Member recommendations

I've added member recommendations.

http://www.librarything.com/blog/2008/05/member-book-recommendations.php

Clearly members are going to raise potential problems. Let's work through them realistically--without assuming that everything that COULD go wrong, will. What are the minimum safeguards and norms we need?

The link in the blog post to the member rec. page is password protected.

Thanks. Fixed. Pushing now.

ancient history, which makes the feature seem much less interesting than it is!

Oh, how wrong you are!

Absolute minimum safeguards:

Flagging.

Grouping of identical recommendations (so you don't have twenty separate people all recommending the same book at the same place).

Nice to have:

Limitations on the number of recommendations that can be posted per day per user.

Limitations on the number of times a user can recommend the same book (to avoid the obvious case of an author recommending their book on every title in existence).

Policies against authors recommending their own books, though this would be trivially circumvented with sock-puppet accounts.

(Edit: I consider the 'nice to haves' very important, but think they're unlikely given general site philosophy, and think that the flagging is a way of getting at the issue of spam-recommendations that is more likely to be implemented.)

Authors shouldn't be able to recommend their own books. I also think accounts with fewer than, say, 10 books shouldn't be able to make recommendations.

On the page of who's made recommendations, it seems like they're all showing up in your name.

>7 Got it. Thanks.

Would it be possible to add more than one recommendation at a time? (up to the limit, of course)

I don't see how you can prevent people recommending their own books -- after all, an author who is a member isn't automatically identified as an LT author, even in their primary account. And anyway, I don't mind people suggesting their books when it's relevant to do so -- just as I don't mind people talking about their work in a discussion of the subject in the same way I mind them posting a random "hey, everyone go read my book!".

I like: limits on recs per day or per book, or something limited to libraries above a certain size. The latter, especially, should kill some drive-by spam.

I'd like to see thumbs as part of this feature.

Now from the fiction point of view if you added this to authors we could say if you like Ellis Peters you might like Peter Tremayne.

That's just the first thing that came to me. I haven't tried it yet, is it a one way recommendation? or bidirectional?

I'm going to have to take a closer look at this, pretty sure I can come up with opinions to recommend back and forth.

Well, you could at least prevent people with an LT Author badge from recommending their own books, since their books are linked to their account. And you could prevent them from opening fake accounts to recommend their books by requiring a certain number of books catalogued, or by restricting it to paid members if fake author account recommendations get really bad.

I do very strongly object to authors recommending their own books, just because they have so much more incentive to recommend than the average user that it could skew the recommendations a lot.

It would also be interesting if we had an option to sort member recommendations by how long the recommender has been on LT, which might cut back on advertising recommendations a bit, or at least make us less likely to see them.

Right now it's just reverse chronology, in case someone asks.

10>

Automatically gauging relevancy is a tricky thing, though, which is where flags would be useful (and why I consider them essential; I'd love to see a policy against authors recommending their own books (enforceable only by flagging or by posting them on the "Spam groups" thread), but think it's unlikely. A policy against *any* user recommending the same book too many times would reduce this problem and be a lot easier to implement, however. Sock-puppet accounts will still be a problem, of course.

While you're thinking about work recommendations, could you remove books by the same author from the (computer-generated) recommendations? It's pretty useless when all the special sauce recommendations are other books by the same author.

14>, we actually agree on flags and a limit on how many times anyone can recommend the same book. But I'm not recommending automatic relevancy detection at all (and on reread, maybe I should've picked a different word, since that one does have a specific meaning I didn't intend) -- rather, I'm saying that I don't object to all self-recs as a matter of principle.

It's another version of the cocktail party test: if someone mentions their work because, hey, they happen to be an expert on a subject I'm interested in, I don't mind at all. If they introduce themselves as "I'm Joe Schmoe, the author of the exciting new bestseller Foo", I'm backing away as quickly as I can. Or flagging, as the case may be.

I do realize that I'm disagreeing with a lot of people on this one.

Nifty new feature - of course, I've only tried one myself and I feel like I really need to think it through first.

For the questions, is the "Rules" portion new?

