Made Error Combining Author Pages but Can't Correct it

Librarything had three authors as Mae West, one a British author and two that were the same person, the famous film actress. In trying to combine the two pages of the film star into one it appears a whole bunch of stuff has run together as one item: a Penguin book on women's humor edited by Regina Barreca (the bulk of this page belongs to that book such as the contributors), two novels by Mae West THE CONSTANT SINNER and SHE DONE HIM WRONG on this page http://www.librarything.com/work/1051000/summary which now also shows photos for every Mae West-penned book on it Also several previously listed things like the book THREE PLAYS BY MAE WEST, the novel BABE GORDON, the dvd set THE MAE WEST GLAMOUR COLLECTION and others seems to have disappeared into this listing. Also the photos that were on the author page for the second page for actress Mae West have disappeared as well. I can't find any way to separate this or fix it, help!

This didn't just accidentally happen. The helpers log indicates that you combined a bunch of different books together:

mrsfiskeandco combined On Sex, Health and E.S.P. by Mae West, Three plays by Mae West, Mae West Glamour Collection: Night After Night. I'm No Angel. Goin' to Town. Go West Young Man. My Little Chickadee. 2 DVD by Mae West, Mae West: the glamour collection {videorecording} by Mae West, The Pleasure Principle by Mae West, The Drag by Mae West, Sex by Mae West, Peel Me a Grape by Mae West, Jeg er ikke nogen engel : Mae Wests fyndord by Mae West, The wit and wisdom of Mae West by Mae West, Diamond Lil by Mae West, Pleasure Man by Mae West, The Constant Sinner by Mae West, Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, The Drag and Pleasure Man by Mae West, She Done Him Wrong by Mae West, Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It by Mae West, The Penguin Book of Women's Humor by Regina Barreca (see work)

Combining is tricky business, and things can get really messed up if works are incorrectly combined (and, to a lesser extent, if authors are). I'd recommend going to the Combiners group to ask for help if you need to combine things in the future.

The work you link to appears to have no editions any more (and what a mess with contributors). I think what should have happened is that only the works not originally on that work number should have been separated out, and the Penguin Book of Women's Humor editions should have been left there, not separated out. I suspect that a title or editions calculation might get rid of some of the junk cover images on this no-edition work.

Also the photos that were on the author page for the second page for actress Mae West have disappeared as well.
I don't know what images these are or where they were. If you have some links that would help. Combining authors moves images around, so that's probably the source of the problem. The Helpers Log for "nevering" suggests that several author pages were combined together that shouldn't have been. So probably the images ended up on one of those pages. Unfortunately the logs aren't complete there.

As an aside: This isn't a bug (except perhaps for the ability to have no-edition works); for future reference, combining issues and problems should be posted in the combiners group.

Also, all those editions that were separated out of the mistakenly combined work now need to be regrouped together. Lots of work to do here.

And, in combining those works, the Common Knowledge for all of them ended up combined into that one work. So that's something else that needs some fixing (for anyone who's able to help).

So I'm trying to piece together what works the CK needs to go back on.

CK history for "She Done Him Wrong"
http://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/changelog.php?item=751252&type=1

So here's the CK currently on the miscombined work that needs to go back on _She Done Him Wrong_ when all the editions of She Done Him Wrong are together:

Canonical title
She Done Him Wrong

First words
'Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?' (Introduction)
'So she went and done me dirt!'

Related movies
She Done Him Wrong (1933 ∙ IMDb)

Last Words:
In a man's world, she had what it took to take what they had. (Introduction)
'I always knew you could be had!'

Book description - copied and pasted from back cover, so I'm not putting this back
from back cover: "To put it frankly, Diamond Lil was a beautiful short course to Hell." Star of the Bowery saloon owned by powerful Gus Jordan, her latest lover, she like nothing bett that than "the white flame of her diamonds or the varied red flames of men's passions.' And seething downtown New York in the Naughty Nineties gives her plenty of both. It's all sport to her -- jailed lovers, liquor, gambling -- until handsome, mysterious Captain Cummings of the Salvation Army walks into her life. Preacher or no preacher, she wants that man more than any other.

Publisher series:
Virago Modern Classics (401)

And here's the CK that needs to go back onto _The Constant Sinner_ when that work is reconstituted.
(History: http://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/changelog.php?item=5512464&type=... )

Canonical Title
The Constant Sinner

Original publication date:
1937

Characters:
Babe Gordon
(and possibly others - I can only see the first line in the history)

First words:
Babe Gordon leaned against the crumbling red brick wall of the Marathon Athletic Club in Harlem, at 135th Street off Fifth Avenue, and pulled at a cigarette.

Last words:
He will never forget . . .

Publisher Series:
Virago Modern Classics (400)

Description:
Babes Gordon, a broad who 'would not have known what a moral was if it could be made to dance naked in front of her', is the audacious heroine of this spirited lowlife novel set in Thirties Harlem. Seducing and discarding lovers according to whim (or her eye for the main chance) Babes esnares first an innocent young boxer, then a handsome chainstore heir, blithely ignoring mobster Money Johnson, due to leave jail soon. Surrounded by characters like Cokey Jenny, Liverlips Sam, Pinhead Pete and the Black Tulips, Babes shamelessly schemes her way through outrageous shenanigans

This CK needs to go on _Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, the Drag, the Pleasure Man_:

Awards and honors:

Lambda Literary Award Nominee (Drama, 1997)

And then there's a bunch of info in the original publication dates and characters, and I'm not sure what works they go to. It could probably be pieced together by looking at the list of titles mistakenly combined above.

