Vote: Add member name when you thumbs-up a review?

This is not an invitation to re-debate comments on reviews, but I'd like to start adding member named by default when someone thumbs-up a review (yes, much like Facebook).

I think it gives people a nice positive jolt, and increases social motion on the site. I'm betting most of the people who liked my reviews would want me to know it! It also gives people a reason to thumb. Right now, there isn't much of a reason. You'll get a notice on thumbed reviews every few days, if there are any. You will, of course, be allowed to turn that off.

You will be able to mark the thumb as anonymous, but it will be public by default. Existing thumbs will not, of course, be named.What it looks like now:

Kneejerk reaction of "no no no". The ability to be anonymous alleviates it a bit, but then you had to go and describe it as the Facebook way. Flickr recently implemented something similar with favorites on the photos, where they show up in the comment list, and it's obnoxious.

It reminds me also of Tumblr, with the lists of "so and so reblogged this" or "so and so liked this", which seem to be intended to help with connectivity or something, but it's all so vapid and sterile, to me. I'd rather just have a number of thumbs up (Youtube style) than the list.

I imagine I might stop using thumbs on reviews if this gets implemented. I never made many recommendations, but since the change with thumbs to them, I've been extremely reluctant to make any new ones, and with the debate of having names attached to those thumbs, I've not thumbed up/down recommendations at all and likely never will.

I'm just one person, but I've a very strong NO to this. Maybe someone could persuade me otherwise, but considering how I feel about similar lists elsewhere, I'm thinking I won't change my mind.

ETA: I think that if there were some kind of *cringe* discussion attached to the reviews, I wouldn't mind the names attached to thumbs thing. Since that's what annoys me the most about the Tumblr and Flickr lists.

I think I agree with keristars there.
I totally admit that when I see a thumb on a review I wrote, I get a momentary wish to find out who is that attractive, intelligent person who likes my review. But I'd hate to think that my thumbing of other members' reviews might lead to someone trying to contact me personally... I am not that social, for all my bloviating here on the Talk threads.

No.

3> FWIW, Tim did say that you'd have the ability to mark a thumb anonymously, but the default would be public.

But, like I said, the option still doesn't make me feel any better about the inclusion of names. And I prefer not knowing who has thumbed my reviews.

>2 keristars:-4

Can you suggest any other way to encourage the practice? I don't think a feature works when nobody gets a benefit from it. Not surprisingly, the feature is little used.

Am I understanding correctly that your goal here is to encourage more people to give thumbs on reviews?

I wouldn't know if someone thumbed my review up, because I don't go back and look at my reviews.

I'm also not sure under what circumstances you expect a review to be given a thumbs up. When do people read reviews? Before reading the book? Then how can they judge the review? After reading the book, then they would probably prefer writing their own.

I voted undecided, because I don't see myself ever using this either way. If I were to use it, I would prefer it to remain anonymous.

I voted yes because knowing who thumbed up a review as I browse them makes it a more useful feature for readers of reviews. At the moment, it's little more than a pat on the back for the reviewer. If I see who thumbed a review up, I can assess, as a review browser, whether they are a user whose opinions I usually concur with on book opinions. Makes the thumb a more valuable gauge as to whether I should 'trust' the review opinion. Plus, it's nice for the reviewers to know I've thumbed their reviews. Now, if we could just get some kind of nudge when our reviews have been thumbed or some kind of 'total thumbs count', that would be peachy!

Am I understanding correctly that your goal here is to encourage more people to give thumbs on reviews?

Yes, and for the people getting them to be encouraged.

A bit "Meh" on this.

Given the list of bugs still open, and features not finished, plus the long list of requested features, I'd rather you spent your time on those, than on this. But I'm not adverse to it per se.

I do check my reviews for thumbs now and again - and always get a frisson of pleasure when I see they've been appreciated. But the thumbs are heavily dominated by visability - some very trite reviews in high visability spots get more thumbs than elegant appraisals which lurk in obscure corners. Adding names won't help this. I can't really see what adding names will bring to it?

TIM - can you show us what it would look like, rather than the current option!

direct facebook copy? or full name list (all 170 odd HP names?) or ... ?

#7 "I'm also not sure under what circumstances you expect a review to be given a thumbs up. When do people read reviews? Before reading the book? Then how can they judge the review? After reading the book, then they would probably prefer writing their own.
"

I read the book, write my review, and then look at the other reviews for the book. I 'thumb' (it's a verb right?) those that I like - and just occasionally go back and edit my review in consequence to reading about points that I forgot to make.

> 7, 10

I give thumbs like reading_fox does, plus I read the reviews that come through my "connections," and I thumb any that I think are well-written, and/or ones that persuade me to seek out the book reviewed.

While admitting to having been curious about the sources of thumbs on my own reviews in the past, I've gotten to like the anonymity of it. I'm not enamoured of the Facebook approach.

I'd really like to see this. It would be helpful for finding people with similar tastes: if I liked a review and see that users A and B also liked it, then I might be interested in exploring their libraries.

It would also be great if this led to a list of "All reviews thumbed (publicly) by User A"; again, if I found someone I tended to agree with, it would be nice to see what other reviews they recommended.

I don't know how you're planning to display the thumbers, but let me just say that I hate lightboxes and hope you can come up with something more attractive. I like the way it works on boardgamegeek; see for example http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/507774/the-playmobil-legion-reviews-dominion (click the number next to the thumb to see names)

>7 MarthaJeanne: I certainly thumb reviews before reading the book, if the review helps me decide whether or not I want to read it.

Am I understanding correctly that your goal here is to encourage more people to give thumbs on reviews?

Yes, and for the people getting them to be encouraged.

I think there's another important step that you need to take here, which is just encouraging people to read reviews in the first place. Various things that might help:

1) Letting us set the sort differently on the user review page and the book review page. If I'm looking at the reviews written by a user, I want to see the most recent ones. If I'm looking at the reviews for a work, I want to see the best ones. Having to change it every time is a huge annoyance and disincentive to look at reviews at all.

2) Filters for "In User's library and reviewed by others". We only need to see so many reviews of the super-popular books. Let us filter this to show only reviews for books with fewer than x members, or with fewer than y reviews. Filtering by tag or collection might help as well.

3) A similar "On user's recommendation list and reviewed by others" feature. It's nice to read reviews of books we know about, but it would be even nicer to potentially be discovering new books of interest. This would also work better with filters, like "exclude authors in your library" and "exclude books with average rating below x".

I'm sure there are more possibilities as well.

I don't feel strongly about this one way or the other. I will say that I don't do a lot of "thumbing" and this wouldn't encourage (or discourage) me from doing so.

But I'm curious about how it would show on the review. Would there be a list of names after the number? Would you have to click on the number?

I don't think a feature works when nobody gets a benefit from it.

Well, sure, but that's far from the case here. Everyone benefits from having thumbs on reviews, since the more useful reviews get singled out. True, I personally don't benefit from thumbing someone else's review, since I've already looked at it and at the others to recognize it as the best of the bunch, but others do, and I benefit from other people's thumbing.

And I get warm fuzzies from seeing that people thumb up my reviews even if they are anonymous.

(That said, I voted yes, because I don't see a downside.)

ETA: I have since changed my mind. This assessment was based on a faulty understanding of the reason why Tim wanted to increase the number of thumbs given, and based on a more correct understanding I no longer support this feature. See downthread for details.

I don't see any downside to implementing this, I don't think it will be a huge improvement, though I am ALWAYS curious to know who has given me a thumb. It's always nice finding a new thumb on my reviews. I know I've made suggestions before on how to improve the thumbing feature and I'll see if I can remember some of them.

1. Give us stats. Let us see our thumb counts somewhere, both given and received. It can be in our home page stats if you want to keep that personal.

2. let us sort reviews by most recent thumb

3. you've got a page to display first reviews (or had one, can't find it now) maybe have one or a module on the home page (or both) that display the most recently thumbed review.

4. a review thing in general, I still think it would be cool to have stats on how many books we have with 0 reviews (maybe by collection!) and how many books we are the only reviewer.

meh.
Yeah it would be nice to see who thumbed up a review, but I'm not really dying to know. There are other things that would benefit from the time spent, I'm sure. I can't see the harm in it other than taking time away from fixes and other more sought after features.

If you do implement this, I'd like a way to convert all my previous thumbs to public.

While I would like for my existing thumbs to have my name attached, as _Zoe_ suggests, I wouldn't want the difficulty or impossibility of this detail to influence your decisions about whether to implement the overall feature. (Forest, trees, etc.)

I'd rather this not happen. A thumb is always a nice surprise, but I'd rather not feel some vague obligation to reciprocate.

Why not just send a nice note to the reviewer: "Dude! Great review of The Brothers Karamazov!"? Nice way to make friends without it becoming everyone's business.

I'd really like reviews to stay as they are without monkeying with them. I feel less inhibited when I know no one is reading them....

I'm not sure how showing the names of thumbers would encourage more thumbs, though I can see where encouraging thumbs might lead to more reviews. But there are so many reasons that people thumb-up a review, and just as many for why reviews don't get thumbs.

However, the other suggestions in the thread, for filtering review visibility or stats for thumbs, are a lot more appealing to me and seem like they would make reviews friendlier for people, which might encourage more reviews.

Also, I know I said this earlier, I hate the idea of a list of "so and so liked this review" without the option to discuss what they liked about it. If we're going to have names listed, people will be able to pester "why did you like that?" or "how could you think that was a good review?" - things that already get asked, but with no one to bother, since it's completely anonymous. I'd rather see that kind of thing attached to a discussion, not sent to profile pages, as would inevitably happen. And I'm not a big fan of review discussions (would rather have discussion threads attached to the work, not the review).

