Ignore blanks when calculating dominant author of work

I've been looking at travel guides lately, and I've seen quite a number like this
http://www.librarything.com/work/1918396/editions, where the work has no author but checking the editions shows that quite a few copies have an author.

Having no author is a disadvantage in a few ways:
1. It makes combining more difficult
2. People who have listed an author can get confused when the work doesn't show up on the author page. If the dominant author is different from the one in my copy, it shows up on the work page like this:
Eyewitness Travel Guides: Amsterdam
by Robin Pascoe (otherwise under DK Publishing)
so there's a link to the author page the work is on. But if the dominant author is blank, it's not so obvious that the work isn't on any author page.
3. If there are mismatched no-copy editions in the mix, there's no guaranteed way to find them, since they show up on the (non-existent) author page and not on the editions page. They can be found if there's a recommended combination on the editions page, but that doesn't always happen.

So I recommend that calculating the dominant author for the work should ignore the editions with no author, as long as at least one of the editions has an author.

edited to change the example, since the orginal one was combined out of existence.

Heartily seconded.

And thirded!

Me, too!

Me too!!

Let's make that a full six pack! Oh, and not just travel guides. I've seen situations like that on other books too.

Actually, Title and Author both should be based on editions with copies and not on ghost editions. I know Tim would rather we didn't separate the ghosts out, but right now that is the only way we have to get the author right. Obviously Canonical Title could be used if only the title is wrong, but it is really very frustrating to get something entered, fix mistakes, and then find that the work still has the wrong information.

*BUMP* Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Good idea - keep it rolling!

I'm putting my vote in for this too, but I consider it a bug not a feature suggestion.

As mentioned somewhere else, it actually does this now—but that doesn't mean it will recalculate it without reason. Someone give me an example?

Note, it just considers them less. You don't want a work with 10,000 copies, none of them with an author, and "fuck you" wins because one person has it has the author.

I don't know about that. Almost anything is better than it not appearing on any author page at all. And what if it was something legitimate instead of "fuck you"?

ETA: Also, "fuck you" will have an author page in any case because someone has it in their library, the only difference is if "he" has any books on his page or not.

ETA2: Or maybe you should create an author page for the blank author but it'll be as unwieldy as various and anonymous.

>13 jjwilson61:
Amen, brother (or sister)!

#12: I don't find that probable at all; there's enough people who don't like blank authors that someone will put a decent author in. It's much more likely that "fuck you" will win on a small book with a half dozen copies in the system, and that would be just as disconcerting.

15> just as disconcerting

Not really, to me. A lot more people are going to see the problem with the 10,000 copy book than the 6 copy book. If you go digging around LT, you'll find TONS of bad data on 6 copy books.

16> I'm not sure what your point is. The chance of there being a work with 9,999 copies with a blank author and one with "fu" as the author seems infinitesimally small.

17> I'm not sure what your point is. The chance of there being a work with 9,999 copies with a blank author and one with "fu" as the author seems infinitesimally small.

Yes, but we weren't talking about the chances of it happening. We were talking about which was worse (or if it was equally bad) if it did happen.

18> That doesn't help me figure out what you *were* talking about. OK, I think you were saying that seeing a swear word as the author of a work with a lot of members would be more disconcerting than seeing it on a work with few members. I disagree, it would be worst in some sense because more people may see it, but not more disconcerting because my own personal reaction would be the same in either case.

19> I wasn't trying to gauge the level of how offended I would be if I stumbled upon such an entry. I am referring to how much I worry that these problem may be happening, somewhere out there. I would be more disconcerted that there's the potential for the problem that affects a large-copy work than a small-copy one.

20> But then if you're worried about the potential for the problem then the chance of it happening is relevant.

21> Yes, and I would welcome a line of argument on that.

However, that was not the line of argument I was responding to.

22> Yes, and I would welcome a line of argument on that {the chance of it happening}.

However, that was not the line of argument I was responding to.

