Representation of nationality in charts & graphs (LT.de and ..., LT.com)
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1birder4106
I am very interested in the representation of the nationality graphics, but do not understand them. It is also different in LT.de, LT.fr and LT.com form. And the number of authors and books also differ in the presentation. On the LT.it site, I also get the impression that some of the information is not in Italian (.it) but in Lithuanian (.lt).
So I found the following numbers on the four pages that I looked at (as of November 9, 2021, 12 AM CET):
.de = 93 countries
.fr = 95 countries
.it = 77 countries
.com = 67 countries.
36 countries are listed once, 21 twice and three more than once.
Actually, I would expect that a compilation will only be displayed for the country which is listed under "Maps to xxx".
As you can see under the examples, there are four different compilations for the UK in LT.de, whereby two only differ from the German (Großbritannien), resp. differentiate between Swiss spelling (Grossbritannien).
Some examples on LT.de:
Abbildung auf Vereinigtes Königreich (Maps to UK)
UK 59
England 20
Grossbritannien 15
Großbritannien 4
Schottland 7
Scotland 2
(Total books: 107)
Abbildung auf Russland
Russland 4
Russian Federation 4
Russian Empire 1
Russia 1
(Total books: 10)
Abbildung auf Spanien
Spanien 2
Catalonia 2
Spain 1
(Total books: 5)
Abbildung auf Deutschland
Germany 66
Deutschland 188
(Total books: 254)
Abbildung auf Schweiz
Switzerland 59
Schweiz 133
(Total books: 192)
Switzerland on LT.com:
Switzerland 194
Schweiz 1
Suisse 8
(Total books: 194)
Switzerland "Maps to Suisse" on LT.fr:
Switzerland 185
Suisse 8
Schweiz 1
(Total books: 194)
Switzerland "Mappe per Šveicarija" (*) on LT.it:
(*) This is definitely a Lithuanian term, not Italian! Like the country names under "Mappe per ...". In Italian the expression would be something like: "Mappa per ".
Switzerland 194
Schweiz 1
(Total books: 195)
In the example of Switzerland on four different homepages, you can see that the totals surprisingly do not match.
I have another suggestion, respectively an idea for the table which you can call up when you click next to one of the graphics:
I would also like to have the value for the number of books per author and country.
Nationality: Germany | Count by Author: 257 | Count by Book: 495 | Books per Author: 1.9
So I found the following numbers on the four pages that I looked at (as of November 9, 2021, 12 AM CET):
.de = 93 countries
.fr = 95 countries
.it = 77 countries
.com = 67 countries.
36 countries are listed once, 21 twice and three more than once.
Actually, I would expect that a compilation will only be displayed for the country which is listed under "Maps to xxx".
As you can see under the examples, there are four different compilations for the UK in LT.de, whereby two only differ from the German (Großbritannien), resp. differentiate between Swiss spelling (Grossbritannien).
Some examples on LT.de:
Abbildung auf Vereinigtes Königreich (Maps to UK)
UK 59
England 20
Grossbritannien 15
Großbritannien 4
Schottland 7
Scotland 2
(Total books: 107)
Abbildung auf Russland
Russland 4
Russian Federation 4
Russian Empire 1
Russia 1
(Total books: 10)
Abbildung auf Spanien
Spanien 2
Catalonia 2
Spain 1
(Total books: 5)
Abbildung auf Deutschland
Germany 66
Deutschland 188
(Total books: 254)
Abbildung auf Schweiz
Switzerland 59
Schweiz 133
(Total books: 192)
Switzerland on LT.com:
Switzerland 194
Schweiz 1
Suisse 8
(Total books: 194)
Switzerland "Maps to Suisse" on LT.fr:
Switzerland 185
Suisse 8
Schweiz 1
(Total books: 194)
Switzerland "Mappe per Šveicarija" (*) on LT.it:
(*) This is definitely a Lithuanian term, not Italian! Like the country names under "Mappe per ...". In Italian the expression would be something like: "Mappa per ".
Switzerland 194
Schweiz 1
(Total books: 195)
In the example of Switzerland on four different homepages, you can see that the totals surprisingly do not match.
