Blocks to combining...

A recent combining debacle has raised ideas for a feature change—especially a "rollback" feature.

For technical reasons, "rollback" is going to be hard. I need to spend some time thinking about it.

What's easy, however, is setting some limits on work combination when a lot of damage can be done. In fact, there already is such a limit:

If a combination will change more than 200 copies (SEE BELOW), you have to be a paid member to do it. In this case, the member was.

So I'm thinking we add some "levels" here. Some things we can use, when combinations will change X books:

* Free/paid status
* Being on the site for X weeks
* Being a member of Combiners!
* Being a member of Combiners! for X weeks
* Combined X times

Tougher would be for:

* If more than X copies affected, start a "vote."

What do you think, both as to the methods and the various Xs.

CHANGED NOTE: I'm not talking about number of copies all-together. I'm only talking about when 200 copies are changed. If you combine a work with 1 copies into a work with 1,000 only one copy was changed.

200-copy changes are, I think, pretty rare these days. I'd be interested to know what people think of that, though.

*If more than X copies affected, start a 'vote'....

er, uh... many many times, I will combine a lonely stray book that has gotten lost, or never found, its main 'home'. I'd like to continue to be able to do that.

Can you change that to "when one of the works is less than 10% (or some other arbitrary %) of the other work."??

Sorry. Let me be clear. It's only CHANGED books. So, if you combine a work with 1 copy into one with 1,000, only 1 copy has changed.

This is better than the percent rule, because combining two works with 10 copies is a 100% change.

I've turned off combining for 200+ books. You get this message:

* If more than X copies affected, start a "vote."

I think the vast majority of combinations of high-number works are people rounding up individual strays. Having to wait for a vote to combine every single misentered 'Jongle Book' would be a real pain. This would also add a big hurdle for people entering books in minority languages: a person entering their library in Basque or Catalan might be faced with a vote for every single work of Shakespeare, Flaubert, Proust, Tolstoy and any other classic writer you can think of. So I don't like that idea.

Being on the site for X weeks
Someone can join, disappear, and reappear a year later, and still be a total newbie when it comes to combining. I don't think this one is useful by itself.

Being a member of Combiners!
Combined X times

I like these two best.

edited to add: I see you've clarified the 200 copies idea while I was composing my post. I'll think again.

Clearly, some restraints are needed. At the initial "levels," perhaps you can suggest that the new combiner read the wiki and other directions for combining.

I think the vast majority of combinations of high-number works are people rounding up individual strays

Okay, HELP, I need to repeat. It's not about the size of the works, it's about the number changed. "Rounding up strays" is a low-change activity. Combining two popular books is a high-change activity.

So, I haven't followed the discussion carefully enough. Did the problem here arise from high-count combinations?

The ones I fixed were fairly small, but they were also easy to fix.

It might be good to add in something about both having CK.

If the medal remark wasn't sarcasm, maybe that's what should be disabled.

This is great. I think "being a member of Combiners for X weeks" is a good stop, if you want to re-implement. Out of curiosity, why now? This is hardly the first time this sort of debacle has happened.

It might be good to add in something about both having CK.

Okay, but if the CK is removed--a process that takes time and requires some thought--then it's doable, right?

I'm very encouraged by this move, but I think the 200 limit is too high. I think it should be much lower.

For example, take the 14th volume of this Early Church Fathers' series. If this was to be erroneously combined with the 13th volume it would be a horrible mess even though 'only' 50 copies are changed (actually, according to your maths, only 22 copies are changed). That's because there are so many different title combinations, it would take dozens of clicks to sort it out.

I therefore propose:

(1) Users with a particular amount of experience have the potential to explode books from one work into several distinct works. This should be done with an interface very similar to author disambiguation.

(2) That in combining, you are only allowed to change as many books as you're current combing 'score'. So Tim, you'd be allowed to change upto 1,273 books in one combination, because that's how many combinations you've done. You wouldn't be allowed to combine Harry Potter book 1 with Harry Potter book 2. You'd have to ask quartzite, chanale or BarkingMatt to do it for you.

I'd be very opposed to giving editing privileges on the basis of mere membership of an open group, or even paying a membership fee.

I've done a lot of combining since January, and, offhand, I can't think of any combinations I did where the lesser work had 200 copies or more. I think it's rare enough that if you stick to that limit, I think a vote (say three confirmation flags from other members of the combiners group, with a 'No!' flag to override them) would work quite well.

But I think 200 might be a bit high; in the recent example, the Tolstoy combination included:
http://www.librarything.com/work/10119041/editions (now at 97 copies)
and http://www.librarything.com/work/10119040/editions (now at 143 copies), plus a few more that are at 20 or 30 copies. That was a fair bit of work to separate, but would all have passed under the limit. 200 copies is so variable in terms of numbers of editions; for a new novel, 200 copies might have only a couple of editions, but for a classic, it could be 100 (including the inevitable no-copy editions).

So I think it might be worth setting the barrier a bit lower, perhaps at 100, and using a minimum number of combinations as the threshold.

How about different levels, like:

50+ : Paid member or someone who's made 100 combinations
100+ : Paid member who's part of Combiners! and has made 100 combinations

?

#16
That looks fine to me.

>16 timspalding: Can we get the Legacies into the 50+ too?

>16 timspalding:

I've made 2,571 combinations, but am not a member of Combiners. I doubt I'm alone. Whilst I appreciate the work done by this group, I'm not sure membership of should be necessary for me to combine more than 50 works.

What 20 said. Looking at the figures, to my surprise I find I've done over 15,000 and I'm not joining Combiners any time soon. Nothing against them, mind you.

v

>19 jcbrunner:

A good point.

>20 markbarnes:

Two points:

1. Just to be clear, it's combinations when more than 50 or 100 books change. That's a very rare thing, I think.
2. For what it's worth, you got the numbers and bar wrong. You're a paid member, and if you weren't you've made 50 combinations, so you'd be able to combine with up to 100 changes. Above that, you'd need to be a member of combiners.

Anyway, suggest other tests, and other break-points. Seriously, though, are people understanding the change rule? It's about when more than X books change work codes. That just doesn't happen that much anymore above maybe 20, does it?

>20 markbarnes:, 21

Okay, how about either a member of combiners or more than 100 combinations? Heck, I'd accept having posted or read 10 threads on Combiners! You clearly are doing both.

proposed: after 2,000 work/author combinings an LTer becomes a member of the combiners group whether or not they want to be a member. In this way, combiners could receive important information, such as changes to how combining is done & changes to policy.

They wouldn't have to read all combiners' group postings.

Oh, God. People will freak.

24: Freak :)

Honestly, I wouldn't mind being excluded from the inner circle of uber-combiners. The likelihood of my ever wanting to combine involving such a high figure of 'books change' in one go is almost certainly nil. In fact I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone other than staff should be able to do it because at this point in LT's development that sort of combination shouldn't be necessary any more, should it? Are there any concrete examples around of the necessity for this kind of thing?

v

right now, the combiners' group is an "opt in" choice.... all I suggested was that it become "opt out"...

and it would be more like "SUPER FREAKY"!!!!

but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.

I'm not a member of combiners, and wasn't planning to join, though I follow it, and post there occasionally. I have done a fair amount of combining, but I don't do it all the time. But I don't think it's a good idea to join people up to groups without their permission: when someone joins a group, it adds that information to the group page and to someone's profile page. Unless there's some way of joining without joining, so to speak, please don't sign people up or make membership a necessary condition for this.

I think an either/or option is better: either member of the group or X number of combinations would be better. Or just X number of combinations.

I also think it would be good to have these limits kick in on things with lots of CK.

I think the initial level may need to be 100 copies... *ponder*

(And yes, I know that I've done enough to be able to change lots)

#26: I think suddenly changing any group to opt out is a bad idea, especially if it means that people could suddenly combine something and then find themself added to a group.

OK, bad idea.

Sorry.

What #27 said. I've went from not doing many combinations to doing quite a few lately. I'm pretty proud of recently doing a massive cleanup on the Dozois Year's Best SF series. I can't tell you what the largest number of changes was, and it may not be applicable to some of what's discussed above. But I post to Combiners!, sometimes read stuff in Combiners!, but have no interest in joining Combiners! because of how the "Your groups" section works when showing posts. The problem is that there's a LOT of stuff posted in Combiners! that I'm just not interested in. I'm pretty damn appreciative of those who do follow every thread, but it's just me.

So I like the approach of "do at least X number of things on this list" like Tim later suggested. There was a comment in #11 about medals that I didn't quite get, but I would think helper badges for combining might be good for "things on this list."

I don't much like the idea of a multi-tiered system (some users are able to affect 50 books, others are able to affect 100, etc. like in #15), as I feel it's a bit discouraging and stratifying. I think there should mainly just be a difference between "you're a beginner and we're going to have to watch you a little closely" and "okay, you've been around a bit and probably won't screw anything up, and if you do it's likely you'll be responsive and someone can get you to fix your mistakes."

I am, on the other hand, all in favor of their being some sort of limit where anyone beyond LT staff making a combination that affects more than some set large number of copies will somehow have to some sort of three-day waiting period or something. Of course, that sounds like a pain to code. I'm thinking of really large numbers of copies, something that happens very infrequently.

Whatever is decided my thoughts are:
1) there should be an immediate stop to any massive combining until it is checked as OK, but I am not sure of the number it should kick in on (I have had as much angst with series combination in small numbers as well as large) but 100 seems at least not so frustrating.
2) Someone who really knows what they are doing should make the final decision - but how you decide that is beyond me...

I am a member of the Combiner's group (from a long while back) because I thought you had to be to post - and I wanted help to do things accurately. I don't find them 'precious' (not that anyone has) - only a very helpful, lovely group of members, in my experience - so I am sure none will mind if non-members help, as long as the separations / combinations
are correct.

I don't care who gets to decide on any massive combination as long as it means no debacle happens as of late as in this thread.

Having someone who knows what they are doing being able to 'explode' incorrect combinations would work, to my mind - stopping it happening to begin with would be just the best!!!

add: I agree wholeheartedly with brightcopy's last comment in that: I am... all in favour of there being some sort of limit where anyone (beyond LT staff) making a combination that affects ....a large number of copies

edited to add - whoever fixed Proust is wonderful!!!

