ISFDB:Community Portal

From ISFDB

Before posting here, consider whether one of the specialized noticeboards might suit your needs better:

• Help desk: for questions about how to do something, either in the ISFDB or the ISFDB Wiki. This includes both questions about how to do a specific task, and also more general questions about what should be done about particular situations where the information is clearly wrong and the solution is not obvious.
• Rules and standards discussions: for discussions about the rules and standards, such as whether certain kinds of publications belong in the ISFDB, or whether the help text defining capitalization should be modified. It also includes questions about interpretation, such as whether a SERIAL type can be used for sequences of short stories subsequently republished as a novel.
• Verification requests: for asking help with bibliographic problems concerning specific publications which require a physical check.
• Moderator noticeboard: for when you are trying to get the attention of one or more moderators.
• Development: A page for discussing ISFDB-related software development issues.
• ISFDB:Community Portal/Archive: Archive of old discussions from this page.

Make Variant bug fixed

It's no longer possible to create "Make Variant" submissions with an empty "Year" field. Ahasuerus 04:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Michael Butterworth

I've just received a 17 page bibliography from Michael Butterworth with more to come, relating to a discussion earlier about his works. Maybe 33% is not spec-fic and falls outside of our rules of acquisition. There's so much stuff here it would be shame to leave some of it out, so I was wondering if it is possible to upload the document (with his permission) into the ISFDB and link it back to the author page?--Rkihara 23:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

What format is the file? If it's fairly plain text, just copy'n'paste on to the wiki page and we can trim it as the 'proper' entries are created/checked. I'd be reluctant to introduce a proprietary file format here. BLongley 10:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's an MS Word file. Not sure how to do the copy and paste to the wiki or what wiki page you are referring to. Should I create a new page and link back?--Rkihara 17:23, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

"Macmillan Canada", or "Macmillan of Canada"

(Moved from the Community Portal Talk page, where it didn't belong?:-( ) Chavey 05:18, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

This publisher began with an official name of "Macmillan Company of Canada", then became "Macmillan of Canada", then became "Macmillan Canada". I have been unable to determine the dates at which those name changes happened, but whenever it was, we don't have it recorded correctly. We have "Macmillan of Canada" publishing from 1965-1979, and "Macmillan Canada" publishing from 1947-1986. None of the 12 books listed under these publishers have been verified. I suggest that unless we get some verifications, that we merge these two sets of books under one common (and I don't care which name). Chavey 16:02, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that we use the name of the publisher as it appears in the books when they were actually published. That's the ISFDB standard. And without primary verifications we use secondary sources, which appear to be how they are presently entered. I've gone through and changed the publisher of most of those listed under "Macmillan Canada" to either "Macmillan of Cananda" (post-1964) or "Macmillan Co. of Canada" (pre-1964), based on OCLC records. The only publication that remains under "Macmillan Canada" (here) appears to be one that you created from the US edition. I can't find an OCLC record for it. Also, this was posted on the wrong page. This is a page to discuss the Community Portal, not to post a message to the community.?:) Mhhutchins 15:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wonder how I got here when I thought I was at the Community Portal? I'm going to have to get my GPS unit checked, apparently I'm wandering lost across pages?:-)

I changed the 1948 book to be consistent with that time period. (I'm pretty sure I had looked up what others used for "Macmillan", and used what appeared common for that time.) Thanks for checking the WorldCat records on this. Chavey 05:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Stalked by Daisy Meadows

Aaaargh! As soon as I deal with the latest "Rainbow Magic" submissions from fixer, I discover they're coming to my town! If you know anyone that wants to go, see if you can get them to make people admit what titles they've ghost-written. Same for "Adam Blade". BLongley 12:54, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

I missed her at SXSW, but heard she's playing Bonnaroo in June. Most likely she fills the stage. Mhhutchins 16:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

German Books

It seems that most of the German books I run into around here all have titles that end with periods. I assume that's some type of German standard for listing book titles, but I've been erasing all of those periods when I find them. Should I be doing so? Or is there some reason to leave them there? Chavey 16:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like something a robot would do. I'd bet none of them have been verified. If they haven't been verified, feel free to remove the period. Now capitalization is another matter. I'd leave that to those editors more familiar with the language. Mhhutchins 17:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, I don't remember entering one of those (or running across one of them). Most probably they shouldn't end with a period. Do you have an example at hand? Stonecreek 17:56, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Mike is correct that so far I haven't seen any such titles with verified publications. As for examples, I've corrected many that I've seen, but from novels alphabetically through D, I see the following: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. All of these books are German. In the same alphabetical range of novels, I found one such book that wasn't German (which I corrected), and hence I wondered if it was something special about how German books were sometimes listed. Chavey 20:30, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

That's how some German/Austrian libraries display some of their titles, e.g. Herbert W. Franke's Der gr?ne Komet appears as "Franke, Herbert. -Herbert W. Franke. Der gr?ne Komet. Utopisch-technische Kurzgeschichten." and as "Der gr?ne Komet. Science-fiction-Erz?hlungen. (1. Aufl.)" in the Austrian National Library. Amazon.de uses the same convention on occasion, e.g. "Der gr?ne Komet.". Ahasuerus 03:21, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

That explains where they're coming from. I assume, though, that I should continue deleting those periods when I find them? Chavey 03:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I say we vote them off the island?:) Ahasuerus 05:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they are to be dropped for sure. They may be stated with a period in national libraries, but this differs from the title stated on title pages, spines and covers. It is used only seldom when there are two different titles stated (as in the case of a collection with only two shortfictions). And I'd use the common English colon to separate titles from undertitles as in this example. Stonecreek 08:15, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I've seen this on many German books from Amazon UK, and have been correcting them as I come across them. If fixer ever gets let loose on Amazon DE it's something to bear in mind. BLongley 12:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

