Tips and things about BookLikes

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

I'm grading books as I always have; the half-stars, however, are very useful for "granularity" in my ratings. On GR, half my ratings are "3" as a result of not being able to give 2.5 or 3.5, which some books have really earned.

[Silver Thistle]

I never pay attention to what the stars mean, I just figure it's the same wherever I go:
1 = hate
2 = I didn't hate it too much
3 = I thought it was ok
4 = Really liked it
5 = Loved it with a passion

The half stars for me only make a difference if I'm not sure about how I feel between the numbers. Eg: I didn't hate it totally and there were bit's I thought were ok but overall I still thought it was pretty pants/lame/boring/uninteresting/whatever = 2 and half stars.

Generally I don't use half stars though, it's usually pretty cut and dry for me. It's not a science though and everyone has differing criteria with rating.

[Ian]

Ratings are difficult. I read a book the other day which had a GR rating of 4.64 Stars...must be good you would think. Honestly it was 3 Stars, 3.5 Stars if I was generous.
I looked at the average ratings of the 30 or so reviewers...there was a significant group whose average rating was above 4.4...one whose average was 4.9 and one whose average was 5.

Some genres seem to garner higher ratings than others...new users seem to rate higher...authors seem to rate higher...a lot of people throw honesty out the door when they are reviewing and rating an ARC.

These are my guidelines...but I'm not objective, I don't analyze the quality of writing...if I like it I rate it.


★ = Awful. Recycling is too good for it. Burn it. Generally only given to books I find offensive.
★★ = Not very good. Poorly written, derivative or clichéd.
★★★ = Good. Entertaining but not outstanding (or) good but not my thing.
★★★★ = Great. A book I can't fault.
★★★★★ = Something special. That 5th Star doesn't come from my mind it comes from my heart.

I think I might need to find a prominent place to put that over at BookLikes.

[Carly]

Out of curiosity, I did a bit of datamining a few months ago on mean book ratings. Out of a sample of several thousand books, the average rating (on GR) was a 3.89. So I don't think people pay all that much attention to GR's rating definitions anyway.
It would be fun (but impossible to get the data) to see if average ratings go down as reviewers become more experienced. Mine certainly did.

**edited to replace the word "mean" with "average." I forgot about the other meaning of "mean," and considering the context, it sorta mattered.

[Ian]

What I tend to do when I'm considering a book is look at the reviewers average rating and see if they ranked the book in question higher or lower than their average. But it doesn't work with people whose average is above 4.4

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads]

Ian - you could consider adding a "page" over at Settings explaining your rating guide. (I'm considering doing something similar.)

[Carly]

Ian wrote: "What I tend to do when I'm considering a book is look at the reviewers average rating and see if they ranked the book in question higher or lower than their average. But it doesn't work with peopl..."

True. My sister's average rating is up in that range, so when I recommend a book to her and she gives it a 4, I'm always wondering if that's equivalent to my 3 or my 1.

[Bunny]

My average rating has always run high because I don't read a book if I don't have a good reason to think I'm going to like it, and if I start it and don't like it I have no problem abandoning it. So the likelihood I would ever finish a 2 is pretty small.

[Rachel the Book Harlot]

Ian wrote: "I think I might need to find a prominent place to put that over at BookLikes."

I'm not sure if you prefer the info show up on the initial blog page itself, if so this won't be very helpful, but you can add an "About Me" page and insert the info there.

ETA: Or, instead of calling the page "About Me", you can title it "Ratings Info" or something like that.

ETA2: Or what Susanna said above. Heh. Just saw that comment after I posted mine. .

[Ian]

The new page should work...I'll set one up tonight. lol...between study and the gym.

[Brenda ╰☆╮]

Silver Thistle wrote: "I never pay attention to what the stars mean, I just figure it's the same wherever I go:
1 = hate
2 = I didn't hate it too much
3 = I thought it was ok
4 = Really liked it
5 = Loved it with a passi..."