I'm going to start recording the "change" at the time of combination. That'll be interesting data.

Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by "change"?

Sorry, the number of copies changed--see message 1, above.

Ahh... yes. Thank you for clarifying.
That might give you a handle on the number to use as an automatic 'stop'?
Interesting indeed!

I don't know if this is possible, but instead of raw #s of books, is there a way to consider the number of different editions involved in combining works instead? Here's what's going on in my head:

Cleaning up orphans:

Main + a work that is likely made up of a single edition.

The bigger messes where multiple works (say 4 works) get combined but they have smaller numbers (i.e. 20-99 copies each):

Main + the 4 works that are likely made up of multiple editions each so that it's really 8-12 editions getting combined in with the main work

What if the steps were simply numbers of editions? The steps could be super-low (lowest being a work made up of one edition being combined into a main work) and require a higher-level at what isn't all that much more of a split (3 editions?). Frankly, a person could get around it by exploding the works into their edition counterparts, but that's a LOT of work to cause the kind of damage that is only one click now...

It's making sense in my head, but I'm not sure if it's making sense in the post...

37: I think that's an interesting idea.

Another potential stop would be if both works have CK/contained info.

I think combining record and membership status should be the only criteria for limiting this (obviously related to copy number). I don't think being a member of 'Combiners!' should hold weight. You can Combine effectively and accurately without being forced into group membership. Although, as I type, it occurred to me that if people were compelled into joining Combiners!, they may not pick up bad habits in the first place. That said, membership doesn't imply automatic participation & you could join & never go back there again. I think both principle & practicality argue against this. The most common sense limiter is Combination history - if you've combined more than a thousand times, like as not you'll not do anything majorly destructive & building up that record builds knowledge.

Please, in the name of all that is good and Holy on LT (praise be to the Mighty Algorithm), nothing else decided by poll. It's hard to manage the areas that are right now & it will make it hard to keep track of what you are working on with combination. Also, polls mean everyone gets a chance to chip in whereas combination is one area where specific knowledge of works is more important than bulk uninformed but well-meant opinion.

Don't forget that the member who caused the recent troubles was
a) lifetime paid
b) long-time (joined in Feb 2008)
and
c) experienced (they had just received a badge for combining)

They're a perfect test case for any proposed limitations -- any new rule should have prevented them doing what they did.

Heck, any new rule should prevent any of us doing what they did. Accidents do happen.

How about some sort of qualification requirement for any combination over 50, and anything over 100 is impossible? A knowledgeable combiner can get around either limit by splitting first, but that would be a very deliberate action.

Edited to add: Actually, not very experienced as EveleenM points out. Despite the badge, they had done only 16 combinations after the event.

>40 r.orrison:

I'm not convinced it should. We continue to drive cars, although now and then even good drivers on sunny days crash.

I join the plea for no polls. Perhaps if someone tried a large combination that was blocked, they could request its combination in the "Please Combine" thread and if legitimate a staff member could do it?

I do occasionally come across two large clumps that require combining - so they are out there

FWIW, we've had about 60 so far, and only two went over 10—14 and 47 respectively.

I wouldn't auto-add people to Combiners. but you may want to have a prompt for people to join after they've done their Xth combination. e.g. something like have LT auto-send a private comment inviting them to join Combiners! "We've noticed you've been combining a lot of books lately. You may be interested in the Combiners for discussion of issues relating to the practice. link"

Perhaps if someone tried a large combination that was blocked, they could request its combination in the "Please Combine" thread and if legitimate a staff member could do it?

I think a poll could work like that, except that instead of requiring the time and attention of a staff member, you'd just have to convince two other followers of the "Please Combine" thread to agree. Less hassle for staff, quicker response time.

Another thing you could do would be to block combinations if one book was already 'contained' within another.

That would make a lot of sense.

And another thing would be to add work combination 'nevering' like we do with authors. The 'suggested' editions can be a real problem sometimes.

Some points:
## Nevering is an abomination. (Sorry - it had to be said.)
## Any limitation should be on editions, not copies or works.
## If I wanted, I could create many man-months of separating/combining work within an hour.
## The problem that sparked this debate was nasty, but it could have been worse (says he, not even having dared to look at Proust).

So, some proposals:
## A limitation of 200 editions or 20 combination events (whichever is the greater) within a 24 hour period.
## Rollback sounds a nightmare, so work explosion to fix the problem seems a better solution. (Explained in a bit more detail elsewhere - I'll have to look it out.) Perhaps this could be limited to people appearing on the zeitgeist list?
## Something else which keeps flitting in and out of my mind, and which I'll add later.

ETA:
I've remembered what it was now ...
## A 'panic button', so that people in the combiners group can switch off combining for a period (6 hrs?) if they spot something weird going on.

# 40
Don't forget that the member who caused the recent troubles was
a) lifetime paid
b) long-time (joined in Feb 2008)
and
c) experienced (they had just received a badge for combining)

They're a perfect test case for any proposed limitations -- any new rule should have prevented them doing what they did.

They've still only 16 combinations listed: that doesn't count as experienced by the metrics people are using in this thread. The 100 limit would certainly have prevented it.

I think it would be a good idea to change the numbers for that first combination medal: 10 combinations can be done in a couple of minutes, and a badge does imply approval of what the person is doing. Having the first badge threshold at 50 makes it less likely that someone will be 'rewarded' for their combinations at the very same time they're told they're doing it wrong.

>49 Noisy:
Nevering is not an abomination as it can be undone. I use it whenever I see LT suggesting a combination of AuthorA and AuthorB just because they once happened to co-write a book.

But I agree with you that the count would be better done on editions, not copies. I've been working today on books which have more editions than copies! Anything with more than 10-20 editions is going to be a real pain to undo.

I'd just like to re-post my idea of a three day waiting period, rather than polls or having to ask someone else for approval of a Really Big Change. As long as you met the minimal requirements, it would let you do it but it'd have a pending flag. There could be a page for pending changes that Combiners! could monitor. Or it could auto-post a notification to Combiners! each day about pending changes. Then anyone could go in an cancel a pending change within this three day waiting period.

Pros:
* it'd be like an "undo" button, since you'd only have to cancel the pending changes and piece together the blasted remains
* it wouldn't require people clicking on polls, thresholds, etc. etc.

Cons:
* seems like a pain to code
* not sure how it would cause problems when you need to do multiple steps, like combining A with B, then A with C, etc. But I'm not sure how likely it is if you're combining A with C and it affects more than X copies (100?), there's another A with C combination that makes sense in regular use

A waiting period with polls might work, as long as it was automatically done, not by staff. Some threshold of no votes could halt the process.

(warning: crabby mood with headache, so read with that in mind.... 'cause I'm outta mine) (with a little bit of the Devil's Advocate thrown in for 'good' measure)

If I'm 'gleefully' combining & all of a sudden I get a message that says "You've reached your limits on combining today... please continue tomorrow" or a message that says "You've combined a very large group of books & we are going to put them on hold until XXXX happens"....

well, let's just say I'll throw a conniption fit... I'd be highly insulted, especially since my combining & separating is a lot of "clean up work" and "make it pretty & correct"... Sometimes I'm spending considerable time... especially in a clean up job like one of the ones this past week (Mailer?). and I did mostly separating which doesn't count for badges or counts or nothing, except self-satisfaction.

So, a daily combining limit? no. A count limit? ok, if I'm fixing something & it comes up? I'll walk away... three days later... garbage. I do it now & check it & I'm done.

**I'd rather suggest a 30 minute "Whoops" button for larger combinings, just in case someone makes a mistake & combines all of the books of the author "Various"

**And I'd like to suggest a way to contact Tim, etc. to do a "explode" the work or author... a dedicated thread that is monitored by TPTB... as much as possible while giving them time for real lives..

I don't want polls... I've stayed away from the tagging fun in combiners... and the polls there.

Let me do the work I enjoy doing. I understand the need to prevent mass combining events as we've had recently... but don't hobble those combiners who work hard at it.

Personally, if it were made difficult for me to do the work... I'd stop doing it.

(now I'm off to get some soup & some headache medicine)

I'm definitely against a combining limit by day. On the contrary, I think the more you do, the more you understand it.

I wish we could have a "whoops" but it's just not technically possible.

I don't remember anyone proposing a daily combining limit, but I may be missing something. Perhaps it was a misinterpretation of my suggestion of a pending combination/separation that affects a large number of copies.

Tim, could you implement a "delay" for larger combinings of about 30 minutes? and that delay would allow for an undo?

or should we just contact you or the staff to explode or undo it?

or just start separating it ourselves??

I don't think a delay will help many of the worst cases. It will prevent accidents, but it won't prevent massive damage by people who just don't understand the effects of what they're doing. If it's combined with a sufficiently clear explanation of what's about to happen, then perhaps, but I would still rather see a block of massive combinations.

None of the proposals will affect any normal day-to-day combining.

How's the logging of combination sizes going? What's the biggest so far?

Copies affected / Combination events

1 520
2 137
3 61
4 34
5 28
6 11
7 5
8 11
9 9
10 3
11 6
12 4
13 2
14 3
15 2
16 3
17 2
18 1
19 1
20 1
21 2
22 2
23 1
26 1
28 1
47 1

Any chance the largest of these are related to the cleaning up of the Proust or Tolstoy combination mess?

>54 skittles:, 55

I do know where you are coming from, skittles, but ... why not a daily limit? How different is that from some other restriction? (As you'll see, those are just rhetorical questions.)

Look, the problem is combinations that are effected that take an age to unravel. There are four possible solutions:
- prevent/throttle large combinations, whether they are of small numbers of works with large numbers of editions or very many small/medium size works into a single work
- make it easier to undo such things by improving the splitting and re-combining tools
- establish an 'elite' who are qualified to do meaty combination work
- enable rollback.

Working backwards...
- I'm with Tim that rollback is not an option.
- the qualification for 'elite' status that Tim proposed in the OP just doesn't seem to cover the point in hand, precisely for the reasons outlined by rorrison in post 40.
- I'd love improved combiner/splitter tools, but they only help with cleaning up the mess, not preventing it.
- which leaves us with how to make combining harder.

