Science and Inquiry discussion

There is currently a bug being reported by Goodreads users in which:

If you send someone a friend request, that request may show your email to the person you are asking, even if your profile setting for emails is "Share my email address with O no one."

This appears to only happen if you are the person sending out the friend request, and does not happen all the time, but it is a risk. Please be very cautious with sending any friend requests out - be aware that they may give the recipient your email.

This is the link to the "Feedback" thread where the problem is being discussed. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I will let you know if (or hopefully when) the problem is resolved.

New Issue: Goodreads has just changed every user's privacy settings so that only friends can send them private messages. This is a problem if you rely on receiving PMs to let you know when to vote on a poll or when a new nomination thread has opened up. Because I'm not friends with every member of the group, this means I can no longer send a group message and expect everyone to receive it.

Apparently you can change the setting back and I would recommend that you do so. Go to your profile to the Settings tab, under privacy settings there is a question about who can send you private messages. Change it back to "everyone" .

I've been doing some experimenting trying to figure out how to create a book link when typing a comment in the Goodreads app on your phone. You can do it, but it's not perfect.

Just type [ book : title ] without the spaces. When typing the title of the book, try to include as much of the title as necessary to
be unique to this book. Also, I believe you can use spaces within the book title.

So, if I type [ book : longitude ] without the spaces it gives me this link: longitude

It doesn't go directly to the book page but performs a search for that title and displays the search results.

Now, I'm using an Android phone. I can't guarantee this will work for iPhone but it's worth trying.

This just posted in Help:

In November 2023, you will no longer be able to sign into your Goodreads account with Facebook. If you currently sign into Goodreads with Facebook, please verify your email address and reset your Goodreads password to maintain access to your Goodreads account. Otherwise, you won’t be able to access your account and your associated book activity in November 2023.

Thanks for reviving this topic, Betsy. An issue that I have experienced, and that has been discussed in the Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir group is that in the last week some topics are showing a very high Unread count: generally in the hundreds, and this in topics with which we have been keeping up.

Anyone here seeing this?

Mike wrote: "Thanks for reviving this topic, Betsy. An issue that I have experienced, and that has been discussed in the Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir group is that in the last week some topics are showi..."

Yes. It's a big topic in the Moderators group and in the old help group. Lots of people have submitted the issue to support but they're not getting much response. Just in the last day, a few people report that it's getting better, but I haven't seen that. It's very frustrating.

Betsy wrote: “Mike wrote: “Thanks for reviving this topic, Betsy. An issue that I have experienced, and that has been discussed in the Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir group is that in the last week some top...”

Best solution I’ve found—and it’s not a good one—is to open the offending threads in the Android app (iOS app would probably work as well). That marks them as read, in a way that sticks. At least until you next open the thread in a browser.

It’s really annoying; I wish they’d get it tracked down & fixed.

Goodreads has recently discontinued sending notifications via e-mail. You should still get notifications within Goodreads; you just won't get an e-mail about it. Here is the announcement:

https://help.goodreads.com/s/announce...

You probably got a message in Goodreads from me today, asking you to take a survey about the restrictions on our monthly book nominations. But the link to the survey didn't work. I apologize for that. It's Goodreads fault. They won't let me put an external link in the message text. And they wouldn't let me send a correcting message, because I can only send one group message in any 24 hour period. I'll keep trying to figure a workaround, but it's frustrating.

You may or may not have received a direct message from Goodreads today announcing that they are discontinuing direct messaging. There is some confusion about whether it's for real, and whether it applies only to the apps. I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

In the meantime, if you would like protest this change, there is a change.org petition you could sign: https://c.org/J8h9XcRyRY

I received an email today from "no-reply@mail.goodreads.com", stating that Goodreads will no longer support direct messaging.

My experience is that direct messaging is essential to help large Goodreads groups functioning smoothly. I have signed the petition that Betsy mentions above. I urge everyone to sign the petition.

If you wish, you can also contact the Goodreads administration through this contact form:
https://www.goodreads.com/about/conta...

It looks like the change eliminating direct messaging is real. It has been confirmed several times by Goodreads staff. That means you can't send a message to David or me, or to any other member of Goodreads.

We will still be able to send broadcast messages, which go to the entire group. That includes the announcements of nominations threads for the monthly group read, and the announcements of voting. However, they are also eliminating external links from messaging, so I'm not sure whether we will still be able to use the ranked choice voting we've been doing the last few months.

They say that these changes are needed to protect users from spam and harassment, but I have not seen much evidence of those problems. If any of you have, let David or me know.

If you want to protest the proposed changes, there are two ways to do that, as detailed in the preceding messages, but I'm frankly not sure how much effect it will have. But it can't hurt to try.