That's my way of rating.

I don't concentrate too much on how well it's written....but how it keeps my interest. Just a style.

Everyone judges a book with different criteria in mind.
:)

[Shomeret]

Half stars on Booklikes, and I didn't even have to plead for them for years! Eureka!

[~ Lei ~ Reading Is An Adventure ~]

Thanks for the tips - a bit of a challenge trying to find what I need - whenever you all suggest a great tip, I've been copying to my OneNote BookLikes page so I'll be able to reference it later. {still importing.....}

[[deleted user]]

I HATE HTML. I've spent hours trying to customize my blog, only to find out that it is impossible to change anything without using HTML. Why must it be so complicated to choose (for example) a red background and black text?

[Karma♥Bites ^.~]

Jennifer (Cogito, ergo sum) wrote: "I HATE HTML. I've spent hours trying to customize my blog, only to find out that it is impossible to change anything without using HTML. Why must it be so complicated to choose (for example) a red background and black text?"

IKR? Me, I just want to reduce my title and text font sizes. Opening the editor, thought that I only need to locate items w/in stylesheet but ... *slumps in defeat*

[Petra X]

Bunny wrote: "Everybody has their own classification, and even if we stick words on it, we're still using our own classification, because - as old discussions have pointed out more than once, people don't agree ..."

Well put.

[Charming]

[Helen]

I actually liked GR rating system...though I won't deny that I applied slightly different criteria to different kind of books.

I'm using Booklikes' half stars to adjust ratings I would have adjusted if GR had them.

To people using html in posts, particularly spoilers: You might want to check out if they work on your dashboard/"blog". (Not your blog as the other people see it, but your blog's dash.)

For example, I use spoiler button I found, but it doesn't open when on dash. It does open when the post is opened on the blog. Since most of my reviews have "read more" cut anyway, it works.
But I tried the css+spoiler combo listed here...and the spoiler is not hidden on the dashboard. (It works on the blog proper, but people following will see dash first, so...)

It could be that I'm something wrong, but I think it's just that BL HTML editor does auto-format and/or scripting of the dashboard does not agree with the personalised codes.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Helen wrote: "It could be that I'm something wrong, but I think it's just that BL HTML editor does auto-format and/or scripting of the dashboard does not agree with the personalised codes."

BL's HTML editor auto-scraps everything in a post that it doesn't recognize as HTML. That, alas, includes CSS and Javascript formatting, even if properly buttonholed by < style > tags.

There is an option in the "customize" section under "settings > blog" for entering your own customized CSS -- including importing an offsite CSS stylesheet -- but be warned, that automatically affects the appearance of your entire blog; including the page links/buttons in the menu on the side ("blog"/"shelves"/"timeline"/"website" etc.), which are essentially coded as headers (h1 or h2 level, judging by the results I got when tinkering with offsite stylesheets of my own) and the way your blog title is displayed at the top of the page (which is likewise coded as an h1 header).

This is something that's bugging me as well -- I'd like to be able to CSS-code individual blog posts without having to redo the entire code if I find I need to edit the post after I've initially saved and posted it. Anybody who can think of a way to make that happen?

[Krazykiwi]

edited: nvm, teaching grandma how to suck eggs (I missed that the parser strips inline css).

And edited a third time to add, I was right first time.

(p style="color: red; border: green 1px dashed;") works fine - so don't use (style) tags, just do inline css on the existing html tags that it already recognises, and it'll apparently apply them.

http://krazykiwi.booklikes.com/post/4...

I am having one of those days I should not be allowed to internet, I will break something.

[[deleted user]]

My main problem is that I can't have StyleBot because I'm on an iPad. I made the mistake of spending 9 bucks on Textastic, only to find that one has to have a PhD in HTML coding in order to use it.

[Krazykiwi]

Non-English books: No, BL is the only site so far to even find any of my non-english books. However, they are Swedish and a couple of German, so still latin-1 character set at least. Actually, on that point it did better than GR itself, which routinely mangles even latin-1 letters like ö.

