"written by/wrote" relationships on Editions and Edition Groups (e.g. Tolkien)

Some more malformed relationships:

https://bookbrainz.org/work/20c66af8-00b4-4e3e-b83d-eac4134f4e8b

Two editions of The Two Towers returning 404’s.

and another:

https://bookbrainz.org/work/057822f7-d7a9-400e-a90c-767ecab4e588

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All fixed !
It was a few relationships applied to the wrong entity type.
I’ll be preparing a report of all the instances where this happens, so we can eventually fix them.

Regarding the OpenLibrary identifier, the issue is that you’re trying to add an OL Work ID (OL…W) to an Edition, when they can only be added to a Work entity.
Adding the identifier to the Work instead does work: https://bookbrainz.org/revision/32632

OpenLibrary Books on the other hand (OL…M) can be added to Edition entities.
An example: https://bookbrainz.org/revision/32637

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That makes sense. Maybe it is time I took a break! Thanks.

A well deserved one, I must point out!
Thanks a lot for fixing all these entities

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Hmmm. I just tried to add the OpenLibrary edition ID OL17105221M to the Edition of Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions and I am still experiencing the same problem: https://bookbrainz.org/edition/6279baa9-aa2a-43d5-9974-9dd1b670016d

The system removes the ‘M’ and wants to make it an LCCN link.

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Ah, that looks like a separate issue, but an issue nonetheless !
I was pasting the entire OpenLibrary link in the input (which works; the autodetection mechanism does recognise the website link) and not just the identifier itself.

I’ve created a ticket to investigate that : https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/BB-553
Quite obviously, it’s being wrongly automatically detected as an LCCN identifier.

I’ve made a small change to the automatic detection for LCCN identifiers, and it should not detect other identifiers wrongly anymore.

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Some more 404’s:

https://bookbrainz.org/work/58b1caea-bae7-404b-978b-46edde483986

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I keep getting a time out error (504) for the Edition listed in this EG and Work:

https://bookbrainz.org/edition-group/3266bd21-762f-4f03-a43d-3ea9c593909d

https://bookbrainz.org/work/e291d87b-79c1-4c62-b5c4-82b873b812e6

Everything else is responding normally.

Another Edition that refuses to open:

https://bookbrainz.org/edition-group/658bbdfc-e091-4fe6-adf6-3d148d156f64

https://bookbrainz.org/edition/4db844ce-d4e7-44fc-bf7a-561d70c33d0f

LoTR was written as a single novel, which happens to have been puiblished in several volumes in many cases, which might have a bearing on this :slight_smile:

However, I can’t really find a research consensus over whether to treat volumes as a series (LoTR would itself be part of Tolkien’s legendarium or Middle-Earth canon series), a single work with part works, or a single work with part manifestations (editions).

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That might be, but the fact remains that the work was first published as three volumes over a one year period from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955. The first omnibus edition was published in December 1965.

On Bookogs, LoTR was treated as both a series and as a Work. However, BB does not regard an omnibus (collection) as a unique Work and therein lies the problem, because by definition it is an omnibus.

That’s not entirely correct as Mr. Monkey explained in a thread. There are collections that should be treated as works. And this is certainly one of these cases.

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Where exactly did he say that?

It seems an ad hoc approach when the rules can be bent for certain collections. In the end, the result is a subjective mishmash. You might consider LoTR to be an exception to the rule, but I don’t.

The thing is, MusicBrainz, and by extension, BookBrainz, do not have stylerules but styleguides.
What that means is that guides are there to help you, because RL isn’t cookie cutter - there is always going to be edge-cases and weird ones, and for that we need to make educated, sometimes styleguide interpreting individual changes.

Edit: outsidecontext explains it much better than I in this comment: Also remember that guidelines are…

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Every site I have contributed to has an extensive user manual, so contributors know exactly what the rules are (i.e. Goodreads, Wikipedia, Discogs, and Bookogs). There is always going to be some ambiguity surrounding rules and that is one of the reasons for having a Forum, but it shouldn’t be a matter of course for every retrospective edit performed on the site.

Admittedly, not everyone bothers to read the manuals, but when the rules are not adhered to at least other users have the benefit of being able to correct data with recourse to the guidelines.

I accept that each community sets its own operating parameters and if that is how you people want to run this site, then so be it.

Personally, I find this laissez faire approach unacceptable and if that is the general consensus then I will redirect my efforts elsewhere.

Don’t get me wrong I am not angry, but at my stage of life I haven’t got time to focus on projects that I feel are a waste of time. I don’t want to repeat my experience on the now defunct Bookogs.

I think the style guideline book needs more focus. There are a lot of issues like this that need accessible clarification (i.e. without having to go on the discussion board and manually search). It’s pretty barebones at the moment.

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It definitely is, what’s there now is based on conjecture and ideals - the MusicBrainz styleguide was also an inspiration. But the MB guide was fashioned after years, decades of community work, confrontation, conversation, consensus, with a database that’s altered significantly since it’s first inception, when that guide was not at all much different than the current BookBrainz one.

in even the little time of BookBrainz, the datamodel has evolved rapidly, but BB didn’t have much community to work and tweak the guide with at all first - until people from bookogs came here infact!

So we definitely need to work on that guide, that is a community process, and now, since we are beginning to have one, we can do it!

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