Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion
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Favorite group feature and suggestions for revisions!
I love the Thursday check ins. I also love the threads for each task and the I'm finished thread. One thing I'd love is if the books for each month could be chosen a bit more ahead of time. Often they are newer books that win the poll and I can't get a library copy in time to participate. Perhaps if we chose books for a couple of months at a time or something? Like when the list comes out for next year, polls to determine the first three months of choices?
But really, I love this group. I tend to falter with reading challenges halfway through the year and this group has definitely kept me going. I've also read more five star books than in any other year.
No problems with Goodreads, or with this group. I am really enjoying this group. I like the Thursday check-ins. I think I like to see what other people are reading. Even the threads on the main board for this group, are extremely helpful.This is my first time doing a reading challenge! I've been loving it so far. I am going to have LOTS of issues picking my "top five" reads this year. I've read amazing books during 2017.
I thought the group was pretty good as is. I think my only qualm is that for reading lists, advanced and regular were split off into two different threads. I treated the challenge like it was all one big thing, so I ended up just posting my whole list to the regular challenge thread. I didn't really want two lists to keep track of in two different threads. Maybe the solution is a 3rd thread for those of us combining? That way those who like it separate, or who are only doing the main challenge don't feel pressured.
My favorite things are the weekly check-ins and the suggestion posts. I'm interested in using the Challenges feature that would use a dedicated shelf in our profiles and and it tells you how many you've read towards this specific challenge and tells you your pacing.
You do a good job with locking discussion posts, moving things in to an archive folder, and keeping things clean! Thanks for running the group!
I also love the group! My only complaints are basically app/site and size based so nothing you can do about it :) I just hate how everything seems to get lost in the shuffle. I'd love to feel like I connect with a few other members more often but it's such a big group that without the "subthread" style you can have in things like Facebook you have to read and scroll through so many comments to keep any sort of conversation going.
Tara wrote: "I also love the group! My only complaints are basically app/site and size based so nothing you can do about it :) I just hate how everything seems to get lost in the shuffle. I'd love to feel like ..."Yes, I feel your pain. This italicizing thing goodreads does it dumb. And I never know if someone writes back or addresses me. :/
Yes! And you can't even do that on the app 🙄 but Sara you do an awesome job keeping it neat and archiving etc
I love being part of this group and I have used other people's readings as recommendations and have loved many of them! I was wondering how Goodreads has "shelves" and if we could develop our own with our recommendations for each prompt, rather than a thread with lists. That way if multiple people liked a book, it would be shelved more times.
This is my third year doing the PopSugar challenge, but my first year being in this group...one thing I REALLY love about this group are the challenge prompt threads...there have been a few prompts that I had no idea what I was going to read and I just browsed through those threads and found books I would have never thought of reading
The Thursday check-ins are my favourite too! I really look forward to seeing what everyone else has been reading and sharing the books I liked (or not!).I don't know whether this is possible but can the "start here" folder move up in the page at all? I didn't discover it (and some of the other features of the group) until a few months into the challenge because it's so far down. I think it would be good for newbies next year.
Overall though I really enjoy being part of this group so keep up the good work guys!
The Thursday check-ins are by far my favorite thing. They keep me motivated and have given me lots of great book ideas! It's a great community of readers.I agree with Chinook about the book-of-the-month selections. If we can choose them 2-3 months out (ex. choose the November or December book in September) that would help.
Sarah wrote: "I don't know whether this is possible but can the "start here" folder move up in the page at all? I didn't discover it (and some of the other features of the group) until a few months into the challenge because it's so far down. I think it would be good for newbies next year..."Well, this I took care of :) The "start here" folder is now near the top. At some point I will try to go in and revise the information contained in it, but at least for now it will be easier to find :) Thanks for suggesting that! I have been a member for several years so hadn't really given that much thought :)
As with others, I really enjoy this group, especially the weekly check ins! I like seeing what others choose (and why) for different prompts, and I've discovered some wonderful reads as well. In fact, I think I am the reason so many of this year's challenge readers rediscovered the joys of Agatha Christie (I suggested At Bertram's Hotel early on as a book set in a hotel -- and next thing I know readers have fallen in love with Christie and are hunting others to fill prompts!). I think a nice added regular feature that could be there all year long is a thread where you post suggestions you have for future challenge prompts - and include examples of books that would fulfill that prompt. I've been keeping a list on my smartphone as they occur to me during the year - it's quite long at this point!
