Series deleted when combining works

when I combine 2 works, the series of the less popular work is deleted

It had been the case since the new series were implemented… so I suspect it may be on purpose.

And even before that, there was a warning that it would happen.

I think it's undesirable that series info gets deleted. But yes, what >2 AnnieMod: said.

>3 MarthaJeanne: Yes, but it didn't actually happen before - as far as I'm aware

>4 Nicole_VanK: Understandable is not the same thing as desirable.

And yes, it didn't happen with the old series system, despite the warning that it would.

I've complained about this several times to no avail. It's pretty annoying, especially when both works only have one copy, so LT's pick is which one is less popular is totally arbitrary.

>6 Stevil2001: Yeah. I’ve learned to check after combinations like that. Annoying is one way to call it. :)

Not a bug, but I'm making note of the feedback here so the team is aware! Sorry for the trouble.

>1 supersidvicious: when I combine 2 works, the series of the less popular work is deleted

The less popular work ceases to exist. That's what combination means.

>9 timspalding: Sure. But when the two works you are trying to combine have 1 copy each (or 2 each and so on), you can lose the series attribution altogether... Or if the series is set only on the smaller work.

>9 timspalding: PS: And that may mean losing a lot of publisher series - if the less popular work is the German edition of a book and has the German publishing series, it will now be lost when it gets merged into the big work... Before the new implementation, both series and pub series were merged into the now surviving record.

>9 timspalding: Why would that necessarily mean series data ceases to exist too? CK is not lost when we combine works and that is a good thing

And neither are Other Authors deleted.

It has to either delete it, or add them together. Is that what I should do?

>14 timspalding: If they are different, add them together. If they are the same, only the one remains. Pretty much how CK works for this.

Add them together (without duplicating). Yes please.

So if work a is in series a and work b is in series b and you combine them, the resulting work should be in both series a and series b.

Or if work a is not in any series, but work b is in series b and when you combine the resulting work is work a, it should be in series b.

None of the series data should be lost - it should be combined. :-)

In addition/related to this, the combine warning message (advising that combining will lose the series of the lesser work, but this can be added back afterwards) doesn't really do a good enough job now in the era of new series.

A listing within a series now is more than just the series name and the item label that it was in the CK-series days, there is also the Group and the Position (for a series with custom ordering). Unless the combiner takes especial care to realise, and go and note this info before combining, they are left guessing after the combination, or retread research effort that's already been done once.

Ideally, combining would seamlessly transfer all the series of all the components into the combined work (cf. how all the CK data transfers), but if this isn't feasible, the warning message could be improved by also providing the group and position of the lesser item, or at a bare minimum should warn the combiner to go and note this info down before combining since it will be lost in the combination.

Example:
You are combining A Wonderful Novel (1 copies) into A Wonderful Novel (354 copies).
A Wonderful Novel (1 copies) is in the publisher series ABC-Books, label 24, group "Other Novels", position 44 of 45 items

If the combiner doesn't go and make a note of this info, all they can do after the combination is link to series ABC-Books with label 24 but they don't know what group to select, or where in the series to drag it to. Didn't matter much with CK-series because the only choice was between Core and Collection/selection, but with more detailed groups and custom ordering, we would benefit from improvements in how combining handles the series, to ensure this info isn't being needlessly shed.

Edit to add: yes, if an option to add both series together on the combined work, yes please :-)

>14 timspalding: Yes, please

>14 timspalding: Yes, yes, please combine!

>14 timspalding: Adding my vote to yes, please!

>14 timspalding: Yes, all series information should be kept! Along with order labels and order.

>14 timspalding: yes please keep all the information

>14 timspalding: bump!
series still deleted when combining 2 works

>23 supersidvicious: Please note >8 kristilabrie:. NOT A BUG.
Already been closed.

It's been closed, but the last comment from staff was a request for how it should be handled. This has been answered, so I don't think it's unreasonable to bump it in hopes that he looks at the answers.

It may not be a bug, but it's extremely undesirable behaviour, as detailed by Nevov above.
Please, please change it so that all the data is retained!

bump

Reopening this since timspalding never got back to his question at >14 timspalding:. Will ping him about it, but I wouldn't expect much movement within the next month or so (staff summer vacations are cropping up).. please ping again in another month or two!

>28 kristilabrie: ok enjoy your holidays

>28 kristilabrie: Are the summer vacations over yet?

bump

I don't really see a problem I can solve here. When you combine works you're deciding that a given work and all of its attendant information is not a stand-alone work, but really part of something else, and that the old work should be killed. Any amount of information is going to be involved in that old work but there's no good way to know which ought to somehow be replicated in the new work and which is as wrong as the dead work itself.

