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1eromsted
See here and here and probably others. Someone said this was an old problem.
In brief, there is something dreadfully wrong with the work Elric: Stealer of Souls. See especially the members page
In brief, there is something dreadfully wrong with the work Elric: Stealer of Souls. See especially the members page
2theapparatus
Give into the black hole. It has your books......
3eromsted
Reported again here.
In that thread abbottthomas asked, "How far does Elric's malign influence spread?"
Looking at show all members on the members page linked above I think it's a fair guess that any member listed more than once is affected by the bug. Some libraries have been hit particularly hard, the most extreme example being mccastro. The problem can be seen vividly on his work duplicates page (currently under #13). LT thinks all those books are the workElric: Stealer of Souls. But as can be seen in his catalog all of the book data looks normal (I sorted by # of members. Scroll down till you start seeing lots of books with identical total members, currently 1305. Those are the affected books.)
So there are books with good data linked to the wrong work in a way that can't be seen or separated. The bug distorts affected members' catalogs, connections and recommendations for those members and their books, and causes false hits in site-wide searching.
In that thread abbottthomas asked, "How far does Elric's malign influence spread?"
Looking at show all members on the members page linked above I think it's a fair guess that any member listed more than once is affected by the bug. Some libraries have been hit particularly hard, the most extreme example being mccastro. The problem can be seen vividly on his work duplicates page (currently under #13). LT thinks all those books are the workElric: Stealer of Souls. But as can be seen in his catalog all of the book data looks normal (I sorted by # of members. Scroll down till you start seeing lots of books with identical total members, currently 1305. Those are the affected books.)
So there are books with good data linked to the wrong work in a way that can't be seen or separated. The bug distorts affected members' catalogs, connections and recommendations for those members and their books, and causes false hits in site-wide searching.
4abbottthomas
I don't mind my report being closed and linked here, but I'm going to copy the text so as not to lose sight of something that I don't see on previous threads (I confess to not having followed all the links, so I may have missed it. I wrote:
I have just done a title search for The Odd Flamingo. This yielded two single copy entries by Nina Bawden. One - http://www.librarything.com/work/9466932 - led to the correct work, the other - http://www.librarything.com/work/6808759 - to On Wings of Fire by Lawrence George Green. A title search for On Wings of Fire produced three relevant entries, a single copy by Lawrence G Green and two groups of three copies by Lawrence George Green. One of these two was correct, the other led me to Elric - http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896 .
I have combined the two Green authors and tidied up the necessary work combinations so the On Wings of Fire search now gives two groups of four copies.
How far does Elric's malign influence spread?
What seems new about this is the 'contagion' - Elric has picked up On Wings of Fire which in turn has picked up The Odd Flamingo. This is more like a STD than a bug.
I have just done a title search for The Odd Flamingo. This yielded two single copy entries by Nina Bawden. One - http://www.librarything.com/work/9466932 - led to the correct work, the other - http://www.librarything.com/work/6808759 - to On Wings of Fire by Lawrence George Green. A title search for On Wings of Fire produced three relevant entries, a single copy by Lawrence G Green and two groups of three copies by Lawrence George Green. One of these two was correct, the other led me to Elric - http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896 .
I have combined the two Green authors and tidied up the necessary work combinations so the On Wings of Fire search now gives two groups of four copies.
How far does Elric's malign influence spread?
What seems new about this is the 'contagion' - Elric has picked up On Wings of Fire which in turn has picked up The Odd Flamingo. This is more like a STD than a bug.
5r.orrison
two groups of three copies by Lawrence George Green
The bug where search results show the text of the next-to-last result twice, with the last result showing the wrong text but with the correct link (in this case it's to the black hole), has been reported here http://www.librarything.com/topic/100029.
The bug where search results show the text of the next-to-last result twice, with the last result showing the wrong text but with the correct link (in this case it's to the black hole), has been reported here http://www.librarything.com/topic/100029.
6abbottthomas
>5 r.orrison: Do you think the black hole connection is pure chance, then? I tried out one or two of the other examples to which you refer and Elric didn't appear, so that may be the case, I suppose.
