The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

I don't know if this fits here BUT Has anyone any thoughts about the changes GR are making to the page settings?

I may be missing something but I don't see MPGs or lists on there this is surely going to impact on task setting I would love to hear what you think.

i haven't seen it yet - i think its still in Beta...it wouldn't surprise me if they got rid of the useful stuff for less useful...someone posted on twitter that it seems the new webpage is more optimized for mobile devices

I still see MPGs. You have to expand the details before you can see them.

Simone wrote: "I still see MPGs. You have to expand the details before you can see them."

OK Simone I will try that

thanks Simone I was not seeing that before you are right I can see it if i expand details - it is not exactly user friendly but i suppose we will get used to it. I do think the main page is much clearer and punchier that what we have now

Dee wrote: "i haven't seen it yet - i think its still in Beta...it wouldn't surprise me if they got rid of the useful stuff for less useful...someone posted on twitter that it seems the new webpage is more opt..."

i only really use GR on my computer I might look up a book to recommend on the app but that is it

Marie (UK) wrote: "I don't know if this fits here BUT Has anyone any thoughts about the changes GR are making to the page settings?

I may be missing something but I don't see MPGs or lists on there this is surely go..."

Yes, I was actually thinking of the challenge when I saw it.

You can still see the MPGs, they are just in a row beneath the blurb and then click "more"

I use my computer for GR. It may look "more modern", but I found the beta look too spread out. I could no longer see many of the factors as quickly. This also resulted in more scrolling.

Personally, I'd rather leave the look as it is.

I have to agree with Kathy. I tried to use it and really didn't get on with it.

Lauren wrote: "You can still see the MPGs, they are just in a row beneath the blurb and then click "more"

I guess that'll mean the mods are going to have to make a ruling on whether were can only use the ones that show automatically, or whether we can use the "more" ones.

I hate it - i dislike that you can't see how many people shelved something and its just ugh....its designed for mobile devices and not those of us who use computers

I'm torn on the new layout. I do hate the mobile app and think it's pretty useless, so this may help with that. But I do mostly use the regular website on my laptop because I do try and write reviews, and it's much easier to post completed tasks for the reading challenge.

At least the new format will standardize the number of genres available, either 4 or 10. Right now it's anyone's guess as to how many will show up.

also I can't figure out how to edit book records in the new format - which sucks as a librarian!!

Dee wrote: "also I can't figure out how to edit book records in the new format - which sucks as a librarian!!"

Ah, I hadn't tried that yet. Sigh. Hopefully that's just a temporary problem.

Only thing I could find was to look at all the editions and edit from there. Of course, you have to ask to see more details before you can even see the option to look at the rest of the editions, so that's going to get annoying real fast.

Also, the embedded genres display differently. I'm reading a book now where the regular site has "Literature > 18th Century", "Literature > Jewish" and "Business > Amazon", but the beta page has these as "18th Century", "Jewish" and "Amazon" so on one page it could be used for "Literature" or "Business" (assuming the task allowed embedded and standalone MPGs) but on the other it couldn't.

I noticed that, too. I get why, but there has to be a better way - not showing Literature just because it's not standalone is going to be misleading for some books.

Dee wrote: "also I can't figure out how to edit book records in the new format - which sucks as a librarian!!"

I haven't attempted this yet. Going to try it now.

The severely restricted list of genres/shelves is really problematic for many of the challenges in various groups.

For example, some currently require "tagged by at least 10 people" ... there is no such information in the beta format page.

Another example: some allow a book shelved with a specific location to count, even if the location info isn't in the meta data. As long as one person had tagged the book "Illinois" it qualifies for that challenge. But there will be no way to get to that information.

I also really hate that the cover is SOOOOO large and stays visible as I scroll down. I already know what book I'm looking at , I don't need it to stay prominent on the page. Waste of space IMHO.

The previous "improvement" made the Home page annoying with book covers bigger and less info available. This is along the same lines. It makes it look more like the app, which I tried once or twice and hated, so I never use that. Even on a tablet or phone, I will go to the actual website. So weird that for a group composed of readers, they want to have more pictures and less text!

These comments are really interesting I had not thought about tags and the librarian issues seem complicated

Sadly, once someone at GR likes the idea of these changes, it's almost certainly going to happen. When they messed with the home page, there were uncountable negative comments from the beta testing and that had no effect.

I think they work on the assumption that people just hate change, so there's no reason to pay attention. The hating change part is probably true, but I wish they would pay attention to the specific issues that people raise.

Sandy wrote: "I wish they would pay attention to the specific issues that people raise..."

I have sent several feedback emails detailing problems with missing content, editing access and image sizing issues, but so far, aside from making the star ratings filterable, my comments have been ignored. Sad to say that GR simply does not care what users want.

I've also sent specific comments about things that are missing or inefficient, and have expressed concerns about the amount of scrolling required.

Sadly, I don't think there is any comparable site that people can move to, even if we were willing to transfer all our data. I joined GR when it was still an independent entity.

Robin P wrote: "Sadly, I don't think there is any comparable site that people can move to, even if we were willing to transfer all our data. I joined GR when it was still an independent entity."

People have gone round and round about this, especially when GR started censoring reviewers. Nobody was able to come up with a satisfactory alternative - I tried out one site, but it was very clunky and I don't know if it still even exists.

Robin P wrote: "Sadly, I don't think there is any comparable site that people can move to, even if we were willing to transfer all our data. I joined GR when it was still an independent entity."

There's LibraryThing, but it's not the same. They do at least make it easy to transfer your library. I haven't found it a very active community, however.

Robin P wrote: "Sadly, I don't think there is any comparable site that people can move to, even if we were willing to transfer all our data. I joined GR when it was still an independent entity."

Several alternative sites have been started over the years as a result of anger and frustration at Goodreads, but none of them lasted very long. I'm afraid GR is a monopoly in the field of online book cataloging.

Aprilleigh wrote: "There's LibraryThing, but it's not the same. They do at least make it easy to transfer your library. I haven't found it a very active community, however.."

While LibraryThing is a great catalog and I use it as a backup in case something drastic happens to GR, they simply do not have the same group interactions as GR.

I've been hearing a lot about www.thestorygraph.com lately. I looked through it and it does look like an interesting site to track your reading and find new books, but I don't know if it would work for our kinds of challenges.

The genres listed aren't as specific, although each book has a "mood" with a list of emotions readers can choose from that they felt while reading. They put a big emphasis on easily finding trigger/content warnings. The site in general gets you to think about the stories and emotions in the book instead of what boxes they fall into.