I have another suggestion, respectively an idea for the table which you can call up when you click next to one of the graphics:
I would also like to have the value for the number of books per author and country.
Nationality: Germany | Count by Author: 257 | Count by Book: 495 | Books per Author: 1.9
2spiphany
Many of the CK fields are language-specific -- i.e., information entered in one language is not automatically included in the other languages versions of CK. If the information is not entered in a particular language, LT checks other language versions and tries to grab any information that is available there.
In addition, the fields are free-text, so a particular piece of information may or may not be entered the same way by all users.
Unfortunately, this does means that for a lot of users the nationality field is likely to have the inconsistencies you note. You can update the information for your authors, of course (i.e., adding German CK if it is missing etc.), but I don't see any way to prevent this from happening or to automatically avoid duplication of country names. LT doesn't have any way of knowing that spelling variations refer to the same thing, so it is going to assume that "Grossbrittanien" is different than "Großbrittanien".
The only way, as far as I know, that this could be avoided would be if countries were a drop-down list -- and this would be problematic for all sorts of reasons. For example, it would exclude political entities that no longer exist, such as the Roman Empire or Czechoslovakia or Prussia; there are countries whose political status is controversial, or which are not universally recognized as independent (Abkhazia), or which are autonomous subjects of another state (the Faroes). And there are cases like the UK, where describing someone as "Scottish" doesn't mean the same thing as describing them as "British" even though their passport will say "UK" in either case.
In other words, I suspect there isn't likely to be any standardization of this field any time soon.
In addition, the fields are free-text, so a particular piece of information may or may not be entered the same way by all users.
Unfortunately, this does means that for a lot of users the nationality field is likely to have the inconsistencies you note. You can update the information for your authors, of course (i.e., adding German CK if it is missing etc.), but I don't see any way to prevent this from happening or to automatically avoid duplication of country names. LT doesn't have any way of knowing that spelling variations refer to the same thing, so it is going to assume that "Grossbrittanien" is different than "Großbrittanien".
The only way, as far as I know, that this could be avoided would be if countries were a drop-down list -- and this would be problematic for all sorts of reasons. For example, it would exclude political entities that no longer exist, such as the Roman Empire or Czechoslovakia or Prussia; there are countries whose political status is controversial, or which are not universally recognized as independent (Abkhazia), or which are autonomous subjects of another state (the Faroes). And there are cases like the UK, where describing someone as "Scottish" doesn't mean the same thing as describing them as "British" even though their passport will say "UK" in either case.
In other words, I suspect there isn't likely to be any standardization of this field any time soon.
3birder4106
>2 spiphany: Thanks for the detailed answer.
Most of the facts are known to me. I also agree with a lot. For example, what concerns the points of past and politically not recognized countries.
I mean, when an author calls himself an Abkhazian, Tibetan, Scot, Welsh, or Yugoslavian, that nationality should be respected and entered in the space provided. In the field "Country (for map)" the most appropriate country to the CURRENT should be listed (Tibet => China, Yugoslavia => Serbia). I am aware that this will lead to a "never ending story". It is likely that this will also lead to discussions. But for the vast majority of past and current authors, it will "simply" be possible to specify both nationality and country (for map).
I therefore call for the "Country (for map)" field to be viewed as the more important one and for it to be given priority.
I suspect that if both the map and the compilation were based on this field, many problem cases will already be solved.
Another problem arises with translations.
When LT2 was being Thanks for the detailed answer.
Most of the facts are known to me. I also agree with a lot. For example, what concerns the points of past and politically not recognized countries.
I mean, when an author calls himself an Abkhazian, Tibetan, Scot, Welsh, or Yugoslavian, that nationality should be respected and entered in the space provided. In the field "Country (for map)" the most appropriate country to the CURRENT should be listed (Tibet => China, Yugoslavia => Serbia). I am aware that this will lead to a "never ending story". It is likely that this will also lead to discussions. But for the vast majority of past and current authors, it will "simply" be possible to specify both nationality and country (for map).
