Why I voted "no"? (tag separation/combination) #15

The "horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi" tag appears to be works that are each classified within Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-fi. The "Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy" tag is for works that fall into at least one of the genres, which places different books at the top.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi#combinations

"Christmas/Winter Holidays" includes wintertime books that aren't about Christmas. "Winter Holidays- Christmas" doesn't.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Christmas%252FWinter+Holidays#combinatio...

Being about kids is not the same as being kids' possessions, and the tags with an apostrophe actually do appear to be used differently on LibrayThing than the tags without one.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/kids#combinations

>1 aspirit: I disagree with this interpretation of the horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi tag. I'm not familiar with all the tagged books, but at least some are not within all three genres: for example, I doubt most readers would categorise The Magician's Nephew or The Time Traveler's Wife as horror. The user employing the horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi tag does not have separate tags for any of the three genres individually (or for combinations of two of them), which suggests it's intended to cover books in any of the genres.

I've voted in favour of the proposed combination with Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy.

>5 Edward: +1

For starters, I doubt anyone considers Stephen King as science fiction.

>6 SandraArdnas: The publishers of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which aims to "to provide a comprehensive, scholarly, and critical guide to science fiction in all its forms" do.

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/king_stephen

I've also seen some of his books classified as science fiction by booksellers, reviewers, and fans.

>5 Edward: "When in doubt, leave it out." The problem with combining what's similar but not the same is that we can no longer easily see how much use of the tags diverge, and that makes looking for and contributing to the different uses more difficult. I figure that's why the guidelines for combining are what they are.

By the way, I'm frustrated to see the stretching of the guidelines continues after the implementation of GenreThing. Members who want to see everything that's similar averaged out can focus on building up that feature, yeah?

>8 aspirit: What do you mean by "similar but not the same" – is your view that the tags shouldn't be combined because they have different books near the top of the list? The top books for horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi and Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy do look different, but that's just because the former tag is used by one person and reflects their interests (such as reading a lot of Stephen King). But there's no loss of information about a single user's interests if the tags are combined, because the user's tags can still be seen in their own catalogue.

>7 aspirit: SFE is NOT limited to science fiction. It covers fantasy and horror too.

The bottom line is, unlike you, to me it seems clear the person using the tag is using it in the same way - any one of the three genres and its many intersections.

"Religious non-fiction" and "non-religious fiction" are pretty clearly not the same thing:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/religious+nonfiction#combinations

Tags beginning with '@' usually refer to where a book can be found, and should not be combined with the same tag without the '@'.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/%40University+of+Toronto

https://www.librarything.com/tag/%40Toronto+Public+Library

>12 MarthaJeanne: Looks like the @ symbols erased from your message. The code @ overrides the forum's desire to turn it into a usertag.

Have voted no, in agreement.

Edit: yes that looks fine now.

Thank you. When I go to edit the @ is there. And it worked here. Don't know what happened. Now fixed.

I think it's the second @ having the period directly after it, that makes the forum think: Oh are we wanting to tag the user named . (No forum, we aren't! Silly forum.) In this message it let me do a usual @ both times.

"Aurora Borealis" refers to the film. Without the quotation marks, it refers to the celestial phenomenon also known as the Northern Lights.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/%22Aurora+borealis%22#combinations

Due to the recent LT Hunt, there's been a lot of combination requests for LGBTQ and other not valid words, many of which needs no votes.
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/LGBTQ#combinations

Examples I've seen:
Gymnastics
Historical Fiction
Pride

This is because of the Hunt?

Regardless of the reason for the large variety of suggestions, pride is not the same as library, to-read, or any of these other words that several members are trying to combine it with.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/pride#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/library

Same for all the other words with LGBT-related tags. Examples:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/booklist#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/gymnastics#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/history#combinations

I also think it's because of the hunt, and people not understanding the difference between tag combining and tag mashing. However, if they could read...

Yikes what a mess, and from lots of different users too.

Yikes! Yes, I think >19 MarthaJeanne: is probably right.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/pride+glbt#combinations

What is the point? Neither tag is being used.

Besides, the guidelines specifically say not to combine glbt and lgbt.

