SOS: Serious Overload of Series discussion
RIP: Dead/Expired Threads
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Goodreads Power User Summit 2016
Re-reads! What is actually going on with them? First it was someday, then it was soon and now it just seems to be floating around. It's beyond frustrating not being able to organize or track my books properly, especially as I re-read a lot.Also congrats!
I second the re-reads, somehow they never count toward my yearly read total. So frustrating. Can they have a more complete release calendar of authors we follow than just next month?
Congrats on being invited.
Congrats... Here's my peeves and maybe it's just me...Because it just happened again... The Goodreads Deals - my bookshelf is organized by "Want to Read" - I already own it, just need to read it. This deal of the day to buy a book I already have is annoying. If they could pick maybe "wishlist" and send me those deals, I'd be happy... I think Wishlist is a pretty common shelf.
Search Book window, you have to have exact spelling or title or I often get no results. It would be nice if it gave you close search results or pick options. When you are typing on a small mobile device (which often auto corrects names) it would help if it had a little intelligence behind the search engine.
New release calendar similar to Fictfact would be awesome... Might need a series you follow button added like the authors you follow.
I'll keep thinking...
Most of my peeves/complaints fall into the Librarians can fix it category (standardized naming conventions and series titles) but I'll second a couple of the above ideas:1. Better search intelligence, even authors with initialed names tend to confuse the thing.
2. New releases, 7000 shelved books and I get back 5 suggestions a month based on author, none on genre and nothing for finding new reading, just gimmie the whole list preferably broken down by week.
3. Bring back the next in series recommends, yes it was annoying when that's all there was but now I have to go to each series to see if a new book is listed because I can't find them anywhere else. I could be added as a tab like the shelves in recommendations possibly replacing overview.
4. Re-reads, I currently shuffle these back and forth from read to currently-reading and back but it screws up my challenge counts, I don't have an easy fix for this.
Congrats.My main issue at this time is the disappearance of the Discussions tab on the homepage. Because of the new update, I've bypassed the Homepage feed completely so I don't get to see what my friends are up to :0(
Y'all are the best! Thanks for all the great issues you're providing! I'm nervous about going to this thing, as thrilled as I am to get the invite, and think I'll feel better when I can go in armed with a healthy "what's up with this!?" list. Plus, I've got several group/mod issues I'll definitely bring up. The summit's not until 10/13, so keep those lists coming and I'll do my best to get some feedback for ya. :)
For me, the main pet peeves are:1.- Rereads
2.- Discussions out of home page
3.- Not honoring settings for sending to feed when you do a batch import of books.
4.- Eternal bugs: Lack of bug correction (we're on it for two years is not a professional answer).
Marisa wrote: "Not honoring settings for sending to feed when you do a batch import of books."Thanks, Marisa. Could you explain further? Not sure I understand exactly.
*re-reads*ability to set a default format/edition (for example, kindle) so that it is the edition that I see when I view a book and add to a shelf.
*ability to set which of my shelves the goodreads deals are based on, or additional preferences to determine what deals I see.
*ability to view deals IN GOODREADS, not wait for the email.
Steph wrote: "Marisa wrote: "Not honoring settings for sending to feed when you do a batch import of books."Thanks, Marisa. Could you explain further? Not sure I understand exactly."
I have my settings set to "Not sending to feed when I add books". If I add a book from goodreads site, no book appears in the feed. If I upload a csv file, however, all the new books appear in the feed.
Ah, gotcha! Thanks.
My request is for a "Go to bottom of page" link at the top of the forum / group pages. The newest button takes you to the top of the latest page. It is really annoying to flick through / scroll down past 30 or 40 posts to see the latest posts. There already is a "back to top" link so why not the reverse? Thanks
Got it, Loriidae, thanks!
Wow Steph - represent us well.I think that the home page needs to be addressed - the huge blurbs that block out all but 4 lines of reviews - and some of the blurbs are spoilery - for example - After the death of XXX, character YYY now has to look for a new love -
Power users see book blurbs repeated over and over again on the home page feed.