??? You were responding to my post #17 which said:

The chance of there being a work with 9,999 copies with a blank author and one with "fu" as the author seems infinitesimally small.

Isn't that a line of argument about the chance of it happening?

23> ??? You were responding to my post #17

In my #16, I responded to #15 (by prosfilaes). In #17, you responded to my #16 saying you didn't know what my point is. I tried to explain in #18 what my point in #16 was. In #19, you responded to #18 saying "That doesn't help me figure out what you *were* talking about". In #20, I continued trying to explain to you what I *was* talking about.

If you're wanting to move onto another topic, that's fine. But all your replies seem to be asking what the hell I was talking about way back in #16, which wasn't directed at you to begin with. I definitely agree with one thing you said - "???"

;)

Nice to see it working in practice! I just combined a work with 11 copies of The Everyday Guide to the Proverbs and no author, with a work with 8 copies and the author Paul M Miller (touchstone not working). Despite the majority having no author, it selected Paul M. Miller for the combined work.

Not so fast...

I just combined works 3781852 ("Ask Me Why - Creepy-Crawlies: Which Bug Uses A Torch?" with author listed as Mark Darling, 2 members) and 1628733 (no author, 5 members), and the new combined work is http://www.librarything.com/work/1628733 with no author.

Probably unlikely, but maybe the Canonical Author had been set on the main work in the past and was reset to blank (and so it is now blank due to the long-standing blank Canonical Author makes the author blank bug).

No, there's no author on http://www.librarything.com/work/1628733. (You can look at the source to see if there's an empty author link; on that page there's no author link at all.)

I just separated out the edition with the title 'how did a wall stop an army', which had the same ISBN, however WorldCat told me that this ISBN was used on nearly all of the Ask me why books.

Anyway... this separations seems to have done the trick, so that your work now shows up with an author.

I wasn't asking for someone to fix that particular book, I was using that combination that I did as an example of a case where no author took precedence over a real author, which was a bug feature that we thought had been fixed implemented.

Oh well, if it happens again I'll post another example.

Well, that was quick... I found another example. I combined http://www.librarything.com/work/3749902 (no author, many editions some with authors) and http://www.librarything.com/work/8229109 (author Gale Group, 1 edition). The resulting work http://www.librarything.com/work/3749902 still has no author listed.

Please don't do any combining or separating on this work, I'd like Tim to be able to take a look at it, as he requested in message 12.

> 30 Mmm, yes that did cross my mind, but that combination error just kept looking at me... ;-) Sorry

The urge to correct can be hard to resist. http://www.xkcd.com/386/

Bump.

Another example as requested in message 12, where no author prevailed over a real author: I just combined works 1080600 and 7638946. 1080600 had no author (even though at least one edition already combined into it had an author), 7638946 was by the author "Alpha Resources". The combined work still has no author.

Another example where no author won out over a real author:
I just combined works 1347611 (author Kathy G. Short) and 10602933 (no author), resulting in http://www.librarything.com/work/10602933 which has no author.

35> Bleh. At this point, I'd consider that a bug. How could it possibly be expected behavior that it would choose a blank author over an actual author? I'd guess there is a very small percentage of books that should actually have no author name, and in most cases the real name should be "Anonymous". Only an even tinier percentage are ones where a blank author name makes sense (books by a committee, etc.).

So yeah, this is a bug in my book.

Only an even tinier percentage are ones where a blank author name makes sense (books by a committee, etc.).
Even then, what's wrong with putting the committee name as the author? If the committee has published more than one work, it makes perfect sense to see them together on an author page.

Personally, I see no excuse for leaving the author field blank. Someone (or some organization) must have created the work, or it wouldn't exist.

(And if anyone goes looking through my catalog - yes, I do have a work with no author listed. tough)

37> I know that LT was made for books and books alone, and those who use it to catalog videos, posters, and action figures are heretics to be condemned to the outer darkness. Still, like many institutional libraries, I have chosen to include my magazines and journals by placing a single record for each such title in the catalog. (Issue ranges are indicated in the comments field.) Besides the tag "periodical," these are distinguished from books by leaving the author field blank.

