Author with zero works

If an author has zero works attributed to them, will the author be deleted after some time?

If yes..

And the same zero works author is combined with an author that has works, will that keep the zero works author from being deleted?

Did this make any sense?

No, the underlying assumption is usually incorrect, and yes. :)

Most of the time the REASON an author has zero works is because they've been combined with another author, the works combined, and the spelling in question isn't dominant on any work.

Ah, but what about the authors that are not combined with any other author and still show zero works.

So a new question.

Would an non-combined author with zero works, be deleted after some time?

I don't think so, as long as someone has that author in their catalog. Otherwise, I really have no idea.

>4 PhoenixTerran:

My understanding is an author with zero works, is one that is orphaned or not in any library.

Unless it has changed recently, an author might have a work that ends up on a second author's page because more people have that work listed with the second author's name. (For example, Good Omens ends up on Neil Gaiman's author page but not on Terry Prachett's even though some people have Prachett listed as the author in their library.)

I'm not sure what you mean by an "orphaned" author.

3>

I cannot envision a scenario in which that situation would arise.

Well, maybe if someone enters a book by a previously unknown author, then deletes the book. But that's much, much less likely than authors who are "orphaned" because someone has combined the book out from under them (book combination, without author combination).

Another scenario for how an author name _may_ have no books....
.... if someone enters a book with the author name incorrectly set up/spelt;
and then, a combiner combines the singleton book with the other books (but not the author names)
THEN LATER...
...the original enterer notices the incorrect author name in their catalogue... and manually corrects the author name.

Would that result in an 'orphaned' author page with no books on it as described above?

I imagine it's not a common situation though.

I found one of these orphaned authors tonight (no longer, as I've combined it) - I think this one was a result of people listing a popular author (Stephenie Meyer) as one of their 'favorites' in their profiles, but misspelling the name.

Does listing an author name in the profile create an author page?

Here is an example of zero works author.

http://www.librarything.com/author/davidandleigheddings
http://www.librarything.com/author/eddingsdavidliegh&norefer=1

9> You have to list a favorite author from the author page, so it has to have existed before the favoriting.

10> Both look like situation explained in 8 above. Original entry was a combined author, later changed to one author and additional author. I don't think this scenario is all that uncommon. A lot of information is just plain wrong, not just from Amazon, but from good libraries as well. Catalogers make mistakes. Even if only 0.1% of the data pulled in is wrong, that can add up. I fix such things first thing, but the wrong entry has been in the database.

>9 Aerrin99:

That is where my question about whether they will stick around or disappear after awhile..

I seems to me that an author with zero works and combined with an other author would stay in the database since they are linked.

but, an author with zero works and is not combined with another author might disappear after some set time frame.

If the second statement is false, then it would make sense to combine the zero works author with an appropriate author that has works.

But if the statement is true, then leaving the zero works author uncombined with any other author would slowly clean up the database of bad author information.

Not infrequently, the attempt to combine these zero works authors is met with the message that the author is no longer on the system - so are they or aren't they? Maybe just slowly fading away like the Cheshire cat.

> 13
I'm tempted to re-read my Thursday Next stories now :-)