I can't see any sort of delay being a practical option: you would have to put a block on any works tagged for the activity, which might mean that people can't even add books to any of the works involved! Intuitively I like the 'wait for approval' approach for qualifying combinations, but it falls with the delayed database commit implications.

So, the only thing that is left is establishing rules that would prevent - not just delay, but prevent - combination. Things that you would actually have to spend time resolving before the combination would be allowed. Such as, CK being present on any 'smaller' works being combined. Such as more than one work being part of a 'contains/contained in' relationship. Either of these may well have prevented the event that has triggered this discussion.

#61
- the qualification for 'elite' status that Tim proposed in the OP just doesn't seem to cover the point in hand, precisely for the reasons outlined by rorrison in post 40.

and as I pointed out in #50, the person responsible for the event that triggered this discussion had a total of 16 combinations to their credit, after combining the Proust and Tolstoy, so all the suggested limits (50, 100 or 200 combinations) would have worked perfectly well.

Very true. The user themselves pointed out that they had received the badge, and it gave them increased confidence. I'll second what EveleenM said in message 50:

I think it would be a good idea to change the numbers for that first combination medal: 10 combinations can be done in a couple of minutes, and a badge does imply approval of what the person is doing. Having the first badge threshold at 50 makes it less likely that someone will be 'rewarded' for their combinations at the very same time they're told they're doing it wrong.

Perhaps the ability to do large combinations could be linked to the badge? (The badge award email could point out the additional ability with a stern warning about the consequences.)

>61 Noisy: but ... why not a daily limit?

I know I haven't been around much for recent events (still haven't moved into the new house yet...AARGJH...) and I'm sure I have plenty of opinions about the many of these suggestions. However the total editions / copies affected thing works out, I agree that, although the damage is extensive it is actually a fairly rare occurrence.

I would like to touch on this one though - the suggestion of "daily combining limits" -

Putting a daily limit on combinings though would seriously hamper my enthusiasm. I tend to like to take on large but obscure projects - like periodical series pages for old SF magazines (example: http://www.librarything.com/series/The%20Magazine%20of%20Fantasy%20and%20Science.... This is not something that I do in bits and pieces - I tend to sit down and devote many hours to it at one go and this will generally involve several HUNDRED separate combining events over a 8-10 hour session (each "event" affecting only 1-3 editions/copies/works). Breaking this into 20-30-50-100 per day individual sessions would definitely break my flow and make the endeavor so onerous as to be abandoned.

#64: EXACTLY!!!!!

There will be no daily limit, don't worry. The limit, if there is one, will be about the maximum change-count you can combine on your own. See above message 59—in the last few days we haven't had any that hit 50, let alone 100. Combining something that involves, say, 1,000 books to change is an event so rare that, I suspect, it hasn't been done for years or, if done, was someone screwing with the system.

Yeah, making 1000 books change tends to be Bad.

66> Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to put a special block on the really big number of copy changes (e.g. 1,000+) that simply doesn't allow you to do it and you have to ask LT staff. As Noisy pointed out above, it is possible for the malicious to create many man-months of work in a short amount of time.

Arrgh! It feels like I'm talking into a vacuum at times.

EDITIONS not COPIES! 1,000 copies which are of the same edition can be combined or separated in a single action! And we're only talking about the 'lower' figure here, i.e. the set that are being combined into a larger set.

>66 timspalding:

So if it's not a daily limit, someone can just keep on making combinations that are just below the limit ad nauseum? How is that helping? I think you're thinking about the database actions, Tim, and we're thinking about the combiner/separator actions.

>64 PortiaLong:, 65, 66

Two points:
- If you'd bothered to read post 61, I'M AGAINST IMPOSING A LIMIT OF ANY SORT. It is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
- skittles, Portia ... how many combination actions do you think that you make in a daily session? Do you make a dozen an hour - one every five minutes? Is there no research time around your actions? How many editions (remember, this is the 'lower' count) do you think each combination action entails - three or four? Let's call it 50 editions an hour. IF I was suggesting a limit of 200 editions a day (which - again - I'm not supporting), that's four hours work. Is that stifling? The problem only took perhaps an hour to cause (16 combinations, did someone mention?) because combining is so much easier than separating, with the way things stand at the moment, but the number of editions was very large indeed - many hundreds for Tolstoy alone, that I can attest to, and it was the number of editions that made it so difficult to resolve.

And let's remember that I dipped out after doing the mindless stuff - the separating and re-combining of a single Tolstoy work - which took me (elapsed) about six to eight hours. The complicated stuff, which will require real investigation and thought - the CK - I've left for some other mug. It's that CK that will take the real effort to re-construct, and it's that that I want to prevent having to be done again, which is why my suggestion (did I mention that I'm against limits) is that the existence of CK or 'container' info in the 'lower' work should prevent combination.

Noisy,

First of all, thank you for your opinions. We need ALL opinions to make any consensus work.

**Personally, if I'm on a clean-up, usually at an author page, I can work for hours & I don't count how much I do. I usually have a number of tabs open when I'm 'working'... and I do a lot. (I've done data entry & data clean-up IRL, so I think I may be a bit faster than many on the keyboard)

**I don't mind doing 'mindless' stuff. I find it relaxing. I also don't find it 'beneath me' because I've done more complicated stuff or because my time is worth more than others. Sometimes I will leave 'easier' stuff to others who are trying to learn & gain experience combining... eventually they will surpass me in ability & experience. I'm fine with that.

**I also usually only work on works of which I have a reasonably good understanding about. I also will check orphaned "non-English" titles on worldcat.org or even google to combine them with their correct English language counterparts.

How much work can I do? A lot. And I'm reasonably intelligent. I've worked in libraries, although I'm not a librarian. But I've always had books. I've always been interested in a wide range of topics.

And, we are discussing ways to make LT better for everyone... but mistakes happen. I've made them. Not as spectacularly as some of the ones in the past week or so, but I'm. not. perfect.

And my opinion no longer matters on this topic... there are many very good proposals that have been politely suggested. Tim will make decisions about what he wants to implement based upon those suggestions, coding time & challenges, and on what he feels is best for LT.

Not what is best for me.

And that's fine with me.

I do agree with Noisy. We should place the limit of the number of editions affected, not copies. The other day I sorted through the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. They're typical of large sets of older books. They have multiple authors, and long titles which different libraries clip differently. As a consequence the first volume has no less than 48 editions. The second volume has 55 editions. If someone were to combine the two volumes (which is hardly beyond the realms of possibility), it would take a looooong time to separate out all those 48 editions. Yet this would affect only 60 books, which would come under many of the thresholds mentioned here.

On the other hand, a book like Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry has 857 books, but only 17 editions. It would be relatively much easier to separate out if it ever got incorrectly merged.

Here's a fairly good example of what any blocking should prevent in my view. I've just separated out Gordon Fee's commentary on Philippians in the IVPNTC series, and his commentary on Philippians in the NICNT series. I've done this separation several times before.

The smaller work in this case has 87 books and 6 editions. I think it's a prime example of where nevering would be a great solution.

#72 -- Wouldn't that also be a good place to use a disambiguation notice? I'm sure whoever is doing the combining isn't being malicious, they're just not aware that the two commentaries are in different series. I agree that nevering would be good in that case, but a disambiguation notice should help make people aware that the two should not be combined -- I'd think that would almost have the same effect as nevering.

I agree with 73 enough that I copied parts of 72 and the work titles to make disambiguation notices. markbarnes (or anyone knowledgable about New Testament commentaries), feel free to look them over.

Edit: Or rather, I put notices on
http://www.librarything.com/work/10135923
http://www.librarything.com/work/1352

Thanks both.

The over 200 block can cause a problem when trying to repair previous errors. So, someone combined the John Dos Passos novel Nineteen Nineteen with the omnibus U.S.A. trilogy work. On the good side the new rule would prevent such a combination in the future.

On the bad side, when I finish separating and go to combine it will effect more than 200 books and be blocked.

I suppose I could combine in several steps. Would that get around the block? Or should I just report to staff that a big job needs doing?

#76: combine in parts to get around any combining limits. yes, it is more work... but what's a combiner to do??

76> Looking at those editions, I'm skeptical that you'd ever hit a combination that would change anywhere near 200 copies... Maybe I'm just missing it.

I like combining but I wouldn't want to be forced to join the group. As you can see by my profile, I'm not a joiner, though I watch many groups.

Or maybe I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member.

77: Someone else did most of the recombining while I wasn't looking (much obliged). I presume he or she used the combine in parts method.

78: For the record, there are 467 copies of 1919 and the largest edition has 202. So combining all at once would have required 265 changes. All those little editions add up.

I haven't been combining since this thread got started. Can someone clarify: is there now a block in place if you try to combine something with more than 200 copies? (And I didn't think that a blanket block was what was being proposed here, at least by Tim, except for members who haven't crossed a certain combining threshold.)

I assume from message 4 that the answer is yes, blocked at 200.

82>

No.

If the number of copies CHANGED is greater than 200 there is a block.

So if you combine an orphaned copy into a work with 500 copies, you're fine. If you combine two works with 150 copies each, you're fine. But if you try to combine two works with 1000 copies each, you hit the block.

Yes, there's a block in place.

But as lorax says, it's 200 copies changed, not just 200 involved. As of message 59, the most affected in any combination since Tim started tracking it was 47.

Thanks for the clarification.

Well I was just trying to tidy up the George R.R. Martin 'Storm of Swords' which was also issued as two separate volumes - Part 1: Steel and Snow and Part 2: Blood and Gold.

Some of the Part 1 or 2 editions were combined in with main volume (and I'm sure still are) and some are appearing separately more than once.

I got blocked trying to combine three separate versions of Part 1

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

A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow 411 copies, 4 reviews

A Storm of Swords Prt 1: Steel and Snow 408 copies, 5 reviews

A Storm of Swords I (Song of Ice and Fire 3) 1 copy

Fortunately I was also blocked on an earlier try when I had accidentally clicked (sometimes a box seems to get checked just by scrolling through) a completely different title - but although that is easy to do it is also easy to spot when the list of editions to be combined pops-up before combination.