Most of my friends have abandoned GR or maybe I just don't see their status updates any longer - I used to be able to post an update like "I can't believe that Mac did that!" and get lots of discussion around comments. Now, sagebrush is rolling through the main feed. Nada. Nothing.
take a peek at a new thread that I had started (and GR closed down very quickly) - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Hard to keep track of what our friends are reading. I miss you all.
Half stars.
Re-reads.
Getting notifications of posts - it's wonky at the best of times.
Thanks, AH, I'll do my best! Thanks for those. :)
Go Steph!! For me, it's the app. It is the WORST app on my phone. Absolutely useless IMO and doesn't encourage me (who is always on my phone anyway) to use it and browse etc. If only they had applied the home page update to this rather than messing with the desktop one.
The clicking on reviews/comments that takes you away from home page - I have to second how annoying this is. I don't want to lose my place and have to scroll a mile down the page to pick up where I was and so I'm always reluctant to click anything now. I'd love them to go back to expanding reviews/blurbs/comments etc.
And, the discussions. Is there no way to compromise and incorporate both on the home page?
oh yes. the app has its issues. for example if I was following a long thread and I got an email notification, clicking on the link takes me to the first comment, not the 500th or whatever. I usually don't do an email click thru unless the thread is under 50 comments.so, is this an all expenses paid trip?
- The Home Page is horrible >.> Half the time I don't see what my own friends are doing but I see what they're doing on their friends' pages or what their friends are doing. It's just weird.It is not overseeable at all, it doesn't give you the updates you're actually interested in and it's a huge waste of space the way it's currently set up.
- Re-reads, absolutely!
- Another thing I noticed: once they revamped the site and their crappy new home feed went live along with the other changes they made, they also changed the "add book" to the currently-reading shelf on the home page.
Before all these updates, when I added a book to my currently reading shelf through the "add book" feature on the home page, it gave me the edition I had shelved on my to-read shelf. It only chose the default edition if I added a currently-reading book that wasn't on my TBR shelf.
Now, it always chooses the default edition instead of the one that is on the TBR shelf.
This may be a setting issue though I haven't found anything yet, but it's annoying, at least for me, because it sometimes adds the book to the shelves a second time! I recently found a couple of books I had shelved in one edition and when I added them through the home page to my currently reading shelf, whatever the default edition of the book was made its way onto my shelves as well.
(I hope this makes sense...)
Congratulations on being invited, Steph! I'm sure you'll represent us well. All these points stated already are very good points.
This is not a complaint exactly, but is there ever going to be a half star feature soon? Most of the books I read really needs a half star.
This is not a complaint exactly, but is there ever going to be a half star feature soon? Most of the books I read really needs a half star.
Preethi wrote: "This is not a complaint exactly, but is there ever going to be a half star feature soon? Most of the books I read really needs a half star. "I think that, although rereads always get the same answer: "You're going to see it", half stars always receive the same answer too: "We are not going to do it".
Eldarwen wrote: "- The Home Page is horrible >.> Before all these updates, when I added a book to my currently reading shelf through the "add book" feature on the home page, it gave me the edition I had shelved on my to-read shelf. It only chose the default edition if I added a currently-reading book that wasn't on my TBR shelf.Now, it always chooses the default edition instead of the one that is on the TBR shelf. ..."
That's not a change; it's a bug. One that has been reported multiple times and it happened before the new home page.
It should have been a simple fix, since it worked correctly before. They keep claiming that different teams work on fixes than on new develop, if so they obviously need more people working on fixes. Some things have been broken for years and some enhancements have never been completed.
Thanks for these, ladies! AH wrote: "so, is this an all expenses paid trip? "
I was surprised that it is (though I guess I shouldn't have been), but glad b/c I wouldn't have been able to go otherwise. I did find out that I've been invited as a GR moderator. Knowing that makes me feel a little less nervous b/c I'm no where near being an overall site power user. Love that I'll be able to bring our concerns to their "in your face" attention and hope to get some real, straight answers. We'll see.
you'll update us here, right? I'm not on GR as much as I used to. home page is full of sage brush and not as much fun as it used to be.
