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Translators are not authors
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robinwalter

I consider this a bug, not a feature request, hence the placement.
Is there any way to stop TSG listing translators as primary authors, ahead of the actual authors? I tried adding a book and specifying the translator as "contributor" selecting "Translator" as the role - didn't work, as the screenshot shows. The Kobo listing goes to the other extreme and doesn't even mention Ms Bell, but that does confirm she was not a co-author.

I've seen this many times at TSG, and as much as I value the awesome work of translators, listing them as authors and almost invariably giving them "top billing" by listing them ahead of the actual author seems a touch ott.

translator.png
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Nadia
Jan 21, 2022

Hi Robin, Anthea Bell should not be being added as an author unless their name was in the Authors section as well. Did you do add this edition via the "Add edition" button from an edition that had Anthea added as an author? That would explain why they would be pre-filled as an author also.

With regards to other records that you're seeing, for a long time we didn't have the concept of contributors with various roles, so contributors might have been added as authors where they shouldn't have been. With our volunteer librarians we're working to update all of the data. It'll take time, but we'll get there.

We have this ability to add translators because we know that they aren't the same as the main authors!

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robinwalter
Jan 26, 2022

"Did you do add this edition via the "Add edition" button from an edition that had Anthea added as an author? That would explain why they would be pre-filled as an author also."

This must be what happened, thanks. Since I am adding A LOT of digital editions, it is normally quick and easy to click "add another edition". Learning that doing this can 'contaminate' the newly-added edition with already extant misinformation makes me wonder, how do I go about adding a book from scratch to avoid this?

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Nadia
Jan 27, 2022

No need to add from scratch! You can simply hit 'x' against any authors pre-filled if they shouldn't be there!

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robinwalter
Jan 28, 2022

Thanks, but I did that with this specific book - deleted all authors, added the one author, then added the translator as a Contributor>Translator. As the screenshot shows the edition was created with the Translator listed twice - first as author, then as "(translator)"

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Nadia
Jan 28, 2022

Ahh, I've just discovered a bug, which needs fixing! Every time you hit the "Add a contributor" link, it keeps refreshing the "Authors" input and adding the original names back in! So that's what happened. Will fix it!

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