Michael’s Comments (group member since Apr 10, 2011)

Michael’s comments from the Goodreads Interviews group.

It has had an effect on my reading as well, although that's a bit of a mixed bag. I've taken on some classics that I'd been intimidated by because of reviews people had written on here, but I also read some seriously crappy books because it's so much fun writing reviews for them. The review at the end of the process has an impact on what I decide to read.

Do you want to talk about the bee, or should we just leave that alone? It's totally up to you.

Let's see, I think we're through almost all of my questions. Aha! I have a couple more short answer ones for ya:

1. How many different groups do you actively participate in on Goodreads? Do you run or administrate any groups?

2. How many people you met on Goodreads have you now met and hung out with in real life?

Well, first off, I think the "Best" reviewers list would be one of these markers. Whether there's much connection with how well written reviews are and how successful they are is debatable, since science has proven that starting your review with a funny or cute picture automatically gets you 8 votes, and if that picture is a lolcat that number is multiplied by two.

But, regardless of real meaning, I do think it's a marker of one kind of status. Similarly, I'd say having a huge score on the Never-Ending Book Quiz is a certain kind of status marker. Another, as warped as it seems to some of us in this particular community, is number of friends. Unlike a lot of sites, I think a lot of people on Goodreads see this as a negative, a sign that the friend collector is more interested in having a bunch of friends than in actually doing anything creative or productive on the site. But, I'd say this is a status marker for some people in this community.

But, I think status markers in both these communities can be gained without really having the skills these markers relate to. For instance, on World of Warcraft, you can buy a 'bot' program that will level your character up to the highest level without you even being there, by following some computer code of accepting quests and killing things. I'm pretending I know how it works, but I don't exactly. So, in WoW, you can have the highest level possible and still not really have the skills that implies...just like in Goodreads, you can write a review that gets ridiculously popular, or you can friend every person you see, or you can just Google answers to the NEBQ.

So, I don't mean just demonstrations you aren't a noob, but also demonstrations that you are better than other people in some way :) I think public debates in threads are kinda-sorta related to this, but not in the clear, tangible way of measuring success that these other things are.

Did that make sense?

In a sense, both WoW and GR encourage us to do the things that we see others doing, but adapt them to our personalities. What skills/knowledges do you think Goodreads encourages and/or develops?

BTW, I'm doing four of these things at once, so if I inadvertently ask you something you've already answered, just let me know. I do a cursory rescan before asking the next question, but..well, it's cursory.

Another question....feel free to tackle these two posts in any order you choose.

Of course we're here for fun and socializing and keeping track of what we read. But, what kinds of knowledge and skills does Goodreads encourage, and/or develop?

That's awful! Do you know in what ways he was overboisterous? What it was about him that was getting mocked?

Since I recently mentioned VirJohn, I'm curious about how the two situations were different. In a sense, that whole fiasco was the example of an overboisterous asshole person who was made fun of extensively for various qualities of his personality.

Also, assume you're reading a review by someone you DON'T know. Are there certain choices or ways of reviewing that would make you suspect the reviewer was well-versed in the goodreads community?

The emphasis for me has also gone from a way to keep track of what I've read to more of a fun playground to geek out about books, and other topics when they come up. Simultaneously, this has caused me to spend a whole lot more time on here, and also it has caused me to more consciously avoid it when I have things I need to get done!

Oh, god, I just realized I left out something I meant to ask you very early on. We talked about the ways noobness is revealed...what different ways can a person on Goodreads show their knowledge and/or status within the space? I'm interested in which of these status/knowledge markers seem relevant to you, but also which other markers you you're aware of but ignore.

Aha. Thanks for that....I agree, those were fun :)

What about things that sucked horribly? What is/are the worst thing/things that ever happened/are happening on Goodreads ever? What sucked the most, and what happened as a result of this thing, whatever it is?

So, in both of these spaces, you feel like it has been your choice to not become more involved? As opposed to their being any obstructions making it hard to join the community?

Then again, I suppose you could view the time investment in WoW as a kind of obstruction. From your experience, in either of these spaces, are there other obstructions making it difficult to become socially involved?

Question part 2: mathematical precision isn't necessary here, but try to give me a rundown of about how much time you spend on different aspects of Goodreads.
(For example, 80% reading reviews, 15% writing them, 5% insulting people's reading tastes through comments)

Where the hell are you, Bobbert?

I've noticed the joke thing on quite a few occasions...Ceridwen's epically epic Ulysses thread being a hilarious example! The VirJohn lolcats still make me laugh my ass off.

Okay, on to a question that's way more fun than the last one! What is the most fun thing you can remember ever happening on Goodreads? The thing that was the most fun for you personally, of course. Fun can mean hilarious, entertaining, joyful, orgasmic, whatever.