I wish the GR app had more of the features that the website does, especially the easy add book/author. As for the group, I like using the Google spreadsheet that I downloaded during last year's challenge from the other (now defunct I believe) Pop Sugar group, and wish the link to it could be pinned at the top of this group's home page. I've persuaded several friends who are participating into using it, but I keep having to resend them the link...personal pet peeve, I know!
I personally have a dedicated shelf for my challenge reads - maybe if there were a way to share it?
And last, if there was some way to be able to search for book mentions in the weekly check-ins....sometimes I'd like to go back to revisit what someone said about a book, don't remember who or when, just that it was during a weekly check-in...scrolling through hundreds of posts just isn't in the cards.
Chinook wrote: "One thing I'd love is if the books for each month could be chosen a bit more ahead of time. Often they are newer books that win the poll and I can't get a library copy in time to participate. Perhaps if we chose books for a couple of months at a time or something? Like when the list comes out for next year, polls to determine the first three months of choices?"This was the reason we started picking the books about a month in advance. You aren't the only one who has had difficulty getting books in time - even with that change!
I'm ok with changing this up some. Maybe do a quarterly nomination session for the next 3 months? It would be no big deal for me to do it at those intervals. Something for the group to consider. Maybe I will make a poll to get opinions on what people would prefer!
Sheri wrote: "I thought the group was pretty good as is. I think my only qualm is that for reading lists, advanced and regular were split off into two different threads. I treated the challenge like it was all o..."Obviously Popsugar is in charge of how the list is published, BUT I completely get what you are saying. When the 2018 list comes out (assuming they do something similar) we can determine the best way to post the lists. I think maybe just a general "post your lists" topic where you can add in whichever portions you are doing. That way there's one place to look for lists, but no one is under obligation to do more than they want. We can revisit this once we have next year's list. Last year it came out in, I think, mid-November.
Tara wrote: "I also love the group! My only complaints are basically app/site and size based so nothing you can do about it :) I just hate how everything seems to get lost in the shuffle. I'd love to feel like I connect with a few other members more often but it's such a big group that without the "subthread" style you can have in things like Facebook you have to read and scroll through so many comments to keep any sort of conversation going..."This is near the top of my own personal wish list. It would make it so much easier to continue conversations and keep it all straight! Maybe I need to visit the moderator's group to see if something like this is in the works. I will let you know if I find out anything!
Sara wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I don't know whether this is possible but can the "start here" folder move up in the page at all? I didn't discover it (and some of the other features of the group) until a few months..."Oh, thank you! Glad I could help.
Theresa wrote: "I think a nice added regular feature that could be there all year long is a thread where you post suggestions you have for future challenge prompts - and include examples of books that would fulfill that prompt. I've been keeping a list on my smartphone as they occur to me during the year - it's quite long at this point!"I've been keeping a list of my own as well! I had planned to put up a thread later in the year where we can start collecting ideas so maybe I will just start it sooner rather than later :)
Theresa wrote: "I wish the GR app had more of the features that the website does, especially the easy add book/author. As for the group, I like using the Google spreadsheet that I downloaded during last year's challenge from the other (now defunct I believe) Pop Sugar group, and wish the link to it could be pinned at the top of this group's home page. I've persuaded several friends who are participating into using it, but I keep having to resend them the link...personal pet peeve, I know!"This is something I think I will try to make easier to find for next year's challenge. I can post a spreadsheet and have it pinned near the top of the discussion list for easy access. In the past it's always been a random post where someone shares their own creation, but it's really hard to keep up with that. An improvement for 2018 for sure!
Johanna wrote: "I was wondering how Goodreads has "shelves" and if we could develop our own with our recommendations for each prompt, rather than a thread with lists. That way if multiple people liked a book, it would be shelved more times."We used to have shelves for the various prompts in the past. Juanita, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there was a discussion early this year or late last year about whether they were worth setting up. I never used them, but I seem to recall it being said that it was a lot of work to set up and they weren't used that much. Something to revisit later this year maybe.
