Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion
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Team Reading Competition Rules
Makes sense. Then I can start with Gotm on the 1st with potential hangover instead of the 5th as planned. That's perfect since Erikson is so easy to read.
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Niki, sorry if this has been asked. How about an omnibus?? I will start Shadow And Betrayal (Omnibus of Shadow in Summer and Betrayal in Winter) on 1st of Jan. The page count is different though.Shadow in Summer in its single book is around 330 pages, while in the omnibus is 270 pages. Same goes for the other 3 books, should I just count the original single books?
That's a great adjustment Niki.With all the BRs I signed up for I was bound to start late for almost all of them because of the 3 day rule. Either that or finish very late.
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I think the rule is to use the longest version of every book you read... just stick to the language you read it in (no taking advantage of wordier languages)
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Niki Hawkes wrote: "Petrik, since those were published separately before they were released in the omnibus, Id count each as a separate book and go by the individual page count. :) I'm doing the same thing with the Jh..."ah okay! thanks, Niki! :D
Iain wrote: "Petrik wrote: "Niki, sorry if this has been asked. How about an omnibus?? I will start Shadow And Betrayal (Omnibus of Shadow in Summer and Betrayal in Winter) on 1st of Jan. The page count is diff..."Oh, noted! LOL xD don't worry, I'll stick with English for every book I read
I have decided to not take part in any challenge this year except this team challenge. Planning to read whatever catch my attention, hence I think I won't be able to take part in many discussion threads. So that means I am going to lose only bonus points but I will still be liable to gain the points that page numbers would earn me irrespective of the genre?
Manju wrote: "I have decided to not take part in any challenge this year except this team challenge. Planning to read whatever catch my attention, hence I think I won't be able to take part in many discussion th..."Same here, Manju. Don't worry, I'm the same as you. I'm not really good at Buddy Read. I love discussion at the end of the book, but not during the process of reading. I feel like a buddy read most of the time affect my thoughts too much, especially when there are a lot of negative opinion.
Petrik wrote: "I feel like a buddy read most of the time affect my thoughts too much, especially when there are a lot of negative opinion...."I agree, most of the times I end up removing a star or two while discussing the book. so better to discuss the books after reading them.
Manju wrote: "Petrik wrote: "I feel like a buddy read most of the time affect my thoughts too much, especially when there are a lot of negative opinion...."I agree, most of the times I end up removing a star o..."
I actually find that doing a buddy read often makes me give higher ratings for books as I tend to be over critical and seeing someone else's enthusiasm for a book increases my enthusiasm for it.
It depends on the book for me. Certain books I've very greatly benefited from the BRs, other times I almost tune it out because I need to just absorb it in my own headspace. It just depends =]. I find most of the time it is nice to just get to talk with others.I signed up for the challenges, but I'm SUPER low pressure with that stuff. Sometimes it helps give me a boost of motivation, but otherwise I basically read whatever I want to read, and if it fits in the challenge - then great haha. If not, it's no big deal.
Diana Stormblessed wrote: "Manju wrote: "Petrik wrote: "I feel like a buddy read most of the time affect my thoughts too much, especially when there are a lot of negative opinion...."I agree, most of the times I end up rem..."
This could happen as well of course. But let's take Age of Assassins for example. I saw that BR thread.. literally everyone in that BR gave the book a 2 or a 3. I think if people read that book without any influence whatsoever, their rating could've been even higher. Just my opinion though, I haven't read the book myself. I totally agree that people's enthusiasm would probably increase the enjoyment too, if I ever do a BR, usually it's only between me and two person at most. :D
Liam wrote: "It depends on the book for me. Certain books I've very greatly benefited from the BRs, other times I almost tune it out because I need to just absorb it in my own headspace. It just depends =]. I f..."The talking with others during the process of reading is great, I just wish my head wouldn't be influenced that much. Imagine this.. let's say you were reading Mistborn. You think you absolutely loved it, but then you BR it with 15 people and then 13 out of 15 people there kept on saying negative things about the book and why the book is awful and what's wrong with it according to them.
By reading these discussions during the process of reading, I don't think our opinion can be untarnished. I, by all means, are not saying BR is a bad thing at all and I'm super glad to see this group is probably the best when it comes to BR, in terms of discussion and scheduling especially.
Overall, I'm just saying why most of the time BR didn't work out for me and I have to be extremely selective about which books I choose to BR. :)
I have a lot of the same issues, Petrik! Which is why sometimes I don't discuss the book until I've finished it. And I've determined that reading new releases with a group, particularly ones I'm excited about, doesn't work very well for me most of the time.
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Although when everyone in the read loved the book, it can be a major geek-out. I love those. :)
Niki Hawkes wrote: "Although when everyone in the read loved the book, it can be a major geek-out. I love those."Oh yes of course! :D I think if we want a safe BR, let's just choose Sanderson's books. The majority of us are fans of his work xD
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@Manju: You should totally sign up for the challenges here, to earn easy bonus points... they're low stress, no time limit challenges, and you can just try to plug 1st books in a series into the A-Z or Book Cover challenge, and all the rest into the Incomplete Series challenge for books 2-100 in a series you've already started...
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If the book you read counts towards a Challenge in our group:
Book Points/4 = Bonus Points
8.7/4 =2.175
Rounded up to 2.2
[Always round up for bonus points]
You can only earn challenge bonus points for challenges run by FBR. Even if the book fills more than one challenge, you'll only count it once.
Total Scoring Example:
866 page book = 8.7 book points
8.7/2 = 4.4 buddy read points
8.7/4 = 2.1 challenge points
Total Points: 15.2
You rounded down to 2.1 instead of up to 2.2 there at the end...