36> I've noticed that "Anonymous" is the LT-work-endorsed author of the Bible. In my own catalog, I prefer "various," in order to take into account various traditional ascriptions of authorship and the genuine redactive and editorial history of the Bible. I also use square brackets to distinguish author-field-fillers that are not really authors, like "anonymous," "various," and "unknown." They all belong at the end of an alpha-by-author list, and this way they get there.

37> By committee, I don't mean a named committee. I just mean a bunch of people wrote something, and they don't put a single author on it. It happens, just not frequently. And other than saying "The author of XYZ should be set to 'Author of XYZ'", it's pretty impossible to come up with a good value. And Anonymous isn't a very good fit. I'd prefer to use Various, if only LT handled it in a special way instead of as a "real" author.

38> I can see that reasoning, though I'm sure there are plenty of people that would want "God" (or "Jehovah" or "Yahweh", etc.) listed as the author.

>39 brightcopy: So is LT making a theological statement when the work record says the Bible was written anonymously?

FWIW, I don't know of any public or school library (even--or especially--a divinity school!) that would catalog the Bible under the author "God." Still, we all do what we can to represent our own books to ourselves here, eh?

40> It's all moot to me, given that I'm an atheist.

Re. #39/40 ... I have it on very good authority that The Invisible Pink Unicorn had The Bible ghost-written by Eris and initially distributed by Teapot Texts!

 

I read the book "written" by a God with no name.
(In the Bible, you can't remember your name. 'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no name. Ha-la-loo, Yah-yah-yah, etc.)

Oh, this group is probably the wrong place for /obliquely comparing the Bible to heroin/. Never mind.

Edited to specify "all this."

Another work where a perfectly valid author was ignored when combined with no author:
http://www.librarything.com/work/3223970/editions

Edited to add: works combined were 2163823 and 3223970

36>

I've noticed that "Anonymous" is the LT-work-endorsed author of the Bible.

There is no "the Bible" in LT. There are dozens of Bibles, since it's an exception to the rule about combining translations, and because people list it under so many different authors (Anonymous, Various, the publisher of a particular edition, "Bible", the translation committee, "God", you name it.) and with so much crap in the title (like the color of the cover!) they're always in need of combination and cleanup. (I spend a fair bit of time on it.) So, for instance, the author for the main entry for the King James Version is "Anonymous", but the author of the main entry New International Version is "Zondervan", a publisher.

>45 lorax:

Point taken, I was simplifying by instancing a popular Bible (the KJV). That "Zondervan" should be the "author" of the NIV is preposterous! It's good that different Bible versions are different works, IMO. They reflect different cultural and historical contexts of redaction and edition.

My Other Reader is an initiate of library science, and she tells me that it is a common rule in institutional libraries to actually give "Bible" as the "author" of the Bible. I think that's kind of comical--perhaps the fallout of a sort of Protestant bibliolatry: the book that inscribed itself!

As an old retired librarian, I can share what seemed to be common practice. I come from the era of card catalogs, and I never made an "author card" for Bibles. I just left that area blank, and the "title card" - with Bible on the top line - became the main entry card.

So it may look as if "Bible" was the author, in reality it was the title entry and there was no author entry.

Now that most libraries have gone electronic, it may be that "Bible" got shifted up into the author line. But that was not the original intent.

48>

I agree that "Various" should be used minimally, but the Bible is perhaps the best possible example of when it should be used:

The book was written by a number of people, many of them anonymous.

The book was compiled into its current form(s) by committees.

Most if not all existing translations were translated by multiple people, rather than individuals.

So there's no single name to attach. This leaves you with:

"Anonymous"
"Various"
"Bible"
the publisher
something cutesy like "God".

