Nationalities graph, part 2

And I think of PG Wodehouse as British. Yes, it's complex and sometimes there is no good answer.

And this thread became very cumbersome to load.

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Yes, Auden and Wodehouse are excellent examples of why it's important that both "nationality" and "country for the map" can have multiple values.

Country for the map can't reasonably be multivalued, and it absolutely has to correspond to a modern nation. Nationality, though, sure, as many values as you like, representing either the situation at the time the author was active or that they identify with a state that is not internationally recognized.

(Thanks for the reboot, anglemark, the old one was really crawling.)

I beg to differ. Some people have lived significant parts of their lives in various countries.

But yes, it does have to use currently existing countries.

It's good that we're creating a new thread since everyone was ignoring that all of these issues had been discussed ad nauseum in the old one. ;)

5>

Are you responding to me? Of course people have lived various parts of their lives in various countries; that has nothing to do with a technical limitation of the API.

Ah, okay, I get it. But "country for the map" can have more than one value as is. So it's not a problem (API-wise).

Well, "country for the map" isn't actually used for anything now. But when the graph was based on nationality, Tim said that only the last one was used; presumably that would be the same.

(I've used this API, FWIW. You could do an ugly hack to have two entries for the same author, but that's the only way to handle one-to-many mappings.)

Right, okay. I sort of remember Tim saying - back when - that he would let "country for map" show all entered values. But I could be wrong.

Anyway: it's all moot as long as "country for map" doesn't actually function. It's been 2 years now hasn't it?

10>

You remember correctly, and I was mistaken. They're going for the hack, it appears. (Or rather, they were intending to do so, when this was actually a going concern.)

http://www.librarything.com/topic/104238#2356282

It's depressing to see that what Tim acknowledged as edge cases in the first thread appear to have carried the day - because not all authors can be unambiguously mapped to modern nation-states, we're not getting any map at all. And we're only getting a crippled version of the original pie, for that matter.

6> Since the thread continuation feature was used, everyone that was ignoring the old thread will still be ignoring the new thread.

#12 by @jjwilson61> That's not what I was talking about at all.

13> Well then maybe you should explain since that run-on sentence in 6 is pretty opaque.

1> Thank you.

#14 by @jjwilson61> It was pretty clear. All the new posting in the old thread was simply rehashing the arguments that had been made over and over YEARS before as if it were completely novel. So it's good that we're ditching all those old messages since they weren't doing any good.

>16 brightcopy: It wash't all that clear. Because you used a winking smiley ;) I assumed that you meant it was not a good idea to have a new thread because people would just repeat all the same arguments as on the old thread.

#17 by @isabelx> It was clear that I wasn't talking about the LT Talk "ignore" feature and how it's related to the "continuation" feature. I can see your interpretation, though. Just not jjwilson's.

I couldn't, and still can't, make sense of that sentence, but since you mentioned people ignoring the issues, I thought you were talking about people ignoring the thread and that they would now see the issues and be able to talk about them ad nauseum again, and saying that was a good thing sarcastically. If that's not what you meant I'm sorry but I made the best out of what I got.

Well, I'm done with the grammar deconstruction. Time to get back to the pressing matters of the thread.

The difference between LT and librarians is that on LT there seem to be no standards. And the reason the same issues keep coming up is that no one is listening to valid complaints/concerns. So we have yet another not-quite-functioning feature . . . meanwhile we've been waiting years for many of the old features to be "fixed".

And yes, that's another of the same old discussion point that no one is listening to . . .

On a more practical note, I just went to my library and tried to add CK: Nationality or Residence or any other relevant categories to a layout so I could look at this data in my library. Unfortunately, this information is only on the Author pages, so the only way to examine it is to go author-by-author?

If this feature is to be useful, there needs to be a much easier way to examine the author/Nationality groupings.

If such a method exists, please illuminate.

Yes, it's author page CK. Authors can have nationalities and countries of residence, works less so.

Well books are by authors . . . in any case I want just the lists of authors connected to my books. e.g., I don't want to see all the authors identified with nationality U.S.A. . . . just those in my library.

I'm not seeing how to do that in CK.

You can't do it in CK. When/if the feature is completed, you will be able to go to your Statistics/Memes page and click on Nationality. Right now you get a pie chart, but no lists. If I recall correctly, it was working like that at some point.

Home or Profile > Statistics/Memes > scroll down to Memes in right left navigation column > click on Nationality

So essentially we're adding data that may be displayed in the manner you want at a later date, but the feature has yet to be fully implemented.

If I recall correctly, it was working like that at some point.

Yes, that's how it was first introduced. And maybe we'll get that back some day.

