Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion

With the new and innovative GR UI I became really curious how is Booklikes these days? Is it down often, how is the number of active people?

It's been working for me consistently. I like the interface there, and I've had the BL --> GR sync in place for a long time.

BL has been working for me and I like the people that are on it.

Personally, my most active and most social book community. I really like it. Love the other readers on it.

Member activity that is. Staff activity has been unpredictable.

I'm surprisingly spoiled by being able to schedule when my posts, reviews, reading progresses,, etc. happen. And by half stars -- I had no idea how much I'd like that or how hard it would be to come back to goodreads and use the whole stars.

ETA: If trying out booklikes, you might want to put a unique "tag" on your reviews (makes them easier to find later in among your other posts -- the reviews of course show when you are on the book pages themselves but tag search is quicker).

It gets more fun as you find more people. Some of us lucked out because joined in last mass gr exodus ( there's still topics in this group where we list our booklikes names).

It's less confusing once you get the hang of the main dashboard "feed" view, blog dashboard/feed view ( booklikes.com/blog) where you see just your activity and can edit or schedule draft posts, and your published blog ( username.booklikes.com).

More shelve choices and features, including private shelves and deciding if a shelf name is a wishlist one.

In addition to booklikes explore/suggestions, you can also find readers to follow by looking at the discussion rooms (their equivalent to gr groups ), reading lists (their sorta equivalent to "listopias" except you can manage ones you create, join other people's lists to track how many you've read, shelve all books from, etc.) or by searching book titles you had strong feelings about to see who posted about or reviewed the book (can also go to the book pages to see reviewers ) . I'm http://donealrice.booklikes.com ; booklikes, starts you following 25 people liking same genre. You can check out everyone's followers, who commented on posts, etc.

Trolls are easy to manage. For starters, if they cannot attract followers their nasty posts aren't seen much and they stop using booklikes . Mostly they don't stay long. Unlike Amazon forums and reviews, you can moderate the comments your posts and reviews get so can just delete their comments as well as just blocking them.

Unlike goodreads, blocking really does block them. I mention because I'm hearing that the new home page here forces you to see people you blocked if they cmment on friend/followed posts or engage in some other activities.

I'm not naive; I'm sure there will be more issues and trolls on booklikes if the big promotion companies that use Amazon and goodreads ratings/reviews to qualify books to be promoted start also including booklikes ratings. Or if booklikes membership grows enough to be a real competitor for what site readers trust reviews when making purchasing decisions. But, right now it's been very pleasant. I've mostly just blocked the odd spam accounts made by folk wanting to sell me diet pills, real estate, make a fortune with that Nigerian prince's account -- and frankly,, no place n the Internet is safe from those.

I still like it, but I must admit features and staff involvement are pretty low key. It's kind of a bother to correct book entries, so they tend to be messy and duplicative. I still come here for the best cataloguing.

I think whether it works for you mostly depends on whether you like the blog-like format or not.

I'm pretty active over there as a rule. It sort of reminds me of a book-oriented Live Journal. (I came to GR from LJ, actually.)

Charming wrote: "It's kind of a bother to correct book entries, so they tend to be messy and duplicative..."

It was more than just "kind if a bother" to correct and add book data here on goodreads initially also. And on Leafmarks and Bookrabbit and Fictiondb and all kinds of sites when new-ish (or like in the case of booklikes, new-ish to allowing readers to add or having librarians/editors maintain).

Us readers and the librarians here eventually grew the goodreads book catalog -- and librarians spend endless hours maintaining -- to make goodreads data what it is.

Booklikes does need more librarians (and to get it in gear to give them better tools). But, the book catalog will just continually improve as member involvement grows. Just like it did here.

Just importing our goodreads book export file to various sites gives a big boost to their book data. (I remember how just that grew booklikes ...).

Don't get me wrong, I think the goodreads book database is one of the best (well, it was until the Amazon takeover when Amazon data feed of things like a marketplace seller ad's "See my excellent seller rating. Like new with dustjacket" was allowed to overwrite a multi-paragraph book description manually entered by a librarian from the back of book or dustjacket). The catalog -- plus my friends and groups -- are why I'm still hanging in.

But goodreads has an excellent book database because we made it so. We can make another book site's catalog just as good if site allows us to. Amazon is making goodreads book database actually worse, both from their stance on their data feed and their treatment of librarians/edits.

ETA: sorry to get in my soapbox. Clearly, I'm someone who had librarian efforts get destroyed by Amazon authors and Amazon data.

I like how you post reading progresses, reviews and ratings on booklikes. When I cross post to other sites, I miss it.

I don't think it's as enjoyable to new people until they follow and engage with other booklikers.

It was easier for some of us as newbies because we found each other and were posting our flounderings and how-to's. Everyone was in the same boat. Plus booklikes was actively trying to get new members and reinvent itself; über responsive to us. Even made requested changes, improvements and updates at least once a week (what we called our "Thursday" Candy posts from booklikes).

I am unhappy with current staff activity, I do have concerns there. It's not uncommon that sites are more responsive to members on their early days -- still, booklikes staff are too inactive currently, IMO. But, booklikes is currently the book community I most enjoy and where I am most actively participating.

Absolutely loved booklikes, the half-stars, the progress reports and the way reviews could be synced to GR, also the blog function.

But for a couple of months, the site is exceptionally slow, doesn't load all the features (such as the stars or even all the editing options when you want to post a text), syncing doesn't work... and you get zero response at the help desk (contrasting a couple of years ago when you had a response to an email within hours at the lastest). The problems occur on FF and Chrome, with or without activated Adblock. I fear the site is on its way out. :((

Recent rumor says owners are/were in Germany dealing with a serious health issue versus booklikes being shutdown or sold.