Anonymous is okay, but doesn't reflect the multiple authorship. "Bible" is good and has the advantage of putting all editions in one place; the publisher makes it difficult to combine properly, and isn't something that many people are likely to know. The final option is so ridiculous that it's hardly worth considering, so it's basically a choice between "Various" and "Bible". I don't have a strong preference either way, but I'm certainly not going to outright reject using "Various".

50> then in the world of LT someone should come along and separate out one of them!! Obviously they are not the same author!!

So how is that different from two books, each written by different John Smiths? Obviously, they are not the same author.

>50 Collectorator:

That's why I put brackets around my "dumps," to make that dilemma exactly clear. Even the bibliographically venerable "Anonymous" is subject to the same problem.

Publishers aren't authors. The categories aren't remotely comparable.

53> Okay, I guess I have no idea what point you are trying to make in #50 or even if you are trying to make one. I don't see how Various would be handled any different than John Smith, or why anyone who knew what they were doing would try to separate out books with either of those authors because multiple books list the same (but different) author. I also have seen no reasoning given as to why Various should never (ever ever ever) be used.

>53 Collectorator: Your bracketed dumps end up getting author-combined with their unbracketed dump counterparts, so it's all for nought.

Does LT auto-combine them? Even though they start with entirely different characters? Anyway, my primary motive has nothing to do with maintaining any sort of LT-wide author data integrity. I simply want them to sort to the end when I alphabetize by Author.

Although publishers are not authors, it is the best way to get works together alongside the other works of the creator.

Gee, color me unpersuaded. While an author (or "creator," if you prefer) might have a longstanding contract or collaboration with a publisher, the author will be easy to identify on the resultant books. Authors who are anonymous or various or unknown are a different kettle of fish, especially inasmuch as they are typically--even if living--not in a position to assert intellectual property rights.

And another thing: Anonymous authorship is noteworthy in its own right, after the same fashion as pseudonymous authorship. So in my catalog, you can find a title like this one, where the primary author is /anonymous/, but the actual author (since I happen to know who it was) is listed as an "other author." That's my preference for handling pseudonyms as well. If the title page says Mark Twain, I don't catalog it under Samuel Clemens. To me, it's part of respecting the integrity of the literary object.

Have you tried opening http://www.librarything.com/author/various lately?

Of course not. Why on earth would I? It's not as if there's a fellow named Various whose work I'm interested in. If there were, I trust he'd be separated out by someone who had cataloged his work; or I'd do it. And yes, I have often combined/separated works.

56> Yes, I have clicked on Various lately. I noticed that "NO work has Various as the author" hasn't exactly happened as you seem to be predicting. Quite the opposite. And that's working within the constraints of LT. Forgive me if I'm misreading you, but this is as near as I can make out from what you said.

>58 Collectorator:

Let me reassure you that I do want LT to have good data integrity, and that all other things being equal I will work to support that goal. There are very interesting results that emerge from the social elements of the site, and I've contributed a lot of CK, worked on combination/separation, and done other tasks that benefit the global LT without adding much or anything to my own catalog per se.

But it is a cataloging site, and my primary motive is always going to be the creation of an individual catalog that accurately reflects my own library, not sysiphean work on precise aggregation in a site that comprehends the data of more than a million members, many or most of whom are much more casual about their entry than I am.

Based on statements that timspalding has made about the liberties afforded to users, I think my approach is actually in tune with foundational LT philosophy.

61> But that makes no sense, due to expected common practices here on LT being that an AUTHOR PAGE can actually contain MULTIPLE AUTHORS. Just like the John Smith example I gave you. It's okay that some of the books on that page are by different John Smiths. THAT is expected common practice here on LT.

If what you're trying to get at in your roundabout way is that Various is harder to organize multiple authors are use the combine/separate page on than John Smith, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. That's something that needs to be fixed. But Various is in the same boat as William Shakespeare, there.

When I have books that have Various authors or No Authors Listed, I simply leave the author line blank. Very simple.

Any downside to this method? I can't see any.

I have to agree with brightcopy here and conclude that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with using Various or Anonymous as an author in LT. The problem with the page being too big is one that Tim should fix. Anyone want to put it in Bug Collectors?