Well I was just trying to tidy up the George R.R. Martin 'Storm of Swords' which was also issued as two separate volumes - Part 1: Steel and Snow and Part 2: Blood and Gold.

Some of the Part 1 or 2 editions were combined in with main volume (and I'm sure still are) and some are appearing separately more than once.

I got blocked trying to combine three separate versions of Part 1

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

A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow 411 copies, 4 reviews

A Storm of Swords Prt 1: Steel and Snow 408 copies, 5 reviews

A Storm of Swords I (Song of Ice and Fire 3) 1 copy

Fortunately I was also blocked on an earlier try when I had accidentally clicked (sometimes a box seems to get checked just by scrolling through) a completely different title - but although that is easy to do it is also easy to spot when the list of editions to be combined pops-up before combination.

I combined the last, but I then separated it since the whole thing seems a mess to me... not that it is.

Someone with more knowledge than I needs to do it.

To combine works of more than 200 on the smaller works, you need to separate out works until it is under 200, then you can combine each separated in with the larger.... it will take time but will work.

Just as well there was a block as one of the titles was listed as Part 1 but showing the title for part 2 (A Storm of Swords 1: Blood and Gold) - I corrected the title listing the wrong way - those are actually the two different parts.

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

A Storm of Swords Prt 1: Steel and Snow 411 copies, 4 reviews

A Storm of Swords Prt 2: Blood and Gold 408 copies, 5 reviews

Or maybe I was just going mad to start with.....always pays to triple check

88> Definitely count me as one who severely dislikes adding another hoop to jump through during combining. I wonder how rare this is. Want to post that current log of combination sizes, Tim? Do you log attempts, or just successful ones? Might be useful to see which ones it stopped.

I still favor a three day waiting period over something like that. It's still a hoop, but it's a lot less onerous to me to the valid combinations.

My worry about three-day waiting periods are that combinations may not make "sense" in three days—the other stuff may have changed too much. At the most basic level, the things to combine may have been combined with other works. Normally, I solve that sort of problem by aliasing forward. If something cached says work A, but work A has been combined into work B, then it now says B. But that sounds dangerous here.

T

My vote for no waiting period.

for now, the blocks are sufficient.... it takes more work to do large combinations, but that's the idea.. prevent large easy WRONG combining.

'cause I'm definitely NOT making a list to finish a combining job!

I'd stop combining first.

The thing that bugs me isn't just that "it takes more work", but that you have to go backwards to go forwards. Separate stuff out that should be combined so that you can combine stuff that is separate. Just makes the process seem a bit hokey.

I don't think anyone's hit the current limit yet, but I still sleep easier knowing that some idiot won't combine all of CS Lewis again.

A couple of people upthread posted about hitting the limit - post 90, for instance.

What's the best thing to do in these cases? Separating to get something below the threshold seems too finicky. Should we contact staff and ask you guys to do the combination? That also doesn't seem ideal.

Aacckk, pphhtthh! Trying to combine 10024 copies of Beowulf by Seamus Heaney (sic), http://www.librarything.com/work/2449742, with 274 copies of Beowulf by Howell D. Chickering (sic), http://www.librarything.com/work/9931653. Per the disambiguation on /2449742 -- which I think fairly sets forth our standards for such combination -- all copies of Beowulf, per se (but excluding "Beowulf" as part of a larger edition or Norton Critical Edition, Spark Notes, Bloom's various editions), should be combined in a single LT Work, notwithstanding that neither Heaney, nor Chickering (nor most any other credited "author") actually wrote the c.1010 AD epic poem in Old English. Please advise!

ETA: Apologies; but this is frustrating. I spent most of yesterday evening separating and recombining editions of Gilgamesh and Beowulf, to try and bring some order to these two works, having also spent the better part of a week (off and on) doing the same with just one volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. When I get a chance, I'll read the 96 posts above; but, for now, please somebody just tell me what to do about this one.

I think the advice posted earlier would be to separate out editions until you have something under the threshold, then combine them together in stages.

I'm not familiar with any previous discussions that may have been had on Beowulf. Is there a case for leaving the Chickering edition separate because it's got the original language too? How have cases like this been treated in the past?

ETA Never mind, probably. Looks like many copies of the Chickering dual-language edition are already part of the main work. You could separate out some copies from the Chickering edition to get it under the threshold, then combine them individually into the main Beowulf work.
(deleted after reading messages 99 and 100 below)

Old English is an ancient language. Therefore bilingual copies of Beowulf, like Chickering's, at least arguably belong in a separate work.

97> You might want to read this thread where the Heaney vs Chickering topic was quite thoroughly discussed. I think the consensus was to keep them separate.

ETA: Well, I should say "sort of" the consensus. It was closer to a deadlock. Translations are normally combined, but since the author of Beowulf is unknown, there are special issues involved with the most common translator becoming the translator for all works combined with it, even if the works were translated by other people.

This is where that Canonical Author field for a specific work would help out.

I'm also a little concerned that you've combined "Beowulf: Old English Edition (Penguin English Poets) / Anonymous (ISBN 0140433775)" into the larger edition, as that should clearly be separate by the ancient languages rule. It should be combined with the facsimile editions. There's also a couple Beowulf and other Old English poems in there.

100> (yes, my own post) Actually, looking at other discussions, it seems like it's gone back and forth. I really wish someone like Tim would step in and give his two cents.

What's a bit odd is that all these discussions were years ago, and then all of a sudden a couple of months ago Osbaldistone enters a DN with a very specific way of doing things. I'm not sure that DN is really backed up by the discussion threads. But it's quite likely I'm missing a few threads so who knows.

99> Old English is not an ancient language. At least it wasn't around in the time period normally referred to by "Ancient History". It is a really old language, though (used roughly 400s AD to 1150s AD, where-upon, magic like, Middle English started in, like, 1088, where-upon Early Modern started in about 1450, with Modern starting in roughly 1550).

hmm. "Ancient Language Rule". I do not see that rule, though I do see the "Edition or language differences with a significant social difference" rule, with "(2) A Greek edition of Homer is not the same as an English translation. Socially, the former connects you with other Greek scholars, and should recommend other Greek-language works, not the "Classics of Western Civilization" works that the English translation does."

I think that section needs to be rewritten. With the insertion of "original greek edition" or "ancient greek edition" or something like that. Unless an edition in modern Greek is supposed to be separated out from an edition in modern English of a work by Homer.

If a modern Greek edition is supposed to be separate from a modern English edition, then no "foriegn" language editions should be combined. Which directly conflicts with "Foreign editions. The Italian and English-language editions of a book are the same work."

So, that section on the combiners page should probably be reworded. Sure, "everyone" should just know 1) Homer is not actually a work but an author, 2) he wrote in ancient Greek. Or not.

I have a craving for donuts now for some reason.

What really needs to happen is for LT to have stronger translation/translator support, much like it's getting contained in/by support. The problem with combining them together is that now you lose information for which person(s) translated each one. It would be better for them to remain separate works, but to understand that they are related to each other by being translations, so that recommendations, books you share, etc. can take both factors into account (the original work and the specific translation).

The other thing that needs to happen is that this spins off into a new thread. It's so off-topic for this thread about blocks. But then I'm not helping anything by posting this reply, either. :D

103> Old English is not an ancient language. At least it wasn't around in the time period normally referred to by "Ancient History"

That's a pretty narrow definition of ancient language. Even accepting it, Wikipedia names as significant points at or around the end of Ancient History the fall of Western Roman Empire in 476 and the closure of Platon Academy in Athens by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 529, and standard start of Old English is 450.

Anyway, isn't it supposed to be the dead language rule? It's not the age, but whether there are still native speakers around.

I’ve reviewed this thread with great interest, but have more questions than comments or opinion:

1. Somebody upstream mentioned “exploding” works for corrective separation and combining. How do we do that?

2. Also I get the impression that somebody may be reviewing separations and combinations that we do; is that in fact the case? It would certainly make me feel better about my efforts to know I’m not operating in a vacuum!

100> Thank you, brightcopy. How can I find out about similar prior discussions of what should / shouldn’t be combined? I don’t know that I could have identified this one thread out of the 265 conversations involving Beowulf, but I certainly want to review it too (all in good time!) and figure out what I’ve done wrong here, and how it should be different. I was focused primarily on combining “translations,” not on separating “ancient languages” for scholar-only cocktail parties. For now, I’ll plan to further separate and combine the “Chickering” Beowulf’s – they can still be recombined later, if appropriate. But I’m also going to vote (in the proper Beowulf thread) for further separation of the non-NCE Seamus Heaney translation as a work unto itself! (Has somebody mentioned a need for “metaworks” recently?)

Getting back to large-number combination blocking, I note nobody’s yet acted on my intent to combine Chickering with other Beowulf’s, and I withdraw the request. (98> Thank you, rsterling: your advice is appreciated, and might have been a good approach to this problem, but for other the recent posts cautioning me not to be hasty about combining these works.) LT can log this one as an instance where the 200-copy limit “nono” blocking did it’s job! Thanks to you all; carry on ... .

1) Only Tim (the owner) can do that. I think that would be for very rare and problematic cases.

2) No one is reviewing them. Combinations are reported in the Zeitgeist helpers log, and some members pay attention to that and try to correct bad combinations. Separations aren't logged anywhere. I think the staff can probably see what we do in both cases, but they don't review/monitor it as far as I know.

As for what should/shouldn't be combined, I'd check the Combiners group and search there for previous threads about a particular work. There'll be some good advice there generally. Also, on any author combination page, you'll see instructions in the right-hand column about what to combine and what not to combine. This page on the wiki also has guidelines:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Book_combining

101>Thanks for noting this, prosfilaes. I don't recall having done this combination, but certainly agree -- and apolgize, if necessary! -- it should be distinguished. I also don't claim to have completely cleaned up the work; any help you or another LT'er can afford is greatly appreciated.

I was directed here after trying to combine Outlander, or Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon (5638 copies) with Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1863 copies). The second one is a single edition that seems to have strayed from the pack. Can somebody else combine these?

