Amazon destroyed the author's database.

[Tiag⊗]

You guys are probably aware of this, and I've already contacted the staff by email, but still, I'd like to give another heads up that Amazon is destroying the author section of every book in this database, at least in the comic book section.

Just to give one example out of possible thousands:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/160662

This is a series 100% written by Dan Slott, yet Amazon automatically replaced Dan Slott with a lot of artists as the main author.

This is happening everywhere, and it's gonna be a nightmare to revert them all back.

[Tiag⊗]

It's also messing up with the titles,

Here's one example
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...

Now the title is all in caps and with incorrect parentheses, this is a nightmare.
All the work I've done in the past couple of months is being totally undone.

[Scott]

Yes, it's rather futile being a librarian these days with all the improvements.

[lethe]

The new Amazon import bots are a horror. Changing correctly formatted titles to all-caps (as you have already noticed), adding woefully incomplete records, adding loads of duplicates, and even changing perfectly valid editions to 'Invalid'. Etc. etc.

[Tiag⊗]

Scott wrote: "Yes, it's rather futile being a librarian these days with all the improvements."

I wouldn't call this an improvement, almost 40% of the graphic novels now have wrong primary authors attributed to their books.

[Tami]

I agree. The bots are massively importing proof copies, notebooks, and blank journals. The bots are also importing books with the author and translator switched, and (weirdly) spaces in the author's name so imports are not going to the default profiles but to the verified profiles or new profiles are being created unnecessarily in most cases.

[Scott]

I was being ironic.

[Tiag⊗]

Yes, it's getting out of hand. Thankfully, it appears it's only changing the primary work, and not the other editions.

@Scott - Sorry then, my bad.

[Michele]

Yikes.... I was wondering where all the PROOF items were coming from. This stinks, hopefully someone with clout is communicating to Amazon the issues.

Sometimes it occurs to me to wonder just how much $$$ in free labor Amazon is getting from all of us. Then I go have a glass of wine so I can stop thinking about it lol

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

It isn't Amazon, it's Goodreads. Goodreads needs to modify its requirements for importing.

(Yes, I know GR is owned by Amazon, but it is a wholly owned subsidiary. It has privileges with Amazon, but has it's own management.)

[Scott]

I'm about to give up and just tend to the items on my own shelves (which I just corrected a good deal of.)

[L J]

It's frustrating that increased importing which was supposed to help correctly populate the database instead is adding problems and increasing workload.

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Sorry for the frustration with the imports. We're still working to refine this process, which is why we've been importing in batches. I've let the team know that it's overwriting Librarian edits. Will loop back once I know more.

Thanks for reporting!

[L J]

Jaclyn wrote: "Sorry for the frustration with the imports. We're still working to refine this process, which is why we've been importing in batches. ... Will loop back once I know more. ..."

Thanks. Many, many thanks!

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Moved to Questions folder.

[Tiag⊗]

Yes, it would be great if you manage to stop the bot from changing librarian edits in the title/author/publisher field, but the damage is done already, there's thousands of bad edits right now, is there a way to revert those changes back, I mean, this was what, one two days ago, better now than never.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Jaclyn wrote: "I've let the team know that it's overwriting Librarian edits. "

Yes. The imports were never supposed to write over librarian edits. That was established years ago. (I'm guessing newer employees don't know this.)

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

We're pausing that specific import while we resolve these issues.

Will add more information here as I receive it.

[Liralen]

Thanks, Jaclyn.

[David]

I also reported that the bot imported 1.5 million invalid editons for empty notebooks. I didn't even get a response on that report, and certainly nothing was done. here is a sample

[Tiag⊗]

Yes, the amount of clutter in the database is insane.

[L J]

Law of unintended consequences in action.

[David]

Note that the bot is still adding ISBN10 of a paperbacks to Kindle editions.

[Sandra]

I've actually sent 4 or 5 to support this morning ~ all of them were isbn 13s on kindle editions.

