Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion

I've just recently started using BookLikes and am still trying to figure out the site (my 715 books imported in just 11 minutes when I thought it might take days, so that was a good start!).

There are a couple of things I really like about BL that GR doesn't have (aside from the recent censorship policy): BookLikes has half-stars and allows full-length posts that aren't reviews of books. (I know GR lets us write posts under "writing," but I'd feel weird using that as a blog feature since it's clearly intended for things like short stories.) I was excited to have a site display the real ratings for all my books after artificially rounding for so long, and half-stars seem to work just fine for them. :)

Otherwise, although BookLikes is visually attractive I'm finding it a bit clunky to use--it's hard to edit reviews, edit which shelves you put a book on (I can't seem to do this at the same time as posting the review), see how someone else shelved a book, fix which edition of a book you read, etc. At this point it's also definitely not a social networking site, so you can only see teasers for a couple of non-friend reviews (and have to click through to another page to read the whole thing) and otherwise are directed to Amazon for reviews. In that sense I'm not sure BL is a good alternative to GR--reviews may not be censored, but it doesn't do me much good if I can hardly see find else's reviews at all!

What do the rest of you think? Have I just not figured BL out yet? Does it have other cool features I haven't yet discovered?

Well, there are discussions groups. Once you start following people you will see a lot more things of interest. I think it is visually stimulating and I love the blog feature where I can post photos as well as reviews.

Atmosphere-wise, I like it over there. Very basic group features were just added last Thursday -- I don't mind that right now they have limited features because I trust booklikes to be rolling out more and more upgrades.

Currently, other than the data importing working, I think they are one of the worst site I've ever tried for book cataloging for all that you can post a very pretty review blog -- except that you can actually name your book pshelves with spaces, punctuation, capital letters. ( some sites that are worse have no way of adding books or covers missing, no editions at all, etc.). I'm just not a blogger for all that I'm trying to plug away over there as the only way to get comfortable with the site.

But, just like with groups, it's a startup and I really trust that they will get there with the book information, series info, review features, etc.

(I confess to being nearly hysterical with joy and chortling out loud as I was using half stars and renaming shelves.)

I like that you can customize a lot of your blog elements; I hate that most of the customizing you currently do manually with html, css, and twig coding. I wasn't wanting to setup another website to keep debugged and updated; I wanted a book catalog and activity site.

I'm liking it a bit better now that I've gotten a handle on how I want to do my reviews and am gradually getting them moved over. I tried to document some of the review thungs that helped me at http://donealrice.booklikes.com/post/... .

If it helps, I've been randomly collecting links and other member's collections of links at http://donealrice.booklikes.com/How-To ; I think http://themisathena.booklikes.com/bl_... is the best organized list of tips ; http://silverthistle.booklikes.com/po...- may be one of the best introductions.

Yes, it is different, but it is lovely. Primitive but with a great atmosphere. I am beginning to understand how it works, and I am warning other new members that when I started there were numerous days when I thought I would simply give up. I am glad I didn't.

I like BL.....but it is difficult for me to use. I've never been a Blogger, so that is new to me. It will be a great learning experience for me.
:)
I definitely enjoy a "group" reading experience.

I really like it but I'm so pressed for time in my offline life right now that I barely get any time to explore and there's a learning curve that right now I'm not climbing. But I think the blogging format is actually going to really really work for me.

I'm in love with Booklikes. I've actually found myself adding newer thoughts to earlier reviews because I feel so free and so at peace over there. Right now, I'm manually adding to-reads.

Debbie--thanks for the links! Very helpful.
Glad you hung in there, Chrissie. Brenda & Bunny--I completely understand the learning curve. I hear it's like Tumblr, which I've never done. Those tutorials were great help at making my page feel more like me. I also set up a refugee group for connections there.

Personally, I think it's much better than Tumblr. I tried Tumblr for a week, and abandoned it because I felt like I was talking to myself.

Carol. [Unicorns and Rainbows] wrote: "Debbie--thanks for the links! Very helpful.
Glad you hung in there, Chrissie. Brenda & Bunny--I completely understand the learning curve. I hear it's like Tumblr, which I've never done. Those tuto..."

Yeah, me too.

At BL it is like it used to be at GR....years and years ago. I mean this as a compliment to BL.

Bunny wrote: "I really like it but I'm so pressed for time in my offline life right now that I barely get any time to explore and there's a learning curve that right now I'm not climbing. But I think the bloggi..."

