ISFDB open for public editing beta
Mike Christie
the front page still says "will shortly be open"--that will be changed
this morning; but it is open as of now.
Editing is open to anyone, but you do have to have a userid and be
logged in. In addition, changes are "moderated", which means a
moderator will review all edits.
The editing process is also supported by a wiki. The main ISFDB url is
and the supporting wiki is
The same login works for both.
For more information, see the Beta project page at the ISFDB Wiki:
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Beta
or post a follow up query here.
Thanks
Mike
Ahasuerus
> The ISFDB is now open for a beta test of public editing. [snip]
Just to clarify, when we say "a beta test of public editing", we don't
mean that all data will be wiped at the end of the beta period :)
Anything entered during the beta will stay in the database.
--
Ahasuerus
Dan Goodman
Thanks!
And now I can't remember what was (or wasn't) in the isfdb which
annoyed me...
--
Dan Goodman
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Political http://www.dailykos.com/user/dsgood
Ahasuerus
> Thanks!
>
> And now I can't remember what was (or wasn't) in the isfdb which
> annoyed me...
An awful lot has changed within the ISFDB over the last year: the
backend is different, the software is different, its functional
behavior is different, etc. The things which annoyed you in the past
may no longer be there, replaced with new and totally different things
to be annoyed about :)
--
Ahasuerus
Konrad Gaertner
I assumed Dan was talking about missing/incorrect data.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Mike Christie
> I assumed Dan was talking about missing/incorrect data.
Well, assuming he was, we hope that people can now fix data instead of
being annoyed by it. The interface and tools are still being enhanced,
but we think that it is now possible for anyone to grab a book from
their shelves and check the ISFDB to see if it matches, and update it if
not. The goal of the beta is to find out if we're right.
As Ahasuerus said, it's only a beta in the sense that we know there may
be problems we haven't found yet, and we don't want to advertise it as
working perfectly just yet. But we'd certainly appreciate anyone who
picks a book out and enters it and lets us know what they think -- about
the interface, ease of use, or anything else.
There's a Getting Started page here:
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Getting_Started
which I hope will be useful. As I said, feedback is welcome -- we know
the ISFDB is a valuable resource to sf readers, and we'd like to know if
what we're doing to improve it is working.
Mike
Mike Schilling
>
> As Ahasuerus said, it's only a beta in the sense that we know there
> may be problems we haven't found yet, and we don't want to advertise
> it as working perfectly just yet.
In other words, if it were a commercaal product you'd call it
"production-ready". :-)
Dan Goodman
I was thinking more about information given than about how it's
presented.
By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
stories acceptable as entries?
Dan Goodman
> Ahasuerus wrote:
> >
> > Dan Goodman wrote: [snip]
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > And now I can't remember what was (or wasn't) in the isfdb which
> > > annoyed me...
> >
> > An awful lot has changed within the ISFDB over the last year: the
> > backend is different, the software is different, its functional
> > behavior is different, etc. The things which annoyed you in the past
> > may no longer be there, replaced with new and totally different
> > things to be annoyed about :)
>
> I assumed Dan was talking about missing/incorrect data.
Yes.
Also about duplicated data, sometimes.
Ahasuerus
> Konrad Gaertner wrote: [snip]
> > I assumed Dan was talking about missing/incorrect data.
>
> Yes.
>
> Also about duplicated data, sometimes.
Oh yes, there is quite a bit of that. The ISFDB uses a Webbot to keep
up to date and we are not at a point where bots can create perfect
bibliographies all by themselves. Yet. It takes many manhours to clean
up a month's worth of new data and we are only now beginning to catch
up.
We do have many new tools (crafted by Al von Ruff) to help us with the
cleanup process, though: Merge Title, Unmerge Title, Clone Publication,
Make a Varant Title (or pseudonymous work), etc. But with about 180,000
titles and even more editions, it will take a while to clean up the
data. Between Al and me, we made about 30,000 corrections/additions
this year and with more editors banging away, things should improve
noticeably.
P.S. Naturally, our otherwise fairly stable servers decided to take a
break on Christmas eve, when there was nobody around to bring them back
up.
--
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
> By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
> stories acceptable as entries?
