Everything Booklikes & Leafmarks discussion

Which features do you want to see on BookLikes to make it a good enough experience your main activity would be there?

It's nice/ refreshing to see BL really working hard for the readers and our wish lists:

http://blog.booklikes.com/post/344083...

What I want most is the ability of additional exclusive shelves. All my DNF books ended up in my TBR shelf over there. :(

But it sure sounds like they are working on some really good improvements already.

I like their list of everyone's wishes - I think that covers pretty much everything I want, too.

Sandra wrote: "What I want most is the ability of additional exclusive shelves. All my DNF books ended up in my TBR shelf over there. :(

But it sure sounds like they are working on some really good improvements ..."

This is mine and I'm glad its on their list.

What I most want are bookpages with all the reviews on them.

I really need an iPhone app since I do most of my posting on the phone. I hate being stuck with the computer in my lap. I know that they're working on it.

Andrea wrote: "I really need an iPhone app since I do most of my posting on the phone. I hate being stuck with the computer in my lap. I know that they're working on it."

I'd need an android app.

Sock Puppet Confessional wrote: "What I most want are bookpages with all the reviews on them."

I'm guessing you probably already know that you can click through to a book page for "this edition." I agree that I would like a book page with all reviews for all editions, although I expect that would get me a page with many reviews in languages I don't speak. Actually I wouldn't mind that at all, I would be interested to see that a book had been reviewed by a lot of people in German, or Greek or whatever. Also I do speak some other languages so I would be quite happy to see all reviews- not just in English.. but I would also want to be able have a way to sort the reviews I could actually read to the top.

I asked for exclusive shelves and they said it's coming soon. :)

I would like to be able to have series pages like they have here. I'm forever trying to figure out where a book belongs in a series and I find it very helpful that I can just click and see the entire series listed in order. Oh and have my books alphabetized by last name and not first. :)

Definitely want book page with various reviews of all additions, not just reviews from people I follow, but would like reviews from people I follow to be highlighted or at the top. As of now it looks like the bookpage only has reviews that I've written or people I follow.

Also, I found that when my account was linked to my GR accounts and I corrected a typo on Booklikes, it screwed up the formatting on the Goodreads site, losing links and hard returns for paragraphs. For people who might like to use both sites, that seems a problem, though maybe this had something to do with files still being transferred.

Haven't tried writing a review there yet, but think it would be nice to do the rating/shelving at the same time as someone else mentioned as I'm finding shelving is really useful.

BL has already mentioned they're actively working on the biggest of my wishlist items - the only thing missing would be the ability to track my book ownership.

OH! and - Re-reads. Being able to track how many times and when I've re-read a book would be fantabulous! :)

ETA: And maybe a way to edit your reviews from any page that displays them? Right now I'm going through my import list and clicking on the newly imported reviews, but I can't edit them from that page - so I have to scroll through my blog to find them. :(

1. Series.

2. Spoiler tags within reviews versus one big spoiler alert at top currently available.

3. More detail on book page ( format, isbn or ean, ...)

4. More help screen, how to, tutorial type of section. The FAQs are slim.

5. Better source crediting on rebloggins (I reblogged someone's post and was thanked for sharing my story).

6. No improvement needed in their responses to emails and comments; but, once discussion groups get up and running I hope they have a suggestion box type of group so everyone is not bombing their inbox with suggestions already being worked on.

7. @Jennifer, hurray for not scrolling thru blogs for stuff. That's irritating me.

Debbie R. Write this on the relevant blog on BookLikes. It sounds like you want a clone of GR!

Not a clone; but, I do need series info. They are busy releasing new features every Thursday and groups should be a biggie; I'm waiting for book imports and feature releases to settle before emailing them to death. I'm sure we'll all have more ideas/questions the more we settle in over there.

And it's really weird how book pages don't even show isbn/ean numbers. So if you search for a title, even going to the book page doesn't tell you which edition. You have to click out to Barnes and Noble, amazon, etc. to see what edition it is. Then repeat for each edition search found.

And another to add:

8. If you are going to use a blog format, include some blog features that are fairly standard like a simple text "archive" section to find past posts without all the endless scrolling.

[And now goes back to re-editing shelf names at booklikes gleefully -- *chortle* -- I need to get a life when being able to add punctuation and capitalization to shelf names (plus killing off the annoying hyphens) is making my day. And I do still give goodreads credit in that the shelf system did work for me until they began vandalizing.]

Debbie R. wrote: "[And now goes back to re-editing shelf names at booklikes gleefully -- *chortle* -- I need to get a life when being able to add punctuation and capitalization to shelf names (plus killing off the annoying hyphens) is making my day..."