Rules: This is not a free-for-all. You are expected to make good-faith, disinterested recommendations. You can only make three recommendations per book, and cannot recommend the same book more than five times overall. Recommending your own book is strictly forbidden. Recommendations can be flagged from the "Recommendations page." You are free to recommend books already listed by others or by LibraryThing itself.

It seems that everything's already there...

Now to put my thinking cap on and try to remember what got me to some great books to begin with...

17>

That looks like a good set of rules -- where are they posted?

When you go to put a recommendation on a book, the rules pop up in the lightbox just below the search for the book you're recommending.

I actually like that it says to recommend things already recommended - on something I'm not so familiar with, I'd like to know that the recommendations are good and not just a list of books the author also wrote.

Thumbs up! It works smoothly and intuitively; great, non-touchstoney search results; I managed to recommend the same book for M Butterfly twice, but deleted the duplicate with no problem. Thanks...

When it says timspalding recommends Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C. : a historical biography by Peter Green, "Green's history of Alexander has somewhat less scholarly apparatus, but a stronger narrative", I'd prefer a colon to a comma.

How about this one:

timspalding recommends The myth of matriarchal prehistory : why an invented past won't give women a future by Cynthia Eller for The civilization of the goddess by Marija Gimbutas

What do we do about it when someone does something like that? What if it told people who liked Ann Coulter they should also like Mein Kampf?

>22 Dang, that was my next one! I thought Ann Coulter and Hitler kinda were obvious...

Isn't that flagable? I would assume putting something like Hitler/Coulter together wouldn't exactly be a "disinterested recommendation."

Then again, maybe it's best if you can only recommend books in your library? At which point, you have to be willing to have those books in your library. Sure, I can try it for grins...

Nah, I like flagging. What if I remember a book from way back when that I don't own and I don't have in my library? I shouldn't have to load it into my library just to recommend it.

Flagging - possible quarantine where users vote to the accuracy of the recommendation? Maybe 24-48 hours or 20 votes, whichever comes first and it's thumbs up/thumbs down? Up, Mein Kampf is legit, down and we know we're being silly.

22>

That's a good question. There are all sorts of deliberately mean-spirited "recommendations" that could be made. Or "helpful" recommendations that would have the same wounding effect.

Requiring that someone actually have a book in their library to make a recommendation for it (that is, they'd have to have the Coulter, in your scenario) would help somewhat, in the same way that it helps avoid the drive-by flame type of reviews, but I don't think it would eliminate the problem altogether. I keep coming back to flagging.

24:As the reviews for the book of Mormon show if something is "controversial" enough there will be drive-bys.

I used the Book of Mormon in my talks. It's the most controversial book on LT—with the highest standard deviation of ratings.

Thanks for this, Tim, it's a great feature.
I'm getting an odd SQL error every third or fourth recommendation (all different books). I'll try to capture it next time. Using Firefox on a Mac.

I hunted down the place to contribute a recommendation, but, alas, it's not working for me. I clicked (and double clicked) on the add a member recommendation and nothing happens despite waiting nearly 3 minutes. The little descriptive header in the lower left says something about javascript but nothing happens. Eventually it changes to "done", but no screen change. FWIW, I'm using dial-up with XP Pro on AOL browser.

cobb

I'll do some JavaScript checking.

Are you able to open up the reviews box from the Add books screen?

It would be nice if the big list of member recommendations put a checkmark beside the books that we own. I'd like to look at the list to see what other people are recommending, but most of the titles are meaningless to me. It might also be good to have a graphical view that included covers.

Cool idea. Please, if possible, take away the need to click "Done".

You think? People like feedback that it worked, and updating the recommendations area can seem subtle, and if we started sorting by something other than language, there could be no signal. What's your plan?

I really really like this feature. At some point would it possible to see the member recommendations just for books I own as opposed to all books?

>33

Yes, definitely.

>32

I can focus on button, so you only need to press return.

