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#260 Notification of posting to non-canonical name
closed-out-of-date
7
2016-06-12
2011-04-07
No
Applies to the submission process for a new work.
When all of the works listed under a non-canonical name are linked as variant titles to works under the canonical name for that author, the page for that name consists of a large "Pseudonym" label and link to the canonical name for that author. But then if someone enters a new work under the non-canonical name, it breaks that format, listing a small link to the canonical name, and listing that single work under the non-canonical name. Not only does this no longer look like a "pure pseudonym", but the bibliographic listing for that non-canonical name is completely wrong -- it omits all of the books that are listed under the canonical name. I suggest that when someone enters a work under a non-canonical name of a known person that something happen: They are asked if they would like to link it to the (apparent) canonical name, if they would like to disambiguate this from the author(s) who usually write under that name, etc. And that the moderator who reviews the submission should get some type of warning that they are about to break the "pure pseudonym" nature of that name.
Discussion
Anonymous
Here's an example. I've created "Bill Rupp" as a pseudonym to the canonical name "William Rupp". Every work by "Bill Rupp" has been VT'd to the same work under the name "William Rupp". Then someone adds another work under that non-canonical name (e.g. a book review), so now the "obvious" link to the pseudonym has disappeared (there will still be the small link titled "Used as alternate name by"). Worse yet, it now looks like this author has a single work to their credit, and of course the canonical name for that author doesn't get credit for that work, review, interview, etc. I suggest that if someone submits a work that breaks such a "pure pseudonym" that they be warned about it, given the option to create a link to the canonical name, or something of that sort. [E.g. "Other works by 'Bill Rupp' have been linked to the canonical name of 'William Rupp'. Do you want to do that with this submission?") Of course if they choose to continue, then the moderator who has to approve this submission be given at least the warning.
In patch r2012-67 (common/library.py 1.24, installed on 2012-12-30), the moderator approval page for new publications was modified to show a warning when a pseudonym is detected.
The change made in patch r2012-67 (see above) seems to be working well. Also, we now have a cleanup report that identifies unvarianted titles entered usng a pseudonym. Between these two changes, there is no longer a need for the originally requested functionality. Closing.