Private (feature is in development)

I'm suddenly seeing this new selection in the Collection drop down in Your Books....when I click it it returns one book, which isn't toggled as Private.

That is very weird behavior, indeed. I'm not seeing it on my account or my test account, but I am seeing it on yours.

For developers to reproduce:
1. Go into Taliesien's account on LibraryThing
2. go to “Your books”
3. open Collections drop-down menu. Note that there’s a “Private (feature is in development)” collection showing up at the very top of the list.
4. click to “Edit collections”. the collections manager/edit lightbox should open up.
5. Note that there is no “Private” collection listed there.

Bug: The “Private…” collection should not be showing up, to my knowledge.

This is an old, old issue:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/132893#3243151

>3 lorax: It may be an old, old issue, but one that apparently was never resolved since it just showed up in my collection drop down menu for the first time ever today. And it doesn't even show the books I've marked Private, just one book that isn't marked Private. See screencap below.

https://pics.cdn.librarything.com//picsizes/50/ad/50ad4c60026fca463767a477941434...

>4 Taliesien: The check box for making individual books private is broken, has been since it was introduced, and as such shouldn't really be used, because you'll find that sometimes a glitch will keep you from accessing those books.

>5 gilroy: I've not had any issue accessing the books I marked private in the almost six years I've been a member, but that's neither here nor there. My report was about a new Collection option that just magically appeared this morning and doesn't even correctly list the books marked private, which is what I believe it was intended to do.

>6 Taliesien: But since you apparently do have books marked private, which most people don't use, it's likely a clue as to what the bug might be

Talieisen:

I am not under the slightest delusion that old issues are necessarily resolved. My comment was not directed at you for mentioning it, but at kristilabrie as a reminder of the, shall we say, vintage of this bug.

Also reported here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/333554. I've asked the OP to post details here.

>1 Taliesien: And now there appear to be 4 books in that collection. Hmm.

>10 kristilabrie: yes it seems to be fluid. I've seen mine go as high as 200+ but now down to about 38. Iirc when I set my whole profile to private, that was when I saw the numbers climbing in that collection. (I've never marked a book private, this is all happening on its own)

Previously posted to a different thread; asked to re-post here.

18 of my books now appear in the "Private" collection, but I didn't put them there, and that feature box is not checked on the records themselves. So what is happening?

https://www.librarything.com/work/39029/book/202494634
https://www.librarything.com/work/26546699/book/202153918
https://www.librarything.com/work/6029122/book/202492072
https://www.librarything.com/work/3015/book/202393960

For 17 of the 18 titles I used the "Add books" search; 1 title I entered manually.

Bump. This is still happening, now for MarthaJeanne posted here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336608.

Bump. See my comment here (the ETA section) -> https://www.librarything.com/topic/333171#7660145

At first glance these two bugs appear to be correlated.

Bump. Still happening.

Current example: wrongplanet67's catalog has 3 books in the "Private (feature is in development)" Collection https://www.librarything.com/catalog/wrongplanet67

https://www.librarything.com/work/4703287/book/207266946 (in "Literature" Collection; added 10/16/21)
https://www.librarything.com/work/145976/book/207266043 (in "History" Collection; added 10/16/21)
https://www.librarything.com/work/134857/book/88976448 (in "Literature" Collection; added 8/19/12)

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/CurrerBell shows one book in this (Private) Collection, but I've actually only got the book Wishlisted. I noted this bug a week or two ago (and I don't think it happened until then, but I really can't be sure).

EDIT: OK, as a test, the book involved was https://www.librarything.com/work/23316195/book/210831265. I deleted it from my library altogether and then re-added it as Wishlisted. The (Private) no longer appears in the drop-down. Hence for practical purposes at least for the time being and for my own library, the Bug is resolved. If this is bothering anyone, I guess they can do the same workaround I used of deleting and re-adding.

>16 CurrerBell: Thanks for the heads up. Do you happen to remember what date (and timezone) you added the original book in your library, that was showing up in the "Private..." collection? While members can certainly do the workaround if they so choose, it would be best to have some live examples of the bug in question so we can actually fix it. Deleting and re-adding may also not be a viable option for others.

>13 kristilabrie: Mine is still active.