#32 Tim - My thought is that the dialog box going away along with the page updating is enough. I guess there would be some confusion when page refreshed before the update goes into effect. Not sure how serious that would be. I'm just pushing a little to avoid the extra click. It's OK when I have one recommendation, but if I have a bunch, it will get old quick. Regardless, I like this idea and I look forward to seeing seeing lots of entries.

I just realized 34 was part of your answer. Honestly, I have no idea what you mean :} but only hitting return sounds nice.

If you hit 'done' more than once (by accident) it post your recommendation twice.

Sometimes, going to to the Member Rec. page logs me out. (Vista/FF3 RC1)

Interesting idea, although I'm not sure how often I will use it. I'd like to be able to recommend authors as well as individual books, particularly for fiction.

I like the idea of limiting the number of times you can recommend a particular book, but I'm not so sure about a cap of three recommendations for a single book. Perhaps it could be, say a cap on how many per book over the space of a day or a week?

Removed due to lazy reading leading to misinterpretation. Suffice it to say, I like limits in general.

Personally, I think the cap of 3 keeps it more open. This is a huge IF (and I'm not a fan of the IF game for the record), but IF I were to go to a book and see one person has already recommended 30 books, I'd feel kind of like I was stepping into someone else's territory.

Not to mention, I think it keeps stuff more meaningful when you really have to pick and choose. I feel like I'll be getting the best recommendations, not just everything they could think of...

Heaven forbid someone decide every single Dr. Who novelization be a recommendation for every single Star Trek novelization...

Again, huge IFs, but I imagine if you truly have a fantastic recommendation that would be your 4th on a book, someone could be persuaded to add it on your behalf. ;-)

Instead of this long error when logged out (due to the Member recs page), there should be a "you need to be logged in before submitting recommendations".

INSERT INTO rec_members (rm_from workcode, rm_to_workcode, rm_usernum, rm_anonymous, rm_stamp) VALUES (5403381, 82616, , 0, 1211253352)

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ' 0, 1211253352)' at line 5 - fatal error (6)

I like it so far. Especially since it (hopefully) could potentially catch books that inform other books that don't show up in the special sauce.

For example, I added Mrs. Dalloway to The Hours. Obvious? Maybe. But I think it's important to know that reading the other book could assist in the enjoyment of this one.

My only complaint/question is why allow a member not to associate their name with the recommendation? I think the username functions as at least a small deterrent from posting spam or malicious recommendations.

Furthermore, what's the advantage of an anonymous recommendation if it doesn't fall into those categories?

Pretty neat.

Definetly I'd like to see the "still to do" from the blog post.

"You cannot reccomened the same book more than 5 times overall"
This seems a bit harsh, I'm suire some books are worth more than 5 recoomendations.

I'd go for flagging, and thumbing.

Would love to see a tick for those we own.

BUG: the lightbox isn't movable, and if you're not on a full screen brouser, you can't get to the make recommendation button.
Bug2 - ditto on the members rec page logging me out

This is a really neat feature. How about member unreccomendations to? :)

"ty1997 thinks you would hate ____ if you liked ____"

"You cannot reccomened the same book more than 5 times overall"

It's just limited to you and not the book - If there's a book that's just one of those best-of's, it will likely get recommended by others. I'll probably recommend The Stand on some "end of the world as we know it" books, and the 5 limit will make me pick and choose (pretty much on those books I've read). I know I'm not the only one with this same recommendation idea.

So The Stand will end up with recommendations from others...I hope!

I'm very much afraid that this will be another time sink. ;-))

48: That was my first reaction. :) ...particularly after I saw how much time I was spending on them.

For books with a lot of member recommendations (Harry Potter), early member recommendations are hidden on the full recommendations page. Any chance of expanding the limit (preferably) or changing the link text when a book has hidden member recommendations?

>42
I'm not saying that the 3-book cap should be removed entirely; just that having it at 3 seems a little low. Maybe having it at 3 to start with, and once you hit three you more at a rate of, say, one per month. Just a thought toward balancing keeping it "open" with the fact that some people have areas of... expertiese. And of course I don't know about programming it.

Edited to add: Just who am I supposed to be convincing to add the fourth book on my behalf? I've only been recommending where I'm familliar with both books, of course, and merely entering a book in one's library does not imply any familiarity with it. At least, not until the book-status function has teeth.