Carol. [Unicorns and Rainbows] wrote: "Debbie--thanks for the links! Very helpful.
Glad you hung in there, Chrissie. Brenda & Bunny--I completely understand the learning curve. I hear it's like Tumblr, which I've never done. Those tuto..."

Time and learning curve.....yeah.

BTW Carol, I like your new subtitle.
:)
I have a similar one on BL.

I saw, Brena. Butterflies!

:D

It's kind of clunky and I prefer Goodreads for the delicious delicious numbers, but I really like the tumblr-style blog and I've started to use that feature more than I use it as a Goodreads substitute. I just wish we could have GR sync turned back on, seriously.

I think one of the things I like best about it is that the one thing that unites all of us in friendship (following) is that we are all GR refugees! There is none of this checking out the shelves, comparing books, friend question, private profiles, no paranoia at all. I am making friends with people I never knew about who write reviews of books in genres I'll never read. I enjoy getting to know these new people through comments and their blogs and I enjoy reading reviews of whatever book.

I hope this friendliness doesn't change. The paranoia here over friends joined by the censorship does not make for a friendly site.

Aw, I like comparing books. It's a quick way to access the reviews someone's written of books I've actually heard of.

I'm seeing an advantage to little access to reviews from people you don't follow though... No defensive comments from fans on critical reviews?

I didn't say I didn't like it, but actually, I don't! I read such an odd selection of books I never have anything much in common with anyone except the classics and books we all read as children. I can see how good that feature can be for some people though.

I can also see how it is used in a judgemental way here and apparently not (yet?) on BL (judging by the number of people who have friended me and I have friended with whom I have hardly any books in common).

Perhaps it is we are joined by our mutual joining of BL and don't need any extras in common as yet?

I'm there because I have many friends and other familiar profiles there. I'm also at LibraryThing but only to catalog my books, and hopefully I'll speed up that process; I'm manually adding books, one by one, correcting as I go, and there's a lot to correct thanks to well meaning but incompetent GR librarians and also because the first couple years I was here I didn't always try to add the correct book editions.

I don't like the format or even the blog feature. I feel lost. Here at GR I always was able and willing to help others. Over at BookLikes I'm the one who's going to be needing lots of help. When I'm more ready to try to get books over there, I'll be asking many questions.

The problem is I no longer trust any of these sites and I'm not that enthusiastic about getting too invested.

I wish a new site could be formed, one that would never be sold out, but paid for by reader memberships and perhaps ads as well. I'm trying to adapt. But when people talk about what a great atmosphere there is there and how responsive the site owners and workers are, all I can think about is how Goodreads was that way 6-1/2 years ago, even 5, 4, maybe 3 years ago.

It's a lot of work to transfer everything, much more than it was to originally add content here.

I hope I'll feel more positively the more time I spend on BL.

I see your point, Lisa. BL is responsive because it serves their purposes to react quickly. They're excited because they're trying to position themselves as the next big thing. But what I think about is all the feature requests and upgrade requests lying around here at GR because the knee-jerk reaction here is "yeah, we'll see" as opposed to "OK, we'll implement that next week" (BL).

Jennifer, In the old days, Goodreads often implemented requests rather quickly. Sorry to spoil the mood. I'm just not in love with any site right now. However, I do value the conversations and the relationships with Goodreads/BookLikes members.

AND, Otis used to personally communicate with all of us too. Regularly. He was seemingly "real" friends with us regulars. It was so different the first few years. Well, BookLikes is a new(sih) site now...

Yep, I'm one very cynical person right now.

I'm cynical too. I work for a politician (one I trust, respect and admire, I hasten to add) - and the way you're feeling is a refrain I've heard a million times. Betrayed. Disengaged. I get that.

I'll never have the emotional attachment to this place that you had. I didn't even know it existed two years ago. I happened upon it by accident as I was trying to fall in love with reading again (long story). But where my head is at right now is - where can I go where I feel welcome, appreciated and understood? Right now, that's Booklikes.

Jennifer, I can completely understand that, how you feel, and I'm glad for you that you have a place to be where you feel comfortable. And that's wonderful re trying to love reading again. Some day I'd love to hear the long version of your story.

Yes, Goodreads was my online home for quite a few years and I was very attached. So it's a huge loss for me, and many others I know.

But I am kind of over the old Goodreads and I'm looking forward. It's just that so far I don't feel all that comfortable anywhere.