>20 keristars: My attitude is that every little bit helps, so I'd like to see all of those things: public thumbs, review filters, review discussions, work discussions... anything that creates interconnections, makes it easier to find interesting content, or creates opportunities for producing more interesting content.

How would this work? Click the number and get a pop-up tooltip that lists the member names, with profile links? (That's the way they do thumbs on BoardGameGeek.)

I'm all for it.

>22 saltmanz: Profile links are definitely critical.

OK, I answered the wrong question before. I don't want names attached to thumbs because I think it will further reduce the validity of thumbs as a measure of an outstanding review.

Click the number and get a pop-up tooltip that lists the member names, with profile links?

Right. Or maybe show 1-3.

>25 timspalding: But please make it a pretty pop-up and not a hideous lightbox.

I thumb regularly, and if this were implemented I think I would stop thumbing (for various reasons which I cann't quite pin down into words). The ability to be anonymous doesn't make any difference to me, since I wouldn't like the flavor of being anonymous in a place where most people are not anonymous.

28> since I wouldn't like the flavor of being anonymous in a place where most people are not anonymous.

Brings to mind one of Tim's thoughts: Even with opt-out, it changes the social system--the social context. To reduce complicated issues of social context to "well, you can opt out!" is a very limited way of looking at something.

I think this is what you're talking about.

Yes, please please no lightboxes.

Who are the 75-ers?

Every few months I like to look over my reviews and see what's been thumbed. I'm always interested in where those thumbs came from, and it's frustrating not to be able to find out. It's not that I'm particularly social and have something to discuss or am going to quick go comment on that person's profile. But I'd love to check out their catalogue, see if our reading interests actually do overlap (I know a thumb doesn't necessarily mean "I agree", but it often does, and at the very least it means "I'm interested enough in this book to read the reviews") and discover what they're into that I might be missing out on.

I could understand not wanting to have your name by your thumb, or even give an anonymous thumb, if we could hand out thumbs-down. But I don't understand the reluctance to stand behind one's affirmations, other than the purely anti-social reasons.

But I don't understand the reluctance to stand behind one's affirmations, other than the purely anti-social reasons.

Does anti-popularity-contest and anti-clique count as anti-social?

>29 brightcopy: I would argue, though, that the system needs to change in this case. Review-thumbing is currently just a failure, at least for the purpose of highlighting good reviews.

Look at The Bad Beginning, the first in the Series of Unfortunate Events. This book is listed by 7,722 members and there are 176 English reviews.

So let's sort by thumbs to bring the best reviews to the top. The highest review has 5 thumbs. The next three have 2 apiece, and then we're into single-thumb territory. Frankly, it's pathetic.

Maybe attaching names to thumbs would dramatically change the social system. I certainly hope so, because the current system just isn't working.

>30 saltmanz: The 75-Book Challenge. Highly recommended.

Here's why I don't thumb more.

1. It seems that thumbs are often used to mean "I agree with this reviewer", rather than, "this is a well-written, intelligent review", and that devalues them.

2. I don't give thumbs to a merely "good" review. It has to stand out for me as something special.

Having my name attached to the thumb isn't going to change either of those things.

28, 29>

That's an excellent point. I know I'm more likely to pay attention to member recommendations with names attached (especially if it's someone I respect, of course, and this doesn't apply if it's someone I recognize as not sharing my tastes) than I am to anonymous recs. I suspect many people might feel the same way about anonythumbs; there might be a perception that they're just friends of the reviewer thumbing up everything rather than people judging the review on its merits.

34>

I do thumb, but infrequently, because my standards are the same as yours, and I do despair to see mediocre reviews get dozens of thumbs just because they're popular books or popular people. Still, great reviews usually manage to snag at least a thumb or too, which pulls them out of the weeds, if not to the top.

But please make it a pretty pop-up and not a hideous lightbox.

Probably popping into the text like a "more" link.

Brings to mind one of Tim's thoughts: Even with opt-out, it changes the social system--the social context. To reduce complicated issues of social context to "well, you can opt out!" is a very limited way of looking at something.

I think this is what you're talking about.

Yes. That's true. I said it. And I agree with it. (That's one reason I didn't repeat "but you can opt-out!" over and over above. I am well aware the phrase isn't a talisman against arguments one way or another.)

Look, this is not an easy call for me. I can see it both ways. I mean, I designed it the original way, didn't I? But I also feel that thumbing is less used and less friendly than it should be--or to reverse it, that it's a rather lonely feature. I mean, we have something like ten times as many reviews as we have review thumbs! That's crazy, considering the disparity in effort involved. I think we can do better.

The downside is the potential for cliques. Against that I think there are good argument. Most of all, I don't think the community is rife with juvenile motives, or have used existing features to juvenile ends. I am aware of very few users who try to "friend" their way to popularity here, or for that matter who consider "popularity" a laudable goal. A more similar feature--interesting libraries, which is basically thumbing up another member--certainly hasn't gone that way. Rather, it seems to me a general interest circulator--creating interesting new connections between people. (To this end, perhaps the icon should move from a thumb to a star?) More generally, I think cliques are more likely and harder to break in a low-volume social situation than a high-volume one--witness the lack totalizing cliques in very large high schools.

I'm open to changes designed to improve the good and mitigate the bad. For example, if people are worried about popularity, let's change the recently-thumbed algorithm, or eliminate the page entirely. Let's change the icon, or the wording, etc.

I don't give thumbs to a merely "good" review. It has to stand out for me as something special.

Is there anything that would persuade you to give thumbs to "merely good" reviews? What if we could give both thumbs and double-thumbs? I know it's a weird suggestion, but I really think the reluctance of people to acknowledge the "merely good" is a big detriment to the whole system.

Probably popping into the text like a "more" link.

Phew. Anything but a lightbox.

Most of all, I don't think the community is rife with juvenile motives, or have used existing features to juvenile ends.

Please remember this next time the issue of review comments comes up. We're capable of carrying on respectful discussions.

For example, if people are worried about popularity, let's change the recently-thumbed algorithm, or eliminate the page entirely.

You mean Hot Reviews? Please don't get rid of it.

> 24

I'm in favor of Tim's suggestion. I think he is suggesting that, by adding names to thumbs, we'll have more connections. I see that as a good thing.

I thumb wherever and whenever I find a good review. That often leads me back to the profile of the person who wrote the review. Sometimes I even leave a profile comment (since there is no place to put a comment on a review). I see this interaction as very good.

For those who are antisocial, to whatever degree, being on the web itself, does not cater to that stance. It is, by definition, a place of interaction.

I agree about the "popularity contest" on the Hot Reviews, but I don't see that necessarily as a negative. Now, being a member of the 75-ers, of course I wouldn't! However, I found it fun, before I was a 75-er, to try to get a review on the Hot Reviews. What I found was that, if I participated in various forums and had links to my review (anywhere...not necessarily in the "75 Books", people would eventually read and thumb my review. To know who's doing the thumbing would be great fun for me.

As for the Hot Reviews on the Home Page, I don't always recognize the names of those reviewers. I read the reviews if the opening statements there tease me into reading them. If I like a review, I thumb it - whether or not I know the author of the review.

I do not thumb reviews of all my "friends". I thumb reviews I like and which inspire me to seek out a particular book.

If you want more reviews, you might ask the people in the 75-group why they create reviews in the first place?

Since 1999, I've logged reviews of books on my own personal computer - to jog my own memory of books I've read in the past. Now I just have a place to share those reviews with other. In addition, because these reviews are public, I try to write them in a way that makes sense to others who read them. A win-win! Perhaps my writing might have improved in the meantime as well? :)

Basically, what you need are more groups like the 75-ers who are tremendously supportive/responsive at a rate that seems so much greater than many other groups.

That's hard to create. It basically just happens.

>24 bonniebooks: Oh, Bonnie! I found your post interesting and thought-provoking, and now it's gone :(.

> 40

Ditto.

It is, by definition, a place of interaction.

Not to argue others' point, but LibraryThing has always taken a lower-key approach to this aspect. Frankly, I think we'd be better off financially if we chucked it and turned LibraryThing into a giant privacy-invading, omnipresent, omni-poking, all-media annoyance contraption, but, well, over my dead body. I can't run a site I hate and I think there's space being the alternative to that.

This issue, however, is not that way for me. Thumbing a review seems to me a sort of interaction already—anonymity isn't the opt-out so much as not doing it which, in fact, most users are currently doing. We aren't forcing people to interact, we are making their interaction--if they choose to do it--richer and more consequent.

Another stat: Seven times as many users have written reviews as have thumbed-up one. Those are hard numbers to argue against!

When I thumb a review I don't really worry about whether it is well-written. Instead, I'm acknowledging that the review helped me make up my mind about taking a look at the book for myself or prompted me to add the book to my wishlist. I don't particularly care, one way or the other, about my name being attached to the thumb.

>42 timspalding: Straying from the topic, but I hope you realize that LT can be more interactive without turning into a "giant privacy-invading, omnipresent, omni-poking, all-media annoyance contraption".

Interactivity has, in fact, led to more review thumbing.

Tim, this is nice.

#42 "Seven times as many users have written reviews as have thumbed-up one. Those are hard numbers to argue against!"

Or, is that an argument for making the thumbs more obvious? A lot of users don't see the thumb-thing or don't realize what it's for.

Tim, I really meant it when I said you should spend some time in the 75 Book Challenge group. Take a look at how interaction can work in a very positive way.

I like this idea a lot.

Five of the top ten reviews on Hot Reviews now are of "75-ers". Obviously, the five "non-75-ers" have done something to make their reviews stand out.

but I hope you realize that LT can be more interactive without turning into

What do you think I'm trying to do?

Tim, I really meant it when I said you should spend some time in the 75 Book Challenge group

Response number 1. You guys are amateurs. I read 75 books a month. Response number two. Okay.

