Tags to click "Yes" on

Saw some manga-related tags in the combination proposals, realized that lots of folks wouldn't recognize them.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/margaret+comics -> マーガレットコミックス is the katakana/Japanese title, Margaret Comics is literally what it says. ("Ma-garetto Comikkusu" = Margaret Comics)

http://www.librarything.com/tag/love%2Acom -> Love*Com is the popular short-form of the Lovely*Complex series title. Also known as Love-Com, LoveCom, Love.Com, Love Com, &c.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/yotsubato -> "Yotsuba&!", "Yotsuba&" and "Yotsubato" are all the same thing when talking about the series. "&" in the Japanese title is pronounced "to". Speaking of, "よつばと" is the katakana for "Yotsubato" and is how the title appears on the books. I think "series:Yotsuba" is also a good combination, since "Yotsubato" is the name of the series...

But just plain "Yotsuba" or "よつば" shouldn't be combined with the forms I just listed (and are not up for proposal).

eta: damn, just remembered the old "please vote for my proposal" thread. >.>

eta2: another one - http://www.librarything.com/tag/series%3Aasoue this tag is recent, I saw that it wasn't included in the other ASOUE proposals, added it in. It's so new that the tag page hasn't been populated yet, but it's one I use, so.

Just curious as to why this particular proposal is getting just as many "no"s and yes's. http://www.librarything.com/tag/Hogwarts+School+of+Witchcraft+and+Wizardry+(Imag...

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary Place) -- Juvenile Fiction" and "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary place)". They both refer to the same exact thing and have the same books listed, so.... color me confused.

Maybe because of the "Juvenile fiction" part? Except I'm not sure that there's any reason Hogwarts would ever show up in non-juvenile fiction, and if it does, it's such a minor thing and they should still be linked.

There's a few more that I proposed yesterday where I'm a bit confused at the downvotes, but I figure it's only been a day or two. Some of the epistolary and "fiction by letters" ones - the wording may seem like it's a bad combination, but the usage is the same. I was careful with my proposals to check for alternate usage first. :/

> 2

Maybe some people consider those books "Young Adult" as opposed to "Juvenile" fiction?

(this old curmudgeon thinks that young adults are juvenile)

Because the "place" also figures in the HP movies, and in non-fiction books about the HP phenomenon. Also because if I try to visit that tag-page I only get error messages.

> 1: Trusting you on the Manga stuff.

6: Amen on the Hogwarts

3: Technically epistolary means something sent, not letters. It can be email, memos, cables, some future communications method. While I agree that for most of your proposals the tagger is using the tag with "letters" because they don't know the term epistolary (or can't spell, I have to look it up every time I tag one), still some of them struck me that the tagger didn't quite mean the same thing and I voted no.

2>

I suspect that the fictional non fiction, or whatever you want to call them, books may be the issue here; something like the "Quidditch Through the Ages" book, where the conceit is that they're nonfiction from the HP universe. I can see the argument of wanting to make the distinction.

8> Fair enough. I should've also considered that for many, "epistolary" can mean diary format. I use it for anything that tells the story through a series of written pieces, like letters or diary entries. In which case, the letters ones might be a poor combination.
 

Also, since I know people are going to vote undecided/no on it because it's unfamiliar: 4-koma is pronounced yonkoma.

#2 and 3

Sorry I'm late with this.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary Place) is used for non-fiction works that discuss the concept.

Adding Fiction or Juvenile fiction means this is a book that has Hogwarts as a place name.

Does this make sense?

As the proposer of this 'Hogwarts' combination, what actually happened is that the words 'juvenile fiction' got truncated in one of the two pairs in my proposing process. I think the only difference between the two original tags was one used a -- where the other used a >. These tags are only used one or twice, so I didn't bother to redo the combining effort.

The Library of Congress has at least two non-fictional works indexed under "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary organization)": The end of Harry Potter? and The ultimate Harry Potter and philosophy.

Fictional non-book media (such as the films and computer games) would also qualify for the "Imaginary place" heading but not the "Juvenile fiction" subdivision.

#13

If I were assigning Hogwarts to an adult film, I would have to use $v Drama:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary Place)--Drama.

For juvenile films, we use $v Juvenile films

Since I don't catalog computer games, not sure what the genre subdivision would be for the games themselves. I do know that books about computer games involving Hogwarts get a $x Computer games appended to the main heading.

Edited to fix typo

And thank you Edward!

My college catalog contains

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary place)

instead of

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary organization)

Since we can't afford to send out our authority control, I'm it! And I missed this change in 2009 since I'm about a year behind.

What's with all the "no" votes on AnnaClaire's Comic Strips separations (similarly, the ones I did for folktale)?

I was surprised when clicking through to see how many it has got 19 to 5 currently, when it's a separation proposal for singular/plural.

I've always felt that in most cases people mean the same thing when they tag with a singular or a plural tag, so I don't think they should be separated.

people often *don't* mean the same thing and many words have slightly different meanings when plural. I always vote to keep singular and plural seperate. A book tagged "horse" may have one lone horse in it, while a book tagged "horses" may be about tons of different horses.

17> But there are other combinations that are beat down in the argument that it's "not always the same".

And there are still other separation proposals that have passed the threshold of required votes without problems and were proposed about the same time, if I'm remembering correctly. (or else have been more recent then and are nearly enough to pass) So I'm kind of wondering if it's "comic strips" in particular, or if that was just a batch of people who saw it but didn't click further yet.

I think the problem of comic strip(s) is the level of plurality. Gasoline Alley is the name of a comic strip. It runs every day. If 100 days of this comic strip is collected into a book does it become plural? Or is it only plural when there is another comic strip say, Rose is Rose, collected with it. So one might be confused, and not want to change the combination.

Another Japanese/manga tags:

花とゆめCOMICS is the Japanese-written form of "Hana to Yume comics". "Hana to Yume" and "Hana to Yume comics" are already combined, and I don't imagine "Hana to yume" (lit. flowers and dreams) gets used any other way, since it's a major girls' manga magazine...

Click for the tag page with proposals. (Hana to Yume) (label: hana to yume comics)

FYI hollerama proposed a combination for "fantasy" and I followed through and found other genres in katakana. If it's weird moon runes and proposed by either of us, the English half is a direct transliteration of the Japanese. horror, fantasy, &c. If the katakana didn't seem to be an exact meaning, like "psycho-suspense" (I have no idea what that would be in English), I didn't propose it... I also didn't bother if it's only one or two books tagged, since I know it's hard to get these to pass. (I'll add direct links in a bit, when I'm not fixing to head to work...wanted to post this before I forgot again.)

Also also, is there an argument for not combining bande dessinée with comic? I feel like b.d. had been combined with an English translation before and got separated with the new proposals, maybe?

Well, bande dessinée could be used to mean franco-belgian comics specifically (see e.g. Wikipedia). Comparing the two tags, bandé dessinée has a lot of Asterix and Tintin, while comics has more american comics like Watchmen and Batman

psycho-suspense = psychological thriller?

23> is that just an effect of language use and which books they have, though? also, does bande-dessinée correspond better to "comic" or "comics" or or or... hm, maybe it's better to not combine. I don't know.

24> That'd probably be it. But I'm not sure if the "thriller" meaning is there. Then again, I'm not really clear on the difference between "suspense" and "thriller" in English, only that there IS one. Apparently.

I've put in some proposals to separate some variants on "literatura norteamericana" (which I think is a little too close to "North American literature") out of the "American literature" tangle. I'm not sure what's with the "no" vote, but I'll leave it at that so long as it stays at the one dissention,

>26 AnnaClaire:

That's me. American Literature might be used to mean literature from anywhere in the Americas. But overwhelmingly it is used to mean literature by authors from the United States. Literatura Norteamericana might include Canada and Mexico, but again, overwhelmingly it refers to the US. I also know from travels in Central America and, yes, even Mexico that people there in casual conversation use Norteamerica to mean the United States. This is even confirmed in my Spanish/English dictionary (Webster's New World Spanish Dictionary) which offers the following:

norteamericano/a adj, nm/f North American, (esp) American. {esp = especially}

Though there may be some noise mixed in, the preponderant majority signal on both tags is the same. More good than harm is done by having them together.

Ah. So there's some sort of thought process.

Any thoughts on my thought process?

29> They made sense to me, and reminded me of the reading I did recently where I learned demonyms for people from the USA in other languages. (Inspired because I was terribly confused by "Usain Bolt" in headlines.)

I also double checked the tag that uses norteamericano, and it doesn't really support separation.

