Deprecate certain "authors" when calculating the selected author for a work
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1r.orrison
This is along the lines of http://www.librarything.com/topic/91861, except that in addition to ignoring blank authors, it would be great if it could also ignore certain other authors -- "various" "no author" "anthology" etc.
4staffordcastle
"Unknown" and "Anonymous"
5PortiaLong
God YES!
6SilentInAWay
Great idea, although there should probably be some threshold -- If the author for Beowulf were to be listed as "Anonymous" or "Unknown" 5000 times and (mistakenly) as "Mark Twain" once, I would hate for it to be listed on his author page...
ETA: as in Tim's "fuck you" example.
ETA: as in Tim's "fuck you" example.
7jjwilson61
I agree with you about Anonymous and Unknown but not {blank}. Anything is better than nothing.
8SilentInAWay
agreed
9BTRIPP
Re. #6: "as in Tim's "fuck you" example"
Heh ... suddenly want to run off and crank a book out under the nom de plume of "Fuk Yu"!
Heh ... suddenly want to run off and crank a book out under the nom de plume of "Fuk Yu"!
11brightcopy
10> You mean even more? ;)
12r.orrison
I just tried to get a work off the Anon page... 9 copies by a real person, 2 by Anon, and when I combined them it chose Anon. WTF? It's like the system prefers bogus authors.
14brightcopy
13> For that matter, "Unknown" and "No Author". That last one is more tricky, I suppose. A lot of the books assigned to it are books where it might be better described as "various", while others are ones where it should be "anonymous."
ETA: Actually, I guess "Unknown" suffers the same problem of being various/anonymous. As does "Anon". "Anonymous" seems a bit better, but it has some "various" mixed in.
ETA: Actually, I guess "Unknown" suffers the same problem of being various/anonymous. As does "Anon". "Anonymous" seems a bit better, but it has some "various" mixed in.
15jjwilson61
Makes sense, except that the edition page will become even more unwieldy.
16jjwilson61
On the other hand, Anon could conceivably be someone's last name.
17brightcopy
16> In which case, you should do as other authors and list your first name. If you're an author, have no first name and your last name is Anon - well, you're already royally screwed.
19brightcopy
18> Unfortunately, almost all of your work would be in the public domain. Even Primary Colors was written by Anonymous.
20andyray
Anon means "i'll be there soon," doesn't it? "We'll be there anon . . ." Today's utes talk alot about things but do not talk about spelling, meaning, or etymology (which is derivation, not meaning.) Oh, and when did alot become one word as most spell it today? And whewn did "bad" come to mean "god," and good come to mean a girl is like Kraft (she spreads for everyone)? God condemn the King and save the language.'Oim a good girl, eye yam!"
21theapparatus
Considering there are treatment centers with the name Al Anon out there, I'm sure at least one of them as written up at least something and at least one person has it indexed here.
23r.orrison
And another bump... This would have been nice here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/98263
Can we at least get a "nay" or "yea, someday, maybe"?
Can we at least get a "nay" or "yea, someday, maybe"?
25justjim
There once was a user called rorrison,
Who changed his name to r.orrison,
And with a standard bump,
Proved he wasn't a chump,
But in fact was a good LT citizen.
ps. Me too!
Who changed his name to r.orrison,
And with a standard bump,
Proved he wasn't a chump,
But in fact was a good LT citizen.
ps. Me too!
27r.orrison
This would also be useful for surname-only author entries.
28r.orrison
Copied from another thread:
jjmcgaffey: Yeah...but what about one-name authors? From the classical (Homer) to current children's (Avi), LT would have trouble if it assumed a single name was a surname and the same as the current if it didn't.
What I'm proposing wouldn't cause a problem with that. First, I'm not saying that all single-name authors should be marked as deprecated, clearly those examples shouldn't be. Second, the deprecation would only apply if there was a better choice for the system to use. If everyone entered Wilson as the author for a book, then it would have to be listed under Wilson.
I'm not sure how an entry would get marked as deprecated -- a staff only function, a CK entry, a poll attached to every author page?
jjmcgaffey: Yeah...but what about one-name authors? From the classical (Homer) to current children's (Avi), LT would have trouble if it assumed a single name was a surname and the same as the current if it didn't.
What I'm proposing wouldn't cause a problem with that. First, I'm not saying that all single-name authors should be marked as deprecated, clearly those examples shouldn't be. Second, the deprecation would only apply if there was a better choice for the system to use. If everyone entered Wilson as the author for a book, then it would have to be listed under Wilson.
I'm not sure how an entry would get marked as deprecated -- a staff only function, a CK entry, a poll attached to every author page?
29jjwilson61
We don't want to make this request too complicated though. It seems like it should be pretty easy to automatically deprecate blank authors and a handful of others like various. Adding a function for staff or others to mark certain names as deprecated adds a whole new layer of implementation.
30r.orrison
Blank is actually already deprecated, somewhat. Most of the time, if you combine a work with a blank author with a work that has an author name listed, the author name will appear, even if the majority of editions have no author name. (See http://www.librarything.com/topic/91861)
For others, there will have to be some way of marking the author entry as deprecated. If it's just a finite list -- say, Various, Anonymous, and Unknown -- then it's easy enough to have a flag that only staff can set.
However, there will always be additions to the list ("n/a"), and it's not unreasonable to consider some crowdsourced way of setting the flag so that we don't have to ask staff to do it. But yes, that could be excessively complicated and possibly dangerous.
Honestly, based on previous experience, if Tim likes this idea, I would expect the first iteration to be something that only staff could control, and then plan to add a user-controlled interface in a couple weeks. LibraryThing has been known to do just enough of a project for it to be useful, and leave the complicated parts for later.
For others, there will have to be some way of marking the author entry as deprecated. If it's just a finite list -- say, Various, Anonymous, and Unknown -- then it's easy enough to have a flag that only staff can set.
However, there will always be additions to the list ("n/a"), and it's not unreasonable to consider some crowdsourced way of setting the flag so that we don't have to ask staff to do it. But yes, that could be excessively complicated and possibly dangerous.
Honestly, based on previous experience, if Tim likes this idea, I would expect the first iteration to be something that only staff could control, and then plan to add a user-controlled interface in a couple weeks. LibraryThing has been known to do just enough of a project for it to be useful, and leave the complicated parts for later.
31r.orrison
Bump, after a somewhat related mention in http://www.librarything.com/topic/144485
32omargosh
Bump. I combined these two editions and thought it was ridiculous that "Stated, Not" won out over "The Brooklyn Centre Historical Society". Yes, I can override it with Other-Authors, but I prefer to avoid hard-coding the primary author whenever possible. The system should just ignore ratty authors when non-ratties are in the same work.
33jjwilson61
So how is the system supposed to know that Not Stated is a ratty author name? For all we know there might just be a Mr. Not Stated out there somewhere writing books.
34brightcopy
#33 by jjwilson61> With a user-applied ratty author flag, which is what this RSI is for.
35r.orrison
Bump. Here's a perfect example:
https://www.librarything.com/work/8316304/editions
2 editions, one by "Various" and one by "Anton de Wit", WorldCat lists Anton de Wit as the author, LibraryThing chose "Various".
With the recent re-work of author recalculation, it would be nice if this could be included.
https://www.librarything.com/work/8316304/editions
2 editions, one by "Various" and one by "Anton de Wit", WorldCat lists Anton de Wit as the author, LibraryThing chose "Various".
With the recent re-work of author recalculation, it would be nice if this could be included.