I'm going to be out much of the day, sleeping off a bug I caught from Liam. Apologies.

>50 Frankly, if a member were desperate to put a fourth book on a recommendation and I'd known them and seen them on the boards and they sent me a message asking me for the favor, I'd probably do it.

I doubt I'm the only one that would do this type of favor since it would likely be one-offs.

>50, 52 I'm pretty sure you'd just have to post a message in Book Talk or Site Talk or somewhere and plenty of people would be happy to do it for you.

45> I'm suire some books are worth more than 5 recoomendations.

Then you can pick what you consider the most appropriate five, and be relatively confident that with over 400,000 members someone else will make the other recommendations elsewhere.

It's a minor inconvenience for a HUGE reduction in recommendation spam. I'm 100% in favor of this limit.

>54 Agreed.

When you check out the Zeitgeist for Recommendations, longer comments have "(see more)" embedded in them; this should probably be fixed since it doesn't do anything and looks silly.

And yes, some of those are my comments; I don't like to recommend things without explaining WHY I think it's a good fit (because not everyone will see the same things).

I had a thought. (Yes, it's true, I do sometimes have them!)

If I recommend Book A to those who like Book B, it generally follows that Book B should be recommended to those who like Book A. What do you think of having that done automatically? Or perhaps simply having the former recommendation factored in when the site figures its recommendations for Book A.

>57

We do that for the other systems, but don't weigh them as strongly. It seems to me, however, that members can decide if it makes sense and do it.

57> I don't know about the generality of your supposition. I have actually read junk books (Apocalypse 2012) and would recommend something instead of them (Our Final Hour). It is really unidirectional and frequent enough, I'm guessing, to falsify reciprocity.

Robert

Also, when one of the books is extremely popular (like Harry Potter), it seems sort of pointless to suggest it.

Maybe a checkbox for "mutual recommendation" or "recommend both ways"?

> 61

Ooh, I like that.

This occurred to me when I recommended Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro to readers of In Venice and in the Veneto with Henry James, and Effie in Venice to readers of No Vulgar Hotel, both of which should be mutual recommendations.

I tried adding a book recommendation on a works page, but on the computer I'm using I can't seem to see an "enter" or "submit" button.

> 63

What OS/browser?

I posted yesterday here about having that problem with Windows XP Professional/IE6.

>61 I've seen it elsewhere (can't remember where - maybe amazon?) where you could recommend things either "instead of" or "in addition to". The latter could become a mutual recommendation, but the former wouldn't.

I like the recommend both ways checkbox.

What's the cache on the search? I can't find Maneater by Thomas Emson which was added to my catalog a few weeks ago! Recommending obscure works is the point of this system, but you can't unless the search finds them.

>64 Yup, that's the same problem I have here (at work). I haven't had a chance to try it at home yet, usually what doesn't work out room-wise here I can do at home. I am working with the same system you mentioned, XP/IE6.

Did you ever find a fix? I didn't see one on that thread.

> 67

No, I never did. I'm hoping that Tim & Co. will figure it out once they get done with everything they are pushing out now.

re 28 & 29 & 63

My original concern has been resolved in that I can now see a white backgrounded box for making the recommendation.

However, I too can not get a whole, complete, box. No matter how much I fiddle with arranging my page and scrolling up and down, my screen never progresses below a point half about through the optional comments space; hence no way to finalize the job.

XPPro and AOL browser (not IE).

I'm on pokey dial-up (28KBS) - and loading the whole recommendation box takes well over a minute, not to mention the minute or so to just arrive there by clicking on works which takes about 50 sec to load for each work. I have had increasing trouble here on LT as the pages become more feature laden.

cobb

I'm having no problem with IE6-XP.

--> 73

It can't be done because the book you're trying to recommend is not in anyone's library here at LT - hence not in the LT database from which we pick recommendations.

73, 75: Rec made for you between the two works.

