Dickensians! discussion

I'm sometimes asked about this, and posted most of it a while ago in a chat thread. Hopefully this will make clear how "Dickensians!" might be a little different to other Goodreads or real-life book groups. Also, I've been asked if I want to check anything prior to posting (no, but thanks) and it is for anyone who has not noticed that summaries are different from commentary.

I think most of the following points will be recognised as the way we do things, and that we already have a consensus for "Dickensians!" Although our way would not suit every group, it is especially good for our long slow reads - and good to keep the same format for our shorter ones too. I hope these guidelines help all our leaders, without being too restrictive. Thanks!

1. Summaries. When we have a summary, it does not include any interpretation/commentary. This is kept separate. A summary is just a reminder or simplification of the text, as you would find in an encylopaedia (or wiki). There is no personal content, interpretation or reaction whatsoever. Summaries may either be fairly comprehensive, or quite brief.

2. Quotations are kept short. We all have the text! We take out the relevant parts to make our point, and indicate the context.

3. Articles/Features of interest can be linked to, but we usually choose the salient points and rewrite parts of them, to enable a great discussion. (These are the posts I call "And a little more ...") Please try to avoid only linking to an "interesting article" as articles linked to are often not read, nor accessible to all. Please tell us what it's about and its main points instead, if you have time.

4. Questions come out of our comments and discussions. They can be by anyone, and can be actual or rhetorical. We don't have lists of questions - ever.

5. Spoiler tags are used conventionally. They can additionally be used if it seems necessary to include a long passage which has been copied and pasted. This keeps the discussion flowing, and lively (and stops the thread becoming frozen by Goodreads because it is too long!)

I hope this is helpful, whether you are leading a read or contributing. We've had some fantastic reads so far, and I'm really looking forward to more. Thanks for making this such a great group, everybody :)