Can't make previously-divided author a single author

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Can't make previously-divided author a single author

1gabriel
Sep 22, 2020, 12:00 pm

Over in combiners, we were trying to work on Paul Maar who is a divided author. Previously a work had been wrongly attributed to him, so he's now able to be a single author. But although all the works (all hundred of them) have been unassigned, you can't make him a single author.

Not sure what the sticking point is. The sub-author page

2casaloma
Nov 17, 2020, 7:12 am

Seems to be an ongoing issue.
Cannot restore Robyn Bryant to a single author.

3MarthaJeanne
Modifié : Nov 17, 2020, 9:34 am

Robyn Bryant

Besides making single author possible, it would also be good to edit the warning. "To save as a single author, you must first remove all assignemnts below and save."

4lilithcat
Nov 17, 2020, 9:46 am

I just ran into that, and found that if I tried a couple of times, it would work.

But, of course, it shouldn't need multiple attempts!

5lilithcat
Nov 17, 2020, 9:46 am

6MarthaJeanne
Nov 17, 2020, 11:24 am

That's another example of a functioning touchstone stopping when the message is edited. And not in a long list. A single touchstone.

7Collectorator
Nov 17, 2020, 11:29 am

Ce utilisateur a été suspendu du site.

8shikari
Modifié : Nov 30, 2020, 5:54 am

Still not working. Tried to return Aristophanes to Single author without success (having set 300-odd entries to Unknown). A small author (2 works) seems to split and reunite without problems.

The status before was mostly (1) and all others (unknown).

I could make little sense from Collectorater's link except – is it saying we can't revert split authors without admin help? If so, could an administrator change Aristophanes back to a Single Author?

9lilithcat
Nov 30, 2020, 8:55 am

10shikari
Modifié : Déc 1, 2020, 6:49 am

>9 lilithcat: Yes, Aristophanes, Lilithcat. There's no-one else called Aristophanes without qualification (the other Aristophanes, Aristophanes of Byzantium, is always so known, while our Aristophanes is only sometines known as Aristophanes of Athens).

Hmm. Lilithcat, should I change my mind? The French BD author, Firmin Aristophane Boulonis synonymous in French, so I ought probably to split with him, n'est-ce pas? There's nothing combined right now, but it's plausible.

11r.orrison
Déc 1, 2020, 7:32 am

>10 shikari: Lilithcat was just adding a touchstone (link) to the author to make it easier for interested people to get to the author page.

12Nicole_VanK
Modifié : Déc 1, 2020, 8:16 am

>8 shikari: It's a bug. If I remember correctly, you reported it. I don't think Collectorator has anything to do with making this impossible.

I deeply disagree with their disambiguation notice though. Names like Aristophanes often have many versions in different languages and scripts (Aristophane, Aristofanes, etc.) with the exact same ambiguity (if there is any). In fact, I think we can safely assume "the" Aristophanes never even used the Latin alphabet, so that's just another transcription too.

13SandraArdnas
Déc 1, 2020, 7:48 am

>10 shikari: lilithcat just provided the touchstone so that it's convenient when someone goes to check what's going on there. :)

Regarding your doubts, I don't think that's a reason to split. There's Aristophane Boulon page, two actually that need combining
https://www.librarything.com/author/aristophaneboulon
https://www.librarything.com/author/boulonaristophane

I also found stranded splits, if that helps those investigating the bug
https://www.librarything.com/author/aristophanes-2-5191376
https://www.librarything.com/author/aristophanes-1-5210107

14shikari
Déc 3, 2020, 10:13 am

>11 r.orrison: and >13 SandraArdnas: Oh, thanks for the explanation!
>12 Nicole_VanK: and >13 SandraArdnas: Ah, thanks for the reassurance.

15casaloma
Déc 4, 2020, 8:45 am

Robert K. Massie

Still unable to restore to single author.
Maybe someone else can give it a try.

16gabriel
Modifié : Déc 4, 2020, 1:31 pm

I had a thought: what if an assigned work gets its author moved or gets combined with another author, so it no longer shows up on the split page?

Maybe it has a ghost assignment, and has to be found, put back under the author and unassigned.

