# What is the policy around duplicates?
**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232
**Category:** BookBrainz
**Created:** [July 30, 2020, 6:36pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232 "2020-07-30T18:36:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Deleted\_Editor\_2146972](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Deleted_Editor_2146972)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/21 "2020-08-03T13:09:52Z")
Sorry, I should have said that because obviously an ISBN for a Work is irrelevant. However the work page was still showing the ability to add ISBN’s when I completed the edit. The page must have updated overnight when the system was booted.
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### Author:  [@mr\_monkey](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mr_monkey)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/22 "2020-08-03T13:15:02Z")
There’s no booting, and the website hasn’t had any change since yesterday. what likely happened is this:
If an entity already has an identifier it shouldn’t have (say an ISBN for a Work), when you open the edit page for that entity, ISBN will be part of the list of acceptable identifiers until you remove it _and submit the revision_, so you likely saw it there and then.
Once the faulty identifier is removed and the revision submitted, the edit page won’t show ISBN in the list anymore as far as I know.
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### Author:  [@Deleted\_Editor\_2146972](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Deleted_Editor_2146972)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/23 "2020-08-03T13:15:54Z")
Thanks for the explanation.
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### Author:  [@Deleted\_Editor\_2146972](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Deleted_Editor_2146972)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 2:02pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/24 "2020-08-03T14:02:04Z")
In the current Work page editor the ID is described as:
That might need updating.
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### Author:  [@mr\_monkey](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mr_monkey)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 2:05pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/25 "2020-08-03T14:05:24Z")
Yes, It’s currently a fixed line for all entity type, which is less than ideal.
Eventually, the identifiers will make their way into the main page body, rather than be in a popup window.
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### Author:  [@Deleted\_Editor\_2146972](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Deleted_Editor_2146972)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2020, 3:33pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/what-is-the-policy-around-duplicates/488232/26 "2020-08-03T15:33:14Z")
I have encountered another problem merge this time with The Martian by Andy Weir:
[https://bookbrainz.org/work/7b5e4cad-2cb1-4d9c-9853-dc1e0172af93](https://bookbrainz.org/work/7b5e4cad-2cb1-4d9c-9853-dc1e0172af93) (to be kept)
[https://bookbrainz.org/work/30d72d39-a5a2-47e4-bcc1-a53b216f4331](https://bookbrainz.org/work/30d72d39-a5a2-47e4-bcc1-a53b216f4331)
I have checked all the values and they are all ticked, so I have no idea what’s wrong.
**Solved:** It was ISBN data that was marked with ticks, once I removed them it worked!
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