> 37

I also feel that thumbing is less used . . . than it should be

Two questions, one of which relates to _Zoe_'s question to me in message 38.

1. Don't you need first to figure out why thumbing is less used than you'd like? If people don't care whether their name is attached, then adding that won't increase thumbing.

2. How do you think thumbing should be used?

> 38

Is there anything that would persuade you to give thumbs to "merely good" reviews?

Can't think of anything. To me, giving a review a "thumbs-up" is telling other people that the review is worth the time and effort to read, that it will tell them something valuable about the book, that it adds something interesting to the conversation.

I don't recommend "merely good" books, either. When I give a recommendation here, it's not only because I think that "if you liked Book A, you'll like Book B", but that B has an important connection to Book A, tells you something about the subject that Book A doesn't, gives a different point of view, etc.

Naturally, I know that not everyone shares those standards, and I don't expect them to do so. It's a matter of what one wants from thumbs and recommendations. I don't use them to establish connections with other people; the social side of LT, aside from the forums, doesn't really interest me all that much. I have no "interesting libraries", no contacts, no "private watch list", and very few "friends". I use them to provide, and, I hope, receive useful information about books.

I mean, we have something like ten times as many reviews as we have review thumbs! That's crazy, considering the disparity in effort involved. I think we can do better.

It's not crazy at all. I give a thumbs-up to far less than one in every ten reviews I see. One in twenty, maybe. I prefer thumbs to mean something.

You know what? The more I think about the use-case and your intended purpose, the less I like this. It's just going to encourage cliquish thumbing-up of reviews based on the relationship between the reviewer and the thumber rather than the quality of the review. I'm changing my vote.

Is there anything that would persuade you to give thumbs to "merely good" reviews?

No.

Well, maybe a thumbs-down.

37> To this end, perhaps the icon should move from a thumb to a star?

This will probably just rile up the Amazon-haters, but I always liked their phrasing: Was this review helpful to you? Yes/No

It's a much more neutral way of asking if the review was good, rather than the thing reviewed. It also is a lot more clear to users what they're doing. To many users, it may be a mystery as to what clicking a thumbs-up button on a review is actually going to do.

ETA: And from a personal standpoint, I've clicked that Amazon Yes or No button TONS of times. I don't even remember if I've ever thumbed-up an LT review. It just has a whole different feel to me that kind of subconsciously puts me off.

39>

See, this is depressing. It's enough to make me consider stopping reviewing. I have this idealistic, naive assumption that for most people, review thumbs mean something. And now I find that the way to get thumbs-up isn't to write exceptional reviews, but to be a member of a massive group of people who just go around thumbing-up each other's reviews because they know each other, rather than because they like the reviews? Count me out.

I know I'm never going to get a Hot Review -- the books I review are too obscure, and I'm not snarky enough, and I'm okay with that. But I like to think that I at least have a chance of having reviews in the top tier for those I do review. Now I realize that's only true if none of the 75-Book-Challenge reciprocal thumb folks have reviewed that book. Bleah.

> 51

You guys are amateurs. I read 75 books a month.

Wow. And he fixes bugs, too!

Wait! I know! You fix bugs by swatting them with the books, right?

Tim - Speaking of bug fixes, before you worry about getting more "thumbs-up" on reviews, how about fixing it so that I can see my review page: http://www.librarything.com/topic/100777

Thanks.

And I 'd like a pony, too.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes/No

Never. LibraryThing does not strive to be "helpful." We aren't sitting on your shoulder telling you what to buy... and hoping you buy a lot. We are trying to be interesting and fun. That is a higher calling.

59> Don't really think you're looking at this rationally. Why do you want people to thumb up a review? Do you have any idea?

Just my opinion, but anything described as "like Facebook" is a turnoff. In any case, I don't think it matters much who thumbs up a review.

Looking at them lately, it seems that a fairly small group of reviewers end up as Hot Picks over and over--which could mean simply that they are the best reviewers on LT. But it suggests to me that perhaps those who are most active and post in large groups or threads get thumbs up from the folks they regularly converse with; so the more active you are, the more likely your reviews--good or mediocre--get thumbs up from the same people every time. In other words, I don't think too many people give the thumbs up to a great review by someone they don't know that they just happened to find on a book's page. So, in the end, it's a little bit like a popularity contest. I guess if someone really needs to know who their friends are, this feature might help; but generally they've already posted on the thread where it is posted, "Great review! I gave it a thumbs up."

59>

LibraryThing does not strive to be "helpful."

Well, you're missing the mark, then, because I find you extremely helpful. Perhaps you should consider eliminating all library sources and bibliographic data while you're at it, then, and going to a 100% Amazon-driven paradigm like your competitors. That should make you less helpful.

Seriously, though, what is the goal here? Initially I thought it was to increase the number of thumbs-up with an aim toward helping -- there's that word again -- good reviews float to the top. Now, though, I see that that's not actually your aim; it's to increase the number of thumbs-up for its own sake, or to encourage people to acquire "friends" who will provide them with thumbs-up, or to drive participation in the 75 Book Challenge as the only viable way to get enough thumbs to keep your reviews visible (because having a review that helps someone decide whether or not to read a book isn't, apparently, what LT is for). If those latter two are your goals, then why the indirect route of thumbs?

61>

I don't think too many people give the thumbs up to a great review by someone they don't know that they just happened to find on a book's page.

For what it's worth, that's why I give thumbs, but I'm realizing that I'm in a tiny, tiny minority. It's very disillusioning.

59> The more I read your comment, the more irritated it makes me. It just makes no logical sense and seems to be a bunch of unrelated rants tied together. I read a product review that says "This sucks, don't buy it!" (and gives a great explanation). I click Yes on "was this review helpful." I don't buy the product. The review floats to the top so it's prominent. Other people don't buy the product.

How does this help Amazon sell more product, exactly?

How is this Amazon sitting on my shoulder telling me what to buy?

It just seems like you've taken a knee-jerk reaction against Amazon and turned your brain off on this one. I can understand not liking the particular wording, but the whole rant about buying stuff and a higher calling seems to be just that - a rant. Not really related to the actual discussion.

Listening to the pros and cons on this thread, I think it would be extremely helpful to know who gave each thumb. That information could help readers decide which reviews are helpful worthwhile. Were those reviews thumbed by the "popular" folks, or were they thumbed by folks with whom you tend more to agree in your interactions here on LT?

seems to be just that - a rant. Not really related to the actual discussion.

don't be too harsh, it could be genetic...

;)

Not to go off on a tangent, but I don't get all the fuss over Hot Reviews. I think I only ever saw one of my reviews up there and currently the top 10 includes reviews with 2 or 3 thumbs even though one of mine written in the past week has 4. (Not a gripe, just a statement of fact.) Anyway, the only reason I even look at Hot Reviews is to find out about books I don't know about, which sometimes gets pointless when many of the hot reviews are for classic works. Most of the other reviews I read are from my reviews page which is only showing me reviews by others of works I have in my collections. And yes, when I come across reviews there that I find to be well-written and informative, I give them thumbs.

What if LT just found a better way of getting people interested in reading reviews written by others (especially reviews of lesser known works)?

I know in the past it was suggested to have a page for recently written Early Reviewers books all in one place. Couldn't that act as a way to get people reading (and thumbing) other users' reviews?

. . . it was suggested to have a page for recently written Early Reviewers books all in one place. Couldn't that act as a way to get people reading (and thumbing) other users' reviews?

I like this idea a lot better than naming thumbs. I still don't see how including thumbers' names is going to get people to read more reviews.

Like elbakerone, I generally whizz through the Hot Reviews for new reading suggestions; I don't need to read a review of a Jane Austen novel or, for that matter, a Harry Potter or Twilight installation. One has stood the test of time, the others are best sellers (like them or not) that have gotten plenty of press and word-of-mouth already.

59
So why, when you place your cursor over the little green thumb on a review, does it say "X members found this review helpful"?

69> ROFLMAO

Don't really think you're looking at this rationally. Why do you want people to thumb up a review? Do you have any idea?

Yes, I have some idea. (Thanks for the credit!) I think LibraryThing works best when it uses the books to create the social. Reviews offer that because people share books, interests without already being friends.

Thumbing reviews in itself produces little value. The bond is potentially only one way--thumber to reviewer. And the bond doesn't convert to a connection easily. The barrier is high. You have to jump from a review to a full-fledged profile comment, written from scratch to a stranger.

In the new way, the bond would be two way potentially, and the barrier would be lower. Thumbing would generate a connection of sorts. The connection would be automatic, two-way and profoundly fine to ignore. In this way, it works like "following" on Twitter. When someone follows me, I know it. Sometimes I look at them. Sometimes I follow them back or comment, but I am never obligated to do it. Indeed, many people don't even notice who follows them. The situation produces social ease by establishing connections that are trivial (without being juvenile, because they are ABOUT something) and offering a road up.

it seems that a fairly small group of reviewers end up as Hot Picks over and over

This is seemingly true. I think is because, basically, the group takes over where the feature itself has no social context. I don't think adding names would increase the group activity here. It would probably stay the same. I'm hoping the level rises generally.

number of thumbs-up with an aim toward helping

It's the "find this review helpful" that annoys me. Reviews are "helpful" or "unhelpful" in a retail context. In the real world they are a much richer source of emotional resonses--interesting, well-written, well-argued, funny, etc.

71> Well, I can see your logic here. But I feel like you've taken the reviews in a direction they've not been in before. I think the fact (pointed out in 69) that you specifically labeled reviews in a flyover as "X members found this review helpful" shows that at one time you didn't have such a knee-jerk reaction to the term. It's unfortunate that it's bound up in your mind as such, since I often find reviews helpful because they help me decide whether or not I want to read the book. This may be a book I check out from the library, borrow from a friend, buy at a used bookstore or even (much more rarely) order from Amazon. That's the "real world" for me. I think you've got it stuck in your brain only in the context of buying things from Amazon, which is really not all it's about.