29> You convinced me to vote against the separation.

> 23 / 25: Yeah, that's what makes it tricky. In principle it's just french for comics. But some people will use such designations to actually mean the origins too: "comics" for American stuff, "manga" for Japanese comics, "bande dessinée" for French (and Franco-Belgian) comics, "fumetti" for Italian comics, etc. And some people will use one of these generic.

In this case it's the usage that's a mess.

Okay, going through old not-yet-reached-threshold proposals to see if any need a push, and yup. I assumed the katakana ones would, eventually. These all have more undecided than any other votes:

スペースオペラ = space opera

ミステリー = mystery

十二国記 = Twelve Kingdoms

ホラー = horror

ファンタジー = fantasy

Norabelle414 proposed a few for Carrot, the character from Discworld. Aka Carrot Ironfoundersson. He's both a captain and a corporal in the books, so I don't see why they shouldn't be combined, being all the same character (these proposals are all mostly undecided, so).

Newer proposals:
Maho shoujo = magical girl (literally). Most titles that have "Maho shoujo" in the original get translated to "magical girl", that I've seen.

フラワーコミックス is literally Flower Comics

Also, again, another Yotsuba one: Yotsuba&! with Yotsubato! (speaking of, series: yotsuba could still do with a few more votes for combining with yotsubato - all the other ones went through in the last push, this one didn't, apparently because people don't like the "series:short name" combined with "series name"? they're both names for the series, though.)

Oh, and new proposals: this might go in a different one, but all those "alaska #" tags, I don't think should be combined with "alaska" - they're all used by the same person (not the proposing person), and I'm not sure they all have to do with Alaska, particularly http://www.librarything.com/tag/alaska+5 (Note 235945::Paris)

>33 keristars:
Oh, and new proposals: this might go in a different one, but all those "alaska #" tags, I don't think should be combined with "alaska" - they're all used by the same person (not the proposing person), and I'm not sure they all have to do with Alaska, particularly http://www.librarything.com/tag/alaska+5

Yeah, #5 is not very Alaskan and there are a few other questionable books here and there but in the main the rest of the Alaska # tags contain lists of books about Alaska.

I would like to put a plug for combining Turkey with the Polish word, Turcja, and the Finnish word, Turkki, for the country. The link is: http://www.librarything.com/tag/Turkey .

I have also added the Danish-Swedish word, Tyrkiet, and the Hungarian (Magyar) word, Törökország, to the combination proposal list.

#33

I've voted no on Captain Carrot / Corporal Carrot. Someone might want to see just the books where Carrot is a Corporal (or a Captain) as opposed to all the Carrot books.

36> True, and I considered that. I just figured they're all the same person, so perhaps folks just started referring to him one way and didn't bother to change according to circumstances? Ah, well. Mostly I brought it up because there were *so* many undecideds, and I wasn't sure if that was just because folks aren't familiar with him in Discworld or not.

35> I was going to object because Turkey could also mean the bird in English, but I didn't spot any books along those lines on the tag page (although Birds Without Wings had me for a while). There is "Thanksgiving Day › Fiction" and "Stories in rhyme" among the related subjects but its overwhelmed by the Turkey the country meanings.

>35 vpfluke:
"Tyrkiet" is actually Danish only. I've proposed the Swedish "Turkiet" (see, totally different!) and Norwegian "Tyrkia" as well.

#39

Thaks for the correction. My eyes must have glazed. I thought that Tyrkia had been proposed, but maybe not.

The U.S. Thanksgiving Day bird is normally tagged as birds (link: http://www.librarything.com/tag/turkeys ).

This is a word (tag) where the plural is really different.

It isn't a good idea to combine Turkey with Turkki, because the Finnish word Turkki (or turkki) means both the country and the Turkish language. One Finnish-Turkish-Finnish dictionary is tagged with turkki.

Please vote no for the combination request:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Turkey

Edward's proposal to separate Angelina Weld Grimké from Angelina Grimké is good.

Angelina Weld Grimké was Angelina Grimké's niece.

To add to the confusion, Weld was Angelina Grimké's married name and she is sometime known as Angelina Grimké Weld. So Grimké Weld goes with Grimké. Weld Grimké does not.

My combinations for Angelina Grimké are not currently meeting with opposition so it's yes to everything on that page.

Robert Zimmerman is Bob Dylan's given name. The only works on that page (three different books tagged by three separate users) are about Bob Dylan.

I've proposed separating interactive fiction and text adventures. Although the term "interactive fiction" often refers to text adventures (computer games in which the player controls a character in a textual narrative by typing commands), it's also used for books like the Choose Your Own Adventure series. In fact, most of the books tagged interactive fiction seem to be CYOA books or similar.

La Fillete Revolutionnaire is (a misspelling of) the French title of a manga series known in English as Revolutionary Girl Utena. I can't see a reason not to combine the French tag with series: revolutionary girl utena.

I've proposed various combinations involving Subclass PS: American literature, all of which are being used to refer to the Library of Congress Classification's subclass PS (Wikipedia). The most controversial is LOC PS, but the only person using it has a series of similar tags all referring to LC classes, and I don't anticipate that sequence of letters being used to mean anything else in future.

Virginia Tech (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Virginia+Tech) is a nickname for Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Virginia+Polytechnic+Institute+and+State+University). They are the same school.

And Virginia Polytechnic Institute (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Virginia+Polytechnic+Institute) is another nickname for it.

The series Canopus in Argos has the subtitle Archives (Wikipedia), so there doesn't seem to be a difference in meaning between Canopus in Argos and #Canopus in Argos: Archives. I've voted yes to this combination.

Some Norwegian-to-other-language tag combination proposals that could do with a little help:

Norsk forfattar - Norwegian author (http://www.librarything.com/tag/norwegian+author#combine)
Norsk litteratur - Norwegian literature (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Norwegian+literature#combine)
Ære - Honor (http://www.librarything.com/tag/honor#combine)
Lydbok - Audiobook (http://www.librarything.com/tag/audiobook#combine)
Raketter - Rockets (http://www.librarything.com/tag/rockets#combine)
Norsk roman - Norwegian novel (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Norwegian+novel#combine)
Norsk historie - Norsk historia (http://www.librarything.com/tag/norsk+historie#combine)
Innvandrere - Immigrants (http://www.librarything.com/tag/immigrants#combine)
Innvandring - Immigration (http://www.librarything.com/tag/immigration#combine)
Immigranter - Immigrants (http://www.librarything.com/tag/immigrants#combine)
Haakon VII - Haakon VII 1872-1957 (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Haakon+VII#combine)

No opposing votes at the time of writing. For the record, I do speak Norwegian.

Tim's working on tag combination today so he's asked us to stop it for a bit. http://www.librarything.com/topic/119284#

Combining Samer, Samar, Sami people and Sámi people.

These combinations were agreed on/not argued against following a discussion of related proposals over on "Why I voted no". They all need 6 more votes.

Combination proposals:
http://no.librarything.com/tag/Sami+people#combine
http://no.librarything.com/tag/S%C3%A1mi+people#combine
http://no.librarything.com/tag/samer#combine

Discussion:
http://no.librarything.com/topic/86697#2740913
http://no.librarything.com/topic/86697#2741333
http://no.librarything.com/topic/86697#2741513

Links that aren't site-specific:
/tag/Sami+people#combine
/tag/S%C3%A1mi+people#combine
/tag/samer#combine

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Petrarch

Petrarch is the more common name for Francesco Petrarca.

You might want to post the links to the tags on the other side of the combination because all I see on the Petrach page are several proposals to combine Petrach with Petrach.

>56 jjwilson61:

Ah, yes. Apologies.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Petrarca+F.
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Petrarca+%28Francesco%29
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Francesco+Petrarca+1304-1374
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Petrarca+Francesco
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Francesco+Petrarca

Some older tags (not mine) that are almost at the the threshold:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Chinese+cooking (with the German: chinesische Küche)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/puberteit (with puberty)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/nuclear+and+particle+physics (with Kärn- och partikelfysik)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/computer (with dator)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/1900s (with 20th century.1900s)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Paperback%3B+Second+Printing (with 2nd paperback printing)
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Fic+Dickens (with three other tags: Dickens fiction, fiction Dickens, Fiction - Dickens)

Note, of my second listing above in 58, puberteit is the Dutch for puberty.
In the third row, Kärn- och partikelfysik, is Swedish.
Dator in the fourth row is also Swedish.

