SOLVED/COMPLETED Needs a lot of help, long list of author profiles probably/mostly needing period after middle initial

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

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[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

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[Elisabeth]

Just did #791.

Question: when you add the period and GR says there's another author with that name, how can you be positive it's the same one (if there's no book with the same title on both)? On the three I did, the existing books looked close enough, so I went ahead and let the profiles combine, but I don't want to make any mistakes.

[Elisabeth]

Also did #792. All combinations straightforward there.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

Once all these posts are caught up, it's gotten to be such a long thread I think any remaining common names appearing to have periodless middle initials I'll (and whoever wants to jump in) put in new threads — starting with Andrew^B^ .

Too many multiple page editing has gotten unwieldy for me.

[Thalia]

Elisabeth, I find that most of them have such obscure names that it's usually the same person. But I always make sure to, at the very least, check to see if the books listed when you get to the "do you want to merge" page are about the same subject. If they are, then it's usually the same author and you can feel pretty safe about merging.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

Elisabeth wrote: "Just did #791.

Question: when you add the period and GR says there's another author with that name, how can you be positive it's the same one (if there's no book with the same title on both)? On t..."

With living authors, sometimes there's a web page, blog, or publisher section you can check. On the others, I try to judge by any info in the profiles -- particularly genres they write in and if books seem to be in similar genres, the similar names section of profile in case belongs to a disambiguated author of same name (again, genre helps), publication dates before an author even born a clearcut signal needs to be disambiguated -- kinda just go by the clues/data bits you have.

I was picking some common first names to search for apparently periodless middle initials and "common" definitely leads to potentially putting books on the wrong author profile. If not sure, can always post asking (if results in disambiguating, for example "John^Smith" to "John^^Smith" where ^ is a space at least readers searching on author name "John Smith" will see both sets of books). Tends to sort itself out as members/fans with book in hand request corrections or authors claim profiles and handle. A lot of single-space authors keep finding books by two-space authors of same names on their profile.

(plus some data imports put spaces in place of special characters leaving a letter by itself that's not actually a period)

[Deon]

790, done

[Jackie - Fire & Ice Book Reviews]

794,done
795, done
796, done
797, done
798, done
799, done
800, done
801, done
802, done
803, done
804, done
805, done
806, done

[Z-squared]

666-9 done
670 except Amanda T. Thrasher; GR author merge request posted to other thread
671-3 done
674 except Amanda R. Browning; GR author merge request not posted because only one book attributed to no-initial profile. i edited the book to be by the correct author, so now no-initial profile has zero books and should be automatically cleaned up eventually.
675-84 done
686-96 done
697 already done except for Angela D. Coleman probably because it required a GR author merge request; however, because only one book was attributed to the no-initial profile, i edited the book to be by the correct author. Now the no-initial profile has zero books and should be automatically cleaned up eventually.
698 already done

also... umlauts got NOTHIN' on me :)

[Abcdarian]

835 done
834 done

[Lobstergirl]

Got 705.

Got 708. (It had an umlaut issue but it was irrelevant because the profiles were empty.)

[Lobstergirl]

Got 772...someone else was in there with me.

[Lobstergirl]

Someone got 662.

[Deon]

771, done

[Lobstergirl]

Got 701.

[Deon]

770, done