Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Can someone (a Super Librarian) clean up the plethora of alternate names for Nicholas Sparks? Although I'm a librarian I can't do it because Mr. Sparks is a GoodReads author.

Personally, I'd prefer that he spend his time writing another book and let some of us lesser mortals deal with consolidating the following variants into his profile.

nicholas sparks the last song
Nicholas Sparks The Lucky One
Nicholas Sparks (The Lucky One)
Nicholas Sparks Dear John
Nicholas Sparks A Walk to Remeber
Nicholas Sparks The Rescue
Nicholas Spark

Some of these have books attached most do not. But who knows what manner of metadata may be attached that should rightly be attached to his main profile?

Thanks in advance.

It actually takes a staff member, not a super. Any chance of links, please?

I can cut and paste all the links but if you'll just open the add book/author link and type in nicholas spark they'll all be in the pop-up window.

nicholas sparks the last song
Nicholas Spark
Nicholas Sparks The Lucky One
Nicholas Sparks (The Lucky One)
Nicholas Sparks Dear John
Nicholas Sparks A Walk to Remeber
Nicholas Sparks The Rescue

and this one:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

All merged into Nicholas Sparks. Thanks for the assist, Traveling Diva and Banjomike.

rivka wrote: "All merged into Nicholas Sparks. Thanks for the assist, Traveling Diva and Banjomike."

And thanks for the clean-up!

I've already noted in a librarian's comment about the junk that's coming out as authors' names. Emilie Loring has only ever written as that, yet some eager beaver, perhaps the person that posted her bio, decided to change all the author names to Emilie Baker Loring. Baker was her maiden name and Loring her married name.

Today I came to enter a copy of Miguel Cabonell's KING TUT'S TOMB ROBBERS which I intend to give my 10-yr-old nephew for Christmas. This is how the author was entered
Cabonell Miguel Cabonell, Cabonell Miguel Cabonell.I changed it.

A book by Mary Jo Putney has that name as well as "Mary Jo Autrey."

It seems to me that there are more and more jokers on the site, and I'm starting to get more than a little annoyed. Can these people be banned?

Btw, there are two authors with the name Miguel Cabonell. One seems to live in Mexico and writes non-fiction of some sort (my Spanish isn't up to it.) The other lives here in Ontario, Canada and is retired from one of our telecom companies. Is there any way that they can be isolated? The Canadian has so far written only one book, as far as I can tell.

Is King Tut's Tomb Robbers the only one belonging to the Canadian? I just disambiguated author on that book to be "Miguel^^Cabonell" (replace ^ with spaces); but, do I need to do more books?

Sigrun wrote: "...It seems to me that there are more and more jokers on the site..."

I'm thinking that the vast majority of errors have been since the Amazon feed was dropped. Of course it may just be that I'm paying more attention since then.

I believe that the repeating parts of the name is a clue that you're looking at an entry that came from one of the other automated feeds that goodreads gathers data from. I've seen it on a number of book titles and author names but its generally for the more obscure works. I know I've cleaned up a good number of them.

I see it a lot, too, when members copy from ebay, amazon or amazon marketplace even though not allowed.

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
Dr. Abdul Ahad (Alig.)
Dr. Edgar Allen Poe
Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD

are the entries that I currently am puzzled over. (As to clean-up)

I'm not familiar enough with arabic names to know how to knowledgeably edit the two Dr. Abduls on this list.

I'm pretty sure that the famous Edgar Allen Poe is NOT the author of the book listed under Dr. Edgar Allen Poe's name so I'm guessing that it's correct as is. (It's a Pseudonym like Dr. Suess)

Finally, there are so many books under Robert Jones already that I'm quite sure that it is at least two different authors and probably more. Until these are disambiguated some I'm not touching this entry.

As far as I know the Ontarian has written only that one book. He came to one of our London book stores as "an area author." Since we don't get any more telephone books, I don't know if he actually lives here or not. Maybe I can go to the bookstore where I got the last book. I can always ask if they've heard anything more from him.

merged Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

renamed Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD to (Robert^^^Jones), Robert Jones

Deon wrote: "renamed Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD to (Robert^^^Jones), Robert Jones"

Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD seems to be back.

Stephen wrote: "Deon wrote: "renamed Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD to (Robert^^^Jones), Robert Jones"

Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD seems to be back."

Gone again. I think I'VE done this before. He must have friends.

EDIT: I'll message the librarian concerned.

The reply from the librarian, who is also the 'ghost writer' of the book, is that:

The author in question is a pen name. His complete "legal" name is "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD". Just "Robert Jones" is not enough to identify him.

In that case I would assume that we should leave that name unedited. Geez.

The author of the book now has been changed to the wrong spelling of the author "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD" (missing commas).
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

The book:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...

Maybe book and author should get a librarian note about author name? Or should staff weigh in since likely to keep happening with librarians used to just automatically killing off the titles?

Banjomike wrote: "The reply from the librarian, who is also the 'ghost writer' of the book, is that:

The author in question is a pen name. His complete "legal" name is "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD". Just "Rober..."

