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

Keith’s comments from the Goodreads Librarians Group group.

Ah, now I see what you're driving at: the fact that these are translations, and thus other editions exist which are not part of the same series is the bar because "series" functions at the "work" level, and many of the associated "works" in other editions would be tied to the series even though they are not properly part of it, yes?

In which case, Sacred Books of the East would be not-a-series, but Pop-Culture and Philosophy would be a series, right?

As far as I have ever seen (and I have a lot of these, and access to many more in physical libraries I help to tend) they are always numbered the same as in the original series. For example, even this 1968 Dover edition of the Jaina Sutras Vol II is prominently labeled as "The Sacred Books of the East vol. xlv, translated by various Oriental scholars and edited by F. Max Müller". So that would appear to answer your "first question" yes. (Aside: someone keeps changing F. Max Müller to Friedrich Max Müller, frustratingly, since he never published using the latter form as far as I have ever seen, and certainly not in this series.)

I do get your general point, and if I am following it correctly this series at any rate would appear to me to be an exception even if no other non-fiction series is (though I also would think that https://www.goodreads.com/series/6482... would count, which it may not, though someone certainly seemed to think it did). And making it a proper series would be a lot of work, so I'm certainly not about to start in at all unless you give the go ahead.

I know this thread is old, but I came to it because I was looking at another book in the series(ish).

The linked policy seems written only with fiction series in mind: "To be a series, books should have characters and/or universes in common." So I'm looking for clarification on non-fiction series qualifications under GR policy.

Specifically, I tend to think of an "imprint" as being something specific under a given publisher, as implied under the Publisher section of the Manual. A non-fiction series, however—especially an old one like this—may have been published by more than one publisher/imprint, and are often numbered and titled separately from the publisher/imprint.

So, taking this specific numbered and titled (and thematically connected) series as an example, is this really not a series in the sense Goodreads intends that feature to be used? And if not, is there a handy example of a non-fiction series that is and should be a Goodreads series to use as an example of when to use correctly apply the Goodreads series feature?

Thanks for any additional clarification.

For cover images, our manual says "The optimal size is 700 x 933 pixels" though it will also adjust within about a 20% tolerance. I'd suggest aiming for 725 pixels wide or smaller.

Hi Priyanka,

Regarding the book cover, do you mean a better quality image of the existing book cover, or a new edition of the book with an entirely different cover?

If it's just a better quality image, yes, getting a copy to me will allow me to update it. Probably the easiest way would be to give me a link in a comment here or in a private message pointing to where I can download the image directly. There may be a way to add an image to a comment here, but if so that is a trick I have not yet learned myself.

If, on the other hand, you mean a whole new cover, Goodreads handles that by adding an Alternate Cover Edition (ACE) rather than by replacing the old one, per the policy described here: https://www.goodreads.com/librarian_m... This is especially true if the edition with the new cover also has a new ISBN.

Goodreads is more like a library than it is like a bookstore, so older versions don't get deleted. Users can get pretty touchy about having the cover image on their GR page match the cover on the edition of the book they actually read or have on hand. This seems to be increasingly true as electronic books may get issued with a dozen different covers for the same book.

Hi Maha,

On #2 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... both the cover of the book and the book listing on GR indicate that you (or someone else with the same name) wrote the Foreword for that book. If that is the case, then it would be correct for that to show on your author profile as a book to which you contributed (which will always be listed on your profile *below* and books for which you are the principle author). If that is a different person also named Maha Al Musa, then please let us know here and we can move it to another account of that name.

Judging from the first book you mention, it does look like there is another person publishing in the same topic area as you with the same name, so perhaps that is the one who wrote the foreword to the second book. As soon as you can confirm this for us, we'll be better able to get to work sorting them out.

(BTW, are you aware that you can "claim" that author profile as part of the Goodreads Author Program? You can use this link to begin that process.)

That should work, yes.

If you ever find yourself doing without the Author field already filled in on the Add a Quote page, just type the author's name in (you should get auto-complete suggestions), and then the Title list will be propagated once the author is selected.

In books with multiple contributors such as this, if the the book entry includes the contributors as secondary authors (as Michael E. Porter now is for HBR's Must Reads on Strategy ), then when you create the quote and add the author in the proper field of the new quote page, selecting the book in which their piece was published should be possible from the drop-down titles list (assuming that the author has fewer than 500 books, which seems to be the size limit for that field).