Back when ISFDB1 was first set up in 1995, we had fairly strict
criteria for inclusion: no e-publications, no vanity presses, no
self-published stuff, etc. Now that on demand printing, e-books and
other wonders of 21 century technology have blurred the lines, we are
much more relaxed about it.
If a book has an ISBN, we will include it regardless of whether the
publisher is Tor or Mom&Pop Press and regardless of whether the medium
is paper or some kind of Adobe/Microsoft reader.
If a book does *not* have an ISBN, then things get murky. We are still
debating whether we want to include every URL under the sun -- and end
up with an impressive collection of dead URLs 10 years from now :)
--
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
And if we were Microsoft, we would be on version 3.0 by now. But let's
be realistic: how can a group of volunteers hope to achieve the lofty
quality assurance standards set by industry leaders?
--
Ahasuerus
Nancy Lebovitz
You guys are definitely ahead on sarcasm.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Joseph Nebus
>And if we were Microsoft, we would be on version 3.0 by now. But let's
>be realistic: how can a group of volunteers hope to achieve the lofty
>quality assurance standards set by industry leaders?
Have caffeinated squirrels to run across the keyboards, save
the changes to the source code, and then delete lines until the result
compiles?
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Schilling
"Joseph Nebus" <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote in message
news:nebusj.1...@vcmr-86.server.rpi.edu...
> "Ahasuerus" <ahas...@email.com> writes:
>
>>And if we were Microsoft, we would be on version 3.0 by now. But let's
>>be realistic: how can a group of volunteers hope to achieve the lofty
>>quality assurance standards set by industry leaders?
>
> Have caffeinated squirrels to run across the keyboards, save
> the changes to the source code, and then delete lines until the result
> compiles?
That can't be it; if you deleted lines, the software would get smaller
rathet than bloating up with each release.
Peter D. Tillman
"Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
No, no -- you just hire more squirrels...
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
Simon Slavin
<458e27bf$0$44181$8046...@newsreader.iphouse.net>:
> By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
> stories acceptable as entries?
There needs to be a definite statement on this. Also whether graphic novels list _Sandman_
qualify, and whether stories which might, or might not be science fiction (like some horror stories where the action might be caused by aliens or might be the actions of spirits of the dead) should be included.
It's definite to even describe 'science fiction'. 'horror' is often shelved next to it for very good reasons, even if many of the readers don't like both kinds of story.
Simon.
--
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk
Dan Goodman
> On 24/12/2006, Dan Goodman wrote in message
>
> > By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
> > stories acceptable as entries?
>
> There needs to be a definite statement on this. Also whether graphic
> novels list Sandman qualify, and whether stories which might, or
> might not be science fiction (like some horror stories where the
> action might be caused by aliens or might be the actions of spirits
> of the dead) should be included.
>
> It's definite to even describe 'science fiction'. 'horror' is often
> shelved next to it for very good reasons, even if many of the readers
> don't like both kinds of story.
However, a fair amount of recent horror has no science fictional or
fantasy content at all.
Ahasuerus
Actually, the "SF" in the ISFDB stands for Speculative Fiction, so
thankfully we don't have to define "science fiction". Of course, it
just means that we now need to define "speculative fiction" :-)
You can find our current "Rules of Acquisition" on the ISFDB Policy
page
(http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition).
It's a work in progress since we keep finding new and
perver^H^H^H^H^H^H interesting cases, but we have most of the gamut
covered. E-works are the biggest grey area at the moment since they are
evolving so rapidly and we don't have a consensus yet.
--
Ahasuerus
Christopher J. Henrich
Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
> Simon Slavin wrote:
>
> > On 24/12/2006, Dan Goodman wrote in message
> >
> > > By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
> > > stories acceptable as entries?
> >
> > There needs to be a definite statement on this. Also whether graphic
> > novels list Sandman qualify, and whether stories which might, or
> > might not be science fiction (like some horror stories where the
> > action might be caused by aliens or might be the actions of spirits
> > of the dead) should be included.
> >
> > It's definite to even describe 'science fiction'. 'horror' is often
> > shelved next to it for very good reasons, even if many of the readers
> > don't like both kinds of story.