110> I guess I haven't followed this thread closely enough, because I thought that "seasoned" combiners were allowed to combine when more than 200 copies are affected. I was not able to combine Outlander with Outlander, or Cross Stitch.

ryvre, only staff can combine works when more than 200 copies will change work #s right now.

I agree that those two works should be combined.

main work
http://www.librarything.com/work/6463

smaller work
http://www.librarything.com/work/10163014

well, the problem is that the largest groups in both books are over 1000.

So, even separating them down won't work.

Tim, Abby or someone else from the staff needs to combine these two works. LTers cannot.

Will combining them find the copy I bought a few months ago, and can't find now?

#114: If you mean that you cannot find it in your LT library, here it is:

http://www.librarything.com/work/6463/60438715

If you mean you cannot find your physical copy, I cannot help you find it except to say that it will be in the last place you look.

;) Good Luck.

and I completely empathize with your situation.

114: Yes. ;)

What? I thought it would be ... right where I left it?!? :-P

i'm very new here but as someone said up towards the top. on combos of xx#'s have a waiting period of a few days. then post to the combiners?? thred where 2 or 3 people take a look and approve the change or not. also they can not approve their own change. or have it reveiwed by a staff member.

Oh, I can find it on LT - in fact I did at the book store, and bought several more volumes of the series. Now I want to read the series, and it is neither on the fiction shelf or in the box of new books. Hmmmm. Next week should be cooler, and I can start to search. Just looking for any excuse as to why I can't find it, and an LT combining problem is as good as any.

I started a new topic to list the combinations that LT Staff needs to do, based on ryvre's post in message 110. If anybody has suggestions for better wording -- a clearer description or whatever -- let me know, and I'll edit it.

ETA: of course, I messed up the title which can't be edited!.

i just tried to combine one single book into a larger work of 200+ books and got rejected. it was the first i'd heard of this thread, although not the first time i've seen the problem it's trying to mitigate; people even blow through disambiguation notices, at times.

i can see that it might be good to keep people from making 'permanent' mistakes, but i don't like the current limit. we've been working with the system, so far ... unless there's been a surge of new problem combiners, why are we all being blocked? can't the limits wait until you work out an 'official' system?

on second look, i guess it wasn't 'one single book', it was a single entry with 430 copies. i guess i didn't understand how you were counting.

the main work had nearly 2000 copies with a few pages of different editions comprising the work. i guess i was thinking 'editions' instead of 'copies, since there was such a large difference in editions.

oh ... and it said:

You were attempting to combine: 4024, 10241481.

here are the 'links' to the books

http://www.librarything.com/work/4024

and

http://www.librarything.com/work/10241481

it helps if you post links...

because I found two different books by posting your numbers

and if you have a work to combine, post the hyperlinks of the two works in this thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/95602

and that way TPTB are notified.

Thank you for your patience & understanding.

skittles, do you have the keys to the palace now? Because those two works of A Caress of Twilight have been combined, and the only entry in the Helper Log that looks right is yours. It looks like all the combinations needing help have been done.

YAY! skittles is annointed!

It's all that sugary goodness in him or her. :)

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers needs some staff combining.

http://www.librarything.com/work/5354/editions

129> Done.

So, Tim, care to close this particular loophole that skittles and I are using? Or is it sufficiently arcane enough that you think it's okay?

brightcopy, shhhh!! magic is special!

This is what I did:

I tried

pixie dust
magic wands (all 13 that I have)
secret potions (it could have been love potion #7)
sacred dancing (you don't want to see me do them)
burnt feathers, fur, hair & skin (last wasn't magical, but it happens)
levitation
the secret magic handshake

I'm not sure which one worked, but I think it was the magic handshake.

Combiners work magic!

I should note that for #129 (MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers) that I combined all the various 4th edition, 5th edition, etc. together. There were no disambiguation notices saying not to, and there were already some copies of those various editions combined into the main work. However, if someone who is familiar with the source work wants to make a case for separating them back out strictly along edition lines due to major changes, feel free.

brightcopy/skittles would love to be let in our your little secret. As with my requests up above, I'm going through the Dungeon Magazine list and finding multiple copies with each issue. Lots of fun. (And some lovely soul doing things like combining Issue 87 with Volume 8, Issue 7.)

#132

We are up to the 7th ed. 2009 for MLA handbook for writers of research papers. There are great differences between the early editions and the 7th. The 5th and 6th eds. of APA (Publication manual of the American Psychological Association) also differ greatly.

That being said, I would combine all eds. of MLA handbook as well as APA. What I wouldn't do is combine the MLA handbook with MLA style manual and guide to scholarly publishing which is a totally different work.

Edited to say: touchstones are there, just don't work? And now they do!

Please combine:

The Complete Greek Tragedies: Volume I: Aeschylus (http://www.librarything.com/work/28873)

with:

The Oresteia: Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides (Penguin Classics) by Aeschylus (ISBN 0140443339) (http://www.librarything.com/work/10162990).

Thank you.

I think you're looking for the Please Fix This Book thread.

Actually I think they're looking for the More Than 200 Copies That Need to be Combined thread.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/95602

Whichever. It seems to have worked. (Thank you, LT!) ;D

Please combine the two entries for:
Byzantium: The Early Centuries by John Julius Norwich

Surly, you;re in the wrong thread. Since that's more than 200 works in each, you need to post your request here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/95602

You also need to include the link of the works involved. Here they are:

http://www.librarything.com/work/20631
http://www.librarything.com/work/10336802

They do look like different works to me though. Different ISBNs at the very least. Someone's going to have to check that request.

edit: I'll go ahead and do it.

>140 theapparatus: When you try to combine two works that are too large, you get an error message directing you to post here. I wouldn't expect most users to know that a newer thread has cropped up about this issue.

Really? An LT error message points to a thread and not a group? That just seems like a bizarre thing to do. Threads are just too ephemeral. That's not the right word but I can't think of the right one.

>141 ryvre: The system points users to a thread labeled "Blocks to combining..."? If so, I'd be pointing that out to staff, not another enduser.

The error message when trying to combine two large works:
"Sorry, too much love! Because of a number of massive over-combinations (eg., every book by C. S. Lewis combined into one) combinations that change more than 200 books have been disabled, except for LibraryThing staff, until we work out some rules.

We're discussing the issue on this thread. Tell us your opinion, and what you were trying to combine."

I'm sure the staff knows about it. Somebody had to write that.

yes, the discussion thread is here... but the request thread is....

.. here -->> http://www.librarything.com/topic/95602

yeah, that's it.

I have no problem tracking both threads and dealing with requests in whichever thread they are posted. Those already more active in combiners will probably use the other thread. Others may occasionally post here. Fine with me.

Sorry, too much love! Because of a number of massive over-combinations (eg., every book by C. S. Lewis combined into one) combinations that change more than 200 books have been disabled, except for LibraryThing staff, until we work out some rules.

We're discussing the issue on this thread. Tell us your opinion, and what you were trying to combine.

You were attempting to combine: 583414, 9805744.

This is the same book. Can you tell me if it can be combined? Thanks.

#147: Yes, IMO, they are the same book & are now combined.

If you go to the 200+ needs combining thread, then someone can combine the books you think need combining.

Thanks!

edited to add: please make sure you post URLs of the book pages.

I own the Everyman/J.M. Dent edition of Joseph Andrews/Shamela, which is combined with the Viking Penguin edition. I am not familiar with the Penguin, but the Dent, unlike the Norton Critical Edition, has no appended essays except for a brief introduction, so I feel it should be combined with the main Joseph Andrews/Shamela entry, either by combining the Viking with the main or separating Everyman/Dent from Viking and recombining it with the main entry.

#149: You'll get a better discussion of this situation if you put it in the "Combiner's Group Information, FAQ & Discussion Thread #2"

http://www.librarything.com/topic/57164

I realize that that thread has dropped down the page & you might not have seen it... but it is a good place to ask a question of the type you are asking..... more combiners will see it there.

Thanks!

The Signet Classics edition of The Count of Monte Cristo is abridged. However, it was combined into the main work. There are at least two associated ISBNs (0451521951 and 0451529707). I have separated and recombined the small editions but there are two with over 200 copies so I've hit the block.

The two big editions are works 10653900 and 10653905.

There is also a group with the same ISBNs stuck under Alexandre Dumas pere, work 10653922. Many of the titles of these editions do not say Signet Classic but the ISBNs are definitely for that imprint based on WorldCat.

>151 eromsted:
Done.

Please combine these two editions of Neil Gaiman's Coraline:

http://www.librarything.com/work/4183 (8,721 copies); and
http://www.librarything.com/work/10684529 (303 copies).

Thank you!

153> I assumed that, like every other movie tie-in I've seen, these two are the same, and they're now combined.

I was trying to combine 10119023 and 17369, both "the death of Ivan Ilich" by Tolstoy.

#155: please give links to works when asking for combining....

now Ivan Ilich & the work Ivan Ilich & Other stories are now combined & must be separated....

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo

Do you know how long I spent separating those? God, I wish Tim would clean out his ears sometimes.

OK, I combined the request in #155, but either with that combining request or a previous condition, "The Death of Ivan Ilych" was combined with "The Death of Ivan Ilych and other stories".

I have done my best to separate & combine those two works. (including zero copy editions)

BUT I do not know editions or languages enough to know with certainty that it is done correctly.

Could someone who knows this work, please check my 'work'?

Also, could someone check Leo's author page for any work that needs to be done on other works because it looks as if there might be more problems there.

Thank you all so much & I thank you for your understanding of my error(s).

I've taken screenshots of how Ivan looked before the separation, because luckily I had the combine/separate page open when the disaster happened. I can't do anything to check your work, before the weekend, though.

#159: I think I love you!!

I am sorry about the combining... and I won't be combining anything without checking first..... that's why there should be links to pages...

and disambiguation notices on them.

I didn't combine the one with a special translation disambiguation notice.

and yes it did take a long time to separate them.

If you want me to help you when you do the work, please feel free to PM me.

I'll change my name to 'Wild Thing'.