Oh definitely. :D
Deborah wrote: "Eldarwen wrote: "- The Home Page is horrible >.> Before all these updates, when I added a book to my currently reading shelf through the "add book" feature on the home page, it gave me the edition ..."Oh right! Thanks :-)
Wasn't sure what it was but either way, they should just fix it hehe.
Another cause for concern is the difficulty of new people on the site actually knowing & finding out that groups exist. And sometimes existing people are having trouble according to the Feedback Group.
We're lucky in that we haven't had a problem so far, except that interaction is way down, compared to pre-stuff-up of the home page.
I don't use the home page anymore, so tumble weeds could be rolling through & I wouldn't know. Sure miss the interaction I had with friends & members there.
YAY Steph!!!I would second what everyone has listed, ESPECIALLY the app. Being able to give 1/2 star increment ratings would be a welcome addition.
Sorry, I didn't quite get it down to 5. Here are my top 6. Most of these and many others, I've been requesting for over 5 years now. Return groups that shelved this book function to the book page.
Add/restore hover function everywhere a book cover is displayed.
Add a warning message requiring confirmation to add a duplicate edition.
Increase or remove arbitrary limits including 5000 friends, adding 100 books to a listopia, popular books by date, and most read authors.
Improve group shelves and add boolean filtering and secondary sorts to the personal shelves.
I want a search by author function that gives a list of author names as a result, not a list of books.
I second that last one for sure. The search function has been driving me nuts lately.
Got it. :) I'm really hoping I can go over everything on this list and get some real answers. We'll see.
Don't stress if they have it structured so you don't end up with any answers. I wouldn't be surprised by anything they do nowadays.
Yeah, me neither really. But, they're paying to fly us all out there, I'd hope they'd wanna hear everything we have to say.
I hope so also.
The other thing you could mention is perhaps their way of communicating with their users - The Feedback group is not the place to announce major items. There should be some sort of message on the home page or email sent out, much like Twitter, Pinterest and the other guys.
AH wrote: "The other thing you could mention is perhaps their way of communicating with their users - The Feedback group is not the place to announce major items. There should be some sort of message on the h..."Ditto this! I always seem to miss the announcements and then wonder what on earth is going on.
I very much second how they communicate and announce things. What they choose to do with and without site banner and email notices is very strange.Don't call me a bully. They need to understand that when I star rate a book, I am star rating a book. While authors and other persons certainly can be bullied, a commercial product or other inanimate objects can never be bullied by anyone or any action. My star rating a book 1-star means a typo or that however I am using the stars here on goodreads that I am 1-starring that book. A bunch of folk 1-starring a book are a bunch of folk 1-starring a book, whatever that means to them, — and could mean a consumer boycott (possibly even a consumer boycott due to author behavior or publicly stated beliefs). Even a consumer boycott is not bullying a book, it's just a protected consumer right. If an author is being bullied or attacked, say that and report every part of that attack to site support because TOS prohibits personal attacks; if the result of bullying an author, do also report any resulting attempts to game the system by ratings or whatever. Books cannot be bullied. I was not bullying any author (contrary to what site support told me when destroying that shelf) when I shelved my peer-to-peer comuputer networking study books on a P2P shelf -- at the time, I was using P2P to mean Peer-to-Peer and didn't even know what "pulled to publish" was nor did I knowingly have any pulled to publish books on that shelf or consider "pulled to publish" necessarily a negative thing if I had had a pulled to publish shelf.
Work on the current perception that goodreads, definitely on home page feed, is now more for Amazon to highlight more books, book promotion and for authors to connect with marketing targets than how it used to be for reader interaction, reader provided content and almost all not opted into marketing contact was considered basked commercial content to be flagged as spam.
