On Paths Unknown discussion
The Anything Goes chit-chat thread (subject to tiny fine-print rules)
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Sadly, this is the problem. Before Amazon bought it, GR was the booklover's paradise. Now it's gone steeply downhill, but its still the best of what's on offer... :(
I just went on GR and thought to myself, hey this doesn't look so bad, I could probably get used to it and then realised - but wait, something is different. Then I noticed that all the ads and stuff on the right hand side of the home page is gone! I wonder if someone changed something?
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Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Interesting. I just checked and I am only seeing two columns and the right hand one is gone, but I'm on my phone so it's hard to say if that's why. I'll look again when I get to a computer."That's it exactly. It looks like the right hand column is gone on my computer.
Yolande wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Interesting. I just checked and I am only seeing two columns and the right hand one is gone, but I'm on my phone so it's hard to say if that's why. I'll look again when I ge..."whaaaa!? You mean they heard and then implemented something that we asked for!?!? In a few days!?!? Whaaaa....!?
Haven't seen my home page, haven't been bothering with it.
Sadly, my third column is still on my home page. So they haven't made the feed larger. DId you guys employ SuperSam's Stylish changes? Or are you using it on the mobile. They've been working with some bugs on tablets and mobile apps, so maybe that's why.Darn......I knew I should get my hopes up.
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Sadly, my third column is still on my home page. So they haven't made the feed larger. DId you guys employ SuperSam's Stylish changes? Or are you using it on the mobile. They've been working with s..."No, I am on my desktop computer and I did not install add-ons or an ad-blocker because I'm too digitally lazy to bother with that stuff. I did nothing at all and there was a change. Maybe it is not happening all at once for everybody but in stages? I don't know.
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Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "OK, just looked on desktop on the browser without Adblock. The third column is still there with all the junk for me, although Oprah's group seems to be gone. Maybe they're tweaking some things behi..."I have checked the feedback group about the new design and on the last page someone mentions the change to a two column view.
Yolande wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "OK, just looked on desktop on the browser without Adblock. The third column is still there with all the junk for me, although Oprah's group seems to be gone. Maybe they're t..."Yeah, what we were asking for! Maybe that's their compromise to mitigate the endless scrolling. Take us back to a 2-column, so we scroll a bit less, but still force the ads on us.
I still have the 3 columns. No ads, because I installed AdBlock. But still a bunch of recommendations and recommended clubs or groups
Here's a wonderful solution, depending on which device and browser you're using. This guy named Sam has been helping people immensely with the layout of the page. He was hesitant to post about it, but we all egged him on. For the moment, here's the link on how to go about changing the look that you hate. Go now, just in case they do want to remove it!https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Aaaand the third column is back. Ah well, it was good while it lasted ;(
Now I am mad because I got use to the no ad view. I think I will get Adblock now.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "OK, just looked on desktop on the browser without Adblock. The third column is still there with all the junk for me, although Oprah's group seems to be gone. Maybe they're tweaking some things behi..."I see three columns with Adblock enabled: Currently Reading, Updates, Recommendations. If I disable Adblock, it just shifts Recommendations down a bit so that the ads are above it.
The thing is, it's just "proper" responsive design. If you make the window narrower, the third column shifts under the first. Nothing to see here folks...
Derek wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "OK, just looked on desktop on the browser without Adblock. The third column is still there with all the junk for me, although Oprah's group seems to be gone. Maybe they're t..."Nobody puts Oprah in the bottom of the feed. (Not with what she pays...)
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Go now, just in case they do want to remove it!"If you have Stylish, there's nothing GR can do about it. Install Stylish; click on the Stylish logo; select "Find more styles for this site", and I imagine that's Sam's stylesheet that shows up first on the list...
Derek wrote: "Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Go now, just in case they do want to remove it!"If you have Stylish, there's nothing GR can do about it. Install Stylish; click on the Stylish logo; select ..."
Hi,
Actually, I meant the instruction sheet, for those of us who don't do a lot of this on the reg :)
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I'm not willing to give up GR as long as the Adblock gets the page to a usable place. (If that stops working I may have no choice.) I just don't see any viable alternatives to GR out there."Adblock is not just an ad blocker! If you click on the Ad Block logo, and select "block element", you can select any element on the page and block it in future.
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Actually, I meant the instruction sheet"
That WAS the instruction sheet. It's that simple.
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Derek wrote: "Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "I'm not willing to give up GR as long as the Adblock gets the page to a usable place. (If that stops working I may have no choice.) I just don't see any viable alternatives ..."Actually, Derek, if you read through the thread, there are people looking to move the right column material to the left column, which widens the feed updates (less scrolling), fonts, etc.
