What dates do you want to see at the top of the work page?

Just curious. This would be shown beside the title, like "Animal Farm (1945)".

I guess I would like to see the OPD below the title/author -- where the series and other authors information is located. To me that would be more esthetically pleasing.

k4k

Personally I would go for "Animal Farm" (1945). But never mind, I don't care that much about the exact way it shows - I liked the fact it showed.

>7 Nicole_VanK: Sorry, I didn't actually mean to say that there would be any quotes on the work page. Just: Animal Farm (1945)

Ah, okay. I thought you wanted to incorporate that date into the default work title itself somehow. Anyway, no worries.

>9 Nicole_VanK: Well, it would be on the same line, but in a slightly smaller font, I think. And set off by the parentheses.

Yeah, something like that would be fine. Anyway, either way, I mean I loved the fact that original publication date showed somehow.

It seems like we've been over and over this, and no consensus was ever reached. There are some people who feel strongly about no dates at all, and some who feel strongly about particular dates.

This is actually more complicated than even dates vs. no dates or OPD vs. your edition's date. I don't think the dates question can be answered on its own, without reference to what else is showing up at the top (work or book info).

If you have the book, which of these do you want to see at the top?
1) Your copy's title & authors at the top - with no date.
2) Your copy's title & authors at the top - with original publication date of the *work*.
3) Your copy's title & author at the top - with the date of *your copy*
4) Your copy's title & authors at the top - with both the original publication date and the date of your copy.
5) The *work-level* title & authors at the top - with no date.
6) The *work-level* title & authors at the top - with original publication date of the *work*
7) The *work-level* title & authors at the top - with the date of your copy
8) The *work-level* title & authors at the top - with both the original publication date and the date your copy.

Right now, we currently we have #1. We previously had #4 until Tim removed dates a day or so ago. Maybe we can rule out anyone wanting 7 or 8.

It seems like #1, #2, #3, #5, and #6, however, are all suggestions actively being discussed but not always distinguished clearly. I suspect some people would not like to have work-level and book-level info being mixed up at the top of the page (so both 2 and 7 would seem inconsistent).

I favor 5, 1, 6, and 2 in descending order. However, it seems unlikely that Tim will change his mind and put work-level titles & authors at the top of the page when you have a copy: so in practice 5-8 are out for books you have.

But do people really want copy-specific info (titles & author) mixed up with work-level OPD? Are some people really going to hate that? My guess is that both answers are yes, which is why no dates at all at the top seems the better solution.

I do like seeing OPD somewhere, and if we're not going to get work-level info at the top, I'd like OPD displayed prominently in the "work details" section of the pink box.

Incidentally, for work-level pages where you don't have a book, or aren't looking at someone else's copy of the book, then 5 or 6 are probably the only viable options.

It's also possible that the advanced-feature work-only work page could show something different from the page you see if you have the book. So you could have OPD on the work-level page but no date on the page for your copy, etc. So that gives us even more options to consider:
- #1 for your copy's page + #5 for the work-level only page (no dates anywhere)
- #1 for your copy's page + #6 for the work-level page (no date at top of your copy but OPD at top of work page if you don't have a copy)
- #2 on your copy +#5 on work-level page
- #2 on your copy + #6 on work-level page
etc etc

There will never be a consensus, but the goal should still be to make the most people happy and the least people unhappy. The results of the polls are actually clearer than I'd expected.

I don't think the work data vs. book data issue is as big a problem as people have made it out to be in this case.

Showing book data for a work can be problematic because it doesn't actually apply to every instance of the work. But work data does apply to every individual book, so putting them together isn't inherently nonsensical.

#2 would be my choice.

2, 1, 6, 5; or the OPD attached to the work details in the pink box (which it is! Was that there before?).

I have a few books where my title/author(s) differs from the work-level title/author(s), but only a few. For most of my books, 2 and 6 and 1 and 5 are indistinguishable. So that particular argument is something of a strawman for me. For those who have a lot of translated books, it might be more important (particularly as long as the bug about last-entered-canonical-title ruling sticks around).

Having the OPD in the box doesn't really help for cases where we don't have the book, though.

No dates whatsoever by the title. I find them very intrusive.

Really? Don't get me wrong, sure you're entitled to that opinion. Okay, maybe it shouldn't be on the same line - though I don't get the problem with that.

But what would be so awful about telling you what the real original publication date of any work work would be. I simply don't get it.

I don't object to the original publication date being somewhere on the page. I object to having it right next to the title. It's not information that I use, so I don't need it front and center. And, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I don't like the way it looks.

Long ago, Tim suggested it be in a little box to the right below quick links (along with cover and work title). I don't know if he ever really abandoned that or just shelved it for a while.

>20 brightcopy: I think that would be fine in theory, except I'm worried that the "little box" will end up getting too big (with original title and who knows what else), and will end up pushing down other information that I care about. Putting the date next to the title doesn't push anything else out of the way.

