Author pages for anonymous authors

What is the story for the author pages for anonymous authors using a pseudonym? It looks like whenever an author uploads a picture to one, it gets flagged and voted off. Is the information supposed to be about the "fictional" author or just everything left blank?

Can you give an example?

http://www.librarything.com/author/steelwhisper

Is a recent one. The picture was flagged but I don't see it now in the "removed" so maybe the author deleted it.

My question generally is though, what should the common knowledge fields be set to for fictional authors?

I write literary erotic fiction and erotic or m/m romance. I'm also genderqueer. You'll find many living authors of this group unwilling to post an actual picture of themselves. Many use either a bookcover they currently most identify with, a beloved pet or an avatar of how they see themselves. But even the latter would most likely also be flagged, as I see in your TOS, because again an Avatar is no actual photo or drawing of the author.

I'm sorry I mistook the author's page as being mine to set up as I'd like to come across. I never realised that is against ToS, so maybe you need to point it out to newbies that this isn't the case. Yes, I deleted the picture, it was of a book cover.

>4 Steelwhisper:

Ah. We can link the two—the author page and your page—if you become a "LibraryThing Author." (Ask @jbd1.) But yes, the author photo is supposed to be the author, not a book cover or etc.

Being active in voting on flagged pictures I'll give a resume of what I think is current practice.

Book covers and pictures of pets (or scenery, flowers, etc) are generally not seen as author pictures and will almost always be voted off.

It get's trickier with avatars and logos. There is considerable debate over the question whether or not these actually represent such a pseudonymous author. I can see it both ways.

An often quoted example - which still exists - is the picture gallery for "Mother Goose" (http://www.librarything.com/author/goosemother). I happen to be fine with the picture of the goose behind the key board, but have reservations about http://www.librarything.com/pic/137399. It has been argued that it very much represents Mother Goose - my reaction: the work, not the author.

(By the way: A similar issue exists for venue pictures. Pictures for events held at such venues are likely to be voted off. Personally I agree with that practice. But it can (and vehemently has been) argued that such pictures are important info about the venue. Maybe we need some sort of sub folder for them?)

> 4: I'm sorry I mistook the author's page as being mine to set up as I'd like to come across.

No worries. We see that all the time. So yes: maybe the instructions should be more clear. (But nobody is saying you're a "terrible person").

>5 timspalding: I already AM a LibraryThing Author. :) That's precisely the page I had trouble with, because it told me to make myself "at home" and next thing I know I get slapped with a flag. ;)

>6 Nicole_VanK: So I may upload an avatar representative of my pseudonym? Because also in answer to Tim, for me and for many of my ilk it is not going to happen that there'll be an actual photo linked to my pseud. It would be a major pity to be marginalised, just because we do not or cannot identify with a "mug shot" type of photo or likeness ;o)

Well, that's my opinion. But were sort of in a grey area there, so I would like Tim to chime in if he can.

There are examples like these:

http://www.librarything.com/author/youngtodd
http://www.librarything.com/author/hunteradriana

I don't know of these are considered OK or have just managed to slip past the "censors". As things stand though, if the author image has to be a picture of the author, then for anonymous authors it is going to be blank. It is an issue that I have argued (from the opposite end of the range of opinion to Matt) for a while. As I mentioned on another thread, there will be some kind of cultural clash as more GR authors come over to LT.

I fear unless there is some compromise, not only on this issue but more importantly on the uncompromising attitude of many LT users to the slightest hint of self-promotion by authors, many of them will be bounced back to GR.

>9 marq: the uncompromising attitude of many LT users to the slightest hint of self-promotion by authors, many of them will be bounced back to GR
LT is not a place to be bombarded at by authors. That will NOT change. There are a couple designated areas they may do so. If they don't like it then they can most certainly remain at GR instead.

marq, I think I need to state, at least for me, it is not so much a matter of self-promotion, as one of self-identity. And also of protection and self-protection.

As an individual I would like to present some form of visual identity to the people who interact with me, regardless of whether as a fellow reader or as reader of my stories. I also would like to be able to self-visualise and self-identify, in short to externalise and communicate on that level as well. Given my personal situation this is even more difficult with a mug-shot type of photo. I hesitate to state it, but being entirely "faceless" is not exactly painless, if you catch my drift there.

I'm not complaining, I came mainly here as a reader who doesn't want their whole library abused by Amazon for a sales spiel. But it would be nice to be allowed at least a "representative" image, an avatar or a likeness. I can well understand the wish not to have book covers. That's why I deleted mine immediately. But an avatar or likeness with which I can identify and people interacting with me get an inkling of myself, to forbid that is not as understandable. It's certainly not anything which could fall under self-promotion.

>11 Steelwhisper:

But you have that on your member page; why do you need it on your author page as well?

>12 Noisy: Why shouldn't they be allowed to have an image under their author page, too??

>11 Steelwhisper: I completely understand what you're saying and I think it's entirely reasonable. I definitely don't go for random images taking the place of a designated author photo, but a personal avatar is fully appropriate, as far as I'm concerned.

11: Yes, I agree with you completely. I didn't mean to suggest that you were self-promoting, I was just going off on a tangent.

The example I gave in 9 above seem to be acceptable and I am pretty sure they are avatars, not actual images of the authors. It would be good to hear Matt and Tim's view on those. Recently, there have been pictures of roses, dragons, frogs etc. uploaded by pseudonym authors to the author pages which I thought were OK, or at least better than blank, but were voted off. The frog picture (at least) was used by the author to represent themselves on GR.

10: It is the question I asked on another thread. Tim said on that thread that he hoped to get more publishers on LT's side. What does that in practice mean? What do publishers want with LT if not (ultimately) to sell more books?

I think a somewhat looser interpretation of what constitutes an author photo or image makes sense.

> 13

Why shouldn't they be allowed to have an image under their author page, too??

It's not their page in the same sense that the profile page is. The Author Page was never, so far as I know, intended to be a playground for the author, a substitute for, or addition to, a personal web page. However, many authors treat it as such and I agree with @BarkingMatt that instructions should be clearer.

But we're not talking about throwing any ol' thing up on it like a personal page.

> 17

"pictures of roses, dragons, frogs etc. " sound like "any ol' thing" to me!

I agree with marq in 14. There are bigger questions here than authors' pictures. The "consensus" maintainers here on LT can be down-right hostile (not you, Matt) ,and if TPTB really want to encourage more use, things are going to have to lighten up.

I don't think there's been a week in the last 6 months that I haven't thought about going private and silent because of the nonsense that makes reasonable people doing reasonable things like Steelwhisper into site criminals.

Nobody's been criminalized; the flags here were simply to correct content.

Author pages aren't venues for self-expression, although the authors themselves can be and often are the best sources of data for those pages. An author page is more like a wikipedia entry about an author, and wikipedia discourages autobiography in such cases for sound reasons. LT has equally sound reasons for allowing author input on author pages, but only to the extent that it provides accurate reference information, without turning an author page into an annex of the related personal page. The two are linked, after all, so someone who wants to see the self-presentation of a LT author can easily do so.

I don't think that there's any marginalization involved in insisting that a picture of an author be a picture of the author. In cases where a living author's picture is absent, it more clearly makes the point, I think, that the author prefers to keep his or her image out of public circulation, whereas a drawing of a penguin would not.

Moreover, most author pages are maintained by users other than the author. Should I have the option of replacing the image for Thomas Pynchon with that of a pocket watch?

>18 by @lilithcat, It was mentioned people had done that, but the author in question is not looking to do anything of the sort. We are talking about personal avatars, not random images.

>20 paradoxosalpha: There are wikipedia biographies, namely those where other photos are unavailable, which use e.g. photos or screenshots from a play or a movie or childhood photos and so on for people who have no "mug-shots" at the ready. Paintings also are being used, as well as caricatures. This all is not that different from an avatar.

> 22

Yes, but those pictures are not selected by the subjects of the biography.
Wikipedia doesn't have a database category for "author picture"; LT does.

> 22

Those screenshots and childhood photos, paintings and caricatures, are still images of the author. There are lots of author pages here that have paintings or drawings, or even statues, of the authors, rather than photos (primarily, of course, authors who died before photography existed). No one is insisting on what you call "mug-shots".

>23 paradoxosalpha: Wikipedia also doesn't encourage any data input from the subjects. Here you won't get any data except if authors are willing to provide them one way or another. Whether Mr. Stephen King's agent or publicist disseminates something or an author does so directly (doing so on a website proper also means it's been the author themselves) makes no great or no difference.

I'm also somewhat astonished by this drive towards encyclopaedic accuracy and standards, given that none of the facts truly get synchronised and controlled, which appears to be a feature so planned and not happenstance.

18: We need to be clear about what the choice is here:

"pictures of roses, dragons, frogs etc. " sound like "any ol' thing" to me!

These are not just "any ol' thing". They are the images than an anonymous author has chosen to represent the persona of the author on their blog, on GR etc..

The choice is between these images and blank.

The choice is also about welcoming authors to LT. The question that naturally comes to mind for them is why an image that is used on GR & etc. all over the web is not good enough for LT. Is LT a place where I as an anonymous author can represent myself to my readers?

