SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Group Business
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Meet the SFFBC Mod Account (Add as friend to see updates)
Hmm, I'm going to post all of these as mod this coming month. Do let us know if it's too much, either here or by contacting us via DM. Right now it's going to be me doing all of the new stuff, so any DMs to me please :)You can of course comment any other time, too, and if you don't want to do so in public, DM Allison or me about anything! Do not DM the mod account.
So, starting tomorrow you'll see when the nomination thread opens, and next week you'll start seeing rereads stuff for the first time. In the mod account's feed that is, nothing changes in group, except I'll be posting the same stuff I always do with the mod account instead of my own.
(I am aware that notifications are not working properly right now, so this is probably not the best time, but I'll do it anyway. I hope feeds work OK.)
I get emails, not notifications. I want notices about everything!
SFFBC wrote: "Hi everyone who is following this account! It's been a few months, tell us how you're liking it? Do you want more or less notifications? What about?These are the notifications you should be getti..."
I haven't been getting any of these notifications. I am following the Mod account. Is there some additional setting I need to set?
Sorry yeah I keep saying notify but I mean they should pop up in your feed!(I’ll fix that tomorrow when I’m not on my phone.)
Can you tell I don’t use the GR feed or follow anyone on here? 🙈 I should probably follow the mod account so I know what I’m talking about! 😜
I'm not sure I see activities by the Mod account in my feed either. I'll keep on the lookout.
Hmm afaik that’s up to your feed settings? Someone who uses the feed please chime in! I know that the stuff is in the mod account’s feed. I’ll follow it myself before I post All The Things tomorrow, to see if it works for me.
I'm poking around in settings.... I did see all that in the mod account's feed on their page.
Anna wrote: "Hmm afaik that’s up to your feed settings? Someone who uses the feed please chime in!"I’m not following the mod account since I faithfully read everything you all have to say here in the group. ;) So I might not be a lot of help, but yes, what people see will depend on their own settings.
For example, I have mine limited to show “book updates only” which means I only see something if it’s tied to a book -- book reviews, book status updates, and books being shelved. I just looked at the SFFBC feed, and of the things showing on it now, I wouldn’t see the comments being made in the SFFBC because of my settings. I would only see the books you’ve marked as “want to read” or “finished reading”. If somebody has their feed set to “Reviews only”, they wouldn’t even see that.
To see the group comments being made by the SFFBC account, a person would have to set their feed settings to “Everything”, but then they’d get everything from everybody. For me, that becomes too much because not only do you see everybody commenting in their groups, and commenting on reviews, but you also see tons of “like” notifications letting you know what your friends have liked. Depending of course on what your friends have configured to send to their feed – I don’t send likes or group comments to mine so my friends won’t see those things from me regardless of their display settings.
Maybe another option, if the feed proves to not be working out for many people, would be to create one locked thread where you post notifications, and people could choose to be notified about replies to that thread?
I thought I'd post an image of where to find the settings that affect what you see, in case anybody hasn't noticed it before. It's that "Customize" button the arrow is pointing to. When you click on that, you get the dropdown with the setting options.
Edited to add: This is a real image and not faked. ;)
I don't know if there's normally a delay, but I have default (?) feed settings (everything from everyone I follow) and I didn't get the mod stuff in my feed, so Idk. This really isn't something I know much anything about, but I'm assuming some people are getting them, since people occasionally like them?
YouKneeK wrote: "Maybe another option, if the feed proves to not be working out for many people, would be to create one locked thread where you post notifications, and people could choose to be notified about replies to that thread?"This is something I've been thinking about for years, but there's always something that isn't optimal about it, and that's why, so far, it's not something we're likely to do. But if it turns out no one is actually seeing the mod stuff in their feeds, then yeah we need to look at other options.
OK, this is kind of interesting! I changed it to "Book updates only", and I do see the added to TBR and finished reading stuff. Back to "Everything" and I see nothing. I don't know if this is a known bug or what's going on, but that would explain why people aren't seeing these things! I will look into this, but if you know something about it, do tell!edit: I contacted support, so I'll have a "please send us a screenshot" update in about two weeks.
Notifications have seemed wonky and random for a little while. I've tried changing my settings but something doesn't seem to be working correctly. I love the idea of what you're doing so hopefully there is a bug that's getting fixed.
Yeah, notifs are more out of whack than usual, I posted about it here. Since I haven't used the feed before today, I don't know if it's also been having problems.
I don't think I've ever seen anything pop up in the feed from the mod account. It might get buried under random updates from people I don't follow though. It's been having a lot of issues too.
Well I got a completely useless reply from support. It's like they didn't even read what I wrote.However, I tried doing this:
- I added the mod account as a friend (yes I know we've asked you not to do that)
- changed feed settings from "all friends and people I follow" to "top friends and people I follow" (you'll likely have to add mod as a top friend)
And now I see the stuff in my feed.