I therefore call for the "Country (for map)" field to be viewed as the more important one and for it to be given priority.
I suspect that if both the map and the compilation were based on this field, many problem cases will already be solved.
Another problem arises with translations.
When LT2 was being announced, I was hoping that these issues would decrease significantly. Unfortunately, they tended to increase.
I changed a lot of entries in different places. Mostly also in the original English page of LibraryThing. I changed some of them several times.
However, they were not copied correctly.
I am aware that this is not easy for the programmers. But there are many examples of equally highly complex applications where this has been solved much better. Also, or especially from open source programs. I am also not concerned with individual cases as with GB / GB. They are to be got over.
And it's not at all about making LT or its developers bad. You are doing a very good job.
I would like to initiate a discussion that will primarily benefit the many LT users who speak other languages., I was hoping that these issues would decrease significantly. Unfortunately, they tended to increase. I changed a lot of entries in different places. Mostly also in the original English page of LibraryThing. I changed some of them several times. However, they were not copied correctly.
I am aware that this is not easy for the programmers. But there are many examples of equally highly complex applications where this has been solved much better. Also, or especially from open source programs. I am also not concerned with individual cases as with "Grossbritannien vs. Großbritannien". They are to be got over.
And it's not at all about making LT or its developers bad. They are doing a very good job.
I would like to initiate a discussion that will primarily benefit the many LT users who speak other languages than english.
Most of the facts are known to me. I also agree with a lot. For example, what concerns the points of past and politically not recognized countries.
I mean, when an author calls himself an Abkhazian, Tibetan, Scot, Welsh, or Yugoslavian, that nationality should be respected and entered in the space provided. In the field "Country (for map)" the most appropriate country to the CURRENT should be listed (Tibet => China, Yugoslavia => Serbia). I am aware that this will lead to a "never ending story". It is likely that this will also lead to discussions. But for the vast majority of past and current authors, it will "simply" be possible to specify both nationality and country (for map).
I therefore call for the "Country (for map)" field to be viewed as the more important one and for it to be given priority.
I suspect that if both the map and the compilation were based on this field, many problem cases will already be solved.
Another problem arises with translations.
When LT2 was being Thanks for the detailed answer.
Most of the facts are known to me. I also agree with a lot. For example, what concerns the points of past and politically not recognized countries.
I mean, when an author calls himself an Abkhazian, Tibetan, Scot, Welsh, or Yugoslavian, that nationality should be respected and entered in the space provided. In the field "Country (for map)" the most appropriate country to the CURRENT should be listed (Tibet => China, Yugoslavia => Serbia). I am aware that this will lead to a "never ending story". It is likely that this will also lead to discussions. But for the vast majority of past and current authors, it will "simply" be possible to specify both nationality and country (for map).
I therefore call for the "Country (for map)" field to be viewed as the more important one and for it to be given priority.
I suspect that if both the map and the compilation were based on this field, many problem cases will already be solved.
Another problem arises with translations.
When LT2 was being announced, I was hoping that these issues would decrease significantly. Unfortunately, they tended to increase.
I changed a lot of entries in different places. Mostly also in the original English page of LibraryThing. I changed some of them several times.
However, they were not copied correctly.
I am aware that this is not easy for the programmers. But there are many examples of equally highly complex applications where this has been solved much better. Also, or especially from open source programs. I am also not concerned with individual cases as with GB / GB. They are to be got over.
And it's not at all about making LT or its developers bad. You are doing a very good job.
I would like to initiate a discussion that will primarily benefit the many LT users who speak other languages., I was hoping that these issues would decrease significantly. Unfortunately, they tended to increase. I changed a lot of entries in different places. Mostly also in the original English page of LibraryThing. I changed some of them several times. However, they were not copied correctly.
I am aware that this is not easy for the programmers. But there are many examples of equally highly complex applications where this has been solved much better. Also, or especially from open source programs. I am also not concerned with individual cases as with "Grossbritannien vs. Großbritannien". They are to be got over.
And it's not at all about making LT or its developers bad. They are doing a very good job.
I would like to initiate a discussion that will primarily benefit the many LT users who speak other languages than english.
