Reading 1001 discussion

I am just experimenting. Freedom. I read this book, this year. I chose the add book/author above this comment box. It save me typing this myself.

if you click on the book it will take you to the book page which should have my review and others...

At the top of the comment box are two blue/gray links "add book / author and some html ok
If you click on the ADD BOOK link a pop-up window appears ... you type in the title of the book and a selection appears. You click "ADD" button next to the book you want and VOILA a link appears in your comment.

If you go to the bottom of that little pop-up menu you can chose "link" or "cover" ... if you select COVER, when you click the ADD button it will display the cover of your book in your comment.

Look at this way that I post reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I copied this from another Shelfari member as it has a better explanation.

Shuva wrote: "I'm following Kristel and experimenting. Reading this book now.

It worked"

how are you liking it? Testing out the reply system here (and genuinely curious)

Shuva wrote: "Btw, is this an invitation group or an open group?"

Right now it's a private group - meaning you have to either be invited or request to join. I don't think there has been a decision yet about whether to change that. It's something we can all discuss and maybe John and Kristel can chime in with their thoughts. What do you think?

I still hate goodreads overall, but I have to admit, I really like the current setup you have going on here. It is easy to read and follow.

Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?

Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

Yes, we haven't really confirmed where we will be moving to yet but we are experimenting with a variety of structures and once we figure that out we'll be including that and people can start adding their threads.

I do hate the idea of goodreads but I think we can make it work here if we decide to move here - with a little extra effort. I'm happy to hear that you like the setup and that it's easy to follow. That is good feedback.

Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

Yes, we haven't really confirmed where we will be moving to yet but we are experimenting with a variety of struct..."

I knew it hadn't been decided. Just wanted to confirm if it was part of the plan. Thanks.

Sara wrote: "Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

Yes, we haven't really confirmed where we will be moving to yet but we are experimenting with a varie..."

Yes, that's a big part of the appeal for me - to be able to have our own lists somewhere. We also potentially could create our own lists using shelves to create specific challenge shelves and individual shelve. I just have no idea how to do that yet. Maybe John does but I'm getting ahead of myself

Shuva wrote: "Jen wrote: Right now it's a private group - meaning you have to either be invited or request to join. I don't think there has been a decision..."

The reason I asked was, I believe there are some r..."

I agree with you. I think that is a huge downside of Goodreads. It has the feel of a social networking site as a opposed to a book discussion group and like all social networking sites, a very small but very vocal group can be rude or nasty. The more we can protect ourselves from that and create a space for us that most closely resembles what we had at Shelfari, the better.

Moderators can always block users and kick them out of the group if they are rude or violate rules of conduct.

I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?

Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

I think our voting system is too complicated for the poll feature. As far as I can tell one can only vote for one option.

The setup looks fabulous!!! Thank you for the invitation through Shelfari. I'm here and excited that you will be continuing in this new incarnation. Change is always hard, but I do enjoy the group and appreciate the dedication that makes it work. I am impressed with the speed with which you decided and moved and executed this great set up.

Anita wrote: "The setup looks fabulous!!! Thanks Anita, Jen and John have done a lot. I confess to being overwhelmed but I am glad we are moving forward. I think it is easier to learn new things by jumping in and getting busy.

Kristel wrote: "Anita wrote: "The setup looks fabulous!!! Thanks Anita, Jen and John have done a lot. I confess to being overwhelmed but I am glad we are moving forward. I think it is easier to learn new things by..."

Well kudos to Jen and John and yay for getting a nice jump start. I look forward to continuing to participate.

John, I miss your picture. Any chance you are going to be more than a shadow of yourself?

Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

John has set up the challenge thread. You can start with that. But do you mean the threads where we tracked which books we had read or the points thread? If the former, then we are discussing how best to do this and will let the group know once we make a decision. So far we have challenge threads set up and random lists. Little by little

Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

John has set up the challenge thread. You can start with that. But do you mean the threads where we tracked which..."

The ones we have read. I don't particpate in the points challenge.

Sara wrote: "Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

John has set up the challenge thread. You can start with that. But do you mean the threads where we t..."

oh, okay. We are discussing that. hopefully have an answer for you soon.

Thanks! I will just an eye out then.

Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

Each poll is limited to one selection per voter. However, you can have multiple polls at the same time. For this group, you can set up the pool 3 times with the same choices. Poll #1 would be your 1st choice. Poll #2 would be your economic choice etc. However, there would be no way for you to insure that someone didn't vote for the same book three times, unless you went through the individual votes.

Shuva wrote: "Jen wrote: "Shuva wrote: "Jen wrote: Right now it's a private group - meaning you have to either be invited or request to join. I don't think there has been a decision..."

The reason I asked was, ..."

