How to remove a book wrongly attributed to me as author?

In my author listings, a book by another person of my identical name is listed as my own. The other author is _not_ a LT member or participant. How can I remove this title?

Your author name needs to be split, and the title allocated to the other author. What is the book title?

You cannot. And you should not.

The entitlement implied by someone assuming they can just willy-nilly delete a book that other people have entered, just because the author happens to share their name, is mind-boggling. Not to ask if there's a way to distinguish the authors, but "Delete other people's data! It upsets my marketing!" as a first request.

>3 lorax: >4 Collectorator: Why not give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he might not know about splitting authors? Maybe he didn't phrase it quite right but the hostility is unnecessary, don't you think?

Sorry but I have been reading the news, then came here to relax, found this and felt the world is going to pieces.

>2 rodneyvc: Thank you for offering to help.

If he didn't know about splitting authors, then he could have asked something like "Is there any way to distinguish the books I wrote from those I didn't." Not "The existence of another author with my name offends me, and all evidence of their existence must be obliterated."

If this is what makes you think the world is going to pieces, I truly do envy you. I'm dealing with a government what wants to destroy my marriage and views my son as a second-class citizen. When I'm not worried about literal Nazis and literal nuclear war. Someone being a bit terse with an entitled author on LT is such small potatoes by comparison I truly cannot see it from here.

>6 lorax: I know. It just caught me as symbolic of all the anger, frustration and misunderstanding that we are experiencing right now. I understand what you mean about the government intrusion, Nazis and nuclear war. For what it's worth (maybe not much after this), I'm on your side on all of those issues.

Best wishes,

k4k

Oh and PS. I notice one of the books we share is Anger. Maybe I need to reread it. :-)

I don't completely understand how LT works, but if there is a book on his author listing that he didn't write, that doesn't seem an unreasonable request to have it removed.

He asked about having it removed, I assumed from his list, not deleted. And if he doesn't understand about how LT works, why get upset if his words are not perfect?

>1 Kenneth_J.Stewart:

If you will respond to >2 rodneyvc: and give the title of the book that was written by the other Kenneth J Stewart, then the author page can be split and the works correctly assigned.

Whether the other Kenneth J. Stewart is an LT member or "participant" (whatever that means) is completely irrelevant. Works are listed on an author page because a member has catalogued a copy under that name, not because the author has joined LT. If you had to be a member here to have your books listed, there'd be no author page for Homer or Jane Austen or Boris Pasternak or, well, you get idea.

I have split the author on the basis of the books in the OP's catalogue. It appears that the J in that other book's author name is an Amazon addition. It does not appear on the cover or in the UK library sources I have tried. (Book is Scottish.) There are now several Overcat entries.

Messaged Lorannen to get LT author badge moved. Oh! I can do that now I see.

Wow. Such hair-trigger offense at what I read as a simple question from a person trying not to be confused with another author. In my mind, he is trying to protect the other author from mistaken identity as well. It would be nice to give a poster the benefit of doubt before jumping down their throat. There were no hostile words in the first post, no attacks. It could easily mean simply separation, removal from his author page and other innocent activities.

I felt it was a bit over the top in hostility, too, and I'm heartless.

>5 krazy4katz: Thank you for your response. This hair-trigger anti-self-promotion reaction is unfortunately very common on here, which makes talk seem very unwelcoming at times.

When a person applies for an LT Author badge, are they told basic information? Such as:
- read the https://www.librarything.com/about/authors page
- and the https://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Authors page
- it's not "your" page - it's more like a wikipedia page and can be edited by any member of LibraryThing
- it's not "your" page - it's for all books by any and all authors with the same name as you
- if all the books on the author page with your name it it aren't by you, they may be by another author with the same name, and that they can be separated (and should be before the badge is applied)

(https://www.librarything.com/about/authors should be edited to explain what happens when multiple authors have the same name)

>16 r.orrison: Right, but how many people really read the directions that carefully when they first come here (OK, fair point--he has been here 2 years)? I remember my first mistake: I combined a Harry Potter written in Latin with the main work. After being corrected by someone, I did vaguely remember having read about not doing that. Human nature …

>15 igorken: I appreciate your response.