All german book titles with a period were submitted in the early years of ISFDB. All newer german book entries are without a perid. As Ahasuerus said, the period is only a part of some german bibliographies and libraries but never part on the title pages. I've always deleted a period, when I've found it. Some sources of german books seperate the title from a subtitle with a period. As Stonecreek, I use a colon and it is as well a ISFDB rule. Rudam 19:34, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I did a fairly thorough search, and found 53 books with spurious periods at the ends of their titles, which I have removed. (Most, but not all, were German books.) Along the way, I also corrected a bunch of periods that were obviously title line separators, which I converted to colons. Chavey 02:04, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Good job! Regularizing the universe, one period at a time! (Or is it "regularising"??:-) Ahasuerus 04:35, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for your effort! What's with normalizing (or is it "normalising"? - zerfix, that leads to the same problem.) Stonecreek 14:31, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I've found far more than 53, but am working through them. Although I was a bit disheartened by this title - how's that for sweeping problem pubs under the rug??:-( BLongley 16:29, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) Wow! I wonder who did that one. I only did a search on titles, so I see that there are lots of pubs that are listed differently than their titles, with respect to that little period. Let me know if you want help on that, or I can let you pursue the pubs on your own. (See the next topic for what I'm up to this week and next.) Chavey 22:06, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to dive in and help me moderate the unmerges - the way I'm working means the dot-removal is easy but the remaining steps are still a pain. I'm trying to get as many done as possible before next backup, as the search is best done with fresh data. BLongley 15:36, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe I have now removed all of the terminal periods from publication records as well as the title records I did before. Chavey 05:50, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

At one point (about 2-3 years ago?) we discussed Nora Roberts' work and whether she was over the proverbial "certain threshold". Someone (DES, I think) pointed out that she had more SF titles than many genre authors who are above the threshold. I suspect that her non-genre titles were then merged by a moderator who meant to sort them out later, except that the "later" never happened. Ahasuerus 23:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I was the moderator, and I wasn't looking for non-genre titles, even though I did pull out several "In Death" translations. None of these pubs were under a English title record, and the only way to clean up Roberts page was to first determine if a title was non-genre or not. So I merged them all into one title record. Anyone with the time can then go through each pub, looking for which English title it refers to, and then determine whether it's a genre title. If it is, then unmerging it and then varianting it would just take a couple of submissions. Or, if it's determined that it's a non-genre title, then the pub record can be easily deleted. And I disagree that she is above the "certain threshold". The ISFDB is no place to record her 209 romance novels unless they have a fantasy element. I think DES's argument silly (if he were the one that posed it). I believe the threshold should be based on an author's status in the field, not just quantity. And looking at her page now, the ISFDB user would have to assume that she only wrote one non-genre novel, and that everything else is speculative fiction. Mhhutchins 02:35, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I did make that argument, and I still make it. Over 40 SF titles in the "In death" series alone, plus I think something like a quarter to a third of her other books have a fantasy, paranormal, or supernatural element large enough to make them IN, although this is hard to verify from secondary sources. Her non-genre novels should be marked as such, and I have marked several which I could be sure were, and I have added tags to several to indicate the nature of the genre elements. "Stature" is a very subjective judgement, and I think that quantity plus "bestselling" for a 35+ novel SF series, plus far more fantasy than Mary Stewart ever wrote is enough to put her over the threshold. -DES ^Talk 00:01, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The "certain threshold" mentioned earlier is notoriously hard to define, so disagreements are to be expected. My personal approach to this issue tends to be utilitarian: does adding a particular author's non-genre titles add to the value of our bibliography? And does it help our users find useful and/or otherwise hard-to-find information? Based on these criteria, here is what I usually do:

• For established non-genre authors like Dickens, Twain and Daudet our users' expectation is that we won't be listing their non-genre works (which are readily available elsewhere and which would only make our biblio harder to use), so I don't include them.
• For "primarily genre" authors adding non-genre titles helps present a complete view of their oeuvre, so I include them.
• For authors who have done a fair amount of work in and out of genre, I don't delete their non-genre titles if they are already in the database. If they are missing, I add any non-genre titles that can be mistaken for SF (usually due to suggestive titles) and add a comment explaining the nature of each title. If the author has relatively few non-genre titles, I will add them so that a "naive" user wouldn't have to wonder if we may have omitted a particular title by accident. Everything else falls into a kind of "grey zone".

In Nora Roberts' case, if all of her SF was limited to one or two series, then IMHO there would be no reason to list her non-genre works. However, she has published lots of SF in multiple series (plus, apparently, some standalones), so I think it would be useful to have her non-genre work listed simply to ensure that our users could easily determine whether a particular book is SF or not. Not that I am volunteering to work on it myself?:)

There are other issues with her bibliography, e.g. "Silhouette Special Edition" and "Silhouette Romance" need to be converted from regular series to pub series, but that's a different story. Ahasuerus 05:46, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Non-English language publishers

I recently discovered the Wikipedia pages on Book publishing companies by country and Publishing companies by country. So I began checking each such publishing company to see if they appeared in ISFDB, and adding basic links and data to their publisher entry if it wasn't there already. As I did that, I realized that going to those publisher pages and lists of books was a good way to identify many (although not all) books that had been entered prior to our support for title language. These books are generally still listed as a publication under an English (or "default language") title, usually with a note as to the actual language. So I'm now systematically converting these books to the current system. That usually means something like: Unmerge the non-English title, set the language of the main title to English, set the language of the unmerged title to the correct non-English language (with a trip to WorldCat to verify language if I'm not positive), then set the non-English title to be a variant of the English title. (There are, of course, lots of variations on this theme.) Alphabetically working my way through countries, I'm now about half-way through "France".