I'm going to give this a shot with Massie

update: No luck with Massie. I did find a work (Home Sweet Home: American Domestic Vernacular Architecture) I'd corrected the authorship on that had been under Paul Maar, and when I added him back as an author, it did show up in the list as assigned to Paul Maar (2), its old assignment. But still no luck when I removed the assignment and tried to make Maar a single author.

I think this is still a possible reason, maybe I should do an experiment.

17casaloma
Déc 13, 2020, 2:13 pm

>16 gabriel: Thanks. Hopefully this bug will be repaired at some point.

In the meantime...

Unable to restore to a single author

Paul Maar
Robyn Bryant
Aristophanes
Robert K. Massie
Philip Jodidio

18Collectorator
Déc 13, 2020, 2:28 pm

Ce utilisateur a été suspendu du site.

19casaloma
Déc 18, 2020, 9:52 am

Unable to restore to a single author

Samuel Goldwyn

20lilithcat
Déc 18, 2020, 10:22 am

>19 casaloma:

Don't know why, but it worked when I tried just now.

21casaloma
Modifié : Déc 18, 2020, 10:56 am

>20 lilithcat: That's great - Thanks!

I just tried restoring a few others - no luck.

22lilithcat
Mar 5, 2021, 10:37 am

This continues to be a problem. Is anything being done to fix it?

23kristilabrie
Modifié : Mar 24, 2023, 10:28 am

Adding exact steps for devs to inspect:

1. Go to https://www.librarything.com/author/maarpaul
2. under "Improve this author" click "edit the division": https://www.librarything.com/author_split.php?author=maarpaul&page=assign.
3. See "Divided author" is selected. Try to select "Single author". Get this error message: "To save as a single author, you must first remove all assignemnts* below and save." All works are already under "Unknown", but...
4. Try clicking "Save page", regardless, and return to Steps 2-3.

Bug: You're stuck in an endless loop that can never make a once-divided author a single author again.

*That's a typo that needs fixing.

24Michael.Rimmer
Sep 29, 2021, 11:45 am

I wonder when this bug might be fixed?

25kristilabrie
Sep 29, 2021, 12:25 pm

>24 Michael.Rimmer: Thanks for the reminder, I'll pass this along to the developers. I'm not sure when it will be fixed but I'll try to get an update for you.

26Michael.Rimmer
Sep 29, 2021, 7:16 pm

>25 kristilabrie: Thank you :-)

27amanda4242
Nov 29, 2021, 3:17 pm

bump

28amanda4242
Mai 4, 2022, 7:39 pm

Just came across this bug again on Molly Keane.

29IrrationalDM
Mai 11, 2022, 5:28 pm

With the exception of Robyn Bryant (who I fixed by separating names, de-splitting, and recombining names), every one of those authors has a photo under author-1. I suspect that this may be the cause of the issue.

30lorax
Mai 17, 2022, 1:18 pm

I encountered this on my secondary account, but there's something going on there that isn't described here; books attributed to one of the affected authors don't show up on the author page at all.

https://www.librarything.com/work/19630593/book/189779218 is cataloged as by Margaret Killjoy. Following the author link from that title takes you to an erroneously-split author page, but that title is not there. If you go to reassign the splits, you see it (and other titles) were at one point, but they've completely vanished. The disambiguation notice unhelpfully says that works have been reassigned to author Margaret Killjoy. (Well, actually, they put the name in quotes, but since quotes are disallowed in author names on LT and people tend to be sloppy about that I'm going to assume they didn't mean it.)

As noted by IrrationalDM in #29, there is an author picture, and some CK details, under author-1 .

31amanda4242
Mai 17, 2022, 1:28 pm

>30 lorax: It looks like Killjoy's other works aren't showing up on the erroneously split page because someone set her name in the other authors section to Margaret Killjoy rather than Killjoy, Margaret on most of her works. https://www.librarything.com/author/margaretkilljoy

32SandraArdnas
Mai 17, 2022, 1:48 pm

>31 amanda4242: Shouldn't those be combined?

33amanda4242
Mai 17, 2022, 1:53 pm

>32 SandraArdnas: I think they should be. I think creating new author pages to get around this bug creates more confusion than the bug itself.

