Unsolved Folder Organization

[Veronica]

Would it be possible to split the Unsolved folder into various genres? For example, I read adventure and scifi, and so I have to scroll through all the historical and YA books, looking for books I may have read. Of couse some people do not know what genre the book they do not recall is in, but the majority of the descriptions seem to be thorough enough that the person who posts them seems to have an idea of what genre they are in.
Such alterations would help make it easier to focus on what books people may have read, making it easier to help other people find their own books.

[Lisa]

Veronica,

That isn't a bad suggestion.

However, I think I might be the only active mod in this group - anyone else? - and I don't have time to do that right now.

It's been working well as is, I think, but you have a point.

I envision a lot of folders though. And some people don't know the genre.

Which/how many genres did you have in mind?

Only so many folders will show up on the main page and many Goodreads members do not know how to see all of them.

Feel free to give genre lists you would like to see though.

I'm willing to work on this (though not tonight) if enough members would like this change.

[Lisa]

Personally, I think the very best way for members to see books they know is for posters to put as much info as they can in the topic title.

[Veronica]

I definitely agree about putting good subjects; some people are downright vague.

i was thinking something like: YA/children, scifi/adventure, romance, historical fiction (large, unspecific genres)

[Lisa]

Veronica wrote: "I definitely agree about putting good subjects; some people are downright vague.

i was thinking something like: YA/children, scifi/adventure, romance, historical fiction (large, unspecific genres)"

There would still be hundreds of genres though.

Please provide complete lists, for anyone who is interested in this.

I'm leaning toward leaving it as it is because it seems to have worked well all these years, but I'm certainly open to feedback about this.

[Rachel]

I think it's good the way it is. People should put SCI-FI, YA, etc in the subject line. Then it will make it easier for people like Veronica to scroll through. Also, I agree, sometimes people don't know WHAT genre the book is. Especially because sometimes you only have a vague recollection. In middle school or high school, you read some stuff that's YA, some stuff that isn't, and 20 years later, you may not remember if this fuzzy plot line is from YA or sci-fi or what. And some books are both YA and SCI-FI, etc.

Basically, I think a folder system for UNSOLVED would be great, but it's probably impractical to implement.

I agree, it's bad when people post a subject line like "can't remember this book." That doesn't help anybody. People have to write good subject lines for this thing to work.

[Lisa]

Good points, Rachel.

Veronica, and all, Also, many books cross genres. I think it would be too complicated and members who might be able to solve a query might end up missing it because it was in the "wrong" genre.

[[deleted user]]

I think if we did generic folders, YA, Sci-fi/Adult, Paranormal etc. I added adult to the end of Sci-fi to help define the books. Any book with a youth as the main character, should be considered YA. I know there are tons of romance out there, but how about a file just for Harlequin? I do understand about the cross genres, but there has to be some way to filter such a long list!! Lisa I would be glad to help. Just tell me what you need me to do!

[Lisa]

Amy, Thanks for the suggestion and we'll definitely consider it, but for this group we've deliberately tried to keep to as few shelves as possible and as few folders as possible.

There are too many disagreements about what genres various books are. For instance, there are MANY books with children and teens who are main characters, the main protagonists, that are adult books.

As far as folders go, it's true only one can be chosen for solved, but for shelves, multiple shelves can be chosen.

My personal feeling (though I can be swayed depending on what members want) is to definitely not have a Harlequin or Romance or sci-fi, etc. folders/shelves. That would open up the folders/shelves to every single genre of books. That would feel just too overwhelming. It's great for some groups, including some groups where I'm a member/moderator, but I think in this group the key is for members to put sufficient information in their topic title.

But, opinions please...

[Lisa]

Even now, when books are found, if the posting member doesn't shelve them, and the mods are not familiar with the books, we have to check if they're adult, ya, children's, non-fiction. If we had to check shelves and make sure all applicable genres are added, that is a ton of work. I know because I do that for another one of my groups; there it makes sense and it's fun, but it's very time consuming.

