Duplicate authorities being created

[viola-v]

Marina reported this, she worked on this speech record https://metadata.un.org/editor/editor?records=bibs/1414572 and created by mistake this new authority https://metadata.un.org/editor/records/auths/941356, when this one should have been used: https://metadata.un.org/editor/records/auths/938441 But this shouldn't have been possible, she should have gotten this error message:

Apparently it has happened to her a few times, and we can't figure out how...

[jbukhari]

I am also not able to replicate this. Maybe it could be that the background search checking if the heading already exists is timing out?

[viola-v]

This is from Marina (she is using Chrome):

I’ve found the origin of the duplicate authority problem – yesterday I was working on S/PV.9702(Resumption1) for Raguttahalli, Ravindra. He spoke first on behalf of the Group of Four, and later in the speech he spoke in his national capacity.

-I created a speech record with $g for the first part of his speech, then used that record as the template for the second part of his speech

-I copied the $g record, deleted the contents of the subfield, but then a + sign appeared. I tried saving the record but got the error message “Can’t save blank authority-controlled subfield” (see attached example using different record)

-I clicked on the + sign; it turned into the link symbol, but since subfield remained empty, I went ahead and saved the record

-I checked the authorities and a second authority had been created. There had been no warning that this was a duplicate name probably, as Susan suggested, because the system treats it as another child record

Apparently, this only happens when you use a record with $g as a template to create a record without a $g for the same speaker. When you input the name of a different speaker, the subfield disappears altogether.

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I tried to replicate, and while I'm still not entirely sure that this is how it happens, I found a way to create a duplicate authority from within the bib: if you ignore the lookup (which might happen if you click in another field), you can create a new authority and no further check for duplication is done. It is an edge case of sorts and a user error to some extent, but it still would be good if this couldn't happen at all. Here's a video demonstrating it.

auth.duplicate.subfield.g.mp4