member profile confusion

This might be difficult to explain, but, I shall try. I entered in some workbooks, earlier, today- that are pretty uncommon on the site. ( that is okay ). I had some difficulty with some of the titles claiming they were the same as other books from the same publisher, even though one was clearly labeled homonyms - and another suffixes ( just one example ). I went several go rounds, trying all manner of things to get them to separate unsuccessfully- including deleting and starting over and entering only one word titles- with no other data..... ( but that is only the part that led to the next confusing element )

came back in a few hours later to upload covers and my data told me there was one other person that shared this practically nameless book. Sometimes, my library tells me there are two members when there are only one- so I looked closely. it said the name of the other member was "eng". so I went to that profile, which seemed to have only one book- but also listed one book and one paperbook. when I clicked on paperback - it took me to - my library. I don't spend that much time poking around other peoples books- so I didn't know if that was normal or not.

so, I tested by going to another members books- and yes, when I click on paperbook - it takes me to my library.

here is the second member I clicked on- for no particular reason:

https://www.librarything.com/profile/melodien

and here is eng:

https://www.librarything.com/profile/eng

Is this a normal desirable feature? Why would clicking on somebody else's book types- bring me to my library?

thank you

Sounds like this was a caching or indexing problem that they've been experiencing a lot lately.

>2 gilroy: okay, thank you

Deleting a book rarely solve the issues - if anything, it can cause more issues - when you delete a copy, the data is not removed from the site - just your personal data is. Whatever caused the bad combination or the weird record remains as what we call a zero copy work (on its own or combined into a big one). Adding the same book over and over creates more of these - and the caches taking awhile cause these to bubble up for awhile.

When you hit a snag you cannot solve, come to the Combiners group and ask for help. Most of us will not only fix whatever is the problem but if you are interested will explain what had to be done and why - and will answer any follow up questions you may have - just ask :).

>4 AnnieMod: Thank you. I wondered why there were books labeled 0 books. I just sort them by title anyhow.

I will try to ask next time; though, I usually avoid it when possible. Many of the answers are incomprehensible to me, because being told to go click on something- that you have never seen and don't know how to find- is confusing. not sure how I learned to sort/merge/ series book- but I finally figured it out, accidentally. sometimes I just have to walk away- for a long time and try later.

I've been meaning to mention that for "newbs", its really daunting to get answers in coded lingo - like CK. took me a long time to figure it out- then I forgot it again- and had to figure it out again.

Thank you

>5 EGBERTINA: so ask if you do not understand - we all will explain further. If you would rather not ask publicly, send me a private message and I will work with you. :) no one was born knowing everything.

>6 AnnieMod: Thank you

Sometimes finding a better source for the book information can also help. I was adding the Danish translation of Dean Koontz: Relentless yesterday. Searching the official source of Danish books by isbn gave me the suggested "book": 'Koontz: NLS'. Searching by author and title gave me 'Dean Koontz: Nådesløs' which I chose. It's the same record from the same source, but searching by ISBN garbles it.

So if you often get garbled titles and/or author information see if you can find a better source or search in another way.

BTW having read >1 EGBERTINA: I think it is a genuine bug.

https://www.librarything.com/profile/melodien contains a lot of links of the form

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/melodien&tag=poetry&collection=-1

but the ones under Media doesn't contain the username, i.e.:

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/&format=4.2

>8 bnielsen:
I didn't understand all of your explanation, but, Thank you. I wasn't searching by isbn- I was entering, manually. my first attempts, didn't include the isbn, because its an item, I had stopped entering. it is not that important to me. so, my first attempts were only entering title, canonical, publisher. When that didn't work, I erased publisher and canonical. Then I started over with just short titles- I mean- how can the title -"homonyms" think it is the same book as the title - "suffixes"? it was only because I was trying to get it to see it was a different book- that I tried to enter isbns- thinking that would help. it worked a few times- and then it didn't again.

thank you

What were the exact titles you were trying to add? LT will ignore everything after : for example.

Without concrete examples, it is very hard to understand what the exact problem was or what caused a confusion when you tried to add the books. :)

PS: and Yep - you also hit a genuine bug :)

For LT:

1. click on one of the links in the first post
2. Click on one of the media types.
It goes to your catalog, not the member’s.

>10 AnnieMod: Hi and thank u,

I think I posted the links in another comment over in combiners.

There was no punctuation. I have learned that one. (but even that one isn't consistent)

>11 AnnieMod: Confirmed.

1. click on any other user's profile
2. click on any of the media types
3. You end up at your own catalog

The media type link looks like https://www.librarything.com/catalog/&format=1.2
Whereas the tag link looks like https://www.librarything.com/catalog/USERNAME&tag=Classics&collection=-1 (where I've substituted USERNAME foe the actual user name)

>9 EGBERTINA: I also enter all of my books manually, and sometimes they just get combined wrong (or don't attach to the right work). Entering ISBN can help, if you have one. But sometimes you'll just have to separate and/or combine after you enter the book. Or head over to the "Combiners" group and ask for help.

Made fix for bug in media links on Profile page; should be available in a few minutes.

>15 knerd.knitter: It's still a problem. I.e. the example in >8 bnielsen: is still valid.

The links under Media doesn't contain the username, i.e.:

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/&format=4.2

Fixed again (correctly this time, I hope).