I don't get a blinking cursor either, but if I type, characters show up in the search box. Please let me know if it works better for you, and I'll remove the test recommendation I made. :)

> 76

Glad someone did this as I didn't have time earlier when I saw message 75. For what it's worth, I can see your test just fine.

--> 75

I tried it again and it worked this time. When I originally tried it, I could not pull up the work at all. Perhaps the spacing of the name was different from what I put in the search box? When I actually cut and pasted the title of the book (from the actual work page) into the search box, it then worked fine. I deleted my entry after testing it, since there are already two recommendations on that work page for the same book! :)

-->79 Yeah, it's acting finnicky for me, too, sometimes I get the blinking cursor, sometimes not. I appreciate your efforts SqueakyChu. I'm still recommending away, this is kind of fun.

78: I'm glad it's working for you (especially since I can delete my test recommendation). I made a lot of recs myself after sorting my books by shared, along with the general topic-based ones. :)

This is going to be a major timesuck.

82: So I can provide (more) obscure recommendations for popular books, of course. :)

> 83

Oh, good idea! ;-)

84: I started that when I saw someone recommending books for Harry Potter. :)

I didn't see this mentioned yet; forgive me if I missed it... Are there plans for / would it be possible to get a page that shows us all of the recommendations we've made?

Oh, wait, nevermind, it's on the "to be done" list on the original blog post. And here I was thinking I was being all original. Well, count this as a vote for that feature!

What I would like would be something in the "Shared" column to indicate that a book has member recommendations, similar to the way we can see that there are reviews.

something in the "Shared" column to indicate that a book has member recommendations

That is a great idea!

>88

I like that idea, too!

How does one go about deleting a double recommendation?

The thing with the blinking cursor not appearing sometimes was also a problem on the new Tags page. Hopefully, whatever was done to fix that can be done for Recommendations as well...

I'm glad you are getting a cursor on the tags page. I'm not, and find it very disconcerting.

Oh. I thought it had been fixed. I haven't done much tag gardening recently, so I don't actually know if it's appearing regularly. For me it always showed up sometimes - that is, from the start I got a cursor about half the time. FF latest, WinXP.

Someone's recommended the exact opposite of a book. I'd really like to register my displeasure, and flag it to oblivion. The blog post seems to indicate that you can, but I haven't found out how. (Perhaps Tim timed out before he had a chance to push the option.)

#96: Sometimes it makes sense. An opposing view can make an interesting comparison. If one book is written as a reply to another book, and it's good, then it makes sense to recommend it.

#97>

That's true sometimes, but I think this is a pretty clear case of a recommendation not made "in good faith", if you actually look at it.

The alleged rules for user recommendations aren't actually implemented either, so I'm hoping that recommendation flagging and limitations on number of recs per book per user will be implemented in a future modification.

Edited to fix typo

Strikes me as an interesting combination. I've never read Dawkins, nor the books against him (and I'm not likely to - arguments on that subject tend to strike me as highly uninteresting), and admittedly anyone who accepts Dawkins unquestioningly is likely to utterly hate those two recommendations - but someone who's interested in arguments on the subject could find a direct rebuttal very useful. YMMV - and I've no idea about the flagging.

>96-99 I don't think it will be too big of a problem (for the record, while I disagree with some of his views {starting with the "scarlet A" campaign and, for now, ending with "brights"}, I am certainly pro-Dawkins). Remember that, as the months pass, controversial and popular books will accrue many diverse member recommendations.

Tim: I think it would be useful if you could add, wherever you see fit, a little subsection in the recommendations section of a user's profile which lists the books that the user has recommended five times (and, if you have yet to install/do not intend to install a way to formally restrict a user from recommending the same book more than five times, another list for books which the user has accidentally recommended more than five times).

In other words, it will be much easier for those of us who like the feature to comply with your guidelines (which I, for the record, quite like) if we had a one click/brainless way to check up on which books we should ease up on recommending.

If two (or more) people make the same recommendation pair without comments, could their names be displayed together for emphasis?

foo and oof recommend bar.

@96

I presume you are referring to my recommendations.

I'm sorry it caused you displeasure.