Even if the import says it's done, give it another day before you go too mad on the covers - some of mine were still trickling in for a bit.

You can change editions on the imported books from the imports page, to one with a cover (or correct titles, if the import messed up the characters themselves.)

[Caro]

Xox wrote: "Do anyone else has this problem?

All my non English books (OK, they are Chinese and Japanese books) are all screwed up.

It take a long time for the upload (a week) and now I have to go through s..."

Same with my non-englishes. :(

[[deleted user]]

BL appears to be hosted in Poland, so they're probably a lot more familiar with non-English characters than GR's team in San Fran.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Krazykiwi. wrote: "edited: nvm, teaching grandma how to suck eggs (I missed that the parser strips inline css).

And edited a third time to add, I was right first time.

(p style="color: red; border: green 1px dashed..."

Thanks, much appreciated -- that'll at least take care of the basic things! Now I'll just need to find a way to make this (scroll down to "Reader, look not on his Picture" and mouse over one of the images to see what I mean) happen in individual posts as well ... (this is all CSS, not a line of Javascript, btw.)

Thought -- and I haven't actually had time to try whether this is going to work: Maybe plonk the required CSS into the code for the entire blog after all? It's not something that automatically affects the basic settings, such as headers and paragraphs -- essentially it's a CSS "class" piece of code. Shouldn't that mean that once I've customized the code for my entire blog, I should then be able to code the appearance of images and text spans the way I'm doing on the page linked above (do feel free to look at the source)?

ETA: Hmm, another thought. This might be another way to code spoilers, too -- as text spans coded accordingly, with the CSS either part of the span tag or with a "spoiler" class of spans and the CSS plonked into the general blog code ...

[Glamdring]

Where can you like reviews if you missed them in the general flow? It doesn't seem possible to do it from the review author's blog. Thanks.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Glamdring wrote: "Where can you like reviews if you missed them in the general flow? It doesn't seem possible to do it from the review author's blog. Thanks."

Click on the review title in the author's blog. That'll open a new page with just the review on it. There's a "like" option in the top right corner of the page. (Took me forever to figure this out as well, though.)

[Nancy from NJ]

I was just invited to join Booklikes but I am a bit confused. I think I understand that this is an alternative to Goodreads but isn't this group still part of Goodreads? What are the differences between Booklikes and Goodreads? Is this in pat because of the new censorship policy at Goodreads.

For the here and now I am very impressed that after only a few days there have been so many posts to this area.

[AH]

I can't seem to find how to put a page break in booklikes. I'm sure it is something ridiculously easy, but can someone please help? Thanks.

[Ian]

Nancy wrote: "What are the differences between Booklikes and Goodreads?"

They are different. BookLikes basically allows you to set up a blog to review books and also to shelve and organise the books you have read.
Goodreads does that but is also a social networking site. There are no groups like this one at BookLikes at the moment, although with the many thousands of Goodreads refugees rocking up on their doorstep they are scrambling to offer some similar features to Goodreads including allowing members to set up groups for specific interests.

This is a direct result of Goodreads new policy prohibiting members from discussing authors in their reviews and banning shelves that deal with author behaviour...you can read that as authors behaving badly shelves, I'm yet to hear of a case where a shelf which was a positive reflection on an author being removed.

[D.G.]

AH wrote: "I can't seem to find how to put a page break in booklikes. I'm sure it is something ridiculously easy, but can someone please help? Thanks."

It's easy. When you are editing your post, click on the icon next to HTML - the one that shows two white pages with a break.

[AH]

D.G. wrote: "AH wrote: "I can't seem to find how to put a page break in booklikes. I'm sure it is something ridiculously easy, but can someone please help? Thanks."

It's easy. When you are editing your post, c..."

Thanks! I knew it had to be easy, but they don't have a help anywhere on that page other than the email.

