Questions about SFFBC? Ask away!

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

I want to talk about some of my favourite scenes and moments in books that I've read this year but don't know an appropriate place to have a spoilerific discussion about numerous books where others also chime in with memorable lines and moments from books they've read.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Anna]

I think a new thread is in order! Just expain what you want to do, and make sure people know which books the spoilers are for, and everyone can decide if they want to look or not.

Also, this sounds like fun, so please do start it! :)

[Cheryl]

Oh yes this sounds like fun. Even if the odds are that I've not read many of the books yet.

[Grace]

Question - is that a new banner I'm seeing on the group page via my laptop/Desktop? Or has it always been there and I've always just been on my IOS device?!

Also how creative is it with the Dragon as &

[Anna]

It's new since the beginning of 2020! Allison talked about it somewhere, maybe in What Else? Allison, do you remember?

edit: Maybe it was the January newsletter? I only found two hits with "Drampersand", which is what we call the dragon :)

[Grace]

HA! Drampersand. Hilarious!
edit: that's a really good bibliophile tattoo idea. too many astronaut tattoos of late.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I likely mentioned it in What Else, I know some folks made a small mini-goal of reading the books from the Group Name Icon. I'd have to look. But yes! We commissioned some art from a maven/friend of mine named Jessica Woodard. The Drampersand is by far one of my favorite things to have happened this year :D

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Figured I'd have to start a thread. I'll get around to it soon.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Figured I'd have to start a thread. I'll get around to it soon.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Allison wrote: "I likely mentioned it in What Else, I know some folks made a small mini-goal of reading the books from the Group Name Icon. I'd have to look. But yes! We commissioned some art from a maven/friend o..."

Can you talk me onto a link to the What Else where people started the "mini-goal of reading the books from the Group Name Icon"?

I can't even identify the books yet!

[Anna]

Mike it's on the very first page, just a couple of posts down from the start of the thread :)

edit a million years later: That's where people identify the books, I'm not sure where they talk about wanting to read them.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Anna wrote: "Mike it's on the very first page, just a couple of posts down from the start of the thread :)

edit a million years later: That's where people identify the books, I'm not sure where they talk about..."

Ah, thanks! Messages 6, 14, 15, 16, and 17 identify the letters. I've read all but one now, and that is already slated for 2021.

[Anna]

I think I've only read 3/5? I do know what the books are, but I'm not sure if I've read one of them :D Three I've read for sure!

[Alabaster]

This isn't specific to this group, but how do you add that smaller extra italic flair to your name? like Anna is "Cabybara Fiend". Or is that a mod-only privelage?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, that's our mod name!

[Mel]

I wanted to ask about best practices for the discussion threads and spoilers. It looks like Beige already touched on this, and I don't mean to press the topic, but I'm still confused. Are spoiler tags not used at all? When you say that app users can't see spoiler tags, does that mean that anything written within the tags is essentially invisible? Or is it that the tags don't function, and the contents are automatically opened so that app users get spoiled anyway?

If they are invisible, then feasibly could we still hide spoilers in the initial thread?

If they are automatically opened, then we could still integrate tags into the Spoilers thread, with app users entering on the understanding that they won't be hidden, right?

I understand a great deal of thought must have gone into how to best compromise to make the system work for most users. Unfortunately I may just not be one of them. I'm used to chatting about the books as I read, so I don't feel like I can much use either of the threads as it is. If anything, I'll stay on the lookout for buddy reads though.

[Anna]

On iOS, spoiler tags (and the text inside) are deleted. On Android, they're automatically shown. So there is no way to work with both :/

And, because some people cannot see what's inside the spoiler tags (iOS users), it's not fair to them to have discussions that are essentially hidden from them.

We do use spoiler tags in buddy reads and around the group, but not in the official BOTM threads, so that everyone can enjoy them :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yeah, the "best" we can do is have the full discussion open and let people talk as they read, but then people further along can spoil others...

Maybe the best for people who like to talk as they read is to wait until closer to the 7th? And then you can jump into the discussion whenever you want!

Or...yeah, buddy reads. We've been yelling at GR about this for years.

[Mel]

Oops forgot to set thread notifications.

Anna wrote: "On iOS, spoiler tags (and the text inside) are deleted. On Android, they're automatically shown. So there is no way to work with both :/"

Ahhhh. Okay yeah you're really buggered either way, aren't you?
Ugh. That's so unbelievably annoying that such an integral function on the site doesn't work. Thanks for explaining, I can see why the double threads exist then.

I suppose my best option is to wait for the spoiler thread, and blindly post thoughts and updates as I read, and wait until I'm finished to look at the thread myself and respond to others. It unfortunately takes away some of the fun speculation and play-by-play discussions, but at least that way I don't spoil myself, or feel that pressure to consolidate all my thoughts at once at the end.

(Oh no, it pains me to think how many iOS users have missed out on some of my truly epic spoiler tags over the years. What a tragic loss.)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

You know, I am just musing out loud, but maybe we could encourage daring mid-book sharers to post in the spoiler thread with a large tag for the chapter/section they're on, so that people quickly scrolling through could see thoughts as of a certain point in the book and read that part with impunity, at least?

Something like this:

UP THROUGH CHAPTER 3!!!!

Stuff about the exciting thing happening in this chapter!!

