Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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[ANSWERED] Paperback editions with ASIN only -- valid or bot mistake?
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Unfortunately they are seen valid now as far as I understand this new policy.(Personally I do find it super confusing and incredibly messy and not helpful)
I believe these are from when Amazon assigned ASINs to used books by outside sellers. They are quite likely duplicates of books already in the system. (I will not be testing that theory.)
gem wrote: "Is the bot supposed to be importing hardcover or paperback formats with only an ASIN, or is this an error? I'm really hoping it's the latter, because it will create a lot of redundant, incomplete and potentially inaccurate entries."I did report one of these to Jaclyn yesterday.
Here is a description of a Mass Market Paperback with only an ASINvery good copy //---1968--attention--a magnum easy eye book -- --cover /very good---text/unmarked/-----skuk4
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I did report one of these to Jaclyn yesterday."Did you post in a thread or submit a ticket to support with "Attn: J" in the subject?
Here's one for the Life at Dakota:
Life at the Dakota( New York's Most Unusual Address) <> Paperback <> StephenBirmingham <> SyracuseUniversityPress
And on Amazon the author is StephenBirmingham, and publisher is SyracuseUniversity with no spaces. It's essentially the same as non-Librarians adding books with zero accountability for accuracy.
gem wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I did report one of these to Jaclyn yesterday."Did you post in a thread or submit a ticket to support with "Attn: J" in the subject?
Here's one for the Life at Dakota:..."
I submitted a ticket ATT: Jaclyn, as requested. Just one and indicated there were multiple - maybe thousands.
gem wrote: "It's essentially the same as non-Librarians adding books with zero accountability for accuracy."Yes. And the bot is doing more of them and more quickly.
I see dozens of these entries a day -- and I'm not looking very hard. If they have other problems (like extra junk in the title), I'll flag the original bot-created change as "Librarian not following policy". But I could spend all my time doing this and still not make a dent.
Example from yesterday: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Edit for P.S. I didn't submit a ticket -- is flagging it enough?
Jaclyn asked us to submit a ticket ATT: Jaclyn. But I'm not sure we need to do it for all of them.I opened another thread, suggesting we could mark all of these as Invalid:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Jaclyn stated in this thread that:If the editions are duplicates of others (in terms of year, publisher, cover, etc.) and do not have any ratings or reviews you can mark them as invalid.
Marking topic as answered. Thanks J!
gem wrote: "Jaclyn stated in this thread that:If the editions are duplicates of others (in terms of year, publisher, cover, etc.) and do not have any ratings or reviews you can mark them as invalid.
Marking..."
Enjoy the exhausting research!
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Enjoy the exhausting research!"guess I will pass on that one.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...
However, near the bottom of the list there are several entries that were created by the Amazon bot on April 16th for the paperback edition of the book. The Amazon listings for these editions don't have an ISBN, but they do have a unique ASIN, thus why the bot added them.
The covers are all identical to one of the paperback editions with an ISBN, but it's difficult to prove they are the same edition because the publish date and page count (as [incorrectly?] reported by third party sellers on Amazon) vary, or the details are missing entirely.
Is the bot supposed to be importing hardcover or paperback formats with only an ASIN, or is this an error? I'm really hoping it's the latter, because it will create a lot of redundant, incomplete and potentially inaccurate entries.