The Sword and Laser discussion
Remember to "Rescue" your Goodreads books
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Thanks for posting this. I got the same mail, but since I filter all Goodreads mails and only check them occasionally it would have slipped my attention. I was able to rescue 3 books, by the way.
Huh I didn't get the mail that I noticed.
Oh I see it was for select titles. I guess what I read is pretty mainstream.
I've been rescuing books all week (users with librarian status got access earlier to test drive the system). I'm so sick of it, but we seem to be mostly down to Kindle editions and foreign language (especially with non-latin characters) rescue 'em if you've got 'em.
I just saved 3 of my books from oblivion and now I am feeling much better :-)Funny, though, the titles that needed rescuing. Not mainstream at all.
I had 60 books to rescue, all but one in Japanese, and I do believe I got all of them. I didn't actually count while I was doing it, but it says I have none left now, so unless someone else got to them while I was going through them, I guess I did do all of them.
My librarian status got me in early too. I rescued those that would be deleted, but I'm not sure I see a problem with books being merged. If they are the same book, then sometimes I work to merge them anyway! (Can someone help me understand why merging is bad?)I bet Sean has quite a few...
Jenny wrote: "If they are the same book, then sometimes I work to merge them anyway! (Can someone help me understand why merging is bad?)"Some of us are, perhaps overzealously, committed to having the book on our shelf be exactly the book that we read.
I don't like shelving the ebook if I actually listened to the audiobook, or see a row of Robert Jordan's Tor hardbacks when what I own are the Orbit paperback reissues.
tl;dr, it's a matter of personal taste and borderline ocd I think
Okay so it is a version/edition issue, no, I think that is important.
Jenny wrote: "Okay so it is a version/edition issue, no, I think that is important."Yeah, if the edition on your shelf is merged, it will be deleted and replaced with the most popular remaining edition.
Jenny wrote: "If they are the same book, then sometimes I work to merge them anyway! (Can someone help me understand why merging is bad?)"There's also the issue of foreign language books and translations. A couple of the books that I rescued were original Japanese language editions that were in danger of being merged with the English translation. Which I think would be a little more than just a personal taste/ocd issue. (Of course, I'm one of those who likes to have the exact edition that I read on my shelves, so it's partially the personal taste/ocd thing, too. ^_^; )
I just got the email. I only had 1 that needed saving.
My books to rescue were old non-fiction books from the early 70's, not mainstream stuff. The merged books however were fairly recent stuff. Since I have the physical copy, I made sure the information matched what I had. As people enter data it makes less and less for others to have to. Each book only needs to be done once.
Only had the one book to save myself. Saying that though it written by a friend who's not on Goodreads and I'm the only one who had rated it, so I did feel like I helped contribute. The only problem now is that she's been merged with another author of the same name and I have no idea how to disassociate the two.
Been wrote: "Only had the one book to save myself. Saying that though it written by a friend who's not on Goodreads and I'm the only one who had rated it, so I did feel like I helped contribute. The only pro..."Only librarians can disambiguate authors. Show me a link to the book and I'll sort it.
I had one book. Number three of series, surprisingly.
A word of warning. Even though the e-mail I received said I had 0 books to save, when I followed the link to the actual page there were 2 books listed that would be deleted. I saved those 2, but it's kind of worrying that the first e-mail was inaccurate.
Mod
Kate wrote: "Been wrote: "Only had the one book to save myself. Saying that though it written by a friend who's not on Goodreads and I'm the only one who had rated it, so I did feel like I helped contribute. ..."Cool thanks :). The book's Robot Sheep. This is her only book so far, but there's more on the horizon.
Been wrote: "Kate wrote: "Cool thanks :). The book's Robot Sheep. This is her only book so far, but there's more on the horizon.
Done
We want to let you know about a change on our site that is impacting some of the books on your shelves. It's important that you read this and take action by Monday, January 30.
For years, we've used Amazon's data for information such as the book title, author, and publication date. Unfortunately, the terms required by Amazon have now become so restrictive that we decided it makes better sense to work with other data sources. However, the deadline to make the transition is Amazon's, and they have told us that we must stop using their data by January 30. We have to meet this deadline.
We've been adding data from other sources and now know which books still need help. You are receiving this email because we need new sources for 2 of the books on your shelves.
First, please be assured that none of your reviews or ratings are in danger. Not a single review, comment, shelving, or rating will be lost in this transition. We have a system in place to preserve your reviews and comments for any books at risk until we can find new sources. That's the most important thing—your data is 100 percent safe.
What can you do? The good news is you can rescue your books. Saving a book is easy. Just click the "Rescue Me!" button next to each book edition that needs help, and fill in the information on the following page. A few keystrokes can help preserve these books for millions of future readers.
Rescue your books!
It takes only a few clicks, and you will be doing your part to make sure these books remain available for other readers like you. We appreciate the passion you bring to Goodreads, and we apologize for the short notice. If we could have prevented this inconvenience in any way, we would have done it. Ultimately, this change will be better for the members of Goodreads and long-term success of the site.
If you don't want to rescue your books, you can also export your books to a spreadsheet so you have a record of them.
All the best,
Otis & Elizabeth
Goodreads Founders
I was able to rescue by 2 books and another 13 that would have been merged. I had physical copies of them all. Please check to see if you can assist Goodreads in the effort to clean the data.