NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II discussion
Cerulean (AKA “Hobbit Blue”)
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Captains' Chat
Hey, my post is going to be 5h too early. I'm sure someone will post something as finished after it. :D
5 hrs too early is better than 11.
I can do it, as this weeks update happens to be at 9 am.TC, how long does it usually take you to do everything?
It doesn't take too long since we check up on the books as we go along. You need to click on the view books screen for each person to make sure all books are accounted for in our total and that their goals haven't changed. This will refresh our totals for the mods to see when they check on it. I usually click on the link to their shelf as well to make sure we have recorded the correct date of the last book posted, but not necessary if you don't have time.You need to check that our spreadsheet, the mods team assignment spreadsheet and the main page for our team challenge has the same total goal on it. In our case, though the TA spreadsheet and our team spreadsheet are should say 1402, while the main page challenge page says 1429 because of Gemma. The mods know about this already and Gemma has been accounted for as of last week.
You don't need to worry about inactive members since everyone has checked in sometime in the last two weeks. Last date checked for page numbers is always that Sunday. For last date checked for missing books, you can use June 9th since that is the day I checked everybody's read shelf against their team shelf or Sunday's date.
I know we check as we go along, but there is a debate going about how to account for some juvenile books, so if books end up being counted as long as GR has them over 160 pgs, that date is going to be wrong no matter what date we use. md has some children's books that will be able to be counted after all that are not on her shelf right now. I think I will go back through everybody's shelf again after the decision has been made so we start off with a clean slate as we continue to check as books are posted.
As I write this it seems like a lot, but it really doesn't take too long, maybe 30 min, to click on everything and then make sure all the correct information is in the post. I'm sure this is because we are good at keeping it checked as we go and don't try to do it only once a week. Be sure to list the day and time you clicked on the links for your time zone. It would be fun to see a Sunday Update listed as Monday:)
Are you friends with md or Melissa? If not, you might only be able to see their book totals from the main challenge page since their profiles are private. I will click on their links early my Sunday morning since I can see their shelves. Do you think it still refreshes their book totals when you click it even if it doesn't actually let you see their books?
When I click on md's books (not friends) it takes me to her profile page, so no I don't think it refreshes her challenge.If you want Monday on our Sunday update, you have 2 1/2 captains who can make that happen :D
Mod
No, it does NOT.
I am friends with both md and Melissa
reading this week end :
,Jenny :) ..reading AWAKEN ,by MEG CABOT .Jenny.
Are we still on Scattegories. We should really start discussing it more. ☺What do you think? ☺
Any other ideas? Something that'll be easy to find?
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Are we still on Scattegories. We should really start discussing it more. ☺What do you think? ☺
Any other ideas? Something that'll be easy to find?"
Those look like good options to me. Sorry I have been away from internet access since early Sunday morning. I am back home and making up for it now.
Just wondering, what do you mean by 'Summer'? Apart from that it's great!
As for other categories... what about toys? Or maybe other books mentioned, that would be fun.
Jojiwoji wrote: "Just wondering, what do you mean by 'Summer'? Apart from that it's great!
As for other categories... what about toys? Or maybe other books mentioned, that would be fun."
Anything you associate with summer. ☺ Beach, sea, holidays, New Year (☺), sun, hot, island, palm trees, trips,...
I was trying to find words/things that will give us lots of possibilities. Same with animals. You don't have to find horse for H, you can work with dog's hair (but it needs to be still attached to the dog ☺). I know it's not typical scattegories.
Toys could be fun, also as broad category. As for other books mentioned, that's not that often (at least in books I'm reading). Maybe make that bonus category?
We need things easy to find and since we need 75 books at the end, we have to have rule about item per book, or two (one from first part, other from second) max.
If you have other ideas, yell. ☺
Also how are we going to work with letters? We are going with team letters, but how? Everyone pick a letter? All solving same one? Find a thing and move to next? Can you return to previous letter if you find something new? Can you reuse a letter?
And how come nobody mentioned I'm missing h in female character?
I think adding toys as a category would be good. I think the goal should be for each player to see how many letters they can complete. They can work on more than one letter at a time or concentrate on one letter before moving on to the next. Our team should have no difficulty reaching 75 books in the month of August, we are averaging about 120/month.I think each player gets their own sheet and can find any of the letters they want to. For those who read less, they can concentrate on one letter and see if they can find everything. For those of us who read more, we can see how many letters we can complete.
Unique letters from team name(13):
C-E-R-U-L-A-N-K-H-O-B-I-T
I am not sure we need a rule about how many items can be found in a book. We have lots of categories to look for and lots of letters and for those people who only read 2-3 books a month they will need to be able to find as many as they can in a book to complete a letter. With 15 categories, there are potentially 195 entries to be found if you want to complete all letters. If I read my usual 30 books/month, I would need 7 words from each book to complete all letters.