Original publication date
1959
1932
1928
1933
1996
1935
1937
1936
1940

People/Characters
Mae West
Babe Gordon
Cokey Jenny
Bearcat Delaney
Money Johnson

Ok, so first step here: I'm going to clean up http://www.librarything.com/work/1051000

This was the work number for the The Penguin Book of Women's Humor, so I'm going to delete all the CK that doesn't pertain to that, and then recombine the separated editions of The Penguin Book of Women's Humor back into that work number. I'll also recalculate editions and see if it gets rid of the junk covers etc.

This CK needs to go on _Goodness had nothing to do with it_:

Dedication:
In loving memory of my Mother/without whom I might have been somebody else

Penguin Book now fixed. There may be some strays out there that need recombining.

Anyone able to help clean up the other works (recombine what was separated into their proper works, and put CK where it belongs)? I can't do any more now.

It seems there were also some work-to-work relationships that got messed up and produced circular references. I can't reconstruct what they were, so I'll have to delete them.

By the way, the covers on the Penguin book are still there. I tried recalculating editions and covers, but that didn't work. Perhaps they'll go away eventually.

Also, I found the missing author pics:
http://www.librarything.com/gallery/author/westmae

They'll need to get moved to the proper author separation or re-uploaded, by someone who is familiar with author pictures.

The characters are all from the novel THE CONSTANT SINNER (also published as BABE GORDON). I believe all the publication dates are for this book as well under one or the other title.

I'd like to help, but don't know how. I had two entries under Mae West, The constant sinner (touchstone wrong, no correct option), and a DVD set labelled as such. My copy of The constant sinner is currently combined with only three other--there were definitely more, but a search on title and/or author doesn't find the rest.

My two Mae West entries are now assigned to "Mae West unknown", which ought to be combined into Mae West (1). Do that now or wait for other copies to show up or what?

That touchstone is bizarrely wrong. Normally, the first entry in the list when you click "(others)" is the original touchstone it thought was the right one. But on this one, it first shows The constant sinner

The Constant Sinner by Mae West (others)

Then you click "(others)" and it shows:

Alternate touchstones: "The constant sinner"

The Penguin Book of Women's Humor by Regina Barreca (work)

Both go to the same work, and the latter is the actual title of the work. I have no idea why it wouldn't show the same title on both parts of the touchstone interface.

15-16: The touchstone problems are likely a result of the mistaken combination. At some point, the Penguin Book of Women's Humor and the Constant Sinner were combined; because of that, the Penguin Book of Women's Humor page also had the Constant Sinner as its canonical title for a while. I'm guessing the database needs to play catch-up, but I don't know the ins and outs of touchstones.

Since touchstones are wonky and things are moving around b/c of combining and separating, pasting URLs is probably better for the moment if we need to refer to specific examples.

15 - What needs to be done is for all the stray copies to be tracked down, using the Helpers Log for separations from yesterday. I'd tread carefully with combining authors until that's done.

To do/fix/check:
For each of these, stray copies need to be tracked down and combined; then, CK needs to be readded to a few.

Progress:
On Sex, Health and E.S.P. by Mae West - ok (only 1 copy?)

Three plays by Mae West - DONE (and this needed to be combined into another work anyway)

Mae West Glamour Collection: Night After Night. I'm No Angel. Goin' to Town. Go West Young Man. My Little Chickadee. 2 DVD by Mae West, - DONE (also needed to be combined into one below)

Mae West: the glamour collection {videorecording} by Mae West, - DONE

The Pleasure Principle by Mae West, - ok (only one edition? Not sure if this is the same as The Pleasure Man, or if this is another book partly *about* Mae West but not by her.)

The Drag by Mae West, - ok (only one edition?)

Sex by Mae West, - ok (only one edition found)

Peel Me a Grape by Mae West, - ok (only one edition found)

Jeg er ikke nogen engel : Mae Wests fyndord by Mae West, - ok (only one edition found)

The wit and wisdom of Mae West by Mae West, - ok (only one edition found)

Diamond Lil by Mae West, - DONE (but is this another name for She Done Him Wrong?)

Pleasure Man by Mae West, - DONE

The Constant Sinner by Mae West - DONE I think: strays combined and CK restored.
http://www.librarything.com/work/12639240

Three Plays by Mae West: Sex, The Drag and Pleasure Man by Mae West, - DONE: strays combined and CK restored.

She Done Him Wrong by Mae West - DONE: strays combined and CK restored.

Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It by Mae West - DONE: strays combined and CK restored

The Penguin Book of Women's Humor by Regina Barreca - DONE I think; strays combined and CK corrected. Still some incorrect covers attached from the incorrect combination.
http://www.librarything.com/work/12639227

#17 by @rsterling> Still, I'd expect the same title, no matter how wrong, to both be the one shown on the in-post-box touchstone screen and the first one shown on the alternates popup. This seems to indicate the code pulls from two different data sources. Probably not a bug, but possibly an undesirable feature.

18 - Last time I tried, I couldn't pull up any result for The constant sinner in either touchstones or work search. I think the DB is out of whack. Might be worth trying again later.

Ok, I *think* all the works are now cleaned up. I tracked down all the strays I could find and combined them as needed, and I replaced CK where needed. I also assigned works to the correct split.

It's possible there are still some strays out there somewhere, and I don't know if the author image issue ever got fixed.

ETA: Marking as closed.

Oh, also, I didn't bother trying to figure out where all those original publication dates go.

And now The Constant Sinner touchstone brings up... nothing.

Touchstones

"the constant sinner" — no results

Same result if you do a work search for it. I find that kind of odd, too. I would have thought it was have just shown the old results, rather than a claim that there are NO results.

22 - yep, that's what I was seeing earlier too (post 20).

ETA - although actually, now the touchstone does seem to work, as does search. I suspect it's a caching thing or delay with indexing, which got briefly messed up with all the combinations and changes.