Why is the picture used here http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5417121.Thayer_Berlyn flagged and voted off here http://www.librarything.com/author/berlynthayer ? (http://www.librarything.com/gallery/flagged/removed) The choice made here is that there will be no image on this page.

>24 lilithcat: In that case an avatar ought to satisfy you just as much as a caricature or a drawing. I agree that roses, pets or penguins are certainly not even close to an author likeness, but that's not what we were talking about. At least not I ;)

24: I would say by definition, any image uploaded to an anonymous author page is not a recognisable image of the author.

LOL. Right :o)

21>

Sure, but "an actual picture of an author" is a nice bright line, where "personal avatar" versus "random image of a dragon" is fuzzier. There are several cases on LT where a bright line is chosen because it's simple to explain and enforce, rather than because it's ideal.

I don't want photos of myself online under my writing pseudonym, which is why my author page is photoless. I'd be perfectly happy to use the icon I've used since I was dragged kicking and screaming into the html age nearly a decade ago. (Yes, there is a reason why my icon says "7 bit ASCII" in Courier...) There are plenty of people whose mental image of me is that icon, just as my mental image of many authors I know from online is their LiveJournal etc icon.

Obviously I'm biased. But I think there is a case for allowing avatars, as being in essentially the same category as caricatures. It does depend on whether you regard the author image section as being literally an image of the author's physical appearance, or a representation of their personal identity marker. In a bygone age, the latter could equally well be a seal they always used (or for a modern example, the Death hand stamp Terry Pratchett often used when dedicating books).

In addition, I would rather like it if authors were given the right to say they *don't* want photos on their author page, i.e. a flag we can set. In my case it's because I write erotic romance, but it's not just the smut-pedlars who have reason to remain pseudonymous. This is actually one reason why I would like to put my avatar up, as a form of "this page intentionally left blank". I accept that this may be asking for a saddle to go with the pony, though. :-)

And before anyone suggests that I am just another new author member looking to promote my books, I would note that I am a long-standing member of the Spam Patrol, and only yesterday was whetting my spammer skinning knife and counting the bags of salt the Patrol has in stock.

I think there's two issues here. One is the pic/avatar that a member uses to interact on the site, and the second is the pic on an author page.

Other than one's profile page, the member pic doesn't show up anywhere as far as I know. There are no avatars connected with posts, for example (which is fine with me. I find excessive graphics in forums distracting).

The author page picture is independent of the author's member page. I just checked my own, and the pic on my author page (which I probably put there) is not reflected at all on my profile page, nor are any of the pics I've uploaded to my profile visible on my author page, unless, of course, someone clicks through.

The point (yes, there is one, I hope) is that you can put any kind of graphic or avatar as your picture on your profile page. It won't be flagged or messed with in any way by other LTers. It's only the author page pic that is up for public scrutiny. And the mischievous part of myself now wants to upload a really cute caricature I have of my late husband on his author page, just to see what happens.

At any rate, for an anonymous author page pic, it looks like we need a pronouncement from TPTB.

It's a literary crowd here, and sometimes they are very literal.

For those of you who haven't been following these discussions: marq and I frequently disagree but that doesn't mean we don't respect each other. We both try to improve the site.

"pictures of roses, dragons, frogs etc. " are the images than an anonymous author has chosen to represent the persona of the author on their blog, on GR etc.. The choice is between these images and blank.

In that case I would go for blank. I've had to learn the hard way - war zone - to prefer no info over bad info. (But maybe that's just me - I'm outspoken about my views - doesn't mean I try to impose them).

But do you honestly believe the author is represented by said rose, dragon or frog? Which of the books did any of them actually write? It's rubbish info!

31>

In addition, I would rather like it if authors were given the right to say they *don't* want photos on their author page, i.e. a flag we can set. In my case it's because I write erotic romance, but it's not just the smut-pedlars who have reason to remain pseudonymous.

If your pseudonym is sufficiently thin that it can easily be associated with a photo of you by someone looking to add author photos to LT, I don't think stopping that photo from appearing on LT is going to be much of a help.

I would very strongly oppose this suggestion. Author pages on LT aren't the property of the authors; they're informational, more like a Wikipedia page than a personal site.

32> I absolutely do not want the wee avatars on Talk threads -- I am not kidding about my avatar being the phrase "7 bit ASCII" in Courier. But since there are so many places online that demand the things, I have one, and I've used it consistently for nigh on a decade, aside from the occasional outbreak of using one of my book covers in places where it's appropriate. If I must have something on my author profile page to fend off well-meaning attempts to put a photo there, it can be the avatar.

I don't have a picture on my personal profile page, because I don't want one. I'm not actually sure how one puts a picture there, although presumably if I went looking in the settings I could do so. (Yes, I'm serious.)

#36 by @JulesJones> On your profile, there is a "member gallery" link at the top right. When you upload images there, you have the option to make them primary profile images.

And don't worry, LT will never use avatars on Talk threads. It's completely antithetical to Tim's being.

If I must have something on my author profile page to fend off well-meaning attempts to put a photo there, it can be the avatar.

That's another side of this "problem". You can't prevent other people from uploading pictures to the author page. Your profile page is yours, your author page is common access.

P.s.: there is no obligation to have any picture on your author page. But if so, general (but not universal) opinion is that it should be an author, picture - not a book cover, not a beloved pet, not a potted plant...

35> My pseudonym is sufficiently thin that anyone who wants to add a photo maliciously and goes to the same cons as me can easily obtain a photo without having to find one online first. The flip side of that is that it would be very easy for someone to take a photo at a con and put it on the site as a helpful gesture, not realising that not all authors want publicity.

I agree that author pages are not the personal property of the authors, and it's certainly not feasible to stop a malicious person from publicly identifying someone. But for the not-actively-malicious, something that gets their attention about "No, the author would rather you didn't do this" might make them think about it.

37> Thanks for that, brightcopy. Maybe I should upload the "so many books, so little time" icon popular around my corner of LiveJournal. :->

>39 JulesJones: Plus if the author, like me, is absolutely unforthcoming about such things and information, meaning no conventions, no public book signings etc. then either misinformation gets spread, or none at all.

> 39: Ehr, right, haven't run into that one before. Doesn't sound unreasonable though. Maybe through the disambiguation notice... I would try that, but it's no guarantee.

#39 by @JulesJones> I guess I'm a little perplexed that a person who would go to cons, where you have people in person who have access to you, if they were at all wanting to maintain anonymity. Compared to that, a photo on your LT author page seems rather tame.

I think it's just a basic thing you accept when you publish a book. You may not be a publicity whore, but you are asking for publicity when you do that. Such is the nature of the profession. You might be lucky and be able to find some ways to obscure yourself but the more you do things like present yourself at cons, the more you are giving permission to remove that anonymity.

Reminds me of another author who railed at Tim for someone putting the author's birthdate in CK:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/58970

> 19: Not a point my friend. We're all trying to improve things - now we need to agree on how to do so, that's "all".

39>

A social solution - a "This space intentionally left blank" marker - would be fine by me, but a prohibition (allowing authors to actually prevent it, rather than just saying "I'd rather you didn't) wouldn't be.

And for new LT users here, this is something LT members get to vote on. The current list of flagged pictures can be found here: http://www.librarything.com/gallery/flagged

This flagged image seems to be in the category we are discussing: http://www.librarything.com/pic/3795117

Users should read the guidelines before voting. They are not tightly worded and they are guidelines after all.

> 46

Please read what Tim said here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/152202#4008112

Voting a "firm" undecided on that one. I don't really believe the author looks like that, but since I don't actually know...

But, and in my view more importantly: I would like some guidelines on how to deal with pseudonymous authors and "their" pictures. I have my views, sure, but they're ultimately just my views. This is not, and never has been, about trying to be mean to anybody. But this does ask for a judgement call: how to handle pseudonymous authors? (I do my best, in best conscience, but...)

>47 lilithcat:: Right. But that doesn't solve the question about avatars and such (or am I missing something?)

> 49

An avatar is not a picture of the author. It's an image chosen to represent the author, but it's not her.

If Tim, at some point, says, "I'm okay with avatars", then so am I. (I would, however, want to be sure that it's the author herself who chose the image. Someone earlier today uploaded an image of penguins to an author page, and, considering the nature of the works, it seemed highly unlikely that it was the author himself who did so. No similarity of names, he's not an LT author, and he writes on public policy, not the Antarctic!)

Two of my most-used avatars are a donkey's head and an engraving of an all-seeing eye. Neither of them are a depiction of me.

> 51

They're not???

43> I generally have a different name on my badge at cons -- I'm going as a fan, rather than as an author. But enough people know me under both names that some of them will occasionally refer to me by this name, which means that other people who didn't already know could make the connection. This stuff happens unless you maintain an absolutely impermeable firewall between identities.

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't just about the erotica writers. There are also issues around people who use multiple pseudonyms and are trying to keep them separate for various reasons. Often this is a temporary problem -- I did ask one of my friends "Okay, can I combine your new pseud on LT now, please?" once the sequel contract had been signed and it didn't matter any more if it became public who the pseud really was. :-)

45> A social solution is all that's realistic -- I'm well aware that there's no way to stop someone who's determined to do it, hence the comment about a saddle to go with the pony. But I think allowing avatars would be one form of social solution, The difficulty is, as has been pointed out, where you draw the line. Hand-drawn caricatures? Those software generated things that are essentially caricatures? (I know that at least some of them are pretty good cartoon representations of the people behind them, because I know them in meatspace.) The sort of abstract avatar I use, which bears no physical resemblance to me, but which is a consistent part of my online identity?