[Lisa]

Amy wrote: "Lisa I would be glad to help. Just tell me what you need me to do!"

And thank you very much, Amy. We'll let you know when we get a bit more organized. I see you're very new to the group though; you might want to get to know it for a while to see how it works. Your offer is appreciated!

[Dovewing]

Maybe there should just be multiple 'Unsolved' topics. That way people can see more of the topics by just scrolling down the page.

[Valerie]

I personally vote for leaving it as it as, and encouraging posters to put more info in their requests. I enjoy scrolling through different types of books, and it also gives me ideas for books I might like to read, that I possibly wouldn't have thought of if I was only looking in particular folders.

[Jenna]

Do we have anything for "looking for books like" - if we've read a book that we liked (i.e. plot type) and would like suggestions for books like that book?

[Lisa]

Jenna wrote: "Do we have anything for "looking for books like" - if we've read a book that we liked (i.e. plot type) and would like suggestions for books like that book?"

No, there are other groups, I'm sure that do that, but here we're trying to help people find specific books they don't remember and want to recall. We're not giving reading recommendations in this group. We're helping members find books they already know/knew.

[Benjamin]

Can I necro this topic? It looks like this group has grown significantly since 2011 and could benefit from splitting up the "Unsovled" folder into genres. Where I typically am most familiar with certain genres and not others, this would make it easier for me to find requests that I am likely to recognize.

[Kris]

I understand the frustration with finding topics of interest and the idea behind multiple Unsolved folders.

One of the challenges with this approach is usability. On the desktop website, you would have to scroll down a *long* way to view multiple Unsolved folders. The group's homepage lists up to 25 threads per folder, and we already have 13 folders to manage. The homepage would become incredibly long - more than is practical.

As others have mentioned, it really helps when the subject line (topic/header) of a request contains the (sub)genre and a good description -- e.g., YA Romance: Detailed description of the book goes here without spoilers.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Another issue is genres themselves. Some books will fit into multiple genres. Some books may not have a firm genre. If we stuck those into some category called "Other," would they get ignored? The way it's set up now, I think it encourages people to scroll through every header, and then ignore the ones they think won't apply to them. It can definitely be inefficient for people who don't have a lot of time, but it does have the upside that requests that don't fit into a particular genre are less likely to go unseen.

Also some people aren't even sure what genre their book is, or what age reader it's aimed at.

[Kiri]

What about creating a guideline and keeping it to under ten very broad genres. Anything else goes into the "all others" category - and people could try and help classify it. Sometimes questions help the poster decide on a genre.

My broad category genre shelf suggestions would be as follows:
    Children's & YA
    Fiction
    Non-Fiction (would include Science, Political, etc..)
    Science Fiction / Fantasy
    Mystery
    Romance/Historical Romance/Chick-Lit
    Historical Fiction
    Dystopian/Apocalyptic/Urban & Paranormal
    All Others & Unknown

That is 8 base genres with one for everything else. People would still have to mark the topic clearly.

How does that sound?

[Kiri]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Another issue is genres themselves. Some books will fit into multiple genres. Some books may not have a firm genre. If we stuck those into some category called "Other," would they get ignored? The ..."

I think this gets addressed with the original poster identifying the most likely genre in the post topic. We could add a topic marker switch of *thinks* say *CG* indicating a cross genre book. But to be blunt most cross genres if you really examine them, but they fall into one prime genre.

