Marquise’s status > Likes and Comments

WTF?! That is infuriating. I may not use DMs, but I like talking to people in the comments.

Tammy wrote: "WTF?! That is infuriating. I may not use DMs, but I like talking to people in the comments."

I was willing to give GR the benefit of the doubt (hahaha, when will I learn?) and was charitably thinking it was a glitch due to their yearly system updates and that it'd go away in a few days.

But the first week of the year is in, and it's not gone. o.O

It's not even consistent either. It kicks me out after 4 comments sometimes, other times 10 comments.

Good grief, what next, we can’t review books? 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️

It’s literally shooting themselves in the foot…

Is there somewhere better we can go to review books? This is such a bizarre business choice. I don't understand why they don't listen to their few remaining users.

Sarah wrote: "Good grief, what next, we can’t review books? 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️"

Hahaha! You joke, but that's not impossible.

Just look at what happened to Amazon's reviews. They delete reviews and suspend accounts based on words! And one change GR is going to implement this year is that we can't review books before publication too, so no more 'pre-reviews', and you'll have to 'verify ARC' if you want to write a review before publication.

How long from there to actual censorship and deleting reviews & entire accounts by words or to please authors?

Wait what? Omg what is happening to this site

😖

Yeah, it's definitely not a glitch. Just when I thought GR couldn't get any worse...

Sounds like it’s time to make a new book community !

Good grief 😔 ☹️

Erm... WHAT? Where? How?

In the Help Center, people have been complaining about comment restrictions. Goodreads maintenance continues untill 1/12, so there is a possibility it's a glitch. I haven't seen an official post regarding new restrictions.

Mr. James wrote: "I haven't seen an official post restrictions..."

And when have they bothered to make an official post about every single restriction they've made? They took the Friends sorting feature without telling us.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've added the limited comments to the DM elimination as a package and just not told us.

And they are replying to complaints, it's the usual "clear your cache, change to Firefox, sacrifice a kitty" response that doesn't help in the least.

P.E. wrote: "Erm... WHAT? Where? How?"

They don't let us comment freely as before. After 10 comments (sometimes 4), a message pops up telling you that you can't post and to 'try later', so you have to wait to be able to post again. And for 10 or 4 comments again.

It's like the restriction of 'likes' but more severe.

TL *Humaning the Best She Can* wrote: "Good grief 😔 ☹️"

Ugh. 😔

Hannah wrote: "It’s literally shooting themselves in the foot…"

And have for a few years now. 😔

Nicole wrote: "Is there somewhere better we can go to review books?"

There are many GR copycats: StoryGraph, LibraryThing, Fable... All are getting more users, but they lack the social and community aspect of GR, which is why so many remain and don't migrate to the other sites.

If you like, go explore those and see if they'd be to your liking. They aren't to mine, but it's a me thing.

Meishuu wrote: "Wait what? Omg what is happening to this site"

Since more or less Christmastime, GR is restricting comments. You can't post more than 10 comments (in my case, not even that many, it limits me at 4 one time and 10 another time), and makes you wait until you can post again.

Even in your own reviews and updates!

And it's not going away, we thought it was a glitch due to GR's end of year updates, but it's not gone yet. You can guess it's like the restriction of 'likes'.

I wonder why they have taken that decisions, seems a little strange!

Persephone's Pomegranate wrote: "Yeah, it's definitely not a glitch. Just when I thought GR couldn't get any worse..."

Your spidey senses were spot on. I was the naÏve optimist still hoping it was merely one more glitch to the collection of glitches we live with on this site. 😔

What now, Persy? You know I'm not a big commenter like you are, I comment on others' reviews only occasionally, but I always reply to comments on mine and I'm very interactive with updates and conversations here. Feels like I'm being muzzled now. 😔

Elentarri wrote: "😖"

Yeah... 😔

Their response has been that maintenance will carry on until the 12th, so expect site glitches. Nevertheless, it wouldn't surprise me if comment restrictions were permanent.

I started experiencing this several days ago.
So I know it's not the MR wi-fi also, LOL!
GR is just DEAD to me.. I swear.. Off to have supper with my in-laws!
It's freezing here BTW but I am loving it.. Who would have thunk it?