To the thread at large:

One counter-argument which I think should be made explicit (it was implied up-thread by several posters) is that allowing authors to veto photos would give them a false sense of security. Even if we had such a veto option, it could be easily hacked {*}, and having the veto flag set could in itself invite attention from trolls. Quite apart from the entirely valid point that an author page is not the author's property, actually implementing a veto is issuing an engraved invitation to the drama llama to make itself at home. This is why I would not wish to see a veto in reality, however wistfully I might dream about it.

{*This spamkiller would be grateful if we did not discuss the details of how to put author pictures in places they were not meant to be.}

> 50 /51: Well, that's the point really. Sure, but where exactly do we draw the line between depicting and representing. I must admit that, when it comes to avatars (or logos/ buildings for corporate/institutional authors) I'm not entirely sure what's best.. I make a judgement call, as best as I can, but that's all I can do.

As for the penguins: yeah, agreed, that one was just daft.

ETA: This spamkiller would be grateful if we did not discuss the details of how to put author pictures in places they were not meant to be.

Definitely trying not to give away any more than we absolutely need to for this discussion ;-)

One more before I go to bed: "author photos" are not necessarily photos of the author. Some authors using pseuds get around the problem by using stock photos in places where they're expected to provide photos. Some authors use stock photos of people who are more photogenic, for marketing reasons. I know of at least one case in my own little sub-genre of an author who used a photo of someone else in order to appear as a specific gender, for reasons which were... complicated... but which when the subterfuge was exposed were assumed by many readers to be for marketing reasons.

I don't like the practice, a lot of authors don't like it. But some authors choose to do it or are forced to do it. I doubt it's going to be much of an issue, but it is part and parcel of the same problem about avatars if one of these authors is exposed and readers start an edit war as a result.

Right: while on the one hand I would say that nobody is obliged to put up any picture whatsoever on LT, I do agree it's part and parcel of the same question.

ETA: Tim, any other staff member????

Reading back I found this one (sorry I didn't notice it before - wasn't ignoring you).

The example I gave in 9 above seem to be acceptable and I am pretty sure they are avatars, not actual images of the authors. It would be good to hear Matt and Tim's view on those. Recently, there have been pictures of roses, dragons, frogs etc. uploaded by pseudonym authors to the author pages which I thought were OK, or at least better than blank, but were voted off. The frog picture (at least) was used by the author to represent themselves on GR.

First of all (and most of you know this but there are a couple of "newbies" around) - to make absolutely sure : I'm flattered to be mentioned with Tim at one go, but he is the owner of this site and I'm just another user. I have my views, I can be quite outspoken about them, but ultimately I'm just another user....

As to the examples you gave in #9:

a.) I did notice them.
b.) I'm unsure how to handle avatars in the first place.
c.) I'm not entirely sure they don't depict the person (This isn't a passport).

Would I personally have uploaded such pictures? No!
Do I think they're very helpful? No!
But in itself that's no reason to flag them.

And then there's always Cecil Adams...

I'll jump in since I'm the one who flagged Steelwhisper's photo. The biggest reason was it was a book cover, something that is often uploaded as an author image either by accident or by drive by authors. I don't see book covers belonging on the author page.

As for avatars, I probably wouldn't have flagged something like the pics mentioned in #9. I wouldn't have added an avatar like photo, but I wouldn't have flagged it either.

I have strong feelings about the use of things that don't even pretend to represent the author—a book cover, for example, or a photo somehow linked to their last book.

I can understand how some images might be good representations of the author, even if they aren't a picture of the author. The easy case would be a shot of the FBI logo, the Supreme Court, or the Encyclopedia Britannica logo, as the author photo for those respective institutions. Similarly, I can see the notion of a non-representation image of a non-institutional author, if there's a convention in some genre, like erotic literature, to make such images for authors who aren't otherwise pictured. But I can see that slide rapidly into madness too.

Is this an edge case for some unusual genres? Could we do it if we set boundaries—only for authors who have no picture, the picture must be in demonstrated use AS an author picture?

Blech. I dunno.

How's that for not being sure?

It might focus the issue if author photos were used for anything much. Right now it goes on the author page and http://www.librarything.com/authorgallery/MEMBERNAME and that's about it, isn't it?

I once proposed a view of your catalog that was Cover View combined with author pictures:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/104594#2367171

If it was used for more stuff, I might be more of a stickler about wanting "real" photos.

>55 JulesJones: I know who you are talking about and I am in pretty much the same boat. I'm bi-gender and genderqueer, that means I do not identify at all with one gender exclusively. Any photo of mine would nail me to my biological gender. That is the reason why I feel much more comfortable with a picture of my choosing, which resembles me, yet also represents the fact that I am genderqueer and guards my privacy. Again, because obviously I'll not be half as outspoken about this towards my non-reader customers (everyone has to work and I do own a business) or the not so close family of my beloved and myself. Pen names aren't maintained just for the fun of it and sometimes a name and a likeness have an intrinsic veracity.

>60 timspalding: How would "either an individual logo or a likeness (photographic, drawn, painted, generated etc.) for pseudonymous authors" strike you?

That would allow for a variety of sensible, recognisable options including leaving things blank up to posting a photo, while still barring potentially promotional images such as covers or flyers or absolutely random images. I could, e.g. even see the above-mentioned rose incorporated in an individualised logo so as to become different from just a random photo of a rose. It could be a choice confined to anonymous/pseudonymous authors, which would make it probably a very genre-specific thing mostly.

As JulesJones above says, I could as well--and I am sure many authors actually do this--simply have used "some" photo available to me, of a neighbour or a stockphoto, and no one would be the wiser. No one will ever actually see me in any manner linkable to my pen name. I didn't and don't want to do this because even though I like to stay pseudonymous I do not want to put out a direct lie. I would prefer to have people attach to something which I feel attached to. Unlike JulesJones I am a very visually oriented person, so I'd like to present a visual connection.

60: Is this an edge case for some unusual genres? Could we do it if we set boundaries—only for authors who have no picture, the picture must be in demonstrated use AS an author picture?

I think that is a reasonable rule:

1. An author writing under a pseudonym and wishing to remain anonymous.
2. The image is uploaded by LT by the author.
3. The image is demonstated to be used as an identity / author image consistently elsewhere on the web.

I see that some authors would say that a book cover, or a least an image from their book cover would still represent their pseudonymous (is that a word?) persona. I think we need to see what examples come up and discuss them individually*. I was happy with Poynter's Lesbia, now sadly voted off. Actually, I am happy with nearly anything but I agree that the image should represent the author. That does not mean it has to be a picture of the actual author.

(It is a problem with LT that once an image is voted off, you can't access the discussion anymore. I argued elsewhere that voting should not remove images, just demote them to the non-primary image folder or hide them. Illegal or sexually explicit images should be deleted by LT staff immediately on being notified).

>60 timspalding: I have strong feelings about the use of things that don't even pretend to represent the author—a book cover, for example, or a photo somehow linked to their last book.

There is a real-world data purist in me that agrees wholeheartedly with this, at least on a philosophical level. It's one thing to post a picture of a bust of Homer--the cultural consensus of the image of a man for whom there are no photographs. But it's another thing entirely to post representations that "stand in" for the photos of real people who are really alive and writing. LT is not a marketing site after all. It's an encyclopedia, a reference site.

If avatars--by definition made up constructs of a real person--are allowed, I don't even want them called "author picture." They are masks, designed specifically to control the viewer's reaction without relinquishing any control over themselves in the process. It's an entirely different kind of information: one-way information.

It seems like LT, so careful to acknowledge the nuances of all the difference kinds of information that apply to books, could do the same in this case, and not lump photographs together with "representations." Perhaps an author could opt to display an avatar instead of photo on a page? Or at least ask that an avatar be the default?

62>

I'm bi-gender and genderqueer, that means I do not identify at all with one gender exclusively.

I see your CK "Gender" has you as "female". Would you prefer that be changed to "other/contested/unknown"?

(Incidentally, that option wasn't initially available, and I'm one of the people who jumped up and down screaming at Tim until he changed it, so I'm very protective of the authors in my catalog who belong there - I check my CK "Male/Female" meme frequently mostly just to make sure they haven't been wrongly moved.)

Yes I would, I didn't see that earlier. Thank you.

I think we should give LT authors extra consideration in selecting the image that represents them on their author page. This would be similar to politely explaining the rules regarding self-promotion to new authors, but not flagging them into oblivion. Perhaps, if someone notices a book cover or some other image on an LT author page, rather than flag it, it might be worth a polite private message to the author or to the PTB. I am sure we can all sympathize with Steelwhisper's perspective and since he/she is using the site in the right spirit by entering books etc., that consideration is warranted.

Best wishes,

k4k

1. An author writing under a pseudonym and wishing to remain anonymous.
2. The image is uploaded by LT by the author.
3. The image is demonstated to be used as an identity / author image consistently elsewhere on the web.

I think we should give LT authors extra consideration in selecting the image that represents them on their author page.

