Why I voted "no"? (tag separation/combination) #15

The "horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi" tag appears to be works that are each classified within Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-fi. The "Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy" tag is for works that fall into at least one of the genres, which places different books at the top.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi#combinations

"Christmas/Winter Holidays" includes wintertime books that aren't about Christmas. "Winter Holidays- Christmas" doesn't.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Christmas%252FWinter+Holidays#combinatio...

Being about kids is not the same as being kids' possessions, and the tags with an apostrophe actually do appear to be used differently on LibrayThing than the tags without one.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/kids#combinations

>1 aspirit: I disagree with this interpretation of the horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi tag. I'm not familiar with all the tagged books, but at least some are not within all three genres: for example, I doubt most readers would categorise The Magician's Nephew or The Time Traveler's Wife as horror. The user employing the horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi tag does not have separate tags for any of the three genres individually (or for combinations of two of them), which suggests it's intended to cover books in any of the genres.

I've voted in favour of the proposed combination with Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy.

>5 Edward: +1

For starters, I doubt anyone considers Stephen King as science fiction.

>6 SandraArdnas: The publishers of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which aims to "to provide a comprehensive, scholarly, and critical guide to science fiction in all its forms" do.

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/king_stephen

I've also seen some of his books classified as science fiction by booksellers, reviewers, and fans.

>5 Edward: "When in doubt, leave it out." The problem with combining what's similar but not the same is that we can no longer easily see how much use of the tags diverge, and that makes looking for and contributing to the different uses more difficult. I figure that's why the guidelines for combining are what they are.

By the way, I'm frustrated to see the stretching of the guidelines continues after the implementation of GenreThing. Members who want to see everything that's similar averaged out can focus on building up that feature, yeah?

>8 aspirit: What do you mean by "similar but not the same" – is your view that the tags shouldn't be combined because they have different books near the top of the list? The top books for horror-fantasy-and-sci-fi and Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy do look different, but that's just because the former tag is used by one person and reflects their interests (such as reading a lot of Stephen King). But there's no loss of information about a single user's interests if the tags are combined, because the user's tags can still be seen in their own catalogue.

>7 aspirit: SFE is NOT limited to science fiction. It covers fantasy and horror too.

The bottom line is, unlike you, to me it seems clear the person using the tag is using it in the same way - any one of the three genres and its many intersections.

"Religious non-fiction" and "non-religious fiction" are pretty clearly not the same thing:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/religious+nonfiction#combinations

Tags beginning with '@' usually refer to where a book can be found, and should not be combined with the same tag without the '@'.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/%40University+of+Toronto

https://www.librarything.com/tag/%40Toronto+Public+Library

>12 MarthaJeanne: Looks like the @ symbols erased from your message. The code @ overrides the forum's desire to turn it into a usertag.

Have voted no, in agreement.

Edit: yes that looks fine now.

Thank you. When I go to edit the @ is there. And it worked here. Don't know what happened. Now fixed.

I think it's the second @ having the period directly after it, that makes the forum think: Oh are we wanting to tag the user named . (No forum, we aren't! Silly forum.) In this message it let me do a usual @ both times.

"Aurora Borealis" refers to the film. Without the quotation marks, it refers to the celestial phenomenon also known as the Northern Lights.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/%22Aurora+borealis%22#combinations

Due to the recent LT Hunt, there's been a lot of combination requests for LGBTQ and other not valid words, many of which needs no votes.
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/LGBTQ#combinations

Examples I've seen:
Gymnastics
Historical Fiction
Pride

This is because of the Hunt?

Regardless of the reason for the large variety of suggestions, pride is not the same as library, to-read, or any of these other words that several members are trying to combine it with.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/pride#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/library

Same for all the other words with LGBT-related tags. Examples:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/booklist#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/gymnastics#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/history#combinations

I also think it's because of the hunt, and people not understanding the difference between tag combining and tag mashing. However, if they could read...

Yikes what a mess, and from lots of different users too.

Yikes! Yes, I think >19 MarthaJeanne: is probably right.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/pride+glbt#combinations

What is the point? Neither tag is being used.

Besides, the guidelines specifically say not to combine glbt and lgbt.

>22 MarthaJeanne:

the guidelines specifically say not to combine glbt and lgbt.

Sure, but, to know that, one must actually read the guidelines.

Also a couple of weird ones here: https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/memoir#combinations

Other than the capitalization, "LGBTQ pride" and "lgbtq pride" are exactly the same tag, so why separate them?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/LGBTQ+pride#combinations

>25 lilithcat: Besides the fact that the capitalizations are combined automatically, so it wouldn't work anyway? The same user is also suggesting that we combine LGBTQ and pride.

>26 MarthaJeanne:

The same user is also suggesting that we combine LGBTQ and pride.

I saw that on the voting page, but when I went to the tag combination page, I didn't see it there!

It's very odd that someone would propose combining two different tags and also propose separating two identical ones.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/5.+klasse#combinations

In Austria, the numbering starts again after elementary school (4 years), so someone in the 5.Klasse is in their 9th year of school.

Also, in different countries schooling starts at different ages.

>28 MarthaJeanne: Also "5. Klasse" doesn't mention reading levels

Looking at the books tagged "ONT": https://www.librarything.com/tag/ONT, it is pretty clear that they have nothing to do with those tagged "Ont.)": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Ont.%29

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/ONT#combinations

In addition to the better known one in Canada, there is a Prince Edward Island that is part of South Africa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Islands

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Prince+Edward+Island#combinations

>31 lilithcat: I added this info to the tag CK, which of course does not appear on the combinations page. Still, it's there now.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Roman#combinations

The proposed combination is for a word that means 'related to the city of Rome', but ignores the meaning of 'fictional book, novel' that Roman means in many languages, even in Danish.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/noveller#combinations

Quite outside of whether the Danish word noveller is really equivalent to 'short stories', the first result in Google is:

Sarah Lipstate is an American guitarist and composer who records under the name Noveller.

