Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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Policies & Practices
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[closed] When can an upcoming release be added/what information is needed?
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The current wording of this policy is quite publisher orientated and I agree some clarity on announcements by authors or translators would be welcome. Not every author is big enough their publisher makes announcements way in advance.
In the case of translations, I would think an ISBN should have been issued before we can add the edition. We combine translations, so also, I believe both of those would be added to the work of the original title.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "In the case of translations, I would think an ISBN should have been issued before we can add the edition. We combine translations, so also, I believe both of those would be added to the work of the..."If that's the policy then fair enough, but ISBNs don't come out until fairly late. I looked for other newly announced translations and the first thing that came up is an announcement by Tor for a new translation of "Blood of the Old Kings" by Sung-Il Kim out next fall, and it has already been added to GR despite not having an ISBN. I'm also not sure why translations would be treated differently from upcoming non-translated releases (apart from who is an acceptable source for the official announcement, for obvious reasons).
(In the case of the two books I'm requesting be added, they would not be combined with other translations because Ellsworth is dividing up the original work in a unique way.)
Jennifer wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "In the case of translations, I would think an ISBN should have been issued before we can add the edition. We combine translations, so also, I believe both of those would ..."An ISBN isn't required, but lacking else, would be an indication of publication. (And just because other books have been added, doesn't mean whoever did the work was following policy.)
As to the combining, then more information needs to be provided. Just saying "don't combine" is insufficient.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "An ISBN isn't required, but lacking else, would be an indication of publication. (And just because other books have been added, doesn't mean whoever did the work was following policy.)..."For sure. It sounds like there isn't any consensus on what information is needed; it would be great if GR staff are able to weigh in. I assume that will eventually happen by posting in this folder, but let me know if there's a better way to get their attention.
I don't want to get too deep into my specific requests that inspired this thread as I'd like to keep this thread on-topic to clarifying GR policy, but you can read more about why combining would be inappropriate in this post of mine.
Re: Combining. Your post is long, but I think perhaps you don't truly understand how Goodreads combines titles. Have you looked at this article?https://help.goodreads.com/s/article/...
Please note this:
Editions/translations of the book in other languages. Even though many translations differ significantly, we've made the decision to combine them all, and have people note the differences in their reviews.
As for series, Goodreads also has their own way of doing things, but a book may be in more than one series. There are, for instance, some series where titles are in publication order and another series with the same titles that are numbered in chronological order.
I'm not sure the Ellsworth translation series ought not to be shown as a secondary series after the titles are combined.
I realize you didn't want to get off topic, but the Combine function is part of the Policies and Practices of Goodreads and might just as well be addressed here as you have linked to your other posts.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Please note this:Editions/translations of the book in other languages. Even though many translations differ significantly, we've made the decision to combine them all, and have people note the differences in their reviews."
I think the "differences" they are referring to are translation differences, like how some Iliad translations use prose and other are poetry, or even more extreme cases like when some translations of Jules Verne novels change characters, plot points, etc..
I don't think they're saying that completely different texts should be combined just because they share the same English title, which is what's happening in The Three Musketeers. In fact, GR staff has previously separated different versions of one Dumas novel for me—Louise de la Vallière (thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...?) —I don't know why support would have done so if it was against policy.
As to creating secondary series, I've already confirmed with GR staff that this would be appropriate in this case: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I don't see a staff member in that thread. I do see that another librarian addressed your request.It is true that individual volumes of a work are not combined with different individual volumes. When that happens, the individual volumes are identified as such. That has nothing to do with translations.
And I'll note about your longer thread, that most 19th Century works were originally published serially, usually one chapter at a time. They were often, but not always, then published as a whole in several Volumes. Not every publisher published the same number of volumes and so these are combined separately.
So if Ellsworth's translations are for only specific volumes of the works, the titles should reflect that.
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I don't see a staff member in that thread. I do see that another librarian addressed your request.It is true that individual volumes of a work are not combined with different individual volumes. ..."
As my final comment in that thread noted, I ended up reaching out to Support via email, and they addressed it. I can't link to the emails for obvious reasons. If you don't believe me then that's fine—I guess it would be great if GR could weigh in on this publicly.
His translations aren't for specific volumes because that's not how The Three Musketeers was originally published—they're for a specific collection of chapters. (It sounds like a pedantic distinction, but it makes everything much more complicated, especially as chapter numbering can itself be ambiguous.) This is true for all editions; see my post for examples. I don't think it's practical to 1) research which chapters are included in every edition of every book in the series, and 2) edit all the titles or whatnot to reflect that; that also goes against the advice that GR staff gave in the thread I created on this issue.
I'm not really sure we're getting anywhere on my questions, though. At best the policy seems ambiguous. I think we should wait to hear from GR staff rather than continue to speculate back and forth.
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Jaclyn wrote: "Sorry for the delay here! The books mentioned in your initial post are not sufficiently confirmed. We would need an announcement from the publisher (or the work's addition on their website), or an ..."Thanks for the clarification!
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This seems to be as much or more information than is available for other anticipated releases currently on Goodreads (The Doors of Stone by Patrick Rothfuss, The Winds of Winter by George R R Martin, Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer, etc.), which is confusing.
At what point does a book move from "rumored" or "uncomfirmed" to being eligible for adding to Goodreads? What information is needed?
Clarity on the policy would be appreciated. Thank you!