How are you planning to implement pseudonyms that were shared by multiple people? Franklin W. Dixon - Wikipedia, or one of the other many pseudonyms under Stratemeyer Syndicate - Wikipedia would be a good examples of that
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My inclination:
- For the work, the relationship should be to the writer, not Dixon.
- For the edition and edition group, I would credit the original author but as Dixon.
- Add a series for all Hardy Boys books, include the book in that series.
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We already have some joint pseudonyms on BB, e.g. Ellery Queen:
https://bookbrainz.org/author/a2532a57-11fa-43d4-aa5d-c2892a2d0320
Yes, if itās possible to track down the original writer. Thatās not an easy task in many cases.
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Agree. So I guess the question there is whether to set the writer as [unknown] or to a group author, Dixonā¦
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We have the joint pseudonym exactly for that purpose. We should use it, if the original writer canāt be specified.
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OK, Iāll try to weave this into the guideline. 
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I would also add legal names there, since the canonical name may be a pseudonym. Think George Eliot (legal name: Mary Ann Evans) or George Sand (legal name: Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil). Even when authors use their birth name, their full name can also be added as an alias. Maybe it would be better to make a more general statement, something like āAny alternative or variant name, such asā¦ should be included as aliases.ā
I would like to point out that Aesop isnāt a transliteration, but it isnāt a translation either. Like @mfmeulenbelt mentioned, it is the canonical English name. Names arenāt generally translated in English, with the exception of Native American names. E.g. Platoās (Ī Ī»Ī¬ĻĻ, transliteration PlĆ”tÅn) name presumably means ābroadā, so that would be the English translation of his name. Plato and Aesop are just how these authors came to be known in English. This is a bit of a quibble, itās not a translated name, but itās the name as it appears in translated works ā maybe most people will say there is no difference.
On the issue of pseudonyms, I think we should also allow pseudonyms to be different authors when they are used as an alter ego, generally being given a different biography and personality, and they have their own style or projects. An example would be Robert Galbraith, a married man with two sons who served several years in the Royal Military Police, where he got the inspiration to write crime thrillers ā actually a pseudonym of J.K. Rowling. Fernando Pessoaās heteronyms, such as Ćlvaro de Campos and Alberto Caeiro, I think, should also be their own authors, as they all have their own biography, personality, and writing styles.
This is basically just applying MBās rule on the same issue āa person (or, more rarely, a group) can perform under multiple names that they actually consider different projects, and not just alternative names. In that case, you should add each artist separately.ā We also need an appropriate relationship between the two authors. I never liked MB showing āLegal name:ā, because the canonical name isnāt necessarily the legal name, so I would suggest ācanonical nameā. (See, e.g., Jack Frost where it says āLegal name: Bob Dylanā, though Bob Dylan obviously isnāt Bob Dylanās legal name.)
Minor issues:
- ātransliteredā ā transliterated
- ārepresentation of a name in different languageā ā representation of a name in a different language
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whoops this applies to songwriting not bookbrainz sorry
Agree, itās not strict translation. What Iām trying to capture is how itās been āanglicizedā. I agree itās not a strict translation. How can we best describe the canonicalization of names such as Aesop and Plato? Canonicalization? :shudder:
Also, if you know of any good examples of names that are literally translated into English, that would be great to include in the guideline.
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For names that are really literally translated, I can only think of Native American names, such as Pretty Shield or Mountain Wolf Woman. Chinese people often also chose an English name, so Zhang Ailing (å¼ ē±ē²) is known in English as Eileen Chang, but this isnāt a translation, really.
Personally, I would sidestep the issue, because the question isnāt whether the names are translated or not, itās that there are different localized names for the same author. So maybe thatās the best word, localized. You say āanglicisedā but we actually want to include all local variants. For example, Jules Verne is known as Julio Verne in Spanish, RĆŗlĆØĀ·FĆ”nāÄrnĆ (ååĀ·å”å°ēŗ³) in Chinese, and Juuru Verunu (ćøć„ć¼ć«ć»ć“ć§ć«ć) in Japanese. These also arenāt translations, but are very much part of what you are trying to capture.