A few things I would like you to bear in mind:
1) Dawkins book is all about open enquiry, as are the two I recommended. Reading half the argument is not open enquiry.
2) I made those recommendations reciprocal, I am not an anti Dawkins spammer any more than I am an anti Christian spammer.
3) I genuinely believe that someone who read Dawkins should read something from the other side. Someone reading a tract against Dawkins should absolutely make sure they are familiar with Dawkins himself.

Those recommendations are not perfect in many ways, I would like to recommend a different recommendation of atheism, one which deals with faith more honestly, but I am not familiar enough with such a work to do so. I would also like to recommend a better response to Dawkins, I have seen responses in the form of articles, but have yet to find a book which deals with him properly, so I linked the two closest things.

I hope that makes sense?

>102

I think I'll keep it simple for now. If the lists get very long commonly, I'll reconsider.

Any chance of displaying all the member recs on the work page, if there's less than 10-15 then?

>103

Owen, thanks for responding. However, the blurb associated with recommendations does say "Readers who enjoy ... may also enjoy..." and it's pretty difficult to see why I might enjoy those other books without having seen the comments that you've made in your post. Can I encourage you to consider adding some explanatory text, particularly when making recommendations that are at the least controversial ... and I certainly took them as mendacious at first sight.

In fact, as a wider comment, I'm not really interested in any recommendations that don't have supporting statements, and I'd really appreciate the ability to switch off those recommendations which lack attached text.

>106 Really? Remember, these recommendations come equipped with a hyperlink which leads one to a work page that more often than not includes an official book description (if not a handful of member reviews).

We're recommending books, not selling them. If a title doesn't jump out at you... Ignore it!

I concur with #103.

107--You can look at the recommended book's description easily enough, but you still might not be able to tell exactly why one book was recommended for the other.

I agree with #103, except that I don't think that "the two closest things" is a high enough standard. It should be a book that you genuinely think is good. I would hold it to a higher standard than the average "this other book is similar" recommendation.

>109 "...you still might not be able to tell exactly why one book was recommended for the other."

Ambiguity is not a crime, especially when one assumes--as one should--that the overwhelming majority of LibraryThingers are acting in good faith. A person who, upon reading War and Peace, would like to recommend a work on Tsarist Russia, Napoleonic France, another must-read Russian novel or a novel which delves into the nature of history should not be obligated to spell out his or her recommendation...

Is there any way to remove a recommendation?

>112 If you made the recommendation, you can click on the pencil to edit it and delete it from there.

Danke.

Um. Someone recommended jekyll for itself 4 times! (It's not the 4 that bothers me; it's the loop.)

The comment translates as "I recommend this book to you".

>106

I can see why you might have thought I was trying to cause trouble, I have attempted to edit my recommendations to include comments (see below) but it doesn't appear to be working, I will try again later.

I can see that where a link is not obvious an explanation can be helpful. On the other hand a lot of the recommendations I have noticed are pretty self explanatory. I am going to attempt to recommend things which I don't think would necessarily crop up in the normal recommendations, to try and point to maybe slightly less well known books which might make good accompaniments/are good places to explore further.

>110
I see your point about the standard one should hold recommendations too. However, I asked myself if I thought someone who read the one book should read the other, and the answer to that was definitely yes.

Again this is something I should have highlighted in an explanation.

---
The comments I want to add to one of my recommendations (and V similar for the other.):
The God Delusion offers some of the most popular, if not the most reasoned/effective, arguments "against faith". Robertson attempts to dispel a few perceived misconceptions. This is a good place to start if you wish to understand why a lot of people of (any) faith disregard Dawkins argument in this book.

Robertson does not provide a total response to atheism itself, nor does he set out to do so. His treatment of Dawkins is at time partial, and he makes no attempt to engage in the actual philosophy of atheism as a valid but different discourse.

The God Delusion repays careful reading, because even if one may disagree with them, or argue that they do not represent the best of Atheistic philosophy, one can not deny that Dawkins represents some of the most common critiques of faith, which people of faith are forced to respond to.