No, literally, I thought it had to be a glitch at first, but it doesn't seem to be. They've also further limited the amount if topics you can create in groups (it's now one per hour). It really feels like they're trying to kill their own site. Want to make it just a place for book tracking, but at this rate, you can't even really talk about books with anyone.

Mr. James wrote: "Their response has been that maintenance will carry on untill the 12th, so expect site glitches. Nevertheless, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if comment restrictions were permanent."

We watch and wait, then. There's precedent for them imposing changes on us out of the blue, so the distrust is understandable. I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt anymore, they've burnt us too many times.

Leanne wrote: "I wonder why they have taken that decisions, seems a little strange!"

Probably to combat spam and bots, same reason why they restricted 'likes' and why they say they're going to get rid of DMs.

I mean, without DMs, the spammers and bots will flood people's comments section. It's a given. They already are, I'm getting some weird comments under my reviews that have nothing to do with the book, and I've had to turn my comments off again.

~*~Princess Nya Vasiliev~*~ wrote: "GR is just DEAD to me.. I swear.."

At the risk of sounding like those Muh Free Speech types on Twitter, I don't like the feeling of being muzzled, doll. 😭

I love my update questions, I get more out of these than out of comments under my reviews, I've paid the price for what I post in these updates. And I like to chat with everyone about books and related topics, that's the only bloody reason I'm here in the first place. If all I wanted was to promote my reviews like they're the reinvention of the wheel, I'd be posting them everywhere on all social media like some folks do.

But I'm here for the talk with friends, I don't care if I'm called attention hog, melodramatic, aggressive, imitator, and all those 'niceties' folks who don't have my social butterfly tendencies have told me for doing these updates.

For me, restricting comments is the final blow. I'll wait till the 12th, and if it is really and truly permanent, I'm leaving. 🥹

So annoying indeed. Hope they fix it soon.

Thibault wrote: "So annoying indeed. Hope they fix it soon."

This time, I'm listening to D. E. D. over F. A. T., Thibu. Goodreads can't be trusted.

✧Bella✧ wrote: "No, literally, I thought it had to be a glitch at first, but it doesn't seem to be. They've also further limited the amount if topics you can create in groups (it's now one per hour). It really fee..."

Wait, what?! In groups too?

I have to laugh, because people were scrambling to create groups so they'd keep DM capabilities in some limited manner, and now . . . restrictions on groups as well.

No, I'm not going to wait until they start placing restrictions on reviews. That's the logical next step if these restrictions continue.

I knew they were limiting the number of likes (in a given timeframe), but this is getting ridiculous.

The problem is that there is really nowhere else to go. I tried LibraryThing, transferred a GR file and claimed my own books there. Haven't been back since. Nothing but a souped up spreadsheet for cataloging books. I can do that in excel or googlesheets. Storygraph doesn't look any better.

Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their team and asked a few questions, they're pretty against ai, they've got bookclubs on their website apparently, the usual book tracking, etc, any links posted aren't click able but apparently you can copy-paste/view the links themselves, they don't have DMs but they're a volunteer run app sooo I mean it sounds pretty good actually. Haven't checked it out yet so I can't confirm anything tho

This is terrible. Thanks for the update. I've been away from the site for a few days so didn't know. I hope it's just a glitch, but it could just as easily not be at this point. :[ They're determined to eliminate the ability to socialize here--to what end, I'm not sure, as huge numbers of people will leave if they can't interact beyond clicking the like button. Even boring LibraryThing and The Story Graph have groups without commenting limits, for god's sake!

Marquise wrote: "Probably to combat spam and bots, same reason why they restricted 'likes' and why they say they're going to get rid of DMs."

I think they're just telling people that to make the change palatable, but assuming they're sincere, users are capable of deciding for themselves whether restricting comments makes sense. Even when my comments were unrestricted, the spam I got was only authors promoting their book(s), and even then it was infrequent enough to not bug me much. The spam doesn't look any worse in others' comments section from what I've seen.

ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their team and asked a few questions, they're pretty against ai, they've got bookclubs on their website apparently, the usual book tracking, etc, any li..."

Do they have the option to make status updates? Also, are users able to interact with others' content via liking and commenting? I can deal with no DM feature if those other things are at least in place.

Fred wrote: "The problem is that there is really nowhere else to go. I tried LibraryThing, transferred a GR file and claimed my own books there. Haven't been back since. Nothing but a souped up spreadsheet for ..."