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Traveller wrote: "Yeah, 3 is back for me too. It's really a disgrace that they are making their users scrabble around for solutions and workarounds regarding their asinine design choices. (And blatant commercializat..."Yep! You´re more likely to benefit from Sam´s sheet, and you love fiddling with these things. Sadly, yes, many of these questions are being answered by other users, and not when the staff people occasionally pop into their threads. Think they should pay the users, not the staff, haha. I just don´t even bother with it any more, am just starting to do other work and be online less. Probably better, anyway.
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Yeah, 3 is back for me too. It's really a disgrace that they are making their users scrabble around for solutions and workarounds regarding their asinine design choices. (And blat..."I was curious so I got the stylish extension for google chrome and installed Sam's style sheet. SO much better. I don't know if it's possible but I hope GR knows when people use these alternative styles so they can get the message.
I see on the posts of the other styles people were not happy with GR design changes in the past but I hope this time the number of people changing the style is overwhelming. I certainly haven't had to do it before. I know they probably don't care but that is just so strange to me since I would think that if a change to a product etc. failed so dismally a company would do something about it, but guess it doesn't work like that on the internet...
I¨ve just today seen a thread where someone asked if we could export status updates as well as books (ie, to another site). They got a moderator response to their question, so I guess this is an indication that some are very serious about leaving.Those of us who really don´t want to work with this as is are being called ¨minority¨¨ and even a ¨tempest in a teapot¨¨. Many don´t even know that there´s a feedback group with discussion threads. Others might sigh and say that they know, but that admin doesn´t care. One claims that 4 million people love this new design....that seems a tad bit high to me.
One group moderator said that in discussion with other mods, it came up that there has been less traffic on their discussion pages.
Whether you like it or hate it, if you can give them feedback and report on usage declines-increases, I think it´s better than silence.
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "One claims that 4 million people love this new design....that seems a tad bit high to me."I don't believe GR can even prove they have 4 million regular users. They have quite a few more than that registered users, but I'd be really surprised if there are more than a million regular users. So four million happy ones? I think not...
Miss interacting w/ you guys as much as I used to. Labor Day weekend, (Sept 3-5), people who hate this new design and wish to be heard will be boycotting GR and Amazon. Participation's simple: just do not log in or buy anything those days. Comments aren't being heeded or heard, so some feel Amazon listens to its customers more than GR. Those who Tweet are taking advantage of that option as well.
Good to know! I plan to participate :)
Ruth wrote: "Good to know! I plan to participate :)"I love your pic, Ruth. ¨Two out of three cats recommend doing absolutely nothing on your birthday¨ photo!
I'm confused about how this group is organized. Where does one find the threads on books that the group reads? :3
Gry wrote: "I'm confused about how this group is organized. Where does one find the threads on books that the group reads? :3"Group home has currently reading and bookshelf has past and current (I think :))
Er... you don't? Afaik, I'm the only person who's been reading The Book of the New Sun (I think Sumant was reading it a little earlier), but there's no discussion thread. And I'm so disappointed in it that I wouldn't start a discussion myself, even if I can.The "Currently reading" books should have finished long ago, and I don't even remember what the other August read was, but nobody seems to be reading it.
Er... you don't? Afaik, I'm the only person who's been reading The Book of the New Sun (I think Sumant was reading it a little earlier), but there's no discussion thread. And I'm so disappointed in it that I wouldn't start a discussion myself, even if I can.The "Currently reading" books should have finished long ago, and I don't even remember what the other August read was, but nobody seems to be reading it.
And this month's The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology has been on my "Currently reading" shelf for a year—or maybe it's two, so I'd really like to see some discussion to kickstart me.
I was looking precisely for the Singularity. Just bought it and hope to actually take part in this read :) Where do these threads typically pop up?
Gry wrote: "I was looking precisely for the Singularity. Just bought it and hope to actually take part in this read :) Where do these threads typically pop up?"Hi Gry,
Depends on your settings. If you've included "Discussions" in your notifications, and "When my groups are about to read a new book", then GR notifies you. I get notifications for this group all the time. Once there's a discussion thread for the book, if you've clicked on it, then GR will put into your notifications feed every time someone comments in that discussion thread.
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https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I'm not sure I'm up to this one right this moment, even though I do want to read it. I will open whatever threads are needed for this if you all want to drive the discussion, though.
Overall, I think we should address the schedule again. We kind of had a wipe out back there, but nothing fatal. I went ahead and moved the old books off the currently reading shelf, anyway.