All the members here do go a long way toward making a new home for book discussions. I'm sure I'll figure things out. It's just taking me longer to do that than it is for many of you.

We each grieve in different ways, it will take time. I don't mean that facetiously.

Lisa, I am glad you voice how you are feeling. Do you remember how quiet I was when I first joined GR in 2007? We have been friends almost that long. As you know that is because I had been burned at another web community, another one that started as a group of friends and then totally deteriorated due to financial interests. Sound similar? Yes. You get burned and you do not forget; but life goes on and you have to enjoy what can be enjoyed. The spirit
at BL is wonderful right now. My philosophy is to enjoy it while you can, and having been burned once, twice or several times, we all have to work to keep it that way.

I am still at GR, too, so it is up to GR if they want to make it a good community again. If they can. They do not want input from us though, so it is up to them.

Thanks, Jennifer. I know you're sincere.

Thanks, Chrissie. Yes, I think we have been friends here since 2007, and I remember very vividly when you were first talking about what happened at that other forum. At the time, I never thought Goodreads would follow that pattern, but you're right about changes, and enjoying what's there. My issue is that it seems so labor instensive to get over all my shelved books, and ideally I'd like to do that at both LT and BL. But I might have to follow your advice and start adding only books I'm finishing as of now. Still deciding. Eventually will get my books to LT, I hope, and then I guess if I have reason to move over certain reviews to BL (because friends are discussing them, for instance, and especially if they add better book pages!!!) I'd be set to do that.

Relax, Lisa, we are all gong through difficulties. Books should not be causing us grief but making us happy. My approach was different. I took a fresh CSV file. When that had been imported to BL, I waited a few more day after they say it is done (because it isn't), and then I started manually fixing what was here. I fixed the covers first using the import file you get when the import is completed. Then I fixed the shelves b/c all your exclusive shelves are put in either planning to read, read or currently reading. Then I started fixing the reviews. But you know I have tons of reviews! Yes, this is very labor intensive, and I have been having screaming fits when I swore I would just give up. Now after more than a month I am beginning to understand a bit. I am no computer whiz. If I can do it anyone can do it. All changes during and after the import have been done manually at both GR and BL. This is really not so hard, you just work differently on the two different sites. And I do not have to be OCD, a few mistakes are not going to kill me. :0)

In general, I like BookLikes, except for the fact that it isn't possible to be in direct contact (via e-mail) with one's followers. BookLikes needs to provide the facility so that its users can - if desired - contact each other directly (as is the case here in Goodreads).

Chrissie wrote: "Books should not be causing us grief but making us happy."

Exactly! In a nutshell ... :)

KOMET wrote: "In general, I like BookLikes, except for the fact that it isn't possible to be in direct contact (via e-mail) with one's followers. BookLikes needs to provide the facility so that its users can -..."

Well, Dawid (the BookLikes CEO) said they're already working on this -- and if they were able to give us discussion rooms (i.e., groups) as quickly as they've done, I'm sure this is pretty much right around the corner as well.

Themis-Athena (“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson) wrote: "Chrissie wrote: "Books should not be causing us grief but making us happy."

Exactly! In a nutshell ... :)"

:0) WE agree!

Chrissie wrote: ":0) WE agree!"

And things would be so much easier if everybody did ... :)

You're not kidding.

Themis-Athena (“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” -- Ralph Waldo Emerson) wrote: "Chrissie wrote: ":0) WE agree!"

And things would be so much easier if everybody did ... :)"

You know, honestly? what I'm looking for are online platforms where I can coexist with other people even if we don't agree. Which is one of my big gripes with Gramazon. They are completely bobbling that.

Yes, they are doing it for commercial reasons, and I don't love that, but the main issue for me is they aren't letting the community thrive and be full of a glorious variety of wild individualities. Instead they are forcing us into little "behave" boxes and ironing out or silencing our differences. Thus we can all fit neatly into our little feeder boxes in the consumer hatchery. BORING!!

I like BookLikes, but it's missing many features and improvements that I hope will trickle down in the weeks/months ahead.

I really really miss book pages. Whenever one of my friends would start reading a book, I'd jump on the book page and check out what my other friends and people I followed had rated or reviewed it. Same things with group/club reads.

And not being able to easily edit my reviews from my shelves is almost a show stopper. I may never fix my reviews there and instead focus my reviews at my own blog.