I mention this here because I am not going to the effort to inform verifiers of non-English publications that I have created new title recs, with language, for their verified publications. I'm partly justifying this on the grounds that I haven't actually changed anything about your verified publication record -- only the title record that links to it. But in fact, it's really just that there would be far too many such notifications I would have to send. I've currently created about 300 such new title records, adding languages to them and adding "English" to the main title record if it was still blank. I expect that by the time I'm done, I'll have created about 1000 such new title records, and I don't want to write that many "I changed your pub" notifications (and you don't want to read them?:-). But I thought I should post here a general notice that this is going on under your noses. (Especially Hauck's nose, who had entered lots of French publications back before language support, when he had to add notes to all of them?:-). Chavey 22:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I thought that there was a kind of automated procedure forthcoming which would do exactly this. I don't know at what stage you're now but the total of French titles to be converted is more likely in the 2000 range.Hauck 06:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

We're still quite a way off from that. There's three language-related fixes outstanding for Ahasuerus to test, plus the unmerge bug to fix, before I offer up "Unmerge Foreign title" for consideration. That will do the unmerge, set language and make variant in one step rather than three - it won't assume the parent is English. That should make things a lot faster but is still working title by title. Mass-update scripts are possible but their risk has to be assessed against the benefits - 2000 titles would obviously be done better automatically, but thoroughly testing a change that only works on 100 may take longer than doing it manually. BLongley 13:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I have several semi-automated macro scripts I'm using that speed up the process. Generally that means that once I've identified a publication to unmerge, it takes me about 6 key-strokes to do it. But to avoid some of the serious testing required of automated scripts, these scripts require that I actually look at all of the submissions before I accept them, which makes them a lot safer to use. These scripts also don't assume the parent title is English -- that's just the most common scenario. Chavey 14:20, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, semi-automated is a safe alternative, if slow. If Ahasuerus is unwilling to pass a fully automated solution then it's fairly easily to post project pages or even let Data Thief submit batches for review. BLongley 14:54, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I timed myself on a recent batch of conversions, and I'm converting them at a rate of about 50 an hour. If there are about 3000 such books (a reasonable guess, based on Hauck's estimate of his submissions), that's about 60 hours of work. That's a couple of weeks when I'm trying to avoid my real job?:-) One of the things I've run across that's a bit of a nuisance is that when I unmerge multiple pubs with, say, the same French title, I need to merge those titles together. But our Advanced search can't handle searches that have diacritical marks. (I assume that's a known bug.) So I can't then just search on the newly extracted title to find the pubs to merge, and generally have to be a bit more devious. Chavey 15:53, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I use the "back" button a lot on these. Use the title link to find the title number, then after approving it go back and go through each publication one by one to get to the unmerged title and submit a make variant, then go back twice. I know that doesn't help non-mods, but it's the best suggestion I can make for now. BLongley 20:44, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Searching trick: You can use "%" as a zero-or-more-characters wildcard ("a%b" will match "ab", "aXb", "a123b", and so on), and "_" as a one-character wildcard ("a_b" will match "aXb" but NOT "ab" or "a123b"). So if you have at least a few letters without diacriticals, you can replace the others with one of those and usually get reasonable results. --MartyD 10:44, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Note also that this manual process seems to create some variant titles of variant titles as per corresponding cleanup script. Hauck 17:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Display problem with "s in subtitles?

In publications of Lovecraft: A Look Behind the "Cthulhu Mythos" the actual work is not displayed in the TOC. For example in 155681

   * xi ? Introduction: The Shadow Over Providence ? essay by Lin Carter    * 185 ? Appendix: A Complete Biliography of the Mythos ? essay by Lin Carter 

But not the actual body of the work at page 1.

Seems like a display bug to me or is there a reason to not show it? Dana Carson 19:38, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with subtitles or quotation marks. In a NONFICTION-typed pub record, the title work isn't displayed, only contents. The same is true of NOVEL-typed records, if there are no "extra" contents added to the record. For example: two different records for Mission of Gravity: this one does not display a record for the novel (only the title reference link in the metadata), but this one does, and that's only because an afterword content has been added to it. It's not a bug, just a display choice, which is somewhat arbitrary when you start to think about it. Either it should be displayed all the time or none of the time. Mhhutchins 20:51, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

It's also true of COLLECTION and ANTHOLOGY-typed records. The title isn't displayed in the contents, which makes perfect sense. So I don't see a reason for displaying a content title for NONFICTION-typed records. Mhhutchins 20:57, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I would think a NONFICTION-type should work the same as a NOVEL-type (if there is extra content, then list the main content). Collections and anthologies don't have a actual content that is solely designated by their title, but both novels and non-fiction works do. The way novels work is much more intuitive than the non-fiction record above. --?JLaTondre (talk) 21:36, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. If nothing is shown that's fine but if you show some of the contents the missing part looks strange and confused me at least. Dana Carson 11:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I just changed the spelling of "Biliography" to "Bibliography" in the content record you used as an example. Mhhutchins 20:58, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Dana Carson 11:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Pan > Pan Books

After some discussion among a few editors, we came to the conclusion that records currently giving "Pan" as the publisher should be changed to "Pan Books". It helps when searching because so many publishers have "pan" in their name, as in "company". And most OCLC records also give the full name of the publisher. Is there anyone who has primary verified records credited to "Pan" who objects to the change? Mhhutchins 07:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I support this change, and have several "Pan" books. I'm also OK with subsets like "Pan Giant" being turned into publication series - so long as I don't have to do the work! BLongley 19:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