Nice try. No sale. I'll send a note.

I've got no problem with leaving our Dr. Bob Jones pseudonym but it does accelerate a problem that I've not yet reported toward the top of the queue.

If one goes to the gold add book/author link above this comment box and clicks on it and then enters dr. in the author tab and hits enter one sees a list of author names that start with dr.

The first ones listed are true pseudonyms but the last one on the list is pretty much guaranteed to be a typo.

If one fixes that entry, the NEW bottom one on the list is NOT the penultimate one as one would expect but a new one, not previously listed that is most likely a typo.

This pop-up window is limited to 30 entries and there is no provision for paging down for more. Once there are 30 true pseudonyms that begin with Dr. it will no longer be possible to use this box as a quick convenient way to find authors with dr. incorrectly in front of their names.

By removing the dr. from author names I've been able to find and fix/consolidate a number of books where the only difference in editions was that one was attributed to Dr. So and So while the other was attributed to So and So without the honorific.

Of course Fr. and Sr. still have a number of authors that I think are duplicates

hi there,

I am the author behind the pen name "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD."

I fully appreciate the interest of the GR librarian community in the integrity of your metadata. However, in this case I believe an exception should be made.

If you will scan all the online retailers that currently carry this joke book -- Amazon, Kobo Books, Smashwords, and Apple and B&N when the book gets there -- you will find that the pen name in full appears.

Why should it be any different on Goodreads?

Think of it this way. "Dr." is the man's first name. "ODD" is his surname. (Hey, he's a strange guy. What can I say?)

Bottom line: this is a joke book with a joke author. I am that author. The funny name is part of the joke. When you kill my pen name, you kill the joke.

Why would you want to do that?

J.M. Porup

Because goodreads is not a bookseller. At the core is a database to let members organize their books that is partly crowd-sourced and edited by volunteers so some guidelines were put in place like periods after initials, no titles, etc. easier for volunteers to handle, easier to just say the same "yes" "no" response to authors rather than arguing about or making confusing exceptions. Easier for members to search things once they know general guidelines. Everyone might not agree, but can eventually at least figure out the consistencies.

Plus in this case, one reason got handled non-standard once by a librarian was someone being told it really was the author's legal name. If a joke author, how is that a legal anything?

(Don't even get us started on spelling, capitalization, initial spacing and periods in authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and how members entering oddly made those books difficult to collect together under one author)

At group home, above discussion threads is the librarian manual link if that helps explain how author names are handled.

Amazon is a bad example, have you seen some of the author name spelling oddities there (particularly in marketplace items where user posting could enter however they liked)? Or the ones like "John DoeJohn DoeJohn Doe" author names where the paste key was getting a bit overused by someone bulk editing? When goodreads could use amazon data, made for a lot of work cleaning up their mess of odd author names.

J.M. wrote: "hi there,

I am the author behind the pen name "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD." I fully appreciate the interest of the GR librarian community ..."

If you're a librarian yourself, you probably do appreciate that many of us are just trying to follow the rules as agreed.

I'm the one that originally raised the issue with your name because I've been consolidating a number books where the authors names have been spelled both with and without the honorifics. Eliminating the honorifics makes the entries easier to spot. I'll personally not correct your pseudonym again. If Ted Geisel can use a Dr. in his pseudonym, then in my book, you can too. You're on your own though as to other librarians.

Once Rivka puts in librarian note not likely librarians are going to bother it.

Stephen wrote: "If Ted Geisel can use a Dr. in his pseudonym, then in my book, you can too."

Stephen,

Thanks for such a great example. By the current Goodreads manual, Dr. Seuss ought to be -- what? Just Seuss?

Let's have some common sense here, people.

Apparently rivka has flagged my librarian status for review. Do you think that is a reasonable reaction? Would you chuck Ted Geisel out on his ear for using the pen name Dr. Seuss?

I would appreciate it if you or some other librarian would please change my pen name back to "Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD". No doubt if I continue to do so something bad will happen. :/

J.M. wrote: "Thanks for such a great example. By the current Goodreads manual, Dr. Seuss ought to be -- what? Just Seuss?"

No. As I said in my PM to you "Goodreads policy is to use only given names with very few exceptions". Dr. Seuss happens to be one of those exceptions. The world refers to him as Dr. Seuss. If Theodor Geisel was a Goodreads author he would have claimed Dr. Seuss as his author profile. That would be a different situation.

My PERSONAL (not in any official) view on any librarian status review would be that what you are trying to do here is essentally change the name of ANOTHER author, not your own personal author account but the details of someone else. The fact that the other person is your own pen name is likely to be irrelevant. Amending details is always frowned upon if the guidelines are not followed or if we don't have SOLID reasons for not following them. Even Super Librarians will get an earful of displeasure if we bend the rules. And it is librarian status that allows you (or us) to do those things. Any potential misuse of librarian status will get discussed by the bosses. No one is likely to touch anything until we get a definitive answer back from them, either in this thread or by PMs to someone.