As a catalog, it fails as well. I'm trying to use Calibre as my catalog software going forward, but even that's a stretch from what I'm used to here at GoodReads.

Sorry to grumble so much, but it's a Monday. :)

Bunny wrote: "You know, honestly? what I'm looking for are online platforms where I can coexist with other people even if we don't agree. Which is one of my big gripes with Gramazon. They are completely bobbling that."

Oh yes, I didn't mean peace and harmony all' round and ne'er a disagreement in sight ... I actually did mean GR and Amazon's interference with this site. It USED to be all about books, and the pleasure we derive from them. (Or on occasion, not.) And everybody used to agree that this is what the site SHOULD be about. Then Ammy bought Goodreads, authors started to play nasty, the New Rulers changed the terms of use to protect authors and their (the site's and the authors') joint/mutual sales interests, and out the window went the general agreement on what the site should be about ... and what used to make it fun. Individuality not only included, but first and foremost among those things.

Bunny, I take it as a given that people should be able to express honest reviews, both positive and negative, but of course in a polite manner.

I like it. I enjoy personalization. I also like being able to make a post just about my thoughts like I've seen one where the person talked about their recent dry spell and how they couldn't get into anything they tried. People seem to comment more often on reviews too. It feels more like a community. :)

Yes to Themis! Individuality and respect for it first and foremost. Chrissie you are kind of making my point for me there. For you, "of course in a polite manner," is part of what's a given. For me there are a number of things I value more highly than politeness. So for me that isnt a given, in fact its a little bit of a red flag.

In a well managed community it would be possible for us to co exist with our differences mostly intact in our own spaces and to negotiate ground rules when we need them in shared spaces. I wouldn't impose my greater appreciation for frankness on you by demanding it be a universal standard in all spaces and equally you wouldn't impose your greater appreciation for civility on me.

There would be tools and support for navigating and celebrating our differences instead of a constant pressure to eliminate or at least hide them.

I really like it over there. Aside from a little learning curve, I feel welcome and safe there. I love how responsive Dawid is to our feedback. I swear he tweeted me back in 20 minutes. People seem friendlier there too. Like Rainy Day Reader mentioned, the freedom is a nice feeling because sometimes there are those days where you aren't motivated to do anything except look at funny cat pictures.

My only gripe is that it seems to be a bit more challenging meeting new people with similar book tastes. But Dawid did say that it is in the works. Oh and that I have no idea how to block someone. Not that the need has come up yet, but it would be nice to know how. There was one sock puppet when our great migration first started, but the good people at BL nipped that in the bud right away.

Shelley wrote: ".... Oh and that I have no idea how to block someone. ..."

So far as I know, only two ways to block a person. If they are following you, under the friends' tab you have a little blackish box to click to block them from following you. Or else you email support about.

I recognized a sock by their very nasty comment on someone else's post and did email support to see about blocking (telling them that there had not been any issues between us but that I wanted them blocked before there were; and even if I had not recognized the beast, the comments made clearly came from someone I wanted to avoid) and the response was that we can delete comments on our posts and that they would be keeping an eye out for issues with that account.

Either the poster or support deleted the comment; and I haven't had any issues -- but, if I had not randomly run across their comment I might have accidentally friended someone I wanted to block. With the few goodreads members I blocked, at least when I run across their comments in discussion groups it tells me I had blocked the person so I could remember to not engage. I'm not sure exactly how that works on booklikes -- but I would have been more comfortable if support had said "okay, we'll block him for you." The account is still there.

I disagree that reviews should be polite--to whom, the author? That's what this whole fiasco is about, our right to say things authors don't want to hear. I love blunt, passionate reviews, and reviews are for readers, not authors. Of course real abuse (like posting people's home addresses or threatening physical injury) should be policed but policing the way we express ourselves is nobody's business.

Chrissie wrote: "Bunny, I take it as a given that people should be able to express honest reviews, both positive and negative, but of course in a polite manner."
(bold added for emphasis)

That's a lovely sentiment. So who decides the standard for 'polite'? That word is more amorphous than 'respectful'. I was raised old school so I know that my personal benchmarks are not the same as for others, especially the younger generation. Shall I impose my standards on you?

Plus, not everyone speaks U.S. English.

The way some things translate, even if so polite you'd say to your clergyman or a visiting head of state, you can offend someone just with how an idiomatic term translates.

I have zero issue with removing hate speech, threatening, or harassing content; but "tone of community," "polite" or even "keep it civil" opens up a whole can of censorship. And prevents the very diversity and freely expressed opinions that made the reviews on this site worth reading, trusting or at least being entertained by.