>22 MarthaJeanne:

the guidelines specifically say not to combine glbt and lgbt.

Sure, but, to know that, one must actually read the guidelines.

Also a couple of weird ones here: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/memoir#combinations

Other than the capitalization, "LGBTQ pride" and "lgbtq pride" are exactly the same tag, so why separate them?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/LGBTQ+pride#combinations

>25 lilithcat: Besides the fact that the capitalizations are combined automatically, so it wouldn't work anyway? The same user is also suggesting that we combine LGBTQ and pride.

>26 MarthaJeanne:

The same user is also suggesting that we combine LGBTQ and pride.

I saw that on the voting page, but when I went to the tag combination page, I didn't see it there!

It's very odd that someone would propose combining two different tags and also propose separating two identical ones.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/5.+klasse#combinations

In Austria, the numbering starts again after elementary school (4 years), so someone in the 5.Klasse is in their 9th year of school.

Also, in different countries schooling starts at different ages.

>28 MarthaJeanne: Also "5. Klasse" doesn't mention reading levels

Looking at the books tagged "ONT": https://www.librarything.com/tag/ONT, it is pretty clear that they have nothing to do with those tagged "Ont.)": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Ont.%29

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/ONT#combinations

In addition to the better known one in Canada, there is a Prince Edward Island that is part of South Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Islands

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Prince+Edward+Island#combinations

>31 lilithcat: I added this info to the tag CK, which of course does not appear on the combinations page. Still, it's there now.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Roman#combinations

The proposed combination is for a word that means 'related to the city of Rome', but ignores the meaning of 'fictional book, novel' that Roman means in many languages, even in Danish.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/noveller#combinations

Quite outside of whether the Danish word noveller is really equivalent to 'short stories', the first result in Google is:

Sarah Lipstate is an American guitarist and composer who records under the name Noveller.

One of her albums is entered in LT Noveller - Arrow

@34

FWIW, "noveller" does mean "short stories" in Swedish.

That's not to say the combination is a good one.

>35 AndreasJ: Given the length distinction in various languages between short story, novella, novel, it's one of the border cases that is hard to judge. But the musician makes it uncombinable, in my opinion.

Both 'sprog' https://www.librarything.com/tag/languages

and 'planter' https://www.librarything.com/tag/plants

are words in English that do not mean the same as the tag to be combined.

The German word 'Streiche' can mean 'pranks', but it can also mean 'I spread', 'I stroke'.
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Streiche#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Louisa+B.+Rhine#combinations

The most common Louisa Rhine on Google is Louisa E Rhine.

The tag "Hanover House": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hanover+House refers to a publisher/media distributor, while "Hanover (House)": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hanover+%28House%29 refers to the royal House of Hanover.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Hanover+House#combinations

All the books tagged "Literature → Eco" are by Umberto Eco. Books tagged "eco-lit" are about the environment.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Literature+%E2%86%92+Eco#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Brittanië#combinations

Brittanië is Dutch for Britain.

Brittanie is only used on a report about Brittanie Cecil.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Arthur+Hastings#combinations

I'll point out that while most uses of this tag are for the fictional character, https://www.librarything.com/work/2743820 is not. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-hastings-8092b410)

It also seems a bit strange to separate Captain Hastings out and combine him in at the same time.

Hard to believe, but three people have voted to combine "internet" and "ghosts": https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/ghosts#combinations

>44 lilithcat: The original proposal is certainly an artifact of someone trying to use this for the treasure hunt and not knowing how to do a tagmash. (This exact tagmash is how I got one of the answers.) How to get from a tag page to a new tagmash is not really clear; I guess it seems plausible that "combinations" would result in a "mash." I cannot explain the upvotes, though!

yes this seems to happen every time there is a treasure hunt

There are people who just go down the line and click yes to everything, without looking or reading what they're voting yes for...

>47 gilroy: Has to be. I don't understand it, but for some votes, that is the only explanation.