No objection here. Ahasuerus 02:44, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Same question for "OUP" which appears in all "grOUP" names. May i change this to the full "Oxford University Press"? BLongley 11:13, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I think "OUP" only exists because of Fixer records. Anytime I handle one, I always correct it to Oxford University Press. I think they all should be changed. Mhhutchins 13:51, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Fixer seems to have acquired a load of "OUP Oxford" titles recently, which prompted this question. Unless there's an "OUP" not in Oxford (maybe OUP US?) these seem to contain repetitive and redundant information. BLongley 15:02, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be an Amazon quirk. I have tweaked Fixer to change "OUP Oxford" to "Oxford University Press" on sight. Ahasuerus 17:23, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Patch r2012-10

Patch r2012-10 has been installed. It implemented certain changes to the submission approval process so that if moderators approve submissions out of order, it will no longer result in publications whose contents can't be removed. The following two scenario were known to cause this problem to occur:

1. Create a Clone Pub submission, then delete or merge the reference (i.e. "main") title found in the original pub. 2. Create a Clone or Import/Export submission, then merge one or more of the titles found in the original pub.

Please note that the implemented fix will prevent these problems from occurring in the future, but it didn't fix the 200+ pubs that are current affected by this issue. I will work on cleaning them up tomorrow -- I'd like to identify and notify the verifiers since some of the pubs may need to be re-checked. Ahasuerus 04:53, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The data has been cleaned up. It is now possible to remove titles from pubs like Oriental Stories, December-January 1931. The next step is to identify all pubs that list the same title more than once. Stay tuned... Ahasuerus 01:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The following pubs contain duplicate titles, which need to be removed:

+--------+ | pub_id | +--------+  |  88741 | |  49480 | | 130351 | |  56609 | | 360598 | |  12299 | | 270530 | | 273246 | | 273771 | |  83124 | | 307179 | | 321306 | | 321848 | | 323953 | | 328329 | | 328745 | | 329094 |? | 330354 | | 331344 | | 330035 |No way! |  14613 | | 359455 | | 368122 | | 382437 | | 382438 | | 385605 | +--------+ 

Next I need to fix the approval script so that import/export submissions would ignore titles that are already present in the destination pub. Ahasuerus 02:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I've started removing the duplicate records and will indicate a pub is finished by striking out its record number. Mhhutchins 03:30, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I fixed all but two. In the first one (329094) I could find no duplicate content records, and the second one (330035)...well, let's say I don't have a few hours to look for duplicates in that one! Surely there's got to be a better way to remove them. Will you run the script again and see if I removed all of the duplicates from the other ones? Thanks. Mhhutchins 04:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about 329094. I fixed it as part of my testing and forgot to remove it from the posted list. Everything else looks good, but I have just realized that I ran my script against the last backup, which doesn't include the latest offenders from the Magic Carpet adventure. Running the script against the live data, I see that 387122, 387289, 387359 and 387576 have problems. The culprit is "The Souk (Oriental Stories, October-November 1930)", an INTERIORART record which has multiple versions in all of these pubs. And it seems strange that the same interior art (including the month/year) would be used in 10 different issues of Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet. It looks like a title merge gone awry. Ahasuerus 05:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I accepted the submission to merge all of them, assuming that it was a spot illustration that was used in every issue to illustrate the editorial/letter column ("The Souk"). I'll try to see if there's anything I can do to fix it. Mhhutchins 05:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't really see this as a problem. If the same piece appears three times in a single publication (as it does in the book that collects three issues) then why shouldn't it be displayed on the book's publication page for each appearance?? And why shouldn't the publication be displayed three times on the title record's page. It may be rare, but it happens, as this case proves. Mhhutchins 05:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's possible for the same title record to appear twice (or even multiple times) in a pub, e.g. a poem may appear at the beginning and at the end of a book. It's uncommon, but we have run into this scenario a few times. Unfortunately, our software doesn't handle these cases well and will only display the first occurrence of each title. I will poke around to see if we can change the display logic to show each occurrence of each title rather than just the first one. Ahasuerus 05:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

"Mr" vs. "Mr." in titles

The canonical title of a well-known book is "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". The first edition writes this without the periods, i.e. as "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". Initially, I assumed this wouldn't make a difference -- e.g. our help pages are clear that if I saw the author "Arthur C Clarke", I should correct that to "Arthur C. Clarke" (with the period). However, in re-reading, the Title Help Screen, under the section on "Symbols and punctuation," it is fairly obsessive over small variations in a title. But it doesn't quite address the issue of periods for abbreviations. So should I: (1) Correct it to the canonical title (adding the missing periods); (2) Leave the periods out of the publication title, but leave it in the same title rec; or (3) Create a variant title rec for this (minor) title variation? Chavey 14:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Without looking at what the help page says, I personally feel the canonical title should be exactly as it was first published...but I would not create a variant if later printings add a period in the title. Just enter the title field of the publication record exactly as it is published but keep the publication under the same title record. This method only becomes a problem when a title is included in a larger work (e.g. novels in omnibuses). I think the variant function has been overworked and the creation of variants is overdone, and in some cases to the point of being ridiculous. It adds questionable value to the database and in the long run confuses the user. Clarity is a much better commodity than perfection. (And this is coming from a perfectionist.) Mhhutchins 18:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we've decided "Mr" vs. "Mr." for authors even!?:-/ For container titles, "no variant needed for punctuation differences" seems to be OK for the publications under it - we can still record "exactly what it says". So that would be (2). BLongley 23:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