4Keeline
>3 birder4106: "when an author calls himself"
I look at a lot of census records for my family and the authors and artists that I study. What I have found is that the name of the country provided to the census taker seems to vary every ten years as this information is recorded. I've seen Prussia become Germany and so on, perhaps reflecting the country names at the time that the census was taken.
So in this type of example, it depends on when the person was asked.
There are some authors who may have been born in the U.K. but did most of their publishing in the U.S. Hugh Lofting is such an example with his Dr. Doolittle books.
James
I look at a lot of census records for my family and the authors and artists that I study. What I have found is that the name of the country provided to the census taker seems to vary every ten years as this information is recorded. I've seen Prussia become Germany and so on, perhaps reflecting the country names at the time that the census was taken.
So in this type of example, it depends on when the person was asked.
There are some authors who may have been born in the U.K. but did most of their publishing in the U.S. Hugh Lofting is such an example with his Dr. Doolittle books.
James
5AnnieMod
>3 birder4106:
The main problem with your proposal is that we had been told for YEARS that the Country for map should be filled only for authors where there is a need for it - usually when the country they are assigned to does not exist anymore and other similar circumstances.
Using that under-populated field as the main field will require LT to first populate it - and here comes the problem. Authors with one country - easy enough. But the ones with two of them? Someone will need to make a decision. Where would you put Nabokov? Depending on which part of his career you take, he is either a Russian author or a US one. Having to put this in a single field means someone will need to somehow decide. Using the multi-field we use today, you can have him in both (and making Country for the map a multi-field does not solve the issue because you can as well use the Nationality field) :)
PS: "Yugoslavia => Serbia"
Yeah, no. This is the kind of blanket substitution that should never be made. None of the old federations can be handled that way (USSR, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia (to name a few) - you cannot just sent everyone to one of the descendants). A lot of them may be very small countries but while all Serbians were Yugoslav for the duration, not all Yugoslav had been or became Serbian.
Translations are a different kettle of fish. The only way for it to be solved will be to use a standard list of nationalities and do not allow any free-written one. But there is no exhaustive list for that anywhere - authors show up from all kinds of existing and barely existed countries - so... it gets complicated. How do you propose that to be solved in a way that does not get us into the Middle Welsh* problem again. Do you have a handy list of all possible nationalities (past and present) you can share? Without that, people can write whatever they want - which is where we are now.
* https://www.librarything.com/topic/336287 for the Middle Welsh reference
The main problem with your proposal is that we had been told for YEARS that the Country for map should be filled only for authors where there is a need for it - usually when the country they are assigned to does not exist anymore and other similar circumstances.
Using that under-populated field as the main field will require LT to first populate it - and here comes the problem. Authors with one country - easy enough. But the ones with two of them? Someone will need to make a decision. Where would you put Nabokov? Depending on which part of his career you take, he is either a Russian author or a US one. Having to put this in a single field means someone will need to somehow decide. Using the multi-field we use today, you can have him in both (and making Country for the map a multi-field does not solve the issue because you can as well use the Nationality field) :)
PS: "Yugoslavia => Serbia"
Yeah, no. This is the kind of blanket substitution that should never be made. None of the old federations can be handled that way (USSR, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia (to name a few) - you cannot just sent everyone to one of the descendants). A lot of them may be very small countries but while all Serbians were Yugoslav for the duration, not all Yugoslav had been or became Serbian.
Translations are a different kettle of fish. The only way for it to be solved will be to use a standard list of nationalities and do not allow any free-written one. But there is no exhaustive list for that anywhere - authors show up from all kinds of existing and barely existed countries - so... it gets complicated. How do you propose that to be solved in a way that does not get us into the Middle Welsh* problem again. Do you have a handy list of all possible nationalities (past and present) you can share? Without that, people can write whatever they want - which is where we are now.