I love this group too and it is well moderated! Kudos!I would like to see what people read in a better format than the threads...like someone suggested the shelves, but you wouldn't be able to see how many people "selected" that book. (I love seeing data...) A poll would work but maybe that would be too cluttered if we posted a poll for every prompt. It would also be confusing with the BotM selection poll.
Sara wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I think a nice added regular feature that could be there all year long is a thread where you post suggestions you have for future challenge prompts - and include examples of books t..."Yes! And last year I actually emailed my suggestion list (as well as imploring them to repeat in 2017) to the Pop Sugar folks -- and several of this year's prompts were on my list emailed to them. I'm planning to do the same thing this year - maybe this week, actually.
This was my first year participating, and I really love the group! Thank you, mods!I love the weekly check-ins. Probably too much - sometimes I find myself neglecting my other challenges because I want to have more read for the PopSugar check-in. Oops.
The only suggestion I would second is adding a progress bar at the top for people with a dedicated challenge shelf. It would be nice to see at a glance where I'm at without having to open my spreadsheet.
I think it'd be really useful if we could maintain a list of suggested books for each topic. I know we have topics for each prompt, but it can be a lot to actually read through each and every post to get book ideas. Maybe a master post somewhere with suggestions for each prompt that just list the book title and author's name, and then we can browse the individual topics for more in-depth info on each suggestion?
First, the mods of this group are awesome and you guys do a great job! Ok, the things I use the most: the weekly check in is seriously a highlight of my week. I love seeing what everyone is reading and what they liked. It gives me motivation to hurry up and finish stuff on wednesday nights so I can have more to report on thursday!
I love the individual prompt threads because I get so many ideas. Honestly, there have been times when I was dreading a prompt and then I go read the thread and someone will suggest a new way of thinking about it and it completely changes my opinion. *That said, like others, I think it would have been better to have the regular and advanced challenge prompts all under one category rather than separate*.
I participate in the general discussions from time to time, but I almost never participate in the individual book discussions. Just not my thing; I'm not in a real life book club mainly because that aspect just doesn't appeal to me.
I don't use the reading lists. I don't like to plan out in advance what I'm going to read for each prompt beyond some general brainstorming, and even after I read a book, it can be weeks or months before its prompt has been assigned. I don't like reading through them either. There's just too many, and it's too cumbersome to use as a way to find ideas for a particular prompt. So that's a feature I don't use, but I'm probably the only one who doesn't.
I don't do the monthly books, for a couple reasons. One, I have often already fulfilled the prompt chosen for that month. Two, the book chosen is often not my taste. Neither of those are things you can do anything about.
Most of things I don't use in this group are just not my thing rather than being things that are inherently flawed. I just thought I would share so you had a more holistic picture.
PS: If you have any sway over the Popsugar people can you please convince them not to do the separated list portions thing next year? It's so much simpler if there's just a single list! If people aren't up for all 52, they can just chose which things they do want to finish, no pressure. Having a regular and an advance list was just goofy.
Oh I will add though that I appreciate the reading list threads for one thing: they keep people from posting their entire list in the weekly updates each week. That would get old real quick.
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I love the individual category-specific posts in the beginning of the year when we are all busily looking up ideas for categories, but I don't go back to them much at this time of year. But I do sometimes, if I need some late-in-the-game inspiration!
I really like how this group has EVERYONE's lists all together in one post (in AtY, which I did last year but not this year, I often forgot to go back and update my list because I couldn't find it!). I like laying out my full list in that one place, and then going back and updating it later. Early in the year, I look at other people's lists, but as the year goes on, I stop looking. (I do hope that Popsugar doesn't split the list into two like they did this year, though - I treat it as one list of 52 books and it was annoying having to remember "was this on the "regular" list or the "advanced" list?" when I went back to look for a post for that topic.) Last year a Popsugar rep hung out with us for a little while to get our feedback, if she comes back we can tell her this!!
I can take it or leave it with bookshelves, I don't use them much.
I like that we have a monthly read, I really like the book club aspect, but I usually don't participate because it doesn't synch with what I'm reading at that time, so I don't have strong feelings about how it's set up. I'm a big library user, so I might participate in that more if the choices are moved up - it makes it easier to get hold of library copies.