But I see where you're going, and now I suppose I'll go change my vote from Undecided to No. To me, reviews that are just about social networking rather than primarily trying to glean the good reviews from the crap ones (yeah, there are plenty of those) isn't really all that appealing. What's funny is that I fully support connecting yourself with others based on how they RATED a book, something you've always been rather dismissive of. I would think the fact that they tend to rate the same books similarly to me would be a powerful piece of social information.

So no, unfortunately, I can't really get enthused about turning the reviews into more of a twitter stream or a facebook page. But I do give you credit for the idea.

Some data. People are perhaps going to be annoyed I did this, but I don't hide things from users unless it has to be hidden (ie., legal, people). I took the people who voted in question one, and measured their social participation today. It shows that the yes people are engaging somewhat more in the reviewing and recommending areas of the site.

No voters: 28
Review thumbs per user: 105.8
Recommendations per user: 19.0
Recommendation thumbs per user: 14.5

Uncertain voters: 20
Review thumbs per user: 140.4
Recommendations per user: 18.0
Recommendation thumbs per user: 16.7

Yes voters: 56
Review thumbs per user: 158.6
Recommendations per user: 21.6
Recommendation thumbs per user: 50.6

You can, of course, read this either way. Maybe the yes voters are "already" participating a lot, and this won't help--while turning off the nos. But it is data. On the whole, if it had gone the other way I would have been worried, but it confirms what I would have guessed, and therefore doesn't dissuade me.

71>

Tim, with all due respect, you're still missing the point.

The fundamental beneficiary of the thumbs-up should not be either the reviewer or the thumber (if that's all you wanted, there's no need for a publicly-visible display, and certainly not to have it as a sort option); it's the person reading the review. Someone reading reviews is, despite your distaste for helping people, seeking to find out about the book. Maybe they want to know if they should read it, maybe they're seeing what other people thought of it after they read it, maybe they just want some tasty Twilight snark. But they're seeking out those reviews. The existing thumbs-up system, perhaps because the benefit to the thumber is low, puts the benefits here; they can find reviews that are interesting, well-written, well-argued, funny, and, yes, "helpful", by sorting by thumbs. What you're proposing -- not so much what you're proposing, actually, as why you're proposing it would diminish this; you're suggesting that thumbs be purely about creating what you describe as "trivial" connections between thumber and reviewer, rather than, as they do now, potentially more meaningful connections between reader and book.

73>

So you've found that popular people are in favor of popularity contests? I'm shocked, shocked.

ETA: Are those thumbs given or thumbs received, and are they review thumbs (which is after all what the thread is about) or recommendation thumbs?

73> Interesting that you never bothered to do this kind of analysis on the "Comments on Reviews" threads...

Sometimes I feel like you only do these things if the results fit your narrative. So yeah, I get annoyed by it.

Not a huge deal, but just wanted to speak my mind.

I changed my vote to "no".

Lilithcat, clearly an outlier: 448 reviews, 81 recommendations

>72 brightcopy:

I'm sorry you see it as knee-jerk. Frankly, I don't have a good term. "Like" is a bit trivial, and Facebook-ish. But I stand by the notion that reviews are not purely there to influence purchasing decisions. Lots of people--myself included--read the NYT book review, the NYRB or the Chronicle of Higher Education for the reviews, and primarily to be entertained and informed about new books, not to push them over the fence in one direction or another as to the buying of a book. Looking at the top reviews on LT, I think that's also the case. People tend to thumbs up funny or unexpected reviews. They are entertained by them.

I don't think that making it possible for people to signal their appreciation makes it "just" about social networking at all. LibraryThing is rarely "solely" about social networking anyway. The social networking happens through the books. That is exactly what I propose here.

What's funny is that I fully support connecting yourself with others based on how they RATED a book

You can do that easily. I don't buy into the idea that large aggregates of recommendations across hundreds of books adds significantly to recommendation algorithms. In this estimation I have some backup from others who do this stuff. But in either case, as a programmer, you realize the difficulty of running comparisons between literally millions of users. These algorithms tend to scale linearly, or worse. Doing it in a binary fashion is hard enough. Doing it by rating--which, of course, you'd have to somehow adjust to notice the different mid-points for different users--would be much harder indeed.

The fundamental beneficiary of the thumbs-up should not be either the reviewer or the thumber (if that's all you wanted, there's no need for a publicly-visible display, and certainly not to have it as a sort option); it's the person reading the review.

The reader is helped:

1. If there are more people doing it.
2. If they know who the people are, so they can know whether they trust them (see SqueakyChu in 65)
3. If the process makes them engage with the review themselves, as expression is satisfying, and can lead to more.

Point one depends on if this encourages thumbing on not. I concede that thumbing is far too rare. We should be doing better than a 10/1 ratio of reviews to thumbs. We should have more than 33,000 works that have any thumbed reviews at all--and more than half of those have exactly one review.

Point two depends on one, because the more that goes on, the more likely you'll know some of the people thumbing a given review. But it also relies on a basic mechanism. On LibraryThing we show member names. We do it all over the place. Who has the book. Who recommended a book. Who is interested in a venue or an event. These member lists are an essential glue for the site, and the social improves the "helpful."

@ Tim -

Thank you! I can see my review page now.

78> But in either case, as a programmer, you realize the difficulty

Right, but that's a whole other question. As far as I remember, you didn't dismiss it based on difficulty, but on validity. I wouldn't quibble with you on difficulty. As far as "backup from other who do this stuff", I'm not sure they reflect your particular implementation, which is to say if I have a book in my library and give it 1 star (the lowest possible), it counts as much towards recommending a book to me as one I have that I've given 5 stars. I'm not sure how much "backup" you'd get on that approach.

But just as you disagreed on validity, I disagree on the validity of creating a social link based on named "thumbs" on reviews. I feel it tilts it towards more of a popularity/clique thing. And I've got a lot of backup on that right here in this thread. ;)

You still seem to have dodged the whole point about how me marking as helpful a review that tells me NOT to buy something helps Amazon sell more stuff, or how that's Amazon sitting on my shoulder telling me what to buy.

And to go back to the "well, the people who are currently creating reviews and thumbing up reviews like it!" line of reasoning - again I think you're reading into it what you already desire. You're trying to increase the amount of thumbing and reviewing, yes? So do you think the way to do this is by implementing a feature mostly like by those already thumbing and reviewing, or by doing something that will appeal to those who aren't currently thumbing and reviewing?

It just seems like backwards day to me.

Well, I may not be holding up the "No" side in sheer volume, but I average just under 2 thumbs per review (and I review some fairly obscure stuff), and in almost half of the books I've reviewed I'm the most-thumbed review. (It's 60% if you exclude reviews with no thumbs.)

Tim, accusing those of us who prefer quality over quantity of not contributing to the site is fighting dirty. Is one thoughtful, well-written review of a book that has only three reviews total really less of a contribution than two-sentence reviews of each of the Harry Potter series? Really?

#79 - The reader is helped: .... If the process makes them engage with the review themselves

Isn't there still the greater issue though, not of people not thumbing others' reviews but simply of people not bothering to read them?

How do you get people to engage with a wonderfully well written review of a book when only a few dozen users have added the book in question to their library? Who reads this amazing work of reviewing genius, where do they read it, and why?

(And if the only answer is other people in the 75 Book Challenge group, isn't this a bit of a larger problem than thumbs in general?)

83> It's always fighting dirty when you sit in a position to control the information so you can possibly filter it to show only the statistics that fit your point (intentionally or just due to the unconscious bias of not trying as hard to disprove your position). Who knows what he's doing with outliers, for example.

So yeah, leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

84> One of the reasons I don't participate in LT reviews very much is because the thumbing is one-way. Tim has been immovable that a review should ever be down-voted (even if the user has no way to really know it's been down-voted). As such, I read them far less often than I do the Amazon ones, even though I'm not actually BUYING anything on Amazon when I read them. I just already know the mechanism for moving good reviews to the top, bad reviews to the bottom and new reviews to the middle is broken, so why bother?

But, as I said before, Tim is moving thumbs away from a "this is a well written review/this review helped me/I found this review funny" to some other model that's about "following" reviewers. These are two completely different features and the latter just doesn't appeal to me.

>83 lorax:

I didn't actually look at how many thumbs YOU got, but thumbs you gave. I was looking at participating in the site feature I am seeking to change, not your popularity, whatever that is.

Tim, accusing those of us who prefer quality over quantity of not contributing to the site is fighting dirty

Absolutely not. Read what I wrote. I said that it was data, and that it could be read either way. As I said, if it had gone the other way--if the people against this were the more active socially--I would have been worried. I am not worried by it going the way it went. I'm not fighting this issue. I'm trying to understand it. Gathering the data I gathered seems like a no-brainer. Would you prefer I kept it to myself?

I actually think this will help quality--which, to be somewhat elitist, I take to be reviews on something other than the tippy-top books, which have HUGE numbers of reviews and average lower quality ones. The review-thumbs data shows a VERY strong short-head-long-tail effect. That is, most thumbning is clustered at the very top. The way it's clustered is more powerfully "popular" than the books themselves. That is, people are "swarming" socially--they are thumbing on the most popular books. I suspect that is because thumbing in a social context is more satisfying. You're contributing to an active,. watched conversation and debate, not clicking a button that may or may not have any effect to anyone. Often, these thumb-swarms have a direct origin in some Talk thread, deepening the social effect. What I am proposing will bring attention to reviews when they're not on Twilight.

How do you get people to engage with a wonderfully well written review of a book when only a few dozen users have added the book in question to their library? Who reads this amazing work of reviewing genius, where do they read it, and why?

One way is that someone you care about thumbed the review. The other is that the review enters some hot list. The more reviews are thumbed the deeper and more valuable that list becomes.