>15 igorken:

Nothing here has anything to do with self-promotion. It has to do with the bizarre belief that being on LT means that no books by other authors with the same name should be permitted to be listed here.

I don't expect a new author to know about name splitting. I'd expect a polite human being to ask "Is there a way to indicate which of these books I actually wrote" or "Is there a way to separate the books I wrote from those I didn't", rather than "I have exclusive claim to the name John Q. Author, and any record of books by others with that name need to be removed from the site." (I wonder if he made similar requests of libraries?)

>19 lorax: They didn't say "removed from the site". You made that assumption.

I felt the first request was polite.
The other author is not a LT member (so I can't contact them) How can I remove this title ( from my author page)
This is how I interpreted the OP. We each choose how to read between the lines and respond accordingly. I saw no claim of 'exclusive' rights to a name or to have it removed from the site.

>21 raidergirl3: And if the other author had been another LT member would the OP have gladly removed his books from the other author's page?

>23 MarthaJeanne: why wouldn't he, if it solved his problem? If he knew how to reassign/separate authors. (Does he have to 'gladly' or just do it?)

>20 jjwilson61:

They said "removed". How else to interpret it?

>25 lorax: Removed from my page would be an obvious interpretation.

ETA: or, use his words, "removed from my author listing".

>24 raidergirl3:

The OP obviously didn't know that author splitting, thus having two separate sections on the page for authors with his name was possible; what annoyed me was that he didn't even think to ask about it as a possible solution, but went straight to "this name is MINE MINE MINE."

Or, rather, this author page is "mine." Not: There is an author page that doesn't distinguish between me and another identically-named author.

>26 krazy4katz:

And how do you imagine a book would be removed from being listed on an author page while still retaining all the information and functionality for owners of the book? Again, he didn't ask for something to be split, or separated, or distinguished; he asked for it to be removed entirely.

>28 paradoxosalpha:

Right. I have no problem at all with wanting to make the distinction, but "this should be distinguished" versus "this should be removed" are two very different things to me. Obviously this is not a widely held view here.

>28 paradoxosalpha: Or, rather, this author page is "mine."

And for someone not familiar with this site, that's a reasonable assumption. This site could have been set up so that each author had their own page, regardless of their name. The fact that Tim decided to make the name of the page the same as the name of the author is basically a flaw and one that new users aren't going to know about.

>30 jjwilson61: The fact that Tim decided to make the name of the page the same as the name of the author is basically a flaw ...

I hardly think so. Do you think that the user experience would be improved if author pages were instead titled with abstract alpha-numeric strings or unrelated code words?

Author pages are created (indirectly) by users who maintain catalogs on the site. They are not created by the authors, and there's little reason for authors to assume that they have ownership of those pages, regardless of how the pages are titled.

Compare Wikipedia, which has editorial rules to prevent vanity and promotional pages (link). If there is a Wikipedia page about me, I don't own it, and the functionality of Wikipedia would suffer if I did. Ditto for author pages here.

Edited to add: The "little reason" I alluded to is the link from an LT author's user profile to the corresponding author page, which says "See T Polyphilus's author page." It would be better for that link to read "See the author page for T Polyphilus," thus implicitly distinguishing it from an author page belonging to (or controlled by) T Polyphilus.

>29 lorax: You have been here a long time and have a lot of technical knowledge. Many people are not like that. They don't necessarily mean any harm. They just don't think that deeply about the potential consequences. This is an excellent example of the difficulty of communicating with people from different backgrounds.

>30 jjwilson61:

Or, rather, this author page is "mine."

And for someone not familiar with this site, that's a reasonable assumption.

Why is that a more reasonable assumption than "this author page belongs to someone else with the same name, so how do I remove my books from his page"?

>33 lilithcat: Why is that a more reasonable assumption ...

Bingo.

>33 lilithcat: >34 paradoxosalpha: Because … maybe he set up what he thought was his author page when he first came here and the book that he didn't write was added later?

>35 krazy4katz:

The book he didn't write was catalogued on LT in 2014. He joined LT in 2015.

And I don't know what you mean by "he set up what he thought was his author page". Authors don't "set up" their pages on LT.

>36 lilithcat: Authors don't "set up" their pages on LT.