7r.orrison
Yes, I'm pretty sure it is. It comes up quite often as the last thing in a search, with or without the above mentioned bug happening.
8eromsted
>6 abbottthomas:
One edition of Wings of Fire has a subtitle containing the words odd and flamingo. That explains the first search.
As to the second, did you actually separate a copy of Wings of Fire from Elric? If so, that's this bug (see the first thread linked in message 1 above). If not, it may just be the other bug and happenstance as r.orrison suggests.
One edition of Wings of Fire has a subtitle containing the words odd and flamingo. That explains the first search.
As to the second, did you actually separate a copy of Wings of Fire from Elric? If so, that's this bug (see the first thread linked in message 1 above). If not, it may just be the other bug and happenstance as r.orrison suggests.
9abbottthomas
>8 eromsted: Odd flamingo - who'd have thought it ;-)
I didn't separate Wings of Fire from anything - it was just as I found it.
I didn't separate Wings of Fire from anything - it was just as I found it.
10Nicole_VanK
Can't we give it the alternative title "Elric, stealer of books"? Can we? ;-)
11EveleenM
I've been keeping an eye on the Elric situation for a couple of months, and my present understanding of it is as follows:
There are a number of member catalogues which contain anomalous entries where:
1 The work title/author/publisher/ISBN show up as normal in the member's catalogue
2 On the work page, the book details tab shows the correct information, while the work details tab shows Elric : The Stealer of Souls; eg http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896/details/60614989
3 Crucially, the edition information showing on the book details tab is missing from the Elric editions page
http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896/editions/60614989
The end result is that there are hundreds of ghost editions attached to this work which are invisible on the editions page: the 'black hole' effect is that if a new copy of any of these works is added, the autocombiner may combine it with the invisible edition already combined with Elric, rather than with the normal work. From what I have tracked on http://www.librarything.com/topic/97332 , the occasional apparently unrelated works I've been separating from Elric have been attracted there by invisible counterparts in one of the faulty catalogues.
The problem works in a faulty catalogue can be spotted in a few different ways: a catalogue view which includes series CK will show an Elric series label on an unrelated work, but it's easier to get them all together by looking at duplicates on the statistics page. There seem to be 5 faulty catalogues:
mmcastro http://www.librarything.com/profile/mccastro/stats/workdups hundreds of Elric ghosts at number 13
booklovingmama http://www.librarything.com/profile/booklovingmama/stats/workdups maybe a hundred Elric ghosts
teaguemania http://www.librarything.com/profile/teagueamania/stats/workdups maybe a hundred Elric ghosts
TheOdd1BTM http://www.librarything.com/profile/TheOdd1BTM/stats/workdups maybe 30 Elric ghosts
crumpart http://www.librarything.com/profile/crumpart/stats/workdups about 20 Elric ghosts
I think the crucial thing needed to fix this bug is to get the missing edition information to show up on the Elric editions page: once they actually show up there, all the ghost copies could be separated in the normal way.
There are a number of member catalogues which contain anomalous entries where:
1 The work title/author/publisher/ISBN show up as normal in the member's catalogue
2 On the work page, the book details tab shows the correct information, while the work details tab shows Elric : The Stealer of Souls; eg http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896/details/60614989
3 Crucially, the edition information showing on the book details tab is missing from the Elric editions page
http://www.librarything.com/work/8639896/editions/60614989
The end result is that there are hundreds of ghost editions attached to this work which are invisible on the editions page: the 'black hole' effect is that if a new copy of any of these works is added, the autocombiner may combine it with the invisible edition already combined with Elric, rather than with the normal work. From what I have tracked on http://www.librarything.com/topic/97332 , the occasional apparently unrelated works I've been separating from Elric have been attracted there by invisible counterparts in one of the faulty catalogues.
