Attn: Jaclyn, has the policy on default profiles changed?

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Kate Ross was a promising historical detective fiction writer who died quite young in the 90s. She wrote 4 books & two short stories.

She is the default profile (with a very common name) & there are at least 9* other Kate Ross's on that profile. I was going to shift this Kate off, then found she had followers & quotes, so I asked Support to shift this Kate.

I was told they don't shift dead authors. Is this correct? I can understand not shifting Charles Dickens or Jane Austen, but it seems odd in this case for a writer who wrote relatively little & has been dead nearly 30 years.

I have spoken to two experienced Supers about this. One is sure that wasn't the case in the past & the other just said it seemed odd.

* Some are junk records.

[Arenda]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "then found she had followers & quotes, so I asked Support to shift this Kate."

Only books and quotes can be moved to a different author profile. Not even Support can move followers between profiles.
Changing the number of spaces in the author profile is the only way. (Sometimes merging two author profiles can be an option.)

I was told they don't shift dead authors.
That makes no sense. (Redacted Looking at the way GR author profiles are assigned, redacted no clue about default profiles and multi-space author profiles. Examples: giving a new author with a common name and 1 book the default profile. Giving an author a random number of spaces, when there is only one other author with that name.)

Choosing which author should have the 1-space profile can sometimes be difficult. But in this case it makes more sense to make the 1-space profile the catch-all profile where all the self published stuff can go, and 'your' Kate Ross on the 2-space profile.

[Dobby]

Arenda wrote: "Choosing which author should have the 1-space profile can sometimes be difficult. But in this case it makes more sense to make the 1-space profile the catch-all profile where all the self published stuff can go, and 'your' Kate Ross on the 2-space profile."

Well said. I completely agree.

[Tami]

I agree, Kate should be moved by adding spaces in the name and then move any books and quotes that need to be moved. Support isn't needed in this case since the profile isn't verified, they can't transfer followers, and merging the profile would result in the loss of the photo and bio. Kate being deceased isn't relevant. It makes sense that she gets the 2-space profile and that the 1-space profile should be the catch-all.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Thanks everyone for your advice! I did a search & found when profiles are merged & one has followers you have to contact Support, so I think that is where I got the idea that Support had to do this.

I can't find any evidence that Kate's photo is in the public domain & it is on that website (run by a friend or fan) if anyone wants to look at her.

[Tami]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Thanks everyone for your advice! I did a search & found when profiles are merged & one has followers you have to contact Support, so I think that is where I got the idea that Support had to do this."

Only if one of the profiles is verified. If neither profile is verified, a regular librarian can merge them, regardless of followers or quotes.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Thanks Tami

I doubt if I'll ever feel brave enough to do that!

[Renske]

Merging author profiles isn't that scary. Although starting with some less important profiles like the many variations of a public domain author might be a good idea.

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Thanks for raising this. I'm unaware of this rule with deceased authors but am checking with the team just in case. I'll let you know when I hear back.

Arenda - can we please refrain from talk negatively about staff in this group, as it's an official Goodreads group. Thanks!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Jaclyn wrote: "Thanks for raising this. I'm unaware of this rule with deceased authors but am checking with the team just in case. I'll let you know when I hear back.

Arenda - can we please refrain from talk neg..."
Oops I have shifted 'my' Kate. & was about to work on Kate^^Ross tomorrow as at the moment we have effectively two default Kate Ross profiles. I can shift back if I have to, but think it would be a bad decision, with a name as common as this.

[Arenda]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Oops I have shifted 'my' Kate. & was about to work on Kate^^Ross tomorrow"

The followers were still attached to the wrong profile. I've merged two profiles so the followers were moved to the profile with the bio and the books, and moved the books that are by a different Kate Ross again from that profile.
There are now 4 profiles left:

1 space: Kate Ross, disambiguation
2 space: Kate Ross, author of the Julian Kestrel series
3 space: Kate Ross, adapter/children educator
4 space: Kate Ross author of a 1879 book

[Tami]

Thanks for fixing it, Arenda. I saw this earlier but had to run some errands, so I planned to check back later, and now it's all sorted.

Carol, the goal is to preserve followers for a specific author. Since people were following the "Julien Krestel" author profile, it wouldn't make sense to have them following the disambiguation profile instead. The same applies to quotes and topics related to the author, they should be attached to the correct profile when possible. That’s why we move the entire profile, not just the books.

Usually, when a single-space profile is set for a specific author, the two-space profile is left for disambiguation. However, this isn’t always the case, it could be taken by a verified author or used for something else [another prolific author, etc].

In this case, the correct approach would have been:

1. Move the two-space profile to a random space temporarily.
2. Move your Kate to the two-space profile by adding an extra space in the name (using the edit profile page, not the book page or disambiguation tool, since those would create a new profile instead).
3. Move the profile that was temporarily placed in a random space to the single-space profile, which serves as the catch-all.
4. Move books that don’t belong to your Kate into the catch-all by manually editing them one by one. If there are too many, you can disambiguate them into a new profile using the disambiguation tool [only works for books in which she is the primary author], then merge that new profile into the catch-all.

This method avoids losing links and data, no need to copy-paste bios or anything like that.

The way it was before Arenda fixed it didn’t work because followers and author-related topics were linked to the wrong profile, and there were two disambiguation profiles. We lost the original link to Kate Ross (the first link in your post), but that was the only way to fix it as it was without undoing everything again.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Sorry for getting it wrong.

[Tami]

Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ wrote: "Sorry for getting it wrong."

No worries, Carol! Disambiguation can be tricky. The important thing is that it’s all sorted now. If you ever need help with a similar situation in the future, feel free to ask!

[Jaclyn, Librarian Program Manager]

Hi Carol - I reached out to the team about this and they should have responded to you by email. Let me know if any more info is needed!

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Jaclyn wrote: "Hi Carol - I reached out to the team about this and they should have responded to you by email. Let me know if any more info is needed!"

Thank you I did receive an email & a Super has taken care of everything.