Yeah, I was giggling like an idiot when I realised this... I'm just waiting for everything to completely finish, and then I'm going to go on a shelf-cleanup spree. :)

Debbie R. wrote: "Not a clone; but, I do need series info. They are busy releasing new features every Thursday and groups should be a biggie; I'm waiting for book imports and feature releases to settle before email..."

Yeah - so glad of grammatical shelving!

I asked them to make the page break feature a default setting so that we are not scrolling through those super long blogposts all the time.

For a site that is supposed to be about books, there is basically no information on the book pages! I love my librarian status here on GR and all the information you can put in (number of pages, edition, year published). It looks like you can't edit anything except adding a book cover. And I can't see what dates I read/added a book, even though you can sort by date, so that information is stored somewhere.

Debbie R. wrote: [And now goes back to re-editing shelf names at booklikes gleefully -- *chortle* -- I need to get a life when being able to add punctuation and capitalization to shelf names (plus killing off the annoying hyphens) is making my day. And I do still give goodreads credit in that the shelf system did work for me until they began vandalizing.]"

Ditto and snap. I'm particularly relishing putting apostrophes back into words like can't

I would like to be able to get email updates with my friends' updates & reviews

MandyM wrote: "I asked them to make the page break feature a default setting so that we are not scrolling through those super long blogposts all the time."

I think that's a good idea because new members will join all the time and so there will always be long posts on the feed.

Is there really no way at all to turn off notifications for reviews you've commented on? 3 days after the fact seems overkill to be getting constant notifications for an active conversation on someone else's review that you're not a part of anymore. I think I'd asked this before, but if there's really no way to turn that off, this should be a huge priority for BL, otherwise it might limit how many reviews I make comments on.

Zanna wrote: "I would like to be able to get email updates with my friends' updates & reviews"

Ditto. I don't have time to scroll through updates on Booklikes, but I always check my e-mail. I'd like to be able to click on updates in an e-mail from Booklikes, just as I do with my friends' updates e-mail from GR.

Sarah wrote: "For a site that is supposed to be about books, there is basically no information on the book pages! I love my librarian status here on GR and all the information you can put in (number of pages, ed..."

If you go to a book you reviewed and click on it, then click on the "Read" button below the book (next to Create a Post), you'll see where it shows the started/end reading. Table view will also show you when you finished reading the book. Dagnabit, though... looked through my imported books and there is no start date. Sigh. Not that it's super important to me, but I'm pretty sure that info is available in the CSV, so why not import it with everything else?

I'd like to see notifications consolidated like we have on GR. If I'm offline for 8 hours and five people have liked a review and three different people have commented on that same review, I don't need 8 separate notifications, when one notification for likes and one notification for comments would work (covering the time I'm offline - I know that once I click on it, any new comments would start a new notification).

I love that they actually let us tinker with the site's very own code on our own blog pages -- that's incredibly generous -- but what I'd love even more is if in individual posts/pages the site would recognize CSS (or, for that matter, Javascript) as legitimate code and not scrap it so you have to re-enter it from scratch every time you edit the page. I'm a pretty big dolt at coding and design, and even minor operations take me forever ... but I DID eventually manage to write CSS stylesheets for my own paltry websites, so what I'd really love to do is just copy and paste some of the relevant code from there!

FWIW, I did notice that you can import (or enter) custom CSS in one of the "customize" options, but that affects the way your ENTIRE blog looks -- side bar tabs/links and all -- and before I do anything as drastic as that, I'll have to get a lot more comfortable with the site. So for the time being I'd just love to be able to customize individual features and pages ... and sometimes CSS is just so much more convenient, especially if you can draw on a stylesheet that already has all the code you want to use!

A problem that I have noticed is that multiple editions of a book are not linked. GR has been quite good at this (thanks to many of us librarians.) On Booklikes, I imported 3225 books and reviews (took 7 days) and I randomly checked to see how they went. When I searched on "As Nature Made Him," for example, the result showed two different paperback editions and indicated I had not read either. But I knew I had read and reviewed the book. When I searched just my books, the review was indeed there but attached to the hardback edition, which was correct, but a link to the other editions really should have been made. This will have to be fixed.

I find it a bit ironic that many who moved to Booklikes did so because they were mad at Amazon, yet I find the Amazon linkage on Booklikes to be much more apparent, e.g. the number of reviews cited on the book search result are those from Amazon, not Booklikes. I like Amazon, but would prefer the default was to Booklikes reviews.

I requested arbitrary sorting of shelves, today. This is so I can appease my OCD need to list my "planning to read" shelf in priority order...

Eric_W wrote: "A problem that I have noticed is that multiple editions of a book are not linked. ... This will have to be fixed.

[... And] the number of reviews cited on the book search result are those from Amazon, not Booklikes. I ... would prefer the default was to Booklikes reviews."