I would suggest combining the the following two works:

http://www.librarything.com/work/2297776
http://www.librarything.com/work/9814580

162> And I did so. :)

Today I was looking about information of the nationality of the writers in my calalogue and came across The European Library.
http://search.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/en/index.html

I think this might be a wonderfull search machine which perhaps can be used for combining works. It's even possible to change the language and to in- or exclude several library's
http://search.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/en/collections_all.html

What do you think about this; is it usefull

164: I think this could be a useful source, but more people would see it if you posted it in its own thread.

It may have been brought up before too. *forgetful*

164> Thank you, guurtjesboekenkast. I've added it to my Quick Links ( http://www.librarything.com/editquicklinks/online:databases# ), and I'm looking forward to exploring that resource!

165> infiniteletters: Done! See http://www.librarything.com/topic/105020#2375832 .

Thanks to you both for the great suggestions!

(Now, if I've created a duplicate Quick Link, can somebody please chastise me -- politely, as is the LT way -- and tell me how to fix it?)

I suggest combining the the following two works:

http://www.librarything.com/work/23239
http://www.librarything.com/work/6658000

which are the first and second editions of Lessig's Code and other laws of cyberspace.

#167: with the second one saying 2.0 very prominently, I need to ask: how different are the editions?

If the editions are significant, they shouldn't be combined.

other opinions?

167,168> This portion of one of the reviews for the book make it seem fairly different,

Lessig's original _Code_and_Other_Laws_of_Cyberspace_ was written before Napster even had its heyday, let alone today’s whole Web 2.0 cornucopia. So this new version contains much-needed updates to its examples and analyses.

From reading the reviews, I wouldn't combine them.

However, two editions of the latter work (6658000) seem to be combined with the earlier work (ISBNs 0613917472 and 0465039146). If you click on the Amazon link in 23239, one gets all the various covers, and if you hover your pointer over the cover, it shows the ISBN.

OK, I have separated the editions of the second edition from the first and combined those into the second.

>170 vpfluke: - thanks for the tip about clicking on the Amazon link. that could be helpful in finding works that need to be separated!

... and I've added that quote from prestonc's review to the Disambiguation Notice.

I suggest combining these two editions of The Aeneid by Virgil. Both contain the full work.

http://www.librarything.com/work/11862
http://www.librarything.com/work/10749268

I was trying to combine:

Sabriel by Garth Nix (4001 copies)

Sabriel (Abhorsen) by Garth Nix (737 copies)

which are 10014, 10743448

#175:

Ok, they are now combined.... but by only leaving work numbers you make the job not as simple.

If you leave LINKS like this:

http://www.librarything.com/work/10014

then it is easier for the combiner to check the works you are requesting to be combined.

ANYONE: PLEASE LEAVE LINKS TO THE WORKS YOU WISH COMBINED!!

It also helps to explain why you wish them combined.... and please state that they are the same book without additional material... or whatever reason.

I wonder if someone would combine the separate listings of Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. (none is a Norton Critical edition).

The message I got is:

Sorry, too much love!

You were attempting to combine: 17018, 10635185, 10635182.

please post links to the individual work pages.

see #176

<178 -- (thanks skittles, here are the links) --

I wonder if someone would combine the separate listings of Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. These are all the same work with no complications.

http://www.librarything.com/work/17018
http://www.librarything.com/work/10635185
http://www.librarything.com/work/10635182

#179: Thank you & Done!

#180 thank you!

Somehow The Book Thief editions have been split:
http://www.librarything.com/work/10811219
http://www.librarything.com/work/393681

and I can't combine them due to the "too much love' message. How do we get this sorted?!

ETA: I emailed Tim.

#182: done

>182 Lman: Not sure if it's covered by your links, but there's also this one: http://www.librarything.com/work/393681/book/40004106. This is the one that shows in my library, but the one without the "/book/40004106" extension does not.

I think they are all combined now (took some time) - thanks to "all-powerful" skittles.

I still have some weirdness as this book now shows as The Hunger Games on my home page (in the wish-list part and how I noticed it was originally discombobulated) but goes to The Book Thief from the link and acknowledges I own this book. :)

edited to fix touchstone - grrrr
And to say it is all now fixed and linking correctly - *phew*

Would someone be so kind to combine the following editions of The Gunslinger Born:
- http://www.librarything.com/work/10828837 (Main edition as it has all the CK)
- http://www.librarything.com/work/10828834
- http://www.librarything.com/work/10828831

As can be seen from the ISBN and the covers they are all the same book, unfortunately the copies are evenly split between the three of them, so I couldn't combine them myself.

Thanks!

>186 pratchettfan:: Done.

I see members have routinely combined the Evil Spammer's ghost writings, and some of them are returning the 'too much love' message.

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

188 - We don't do that any more, though that was one way we dealt with spam in the past. (Actually before the practice of author combining into "Evil Spammer," we used to do work combining of spam works. But now we are not supposed to do either.) I'm not sure where you're seeing that error message.

The Joy of Cooking need some combining. Expressions looks like it will take care of the reason the editions were kept separate.

There are substantial differences between editions of Joy of Cooking - see this thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/52454

Expressions may well change the rules for work combining, but we aren't there yet.

Hello - I was trying to combine http://www.librarything.com/work/10248920 and http://www.librarything.com/work/2770499.

Not sure if there's a reason for the separation, but it wouldn't let me combine and told me to post here. If they shouldn't be combined please let me know why (for my own curiosity). Thanks!

It wouldn't let you combine because it's over a limit of copies, which is a safety measure. In the past people have combined two works with huge amounts of copies that should not have been combined and it took a herculean effort to separate them again.

However, perhaps this disambiguation notice that was on the second work you linked to explains why they aren't combined:

Little Women was originally published in two parts: the second part is also known as Good Wives, and can be found as a separate edition. Editions titled Little Women may be either Part 1 alone or Parts 1 and 2 combined.

Please combine all complete and unabridged editions here. Do not combine abridged editions, and do not separate editions because of publisher or cover.

So perhaps the other Little Woman is just the first part or contains abridged editions.

I combined these two. The smaller edition (Junior Illustrated Library or Illustrated Junior Library) is listed as unabridged in several places.

msgs 191/192 As one who has worked on the Joy of Cooking in the past I too vote that the various editions be combined as one work, even across the change in authors.

Please do not combine all editions of Joy of Cooking as one work. That's not the way we use ours. Should we revive the thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/52454 and discuss it further? Please advise, and thanks.

I know nothing about 'Joy of Cooking', but I'd caution against doing anything that you might later regret with the introduction of the FRBR-style enhancements that Tim has been discussing. From the sound of it, combining might be the right thing to do, but it does run the risk of losing some distinctions that may prove very useful in the future.

190 & 192> Expressions looks like it will take care of the reason the editions were kept separate.

Expressions may well change the rules for work combining, but we aren't there yet.

Shortride & jjwilson61: Can either of you direct me to discussion of "Expressions"? I'm unfamiliar with that as an LT term. It sounds more like a line of greeting cards. Thanks!

ETC a prior reference.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/109523.

200> Thank you, jjwilson61! I missed that one.

Consider combining:

1776, by David McCullough ( http://www.librarything.com/work/3097331 )

with

1776: The Illustrated Edition, also by David McCullough ( http://www.librarything.com/work/10359350 )

on the principle that illustrations alone don't warrant separation as distinct LT works. Thank you!

As there are 341 members with the illustrated edition, I'd prefer that they be kept separate. Work-to-work relationship maybe?

203> Thanks, infiniteletters.

As (i) yours is the only response thus far, (ii) no Higher Power has yet done the combining, and (iii) I typically / generally prefer distinguishing editions over combining them anyway, I demur.

But that gets me back to a larger question of basic LT principle: what warrants separation as distinct LT works, and what calls for combining instead? I'm wondering along the lines of whether there should be work-to-work categories for "revision of" and "illustrated version of," but then the converse could get murky. ("Early version of," or "no-pictures version of"?)

Maybe that's already in the works, or in the system, and I haven't paid attention. (Nothing unusual there!) Or maybe, if that's where I'm headed, I need to review previous Combiners! threads, and/or start a new one.

Ultimately, however, my "question" may essentially be a statement of confusion, as I run into variant interpretations all across the LT board: multiple, successive iterations of Strunk & White, or The Joy of Cooking, may or may not warrant separation; Beowulf is sometimes combined, sometimes separated, depending on whether Olde English is (or isn't) a dead language, and whether the translation is actually an interpretation instead. At least we're agreed that -- at some point! (abridgments, graphic novels, film adaptations, interpretive dance ... ) -- something new appears, which we all treat as a work in its own right, complete with work-to-work relationships as appropriate.

Perhaps I'll go look again at the discussion threads on "edition" and "expression," to see where's that's led us. Until then, I still think existing LT principles call for combining these; maybe it's good I can't do anything about it. I'd appreciate further thoughts.

ETA Touchstones.

#204

I've come to the conclusion that the answer is "It depends!"

Edited for typo

Sorry, I didn't answer earlier, but my response would be, of course they should be combined, what are you thinking?

203, 205, 206> That works, I guess. :o)

ETA Message refs.

I don't see any reason why the two 1776s shouldn't be combined. I agree that illustrations alone don't generally warrant separation. If it were a graphic novel, that would be one thing, but if it's the same text plus illustrations then I don't see why it's not the same work.

Generally I would agree. But if I look at editions for that Illustrated version, I see things like "Excerpts from the Acclaimed History" as subtitle. Excerpts?!? Hm...

>above posts ...

Well, if the expressions/editions layer ever come to pass, then it may be useful to leave them separated out in order to aid the new process, but as Rebekah says they are basically the same 'work' and belong together.

209> Thank you, BarkingMatt. "Excerpts" is probably the key to distinction that I was missing here. See, I knew there were LT'ers eruditer than I!

ETA: Having now been to look again at the Illustrated Edition, (a) I am firmly in the "keep separated" camp, and (b) I especially like the one subtitled "(on loan to Lee's teacher)." Happy Saturday to all!

Oh, if it's excerpts, then it's not the same text, so a different work. Always good to check Amazon to find out more before combining: indeed, Amazon's description indicates that it's an abridgment.

So the abridgment, rather than the illustration, makes it a different work.

edited for typo

Disambiguation Notices added to both LT Works, to discourage -- maybe even inhibit -- further combinationist tendancies on this point. Thanks to all!