It's always fighting dirty when you sit in a position to control the information so you can possibly filter it to show only the statistics that fit your point.

Fine. Write your own query and I'll run it. What do you want to know?

I am also now convinced by the "no" arguments, and am changing my vote.

89> Fine. Write your own query and I'll run it. What do you want to know?

You and I both know that's not how it works in data mining. Feel free to send over the credentials for my sql login. ;)

Tell me what you want to know. I did a very simple SQL query (which I will paste to you, in confidence). To deal with outliers would require a program. (There is no median feature in MySQL.) You will have to trust me that I tried only three variables--listed above--on my word. While I didn't try any and discard them as bad for my argument, there are others I didn't try. I am willing to write any program you think will be helpful in your point.

I can see the point that, in comparing what people want with what they do, I am doing something unfair. It seems logical to me ask whether the people demanding the restaurant keep pecan pie on the menu are, in fact, eating it. But if your argument is that I chose my data, chose yours.

92> I appreciate your offer, honestly. I don't actually think you are a bad actor. I just think it's one of those "looks bad" things, like editing your own wikipedia page (which you don't do!). I'd love to take you up on the offer, but that's really not how doing stuff like that works for me. I have to play with the data a little bit. And even if you DID ignore the security and privacy concerns and give me a login, I'm already behind my WORK queries! :D

I'm not going to harp on this anymore (because yeah, I feel like that's what I'm doing). I don't even necessarily disagree with the numbers you came up with, as I said in my other posts. You can easily trust those numbers and draw completely different conclusions about what they mean, for example.

ETA: And since you added this bit after I started posting a response:
It seems logical to me ask whether the people demanding the restaurant keep pecan pie on the menu are, in fact, eating it.

But you're not asking whether you should keep pecan pie on the menu. You're asking "What can I do to get people to order more pecan pie?" And you're saying "Maybe I'll start offering larger slices of pecan pie. Everyone who orders the pecan pie seems in favor of it." That doesn't really answer the question of whether this will make more people order the pecan pie and more often.

Yeah, I wouldn't give you a log in. I was thinking you'd explain the query to me in prose :)

I would like to apologize for any rancor. I felt a little attacked there, and it showed. Your contribution to this site is immense. I am deeply bothered you don't agree with me on this!

Anyone have a non-yes/no contribution to make here?

I have one. Thumbing can be public, private (only reviewer sees it) or anonymous.

Off-topic, but which images—all?

94> Oh dear lord, you should see how often I disagree with my boss! And he's a self-made millionaire, based mainly on his own intelligence. One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn in life is that I can be wrong, or often Not everything is a question of right or wrong.

So no hard feelings. :D

No, which! Covers?

94> hmmm, could we have "everyone BUT the reviewer can see it..." but that would not reduce the cliqueiness effect much...

I'm confused. Are we talking about the thumbs on reviews or on recommendations? The stats you posted were about thumbs on recommendations, not reviews. I was assuming we were talking about the ones on reviews.

I voted yes on seeing who gave thumbs for two reasons.

1. I believe knowing who thought a review was good helps the people reading the review evaluate the thumbs if the reader knows any of the people who thumbed the review.

2. I think it gives the review reader and the review writer the opportunity to connect with people on LT they may not previously have encountered -- to look at the their libraries or exchange comments about books.

Having said that, I don't really pay attention to thumbs, because I think I am perfectly capable of evaluating a review on my own. But if I could see who gave the thumbs, it could provide an added level of information and or the opportunity, as I said above, to make an interesting book discussion connection.

Further, I realize there is a popularity contest aspect to review thumbing, and I think identifying thumbers would help bring this into the open.

73> I think your analysis of the data has been over-simplified. There are a lot of factors that figure into how many reviews and recommendations have been provided. The most obvious is that LTers who have been here for a long time have probably written more reviews than those who have only been here a few months, and there's no way to account for the number of longtimers v. newbies in any of the groups.

I still don't think I understand how names attached thumbs on reviews will encourage more people to read or write reviews, and I still don't think names attached to thumbs is any kind of meaningful connectivity.

If you want more connectivity and user activity around reviews, then create an "Explore Reviews" feature somewhere on the site that brings up random (or semi-random) reviews - not just Hot Reviews or Reviews of Books in Your Catalogue. The page of "Recent ER Reviews" would be a good example, but it really shouldn't be restricted to ER. Include some sort of statistics to make the page more than just a review - rating comparison for that review and the work as a whole could be one. But make it interesting to explore and read reviews - perhaps a page similar to the recommendations page that includes them?

I can see how it would be a bit of complicated coding, but I think it'd be more interesting than just a list of people who "liked" a review.

 

Also, perhaps, some sort of badge for thumbs received. The higher the number of thumbs, the shinier the badge. I'm not sure whether it would encourage thumbing of reviews, but it might encourage more reviews in order to get more thumbs.

Also also, have blue flags do more. It's annoying to see that someone has 50 reviews, only to click to their review page and discover that they've misused the review field or they skipped a field when doing an import.

 
ETA: re #104: I'm also thinking that there's a big difference between someone with 54 books and 50 reviews (AxelleDarkleigh comes to mind as someone who has a relatively small catalogue but gave a review to almost every single work in it.) and someone with 1,562 books and 173 reviews.

I'm confused. Are we talking about the thumbs on reviews or on recommendations? The stats you posted were about thumbs on recommendations, not reviews. I was assuming we were talking about the ones on reviews.

Sorry. Good confusion. I changed the labeling. It's not reviews. It's thumbs they gave to reviews.

I think your analysis of the data has been over-simplified. There are a lot of factors that figure into how many reviews and recommendations have been provided. The most obvious is that LTers who have been here for a long time have probably written more reviews than those who have only been here a few months, and there's no way to account for the number of longtimers v. newbies in any of the groups.

No, all true. I chose three indices of activity and they all went the same way. I suspect others would too. I don't think it's a surprise that people in favor of what seems a more "social" feature are using what seem "social" features now. But I don't want to make too-large claims. There are no doubt all sorts of wiggles in the data. And even if there weren't data doesn't interpret itself. As I said, the data can suggest different conclusions about the probable result here.

If you want more connectivity and user activity around reviews, then create an "Explore Reviews" feature somewhere on the site that brings up random (or semi-random) reviews - not just Hot Reviews or Reviews of Books in Your Catalogue. The page of "Recent ER Reviews" would be a good example, but it really shouldn't be restricted to ER. Include some sort of statistics to make the page more than just a review - rating comparison for that review and the work as a whole could be one. But make it interesting to explore and read reviews - perhaps a page similar to the recommendations page that includes them?

I think ideas like this are good. Mine would be to start surfacing reviews by something other than book and user. Tag, for example, would be interesting. I am not sure I want a truly random review. But a review on a topic I'm interested in? Probably.

Also, perhaps, some sort of badge for thumbs received. The higher the number of thumbs, the shinier the badge. I'm not sure whether it would encourage thumbing of reviews, but it might encourage more reviews in order to get more thumbs.

This would be where I get off the bus. Awards are for "helping the site" directly--improving data quality, adding data, etc. Badges are already controversial. To the extent they have been accepted it is because I have never made the popularity contests. I don't want to get into badges for expressing yourself a lot or in a way people like. While thumbing reviews is on the edge, its an edge I want to stay away from.

Also also, have blue flags do more. It's annoying to see that someone has 50 reviews, only to click to their review page and discover that they've misused the review field or they skipped a field when doing an import.

Yeah. I hear you on that one.

I haven't noticed the thumbs before. However, I will use them from now on.

I would say no to naming thumbs.If someone does a lot of reviews I'm sure they wouldn't really want to be bombarded with names of people who liked their reviews. I might even be put off thumbing someone's review if I knew that everyone could see I did so.

106> Reviews based on tags would be great, but I imagine it would be slow like tagmash or tag mirror, and also easier to just pull random ones. But, yeah, that's what I was getting at with semi-random. Not "here are all the reviews associated with the tag fiction" (oh, the horror!) but "here are a random selection of reviews associated with the tag fiction" - and, perhaps, only one review per work per pagehit, with an option to view other reviews for the work, if available, all ajaxy, instead of having to go to the reviews page itself.

 
I agree about the badge for thumbs, but people like badges, and as long as we have the problem with reviews themselves being too easy to game (non-reviews, poor data import), a badge for writing reviews could easily become meaningless. I was also thinking that IF there was some sort of acknowledgment of thumbs, it would have to look completely different from the current badges and awards.

I voted yes.

I write few reviews. I get very few thumbs up. I am curious as to who those thumbs up are from, but I have only a little interest beyond that in those thumbs up (validation by someone in authority could teach me something, of course).

I give somewhat more thumbs up than I have received. I am not ashamed of them even if they are against the flow. If someone wants against my will to take me into their party based on the thumbs up, I can deal with their harassment one way or another. If someone wants to be dismissive of me because of my thumbs up, they may dismiss away while I go around them.

So why did I vote in favor? 1. I cannot read all of the reviews, and thumbs up are pointers to ones validated by other readers; naming increases the value of that information. 2. Unlike some of the people above, I can't always tell a good review from a bad one. A lack of thumbs up may just be a matter of a review's having been overlooked, but thumbs up on a review that I might take issue with is a sign that I should at least look more closely; again naming increases the value of that information.

Robert

I have now changed my vote to 'no' from reading most of this thread. So I'm sorry if I have skewed your numbers Tim.

IMHO, and I have said it before, thumbs are self-perpetuating or from a clique or friends or a group and often have nothing to do with the actual quality or comment of the review. I thumb reviews quite frequently but then I pointedly go looking for reviews. I have acquired quite a few books from reviews I have read on this site.