But it could seem so if the author was the first person to catalog their book(s). They had no page, then they did. So yes, there are circumstances where it could seem like they did.

Yes, I understand that this does not appear to have happened in this case.

Well, in the end, the world would be a better place if we gave people the benefit of the doubt.

Over and out, dear people.

k4k

>31 paradoxosalpha: I hardly think so. Do you think that the user experience would be improved if author pages were instead titled with abstract alpha-numeric strings or unrelated code words?

I never said the pages should be titled with abstract strings, but it's reasonable to assume that if I click on the author of a book in my catalog that I would be taken to a page for that author and it should only have that authors books on it. The reason you think that that is not reasonable is only because you are used to the way it's done here.

Author pages are created (indirectly) by users who maintain catalogs on the site. They are not created by the authors, and there's little reason for authors to assume that they have ownership of those pages, regardless of how the pages are titled.

When an author describes a page as their page it doesn't necessarily mean that they think they have ownership of it and we shouldn't jump to their conclusion. They could just as easily be expressing that the page is about them and not understanding that that's not how it works on LT.

>33 lilithcat: Why is that a more reasonable assumption than "this author page belongs to someone else with the same name, so how do I remove my books from his page"?

I never said that either assumption was more reasonable than the other and I don't think that's particularly relevant. There are a least two reasonable assumptions here and so we shouldn't go all ape-shit when someone makes the wrong one.

I think we'd be better off if we assumed best intentions, and I'm rather amazed this isn't obvious to all.

The author requested and was linked to a page that he understood to be "him," yet it contained a book that wasn't by him. He wanted it off the page. Yes, we understand the system better, and can express it better. But, really, how hard is this to understand?

Lorannen, did you talk to him or something? I see one book is separated.

>42 timspalding: see >11 MarthaJeanne: The separated book is by a scottish editor.

The problem itself was solved within 12 hours of the original post.

timspalding Is an attempt made to educate authors when they request an LT Author badge - to let them know that it's not "their" page, but for any author of that name, and what to do if books by other authors of the same name appear on the page? Are they told that the author page is more like a wikipedia page, and that anyone can edit the photo and CK? Or are they left to believe that it's their page, and they alone should control what appears on it?

I'm not sure. I know there's a form letter, and there's site text. But I think that's a good idea, to examine it. Lorannen, can you review all the text about this?

>45 timspalding:

Are they sent the actual text, or just a link? I know there's no way to force knowledge on those determined to be ignorant - for some, sending them the text would just them something to scroll past to set up what they view as a marketing page - but at least making it trivially available would help for those who really are just unaware that other authors with their name might exist.

See, I want to be charitable. But in the original post of this thread, the poster is clear that he understands that the other author has the same name. And yet he thinks that only his own works should be represented in connection with that name on LT, evidently because he is "an LT member or participant," while the other is not. Tough times for those of us who might want to catalog works by the other author.

Also, Kenneth_J.Stewart has been a member since 2015 and cataloged over 2300 books, so I'm thinking he should know better.

>45 timspalding: Sure thing! There's a profile comment coming from me that goes out when LT Author requests are approved. It links to How Authors Can Use LibraryThing. Since a number of folks have already read that page before becoming an LT author, I'm willing to bet that link doesn't get clicked that often. Maybe that page is where we should include language about how author pages work (more like Wikipedia, less like your own personal space as an author). I'll work on revising it this week.

>47 paradoxosalpha: See, I want to be charitable. But in the original post of this thread, the poster is clear that he understands that the other author has the same name. And yet he thinks that only his own works should be represented in connection with that name on LT

This is where your imagination fails you. It would have been perfectly possible for LT to have designed such that there were two pages, each with the same name at the top of the page but each with the books of only one of the two authors. It isn't unreasonable, even for someone who has been on the site for years, to think that it works that way.

>49 jjwilson61: It would have been perfectly possible for LT to have designed such that there were two pages, each with the same name at the top of the page but each with the books of only one of the two authors.

Well, I'm sure glad it doesn't work that way! How would I specify which of the two I wanted, or get from one to the other? Yes, I guess my "limited imagination" is why I crave explicit disambiguation.

>49 jjwilson61: actually, I used to think it did work that way, but I haven't been here very long. Thanks for explaining it better :)

I'm glad to know how it actually works so that I don't ask questions that bring a barrage of pedantic unhelpful criticism.