As for "the variant function has been overworked" - I agree. "Variant" is a misnomer now, it covers title changes, author changes, serialisations, translations... and still needs to be extended to cover translations by different translators! We're still at the point (IMO) where we can use the functionality usefully, but help is now very unclear on when and why to use it. One more extension and we really need to look at the "X relates to Y in Z way" final(?) solution. (OK, it won't be final if we sort out how to relate fix-up novels to constituent stories.) BLongley 23:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Source for cover info

Pulp cover artists might be figured out by looking for the cover at http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll270/nbmaa/The%20Robert%20Lesser%20Pulp%20Art%20Collection/ which has many from the Robert Lesser Pulp Art Collection. Dana Carson 06:11, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia & "Publication history at ISFDB"

There are just under 1700 books with their own Wikipedia pages that include a link at the end to their "publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database". This strikes me as a very neat thing to do, both for Wikipedia and for our own PR. A random sample implied that most of these seem to be for books where we do have a pretty good publication history. However, I ran across this phenomena with Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" where what we had was the original 1891 publication and exactly one other edition prior to 1950. That's a pretty sad "publication history". In this particular case, I searched WorldCat and added all 37 other publications (in 11 languages) that they WorldCat knew about through 1920. So this particular instance now has at least a reasonable claim to a "publication history" for that text. But I wonder how many of the other 1,688 titles we have linked this way fail to fulfill our claim? Chavey 19:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Our claim??? Where do we claim to have a "publication history" of any title? That's part of the Wikipedia template that we're not responsible for. If I knew how, and if no one would jump down my throat, which happens too often when I try to edit Wikipedia, I'd change the template to be a more accurate reflection of what the link entails. Mhhutchins 19:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I changed the ISFDB template on Wikipedia from "Publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database." to "Summary page for publications of this title at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database." Let's see how long it takes before someone there complains about my edit. Mhhutchins 19:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Coutts Brisbane's "The Law of the Universe" vs. "The Dominant Factor"

Would anyone happen to know whether Coutts Brisbane's "The Law of the Universe" is a VT of "The Dominant Factor" as discussed here? Ahasuerus 19:29, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Movie posters from an alternate universe

Here is a fun site dedicated to movie posters from an alternate universe. Almost half of the movies are SF, so it's vaguely on topic?:) Ahasuerus 00:11, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

"The Gate to Women's Country", by Sheri S. Tepper

I entered an edition of this book that consists of remaindered copies of the true first edition book, with a new dust jacket that says the book is "Free with purchase of Raising the Stones." The book itself is identical to the true first edition, including the claim that it's a first edition printed in Sept. 1988. However, the dust jacket was printed in 1990, was only used with this edition, and is being used as a promotional item for a 1990 book by Tepper. As such, I assume it should be entered with a "publication date" of 1990. But was I right in giving it a price of "$0" (with a note explaining that)? Chavey 03:39, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd say so. At least the blurb said 'Free with purchase...'. That is not enough reason to assume a price of $0.00. Stonecreek 00:07, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree. Bibliographically, your copy is not a new edition. It's the first edition with a new dustjacket, making it a variant. It should be sufficient to add a note to the record for the first edition that some copies of the edition were issued in a different dustjacket as you described. Just my two cents. Mhhutchins 21:51, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes. But your 2 cents counts for at least a nickel?:-) Chavey 02:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the exchange rate fluctuates, based on the perception of the editor receiving the advice. I would venture to say that there are some who believe the value is less than one cent. Thanks. Mhhutchins 03:57, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

It could be worse, sometimes my opinion seems worth less than a Greek Euro.?:-/ BLongley 11:21, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Exchange rates aside. Mike, is your objection to a separate publication record for the re-jacketing general or because it is the same publisher? I recently encountered a similar situation. Unsold copies of the first edition (ERB Inc) of Burroughs' Back to the Stone Age was apparently remaindered and sold by Grosset & Dunlap with a new jacket at a reduced price. This is explicitly noted in both Zeuschner and Heins. I think Tuck is trying to state the same thing by putting both "states" within the same set of parentheses. We already had separate records for these two states when I first encountered them. My own opinion (I've no idea how many Mhhutchins or BLongleys it is worth)is that separate publication records are proper in this instance. We have a new date, price, publisher and potentially cover artist (not for Stone Age) that would need to be noted. Though, now that I think about it, none of these items are going to be reflected on the title page of the re-jacketed state. The print bibliographies all seem to list it separately to some degree. --Ron ~ Rtrace^Talk 12:24, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not really my area - I'm a pb collector and only reluctantly buy tp or hc - but I would suggest (gently) that a new date, price, publisher or cover artist would be worth a new record. But this is straying into Michael's specialist area, much like the SFBC rules. (Which I am not personally happy with, as it prevents verification of individual gutter codes etc.) But as I'm unlikely to ever Primary Verify one of these I appreciate my view is comparatively low here. BLongley 13:03, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps my objection to creating a new record for a different "state" may have been a knee-jerk reaction. But now that I've had more time to think it over, I can find one rationale for not having a new ISFDB record: a jacketless copy of a book doesn't make it anything less than a copy with a jacket. It's less valuable, of course, but the books themselves remain the same edition. Remove the jackets of the two books in discussion and you have the same book. (The librarians and editors at OCLC enter all data from the actual books and nothing from the dustjacket, which is not considered to be an essential part of the publication.) If the bindings have changed, even though the pages come from the same printing, I would think a separate record would be necessary. This happens when titles are issued simultaneously in hardcover and trade paperback, or when a limited edition only adds a tipped-in signature sheet, but is otherwise identical to the regular edition. This is just my personal opinion, and I'm not going to be deleting records for false entries like this. I've learned to choose my battles more wisely. Mhhutchins 19:00, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Hitchcock anthologies

