You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

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message 1: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments How many times have you struggled with navigating your way around Goodreads? This thread is where we can help each other figure out the fine print.

What do you find frustrating? What is a new trick you've learned?


message 2: by Alison (last edited Jun 14, 2011 11:34AM) (new)

Alison Forde | 269 comments I love the way you can score through something when you've read it using the some html is ok tips on the forums.


message 3: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments That's handy if you are keeping track of a list of books and want to cross items off as you finish them. You might want to use that with our year long challenge.

You could post the list of books you are going to read:

Book 1
Book 2
Book 3

and use the strike-out feature when you've completed an item

Book 4


message 4: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) This is an important thread. Thank you for setting it up. Also, just so you-all know, there's a similar thread in the Feedback group. I set it up a while ago, but most of the tips are still good:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...

Btw, there's a couple of tips inherent here.

1. You don't need to join a group to read messages or look at bookshelves.

2. Joining the Feedback group is a pretty good idea if you want to make the very best use of your time here on goodreads because you can learn about all the developments sooner than the casual user, and have input on a lot of them, and be able to report bugs and ask for tips and advice.


message 5: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) One of the most fun new things we can do will be a help on some of our challenges, I think. We can ask the entire membership of GR for recommendations, being as specific or as vague as we wish.

Go to your "my books" page. Look on the left side under the list of your bookshelves for the word 'recommendations' and click on it. There are three things to do there. There two tabs at the top (the right-hand one, ask for a recommendation, is the one we might use here to help us find books to fit challenges). The third is a little lower on the right, you can "see everyone's recommendations" and share with others the good news about some of your favorite books (and earn some karma points :).


message 6: by Karendenice (new)

Karendenice Judy, if you look at the comment box you will see two things above it: #1 is add book/author, #2 is some html is ok, if you click on this one it will tell you how to type in italics, etc.

Does anyone know if there is a way to sort your shelves in alpha order?


message 7: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments Karendenice, so you mean sort the shelves, or sort the books in the shelves?


message 8: by Karendenice (new)

Karendenice The books on the shelves. Sorry. Senile moment! :)


message 9: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments Go to edit bookshelves. There is a column for "Sortable". Check that box for each shelf you want to be able to sort. Then go to the shelf. You'll see that each item in the heading can be clicked on. Click on the one you want to sort. The arrow beside will enable you to sort ascending or descending.


message 10: by Karendenice (new)

Karendenice You are awesome Janice. Thank you so much. i have been wanting to do that for quite a while.


message 11: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments You're welcome. :)


message 12: by Karendenice (new)

Karendenice Anytime Judy. I do what I can but I've only been around less than a year and there is so much to learn. I don't know a lot of it. But there are a lot of nice people on here that are usually very willing to help you out. Just don't hesitate to ask.


message 13: by Sandy (new)

Sandy H (sandyquiltz) Does anyone know why Mozilla and Explorer keep messing with the scripts on GoodReads? Actually, this is a facetious question because I don't think there is an answer. Some days I can update my status on Mozilla, other days it won't let me and I have open up GoodReads in Explorer to do that; sometimes (like today) I opened GR in Explorer first and it gave it to me like it was baby-code--no images, buttons, or anything. Had to shut it down and go into Mozilla. Freaky. Seemingly no rhyme or reason, except maybe I did something to tick off the script gods.


message 14: by Chrissie (new)

Chrissie When you say Mozilla, do you mean Firefox? Aren't they the same? Or is Mozilla a version of Firefox?


message 15: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments I haven't experienced that problem, Sandy. Do you have both on your computer? I wonder if there is a conflict between them.

I was having problems with Facebook being so slow and doing weird things. I upgraded Explorer to v9 and updated Java. The problems seem to have disappeared.


message 16: by Sam (new)

Sam (ecowitch) | 2354 comments I use Firefox on my home computer and I actually find it faster than Windows Explorer which is on my work computer and I've never had any problems with Firefox (had plenty with Explorer though, despite upgrading whenever prompted to). I also have Explorer on my home computer (although I don't use it) but never had conflict issues between them, may be because I don't use Explorer at all though


message 17: by Chrissie (new)

Chrissie I have both Firefox and Internet Explorer on my computer. They do not conflict. I think Firefox is much better - faster and on it one can easily change font sizes and colors. You do not even need an add-on to do this. Changing size and colors is under tools/ options/content. I have just finally figured all of this ought!


message 18: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments When I first joined a group on Goodreads, I would pull up the group home page. Each folder has about 4 topics listed and if one of them had a little red "new" on it, I would select that thread and read it. At some point I realized I was missing a lot of messages.