The problem works in a faulty catalogue can be spotted in a few different ways: a catalogue view which includes series CK will show an Elric series label on an unrelated work, but it's easier to get them all together by looking at duplicates on the statistics page. There seem to be 5 faulty catalogues:
mmcastro http://www.librarything.com/profile/mccastro/stats/workdups hundreds of Elric ghosts at number 13
booklovingmama http://www.librarything.com/profile/booklovingmama/stats/workdups maybe a hundred Elric ghosts
teaguemania http://www.librarything.com/profile/teagueamania/stats/workdups maybe a hundred Elric ghosts
TheOdd1BTM http://www.librarything.com/profile/TheOdd1BTM/stats/workdups maybe 30 Elric ghosts
crumpart http://www.librarything.com/profile/crumpart/stats/workdups about 20 Elric ghosts
I think the crucial thing needed to fix this bug is to get the missing edition information to show up on the Elric editions page: once they actually show up there, all the ghost copies could be separated in the normal way.
12EveleenM
I was reminded that this is now one of the oldest bugs not dealt with, when I separated out yet another batch of Elric strays today.
13timspalding
Update on why this isn't fixed yet (see http://www.librarything.com/topic/107331).
See elsewhere. This does need to be dealt with.
See elsewhere. This does need to be dealt with.
14eromsted
After another report on problems with this work I decided to try to split out the good editions of Eric from the buggy one.
I believe all of the invisibly combined copies are contained in one edition, now found at work number 11468793. There are over 1000 copies of this work, but only 13 of them are actually Elric: Stealer of Souls (I searched the catalogs of the members listed with this work).
The main work for Elric can now be found at work number 11468726. I do not believe there are any invisible editions here, but I did not check thoroughly.
I also managed to create a 0 copy edition that still has a lot of the social data attached. I'd like to let the caches clear before deciding where to combine this edition.
I created a new disambiguation notice for the buggy work. Any critical suggestions are appreciated.
The following members have other books invisibly combined into the buggy Elric work: @alenaroo, @TheOdd1BTM, @mccastro, @teagueamania, @booklovingmama, @crumpart. What do people think about contacting these members, letting them know about the problem and suggesting that they contact Tim? A message from one of them might inspire some action.
I believe all of the invisibly combined copies are contained in one edition, now found at work number 11468793. There are over 1000 copies of this work, but only 13 of them are actually Elric: Stealer of Souls (I searched the catalogs of the members listed with this work).
The main work for Elric can now be found at work number 11468726. I do not believe there are any invisible editions here, but I did not check thoroughly.
I also managed to create a 0 copy edition that still has a lot of the social data attached. I'd like to let the caches clear before deciding where to combine this edition.
I created a new disambiguation notice for the buggy work. Any critical suggestions are appreciated.
The following members have other books invisibly combined into the buggy Elric work: @alenaroo, @TheOdd1BTM, @mccastro, @teagueamania, @booklovingmama, @crumpart. What do people think about contacting these members, letting them know about the problem and suggesting that they contact Tim? A message from one of them might inspire some action.
15EveleenM
Good work!
There's still one errant cover attached to the main Elric work, but that seems to be a case of an incorrect/re-used ISBN, not one of the ghost editions.
I wouldn't contact them , myself, but it's up to you. Only one of them seems to have any recent activity on their account.
There's still one errant cover attached to the main Elric work, but that seems to be a case of an incorrect/re-used ISBN, not one of the ghost editions.
I wouldn't contact them , myself, but it's up to you. Only one of them seems to have any recent activity on their account.
17Nicole_VanK
Just in case there might actually be a clue in there: www.librarything.com/topic/137814 and especially the duplicate works of user mccastro (under #14) - http://www.librarything.com/profile/mccastro/stats/workdups
18eromsted
This bug may now be fixed! I can no longer find the black whole edition and the member libraries that were most impacted (see message 14) now seem normal. Can anyone confirm?
19Nicole_VanK
http://www.librarything.com/work/12557615
But other than that it claims to have three reviews and that it creates recommendations it seems to be behaving itself now.
But other than that it claims to have three reviews and that it creates recommendations it seems to be behaving itself now.
