I have had four books that I was the first to enter as ARC's and my reviews of them - disappear. I am wondering if when someone combines it with the actual book itself when published this creates the problem. It has now negatively impacted my Early Reviewers options, and kind of makes me upset since I did review them, and went out of my way to do it quickly before publication. I didn't save copies onto my own system, and now hate the idea of rewriting them. Any reason why this should occur? Just goes to show you, don't do anything first.

Combining editions should not make reviews disappear.

Did you delete the books from your library? That will delete a review.

I don't see any reason why it should disappear because of combining. Which books were these?

FYI, with the advent of the new ER review tracking system, sometimes the review just needs to be 'saved' again, going to the book edit page and click the save button. (This should only be needed done once)

Message edited by its author, Jul 23, 2009, 5:30pm.

What are the books?

I have not deleted any books. and as I said, my reviews on the first two books listed were the first reviews there. So I am really baffled.

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari - now the entrie book is gone.

The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie - this one I reentered last week...

The Book of the Unknown by Jonathon Keats - now the entire book is gone.

Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge by Pepe Escobar - the entire book is gone

Message edited by its author, Jul 23, 2009, 5:38pm.

You reentered the book or the review (for the Rushdie)?

I reentered a quick review, the book was still there on this one.

as far as the missing books, your catalog might be having cache issues

Well, if the books are gone, then obviously the reviews are gone -- so the question is why the books are gone. Are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure you didn't delete them yourself? Keep in mind that deleting a book deletes it -- I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but there are people who don't realize this. (They think it just removes it from the collection they happen to be viewing at the time).

I don't see either The Translator or The Book of the Unknown in your catalog, so the review issue is a red herring, the real question is why the books disappeared.

This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with combining, ARCs, or being the first reviewer.

Your review of The Enchantress of Florence is here

Is there anyone I can contact about this?

I'd contact Tim or one of the other staff members. They generally take data loss very seriously.
(See the "Contact" link at the bottom of the screen.)

Message edited by its author, Jul 23, 2009, 5:42pm.

Yes chistiguc, as indicated I reentered a quick review of Rushdie, but the original was gone.

> 12

Absolutely! List of email addresses is here.

Thanks so much, I didn't know I could contact him.

Chances are your data are still out there somewhere -- usually things don't get deleted, they just get a "this is deleted" flag set. I know it's not much consolation, but data loss is rare (and, as others have said, is taken very seriously -- they know that widespread data loss would mean very, very unhappy users.)

Hi. Your library has seen 1,413 books deleted in its long history. None of them have any of the titles mentioned here, or authors.

Taking from the other direction—from the book-end—is harder, but I did it with the two with the fewest users, the Red Zone and the Unknown Book book. Neither have any deleted copies that can't be tracked to another user.

My guesses, either:

1. You didn't review it on LibraryThing.
2. It was entered under another account name. That happens fairly frequently—the source of the various "LIBRARYTHING DELETED ALL MY BOOKS!" posts. But I can't find any other accounts that look like they're you—same email, etc.
3. You changed your user name at some point.

Any of these possible?

Can you think of any tags you applied to any of these books? I could track down all books tagged X, whether the tag or the book was deleted.

More data points:

1. I looked through all your reviews that have been approved or rejected for LibraryThing for Libraries. That data is never deleted, just a flag set. None of the three were approved or rejected. We keep pretty up-to-date on that data, so it further convinces me.

2. I went through your tags, which also get delete flags. They don't connect to any copies of the books.

3. I did Google searches on your username and those books. The only one that shows up is the Rushdie one—for your recent review.

4. I looked at the Google caches for the book. This is imperfect, but still they weren't there.

Thank you for checking so thoroughly Tim, I really have no idea what I did wrong, but obviously I must have done something. From this day forward, I shall save two copies, one for LT and one for me. I will try to see if I can recreate what I did, perhaps that may be more productive, than searching for them.