Testing.

No, deleting and re-adding isn't an option for me. When I first reported the bug on Jun 15, 2021 there was just one book affected. Unbeknownst to me, that grew to 27 over the following several months. There was no correlation between when I added them and them later "magically" appearing in the Private (feature is in development) collection. The entry dates for my affected titles range from Nov 2020 through Oct 2021. It affects titles I added manually as well as sourced from Amazon.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/332971#7550107

Mine is still fluid. Currently at 50. My profile is not private and I've never attempted to put anything on the private shelf.
It really doesn't affect me so *shrugs*

ETA: there is an affect that I didn't realize was related until later.

bump

I seem to have a private collection in some places, but not in others. https://www.librarything.com/work/26422225/book/206849217 is in that collection, but not on the book page, so I can't remove it.

Interesting side note: I don't get a checkmark on the series page for that book. The other things don't really bother me, but this could result in buying a book my husband has already read, so it is an issue.

>23 MarthaJeanne: I wish they would just disable this "feature". It has only caused problems (for several years now).

Don't get me wrong. I might mark some works as such - IF it actually worked. But it doesn't.

>24 Nicole_VanK: I agree, and I think many others do as well. Some of us are caught up in it in spite of carefully avoiding that checkbox. It should be ended or fixed. Sooner rather than later.

>26 MarthaJeanne: Yes

>26 MarthaJeanne:
>Some of us are caught up in it in spite of carefully avoiding that checkbox.

It should be noted that there are two privacy features that never made it out of beta: private collections and private books, so we shouldn't get the two conflated. The checkbox on the book record is for book privacy, and doesn't (or shouldn't!) alter its collection. There isn't any way to deliberately access and use the private collection so the how and why it arises is a long-time mystery (as the link in >3 lorax: indicates). Yourself and others not using private books, yet ending up with the private collection, should still be useful info to the bug-squashers since it can't be book privacy causing the collection to appear.

>23 MarthaJeanne:
>I don't get a checkmark on the series page for that book. The other things don't really bother me, but this could result in buying a book my husband has already read, so it is an issue.

There is a bit of discussion on this point in the topic linked in >14 Taliesien:. I wonder if the private collection simply doesn't have a type of checkmark defined, presuming it must need something to know which of the four designs to use. Would adding a further copy of the book, into a normal collection, get it a checkmark? If so could that be worth doing if you want to both preserve the existing one for bug-analysis, yet also not be hampered by its non-checkmarky-ness.

FYI: I manually re-added all 46 books that were in my "Private (feature is in development)" collection. Which means I also deleted all 46 of the books I originally added but had magically appeared in the "Private (feature is in development)" collection. Now, the "Private (feature is in development)" collection doesn't appear in the collections drop down. Great.

Reminder: I've never marked any book private or put any in a private collection. By being in that collection, it caused them to be hidden as I moved around the site; on author, series and tag pages. I discussed my issues with examples here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/333171

I've asked that thread be closed. reason here, msg 58: https://www.librarything.com/topic/333171#n8034308
-------------------

I don't want to have to re-add and delete books. There should be a way for us to remove them from that collection.

I'm at 0 there today but assume they will reappear, with no rhyme or reason that I can determine.

I'm also experiencing this bug (see https://www.librarything.com/topic/347917 )

For me the "Private" collection has been in the dropdown menu for some time, but I never clicked on it until today (since I was sure I had never used it, I assumed it was empty)

I was considering starting to use this feature for my wishlist, but it seems it only causes a lot of problems

thanks for the warning

Looks as if I didn't bother saying so before, but this has also happened to me. The most recent was a few weeks ago, if I remember correctly.

>31 aspirit: Maybe if enough people affected start posting it will get bumped up in priority. :)

It hasn't happened to me (yet). But I find the idea that it might happen worrying. Please either make this "feature" function, or do away with it.
It has been causing nothing but problems for years now.

>32 Taliesien: I haven't seen number of members affected making a difference in which problems go ignored here. Sadly.

>33 Nicole_VanK: As soon as possible, I wish the Private "features" were all removed. None of it works.

Another report of this: https://www.librarything.com/topic/347917

I've reminded timspalding about this old bug, thanks for your patience!