R&S Example page/Spaces in Author names

Please see User talk:Dragoondelight for context.

We have long had a practice that, at least for certain well known authors, the presence or absence of a space in a name is not tracked as a variant. Examples include, , and. This is, however, nowhere stated in the help (that I can find). Some editors apply this rule to all authors -- that no variant or pesud should ever be created based on the presence or absence of a space (as DeWitt vs. De Witt). I don't know tht we have ever discussed and accepted that as a general principle.

Harry (Dragoondelight) makes an argument that in many particular cases we don't actually know what the author's preferred form was, that many people see such differences in names as quite important, and, if I understand him correctly, that it is safest to report exactly what is on a publication, just as we do with titles and other name variants. There is IMO significant merit in his argument.

I think that maybe the "space doesn't matter" rule should be applied only in those cases where the author's preference is clearly known and documented, or where one form is so overwhelmingly predominant that the canonical form cannot be argued, and variations may safely be considered as merely printers or publisher's errors. That would include the well known authors listed above, and others like them. But it would not include authors with only a few publications, where the "correct" form cannot be easily determined.

But whatever standard we decide to follow, i think it should be documented in the help going forward. -DES Talk 20:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You make a valid argument about treating certain authors differently than others. If we choose to go this route (record it as we see it for less known authors), then we need to establish a list starting with those authors you listed, and adding others as their preference becomes clear.  This would alleviate my concerns that such authors' summary pages might be overburdened by the existence of variants based on the whim of a printer or a less knowledgeable editor or proofreader.  My initial argument flew in the face of the established ISFDB standard of recording it as it's published, but in this case, my near-pathological need for tidiness overwhelmed everything else (apologies to Harry). BUT, if we decide to make exceptions, there should not be discussion later that the treatment for the excepted authors is unfair, requiring the changing of hundreds of records to comply with any newly established blanket standard. And it must be made clear that differences in the capitalization of letters in names still don't warrant the creation of variants. MHHutchins 21:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (after edit conflict) The help is already explicit that changes in case don't warrant creating variants (see [Help:Screen:EditPub#Author]], the section on case), so that needn't change (although it might be spelled out along with the "exception list"). In a sense this would be merely an example of the general principle that we don't establish canonical names until we have good evidence of which name should be the canonical one. I agree that if we treat "well-known" authors with spaces in their names differently, we need a list, and the list needs to be updated as new examples come to light. I don't know how many cases of "less well known" authors have had their names recorded under the "canonical" form with the actual credit listed only in notes -- I would hope this would be less than "hundreds of records" but I don't know. In any case, I don't see any easy way to compile a list of such records, so any such changes would have to be piecemeal anyway. But any agreed standard would surely apply going foreward, and as relevant records come to an editor's attention. -DES Talk 21:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Maintaining a list of authors is easy in that the ones with complicated stories or mysteries involving the formatting of their name would likely have Author: wiki pages. Just create something like Category:Author name exceptions and as long as we can remember the category name and to use it then we'll have our list.


 * The present software does not allow changes in case. In attempt to enter a title or publication with a different case is silently reverted to the form already in ISFDB. This is a real gotcha at the publication level in that ideally we capture how often it's "de Witt" vs. "De Witt" etc. It means we are not set up to figure out which version is more common and thus to be the canonical name.


 * As for "De Witt" vs. "DeWitt" - I would prefer that these get entered as-is at the publication level so that we are capturing what the real-world common usage may be. We can pick an arbitrary canonical name, documenting the decision process in the wiki. If someone comes up with solid evidence that the canonical name should be something else then it can be painful but we can fix it. We can fix pseudonym links too.


 * A "wish list" is a what to flag that the default bibliographic display not show certain VTs. For example, the shotgun pattern of Brian Aldiss on the  bibliography adds very little value.


 * R&S changes to the help is a sticky one. I'd like to say "always enter publications as-is." but believe there is a "database convention" to enter names such as Le Guin in their canonical form. --Marc Kupper|talk 23:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is an issue I have a tendency to vacillate on depending on the phase of the moon. I would prefer "as is" rather than a list. Book reviews are different - they need to be canonical name of book author with documentation in notes. Since our search algorithms are antiquarian in nature we need to allow for searches on both variants. We might want to specifically mention this case in Help. Anytime a credit is substituted by a canonical name that fact should be documented in pub notes. That would include differences in capitalization, etc.--swfritter 13:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)