How to deal with someone making mistakes?

[Fran]

What's the recommended way to deal with someone who has made changes to a series of entries (and the series list itself) that you've edited (and know is correct)? Some of the changes seem arbitrary and made for reasons I can't fathom (e.g. removing data), and some are just plain mistakes (changing the number of pages, changing the order of the authors). They've undone a lot of work that I put in to make it uniform and correct, which I'll now have to spend time reverting and double checking.

How can I best prevent this from happening again? Is it recommended just to leave librarian notes on the editions/series pages themselves, asking politely not to change anything, or is it best to send a message directly?

It'd be really useful in these instances if a librarian was able 'lock' data when it was correct; or to be able to claim an author or series to be primary editor of! Frustrating.

Thanks for any advice/suggestions.

[Cait]

Librarian notes are useful on anything that seems to have a back-and-forth edit pattern going on, but it's always a good idea to contact someone directly if you see them making edits you believe are wrong. (After all, there are two possibilities: it could be that one of you is right and the other is wrong, in which case the one who's wrong should find out about it as soon as possible, or it could be that you're both having stylistic differences on an area where there isn't a right/wrong policy, in which case you'll only be wasting time going back and forth in the editing.)

[Krystal109]

I will usually contact the person and ask them why they made the change and explain why I believe it is incorrect.

As long as you are polite and they respond you should be able to work it out. If you can not, or they are rude to you, you should contact GR's staff and explain the situation and have them deal with the person.