Play Book Tag discussion

I'm having difficulties posting. Anyone else having issues and getting an error message?

Booknblues wrote: "I'm having difficulties posting. Anyone else having issues and getting an error message?"

It's about an hour after you posted, but at the moment, things are working fine for me.

I've already had it happen to me today.

It's been intermittent for a week or so. A real pain for Mods who need to post new threads for 2026. Someone said refreshing the screen helps.

Robin P wrote: "It's been intermittent for a week or so. A real pain for Mods who need to post new threads for 2026. Someone said refreshing the screen helps."
It seems to only let me post so many and then it acts up.

If I wait a bit and come back, I can post again.

It is a bit of a pain now as people are having questions about Down the Rabbit Hole?

It’s always been the case that you can’t post more than 3 at a time, difficult for mods trying to do year end and new challenges.

I haven't had that problem before.

The goddess has smiled down on you, Fran. It has always been an issue for me.

I've been trying off and on for a couple of hours to post my review of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald - one of my remaining PH reads. All I get is the red '1 error prohibited this topic from being saved' then 'please try again later'.

I feel like there's a judgment going on -- is GR disapproving of Fitzgerald? That I gave the book only 3 stars and criticized it in my review? Don't like that I read the original 1920 edition?

I tried all the tricks that have worked over the last 2 weeks - no dice.

Particularly frustrating as I'd had no trouble posting my review to Dreamland. Nor any trouble writing my review to the book page. Or any trouble saving a copy of the review to my member tracking 2025.

Eating some yummy cookies to calm me.

I can make only 3 posts in a group in an hour span. I have to wait for the oldest post to be older than an hour to post again.

I am still able to comment and post reviews on the book page.

@Jason, there are other people I know who have been experiencing the same problem, although I have not. I've looked at the "Help" page where GR has traditionally announced problems that they are aware of and working on. There is no mention of what you and others describe. Maybe you should report the problem.

In another group, a moderator announced that GoodReads is now allowing only ONE NEW THREAD/POST per day for members.

It had been three, and it usually reset in a couple of hours.

But, I also have had a difficult time recently. As a moderator in a couple of groups, I have a number of posts I have to make in the last week of each month. And even more at the end of each year. What a pain!

In my Fantasy group, where I serve as a joint moderator and am working on maintenance for 2026, I am only allowed one post every couple of hours. I started before Christmas, so I am sure I can finish up. It is frustrating as always.

Book Concierge wrote: "In another group, a moderator announced that GoodReads is now allowing only ONE NEW THREAD/POST per day for members.

It had been three, and it usually reset in a couple of hours.

But, I also ha..."

I have heard that it is 1 thread per day and 10 posts per hour. I was wondering 1) is this true? and 2) if so, what would it mean for posting our reviews on PBT. Is a topic considered a thread or a post?

I have had the red error message before and when I waited a while, I could post my topic. This has mostly been happening when I read more than 1 book per day and need to create two separate topics, one for each book.

If this is true, my assumption is that it is another attempt to limit spammers and bots.

ETA - I doubt that Amazon actually wants to "get rid" of Goodreads, as we (the collective "we") are their best customers. I often hear people speculating that Amazon doesn't want to continue GR, but I think their main goal is to reduce the cost of running it, and getting rid of spammers and bot posts will help. I am analyzing this from a business perspective (I used to be a consultant).

ETAA - Amazon has also gotten criticized recently for allowing "review bombing" where people post 1-star "reviews" due to differences of opinion with what an author has said or done (as opposed to the content of the book itself). They may be trying to limit this trend as well.

Of course, it would be nice if they would inform us what is going on, so they would not have mass speculation that tends to aggravate and inflame their best customers. They are horrible at change management, and whoever is making the decisions likely does not actually use the site.

I was able to post my Fitzgerald review just now, Eureka!

The 1 or 2 hour rule didn't work last night -- it was the middle of the night - started at about 11 PM mountain time and stopped trying at about 1:30 AM.

I was able to post comments and posts of all other kinds and upload reviews to the MBP or as a comment not a topic. I could not post it as a new topic at PBT.

I am very glad that this trip to Santa Fe forced me to upload much earlier in the month whatever moderator duties I have in a couple of groups, All but one which I could only upload when the list became available on the 27 December and my travels not GR have caused delays fully launching it - still working on it. I did post everything needed for January easily.