[Lizzy]

Where is the best place to report this issue? I have one that popped up as a Proof copy. I just need it deleted. The correct book is already appearing on my dashboard. This is the incorrect/Proof copy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... Any help is appreciated!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Lizzy wrote: "Where is the best place to report this issue? I have one that popped up as a Proof copy. I just need it deleted. The correct book is already appearing on my dashboard. This is the incorrect/Proof c..."

It would be better to create your own thread as this one is about problems librarians are having with bots.

I have marked your proof as invalid. It may take a little while to disappear from your author page.

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

David wrote: "Note that the bot is still adding ISBN10 of a paperbacks to Kindle editions."

Thanks David. Please feel welcome to email examples to support. They'll add them to the correct report and escalate.

[David]

Jaclyn, I sent many hundreds of requests of this kind to support on the last few months. Of this issue I just sent a couple of dozens today.
I just sent them a bug report with two more.

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Thank you David. I'll keep an eye on your reports to ensure they reach the right internal team.

[Lizzy]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Lizzy wrote: "Where is the best place to report this issue? I have one that popped up as a Proof copy. I just need it deleted. The correct book is already appearing on my dashboard. This is the inc..."

Thank you!

[☕ Lachgas ♿]

I like working on initials although that's really sisyphenian but currently they are messier and way more than ever before - these new bots do import really a lot that needs correction very very fast.
(in the past I could reach a point were I actually could clear specific initials for a day or so - and had only minimal imports the next, now way to reach that point currently. that's just frustrating)

[☕ Lachgas ♿]

Tami wrote: "I agree. The bots are massively importing proof copies, notebooks, and blank journals. The bots are also importing books with the author and translator switched, and (weirdly) spaces in the author'..."

also with illustrators and authors switched ... and as that's not enough not even real illustrator names https://www.goodreads.com/author/list... inbetween tons of notebooks.
what a great help...

[David]

I'm giving up. As soon as I finish cleaning up an author's books, the bot adds another hundred junk editions. I don't have the time to fight a machine.

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Sorry for the trouble with this. The Goodreads team is aware of these issues and actively working to resolve them.

[☕ Lachgas ♿]

David wrote: "I'm giving up. As soon as I finish cleaning up an author's books, the bot adds another hundred junk editions. I don't have the time to fight a machine."

Yeah, we can't win. even if that bot is stopped ... will take really many hours to fix things we can and find.
it's just a lost fight.
I've watched the "unknown author" profile a while and corrected some (came across it as a german edition of an author I read turned up there) but while I corrected five (and authors usually available and quite easy to find) it were 20+ imported on the profile.

Makes no sense to even try unfortunately. (sent it to support back then because it was getting close to 3 million distinct works and barely opened anymore but just the usual "we look into it" so if they are not interested enough to fix why should I.

[David]

Just in case someone didn't notice, the bot now changes titles, descriptions and page numbers, when they change on Amazon, so there is no way to no longer any way to know anything about any release. This means readers now find books they never read on their shelves.

[L J]

David wrote: "Just in case someone didn't notice, the bot now changes titles, descriptions and page numbers, when they change on Amazon, so there is no way to no longer any way to know anything about any release..."

Oh, my. Many thanks for the information David. I knew bot was making bad changes but somehow hadn't connected the info to adding never read books to shelves.

[Liralen]

David wrote: "Just in case someone didn't notice, the bot now changes titles, descriptions and page numbers, when they change on Amazon, so there is no way to no longer any way to know anything about any release. This means readers now find books they never read on their shelves."

Oh—thank you for the warning. A good time to export one's shelf data.

[lethe]

Liralen wrote: "Oh—thank you for the warning. A good time to export one's shelf data."

+1

Maybe I am naive, but since staff is aware of the bots screwing up, why don't they just stop the imports?