I have dozen Alfred Hitchcock anthologies to enter; how do I determine which stories or anthologies to input? Many stories in them are SF or by authors of SF interest. So the question is, do I pick and choose or enter them all?Don Erikson 18:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Any stories that are definitely spec-fic [and the book they appear in] should be added. "Authors of SF interest" is a different subject. My unwritten rule of thumb: if an author is already on the DB, I'm inclined to add stories that are non-genre but only if spec-fic is that author's primary writing genre. It is a judgment call. The Help isn't really specific, nor can it be. There is no hard and fast 'line' drawn [not yet anyway]. You've entered enough data to have a pretty good feel here, use your best judgement. --~ Bill, Bluesman 23:32, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Dark Harvest

I have to wonder why [this] author is included in the db when none of his works are spec-fic?? A note on the title record for one pub: "Crime thriller, included in the ISFDB in order to create a complete bibliography for the specialty publisher Dark Harvest" seems to answer the question but when did we start listing every genre by any publisher [large/small/specialty] just for 'completeness'?? How did this even get on the db in the first place?? --~ Bill, Bluesman 22:44, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Some of his shortfiction was published in genre sources (Make a Prison was even collected in multiple "best of" anthologies"). Those certainly belong in the database. Personally, I don't think he meets the "certain threshold" of the Rules of Acquisition (#4 & #5) so wouldn't include the non-genre works. I also don't see a need to include every work by a publisher. --?JLaTondre (talk) 23:48, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Other than the one title noted, do you know which other short fiction works do belong? Certainly seems like the bibliographic tree needs pruning. --~ Bill, Bluesman 00:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

A quick click through the shortfiction titles will show you that:

Those are likely to be genre (and even if not, I would recommend including based on the publication). Several more might or might not be depending on how stringent the "supernatural" portion of "supernatural horror" is applied. "How Would You Like It?" is in a verified publication so the verifier (Stonecreek) should be consulted on that one. --?JLaTondre (talk) 00:28, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I was the editor who created pub records for the Dark Harvest editions of Block's nongenre books, which I see someone has already deleted from the database. (So why weren't the other nongenre publications by Block deleted?) I still believe Dark Harvest deserves a complete bibliographic record in the ISFDB, and most people familiar with the specialty press field would agree. Block's The Sins of the Fathers (whose introduction by Stephen King is now a stray title record because the pub record was deleted) is a non-supernatural thriller, just as Bloch's Psycho, Tryon's The Other, and King's Dolores Claiborne. I've seen the rules bent in much less important instances to include nongenre publications, most often because a work was reviewed in a genre magazine. I'd much rather see a record for a nongenre book by Lawrence Block in the database than a nonfiction book about Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement by a writer who has no genre work. So when do we delete Thomas Harris's works from the database? And all nongenre works by nongenre writers? For example, authors like Nora Roberts whose spec-fic works are such a relatively small portion of her output, most of which are not listed correctly on her summary page as nongenre. Mhhutchins 21:41, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Nominate Biomassbob for Moderator

I would like to nominate Biomassbob for moderator status. Though only editing here for for a little over four months, the range is impressive. The willingness to learn and adapt is easy to see. Communicates very well, and is willing. --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Support

1. Support, as nominator. --~ Bill, Bluesman 14:43, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
2. Support, as moderator who has seen quite a bit of his submits. Stonecreek 13:06, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
3. Support Kraang 02:28, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose, as moderator who has handled many of his submissions. Bob is doing excellent work, is nicely detail-oriented, and has been very receptive to feedback, but I think he has more to learn and needs more experience with the "gotchas". That, and it would be nice to see a lower frequency of typos/mechanical mistakes. 20 or so comments -- mostly on submissions -- in half a month is a much higher frequency than we should be seeing for someone ready to become a moderator. He's well on his way, but I think he needs a little more of Ahasuerus' oregano. --MartyD 18:14, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
2. Oppose. As the moderator who has handled most of Bob's submissions, I ditto Marty's remarks. I only ask those who support this nomination, many of whom have handled relatively few of his submissions, to read Bob's talk page in order to get a better understanding of his progress as an editor. Mhhutchins 21:11, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Neutral

Comments:

1. I haven't done much work on Biomassbob's submissions, but a review of the suspect's, er, I mean the nominee's Talk page suggests that although Bob is very detail-oriented, he may still be in the process of learning certain core areas of the application, e.g. see Making variants of existing titles, Titles and authors in reviews, Titles of serials. Perhaps a bit more seasoning may be indicated? (I'll provide the oregano!) Ahasuerus 05:26, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
2. The one major thing he has got to learn (and that I took a while to learn, too) is that it's often better to slow down to avoid typos and other mistakes you didn't intend. Otherwise, I think he is getting better and better. Stonecreek 15:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
3. He's definitely improving although I appreciate his early submissions and ideas were a bit stressful on moderators. Let's give him a bit more tuition. (I have a load of spices I rarely use.) BLongley 11:46, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
4. His talk page does show improvement in editing. His good intentions and communications skills are clear, just needs some marinating. --Willem H. 13:54, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
5. I see no problem returning to this nomination at a later date, or re-nominating in the future if this one needs to be closed. Often just being nominated can clarify areas that need improvement. --~ Bill, Bluesman 21:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Outcome

• Based on the lack of consensus above, the nomination is not successful at this time. The issue will be revisited once the nominee has been further indoctrina..., er, seasoned. Ahasuerus 05:19, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Free Book!

