Difference between revisions of "User:Alvonruff/A Post-Mortem on the Lee Mandelo Name Change"
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* Broer is presuming that MarkStackpole will proceed and takes the steps he outlined 28 July. | * Broer is presuming that MarkStackpole will proceed and takes the steps he outlined 28 July. | ||
* MarkStackpole has passed a note to the ISFDB, and is presuming that the ISFDB will handle it. | * MarkStackpole has passed a note to the ISFDB, and is presuming that the ISFDB will handle it. | ||
| − | * No other moderator at the ISFDB knows about this exchange since the discussion is a moderator/submitter | + | * No other moderator at the ISFDB knows about this exchange since the discussion is a moderator/submitter conversation taking place on a private user page, rather than on a public page like the Moderator Noticeboard. |
* Neither the author nor any intermediaries follow up on the status of the change. | * Neither the author nor any intermediaries follow up on the status of the change. | ||
Revision as of 10:21, 16 September 2023
The following article documents a timeline of all data submissions and communications associated with the controversial name change of Lee Mandelo. Its intention is not to place blame, but to identify systemic issues and potential corrective actions.
2021
2 Feb 2021 - Dave888 posted a theory on User_talk:Anniemod/Archive-2021 that the new author name 'Lee Mandelo' is possibly the same author as 'Brit Mandelo', followed by an outline of the evidence. Dave888 writes "The information I see suggests this may be a trans name change, but I am not 100% sure on this." and "I know this can be a very sensitive issue, and I'd like to do the right thing." Anniemod responded with "our rules for what names is the canonical are based on what name the author is known under in the SF community. Usually even after a name change, the old name is prevalent for awhile". Given that the author had numerous award nominations under Brit Mandelo, and no other information was known about the situation, the advice given was made to make Lee Mandelo a pseudonym of Brit Mandelo.
26 Feb 21 - Dave888 submits Submission 4923926 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?4923926), to add Lee Mandelo as a pseudonym.
27 Feb 21 - Dirk P Broer approves Dave888's submission.
No activity occurs on Mandelo's record for five months.
25 July 2021 - MarkStackpole attempts an update to the Brit Mandelo author data, removing the existing biographical data, and adding three Lee Mandelo web pages. A Note on the submission states: 'The author wishes to have Lee Mandelo established as her Canonical Name, and Brit Mandelo (pre-transition name) set as an alias [correspondence with author 2021-07-24'. Three different submissions were made:
- Submission 5040284 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5040284). This was cancelled by the submitter.
- Submission 5040285 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5040285). This was cancelled by the submitter.
- Submission 5040286 (https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/view_submission.cgi?5040286).
27 July 2021 - Dirk P Broer rejects MarkStackpole's submission from the 25th, due to the data erasures. As is typical with bibliographic errors, he will post a response to MarkStackpole on his talk page with an explanation.
28 July 2021 - Dirk P Broer responds to MarkStackpole on his talk page (https://isfdb.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:MarkStackpole#Mandelo) concerning the attempt to change URLs. He posts: "Hi, Changing the canonical doesn't mean wipe the fields with info. It means breaking the existing connection between the two author records, and make e new one with the other as canonical". This is Broer giving instructions to Stackpole on how to proceed, specifically meaning that the pseudonym link between Brit and Lee needs to be removed, and then Brit needs to be made a pseudonym of Lee. This is the procedure that would ultimately be executed 16 months later, when Lee successfully had the name changed.
29 July 2021 - MarkStackpole responds "She knows that records with her deadname Brit will remain. She wants the main entry for her entry to be Lee, not Brit. Brit Mondelo. Used As Alternate Name By: Lee Mondello." And then takes no further action. At this point:
- Broer is presuming that MarkStackpole will proceed and takes the steps he outlined 28 July.
- MarkStackpole has passed a note to the ISFDB, and is presuming that the ISFDB will handle it.
- No other moderator at the ISFDB knows about this exchange since the discussion is a moderator/submitter conversation taking place on a private user page, rather than on a public page like the Moderator Noticeboard.
- Neither the author nor any intermediaries follow up on the status of the change.
No other attempts are made, by anyone, to update Mandelo's canonical name for the next 16 months. Obviously, no submissions are rejected in that time period, as none were submitted.
2022
28 November 2022 - MarkStackpole submits an update again (Submission 5497379), with a similar strategy to the original submissions 16 months earlier. This includes a similar note: 'We need to switch the Canonical Name in Author Record # 154860 to Lee Mandelo. She no longer identifies as Brit, so Author Record # 323267 needs to read Brit Mandelo, used as an alternate name by Lee Mandelo. Correspondence with author 11-28-22'. No further action was taken by MarkStackpole.
14 December 2022 - Numerous events occurred on this date:
- Rtrace approves the URL updates submitted by MarkStackpole on the 28th.