I think we just over extended ourselves back there a few months ago. Some received a bit of interest. Maybe just set those up for once a month until the end of the year, or something?
Linda Abhors the New GR Design wrote: "Depends on your settings. I..."No, you don't get the point. This schedule was set. Then abandoned; but the schedule still shows up on the group. Some of us would actually like to discuss the novels, but nobody's setting up the discussions.
Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Happy to open threads for anything desired to discuss; "
Sorry, that's not enough. Do we have a schedule or not? The Singularity discussion was announced a week ago. The Book of the New Sun was the beginning of August (though if the founder isn't going to be involved, there's not much point in discussing it). Either the books should be removed from the schedule (lot's of requests for at least postponing various reads) or someone should actually start the discussion when the mailing goes out.
If there are going to be two book discussions a month announced, but they never happen what's the point of having the group? The last one I was involved in was Hamlet (February or March) and it just died.
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1) The schedule, as it is, is not feasible. I tried to keep up with it myself last year and the beginning of this and I didn't have time to read anything else I wanted to read.
2) On a few of the reads we did, once the reading started it turned out really only a few people actually wanted to read the book (or maybe could read it on the schedule we were on? IDK.). That's fine for the group, but the way our discussions are set up are pretty labor intensive, and a moderator pretty much has to read every book. Again, not feasible, and leads me to the next issue.
3) I myself am operating at about 30% power IRL right now. I've apologized for that elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that. I haven't talked to Traveller, but it really doesn't seem like she would shut down here if she weren't facing something similar.
4) I love this group. I think we have the best group of people on GR for discussions. I would like to see some changes that would make it easier for us to actually have those discussions. (I'll put those in a new post.)
Come on, Derek,...Traveller was going through some tough times. We'll try again, not overextend and see how it goes. Not being ridged, maybe...
I'd agree to slow things down, if the majority agrees. I'm in a f2f, a couple of other GR groups, and have a lot to read for work, so I indeed cannot join in on every discussion because of the pace. My two cents, but yes, Trav started this thing, so let's wait up a bit for her to chime in.
Ruth wrote: "Come on, Derek,...Traveller was going through some tough times. We'll try again, not overextend and see how it goes. Not being ridged, maybe..."I was a FOUNDING moderator of this group. It turned out that I wasn't actually allowed input in what we discussed. So I resigned my moderatorship. Now it turns out NOBODY is doing anything with it.
I'm out.
Such frustrations are very familiar. It does appear that hopes have led to over-extension. No one's at fault. It happens. Anyone thinking about horror for October?
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1) Move to one book a month. This is just to alleviate the pace.
2) For each book, open one spoiler free thread and one thread for spoilers for the whole book. (We could agree to spoiler tag past the halfway point, or do two spoiler threads for the first and second halves, however people want.) This is first to eliminate the need for a mod to walk every discussion through; the same threads would just automatically be opened for most discussions. Second it would eliminate the jump from thread to thread, as our discussions sometimes loose steam moving to the new thread.
3) The final thing would be optional, but I still think it would be good. I think we should find a way to rotate leaders on discussions, whether by volunteering or by going with a 'you suggest, you lead' rule, or by some other means. I think Traveller does a fantastic job leading our discussions, but I also think that is a lot of work to put on just one person.
Those are just some thoughts. I'm not particularly wedded to any of them; I'm just looking for a way to make this a functional group again. I would love to hear any suggestions anyone else has and any other approaches.
The pace certainly sounds more reasonable. I guess I've missed out on the whole spoiler issue, so 6 of one, half-dozen of the other for me. As for discussion leaders, we do that with my f2f, since the organizer found it a bit much-whoever suggested the book leads. Or at least divvy up with the 3 moderators, so one person isn't burdened with all the books. I've few groups on the site as active as this one, and the one that beats us, honestly, rarely discusses books. And I've seen other groups fizzle, so would be happy to see this one continue.
And we must keep in mind that any changes that are made aren't written in stone. If we try something, and it doesn't work out, we can re-visit after 6-8 months and try something new, or go back.
Suggestions look good. I would love to get back in, ... and I am looking at a possible huge project coming in. If it does, well, I have enjoyed it here. If it doesn't, I will need you guys :)
On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
Infinite Jest (other topics)Infinite Jest (other topics)
The Tell-Tale Heart (other topics)
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Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Bruno Schulz (other topics)Fyodor Dostoevsky (other topics)
Umberto Eco (other topics)
Dan Simmons (other topics)
Anthony Doerr (other topics)
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On the other hand, I might not use the shelves more, because I´ll be here less due to all of the useless stuff that´s unconnected to me in my feed.