>
> However, a fair amount of recent horror has no science fictional or
> fantasy content at all.
That's called "journalism."
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.
Ahasuerus
> > However, a fair amount of recent horror has no science fictional or
> > fantasy content at all.
>
> That's called "journalism."
Oh no, there is quite a bit of fantasy involved.
--
Ahasuerus
Mike Christie
>>> By the way -- is it limited to print sf, or are online books and
>>> stories acceptable as entries?
>> There needs to be a definite statement on this.
>> Also whether graphic novels list _Sandman_
>> qualify, and whether stories which might, or might not be
>> science fiction (like some horror stories where the action
>> might be caused by aliens or might be the actions of spirits
>> of the dead) should be included.
> You can find our current "Rules of Acquisition" on the ISFDB Policy
> page
> (http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition).
> It's a work in progress since we keep finding new and
> perver^H^H^H^H^H^H interesting cases, but we have most of the gamut
> covered. E-works are the biggest grey area at the moment since they are
> evolving so rapidly and we don't have a consensus yet.
It is indeed evolving quickly; we just updated it this evening to
exclude web publications and ezines. One way to say why is that the
ISFDB is essentially a big index, and for that to be useful it has to
index things that don't change. When we index a 1975 sixth printing of
the Puffin edition of "A Wizard of Earthsea" we can be sure that if you
get hold of that printing it'll be exactly the way we indexed it. But
for the web, that's not the case. We can be fairly sure about the
stability of ebooks, CDs (e.g. the Honorverse CD), and audio books, so
those are in scope. If there's a way for us to usefully index websites,
we'd like to hear about it, but currently we don't see how to do it.
Mike
Mike Schilling
"Ahasuerus" <ahas...@email.com> wrote in message
news:1167185328.8...@h40g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Yes, and often it's called "journalism".
Nancy Lebovitz
Ahasuerus <ahas...@email.com> wrote:
>
>You can find our current "Rules of Acquisition" on the ISFDB Policy
>page
>(http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition).
>It's a work in progress since we keep finding new and
>perver^H^H^H^H^H^H interesting cases, but we have most of the gamut
>covered. E-works are the biggest grey area at the moment since they are
>evolving so rapidly and we don't have a consensus yet.
Oy.
Not to open a can of worms or anything, but how do you distinguish between
fantasy and religion? Aside from sciptures, how do you classify a story
which includes miracles consistant with a mainstream religion?
I can see not wanting to include large quantities of non-sf by people who
have written sf, but I recommend mentioning that it exists.
What about short stories published in convention programs?
Nancy Lebovitz
How complete/accessable/stable is the wayback machine these days?
Nancy Lebovitz
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@panix.com> wrote:
>How complete/accessable/stable is the wayback machine these days?
The wayback machine is at archive.org.
Ahasuerus
> In article <1167178876.6...@n51g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> Ahasuerus <ahas...@email.com> wrote:
> >
> >You can find our current "Rules of Acquisition" on the ISFDB Policy
> >page
> >(http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB:Policy#Rules_of_Acquisition).
> >It's a work in progress since we keep finding new and
> >perver^H^H^H^H^H^H interesting cases, but we have most of the gamut
> >covered. E-works are the biggest grey area at the moment since they are
> >evolving so rapidly and we don't have a consensus yet.
>
> Oy.
>
> Not to open a can of worms or anything,
Oh, come on, you know you want to! :)
> but how do you distinguish between fantasy and religion?
The "Definitions" section doesn't mention religion at this time. It
says:
"2. "Speculative fiction" is defined to exclude:
...
philosophical works of speculative nature unless written as a work of
fiction (with an inclusionist bias)"
We should probably add "and religious [works]" to the clause to be on
the safe side.
> Aside from sciptures, how do you classify a story
> which includes miracles consistant with a mainstream religion?
It would presumably be covered by "the supernatural (with an
inclusionist bias)" paragraph. Older stories are also covered by the
following clause:
"the older the book, the more likely we are to include it even if it is
borderline eligible. This is caused by the fact that there were
relatively few Works published prior to 1800 and by the difficulties
with distinguishing between speculative and non-speculative fiction (or
even fiction and non-fiction) when you are dealing with pre-1800 Works"
It's not perfect, but we are talking about a relatively small amount of
information compared to the streams (rivers/seas/oceans) of recent
specfic out there. Moreover, most people won't go to the ISFDB to look
for "Lives of Saints". Whether we have it included or not is much less
consequential than, e.g., the question of including e-fiction.