- Mandelo tweets his irritation that his name has not been updated.
- Mandelo posts a request to the Moderator Noticeboard. This is the official notice which kicks off all subsequent work. A 4-day bibliographic discussion follows with numerous open questions, with responses from Mandelo.
- Alvonruff receives an email from Gareth Jelley, Editor of Interzone on behalf of Mandelo, asking about changing the authors canonical name.
- Alvonruff posts a query on the Community Portal "I received a note from the editor of Interzone today concerning the canonical name for Brit/Lee Mandelo". Ahasuerus replied with: "Lee Mandelo posted about this issue on the Moderator Noticeboard earlier today. The discussion is ongoing."
15 December 2022 - Two events occurred on the 15th:
- Chavey submits a change (Submission 5511875) to Mandelo's Legal Name (not Canonical Name), with a Note: "The writer formerly known as "Brit Mandelo" has changed their name to "Lee"." This was self-approved by Chavey.
- KMSzpara submits a change (Submission 5511923) with only a Note: "Lee Mandelo should be the main name for this author. They do not publish under Brit Mandelo, which is their dead name. They have been moving their publications from their dead name to actual name: Lee Mandelo. Please correct this. Leaving as-is is transphobic.".
19 December 2022 - After followups with Mandelo Nihonjoe made the following 40 changes to complete the name change:
22 December 2022 - The KMSzpara submission was rejected by Anniemod on 22 December 2022, with the reason: the canonical name had already been changed. The submission had no other useful data to integrate.
31 December 2022 - Jason Sanford posts (https://jasonsanford.substack.com/p/genre-grapevine-for-december-31-2022) the article: "ISFDB Fights Using Author’s Name"
Issues
The data above identifies the following issues:
- There is no way to know what canonical name the author prefers without direct input from the author. Some authors absolutely want their new name to be canonical, and some authors absolutely DO NOT want their new name to be canonical.
- Passing notes in an author edit is a passive, unreliable method of requesting a name change. It also suffers from the fact that one, and only one, moderator may see the note, and even that is not guaranteed, as the moderator is checking the correctness of the field updates, and moderator notes are informative details on how to handle the submitted changes, and do not appear on the author's bibliography.
- Canonical name changes are procedurally difficult enough that users don't want to take on that work.
- A communication avenue between the author and the moderators must exist for the duration of the name change, as it can be impossible to complete the name change without generating new bibliographic information.
- There is a general misunderstanding of open source and the shared responsibility for maintaining author bibliographies. Authors are not taking responsibility for their own data, so no one is driving requested changes to completion.
Recommendations
Based on the issues identified above, the following recommendations are offered:
- Recommendation: The Canonical Name of a living author should only be changed at the request of the author in question. Rationale: Since only the author knows their canonical name preference, no one (including moderators) should make presumptions on their behalf.
- Recommendation: Non-moderators should not be able to edit the canonical name. Rationale: Changing the canonical name is often challenging, requiring multiple steps executed in a specific order, generally requiring deep knowledge of the ISFDB database structure. Many steps require approval before moving to the next step. This also provides protections against vandalism.
- Recommendation: ISFDB moderators will own and drive canonical name changes to its conclusion. This violates the open-data nature of the ISFDB, but seems to be the only viable solution at this time. Rationale: Relying on intermediaries between the author and the moderators to drive the issue to closure has a proven history of failure.
- Recommendation: New author names that are known to be associated with a pre-existing author will always be added as a pseudonym. Moderators will entertain making the new name canonical until the author requests it. Rationale: This supports the previous recommendation that the canonical name will only be changed upon an author's request.
- Recommendation: The procedure for changing a canonical name will be as follows:
- The author will indicate, through public means, their desire for the ISFDB to change their canonical name. This can be on Twitter/X, Instagram, personal blog, etc., but the social media must be publicly available, and not require registration or payment to observe. The indication should be something along the lines of: "Hey ISFDB. I would like you to change my official, canonical name to XXX". The new name must already be present in the ISFDB, as the ISFDB software does not support adding names that contain no bibliographic information. Alternatively, the author may use a representative of their publisher, but the ISFDB must notified that the representative works in an official capacity for that publisher. Rationale: This step verifies that the actual author, and not a hostile actor, is making the request. This step is necessary, but not sufficient to make a name change.
- The author (or intermediary) must post an official request for a name change on the Moderator Noticeboard. The request should include the URL of the author's public notification as verification, or be made by a known representative of the author's publisher. Rationale: ISFDB moderators don't follow every author on every social media platform, whereas all moderators read the Noticeboard. This also provides a location for followup communication, as there will likely be questions of a bibliographic nature.
- Recommendation: The Canonical Name of a deceased author should be changed only after discussion, and a consensus is reached. Since only moderators should be able to change the canonical name, this discussion should also take place on the Moderator Noticeboard.