There are Royal Opera Houses other than the one in London:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Royal+Opera+House#combinations

"1414 Challenge" is not the same as "2014 Category Challenge" (even if 1414 is a typo): https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/1414+challenge#combinations

Several proposals to combine "Grade ..." or "Xth Grade" with "Course: Grade . . .".
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Grade+9#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/course%3A+8th+grade#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/course%3A+7th+grade#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/grade+6#combinations

The latter is probably books used as course materials, but the former could mean a variety of things - reading level, for example.

I would add that content warning is not the same as trigger warning.

Also Plant printing and plant pressing are not the same. You can press plants without ever using them to print. https://www.librarything.com/tag/plant+pressing

Why are people voting to combine book 4 and book 2?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Duncan+Kincaid+%2526+Gemma+James+Book+4#...

>52 MarthaJeanne: Sorry, I made an error that I didn't catch. Please vote against it.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Duncan+Kincaid+%2526+Gemma+James+Book+4#...

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Khan+Noonian+Sung

Noonian Soong and Khan Noonien Singh are separate characters and should not be confused. This tag seems to be such a confusion.

>54 MarthaJeanne: I proposed that one as to me it doesn't seem intended to relate to the other character (since it includes "Khan" which is no part of the other character's name), also the work it's used on is novelisations of the movie series, where Khan features, rather than the Next Generation where the other character appears.

>55 Nevov: I'd generally say it's a bad idea to combine such confused tags; I'd leave, say, World War 1 (1939-1945), uncombined as well, no matter how clear it was that it was a typo.

>56 prosfilaes: Noted for similar ones I might meet, thanks both of you.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Louisbourg#combinations

Louisbourg is in Nova Scotia. There are places named Louisburg in several US states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisburg

"literatura-francesa" is not the same as "French literature-fiction". "Literature" is broader than fiction; it can include poetry, essays, lit crit, etc.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/literatura-francesa#combinations

Copy & paste error for combining "Lene Adler Pedersen" with "Jussi Adler-Olsen".

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Lene%20Adler%20Pedersen#combinations

There's a proposal to combine "animals hunting" with "Hunting Animals". To me, those are not the same. In the first, the animal is the hunter, in the second, the animal is being hunted.

I'm not sure why this proposal isn't showing up on the tag pages, but it is on the "proposed tag combinations" page.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/animals+hunting
https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hunting+Animals

>61 lilithcat: "I'm not sure why this proposal isn't showing up on the tag pages, but it is on the "proposed tag combinations" page."

Is it because there are no books associated with either tag?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/animal%20hunting works. Links with + don't.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Hunting%20Animals#combinations

"Pennsylvania mining" is not the same as "Pennsylvania": https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Pennsylvania#combinations

Recently several suggestions have been made including the bug '+'. Since there are no books with these bad tags I vote "No".

Example https://www.librarything.com/tag/18.%20Dynastie exists.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/18.%252BDynastie does not really.

See https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/18.%252BDynastie#combinations

>66 MarthaJeanne: Yes, sorry. I had temporarily forgotten about that bug.

"Love Divine" : https://www.librarything.com/tag/Love+Divine likely refers to the hymn of that name. Not the same as "divine love": https://www.librarything.com/tag/divine+love

>68 lilithcat: URL is with +, not the right one.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Love%20Divine#combinations

Since both books with this tag are anthem collections I assume you are right.

"Folklore-Iroquois" is obviously not the same as "Indians-Iroquois": https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Indians-Iroquois#combinations

"Queens College" is part of the City University of New York.

"Queen's College" is the name of a school in Wisconsin, a college in Oxford, a school in Hong Kong, as well as a variety of other institutions.

They're not the same.

Due to the weird "+" thing, I can't link to the proposed combination.

See:

geophile has proposed combining the tag Queen's College and Queens College.
Vote: Yes | No | Undecided Current tally: Yes 4, No 1 You: No (Cancel)

I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong, but here goes:
Underground Comix is a very specific comic publisher, that specializes in "adult" comics.
This is not the same as underground comics, which are independently published and not related to the big firms.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Underground%20Comix#combinations

>72 gilroy:

I agree, I've been voting against those proposals.