34IrrationalDM
Modifié : Mai 17, 2022, 2:08 pm

>30 lorax:
A bit of investigation shows that someone moved the works from Killjoy, Margaret to Margaret Killjoy (seemingly because of this bug). I want to get consensus before merging those authors, since for someone, it seems to be a big deal.

EDIT: It looks like while I was dealing with some spam CK that cropped up wile trying to check the helpers log, other people posted and discussed. My two copper badges (it's not a perfect analogy, deal with it) is also in favor of combining.

35lorax
Mai 17, 2022, 2:42 pm

That seemed like a bad workaround that obviously created confusion. Thank you all for resolving the situation. Who DOES that sort of thing? "Oh, let's deliberately cause one problem in a misguided attempt to fix another!"

36amanda4242
Mai 17, 2022, 3:22 pm

I've combined the two Margret Killjoys and have amended the disambiguation notice.

37Nevov
Mai 18, 2022, 5:52 pm

>33 amanda4242:
>I think creating new author pages to get around this bug creates more confusion than the bug itself.

>35 lorax:
>That seemed like a bad workaround that obviously created confusion.

Agreeing with this.
But how do we feel about a workaround of keeping a page split, to avoid the bug. So we would have (1) with all the works assigned to it, and no other splits.

That would at least give a place to hang CK, a photo, and be a functioning page, until this bug is fixed? With something in the disambiguation note saying it is only one author but this bug is preventing the page being returned into a single author, with link to this thread.

(Personally I'd find it very frustrating if I had a favourite author who I couldn't add information on to, so can understand the reaching for alternate methods. Is the above a better option?)

38Nevov
Mai 18, 2022, 5:54 pm

>29 IrrationalDM:
>every one of those authors has a photo under author-1. I suspect that this may be the cause of the issue.

The latest example fits this pattern too.

39lilithcat
Août 22, 2022, 11:44 am

This is a continuing problem. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/343694

40gabriel
Sep 21, 2022, 5:10 pm

>25 kristilabrie: If, as suggested by IrrationalDM at >29 IrrationalDM: the presence of a photo for one of the divided authors is preventing the assignment, could a developer check that by eliminating all CK/images/whatever on the subauthors to see if that's the problem?

41johninvienna
Nov 18, 2022, 7:19 pm

Under the author Philip Jodidio in LibraryThing

"Philip Jodidio" is composed of at least 0 distinct authors, divided by their works.
Includes the names: Philip Jodidio, ed. Philip Jodidio, Editor Philip Jodidio

No picture here,
Philip is one of the most famous architectural authors. During his career he has written more than 150 books, working for some of the most prestigious publishers on the international scene, such as Taschen, Thames & Hudson and Rizzoli. He has dealt with the work of renowned international studios, such as Tadao Ando, Alvaro Siza, Norman Foster, Oscar Niemeyer, Richard Meier, Zaha Hadid ect. ect.

When can this be fixed?

Greetings from Vienna, first snow expected tonight!
JOHN

42IrrationalDM
Déc 11, 2022, 12:48 pm

>41 johninvienna:
there is a picture for jodidiophilip-1, as discussed before. See https://www.librarything.com/pic/7344476 specifically

43johninvienna
Modifié : Déc 17, 2022, 8:37 pm

>42IrrationalDM

Yes, nice picture floating in space without any books - or am I doing something wrong

Your reference: https://www.librarything.com/pic/7344476

Author page: https://www.librarything.com/author/jodidiophilip

He has 197 BOOKS!!! 1017 Entires!

Greetings from a very cold Vienna, JOHN

44IrrationalDM
Déc 20, 2022, 7:30 pm

>43 johninvienna:
As I speculated in >29 IrrationalDM:, that "floating" picture is likely the reason why it won't combine.

45johninvienna
Déc 29, 2022, 9:10 pm

>44IrrationalDM
Thanks
John

46Nicole_VanK
Modifié : Déc 30, 2022, 10:24 am

>43 johninvienna: The "floating picture" thing might be fixed by assigning everything to Philip Jodidio 1.