> 116

I asked myself if I thought someone who read the one book should read the other, and the answer to that was definitely yes.

I think that is a perfectly valid basis for a recommendation, though I do agree that this is the kind of recommendation where a comment such as "for a different point of view on the subject, read X" would be useful.

Some of my recommendations are for non-fiction on the same subject as a novel (for instance, recommending Scottsboro Boy to people who liked To Kill a Mockingbird), and vice versa.

111 -- I do assume that the overwhelming majority of recommendations are made in good faith. No one should feel required to explain every recommendation. I just like to get a glimpse of what the recommender is thinking. What's obvious to someone who's read both books may not always be obvious to those looking at the recommendation.

Short of reading through in detail all 118 preceding messages, is the link to add member recommendations disabled? Have just tried for the first time to use it and nothing happens when I click on the link.

119: I just made a recommendation. What's your browser and OS?

>120

XP Pro, IE7.

I just tried again and same result - nothing. I am clicking on the link called "contribute a recommendation" on both the Details page and the Recommendations page.

Will try at home tonight on XP Home, IE6.

The link brings up a window that might be seen as a popup, so check your popup settings at work?

>122
Turned pop-up blocker off, even tried holding down "control" when I clicked. Still nothing happens. Very strange. I'm not getting any sound or warning like when a pop-up is blocked either.

>123 Have you tried an alternate browser (Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc?). It's working perfectly for me in Firefox.

>124
I'd get fired for sure.

I'll try tonight at home and if it doesn't work, no biggie.
Thanks for suggestions, though.

Could we have a way to look at the page of member recommendations for books in our library in a way that emphasizes the books in our library? I find that I'm trying to look at the small text first, and only want to see the title of the recommended book after I know what it's recommended for.

126: Maybe make the title/authors the same size for that section?

Or just flip it around to see Harry Potter has such and such recommendations...

>120
Home now, on XP Home IE6, and have tried to bring up the "contribute a recommendation" and it opens! Unfortunately, it is positioned in such a way it is not usable. Positioned at lower right corner of screen where it is cut off just above the comment box, so I can't get past searching for a book. Don't seem to be able to drag it into a different position.
So, with this, I am giving up on it.

Is there a way to see all of the recommendations made by a given user? I've wanted to do that when I've seen a recommendation I thought was particularly good.

>129
I wouldn't mind such a list.

>129, 130 I also think that this would be a good feature (located, perhaps, on a separate page within the recommendation section of an individual's profile?).

>126

No, I think that's gilding the lily. Features have to be fed, like kittens.

>129ff.

No, good idea. Maybe from the "stats" page?

>132 That would work well for seasoned LTingers (i.e., those who have already played around with the "Statistics" features), but I could see newbies being somewhat baffled by the fact that the "Member Recommendations" are not stored with other "Recommendations" features...

True. True. A subnav tab "Your recommendations" then, I think.

134: As long as it's accessible for other people to see. :)

Twice in a row, I got SQL errors when editing a recommendation for Crown Duel, although the changes seem to have been made. I don't know if it matters, but the errors occurred after I added html markup (em tags). Here are the full error messages:

INSERT INTO rec_members_comments (rmc_rm_id, rmc_text, rmc_stamp) VALUES (, 'Both books are fantasies with strong-minded young woman fighting tyranny in alliance with forces of nature, although Crown Duel's heroine is a naive and untutored orphan, while Tricksters' has learned much from her spymaster father. Crown Duel is lighter, Tricksters more complex.', 1215193192)
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ' 'Both books are fantasies with strong-minded young woman fighting tyranny in al' at line 5 - fatal error (6)

INSERT INTO rec_members_comments (rmc_rm_id, rmc_text, rmc_stamp) VALUES (, 'Both books are fantasies with strong-minded young noblewomen fighting tyranny in alliance with forces of nature, although Crown Duel's heroine is a naive and untutored orphan, while Tricksters' has learned much from her spymaster father. Crown Duel is lighter, Tricksters more complex.', 1215193381)
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ' 'Both books are fantasies with strong-minded young noblewomen fighting tyranny ' at line 5 - fatal error (6)