Author

Ellery Queen: Split real from fictional

2008-05-16T08:44:56.0012Z

"[B]oth a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins"? Oh my. Split please.

Thomas Hardy: Thomas Hardy didn't write any films

2008-04-30T01:52:03.0000Z

Yeah, sorry. Unfortunately, because the data displayed on his page is coming from five films, the only way to do it via UI is to click on the link for each film, remove Thomas Hardy from the Film Writer property on that page, and add him back as a Film Story Contributor. Once that's corrected, the data will display correctly on Thomas Hardy's page.

Thomas Hardy: Thomas Hardy didn't write any films

2008-04-30T01:46:23.0005Z

I think that he ought to be a Film Story Contributor, not a Film Writer. I wish there were an easy way to change the data type.

William Gibson: MusicBrainz entity is the author

2008-04-24T19:57:58.0012Z

credited with the audiobooks for Neuromancer.

Tristan Corbière: Was he really a Symbolist?

2008-04-05T22:57:08.0007Z

I just re-read the preface to my edition of Les amours jaunes and based on this I think the broader categorisation of "Modernist" applies better. It seems quite clear however that Corbiere was indeed a strong influence on Verlaine and Rimbaud - hence the Symbolist movement.

Tristan Corbière: Was he really a Symbolist?

2008-04-02T20:58:56.0000Z

The WP articles about both Corbiere and Symbolism would tend to back you on this. It's worth pointing out that since you apparently added "symbolism" to the property, no one will probably argue with you if you remove it. :)

Tristan Corbière: Was he really a Symbolist?

2008-04-02T19:25:04.0005Z

I can't recall what school Corbiere was considered a member of unfortunately. I took a course on him in 2003, but forget this detail. I must re-read the introduction to my copy of Les amours jaunes and hope that there is mention there. Knowing Corbiere, he likely defies traditional categorisation - but I am pretty sure Sybolist is incorrect.

Arthur C. Clarke: Person != award

2008-01-24T20:08:34.0012Z

Arthur C. Clarke does have an award named after him, but he himself is not the award. Will detype and migrate the award to the proper place.

Daniel Lyons: I think this should be merged

2008-01-19T00:30:22.0012Z

If you want to preserve the Wikipedia attribution/key shouldn't this be merged with the other more popular Fake Steve Jobs?

Stephen Colbert: Possibly offensive?

2007-12-12T04:20:38.0005Z

Why is this entry "tagged" possibly offensive? I mean, the actor can be, but, I don't think this article is.

Stephen Colbert: Stephen Colbert for President

2007-11-14T23:29:21.0007Z

I agree. Sadly it appears that he's stuck in South Carolina.

Stephen Colbert: Stephen Colbert for President

2007-11-14T19:56:07.0005Z

I think it would be great if Stephen Colbert became a serious contender in the presidential race to shake things up a bit. The famous French comedian made a run for the French presidency in 1980 was at one point had 16% of votes in the polls.

Steven Brust: Merge please

2007-11-13T18:55:45.0012Z

They are one and the same individual.

Bill Clinton: test

2007-11-13T08:39:33.0000Z

test

Author: Pseudonymous Authors

2007-07-09T22:04:38.0000Z

This is a good start. There are a number of issues to address before we can use this, though. One is that when pseudonymous authors are added to a book (story, etc.), they will be co-typed as a person because person is an included type of author, which they shouldn't be. Since many people don't know which authors are pseudonyms and which aren't, the data is going to become very messy. When the exclusive types feature is implemented, this will be less of a problem, one hopes.

Another problem is that pseudonymous books and stories are often re-published under the author's true name (or under a better-known pseudonym), which means that a work will be attributed to multiple authors, all of whom represent the same person, when what we mean to say is that different editions/publications of this work have been published under these different names. Ideally, we would be able to indicate which versions were published under which names, but we haven't worked that out yet.

House names and shared pseudonyms pose another bibliographic problem, which is attributing a specific work to the true author as well as the pseudonym. For example, a number of prominent writers wrote books under the house name "Ellery Queen", and it would be useful to show which were by Theodore Sturgeon, which by William Tenn, etc., rather than just asserting that it was used by those authors. Shared pseudonyms have the extra complexity that they were sometimes used by two authors, sometimes by one, and sometimes the other -- not all stories by "Lewis Padgett" were written by both spouses, for example. But this might be too complex for now, and we should probably focus on the main issues first.

This will also a concern for the other media domains, but it's probably of most interest in publishing.

I'm not sure what the best way to handle names like Mark Twain will be, since although most people know it's a pseudonym, and it's probably worth recording, most people also don't make a distinction between Twain and Clemens.

Author: link to library name authority files?

2007-07-08T00:55:36.0005Z

The Library of Congress maintains a name authority file of authors and individuals as subjects. E.g. the entry for Neal Stephenson is at http://errol.oclc.org/laf/n82-269163.html. Would it be worth providing links to this? I've matched (automatically but conservatively) wikipedia biographical pages to LC NAF, with tens of thousand of matches - and am happy to have the data uploaded (though I haven't had a go at JSON myself yet). E.g. WorldCat Identities provides a page for authors, e.g. http://orlabs.oclc.org/SRW/search/Identities?query=local.pnkey+exact+%22stephenson,%20neal%22 with links to wikipedia, the LC NAF and the authority file at the Deutsch Nationalbibliothek. (It should be noted that WorldCat Identities is generated automatically from the WorldCat union libraries, and sometimes merges authors spuriously - but this of course is exactly what the name authority files are designed not to do.)

Author: Pseudonymous Authors

2007-07-06T21:17:22.0012Z

I noticed a few pseudonyms typed as people. I created a new type Pseudonym in my (jfry) domain, and changed a few authors from Person to Pseudonym.

In some cases, I think a Pseudonym should have it's own topic page, since they are often used by more than one person (e.g. Lewis Padgett was a actually a husband/wife pair, while Franklin W. Dixon was a pseudonym owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, used by whoever they hired to write Hardy Boys novels.)

In other cases it's less clear. For example, Mark Twain is currently typed as a person, with an AKA property of Samuel Clemens. Should this be a split candidate, or is there not much one would say about Twain that one wouldn't also say about Clemens?

Thoughts?

Bill Clinton: test

2007-06-14T17:11:05.0005Z

test