I'm about to go to sleep for a million hours, but if people want to try friending mod, I can accept the requests for a little bit before I go, and again tomorrow when I'm up.
edit: Also read below how I got it to work with "all" instead of "top"
Haha, I feel kind of like Goodreads’ programmers couldn’t program their way out of a “Hello World!” program.
Ooh, update! It's now about 45min after I did that, and I went in to edit and see what happens. I changed it back to "all friends and people I follow" and it still works?So, I guess, fiddle around with it a ton until it works?
And also yes, mod will be accepting friend requests from now on, but please understand that no one is watching the account at all times, we don't even check it daily. I will try to check it lots this weekend though!
Mod
No problem! Just let me know if it starts working this way or not, so I can keep badgering support if necessary :)
I should! But my "going to sleep" takes a couple of hours :) I'm almost ready to actually start approaching my bed!
I must have missed the bit about not friending the mod account because it (still) says “pending”. I can’t seem to Un-pend it and try again. But then I’m on the app and nothing works here.
Diane, can you try unfollowing and then friending?
Mod
SFFBC wrote: "Hi friends! :) Did this pop up in your feed? If yes, what are your settings? If no, but you found your way here anyway, what are your settings?"I had the feed on "Everything" from "All friends and people I follow", it did not show in my feed.
I changed it to "top friends ..." and it popped up. Changed it back to "all friends ..." and it vanished.
So my extremely scientific and thorough reasearch points to "top friends" working best?
Mod
Yes I think the friend thing is the key but I'm not sure if the feed has to be set to top friends.I also now have a Goodreads friend! It's essentially me, so makes sense :D Or I could look at it like all of SFFBC is my friend :)
I've updated the first post to reflect what I think is going on. Please let me know if it's not working!Again, anyone who wants to see updates from the mod account must be friends with the mod account, so send it a friend request, and it'll be accepted the next time a mod checks the account.
Mod will never post spoilers, just updates on what's going on in group! And we're still happy to hear from you what kind of updates you do and don't want to see in your feeds. Now that we've (maybe?) figured out how to get those udpates to your feeds :)
Mod
Yeah it should. And support didn't reply anything to that, after I updated them that it only works this way.
Today it only works if I have it set to "All friends" but the feed is empty if I set it to "Top friends". Sigh.All I can say is play with the settings until it works?
Mod
Thanks for the info, Mel! Anyone else please also chime in if what you're seeing isn't the same as what I'm seeing! And do tell what your feed settings are. I'm only trying to make sure that what we're telling you to do in the first post is what actually works!I haven't been checking the feed between today and the last time I posted here, and I also only have the one "friend", so it's possible my feed is acting up just because it's so lonely :D
There have been a couple of new followers, so I'd love to hear if any of you (new/old followers who aren't friends of mod) are seeing anything except book updates? Any posts in this group by mod?
I haven't tinkered with any of my settings, and I just received a notification on my Kindle Fire 10 about your post.
But did you see the SFFBC account’s posts in your feed today? If you’re following it or its friend that is.(I see that you are friends with mod. Just didn’t want to check before posting because I’m on my phone.)
Yes, I did. At least with respect to voting in the polls, the nostalgic and the other. (Despite the fact that I voted in both polls, I already have forgotten what the second poll was!) Were there other posts?
I just looked it up; it was the mod-curated sci-fi.
New BOTM threads were also posted today!
Feed settings. I'm getting mixed results with these:Content: Everything
People: Top friends and people I follow / All friends and people I follow
At first only top friends worked, and today only all friends worked. So I'm trying to pin down what is and isn't working for others but no one is telling me! :D
This is probably not helpful at all, but I get so many notifications on the first couple days of the month, that multiple posts in one thread get consolidated, so I can’t tell if I’ve gotten a unique on from the mod account or not. I haven’t seen the mod account in my feed either, but I don’t think I have it set to show me “everything”, just reviews.
Yes if your settings aren't set to show the other updates, then I wouldn't be worried if you're not seeing them.I'm asking because like I said before, I've never used the feed, so I have no idea what is expected behavior and what is a bug. Logically I'd assume that if you've selected to show "Everything" by "All friends and people I follow", you'd see everything by everyone you follow! But I later read somewhere that "follow" means "follow reviews", so maybe that means that if you're following someone, you're not even supposed to see anything but book related updates. So that means that if you want to see the posts, you have to be friends. That's not 100% logical to me, but I can sort of see how it could make sense.
What makes zero sense however is that the results vary between "top friends" and "all friends" when the friend in question is a top friend. You should be able to see everything no matter which one you have selected. I haven't stared at the feed all day every day, so I don't know how/when it changes, but every time I look, I get a different result.
And that's why I'm harping on here about everyone please telling me what they're seeing with what settings, because I have no idea! I would love to be able to update the first post in this thread with instructions on how to make 100% sure that you'll see the mod updates, because that's what the mod account is for! If most people aren't seeing the updates, then why would we post them?
My feed mostly shows me people's reading updates & reviews, and when they like other people's reading updates & reviews. I occasionally see when people post in threads, but it's not very common.
... if I remember 😄