Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Book & Author Page Issues
>
Goodreads mass editor deleting books
It's still happening. At least one book was completely deleted.
I think (and I could be way off and probably am) that this is one of the "processes" that has been run a number of times since Amazon. It was certainly run during the Amazon problems - anyone remember their edit numbers go way up and then returning to normal? While GR where trying to assign as much user data as possible via updating the change logs to reflect user changes
or, there are users called "deleted member"http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15...
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/60...
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/22...
Banjomike, those would still show up as links with profile images on the log page.
Ladin is right, the profile isn't clickable so it's not an imitation deleted member. Paula, you may be right but I am nervous as these all look like legit ISBNs. So far I can't see any with reviews attached thankfully.
Lafon*, stupid autocorrect.I really hope Paula is right. This would be a pain to fix otherwise.
It looks like it has been running on many occasions recently.on this edit page
http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/8...
it shows today, Aug 14, 13, ... 08, 07, June 30 ... all marked as deleting.
This page seems to show it deleting the SAME edition on two consecutive days. (Aug 14, 2012 08:51am and Aug 13, 2012 10:03pm)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/edits/1...
Jessica wrote: "Lafon*, stupid autocorrect."No worries. My own device doesn't recognize my username.
And while it looks like a script, it is merging real books. Those ISBNs are legit.
Very weird.....I am not going to bother adding any book or edition to the database until this is resolved. I don't like to see my labors undone.
Mod
I asked someone to take a look. It does appear that the only records that have been deleted had zero shelvings.
Thanks rivka! Yeah, I didn't see any that were shelved, thankfully.
Now "Deleted Member" has become "Goodreads Mass Editor."Why is GR deleting thousands of legitimate editions from the database, pray tell?
It's still running along at the moment at an amazing clip. I checked three of the deleted editions and they are legitimate books on Amazon or Abe Books, although they are the old books that are print on demand. Some kind of an explanation would have been courteous from the PtB. Communications, always a good feature in the past, are now non-existent.
I agree about not adding anything until some kind of an explanation is forthcoming. And I begin to think that working away at the database is pointless as well.
I have been making a serious point of immediately backing up my books after making any changes due to this kind of problem/thing. At least then, I won't lose any personal books.
Is there a script running that deletes every edition not shelved by a user? Because that's sure what it looks like to me.
I was just looking at a book that I remember editing last night. There were two editions of the book; now there is one. It kind of looks to me like the script may be removing the multiple copies of all those old book printed by printers of out of copyright books, if you see what I mean and just leaving one. But I haven't any intimate knowledge of any other books to test my theory.
I just looked at this book http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20...and it showed six editions in the number but only listed four if the edition were brought up. And there were I think two shown on the script running as deleted. So more than one are being left apparently, but some are going away. Who knows?
So either goodreads is being attacked by a book-eating virus, or they decided to delete all those editions that nobody has shelved but take up server space. Would be nice to know what is happening.
Is someone at least trying to keep track of the ISBN's deleted so we can re-add them later if this is an error in the system?
I guess if you're trying to reduce the load of the database, removing unused records would be one way to do it, the theory being that as soon as someone looks for the missing book, a librarian will add it and it will no longer be an "unused" record taking up space and increasing load/search times.A warning would have been handy though, if that's what they are doing.
Krystal109 wrote: "Is someone at least trying to keep track of the ISBN's deleted so we can re-add them later if this is an error in the system?"Well theoretically they will remain in the logs, visible. But there are thousands of them by now. Who is going to re-add them? I think we have to assume it is Goodreads policy right now to get rid of them.
❂ Jennifer wrote: "I guess if you're trying to reduce the load of the database, removing unused records would be one way to do it, the theory being that as soon as someone looks for the missing book, a librarian will..."This occurred to me too.
I suppose if it was an accident, they could always run another import anyways.They probably have specific requirements to be deleted, like no shelfs, not a GR's author, and other things.
I don't get why GR would want to create so much additional, unnecessary work for librarians - volunteers who donate their time and labors to make GR a better, more complete site.And why such a strange process is going uncommented on.
Has anyone emailed GR's and asked them to comment on the issue and if it is on purpose, what are the conditions for deletion, so we know if we should bother adding a new book if it meets the standards for deletion.
I don't blame them for getting rid of the numerous copies of the same thing, but I spent the evening before editing these things and deeply resent wasting my time.A little "hey guys leave those things alone they are going to be deleted" would have been considerate, thoughtful, helpful, polite, less rude to the (volunteer) librarians. No consideration.
I begin to see the truth in the old saying that
People (GR) does not value what it does not pay for.
Krystal109 wrote: "Has anyone emailed GR's and asked them to comment on the issue and if it is on purpose, what are the conditions for deletion, so we know if we should bother adding a new book if it meets the standa..."Nope....Rivka said she was asking someone to take a look, so I was waiting to hear back from her. As that was on Thursday, evidently this is not a front-burner issue.
If they want to save space, they shouldn't allow 1000 editions for free domain books whose copyrights have expired and anybody can publish the book.