[Ellelou]

Themis-Athena wrote: "Glamdring wrote: "Where can you like reviews if you missed them in the general flow? It doesn't seem possible to do it from the review author's blog. Thanks."

Clieck on the review title in the auth..."

I think it's because it has changed(I might be wrong..) originally there was a solid heart icon at the bottom on the left hand side. I've noticed since yesterday that when you click on the review, you get the option to like, reblog, unfollow, dashboard on the right hand side, top of the review :

[Silver Thistle]

Ellelou wrote: "Themis-Athena wrote: "Glamdring wrote: "Where can you like reviews if you missed them in the general flow? It doesn't seem possible to do it from the review author's blog. Thanks."

Clieck on the r..."

Haha! I'm looking at that image and thinking "ooh that person has the same colours that I use on mine....hang on...I reviewed that book too....oh! It's me *blush*"

Bit slow sometimes but I get there in the end, lol.

[Terry]

I noticed something weird today after checking my shelves and trying to synch the BL version of 'favourites' with my GR shelf of the same name. It looks like three of the books on my list here didn't get imported at all despite there being no error message to the effect on my import page (and my import is complete, not in progress).

It's not too much of a hassle to re-add them (though two had reviews I'll have to copy in as well), but I wonder how widespread this issue is? Anyone else come across this issue?

(I also double-checked the csv file I used as the source for the import and the books are listed there.)

[Chrissie]

Yes, things are really messed up and missing. I am not even sure how to find all the errors, I just run into them.

I am done importing too.

[Helen]

Terry wrote: "I noticed something weird today after checking my shelves and trying to synch the BL version of 'favourites' with my GR shelf of the same name. It looks like three of the books on my list here didn..."

This happened to me too. It mostly happens with books with no ISBN, but not all of the books that don't have an ISBN. You'll recognise them by having a placeholder cover (not the green one, some red, white and green that says "Die Therapie - Sebastian Fitzek" when you hover over it; at least, that's what my placeholder looks like - could be any random book you don't have, look for cover that pops up multiple times near no-ISBN books) in the import list. Just click the "change" button next to the book and try to search for the book by name - it's possible they simply don't have your edition. When you "find" the book (the placeholder cover changes), the review for it will be uploaded as well. If you cannot find the book at all (give it a few tries), you can add a new one. Again, once the book is "confirmed" it will appear on the shelf, with reviews and all.

I have over 100 to fix...

[Petra X]

Ian wrote: "Nancy wrote: "What are the differences between Booklikes and Goodreads?"

They are different. BookLikes basically allows you to set up a blog to review books and also to shelve and organise the bo..."

Also, you can write anything you like on your blog, or post pics or cartoons or whatever. I like that.

[Robert]

Mine all came through fine, except for two - but then I realised I'd added them after making the csv file!

[Chrissie]

Helen wrote: "Terry wrote: "I noticed something weird today after checking my shelves and trying to synch the BL version of 'favourites' with my GR shelf of the same name. It looks like three of the books on my..."

I don't understand from what screen you are working. What import list? I don't see a 'change' button either.

[Helen]

Chrissie wrote: "Helen wrote: "Terry wrote: "I noticed something weird today after checking my shelves and trying to synch the BL version of 'favourites' with my GR shelf of the same name. It looks like three of t..."

If you got a mail from booklikes that your import is finished, follow the link. (If it isn't finished, better don't touch anything.)

Or go to settings(cogwheel mark)->import->import page.

There should be the list of all of the books that you imported - and a list of failures, if any. Compare with your shelf and find placeholders (imported but not recognised). To the right of the book should be the buttons to either remove the book (won't really be deleted from the list, but won't be counted as imported) or change the edition to something the BL database recognises.

[I ♥ Bookie Nookie (bookienookiereviews.blogspot.com)]

ok, got it!

why does it say I am following these people? I haven't followed anyone??

http://bookienookie.booklikes.com/fol...

