R. C. Sproul - is there actually more than one author with this name?

Currently this disambiguation page isn't disambiguating anything:
https://www.librarything.com/author/sproulrc

There are 1095 (!) works. None of them are assigned to a split. From the history, it looks like multiple people have split this page, but there is no obvious indication that there is actually more than one author.

What is going on here?

I think that this one may be caught into the "cannot be saved as a single author once it had been split" bug.

That usually means that there is something assigned into a split - possibly a work that is not even on this page anymore because it was combined elsewhere but the assignment lingers.

Yup. Try to make it single. You get "To save as a single author, you must first remove all assignments below and save.". There is a work somewhere keeping it like that.

Thanks! That certainly would explain why it looks like people are constantly reassigning everything--I guess those must be previous attempts to fix it.

I'm afraid that when I was combining a few obvious duplicates, I got notified more than once that I was combining different author splits. (And it can't have been those that did it, because people have been trying to fix this for months.) So, I guess this will have to wait for a bug fix.

If you check the history of the disambiguation field, you can see who the splits represented at the time:
https://www.librarything.com/commonknowledge/changelog.php?f=13&item=454&amp...
Note that it's possible the R. C. Sproul page at one time was also combined with additional names, such as Robert C. Sproul, R. C. Sproul, Jr., Robert Charles Sproul, Robert Craig Sproul, etc.

And if you expand the assignment history page:
https://www.librarything.com/author_split.php?author=sproulrc&page=assign
via the link at the end of the list which currently says (show all 18), you eventually get to find all the works that are still assigned into the (1), (2) and (3) splits – it is any work that is not struckthrough that blocks the page from being set back into a single author. Adding R. C. Sproul temporarily as an additional author to any of those will make the assignment reappear live on the page, to be set back to Unknown.

However at a glance I'd suggest it may want to remain split if several of the Robert Charles, Robert Craig, Seniors/Juniors are known by "R. C. Sproul" – so restoring the disambiguation note and alias (1) into /sproulrobertcharles, etc. may be the best way to go. But I stress that is only at a glance, others more versed in the authors would be better placed than me to decide on that.

Oh! I didn't get that far scrolling down, I guess. Thanks!

It looks like we have:
(1) R.C. Sproul (Robert Charles Sproul), the Reformed writer, who is so ubiquitous that it is hard to search for anyone else, and has ~1000 works that ought to be assigned to him.

(2) Robert C. Sproul, the founder of Major Publications, who is never referred to as "R.C." as far as I can tell. I don't think any of his works are still assigned to R.C.

(3) R.C. Sproul, Jr. (Robert Craig Sproul), the son of R.C., who I think is consistently referred to as "Jr.". None of his books are assigned incorrectly, but he was editor of TableTalk magazine from 1993 through 2004, and there are a couple of issues from that period assigned to "R.C. Sproul" right now (probably they are intended to be assigned to Sr.).

So, the question of whether to retain the split seems to come down to how the magazine should be treated. Should issues be credited (a) to the editor (in which case Sproul Jr. gets some of them), (b) to the founder/creator (in which case Sproul Sr. gets all of them), or (c) to the magazine itself?

My initial instinct is to create a 4th split for "TableTalk Magazine" and assign the unclear magazine editions to that one. (It could also go to "Ligonier Ministries", where a lot of the issues currently are assigned.)

>5 AranelST: There is no “should” in LT around crediting magazines. Someone will credit the magazines to him so the author is better off split. :) is always credit to the editor of the issue for example. :)

(1) R. C. Sproul was aliased to Robert Charles Sproul, where some of his works still appear.

>7 DuncanHill: Well I guess it will be aliased to that again, but which one did you mean? Is this it?
https://www.librarything.com/author/sproulrobertcharles

>6 AnnieMod: In that case, I'll alias the magazine issues directly to the magazine, unless anyone objects. (And if anyone does object, it should be easier for them to change the alias.)

>8 AranelST: Yes, that's what I meant, I should have known better than to trust the Touchstone!

Okay, thanks for your help, everyone! Everything is now assigned (at least tentatively).

The only issue that remains is that I can't seem to clear the combination issues. I took care of the English, but when I click on the two remaining languages, nothing happens, so I can't clear those (or transfer them to the split).

>11 AranelST:

The inability to clear combination issues on other language sites is a longstanding bug.