> I can see not wanting to include large quantities of non-sf by people who
> have written sf, but I recommend mentioning that it exists.
For established specfic writers ("established" is another can of worms,
naturally), we will include their "nongenre" and non-fiction book
length works. But for someone like E. Phillips Oppenheim, we will list
the half dozen borderline specfiction novels that he wrote, but exclude
the rest of his output which adds up to another 150 books.
> What about short stories published in convention programs?
We will definitely list any specfiction stories/interviews/reviews as
well as the baseline data about the physical publication that they
appeared in: publisher, editor, page count, etc. That's how we handle
any other primarily nongenre publication (anthology, magazine,
newspapers, etc) with specfic stories in it. Other types of con-related
materials (announcements, non-fiction article not about SF, etc). are
currently tagged as "Debatable". We don't catalog ads.
In the end, although definitions are fun to argue about, at some point
you reach the point of diminishing returns and are better off entering
another issue from that stack of pulps on your shelf :)
--
Ahasuerus
Dan Goodman
Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory said
"Relic of Empire;" oddly enough, my memory isn't perfect.)
The Beta project doesn't seem to include provisions for editing such
errors. (Which I would do only after checking the original
publication(s).)
Mike Christie
> The ISFDB lists one Larry Niven story as "A Relic of the Empire."
> Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory said
> "Relic of Empire;" oddly enough, my memory isn't perfect.)
>
> The Beta project doesn't seem to include provisions for editing such
> errors. (Which I would do only after checking the original
> publication(s).)
Actually, it does give provisions for editing. That's the reason for
the beta, in fact. Take a look at
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents
or
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Getting_Started
and see if that gets you started; if not, post a note here, or on the
wiki, or email me.
What would be terrific would be if everyone here who finds the ISFDB
useful and is willing to put in five minutes were to pick up any novel
from their shelves and check out if the ISFDB's record of that printing
is accurate and complete. If it's not, fix it -- and if you can't
figure out how, then we've obviously got more work to do on the help
files and interface, which is what we're trying to figure out with the beta.
Mike
Butch Malahide
> The ISFDB lists one Larry Niven story as "A Relic of the Empire."
> Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory said
> "Relic of Empire;" oddly enough, my memory isn't perfect.)
I don't know about the original magazine title, but my copy of Niven's
"Neutron Star" collection (Ballantine Books, no date, 75 cents) has the
title as "A Relic of the Empire" everywhere except on the
acknowledgments page where it's just "Relic of the Empire". Maybe
you're mixing it up with Heinlein's "Logic of Empire"?
Ahasuerus
> The ISFDB lists one Larry Niven story as "A Relic of the Empire."
> Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory said
The title used on the cover of _If_ (December 1966) was "A Relic of
Empire". The title used in the table of contents and on page 75 was "A
Relic of the Empire". We generally use the title given on the page
where the story begins since magazine covers and tables of contents
have way too many errors and misspellings. I'll update the Notes fields
for the magazine and the story, thanks!
P.S. This is a good example of how "several other (secondary) sources"
can all mean well and still be in error. That's why we try to stick to
primary sources whenever possible.
--
Ahasuerus
Simon Slavin
47DDF9.122...@sn-radius.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>:
> "Mike Schilling" <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That can't be it; if you deleted lines, the software would get smaller
> > rathet than bloating up with each release.
>
> No, no -- you just hire more squirrels...
Could I recommend Fred Brookes' _The Mythical Man Month_ ?
Maybe there's a sequel for squirrels.
Simon.
--
http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk
Dan Goodman
> Dan Goodman wrote:
> > The ISFDB lists one Larry Niven story as "A Relic of the Empire."
> > Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory
> > said "Relic of Empire;" oddly enough, my memory isn't perfect.)
> >
> > The Beta project doesn't seem to include provisions for editing such
> > errors. (Which I would do only after checking the original
> > publication(s).)