I started using the ':topics:all | new | unread Discussion Board:' that shows on the top right header for the discussion board. When you click on 'unread', you get a list of all topics that haven't been read.

When I finish reading a thread, I scroll back to the top of the page and click on 'unread topics' that appears to the right under the 'search discussion posts' field.

How do you check for unread messages?


message 19: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) I get all notifications in my email. I'm lucky; I don't do much else with my email so I'm not overwhelmed. What I'd do if I needed to would be to open a second Yahoo account just for goodreads stuff, and check on it when I had time, once every day or two at most.


message 20: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments That works too, Cheryl. Do you get notifications of new topics, or just ones you've commented on?


message 21: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) Yes, I do get notifications of new topics. Oh, and the other advantage of doing it by email is that I keep up in chronological order - so I don't accidentally get all caught up in one group while letting all the topics in a different group get stale. :)


message 22: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "Yes, I do get notifications of new topics. Oh, and the other advantage of doing it by email is that I keep up in chronological order - so I don't accidentally get all caught up in one group while ..."

I can see the benefit in getting messages in chronological order.


message 23: by Chrissie (new)

Chrissie I do as Cheryl does too!


message 24: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments I started out getting emails on threads on which I had commented. However, my email is also my work email and two problems emerged. My email was getting too full over the weekend and during the week I found myself wanting to be on Goodreads instead of working. LOL!


message 25: by Chrissie (new)

Chrissie Janice, that could be a problem...... reading GR emails or working! Take a guess which wins.


message 26: by Kate (new)

Kate Z (kgordon3) | 144 comments I'm going to ask this in the other thread mentioned above too - but is there a way to list a book BOTH on your "read" list and also your "To Read" list?

This came up for me on the November 2011 challenge. I had listed The Phantom Tollbooth on my TBR list because someone I know had gone to a childrens book conference and purchased the 50th anniversary edition for me (really for my kids). I read this book as a kid and it was certainly one of those books that I loved - but I also only have a kind of general sense of the book so I put it in my "to read" list because I want to read it again with my kids. My person picked this book for me because she was surprised that I hadn't read it and that is what brought about this question.

Also as part of that same challenge a friend of mine listed East of Eden. I've read that book but years ago (college) and I'd love to re-read it now if and when someone else was reading it and I could have a "discussion" with them about it. So seeing that book on her update feed reminded me of that fact - but I don't necessarily want to switch it from my "read" list into my "to read" list.

Is there a way to have one book on both lists?


message 27: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments Those two shelves were made exclusive by Goodreads and can't be changed. You could, however, create a new shelf and call it "read and to read again". You could make it an exclusive shelf if you like.


message 28: by Kat (new)

Kat (katzombie) | 2478 comments If there is more than one addition, can you not add one to your Read shelf and one to your To Read shelf?

I just did this with A Tale of Two Cities by selection 'More editions' on the right-hand menu and adding one edition to 'Read' and one edition to 'To Read'

Unless you like having the correct edition on your shelves :)


message 29: by Kate (new)

Kate Z (kgordon3) | 144 comments Thanks Kat! No, I don't care about the edition that is on my shelf. Great idea! I knew someone would have a solution for me!


message 30: by Kat (new)

Kat (katzombie) | 2478 comments Kate wrote: "Thanks Kat! No, I don't care about the edition that is on my shelf. Great idea! I knew someone would have a solution for me!"

No worries !


message 31: by Carly (new)

Carly Svamvour (faganlady) | 121 comments I have no suggestions - just going with the flow as I surf from group to group.

