Goodreads Interviews discussion

Hi, John D., thanks for agreeing to this interview! Since your true identity is hidden, feel free to say what you really think about people, no matter how cruel those things might be.

As an opening question, how long would you say you've been involved in Goodreads as a community? Did it take you a while to start feeling like it was a community, or did that happen right away?

And, as a question related to that one: based on your own, personal definition of "community," do you believe Goodreads qualifies?

As an opening question, how long would you say you've been involved in Goodreads as a community? Did it take you a while to start feeling like it was a community, or did that happen right away?

joined a long time ago but started noticing other people over a year ago. i remember commenting on threads and conversation would skip over, no acknowledgement from some snobby fucksticks. that's okay, part of the process in gaining acceptance into the community, yeah? part of weighing someone's worth, what can be contributed. so thankful when i made a good enough comment, someone was in a friendly mood, or found an un-snobby non-fuckstick, got a foot in the door soto speak. knew someone who became a member of an online computer assistance group like that, hanging around until something she wrote got the notice of another established member. so yeah, took a while, couple months, to feel like a community.


And, as a question related to that one: based on your own, personal definition of "community," do you believe Goodreads qualifies?"

could be. "community" should maybe be something more cohesive instead of all these shifting groups tho'.

I can remember a very similar time period when I had friends who voted on some reviews, but rarely if ever commented or voted on mine. It does seem like a bit of a "foot in the door" thing. What do you think causes those on Goodreads to be such snobby fucksticks? In other words, why is it hard for a newer member to start gaining attention from the established people?

well, most aren't really fuckstick snobs, but that's how they all came across to my limited view when i got ignored. the established people have their jokes that go way back, drop lines that presuppose the others will know, and if you've been around you do. more likely that it took a while to create that establishment and then the friendships had something to go on. come to think of it, strange, that i usually found book commonalities followed friendship instead of the other way around.

That's very interesting! So, what caused you to "friend" someone back then, if it wasn't based on their book commonalities?

Do you feel like, as far as communities go, goodreads is a hard one to become a part of? What aspects of the website itself help make community easier? What makes it harder? (Other than notification issues, which I've been having all day....)

most of the reviews i read were for books i didn't know about. but that only led me to request a couple of friends. one of the first people i requested lived nearby and i tentatively and foolishly thought it would lead to real friendship. i think i requested a few because their thread activity showed they were online as much as me and that they had the same sense of humor. if i remember correctly, i think most goodreads friends ended up requesting me because i was online so much and active on threads. it couldn't have been because of my reviews, which were pathetic and few. this is jumbled because i'm pinning it down as i type it out. so to clarify, those i requested were either due to the desire to better follow their reviews which were of the type that were more journaling and how the book affected them than the book, or because i liked the personality that came through casually. those who requested me were more likely because of my activity level.

is it hard to become part of this place, as a community? well, to have an online community there really needs to be communication, not just proximity as for a physical community. so, that means someone who'll reply on threads and/or notice your reviews. i can't help but think you need a patron or something like that, to be that person and introduce you/bring you to attention to the rest. if you have whatever it is that makes someone notice you then you can get in easily, to sink or swim on your own then.

what aspects make it easier? from what many say, the fact that many workplaces don't block this site like others that are more overt about socializing. we can be on here for most of our waking hours, not to say we ignore our duties and family but it's easy to check in. goodreads adds elements that are presented as being to promote books but can be used for socializing. they're very responsive to requests for additions and improvements that fit that kind of description, and if i could remember any i'd list them. like maybe all the changes to make groups easier to use?

what makes it harder? i think difficulty in forming community is more related to individuals than to the site, since technical difficulties can be worked around. mostly. except for that damn chair girl. okay, maybe the secret option for groups. once a community forms it can choose to lock itself away into its own compound. is that really healthy, from the viewpoint of building communities? no new opinions, no new personalities? the comfort of the familiar, it can be a trap.

Chair girl? Who is the chair girl?

That's a good point about the secret option for groups: if you want to, you can totally block off conversations from the bulk of Goodreads users.

What you said about having a patron touches on something I wanted to ask you, because I feel World of Warcraft (the community I'm comparing goodreads to) has a very good system of walking you through the first stages of becoming part of the community. I'm not so sure about goodreads. Did you have any kind of a patron as you were entering the community, or did you just work your way in? Have you patronized...uh, you know what I mean....any fledgling goodreaders?

that out-of-service chair girl, with the quote, when goodreads is down. chair girl bad.

isn't wow a very set place with a definite goal of cooperating in a group? goodreads doesn't have anything like that. i'm not sure if i can pick out one patron type of person, since at a certain point it snowballed. it was probably more due to persistent and judicious posting, and not any kind of knowledgeable posting than chatty teasing. i know this isn't a hard and fast trend since i've also seen the opposite plenty of times.

i've pontificated to some users new to me. i don't know if i've patronized anyone deliberately. those who really want to get involved work multiple angles and people. so maybe there really isn't a patron...i don't have any of this thought out. getting notice is essential.

i have seen some who don't go out of the way to toot their horn, but end up attracting others by their reviews. i don't have much experience with that except on the requesting end so i can't really speak for them. they don't look for attention. but out of curiousity i have looked at their book in order they were read with vote counts revealed. they usually show a general jump in votes when they get that notice. an indirect sort of patronage, with that. someone votes and it's seen by their friends, and so on.

