How many books should we put on a poll?

[Ines, Resident Vampire]

Dear SFFBC members,

As you know, SFFBC now exists on both The StoryGraph and Goodreads as one united club. Because of this, our polls on both platforms feature the same books. If you need a reminder of the process, here's our explanation and the tallied votes for 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Because of TSG restrictions, the poll currently runs on GR for a week, then the top 4 books in each poll are added to a poll on TSG. Some of you (and rightly so) find that confusing, so we want to discuss limiting both polls to 4 books. That would mean the top 4 books with the most seconds out of each nomination process will make it to the polls, and the mod polls will also contain 4 books each.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this, so please let us know. Do you think this would make a difference for you? Would it be better or worse?

[Sarah]

I like 5 books in the poll. I get why it’s confusing but usually the book that’s in last place is not even close to the others so I don’t really see an issue with the split.

I don’t really want less options… lol

[Netanella]

My preference is for both polls to have the same four books.

[DivaDiane]

I’m fine with both polls having 4 books.

[Becky]

Edit to clarify: 4 books on both polls is fine by me

[Anna]

I don't feel strongly either way, but a pro I see in (mod) polls being only 4 books is that it "wastes" less mod curated options. Member-nominated books can always be nominated again, but mod poll books don't come back as often. I don't remember a fifth place finish ever winning in a later poll? Maybe it's happened, but probably not very often.

That said, I personally think the current poll system on TSG works as well as it can under the circumstances, being that these are two entirely different platforms, and will never work exactly the same. Since the TSG poll is limited to one week, and won't run the entire 15 days that the GR one does, I don't see a problem with dropping the fifth place holder at that point, I highly doubt any of them would ever have won on TSG votes alone.

Oh, another pro for 4 books would be that mods wouldn't need to do those two extra clicks every month to add the fifth slots to the polls :D

I do feel strongly that the number of books in the polls is not the biggest issue with having polls on two sites, so I really do not think it matters. But I can't think of any pros for having 5 books in the polls, except that it's how things have always worked, and that is never a good reason, so I think I've talked myself into being pro 4?

tl;dr: Do what makes the mod team and/or the majority of commenters happiest :)

[Melanie, the neutral party]

mod team: We are favoring 4 books at the moment, but we also don't want angry members quitting because we're limiting book choices.

As a long-time member, I remember that polls used to have 7 choices and some people strongly disliked the merge to 5.

[Sarah]

Melanie wrote: "mod team: We are favoring 4 books at the moment, but we also don't want angry members quitting because we're limiting book choices.

As a long-time member, I remember that polls used to have 7 choi..."

I would just like to speak in defense of myself since I seem to be the odd person out.. again... lol. It’s not that I (won’t speak for others) would get upset and leave the group because of one less book in the poll.

I do feel like a limited selection may lead to a more homogenous poll and limit the chances lesser known/loved books have to get seen. (Which may lead to folks drifting away from the group naturally overtime… I guess is what I’m trying to say.)

I also don’t think that the bottom of the members voting always gets represented at the bottom of the actual poll? And I get what Anna’s saying about members bringing/nominating picks multiple times but that doesn’t necessarily apply to the mod nominated books. Which I do appreciate seeing each month.

I guess I don’t understand what the fifth option is hurting. What is the benefit of taking it away?

[Anna]

(This is pretty far off-topic but I just want to clarify, that the mod poll comment was a personal frustration of mine. The world is not going to run out of books if the mods add five to a poll each month!)


Sarah wrote: "I also don’t think that the bottom of the members voting always gets represented at the bottom of the actual poll?"

I've just woken up and can't parse this XD What do you mean exactly?

Hmm, do you mean the nomination process, that the order they go in isn't how they come out? Yeah I agree with that, and was about to suggest yesterday that someone look into that, but I know where the info is and can't be bothered to do that XD so I'm not gonna ask anyone else to do it.

[Melanie, the neutral party]

Sarah wrote: "I guess I don’t understand what the fifth option is hurting. What is the benefit of taking it away?"

The benefit is to make the polls even across platforms because TSG only allows 4 books in a poll and a 1 week of voting.

[Sarah]

@Anna yes that’s what I mean is that the book with the least amount of seconds is not always the book that does the worst in the poll.