If you are confused about the proposal to comibine "soviet union" with "urss," see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URSS

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Soviet+Union

I think the general problem with tags like URSS is not what they seem to generally mean, but rather a reluctance for most of us to combine any acronymn type tag with only 2 or 3 or 4 letters. Another 4-digit tag that is having problems going through is SNCC (link: http://www.librarything.com/tag/SNCC ), with 'Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committtee', a civil rights-era group in the USA (a 3-letter acronymn which has been combined and is one of the exceptions in LT). The fear is that someplace else in the world there is a good chance that these short acronymns stand for some other group.

>61 vpfluke:
Here's a quote from Tim. Not that it will change anyone's mind. It didn't seem to before.

"I agree—people are overreacting on abbreviations. Some abbreviations are used for basically one thing. If that changes, we can separate later."

From previous discussion, it seems that many users view abbreviations as intrinsically ambiguous, and always vote against combination. The "Soviet Union" tag is already combined with "USSR" and "CCCP", but I suspect even these would have been controversial if proposed under the current voting system. (Tags could at one time be combined without a vote.)

I can point to a proposal to combine a six-letter abbreviation that's being opposed by a 4:1 majority: ISIHAC. Only one meaning is listed on Acronym Finder.

>61 vpfluke:, 62, 63, re: 60

I understand the whole acronym thing, but if you look at the books tagged urss it's pretty clear they're all about the Soviet Union. And as Tim points out, if somebody ends up using urss to mean something else they can propose a separation.

Also, I didn't intend my post to be as blatantly "you need to click yes on this" as the rest of the thread is--perhaps there should be an "explanation as to why this was proposed: discuss" thread?

Roman Catholicism and Roman Catholicis.

Note that the second tag is not Roman Catholics. I believe it to be a typo leaving the m off of Roman Catholicism. The one and only book so tagged is titled Roman Catholicism.

I think that could just as easily be a typo of Roman Catholics, with an accidental extra 'i'

It could be. It seems less likely to leave off the 'm'.

I was not sure whether to post this here or in the "Why I voted 'no'"-thread, but I chose here due to my own preference in the matter below. Here goes:

There is a proposal to combine the tags Einstein and Einstein Albert that has about equal 'yes' and 'no' votes. The issue is that the tag "Einstein" already includes tags such as 'Albert Einstein" and "Albert Einstein 1879-1955". Why not also include the tag "Einstein Albert"?

> 68

Better to propose that "Einstein" be separated from the various "Albert Einstein" tags, than to further muddy the waters.

Deciding on whether to keep Albert Einstein and Einstein combined, or to separate them is tough. There are some 900 books listed at the main tag, and I would have to be satisfied from looking at least 300-400 of them to make a decision whether to combine or separate. This is a lot of work, so I will probably not vote on these tag proposals for a while. There is no quick way to find out if the tag Einstein ever refers to someone other than Albert.

I think Einstein, along with Shakespeare, is a canonical example of where a surname is so commonly associated with a single person that not combining them is pedantic nonsense. If someone were to tag a book with an Einstein who wasn't Albert then they'd certainly use the full name.

Combination proposals, straight translations Norwegian to English:

Hvalfangst -> Whaling: http://www.librarything.com/tag/hvalfangst#combine
Jente -> Girl: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente#combine
Jenter -> Girls: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jenter#combine
Gutt -> Boy: http://www.librarything.com/tag/gutt#combine
Norsk thriller -> Norwegian thriller: http://www.librarything.com/tag/norsk+thriller
Jente utkledt som gutt -> Girl disguised as boy: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente+utkledt+som+gutt#combine
Jente forkledt som gutt -> Girl disguised as boy: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente+forkledt+som+gutt#combine

Swedish to English, but equally straigthforward:

1:a världskriget -> WWI: http://www.librarything.com/tag/1%3Aa+v%C3%A4rldskriget#combine

Three on the same page: http://www.librarything.com/tag/Middle+Ages#combine
"medeltid" and "medeltiden" are respectively "middle ages" and "the middle ages" in Swedish. "Media Idade" appears to be the same in Galician(?).

72:

Hmmm. Apparantly Tag Combination was run over the weekend, and many of these proposals - including some that were over threshold limit last I checked - just disappeared?

I've re-entered the proposals that were deleted. (Most of them had been in existence less than a week). If you voted last time around, please repeat. Thank you.

Hvalfangst -> Whaling: http://www.librarything.com/tag/hvalfangst#combine
Jente -> Girl: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente#combine
Jenter -> Girls: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jenter#combine
Norsk thriller -> Norwegian thriller: http://www.librarything.com/tag/norsk+thriller
Jente utkledt som gutt -> Girl disguised as boy: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente+utkledt+som+gutt#combine
Jente forkledt som gutt -> Girl disguised as boy: http://www.librarything.com/tag/jente+forkledt+som+gutt#combine

75: Clicking the "Closed" link on the Proposed tag combinations page reveals a large number of recently closed proposals that have the required number of Yes votes but haven't yet taken effect. I presume this will happen over time; if not, there's a bug that needs to be reported. Either way, it shouldn't be necessary to re-submit proposals that have already passed.

It is unfortunate that the affected tag pages, i.e. those for which a combination has been approved but not yet carried out (example), give no indication that the proposal was made. This is likely to cause confusion and duplicate proposals.

>76 Edward:

Should be now. It takes about 12 hours for the whole process to finish.

So now there are combination proposals for the tags in post #75 that are already applied. That's confusing enough, but what happens if they don't pass this time?

>77 timspalding:
Are you saying it should be done by now? I've poked around in the closed list and I didn't find any passed proposals in the recent set that have actually been combined.

Doesn't it usually take a while for the closed combinations to profligate through the system?

78> Never mind, I was looking at the wrong thing. The whaling tag page, for example. does not show that it is combined with hvalfangst.

Yes. It should be. Give me examples if it is not.

>82 timspalding:
All of them. Go to the tag combinations page, click on closed and all votes and then on anything in the last 200 or so pages. See if any of the successful proposals are actually combined. All those I have checked remain uncombined.

But to give two examples:
All of these were combined into prescription drugs - drugs-prescription, Prescription-drugs, Drugs (Prescription), drugs prescription. The last of those has been re-proposed and passed again since closing.
All of the permutations of Triangle Fire were separated from Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

Have to agree with 83.

I checked a number of randomly selected entries under "closed", last 250 pages. None of those marked "threshold met" had been combined.

One example:

http://no.librarything.com/tags_combinations.php , click "Closed", see page 244, scroll down to:

"lemontwist has proposed combining the tag Read in August 2004 and read august 2004."
16 yes, 0 no, "(threshold met)"

These pages have not yet been combined, and show no combination proposals:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/read+august+2004
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Read+in+August+2004

>84 geitebukkeskjegg: and prior

Posted to Bug Collectors to get any further discussion out of this thread. And for the satisfaction of the green check mark when it's fixed.

DromJohn's proposal to separate language and lang is a good one (voting link). Many of the most popular books tagged lang, including the two currently topping the list, are by Andrew Lang – to make matters worse, the combination is causing "language" to appear on Lang's tag cloud.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/S%C3%B6rmland#combine

Södermanland is the more formal form of the name of a Swedish county, which is otherwise written Sörmland. Both have been used interchangeably for a couple of hundred years.

>86 Edward:

Agreed.

Also, note that "lang" has another meaning in several languages (i.e. German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish)

>88 geitebukkeskjegg: ...and in Dutch.

Could I encourage people to vote "Yes" on combining >Portsmouth (England) with cities (Portsmouth UK)? The "cities" tag is already combined with variations on "Portsmouth (England)" and "Portsmouth (UK)", and in fact these account for most of the uses. Only one user includes the word "cities" in the tag, and he has numerous tags starting with "cities" or "regions"; it appears that the prefixes are just to make the tags sort together, and don't indicate a difference in meaning from the place name alone.

Madhi -> Mahdi http://www.librarything.com/tag/Mahdi

A look at the (2) books it's used for shows the former is a mere misspelling.

My proposal to combine bechdel fail with Bechdel test fail has prompted mainly Undecided votes, so I ought to explain why I made it.

In a comic by Alison Bechdel (The Rule), a character says that she only watches a film if it contains a conversation between two women about something other than a man. When used to evaluate a narrative work, this criterion is often known as the "Bechdel test" (for example, bechdeltest.com). A Google search suggests that the phrase "Bechdel fail" is often used online to indicate that a work fails to pass this test. A few examples from blogs:

• "Bechdel fail: no conversation between two women" (Counting Torchwood, season 2)


• "Is fanfic as often a Bechdel fail as the source text?" (On the subject of the Bechdel test and my own writing)


• "it doesn't pass the Bechdel Test", "not the most egregious case of Bechdel Fail I've ever encountered" (separate comments on sundries: media madness edition)

I note that the bechdel pass tag has already been combined into passes the Bechdel Test.