Ah, the chair girl! Yes, she's definitely evil. In an innocent, reading-in-a-rocking-chair kind of way.

The process you describe is how I think I started getting noticed on the site. In fact, you're one of a few people that I think took me from vote rags to riches, although I'm back to rags now because I never write reviews. It was more a matter of just doing what I'd been doing all along when it came to writing reviews, and occasionally posting when I saw an interesting conversation in a thread, and then a few people started voting on my reviews, and it snowballed. This might make the process of getting into the community less straightforward, because it's also not clear right away who the really active members are. I was on the site for a long time before I even realized there was a top reviewers list!

Okay, next question, although you may wax philosophical on any of those musings as well if you'd like. Next question is: Think back to the friends you made right after you'd made that transition into being part of the goodreads 'community' and not just somebody reading reviews and updating bookshelves. Are those people still around? How many of them are gone? How many of them do you still interact with regularly?

you're welcome (smile).

about 90% of my goodreads friends are 'community' friends and nearly all of them are still around with a profile with various levels of activity. only a couple are gone. i interact regularly with just over 10% of them.

i must be all waxed out because i can't think of anything to say about that.

That's okay, we can't all be fully waxed all the time. It would be both expensive and painful.

In my humble opinion, you seem to be ninja fast in responding to things on Goodreads. How often are you on the website? How much time would you guess you spend doing something Goodreads-ish per week?

AND, second question with a longer answer: Have you ever considered quitting Goodreads for any reason? If so, why? What aspects of the site and community would make it hard to detach yourself from?

i usually have this site open in the background whenever i'm on the computer. tallying a specific amount of time is difficult, since it's scattered throughout the day. strung together it may be a few hours each day.

i haven't thought about quitting the site. privacy concerns have been big but after seeing how such breaches have been discovered and addressed on other sites and this one, these sites work to keep users happy. eventually. sometimes goodreaders are shitty to each other, but then i consider dropping them instead of leaving myself. i don't want to leave the new friends i've made and the mental break i get from thinking about something else at work. i did come to this site intially for the books so why would i give that up?

I miss having a job where I could do the same...now, I have to work when I'm working. It sucks, I tell you.

How do issues between Goodreaders tend to be resolved? You mention dropping people who are shitty to others. Do you think this is a fairly standard way of avoiding conflict? What are the most popular ways of resolving conflicts?

lol, sorry about the actual job. not that i hope you find yourself working less.

there have been a variety of ways between different goodreaders. those who don't know each other well and argue about books get tired and eventually ignore each other. conflicts between 'community' members, however, it appears to depend on who's involved and what it's about. arguments on public threads get lots of intervention from others and there are always jokes i guess to diffuse. and because it's often funny, the irrationality or unreasonableness of one or both.

i'm not sure if dropping is a standard way to avoid conflict. i think those who avoid conflict tend to not get into them in the first place. those who have them seem to tear into it. i don't follow along enough to know what they do afterwards.

i'm also not altogether sure what the popular ways of resolving conflicts might be. i do think most that get resolved in the best way have others commenting and talking it out. conflicts cause ripples that go beyond the arguing parties. they cast a pall. part of the resolution is a removal of that pall. like with the jokes from others.

I've noticed the joke thing on quite a few occasions...Ceridwen's epically epic Ulysses thread being a hilarious example! The VirJohn lolcats still make me laugh my ass off.

Okay, on to a question that's way more fun than the last one! What is the most fun thing you can remember ever happening on Goodreads? The thing that was the most fun for you personally, of course. Fun can mean hilarious, entertaining, joyful, orgasmic, whatever.

there've been quite a few moments that made me shit my pants. it would be too easy to guess my identity if i named them. i'm pm you. they're public threads.