>
> Actually, it does give provisions for editing. That's the reason for
> the beta, in fact. Take a look at
>
> http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents
>
> or
>
> http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:Getting_Started
>
> and see if that gets you started; if not, post a note here, or on the
> wiki, or email me.
Okay -- I didn't read carefully enough! Thanks!
>
> What would be terrific would be if everyone here who finds the ISFDB
> useful and is willing to put in five minutes were to pick up any
> novel from their shelves and check out if the ISFDB's record of that
> printing is accurate and complete. If it's not, fix it -- and if
> you can't figure out how, then we've obviously got more work to do on
> the help files and interface, which is what we're trying to figure
> out with the beta.
>
> Mike
--
Dan Goodman
No, I'm not mixing those two.
J Moreno
> What would be terrific would be if everyone here who finds the ISFDB
> useful and is willing to put in five minutes were to pick up any novel
> from their shelves and check out if the ISFDB's record of that printing
> is accurate and complete. If it's not, fix it -- and if you can't
> figure out how, then we've obviously got more work to do on the help
> files and interface, which is what we're trying to figure out with the beta.
Well, the book I picked isn't in the ISFDB and when I tried to add it, I
had to create a login account with the wiki (I somehow got the wrong
case from my normal choice, this doesn't appear to matter for the wiki
but it appears to matter for the main site). So, then I go back to
isfdb.org and try to login, login fails (wrong case), change case, login
says it's successful continue to index.cgi, but I don't actually appear
to be logged in as index.cgi says I'm not and if I try to enter the
title again, it goes to the login page.
--
JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg
Dan Goodman
> Dan Goodman wrote:
> > The ISFDB lists one Larry Niven story as "A Relic of the Empire."
> > Several other sources give it as "A Relic of Empire." (My memory
> > said "Relic of Empire;" oddly enough, my memory isn't perfect.)
> > [snip]
>
> The title used on the cover of If (December 1966) was "A Relic of
> Empire". The title used in the table of contents and on page 75 was "A
> Relic of the Empire". We generally use the title given on the page
> where the story begins since magazine covers and tables of contents
> have way too many errors and misspellings. I'll update the Notes
> fields for the magazine and the story, thanks!
>
> P.S. This is a good example of how "several other (secondary) sources"
> can all mean well and still be in error. That's why we try to stick to
> primary sources whenever possible.
Another little headache: The Jorge Luis Borges bibliography has this
under novels: The Book of Imaginary Beings (Classics Deluxe Edition)
(Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio) (2006) with Andrew Hurley and Peter Sis
While this is booklength, it's not a novel. It _could_ be classed as
nonfiction, except for suspicions that Borges made up some of the
entries.
Mike Christie
> Well, the book I picked isn't in the ISFDB and when I tried to add it, I
> had to create a login account with the wiki (I somehow got the wrong
> case from my normal choice, this doesn't appear to matter for the wiki
> but it appears to matter for the main site). So, then I go back to
> isfdb.org and try to login, login fails (wrong case), change case, login
> says it's successful continue to index.cgi, but I don't actually appear
> to be logged in as index.cgi says I'm not and if I try to enter the
> title again, it goes to the login page.
Well, first, thanks for giving it a shot -- we appreciate it. The login
applies to both the wiki and the main site, so you should be able to log
in at either place successfully, and it will log you in at the other
site at the same time. I will try creating a few new accounts and
logging in with the sequence you described to see if I can reproduce the
problem.
If you can't edit, then try hitting the logout and re-logging in. If
that doesn't work, let me know. I'll post again if I can reproduce the
problem, or figure out what's happening with your account.
Thanks
Mike
Mike Christie
> Another little headache: The Jorge Luis Borges bibliography has this
> under novels: The Book of Imaginary Beings (Classics Deluxe Edition)
> (Penguin Classics Deluxe Editio) (2006) with Andrew Hurley and Peter Sis
>
> While this is booklength, it's not a novel. It _could_ be classed as
> nonfiction, except for suspicions that Borges made up some of the
> entries.