One of her albums is entered in LT Noveller - Arrow

@34

FWIW, "noveller" does mean "short stories" in Swedish.

That's not to say the combination is a good one.

>35 AndreasJ: Given the length distinction in various languages between short story, novella, novel, it's one of the border cases that is hard to judge. But the musician makes it uncombinable, in my opinion.

Both 'sprog' https://www.librarything.com/tag/languages

and 'planter' https://www.librarything.com/tag/plants

are words in English that do not mean the same as the tag to be combined.

The German word 'Streiche' can mean 'pranks', but it can also mean 'I spread', 'I stroke'.
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Streiche#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Louisa+B.+Rhine#combinations

The most common Louisa Rhine on Google is Louisa E Rhine.

The tag "Hanover House": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hanover+House refers to a publisher/media distributor, while "Hanover (House)": https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hanover+%28House%29 refers to the royal House of Hanover.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Hanover+House#combinations

All the books tagged "Literature → Eco" are by Umberto Eco. Books tagged "eco-lit" are about the environment.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Literature+%E2%86%92+Eco#combinations

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Brittanië#combinations

Brittanië is Dutch for Britain.

Brittanie is only used on a report about Brittanie Cecil.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Arthur+Hastings#combinations

I'll point out that while most uses of this tag are for the fictional character, https://www.librarything.com/work/2743820 is not. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-hastings-8092b410)

It also seems a bit strange to separate Captain Hastings out and combine him in at the same time.

Hard to believe, but three people have voted to combine "internet" and "ghosts": https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/ghosts#combinations

>44 lilithcat: The original proposal is certainly an artifact of someone trying to use this for the treasure hunt and not knowing how to do a tagmash. (This exact tagmash is how I got one of the answers.) How to get from a tag page to a new tagmash is not really clear; I guess it seems plausible that "combinations" would result in a "mash." I cannot explain the upvotes, though!

yes this seems to happen every time there is a treasure hunt

There are people who just go down the line and click yes to everything, without looking or reading what they're voting yes for...

>47 gilroy: Has to be. I don't understand it, but for some votes, that is the only explanation.

There are Royal Opera Houses other than the one in London:

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Royal+Opera+House#combinations

"1414 Challenge" is not the same as "2014 Category Challenge" (even if 1414 is a typo): https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/1414+challenge#combinations

Several proposals to combine "Grade ..." or "Xth Grade" with "Course: Grade . . .".
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Grade+9#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/course%3A+8th+grade#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/course%3A+7th+grade#combinations
https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/grade+6#combinations

The latter is probably books used as course materials, but the former could mean a variety of things - reading level, for example.

I would add that content warning is not the same as trigger warning.

Also Plant printing and plant pressing are not the same. You can press plants without ever using them to print. https://www.librarything.com/tag/plant+pressing

Why are people voting to combine book 4 and book 2?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Duncan+Kincaid+%2526+Gemma+James+Book+4#...

>52 MarthaJeanne: Sorry, I made an error that I didn't catch. Please vote against it.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Duncan+Kincaid+%2526+Gemma+James+Book+4#...

https://www.librarything.com/tag/Khan+Noonian+Sung

Noonian Soong and Khan Noonien Singh are separate characters and should not be confused. This tag seems to be such a confusion.

>54 MarthaJeanne: I proposed that one as to me it doesn't seem intended to relate to the other character (since it includes "Khan" which is no part of the other character's name), also the work it's used on is novelisations of the movie series, where Khan features, rather than the Next Generation where the other character appears.

>55 Nevov: I'd generally say it's a bad idea to combine such confused tags; I'd leave, say, World War 1 (1939-1945), uncombined as well, no matter how clear it was that it was a typo.

>56 prosfilaes: Noted for similar ones I might meet, thanks both of you.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Louisbourg#combinations

Louisbourg is in Nova Scotia. There are places named Louisburg in several US states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisburg

"literatura-francesa" is not the same as "French literature-fiction". "Literature" is broader than fiction; it can include poetry, essays, lit crit, etc.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/literatura-francesa#combinations

Copy & paste error for combining "Lene Adler Pedersen" with "Jussi Adler-Olsen".

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Lene%20Adler%20Pedersen#combinations

There's a proposal to combine "animals hunting" with "Hunting Animals". To me, those are not the same. In the first, the animal is the hunter, in the second, the animal is being hunted.

I'm not sure why this proposal isn't showing up on the tag pages, but it is on the "proposed tag combinations" page.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/animals+hunting
https://www.librarything.com/tag/Hunting+Animals

>61 lilithcat: "I'm not sure why this proposal isn't showing up on the tag pages, but it is on the "proposed tag combinations" page."

Is it because there are no books associated with either tag?

https://www.librarything.com/tag/animal%20hunting works. Links with + don't.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Hunting%20Animals#combinations

"Pennsylvania mining" is not the same as "Pennsylvania": https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/Pennsylvania#combinations

Recently several suggestions have been made including the bug '+'. Since there are no books with these bad tags I vote "No".

Example https://www.librarything.com/tag/18.%20Dynastie exists.

https://www.librarything.com/tag/18.%252BDynastie does not really.

See https://www.librarything.com/tag/detail/18.%252BDynastie#combinations

>66 MarthaJeanne: Yes, sorry. I had temporarily forgotten about that bug.