Aha. Thanks for that....I agree, those were fun :)

What about things that sucked horribly? What is/are the worst thing/things that ever happened/are happening on Goodreads ever? What sucked the most, and what happened as a result of this thing, whatever it is?

the worst, cruelest thing i ever saw was the unrelenting heckling of an overboisterous goodreads user. i'm not sure if he deleted his profile but i know his use dropped off to nothing. i've only heard pieces of the story, but there was a thread, gone now, where other users pretended to be him and he gave them plenty of material to mock. that wasn't the worst. instead of letting the situation fade out like normal, with jokes about the situation, these assholes would imitate him again and again. it was just like a bunch of snot-nosed kids throwing rocks at the misfit. misft as in one who didn't fit in. i viewed all of those assholes with suspicion after that. it was fun and safe to all make fun of the same person? i wonder how any one of them would've handled it if they were the misfit. internet makes it harder to walk in someone shoes, type on their keyboard, feel empathy.

That's awful! Do you know in what ways he was overboisterous? What it was about him that was getting mocked?

Since I recently mentioned VirJohn, I'm curious about how the two situations were different. In a sense, that whole fiasco was the example of an overboisterous asshole person who was made fun of extensively for various qualities of his personality.

Another question....feel free to tackle these two posts in any order you choose.

Of course we're here for fun and socializing and keeping track of what we read. But, what kinds of knowledge and skills does Goodreads encourage, and/or develop?

he was hyper with the punctuation and posting rate. there were catchphrases. he wanted positive engagement with others. this virjohn character wasn't like him at all. i saw his little display on that very long thread. virjohn attacked. there was no reason or reasoning. the situations may be similar but no, i wouldn't compare the two.

i'm a casual reader and wouldn't think too much about books after i closed them. seeing how others absorb and discuss has encouraged me to be less casual. i admit, i think about how i'll sound in a review as i'm reading and look for impressive or entertaining connections. i'm not successful, but the effort is now there. this place is also like a kindergarten where you learn again how to socialize with others, not conform but cooperate. mostly.

Ha, I love the comparison with kindergarden! So, you don't believe the social aspect of the website encourages conformity as much as cooperation?

Aha, jumping back to something we only skimmed over: you said only a few of your better goodreads friends from early on have left the site. Do you know the reasons why any of them have left? I'm curious about what causes people to either just not come back, or to consciously decide to leave the website.

no idea. one just stopped posting or anything, and i would see her online occasionally until she deleted her account. i wish she'd said something. i don't think she engaged with anyone until she had no reason to and we were all back to being strangers again. the other i'm not sure about either, but i've heard he wanted to spend less time on this site. with him, he had a group he was very tight with and was only engaging with them. he probably has other ways of keeping that contact besides goodreads.

Okay, two short answer questions: How many different groups are you active in?

The second one: How many goodreaders have you now met IRL?

i'm active in 15% of the groups i've joined.

i've met 20% of my friends list.

Wonderful. Okay, I have one last long-answer question for ya. Do you feel like for some people on this website, there are ways of showing status or adeptness in the space? One example suggested in another interview is being included on the "Best Reviewers" list, but I'm curious about whether or not you've noticed any other ways people can show their skillz or status on goodreads.

the best way, at least the way that will get the most out of the community, is to be able to encourage and sustain conversation whether its about the book or just going off the rails completely. so thread length and variety is my measuring stick for goodreads status. ignoring the threads that become self-sustaining through unrelated one-off posts (see many of the top reviews of all time, mostly a series of "yes"es), getting this status requires a time commitment, goodreads friends who are also involved with this site and willing to talk, and the ability to keep an open atmosphere for participation. sometimes that atmosphere is only inclusive for the little groups that form around certain people. sometimes, and it's always great to see, that atmosphere is able to pull in different circles, like in that virjohn thread you mentioned. it can't always be controlled, there are circumstances that can end it like a sudden bitter statement or one of those little groups appearing to shut out someone who isn't one of them. but I believe those who consistently have these threads have the highest status.

The thread length isn't something anyone else has mentioned so far, and I think that is a barometer for status. It's interesting that, other than the "Best reviewers" list, there's not a whole lot of status markers that very many participants on this site pay attention to. Or, at least, not the people I've talked to about this stuff. It seems like there's a bit of ambivalence to status, although people tend to like getting votes.

Thanks for letting me interview you! This has been very helpful. I plan on posting the finished project on Goodreads, and I'll let you know when it has been posted so you can see the spiteful ways I've misquoted you.

I suppose I should ask if there's anything else you want to bring up about goodreads as a social space, or any questions you have for me?

lol, you're welcome, and thanks for the opportunity to participate in your education, ungrateful young man.

just that this site can feel intimate with the good friends and sharing of thoughts, but remembering this is the internet is important.

no questions, thank you.

How am I ungrateful, you old bastard? I said all kinds of nice things above. But now, I'm just gonna say your profile picture is stooooopid!

No, seriously, thanks for your insights into goodreads, and into what goodreads is like for you. And, at the risk of redundancy, I'll let you know once the project is posted on the site.

your mom liked my profile last night.

i look forward to seeing what you pull together from all this.