There's a proposal to combine "Legend of Camelot" with "leggende di Camelot". "Leggende" is plural, and the general rule is that plural and singular should not be combined.

geophile has proposed combining the tag Legend of Camelot and leggende di Camelot.
Vote: Yes | No | Undecided Current tally: Yes 4, No 1 You: No (Cancel)

There are a couple of proposals regarding the tag "nes", one to combine it with "NES" and the other to combine it with "Nintendo Entertainment Systems". It appears that "nes" and "Nintendo Entertainment Systems" are equivalent. However, the same does not appear to be true of "NES".

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/%5Bnes%5D#combinations

Any three letter acronym has multiple possible meanings, such as

not elsewhere specified
National Educational Seminar
Non Epileptic Seizure
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING SEIBERSDORF

The tag "St. Lawrence" is used for the saint, the river, and the seaway. However, the tag "The St. Lawrence" is used only for the river.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/St.%20Lawrence
https://www.librarything.com/tag/the%20st.%20lawrence

Save is proposed to be combined with retten, apparently based on its German use, which Wiktionary gives as "to save, to rescue". However there's several clear uses of the tag save that don't fit; SAVE - Survey of Architectural Values in the Environment is tagged save by a user who tags in Danish, and A Smart Girl's Guide: Money: How to Make It, Save It, and Spend It (American Girl) is tagged save, but that's sparen in German (and in general, sparen is translated into save in English.)

https://www.librarything.com/tag/retten
https://www.librarything.com/tag/save

>78 prosfilaes:
That one was also raised earlier at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/316429#7166290
(in case you notice not much movement on the numbers, as it could be due to people already weighed in at the earlier prompt)

>79 Nevov: Since that was a long time ago, I would guess that this is a new proposal. I have copied my message there into both description boxes.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/mage#combinations

Besides meanings related to wizard, mage can mean stomach(s) or mate in other languages. Even in English, Mage, magician and wizard are not really the same.

>81 MarthaJeanne: As well as being a plural-singular combination. Also, the mage tag is top-loaded with "Mage: the Ascension" and "Mage: the Awakening" books, which doesn't seem like a good fit with the more generic wizard or wizards tag.

As an irrelevant anecdote, in the drafts of Encyclopedia Magica, Volume 1, there were uses of the word "mage", which should have been "wizard" by house style. A quick search and replace later, all cases of mage had been changed to wizard, and the book went to print with hundreds of statements like "The tower can absorb 200 points of dawizard before collapsing."

The "San Francisco River" is in southwest United States. The "Sao Francisco River" is in Brazil.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/San+Francisco+River#combinations (I don't know why the proposal isn't showing here).

>83 lilithcat: Because of the + bug.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/São%20Francisco%20River#combinations

"Molena Point" is a fictional place in the Joe Grey mystery series.

"Molina Point" is an actual place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molina_Point

Chaton is the French word for kitten, but the English word is a kind of imitation jewel.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/chaton#tab:combinations

I just proposed combining Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: https://www.librarything.com/tag/Isabella%20Stewart%20Gardner%20Museum with "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum": https://www.librarything.com/tag/%22Isabella%20Stewart%20Gardner%20Museum%22 but forgot about the issue with quotation marks, and, of course, it looks like I proposed combining the former with nothing.

So please vote "no"!

I wish they'd fix that already. Also that weird issue with the "+" signs.

>87 lilithcat: Someone must just go through and click yes on all proposals. Cause that has a yes vote...

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Lake%20Como#tab:combinations

There are several Lake Comos in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Como_(disambiguation)

And other places named Como Lake.

Elliot lake is in Canada.

Elliott Lake is in Australia, or in Texas.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Elliott%20Lake#tab:combinations

Whatever happened to "Combining singular with plurals should be avoided in general"? https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Tag_combining

Apparently Tim thinks it's fine: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/mystery#tab:combinations

I'm still going with not combining them.

>91 lilithcat:

I was about to say that if “mystery” and “mysteries” are to be kept separate, someone needs to separate out “mysteri” from the former, but it turns out that while that indeed means “mysteries” in Italian, it means “mystery” in Catalan.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Backlisted#tab:combinations

While it would probably be good to combine the various backlisted+podcast tags, the word exists outside that podcast, ans should not be combined with them.