Tonight, booklikes has been excruciatingly slow for me. Not always (I'm forlornly hoping because maybe someone is working on the back end or just because it's Saturday night busy).

Who really knows? Which is actually more of a problem for me than that there are sporadic site issues and slowdowns, that is, the lack of communication, response and activity from owners/staff.

I can remember goodreads being down frequently during growing pains and server migrations (but, goodreads also gave a real error page and communicated on social media).

As others have stated, there have been issues with platform stability for the last little while. I've temporarily abandoned the site pending more information, because it was just that bad to work with over the past few weeks.

It has been slow,I'll give you that.But it is still my primary site. The community is one I'll not leave behind. All communication is done via feed (aka dashboard).I still think it's a great site.

Charlton wrote: "It has been slow,I'll give you that.But it is still my primary site. The community is one I'll not leave behind. All communication is done via feed (aka dashboard).I still think it's a great site."

It's not just the slowness for me ... it's that stars no longer post on reviews, functionality is disappearing ... and the wholly absent staff (although I do appreciate what you are doing on a volunteer basis, Charlton).

Stars still post on reviews for me. Well, if I star rate when clicking "Finished" on a currently reading book or remember to check the "review" box when just writing a review post.

Not at all saying there aren't issues or that I don't have other issues with the site.

Currently, it's the one book site that does still feel like a community. If it does close, I will step back from book sites for a few months to see where that community goes and if the new place has terms of use, conditions, about me, etc. that are acceptable plus features wanted.

After going through the closing of lots of sites including Visual Bookshelf and Leafmarks and the commercialization over reader opinions and content (*glares at censoring-even-tags/shelves-used and reducing-user-content-on-homepage goodreads*) or lack of real social on others, it's possible that if booklikes shuts down I will be finished with online book sites other than my fictfact.com series tracking.

The slowness is worse than ever for me this morning. I can hardly get the comments box open to type them in, much less getting them to post. And I'm having trouble with the stars, as well. I've about reached the limits of my patience, but I just hate to give up on the community there.

honestly, I just don't have the time to deal with BL's glitches and slow loading anymore. I like it but the lack of communication is just impossible . I'll use GR for a while until BL's team decide to actually do something about Bl malfunctioning.

BL is still working reasonably well for me and definitely has the best "community" feel to it.

It's a great deal better today.

It is surprisingly better today. Knock on wood.

Knock on wood indeed. Seemed normal speed today.

I hope it stays up and normal speed for this weekend's upcoming Dewey's Readathon. It would be a shame if participants on booklikes had speed or downtime issues. I realize many sites can experience weekend crunches, but booklikes has had some excruciating slow downs and outages.

ETA: even search is responsive. That's been sluggish for me lately but seems fine today. I hope it doesn't big down with weekend traffic -- or maybe I hope it does because that's a preferred reason (too busy) to site being unattended or failing.

Booklikes stayed up and stayed fast for me during Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon. Oddly, goodreads was slow as molasses. (I was using Safari on iPad for both sites).

It used to be very busy, and I went on it several times a day, but all my friends seemed to have abandoned it.

Nah,it still has a pulse.

Charlton wrote: "Nah,it still has a pulse."

My feed is busier than ever - especially with all the fabulous events people are hosting (not least of all Moonlight Reader and Obsidian Blue!).

One of my current frustrations with BookLikes is that it is sometimes difficult to place a new entry into my library there. The system sometimes simply refuses to do a search for the book I wish to put on the self. It makes no difference if I put in the ISBN or the book title, BookLikes doesn't automatically search for the book.

KOMET wrote: "One of my current frustrations with BookLikes is that it is sometimes difficult to place a new entry into my library there. The system sometimes simply refuses to do a search for the book I wish to..."

If you copy - paste it won't search. You can get round this by typing a space after pasting.

Robert wrote: " If you copy - paste it won't search. You can get round this by typing a space after pasting. ."

I tried that several times yesterday - without success. I had to wait several hours before it finally took hold.

KOMET wrote: "One of my current frustrations with BookLikes is that it is sometimes difficult to place a new entry into my library there. The system sometimes simply refuses to do a search for the book I wish to..."

I you know any librarians on BL (I'm one) let them know when an ISBN doesn't appear in the search and we can find it for you. I've seen some records that don't have a language attributed to them not show up on search. That's something that we can fix quickly. :)

In case anyone overlooked it, booklikes is posting on their blog again and apparently getting back to normal. Their "announcement" - http://blog.booklikes.com/post/150403...

(I took a huge break from book sites over the holidays and was delighted to see them posting again when I finally logged back in today).

I'm hoping to get my booklikes mojo back; still not going to be reviewing here on goodreads although I still have groups/bookclubs I'll participate in and will track current reads until finished.

I had the largest discussion group on BookLikes (Science Fiction and Fantasy). There hasnt been any real activity on it in 2 years. I recently deleted all the posts and stated that anyone who wanted to start a fresh group wouldnt be stepping on my toes.

I deleted all of my books, too. Focusing elsewhere.

Yes, BL has been very fast for me for at least the last couple of weeks.

Per http://blog.booklikes.com/post/164133...

"Maintenance works on BookLikes
on Tuesday Feb. 20, 2018
9:38 pm 19 February 2018 [date/time posted]

Heads-up!

We're planning some more maintenance works on BookLikes on Tuesday, Feb.20, 2018, CET.

We'll do all to make BookLikes available during the updates, however, some hiccups and temporary interruptions may happen.

Sorry for all the inconveniences!"