No opt-out changes, ever. I'm sure lots of people love the goodreads deals and are happy to subscribe to them, but all 20+ million goodreads members should not have been auto-subscribed. When they changed how we connected with authors, they should have let us choose to friend and advertise followed authors on our profile page -- goodreads has no right to friend people for me and absolutely not for members under 18 or with private profiles where such friendship reveals data they chose to keep private (plus how they unaddressed bugs from that change that are still ongoing...).
The overall perception that hearing from our friends and followed reviewers is the last thing they want; shown in every change on home page and updates feed. I want to hear what my goodreads bestie has to say in our buddy read, not see a bunch of mixture book advertisements for the book.
If I mark a book shown in a sponsored ad on my feed or in my recommendations as "not interested" -- it really does mean I'm not interested in that book. Stop flooding my feed with that book and others based on it -- it's hard enough to see posts from my friends on the new updates feed without all the books pushed at me. It's almost like how we're never supposed to unsubscribe or in any way reply to spam because it tells the spammer "live one, spam more" when you click not interested with goodreads then increasing how much sponsored stuff you see.
If clicking "not interested" doesn't get interpreted as "not interested" -- label it whatever does happen when you click.
Thye need to change the perception that what updates have been priority have zero to do with us readers, least of all what we have to say, non-book-promotional suggestions we make, bugs that have been acknowledged but not addressed if not impacting promotions/authors/commercial-interests.
Goodreads has a multiple year bug with random ratings and books appearing or disappearing from "My Books" -- I no longer trust my book catalog here between that bug and their 2013 decision to remove entire shelves if deemed offensive to author (without even asking what the reader shelving meant by seemingly innocuous abbreviations like "123" or "abc" -- and even in cases where they reverse their decision after being lobbied that shelf "xyz" meant whatever they won't restore your "xyz" shelf). Seriously, I keep reimporting a favorite shelf so book compsrison's work and keep my currently reading going but no longer track books here.
Like mentioned above, "Want to Read" "To Read" "To Be Read" and "TBR" shelf names do not mean interested in buying/getting these books -- sometimes just means have bought but not read yet (or that we entered a giveaway and failed to opt-out of the tiny checkbox that put book on "To Read" shelf). I know how much goodreads marketing likes touting the "want to read / to read" but that's not always a wishlist shelf.
Other sites manage to let you specify which shelves are wishlist, which are planning to read, etc.
They need to stop interpreting our shelf names. If they want to know which are wishlist shelves, make that an option to check. If they want to know if something like "Due to Author" means a much admired author seminal for interesting you in reading, a genre, a cause, et. al. or if it means "consumer boycott" because of objectionable author behavior or defective commercial product (aka a bad book) -- if they have to know and will censor which shelves we can have then should give us a feature to mark shelves as negative/positive, would-recommend/would-not-recommend, read/boycott or whatever.
Let authors, publishers and data feeds set an official genre for the book. Or communicate to authors better that they need to create a custom shelf name for their book's genre and shelve the book accordingly to eventually crowdsource it into the genre.
I'm not sure goodreads communicates any better to authors than to us readers beyond "sure, we'll work on that" to any book promotion suggestions they make. Many still get so extremely angry at their new covers not showing on author pages, series and search results -- when all they have to do is just set the new cover as the primary / default with one click. Many get so angry when a book is rated "I liked it" -- not always just because angry at anything less than 5-star but because they don't seem to understand that the suggested scale here is one star less than on Amazon plus readers have always been able to use the stars for whatever.
It's way past time for goodreads to have better FAQs or even a Beginner's Guide for all site members and for authors.
I wouldn't mind having community reviews display in random order with a button to re-randomize.
Huge difference in how they respond to author feedback group suggestions and how they lately have responded (or not) in regular feedback threads.
