User talk:Claude.mercure

Stephen King publication dates
Firstly, thank you for taking an interest in providing full dates for Stephen King books. However, please keep in mind that a copyright date is often if not always not the publication date, which is what we're after in the infobox. Jmj713 (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your message. I am aware of this issue, which is why I didn't, for instance, change the date for Carrie from April to January (which is when it was copyrighted).
 * Still, I'll accept your suggestion when it comes to specifying a date based on copyright. But a few of the dates weren't even in the correct month, and I think those should remain corrected. In the case of "My Pretty Pony", it wasn't even the correct year. I took several other sources into consideration, such as the authoritative "Stephen King: A Primary Bibliography". Claude.mercure (talk) 20:54, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Those copyright dates in different months or even years is not surprising. It's a completely separate process from publication. We need the date of publication. For older books this can be cross-referenced with contemporary book reviews in newspapers, for instance. But we should not solely rely on the copyright date, since as you can see, it can vary greatly and fall before or after the book was actually published and first available for purchase to the public. Jmj713 (talk) 21:32, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand. As I said, I relied on several sources for these changes, not just copyright. But I'll leave copyright out of it in the future.
 * Dreamcatcher is an example where Wikipedia had the wrong month. I verified this one via the book I mentioned in my last message. Claude.mercure (talk) 21:36, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, and Amazon supports that date, so it's good. And I just updated the My Pretty Pony article, too, and that year confusion is understandable since the extremely rare limited edition was published in 1988 and the more well known trade edition the following year. But of course, 1988 is correct as publication year. Jmj713 (talk) 21:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Amazon info should be taken with a grain of salt. When they don't know the date, they automatically indicate that the book was published on the first of the month. When they only know the year, they'll say that it was published in January. And yet, I think some Wikipedia users assume the Amazon date is gospel.
 * This is why I think it's important to consult several sources. The bibliography I mentioned struck me as the most trustworthy one for King books.
 * One inconsistency I noticed on here is that sometimes the publication date reflects when a limited edition was released; in other cases it reflects the main edition. Claude.mercure (talk) 21:51, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * As far as Amazon, I think for books published since Amazon has been operating (late 1990s) the dates should reflect the actual publication date in most if not all cases. But agreed that for older books this might not be the case. For novels typically it's the first date of publication and in Kimg's case there are not many cases where a limited edition was published first, outside The Dark Tower novels, and those dates should be used, not the subsequent trade edition. Jmj713 (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'll go modify Wolves of the Calla, which was first released as a limited edition, but the date here is for the trade edition. I'll check on others as well. Claude.mercure (talk) 22:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)