I am glad to see the Star Here folder move up :-) I often wondered if that was hard for "newbies" to find, but I think I have been here since the start, so when I started, it WAS at the top!
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YES!! this is SO annoying, Goodreads!! Get it together! you are a social media site, now act like it!!
Often I have something I want to say to a comment, but I don't want to clog up the post the next day with this old comment so I just don't post it ...
But I know this is out of your control, Sara :-)
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I also keep a list of my ideas for future years! That is a good idea, we can all bounce ideas off of each other, and have them all set for when Popsugar comes calling for our ideas!
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I love the Thursday checkins but sometimes I don't feel connected as a community. I would encourage some form of more community building and interaction between members. Not sure how you would accomplish this within Goodreads though.
Tanelle - one thing that might work is having buddy reads? A lot of us probably have overlap on our lists, so we could do smaller buddy reads in addition to the monthly group reads? Other groups I'm in do this.
Weekly check-ins are also my favorite, and a good motivator when I'm feeling lazy.I don't mind the list being split so much. I remember last year, half of us wanted MOAR BOOKS! and the other half went EEEK! I don't have time for more books! The busy people didn't think they would even attempt the challenge at all if it went to 52 books, because not finishing something gives many people a lot of anxiety. So Popsugar split the list, which I thought was a nice compromise. If I have to click back and forth a few extra times so people with less time to read can enjoy the challenge too, I'm good with that.
Nicole wrote: "I think it'd be really useful if we could maintain a list of suggested books for each topic. I know we have topics for each prompt, but it can be a lot to actually read through each and every post ..."
Sara wrote: "We used to have shelves for the various prompts in the past. Juanita, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there was a discussion early this year or late last year about whether they were worth setting up. I never used them, but I seem to recall it being said that it was a lot of work to set up and they weren't used that much. Something to revisit later this year maybe."
I really liked the bookshelves and used them often, but not many people did. Of course, the group was MUCH smaller then. I was sad when they were disabled. They were super handy.
*Carries sign on a stick and marches back and forth*
Bring back the bookshelves! Bring back the bookshelves!
Nadine wrote: "Sara - I've got one comment now: this post is now in its own "general" folder instead of in the big "General" folder w all other general posts. Took me a while to find this post again! Can you grou..."Nadine I understand completely and it was bugging me too! The problem is that I had already sent out a link to the thread before I started rearranging things. I didn't want to move that thread and have a barrage of emails from people saying the link wasn't working :) Goodreads only allows us moderators one broadcast message per day. So I will be moving that thread today and will send a new thread link to everyone :)
The "Listopia" function on Goodreads might be a better option instead of Shelves for each prompt. I'm not exactly sure how curating Shelves within a Group works but there are no rankings or voting within a Shelf. Anyone can add items to a List and vote on the books already added to the Listopia list. The higher the "score", the closer to the top of the list it goes. The only major downside that I can see with Listopia lists lies in the fact that they are truly public and anyone can add books to them even if they don't qualify for the prompt and, as far as I can tell, the only person who can remove a book is the original adder. Voting will likely cause these books to drop to the bottom but it's still an issue.Here's a test one I put together in just a few minutes starting with the books listed in the discussion thread and my personal additions.
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
I really love the book recommendation threads. They couldn't be more helpful!
Michelle wrote: "The "Listopia" function on Goodreads might be a better option instead of Shelves for each prompt. I'm not exactly sure how curating Shelves within a Group works but there are no rankings or voting ..."That would work so well if only they would allow me to lock it down so only group members can add!
I love this group and the challenges, it makes reading even more fun! I don't have any complaints. I love the threads to find ideas for the categories. Thanks for all that you do! I have been reading that people wish there was a shelf on Goodreads that tracked your progress in the challenge. Is this real or is this something that may happen? I would LOVE that. I keep a document where I list all the challenge prompts and what books I am reading for it and then mark them as completed. If this could be done on Goodreads somehow that would be amazing.
Theresa wrote: "I have been reading that people wish there was a shelf on Goodreads that tracked your progress in the challenge. Is this real or is this something that may happen?"Its real - its the challenge feature. It doesn't go as far as keeping track of what prompts you use the book for. But it tracks your progress with how many books you add to that dedicated shelf. So if you told it that you wanted to read 52 books for the challenge, it would tell you your pacing based on the end date of the challenge.