I'm not sure I wrote that clearly enough, so just ask if that creates new questions.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
into
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (GR Author)

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
into
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (GR Author)

And it would be great if something on the similar_names page indicated who is a GRA so librarians will know not to bother trying.
[Edited to remove profiles I was able to handle myself once my brain kicked back on again]

Alex wrote: "Hi Keith, maintenance has caused deletions to be seriously delayed (~10 days and rising, see here). Hopefully, this will be rectified within the week."

Thanks, my search did not reveal that notice. Librarian Notes added, and will keep an eye on them until the queue catches up.

Is anyone else having trouble with deletions?

I've been a Super for years, and I've been trying for days to merge this older, less complete Polish edition into it's newer, more complete duplicate before combining that back into the main The Heart is a Lonely Hunter work (because the former has 22 ratings/reviews which should remain attached to the Polish edition, not English), but while multiple deletions have produced the usual "shortly" response, two days later they're both still there.

Halp?

EDIT: Now that I look more closely, this delete-and-merge doesn't seem to have worked right either.

Perhaps this is deliberate on the part of the author, but
Mel Curtis looks like it might be the more current book-cover name of Goodreads Author Melinda Curtis, with at least one Kindle reissue between them: the description of Playing for Love indicates that it was previously Amber Rules.

I haven't made any edits here pending review from the PTB, but I'd think these should at least be more strongly tied to each other even if not merged, as with multiple-pseudonym authors.

Germán wrote: "... how incredibly inefficient and ridiculous it is to have to post each of these quotes here and pray to the gods for someone with higher powers to take action."

Yep, and considering that there is absolutely no business justification for it whatsoever (i.e., it does not and will not provide any revenue), we could be happy that they allow us to curate and correct this material at all. I reiterate my point about endowment: I'd take the job myself, but someone would have to come up with $50,000 a year for me to do it full time. If that's you, PM your offer letter to my account here. ;-P

Germán wrote: "For example this one never said or written by Churchill,

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/222-...

The "edit" button isn't even there, so what does Keith's method have to offer?"

Well, it looks like someone managed to delete or merge that one before I even got to see it, so... Win?

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
contains only quotes by
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Among the remaining problems are that quotes with 100,000+ likes can't even be deleted by a Super (IIRC), QotD can't be so much as edited, and misquotes that are that popular will be back—with no attribution and no notes—before you even bat an eye. At least if we retain the quote with tags or comments about what's wrong with it, we contribute in some more tangible and lasting way to data integrity; deletion will only make the matter worse without massive staff dedicated entirely to that task.

There are millions of quotes in the database, and that would be several full-time jobs devoted to a task that has no positive revenue impact. Unless you're offering a million dollar endowment to finance those jobs, I don't think the company will be interested. Even if you are making such an offer I still doubt it. Ignorance, being the default condition of every living being, cannot be stopped; it can only be mitigated, and the present workarounds are the best we're likely to get on that score on this site (which, after all, is about books, with the quotes being merely a sideline and side-effect).

The author page, or the combine quotes page?

There are a few authors with so many thousands of quotes that there is no way to load the combine page in order to merge the inevitable variants. An example is Fyodor Dostoyevsky with over 3,000: every time I try to load him up on any browser, on any machine, the connection times out and I get rocking girl.

Is there any workaround for this? I'd be happy even to come into the SF office for a day to deal with such things after 5 July if it's easier there (or impossible elsewhere).

I'm the Librarian who started the "misattributed" tagging system. The intent there is to edit the quote to attach it to the correct author (when that can be known) and tag the *incorrect* but popular attributions so that well-meaning people who ate certain that it was said by Wilde or Einstein or Twain or Roosevelt ("the Internet said so!") have a little bit harder time changing it back again, and even when they do, Librarians may have an easier time re(re-re)fixing it.

If you're interested in assisting with this sort of thing, this is the right group to post in, though we don't generally get paid to do this so it's not a top priority for many. Giving links to any variants, the correct version (if known and existing, which isn't always the case), and ideally any supporting research or documentation makes the task much easier, which in turn improves the odds of a quick turnaround.

BTW, "attributed no source" is for when there's no evidence to prove or disprove the source, and mere deletion will just result in someone coming along and adding it again. At least the tag gives a bit of documentation, allowing the wary to remain wary. That, at least, was my intent when I invented that tag.

Finally, I agree with the idea of Translator attributions, especially in Mitchell's case, but someone reliable has to point them out specifically before anything can be done about them. A new thread in this group would be one way to do that.