Keith’s Comments (group member since Sep 19, 2008)

Keith’s comments from the Goodreads Librarians Group group.

Liz V. wrote: "Thank you Keith.

Some variants are back already. I've noted them and portions remaining to be done."

Mathers will never be "done," only ever more or less of a mess. Same with Westcott. the influx is continual and perpetual. I've been cleaning these for a decade.

Liz V. wrote: "C.J. Elliott
C J Elliott"

825 done

810 mostly done:

Liz V. wrote: "#756 I missed "

The listed Mathers records have been merged to the canonical S.L. MacGregor Mathers profile and combines performed.

For related records, please feel free to DM me directly, as I am a subject-matter expert on Western and Tibetan esotericism, and this can get quite convoluted with multiple reprints, pseudonyms, and misattributions. Like, all of these variant Mathers profiles will continually reappear as every different public-domain printer decides to enter the name differently.

You may also find some of my reference materials helpful here:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

Camilla wrote: "Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "I'm the worst at non fiction series but I don't think this is one.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/2876...
I think it is an imprint."

Looks like an imprint to me."

I'm no expert, but I thought that non-fiction series with the series name and number on the cover of each volume (as appears to be the case here, having looked at a sample rather than all 357 volumes) was at least part of the distinction between series and (generally unnumbered) imprint, no?

It doesn't get much more definitive than that; thanks, Rivka. Librarian note added with a pointer back to here so that hopefully the change sticks.

I just noticed that Carlos Castañeda is now being spelled with an ñ instead of n. This appears to me to be a case of erroneous hyperforeigist hypercorrection directly paralleling the classic example of "habanero" being spelled or pronounced as if it contains ñ when in fact, unlike jalapeño, it does not.

Librarian Edits is pretty much useless for determining when this occurred or who did it, but if anyone can definitively prove that the ñ is incorrect, I would suggest that it be changed back and a Librarian Note added to the author record to (vainly) attempt to prevent it from recurring. If someone else wants to provide the proof, I can make those changes. So far, I have been unable to find any book cover that applies the ñ, and it doesn't appear to be used on "his own" webpage either (which is presumably administered by his estate or something, since he's dead). I take that to be strong evidence, but short of proof so far, or I would just make the change without asking.

#10 partially done

Liz V. wrote: "Xenophon"

• Xenophon (of Athens ) done
• Xenophon (of Athens.) done
• Xenophon Xenophon done

These two may be legit non-English-language secondary author records, so I left them alone. If they are legit, their records should be changed to have the master Xenophon author in first place, with the non-English as secondary per GR policy
• Xenophon Atheniensis
• Xenophon Von Athen

also

Xenophon Edward Spelman split and merged
Xenophon Carleton L Brownson split and merged
431 BCE-350? BCE Xenophon merged
John Williams X�nophon merged

rivka wrote: "…let's revisit this if it happens and there's an example to look at."

Squad goals ;-)

rivka wrote: "It is our understanding Audible Originals are not drawn from existing print works. Thus, this scenario should be moot."

Thanks, rivka. One follow-up: if an Audible Original ever catches on enough to reach print as a proper book, would we then un-NAB the original AO listing, or just merge-join the records as editions and leave the AO edition as is? I can't recall if a non-book record can be an edition of a book, or if NAB applies at the Work level rather than at the Book level.

For clarity, does "not … a theatrical production/play" apply to such plays as have already been published as books, e.g., William Shakespeare, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, &c.? Or does Audible Originals not do those?

If it gets published, it can be added, but until then neither a video nor a webpage are a "book" for GR purposes.

Does the UN publish speeches made? If there is, say, a UN publication for speeches made that year, and this is contained within it, then Malala should be a "Contributor" on that volume, and it would then show among her linked works.

Done, and combined into https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1555...

I'm not 100% sure, but when there hasn't been a merge, the Librarian Edit log continues to exist. I think (but cannot at this moment prove) that log would show such edits. But once author records have merged, a lot goes away, which makes it impossible to tell who did what. I'll admit it would be handy to at least be able to tell that who "hey, quit it." But the effort required to get there probably isn't justifiable at a business level.

Aside from providing a slap on some Librarian's wrist, I'm not sure what would be gained by improving the trace on author merges. Once the merge has occurred, with or without a track, the same research and work has to be redone to unmerge. From what I understand of how databases work (more than a layman, less than a professional DBA), there could be no "undo" function from an author merge that included book records, and no need to undo one that did not include book records.

I'm probably biased by the fact that I'm a Super, but I'd almost be happy to have author-merge permissions limited to Supers (except for the fact of the never-ending imports of authors missing a period after an initial, or including personal titles). In any case, given all the stuff that would be useful to Librarians that hasn't changed and won't change, I don't expect this to change. See also: Sisyphus.

In any case, to Librarians who stumble upon this thread, I beg you: be absolutely sure you know exactly what you're doing before pulling the trigger on a merge, and never merge a profile that has full author details into a new profile that is nothing but a name and a handful of books, even if it looks like the name field is "better." The rest of us have been working on this long enough that such a merge is almost certainly wrong.

This is precisely what I just did with:

Mark (1) Hill probably several people left over after disambiguation effort
Mark (2) Hill GR author
Mark (3) Hill pre-existing self-published
Mark (4) Hill children's activity books, often with Katy Hill
Mark (5) Hill UK ecclesiastical lawyer
Mark (6) Hill illustrator/photographer, possibly 2 people
Mark (7) Hill a different GR author
Mark (8) Hill composer/arranger

Also, this work must have been done before as well, since those bold records did not exist until I created them—which means that there probably must have been 4,5 & 6-space author records before the second GR-author account was made, that disappeared after that account came into being, probably as the result of untrackable and pointless author merges.

ETA: to keep it relevant to the thread topic, I note that this series of edits got me back into the top-50 all-time global librarian listing, after having taken some time off due to pressing work elsewhere.

I have a copy of this ISBN in-hand as I type. Last page numbered is 629 and it's in mass-market format.

It looks like a problem edition in general though, having gone through several rounds of edits even in regard to publisher. The ACE notice in the default description (now corrected and removed) was probably confusing people.

If anyone has the correct publication day for this "First Ballantine Books Edition" that would be handy: the book just says June 1983. I've made what edits I can.

Andrew wrote: "That is only applicable to works of fiction."

Yep, 865 would seem to be a non-fiction series the same as this one is:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/5265...

Thanks Miriam, very helpful! :)

rivka wrote: "Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "How do I make a list static?"

You ask a super for assistance. And only qualifying lists will be made static, so no user-added best books list, for example."

I'm a super. Is this something I should know how to do? Is there a reference for the how-to or for the qualification (or disqualifications)? Or should I just continue to leave this to the supers who do already know?

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Im on my phone but Nebula Awards are listed in the awards section. I don't know how complete they are though."

I have now verified that Winners are complete, as against the GR database (which is to say, short story winners with no standalone short story record to log the award against are often missing, and sometimes the same is true of novelettes available only in anthologies that are not [yet?] listed as books). I also fixed several that were listed against the wrong year, and one with no year, and removed a couple of erroneous listings. Nominees, as is the case with most awards, are more sporadic, but still fairly extensive. I'll work through those as time permits.

If anyone else wants to pitch in, official winner and nominee records are linked by year, starting from the first year here:
https://nebulas.sfwa.org/award-year/1...

ETA: Tracking down the right source for a short work is much eased by using ISFDB title searches, such as
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
A great many of the major lit mags are listed and up to date but for the relevant award. It gets tricky when there is more than one winner in a single record though; I've been limiting myself to one per, because I don't even want to find out what kind of bug will be revealed by trying to list more.