One of my other groups uses it and its neat. You just have to remember to add the completed books to the shelf when you're done so it updates :)
I liked having shelves. Another group I was in had shelves and what we did for each prompt was to shelve our book once we had read it. Doesn't help so much in the beginning, but as time goes on, there will be quite a few books to choose from for those who need some suggestions for a prompt.I liked the threads for each prompt as well. I think our moderators have done a great job in trying to make the site easy to use.
This is my first year participating on Goodreads or in any reading challenge, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I think the group is set up really well. I also love the weekly check-ins, although I often end up adding way too many books to my TBR after reading through the check-ins each week.
Megan wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I have been reading that people wish there was a shelf on Goodreads that tracked your progress in the challenge. Is this real or is this something that may happen?"
Its real - its the challenge feature. It doesn't go as far as keeping track of what prompts you use the book for. But it tracks your progress with how many books you add to that dedicated shelf. So if you told it that you wanted to read 52 books for the challenge, it would tell you your pacing based on the end date of the challenge."
That's really neat! I would love something like that. Is it something we can do on our own, or does it have to be implemented by the mods for each challenge you're participating in?
Michelle wrote: "The "Listopia" function on Goodreads might be a better option instead of Shelves for each prompt. I'm not exactly sure how curating Shelves within a Group works but there are no rankings or voting ..."We could always have people volunteer to do one list for each prompt so that it wasn't on one person to manage 52 listopias. I'd bet you could get 52 volunteers here.
This is a great group, I love it! I think the mods are doing an absolutely wonderful job. :)My favorites: The weekly check-ins and the threads for suggestions for each topic. I try to comment there with my ideas because I've gotten so many good ideas from others' suggestions.
Re bookshelves: I have been in groups that have them and don't find them useful. In the threads, I don't find it hard to skim through to see the book titles (if people put them in as a link, sometimes people don't), and the submitter's comments are often helpful.
Re two lists: If you can suggest to Popsugar that one list is preferable, that would be great! There's no reason things on the "advanced" list are separated -- they are certainly no more "advanced" and it just makes it more difficult to keep track of reading for the challenge.
Re suggesting prompts for next year: If we had a thread for that, would Popsugar look at it? That would be great! OH!! I just looked and see there is one now. I will use it!
Re yearly members' challenge reading lists: I haven't used that because I discovered the Popsugar challenge in another GR group and posted there. It was the ability to read the prompt suggestions in this group that brought me here. Next year I'll use this group to post my Popsugar list.
Thank you again for making this such a smoothly running, fun, useful and informative group!
Commenting again to add something I forgot to write the first time - I agree that it would be nice if the Popsugar challenge was just one list this year, but it's also understandable if they want to keep it separate so that more people don't get scared off by the longer list. If they do keep it separated, I really like the ideas above about just having one thread where we keep track of our lists, regardless of whether we're doing the longer/regular list, the shorter/advanced list or both. I think it would be much easier to navigate just one page instead of going back & forth between the two.
Megan wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I have been reading that people wish there was a shelf on Goodreads that tracked your progress in the challenge. Is this real or is this something that may happen?"Its real - its ..."
Awesome! So this is different than the reading challenge prompt that I do every year right? You can have two different challenges that are being tracked?
Theresa wrote: "Awesome! So this is different than the reading challenge prompt that I do every year right? You can have two different challenges that are being tracked? ..."Yeah, this one would be tracked on the group main page and I believe is only visible on the desktop version.
Yes. You can have your own challenge plus as many group challenges as you want (though it's one per group).
Chinook wrote: "Yes. You can have your own challenge plus as many group challenges as you want (though it's one per group)."ok thanks!
I thought it would be a good idea to check in with everyone to see what they like/don't like about the group. What are your favorite features in the group? What could you live without? Do you have any suggestions for new or revised features to make the group even better?
Don't worry - no hard feelings no matter what your answers are. I just wanted to see if there are things we can tweak to make everyone's experience even better!
**Note - please refrain from posting your Goodreads app/website wish list of functions. This question is strictly from me, the moderator, about group activity. I do not work for Goodreads (though I sure wouldn't mind it!) and cannot fix those app issues that we all love to hate.
Thanks!
Sara