Now that I have your attention, I must admit it's more of a pamphlet at the moment, it's not by anyone famous (i.e. it's by me) and it's NONFICTION. What it is is a beginner's guide tentatively called "Using the ISFDB (Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase)" and is intended as a supplement to our help pages: i.e. it will show graphical examples, admits to problems, explains some background, and how to interpret results. What I would like, before I waste too much time on it, is some feedback on the first draft. So if anyone would like to review it privately for me, drop me a line on my talk page. All reviewers will get a credit (unless of course the review says "just improve the help pages and forget the book".) BLongley 12:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

It's still very rough so I'm not really looking for style comments, just accuracy checks and suggestions for extra completeness. This is Volume 1 in an intended series and is supposed to only cover non-editor usage. Books 2-4 will cover submission of edits (so will probably take a year to complete and be out of date immediately), moderation tips, and how to contribute software developments. Maybe a fifth book to encourage people to use our API, but that can wait till we have a few more moderators, we can barely cope with the active bots we have at present. BLongley 12:16, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Title Series question

I created a title series for the many variations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While this is a somewhat unusual use of a title series, it seems to be included in our definition that a title series "are linked by common characters, story lines or settings." In doing this, I included a couple of essays as well as poems, novels, and short stories. Are essays appropriate? The Help Page says that title series may include only novels, or may include short stories and novels. It doesn't explicitly exclude non-fiction, but that doesn't seem to have considered when creating that page. (It also doesn't include the possibility of Poems, Collections, Chapterbooks, or Omnibuses, but I would assume that those are implied options.) Chavey 08:27, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's appropriate. The software will handle most title types in series. The "major" series type is Fiction Series. If a series has some NOVEL, COLLECTION, OMNIBUS, or SERIAL in it, it will be labeled as a Fiction Series no matter what else is in it (including NONFICTION and ESSAY). Otherwise, the series type displayed corresponds to the title type: Anthology, (Magazine) Editor, Nonfiction, Nongenre, Chapterbook, Short Fiction, Essay, and Poem. The author's bibliography tries to keep the series and the group of works of that type next to each other in the display. One little quirk you might run into is that the same logic used for "Fiction Series" is actually applied to all of the series, in the order I listed. So if a bunch of SHORTFICTION and ESSAY and POEM titles were put in one series, this would be labeled as a "Short Fiction Series". --MartyD 12:06, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Because of the summary page display design, I personally feel nonfiction pieces should not be entered into a title series that is primarily fiction, and vice versa. You have the option to create a title series for the nonfiction. (Although, I personally don't find any great value in doing so, as it clutters up an author's summary page.) Mhhutchins 14:11, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

There's also the option of using sub-series, either for both or for just the non-fiction. Because the parent series will drive the listing, it would still be shown in the Fiction Series section, but with some thoughtful naming it could be pretty clear that the non-fiction series is works about the fiction series. --MartyD 12:32, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Nominating editor Pete Young as moderator

This editor has improved steadily since his first submit. Now he has understood the basics of the ISFDB and most of the finer details as well. His work is overall responsible and he usually is careful towards other moderators and the good of the database. Plus: he is willing, although I shocked him with the form of my question. Stonecreek 17:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Support

1. Support, as nominator. Stonecreek 17:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
2. Support. I appreciate he will remain short on time but I think he'll be a useful addition. (I can't do Thai.) BLongley 11:56, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
3. Support. I never had a major problem with his submissions. --Willem H. 12:25, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
4. Support. Have approved a wide range of his submissions and all have been fine.Kraang 01:05, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral

1. With only 1200 submissions, I'm not sure that he's had enough time to encounter all of the intricacies of the database and the moderation of a wide range of submissions. But I like that he's communicative, and believe he's capable of working on his own submissions. And I don't think he would moderate anything of which he's not entirely certain. Mhhutchins 13:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
2. I have had only limited exposure to Pete's work, so all I can do is echo Michael's sentiments. Ahasuerus 05:39, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Comments:

Outcome: The nomination is successful and the moderator flag has been set. Congratulations! Ahasuerus 01:41, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much indeed, guys, I'm very honoured! Beers all round on me.?:) PeteYoung 03:08, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Welcome aboard, and sleep off the beers before you try out your new powers!?;-) BLongley 13:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Genevieve Linebarger and her alter ego Cordwainer Smith

While researching for the German editions of Smith I came across the notion in this publication, p. xv (Mann's introduction) that Down to a Sunless Sea was written by Linebarger alone (we have her as co-author) and that she was co-author of The Lady Who Sailed the Soul (we don't credit her). In addition, Mann notes that she was co-author 'on several other stories', but research lead to only one other story we don't credit to her, Golden the Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh!, mentioned here.

Shall we now credit the shortfictions in question along the lines of the new information? I'd say yes to the information provided by Mann and maybe to the iblist info. This should lead IMHO to making Linebarger into a pseudonym of Smith - there's a difficulty in Down to a Sunless Sea, though, as it was published both as by Linebarger and Smith and as by Smith alone. Other opinions would be most welcome! Stonecreek 19:22, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Note to the verifiers of The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith: In my copy (3rd printing as Hauck's) is a letter by Smith on p. 64 that I'd like to add. Any objections?