I think I disagree. 1 and 3 seem good to me, but author pages are supposed to be neutral, not marketing materials. If an author is generally pictured with a certain avatar, that should be obvious to anyone, not just the author.

By extra consideration I meant that they shouldn't be immediately flagged. They should be engaged in a conversation. Also, the avatar might be new. The author might be new. Just a conversation instead of a flag. What is the harm?

author pages are supposed to be neutral, not marketing materials

Somehow, that should be made clearer. It's been obvious for some time that there are authors who treat the LT author page as their own personal web page. I can't begin to count the number of photos I've seen that had extensive biographical and/or marketing material (including links to amazon) where the credit and copyright information should be. Or stuff like "Me on vacation in TCBY in Silverdale, WA", "My photo", "a shot of me", etc.

I don't know what, if anything, authors are told about the proper use of the site, particularly author pages, when they become LT authors, but perhaps something should be written to send them. This would not, of course, help with authors who don't become LT authors, but it might alleviate some of the problems.

>69 krazy4katz:

I think that consideration should be extended generally—ask the person to show that it meets the need. If it obviously doesn't, flag away.

>68 timspalding: I agree. That makes a lot of sense.

>70 lilithcat: I agree again with that. The reasoning behind what you say was why I deleted my picture after it was flagged, though marketing wasn't behind my use of the cover. However, I can see how that would come to be thought and it can be the reason for use, you're quite right.

Just a question, if anyone would care to respond: Has US copyright law anything to say on the subject?

Where I'm from you cant't just publish a photo of anyone unless a) you've got their permission or b) they're a "public person". (Which, of course opens a new can of worms. Who is a "public" person? An author writing under a pseudonym but appearing in public to market their books?)

The user uploading the photo should have permission to do it - explicit or because a site allows re-sharing. Publicity photos are fair game pretty much....

>74 AnnieMod: Yes, I'm aware that LT demands proper licensing of published photos. What I was thinking of was the rights of the photographed subject, not the rights of the photographer.

In my small corner of the world local copyright law states, quote "Photos depicting a person can not be published or shown in public without the person's permission, except when.." (several exceptions follow) "...This protection is effective in the photographed person's lifetime and for 15 years after the year of his/her death." I was wondering if there is something similiar in US copyright law?

No. Laws vary by state, but unless you photographed them in a private situation, a photograph of someone is generally fair game in the US.

>76 prosfilaes: Thanks :-)

>75 geitebukkeskjegg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_laws_of_the_United_States#Appropriation_of_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights#United_States

A picture of the author is not a photograph of the author. It is a representation of the author. as such a charcoal sketch, pencil drawing, or avatar is fine. If Non photos are good enough for enough for Shakespeare and Austen they are good enough for SteelWhisper. Any image that the author or her readers consider as being representative of her is legitimate in my view. If A Rose chooses to be represented by a stylized picture of one or by her personal kanji then sobeit.

75> Copyright of Photographs used to be a real issue for LT and Users would have to obtain permission from the copyright owners before uploading author pictures. I do believe I have a badge for this.

However under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. LT like virtually
all crowd sourced site has moved to an unregulated model. In this model LT is obliged to removed any photo that the copyright owner requests but is pretty safe from any other legal claims.

I think I disagree. 1 and 3 seem good to me, but author pages are supposed to be neutral, not marketing materials.

And talk pages are not supposed to be marketing materials either, but by your request we don't flag author spam but refer them to Jeremy instead.

#81 by @jjwilson61> It seems pretty consistent above with him agreeing you should just talk to the author and let them clear it up rather than just flagging right off the bat.

Okay, Jeremy can you policy-ize this where it needs to go?

> 79: A picture of the author is not a photograph of the author. It is a representation of the author. as such a charcoal sketch, pencil drawing, or avatar is fine.

Generally I agree. Pictures need not be photographs, in some cases logos or even buildings (for corporate authors) - fine. And photographic realism is also not a requirement.

But penguins, cute pussycats and (potted) plants don't write books. Or am I missing something?

Mmkay, added at http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Contributing_photos_to_LibraryThing#F... - I think I've got the general sense of where this ended up, but feel free to correct me if I've missed something.

84> the part I wanted to emphasise was "Any image that the author or her readers consider as being representative of her is legitimate in my view."

And this may indeed be a penguin or a potted plant. Whether it is or not should not be decide by consulting some arbitrary list. In my opinion But by the authors readers. a voting system similar to that used for combining tags should be used to remove author images.

but I am quite happy to settle for "consult with the uploader if in doubt".

there are far more important things to worry about.

#86 by @SimonW11> Isn't it already?

http://www.librarything.com/gallery/flagged

There is a voting system (http://www.librarything.com/gallery/flagged - votes can be seen at the individual pictures). Maybe too few people make use of it though.

mm so it is too long since i wandered into that system.

Though the one entry in there from 2010 shows a bit of a loophole in the threshold system. Might as well also have a cutoff of "if threshold isn't met in X months, keep it." Because that's effectively what's happened.

I think you have missed something. I was asking about anonymous authors writing under a pseudonym and not just about the picture but the common knowledge as well. For example, if there is a book called "The last prisoner of the Sistine" by Pope Leslie the 14th, (born Mars colony 3211), we will have an author page on LT for Pope Leslie the 14th. What picture, gender, date of birth, place of birth should that author page have?

The options are:

1. a fictional picture of Pope Leslie, Female, Mars Colony, b.3211.
2. everything blank.

Yes, not really written by Pope Leslie the 14th but that would be the correct, encyclopaedic information for the identity the work is attributed to as well as the only information available.

I think people object to roses, potted plants, dragons etc. holding out hope that there will someday be a picture of the real author. I have not seen the objectors to potted plants say what IS acceptable in these cases.

#91: What picture, gender, date of birth, place of birth should that author page have?

Whatever the author is. If you want to know your books written by Romanians, you don't want lousy vampire novels written by authors who think that Carpethia is a Transylvanian surname; if you want 19th century diaries, you don't want fake diaries of Jack the Ripper. If you're looking for BDSM written by women, you don't want BDSM written by men under female pseudonyms.

the only information available.

And it's worse then nothing. Any thing you can conceive of doing with the aggregate data, this will damage. The average birth year of bestsellers for 2012 shouldn't be 1800 unless Gilgamesh actually hit the bestsellers, and the average birth year should never be in the future. Even if it's not in the future, the top ten having an average birth year of 1983 (and one unknown) is a huge difference from 2009.

I think people object to roses, potted plants, dragons etc. holding out hope that there will someday be a picture of the real author. I have not seen the objectors to potted plants say what IS acceptable in these cases.

Nothing. I'm not completely against avatars if they're what the author uses and nothing else is available, but we don't want random pictures in the portrait spot.

#91 by @andrewsp> Oh dear LORD does that misunderstanding make the ensuing 90-ish message discussion hilarious. :D

No, I think the discussion above is relevant. It looks like what is needed is a different type of author page for pseudonym authors; the normal author page for real people and a different type of page that records the fictional information and picture that describes the personality or avatara of the attributed author.

I was going to suggest that all that is really needed is a flag to distinguish the two types of author and then different rules about what kind of picture and information can be being loaded into them but that will corrupt other aggregated information?

i would find it dificult to argue against a photo of a cat here

http://www.librarything.com/author/blossom-2

95: I agree, but see what happens if you try to upload a picture of Blossum to the author picture.

(Though there is at least one example I remember where the presence of a cat in the picture seems to overrule any other objection).

94: I think a field to indicate that the author page refers to a "fictional" author is a good idea.

Much of this discussion seems to connect with cases where an individual person is the only one associated with a pseudonym. Please keep in mind that there is a massive quantity of material where multi-author or corporate pseudonyms are involved.

There are dozens of people who have written as "Carolyn Keene" over the years since 1930. Some are known and others are not. As such, there cannot be a single photo for such a name. One way we have tried to address this is a graphic to identify the name as a "Stratemeyer Syndicate Pseudonym" for the 1930-1985 usages. (After that point the company was sold to Simon & Schuster and later uses were a name owned by that publisher).

James

#97 by @Keeline> Yeah, the corporate author has been brought up a few times in the thread. I think that one has more of a settled consensus of allowing logos and building photos.

Don't we combine pseudonyms with their real names when that is known and they're both in the system? At least Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens seem to be combined. So even when the real author isn't in the system he may be entered later and combined, so presumable the fictional data would at that point be jettisoned in favor of the data for the real author?

It seems to me that the only way that this makes sense is that if the data on the author page always refers to the real author and it should just be left blank if it isn't known.

#99 by @jjwilson61> Yeah, to me, I don't really grok the concept of "non-existent author". Whoever wrote the book exists (or existed). "Pope Leslie the 14th" is a fictional persona, but it's also just a pseudonym used by a real person, persons or corporation.

I think I would put n/a in the gender box so the author doesn't show on the various meme lists.

I do think authors have the right to stay anonymous. But that means having no information there instead of made up information. I suppose the fictional info could go in short biography where it isn't part of the statistics.

Let me complicate the discussion further: Elaine Ash publishes under the pseudonym "Anonymous-9" (see for example her book Hard Bite). She's not actually "anonymous" -- at least in the sense that the author's identity is unknown -- as Anonymous-9 is the author's nom de plume and there needs to be a way to separate her from the other anonymous authors. This may just be an issue that a skilled Combiner/De-Combiner could take care of, but as it stands now, she's not listed correctly.