But the point that using Various makes it seem like the Bibles and the Nat Geos were written by the same people just isn't true; author splitting fixes that problem. And eventually when same-named authors can get their own pages, the Various who wrote the Bible and the Various who wrote the Nat Geos can also each get their own pages.

53>

I think you are conflating "separation" and "splitting". Similar words in general usage, very different when talking about things you do with LT authors.

66> Yes, but none of your explanations have really held up to scrutiny, as different posters have pointed out.

And if you're going to try to dumb down LT so it can be explained to the lowest common denominator, it wouldn't really be LT anymore. Though I'm not sure that really comes into play here, as I doubt anyone would ever worry that "Various" on the Bible would ever be thought by anyone to be the same "Various" on Nat Geo. Similar thing here with "Anonymous." I believe even a "total noob to LT" would be able to figure that out.

66> I'm tired of this! I've explained myself over and over.

Yes you have, but repeating the same argument over and over only shows that you haven't been listening to the arguments of those you're debating with.

60: my primary motive is always going to be the creation of an individual catalog that accurately reflects my own library
I would never suggest that you do anything other than exactly what you want with your catalog. I may not understand or agree with what you do, but by all means you do what you want.

However, I feel strongly that if someone has entered "Smith, Joe" as the author of a book, and another person has left it blank, then the system should choose "Smith, Joe" as the author for the work. That's not going to change any individual book in anyone's catalog, just what's selected for the work.

I'd also like to point out that Tim has said (in message 12) that this is the way the site is supposed to work, and has requested examples where it's failing, which I've been trying to do.

71> Because it more accurately reflects the authorship than a blank author, "Anonymous", a publisher or any other author on a given work. That's the short an long of it. It's what makes sense.

I think the ball is now in your court as to why there is some technical reason you can't use what makes sense as the author on LT.

73> What does Various tell you about the authorship?

That is was written by multiple unnamed authors.

Exactly as Anonymous tells you it was written by one unnamed author. Do you disagree with this, also?

I'd rather see "Various" than no author. But I'd much rather see the publisher or editor than Various, because it places the work into a smaller group with more closely related works, instead of into a vast bucket of totally unrelated works. If I don't know who the author is, or there isn't a specific author, I'll try to narrow it down as much as possible. Various is not very narrow.

75> I can see your reasoning here, but I just find it doesn't work for me when applied to a Work level with multiple publishers.

On the original topic - I highly suggest you create a bug for this topic, along with all the examples you've selected. I think that's the best way for any hope it will get looked at.

77> You seem to have ignored the part about "Anonymous". Do you also consider that of no use to anyone whatsoever?

77, 78> And you've forgotten the point about being able to split the author and eventually give each one their own page.

>79 jjwilson61: There are often (usually?) attempts to provide a discriminator - DoB, middle initial, biographical fact and suchlike - for each 'same-name author' so that, when the great day comes and we can give each their own page, each one can be separately identified. What's going to happen with 'Various'? How can you identify the various 'Variouses' except by a circular reference to the work attributed to them?

80> Again, unless you're against "Anonymous", I'm not sure why you think the various Variouses would be all that different from the various Anonymouses, yet I don't think that will stop us from using "Anonymous" anymore.

80> When there are separate author pages for authors with the same name, they will really have to be separate pages no matter if the names are still the same when fully spelled out. To accomplish this there will have to be a way for combiners to specify that the author of one work is the same as the author of some other work and not the author of yet another work. In other words, the discriminator could be the works that an author is attached to.

82> i keep bringing it up because the exact same arguments you come with against Various apply equally to Anonymous. And yet, you give Anonymous a pass on these arguments because you've already decided you like it and hate Varoius. It all smacks a bit too much of drawing a conclusion first and then trying to come up with the facts to support it. I bring up Anonymous because I like to reason in the opposite direction.