I completely agree with you Shuva. The problem with being a private site is that your admins are getting overwhelmed with email messages requesting to join. So I imagine that we will eventually become a public site. However, I think the real key is moderators not being afraid to enforce rules on civility. We haven't discussed that yet, but I imagine that first warnings for comments close to the line would be appropriate. I would simply ban that author that you are referring to. I also want a polite group that is free to disagree politely about ideas but that treat each other with respect.

Kristel wrote: "John, I miss your picture. Any chance you are going to be more than a shadow of yourself?"

LOL, I have to dig one up and I been busy. :-) I have my one from work close at hand - suit and tie - should we mandate a dress code for moderators? LOL

Sara wrote: "Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

John has set up the challenge thread. You can start with that. But do you mean the threads where we t..."

Sara, yes. I am planning on doing that today. I think the ability to share what we've read and organize it is one of the nice features of our group and one I want to preserve here. Maybe we will find that there are ways to do that in our shelves, but for now I think I have an idea on how to organize personal threads.

JoLene wrote: "Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

Each poll is limited to one selection per voter. However, you can have multiple polls at the sam..."

Unfortunately, our second selection each month is a weighted selection (1st votes count for 3 points, 2nd for 2 and 3rd for 1), and there is no way to do that through the polls. And the third book is a random selection of all books that get votes other than the popular vote winner and the weighted vote winner, so that requires human intervention.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words. We're still working on it, but I think we'll be pretty close by the end of the long weekend.

John wrote: "Sara wrote: "Jen wrote: "Sara wrote: "Is there going to be someplace to put our personal tracking threads?"

John has set up the challenge thread. You can start with that. But do you mean the threa..."

That would be great thanks. I do like that you all do the challenges but since my participation tends to be haphazard (I will try to be better this year) being able to track my reads separately is what works best for me.

John wrote: "JoLene wrote: "Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

Each poll is limited to one selection per voter. However, you can have multiple p..."

Yes - I understand the weighted votes. If you had the 3 polls, it would be easy to calculate because you would take the results from the 1st poll and multiply by 3, the results of the 2nd and multiply by 2 and the results of the 3rd and multiply by 1. There is still an off-line calculation, but the tracking would be done by the polls. It's just a thought -- I wasn't sure if you knew that multiple polls could run at the same time.

JoLene wrote: "John wrote: "JoLene wrote: "Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

Each poll is limited to one selection per voter. However, you can ha..."

Thanks, I wasn't aware that could run multiple polls simultaneously - that's good to know. I have my spreadsheets already set up, so it's pretty straightforward to do. If the group grows significantly larger (Goodreads seems a much bigger site than Shelfari), that might be a way to go.

Don't forget to vote. :-)

John - Your profile photo is cracking me up.

Jen wrote: "John - Your profile photo is cracking me up."

:-) I was looking for a different picture, but my phone won't sinc up to the computer, so I found this one from our trip to Panama a few years ago, sunning on the banks of Lake Gaton in the Panama Canal.

John wrote: "Jen wrote: "John - Your profile photo is cracking me up."

:-) I was looking for a different picture, but my phone won't sinc up to the computer, so I found this one from our trip to Panama a few y..."
Nice

John wrote: "JoLene wrote: "John wrote: "JoLene wrote: "Diane wrote: "I noticed that there is a featured titles "polls", will this help in monthly voting?"

Each poll is limited to one selection per voter. Howe..."

At pbt they use survey monkey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/?ut_sour...

It's free and allows all sorts of question formats and let's you only vote once. In addition they always ask for the member name to keep track of things.

Here you can take this month's survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/63FCDHH

John wrote: "Jen wrote: "John - Your profile photo is cracking me up."

:-) I was looking for a different picture, but my phone won't sinc up to the computer, so I found this one from our trip to Panama a few y..."

Nice beastie :-)

I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-18...

Just want to weigh in on the fear of people behaving badly.

Yes, I've seen those threads/posts that have gone viral when one author or reviewer goes ballistic and enters into an all-out-war of nastiness.

However, in my experience (and I've been on this site since 2008 and actively participating in some 10+ groups since 2013) those kinds of attacks are few and far between.

And I seriously doubt they would wind up here. You are just not reading the kinds of books that attract those kinds of attackers.

And, of course, the mod always have the ability to block someone who is behaving badly.

Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www.pri.org/stor..."

I do agree with you, Kate: there is something magical, noble, serious, all at once, that gets you from the smell of old books. That's one reason why I will probably never buy/use an e-reader.

Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www.pri.org/stor..."

I also prefer paper books. I do have an iPad with the kindle app. I get a lot of ARCs from net galley so I read a fair amount on my iPad. I like the ability to highlight and take notes but it doesn't compare to holding a real book. For this group, I will tend to buy seasonal and annual reads because i feel like I concentrate better with paper books.

I also find that if I'm reading on my iPhone or iPad, I get distracted by email notifications and other things.