And even if you are 100% in favor of announced policy because you want your goodreads content to be "polite" -- that's not how the new policy is being implemented. It's clearly mostly about protecting amazon from the unfortunately gone viral pr mess caused by a tiny segment of indie authors. And unevenly applied as the reviewers those authors were most angry with were the ones first targeted--that is, not about impolite, offensive, or threatening shelve being removed but rather shelves with those authors removed because "in context" were considered against "tone of community" or about "author behavior".

My point was not whether or not "polite" is an okay boundary. For me its not, for Chrissie it is. My point is - we don't have to agree on that to be in a community with each other, IF the community is being run properly. She can have her views and I can have mine and we can give each other room to differ. We don't all have to be the same in order to get along. We just need good rules and structures and policies and a bit of good will with which to negotiate them.

That's one of the things that really worked about groups here. People could seek the company of like minded souls, and swear if they liked to swear, or not swear if they preferred, and not annoy one other. People who wanted to bar authorial self promotion could do that, people who wanted to seek it could do that. Individuality. Diversity.

Same thing, once upon a time for shelves, and reviews, and writing and etc. If a member didn't review or shelve or write or comment in a way that I enjoyed, then I just didn't need to follow that person. Solved. I didn't need to go and tell them to behave differently, I could just mind my own business and let them mind theirs. And if someone wasn't able to leave me alone, then I could block them so they were forced to do so.

+1

In defense of politeness (now that I've already argued against it), I do think for a community to work well there needs to be some kind of community standard for how members treat each other. For instance, all the snide, defensive or just plain nasty comments that some of the more immature Goodreaders post on reviews they disagree with are destructive to the community, and I have friends who have ceased to write negative reviews for that very reason. They're usually drive-by comments, so blocking individuals doesn't help. This amounts to a sort of community-based censorship. I'm not sure much can be done about it, and I've seen other sites go so overboard mandating "civility" that they wound up virtually dead, but I do think politeness to other users is a virtue and that at some point trolls need to be banned.

What I was reacting against is the idea that reviews ought to be polite, which I took to mean that we should avoid expressing strong negative opinions about books or their authors. I have my own boundaries, but ultimately these folks are putting up products for sale and this site isn't (or shouldn't be) for them.

I agree with you Emma that aggressive and nasty comments can end up making people self censor because they just don't want to attract or deal with the trollery. Whether its drive by comments or people who get blocked and come back under another name, that sort of behavior does create a sort of defacto censorship via rudeness. I also agree that can be very destructive to the community.

I also agree that sometimes blocking just doesn't solve the problem. And sometimes trolls do have to be banned. And we need to keep talking and exploring ideas for good process because sometimes the tools we have aren't sufficient or don't work.

That said, I also agree that enforcing politeness standards can really be a big problem because how on earth do you define such a thing? I think it can end up being nearly as destructive as the trollery if everyone is held to some arbitrary standard of enforced niceness. (Ugh)

I think at least part of the solution is to establish strong community norms against intrusiveness. Or to put it another way, a "who asked you," norm. What I mean is, there seems to be this notion abroad on the internet that its okay to bust into a conversation between people you don't know at all and just start in with yelling at them about how their opinions are stupid, uninformed and otherwise completely substandard. To which I want to respond, "who asked you?"

Seriously, if all someone has to contribute to the conversation is putting down the other participants, then just zip it and move on. People don't think they have some right to sit down at someone else's table at a restaurant and start lecturing them about how their opinions are fallacious. So why do they think its okay in virtual spaces?

If a community could maintain just that one standard, the don't intrude on other people just to put them down standard - well I think that would solve a lot of problems.

ETA: I've seen it in a lot of contexts too. I've seem people intrude to tell others that they are stupid for using text speak and lol language. I've seen people bust into conversations to lecture others about how its not nice to swear. And of course the people who just can't wait to set others straight on their politics or religious convictions or social ideas. A whole lot of who the heck asked you.

Yeah there will be different definitions of polite, but generally there is a common ground. We should be polite to everyone. I believe it IS possible to not like a book and yet say it in a polite manner. I will NEVER say a book is good, if I think it isn't, but I am very aware of the fact this this is just my personal pov and others may differ. I also explain very clearly WHY I didn't like the book because what I like or dislike may be very different for another reader. Having different opinions is good.