Thank you for your efforts jasbro.

There were 4 copies of the illustrated version mixed in with the main record. I went ahead and separated them out and combined them with the illustrated version.

Here is another large combine:

http://www.librarything.com/work/684178

http://www.librarything.com/work/6451620

Both translations of Sophocles, both containing Ajax; Electra; Philoctetes; Women of Trachis. They are in fact mostly well divided between two translators but as I understand it that kind separation has never been policy. I suppose I could do some uncombines and recombines to do it myself but I thought I would leave it to others to get the glory/infamy.

Would it be possible to add a mechanism which checks if the combined works are in a "work-to-work relationship" (preferably incl. inherited) and if so does something similar to "200 books combinations". I imagine several of the usually incorrectly combined works will be related in some way. Yes I know disambiguations can be used but I've seen several disambigs get completely ignored and then it's back to separating out each individual issue and splitting/readding the CK and work relationships.

217> I'd love that, and have suggested something similar:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/111374

This book was mistakenly combined with the movie.
http://www.librarything.com/work/11046153

I separated it out and now it needs to be combined with
http://www.librarything.com/work/113

Thanks!

#219 needs to be done by staff.

#219: done

(the house nisse has learned how to use my computer.)

http://www.librarything.com/work/11081378
http://www.librarything.com/work/11081379

I've been trying to deal with the mess that is Leaves of Grass, and managed to get all versions that are definitively the 1855 text out. However they came out in two main blocks that now need to be combined.

>222 g026r:
Done.

An obvious combine:

http://www.librarything.com/work/9004

http://www.librarything.com/work/8600478

Are there a few errant copies within both collections of works (some of them abridged versions of Capital, Vol. 1 and some of them single work entries for a collection of all three works)? Yes. But, at the end of the day, the overwhelming collection of works listed as Capital are Capital, Vol. 1, unabridged.

#224
http://www.librarything.com/work/8600478/editions

But, at the end of the day, the overwhelming collection of works listed as Capital are Capital, Vol. 1, unabridged

I wouldn't say that at all: while that work is a bit of a mess at the moment, looking at the Karl Marx page it's clearly the work which is supposed to be any single-work Capital. It would make more sense to separate the stray Volume I editions from it than to combine it with Volume I.

>225 EveleenM:

-In the first 25 works listed, there are 24 versions of Capital, Vol 1 and 1 version of all three editions of Capital cataloged together.

-In that list, there are, indeed, many versions of: "Capital, Vol. 1" published, presented and cataloged as two vols; and of all three vols cataloged together as one work. To be sure, all of those need to be weeded out, in due time

-While I did not count after 25, a quick scroll through the works listed in the link above only led to me noticing 4 copies of Vol 2 and 2 of Vol 3 cataloged individually. I'm sure that there are several more of each, but not all that many.

-In the literature, virtually every reference to "Capital" is a reference to Vol 1 (be the author a Marxist, the harshest of critics or anything in between)

I'm all for sound cataloging, but I don't think I'd spend the time weeding out strays if I knew that there'd still be two different work pages for Vol. 1 when I was done.

Scanning the editions, I can see at least 20 that are some version of Capital with no volume number and no ISBN, which I would have assumed should be kept separate from the specific volume 1 - if sufficient identifying information simply isn't there, you're going to be left with some form of a catch-all work no matter what.

But since you're the one who's working on it, go ahead!

Die folgenden Werke verbinden?

* Der Zweihundertjährige. von Isaac Asimov (441 Exemplare)
* Bicentennial Man von Isaac Asimov (429 Exemplare)

Du hast versucht folgende Werke zu verbinden:
http://www.librarything.com/work/4105360
http://www.librarything.com/work/1856102

228 - Are you sure those should be combined? One is called, in English, Bicentennial Man and one is called Bicentennial Man and other stories. Do these two works have exactly the same content?

I found the contents of the 4105360 one online:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bicentennial-Man-Isaac-Asimov/dp/1857989325/ref=sr_1_1?s...

It does look likely they're the same.

Found these two versions of Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams. I got the following message and was told to post it here.

"Sorry, too much love! Because of a number of massive over-combinations (eg., every book by C. S. Lewis combined into one) combinations that change more than 200 books have been disabled, except for LibraryThing staff, until we work out some rules.

We're discussing the issue on this thread. Tell us your opinion, and what you were trying to combine.

You were attempting to combine: 10264784, 10812390."

I would like to request that someone take a look as these appear to be the same book. I think the correct author should be John Joseph Adams, not Stephen King, who actually only authored one short story in the collection. Thanks, and this is my first post/first attempt at combining, so please go easy on me if I haven't followed proper procedure. :-)

it really helps when we are given actual LINKS to the pages you wish us to consider. it saves us going to the wrong pages.

and welcome to the wonderful world of combining... warning it can become addictive... preventative measures help.

also reading the current discussion & help threads

http://www.librarything.com/topic/57164

http://www.librarything.com/topic/115340

Thank you.

You did fine. :)

sturlington's request was first posted to the normal Combiners thread. Maybe a link in that error to the 200 and over thread would be a good idea?

Ok, they are now combined.

I went back to the "regular" combiners thread for the links.

In my non-apocalyptic eyes, they appear to be the same book.

Again, Welcome, Sturlington and beware of the combining addiction.

Combining.....

ComBINIng.....

COMBINING......

Addiction? What addicition? I didn't go into withdrawal over the weekend when I couldn't get to a computer. Honest I didn't. I just can't type correctly right now...

Thanks, everyone. I don't really need to get addicted to LT in yet another way, but oh well, it probably can't be helped. :-)

I hit "too much love" when trying to fix.
http://www.librarything.com/work/5403381
http://www.librarything.com/work/11349307
http://www.librarything.com/work/11365208

#237: done

I got the same message while attempting to combine 3064, 11040311 & 9306647 The Things They Carried...

#239: links to pages, please.

Made the links myself so I can see what's going on:

http://www.librarything.com/work/11040311
http://www.librarything.com/work/3064
http://www.librarything.com/work/9306647

How did we get 3 "please combine" threads going anyway? :)

The current combine request thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/116966

The one for 200+ works: http://www.librarything.com/topic/95602

And this one

There is a link to this one when the combining is over 200 each...

it really doesn't matter...

the original "fix this book" thread came about because almost every book group that needed combining was a new thread.

Having one "main" thread for general combining is fine... the "special help" ones for 200+ combining is fine... would take too much to fix the announcement one.... Tim et al have enough to do.

Hmmm, thought it pointed to the /95602 thread.

Not a biggie :)

Things that they carried is done

Thanks @skittles!

I hit "Too much love" while attempting to combine: 11448889, 10028921.

http://www.librarything.com/work/11448889
http://www.librarything.com/work/10028921

They're both the same work, consisting of Faust, part 1 and an abridged version of part 2 edited by Walter Kaufman.

>246 g026r:
Done

Thanks.

I hit "Too much love" while attempting to combine 3574878, 6983924, 9925358

They are all Stardust from Neil Gaiman - the first containing many non-english titles, the second mostly in English, the third in Italian.

Before my attempt of combining I separated all 'No. x of 4' titles still contained in Stardust and combinend them separately.

I wanted to combine those works, because when I found Stardust in a list of suggestions for me, it wasn't marked as 'in your library' - but it is.

#249: I combined the requested "book numbers" that you posted.

Thank you for including the URLs for the books you wished us to combine. It makes it so easy for us to make sure that we are not combining editions that others have requested we not combine. And especially since, as you said, there are many different editions & volumes of the book... not to mention all the other works with the same title. /sarcasm off

**Can someone who is familiar with the work please check to make sure that all of this was done correctly since there are so many volumes & duplicate titles & I am not familiar with any of the books.

Note to requestors: PLEASE INCLUDE THE URLs of the books you wish to have combined. It makes our job much easier & prevents errors.

250> Thank you for including the URLs for the books you wished us to combine. It makes it so easy for us to make sure that we are not combining editions that others have requested we not combine.

Ahzim gave you the work number and the url is easily constructed from the work number. I don't see the problem.

>251 jjwilson61: I explained this to you the last time this came up. You responded with a very distasteful post that I considered to be bigoted.

Please kindly realize that not everybody can fully use a keyboard. I can right click -> copy a url a lot easier than trying to copy and paste text off of a written page.

252> I don't recall responding to exactly this issue before, but if skittles had said what you just said I wouldn't have responded at all. But skittles reasoning above makes no sense to me at all.

ETA: Actually I'm having trouble making sense you your post too. I said that that ahzim was ok giving just the work number because a url could be constructed from it and you responded (attacked me is more like it) that it's easier for you to right-click and copy a url.

Are you saying that if you were someone reporting a problem that it would be easier for you to add the url than to type the number? Well that's fine for you but I'm saying that it should be ok for someone else to just type the number. At least they shouldn't be subjected to a surly lecture about it.

#253: The members here who do the "heavier" combining are all volunteers. We do this because we like to, not because we have to. We all have other calls on our time.

It takes less time for us to do the combining & checking to make sure that we are combining works that should be combined when we have the URLs ready to click on.

Our time is valuable, too.

I have asked is that you copy & paste the URLs of the pages of the works that you want to have combined.

As far as the others, I will not speak for them.

But as of this message, I will not combine works unless the URL of the work has been provided. It is a simple request that makes the best use of my free time.

It also prevents combining mistakes. When we see the numbers, we cannot see what works they belong to without taking extra steps & spending extra time.

I'd rather be reading.

Hi,

I was trying to combine Life of Pi with the deluxe editions from the editions page of the work. I received an error notice asking me to post here because there are too many editions to combine. I hope this is what you need:

http://www.librarything.com/combine.php?work=5197633

Thank you,

k4k

Please post the URLs for the editions you were trying to combine with it, also.

Follow-up to #255:
http://www.librarything.com/work/5197633
http://www.librarything.com/work/11196037
http://www.librarything.com/work/11195948

Thank you,

k4k

Done.

Thank you!

4044 and 11690174 A Wrinkle in Time

260: Please post full URLs for the works you are trying to combine. The second work number you posted there seems to be incorrect. It is not A Wrinkle in Time. (Posting URLs helps combiners and those requesting help to make sure that the works are indeed actually the same.)