If it's nonfiction, then we'd enter it as type = NONFICTION. If it's
fiction, then I'd classify it as a novel, if it's a work of fiction
intended as a unitary whole, or as a collection, if the items have been
separately published. If it falls in the middle, as it sounds like it
might, then I would tend to go with precedent -- if Borges'
bibliographers and biographers have called it a novel, then I'd call it
a novel too.
However, one of the nice things about the ISFDB being editable is that
you can change it to a COLLECTION, and make a note on the wiki page for
that publication about the reason why. There's also the facility to
create author project pages to review issues with the author's biblios.
Here's Le Guin's, for example:
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Author:Ursula_K._Le_Guin
So a similar page could be created to capture these discussions for
Borges, and document the reasons for a particular bibliographic decision.
Mike
Mike Christie
> Well, the book I picked isn't in the ISFDB and when I tried to add it, I
> had to create a login account with the wiki (I somehow got the wrong
> case from my normal choice, this doesn't appear to matter for the wiki
> but it appears to matter for the main site). So, then I go back to
> isfdb.org and try to login, login fails (wrong case), change case, login
> says it's successful continue to index.cgi, but I don't actually appear
> to be logged in as index.cgi says I'm not and if I try to enter the
> title again, it goes to the login page.
I just tried to reproduce this with a new account, and couldn't. If you
have another try, please let me know if you manage to connect -- either
with that account or another.
Thanks
Mike
Dan Goodman
> If it's nonfiction, then we'd enter it as type = NONFICTION. If it's
> fiction, then I'd classify it as a novel, if it's a work of fiction
> intended as a unitary whole, or as a collection, if the items have
> been separately published. If it falls in the middle, as it sounds
> like it might, then I would tend to go with precedent -- if Borges'
> bibliographers and biographers have called it a novel, then I'd call
> it a novel too.
It's basically a nonfiction collection -- but some of the entries are
entirely fictional, and others are a bit fictional (at least, that's my
suspicion.)
Borges poses other interesting problems. There's an anthology (not in
the database yet, and I don't currently have a copy; I'll see if a
nearby library has it) translated from Spanish. At least one story was
translated from German to Spanish and then from Spanish to English.
And it's possible some of the stories were translated from English to
Spanish back into English.
> However, one of the nice things about the ISFDB being editable is
> that you can change it to a COLLECTION, and make a note on the wiki
> page for that publication about the reason why. There's also the
> facility to create author project pages to review issues with the
> author's biblios. Here's Le Guin's, for example:
>
> http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Author:Ursula_K._Le_Guin
>
> So a similar page could be created to capture these discussions for
> Borges, and document the reasons for a particular bibliographic
> decision.
--
J Moreno
Just tried with Firefox and it works, but doesn't in Safari. Don't know
why, I am accepting cookies and javascript and can log into the wiki
using Safari.
Ah, well. In the meantime I found another book I wanted to put in, so
it's not all that bad....
J Moreno
> What would be terrific would be if everyone here who finds the ISFDB
> useful and is willing to put in five minutes were to pick up any novel
> from their shelves and check out if the ISFDB's record of that printing
> is accurate and complete. If it's not, fix it -- and if you can't
> figure out how, then we've obviously got more work to do on the help
> files and interface, which is what we're trying to figure out with the beta.
Now that I've succeded in making my submissions, some comments....
It's not clear as to how you indicate a book is part of a series.
Going from either a series or authors page to the submission page should
result in some of the information being filled in for you IMO.
The submission page could use some commenting -- either via javascript
or CSS in order to keep it from looking too busy (eg put the mouse over
the field where the year is entered, and a note appears explaing that
it's really a date, not a year, and should be in yyyy-mm-dd format).
Mike Christie
> Now that I've succeded in making my submissions, some comments....
>
> It's not clear as to how you indicate a book is part of a series.
To do this you edit the book's title record. When displaying a title,
there's a link on the left that says "Edit Title Data"; clicking on that
brings up a form with the title data filled out. It includes a "series"
field in which you enter "Earthsea Cycle" or "Hainish" etc. There is
also a series number field, which is for ordering books within a series.
Series can also contain series, which allows us to manage subseries,
though when you get to someone like Moorcock the representation isn't
perfect, as currently a book can only belong to one series at a time.