Agreed on both counts, though I wouldn't wholeheartedly subscribe to the "I like Amazon" bit. ;)

Robert wrote: "I requested arbitrary sorting of shelves, today. This is so I can appease my OCD need to list my "planning to read" shelf in priority order..."

Thank heavens it's not just me.

Kaethe wrote: "Robert wrote: "I requested arbitrary sorting of shelves, today. This is so I can appease my OCD need to list my "planning to read" shelf in priority order..."

Thank heavens it's not just me."

Did you request it? I figure the more people request a feature the more likely it is to happen.

I asked for it via email while I was waiting for my books to import.

Eric_W wrote: "I find it a bit ironic that many who moved to Booklikes did so because they were mad at Amazon, yet I find the Amazon linkage on Booklikes to be much more apparent, e.g. the number of reviews cited on the book search result are those from Amazon, not Booklikes. I like Amazon, but would prefer the default was to Booklikes reviews. "

Maybe they did that as a bootstrapping measure? How old is Booklikes? Maybe they've appropriated Amazon's ratings just because they didn't have enough without it?

Heather in FL {GRRRRRR censorship} wrote: "Maybe they did that as a bootstrapping measure? How old is Booklikes? Maybe they've appropriated Amazon's ratings just because they didn't have enough without it?"

Probably so, yes -- I remember when I first looked at BookLikes back in April, the Amazon sourcing was still even more predominant (inter alia for book feeds, too). I do think they should now have hit enough of a critical mass to make it a BookLikes-based thing, though -- especially since often enough Amazon doesn't feature any more than a single review either (except of course on bestseller product pages). It really only makes sense if all editions of a book are properly interlinked, though, so that should be just as much of a priority.

Gee, that said, BookLikes could probably do well with a couple of volunteer librarians or something similar as well ...

It is absolutely about a critical mass of reviews. Until there is that, people can't come on the site and check for books they might read (buy). Recommendations are impossible without a lot of reviews.

I am thinking of reviewing here with a 'more' button and linking that to the rest of the review on Booklikes. It wasnt my idea that, but I thought it was a good one.

Today on Booklikes I tried to input a Kindle edition which apparently doesn't exist on Amazon, but does on Smashwords. So I had to input it manually using the Smashwords ISBN.

Are there any plans to have groups on book likes?

I believe they've said groups are pretty high on their to-do list. They seem to announce new features every Thursday. Last week it was apps.

How long has book likes been around?

2012?

My number one priority - which will sound superficial, but is important to me - is the ability to customize without HTML. I don't want to spend time learning how to code. I want to invest that time in my blog.

BL will never really feel like home until I can make my blog truly mine. I've tried using colour codes, but they don't seem to work.

I wish I could find a way to make BL feel like home. I don't know what will, so I'm going to use both sites.

Jennifer (Cogito, ergo sum) wrote: "My number one priority - which will sound superficial, but is important to me - is the ability to customize without HTML. I don't want to spend time learning how to code. I want to invest that ti..."

Ditto. I already do one too many websites, no time or desire for another. They need more template-y, pick and choose types of elements.

It's great to have the html customizing options for those who want to get into or for future tweaking once you are used to the site -- but some simpler customization for members new to the site is needed. And in dashboard view a lot of the html customizing gets overwritten in a way some presets shouldn't.

It doesn't bother me that they only have three pre-set templates, but even a few simple choices like colors, fonts, buttons on your page for goodreads and other links (one of their posts did say a Thurdpsday new release would include goodreadsoption as well as facebook and twitter) …

Jennifer (Cogito, ergo sum) wrote: "My number one priority - which will sound superficial, but is important to me - is the ability to customize without HTML. I don't want to spend time learning how to code. I want to invest that ti..."

+1.

Sock Poppet Fishy Wishy wrote: "I wish I could find a way to make BL feel like home. I don't know what will, so I'm going to use both sites."

I'm the same. It is easier to find books and tag them here. Also better for the social aspect.

I won't delete my GR account unless they force my hand by screwing with my content.

does booklikes have a certain place where I can post my suggestions? I actually made a full list of those :-) I like booklikes interface and design. but I need quite a lot for it to replace GR.

They have a "Make your Wish" post. A lot of folks are making requests there. (And BL are reading it.) http://blog.booklikes.com/post/344083...

We got one item on that post today: exclusive shelves.

Susanna wrote: "They have a "Make your Wish" post. A lot of folks are making requests there. (And BL are reading it.) http://blog.booklikes.com/post/344083...

We got one item on that p..."

Thanks Susanna :)

If you see something on the comments section of that page that is a feature you'd really like, I'd +1 it, to help tell BL what features are most wanted.