[Anna]

Wouldn't help much on the (iOS) app, if I remember correctly, it doesn't show any formats.

I checked and bold does work, underline doesn't. The bold text is just slightly different from the normal text :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Wow, that's heinous. Why do we love something that is so bad to us???

Well, it might not help iOS, but it wouldn't hurt them like spoiler tags either? And everyone else might have a new, sort of risky way to talk books a bit more?

Idk if it will catch on, but I'm not personally opposed to trying? People kinda do that anyways, to an extent?

[Anna]

I wish the app just removed the group discussion function altogether, so that everyone would be forced to use desktop :D You could still browse books and get notifs on the app.

[Becky]

Anna wrote: "I wish the app just removed the group discussion function altogether, so that everyone would be forced to use desktop :D You could still browse books and get notifs on the app."

Same!!

[Anna]

Yeah, it's too broken to fix, just kill it. With fire.

[DivaDiane]

LOL, Anna

Allison, that solution would work for me, someone who always tries to read discussions on the app and sometimes before I’ve finished the book myself. It would nice if there were more discussion that I could read without having to use the browser on my phone.

In the absence of actual formatting one could do this:

Stuff up to Chapter 15 spoilers ahead
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

At least that would be a visual heads up.

[Michelle]

That's a good idea, Diane

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Creative! Yes, okay, we can try to make it a thing! No promises on success, but you know my motto re: loving genre fiction

[Mel]

Anna wrote: "I wish the app just removed the group discussion function altogether, so that everyone would be forced to use desktop :D You could still browse books and get notifs on the app."

Same. When it actually reduces functionality by existing, it needs to go.

Anyway. Just like when reading reviews, I'd go in knowing that spoilers are a possibility, even with eyes half glazed over. Similar to Allison and Diane, I like the idea of chapter headings. Just enough to catch the eye and mark a comment as safe or not.

15＊15＊15＊15＊15＊15＊15＊15＊15

Spillin' all that Chapter 15 tea.

Doesn't help with books without numbered chapters, but I think that's what I'll try at least.

Thanks everyone for being receptive and even thinking of ideas. Especially as a newbie, I didn't want to criticize the established system, but also want to chat with everyone! (T^T)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

All good! This problem is one we keep reviewing because it's also one of the key reasons we have a rule against short story collections, which is also poo. So, we'll see how this goes and what lessons we can learn from it! Maybe it'll be a new avenue for us!

[Rachel]

I like Allison’s idea!! I have IOS and her nice bold really popped

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Excellent, everyone who's commented about this, it's your job to make it more rufus than fetch. (I hope you all love 90s/oughties movies enough to get those references) i.e., make this happen! Trend set!

[Anna]

Rachel wrote: "I have IOS and her nice bold really popped"

Don’t tell me the iOS app behaves differently on different devices/versions?! On mine I can just barely tell it’s bold.

edit: I mean except for the fact that there’s an extra space or two, which I guess does make it ”pop” but not in a good way, just confusingly. But since I don’t use the app, it doesn’t matter, I’m happy to go with what works for those who do!

[Rachel]

No in mine the bond is much darker and fatter 🤷‍♀️

Maybe could be the version or?

[Anna]

Or it’s just me. I’m used to a ”normal” bold, which looks as you’d expect in any document, and this is a grey (not black) sliiiightly fatter font 🤨

[Rachel]

Now I could figure out how to make things bold in the iOS app

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

open angle bracket (<>)b close angle bracket and /b in the brackets to stop bold

[Rachel]

So like bold ??

[Rachel]

Huh. I don’t know if that worked cause I can’t see anything in my post but ??? 🤦‍♀️

[Lost Planet Airman]

Rachel wrote: "Huh. I don’t know if that worked cause I can’t see anything in my post but ??? 🤦‍♀️"

It worked

[DivaDiane]

Oh dear, Rachel! It looks like your post fell afoul of the iOS app craziness that makes the last word or 2 from the 2nd to last line invisible. But also now something in the middle? So infuriating!

[Michelle]

Wait a minute! Like this<>b

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Lol Rachel, so it bolds but isn't readable on iOS. A *vast* improvement /facepalm

(NP Michelle, just deleting them, you can try again tho!)

[Michelle]

Nope. I give up.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Michelle wrote: "Nope. I give up."

Haha. Well, I have faith in you! If you're on the web version, there's a list in "some html is ok" just above the message box. You can also look up bold letters in HTML and it'll show you.

[YouKneeK]

Michelle, I think you’re trying to do this?
<b>Make this bold.</b>

If you type it exactly like that, it should make everything within the tags bold.

(And for those wondering how you type html so people can see the original html without it performing the html instructions, I used &lt; and &gt; for the < and > signs.)

((And for those wondering how you type &lt; without it turning into a <, you use &amp; to make the & sign then follow it with an lt;.))

And that's as far as I'm going with this! ;)

(((Edited to add a missing semi-colon.)))

[Meredith]

If you just said it was magic, I’d be fine with it.

[YouKneeK]

Haha. :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Meredith the Guessing Queen wrote: "If you just said it was magic, I’d be fine with it."

Meredith, did you just see the wizard do what I think she did?????

[Meredith]

@Allison, Maybe my adult beverage is a bit strong, because I’m sure that’s unpossible!