This is an area we will probably enhance in the future.
I'll add your question to the list of "How to"s, which is at
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Help:How_to
> Going from either a series or authors page to the submission page should
> result in some of the information being filled in for you IMO.
>
> The submission page could use some commenting -- either via javascript
> or CSS in order to keep it from looking too busy (eg put the mouse over
> the field where the year is entered, and a note appears explaing that
> it's really a date, not a year, and should be in yyyy-mm-dd format).
Both good ideas; I'll add them to the requested features page at
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/ISFDB_Feature_List
Thanks
Mike
Mike Christie
> It's basically a nonfiction collection -- but some of the entries are
> entirely fictional, and others are a bit fictional (at least, that's my
> suspicion.)
I would enter this as a collection, the rule being that any fiction at
all qualifies it as a collection. Then individual essays would be
listed as ESSAY or SHORTFICTION depending on which they were. The
dubious cases would have to get a judgement call, and we'd document that
on the Borges wiki page or the notes for the title.
> Borges poses other interesting problems. There's an anthology (not in
> the database yet, and I don't currently have a copy; I'll see if a
> nearby library has it) translated from Spanish. At least one story was
> translated from German to Spanish and then from Spanish to English.
> And it's possible some of the stories were translated from English to
> Spanish back into English.
Translation support is not really there yet, so we simply entere
translated editions directly as additional publications. Indicating
which version of a story was the original and which was translated is
something that might get more support in the future. As it is we
capture what we know about this sort of thing in the text notes.
Did you manage to enter the book you picked?
Thanks
Mike
Dan Goodman
> Dan Goodman wrote:
> > It's basically a nonfiction collection -- but some of the entries
> > are entirely fictional, and others are a bit fictional (at least,
> > that's my suspicion.)
>
> I would enter this as a collection, the rule being that any fiction
> at all qualifies it as a collection. Then individual essays would be
> listed as ESSAY or SHORTFICTION depending on which they were. The
> dubious cases would have to get a judgement call, and we'd document
> that on the Borges wiki page or the notes for the title.
Nothing in it is _labelled_ as fiction
> > Borges poses other interesting problems. There's an anthology (not
> > in the database yet, and I don't currently have a copy; I'll see if
> > a nearby library has it) translated from Spanish. At least one
> > story was translated from German to Spanish and then from Spanish
> > to English. And it's possible some of the stories were translated
> > from English to Spanish back into English.
>
> Translation support is not really there yet, so we simply entere
> translated editions directly as additional publications. Indicating
> which version of a story was the original and which was translated is
> something that might get more support in the future. As it is we
> capture what we know about this sort of thing in the text notes.
Are there equivalent projects in other languages?
> Did you manage to enter the book you picked?
Haven't gotten hold of it yet. (Plan to use a library copy, since I
don't currently have a copy.)
Tomorrow I'll try with books I have which may not yet be entered.
Ahasuerus
> Are there equivalent projects in other languages?
We have a list of "Sources of Bibliographic Information" in the ISFDB
Wiki -- see
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Sources_of_Bibliographic_Information
. If you scroll down to
http://isfdb.tamu.edu/wiki/index.php/Sources_of_Bibliographic_Information#Foreign_Language
, you will find links to online bibliographies of French, Italian,
Russian and Ukrainian SF. If you happen to know of an online that
catalogs Spanish (or German etc) language SF, please feel free to add
it :)
As far as the scope of our project goes, at this time we are
English-centric in that we do not include SF books/stories that have
not appeared in English or do not have noticeable ties to English
language SF. We do try to list all English language translations of
foreign language SF as well as all foreign language translations of any
SF that first appeared (or was written) in English. We also include any
untranslated foreign language sequels to English language titles.
Finally, we try to include untranslated titles by major SF writers if
the bulk of their work has been translated.
For an example of the way we would like to handle major foreign
language SF writers, see Jules Verne' Summary Bibliography at
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Jules_Verne . Note that some titles
still have duplicates that need to be merged, e.g. "Master Zacharius",
and we need to find the original French titles of a few books/stories.
Also, there is one quirk in the software that prevents translated
serializations from being properly linked to their book publications.
But we are getting there :)
--
Ahasuerus