#260 & 261 I think they mean these:

http://www.librarything.com/work/11690714

http://www.librarything.com/work/4044

Could someone take a look at this? I'm running on no sleep and getting the error message...

http://www.librarything.com/work/1461210
http://www.librarything.com/work/11519602

Thanks

> 262, 263: Done.

Thank you, henkl!

These three need to be combined:

http://librarything.com/work/3474
and
http://librarything.com/work/11763307
and
http://librarything.com/work/11763315

Thanks!

#266: done

Okay, I admit to not having read this entire thread, but could anyone explain to me the qualifications for being able to combine these "too much love" combinations? I would *think* I'd done enough combinations and helped this site enough to be allowed, but I guess not....

Anyways, I can't find any reason that these two should actually stay separate, so:

http://www.librarything.com/work/11811301
http://www.librarything.com/work/72922

>268 Heather19:
It was the same book. Combined now. And I am tracking a few more loose copies.

269> I don't believe there are any qualifications. It's more of a trick where you break the work apart into smaller chunks that can then be combined.

#270 by @jjwilson61> Not really. I'll profile message you, Heather19. jjwilson61. - if you're interested, too, drop me a message.

...... I feel so stupid. I know that trick. I use that way of combining. Why didn't I think of that? *headdesks*

;)

>272 Heather19:

Because they were on the same author page and that looked easier? :)

PS: I was pretty sure you have it so did not propose to send it and decided that you are just on a strange computer or something ;)

Trying to combine The Marx-Engels Reader

http://www.librarything.com/work/10832926
http://www.librarything.com/work/74742

#275 - done

I too have gotten the "Too much love" message. I was trying to combine:

http://www.librarything.com/work/5061284
http://www.librarything.com/work/11847113

I know that sometimes you can have material in one edition of a book that sets it apart from a more basic edition, but given the large number of editions that are contained in the larger work for Things Fall Apart, I don't see why the Fawcett Crest mass market edition would be separated out.

>278 Bretzky1:: Done.

Hi

I was trying to combine
http://www.librarything.com/work/123919
with
www.librarything.com/work/28877

Same work, different author listing.

Done.

BTW, this didn't require anything special. I just followed the normal process:

Click Editions
Click (combine/separate potentials)
Put a checkmark next to the work to combine it with.
Click Combine works button

Since less than 200 copies were effected (the lesser work had around 70-ish members), you're not stopped by what this thread refers to - special blocks to prevent combining two different works, each of which have large numbers of copies.

Should you have any others of these kinds of requests, it'd probably be better to post to the "Combining/Separating (Please Fix This Book!) Request Thread" in this group, currently at:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/128109

Nothing harmed by asking here, but that'd be the better place.

I got a "too much love" for attempting to combine: 89752, 11893070.

#282 by @waitingtoderail> Please go to the link below where it says "This topic was continued by Blocks to combining that affects large numbers of copies (Sorry, too much love!)." and repost this with the links to the works (example shown in first post there). Thanks.

283 - Since this is the thread linked in the error message, I'm not optimistic that people will use the thread continuation. Maybe you could ask staff to change the link in the error message.

Good point! I'll send something to Jeremy.

Can you not do it since I posted here or do I actually have to go over to the other thread and post it? Seems a bit silly when I did what the message told me to do.

>286 waitingtoderail:

Yes. Done.

#286 by @waitingtoderail> You mean post the links? No offense intended, but numbers are not links. Glad someone else wanted to help you but just so you know you'll get quicker response by posting links (see example in other thread).

FYI, I mailed Jeremy and set up a wiki page that has the same text (basically) as the other thread and a link to that thread. Hopefully we'll get the error message pointed to the wiki.

Suggestion: might be worth moving the instructions to the very beginning of the post (If two works need to be combined, please post links here in this form, etc.), and put the rest of the detailed explanation later. I have to scroll down to see what someone is supposed to do in the thread, and if others are like me, they might just skim the post rather than read all the text. (And that's probably even more likely for people who are just coming to the thread for a quick fix.)

#289 by @rsterling> The ideal goal would be to jettison this thread since it has so much cruft in it and only meandered to the point of getting them combined anyway. That's why I've asked Jeremy to change the error message to point to this instead:

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Combination_Blocking

I don't know, it seems to make sense to have a link to a thread (tell us what you were trying to combine), where people can see what they're supposed to do. The background info is useful to have available, but mostly I think we just need a new fix it thread (if this one is deemed too long).

>290 brightcopy:
The point is that noone will read the whole new post -- so we will keep seeing people asking any way they can.

However - when you have the issue, the message gives just numbers - not links (look at the screenshot if you want). So this is what people will post really - unless if they understand the whole structure of links here and know what to put before the numbers. It is not like regular combining issues when they have both works handy - here they need to backtrack, grab the links and post them. Not that it is impossible but... they do what the message tells them to do - they post what they tried to combine - no reason to presume that they need to read half a page of text to figure out how to post the two numbers LT is showing them as numbers on the screen.

Just saying...

#291 by @rsterling> The background info is useful to have available, but mostly I think we just need a new fix it thread (if this one is deemed too long).

Which I have created. See the continuation thread linked below.

#292 by @AnnieMod> The point is that noone will read the whole new post -- so we will keep seeing people asking any way they can.

Agreed. But at least by pointing them to the wiki (Jeremy's suggestion which I agreed with), they can't just go "meh, I'm not going to bother reading" and go directly to the post box. They have to at least read some of the "To Get Them Combined Anyway" section to even know to post here. And while people will still not even read those couple of sentences, I don't expect to be able to solve all the world's problems. Just cut down on them. :)

However - when you have the issue, the message gives just numbers - not links

That's an excellent point and I'm sorry if you (or anyone else) mentioned it earlier and I missed it. Going to email Jeremy about that one, too! I think if it just replaced those to links to the work, that'd help a lot.

Which I have created. See the continuation thread linked below.

Yes, I know. That's what we're talking all about. A continuation thread per se is not a problem. What I'm quibbling with is (a) the suggestion to bypass the thread and make people go to the wiki first, and (b) the long explanation in the first post in that thread.

But at least by pointing them to the wiki (Jeremy's suggestion which I agreed with), they can't just go "meh, I'm not going to bother reading" ...

But they will. A lot of people won't bother reading, and if they're not directed to a place where they can easily & quickly see that they're supposed to post the works they need combined, they just won't bother reporting the works that need combined.

and go directly to the post box.
I don't see why that's a problem. I appreciate that the new thread, explanation, and wiki are intended to be helpful, but it just seems like a solution in search of a problem.

I think this thread was working just fine. I can see it's getting a bit long, so it's fine to have a new thread. If we have a thread with clear, short, easy to find instructions (which is why I suggested putting the main point right at the top) rather than long instructions that people are not going to read, people will (a) be more likely to use that thread rather than this one, (b) be more likely to post their request at all, and (c) be more likely to post their request correctly (which really, is never going to happen 100% of the time anyway).

I do not, though, see any point having them directed to the wiki first. The system we had already was fine: the instructions said to go to a thread to post the works that needed combined. So, people did that. If the instructions on how to post can be clearer for them, so much the better, but I just don't see people wading through a lot of text to try to figure out what they need to do. So why not some simple text, right at the top of the thread:
"If you've encountered the "too much love" error, please post the works you were trying to combine, in the form of links, for example:
http://www.librarything.com/work/5061284
http://www.librarything.com/work/11847113

More explanation (insert long background here if desired)."

#294 by @rsterling> Well, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on some of that and let TPTB make their decision. I suggested to Jeremy the option of either linking to the new thread or if he thought it would be better, a wiki. He said wiki would be better. So that's why that's there.

As far as having the error show the links - as noted above I agreed with AnnieMod and have mailed Jeremy.

On having the instructions of posting before the instructions on what the problem is - It was never clear to me that this is what you were suggesting. I don't find it unreasonable, though, and have flipped the order on both the post and the wiki.

On someone not wanting to read a couple of sentences and just giving up on combination - GOOD. Someone who can't bother reading that small of an amount of instructions really has no business going in and doing combinations at all, much less ones that affect a lot of copies. That's my opinion, of course. But if someone is that lazy, I'd rather they just leave it all alone.

Thanks for switching the order. I think that's clearer.
(FWIW, that was the very first suggestion that I made, in post 289, before we started talking about broader issues.)

On someone not wanting to read a couple of sentences and just giving up on combination - GOOD. Someone who can't bother reading that small of an amount of instructions really has no business going in and doing combinations at all, much less ones that affect a lot of copies. That's my opinion, of course. But if someone is that lazy, I'd rather they just leave it all alone.

See, I think it's always better to make it easy and clear. Especially here: the big difference here is that they're *not* doing combinations. They're making a combination request. The onus is on the person who understands the magic spell for combining these kinds of cases (and note: those are going to be power users) to make sure the request is valid. (I'm with you on "a couple of sentences," but before, there was a lot more than a couple of sentences.)

#296 by @rsterling> See, I think it's always better to make it easy and clear.

That wasn't really what the quote you replied to was about, so you're arguing with someone who agrees with you. ;)

That quote was saying if someone won't read even a short couple of sentences and just give up on getting them combined. If you trace it back, it was a quote chain originating in me saying there was a bold lettered section "To Get Them Combined Anyway" and the first couple of sentences were the instructions. That's easy. That's clear. I think we got a bit off the topic and it became an argument between people who don't really disagree.

Ok, and with the short and sweet couple of sentences at the top it's fine now. Those sentences were not easy to find before. Overall, what I was trying to get at with "it's always better to make it easy and clear," though, is that I don't think we need to put up obstacles for the uninitiated: if we have clear and succinct instructions, and a simple, ideally 1-step process, that's sufficient. Put another way: there's not a lot of harm in someone who can't be bothered to read instructions -- whether 2 sentences or 5 paragraphs -- mucking things up here, since that person actually can't do the combining. We can't prevent any mistaken combination suggestions from ever being made, even with good and clear instructions, but there's already a level of oversight here, since someone else is actually looking at the combination and making it.