How is Bechdel pronounced?

Beck-dell

94 - Thank you. Now, you know the type of tag combo I couldn't propose.

95>

I'm curious; why would not knowing how to pronounce $NAME prevent you from proposing "$NAME fail" and "$NAME test fail", assuming that you were otherwise familiar with the terminology?

If I don't know how to pronounce a word, I might not know the meaning. And I didn't actually say I don't propose tag combinations I can't pronounce. What I meant to say was that I don't normally propose tag combinations for words like bechdell that I am pretty clueless about. I asked for the pronunciation on the vane hope that I might have heard the word previously from its spoken version.

I'd like to explain why I wanted to separate tags Dostoevsky and Dostoyevsky+Fyodor+1821-1881..

I believe that author's full name and mere family name tags shouldn't be combined. There may be other authors or book topics with the same family name. In this case, there is Andrei Dostoyevsky, whose book has tag Dostoevsky.

I am not sure if the tagger thought of the book author, Andrei Dostoyevsky, or one of its subjects, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He uses family name tags for both authors and topics. Perhaps he liked that word Dostoevsky can mean both persons. It has a different meaning than tags with names like Dostoyevsky Fyodor, so they should be separated.

So far I haven't proposed other Dostoevsky tag separations, because I'd like to see if this one succeeds.

AD&D 1 (which includes 1st edition AD&D) is entirely books from the First Edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. AD&D 1e is entirely books from the First Edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Please vote this one through.

I'm not sure about separating the Dostoevsky tag. The tag referring to Andrei is only used once. The set of combined tags for Dostoevsky is used 1,989 times -- presumbably Fyodor was thought for almost all the remaining 1,988 tags. Andrei's book is only available in Russian, but was not tagged in Russian.

Explaining another proposal with mainly "Undecided" votes: "Versailles no Bara" or "Berusaiyu no Bara" is the Japanese title of a manga series translated into English as "The Rose of Versailles". See Wikipedia.

More Japanese: Aum Supreme Truth is one English translation of Aum Shinrikyo, the name of the religious movement responsible for the 1995 sarin attacks in Tokyo. (Examples of news articles using both names: Time, Guardian.)

Combination that could use a few more votes to roll along :

http://www.librarything.com/tag/mooched-out
"mooched-out" and "mooched away"

Proposing to separate "January" and "Jan". The latter is also a personal name. Useage is also different: "January" has lot of children's books about winter, "Jan" is a mixed bag.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/January

I proposed separating the singular "hurricane" from the plural "hurricanes" as the singular can also be used to refer to a boxer. (There was even a movie about him.)

Three works are listed in the tagmash.

Edited for typo in HTML

I didn't get any results for a tagmash of: hurricane, boxer.

>106 vpfluke:
Whoops! I dropped a letter in the HTML. Fixed now.

105> That's like saying don't combine wwii and World War 2 because wwii is also the name of a band.

Tag cats needs to be combined with kissat. Both words mean domestic cats and occasionally other animals of Felidae family. Both words are in plural form.

I think that tag Indien should be separated from tag India. In French Indien means both Indian, and American Indian.

Currently India is more common tag than Indien, so tag Indien shows as India in work pages. This causes strangeness with some books about indigenous peoples of the Americas. At least these books are affected:

http://www.librarything.com/work/9923079
http://www.librarything.com/work/2961621
http://www.librarything.com/work/74392
http://www.librarything.com/work/193263
http://www.librarything.com/work/2309
http://www.librarything.com/work/55209
http://www.librarything.com/work/2827
http://www.librarything.com/work/56202
http://www.librarything.com/work/6467646
http://www.librarything.com/work/11125247

It is difficult to say, how often the Indien tag means Indian instead of India, because the meanings are not strikingly different. They are still different enough that the words shouldn't be combined.

A day or two ago I proposed combining the tags 'Outlander' Series with the tag Outlander (I had hoped to combine it with something like "Outlander series" but had already been combined with "Outlander"). As this quickly acquired several votes against it and none in favor, this morning I proposed separating two versions of "series : outlander" and four versions of "outlander series" out of the Outlander tag.

Taolaisuus is a Finnish word for Taoism, so they should be combined. I am a native speaker of Finnish. Both words can mean philosophical Taoism, religious Taoism, and Taoism as a folk religion, if such categorization makes sense.

So.... why the massive resistance against combining Norwegian mythology and Norsk mythology, of all things?

There's a language mix, but how could the meaning possibly differ? (I would agree that there's no such thing as a separate "Norwegian mythology", but that's hardly the issue.)

#122: See the Combiners! thread "Why I voted "no"? (Tag separation/combination) #2". In short, Norsk = Norse is not Norwegian; a lot of it is Icelandic among other things.

#113

Good Lord!

Read the message in "Why I voted "no", but that's absolute rubbish. "Norsk" is Norwegian for Norwegian. The Norwegian word for "Norse" is "norrøn". Icelandic for "Norwegian" is "norska". Icelandic for "Norse" is "norræn".

One can't just decide that languages have changed only on an assumption that (anglo?) "people are using it that way now".

#114: One can't just decide that languages have changed only on an assumption that (anglo?) "people are using it that way now".

Huh? Both of the users of Norsk mythology live in North Dakota, and one of them has 97% English books and the other 99%. So yes, English use is what matters here. 25% of the uses of the tag "Norsk mythology" are for the Icelandic Prose Edda, and another 25% for the Icelandic Saga of the Volsungs.

#155 What does it matters that the users of the tag live in Dakota?? "Norsk" translates as "Norwegian", Period.

Could I redefine the meaning of the word "English" just because I live in Akershus?

You get to redefine the word Gift just because you live in Norway. It doesn't matter what the word "Norsk" means in Norwegian; it matters what the tag "Norsk mythology" means to its users, and they're not translating Norsk, they're using it as an English word.

You mean you assume they're using it as an English word.

Both libraries contains several books on Norwegian matters. One is even using the tag "Norse mythology" in addition to "Norwegian mythology". Both users appear to be knowledgeable about the meaning of Norwegian, Norsk, Norse. There's no reason whatsoever to assume English-speaking people in general confuse Norsk and Norse.

The word "gift" is hardly a relevant example, since it exists in both languages. "Norsk" does not exist in English.

#118: "Norsk" does not exist in English.? Then what about The Norsk nightingale? You've yet to explain why they would be using a random Norwegian word in their tagging.

#119: Ok, you're joking. But for those who may not know:

W. F. Kirk was raised in parts of Minnesota with many Norwegian and other Scandinavian imigrants. He was known for his poetry using the lingua of the area.

From Wikipedia: "His first collection of dialect verse, The Norsk Nightingale, presented a Norwegian lumberjack from the Upper Midwest."

#120: I don't see why any of that is an argument that the title of the book The Norsk Nightingale is not an example of the use of the word Norsk in English.

>121 prosfilaes:

Enough absurdity. I'll end the debate here. Just don't confuse "norsk" and "norse". They're not the same words. Norsk is not an English word. It will not be an English word untill we conquer the USA, forbid the use of English language and force you all to speak Norwegian. At that time you'll be forced at gunpoint to pronounce "norrøn" correctly or ta tran.

Now go and bother an Icelander instead. They don't get bored this fast.

I'm with geitebukkeskjegg on this one. I've googled Norsk and can find no other definition than Norwegian. Also, if a couple of people had used the tag cat to refer to books on dogs would we then combine cat and dog?

> 118

Both libraries contains several books on Norwegian matters.

Which isn't at all surprising, considering the fact that North Dakota is full of Norwegians (about one-third of its population is of Norwegian descent).

"Norsk mythology" is probably some sort of English. If it were Norwegian, I'm fairly sure it it should be "norsk mytologi". Combine this with the fact that the people who use the tag seem to be tagging in English in otherwise, and the actual books they have tagged, and I see no reason why "norsk" should necessarily be interpreted as if it was perfect Scandinavian ("norsk" does mean "Norwegian" in Swedish and Danish as well).

125> Possible, but I could find no on-line support for that. You'd think if Norsk were being used in some non-standard way in English that it would have made it to the Urban Dictionary at least.

Again, why don't we look at how they're actually using the tag? Out of 4 books so tagged, 2 are Icelandic.

So, if 2 people were using the tag cat on books about dog we should combine the cat and dog tags?