Please standardize the name of countries. This should not be difficult to do (eg, dropdown based on first two letters pressed). Obsolete countries should either be mapped to modern ones geographically or begin with a special character such as "+" (eg, "+Prussia", "+Sumer Empire"). Standardize the meaning of "nationality" by providing a second field dropdown which contains choices such as "by birth", "by culture" (Native of Peru moves to US and considers himself American should select "United States").

Using different shades of green is strange. Use an HSV color scale to select a rainbow of colors of the same saturation based on number of countries to be shown.

looks like I've come to this discussion a bit late.. but here's my idea: add a new column in the "style" section titled "nationality" and link this graph thing to that section. then people can use whatever term they want, and everyone can stop bickering!

Any chance of, if not getting a map, at least getting back the list that was in the original version of the feature?

Bump. My question from two months ago remains; can we please either get the map or at least the list of which authors correspond to what nationalities? I'd love to see what's in my "Other" category.

Bump.

Pretty please with a piece of cheese on top?

(as I understand it cherries don't cut it with this "gang").

These kind of things are one of my favorite Librarything features, and no one's posted for a month. Just making sure it's clear there's still interest.

I'd love to be able to see a list of authors

Oh, yes, there's still interest!

Definitely.

Yes indeed.

The nationalities chart informed me I mainly read books by people from the US/UK, so I'm trying to diversify. I've got France and Germany on the chart now, but I'd really like to know who's in the "others" so I know how close I am with other countries. I also want to know who the people with blank fields are so I can fill them in. Of course only if it's obvious.

Is it that improving this feature is low-priority, or is it that it's fuel for arguments? I can see how the last thread degenerated a bit, which is a shame because this could be such a great feature. I can also see there was a list at the beginning, but skimming I didn't find why it was removed.

>39 Settings: but I'd really like to know who's in the "others" so I know how close I am with other countries.

"others" must include most of Asia & Africa (I've found a couple of Japanese, Chinese, and African authors that I have read that have their nationality entered into common knowledge, but Japan, China, & Nigeria do not show up on my nationalities chart). I suspect that most Eastern European countries will also be listed under "others" (too lazy to go through my books & check more authors).

>40 ELiz_M:

I assumed that any nationality would show up as long as you have enough authors, but I don't know what the cut off is and expect it varies based on library size. Right now I can see the USA, the UK, Japan, England, Canada, France, and Germany. I want to at least get Norway (I suspect Norway is in 7th), China, and Greece up there and I'm curious how close they are, but sorting through my library is too much work.

The pie chart is unreadable. Each color should be distinguishable at a glance. The shades of green used are all so alike that I have to count each slice clockwise to figure out which slice corresponds to each country. This is the most glaring flaw of the nationality graph, and perhaps the most easily corrected.

I just checked out Ludvig Holberg who wrote many works in Latin from Denmark-Norway.
Why does his name show in the Kyrillic alphabet?

>43 Tumler100:: See this bug report: http://www.librarything.com/topic/99402

ETA: I "fixed" it. I would rather see the bug fixed though.

I wish this were fixed. I just did a few, but maybe someone with Russian could ask zmeischa to lay off on canonical names?

I can do it in English.

Bump.

I've given up on getting a map, but could we at least get the original version of this feature back, with the list of which authors come from which countries? I can use the Google Charts API to make my own damn map then. (Which is the same API they're using for the chart, so you'd think switching it to a "geochart" type to get the map would be pretty simple, but apparently not.)

What @Lorax says - please bring back the list of authors as in the original version of this feature.

Yes, please, bring back the list of authors.

Or if that was causing problems, would a list of authors who have blank nationalities be alright? So we can go fill out the missing information?

I suspect this feature is at the bottom of a long list full of more important things. Shame.

Can we have the list-by-nationality back, please?

You know what I wouldn't mind? If we click on the graph or name in the legend, we get the list of corresponding authors. That way it doesn't have to pull up the thousands each time it's brought up, just when someone clicks the graph.

Maybe?

Bump

Please restore the list and/or make the graph or legend clickable.

Pretty please.

+1

Bump.

>54 Collectorator:

No, lorannen isn't a programmer, this isn't her area.

As a reminder, the current request is to bring back the list of authors by nationality. We've long since given up on a map.

>56 lorax: and you've been requesting this for more than a year. :-(.

Piechart improvement would nice, and map is the stuff of dreams. But please restore the list.

When I saw this thread had new posts I thought maybe there were new features. :(

I try to keep in mind that I have no idea what the time requirement for fixing this feature is. But still, pretty please, can we have the list of authors back?

Near as I can tell, this is a case of Tim taking his ball and going home. Discussion of the map got sidetracked into exactly how to treat authors from countries that no longer exist, and rather than reaching a compromise or even just making a unilateral decision he crippled the feature, not only not giving us the map but taking away all the useful information that was once there.

Bump.

Can we get the list of authors by nationality back, please? Those of us who are so inclined can then use the Geochart API to make our own damn maps.

