What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
Group Feedback + REPORT SPAM ◄◄
>
Separate "Unsolved" into categories?
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Keith
(new)
Apr 27, 2021 04:45AM
It seems like the majority of the requests to help find a book in the "Unsolved" section are for children's or YA books, which I mostly can't help with. The "Solved" sections are separated into adult fiction, children's/YA, non-fiction and "other"; perhaps the Unsolved section could be separated similarly, so that people can more easily look at only the adult and/or non-fiction book identification help requests?
reply
|
flag
Mod
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The main reasons we haven't done even something as simple as halving the Unsolved folder are: 1) the labor involved; 2) usability/scrolling.
Oh good lord yes please. It's just bonkers crazy to have everything in a single massive topic. At a minimum it would helpful to separate genres -- FSF, romance, mystery. If we don't read, for example, romance, then we have to wade through dozens of posts that we know we can't help with. It would be so great to be able to target our time to genres we might actually be able to answer.I'm puzzled by "the main reasons we haven't done it are...usability" -- usability would be humungously enhanced by having separate genre topics, wouldn't it?
For sure I get that moving all the existing topics to the appropriate folder would be time-consuming, but what about this: (1) Move all posts from the past, say, three months into the appropriate new genre folder; (2) For all the others, just zip through and copy/paste the message "We're reorganizing the "What's the Name of that Book?" folders and need your help. If you're still looking for this book please move it to the appropriate folder, here's how..." ? I bet that could be automated.
I think this is an absolutely great idea
Here was my previous response to the recommendation:1. You might be overestimating the capabilities of the average user a bit:
1.a. Some users can't even find the one "unsolved" folder; I shudder to think what would happen if there were more than one.
1.b. You'd be surprised how many appear to be convinced that books about Superman rescuing Miss America from being kidnaped by aliens are "non-fiction."
1.c. And with less clear-cut examples, it can be difficult to remember whether some books are fiction or non-fiction, if you read them 30 years ago.
2. The categories would have to be very specific if this would save responders any time. I mean, I would probably skip M/F Romance if I could, since I've only read like three of those in my life. But I've read tons of M/M romances, so if it were just a "Romance" category I'd still go through them all. I could also skip "YA published after 1985." But if the unsolveds were split into adult fiction, children/YA fiction, non-fiction, and other, I'd still have to go through each category.
2.a. If everyone followed the "group rules" such information would be in the header, so one could skip them more easily, but so many people just ignore the suggestions of what to put in the header.
3. Questions will still be "buried" pretty quickly. As a non-moderator, I tend to go back around four or five pages of "unsolveds" when I haven't been at my computer for a while. If I'm still in "unread" territory, so be it; that's the limit of my time and interest. If the "unsolved" section were split into four sections, I probably wouldn't go back five pages each; I'd just do one page of nonfiction and YA and two pages of adult fiction, or something.
And what about books that cross genre lines. For example Stephen King's "The Stand" has SF, Fantasy and Horror elements, so where would you put it?Also, lately, a fair number of people think Romance book solves belong in Other instead of Adult where they were placed for many years.
People do not even seem to know what Romance is. I often see tragedies described as Romance (ie Romeo and Juliet scenarios)
Bargle wrote: "And what about books that cross genre lines. For example Stephen King's "The Stand" has SF, Fantasy and Horror elements, so where would you put it?Any of them, Doesn't matter, since they all are appropriate.
