Duplicate Items not populating

gregwlee
I see items in my library that have the same title and author but do not appear in Duplicate Items. This is actually a change -- Duplicate Items was picking these titles up, then suddenly stopped populating at all. Is this a bug, or am I missing something here?

I've got Zotero 4.0.8 installed on my computer.
  • arggem
    I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it or not, but first I'd upgrade to the most current version of Z.
  • gregwlee
    Tried upgrading and Duplicate Items still doesn't populate.
  • adamsmith
    Try duplicating an item (using right-click --> duplicate item) see if that shows up under Duplicate Items. If it does, there may just be something (like a different DOI) that prevents the items you're looking at to be registered as duplicates. If it doesn't, provide an error report ID:
    https://www.zotero.org/support/reporting_bugs#provide_a_report_id
  • gregwlee
    Thanks. Duplicate Items did populate when I duplicated an item. I'm still wondering why items that have the same author and title are not populating Duplicate Items, though, especially when they were doing so before.
  • adamsmith
    I'm not 100% sure what the algorithm is, but have a look and see where the two differ and maybe we can make sense of it. As I say above, I believe e.g. a different DOI would remove an item from the duplicate list.
  • gregwlee
    Below is one example of duplicate records Duplicate Items is not finding. (I generated the bibliography using Chicago Manual of Style 16th). As you can see, Zotero recognizes that the author is the same (hence the dashes). The title looks the same to me, too. I thought this was one of the fields the populates Duplicate Items.

    Greg

    Markus, R. A. “De Ciuitate Dei: Pride and the Common Good.” In Sacred and Secular: Studies on Augustine and Latin Christianity. Aldershot: Variorum, 1994.

    ———. “De Ciuitate Dei: Pride and the Common Good.” In Augustine: “Second Founder of the Faith,” edited by J. C. Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren, 245–59. Collectanea Augustiniana. New York: Peter Lang, 1999.
  • adamsmith
    Well, but these are quite distinct - different year, different book, different editors: I'd assume most people would consider this a false positive if it showed up in duplicates. My guess would be that the different editors (or rather the absence of them in one case) make the difference here, but not 100% sure, would have to look at the code.
  • gregwlee
    Duplicate Items was picking up these two items before, though. Then there was a change. I'm not sure what prompted it.

    Also, is title not enough to determine a duplicate? Not quite sure how to understand this line:

    "Zotero currently uses the title, DOI, and ISBN fields to determine duplicates. The algorithm will be improved in the future to incorporate other fields."

    https://www.zotero.org/support/duplicate_detection

    Finally, what is DOI and how do I see it?
  • adamsmith
    no, title is definitely not enough, we'd get a lot of complaints. As I say above - if Zotero used to treat these two as duplicates and doesn't anymore, I'd consider that an improvement (as the documentation says there would be). It's clearly not the same item.

    DOI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Object_Identifier
    Zotero currently only has those for journal articles and conference papers, but will add it to most or all item types in the future.
  • gregwlee
    OK, thanks. This is helpful. I'm still somewhat confused as to why Duplicate Items was including those titles but I guess I'll just have to discover these items manually. They are basically the same item, as one record represents a reprint, and I'd like to get rid of the unnecessary one.
  • adamsmith
    you can always simply select two or more items and - as long as they're the same item type - right click and merge them
  • gregwlee
    Thanks. The issue is actually finding the items, not getting rid of the duplicates.

    Also, what is the difference between merging two items and simply deleting one of them?
  • adamsmith
    Main difference relates to old Word documents - if you delete an item that you've cited in a document, Zotero will complain next time you open it. If you merge it, it will use the merged item.
  • gregwlee
    Got it -- thanks. Won't be a problem in my case.

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