agreed we would enter partial contents of non-genre magazines if they contained material of interest to the ISFDB. So we might enter the issue of "Ancalagon" in which Leiber coins "swords & sorcery" as a term; or some issues of "Amra" in which well known writers appear. But generally opening up to all fanzines seems too much to me. Mike Christie (talk) 22:17, 1 Jan 2007 (CST)

As it has been the case with other "inclusionist vs. exclusionist" debates, my primary concern is not misleading our users. When I see that R._B._Cleary is currently listed as a "magazine editor" because we have a few of his fanzines on file, it makes me cringe. There is a great deal of difference between editing a fanzine and editing a prozine and blurring it is a Bad Thing IMO.

On the other hand, I think we crossed an important line when we decided to include self-published and vanity press-published stuff. That's when we basically threw "professional editorial oversight over the publishing process" as one of our criteria for inclusion out the window. And I still think we did the right thing because otherwise we would be trying to figure out whether to include 50% of what's currently (potentially) available to our users. However, once we crossed that Rubicon, it became hard to resist the inclusion of increasingly marginal items, including, now, fanzines.

As far as Titles go, it is true that there may well (although it doesn't always have to) be a qualitative difference between the stuff that Poul Anderson published in some random fanzine and what he sold to publishers, so I need to take my comment that Titles are Publication-agnostic back. We could probably classify Titles that have only been published in fanzines and never reprinted in "publications that you need to pay real money for" as "fan fiction" or "fan essay". I wonder if we can do this on the fly by looking at the Type of all Publication records that a given Title has appeared in? Ahasuerus 18:42, 4 Jan 2007 (CST)

Imaginative Sex

I see that under the John Norman listing "Imaginative Sex" is shown twice, once as fiction (1974) and once as non-fiction (1974). There's more info under the fiction entry than the non-fiction. My recollection, admittedly very vague, is that this was a non-fiction book.

It's a roleplaying guide (of sorts) for the kinds of games that John Norman fans would play :) If you decide to merge the two titles using the "Title" button on the left, keep in mind that you will also want to convert the "Novel" Publication record to "Nonfiction". Ahasuerus 19:51, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Okay, I'll see if I can do it -- tomorrow, when my mind is unclouded by the Grape. If I mess it up, please fix it! Hayford Peirce 21:14, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

That merge looks straightforward as everything is the same except for the type. I went ahead and added the other DAW printings so that one title has two and the other one publication so you can see how they get merged. Marc Kupper 22:27, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)Marc

(I always tried to imagine a meeting between John Norman and, say, Barbara Bova, hehe....) Hayford Peirce 19:30, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

I am sure Lange would be as impeccably polite as always, at least according to second hand reports. Now, if he tried to convert her to his view that that's what women really want deep inside, well, things might get interesting :) Ahasuerus 19:51, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

I'm sure he'd be polite, but with Barbara I dunno. Talk about strong-minded, outspoken, ball-busting wimmin! I think she'd chew him up and spit him out just on general principles.... Hayford Peirce 21:14, 30 Dec 2006 (CST)

Slave Girls of Gor

Somewhat to my surprise, I see that I've managed to remove the Imaginative Sex listing from the Novel section so that it now stands alone in the Nonfiction section. But while looking over the revised John Norman page I see the following: there is a lengthy intial section listing a couple of dozen "Gor" novels, along with their dates. Then, down below, in a separate section of about 5 or 6 other novels, there are two entries called "Witness of Gor, 1971" and "Gor#11: Slave Girl of Gor, 19-something or other". I know absolutely nothing about the Gor books beyond having glanced through a couple of them in bookstores years ago,

It started out as an OK Burroughs clone back in the 1960s. Somewhat racier than the original IIRC and not as good (Ken Bulmer would perfect the subgenre a few years later), it was your basic more or less readable teen fare. Then, around book 5-6, something happened and in the 1970s the series quickly (d)evolved into an S&M thingie of considerable notoriety, although in all honestly it was mostly talk. An awful lot of talk, actually, to the point where it read like a self-parody. Think of an Ayn Rand character interminably lecturing on the glories of submissiveness and you'll get the picture :)

but it seems to me, based solely on their titles, that these two items ought to be listed in the Gor section. Am I wrong on that?

You are quite right, they are both Gor titles. Moreover, we already have Slave Girl of Gor listed as a Gor title, so the two just need to be merged. Witness of Gor is the 26th installment, which continued the series after a 14 year gap caused by Don Wollheim's illness/death and subsequent change of direction at DAW. A lot of series and authors were dropped when Betsy took over, but Gor and Prescot were probably the two most prominent cases.

Also, in the Gor section, someone apparently once began numbering them: there are three books, down at end of the list, numbered 1, 2, and 3. Their publication dates would indicate that these were probably the first 3 books in the series. Should the other books be numbered as well, beginning with #4 for whatever appears to be the next book in order of publication? Hayford Peirce 10:40, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

Absolutely! That's part of what we have been doing here for the last 8 months ever since moderator editing was enabled: cleaning up biblios, merging duplicate titles, asigning titles to series and numbering them, etc. Now that user editing has been enabled, anybody can do the same thing. The tools are all there: the "Title" button (which I have suggested we should change to "Merge Titles") lets you merge two or more titles; "Edit Title Data" (available whenever you look at a title) lets you add Series name and Series number data; etc. Feel free to experiment :) Ahasuerus 12:00, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the various info. I've just taken care of "Witness of Gor", I think (waiting for Moderator approval), but I'm troubled about "Slave Girl of Gor" -- it seems to have been reissued with a different title: "Gor #11 etc", with a significantly different ISBN from the other one. In which case I suppose it should be listed as a Publication under the first one, but I'm not sure about any of this at all. It's *probable* that the two titles are the same book, but are we sure enough to go ahead turn the second one into a Publication listed under the first?