#128: In this case, every single person using the tag is using it to include Icelandic mythology.

In any case, you have the arguments completely backwards. I'm not advocating combining Norsk mythology with anything. I'm arguing against combining Norsk mythology with Norwegian mythology.

'Tags should be combined only when they are the same in both meaning and usage on LibraryThing.'

If one tag has three books and the other four books and none of the books match, it would seem that the usage, at least right now is different.

Just proposed separating BART (an acronym commonly used to refer to San Francisco's "Bay Area Rapid Transit" train) from "Bart" / "bart" (the personal name commonly used to refer to Bart Simpson and to authors whose names include "Bart").

In the top 25 uses, there are at least 3 instances that are clearly the acronym and not any other usage. See http://www.librarything.com/tag/Bart

>131 lquilter:
Unfortunately, I don't think it will stick. Same letters with different capitalizations getting automatically combined and whatnot.

131, 132> Yes, I don't even think the system see the difference. So it really isn't a case of auto-combining but to the tag system BART and bart are the same tags.

I think separating BART from Bart is a noble effort, and would vote for it. But the separation won't take. If it were separable, I would not vote for a BART/Bay Area Rapid Transit combination, as BART is too short an acronym to be considered for combining (from my point of view).

132 - 134 > Doh!

Ahmed Ahne is a Finnish translation of a comics character and series name Iznogoud (Iznogood in Danish). They should be combined.

Ditto for Iznogoud and Iznogood. Someone already proposed combining them, but it didn't succeed - probably due to ignorance. I gave them the second chance.

Not sure if this is the right thread or not -- don't shoot me if this should be somewhere else.

I proposed separating the tag http://www.librarything.com/tag/nonfiction+mathematics and http://www.librarything.com/tag/nonfiction+science+mathematics

To me, the first term deals only with nonfiction mathematics.

The second term, in my mind, deals more with mathematics in sciences. For example, there is a whole branch of physics which is called mathematical physics -- it's not 'pure' math, but physics. Now, when I read the phrase "nonfiction science mathematics" I think of mathematical physics, plus math in chemistry, math in biology, etc. This is why I proposed to separate the two tags.

It does not look to be used in that way though:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/nonfiction+science+mathematics&norefer=1

And while it could be debated, some would say that mathematics is a science, and "nonfiction science mathematics" is just a classification scheme with one more step than "nonfiction mathematics".

"some" would say is rather an admission that "others" would say otherwise.

Combination by usage AND by meaning.

I would therefore say SEPARATE (and will so vote).

LTers are obviously split on this nofiction mathematics separation, with 10 in favor and 7 against. I tend to agree with andejons on this one, but I take a lumper approach to tags for the most part.

"Svensk roman" does indeed mean "Swedish novel", and the latter has already been combined into it, so there's no reason for hesitation:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/svensk+roman

And for my own suggestion, I can say that if there is some who make a difference between "romarriket" and "romerska riket", I've never heard of them. Both are a cathc-all for the Roman Kingdom, Republic and Empire. Danish "Romerriget" seems to be the same, even if that's just what I've been able to glean from online sources.
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Romarriket

I think that the same is true for German "Römisches Reich", currently combined into "Roman Empire", but I don't want to propose a separation based on my rather weak German.

I just proposed several combinations involve Descartes and Rene Descartes (or variations). I did this for two reasons:

1. The tag, "Descartes", was already filled with "Rene Descartes" and variations already. I would say at least 1/3 of the combined tags were "Rene Descartes" varieties. So, putting all the "Descartes", with or without a first name, made sense. See: http://www.librarything.com/tag/Descartes

2. I looked at the books in the various tag combinations and they were the same books. None of the books seemed to be concerned with crater on the moon, the French frigate, or even the software -- all which are "Descartes".

#142: That's probably a lose-lose situation. A number of people probably won't combine Rene Descartes-type stuff into Descartes no matter what, and a lot of people probably won't separate Rene Descartes-type stuff out of Descartes no matter what, so the status quo stands.

Confusing as this is, Java 1.5 and Java 5.0 are names for the same version of the programming language. The "5.0" numbering is more common, but "1.5" or "1.5.0" is used in some places internally (Wikipedia).

From the official documentation: "J2SE also keeps the version number 1.5.0 (or 1.5) in some places that are visible only to developers, or where the version number is parsed by programs. ... 1.5.0 refers to exactly the same platform and products numbered 5.0."

I just proposed combining various forms of "science fiction fantasy" with the tag "sff". If you look at all the tag combinations already in "sff", there are tons of "science fiction fantasy" combinations there already. Some with "and" between the "science fiction" and "fantasy" and most without.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/sff

I honestly would prefer to separate the "science fiction/fantasy" type tags from the "science fiction and fantasy" tags as this means two different things to me, but apparently it does not to a whole lot of other people. I also HATE having "sff" as the top tag! What happened to the prohibition against acronyms? Such is life!

Another proposal is for combining the tags "the Napoleonic War" with "Napoleonic Wars". To say "the" Napoleonic War is not correct, since Napoleon started several wars, so it is the "Napoleonic Wars". Also, if you look at the tags already in "Napoleonic Wars", you will see numerous "napoleonic war" tags already combined.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Napoleonic+Wars

I have proposed separating Napoleon Bonaparte from Napoleon I for the following reasons:

1. In my warped mind, Napoleon Bonaparte refers to the man from birth to death. Napoleon I refers to this same man as Emperor of France and does not necessarily include his life before his coronation. Splitting hairs maybe, but then there's the next reason:

2. There is a detective/inspector fiction series with the main character Napoleon Bonaparte. (There's also a dog book with this as the dog's name.) Without the additional tag of 'detective', any Napoleon Bonaparte's automatically become emperor!

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Napoleon+Bonaparte
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Napoleon+I+%5BEmperor+of+the+French+1769-1821%5D
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Napoleon+Bonaparte+%28detective%29

I believe Pablo Casals and Pau Casals are combinable (link, http://www.librarything.com/tag/Pablo+Casals ). Wikipedia shows his birth name as, Pau Casals i Defilló. The Wikipedia article is at, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Casals .

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Loeb+Library
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Loeb

While these could conceivably be used differently (the later about people called Loeb, frex), in practice they both seem to be used only for books published within the Loeb Classical Library, and the "Loeb" tag already includes variants such as "Loeb Classical Library".

> 149: "While these could conceivably be used differently..."

> wikithing, Tag combining: "Tags should be combined only when they are the same in both meaning and usage on LibraryThing." (emphasis added)

"Loeb" isn't even a hypothetical different meaning of "Loeb Library". It's a common surname that refers to all kinds of different people!

I'm going to vote no because these tags do not mean the same thing.

150> Which is only a guideline. Vote in the manner that you think will be the most useful to LT users of tags.

OK, looks like the Loeb combination isn't going through, but neither does it seem anyone is willing to suggest splitting out the various versions of "Loeb Classical Library" already combined ...

We're nothing if not inconsistent.

Anyone using "Loeb" to refer to someone with that name is already inundated by others who use it to mean the same as "Loeb Library". Adding the fairly small number of works with that tag can hardly hurt them further. OTOH, combining actually produces some utility in putting different tags that do mean the same together.

> 152 > "Anyone using "Loeb" to refer to someone with that name is already inundated by others who use it to mean the same as "Loeb Library"."

Sure, but that's unavoidable. If I use "ADA" to refer to the "Americans with Disabilities Act" and the "American Dental Association", I can't really avoid having both lumped in there. That doesn't mean, however, that we should therefore combine all three terms into one.

"Actual meaning" is a pretty clear and distinct line. "Currently used" and "usually used" and so forth are pretty vague and shifting lines. Rather than constantly having to revisit the issue -- "Oh, is there an adequate percentage now of people using 'Loeb' to refer to someone now using 'Loeb' to reference Loeb House (Harvard), Loeb space (mathematics), and any of the numerous other surnames to justify splitting" -- and having to revisit that issue over, and over, and over again .... rather than doing that, hey, there is a bright-line rule that seems to apply: Combine only when tags are the same in both meaning and usage.

And sure, it's a "guideline", in that this is an all-voluntary space, and nobody will be punished for violating it. But it's a "rule" in that it is described as a rule, and was stated by the person who developed the site.

#153: there is a bright-line rule that seems to apply: Combine only when tags are the same in both meaning and usage.

