Please take care when merging, esp now character count reduced

[Cecily]

The book mentioned is just an example.

I understand it's a problem if there are too many versions of a story or book, especially if some are the same, or not even published. Hence librarians merge, and at least now, the content of reviews is merged.

But please, please, please, look carefully before doing it. Especially if there are longstanding reviews, with discussions in comments. The review will be merged, but the comments are lost forever, and reviewers can't even back them up easily.

Especially in the genre of sci-fi short stories, works can be published multiple times, multiple ways (magazines and/or free online), over many years, and have the reviews here that reflect that.

Eventually, a story may be published in a collection, and that's when the component stories may be deleted, as has happened recently with many of Chiang's stories, both from this and his newer collection, Exhalation: Stories.

The trouble is, sometimes an individual story is better known and thus what people will search for.

In other cases, a collection may have stories by multiple authors, so deleting individual entries from individual author's lists is unhelpful to readers AND authors.

Some such stories are short, but complex and thought-provoking enough that it's impossible to review them all in a single review for the parent collection, especially now the character count has been reduced. Hence, reviewing individual stories is ideal.

These two issues combine in a particularly frustrating way: when some of the Chiang stories were deleted and my reviews of them merged to my review of the collection, I wanted to delete the duplicate merged content. But that still leaves the review above the new limit so I can't save it. So until I can totally rewrite it to be much shorter, I can't even tidy it up a little.

The way this is currently working is a disservice to readers, reviewers, and authors. Yes, deletions/merges are necessary, but please be very careful.

[lethe]

Cecily wrote: "Eventually, a story may be published in a collection, and that's when the component stories may be deleted"

Since it is against policy to add short stories to the database if they have not been published on their own, readers should expect to lose their reviews of them if they have been added anyway.

I can understand that many users would like to see this policy changed, but as long as it hasn't, it is not up to librarians to "be very careful". Rather, users should take care to follow policy when adding titles to the database.

It is possible to add more than one review when reviewing collections (and of course other titles), so that should help with the character count.

[Emily]

Before merging a short story we would check to see if it had been published independently.

Librarians are not employees and don't influence policies or assist with reviews.
You have to address concerns about site functionality with staff by visiting the new Goodreads Help or using the Contact Us link.

[Cecily]

I appreciate librarians are volunteers. Thank you.

But most GR users have little idea librarians exist, let alone what the policies are, nor where to find them.

As a user, if I find a story listed, maybe added years ago, and that other GR people have reviewed, why would it occur to me that if I do so, my review and any comments would go?

Perhaps the more important point is not to allow ineligible things to be added in the first place? That way, this problem wouldn't arise.

[Emily]

Cecily wrote: "Perhaps the more important point is not to allow ineligible things to be added in the first place? That way, this problem wouldn't arise."

That's something you should contact Goodreads about, as it deals with site functionality. I know this is an issue for many readers and empathize with that, but this isn't the group in which to discuss it.

[Cecily]

Oh, I thought librarians added books? Sorry if I was wrong.

I'll try contacting GR, but I've had very little success whenever I've tried!

[Emily]

Cecily wrote: "Oh, I thought librarians added books? Sorry if I was wrong."

Anyone can add books to the database.

[Antonomasia]

Having additions vetted on a site of this size would be a gigantic amount of work. RateYourMusic do that with edits (checked by their equivalent of a team of experienced librarians) and ended up with a massive backlog of over a year's worth in some categories - and there are less than a million user accounts in total on that site.

[Cecily]

Antonomasia wrote: "Having additions vetted on a site of this size would be a gigantic amount of work. RateYourMusic do that with edits... and ended up with a massive backlog of over a year's worth in some categories - and there are less than a million user accounts in total on that site."

I hadn't really comprehended the scale.

I guess there's no solution?!

You can see a "book" with many ratings and several reviews, accumulated over years, and not notice it's not a "proper" book, and post a review. If it is ever deleted, you won't necessarily know your reviews have been moved or merged - and possibly be unable to edit the review to tidy it up (a separate bug, I'd already logged with Support, so far to no avail)!