>96 marq:
Here you go:


Cropped from interior book image found here. I find even the thought of dealing with copyright issues so aggravating that I never upload author photos. But if someone else wants to do it, fine with me.

Note: I've also aliased Blossom-2 into the actual author, Joan Sauers. A publicity picture of her can be found here.

Another prominent example of this is Stephen King's pseudonym Richard Bachman. King eventually came up with an elaborate backstory for Bachman. Regardless, he's still Stephen King.

ETA: I'm not against enriching the pseudonym feature to capture this sort of interesting stuff, though. I'm just saying there is no such thing as a "fictional" author of a real book.

To my way of looking, the Mark Twain=Samuel Langhorne Clemens is the simplest case of a pseudonym. Unless someone was trying to be cute and create an unauthorized pastiche, if you see "Mark Twain" on a work, it is almost certainly Sam Clemens.

Not so for the multitudes of cases where multiple people wrote under a given name. This is why I would suggest against combining Mildred A. Wirt Benson with "Carolyn Keene" (too many other people wrote under this name). That does not stop people from putting her picture on the "author" page for Carolyn Keene.

For some of Edward Stratemeyer's pen names, he did all of the writing (Arthur M. Winfield, Edna Winfield, Capt. Ralph Bonehill). This is like the Mark Twain example. However, it gets complicated for names like Roy Rockwood where he personally wrote some stories but not others. The others were produced through his Syndicate from his/their outlines.

A problem I have battled with the Stratemeyer entries is that his most famous pseudonym is sometimes placed as the principal entry because of combinations and the like. Every couple months we have to go in and clean things up. This includes assigning titles to one of the split names. It's an interesting problem. We don't have all of the tools to do this well yet but I hope for improvements down the line.

James

102>Part of the problem seems to be the -9, which gets ignored in forming an author URL. I tried, and failed to split that book to Anonymous (100).

What I could do is add Elaine Ash as an 'other author'. So at least that page now exists.

102>

Yeah, the numeral is the sticking point there. "Anonymous Nine" could be separated. "Anonymous 9" can't. See also the musical group "Anonymous 4" which is also not separable from Anonymous, and for a slightly different example the author "Jennifer 8 Lee", who can't be separated based on her middle name and instead just has to be split-and-aliased from the other "Jennifer Lee"s in the system.

Can you give the author the name Anonymous Nine and then give it a Canonical Name of Anonymous 9?

106> One issue with this approach is that Ash seems to have specifically created the Anonymous-9 pseudonym as a way to separate her identity as an author from her identity as an editor and publishing professional.

108> Though neither "Anonymous Nine" nor "Anonymous 9" is 100% accurate.

"Anonymous-9", then.

One of the strange things about this discussion is that many people object to fictional pictures on pseudonym author pages but for what reason? There are already many examples of pictures like that on LT and what harm do they do? It is only when a picture of a book cover or something non-human is uploaded that anyone notices and flags them.

Is it a trade off between offending well meaning authors and contributors to LT against a therapy for the locus of control issues of a small number of LT users?

How well will a culture of book collectors, catalogers, information geeks (LT) welcome a culture of readers, authors and pop-literary fans?

#111 by @marq> the locus of control issues of a small number of LT users

Careful, there. Those users (and they are by no means small in number) are a big part of why LT is usable for you.

#109: One issue with this approach is that Ash seems to have specifically created the Anonymous-9 pseudonym as a way to separate her identity as an author from her identity as an editor and publishing professional.

One: This is often a transient phenomenon; Richard Bachman rapidly became Stephen King, the In Death series is published with a confusing and varying branding of by J.D. Robb, by Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb, and probably just by Nora Roberts some places. Paul French has invariably become Isaac Asimov nowadays. Androgenous J.K. Rowling (because she's writing boy's books and you can't have female authors writing books for boys, you know) is now well-known as Joanne Rowling, and most non-English editions of HPPS are labeled that way.

Two: Is that our problem? If you really want to be anonymous, be anonymous. Otherwise, archives of fact, like we and Wikipedia, are going to connect you, and anyone looking you up is going to find the connection. That's life in the 21st century.

103> i fail to see a difference in the copyright issues of posting the picture to the forum and posting it to authors photos.

> 114

Aside from the fact that LT doesn't flag for copyright issues anymore, there is a difference. Uploading a photo to an author page could arguably be considered a commercial use, while a user posting on a forum would not. As the commercial nature of the use of the copyrighted material is a factor in determining whether the fair use doctrine applies, there is a difference.

113: The problem with a Wikipedia model in this example is that on LibraryThing the anonymous pseudonym author pages will have to be existing because the book has been added. There are no articles on Wikipedia that are having the content "this article has been left intentionally blank", which is what you are hoping for these author pages on LibraryThing. On Wikipedia, the article would just not be made.

Also, if the author is combined with the page for a real person, then it isn't an anonymous pseudonym page anymore. The question I was asking is about existing anonymous pseudonym pages.

116> Also, if the author is combined with the page for a real person, then it isn't an anonymous pseudonym page anymore. The question I was asking is about existing anonymous pseudonym pages.

It's relevant because it introduces the question of what to do if the real author is entered into the system. It's awkward to have a system where the rule is, if you don't know anything about this person then it's ok to enter fictitious stuff, but if you do know who they are then it has to be real info.

And on Wikipedia a notable anonymous persona may well have a page, and it could have the fictitious data on it, but what it won't due is present that fictitious data as real.

>111 marq:

Well, I can see that Tim might want the info provided in CK to be as 'correct' (i.e. not 'fictional') as possible to keep LT as an authoritative source (within the bounds created by the fact that the resource is user-maintained without full management oversight). This is because LT is sold as a service through LTfL. Tim has a lot of whimsy in his character, and his pronouncements in msgs 60 and 68 aren't crystal clear.

I'm afraid I'm one of those who'd see an image that wasn't an image of the author or a representation of an institution as pollution of the site.

118: I'm afraid I'm one of those who'd see an image that wasn't an image of the author or a representation of an institution as pollution of the site.

In which case, you see the site as already significantly polluted. Do you notice it? How does it impact you?

Some examples already mentioned on this thread but easy to find others:

http://www.librarything.com/author/goosemother
http://www.librarything.com/author/youngtodd
http://www.librarything.com/author/hunteradriana

118: also and his pronouncements in msgs 60 and 68 aren't crystal clear.

There are additional guidelines clearly established by TPTB in this topic:

1. For anonymous authors writing under a pseudonym, a logo or avatar is an acceptable author image. A logo or avatar is an image demonstrated to be used to consistently to represent the author on the web.

(see 68 1 and 3 seem good to me)

2. Before flagging an image uploaded by an author, contact the author and request justification.

See the addition to the guidelines (http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Contributing_photos_to_LibraryThing#Flagging_images).

Under the flagging images section.

More specifically the updated guidelines say if the image is "not the author or venue the image is listed under" then contact the uploader before flagging "If this is unclear for a particular image". So things that are clearly not appropriate can be flagged without contacting; e.g. book covers on an author page.

>121 r.orrison: - Right. If the image is very obviously not germane, it can be flagged. If it might be germane, ask before flagging.

nods

Yes, but importantly, for an anonymous pseudonym author, the author picture may be an avatar or a logo - not necessarily an image of the author.

Under certain very specific circumstances where that image is generally recognized as such (not just by the author's own say-so), yes (see Tim's in #68: "If an author is generally pictured with a certain avatar, that should be obvious to anyone, not just the author.")

So how do you define obvious to anyone?

If an author uses the image on Goodreads, Amazon profile their blog etc. is that "generally recognised" as that author's image even if it it not a picture of the author?

Otherwise, what is an example of an image representing an anonymous pseudonym that is generally recognised as such?

"So how do you define obvious to anyone?"

If defining "anyone" as a cataloger/book buyer: It's obvious if the author uses the avatar in lieu of their prortrait on book covers and in book marketing.

Authors, critics, others may have other definitions. They may not be applicable on a book cataloging site.

127: If defining "anyone" as a cataloger/book buyer: It's obvious if the author uses the avatar in lieu of their prortrait on book covers and in book marketing.

Yes. That makes sense. Of course, many of these books will be self-published eBooks and marketing will include (often solely) the author's blog.

But it seems this thread is going round in circles. There needs to be clarity about what is an acceptable image for an anonymous pseudonym author page where obviously, an image of the author is not an option. The options are:

1. nothing - blank.
2. a logo, avatar, publicity image which is not a recognisable image of the author but in some "obvious" way, represents the author.

If 2, in what way, by what proof, does an image not of the author obviously represent the author?

I think it's just a judgment call and that's why we have voting. Keeps it from just being one person's judgment.

Look, we're simply not going to be able to develop some hard and fast bright-line rule here that will work in every single imaginable case. When in doubt about the germaneness of a specific image, discuss it in the image comments.

Yes, but with 7 votes needed to delete the image and discussion, that means in practice delete for anything "not an image of the author", permanently blank and uninteresting author pages and offended authors and users. i.e. status quo.

