What to do about this Librarian edits?

[Mateo]

First of all, English isn't my native language, sorry if I make a mistake when writing this, please be patient with me :)

This came up today and I didn't know what to do so I'm reporting it here hoping that someone more competent would know what to do.

First let me explain that, as the Librarian Manual explains in the section, "the title should be capitalized according to standard title capitalization for the language of the edition". In Spanish, the capitalization is a bit different from the English and German ones, and more akin to the ones of Italian and French languages. Here is the rule (http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=... ), but, to summarize, most words don't start with a capital letter in Spanish titles.

For example, Pride and Prejudice is Orgullo y prejuicio (not Orgullo y Prejuicio nor Orgullo Y Prejuicio).

Note: In the late years sometimes the covers show the title with the English capitalization (especially best sellers and other commercial books), but even then the legal page of the book still uses the standard Spanish capitalization almost all of the times, making that the official title.

It's because of this that most Spanish edition books have it like that on Goodreads, and most Spanish-speaking Librarians usually correct the ones that are not like that(Some users and mostly Amazon submit/import them with the English standard titles).

There are though some Spanish titles that officially have the English standard, so in any case is best to consult the GR-official Database for Spanish books (http://www.mcu.es/webISBN/tituloSimpl...).

Today I noticed that a Librarian had changed a large number of Spanish editions from the Spanish standard back to the English standard (i.e.: Los juegos del hambre to Los Juegos del Hambre, Por qué los hombres aman a las cabronas to Por Qué Los Hombres Aman A Las Cabronas, etc.). I sent him a message telling him the same I just said here, and even though he agreed with me, he said that he was only changing the titles in his bookshelf because he preferred them like that.
I explained him that when he changed an edition he changed it for everyone else too (just in case he thought otherwise), and later proceeded to revert some of his changes in that regard, but stopped when he said he was going to change it all back.
I messaged him again (3 hours ago), telling him that we should follow the Librarian Manual, but he hasn't responded. He had said before "I'm doing this for aesthetics and editorial quality", and since my last unanswered message he has changed 100+ Spanish editions' titles to the English standard.

I thought about reverting what he did, but I didn't think it would do much good, he seemed pretty adamant about getting the titles the way he wanted them to be.

However, I think I'm with GR policies in this one (correct me if I'm wrong, please). Also, the titles like that look really apalling, it's really counter-intuitive for a Spanish reader (like, imagine if suddenly someone changed all the English titles of popular books and classics on GR and left them without capital letters).

So I just wanted to forward this here in hopes of a solution. Maybe some Head Librarian can explain it to him? I don't really know. Thanks a lot for reading all of this, though.

This is the log of the Librarian, by the way: EDITED , last 4 pages as of right now are the changes he made after my last message to him.

[Carolyn]

Best thing to do is message rivka with the detail and the link to the log (and remove it from here, GR doesn't like us to name names, as it were.). You can also send a message to GR support, but I know rivka is a lot more responsive (and she keeps us Librarians in line :)

I agree with you that this Librarian is not doing the right thing, and deliberately disobeying the rules/standards/manual, especially for such a selfish reason (they are corrupting the database just so their shelves look the way they like them to) is the kind of thing that gets Librarian privileges revoked. Hopefully quickly, in this case.

[Mateo]

Thanks a lot, I'll do exactly that! Also I removed the name, didn't know about that, sorry.

[Deon]

This is what the flagging function is for.

[Mateo]

Thought about that, but when I checked the Help ( https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/5... ) it didn't seemed to fit in any of these:

* Extremely offensive content, such as pro-Nazi, pornography, child abuse, etc.
* Reviews or posts that are extremely off-topic and irrelevant.
* Reviews or posts that contain a slanderous personal attack on another member. Content that is argumentative is fine, so the post must be extreme in its malicious attack on another member.
* The account of any member who is a scammer or an outright spammer. We make sure to check if they use the site first.

So I just decided to ask here. Also should I flag all the 100 edits? Or how should I do it? Thanks!

[Deon]

the librarian flag is different than the abuse flagging.
*Book Cover Changed Incorrectly
*Book Title Changed Incorrectly
*Author Name Changed Incorrectly
*Librarian Not Following Policy

and there is box to explain

they will be able to see his logs, so I would just flag 1 and copy a link to this thread there too

[Mateo]

Damn, I didn't see that. I'll do that, thanks a lot!

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Carolyn wrote: "Best thing to do is message rivka with the detail and the link to the log"

Actually, no. Please use the librarian flagging, as Deon suggested.

[Empress]

What does legal page mean?

[Mateo]

Ellie [The Empress] wrote: "What does legal page mean?"

That's the page (one of the first pages of a book) that includes all legal information, like copyright, ISBN, title, original title and translator (if it's a translation), edition, designers, artists, etc.
In Spanish it's called "página legal", don't know the English term.

[Abcdarian]

Copyright page is the common term.

[Mateo]

Is there a way to get an update on this situation? It's just that it's been 5 days since I followed the advice and flagged one of his edits with a link to this thread, and this Librarian is still editing and changing books' titles to match his standard. I haven't reverted any of his changes, just waiting (although I see some others Librarians are reverting some of his changes, which in turn he immediately reverts back).
Or should I just keep checking his Edits page and when I see he hasn't edited in a good number of days I can assume that he's lost his privileges and is safe to fix everything he changed?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Fortunately, the edits you are describing are pretty easy to undo. And while I understand your frustration, no data is being destroyed. Some letters that should be lower-case are capitalized.

To reduce your frustration, I suggest waiting to revert changes.

[Mateo]

Understood! I'll just wait, no problem with that :)
Thanks for all the help, people.