"-- Move to a new work" doesn't transfer authors from the previous work into a new one

[bicolino34]

There is a librarian-only feature which allows you to move edition into an entirely new work, but this new work doesn't have any authors added, and you have to add them manually each time. I suppose, most cases where we would use this feature is multiple volumes which are in one work and they need to be deconflated. So, it would be better to have for new works the same author as in the work edition previously belonged to.

Evidence / Screenshot (if possible)

Relevant url?

Steps to Reproduce

1. Go to any edition
2. Do edit
3. in "What work is this an edition of?" field type "-- Move to a new work"
4. save the edit

• Actual: new work is created with no authors
• Expected: new work is created with the same authors as the work to which the edition previously belonged

Details

• Logged in (Y/N)?
• Browser type/version?
• Operating system?
• Environment (prod/dev/local)? prod

Proposal & Constraints

• To openlibrary/templates/books/edit/edition.html after the multi-input-autocomplete--works, add two check boxes (unchecked by default):
  • One that says "Copy authors to new work"
  • One that says "Copy subjects to new work"
• Add JS to openlibrary/plugins/openlibrary/js/edit.js to only show these checkmarks if the input with name edition--works--0--key has value set to __new__

• openlibrary/openlibrary/plugins/upstream/addbook.py

  Lines 610 to 614 in 6e4c4f8

  	new_work_key = (edition_data.get('works') or [{'key': None}])[0]['key']
  	if new_work_key == "__new__" and self.work is not None:
  	self.work = self.new_work(self.edition)
  	edition_data.works = [{'key': self.work.key}]
  	saveutil.save(self.work)

  • Handle the new check marks here, copying as necessary

Related files

Stakeholders

[mekarpeles]

@cdrini mentions this may have originally been a conscious decision

The solution we'd like is:

• Once a new work has been selected, then show a checkbox (de-selected by default) to: "Copy author to the new work"

On the PR, librarians should weigh in whether the default should be unchecked or checked (so @seabelis should be tagged as a stakeholder on the PR)

[cdrini]

Actually, to keep the implementation simple, let's keep the just always copy over the authors. It's much easier to delete the authors afterwards than to try to copy them.

Does that make sense from a librarian perspective? CC @seabelis

[seabelis]

This was intended because usually if you have to move to a new work, the author is incorrect.

Having the wrong authors in the history can complicate matters. I'd rather not transfer them.

[cdrini]

Sounds good to me! We talked about this over community call as well :) Examples brought up are like author books (eg "Picasso") which are all entirely different books! Having the option seems like the best deal.

We'll add a check box option as initially proposed, and it will default to being unchecked 👍

[LeadSongDog]

@mekarpeles
If we can’t get this fixed sometime soon, could we at least get a timely message to warn the librarian that the newly created work has no author linked? I’ve been trying to deconflate hundreds of works representing dozens of Waverley Novels, but in the process I find I am inadvertently creating a bunch of unauthored work records. A warning would really help.