Okie, "Witness of Gor" is now in the Series list. But I'm troubled by something else. If we count up the Gor titles (beginning with the three numbered ones at the bottom of the list), and assume that the dates are all correct, then the so-called "Gor #11, Slave Girl of Gor" is actually the 12th book in the series.... Hayford Peirce 12:29, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

The confusion was caused by somebody entering Witness of Gor, the recently (2001) published 26th book in the series, as having first appeared in 1971. There was a Note attached, "Book Club edition - never published a retail edition", which is incorrect. This caused Witness to appear in the series list before Slave Girl, which was throwing the whole numbering scheme off. I have adjusted the date and added a number to it, so it should be OK now.

The "somebody" was me but now I’m confused because I don’t see a DAW publication for Witness of Gor and it was the DAW version I had the note attached to. I guess I should add this to the list of things to research because now I can’t see any evidence on the web at this instant that DAW published the thing much less that it was published in 1971. Somehow it was on the DAW list as a 1971 book and when I was verifying copyright's I fixed that one to 2001. The "Book Club edition - never published a retail edition" note was terse - it should have been that DAW never published a retail edition. DAW did retail printings of Gor #8 (Hunters of Gor) on out but when I checked AbeBooks I would see listings for the first seven Gor books credited to DAW but often with very sketchy data. I have these in the DAW list as “Book Club?” until I can pin down if the books exists. Marc Kupper 03:27, 3 Jan 2007 (CST)

As far as the question of whether the two Slave Girls are one and the same book, the answer is an unequivocal "yes". Gor bibliography is well understood since at one point Norman was both popular and controversial. There are fan sites, e.g. this one, and his work has been cataloged by various and sundry sources. There are, thankfully, no quirks or gotchas, so I have updated the ISFDB with what we know (except for one omnibus edition, which I will add later) and everything should be fine in the land of Gor now.

However, I have noticed that two out of three Imaginative Sex editions had "0000" for years. Is this intended? Ahasuerus 13:18, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

Yes, I added the publications that way as they are later printings. DAW’s practice is to only show the first printing date and never the publication date. At the time they were printing/reprinting Imaginative Sex DAW’s practice was to issue a new ISBN every time they raised the price when reprinting. There were three DAW “editions” of Imaginative Sex

• UJ1146, No ISBN, $1.95, first printed Dec-1974, printings #1 and #2
• UE1546, 0-87997-546-6 at $2.25, undated printings #5 and #7
• 0-87997-912-7 at $2.95, undated later printings. The book may be coded UE1912 along with the ISBN.

I don’t know which edition printings 3, and 4 were done under nor have I spotted a listing for the 8th printing on up. Book sellers often say “later printing” or the listing contains a mash of data that I considered unreliable meaning the numbers above are the only ones I’m comfortable with. I can sort the DAW list by ISBN and estimate the publication dates for the later editions (June 1980 and February 1984) but generally for ISFDB I use 0000-00-00 for later printings as the publication date is not stated. Marc Kupper 03:27, 3 Jan 2007 (CST)

Moderator bits

How do we go about deciding who gets the moderator bit? The bureaucrats are Al, Ahasuerus, me, and Grendelkhan, who hasn't been active in a while.

Marc is a moderator too, although perhaps not a bureaucrat. The difference between bureaucrats and moderators is only important when it comes to making adminstrative changes in the Wiki (who can ban who etc), which is of little concern to us at the moment. Ahasuerus 13:37, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

Do we need a discussion forum, or should we just make judgments and assign the bit? At the moment, I'd say Hayford's a candidate if he wants the bit. Mike Christie (talk) 13:25, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

I think the three primary qualifications are "good intentions", "judgment" and "familiarity with the process". There is little doubt that Hayford meets criteria #1 and #2, but he may be a little too new to the software to wield the stick without pocking his eyes out :) What do you think, Hayford? Ahasuerus 13:37, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

I absolutely agree with that last statement, hehe! Geez, I hardly dare to *breathe* around here yet! I don't yet feel at home with anything except, perhaps, adding completely new material, which seems to be pretty foolproof. Lemme play around for a while and see how I feel about it in a month or so. And thanks for the kind thoughts! Hayford Peirce 14:24, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

On Wikipedia, I think the bureaucrat bit is what permits the setting of the moderator bit -- that is, bureaucrats can promote (though not demote, if I recall correctly). So I was assuming it's that way here too. You don't need many bureaucrats, in any case; we have enough. Mike Christie (talk) 14:37, 31 Dec 2006 (CST)

I'd like to add one more qualifier for moderators and that's an obsession for detail, said Marc, non-bureaucratically. I don't think ability or lack of to poke ones eyes out should be a (dis)qualifier. Marc Kupper 03:33, 3 Jan 2007 (CST)