Sure, but we have a tag that includes "loeb, loeb classical library, loeb classics" and a tag that includes just "Loeb Library". That's simply indefensible, but the fact that we have a super-majority rule for combining or separating means that neither one combined tag, or a loeb tag and one or more other tags, will ever come about. We don't have enough people willing to compromise to fix a broken tag in a way that makes sense even if it's not their preferred option.

> 154: Well, we'll see. I just added separation votes for the Loeb / Loeb classical library, and Loeb / Loeb classics combinations. The system also automatically sets something up that looks like: "separate loeb from loeb", which I don't really understand.

>153 lquilter:: "Actual meaning" is a pretty clear and distinct line. "Currently used" and "usually used" and so forth are pretty vague and shifting lines. Rather than constantly having to revisit the issue -- "Oh, is there an adequate percentage now of people using 'Loeb' to refer to someone now using 'Loeb' to reference Loeb House (Harvard), Loeb space (mathematics), and any of the numerous other surnames to justify splitting" -- and having to revisit that issue over, and over, and over again .... rather than doing that, hey, there is a bright-line rule that seems to apply: Combine only when tags are the same in both meaning and usage.

I agree in full about using "actual meaning" as a bright-line rule. Unfortunately, I've observed that people seem to have disagreements sometimes about what a tag's actual meaning is. For example, I proposed combining "Horses. Magic", "horses (magic)", and "magical horses" because in my mind they all have (had?) the same actual meaning: horses that are magic. 2/3 of people clearly disagree.

On a different subject:
The "zeitdilatation" and "time dialation" combination I just proposed is because "time dialation" is clearly a misspelling of "time dilation", which is part of the tag-complex with "zeitdilatation" for its main. Apparently the German term's been used 91 times and the English one only 58.

Maybe I'm being dense, but we have a series of tag combinations, Bob Skinner Series (15) and Bob Skinner #15, for some value of 15. There's no difference in usage; each is being used once on the appropriately numbered book in the Bob Skinner series. So why did someone run down the list and vote no on all of these?

>157 prosfilaes: Because they were there???

I've given up trying to figure the voting out. I propose mostly rational combinations and then,... well, I'm still waiting on the explanation for the no's and undecided for "equivalent fractions" and "equal fractions".

I'm proposing separating "Krsna" from "Hare Krishna" (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Hare+Krishna).

"Krsna" meaning dark (i.e. skinned) usually refers to a Hindu God Krishna. "Hare Krishna", although referring to the same god are the initial words of a mantra used to praise that god but is also frequently used to refer to a Western religious group (ISKON) that is known for it's members practice of chanting that mantra.

"Krsna" should be combined with "Krishna" once it is separated (or can that be proposed now?)

I just proposed combining "Cat Who" http://www.librarything.com/tag/Cat+Who and "Series: The Cat Who" http://www.librarything.com/tag/Series%3A+The+Cat+Who

Normally I wouldn't suggest combining these two, since one refers specifically to the series, but if you look at the books, they are virtually the same. And the tags already combined in "Cat Who" are about 50% with the word "series" in them.

So, it makes sense to combine these two tags.

I propose separating "Joe Grey" http://www.librarything.com/tag/Joe+Grey and "Joe Grey Series" http://www.librarything.com/tag/Joe+Grey+series

My reasoning is this: Joe Grey is the cat in the series, and while the series is referred to as the Joe Grey Series, Joe Grey could refer to the feline detective only. In other series where the lead character is the name of the series, such as the Hannah Swensen Series http://www.librarything.com/tag/hannah+swensen+series, the fictional character Hannah Swensen is NOT combined with the series. http://www.librarything.com/tag/Hannah+Swensen So, I feel the Joe Grey and Joe Grey Series should be separate.

(I know, not the most important books or tags around, but as a Crazy Cat Lady, I find my feline detective books amusing, so go vote yes!!! LOL!)

> 161

I generally prefer separating a tag that is the title alone from title+(series name).

> 160 if you look at the books, they are virtually the same. And the tags already combined in "Cat Who" are about 50% with the word "series" in them.

Usage isn't the only determinant, though. Usage and meaning are supposed to be the same before tags are combined. Perhaps there should be separations proposed!

On more serious combinations, conjoined twins http://www.librarything.com/tag/conjoined+twins already contains siamese twins variants, so combining conjoined twins and siamese tweeling, siamese tweelingen, and siamese twin should be reasonable.

>162 lilithcat: While I agree on the usual separate title and title+series, in the case of the Cat Who... Series, I don't see it. What other meaning could the tag "Cat Who" have? The only reference I can think of is a book in the Cat Who...Series.

As for separating out the already-included series tags, there are 31 tags combined. 10 contain 'series'. 4 others contain 'mystery' or 'mysteries'. I'll gladly propose them once someone explains the difference in meaning in this particular case of "Cat who..." and "Cat who series", since the usage by LTers is the same.

> 164

The only reference I can think of is a book in the Cat Who...Series.

True, but not everyone wants a single book combined with a reference to the series of which it is a part.

I do not feel that the small semantic difference should be enough to separate "four color problem" and "four color problem". These are compound nouns, clearly refering to the same problem.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/four+color+problem

>116 geitebukkeskjegg:
Whoa, "'four color problem' and 'four color problem'"?

four colour theorem

How many different colours do you need to colour any possible map so that you can avoid any country bordering another being the same colour?

I guess that is the problem. The answer is (surprisingly) only four. The "theorem" may be the reason why.

But I think if you are looking for books using the tag "four colour problem" you will want to find anything tagged "four colour theorem" too and vice versa.

>168 marq:

As lilithcat pointed out to me, usage and meaning should be used to determine combinations. 'Problem' and 'theory' are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. In mathematics, the idea of using those terms interchangeably is unimaginable.

I would also hesitate to combine 'four color problem' with 'four color map problem'. Again, these are closely related, but to me, the map problem should be considered the origin of the general case of the 'four color problem', which would include other material.

And before someone points out that most of the people that own these books are not mathematicians and close is good enough, I know that. I'm only pointing out that the meanings are not the same.

Oh for Goodness sake. In the context of looking for books Four Color Problem and Four Color Theorem have the same meaning. I can't imagine a situation where a book about one would not also be a book about the other.

170>Yes. I agree. I tend to favour usage more in the sense of how people use the way books have been tagged (i.e. to find books with certain properties) over usage in the sense of how people tag their books, because the former is of most importance in the context of tag combinations. Individuals's use of tags is unaffected by combination.

As for meaning, isn't that defined by usage?

This is why we need to vote.

>167 AnnaClaire:
Yes, sorry. One of those should have been "four colour theorem".

And, as I said, the fact that there exists a proof to the problem is probably not going to influence anyone's tagging.

> 172: Of course. After all, why would anything as trivial as proof influence anybody ;-)

I was going to say that I thought that the four colour theorem had not actually been proven but I see from Wikipedia that The four color theorem was proven in 1976 by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer.

Wikipedia also says "In mathematics, the four colour theorem, or the four color map theorem states that....", so they at least would vote to combine:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Four+Colour+Map+Theorem
and
http://www.librarything.com/tag/four+color+theorem

As for problem vs. theorem, I agree that a problem, a theorem and indeed a proof of a theorem are different things and that "four colour problem" and "four colour theorem" are different in meaning. Strictly speaking, tags different in meaning should not be combined.

But the consequence of a strict application of the guidelines in this case is that a person searching for books about the "four colour problem" using the tag will fail to find books tagged "four colour theorem" and vice versa when actually in all cases, books tagged either will be about the same thing.

Not a huge issue in this (or most) cases. But generally, what else are tags used for other than to search for books with certain attributes? What is the value of keeping tags separate because of (subtle) differences in meaning when they indicate the same attribute of the book, for example in this case, what the book is about?

>170 jjwilson61:-175

Yes, I agree with what you are saying -- theorem and problem should be combined. I am only pointing out the absurdity of arguing to combine these two cases when the meaning IS different, while when I proposed combining "Cat Who..." and "Cat Who Series" which are used to mean the same thing but have VERY nuanced meanings, this was a no-no. (Last time I checked, it was barely in favor of combining my cat who proposals.)

The one thing that drives me nuts with all this is what is good in one situation (strictly adhering to meaning and usage) is ignored in other situations (favoring usage over meaning). My pathetically small brain likes consistency!

I find that I voted "yes" for your Cat Who (http://www.librarything.com/tag/%22The+Cat+Who%22+series) proposal. It is running Yes 9, No 5, Undecided 1. Four color problem vs. theorem is Yes 11, No 5, Undecided 3.

So it is a majority, but a majority is insufficient.

