Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I can merge authors just fine except for these:

James L. Halperin

James L. Halperin (editor)

When I try to merge these two profiles, I get an unexpeceted error occurred. Ive been trying since last night

Ubik, Authors have to have the exact same spelling and these don't. One of them has (editor) as part of their name. That's why they won't merge. If they are the same person, change James L. Halperin (editor) to James L. Halperin, and then merge. As usual, then combine any books that need combining.

I know. Thats what I was doing and what I always do when I merge (I dont know of any other way). I cannot merge them.

Yes, I got the same error message.

I get an error as well...

On JUST that guy, right? Whats up with that guy?

He's broken.

More seriously...there are a lot of books on which he's second or third author, which might be causing the issue.

Or...it's an issue with the new Author + role fields, and in fact the profiles aren't MEANT to combine.

I've seen something like this before, actually -- check if "James L. Halperin" and "James L. Halperin (editor)" are both listed as authors on some record. If they are, you can't combine the authors because that would give duplicate authors to that record.

(I know we used to be able to do that, but the new author system is stricter.)

Finally found the record that had him twice, fixed it, and merged the authors.