Catalog Problem

Report & help check download problems, corrupted files, badly-named files, bad links etc. (NOT for style & reading complaints)
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Kaffen
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Post by Kaffen »

Just for yuks, today I typed my own name in the Advanced Search box for Reader in the Catalog. The results resemble my personal contributions almost not at all! There are one or two of my books, and pages of books I had no part in.

I get different results with different search terms: I've tried Mark Smith, Mark F. Smith, and my forum name Kaffen, all both with and without the "Exact Match" checked - but none of them give the right results.

The only way I've found to get at the results is to use a link I bookmarked years and years ago, which still works (it's what you get when you click "Mark's Librivoxings" in my signature below):
https://librivox.org/reader/204?primary_key=204&search_category=reader&search_page=1&search_form=get_results

However, it's asking a lot of a catalog visitor to input that! :hmm:

So, what's with the catalog search function?
- Mark

"In narrating everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult." (Apologies to von Clausewitz!)
Mark's Librivoxings
annise
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Post by annise »

It might the the full stop, there's a glitch in the search and it doesn't handle 's . I'll have a look.No it's not they all work in the straight search...
In fact using firefox they all work for me ?? in both the normmal and the advanced.
I'll just try using Solo ..
Nope it worked there too :hmm:

Anne

The pages you had nothing to do with could be collections - that's a known "pain in the neck" glitch - if you read one part it displays the whole lot
Kaffen
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Post by Kaffen »

OK, I hadn't considered it might be a browser issue. I'm using Chrome.
- Mark

"In narrating everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult." (Apologies to von Clausewitz!)
Mark's Librivoxings
annise
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Post by annise »

I hope it isn't - I just threw that in case it was helpful in debugging . I'm hoping someone else using chrome might also try.

Anne
Cori
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Post by Cori »

Advanced Search - Chrome 66.0.3359.181 - Windows 10

With/without exact match checked:
Mark Smith - we have 4 readers with that name, and it's only returning those without a middle initial. 2 pages.
Mark F. Smith - a LOT of results are here because of the bug around collections returning ALL the items in a collection, rather than just the section(s) a particular person worked on. 40 pages total.
Kaffen - also 40 pages, looking very similar to the above.

I think the results are down to the known collections bug -- Mark, can you give an example of a book you weren't involved in at all? The ones I looked at all had a contribution of yours somewhere, but I didn't go through very many.


Aside: the 'exact results' option could use some refinement -- I'd've expected 42 pages for the first search term. Maybe it's helpful to separate from Mark F. Smithers or Marketa F. Smith, though. ;)
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!
Kaffen
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Post by Kaffen »

I'm using Chrome Version 66.0.3359.181 (Official Build) (64-bit) with Win10. Oh, and it's updating now.

The 2 pages for "Mark Smith" include NONE actually done by me. Mark D. Smith is, apparently, featured, as well as perhaps others.
My personal catalog is 13 pages long, 303 works.

In reproducing the Kaffen search, I've investigated the first 15 pages of results, and found none that did not have some part by me, excepting other chapters in collaborative works, which you say is a known bug. Curiously, "Nostromo" (Conrad) on page 15 is only listed once, although I read only one of 43 uniquely-named chapters. Go figure.

I've noticed that if I've read a poem-of-the-week, where every entry bears the same title, the search only references the work once; in anthologies, it references every section, including those by other narrators. That might be useful info, if we ever send a programmer in hunt for the bug. Also, in dramatic readings, like Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor", where the readers are referenced only in the summary and not in the chapters - again, there's only one instance in the search.
- Mark

"In narrating everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult." (Apologies to von Clausewitz!)
Mark's Librivoxings
Availle
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Post by Availle »

Mark, you can shorten the link in your signature to

https://librivox.org/reader/204

to produce the same results.
Cheers, Ava.
Resident witch of LibriVox, channelling
Granny Weatherwax: "I ain't Nice."

--
AvailleAudio.com
Kaffen
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Post by Kaffen »

Thanks, Ava, and I've now changed my signature.
But entering "204" in the search box for Reader does not find me either!
- Mark

"In narrating everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult." (Apologies to von Clausewitz!)
Mark's Librivoxings
kayray
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Post by kayray »

Kaffen, I keep a personal page with links to all of my solos and duets and just send people there if they want to find my recordings :D

It's much easier than trying to describe how to find the advanced search, put my name in, tick completed, tick solos...
Kara
http://kayray.org/
--------
"Mary wished to say something very sensible into her Zoom H2 Handy Recorder, but knew not how." -- Jane Austen (& Kara)
knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Here's another search string that will return only your solos:

https://librivox.org/search?reader=Kaffen&project_type=solo&search_form=advanced
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Kaffen
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Post by Kaffen »

Here's another search string that will return only your solos:
Curiously, the results it returns includes Elizabeth Klett's performance of "Crucial Instances" where I added a few lines in one chapter as a separate voice; I am not even in the credits, but in the summary, so I'm surprised the search found me!

And the order of the results is completely random, as far as I can see.

But my issue was - how does a catalog user find my works, using the Advanced search? It should not require my forum name, which I never use in my recordings, and it would hopefully isolate me from other Mark Smiths if a listener remembered I am formally "Mark F. Smith" in all my listings. :hmm:
- Mark

"In narrating everything is simple, but it's the simple things that are difficult." (Apologies to von Clausewitz!)
Mark's Librivoxings
annise
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Post by annise »

Do you want other restrictions - like solo , completed, etc ?

Anne
knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Bottom line is that the advanced search needs significant improvements to work as it should. It's one of the things that was never finished properly when we ran out of money and time with the Mellon grant.

In my opinion, the best way to get a list of just your solos is to do the following.

1. run a simple search on your full reader name, Mark F. Smith, in the 'Search by Author, Title or Reader' box,
2. click on your name in the results to open your reader page
3. click the solo option under project type on the left side of the screen (location will vary depending on screen size)
4. use the dropdown on the right above the results list to sort either aphabetically or by release date (most recent to oldest)

This returns a list of 77 individual books.

"Crucial Instances" is on the list here as well because it is marked in the database as a solo, and you are in the section compiler as a reader for section 4. This doesn't show on the catalog page since any section with more than 2 readers defaults to 'group' in the chapter list, but the search function is searching the data in the section compiler table. The only way to change this would be to change the project type from solo to group or to remove your name as a reader for this project in the section compiler (Magic Window) and just leave the note in the summary.
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