Don't pretend that we overwhelmingly asked for a change we didn't. It's insulting. If a large group or survey said that, say that a large group or survey said that. There are hundreds of suggestions and bugs repeated over and over in what goodreads still tells us is where those should be made, the feedback group. Not unlikely that some change suggested several hundred times in feedback group with supportive discussion posts might actually be a change more frequently asked for.
Their site so they can change whatever -- but don't try to convince us we wanted it and had been clamoring to have it unless you have publicly viewing suggestions or publicly shared detailed survey respondent and data supporting. It's insulting.
Not unlikely a change aiding authors in book promotions would be made by authors or that a change aiding readers in cataloging their reading came from readers -- don't insult us by claiming some change made after publicly reassuring authors you would be increasing ways for them to connect with readers that did just that (like the one friending authors for us without asking or adding sponsored books to the update feed after shortening it where we already saw less reader provided content) was one overwhelmingly requested by site members. Sure, we'd love lots of better connection options to authors and to each other if we choose to connect -- but, no one I interact with and no non-author-originated feedback thread was wanting more ways for authors to connect and market books to site members not opting into compared to the number of feedback threads wanting things like re-reads, better shelf options, fix this bug, improve this navigation, put discussions tab back on home thread, ...
Sandra wrote: "...interaction is way down, compared to pre-stuff-up of the home page. ..."Amen. Goodreads is getting a perception of every new change being a deliberate attempt to decrease member interactions and content while endlessly spotlighting commercial products aka books.
Deborah wrote: "Sorry, I didn't quite get it down to 5. Here are my top 6. Most of these and many others, I've been requesting for over 5 years now.
Return groups that shelved this book function to the book page..."
100% agree to all Deborah mentioned.
And yes to all Debbie's points as well.
Thanks for those, I'll share all that I can while there.
I wish they'd consider letting us pick which shelf/shelves got used for some features. Many features that use the "want to read" button ("to read" shelf) are useless, annoying or just a bunch of noise on the feed, emails and recommendations -- but some features could see a better reception and ROI if we could choose the shelf.For example, as mentioned upthread, it's really pretty useless to try and sell/promote books to us that we've already bought just because we shelved "to read."
Steph wrote: "Thanks for those, I'll share all that I can while there."Thanks for asking for our suggestions and Good Luck!
The To Read shelf is so useless that I'm moving everything on it to my Owned Not Read Yet shelf. Soon it will be empty, not a mean effort as there was 3780 books on it.I've always owned everything on my To Read shelf, anything not owned was on the Wishlist shelf or Ordered shelf.
But as Debbie said they kept offering me books that I already owned which was highly annoying.
Sandra wrote: "The To Read shelf is so useless that I'm moving everything on it to my Owned Not Read Yet shelf. Soon it will be empty, not a mean effort as there was 3780 books on it.I've always owned everythin..."
I created an exclusive shelf called "another to read" for books I own or the library has or I have access to another way. To read is now only for books I want to get notices for if there is a giveaway.
:) I hear ya Deborah!
I second the discussion thread going back on the home page. I'm missing topics and have to rely on my daily email summary to catch interesting topics. Days I don't have time to read the summary, I'm missing out... Has to have an impact on participation by members of your SOS group. Especially if they don't opt in to the daily email summary. I mainly check because I don't want to miss the Bingo announcement.
I get the daily summary but rarely read it cause its just too darn long. Even skimming it takes forever. It's quicker for me to go to the threads, though I miss out alot of who's reading what :(
Sandra wrote: "I've always owned everything on my To Read shelf, anything not owned was on the Wishlist shelf or Ordered shelf.."Same. That's the shelf I use as my 'own/wanna read' shelf.
SOS: Serious Overload of Series
Authors mentioned in this topic
Susan Ee (other topics)Susan Ee (other topics)
Gail Carriger (other topics)
GR said "... love to hear from you about ways we can make Goodreads an even better experience."
I need a healthy list for them. I know we're all unhappy about more than one thing, but, if ya would, post a list here of your top 5 issues, questions and concerns for me to share with TPTB.
And, if you're going as well, lemme know so we can meet there. :)