[David]

lethe wrote:"+1

Maybe I am naive, but since staff is aware of the bots screwing up, why don't they just stop the imports?"
I'm theorizing, but the damage was done on the April 9th run, before Jaclyn's message, so they may have noticed it and stopped the bot.
Generally speaking, this illustrates that developers are unaware of GR's fundamental policies. Not changing the record of an existing shelved release is perhaps the most basic rule one can think of. Maybe a refresher is due.

[Renske]

The rules for the bots I can remember were mentioned to us are they shouldn't edit anything humans have edited and for certain edits, such as covers, the bots should have that ability only until the publication date.

What I can't understand what is currently happening, are all those books that have the correct data on Amazon itself when you look them up, but are imported with 'unknown author' or no format and similar issues. That didn't happen before on such a level and I find it makes it less appealing to work on all kinds of books.

[Liralen]

Corinne wrote: "I've noticed author's names being added with extra spaces which is new to me."

I've been seeing a lot of this too.

Jaclyn—can all the add-book (and edit-book) bots be paused until the developers figure out what's going on? The amount of chaos they're creating in the database is incredible.

[Mesembryanthemum]

I'm seeing a lot of junk added today by the amazon_catalog and amazon_com bots. GR is becoming unusable. Why can't the developers pause the bots until the problems are fixed?

[Kate]

I wanted to shelve a book i was physically holding in my hands.

Searched for isbn 10 - nothing
Searched for isbn 13 - nothing
Searched for title - nothing

Clicked Manually Add Book
Spent a lot of time filling in form correctly, photographing and editing photograph
Hit submit

Cant add book because isbn is already being used by a deleted book!

Click on deleted book

Book was added by amazon bot, and then deleted!!!!

So i cant add the book that i am holding

All i could work out to do was to edit the amazon bot created book and undelete it.

Who knows what will happen to it next?

[lethe]

These bots are awful and doing more damage to the database than non-librarian users ever could. I don't understand why they have not been stopped already.

ETA I had one earlier today where someone asked to have a description in the correct language added to a book. When I looked it up, I saw that a bot had changed the title to "Book 9788852240546" just an hour before.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

lethe wrote: "These bots are awful and doing more damage to the database than non-librarian users ever could."

This. A thousand times this.

I'm sure the programmers are good at programming, but it seems they are entirely unfamiliar with the librarian manual and so don't have a clue what the database is actually about.

[Liralen]

Corinne wrote: "RE: staff response to report of msg 47 (contributors I added are gone). *oh my* emphasis below mine.

Thanks for your email! We have unified our catalog with Amazon's. So, our records slowly will be the same. Since this book only has those 2 authors listed on Amazon, they were the only imported.

If you like, you can re-add the rest, but the system will keep updating the book record as it is on Amazon.

I hope this helps clarify your concerns."

So...what I'm reading is 'librarian edits will now be overwritten at [the bots'] will, no matter how wrong or incomplete the imports are, and everything librarians have done for the past many years is irrelevant/invalid'.

Am I overreacting here?

[Scott]

Liralen wrote: "So...what I'm reading is 'librarian edits will now be overwritten at [the bots'] will, no matter how wrong or incomplete the imports are, and everything librarians have done for the past many years is irrelevant/invalid'."

Sounds about right.

Am I overreacting here? "

No.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Corinne wrote: "RE: staff response to report of msg 47 (contributors I added are gone). *oh my* emphasis below mine.

Thanks for your email! We have unified our catalog with Amazon's. So, our records slowly will be the same. Since this book only has those 2 authors listed on Amazon, they were the only imported."

If you like, you can re-add the rest, but the system will keep updating the book record as it is on Amazon.

Then there is no reason to have librarians.

[Tami]

This presents a huge issue with author disambiguation. I've been edit warring with the bots. The bots change the author name to the default profile in a matter of hours. I'm guessing "to match what's on Amazon." I was hoping this was going to be fixed in the future but given staff response they aren't planning to do that.