[D.G.]

I ♥ Bookie Nookie wrote: "why does it say I am following these people? I haven't followed anyone??


It 'assigns' you some people so you get going. You can just unfollow them if you don't know them.

[Ann]

The whole booklikes thing throws me. I’m not the most tech savvy and it looks complicated to set up and I already keep up with Amazon/Goodreads, work, workout like a fiend and now I gottta (we’ll don’t really have to, but want to) have another site to keep up with. Whew, sounds exhausting. Really is just the tech thing that sounds overwhelming to me. Techy things make me yell bad words REALLY loudly when they don’t work right (ok, it’s really my fault they don’t but whatever) Whine…but I want to keep up with my friends because your suggestions/reviews are the only ones that count for me, so it looks like I’ll be joining the masses when I figure the damn thing out.

I really appreciate all these helpful posts, but am wondering if there aren’t still kinks to be worked out on booklikes and maybe I should wait. (Sounds like stalling, huh?) :-/

[Zafia]

@ I ♥ Bookie Nookie
That's because BL assigns x amount to a new account. You can just unfollow them.

[Ellelou]

Silver Thistle wrote: "Ellelou wrote: "Themis-Athena wrote: "Glamdring wrote: "Where can you like reviews if you missed them in the general flow? It doesn't seem possible to do it from the review author's blog. Thanks."
..."

Hahaha...is it weird that I kind of anticipated your reaction? Does that make me evil? Mwahahahah....

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

Ellelou wrote: "Hahaha...is it weird that I kind of anticipated your reaction? Does that make me evil? Mwahahahah...."

How can anything with that pretty a picture by way of an explanation ever be evil?

(And don't worry, if I ever want to cloak my mind I'll know how. ;) )

Seriously, the perfect illustration -- besides, with all the new folks signing up at the moment, these things probably can't be explained often enough anyway!

[carol.]

Ann wrote: "The whole booklikes thing throws me. I’m not the most tech savvy and it looks complicated to set up and I already keep up with Amazon/Goodreads."

Ann, I hear you. I'm only functional at the computer stuff. Remember, a lot of this post is customizing--if you want one of the three templates, then it works just fine. I think the site was overloaded but the owners are working hard to get it together. My total number of books just updated today.
The nice thing about Booklikes is that it does let you add pictures and links easily--it can let you know more about your friends than just books, and it makes the 'status update' easier to manage. I hear it's like Tumblr, which I haven't bothered to use.

And the site owner 'liked' my dog picture today. Seriously. That's rather sweet. Anyone seen Otis since the buy-out?

[Krazykiwi]

Themis-Athena wrote: "Thanks, much appreciated -- that'll at least take care of the basic things! Now I'll just need to find a way to make this (scroll down to "Reader, look not on his Picture" and mouse over one of the images to see what I mean) happen in individual posts as well ... (this is all CSS, not a line of Javascript, btw.)"

Figured that one out: wrap (img) in (a) and set a global css style for
a:hover img

Because I can't see you having any other images inside links that you don't want styled, a global custom style should be fine. Otherwise, you can set a class on the a and style that, so you can apply as you like.

global style:
a:hover img, a:hover img.withclass {height: 100%; text-align: center;}

in the html:
(a href="#")(img src="thingy.jpg" class="withclass" height="100" /)(/a)

Edited: to put the class in the right place, in case anyone else is following this.

[Ann]

Carol. Protesting GR review policy wrote: "Ann wrote: "The whole booklikes thing throws me. I’m not the most tech savvy and it looks complicated to set up and I already keep up with Amazon/Goodreads."

Ann, I hear you. I'm only functional a..."

Aww...how cute and very sweet.

Whew Carol thanks! You've made me feel a bit better about all this. After reading all these posts I was thinking if you guys are having trouble I'll be in deep doo when I try it. But sounds like the system was just overloaded. Ok, I'll work on it. It does sound fun.