Description is Spoiler

Hi there. Is there a way to change a book's description in LT? I've found a juvenile mystery novel that is completely ruined by a spoiler in the description. Thanks for your help.

https://www.librarything.com/work/1988456/book/313031231

You can vote descriptions up or down, and if there's a better one, it will be displayed instead.

https://www.librarything.com/work/1988456/descriptions

I'm not sure how else you'd describe that book for people trying to track it down, but I haven't read it myself.

Thank you. I see this is a "member description." Where does one write a better description to prevent a spoiler?

>3 v1v1enne: It's actually being pulled in from a library description, and was also added as a member description at some point.

I searched on it, and my first 5 results were all for the book - the image has the first 3, the 4th is LT, and the 5th is a public library site. With a book this old, I don't think most people are concerned with spoiling the plot. (In fact, knowing the answer to the mystery makes me more curious about how it develops!)

You can add a description on the Community page, but new member descriptions are not automatically added to the descriptions page anymore.
https://www.librarything.com/work/1988456/social

>4 keristars: Thank you for your help. The mystery of the Indian is only solved in the last pages of the book, so it's a shame to see somewhere along the way that spoiler became the description. Thank you so much for explaining how descriptions work at LT. Felt like a Treasure Hunt seeking the answer. Grateful for your expertise!

Just curious: can one write one's own description and use it as the main one for the work? I understand that it could get voted down by other LT members, but I never thought about writing one. For some books, I think it might be useful.

>6 krazy4katz: It probably would be useful in some cases, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to let that happen. Too easily abused. Probably safer to write a review instead. I personally trust reviews more anyway, since they aren't by salespeople. :-)

A friend of mine had a book spoiled by the Library of Congress Heading.

>7 waltzmn: Yes, I do trust reviews on LT, but those can contain spoilers and I have no problem with that, although in my own reviews I try not to do that (or not too much anyway). However that is different from a description. You are probably correct that it is not a good idea.

>8 timspalding: Oh that is terrible! But it does illustrate that we are all human, even the LOC.

>8 timspalding: Tags can have spoilers bubble up, too. Once you've read the book, it's not a spoiler, and you wouldn't be concerned about them when you want to pull books with unreliable narrators or whathaveyou.

>1 v1v1enne: I would suggest that you take your comment about the spoiler out of your review. I think that most people might not realize it is a spoiler if you don't tell them. Of course it is up to you. Best wishes! k4k

>1 v1v1enne:

You can downvote the description, but you should not flag it. "Contains spoilers" is not one of the listed reasons for flagging a library description.

>13 lilithcat:

I feel like "spoiler" is a very subjective thing. Most book descriptions contain some spoilers in the same way that most movie previews do. For the latter, if I expect I'm going to like a movie, I religiously avoid the preview. For Hail Mary Project, I had read the book, so it wasn't a spoiler, but I dislike that it revealed the major twist!