#131

Why would an author page without a picture be "permanently blank and uninteresting"? I don't mind not seeing an author's likeness when there's a reasonable explanation for its non-existence, including real pseudonymity or anonymity. There's supposedly other stuff on the page, like authored works and whatnot, presumably far more important and telling than an image.

If a pseudonymous author is actually using some image as a brand, I'd be against putting it up for the same reason that I'd be against the chief daddy-o of Nike using the Nike logo instead of his face on his author page.

The author pages on LT aren't meant to be advertising for "brands".

Perhaps LT ought to have generic icons without the question mark, or with some text message, different from the "blank author image space" icon, for categories of corporate authors, pseudonymous authors (if/where likeness is unobtainable or reserved) etc.

(Not Pictured)

126> as I said it it is not that it should be be obvious to every one but that it should be obvious to his readers.

>131 marq:: IMHO, still better than ratty data.

Author pages contain info about authors - they're not advertising.

Edited to fix HTML.

And what information about an anonymous pseudonym author would appear (other than the works)?

Short biography: This author writes fiction for young-adults anonymously under this pseudonym. Therefor, all other fields are blank.

Oops, delete that, it isn't a biography.

#136 by @marq> A link to their wikipedia page or their personal website. Where, as you know, they can put anything they want.

#136: Isn't that what you get for being anonymous, that information about you won't appear?

There is a lot of information about anonymous pseudonyms authors. Their gender, birth place, age, occupation and even their picture, but all of it is not about to the real person who is actually writing the books. It is information about the pseudonym personality that has been invented by the anonymous real author.

At least we can be adding a link back to the author's blog or the author's page on Goodreads where this information is allowed, but I conclude that on LibraryThing the author pages for authors that are not real people need to be left blank except for links to other sites.

#139: There is a lot of information about anonymous pseudonyms authors. Their gender, birth place, age, occupation and even their picture, but all of it is not about to the real person who is actually writing the books.

So, no, there is not a lot of information about the author. The author of Gulliver's Travels is Jonathan Swift, not Lemuel Gulliver, and if we aren't going to list Lemuel Gulliver's information on the author's page for Gulliver's Travels, why should we do that for some other pretend author, just because the real author didn't leave his name? We draw a consistent line between reality and fiction.

http://www.lemonysnicket.com/author.html

#141: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Handler

139: so the image and CK fields on this class of author page on LT needs to be blank except for a link to the author page on Goodreads (or etc.) where the images and information about the (fictional) author can be found?

It will be interesting to know LT staff views on that in light of recent events. Anonymous authors thinking about making the move to LT should not delete their GR accounts there just yet. The LT author page needs something to link to.

They could link to their profile page instead of their GR page.

Yes, they can have whatever they want on their profile page and noone will complain.

#143 by @marq> If it bothers them enough that the author page isn't their playground and they actually have to use the profile page for that, I'd most definitely hope they'd stay at GR. Don't need more authors who have a sense of entitlement over a site they don't own.

They don't own GR either.

#147 by @marq> What does that have to do with whether they have a sense of entitlement?

(For anonymous/pseudonymous authors who HAVE gotten on LT and are okay with LT's rules - I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about this hypothetical person who apparently is so possessive about "their" author page to contemplate switching to LT. I say let them stay at GR if this is the case. We'll still make LT-style author pages for them if anyone catalogs their books. They just want have to see them.)

Authors don't own the author page on LT and I am not saying that they should. However, it is a fact that most images uploaded to anonymous author pages and are flagged and voted off seem to be uploaded by the author. In fact, for anonymous pseudonym authors, the author is the most likely source for that information.

There is a clear conclusion from the discussion above. The fictional information (age, birthplace, occupation, gender etc.) and image of an anonymous pseudonym author should not be put into the common knowledge and author images of the author page. (Ignoring the numerous examples where that has already done on LT). There is no specific place to put that information on LT but there are two options proposed above:

1. a link to this information on another site, probably Goodreads or the author blog.
2. the author can create an additional login to LT for each of their pseudonyms and the fictional information relating to the pseudonym can be added to the profiles of those fictional LT users. I suppose even books could be added to those user's catalogs that the fictional author persona would own. The fictional LT user profile can then be linked to the fictional author page.

Both of these seem less than ideal to me but that is what we are left with.

My point above is simply that authors who have a picture and other information about a pseudonym on Goodreads that want to move to LT can't bring that information to the author page on LT, only to the profile page for an LT login for that pseudonym or by adding a link back to Goodreads.

So after the discussion above, an author who writes anonymously, uploads a logo they have had explicitly made to represent themselves. After being flagged, (I presume with no prior contact by the flagger to the author), the author explains how the image is relevant and appropriate. Nevertheless, the image if voted off and deleted.

I don't see why I should contribute to a site that goes out of its way to offend people for no good reason. After uploading 344 author images and 270 venue images, no more from me.

I don't see why I should contribute to a site that goes out of its way to offend people for no good reason.

Has it occurred to you that other people have offered what they think of as good reasons in this thread. You just dismissing all that with "for no good reason" is rather offensive.

152> Not to mention the presumption that the opinions of one author matter more than those of dozens of readers! If we're offended by authors using community space as their own personal advertising space that just doesn't matter to marq, I guess.

152: Yes, no good reason has been given as to why an author page of an anonymous author should not have the logo or avatar used to represent that author consistently is better than the only other option, nothing.

153: If a logo is advertising, I presume you will flag all logos uploaded to author pages as spam, even for organisations. Advertising by organisations is just as bad as advertising by individuals? When I see an image of a butterfly made by a pen and heart shapes wings, I only understand it as a symbol for a light romance author. In what way does that compel you to buy that author's books where a photo of a real person does not?

But I don't expect an answer and I have no comment on your principle, if you think someone has offended you, you right ahead and offend them back.

#154 by @marq> You're just repeating arguments that have already been addressed. Corporations and organizations are not actual people and hence logos are the only applicable picture of said entity. Human authors, on the other hand, have actual faces and can be photographed. Authors who wish to remain unphotographed may do so.

You may not agree with the decision to treat those two situations in the way they are, but surely you can be logical and admit that there is an actual difference.

155: An anonymous author by definition cannot be photographed. Anonymous authors may be more than one person. Anonymous authors that appear to be individuals are actually companies (I forget the term publishing companies use when they do that). Yes, I will stop repeating myself. I consider the process to be unrepresentative and offensive.

If you can get enough people to agree with you to vote then you can change it, but it doesn't seem like your making any converts here.

#156 by @marq> Unrepresentative? Because people vote on it and the majority wins (and not even a simple plurality but a supermajority even)? Yeah, I think we're never going to be on the same page here.

Yes. Unrepresentative. Nothing like a majority of LT members vote. The number of people who in good faith upload an author or venue picture and have it voted off far exceeds the 6 or so people who flag nearly all of them.

You wouldn't happen to be one of those people who take notice when a radio station says 90% of our callers have such and such an opinions and therefore that is what 90% of people in general think?

The result is representative of the small number of people with a particular set of personality dimensions who make it a hobby to "police" a particularly narrow interpretation of the guidelines. As such, and as demonstrated by the failure to answer so many of the objections made above, this is not a issue that there is any more point in reasoning about.

As far as this aspect of author pages demonstrates, LT remains a niche social network for amateur librarians. Not a serious competitor to Goodreads.

#159 by @marq> That's the "feature" of MANY forms of democracy.

What you're finding is that most people don't care. That's not the same thing as "unrepresentative."

And your attempted scare tactics on how horrible LT is in this aspect are kind of silly. We all know that this affects about 0.00001% of authors, if that. And even smaller percentage of books. Let's just lay it out - the reason nobody especially cares is that these authors have barely any readers.

Maybe in no small part from always picturing themselves as a butterfly or a penguin...

Ever heard of Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James?

Originally, self-published, anonymous pseudonym, eBook. Top of the best seller list before any publisher noticed. Like it or not, that is not the future of publishing. It is the present.

E.L. James is not anonymous.

And even if you swallow the incredibly unproven prediction about self-publishing being the future of book publishing, it's a huge leap to claim that anonymous self-publishing is the present of publishing.

ETA: And then, of course, a leap of galactic proportiosn from there to anonymous authors who like to use butterflies, penguins and other graphics as their "photo".

Erika Leonard (pseudonym E L James) was anonymous when the book was originally released as an eBook and also the proto-versions released when who wrote as "Snowqueens Icedragon".

No one has used butterflies or penguins as "their" photo on LT. The penguin photo was uploaded to a real author page by someone else with no explanation. It was rightly removed. The "butterfly" wasn't a photo of a butterfly. It was a logo using images of a pen and hearts to make a stylised image of a butterfly. How a logo for an individual author (who may actually be a company) is advertising but a logo for a company is not advertising is just one of the many unanswered questions posed above.

Anonymous authors do not add the author pages to LT. Members do that when they catalog those author's books. There are already a lot of them and there will be more and more. The main question of this thread "what is an example of an acceptable image for an anonymous pseudonym author page?" was never answered.

Of course, if one of those authors (like Erika Leonard aka E L James aka Snowqueens Icedragon) manages to sell a hundred million copies, they might just quit their day jobs and reveal their real names / photos.

#164 by @marq> How a logo for an individual author (who may actually be a company) is advertising but a logo for a company is not advertising is just one of the many unanswered questions posed above.