>93 MarthaJeanne:

I've actually never heard "backlist" used for podcasts. I've only heard it used in reference to books (as in "publisher's backlist").

Backlisted is apparently a specific podcast about books. That doesn't make the tag 'backlisted' about that podcast.

"Queens Park" and "Queen's Park" are not the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Park

Also, the "Queen's Park Rangers" and the "Queens Park Rangers" are separate football clubs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queens_Park_Rangers_F.C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Park_Rangers_L.F.C._(1969)

"Musical sheet music" is specifically for, well, "musicals", while "sheet music" is broader.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/musical%20sheet%20music

https://www.librarything.com/tag/sheet%20music

"Ghost Ship!" with quotation marks appears to reference a short story that's included an anthology: https://www.librarything.com/tag/%22Ghost%20Ship%21%22

Without the quotation marks, it's more general: https://www.librarything.com/tag/ghost%20ship

geophile has proposed combining the tag ghost ship and "Ghost Ship!".

The "Norumbegan Quartet" is a book series. "Norumbegan" is the adjectival form of "Norumbega", a legendary North American settlement (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norumbega and https://www.librarything.com/tag/Norumbega and https://www.librarything.com/tag/Norumbega%20%28Legendary%20place%29 ).

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/norumbegan#tab:combinations

>99 lilithcat: I knew this one would never fly, even though I am the only person to use the tag, and I use it in the exact same way the other tag is used. But yes, let us hold out for the hypothetical person who could use it some other way.

>100 Stevil2001:

Considering that there are more people using "Norumbega" and associated tags. and more books with those tags, it is perfectly reasonable to believe that they might use the adjectival form.

In any case, tags should be combined only when they are the same in both usage and meaning.

I'm not sure why 3 people have voted to combine "mystery" and "mystery "art history" Italy "Flavia di Stefano" Jonathan Argyll" ".

>102 lilithcat: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/mystery#tab:combinations

>103 MarthaJeanne:

Thanks, I'm never able to find the actual combination page these days, probably thanks to the "+" glitch.

I think the combination was proposed accidentally, due to the quotation mark glitch.

yes, I think so, too. The only reason I could find the page was that one tag was only one word. But since I had it, I shared it. It's high time that gets fixed.

The USS North Carolina is a battleship, North Carolina is a state.

xaagmabag has proposed combining the tag USS North Carolina history and North Carolina history

"$ Underground comic books; strips; etc - US " is not the same as "Underground comic books / strips / etc.." Note that "US" is in the first, not the second. Easy to miss, which is probably why the proposal was made and people are voting "yes".

There are Henry Fords other than Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Astonishing. FIVE people voted yes: geophile has proposed combining the tag and "Archimedes's Tomb".

>109 lilithcat: There are people that just go through and vote yes to everything.

"The Evangelic Catholic" is an author: https://www.librarything.com/tag/The%20Evangelical%20Catholic

"evangelical catholic" is not: https://www.librarything.com/tag/evangelical%20catholic

Four people actually voted "yes" on this!

geophile has proposed combining the tag Friedrich Habsburg - Emperor of Austria (1415-1493)/ and .

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Coffee%20in%20the%20afternoon
is almost certainly the title of a poem.

"A Cup of Tea" is the title of a short story by Quentin Crisp: https://www.librarything.com/tag/%22A%20Cup%20of%20Tea%22

a cup of tea (no caps, not quotation marks) is not the same.

geophile has proposed combining the tag a cup of tea and "A Cup of Tea"

Same issue with "Green Tea" https://www.librarything.com/tag/%22Green%20Tea%22 and green tea. The former is a short story, the latter is about the drink.

geophile has proposed combining the tag green tea and "Green Tea".

Any time I see a tag with caps and quotation marks, I check to see if it's a short story, as that is a very common way to designate those.

"Minotaure" refers to an image by the artist Joan Miro.

Minotaur (no quotation marks, different spelling) is used to refer to the mythical creature.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/%27Minotaure%27#tab:combinations

Also, (Minotaur) is a periodical: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/%28MINOTAUR%29#tab:combinations