someone entering publishers series and in wrong format

I came across someone who's entered a bunch of series information that is both in the wrong format - with the number as part of the name rather than in parentheses - and that looks to be primarily publisher's series for books that are not exclusive to those series. The member has comments disabled, so there's no way to contact him/her to explain what's wrong.
http://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/changelog.php?user=65164&uid=4c6...

Should we just delete them all?
(Or, do staff members have a way of contacting people who have otherwise blocked comments?)

A while ago I was watching this same user and just quietly went and edited the format of the series information. The user has a reason for entering the series, and I don't feel I have the right to quietly destroy their work.

I am of two minds concerning the publishers' series question. I do see some merits of the justification used for the current policy, but at the same time, I do wish for a decent mechanism for publisher series in global LT use. This makes me a heretic, or at least nonconformist, but I do try not to undermine the current policy too strongly. I feel that making each user enter a given publication in their personal publisher series collection is unnecessary duplication of work. Given, however, the strong work-book connection in LT architecture, connecting only a given edition might be problematic to implement.

In conclusion: until an ukase from the management is given, I would not outright delete the information someone has entered.

The Sammlung Goschen are a full series, as far as I know.

2> The problem is that someone entering erroneous series can cause a series that someone doesn't have to show up on their series page. If this were happening to me, I'd have no problem removing the series from LT.

Should we just delete them all?

I think so.

If people are entering erroneous information, it should be removed when it affects site-wide data. I appreciate that some people don't agree with the current policy as regards publishers' series, but it is the policy, and, unless and until it's changed, it should be followed.

Frankly, it makes me nuts when I see something in my library showing as part of a series when it's not.

Then I see crap like this:

Amelia Peabody - Pub (19)
Amelia Peabody - Chron (12)

Sorry, there is one Amelia Peabody series. I have no idea what "Pub" and "Chron" are supposed to mean, and nobody's bothered to enter a series description for either.

And just because an author has written more than one memoir/autobiography, or a multi-volume book, doesn't make the books part of a series.

Yes, I'm grumpy. I've just discovered that one of my books, which is neither in Yiddish nor a recording, shows up in "library of recorded Yiddish books".

5> Pub and Chron? Those look like "Published" and "Chronological" - fairly standard on LT, it seems, to have dual series like that (Narnia being the go-to example).

The rest of it (though I'm not sure about multi-volume works), yeah, totally agreed. But maybe the pub+chron clarification will help with the being driven nuts bit.

not to be flippant - but I would assume that "Amelia Peabody - Pub" is the series in publication order while "-Chron" is in internal (storyline) chronological order to account for the occasional outlier such as Guardian of the Horizon or the recent A River in the Sky which move back to focus on Ramses' early adult years.

The user has a reason for entering the series

2 - I'm sure he or she does, but the problem is that whatever the reasons, the series is not confined to his/her catalog. Common Knowledge is common, site-wide data. If it was just within the user's own catalog, I would have no problem. The instructions on series are clear enough, if a bit hard to find.

5> Recorded Yiddish books? Oy vey.

I didn't realize it can be as bad as that. Given the centrality of the concept of "work", I should have expected things like that, and thus, entering publisher series having rather painful consequences. Yes, it does appear that I am getting to agree with you more than before.

5>

That's just published order and chronological order -- series where they differ always have both orders entered (Narnia is the canonical example) because the edit wars would be fierce and unending otherwise.

10> The funny thing is, if only series were smart enough to allow it to show multiple columns (one for publication date, one for internal series chronology which would really just be the existing series order), that wouldn't even be necessary. But hey, at least we got the Melvil Decimal System now. ;)

5> ... just because an author has written more than one memoir/autobiography...

On consideration, I'd be more relaxed about describing this situation as a series. Why not? The author is writing about his/her life in a succession of distinct, but related, volumes. OK, they are not usually published as "The life of Miss X - Vol 1" but one follows another.

Looking at some of my library, I see that someone has initiated a series for John Mortimer's autobiographical works -
http://www.librarything.com/series/John+Mortimer's+autobiography+(1)
- but the two volumes that Blake Morrison and Paul Vaughan have written are not (yet) so combined.
If at least part of the intent of the series concept is to draw attention to related books, then series these should be.

ETA link

The member mentioned in #1 is now undoing my edits to the series format. I go after him to a work and edit "Erdsee; 1" to "Erdsee (1)". A few days later I find that he has re-edited the series field to read "Erdsee; 1#".

Please will someone with the power to staff him do just that with the relevant guidelines soonish, hmm?

Perhaps contact Tim and ask him to contact the member. The problem here is that this is common data. The person may think this is specific to his/her own library.

#13 - Please will someone with the power to staff him do just that with the relevant guidelines soonish, hmm?

Try emailing Tim or Abby to explain what's going on. Man, I wish if you had comments disabled, you weren't allowed to edit CK. No one can contact you if you screwed up!

#11

Two isn't enough. It is quite feasible that a series has a different publication order in the US and the UK.

#16 - It is quite feasible that a series has a different publication order in the US and the UK.

I think in those cases the 'Pub Order' series goes by original publication. I'm pretty sure a couple of Michael Moorcock's series have had that happen and the original UK publication dates were used.

16> Yes, but it'd still cover most cases, I'd think.