But what is the point of identifying the thumb when there are such rigid views on the length etc of reviews on this site; or the position from this thread where it has to be to their particular standard of writing etc.
I thumb a review if it makes me want to read the book; if it makes me think I really don't want to read that book or if I have read that book and I think it is a really good opinion of the book!
In other words it is a 'good' review - regardless of length, grammar, spelling (though why reviewers do not want to write a review the way they would like to read a book beats me) and it offers an interesting view of the book!

Until there is a change to the attitude in giving thumbs here, in fact to the attitude to reviews on the whole, identifying who does it won't change the lack.
FWIW, if this was implemented I would still thumb but probably opt out.

(edited to fix typos)

>106 timspalding:
I like the reviews-by-tag idea - it would be nice if you could limit the page to just books you don't own, or ones you do own. Either way could be interesting, depending on what you wanted to see that day.

I haven't nearly finished reading this thread, but I need to jump in immediately to respond to lorax's repeated nasty comments about the 75 Book Challenge group, and various other people's equally misguided remarks.

A lot of people seem to be missing a piece of basic logic here. Reading a review is a necessary prerequisite to thumbing it. Of course this means that reviews that aren't getting seen much aren't getting many thumbs. It does not follow that people are thumbing mediocre reviews merely because they're written by friends, or that people will refuse to thumb a good review that they happen to come across merely because it's not written by a friend, and I find it highly offensive that several people have had the nerve to suggest that.

I'm really tempted to throw in a homophobic slur in an attempt to bring home personally how disgusting and unfounded these generalizations are. Seriously, what were you thinking?

As I said, I haven't finished reading the thread yet, but I hope these issues have already been addressed.

ETA missing period

I like some of your reasons, Tim, for adding a name to the thumb--though, again, it's a bit redundant for those of us in the 75-ers group since most people within that group notify their friends when they've thumbed them. But I know you're thinking of the whole site, while I'm just thinking about how my one group works. It's got me thinking that I should probably thumb more of the reviews that I read. I will occasionally thumb a random review I've read and admired, but I have to admit that most of my "thumbs" have been after I've read a friend's review on their thread and I've gone over to intentionally "thumb" that particular review. I never really thought about all those people (I happily depend on) who take the time to post their reviews, but who get no feedback about whether their review was read and/or helpful if they're not in a supportive and active group like the 75-ers.

>112 _Zoe_:

Yipes. I think people get the picture.

>114 timspalding: Yeah, I've been advised by a wise person that I should really edit that comment. Unfortunately I often fail to follow good advice.

Now comes the fun of responding to the rest of the thread....

So, this thread has left me confused. A lot of the reasoning, Tim's especially, makes no sense to me, for the reasons already addressed by brightcopy.

The absolute animosity toward the concept of helpful reviews is just baffling. Sure, sometimes people read reviews just for laughs, but I'd think that the majority of the time they're looking for information about the book. As brightcopy said already, this doesn't have to be about disgusting forced selling. There are all sorts of ways to get our hands on interesting books that don't involve making a purchase. What's so awful about the whole concept of using reviews to figure out what we want to read?

Then there's some idea about making connections between reviewers and review-readers in a Twitter-ish way. I don't think thumbs have enough content to support this. The obvious way to lower the barrier to communication, while still enabling a meaningful exchange of ideas, is review comments.

Again with the Twitter comparison, I don't know where the "following" comes in here, because the proposal seems to be missing an absolutely key component: a list of all reviews thumbed publicly by a given user. If I see that lorax has good taste in reviews, what I want to do is see all the reviews that she recommends.

The idea that I'd consider the list of thumbers before deciding whether to read a review doesn't really seem workable. It would be much easier to skim the first few lines of the review than to click a button in each review to consider who recommended it. The value of thumbs from the work page is that they can be used to sort the reviews, bringing the good ones to the top. The names are useful for going the other way, from a user to their recommended reviews. Having names attached to thumbs would also create a general sense of community ("oh, there's that familiar name again"), but I haven't seen any mention of this yet.

Then, Tim expressed surprise (or something) about the fact that reviews of popular works have more thumbs. If this is a concern, then why on earth don't we have filters on the "In User's Library and Reviewed By Others" section? People have said over and over again that they're tired of seeing so many Twilight reviews. But if that's what you highlight, then of course they'll get even more thumbs than they would just by virtue of being for popular books.

To clarify: I mentioned that I was tempted to throw in a homophobic slur not because I think such things are acceptable, but precisely because I think they're absolutely unacceptable, unfounded, and disgusting. Just like the slurs that lorax made against another group of LT users.

116> Good points, especially in that last paragraph. Perhaps one thing that might be helpful is some logic that says, "You know, I think we've got enough information about Book X now. We don't really need to make it show up in various places and should promote other books to a higher position."

Oh, I forgot my main question.

After reading through this whole thread, I still don't know: what exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What is the point of thumbing? In both a narrow and a broad sense, what are LT's goals?

Having finally caught up on this thread, I am completely baffled by this portrayal of review thumbing as a popularity contest or a cliquish thing.

I write a fair number of reviews, and I try to make them both interested and helpful. I enjoy doing so, and have since I joined LT.

I had a 'Hot Review' in my first month here. How? Why? I have no idea, but I assure you I was not cliquish or popular! I have a number of reviews with thumbs - probably slightly less than half my hundred or so - and a number of reviews with numerous thumbs.

I say this not to brag, but to baffle - I have always felt gratified and flattered when I gain thumbs, and it makes me eager to write more reviews. Perhaps more importantly, this is the first year I have participated in any of the 'challenge' groups - I do the slightly less active 100 books group - and the rate of my thumbing /does not appear to have gone up/. Once in awhile I'll notice that a review that I write and post there gets thumbed a little faster, but it's certainly not the case for every review or even most of my reviews. As Zoe says, for someone to thumb a review, they must first /read it/. Challenge groups exist largely to share reviews of books you are reading. It's a roundabout way of doing what others have suggested in terms of highlighting reviews about books you are likely to be interested in.

Do I know the people thumbing my reviews, likely from the 100 book challenge? Well, I do now! But /entirely from the 100 book challenge/. Because they think I write good reviews sometimes and say so, and I think the same of them - and say so!

That some find this an abuse of the system is frankly baffling to me. This is how it is /supposed/ to work! We are supposed to be able to discover new people who are reading interesting things and saying interesting things about their reading, and then acknowledge that.

Regarding names on thumbs, I find I don't care much one way or the other. I'd like to see who thumbs mine, I don't mind others seeing that I've thumbed theirs. I doubt that I'm likely to form any connections this way, and I doubt that it's going to significantly increasing thumbing (and I'm a thumber - I'll often look at a review page of a book I've just finished explicitly to find reviews I think deserve a thumb).

So basically, I'm not sure there's a point. But I really don't see a downside, either. And I'm really disappointed to find that people think that participating in active discussions of interesting books and then /acknowledging/ people who write well is somehow 'cheating'.

>112 _Zoe_:, 120
What stops someone from thumbing a review they haven't read?

>121 DaynaRT: You're right, I should clarify: reading a review is a necessary prerequisite for thumbing it legitimately. All legitimate thumbs depend first on someone reading the review. Everything else still follows: reviews that don't get read won't have many legitimate thumbs; this doesn't automatically imply that the thumbs on other reviews are illegitimate; etc.

Do you actually think that a noteworthy number of thumbs comes from people who haven't actually read the review, or are you just quibbling with the wording?

I should also add, though it should go without saying, that I agree with Aerrin in #120. This point is particularly worth repeating: "This is how it is /supposed/ to work! We are supposed to be able to discover new people who are reading interesting things and saying interesting things about their reading, and then acknowledge that."

#121 what stops someone from reviewing a book they haven't read?

Seriously. At some point you have to trust, or you might as well have nothing to do with the social side of LT.

I'm with you, Aerrin, a fair % of my reviews have been "approved" by someone giving a thumb to them, but I don't think I'm in some kind of cult. There is no popularity contest in my case. I review common and uncommon books and certainly there's more thumbing in the case of common ones, but even some obscure works have been tagged. I think people are taking this concept a bit too far.

I have my doubts about the usefulness of this.

I read 72+ non-fiction books a year and write 500-1500 word reviews of each, but these reviews are on a separate site (a LiveJournal I set up just for the purpose of having reviews for L.T. consumption). Due to this, I tend to get as many flags as thumbs, since some people are unwilling to click through to a review.

If there's going to be "naming names" on the thumbs, I would hope that there would be the same level of identification on the flags, just so I'd know who to maintain a low-level simmering hatred for.

 

Without reading any of the posts in this thread: NO. NO NO NO.
.... Weeeelll... See, I'm NO-ing the "default". I definitely would not want names to be shown by default. I've made this arguement before; Any new feature that changes privacy, showing member names, etc, needs to be opt-IN, not opt-out, so there won't be lots of people confused and upset that their names are suddenly being shown without their consent/knowledge.

I would turn it off, anyways. And I think there should be an option to turn off *seeing* all the names, because I imagine a review with 20+ thumbs is going to get crowded with names, and I just don't want to see that.

>124 majkia:
Not an issue for me. I've removed my reviews. If I review something I haven't read, only I will know. But thumbing is a whole lot easier than coming with a fake review, isn't it?

88>

Thanks for clarifying the giving-vs-receiving thumbs issue.

I think it's not terribly surprising, though. People who view thumbs as more social are likely to give more of them; people like lilithcat and myself, who think they should be reserved for exceptional reviews, tend to give fewer. You want to move more toward the first model, so it shouldn't be surprising that people who agree with that movement are people who are already using them in that fashion.