Why do you expect some random person to have done a thorough design in their heads? They're just thinking about a single author page, not all the ramifications of implementing it one way or another.

>48 lorannen:

How about including that language in the profile comment? Or better yet, on the page where they submit the request? The sooner they see it, and the fewer clicks they have to make in order to do so, the better.

>50 paradoxosalpha:

I guess my "limited imagination" is why I crave explicit disambiguation.

Which is pretty much what anyone who uses Wikipedia is used to, no?

You look up, say, "Tom Jones", get to a page with a slew of people (and books and movies) with that name, and then get to the page you want from there.

Honestly, I don't see why that's so difficult.

>57 lilithcat: But the user didn't see a disambiguation page, they saw what looked like "their" page (not in the ownership sense but in the sense that it is about them). Why wouldn't they think that some other author with the same name would also have their own page and ask for it to be removed from their page (and added to the other one).

When there's no disambiguation, it's the space of the shared term that needs to carry the weight of disambiguating. The fact of mixing the similarly-named, disparate contents means the page where they are mixed needs to define the alternatives, not be purged to reflect only one of them.

>58 jjwilson61:

They saw what looked like "their" page

I get that he thought it was his page, but why would he think it was (solely) his page? There is (or was) nothing about the page to suggest that was the case.

If there were no books listed that he hadn't authored, I'd get it, but there were. To me, that would suggest a need for further investigation, not an immediate demand that the other guy's books be removed. I'd wonder: is this my page or the other guy's? Or are we supposed to share a page? Does the site do this intentionally? Is there a way to create two pages? I'd ask those questions first.

His post really does read as though he believed that you have to be a "member or participant" to have an author page here. Which is weird.

>60 lilithcat: His post really does read as though he believed that you have to be a "member or participant" to have an author page here.

Either that, or that being a "member or participant" should afford you some express control over a page that lists books catalogued with you as the author.

Again, there is a little excuse for this: If you are an LT Author (and Mr. Stewart is), you do have to make an active request to have your user profile associated with the author page for your works. Once you've made that effort, especially if you haven't really used author pages in the site before, you might somehow think that the author page is part of your personal data on the site, belonging to you the way a profile and catalog do.

It's still weird for someone who explicitly acknowledges that the other author shares his name to imply that only one of them should be referenced by it.

We really don't know what the OP was thinking.

However, those of us who have been around a while have seen many authors who really did want books taken off author pages back before we could split. We have seen authors have all sorts of temper tantrums about not being allowed to fill LT with their spam. Who felt that they ought to be given all sorts of special rights because they were (self)published authors. We have been confronted with such authors this month. (And I am not refering to the OP.)

It gets tiring to deal with authors again and again who don't understand how the site works and don't care. At some point it is easy to not read what is on the page, but to react to all the similar and worse examples that we have seen.

It should help if authors read a more careful description of what author pages are. But we all know that there will be those who don't read it, no matter how well written, no matter how it is presented to them. That's how it is.

>60 lilithcat:

I get that he thought it was his page, but why would he think it was (solely) his page? There is (or was) nothing about the page to suggest that was the case.

Didn't it have his LT author badge on it?

See http://www.librarything.com/topic/270774#

Author wants to get rid of properly attributed books, mentioned on her website, because she now isn't sure whether or not she will ever write them.

>64 MarthaJeanne:

That's more understandable. It's not unnatural to expect a library to consist of existing books, not those that haven't yet, and may never be, written. (Also, the working title may not end up being the actual title, so it can be confusing.)

In my opinion, she should not be surprised to see them mentioned on other websites when they are featured on hers.

Maybe we should put up a disambiguation notice.

>67 Nicole_VanK:

"This page refers to the actually-authored books of Alan Smithee. For the hypothetically-authored books of Alan Smithee, click here."

>68 paradoxosalpha: Ah, sorry for not making myself clear. I meant the author mentioned by >64 MarthaJeanne: who has books on their author page that they announced but haven't been written (yet).

>69 Nicole_VanK:

I meant that too, so I guess I'm the one who's unclear. "Alan Smithee" is a placeholder name (used to decline movie credits).