Note: We seemingly have both publishers, NESFA and NESFA Press. Is there an easy way to merge them? Stonecreek 19:26, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, there was another thing: Since The Best of Cordwainer Smith has only stories from the Instrumentality in it (and the alternate title The Rediscovery of Man) shouldn't it be part of the series? Stonecreek 19:33, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Concerning _Down to a Sunless sea_, Hellekson in this pub seems to confirm that it's Genevieve who wrote it => "...she also wrote an original story based vaguely on Cordwainer Smith's universe...". For the joint authorship of certain texts, it's, as usual, a kind of grey area where we're certain of nothing (a bit like who wrote what in Kuttner & Moore output). I'd rather stick to the (variable) authorship as given in the publications. BTW, the variating of some french novels by Smith that I've initialy entered in english was done in a most curious way (a novel was created with the omnibus title and the latter was containing itself, with incomprehensible variating relations). Please refrain from making such alterations to "complex" french publications. Hauck 20:03, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I would not variant any of the stories without more substantial proof, and since both parties are no longer alive, it's going to be hard to find the definitive credit. I believe the credits should stand as is. It wouldn't hurt though to place notes in the title records and give the source for the speculation concerning the authorship.

Moderators have the ability to merge publishers, but they must be identical. So do an edit for "NESFA" changing it to "NESFA Press". Then merge the two publishers into one. (You should first check with those primary verifiers of the "NESFA" records to see if there are any objections to changing their verified records.)

It seems that there has been a preference not to merge publishers if they really do occur as printed in publications in those two different ways. My memory is that this is true of "NESFA" and "NESFA Press". Chavey 02:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

But that is a preference only if the publisher has actually and officially changed their name, e.g. "The Viking Press" became simply "Viking" when it was purchased by Penguin, and when there is a definite line of demarcation between the two names. If a publisher arbitrarily states its name several different ways over the course of its lifetime, there's nothing wrong with regularizing it in order for all of its publications to appear one one list. This seems to be the case with NESFA. I only have a few of their indexes so I can't confirm if the verifiers are keeping with the publisher's stated name or are shortening it, again, arbitrarily. For example, even though this record gives the publisher as NESFA, the OCLC record, which ordinarily gives publisher credit from the title page, has it as NESFA Press. That's why I told Christian that he should contact primary verifiers before making such a merge. Mhhutchins 04:15, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

And I've moved The Best of C.S. to the series.

I'll have to pull out my copy to confirm, but I don't think Genevieve was credited in the original publication of the story "Down to a Sunless Sea" in F&SF. Does anyone else have a convenient copy to see if the credit given in this record is correct? Mhhutchins 20:28, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I've pulled mine?;-), the story is credited to "Cordwainer Smith" alone but the introduction to the text states "The story (...) was completed by his wife after his death.". Hauck 20:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

(unindent) An unfortunate side effect of crediting only the ghost writer in the canonical title record is that the variant title for the nominal author disappears from that author's Summary page. Which is bad because it makes it hard for our users to find the title. It can also result in data duplication when well-meaning editors re-enter the same books under the nominal author's name because they have no easy way of knowing that they already exist in the database under the ghost writer's name.

For example, compare V. C. Andrews' Summary page with Andrew Neiderman's Summary page. A naive user has no way of telling that s/he needs to check Niederman's page to find other titles that the latter has written using Andrews' name over the last 25 years. And the editors who entered 75%+ of the currently existing "Andrews" records were presumably unaware that they were ghosted.

The Andrews-Neiderman example also raises another issue. Neiderman was supposedly hired by Andrews' publisher/estate to finish the books that she had in the pipeline at the time of her death, so at least the first few books were posthumous collaborations. They were commercially successful and Neiderman was retained to write additional books based on Andrews' outlines, notes, etc. Eventually Neiderman exhausted the material left in Andrews' archives and the last N books are apparently his own creations with extremely tenuous links to the Andrews oeuvre. Unfortunately there is no way of telling just how much Neiderman contributed to each book, which makes it hard to tell when "posthumous collaboration" ceased and "posthumous ghosting" started.

For these reasons I think it's better to use both names (the ghost's and the "ghostee"'s) in the canonical record and explain the situation in Notes. Take a look at William Shatner's page -- note how the "Quest for Tomorrow" and "Tekwar" series are currently set up. Ahasuerus 04:13, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll let the authorship of Down to a Sunless Sea and Golden the Ship Was--Oh! Oh! Oh! as they are, but would still like to add Linebarger as co-author of The Lady Who Sailed the Soul.

I'd like to gain a picture by counting your votes:

Support

1. As proposer, Stonecreek 09:37, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
2. Support, but only for the NESFA editions of "The Rediscovery of Man". I'll have to revisit my Cordwainer Smith collection to see how these stories are credited in the various pubs. --Willem H. 10:54, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

Neutral/Comments

1. You've not attributed any source for the credit for "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul". Is it the NESFA collection? If so, is it only mentioned in the introductory notes or is it a stated credit on the story's title page? If not the latter, I would oppose such a change. Mhhutchins 13:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, the whole book is credited only to Cordwainer Smith. As I've written in the opening of this discussion, these credits were given by James A. Mann, the editor of the NESFA collection. I'd call him a dependable source, if there is any! (He discusses the variants of Scanners Live in Vain also, for example). Stonecreek 18:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)?

1. Willem: In my opinion this information is for all publications of The Lady Who Sailed the Soul. This would be edited into a variant: The Lady Who Sailed the Soul by Smith and Linebarger (as by Cordwainer Smith). Stonecreek 18:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with that, but then "Himself in Anachron" and "Down to a Sunless Sea" will have to be redone the same way. --Willem H. 18:39, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I'll be glad to do that - credit to whom credit is due. Maybe I caused some misunderstanding in not stating exactly what I had

Source: http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/index.php?title=ISFDB:Community_Portal&diff=283479&oldid=prev

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