I see we have a number of Zen books in common. Could that hint at a reason for us favouring practicality and utility over "meaning" (whatever that is)? We should gang up on these Confucian fanatics and vote them down!

Almost no tag proposal which attains 4 no votes will get pushed through -- it means it must have 16 yes votes. I don't think we have 20 regular voters at this point.

> 177 -- The Zen books are hubby's. The math books are mine -- hence my desire for logic and reason and rationality. The cat books are mine too -- hence my recent obsession with The Cat Who... Series.

How about this idea? Since I own The Cat Who... Series (except 2 books), then my opinion should be THE opinion on their tags. Ditto with the four color problem tags. Why doesn't my vote get like 4 non-owner-of-books votes? I could get The Cat Who tags all cleaned up quickly. Works for me. ;-)

>178 vpfluke: Time to go bang my head on the wall....

Seriously, what happens to tag combinations that never reach the threshold? Do they eventually disappear so they can be resubmitted?

Seriously, what happens to tag combinations that never reach the threshold? Do they eventually disappear so they can be resubmitted?

Yes, after the next update.

> 179 I like the idea that owners of the books tagged get more say in the combination votes.

I think in the end what we are struggling with is that tag combination is "flat" where we need some kind of multi-way hierarchy of tags.

For example, there could be a "Vegetarian and/or Vegan" umbrella tag that somehow includes "Vegan", "Vegetarian", "Veg*an" etc. without those tags being combined. Of course individual tags would need to be under multiple umbrellas and then we would want umbrella tags to be under further umbrellas so it becomes impossibly complicated.

So I think we are stuck with some people favouring "meaning" and others favouring "usage" and depending on the circumstances being inconsistent about it.

What we really need is a meaning layer separate from the tag layer. That way I could mark my Shakespeare tag as meaning about:Shakespeare: the guy who wrote Romeo & Juliet and someone else could mark their Shakespeare tag as about:Shakespeare: the programming language. Or I could mark my Denver tag as about:Denver:the city in Colorado and someone else could mark it book location:Denver:the city in Colorado.

But I guess very few people would actually use it.

Yeah, something like that would be very useful. Tag splitting, much like author splitting I mean.

It would solve all kinds of things like:

Football (American usage) vs. Football (European usage aka "soccer")
Beer (beverage) vs. Beer (Dutch for bear)

Tag splitting might work, I have sometimes thought about a lsting of associated tags (beyond those related tags that automatically show up on the tag page). Vegan and vegetarian would be a good example of two similar tags that definitely are not the same, but have a great deal of correlation.

Maybe we should post this to Recommended Site Improvements.

The problem is that if you split an author you can find out definitively which work goes with each author. If you split a tag are you prepared to say what other people were thinking when they applied a tag to a work? The only other alternative is for each person to specify which split their tag represents and how many people are going to do that?

All instances refer to the same person, the French Enlightenment writer Émilie du Châtelet:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Emilie+Du+Ch%C3%A2telet
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Emilie+du+Chatelet

There is also this one:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/emily+du+chatelet

But even though the same person is obviously meant, I have trouble with it.

> 186: Yes, I fully admit it would be tricky. Doesn't mean it coldn't be done though. And the rest would end up in undetermined - just like author splitting.

I realise that some are sceptical about combinations like "Age of Enlightenment" and "Enlightenment". However, "Upplysningstiden" is really the same as "Age of Enlightenment". We just like to make really long words out of shorter ones:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/upplysningstiden

And since I'm here anyways, "Sveriges historia" and "historia - Sverige" are 'Sweden's history' and 'history - Sweden', so there should be no problem with those:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Sveriges+historia

> 190

With regard to "Age of Enlightenment" and "Enlightenment", those are two different things. The former refers to a particular period in European intellectual history. The latter may mean that, but it may also refer to religious or spiritual enlightenment.

Yep, but "Upplysningstiden" is an exact and non-ambiguous translation of "Age of Enlightenment".

I have proposed:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Society+for+Cutting+Up+Men
http://www.librarything.com/tag/society+for+cutting+up+of+men

though I don't want to be seen as condoning the practice.

I know that there is a general rule against combining singular and plural, however there are many cases where the singular form of a word is also plural, particularly in context.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Society+of+Friends+Doctrine
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Society+of+Friends--Doctrines

Is there a difference in usage or meaning?

Yeah, I agree in this case.

I proposed these combinations with "Quakers"

http://www.librarything.com/tag/%22Society+of+Friends%22
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Quaker+%28Society+of+Friends%29
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Society+of+Friends%3B+Quaker

noting that "Society of Friends" is already combined with "Quakers".

Also "Evolution of Society" is already combined with "social evolution" so I though there would be no problem with:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/society+evolution
http://www.librarything.com/tag/evolution+society

Also because the books tagged "society evolution" or "evolution society" are also tagged "social evolution".

Ah, I hadn't noticed that. I voted undecided earlier. Not totally happy about this one - because I think there might be some shade of difference -, but still changed my vote to "yes".

There is that shade of ambiguity where "society" is used. For example "we live in an hierarchical society" versus "the annual meeting of the hierarchical society".

My bias is to vote based on how tags are actually used rather than how they could be used.

On a different point, there were a few votes against my proposal of "Virginia State Agricultural Society." + "virginia agricultural society". Could it be that the word "State" suggests that the society is associated with a school, college or university? My view was that as Virginia is a US state, the word "State" adds no meaning in the phrase.

There were a few other tags like this that I noticed while looking at "society" tags which I have not proposed because of this possibility:

"Colorado Historical Society" and "state historical society of colorado"
"Missouri Historical Society" and "State Historical Society of Missouri"

I did propose "Wisconsin Historical Society" and "Wisconsin State Historical Society" based on usage but there are also "No" votes.

The Society of Jesus and the Jesuits are the same thing. If you search for Jesuits on Wikipedia it redirects to Society of Jesus.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/Society+of+Jesus
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Jesuits

199> A quick google indicates that there is an organization called 'Virginia State Agricultural Society'.

There is also a 'State Historical Society of Wisconsin' (official name) which calls itself 'Wisconsin Historical Society'. Therefore those two tags would be equivalent.

In either case I don't see combining the name of a specific organization with similar tags that are not the name of that organization.

200> I think 'Jesuit' (the adjective) should be taken out of 'Jesuits' first.

201> OK, I didn't understand what the ambiguity was. So it is the same ambiguity as I mentioned in 199 above, just in reverse.

So "virginia agricultural society" could refer to a sociological cohort as in "he is a leading figure in Virginia agricultural society" rather than the name of a specific organisation. I would still vote based on how it is actually used rather than how it could be used in these cases. There is only one book so it is hard to tell (and doesn't matter much anyway), but it refers to a parade and exhibition in the other tags so I suspect it does refer to the organisation.

202> Yes, probably. I don't get adjectives alone as tags. What could the noun be other than "book"? If something is a Jesuit Book isn't that thing also a Society of Jesus Book? Same issue with a few Quaker proposals.

Re "Jesuit": Well, I suppose some people might tag a book so if it has a Jesuit as protagonist for example. Just guessing really. I wouldn't use it that way..

One member is using 'Jesuit' and 'Society of Jesus' as separate tags, sometimes just one, and sometimes both. If you search Jesuit as a tag you can see lots of different tags that include Jesuit used as an Adjective.

203> There is only one book so it is hard to tell (and doesn't matter much anyway), but it refers to a parade and exhibition in the other tags so I suspect it does refer to the organisation.

That's why as a rule of thumb, I'll vote "no" for combining a tag only used on one or two books unless the difference is clearly only typographical ("virgina agricultural society", for instance, or combining "agricultural societies - Virginia" with "agricultural societies: Virginia" when each only has one book). I figure, wait and see if it gets used more, and then make the decision based on better evidence.

Yes, for example "Jesuit Martyrs" but I don't think anyone is proposing that they be combined into "society of jesus". I might have not have a problem with "Jesuit Martyrs" being combined into "Society of Jesus Martyrs".

I thought you were only suggesting that "Jesuit" be separated from "Jesuits" and then I was trying to think of an example where the adjectival usage of "Jesuit" is distinct from adjectival "society of jesus".

BarkingMatt gave a possible example above. Another one could be a book about art tagged "Jesuit", meaning that the book is about Jesuit Art. I suspect that Jesuit Art might still be Society of Jesus Art but there might be other examples along those lines where there is a difference.

One real example I know relates to "Quaker" and "Society of Friends". There is such thing as Quaker furniture so someone might tag a furniture book "Quaker" meaning Quaker style furniture where it may not be appropriate to call it Society of Friends furniture. I see Quaker and Quakers are not combined (although there are some atypical forms of Quakers combined into Quaker.