Other than the countless times it's been answered, most recently in 155 which you then followed up by saying you would stop repeating yourself.

You're simply not listening not because you have counterarguments but because you don't like our explanations.

Of course, if one of those authors (like Erika Leonard aka E L James aka Snowqueens Icedragon) manages to sell a hundred million copies, they might just quit their day jobs and reveal their real names / photos.

At least you're starting to catch on to my point above about these authors who remain anonymous being not very widely read. I actually have a better counterexample for you but considering your refusal to listen I'm going to make you find it yourself.

If a name can be traced to a person, it is not an anonymous author anymore.

Sorry - if someone does not like that, they should not be writing or publishing. The moment they decided to make money by writing books, they waived their anonymity. The whole "I want to be an author but I do not want people to know" cannot work in the digital era. Authors can have their private life but their names and pictures and anything relevant to their work is part of the deal to be an author...

Even if LT does not have the information, someone else will. So why should we cripple LT by not having available information that does not break any copyright or other laws?

No, your post in 155 does not answer the question. You answer is essentially, they are "different because they are different."

Why is a logo for an individual author (who may be a company) advertising, where a logo for a company is not?

And no, self-published anonymous author eBook are widely read. Even of they are not, the author page will primarily exist because their readers catalogued the author's books. What is an example of an acceptable image for an anonymous author page?

>What is an example of an acceptable image for an anonymous author page?

None. If there is no available picture, you do not come up with some symbol but just leave it empty. Or Tim can come up with a generic "Author" picture to be used...

168: Exactly. And be very clear about what that implies about LT.

1. a niche social network for amateur librarians.
2. not a social network for readers and authors.
3. no problem offending people without notice who think that an image used to represent that author all over the internet is good enough for LT too.

#169 by @marq> To call the authors you are worried about offending "niche" authors would greatly overstate their audience numbers. And yet, this tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction isn't cataloged like you'd like so that makes LT a nice site? Bizarre logic.

One author was offended enough that LT listed their birthdate that they emailed Tim and berated him. Someone will always be offended about something.

>169 marq:

Hm... where did these come from?

1. Huh? How the lack or presence of a picture that is not an author's photo leads to that?
2. The same. Anonymous and pseudonymous are different things though and in LT, pseudonyms ARE always combined with the real names. Why pictures should be treated differently?
3. Right. So if someone decides to identify themselves with a swastika or a pornographic image or anything along these lines, we will allow this as well? Instead of drawing the line at what is offensive, the line is drawn at having only images that represent people...

I am really not sure what exactly you are trying to achieve here (besides making everyone remember that there are pictures to be voted off...) LT is a social site but it is also a database of catalogued books and metadata for them.

So I went back and looked at all the examples posted. Near as I can tell, the most "popular" example was this one:

http://www.librarything.com/author/hunteradriana-1
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1023421.Adriana_Hunter

57 members cataloging on LT, 500 ratings on GR. (The GR number is a little inflated because it lists the total number of ratings, not total number of distinct users who have rated any of the 45 books.)

Is this what "widely read" means?

This is by no means a judgment on the quality of their writing. That is highly subjective and I wouldn't even venture an opinion especially not having read them. But popularity isn't subjective. It's a fact. It may be a fact that's hard to measure, but I think the LT and GR stats are a pretty good measurement.

As a reminder, LT has about 1.6 million members and over 81 million books cataloged.

It may or may not be "right" to have this policy. It's a matter of opinion to some degree. But to blow it up into a major blight on the face of LT is just puffery.

>172 brightcopy: 57 members cataloging on LT

That seems to be the total number of books by that author that have been cataloged, not the number of members that have cataloged a book by that author. There seem to be only three public members (AdrianaHunter (33), aframel (1), readsalot3523 (1) ) who have a book, there must be a couple private ones to make the numbers add up. And it looks like that 21 out of the 35 works have ONLY been cataloged by the author.

#173 by @KarenElissa> Huh, yeah, I believe you're probably right. And I vaguely remember reading a Talk topic about it somewhere so it's probably already been brought up. But labeling it "Members" is pretty odd.

>174 brightcopy: KarenElissa is almost exactly right. :)

But she assumed that the missing numbers were because of private libraries. I have good reason to suspect that isn't what's happening.

My author page (L. Shelby) says Members: 17. Down below it lists six other people with one work each and me with 10. That only adds up to 16.

But I know where that missing "member" comes from, because it's me. I have two copies of one of my own works. When I added the second one, the number of works by my name didn't go up, but the number of "Members" did.

Kinda funky.

>175 LShelby: Ahh, yup, the author has multiple copies of her book in her own library.

The name on top of that number had always been wrong... it should have been called Copies/Books. :)

156: it is called "house name" like James Axler. Was very popular but most people are thinking it is one writer where there were a lot of different people. There is a disambiguation note in that one's page.

Yes, another famous house name is is Franklin W. Dixon, http://www.librarything.com/author/dixonfranklinw. 30,720 members but apparently "not widely read".

It does have an author picture though:

179 >

I don't understand your point, marq. Franklin W. Dixon is a corporate pseudonym.

The point of contention has been about individuals who do not wish to be identified with their output, and thus either they or someone else uploads some kind of other image other than an author photograph. It's just not the same thing.

To clarify, as I see it, here are two issues:

1. what is an acceptable image to upload to an author page (by anyone), where that author is not identified as a real person? The options are a) a logo or avatar that is specifically designed to represent that author in a unique way, or b) nothing. That is, any case where an photograph or other image of a real person is not appropriate or impossible.

2. obviously we don't want to see completely irrelevant images on author pages, but when someone with good intentions uploads a relevant image that is used to represent a non-real author name, is it worth the rudeness and offence that that person feels when their contribution is flagged and deleted and (often) their explanation simply ignored?

The conclusions from the general view above are to question 1. Nothing. 2. Yes

My conclusions are: 1. Any relevant image is better than nothing. e.g. the Butterfly logo that was recently deleted was an enrichment to LT and was not in any way advertising or spam. And, there are plenty of author images that are not pictures of authors already on LT.

2. No it isn't worth offending people for this trivia. If people can't make harmless, appropriate and creative contributions to the site, then I don't feel that I should be able to either. Therefore, I also will no longer upload author of venue images to this site. (period).

Nobody said house authors aren't widely read. Where do you come up with this stuff?

If your contributions here depend on every little disagreement here being decided in the way you want it, I see no choice but for you to take your ball and go.

Thank you for your former contributions and I sincerely hope you find happiness.

>181 marq: 1. Any relevant image is better than nothing. e.g. the Butterfly logo that was recently deleted was an enrichment to LT and was not in any way advertising or spam.

This is a conclusion that I can't get to. Such an image may not be "advertising" but it is misinformation. As others have said, LT is a cataloging site as much as, or even more than, it is a social site. So information that is deliberately misleading is a problem here.

I was initially apathetic to anonymous author avatar pictures. But as I have looked through marq's examples I have decided that I do not want them on LT.

The image an author chooses to represent his or her social media presence is simply not the same kind information as an actual picture of the author. It is also not the same as images used to represent non-persons such as corporate authors and multi-author pseudonyms. (I also should say that I much prefer photos of office headquarters and the like to logos for corporate authors when such photos are available.)

Anonymous author avatar images appear to me to be part of a social media marketing strategy. LT is primarily a social book cataloging site, not a social network for authors to connect (i.e. sell) to readers. The fact that LT cataloging, data, and even most discussion functions are not to be used for marketing in any way is very important to me.

Authors may, of course, put whatever image they like as the primary image on their profile pages. And if they sign up to be an LT author there will be a link from the author page to the profile page. This is sufficient. If there is no available photo or other representation of the physical likeness of an author the author page image should be blank. There are many, many blank author images on LT. This is not a problem.

181 > I'm sure people do many things with good intentions, but good intentions don't automatically make an action appropriate. Surely one purpose of flagging and voting is to crowd-source the decision of whether a well-meaning upload is an appropriate upload.

166: Sorry - if someone does not like that, they should not be writing or publishing. The moment they decided to make money by writing books, they waived their anonymity. The whole "I want to be an author but I do not want people to know" cannot work in the digital era. Authors can have their private life but their names and pictures and anything relevant to their work is part of the deal to be an author...

So for example a person who writes erotic fiction for women under the pseudonym Ju Ephraime, but who also writes book for children under her real name, has no right to try to keep those identities separate for the obvious reasons?

183: Such an image may not be "advertising" but it is misinformation.

Images that are uploaded to anonymous author pages that look like people, are blurred, photoshopped or simply just stock photos of models so that the identity of the author is not revealed intend to mislead and could be said to be misinformation.

Other images of logos etc. cannot be misinterpreted as being images of a person. No one is going to think a butterfly with the body of a pen and wings of hearts, especially with a comment saying that this is the author's official logo and that the author is a pseudonym.

Yes, the former will generally not be flagged and the later will be. Can you explain how a logo is misinformation?

185: Surely one purpose of flagging and voting is to crowd-source the decision of whether a well-meaning upload is an appropriate upload.

Some interesting statistics. 90.2% of image flagging is done by the top 10 flaggers, representing 0.0006% of LT members. It then takes another 6 people (most likely members of the top 10) to remove the image, normally before anyone else has had a chance to even see it. 25% of image flags have been done by 1 person. Do you call that "crowd-source"?