But I just wanted to say this thread has been helpful to me.


message 32: by Gemma (new)

Gemma (gemmagem20) How do you set notifications to notify you when a thread you're in has a reply - I had notifications for every single post in a group, which was a bit annoying, set it to none and now I'm missing things - is it all or nothing!?


message 33: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments You can do individual threads by clicking on the "Email me when people reply" which is at the bottom right of the comment box. When you want to stop receiving the thread posts, you can stop them in the same way.


message 34: by Gemma (new)

Gemma (gemmagem20) Janice wrote: "You can do individual threads by clicking on the "Email me when people reply" which is at the bottom right of the comment box. When you want to stop receiving the thread posts, you can stop them ..."

Hmm, I hate receiving loads of emails. prefer notifications..oh well, I'll have to just remember what I have commented on. Thanks Janice


message 35: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments I generally do the same thing, Gemma.


message 36: by Mintymedley (new)

Mintymedley | 60 comments I have been trying to learn my way around this lovely group for a few days now. Everyone keeps mentioning all these badges they are trying for. I can not for the life of me find a listing of all of them and the qualifiers for each. Help please.


message 37: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments If you go to the discussion group "Wall of Fame", you will find all the badges that people have won for participation in the challenges and TBR Topplers.

You will find the badges available for the upcoming February TBR Toppler by clicking on this link.


message 38: by Mintymedley (new)

Mintymedley | 60 comments Thanks Janice!


message 39: by Alison (new)

Alison Forde | 269 comments This is a really basic question: up till now I've only had the 3 shelves, read, tbr, currently reading. I have now created another one called feminist tbr but can't figure out how to add anything. When I added another book I only got the option to add to the three original shelves. Where am I going wrong?


message 40: by Kat (new)

Kat (katzombie) | 2478 comments You'll need to go to the book (the full page) and click 'edit my review', then you can select any shelf you want.

Read, TBR & Currently-Reading are 'exclusive' shelves, meaning books can only be on one of these shelves at a time.

If, like me, you want to create a 'wishlist' shelf you can create it and make it 'exclusive' under the 'edit shelves' option under 'my books'.


message 41: by Alison (new)

Alison Forde | 269 comments THanks Kat. I figured out the bit about making it exclusive, so I can add a book straight to the shelf I want it on.


message 42: by Hazel (new)

Hazel | 18 comments Hey, I have seen people putting up a picture of the book that they are linking...I wondered how do you do this, do I need to do some html things to do it?

Thank you :)


message 43: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) It's pretty easy, actually, cuz GR has it set up for us. Right above the comment box that we're typing these messages in, there's a link that says "add book/author." Click on it, and enter the title of your book. At the bottom of the results click the radio button that says 'cover' and then click 'add' next to the book you want to add.

(It is html, but we don't need to know how to use it, just how to ask for it, so to speak. :)


message 44: by Hazel (new)

Hazel | 18 comments Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "It's pretty easy, actually, cuz GR has it set up for us. Right above the comment box that we're typing these messages in, there's a link that says "add book/author." Click on it, and enter the ti..."

Thank you, I have totally found it...silly me for not seeing the obvious!


message 45: by Janice, Moderator (new)

Janice (jamasc) | 59984 comments Hazel wrote: "Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "It's pretty easy, actually, cuz GR has it set up for us. Right above the comment box that we're typing these messages in, there's a link that says "add book/author." Click..."

It would be advisable that if you select the cover to add to your comment, repeat the process and select the title as well. Apparently, some people have trouble seeing the covers on a phone app.


message 46: by Snoozie Suzie (new)

Snoozie Suzie (snooziesuzie) | 937 comments Yes, the covers don't always show on the phone app so I don't always know what book is being discussed!


message 47: by Kat (new)

Kat (katzombie) | 2478 comments I like seeing both, even when I'm on my laptop.


message 48: by Cheryl (new)

Cheryl (cherylllr) I just learned that we can collapse discussions! See that little triangle arrow to the left of each folder title, on either the group home page or the discussion list page. Toggle it! All of a sudden more of our group's folders are visible, because the topics collapsed. To reset, toggle again. In this group, with all the different things we have going on, this tip will help me a *lot*.


message 49: by jaxnsmom (new)

jaxnsmom | 8341 comments How are you posting pictures of your pets? I can't get pics or clip art into my comments.


message 50: by [deleted user] (new)

Is it possible to set notifications up so that I receive them on discussions I've commented on, but not for every discussion in the group?
If anyone knows which combination of ticks and buttons I need to set, I'd appreciate it!


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