So there is a precedent, and I agree, there may be good reason to separate Jesuit from Jesuits.

Oh, I see you have put it to the vote already.

I've put in two acronym proposals that I hope won't get the usual treatment:

"SSPX" with "Society of St. Pius X".

One may like to try to think of a plausible alternative meaning for SSPX. The tag is used 53 times by 14 LT members. It seems a shame not to explain what it stands for. "Society for the suppression of polyphonic xylophones"?

Oh, also:

"ISKCON" with "International Society for Krishna Consciousness".

Not technically an acronym (the O and N don't stand for anything), and I know it is pronounced as a word. I saw the tag also misspelt as "ISKON", so further showing that its origins as a partial acronym are somewhat forgotten.

> 209: Frankly, to me it sounds more like one of those terrible computer language thingies ;-)

> True. "Sandpit Server for Python X". Who knows, it might actually mean something.

209> Actually, Wikipedia does have another meaning for it, Sustained Spheromak Physics Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSPX_%28disambiguation%29). Although my personal rule is that when one meaning has an overwhelming majority in actual usage that combining them is fine.

Ouch! Couldn't they think of something else to call their experiment? Now we won't know whether a discussion is about schism in the Catholic Church or high energy plasma physics.

As far as I'm aware, there's no difference between "fluid physics" and "fluid mechanics". The former term is kind of unusual, but it does redirect to the latter on Wikipedia, and all books tagged by it is about fluid mechanics, as far as I can tell.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/fluid+physics

Why so many votes against combining Olympic Mountains with Olympic Mountains (USA)? Both tags seem to refer exclusively to the mountain range in Washington state, and there doesn't seem to be another place with the same name.

>216 Edward:
Some confusion with Mount Olympus, perhaps?

And I'm having a hard time seeing why the two possessive constructions "women's roles in society" and "role of women in society" are considered to be different enough to keep separate?
http://www.librarything.com/tag/women%27s+roles+in+society

217 - It might be the singular-plural problem. However, one would probably not say 'women's role', but 'woman's role', which has the real singular cast to it. I would vote for the combination. I do frequently see singular - plural as more of a continuum, particularly when you add in the sense of collectivity.

216

¿Maybe people think that Greece has Olympic Mountains, beyond just Mount Olympus?

I'm looking at sjudd's proposal to combine "sf" with "science fiction" and checking the tag mash:

http://www.librarything.com/tag/sf,+--science+fiction

This should be books tagged "sf" but not tagged "science fiction" but does anyone know why the first book that comes up (The Game Of Rat And Dragon by Cordwainer Smith) is actually tagged both "sf" and "science fiction"?

That isn't so much the point - of course sf, science fiction, scifi, etc. all sort of mean the same. Personally I would be fine with lumping them all. But there have been heated debates between the fans of the genre about the differences in connotation.

> 220

does anyone know why the first book that comes up . . . is actually tagged both "sf" and "science fiction"?

Because different owners use different tags? It's also tagged "sff".

One reason people vote against combining "sf" and its variants with "science fiction" is that "sf" can also mean "San Francisco" (among other things).

But the tag mash (http://www.librarything.com/tag/sf,+--science+fiction) should only include books NOT tagged "science fiction". "--science fiction" means excluding.

220> That's practically the canonical example of an acronym that shouldn't be combined. I can't believe someone actually proposed it.

sf = science fiction

no, no, no.

sf = san francisco (the first ten or so things in google when you google "sf"!)
sf = speculative fiction (distinct from "science fiction", as I and many others use it)
sf = science fiction (distinct from, say, fantasy or horror)
sf = semi-finals
etc.

The reason people (like me) use "sf" and "science fiction" is because some of us use "sf" to represent an umbrella category, and specify whether we also mean horror, fantasy, science fiction, etc.

I fully agree. But, for example, sf = San Francisco is absolutely not obvious to non-American users. I guess it's a cultural thing. ;-)

Anyhow, I can imagine somebody proposing this, but will always vote against it.

SF = San Francisco has been obvious to me since the 80s and I'm not very American.

223 - Responding to your actual qquestion as to why Cordwainer Smith's book comes up with both tags (14 times for SF, once for science fiction), despite the tagmash request; there might be something wrong with the algorithm. And then that would be a bug.

> 227: Okay, sorry. Maybe that's just me then. ;-)

That particular possibility of meaning had totally slipped my mind. But even then, scifi apparently doesn't equate to science fiction, etc. Well, for me they do, but the fans seem to think differently.

Sci-fi is entertainment stuff. Science fiction or SF is the stuff that sets you thinking. But yeah, that's only to us fans. (Forry Ackerman, we have not forgotten!)

#225: I discovered that I used sf once, and went to check on how. Being a born smartass, it was on a book that was both science fiction and set in San Francisco.

228 > Yes, despite the bug, if the related tags in the tag mash can be relied upon, it suggests that "short fiction" is the secondary use of "sf".

The tag "American Presidents" has a few versions of (singular and plural) U.S. President combined into it.

Inconsistently, it doesn't have "American President".

How do we think this should be fixed? Personally, I don't like American and U.S. combined and not happy about plural and singular in this case.

There are a lot of votes against a proposal combining "Thee" and "Tea"

All books tagged "Thee" and not tagged "Tea" (http://www.librarything.com/tag/Thee,+--tea) seem to be about Tea.

Are the "no" votes because of "Thee" as the archaic singular "You"? Doesn't seem to be used in that way at all and it seems to be unlikely.

>234 marq:
But it was used that way for a good long time. Some groups, most famously Quakers, continued using it long after everyone else gave it up. Tags are supposed to be combined if the usages and the meanings fit, so for something which has a fairly well-known other meaning probably isn't get combined except by mass stupidity.

But it's a pronoun. Who would tag a book with a pronoun?

"Oh, all these books are about Napoleon, I'll go off and tag them 'Him'."

Who would tag a book with a pronoun?

Fans of H. Rider Haggard?

;) And there is Them and We and... but you know what I mean.

> 238

I do know what you mean. I am still, however, trying to understand the usage of the tag HiM, which seems to be applied mainly to books by or about women.

> 239 Most (185/243) belong to The University of Montana's Women's Resource Center and are tagged HiM, History, Memoir, as opposed to those tagged HiG, History, General. Probably a location tag.

Second most common use is probably Health Information Management. There are also two bands using that name, at least one of which is represented.

For the book Hank and Lin I would guess that the pronoun is meant. For Himnario de las iglesias evangelicas de espana the first three letters of the author name - or in this case the title as there is no author - is the shelf location.

#233 - Personally, I'd remove all the singular, then see what remains.

With "NF Queens -- Great Britain -- Biography." I'm assuming that "NF" is "Non-fiction".

Yes, probably. Reason why I'm not overenthusiastic (and voted undecided) is that there are many popular biographies which are mostly fiction. The Weir books are a prime example - I would call them novels based on the lives of certain people.

OK

I see "1800's" is already combined into 19th century so I will vote yes (on 1800-luku).

Although I believe technically the 1800's is the period 1800 - 1899 but the 19th century is the period 1801 - 1900.

I think we celebrated the "new millennium" and the start of the 21st century at the end of the 31st December 1999. I can imagine the extreme pedants sulking in a dark room ignoring the fireworks protesting (correctly) that there was still another year to go.

> 245

I can imagine the extreme pedants sulking in a dark room ignoring the fireworks protesting (correctly) that there was still another year to go.

No, we just celebrated twice.

stortemelk has proposed separating "cycling" and "wielrennen". While wielrennen certainly is a form of cycling, it refers to cycling as a sport only and doesn't cover cycling as recreation, transportation, etc.

http://www.librarything.com/tag/cycling

247>Found a use for the bug that duplicates separation suggestions. I had managed not to notice that this is the 'yes' thread, and also not read separate here or there, until I noticed the second 'suggestion'. ...But isn't that bug only on separations? ... Whoops. My vote is right now.

246> any excuse for a party.

I proposed combining sikarit and cigars because they both mean the same thing. Both words are in plural.

Ditto for puut and trees.

If you agree that that is OK to combine words meaning a novel in different languages with tag novel, then you should vote for combining romaani and novel.

Words sikarit, puut, and romaani are Finnish. I am a native speaker of that language.

romaani means Romance in Estonian. Which is why I voted no.

At least 95 of them are romance books judging by tagmash.
contemporary, fiction, romance (95)

Shall we combine it with Romance also?

I've continued this topic here.