Bump.
Please!

Bump!

Still waiting for the return of this feature

Came across this when I was digging through my profile today. Not exactly a high priority but it would be pretty cool.

Would be nice to have this back one day.

I'll echo the general sentiment in this thread: this would a really neat feature to have (again).

Bump

New year, new request to have this back.

Please? Pwetty pweeez?

Oh yes, please bring this back again.
And please don't forget to include all co-authors.

Bump

New month, new bump.

Any thoughts to bringing this back? I'm trying to read more countries, as it were, and this would help figure out which countries I've already read authors of.

Would dearly like to see attention given to enhancing that page--there are several interesting & perhaps helpful things that could be done with it. Odd that stuff much further out on the periphery, like books' weights, thickness, page count and so on, is so yawn-inducingly detailed whilst that pie chart sits there uncultivated. Just guessing, but perhaps producing stats like The Average of Your Pages is Equal to That of the Bourbon Kings'! Your Library Weighs 3/250 000 As Much As The Empire State Building! was fun for someone and working with nationalities wouldn't be.

>76 bluepiano: this would actually be a practical tool rather than fun as most other things on the stats page. For reading challenges, and for people like @lampbane who want to read more widely.

Please, please bring back the list of authors by nationality. A map would be nice, but you had the list and then inexplicably took it away.

I would also find a list of authors by country helpful, especially with so many squished into "Other." Please bring back this feature.

I second the request to bring back the list by nationality - that was the most useful part of this page as it stood.

Currently, the 3D pie chart of poorly-differentiated greens and no data callouts of actual numbers (either percentages, or the number, or both) is simply atrocious.

Bump

>83 Collectorator:

:)

Another instance of me coming across the woefully inadequate dead-end pie chart and thinking, "wouldn't it be nice if this were more complete and clickable in various places?".

TL;DR: bump

Daylight savings time in my neck of the woods. Time to check smoke alarms and bump this thread.

Yeah, still this. Waiting for Infographics.

I don't think Librarything should waste time/resources trying to create piecharts of nationalities: much too contentious to satisfy everyone. Each person here could index a book by the name of the country that writer is/was a citizen of at the time of publication/creation of text, taking care that some writers write in a language that is not the language of their country of residence, e.g. Kafka, Koestler. When indexing Kafka I just put: German literature (Czechoslovakia); and Gibran's "The Prophet" would be English literature (Lebanon) as he wrote that work in English but is/was a citizen of Lebanon. And given that the past is a different country ... Sir Thomas More would be indexed as English literature (or Latin if that was the original text) and the country is England, not the U.K. or amy similar designation. Basically, language is much more important than nationality when indexing literature/fiction. Nationality of a writer matters much more where the item is non-fiction.

Whether or not the nationality of the author matters in nonfiction depends a lot on the subject and nationality of the work involved. A book on most science subjects will be very similar no matter what nationality the author comes from.

In fiction it can matter a great deal. An Indian writer will write a very different novel about the 19th century in India than a British one. This even if the Indian author writes in English.

Kafka can hardly be called a Czechoslovakian writer. Czecholovakia didn't exist until a few years before he died. He spent part of those years in Berlin and Kierling near Vienna, where he died. Most of his life was spent in Bohemia, a province of Austria-Hungary.

Is the country of birth more relevant / interesting / important than the country in which the author lived and wrote? If I could have only one, I would choose the latter, but there are exceptions.

I rather agree with >91 comsat38: about contentiousness.

>91 comsat38:

Librarything employees seem to agree with you. :(

One of the reasons for determining nationality is to distunguish less popular authors with a common name. We do not have their dates (either birth or death), and a distinguishing characteristic is to ascribe an occupation or a nationality. If all we know about the author is that the person is a writer, a country or nationality might be all we have.

Just to be clear: I did not say Kafka was a Czech writer, but I did imply that he was a Czech citizen (I have not seen his passport, if any). As he wrote in German he is a German writer contributing to German literature, but none of that makes him a citizen of Germany. I accept what was said about authors of non-fiction, i.e. nationality is not that important, but when indexing non-fiction you tend to use nouns for nations and when indexing fiction/literature you switch to adjectives for languages, at least I would hope so. Anyway, index for common sense rather than for piecharts.

>91 comsat38:
I don't think Librarything should waste time/resources trying to create piecharts of nationalities: much too contentious to satisfy everyone.

I agree that not everyone is going to be satisfied with whatever piecharts may or may not be produced, but I disagree that that is an argument for scrapping the idea. LT "wastes" time/resources on a whole bunch of things that are not satisfying everyone or where edge cases don't fit neatly into an imperfect classification (author gender comes to mind, as do Early Reviewers, SantaThing and TinyCat). There's plenty of people upthread who would appreciate such a chart, which would be based on readily-available Common Knowledge.