That won't fix the bug though

47gabriel
Mar 15, 2023, 7:22 pm

I have resolved Philip Jodidio and George A. Maloney. It seems that the underlying problem is ghost works that retain their assignments, as I hypothesized at >16 gabriel:

In order to resolve the problem, you first need to find the lost works. The way did it was by looking at previously-assigned works in the division history. Works that have been changed are struck through, so I looked for works that didn't have a strike-through. With Jodidio, I found a zero-member edition of Ando: Complete Works. When combining it into the main work, the log noted that the zero-member copy was assigned to Jodidio-1. Once combined (which eliminated the assignment) I was able to make Jodidio a single author.

Maloney was more complex: there were some works that were under different, uncombined names (such as "George Maloney"). Once the names were recombined, the works showed up under their previous assignments. There was another problem, however: Hymns of the Divine Loves was one of the works in the division log. I had to force the author to Maloney, which resulted in it showing up with the original division under Maloney. I removed all the divisions, made Maloney into a single author and removed the Maloney authorship from Hymns of the Divine Loves.

48gabriel
Mar 16, 2023, 3:03 pm

I've resolved Robert K. Massie as well.

49Nevov
Mar 16, 2023, 4:05 pm

Nice that the expanded assignment history allows detective work like this to be done.

I've resolved Margaret Killjoy, mentioned in >30 lorax: as another author affected by this. Similar situation, going back through the history I found three different zero-copy works remaining assigned to the -1 split, so being the cause of the page refusing to become undivided, same method to find as >47 gabriel: describes. All three I took care of by combining, and after these works were gone, their assignments got strikethroughs, and the author page then allowed it to become undivided.

50gabriel
Mar 20, 2023, 3:09 pm

I had marked this as needs discussion after figuring out the root of the problem, but I'm going to move it back to active - I think what I've identified is a work-around; a fix would be a change to the site such that works which no longer show up on the assignable list are stripped of any latent assignment - which is something only the developers can do.

Until that happens, this problem will continue to crop up, and solving particular authors may be extremely difficult - as I'm guessing Aristophanes will be.

Another helpful thing would be an option on the assignment page to "assign all to 0" or "assign all to 1", rather than having to individually change all ~650 assignments. Most large split authors will have the vast majority going to one of the subauthors.

51kristilabrie
Mar 24, 2023, 10:28 am

See steps to reproduce at >23 kristilabrie:

52gabriel
Modifié : Avr 18, 2023, 4:59 pm

>51 kristilabrie: What do you mean?

Also - I've resolved Paul Maar who had about a dozen zero-copy works assigned to Paul Maar-1. I combined them all into another Maar work, which stripped them of their assignments at a single blow, then separated the zero-copy works back out.

53AnnieMod
Avr 18, 2023, 4:50 pm

>52 gabriel: That is a note to the LT developers (thus not starting with a post number/name) :)

54gabriel
Avr 18, 2023, 5:00 pm

>52 gabriel: Ah, thank you.

55kristilabrie
Avr 19, 2023, 8:32 am

56laytonwoman3rd
Avr 21, 2023, 4:44 pm

I think this is related, but I'm very poor at the combining/separating thing, and my understanding of much of the discussion above is nil. I have recently added a book by James J. McAuley, unfortunately titled New and Selected Poems, and when I click on the author's name on the book page, it takes me to the correct author page, but the title does not appear there. See >30 lorax: above. There doesn't seem to be any other author involved, but maybe if someone who has a better grasp of this feature takes a look it will be clear to you. Same author, again unfortunately, has another earlier book titled Coming and Going: New and Selected Poems which is definitely a different book.

57DuncanHill
Modifié : Avr 21, 2023, 5:41 pm

>56 laytonwoman3rd: Ive seperated https://www.librarything.com/work/30167107/summary from https://www.librarything.com/work/11464858 which I think sorts it.

I've also separated James Phillip McAuley from James McAuley.

https://www.librarything.com/author/mcauleyjames
https://www.librarything.com/author/mcauleyjamesphillip

A lot of confusion apparent, a lot of editions of James Phillips's books have James J.

58laytonwoman3rd
Avr 29, 2023, 5:19 pm

>57 DuncanHill: Excellent, thank you!