I had such a time when I started this thread, but mercifully it has been better recently.

It's a good thing because computer is also messing up. We bought a new one but have yet to hook it up. If I disappear for a bit that will be why. I do have a tablet but it is a pain to post from.

I understand them wanting to stop review bombing and spammers, but really they aren't that much of a problem that it justifies limiting conversation about books which helps to sell.

I think Joy is right, Amazon doesn't mind GR existing, they basically advertise free to us every day. But they don't want to put the resources into monitoring it, especially with some countries having laws that could implicate the platform in abuse of minors or other harassment.

The problems seem to be intermittent the last couple of weeks. Sometimes you just can't post anything. For a day or so, book lookups to link to a post would just spin forever. In my experience, the last few years it's always been a maximum of 3 threads at time, and it was unclear after how much time you could post more.

Fortunately, we and several other of my groups get the 2026 threads and links set up ahead of time. Some Mods started early and just put TBA in various threads, doing some each day. Then they can go back and fill them in.

Book Concierge wrote: "In another group, a moderator announced that GoodReads is now allowing only ONE NEW THREAD/POST per day for members. ..."

What!? Oh, that is ridiculous! As you say, especially for moderators, but really, there are times when others, too, want to create new threads more than once/day!

Theresa wrote: "I was able to post my Fitzgerald review just now, Eureka!

The 1 or 2 hour rule didn't work last night -- it was the middle of the night - started at about 11 PM mountain time and stopped trying at..."

I see your review posted twice. Once last night and once today.

I had a similar problem yesterday trying to post two reviews. It would not let me post the second review. When I came back several hours later I could post it. I'm all for stopping review bombing but it would be nice if goodreads would tell us whatever their policy is.

I had problems today with the word count imposed by Goodreads. My year in review is in no way the longest posting I did this year, yet I had to cut it in two before I was allowed to post it. 20000 characters is apparently the new limit.
Now I will have to go back and check that some of my older reviews haven't been chopped.

Yeah, mine is now only letting me post 1 topic per hour. Boooooo!!!!!! Have to stop letting my reviews pile up on me.

Jason wrote: "Yeah, mine is now only letting me post 1 topic per hour. Boooooo!!!!!! Have to stop letting my reviews pile up on me."

I've been fighting a losing battle between sitting down to write a review and starting a new book to read. I'm usually 5 to 10 books behind.

I've been really struggling to post my reviews as well in the last week. Occasionally I'm able to post one review an hour, but it is often more like one review every 2-3 hours at the moment. I am caught up with writing my reviews, just not posting them, and I've got six I really want to get posted while it is still 2025.

I've also written a review for a book that I've tried to post 4 times now with no success, with this being the latest complete nonsense red notice of doom I've received:

There was a problem saving your comment: Sorry, we couldn't find that topic. This is a random-length HTML comment: idotrvmwrcytmfcnxhmhruqdztipbuvklppoedkuwqoaebcbnovfwzxkowhkfjikcmtfzztbhiekomfmloplhrqtmngplabrmzavfbyyioxhwmhszhhpeczipdsbhstmnuwgdtcuazcsnrjavdvqqovhkqavgczbzgrsizqhioryqanbkyuextawodftdaexygnyokyruwycvsmhdhettygbnqqknqtctitylxiipywixhizzzglykljiinywwzizcwdtoucqmtdlbrgnsmmqenbyekshtqbvnluesfufuxpsjbcdvmxlhtmatltaygozsjvprohfywtmluycwoytkkggvqbrjqrftqgegupncqstxijrhiqyfcifaggrnllzkocrplkhwcphkhrpswddbbxgouvcbv

I wonder whether a lot of it is simply to do with managing server capacity? That could explain some of the variability that we’re seeing (both between regions, and also things sometimes working and sometimes not). They may well have introduced some more stringent automated rules to manage volume that are tripped when demand is particularly high. That would be sensible since they get such grief when the servers go down.

Like Joy, I just wish they would explain it, so we weren’t left to speculate - it would help us to help them by not trying to post too much. Their customer communication is rubbish.