[Ingo]

Just the opposite, I feel bad putting books into a prime genre. And even then, I do not think, it is clearly defined. I read books - not genres.
No, sorry, I will not stand for this.
And my guess is, most will be put into "other" anyway.
One of the discussions I had with other people, was about A Clockwork Orange, what is that to you?
- clearly, it is YA (was denied, although I suggested it for teens) to me
- dystopian
- alternative society
- SF

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

My feeling hasn't changed on this; I still feel it would introduce an unacceptably high degree of complexity and ambiguousness. There is so much genre overlap, there is YA/NA/Adult overlap, there is children's/YA overlap (which is why we combine them even though a book for toddlers is then in the same folder as a book where a 17 year old is losing his virginity). What about historical fiction that has some romance, or a romance that contains some history? What about a sci-fi detective novel, one of which I read recently? What about literary science fiction? What about romance or historical fiction or sci-fi or fantasy that is so old it has become classic already?

I get it that people want some more division and definition and they want it to be cleaner and neater, but I'm just not sold on it.

I continue to think that as Lisa said way back in message 3 (Lisa was a mod at that time), putting genre and plot details in your header remains the best way for people to spot threads they might be able to solve, and that people might miss threads they could otherwise solve if they are put in an unexpected folder.

[Kris]

Ditto to message #22.
Btw, folder complexity might not appear to be an issue on the mobile app, but it's a problem on the desktop website which is the version that moderators use.

One idea is to use the Search (Discussion Posts) box if you're looking for a specific genre or theme (e.g., "ya dystopian").

[Aerulan]

Personally, as someone who likes to solve other's requests but has never posted any of my own, if things get divided into separate folders and I have to check ones for all of those genres (because I read some of each and sometimes solve for things I don't personally read as well) I'm gonna quit bothering to try and help things get solved. That's more effort than I am willing to go to each day.
It's easy right now to take a quick look at UNSOLVED and see if there's anything that jogs a memory or sounds like something I want to try and hunt down.

Having to go through 8 or more folders every time I visit the group to see if each of them have new threads that look interesting is going to be more work, also you are just making more mess, there's gonna be lots more things in the "wrong" folder than there already are, people who only look in the genre they read and miss threads that are posted somewhere else because they fit both but the searcher thought "genre2" was a better spot than "genre1".

Plenty of the people who post requests don't read the instructions for posting already and put their threads everywhere but UNSOLVED, giving them more wrong targets to hit isn't gonna do anything but make more work for the mods.

[Myst]

If one were to split up the unsolved folder, how about Childrens/YA and Adult/Non Fic.

There could be a bit of confusion in some of the YA that is aimed at older teens, but it also is one of the easiest ways to split it up.

Looking at the unsolved folder, it seems a lot of the selections are for childrens/YA books, and a random mix of everything else.

Based on the shelved books, it's almost a 50/50 split between adult and childrens/ya.

adult-fiction (5177)
adult-non-fiction (317)
asked-for-more-than-once (1106)
children (2351)
series-searched (309)
ya-non-fiction (21)
young-adult (3510)

[Aerulan]

Also, some folders are going to be less active and some more active that means that slow folders that get few posts are going to have older threads sitting front and center for longer, that's nice I guess for the poster but means that if the Unsolved -Scifi/Fantasy folder only has


-3days old- ???- people who only tell the truth
-4 days old- Fantasy-Woman who joins nomadic tribe on poisonous black and red grassland
-8 months old- Scifi?-metalboat and boring sea snails, aliens communicate with objects

Anybody who looks at that folder has to see that 8month old thread every time. Which again, nice for the poster they'll not need to bump (ever) but for potential-solvers they're gonna have to scroll past it every time they visit the group even if they've seen it 200 times already and can't help with it. That's wasting time. If there's no new activity and the thread doesn't get bumped they move to the back for more recent items, and that's a good thing. New stuff should get priority, and you shouldn't have to scroll miles more screenspace to see all of it.

[Bargle]

Yes, there's too much genre overlap for this to work. For example, Kiri's suggestion of separate folders for Science Fiction / Fantasy and Dystopian/Apocalyptic/Urban & Paranormal makes no sense to me, since I consider the 2nd group part of the 1st one.

[Kate]

I agree that there is too much ambiguity and overlap to add genres to our folders. I also agree that it would make it more work for those casual lookers who often solve our books queries.