You've given me a ton of stuff, and the situations you've talked about were both the exact kind of thing I wanted to bring up. I didn't realize that review of The Giving Tree was a sort of turning point as far as reviews go because its original version was before my time, but I am a bit surprised that there was such an uproar about its offensiveness, regardless of whether it's a children's book or not. I hope nobody notices my review of Everybody Poops. Of course, I have a content warning on that one...maybe that would satisfy the prudes?

Who cares. Fuck the prudes.

I like that you brought up both the way the Goodreads powers that be address problems and also the way members of the community address them amongst themselves. Have you seen many situations where people have serious disagreements but actually work them out in threads, or through some other form of communication?

The situation with the Twilight reviews...yes, that pissed me off as well. I reposted my review with two very, very small changes, and it wasn't deleted that time. If it had been deleted a second time, I'm not sure how I would've reacted. Actually, I probably would've kept reposting it until they had to delete me. I backed up all of my favorite reviews just in case that happened. But, regardless of what happened afterwards, it was inconsiderate to delete reviews without warning, and with snarky little emails reminding us we should be REVIEWING BOOKS in our BOOK REVIEWS. That's simply not true.

Okay, next question....although we can come back to that bee whenever you're ready for it....think back to the people who were your first non-real-life friends who you interacted with regularly on here. Out of that group of people, are most of them still active? Have many of them drifted away from Goodreads?

From your experience, how well does Goodreads do with retaining community members?

I miss having a job where I could do the same...now, I have to work when I'm working. It sucks, I tell you.

How do issues between Goodreaders tend to be resolved? You mention dropping people who are shitty to others. Do you think this is a fairly standard way of avoiding conflict? What are the most popular ways of resolving conflicts?

In other words, wax philosophic about the whole bee mess.

Actually, it's interesting you brought up the bee, because I plan on talking about that in my paper of an example of how Goodreads adapts to what its users want. I feel like (1), the powers that bee (har-har) had a bad idea, (2), they went about it in a disorganized, goofy way, but (3), they asked for community involvement from people on the site, and (4) when they realized a mascot was an unpopular decision, they dropped the idea. Thank god.

So, I agree the initial idea was bad. But, I think the way it ended up playing out shows a lot of community awareness on Goodreads's part.

And I just totally took over the interview. Uhh, so, yeah. What is your take on the bee thing? In what ways did it end up being a bad idea? Also, do you think it created divisions that remain? Is the community all better now, or is there still some resentment?

When someone I don't recognize friends me, I've started checking to see how many reviews they've written. To me, that's the easiest way to tell how invested someone is in the site...and, if you don't write reviews or participate in conversations, I know I'm not going to get anything out of the friendship other than a longer feed email.

What about the reviews people write? Do any certain kinds of reviews stand out as being written by people who don't really know how Goodreads works yet?

That's okay, we can't all be fully waxed all the time. It would be both expensive and painful.

In my humble opinion, you seem to be ninja fast in responding to things on Goodreads. How often are you on the website? How much time would you guess you spend doing something Goodreads-ish per week?

AND, second question with a longer answer: Have you ever considered quitting Goodreads for any reason? If so, why? What aspects of the site and community would make it hard to detach yourself from?

So, what about the most uber-lame thing that has ever happened on Goodreads to your knowledge?

This may or may not be connected with that last question: when conflict happens on Goodreads, how is it addressed? Is it usually worked through, or is it ignored/avoided?

Thanks for agreeing to the interview, Bobbert! Please try not to steal anything while you're here.

First question: You've used the Goodreads website and have played World of Warcraft. Have you become part of something you'd consider a community in either of these spaces? Both? Neither?

If so, or if not, why/why not?

Ah, the chair girl! Yes, she's definitely evil. In an innocent, reading-in-a-rocking-chair kind of way.

The process you describe is how I think I started getting noticed on the site. In fact, you're one of a few people that I think took me from vote rags to riches, although I'm back to rags now because I never write reviews. It was more a matter of just doing what I'd been doing all along when it came to writing reviews, and occasionally posting when I saw an interesting conversation in a thread, and then a few people started voting on my reviews, and it snowballed. This might make the process of getting into the community less straightforward, because it's also not clear right away who the really active members are. I was on the site for a long time before I even realized there was a top reviewers list!

Okay, next question, although you may wax philosophical on any of those musings as well if you'd like. Next question is: Think back to the friends you made right after you'd made that transition into being part of the goodreads 'community' and not just somebody reading reviews and updating bookshelves. Are those people still around? How many of them are gone? How many of them do you still interact with regularly?

Chair girl? Who is the chair girl?

That's a good point about the secret option for groups: if you want to, you can totally block off conversations from the bulk of Goodreads users.

What you said about having a patron touches on something I wanted to ask you, because I feel World of Warcraft (the community I'm comparing goodreads to) has a very good system of walking you through the first stages of becoming part of the community. I'm not so sure about goodreads. Did you have any kind of a patron as you were entering the community, or did you just work your way in? Have you patronized...uh, you know what I mean....any fledgling goodreaders?