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I agree, anglicized was just in my particular example. Itās the expression of a name in another language. The language should be the ānewā language.
Localized. Hmm, Iām kind of leaning back toward calling āAesopā a transliteration. It would seem less accurate to me to call it a localization.
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Calling āAesopā a transliteration is simply not correct, a transliteration is converting one script to another, without modifications, such as Īį¼“ĻĻĻĪæĻ ā AĆsÅpos (Īį¼“=AĆ, ĻĻ=sÅ, ĻĪæĻ=pos). How āAesopā came into being is something else entirely. I donāt think there is anything wrong with your Transliteration section, itās only the Translation section I think could be improved.
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OK, guideline now updated. I think Iāve handled the canonical names in alternate languages issue.
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Yes, you did. I see what you did there and I like it.
(Minor issue: āvary in a different languagesā ā vary in different languages)
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Iāve done another round of minor edits to the proposed guideline. I sense that discussion on this has dropped, so I would like to call for any final comments before submitting as a PR.
Here is a published draft to view how it will look:
https://bookbrainz-user-guide-pbryan.readthedocs.io/en/latest/style/entities/author/
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Only two issues:
You mention āspecify the corresponding language of its usageā for aliases and transliterations, but not for canonical names. Is this because you think the language shouldnāt be set? My thinking is that you should specify the language when the name is used in one language only, such as the native names of Chinese or Japanese authors (and probably any language with its own writing system.)
I would also like to remind you of my point above about pseudonyms with their own biography and specific projects. I think this belongs here, and itās relevant for several authors I care about.
Typo: its pronounciation ā its pronunciation
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it does say ācanonical name in its original language and scriptā but we can make it clearer that the language should be explicitly specified.
Thatās somewhat different from what Iāve been doing in practice. Iāve been selecting the language that the canonical name is evidently written in. In many cases, itās obvious when a German name is given to a German person, English name to English person, etc. In some cases where itās been ambiguous, Iāve left it as [Multiple Languages] but to date that hasnāt sat well with me.
Yes, thanks, that didnāt get resolved. As you pointed out originally, we donāt even have an authorāauthor relationship for that today. So we I think would need to agree on these points:
- Common personas should warrant their own author in BB.
- We should add a new relationship to link a persona to the person.
- Maybe we should have a new persona author type?
Resolving this might take some time, and if so, I wonder if we should defer publishing the guideline until itās resolved, or decide to proceed and revise upon resolution?
Well, two years ago the relationship (āis a pen name of)ā still existed as a remnant of an older concept (based on the MB concept I supposd, which I donāt like at all, by the way).
This relationship was deleted because we did not want this concept for BB.
See this thread: Pen-names as aliases or as separate entries
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OK, so the status quo right now is no pen names. @blackteadarkmatter can you make a case for (re-)adding personas?
@indy133, I read the whole thread and I actually agree with everything you said there (and here). As far as I can see, all the examples there are for common pseudonyms/pen names, i.e. different names the same person uses to sign their works. I also think the best way to deal with this is to add the pseudonyms as aliases, and to mark the usage with a ācredited asā attribute.
What Iām suggesting here is for cases when the pseudonym isnāt just an alternative name, but the name of an alternative (fictional ā though this may not be known by the reader) persona, with not only their own name, but their own biography (date of birth, gender, life experiences, personal relationships, etc.) and their own distinctive style. ā Itās only these that I think should have their own author entity.
Maybe the pen name relationship could have been repurposed for this, but itās a different situation.
Yes, but if we decide this is the way to go, we can just add an annotation until the relationship becomes available.
I donāt think this is necessary, as long as we have the author-author relationship and it is clearly displayed. (Iām not against it, either; just feel itās not necessary.)
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