By the way, I think this system is asking for too many math operations... why not just do
866 pages = 8.66 and then multiply by 1.25, 1.5 or 1.75 depending on if your book is a Challenge book, Buddy Read, or both?...
8.66 = 8.7
8.66 x 1.25 = 10.825 = 10.8 (challenge)
8.66 x 1.5 = 12.99 = 13 (buddy read)
8.66 x 1.75 = 15.155 = 15.2 (buddy read and challenge)
You'll probably gain or lose small amounts of points doing less math operations and roundings, but when people are going to be doing this for 50/100/250 books, that will save a lot of time... if you want to keep the bonus points round up thing, just make 10.8 a 10.9 there and people will end up with the same or slightly more points than before in most cases, I think... (8.7 x 1.25 = 10.875 = 10.9)
Arghhhh maths 🙈Is this the same as having your normal points, then adding a half or a quarter to that? If so, I think I follow. Does sound quicker.
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Posted this to the Blood Eagle thread - but this may be a nice way to automate the process:Ok - this calls for a google sheet. Nothing fancy, but helpful. Follow the link to the google sheet.
Team Tracker Challenge>Book Tracker
I can create a totals page for the teams and then create sub-pages for each person to edit on their own (I'd put the tabs in alphabetical order so you can easily find your sheet and color code the tabs by team to boot). We could have the mods able to edit each of their team members pages too.
I fixed the rounding issue so that the total points for the page/buddy read/challenge are all rounded up to the nearest 0.1 in the final calc.
For an example, check the "Rob" tab.
Thoughts?
I'm cool with adding a sheet with everyone and giving them permissions to edit their individual sheet via email.
Wow Rob! I love it! I suck at maths and it will really be a problem for me to calculate those points. I'm all in for using a track sheet like this for all teams in general and members in particular. Perhaps one member in each team could take care of updating a general team sheet with a general total based on what each of the members updates on his/her own particular sheet?
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@Laura: I think if he puts the total in the same cell on every tab, the formulas will be able to automate team totals as well... we'll just need to spot-check at some point to ensure accuracy, I'm sure... No secret Blood Eagles multiplier :D
This is excellent Rob, I hope that all teams decide to adopt this as the official process. Thank you for putting the work into it!!
I've seen discussion about page count, your main post her Nikki says the highest page count. So is it the highest page count listed or the highest page count in English?
Iain wrote: "As someone good at general math, I just like how much faster this will be...@Laura: I think if he puts the total in the same cell on every tab, the formulas will be able to automate team totals a..."
Heh - I actually protected the cells with the formulas from being changed, but hopefully, that doesn't stop you from all seeing the calculations themselves. No there is no devious little extra fraction there for the Blood Eagles ;)
For the record, I'm not that great at math but have a long background in creating projections and draft excel sheets for fantasy baseball (my side career).
Ok - everyone has a tab in the tracker sheet now. Pendra was able to ask for edit access to the sheet by contacting me directly through it. Feel free to do likewise!
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Can I just say "wow thank you" and add loads of exclamation marks for a good measure.
Niki Hawkes wrote: "That must have taken a good while to put together too - thank you Rob!!"You're welcome, everyone. Consider it my belated Xmas/Chanukah gift to the group.
And yes, while I was making it I was cursing myself because that was time I could have spent on an unfinished book that will now probably trickle into the new year :)
Unrelated - Can we add additional incomplete series to our incomplete series challenge? (For those of who have started, for example, the Unhewn Throne series and will be completing it in 2018 )
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Iain wrote: "I think the formula should be Round(F) and Roundup (G/H) for the totals column... the rules say to round the pages up or down like normal... it's the bonus points that always round up..."Thanks for the catch. I have some copying and pasting to do now....eep.
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Is that what the "Protect Sheet" option does?... Like we get to set a password on our page so others can't accidentally delete something?... Once you're done fixing the formulas, I mean...
I haven't messed with spreadsheets much in forever, or used the Google ones much, either, so I don't want to mess with the options much...
Ok this is a very cool sheet, and excellent idea. Should save the mods and team leaders a lot of trouble in calculating stuff. In addition to what Iain is asking I assume one uses it by signing in via google?
Also what do we type to indicate if a book is a challenge or a buddy read?
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=if(D4="y",F4/2,0)
Sign into google and request edit permission directly from Rob through the sheet to get to use it... by clicking on the view only button near the top...
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I'd suggest a team effort for all the currently scheduled books, but that seems like a nightmare...
So is it the highest english edition that is counting? The rules just say highest edition. Either is fine by me, just want to clarify.
Iain wrote: "Just a y for yes... clicking one of the cells will show you the formula it uses at the top... in this case:=if(D4="y",F4/2,0)
Sign into google and request edit permission directly from Rob throu..."
I signed in and found I could already edit. This is honestly a great tool. I love it.
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=if(D4="y",F4/2,0)
Sign into google and request edit permission directly f..."
I think Rob can make it so only you can edit your own tab... so nobody accidentally screws with your tally... just go to your page and request it or maybe you can right click your tab and protect it with a password yourself... you've probably noticed that some tabs like mine, Pendra's and CPs have padlocks on them now...
Iain wrote: "Arkadeb wrote: "Iain wrote: "Just a y for yes... clicking one of the cells will show you the formula it uses at the top... in this case:=if(D4="y",F4/2,0)
Sign into google and request edit permi..."
Getting that lock symbol now. I did the Protect Sheet thing
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Fantasy Buddy Reads
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The first post in this thread now has all the rules for the competition. The rule read (for Buddy Read bonus points): "The book will not be eligible for bonus points if you start more than 3 days before the read, and you must start no later then 2 weeks beyond the scheduled start date."
It has now been amended to "The book will not be eligible for bonus points if you start more than 1 week before the read, and you must start no later then 2 weeks beyond the scheduled start date."