I Read Comic Books discussion

I'm not sure if everyone here is aware but Goodreads has made the decision to rename all graphic novels only by their subtitles instead of the long accepted format of "Series Title, Volume Number: Subtitle". This is also the format that publishers like DC or Marvel use to name their graphic novels which Goodreads has decided to ignore. So now we have GNs being renamed from "Darth Vader, Volume 1: Vader" to just "Vader". "Descender Volume 3: Singularities" has been renamed "Singularities". You can no longer search for Descender Volume 3. You have to know it's now just called "Singularities" only on Goodreads. Amazon has it named correctly. I'm sure you can see what kind of havoc that is wreaking on searches.

There's a new thread in the Goodreads Librarian group about this issue. I urge everyone here to voice their opinion on that thread before this site becomes unusable.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Chad wrote: "I'm not sure if everyone here is aware but Goodreads has made the decision to rename all graphic novels only by their subtitles instead of the long accepted format of "Series Title, Volume Number: ..."

No, GR have not announced any sort of change. A user named "Tiag⊗ the Mutant" has decided that his interpretation of the librarian manual requires putting the title as "Subtitle (Title, #1)".

So, in his version your examples would be "Vader (Darth Vader, #1)" and "Singularities (Descender, #3)".

But then later he clarifies that "my proposal was to add an exeption in the manual for comic book titles, so we can keep using the "Series Title, Volume Number: Subtitle""

One of the head GR librarians did make the decision several months ago in the library group. They just never made any changes to anything besides The Walking Dead and Y the Last Man. They're understaffed and know nothing about comics so probably would never get around to make lasting changes. About a month ago though, Tiago decided to make this his personal mission to implement the changes to every graphic novel and has been changing hundreds of titles.

Chad wrote: "One of the head GR librarians did make the decision several months ago in the library group. ..."

OK. If you can link to that it would be great.

I'm fine with either format as long as the full information remains in the title. It helps with searching, though, to be honest, searching on this site is terrible. I often resort to searching on google and letting it find the correct GR page.

Ed wrote: "I often resort to searching on google and letting it find the correct GR page"

I doubt that will work for long when "Daredevil Volume 6: Doing Time" is now just called "Doing Time".

Chad wrote: "Ed wrote: "I often resort to searching on google and letting it find the correct GR page"

I doubt that will work for long when "Daredevil Volume 6: Doing Time" is now just called "Doing Time"."

That isn't what is being proposed. They propose "Doing Time (Daredevil #6)". But I think that the system might then automatically consider the search title as just "Doing Time".

Rivka has locked the discussion thread and removed some of the posts.

One of my posts contained nothing more than a link to the librarian manual and she deleted that. What is up with that? That was completely on-topic and relevant to the conversation.

And because it is locked, I can't respond to this:
"the deluxe editions, which should be titled as "Saga, Book One (Saga, #1-3)", and so on. "

Is that correct? The use of "#1-3" is ambiguous, possibly meaning floppy issues 1 to 3 or trade paperbacks 1 to 3. I'm genuinely not sure what the correct thing to do there is. (If I were creating the entry, I would be explicit in the description, but I'm not sure whether those numbers go in the title field.)

Ed wrote: "Rivka has locked the discussion thread and removed some of the posts.

One of my posts contained nothing more than a link to the librarian manual and she deleted that. What is up with that? That wa..."

Welcome to discussions where Rivka gets involved. I typically try and resolve issues outside of the GR Librarian group just because she or one of the other librarians almost always shut it down without resolving anything. If this case she also deleted half the posts!

Ed wrote: "And because it is locked, I can't respond to this:
"the deluxe editions, which should be titled as "Saga, Book One (Saga, #1-3)", and so on. "

Is that correct? The use of "#1-3" is ambiguous, possibly meaning floppy issues 1 to 3 or trade paperbacks 1 to 3. I'm genuinely not sure what the correct thing to do there is. (If I were creating the entry, I would be explicit in the description, but I'm not sure whether those numbers go in the title field.)"

Everything in parenthesis comes from the first series page the book is associated with. Typically, you'll see this when it comes from a series page for the regular collections and then the larger Deluxe collections from Image gets listed lower to indicate the first three paperbacks. The book could also be tied to a deluxe series page and it's not listed as the first one if you look at the series it's tied to.

It's all part of the reason why the format Tiago was switching the titles to is unsustainable. Not to mention that every book published in the future would then need to be found and changed in perpetuity.

Chad wrote: "... Welcome to discussions where Rivka gets involved ..."

I've had unsatisfactory encounters with her before. I'll leave it a that.

I don't like that she deleted posts. A few were almost personal attacks, and some were redundant, but it really was fine to leave them all.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I will be sending a message to Goodreads to let them know my opinion on this topic. I encourage anyone else who knows about this to do the same. If we speak up, we may be heard.

Here is the way to contact Goodreads. If you don’t agree with renaming titles to their subtitle only, then please let them know: https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...
Every message helps!