Agree, Fred. I hold out hope, though, that The Story Graph will give us the option to DM, post status updates, and comment since it's in active development. I'm not saying my hopes are HIGH, because the founder is for some reason resistant to adding DMing and commenting, but maybe if enough people ask for the features it'll happen.

ETA: The only way to really feel a part of the LT community is to join and get really active in some groups.

Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their team and asked a few questions, they're pretty against ai, they've got bookclubs on their w..."

Commenting is probably a yes but the other stuff i have no idea. I wont be able to use the website for a while and youtube reviews of websites and apps don't really dive into things all that much. You could download the app and check and let us all know, i contacted their team at hello@bookwormreads.co or support@bookwormreads.co if you wanna try that! I've probably annoyed them enough at this point 😅

ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their team and asked a few questions, they're pretty against ai, they've got boo..."

Ok. Thanks. I'll add it to my list of sites to check out. I assume it's also a site? I'm not crazy about apps for book-based social media.

I am currently discovering Pagebound, which I find to be more userfriendly than GR, even though the site is pretty new and many features are in development.

Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their team and asked a fe..."

Looks to be a site but theyve mentioned that the app is generally better than the site. The welcome page looks ok on my phone as far as i can see though the About page looks slightly iffy. Have not checked using any other devices so far

Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro wrote: "I am currently discovering Pagebound, which I find to be more userfriendly than GR, even though the site is pretty new and many features are in development."

I asked about that app/website too! What are your thoughts on it so far? They've mentioned they don't have dms or groups at all and only book discussions are available/allowed so I've been rather hesitant to join there tbh

They want GR to close down 😭 I’ve tried other apps but none of them allow for chatting like GR has in the past. Ugh!

Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro wrote: "I am currently discovering Pagebound, which I find to be more userfriendly than GR, even though the site is pretty new and many features are in development."

ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Caroline wrote: "ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Has anybody tried bookwormreads? I contacted their te..."

Thank you both.

Sarah (berriesandbooks) wrote: "They want GR to close down 😭 I’ve tried other apps but none of them allow for chatting like GR has in the past. Ugh!"

😭😭😭 any chance there are website developers in the reading community who could help out bcs the old goodreads from lockdown was so goooooood i can't stand that they're taking so much away 😫

Caroline wrote: "Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro wrote: "I am currently discovering Pagebound, which I find to be more userfriendly than GR, even though the site is pretty new and many features are in development."

ᏒᏋᎩ..."

😄👍👍

ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "any chance there are website developers in the reading community who could help out bcs the old goodreads from lockdown was so goooooood i can't stand that they're taking so much away"

I must say I'm surprised we don't have an alternative by now that's come from a GR member (or two or three). But I know making one is a lot of work, and people are busy. I think the founder of The Story Graph is a former GR member, actually, but who knows about the others? Years ago, a group of GR users developed a site called Leaf Marks (I think that was the name), and it looked like it was doing well--I saw lots of familiar GR names there! (can't say that about LT or TSG)--but I guess it wasn't really because they ended up shutting it down not long after founding it. :*[

Yeah the Storygrraph thing i think ive actually heard about. But wow i looked up LeafMarks and it led back to a goodreads group where they were discussing it and honestly gotta say I'm a little disappointed it's no longer functioning 🥲 it looked nice
Theres something mentioned about one of the people behind it left and it's after that that they eventually shut it down? I dont know it's just there in the comments tho i could have misunderstood

I was surprised too by the lack of a website like this built by former gr members bcs i simply couldn't find something that suited my needs for community fan interactions the way GR does but yeah your point about it being a lot of work is true. Lets see maybe we'll all find something 🤷‍♀️

ᏒᏋᎩ [From the bottom of my heart f*ck prelims] wrote: "Yeah the Storygrraph thing i think ive actually heard about. But wow i looked up LeafMarks and it led back to a goodreads group where they were discussing it and honestly gotta say I'm a little dis..."

If I had the necessary skills and time I'd make one, and I'd give it all of GR's features, plus some.

I think the founders of LeafMarks experienced a falling-out. I have a vague memory, BUT I could be wrong since it was so long ago. It was dispiriting when it shut down, to say the least.

Wait, what??? The hell?
A site where we discuss books... restiricting our ability to discuss books. Wow.