About the best I could do would be to list more information about the soon-to-be-dead work's series information, as suggested in >14 timspalding: and maybe a note about being diligent, which will be ignored by those who aren't already diligent.

>32 timspalding: What we usually lose are publisher series -- a new user adds the book, adds to a publisher series and then it get folded into its actual work. People are supposed to look for the warning and follow up but... it does not happen. Especially when the combiner is a newish member who does not even understand what the warning says let alone how to fix it - they just followed the proposed combinations link on a book for example or found a ratty author list and decided to help.

And unlike stranded links and CK on authors, there is nothing someone can fix later because there is no indication anywhere that something needs fixing. The data is just lost.

And then there is the problem with newish works and works with a very low number of copies (often in a not very popular language but pure English also suffers) where someone does a lot of work on adding series to books and what's not and then the combination loses all the information because the ones without series become the main work.

Why can't we just combine the records for the series: if A is combined with B, then the new combined work (being it A or B) gets the series from both A and B?

>33 AnnieMod:

I assume if work A and B both belong to series X, I ignore B, right?

>34 timspalding: That series for B, yes - if they both belong, the result will still stay in the work. And if they have different labels, there is a bigger problem somewhere.

But if A belongs to X and Y and B belongs to X and Z, the result should belong to X, Y and Z (with the label and grouping from A in X).

>32 timspalding: Any amount of information is going to be involved in that old work but there's no good way to know which ought to somehow be replicated in the new work and which is as wrong as the dead work itself.

You can't just replicate all of the series information for both works and let users remove anything that isn't correct? It's extremely frustrating when combining two works that have one copy each and the series information gets completely erased based on, I guess, random chance.

thank you for clarifying the bug

I just combined the 2 following works

https://www.librarything.com/work/28973793/editions

Take a Chance on Me: Camp Firefly Falls Book 12/Zoe York (no current copies was listed in the Series Camp Firefly Falls as #2

as soon as I combined it with Take a Chance on Me (Camp Firefly Falls #12)/York, Zoe (1 copy separate)

the series disappeared and I had to assign the work again to the series.

Today I did it, tomorrow I could forget it

>35 AnnieMod: Yes, I agree. The assumption that one of the series designations is bad data doesn't really make sense to me. A lot of times when I add a new Doctor Who audio drama, I find that there is a one-copy work created by me, another one-copy work, and a two-copy work. So I combine them all, but a lot of the time it's the person who created the other one-copy work who went through the trouble of adding series data, so that gets wiped out and I have to redo it. I don't see why we assume that the data attached to the one-copy work is bad.

>33 AnnieMod: AnnieMod:

>35 AnnieMod: AnnieMod:

I strongly agree with this.

There is no reason to suppose that the data from either set is bad.
And if it is, it is much easier to subsequently delete the bad data, than it is to add back the deleted good data.

This is especially true, now that it is no longer simply a matter of adding back the deleted series, but potentially also the position of the work within a custom sort, and membership of a group within the series. None of which may have been noted before the deletion is made.

bump

>32 timspalding: "When you combine works you're deciding that a given work and all of its attendant information is not a stand-alone work, but really part of something else, and that the old work should be killed"

Except we have no choice which work gets "killed". LT chooses, apparently at random.

>41 DuncanHill:
>apparently at random

Combining goes by which one has more copies. Not sure what factor decides it on a tie. Lower workID? But does look random when combining 1-copy with 1-copy, as sometimes the series is on the one being kept, great! then other times it's not.

Occasionally the copy numbers make it possible to take advantage, by combining in stages, eg. 4-copy, 3-copy with series, 2-copy. Combining all in one will lose the series, but do the 3+2 first for a 5-copy with series, and this will win versus the 4-copy. But rare it presents conveniently like that.

>32 timspalding: When you combine works you're deciding that a given work and all of its attendant information is not a stand-alone work, but really part of something else

No, it's not "part of something else" (that would be a relationship of some sort); you've decided that the two works being combined are exactly the same. So anything - CK, series, authors - that applied to either original work should apply to the new combined work.

You shouldn't throw data away just because it belongs to the "losing" work.

CK from both is kept and merged into the new work, authors are kept and merged into the new work. The bug is that series aren't merged from both into the new work, but instead the series information from one is thrown away.

Bump. Purely by chance it's exactly a year since the last message in the thread.

>44 r.orrison:

Seconded.
I'm wasting too much of my life, restoring deleted series data.

>44 r.orrison: >45 kleh: Heard. We're busy prepping for the PLA Conference next week, mostly, but feel free to bump again in a few weeks so we can keep this floating! Thanks for your patience.