184: LT is primarily a social book cataloging site, not a social network for authors to connect (i.e. sell) to readers.

Yes, agree. Also, not a social network for readers to connect to authors. It is a book cataloging site. A site for amateur librarians to catalogue their personal collections. Goodreads isn't a book cataloging site. It is a site where you list the books you have read and wish to read for purely social reasons. A social network where readers and authors do connect. That is about authors and their fans, but yes, in the end, something about selling books.

In other words, completely different. There seems to be some illusions about that difference floating around recently.

169>

You're drawing the lines in the wrong place there between 1 and 2 (3 is an obvious straw man not worthy of further discussion). It's not "amateur librarians" versus "authors and readers", it's "catalogers, readers, and authors here as readers or to discuss" versus "authors who view LT purely as a social marketing tool". Which is why authors aren't given special godlike privileges over the shared community property pertaining to factual information about them and their books.

185, 186 > Do you call that "crowd-source"?

Yes, I do, because the structure is to crowd-source. There's no magic number that makes a crowd (except maybe three ;-) so the fact that only a few care doesn't change the underlying concept.

25% of image flags have been done by 1 person.
So, if one person flags, that doesn't make their decision correct, even if it is well-intentioned. That's why there is voting. Just as if one person uploads, that doesn't mean they are correct, even if they are well-meaning.

>186 marq: So for example a person who writes erotic fiction for women under the pseudonym Ju Ephraime, but who also writes book for children under her real name, has no right to try to keep those identities separate for the obvious reasons?

Or, to turn that question around, do her readers have no right to know she is the same person?

Images that are uploaded to anonymous author pages that look like people, are blurred, photoshopped or simply just stock photos of models so that the identity of the author is not revealed intend to mislead and could be said to be misinformation.

Well I am against stock photos of models for the same reason. It is misinformation. I'd be interested to know how Lemony Snicket was pictured on LT when he first started publishing, since part of the gimmick was his anonymity. Author photos in catalogs, etc showed a picture of the back of a (thin) man walking away from the camera.

But now, the guy who writes under the name Lemony Snicket is actually visible and "out" and the photo on his page is a photo of the man who actually writes the books.

Other images of logos etc. cannot be misinterpreted as being images of a person. No one is going to think a butterfly with the body of a pen and wings of hearts, especially with a comment saying that this is the author's official logo and that the author is a pseudonym.

Yes, the former will generally not be flagged and the later will be. Can you explain how a logo is misinformation?

Logos represent a brand, not a person.

>186 marq: So for example a person who writes erotic fiction for women under the pseudonym Ju Ephraime, but who also writes book for children under her real name, has no right to try to keep those identities separate for the obvious reasons?

In this time and age, how long it will take for someone to find this out? Seriously? I'd rather have the author come clean and say "yes, I am doing both" than pretend to be just a children author and then be exposed later on (nothing bad in erotica - I read erotica - but when someone hides it, they imply that there is something wrong with it).

190: This is a slight tangent, but yes, it is very easy to find out that books by Ju Ephraime (erotica) and books by Dr. Julia E. Antoine (children's educational) are written by the same person. Hypothetically (since none of Antoine's books are catalogued), would those author pages be combined on LT, thus mixing erotica and children's books on the same author page?

189: Logos represent a brand, not a person.. True, pseudonyms are a kind of brand, often for marketing purposes. To repeat myself, pseudonyms author pages exist on LT as a result of a person cataloging books attributed to that pseudonym. Not due to the marketing efforts of authors.

#191: Of course. What's more, you've offered no other option that works in the general case. What, an author page named "Daniel Defoe writing for the London Observer anonymously"? Are we going to keep Dr. Suess and Theodor Seuss Geisel separate? JD Robb and Nora Roberts? Does Gulliver's Travels go under Lemuel Gulliver or Jonathan Swift? I don't think there's a good line here, and any line is going to require more interpretation then what we have.

>191 marq:

What's the problem with mixing them when they are written by the same person? I still fail to see what is the shamefulness in erotica... and why mixing erotica and children books is worse than mixing YA and mystery for example or SF and mystery. After all - being on the same page or being written by the same person does not mean that they are all read by the same people...

>186 marq: So for example a person who writes erotic fiction for women under the pseudonym Ju Ephraime, but who also writes book for children under her real name, has no right to try to keep those identities separate for the obvious reasons?

They're entitled to try anything.

Prediction is : it's not going to work.

We are entitled not to accommodate them in their effort.

Example: During his lifetime the author known as Lewis Carroll used that name only for his fictional works, while his academic works were published under his real name. Almost all posthumous editions of the latter are published as by Lewis Carroll though.

193: What's the problem with mixing them when they are written by the same person? I still fail to see what is the shamefulness in erotica...

I don't think there is anything shameful in erotica at all, but I don't think it is suitable reading material for children. I would have thought that one of the main reasons she writes erotica and children's educational books using different identities is that children are not inadvertently exposed to erotica.

"Hey mum, please buy me the latest book by...."

Right, but LT author combining merely says that the works were written by the same person (or non-person as the case may be). It doesn't change the author name on the book.

>195 marq:

Children under 13 have no work on LT anyway... I can understand why the erotica books should not be listed on their children books but in a site with book catalogs... that's not really a relevant concern. Are you going to advocate that Wikipedia should not link the two names either? And the books themselves are not changed...

>191 marq: True, pseudonyms are a kind of brand, often for marketing purposes. To repeat myself, pseudonyms author pages exist on LT as a result of a person cataloging books attributed to that pseudonym. Not due to the marketing efforts of authors.

But on LT pseudonymous authors are combined with the real name author as more and more data is entered. Because in LT it isn't about marketing. It's about documenting.

198 > Because in LT it isn't about marketing. It's about documenting.

Yes. That.

I've got 50 unread messages, but that line from 198 is gold.

I've been partially following this discussion, but after all this here are my reactions:

1) There is value in the ability to write and publish anonymously and/or pseudonymously. It you look at this historically, pseudonyms have long been used in political writings, for controversial writings, and for lots of purposes where someone wants to get ideas or writings out but without putting her/his own name to it. You can also think about cases of political dissidence or of marginalization, where identification might lead to repercussions. (Of course, some people also use pseudonyms for other purposes, and some who do so don't care much or at all if those pseudonyms are found out.)

2) For current-day authors who want to keep their real identities secret, I don't see any problem with having an avatar image on LT as an exception to the usual practice.

3) In terms of linking pseudonyms to real names through combining: a lot of this depends on whether the person is living vs. dead, and whether it's someone who is actively trying to keep their identity private. If you happen to find out that (living) children's book author A and erotica author B and political treatise author C are the same author, but that's not widely public information, I don't think LT should be the place to publicize your finding. Now, if the author concerned publicly acknowledges having written all those things under different pseudonyms, as appears to be the case with the children's ed/erotica author mentioned above, that's a different story, and I don't see any strong case for keeping them separate.*

(*What might be nice, for these and other cases of pseudonyms, is a way for the author page to group works written under different pseudonyms.)

Yes, authors or syndicates of authors choose to write anonymously under a pseudonym primarily for the purpose of marketing.

LT members who catalogue those books, thus generating the author page are documenting. Many of those pages (if not most) won't be identified with a real author or authors.

So, I finally get it. Any image or information added to those pages is marketing.

This of course includes a link to the pseudonym's blog, which is a marketing tool.

A person may make an LT member account using the pseudonym as their "real name" and get that linked to the author page so that that "fake" account is identified as a LibraryThing Author. They can then fill that LT members profile with as much fictional information about the pseudonym as they like for the same reason they chose to write under a pseudonym in the first place; marketing.

An LT member who finds a picture representing the pseudonym on the web and uploads it will be told that they have violated the terms of service and their unwelcome contribution flagged and soon after deleted, any explanation or discussion with it. Unless the inventor of the pseudonym is deceitful and chooses a marketing picture which appears vaguely human, in which case, the 0.0006% of LT users (10) who flag 90.2% of the images flagged don't notice. Once it makes it off the recent page, it seems to be safe.

On a talk topic on a particular genre, an author contributes "I wrote a book like that too called ....", flag as spam.

>202 marq: LT members who catalogue those books, thus generating the author page are documenting.

All information entered by users on LT is done in the spirit of documenting. LT allows its users a fair amount of leeway to manipulate information in their own catalogs by allowing all sorts of book-specific editorial leeway. It is, rightly I think, much more careful about what is acceptable when you are manipulating information that has a global impact. Bad data dilutes the usefulness of the site for everyone.

OK. Information about pseudonyms is "bad data". Linking a LT member profile containing fictional information about a pseudonym to an pseudonym author page is also then "bad data". I was clearly slightly confused about where LT is positioned. This clarifies somewhat:

“They’re not fully competitors. A common use pattern is to use Goodreads as ‘here’s what I’m reading now,’ posting that to Facebook and interacting socially. And then LibraryThing is where you store your whole library. We have a lot of users who do that.”

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/04/social-media/goodreads-acquisition-presen...

Yes, I do that. I just need to be a bit clearer about which site I use for what.

I think this discussion is fairly poisoned at this point. No one is being convinced of anything.

See http://www.librarything.com/topic/164093