I guess we’ll see whether it eases up once the New Year’s rush is over. If it remains an ongoing rule, it would certainly be nice to know what that rule is!

Good point, Katrine. It is very possible this is an attempt to manage volume at a time when there is a greater than average number of threads/topics/posts. Here's hoping it's only temporary.

What a concept - asking the community for help with whatever issues they are having! In a community that volunteers thousands of hours in free moderation and librarian work, surely someone in a position of authority could have thought of that.

I am pretty sure that Fran is reading these posts.

Any chance you could talk with the other mods to see if we can get a grace period for reviews? I myself will have at least 2 more tomorrow. The year-end problem used to only relate to mods getting things up for the New Year, which, honestly, they should all know by now that this happens. The only time I can remember the "rule" affecting posting reviews was a few years ago, and then you got post 3 or 4 at least.

As Kate said-Rubbish is littering the street!

Joanne wrote: "I am pretty sure that Fran is reading these posts.

Any chance you could talk with the other mods to see if we can get a grace period for reviews? I myself will have at least 2 more tomorrow. The ..."
I'm sure it will be possible.

Jason wrote: "Theresa wrote: "I was able to post my Fitzgerald review just now, Eureka!

The 1 or 2 hour rule didn't work last night -- it was the middle of the night - started at about 11 PM mountain time and s..."

I just saw that and deleted one of them. So irritating. It was NOT there when I logged off last night!

I got to join the club of error messages after (presumably) posting too many comments last night.

I was trying to set up my challenges thread (which - on its own - will require almost 30 posts) and I was cut off after nine or ten.

Ugh! I will have books read and posted before I'm even able to get my thread set up. Booooooo GR

Jason wrote: "I can make only 3 posts in a group in an hour span. I have to wait for the oldest post to be older than an hour to post again.

I am still able to comment and post reviews on the book page."

Now, I'm having this problem. Infuriating.

Yes to a grace period on posting your reviews for the tag.

testing... on my challenge thread, I was able to do another 9, I think. But I'm also now not allowed to post a review I wrote for the book I finished yesterday. Yes, the review is added to the book page, but of course I also want to post it here.

ETA: It worked. Will post my review first, then do add more of my challenges. So annoying...

ETA again - or not. I was able to post this one comment, but I can't post my review. Maybe it just doesn't want me to start a thread, but I can post comments? *smh

ETA (3rd time): From what I'm seeing there is a limit on both starting a thread and the number of comments one can post in a certain time frame. It appears that the comments reset sooner, but it looks like only 10 at a time? I didn't keep track of the timing, but maybe an hour or two for it to reset. Not sure when I'll be able to start a new thread again, but it is only one / certain amount of time? I feel like I only posted one, then tried to post a 2nd and I still can't do another. That is horrible!

I think threads and topics are more limited than posts.

A mod in one of my groups got a reply that the restrictions are temporary because of high usage. As if GR had no idea there would be demand at this time.

I have a entirely different problem now. My computer has died. We just bougt a new one but havent set itup & typing on tablet is a pain!

Booknblues wrote: "I have a entirely different problem now. My computer has died. We just bougt a new one but havent set itup & typing on tablet is a pain!"

You just need to get that computer set up!

I agree that typing on tablet just a pain. Takes so much longer too!

Theresa wrote: "Booknblues wrote: "I have a entirely different problem now. My computer has died. We just bougt a new one but havent set itup & typing on tablet is a pain!"

You just need to get that computer set ..."

Ino longer care about spelling or punctuation

Booknblues wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Booknblues wrote: "I have a entirely different problem now. My computer has died. We just bougt a new one but havent set itup & typing on tablet is a pain!"

You just need to get th..."

😄 that is how I feel about texting

Booknblues wrote: "Ino longer care about spelling or punctuation..."

When you see this from me, it's usually also because I'm on a tablet!

I can't seem to create my 'member challange' tracking post - it keeps coming as error - from computer or phone, with html or without ...

which is weird because I can create new posts with book reviews
(hopefully I didn't create about 20 posts that only I can't see)

Idit wrote: "I can't seem to create my 'member challange' tracking post - it keeps coming as error - from computer or phone, with html or without ......"

My guess is you just need to wait. Give it some time. Frustrating, I know.

I have no idea why, but I've not had any restrictions in posting.