So, I Was Looking at How Many Threads I'm Following...

[Bargle]

and I counted up and found it was 23. About half are ones I started and the others are ones started by somebody else that sound so interesting that I'm willing to give them a bump every month or so in the hopes that they'll get answered. The surprising thing to me is how few do get answered. My oldest thread is over 6 years old. The newest is about 6 months old. The one thing they all have in common is that they're unsolved and except for the most recent one, seem to be going to stay that way. Why do I keep wondering about so many books that never get answered? I know we've had longer time solves, but why are so many long-time unsolved ones mine? I have had many books solved myself, but these seem stuck. Anyway, thanks for listening to the whining.

[SamSpayedPI]

For the ones started by other people, it's possible that they are conflating two books or misremembering significant details.

For example, here's a thread in which someone was looking for a book about Jewish culture in America, about three sisters with similar names like Flicka, Ricka, and Nicka.

It turned out the OP was conflating the All-of-a-Kind Family series with the Flicka Ricka Dicka series. The book about Jewish culture had five sisters with dissimilar names; the book about the three sisters with similar names was not about Jewish culture in America. Had the OP never returned to confirm, the post could never be solved, since neither of the series fit the description.

SO, that might account for half of them. As far as your own books are concerned, it appears to me that you are intelligent, computer savvy, and willing to put in a lot of effort to find the books yourself. So perhaps the ones you need to ask for help about are already pretty much a lost cause.

[Bargle]

SamSpayedPI wrote: "So perhaps the ones you need to ask for help about are already pretty much a lost cause. "

Geez, thanks for the depression. ;-)

[SamSpayedPI]

Bargle wrote: "Geez, thanks for the depression. ;-)"

Always glad to help.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No, no, there are no lost causes in this group.

[Rachel]

I have at least 20 unsolved threads knocking around too. The oldest is from July 2014. I tend to lose track of the older ones and forget to bump them as well, which doesn't help.

For me I think one factor is that I'm mostly looking for British books that I borrowed from public libraries in the UK in the 90s. GR seems to have a mostly American user base so the odds of someone here having come across the same book are much slimmer. I also read so many books that I tend to get plot details mixed up, or I only remember the "feeling" that the book gave me rather than any concrete info.

Searching for older books that aren't well-known also means there is unlikely to be much trace of them on the internet - there's no recent reviews, they haven't been indexed on google books, etc.

Good luck to you bargle, may all your mystery books be solved eventually!

[MJ]

Lol... I read SO MUCH that I'm always surprised at exactly how many unsolved threads I've got no clue about. Then I burst my bubble and remind myself that there are millions of books and thousands of readers just in this group. The range of languages and countries is huge... and then there's the different genres and ways people find books with all the different platforms. Add to that the different readers experience and focus from reading each book and doing their best to translate that into short form for the query...

In the end it's actually pretty surprising just how many threads get solved here. There's just so many opportunities for 'the wrong' details or timing to step in and make the few people who could help with each query just miss seeing it.

I saw one a few weeks ago that I think was a year old... and I knew exactly the book they were looking for... I'd just kept missing their bumps. And I check the group at least once or twice a day.

[Ayshe]

I've seen Les Misérables solved in this group and while I've read and loved it, I wouldn't have recognised it from thread's description. People remember and forget different things about books so even if someone who's read the book reads your thread, it may very well be that they are not remembering the things that you remember. Look on the positive - you've had threads solved.

Offtopic: It may be rude of me, but it somehow irks me when someone says things like "any success yet?" on their threads as if this a business support service.

[Scott]

There are no lost causes, only misplaced ones.

[Bargle]

Ayshe wrote: " People remember and forget different things about books so even if someone who's read the book reads your thread, it may very well be that they are not remembering the things that you remember."

Yes, I remember I ran into this when searching for an old movie title. I eventually found it and over a dozen reviews or descriptions of it. The thing that most stuck out to me (a man being broken on the wheel) was only mentioned by one person.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Ayshe wrote: "I've seen Les Misérables solved in this group and while I've read and loved it, I wouldn't have recognised it from thread's description. People remember and forget different things abo..."

Yes, this has happened to me at least 5-10 times here.

[rivka]

Bargle wrote: "My oldest thread is over 6 years old."

My longest posted-to-solved thread in this group took slightly over 8 years. (Might have been less if I had bumped it a bit more often.) So there's definitely still hope.

[Rachel]

People remember and forget different things about books so even if someone who's read the book reads your thread, it may very well be that they are not remembering the things that you remember.

This is so true. I once came across someone who was searching for the same book as me, but with completely different details. I saw their post and thought "That sounds familiar but I have no idea what the book is." Meanwhile I was posting about the same book with an entirely different description. It did get solved!

I also agree with the other comments, that it's pretty amazing how many books do get solved here considering the number of books that exist in the world and all the different ways of describing them.

(can't get the formatting to work on the quote argh)

[Bargle]

Was thinking about this again, today. Looked at the threads and saw 12 had over 1,000 views and one more nearly does. I'm also reminded I'm not the only one in this boat, as Ingo and Justanotherbibliophile have much the same situation. Somehow, that doesn't help. :-)

[Bargle]

Another depressing statistic. I haven't had one of my own threads solved in 3 years.

[Ken]

Well, I can't complain because my one thread is only a week old. But, I was a little disappointed that it only got 16 views. For all I know, half of those views are me.

Looks like the most commonly solved ones are relatively recent YA books. With only a handful of views, nobody is going to guess a late seventies fantasy paperback.

I wonder if they've thought about having different boards for different genres, or different decades, etc. Just to help focus the right eyes on the right requests.

[Ken]

The rockabilly werewolf from Mars wrote: The idea of sorting them by decade sounds good in theory, but unfortunately many people don't know when their book was from.

Yes, mine was on the cusp of seventies vs. eighties, so decades wouldn't work well unless you were allowed to double post.

Re/ genres though, if people can pick a genre to post in the main board (as required), then it's basically the same to pick a genre for separate boards as well. There would still be overlap and confusion, like classic fantasy vs. YA fantasy, etc.

Judging by the current frequency of requests (based on my solid one week of expertise....) the best might be one board for romance, one for YA, and one for everything else.

(I realize I'm new and shouldn't try to change things. I'm just chatting....)

[Bargle]

Yeah, the idea has come up before, but as you point out, there would be confusion/disagreement over what category a query goes in. Not to mention books that fit 2 categories. I've seen Romance paired with something else many times. Fantasy and SciFi lumped together, etc.