The piechart already exists and has for years. What we don't have is any information about which authors are in which section, or about what countries are lumped into the "Other" section.

>96 comsat38: In your example, I'd say that Kafka was a writer in German, but not a German writer, certainly not as far as his nationality is concerned. I don't know enough about Kafka to speak assuredly, but would he have considered himself culturally German?

I doubt Chinua Achebe (for example) would accept being called an English writer simply because he used that language to express himself. Tell a Scottish person they're English because they speak that language and I think you'll have an interesting discussion! :-)

Would an American Jewish author consider himself culturally English? Germany and Austria are no closer culturally than the US and the UK. To this day, the German speaking people who were kicked out of Bohemia by the Czechs consider themselves to be culturally different from the general Austrian population. Kafka was Jewish as well.

>100 MarthaJeanne: Quite so. Therefore, I'd say that the Nationality field would show what was on the author's passport (making the imaginative assumption they would have had one even if they didn't). If an author has dual or has changed nationalities, then both/all countries are listed as seperate entries.

(>98 lorax: I know: I worded my post weirdly)

I wonder if anything new and interesting is ever going to happen with the Nationalities data?

8 years later lol

103, 104:

See https://www.librarything.com/topic/189257

it would be great if the "other" category were simply removed, and each nationality displayed individually

I know the basic functions of the website are more important.... but an update to this would be so beautiful. :')

>107 Settings: Agreed - I long for this feature to be developed into something useful.

See https://www.librarything.com/topic/189257

Not strictly about this feature but the Library of Congress classification they added does roughly split Literature and related by nationality (the top level split is language). Sure most of you know more about this than I do but fyi.

Noting a bunch of the commonwealth writers writing in English are PR92**+.

The new features thread.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/333832#n7564523

Settings, please, can we keep this thread on topic? It's hard enough to try to get staff attention without random mentions of things that have only the vaguest resemblance to the topic at hand.

>112 lorax:

I am going to attempt to help others regardless of your comments.

Edit: You must be especially upset this feature got abandoned - I forgive the rudeness.

Anyway. To return to the subject at hand:

There exists author "nationality" and "country for the map" data as an existing field in LT. Many years ago, this was aggregated in a list-by-country format on the stats page. That is no longer available, replaced by a pie chart of the top few countries. This thread and subsequent ones are about "please make this data useful again", not "what are various ways in which language of books and nationality of authors are reflected in classification systems".

And if anyone, as I have been, has been expectantly waiting for a return of this feature for what seems like a decade, they should be extremely pleased to know that a convenient, while not exactly the same, feature now exists on Librarything that can group author nationalities, something I was extremely happy to realize this morning.

I highly recommend anyone interested in author nationalities and was saddened by the abandonment of the nationalities list feature go check it out. It's a joy. With a click most of my Canadian authors are all in one place :').

>115 Settings:
I'm not able to get anything useful out of the new feature (probably because of the late hour and too little coffee). Could you post a short demo of how you get your Canadian authors to wind up in one place (and for the sake of Lorax and this thread I suggest you do it on the thread on the Library of Congress classification, i.e. https://www.librarything.com/topic/333832 ).

Settings (#115):

The Loc classification is

(a) useful as a proxy for nationality only for authors of fiction,
(b) not a new feature,
(c) something I have been AWARE OF since long before you joined LT,(https://www.librarything.com/topic/22126#299751)
(d) not translatable to nationality in an aggregated fashion without additional work to map classification status to nationality.

>117 lorax: All true.

Let me add that the feature is also only halfway supported by LT since the wording of the description is not part of the export file. So to find the useful Loc classification I'd either need hints (Thanks to @Settings !) or have to browse through my library 200 books at a time.

I'll just leave this here...

>119 knerd.knitter: Is this a part of new design project, not yet available to us mere mortals?

>120 SandraArdnas: It is. We wanted you to know that we're not ignoring you!

I can't help but notice that map's showing the Crimea as part of Russia.

Huzzah! Now can we drill down to get lists for each country?

Is it making use of reading dates?!? NOW I'm excited!

>119 knerd.knitter: Awesome

>119 knerd.knitter: Yay!! Thanks for the good news :-) Any estimate on when it will be released to us users?

>119 knerd.knitter:

Wouldn't it be closer to "good practice" to use a fairer projection, such as Gall-Peters rather than the current Mercator?

>127 Cynfelyn:

The projection in >119 knerd.knitter: is definitely not Mercator. I think it's plate carrée.

That is absolutely not Mercator.

>128 AndreasJ:, >129 lorax:

Okay. Point taken.

>119 knerd.knitter:.

Wouldn't it be closer to "good practice" and more appropriate to LT's needs to use a more area-based projection, rather than the current (perhaps navigation-based) projection?