I tried reading a book on my iPad just once to see if I would like it and had a terrible headache, tried making the font bigger however, that didn't seem to help.

All of my books I read are paper books either I purchase or from the library. The library helps a lot with books on the 1001 list that I'm not sure I want to buy until I read them.

I'm the same way when I'm on my iPad Jen, I get so easily distracted by emails and social media that when I read, I don't want anything to interfere with that. The best parts of my day or night is when I'm reading, having a cup of tea and immersing myself in the world the author has created. I don't want distractions in a world that I am so easily distracted in as it is.

Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www.pri.org/stor..."

Kate I look forward to reading the article. I share your passion for paper books. Only if I absolutely have to buy a book do I use my Kindle:) Otherwise I am an avid Library Lender.

Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www.pri.org/stor..."

Interesting article. "And if you don’t use the deep reading part of your brain, you lose the deep reading part of your brain.”

Though I don't find the comparison between reading contracts and reading novels to be similar at all contrary to: "So what's deep reading? It's the concentrated kind we do when we want to immerse ourselves in a novel or read a mortgage document"

On the point, if I have a contract to review, I much prefer to print it out and read it on paper, for the reasons they describe in the article. But if I don't have access to a printer, I can deep read on the screen, but I have to focus hard and eliminate distractions.

I have a Kindle and my wife gave me an iPad for my last birthday and of course I immediately downloaded the kindle app and linked it to my account. I love books, but there's no way I could bring the number of books I would like to read when I travel - say this last September, when we went hiking in Southern France. So, if I can get paper - I read paper, hardcover if I can get it at a reasonable price. Unless the situation demands that I reduce weight or if I am reading in a foreign language in which case I can load the relevant dictionary on my computer and check unknown words as I read, just by highlighting.

My wife gets headaches reading on the kindle, so she won't do it. I don't. But I still love my paper books.

Shuva wrote: "Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

http://www..."

Your welcome Shuva! I thought it was as well.

I love old books, but I have an e-ink reader that don't have any apps at all, and I've found that I can read faster and concentrate better with the reader than with a bulky book. With a paper book I'm often tempted to flip ahead and skim the rest of the book - that's not so easily done with an ebook reader. I think the divide between paper and screen is more complicated than just paper=good, screen=evil.

In the discussion dtb vs ereader; I love them all, use them all, they all have their places. A house without books would be a sad place to live.

I can't find a place to post reviews. The one that is showing in a folder is locked. Where can we post reviews? I think this is something we need sooner than later or not? If we post our own reviews they will show up when we select a book from the group bookshelf, so maybe not important? Just wondering.

Yes, so you need to create a new topic in that same folder. Read the instructions in the first topic I posted. You won't reply to my message because it is locked. What you will do is click the folder then inside click on "new topic" and that will be your review.

I will post the handy guide tonight for everyone

Jen wrote: "Yes, so you need to create a new topic in that same folder. Read the instructions in the first topic I posted. You won't reply to my message because it is locked. What you will do is click the fold..."

Okay, so I went and did that, on the second book I chose the drop down, Calendar and it posted the review there, should I not choose that and leave it 1001 reviews? Did I mess up again. I am poking around to get use to the site, when I have a moment. So let me know when I do something wrong so I can correct it.

Kristel wrote: "Jen wrote: "Yes, so you need to create a new topic in that same folder. Read the instructions in the first topic I posted. You won't reply to my message because it is locked. What you will do is cl..."

okay, I deleted my other message. So I think we should keep all our general reviews in one place. What do you think? It could make it easier. So, I moved your complicity review from the "Calendar" folder to 1001 book reviews folder. I'm not entirely sure what the calendar folder will be used for since I didn't create it. Just to put threads or for reviews too? If you wanted to organize it with review in there, I could move it back. We can discuss backchannel

On Shelfari the full list, including all the editions, was made available on the group page. Any chance it will also be available here or at least a link to a list in the very messy and confusing Listopia? I don't have a copy of the book and have little faith in the ability of people to correctly tag or shelf.

John wrote: "Kate wrote: "I thought this was an interesting article about ebook vs paper book published in 2014. I prefer paper books. The smell of an old book is the best smell in the world to me.

I'm pretty much in the same boat with regards to my kindle. One other reason I would pick up a dte (dead tree edition) is if the book has a complex story line you want to go back and forth a bit between pages to makes sure you got things right. I find this is quite impossible on the kindle. With dte's I have a sense of where I am in the books I just don't have on the kindle despite the info on percentage read. On the other hand searching for a word or name on the kindle is soooo easy.

Kristel wrote: "I am just experimenting. Freedom. I read this book, this year. I chose the add book/author above this comment box. It save me typing this myself.

if you click on the book it will ta..."

I don't know why, but GRRR just doesn't seem to send you my friend request- could you do it from your end?

Maybe a manifestation of the dark force?