I was quite happy with #4, and am disappointed that they have been removed. Being smaller and lighter color text than the title made them unobtrusive, but readily available if one wants a quick idea of the age of the book. This can be quite important, for example, for non-fiction (how long ago was it written? might it be outdated by now?) and when more than one author has used a title (If I'm looking for book title from 50 years ago, and don't know the author's name, I may be misled by a more recent book of the same title by another author).

I know these are not essential, since the original publication year can be found on the main page towards the bottom (sometimes several screens down), but given that they are only minimaly intrusive, why not?

Os.

I liked it the way it was, with both dates specified.

For those who don't, is it possilbe that seeing the Edition date could be turned off/on as a Your Books setting?

Have we always had OPD years on the "Work details" section of an individual book information box? Well, I mean as long as that line has existed. Example:

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/58441621

At the bottom of the book information box, it shows:

Work details
Soldier, Ask Not by Gordon R. Dickson (1967)

I don't remember noticing the year in that section. But maybe it's just because it suffers the problem that the OPD-at-top did with ignoring anything other than yyyy.

>24 brightcopy:
Took me a bit. You mean the 'Work details' section on the 'Main page', not on the 'Work details' page.

I hadn't noticed this before, but usually go straight to the 'Work details' page for more complete info, so I may have just missed it. I'd be happy for it to remain here if we can't have it after the title. Even better if it also shows up on the 'Book details' page along with the book publish year.

Os.

#25 by @Osbaldistone> Good point. Updated the post to make it clearer.

I hadn't noticed this before, but usually go straight to the 'Work details' page for more complete info, so I may have just missed it.

Which is funny in this case because the Work details PAGE does not contain OPD. :D

15> I have dozens of translated books, often with titles quite different from the original-language ones.

I also have, more confusingly, a bunch of books where my copy has the original title but the LT work title is that of a translation.

The LT work title should vary with the language of the site you're on. E.g. if the original title is German, but you're using librarything.com instead of librarything.de, the work title should be in English. If you're on librarything.de the work title should be the German title.

(This depends on the correct language being set on the books when they're entered, the correct canonical title being set on the various language sites, and also on the bug mentioned in #15. But it's how it should work.)

>26 brightcopy:
Sorry - I meant I usually go straight there, but not because I'm looking for OPD but because that's where I typically find more info that I use. Yes, it's frustrating to then have to go elsewhere to find the OPD. As I said before, I liked it fine when it was fairly innocuous at the top of the main page.

Os.

I find the OPD very useful for nonfiction; if something's twenty years old I'm likely to look for a more recent treatment of the subject, and I find having the information available at a glance rather than buried deep in the CK to be quite useful.

>30 lorax:
I second the motion.

Os.

My feelings too.

And mine . . .

The only thing I disliked about dates at the top of the page was how over-explained they were. What I would prefer would be simply something like this:

Natural Magick 1958 (1658)
by John Baptista Porta

But with dates in a smaller font than the title. So that the first year given is that of the actual publication cataloged, and the year in the parens is the first publication of the original edition. That seems perfectly intelligible to me, and doesn't load up the visual space with redundant explanations.

In those special cases where the dates in and out of the parens match, it could actually say "1658 (first)."

Actually that would be Natural Magick 1958 (1558) - but never mind ;-)

Yes, there was a bit of an explanation overkill, but I liked the feature in essence.

I still prefer not having it on the first line although I wouldn't complain if everyone decided that was the way to do it.

I would prefer:
Natural Magick
by author

OPD: 1558

The edition date could be there too, I guess. I am not sure what purpose that serves since if you are looking at a member's page, or your page with your specific edition, it shows up in the light box.

Sure, a line further down would be fine too.

Bumping this. The results are far clearer than I'd expected.

>30 lorax:
Agree as well.

>30 lorax:
Agreed.

@30 Yes, yes, yes. OPD at the top of the page is very useful when browsing through my nonfiction recommendations (or finding nonfiction through tags or in any other way). I find it more useful for books I haven't read than those I already have.

I would find the OPD very useful to have somewhere near the title on the work page. Like >36 krazy4katz: I think having it on a separate line would be fine, but same line in a lighter font would be great too. Personally, I don't mind going into the work details (or is it book details?) to see the publication date of a particular edition.

Bump.

12 > Does any one has any idea _why_ Tim remove the dates from work page?

Because some people were really angry about having the date (some threatened to leave the site) and some people were really angry that other people couldn't see the value of the date and there were such a huge number of proposals about which dates should show on what pages and when that it was impossible to sort through them to even come up with a reasonable compromise, so he just restored things to what they were before people started complaining.

Yup. I keep bumping this thread because I'd like to see him discuss his decision in light of the numbers showing what people actually want. It's always "easiest" to revert to nothing, but I don't think it's always best--in this case, it seems that satisfaction would have doubled by removing the edition dates, while removing everything actually made things worse. It doesn't come as a surprise to me that the in-between solution (showing one date rather than two or zero) is the one that would make the most people happy, either.