And, if someone does change will just lead to next librarian spottong invalid entry undoing change and back and forth in a real mess that gets stopped by a staff decision leading to a librarian note settling the matter.

You will not get thrown out on your ear either way.

Your librarian status is another issue. And that's all up to gr.

Librarian status getting revoked is usually because even after reminded a librarian refused to follow policies in the librarian manual (or determinations made by gr staff in this group if there was a question) particulaly if asked by staff; repeatedly ignored librarian note, or got into an endless cycle of change/next-librarian-undoes/changes-back/undo/change cycle commonly only done if librarian involved in the cycle is actually author of book in question. Accidents and changes happen; once librarian note put in place (particularly if by gr staff) and persons involved contacted-stops being accidental and librarian status gets reviewed.

Usually any odd questions or situations just get posted in librarian group, a determination made and an explanatory librarian note placed so stops happening.

If you get a librarian to change for you, likely next librarian running across the book won't even go to this group and look for a thread and just auto set back to standard in librarian manual, particularly with a librarian note from Rivka stating that's what they were supposed to do. The librarian you talked into might never hear about, might be contacted to remind them not to ignore library note, or might get their own librarian status put under review (particularly if they do more than once). That's another reason we're not all jumping in to change for you.

Lots of pre-copyright, isbn, re-issued a lot, incredibly widespread or shelved , historical or religious works, works that have become cultural icons—including Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, dictionaries, King James Bible, etc. have evolved to have guidelines specific to them as they get worked with in the database or auto data import feeds cause issues that have to be straightened out.

Not as a review or judgment on your book; but, your issue is about changing a pen name back and forth between two options. One issue in one work really not likely to have that work added to the list of works having their own set of guidelines.

Banjomike wrote: "If Theodor Geisel was a Goodreads author he would have claimed Dr. Seuss as his author profile."

I'm happy to claim Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD as my author profile. Or one of them, anyway. How do I set up a pen name to be an author profile?

J.M. wrote: "I'm happy to claim Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD as my author profile. Or one of them, anyway. How do I set up a pen name to be an author profile? "

It already IS an author profile. That is part of the problem. I think we all just need to wait until the PTB decide what thay are going to do.

*sigh* not even reading this thread anymore. Rivka has spoken so there's not anything else I can think to do or say that might help or contribute.

Sr. M. Mark Fsp Wickenhiser
Is another puzzler for me. I'm guessing that since the books its connected to are novenas that we're looking at a Catholic honorific of some sort (Not just an abbreviation of Senior) Would someone who's Catholic weigh in? is Fsp a typo or another Catholic designation?

Stephen wrote: "Sr. M. Mark Fsp Wickenhiser
Is another puzzler for me. I'm guessing that since the books its connected to are novenas that we're looking at a Catholic honorific of some sort (Not just an abbreviat..."

FSP is likely to be "Franciscan Sisters of Peace" given that the author is Sr. Mary Mark Wickenhiser.

She has another profile here:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

These have cropped up before. Given that the titles and memberships can change over time I would expect that she should be combined under Mary Mark Wickenhiser with the other info in her description.

I'm not a Catholic, just well read.

Banjomike wrote: " I would expect that she should be combined under Mary Mark Wickenhiser with the other info in her description."

Agreed.

As far as Robert Jones goes, pen name or not, his alphabet soup does not belong as part of the author name listing on Goodreads. I reviewed this issue with other GR staff and they agreed.

rivka wrote: "As far as Robert Jones goes, pen name or not, his alphabet soup does not belong as part of the author name listing on Goodreads. I reviewed this issue with other GR staff and they agreed."

Let's take your argument to its logical conclusion.

Suppose I wrote a Dan Brown spoof using the pen name "Monseignor His Holiness, Esq."

Well, Goodreads policy says I can't use "Monseignor". Nor "His Holiness". "Esq."? Nope.

What do you do then? List an empty string?

Maybe I should change my pen name to "Dr. MD PhD DDS ODD" and see what happens...

Debbie (Debbie Rice) wrote: "works that have become cultural icons—including Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, dictionaries, King James Bible, etc. have evolved to have guidelines specific to them"

You know, Dr. Seuss didn't start out famous. Friends and family probably called him Ted "Never Get Published" Geisel. And Shakespeare was just "Dumb Bill" to his friends until he started getting produced at the Globe.

A pseudonymn is part of the fiction. You are, in effect, censoring my work by censoring my pen name. I intend to make sure the blogosphere knows that Goodreads censors authors, and encourage them to spend their time (and their money) elsewhere.

J.M., how many sites do you know that allow their members completely unrestricted control over what they want to do?

LOL!

I'm sorry, but don't be ridiculous! I'm not asking you for "completely unrestricted control". I'm asking you not to censor me.

What's next? Is Goodreads going to tell me how to name my characters?

Remember this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11...

My next stop is the HuffPost and maximum embarassment for Goodreads, unless this policy is reversed.

JMP

This discussion is closed.