112>

Well, of course, being read is a necessary prerequisite to getting thumbed. But it seemed improbable to me, and it still does, that readers of the 75 Book Challenge are generally such fantastic reviewers that every one of the reviews posted gets multiple thumbs; that suggests to me that they're all good enough that people consider them the very best of the reviews on offer. It's possible, of course, and it's also possible that the group culture there is that thumbs mean "nice review" rather than "exceptional review" (so they'll thumb more frequently in all circumstances), and there's no fault in that. Given what you said upthread about whether we'd be willing to lower our standards for thumbs-up, it now seems that's more likely to be the case, and I'm sorry that I misunderstood.

Clearly my dislike for the practice of social thumbs is far more offensive than I imagined by many orders of magnitude for you to even contemplate such an action, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean it as a personal attack on you or anyone else in the group.

How many reviews have I thumbed? Is there somewhere I can see that number?

> 130

Are we only supposed to be thumbing "exceptional reviews"? How does one judge the criteria for that?

132>

It's subjective, and there's no "supposed". That's my personal usage; other people thumb up anything that's "good", and others still may thumb up anything that's vaguely grammatical. I'm sure there are some people who thumb based on whether they agree with the review. There's no right or wrong approach.

Due to this, I tend to get as many flags as thumbs, since some people are unwilling to click through to a review.

While the flags are obviously inappropriate, I do think reviews on the site itself are far better than external links. I do click on your links sometimes, but only because I recognize your username; I wouldn't follow an external link posted by a complete stranger unless there were very few reviews for the work in question. So I think it's perfectly reasonable for a review posted as a link to garner few thumbs than it would if it were copied and pasted into the review field.

Any new feature that changes privacy, showing member names, etc, needs to be opt-IN, not opt-out, so there won't be lots of people confused and upset that their names are suddenly being shown without their consent/knowledge.

There's a much easier way to address the potential problem: Tim could just send everyone a profile comment informing them that the situation has changed; or, if you think there's a risk that people wouldn't even check their profile comments before they started thumbing, he could use the more obnoxious solution of a pop-up that showed up immediately upon log-in.

And I think there should be an option to turn off *seeing* all the names, because I imagine a review with 20+ thumbs is going to get crowded with names, and I just don't want to see that.

Tim already said that he wouldn't show more than a few by default; you would have to click to see all of them.

People who view thumbs as more social are likely to give more of them; people like lilithcat and myself, who think they should be reserved for exceptional reviews, tend to give fewer.

I don't think thumbing for social purposes vs. thumbing only exceptional reviews is a fair comparison. People might have nothing to do with the social side of things and still choose to thumb any review that they found helpful and worth reading.

But it seemed improbable to me, and it still does, that readers of the 75 Book Challenge are generally such fantastic reviewers that every one of the reviews posted gets multiple thumbs; that suggests to me that they're all good enough that people consider them the very best of the reviews on offer.

It is improbable, and in fact, it isn't the case. Not every review posted in the 75 Book Challenge gets multiple thumbs, of course. Plenty of reviews posted in that group get no thumbs at all.

Just say 50% of the reviews I read are in the 75 Book Challenge group, and 50% are on the work page or elsewhere. Assuming equal quality of reviews, 50% of my thumbs will go to reviews from the 75 Book Challenge group. This has nothing to do with lower standards being applied in that group. The frequency with which 75 Book Challenge reviews end up in the Hot Reviews list is just a natural consequence of the fact that many other very active users also read a high percentage of their reviews in that group.

I would go so far as to say that this is a success case: users have found an effective way to discover reviews of interest, and are reading those reviews in large numbers. Isn't this what we want?

Moreover, there's no cliquishness involved. A couple of years ago, I participated in the 50 Book Challenge rather than the 75 Book Challenge. And then I found out that there was another place on the site where I could find more interesting content, and went there instead. I didn't know the people there, but they welcomed me warmly. I now have a much easier time finding books of interest, because I read many more interesting reviews than I used to. Aren't these all good things?

It's possible, of course, and it's also possible that the group culture there is that thumbs mean "nice review" rather than "exceptional review", and there's no fault in that.

I think this is still a matter of individual preference rather than group culture.

However, clearly my dislike for the practice is far more offensive than I imagined by many orders of magnitude for you to even contemplate such an action, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean it as a personal attack on you or anyone else in the group.

Thanks. I'm glad that you took my comments in the way they were intended, as an expression of how very extremely offended I was, and I hope that with this post I've managed to clarify the overall issue a bit.

>132 SqueakyChu:, 133 If there were enough thumbs overall, the fact that people thumb differently would actually be a good thing. People who thumb good reviews would help the good reviews rise above the average ones, and people who thumb exceptional reviews would help the exceptional ones rise above the good. The problem is that there just aren't nearly enough thumbs going around for this sorting to be effective. Hopefully one result of this discussion will be some concrete action taken that results in more thumbs, though I admit my optimism was greatly diminished when Tim rejected the whole concept of thumbs being helpful.

By the way, my #134 didn't seem nearly so long when I was writing it. Sorry.

134: That's a good idea, Zoe, I'd be fine with a site-wide profile comment or notice about the change; I always argue for opt-in simply because that kind of thing never happens or gets talked about.

As I don't thumb reviews, I really don't care EXCEPT for the fact that the aspect of Reviews itself needs to be more/better defined and the flagging aspect of reviews needs a major revamp. Tighten up those guidelines and I bet there will be more reviews overall.

With that said, I think the wording of "was this helpful" is more appropriate than "did you like". After all, I can dislike something or something posted by someone I dislike and it still be helpful. Sort of like reading, I do so either for entertainment or for knowledge. Sometimes it works out where I get both at the same time:)

I definitely don't like the "helpful" wording. I, for one, don't write reviews to be "helpful", I write them to put my opinion into words. I know a lot of people are the same way; Lots of people don't review with a mind at being "helpful", and that's not what the review field is for.

>137 Heather19: Oh good, I'm glad you'd consider that an acceptable compromise.

As for "helpful": I don't think it matters what the review is written for. I can still find your review helpful regardless of why you wrote it, and LT can still highlight helpful reviews for members who are looking for such things. The point isn't to make you change how you write your reviews, just to improve other users' interactions with the content that's already on the site.

There was a suggestion once that LT should add another designation for marking reviews as "funny". I don't write my reviews to be funny and don't seek out funny reviews in particular, but if LT chooses to highlight funny reviews, great. That might help some people, it would provide another access point to interesting content, and it wouldn't do me any harm.

139> You're muddling together why a review is written with why a review is given thumbs. You can both write for reasons other than being helpful while at the same time people find your review helpful and give it thumbs. That's not to say it's the ONLY reason to give thumbs, of course. But I think it's odd not to recognize it as a major factor. It's already been pointed out multiple times that LT already says "X users found this review helpful" when you hover over thumbs.

I think something needs to be clarified in the poll results:

So, I hate 'helpful' and I'm so glad Tim's not going to do that. Whether or not someone chooses to write a review to be 'helpful', if the site as a whole condones judging it as such it changes the ethos of the community to one where the expectation is that you 'help' others. LT has never been that. It's been somewhere you can personally catalogue and review or choose social interaction but users have never been pushed either way.

I think the focus on the ratio of reviewers vs thumbers is somewhat misleading. I'm not disputing the figures but the devil's in the details. Seven times as many users review as thumb, OK. So the group you want to examine, I guess, in this context is that of those who fall into the 'review but don't thumb' bracket (or 'thumb but don't review') as they sit neither in the social nor the anti-social group (I'm not using 'antisocial' in anything other than a descriptive way here). Are they slipping through the social net because they have one foot in the water only? I wouldn't say this is always the case for those that review but don't thumb. Many people review for their own catalogue and the social side is unimportant. I don't think that any change review sociability is likely to positively affect this group. If anything, it may negatively affect this group as they may feel less comfortable sharing reviews if there is more onus on the social side of reviewing. Either way, I don't think this will bring them to the table. What percentage of that group this kind of user is is anyone's guess. As for the rest, there could be a multitude of reasons why they don't thumb. They may not really know it exists as a function; they may not read reviews very much at all even though they write them; possibly, they may have a concrete reason why they don't thumb or they may do so rarely based on the criteria that they apply to reviews that deserve thumbing. I'm not really sure that attaching name to thumbs will change this group although it may make it more of a 'feature' so those that haven't really noticed it before may pay attention now.

I think that the focus should be more on whether or not this brings added value to those who are already using the system. Is it an improvement that will make it a more vibrant and socially connected part of the site for those that use it? I think that's the only way to entice people in, to make it an area that is more socially alive than it is now. For me, it would do that because it would become social rather than purely 'drive-by'. I don't know whether it would make me thumb more. I only read reviews of books I've already read and I thumb the ones that, with hindsight, I think are a good review of the book (for whatever reason rocks my boat that day, normally that they are high quality and have something worthwhile to say that marks them out above the crowd). I don't think that will change much but I think that I will feel more positive about doing that if I have my name attached to it rather than leaving a nameless thumb.

There are always groups that lead to you garnering more thumbs on reviews than if you don't participate. Right now, the hot-topic is the 75 Book Challenge group but quite a few thumbs I got on older reviews came because traffic was increased as I reviewed them for the Go Review That Book! group and so people actually took the time to go back and read the reviews for the books they suggested for you. It's not a competition, it's not gaming the system, I just happened to be part of something inherently social on the site. I don't really think that people thumb things up because you're in a clique. It's just that social stuff makes you more visible in many ways and increases your connections. This is good if you like that kind of thing. The beauty of LT is that it's always been a place where it's OK not to like that thing either. I don't really care about how many thumbs I've got relative to someone else, or the Hot Reviews, but it's always nice to know that someone liked what you wrote and knowing who that is helps you find and make more interesting connections. It's still nice though, even if people choose to remain anonymous.