Good idea.We can start new thread where we all can follow our progress.
How about we also add series as category?
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Good idea.We can start new thread where we all can follow our progress.
How about we also add series as category?"
It would make me have to pay attention to what series I am reading. I usually only make sure I am reading them in the right order and sometimes GR doesn't have the series listed.
To bad I've read all Cleo Coyle's Coffeehouse mystery books where main character is Claire Cosi. ☺As for location/setting are we looking for town/country or it can be street, building, restaurant,...?
I was trying to be general to fit almost any letter. I was thinking more of city/state/country/town/continent when I suggested it, but it could be a specific building like coffee shop or a field, farm, ranch, mountains... I think it should be where significant action in the story takes place though and not just some random restaurant or house the characters visit.
Tea- Do you want me to transfer your page for Scattergories to a Google Spreadsheet to keep track or have you made up one already that you are going to use?
Turtlecollector wrote: "Tea- Do you want me to transfer your page for Scattergories to a Google Spreadsheet to keep track or have you made up one already that you are going to use?"I don't have page to transfer. ☺ I just draw that table in fireworks (I was little bored). I'm leaving spreadsheeting to you. ☺
We can start new sheet (we don't have enough of them ☺), just to track books, but I was thinking of starting new thread like Hobbit games where everyone can keep track of their books and items found.
Example:
Player: Tea
Letter: C
Author:
Title:....
Next post:
Player: TC
Letter: H
...
Next post:
Player: TC
Letter: E
...
I can make it look almost exactly like your picture. Do you think it might be easier to have a separate spreadsheet with tabs for each person for this game since there are so many letters that it might be hard to keep scrolling through one page to find everyone?I like the idea of a separate thread for posting the items found. Our main thread does get confusing sometimes when trying to sort out which books go where. Sometimes I just go to their team shelf to figure it out.
Do with spreadsheet as you think it's best. I'll just be filling it in.You actally check books thread? ☺ I gave up on that very quicky. I check books only on their team & read shelf. ☺
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Do with spreadsheet as you think it's best. I'll just be filling it in.You actally check books thread? ☺ I gave up on that very quicky. I check books only on their team & read shelf. ☺"
For updating totals on spreadsheet I do just use the shelves. I meant for the June book list when putting things into the categories they listed for the book. Lately I just use their shelf and figure out the categories for myself and then look at the post to see if I missed something. If you started doing that awhile ago you were smarter than me.
Turtlecollector wrote: " If you started doing that awhile ago you were smarter than me. "Nah, just lazy to go through thread. ☺
I say we definitely need a seperate thread dedicated solely to book/category posting.In regard to Scattegories, why not make it that the team which completes the most letters gets the BAP (as afore mentioned, slow readers could aim for one letter and faster readers can aim for more).
Also, should the letters be exclusive (each letter can only be used once) or can multiple members do one letter?
Here is a spreadsheet for August Scattergories. See if there needs to be changes. I was thinking we could list the books read along the bottom and then just put the word and # of book in the grid above. Each player has their own tab.I think it is easier this way than trying to scroll through one tab on the main spreadsheet.
August Scattergories
Jojiwoji wrote: "I say we definitely need a seperate thread dedicated solely to book/category posting.In regard to Scattegories, why not make it that the team which completes the most letters gets the BAP (as afo..."
Multiple players can do same letter. It's not going to be typical Scattergories since you can do 2 items for one letter, than go to next letter and if you find something for first one go back.
Should we make rule that we can't use same book for more than one letter?
Good work on spreadsheet TC
If a book can only be used for one letter, will they be able to switch letters? What if they read another book and discover they can get more of a different letter completed with the second book and want to change their letter?I think the goal is to get them to read books, but I think better to allow two letters per book. Then slower readers could maybe complete more than one letter and feel like they contribute more.
Is it time to get more input from the team now that we have the general idea done?
Yeah, sure, ask rest of the Hobbits so we can go to Mods with our game. You or me?OK I'm little paranoid that if we give them too much choices we won't finish the challenge. I know we will read 75 books I'm just afraid we won't be able to fit them all. As I said, paranoid. ☺
Good point, we won't probably fit every book we read. You can do it now or I can do it later tonight after work.
Thanks for posting the game in the main thread, Tea. I totally got distracted by my book last night and forgot.
Turtlecollector wrote: "Thanks for posting the game in the main thread, Tea. I totally got distracted by my book last night and forgot."No problem. I'm having trouble with my books. I've started few of them because nothing looks interesting enough. :( Anything interesting you can recommend? ☺
So, spreadsheet is updated, or better to say all except Melissa - I wasn't sure about that '3 books on cur-read' thing.
