Incorrect author link

[Pam]

Dear Librarians: The YA anthology How We Began has one incorrect author link

The wrong Alexis Hall is linked to the book.

The correct Alexis Hall, who has a story in this anthology, is the male author who wrote Glitterland & Prosperity, this one:

Alexis Hall

However, GR has linked a different Alexis Hall by mistake, a female author, this one

Alexis Hall

Can you please correct this error?

Thank you!

[lethe]

Moved book to correct profile.

[Pam]

Great, thank you :)

[Andrew]

Could someone please correct this:

"Drops of Blood" is wrongly attributed to me (Andrew Watts). I did not write it.

[Abcdarian]

Moved from your profile.

[Andrew]

Thanks

[Pam]

Hey, I don't know if this is the right place for this, if not just let me know. But, I think the reason the Alexis Hall link was incorrect to begin with, is because, when you try to insert an author link & type "Alexis Hall" only one name comes up, the one for the female author. To get Alexis Hall, the male author, to come up, you actually have to type "Alexis space space Hall". And who would ever think of doing that?

This only seems to happen when trying to add a link. In the regular GR Search field, there is a drop-down which includes both authors.

Isn't there some way to make it work the same way when you want to insert an author link?

[lethe]

Pam/Peejakers wrote: "Hey, I don't know if this is the right place for this, if not just let me know. But, I think the reason the Alexis Hall link was incorrect to begin with, is because, when you try to insert an autho..."

I'm afraid not, this (the spaces) is how authors with the same name are disambiguated. A link can only be to one person, so the extra space needs to be typed. Also when manually adding a book that ensures the book goes directly to the correct profile.

It would be possible to request GR staff that both profiles be switched, seeing that the male Alexis has more books to his name. Imported books by the other Alexis would then have to be moved from his profile instead of the other way around.

[Sophie]

Pam, that's the normal way on Goodreads to distinguish between authors with the same name--add extra spaces. It's not ideal, but it's something we've been using for years.

[Pam]

@ Lethe & @ Sophie: Ok, thanks, just thought there might be a better way. As for switching the profiles, thanks for the suggestion. But as that would essentially amount to promoting one author's profile over another, & as I'm a friend of the author who would be promoted, pretty sure he would "disown" me if I requested such a thing ;) It will just need to stay as is, not a big deal, I just thought there might be a solution other than that one. But thanks so much to both of for the information!

[lethe]

Well, it's not really a promotion thing, but more a question of convenience. Some authors with a one-space profile hate having to ask on a regular basis to have books removed from their profile. Others hate having to ask to have books moved to their profile :)

But it makes sense to give the one-space profile to a prolific author and not f.e. to someone who has only ever published one or two books.

That said, it may be that the profile can only be changed with the consent of the GR author.

[Philip]

Pam/Peejakers wrote: "@ Lethe & @ Sophie: Ok, thanks, just thought there might be a better way. As for switching the profiles, thanks for the suggestion. But as that would essentially amount to promoting one author's ..."

Also changing the number of spaces has no impact on searching or anything, all books by authors with the same name would show up the same way as they currently do, it is just the way to manage books. So the single space author does not show any different than a 6 space author. The only place this is seen is on a book edit page or on the author edit page.

[Pam]

@Lethe Thanks :)

@Philip Thank you :) Yes, I did confirm it doesn't impact the normal search function. It did impact the add book/author search, that was the only reason I was aware of it. But no huge deal. Just a slightly annoying inconvenience when I was trying to add the link.

[Philip]

Pam/Peejakers wrote: "@Lethe Thanks :)

@Philip Thank you :) Yes, I did confirm it doesn't impact the normal search function. It did impact the add book/author search, that was the only reason I was aware of it. But n..."

If you do an add book search by ISBN/ASIN, you will always find the edition you are looking for, otherwise it just shows the default edition.

[Pam]

@Philip: Oh, thanks :) I was actually doing the "add author" part of the search, rather than "add book". This all originated because I was trying to tell the librarians about an incorrect author link (it's since been corrected) & had trouble inserting a link to the correct author into my message. No worries, it's all good now, I think :)