Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

Someone has deleted two of my trivia questions and I have no idea why. I got an email alert that someone had left a comment on them; when I clicked on the link, I got the "Sorry, we can't find that question" message.

Can someone like a superlibrarian, or someone in charge, please responde to this? A third trivia question has been deleted and I have no idea why. I can't think of any legitimate reason why someone would think these questions in particular need to be deleted. I get an email that "Library Lady" has left a comment on my trivia question, then when I go to read the comment, the question can't be found.

Is Library Lady deleting my questions? If she is, can someone get her to cease and desist? I would send her a message, but her profile is set to not accept messages.

Thanks.

There are 4 users named Library Lady. None are Goodreads librarians, so they can't be deleting questions.

You haven't gotten an answer because I have no idea how to find the answer, and I doubt any of the other frequent participants do either. The most likely reason is that they questions were duplicates of existing trivia questions, or had spoilers.

What were the questions?

It is this user:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/28...

They were questions phrased like: "Daniel Day-Lewis has starred in films based on works by:" and then the choices were groups of three authors. E.g., Edith Wharton, Milan Kundera, E.M. Forster. In the details section, I said what the three movies/books were.

I'm sure they weren't duplicates. What are the chances someone else would come up with that identical question?

I can't say for sure this is the answer, but I know that some of the Trivia "enthusiasts" have problems with questions that deal with films, even if they relate to books. I got flack for one of my questions like that a while back, so that may be the reason why.

So why is it not considered a problem for a Trivia "enthusiast" to delete a trivia question they don't like, but it's considered a serious offense for a librarian to meritlessly delete a book from a Listopia list? It seems bizarre that a trivia "enthusiast" can just delete questions based on their own personal whims.

Because that's what the PTB have decided, I guess. I don't think someone should be deleting questions if they are valid; I asked the librarian to comment in this thread. If she does not do so, I will ask Jessica to step in.

The trivia guidelines to do have this rule:

"Hide irrelevant or non-literary questions. Each question should reference a book, and be answerable by having read said book (some general trivia questions about the history of books/reading/publishing/etc are ok)."

If you have to watch a movie to know the answer, it becomes film trivia more than book trivia. The line can get blurry sometimes. Unless it's something blatant like "What color shirt is Edward wearing in the cafeteria in the Twilight movie?", I personally opt to hide the question rather than delete it, although there are quite a few that I leave alone because of that blurry line.

I agree that a question about what films a specific actor starred in are film trivia questions, not book trivia questions.
(A better venue for those would be over on www.imdb.com, I think.)
I didn't do it (I stay the heck outta trivia), but IMHO I would rule it justified if they were deleted.

Ashley wrote: "If you have to watch a movie to know the answer, it becomes film trivia more than book trivia."

That's a good point. Anyway, that's why I wanted the librarian in question to come discuss it -- only she can explain what criteria she has been using. It may or may not be reasonable. More data is needed. ;)

Technically you don't have to have watched the movie - you only have to know the title. E.g., if you were aware there was a movie called "Age of Innocence" you could presume it was based on a novel called "Age of Innocence."

At any rate, it's not a film question, it's an interdisciplinary question. It relates to two genres. And it seems extremely overbearing to me that someone can delete a question (written in good faith) willy-nilly without even notifying the question writer. Common courtesy would suggest that the writer be notified.

Abigail wrote: "I can see that it would have been better for the librarian in question to contact you, Lobstergirl."

It would be preferable. Especially if deleting multiple questions. But I don't always contact people when deleting incorrectly-added books (or non-books), do you? It definitely does slow things down.

A trivia question is gone forever (especially if you didn't save a text copy); an incorrectly-added book still exists as another edition. It doesn't vanish from the user's shelf.

That's true only if it is merged.

Abigail wrote: "Like Carolyn, I avoid trivia like the plague.."

I avoid it too, for the most part. Once in a while I pop in to take questions about books I've read, but otherwise, I gave up on trivia. I got too annoyed by the snobbiness going on with it.

I don't really see the problem with Lobstergirl's question. For me, as long as it ties in to a book, I think it's fine. But that's just my opinion.

Just for clarification...I'm not talking snobby as in this guideline regarding film/book related questions (though I disagree with this policy), but rather stuff that happened quite a while back when I was more active in the quiz and some quiz "enthusiasts" were being nasty about certain types of questions that were perfectly valid and within the guidelines. I got disgusted over the whole thing and stopped using the quiz entirely for like 6 months.

So I was just saying that that snobbery caused me to not want to use the quiz.

And given that whenever a film version of a novel comes out, they reissue the novel with the film stars on the cover, I think there's even less justification for wanting these film-and-book questions deleted.

Lobstergirl wrote: "And given that whenever a film version of a novel comes out, they reissue the novel with the film stars on the cover, I think there's even less justification for wanting these film-and-book questio..."

I wouldn't call that "less justification." Look at Twilight, for example: they are still selling the covers with the black background and the apple/ribbon/whatever, and every bookstore I've been in has more of those stocked than the re-issue with whats-his-face and whats-her-face on the cover.

Film stars on the cover, however, have nothing to do with the reader knowing an actor's body of work.

I agree with what has been said above, personally: if the question is not able to be answered by reading the book, it does not belong on GR.