Her books are counted on the shelf when she adds a read date to them, but she doesn't change them from her currently-reading shelf to her read shelf until she updates all her other challenges. I put that note there as a reminder to check when comparing her read shelf to her team shelf.
I have all day off tomorrow and can update the Hobbit game totals then so everybody can get their last minute books finished tonight.
It's my regret to inform you that I have decided to step down from my role as co-captain.Firstly is the fact that I have not been contributing much of late. There is a lot more work involved then I first anticipated, and I have been finding it a bit difficult to keep up. I have no idea how the team is doing with the second stage of the mini challenge, and feel like you two are doing very well running and organising the team on your own, and I am unneeded.
The other reason is that I am simply becoming more and more busy with study and real life. These days I have less and less free time on the Internet in general, let alone goodreads. I have been keeping up with the threads, but not posting, and I have not opened the spreadsheet in close to a week.
I know that the timing is terrible after Karen left, we have gone from having four captains to having two. I will still be available to cheer on the team, lend a hand or weigh in my opinion, but without the official 'co captain' title hopefully there will be less responsibility.
I greatly enjoyed working with you and will, of course continue to be an active member and reader for the team.
I'm sorry to hear that Jojiwoji. :(You were great partner and we'll miss you.
You can't predict RL.
If you change your mind in future, we are here. ☺
Wanna look for chunksters? We have 12 bouncies to exchange. ☺
Jojiwoji wrote: "It's my regret to inform you that I have decided to step down from my role as co-captain.Firstly is the fact that I have not been contributing much of late. There is a lot more work involved the..."
You will be missed as a captain. I am glad that you will still be a part of our team, though. As Tea said, if you change your mind or find yourself with more time, you will be welcome back.
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Wanna look for chunksters? We have 12 bouncies to exchange. ☺"Sure, I think we should start with Melissa's books since she was the one who did most(all?) of those puzzles. I am horrible at finding differences in pictures.
Is Karen taking herself out of the main page or is she going to leave her books and we will still count them like Gemma?
Turtlecollector wrote: "❀Tea❀ wrote: "Wanna look for chunksters? We have 12 bouncies to exchange. ☺"Sure, I think we should start with Melissa's books since she was the one who did most(all?) of those puzzles. I am hor..."
Should we start with books more than 500 pgs? More likely to find word counts that will confirm them?
So far members with books over 450 pgs:(I have written list of specific books to add later)Melissa-6
Dee-1
Sanz-3
md-0
Ezi-7
Jordan-2
Jenny-4
Jojiwoji-4
Turtlecollector wrote: "Is Karen taking herself out of the main page or is she going to leave her books and we will still count them like Gemma?"Karen will withdraw completely. We won't be able to count her books. Unless Mods decide differently.
Turtlecollector wrote: "So far members with books over 450 pgs:(I have written list of specific books to add later)"Why I'm not surprised you have a list. ☺
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Turtlecollector wrote: "So far members with books over 450 pgs:(I have written list of specific books to add later)"Why I'm not surprised you have a list. ☺"
Just did it right now on a break from reading so I don't have to search through their shelf again to find the right book. Only those 4 people so far since I trying to see how many chunksters our team reads then we can figure out how to decide which ones to submit for 'bouncie' cupcakes. I don't mind if everyone else's 'chunkster' books get submitted before mine. It will help the slower readers feel like they are participating more when they read longer books.
❀Tea❀ wrote: "Turtlecollector wrote: "Is Karen taking herself out of the main page or is she going to leave her books and we will still count them like Gemma?"Karen will withdraw completely. We won't be able t..."
I am keeping her on the spreadsheet right now so my numbers aren't off by too much and I will fix it for the Sunday Update or earlier if she removes her shelf before then. Jordan still hasn't added her shelf to the main challenge page and I will move her to where Karen is on the spreadsheet when she does.
Turtlecollector wrote: "❀Tea❀ wrote: "Turtlecollector wrote: "Is Karen taking herself out of the main page or is she going to leave her books and we will still count them like Gemma?"Karen will withdraw completely. We w..."
I've sent PM to Jordan explaining what she needs to do. As for Karen, Mods said to keep her for now at least until Jordan joins for real. I'm just not sure if Karen will be able later to leave. She said she won't be much on comp.
Mod
Moderators of Nothing but Reading Challenges wrote: "Then go ahead and have Karen leave the challenge, ❀Tea❀. You've got a list of her books, right? And we have her numbers/percent."PM sent
NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II
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I can check it early that morning before I lose access to a computer, no problem. Just wouldn't be able to check closer to when they want it and others might add books during the day.