It looks like "deleted member" is now "goodreads mass editor"...definitely something being done on purpose.I have a few theories, but I'd also rather know what's going on. I often do edits on some of the pre-1923 reprints... so it would be nice to know what the plan is from here.
Actually Krystal that looks like what they are doing to me.
I do wish Goodreads would tell us about these things, rather than our having to speculate and be detectives.That said, I won't be sorry if they're getting rid of those thousands of badly-scanned print-on-demand generic-covered books of old copyright-free material.
I own a lot of pre-1923 books, and it has been annoying to put in my one real cover and review, only to have it swamped by a dozen different POD books of the same title with no shelvers.
When I checked a couple of my old books, How to Make Good Pictures, by Eastman Kodak Company now has only three modern scanned editions, and The Practical System for Drafting Ladies' and Children's Clothing Designed for Use in the Public Schools, Part II (which is really short and not that interesting), has only one.I am pretty sure they both had lots more scanned editions when I entered them into the system. So it does look like they're paring things back.
Ew. Suppers: Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions still has 5 different POD scanned editions, and Breakfasts and Teas: Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions still has ten!I'm going to stop checking now, and let the Goodreads script do its work.
Rivka? Kara? Patrick? Otis? If there is a new policy about the database and purposely shrinking it, can you announce it, so that librarians don't do any extra and wasted labor?
Mod
We have decided to no longer import Wikipedia books or print-on-demand scans of very old books in the public domain. Users are still welcome to add them manually and to shelve them, and we will not remove any that have already been shelved. But we've decided to remove any unshelved items that were imported before we changed our importing guidelines. Let us know if you have any questions.
That's possible? I thought you couldn't do anything whenever you didn't have an account!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!I APPROVE!
Mod
The fact that the earlier edits were labeled as "deleted user" was an error which has been corrected going forwards. They are now correctly labeled as "Goodreads mass editor".
Rivka - any chance we can get a notice when the deleting process has stopped running so we don't make a bunch of updates only to have books deleted?
Mod
I have to admit, I quite like this. Thanks for the update rivka!!
rivka wrote: "I'm being told that the estimate is about a week. Someone should be able to post here once it has stopped."Geez, there must be even more of them than I thought. Any chance of getting a total number of deletions when it is all over? Just out of interest?
On the one hand, I like it. In a way a lot of those unshelved scan-POD things were redundant and crufty. On the other hand, I worked on them from time to time; when I read either an old dead tree copy or a Project Gutenberg edition I would combine and do a cleanup as needed. So ... I'm glad if it will improve database performance, but not exactly happy that some stuff I did has been obviated.
Yay! I always thought these 'books' brought down the quality of the GR database. I know some of them are useful, but still, yay.
Suppose every single edition of a work in the database is one of these that is being removed automatically: e.g. Books LLC, or Kessinger, or IndyPublish. Does that mean that every single edition will be removed? Leaving nothing?Because for many older works, only the POD or similar type editions are in the database, and no one has shelved any of them.
It also would have been nice to get a heads-up from management about this new policy before it went into effect. Just because transparency is always good, and also because countless librarian hours have been spent combining these works - both before and during the purge - and people like to know when their labors are being wasted.
Goodreads Librarians Group
Books mentioned in this topic
The Officer Says "I Do" (other topics)Reckless (other topics)
Against the Ropes (other topics)
Breakfasts and Teas: Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions (other topics)
The Practical System for Drafting Ladies' and Children's Clothing Designed for Use in the Public Schools, Part II (other topics)
Deleted Member updated the book Memoires de Daniel de Cosnac by Daniel de Cosnac
edition: Deleted edition id=9112746 title=Memoires de Daniel de Cosnac isbn=1115832654, merged 0 reviews
0 minutes ago (#39496985)
Deleted Member updated the book Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by George Gordon Byron
edition: Deleted edition id=9112738 title=Childe Harold: Texte Anglais Pub. Avec Une Notice, Des Arguments Et Des Notes En Francaise isbn=1142500101, merged 0 reviews
0 minutes ago (#39496984)
Deleted Member updated the book |edition|Deleted edition id=9112683 title=Chapters in Rural Progress isbn=1103564277, merged 0 reviews
edition: Deleted edition id=9112683 title=Chapters in Rural Progress isbn=1103564277, merged 0 reviews
0 minutes ago (#39496983)
Deleted Member updated the book |edition|Deleted edition id=9112682 title=Chapters in Rural Progress isbn=1103564269, merged 0 reviews
edition: Deleted edition id=9112682 title=Chapters in Rural Progress isbn=1103564269, merged 0 reviews
0 minutes ago (#39496982)
Deleted Member updated the book Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment of the State of New York, 1783-1821, Volume 1 by Hugh Hastings
edition: Deleted edition id=9112655 title=Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment of the State of New York, 1783-1821, Volume 1 isbn=1149867116, merged 0 reviews
0 minutes ago (#39496981)
Any GR staff know what this is? There's a lot more of that too.