It didn't help that what most people wanted (just the original publication date I believe) didn't jibe with what Tim thought, which is that everything about a persons actual edition are the most important things on the work page. I guess he was unable to cope with the cognitive dissonance.

I can't stand it when people threaten to leave because the site adds something they don't like. I'm sorry but I don't think there's a single thing that could change that would ever get me to leave this site.

Naked photos of Tim on the work page?

One thing we have to remember is that, by and large, we aren't customers any more. We bought our lifetime memberships, so we do not represent a revenue stream for LT. To the extent that we can help generate revenue (by adding content, promoting the site, and suggesting improvements), Tim and Co. are going to keep us happy. But if we violently disagree about a feature, there's no percentage in pursuing that feature. Why should he have to deal with the cognitive dissonance? He's got actual paying customers on LibraryThing for Libraries who want stuff too.

What if Tim removes book cataloging?

Just couldn't resist the challenge :P

I'm sorry but I don't think there's a single thing that could change that would ever get me to leave this site.

Nothing?

Mandatory Facebook login verification would do it for me. Eliminating data richness in favor of a title/author only model would, too, as would going to an Amazon-only data source. That's just off the top of my head. Now, I don't think any of these are remotely likely, but that's a far cry from saying "nothing would ever make me leave".

50 > Maybe we should set up a system for pledging money for desired features. Frex, you'd be able to pledge money for having naked photos of Tim on work pages, and the money is paid to Tim when and if he implements the feature in question.

(The catch, I guess, is that once he's pocketed the money for putting OPD back at the top of work pages, nothing stops him from then taking pledges from other users to have them removed again.)

53: They could auction the feature and the highest bidder gets it the way they want it. (Of course, if the bidder was a consortium of users they'd have to agree on what they meant by the feature. That could prove challenging. See post 12 above)

Edited to change example of why it would be challenging.

>49 brightcopy: That one would come closest to keeping me off of the site, I think, but I could just stop the page from loading any images.

>51 aqeeliz:, 52 I would be disappointed, but I would still use LT for Talk and book information and recommendations, etc.

>53 AndreasJ: I think the real catch would be that the site would then essentially be owned by the users with the most disposable income.

#56 by @brightcopy> #55 by @norabelle414> You can't hide from the Tim ASCII porn!

I'm NOT clicking that.

I did. *evil smile*

Oh yeah? Well I edited the link to something other than just their front page. I double dare you to click it now!

> 52

Oh, yeah. Anything that insists on my having a Facebook account is an automatic "no" for me. The other two issues would make my catalogue pretty useless, so there wouldn't be a whole lot of reason for me to stay.

Even better, @brightcopy!

I was reminded of this by another change to the work page.

The poll results are still very clear.

Bump for @kristilabrie 's benefit.

Supporting the bump for kristilabrie's benefit :)

noted! Thanks.

my UPDATE for this RSI: this one would likely end up having just as many members hate it as love it, so this one's leaning towards being deferred or a "no go". Going to get Tim's thoughts on it and report back.

>66 kristilabrie:

I don't think a 71 to 14 vote is "as many hate it as love it" (see the poll in 3), but you're right that frequently a vocal minority is enough to get a feature scuttled, I suspect.

Yeah, this is just a blatant disregard for the data. But as lorax said, we know that Tim doesn't really care about majority preferences as long as a small number of people shout loudly in opposition. And this is why we can't have nice things.

From the "Proposal: movies and music in Librarything" thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/191713#5175808 (posts 8, 16) it sounded as though it might be necessary to decide on a definitive date to display for movies, music, etc. (which would then make a better case for displaying the date for books as well)

However by post #34 it seemed Tim had changed his mind and decided to go with a record ID instead. *sigh*

>69 norabelle414: Blah. I feel like Tim has just arbitrarily decided that dates are complicated, because he tried to make them way more complicated than necessary, so now we can't have them at all.

iMDB seems to have no trouble associating one year with one movie.

And this is why I try to avoid wasting time on feature discussions.

>68 _Zoe_:, >69 norabelle414:

It's not 71 (actually 72 in >3 _Zoe_:) to 14.

It's 72 who want the original publication date to 52 who want no date there. (See >2 _Zoe_:)

And that's out of more than 2,000,000 members. To suggest that this poll in any way reflects the wishes of the majority of users is just absurd.

>71 lilithcat:
Er... I really think you are reading that wrong.

52 people voted NO to "none".

Voting NO to none doesn't mean you are voting for having no date.
To vote for no date, you would need to vote YES.

Only 16 people voted YES to no date.

>72 LShelby: Just to poke my head in, for a brief moment. I stared at that same line for five minutes before I realized that I had the meaning of it backwards, and it's entirely possible that others did too. On the other, other hand, it's an awfully small sample set. I'm not too much a fan of polls, especially those that will only draw a tiny subset of people who might actually have an interest.

Okay, I'll go back to just reading...