"Various" is all too often used for works that are the product of a publishing company, specific authors unknown. E.g. http://www.librarything.com/work/6380749 could easily have been written by a single author, or many, but it is a product of Leisure Arts and would make much more sense on that company's page. (There isn't an author role of "Publisher" but "Other" could be used.)

"Various" is also used for anthologies where a single editor responsible for the overall content of the work can easily be identified, and since there is even an author role it's clearly intended that such a person be listed in the primary author box.

If you know the specific individuals responsible for a work, that you are lumping together and listing as "Various", they should be listed individually in the author and Other Authors boxes.
Eventually, when the Other Authors programming is complete, the entries in the Other Authors boxes should be given equal treatment with the primary author box, and the work should be listed on all their pages.

I guess that if you truly know for certain that a work is produced by multiple authors, cannot identify them specifically, cannot identify an Editor with overall responsibility, and isn't really a product of a named publishing company or group, then perhaps Various is valid. But all too often it's just used as a dumping ground by lazy users.

Anonymous is, I believe, more often used for a work that is (or is likely to be) the product of a specific individual, and that individual is unknown either by their own desire, or because their identity has been lost in the mists of time. Either usage seems reasonable to me, and is completely different from the way that "Various" is used.

Edited to remove offensive material.

63>> Thanks MaryMerry I also leave the author field blank if a book doesn't have an author. I will add a Corporate Author name if LT missed picking up the name from the data.

80>> as I understand it, in the future same name authors will be identified by their works as the discriminator, at which point Anonymous (author of the Bible) will be able to be combined with Various (author of the Bible), God (author of the Bible), etc. so all the works by the author of the Bible can be listed on one author page.

Maybe it comes down to seeing value in the author page? For me, the author page is a way to provide information about the person or organization responsible for the work, and to link works to that person (or organization) and to each other. If you don't care about those connections, then I suppose you lose nothing by putting Various.

This applies also to "unknown", "n/a", or "Smith". It is, of course, fine to put them in your catalog. It's when it makes its way to the work level that it affects others. I would love to be able to have them deprecated as the system selected author of the work, or be override them at the work level (the "Canonical Author" feature request which I can't find right now).

I agree with brightcopy about the functional analogy between Various and Anonymous. I use Various--sparingly. I certainly don't use it (>85 r.orrison:) for anthologies where a single editor responsible for the overall content of the work can easily be identified. But I don't think that the fact that some users are lazy and abuse a term stands as an argument for ruling it out categorically.

I also use the author unknown in the--surpassingly rare--instance of a book where (to quote my comment field) the "Identity of volume is questionable: title page and indicia missing."

> 88
I see great value in author pages, but I'm not foolish enough to expect utility in author pages for Anonymous or Various or Unknown. And I don't think having a handful of useless author pages ruins the thousands of useful ones.

But I don't think that the fact that some users are lazy and abuse a term stands as an argument for ruling it out categorically.

I don't think there's any reason to be calling anyone lazy or abusive here. A logical person may legitimately conclude that an editor is not an author and refuse to put it in the field with that name.

an editor is not an author and refuse to put it in the field with that name.
That's why there's a Role field there on the Edit Book page -- you can enter the name of the editor, and say that he or she is the Editor. Yes, the field is labeled "author", but it was realized long ago that was too restrictive, and Roles were added. See, for example, my wishlist copy of Machine of Death http://www.librarything.com/work/book/66086779:

It doesn't say anywhere that I'm claiming Ryan North is the author, it says "by Ryan North" and "Ryan North (Editor)".

90> Exactly. A piublisher is not an author. A book title is not an author. Who exactly is abusing the terms again? ;)

In any case, even if we set aside those cases,there are still ones I think we could agree on where Various is approprate. So now we're back where we started at around #49.

>90 jjwilson61:

?? I'm not sure you understood my point, since you seem to be replying in a different context. I never called anyone in particular "abusive," but I was referencing r.orrison's claim in 85 that thingamabrarians were abusing the Various author by using it in situations where it didn't apply. My inference about such users being "lazy" had to do with any unwillingness (which I do not share) to put individual contributors to a collection in the "other authors" field.