* https://www.librarything.com/topic/336287 for the Middle Welsh reference
6Nevov
Though a dropdown wouldn't work for Nationality >2 spiphany: for the reasons you say (can a dropdown be done in Common Knowledge?) it however could be a great idea for Country (for map) because the entire point of that field is to only use current-world states, which is a definable list. Then make the dropdown selected visible in all LT-languages and we'd only need translate the list itself into the language, and set the map to generate from a table of that data. If the goal is consistency across different language LTs, that would achieve it, as well as giving a simple set of data for the map.
Then the map values would generate from:
-any authors with Country (for map) data: the last* entry in that field
-all other authors: the last** Nationality data, using any "maps to" relationships that have been set up, eg. we currently have Russia maps to Russian Federation
-any authors with neither get lumped in as Unknown
The above approach would still work even without the dropdown being a part of it. This would avoid any messiness about having to map big to small: USSR to Russia, Roman Empire to Italy or other cases such as >5 AnnieMod: mentions. The Nationality data still shows below in table and pie chart, because it's great to see that info agglomerated. And the map data still shows below the map, only now it's taking Country (for map) into account.
There's some related talk in the thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334568 about multiple-nationality authors, Charts & Graphs and the map.
*A minor technicality >5 AnnieMod: the Country (for map) field already is a multi-item field. Example: if an author has Scotland and Bavaria in Nationality, we can put both UK and Germany into their Country (for map).
**Last would be better than first, to avoid us needing to shuffle the desired nationality to the top if an author adopts a new nationality. Fuller explanation in the linked thread.
Then the map values would generate from:
-any authors with Country (for map) data: the last* entry in that field
-all other authors: the last** Nationality data, using any "maps to" relationships that have been set up, eg. we currently have Russia maps to Russian Federation
-any authors with neither get lumped in as Unknown
The above approach would still work even without the dropdown being a part of it. This would avoid any messiness about having to map big to small: USSR to Russia, Roman Empire to Italy or other cases such as >5 AnnieMod: mentions. The Nationality data still shows below in table and pie chart, because it's great to see that info agglomerated. And the map data still shows below the map, only now it's taking Country (for map) into account.
There's some related talk in the thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/334568 about multiple-nationality authors, Charts & Graphs and the map.
*A minor technicality >5 AnnieMod: the Country (for map) field already is a multi-item field. Example: if an author has Scotland and Bavaria in Nationality, we can put both UK and Germany into their Country (for map).
**Last would be better than first, to avoid us needing to shuffle the desired nationality to the top if an author adopts a new nationality. Fuller explanation in the linked thread.
7spiphany
>6 Nevov: As far as I can tell the nationality map and pie chart preferentially use any information provided in "country (for map)" and if this is not available, use the information listed in the field "nationality" instead, choosing the first/top entry if multiple values are filled in.
The pie chart and map do in fact group together variants of country names and assign no-longer-existing states to a modern-day one (i.e., "UK" and "Great Britain" are treated as the same, and "Roman empire" is assigned to "Italy", "Prussia" to "Germany", etc.). To see how the data is being grouped, switch to "text only" view and there is a table above the list of authors by country that corresponds to the data used to create the map/pie chart.
To my disappointment, it seems that the list of authors by country also only seems to recognize one value per author, even for authors who have more than one nationality filled in and don't have the field "country (for map)" filled in. This seems rather unfortunate to me. Since this list is displaying the raw, ungrouped data anyway (all the variants of country names), it shouldn't be ignoring significant portions of the information in a field that was presumably deliberately designed to allow multiple values.
The pie chart and map do in fact group together variants of country names and assign no-longer-existing states to a modern-day one (i.e., "UK" and "Great Britain" are treated as the same, and "Roman empire" is assigned to "Italy", "Prussia" to "Germany", etc.). To see how the data is being grouped, switch to "text only" view and there is a table above the list of authors by country that corresponds to the data used to create the map/pie chart.
To my disappointment, it seems that the list of authors by country also only seems to recognize one value per author, even for authors who have more than one nationality filled in and don't have the field "country (for map)" filled in. This seems rather unfortunate to me. Since this list is displaying the raw, ungrouped data anyway (all the variants of country names), it shouldn't be ignoring significant portions of the information in a field that was presumably deliberately designed to allow multiple values.