It may be "logical" to refuse author status to an editor of a paper collection or a short story anthology, but the editor does indeed have some authorial status in such a situation, and usually does author (at a minimum) some front matter or other apparatus. This situation is reflected not only in standard bibliographic usage, but also in the LT functionality that allows "editor" to be selected as a further specification of the primary author.

And just because we seem to have gone off on this tangent in a couple of messages already - I'm never talking about putting Various in where you actually know the authors and could fill in the multiple authors field. I also do use the editor when it is known (Dozois' scifi collections are a good example) (I originally included editor in a message above but blame that on having just woken up). I have actually been trying to get information for all the writers in my anthologies in, but it does take time.

And yet the field is still has the label author next to it on the edit field and in the heading on the Your Books page. I'm not saying that you're wrong to do it your way; I'm just objecting to your calling other members lazy for not doing it your way.

And yet the field is still has the label author next to it

So, setting the Role field to "Editor" and putting in the editor of the book is "doing it my way"? How would you suggest using the role field?

Can you suggest an alternative label for the edit field and column heading in the catalog that won't put people off using the field for other roles?

(I've removed my usage of the word "lazy" - the rest of the message stands fine without it, and apparently it's distracting.)

I don't have anything to suggest since I'm not the one insisting that my way is the correct way. There is no LibraryThing standard for the proper way to fill in the author field of a book record. You can make suggestions of course, but nobody is obligated to follow your rules.

ETA: I never would have said anything if you hadn't called anyone lazy.

Changing the Role field to Editor and putting the name of the editor in the box next to it is no more "my way" than putting the title into the Title box. It's what the fields are there for, and it wasn't me that put them there.

If you don't think that being able to change Role to Editor and put the editor's name in the box is correct, then perhaps you should report it as a bug?

This is a weird tangent. And that's saying a lot, given the history of this thread. :D

I don't think it's a bug that a person might not want to put an editor in a field that is clearly labeled author. Maybe you should report that it is possible to enter nothing in the author field as a bug?

100> This is one of those cases where it's an LT term that overlaps with a real one, sometimes imperfectly. Much like the LT terms "book" and "work." Even though it says "author", it means "anyone who had a role creating the book."

"Individual or Group Responsible for Creating This Work: (Role: )"

Too many words.

Using the editor of a collection as its "author" is not a LT novelty. It is part of customary bibliographic form. LT follows this precedent, complete with the parenthetical specification of (editor).

Using the publisher as an "author" is contradicted by both standard bibliographic form (where the publisher belongs elsewhere than in the "author" place) and in LT (where the role options do not include publisher).

>99 brightcopy:
True that!

P.S. For the record, I have no real interest in policing other people's use of LT. I share my own standards in hopes that they won't be ruled out by those making categorical determinations.

Most members of LT don't have a degree in library science.

But I just got into this argument because I thought the motives of some members were being impugned unfairly. I don't really have anything else to say so I'm going to bow out.

104> Most members of LT don't have a degree in library science.

Doesn't really take a degree in library science to acknowledge the second point about LT leaving out a role labeled "publisher", though.

106> And yet, a multitude disagree with you. I think you frequently confuse "common sense" for "personal preference."

>104 jjwilson61:
Was that to me?

I don't have a degree in library science. I learned some basic conventions of bibliography in high school, none of which were contradicted by my further experiences in reading and research. I'm reminded of them every time I grab a book off my shelves and turn to the back to look for a source.

106>

It is not that we disagree that "there are usually better choices than 'Various', and it is overused." We disagree that there are no legitimate uses of Various. The utility of the author page is not the sole consideration -- whether the name used in the author field correctly represents the authorship of the book is another important issue that you are entirely neglecting. "The Bible" didn't write the Bible. Neither did Zondervan, nor "King James Version". A bunch of people, many of whose names we don't know, did, and a different bunch of people compiled it. "Various" is a correct and useful way of representing this.