Not really sure where this whole post is taking me but those are my musings nonetheless ;-)

A nice addition for me would be the ability to 'Favourite' reviews so that I have a way of returning to reviews I like and for this to be displayed on my profile in some way. I'm sure that others won't want anything like this and I'm not implying it's the way forward but I've 'lost' reviews I've enjoyed in the past and it would be a good way of showing my connections on LT particularly 'stand out' reviews.

The absolute animosity toward the concept of helpful reviews

I'm sorry this issue is so distracting. I have no objection to the concept. I have an objection to it being the primary term applied to this feature. To me, "useful" is an Amazon- and commercial-centered term, and reductive of the full range of possible responses to a review. I might compare it to if we changed the "interesting library" option to "useful library." Or compare with if Facebook changed it's "like" button to "useful" Sure some Facebook comments are useful, but many are merely interesting, touching, etc. Reviews are not merely a decision-making tool for buying, and I don't want the language reflecting only that concept.

Then, Tim expressed surprise (or something) about the fact that reviews of popular works have more thumbs.

You're very sensitive about popular books, but you might engage with what I was actually saying. My point was that popular works have more thumbs than you would expect given their popularity. They are disproportionately thumbed. I believe this is because thumbing on a popular work feels more "social"--you are engaging in a conversation of thumbs with other people. It doesn't feel lonely. And that feeling is exactly what I think public thumbing on all reviews will do.

What is the point of thumbing? In both a narrow and a broad sense, what are LT's goals?

I refer you to messages I have written, seventy-one particularly.

Any new feature that changes privacy, showing member names, etc, needs to be opt-IN, not opt-out, so there won't be lots of people confused and upset that their names are suddenly being shown without their consent/knowledge.

The feature is not changed retroactively. The feature is changed only going forward. Even if you miss the announcement--and Zoe's proposal about profile comments is a good one--when you thumb, you will see that it is showing your name. You have the choice to remove your thumb or to change it to private. (There will probably be some global setting too.) It is one thing to insist that LibraryThing not change the setting on stuff you did. It is entirely another thing to say that LibraryThing cannot change.

Not an issue for me. I've removed my reviews.

Why did you remove your reviews?

Last statistic:

Review thumbs 160k; Review flags 90k

That's a sick social feature.

Not an issue for me. I've removed my reviews.

Why did you remove your reviews?

Not exactly the same topic, but ...

I review less than I used to on LT. Ultimately, I review for myself (I have a little Moleskine book journal that it all goes in, for no other reason than I like to re-read it). Reviewing on LT was an extension of that which was fun. It became a whole lot less fun when the Review Comments threads abounded (don't worry, I'm not opening that can of worms here). People started to comment on how they thought we 'should' review, what the 'formula' for a 'good' review should be and it culminated in someone actually calling users like me, who primarily review for personal reasons, 'selfish'. Kind of took the fun out of it for a while. It wasn't a principled thing but if things stop being fun, then you tend to move away from them. I'm coming back now because, as always, these things are a flash in the pan but I think some people don't return at all. I only post this here because it gets to the nub of what you want, I think, with review thumbs. Participation comes from the fun in the process. For me, names add to this.

I would be more inclined to thumb reviews outside those of the 75er's group if the Hot Reviews window were more visable on the home page. Perhaps across the top of the page rather than where it is located right now. I need to scroll past Announcements, Featured Authors, Early Reviewer, Member Giveaways, Recently added books and Popular the month windows before I get to Hot Reviews. If there is a way to format my home page in this manner, I'd love to know.

There is Carmenere. In the edit modules lightbox you can drag & drop to reorder. I'm on the iPhone so I can't tell you the steps easily, but if you haven't worked it out by the time I get back to the computer, I'll explain better.

>147 klarusu:

Well, that's unfortunate. For what it's worth, I've never thought there was a formula for reviews.

145> I like the idea of a "Favorite Reviews" feature. It fits well with the Explore Reviews that I think would be a good addition to the site.

148> You can move the Hot Reviews to the top of the column, if you want. Click on "Customize this page" next to your username at the top left (inside the beige box) of the homepage. I keep it fourth on the list and have turned several of them off altogether.

I voted no. I dearly wish to see who has appreciated my efforts, so that I can check their libraries out to see how similar our tastes are otherwise, but I don't actually think that reviews should be encouraged: they should be given out sparingly to preserve their value.

I've yet to read the bulk of this thread, so may change my mind when I've seen a few more opinions, but my opinion is - don't waste time on this frippery when you could be fixing bugs and completing half-finished projects.

#150
Oh, like I said, it isn't permanent. I've come back now. I was more making the 'Fun'point that I think is relevant to 'curing' the reviews & thumbs sickness.

Seeing it as a marginal and distracting issue (*cough* author disambiguation *cough*), I am marginally in favor if it is implemented as subtle as Goodreads does it with its neat grey format that does not distract from the review itself, removes the likers to a new page and actually influences the default presentation view.

Compare:
A Hayes Road to Monticello (my ranking): 1 Amazon - 2 LT - 3 Goodreads
B Vanderbilt Traffic: 1 Amazon - 2 LT - 3 GR
C Franzen Freedom: 1 Amazon - 2/3 LT and GR all over the place

Overall, Amazon is still the place to go for non-professional reviews. LT loses on quantity to GR. To win, LT must rely on quality. I notice GR is slowly starting to catch up in the number of quality reviews.

Compared to the thumbing, I would prefer work on the following review recs:

Production (supply)
1. Offer a nicer review editor
2. Streamline the process (change reading status ("read" is, strangely, not a default collection), add/manipulate reading dates and add a review)
3. Improve the review presentation environment (see below)

Presentation (demand)
3a. Change the default from date to thumbs (no longer GIGO)
3b. Clean up linkspam (esp. quarantine quickly library/blog link whoring, blue and red flagged reviews)
3c. Allow filters to improve the member-defined review quality (e.g. on review length, your connections, etc.)

This is partially directed at _Zoe_, but also at anyone else reading it who shares her views.

I realized last night that I've been very unfair to people supporting this proposal, by assuming that you share Tim's motivations. You can think it's a good idea for other reasons than he does, and just because you like the idea of seeing who gave you a thumbs-up, or letting other people see who gave you a thumbs-up, doesn't mean you share Tim's goal of making thumbs be about, in his words, "trivial connections" rather than review quality. It seems obvious, but I was annoyed with Tim and I let that float over onto you, and I'm sorry.

139>

Is it okay if I still find your reviews helpful, though, even though that's not your intent? Writing reviews purely for your own benefit can still wind up being useful for other people; if everybody hates a particular book, for instance, wouldn't you benefit from knowing that?

After reading all of the posts, my feeling is that adding names to thumbs, while making a more social feature that I personally would like, will not in the end result in a higher percentage of reviews being thumbed. What would increase this would be increased visibility of reviews, done in a creative way. This might be the area in which we'd want to direct our brainstorming at this point.

In groups such as "75 Books", "100 Books" "Go Review That Book" and "Reviews Reviewed", readers are often pointed directly, via link, to reviews. In addition, if a reviewer searches for a list of his own reviews, he is directed to a page where other reviews are listed. For me, most likely by the time I reach the Hot Reviews on my Home Page, I've probably seen those reviews elsewhere and have already thumbed those I liked (or not).

Some ideas which might increase thumbing:
1. If you discuss a book, link to a review of it occasionally. This can be to your own review or to another review which was well written or for which you have a high regard (funny, good point, thorough, etc. - but *not* snarky, as I hate those!).
2. If you've just read a book, look through other reviews of it to see if people generally agree or disagree with your thoughts about a book (I hate to read a review before reading a book as they contain too many spoilers for my taste). Thumb those for which you have a high regard.
3. If you've been tempted to buy, wishlist, or read a book as a result of reading someone's review, give that review a thumb. What was written had a definite influence on your behavior and is worth a thumb.
4. Suggest to Tim creative ways that book reviews can become a more visible feature on LT, but in a fun, inspiring, or creative (but not boring!) way.

Review thumbs 160k; Review flags 90k

That's a sick social feature.

I'm not sure that's "sick".

For one thing, the criteria for flags are objective (though occasionally misinterpreted or abused), while those for thumbs are subjective.

Also, when someone posts information like this, people will be flagging literally hundreds of "reviews" at once, whereas no one is likely to be "thumbing" hundreds.

So, I hate 'helpful' and I'm so glad Tim's not going to do that. Whether or not someone chooses to write a review to be 'helpful', if the site as a whole condones judging it as such it changes the ethos of the community to one where the expectation is that you 'help' others. LT has never been that.

This just seems so foreign to me. What's so terrible about having a community ethos centred around helping others? Isn't people helping others something you'd want and expect in a strong, vibrant community?

No one would be forced to write their reviews with the aim of helping others. But you say that people shouldn't be acknowledged for helping others, because we don't want the sort of community that values that? What?

I have an objection to it being the primary term applied to this feature.

I guess the question is, what term would you use instead? "Like"? I think I'd lean toward "Recommend". But what do you think of the idea that's been proposed before, of giving a few options for thumbing? "Helpful", "Funny", "Well-written", "Though-provoking"?

I believe this is because thumbing on a popular work feels more "social"--you are engaging in a conversation of thumbs with other people. It doesn't feel lonely.

My point is that this is crazy talk. People are not thumbing "popular" works in preference to less-popular works because it feels social. There is no conversation going on. If you want a conversation, let us have a real conversation there.I refer you to messages I have written, seventy-one particularly.

Okay, from your #71: I think LibraryThing works best when it uses the books to create the social. Reviews offer that because people share books, interests without already being friends.

So your focus is on creating more social interaction around books? I agree that social interaction around books should be at the heart of the site, and that this is an area where LT has lots of room for improvement. But I think you're going about it the wrong way.

You say about following: The situation produces social ease by establishing connections that are trivial (without being juvenile, because they are ABOUT something) and offering a road up.

The problem is that you aren't offering the road up, just the establishment of trivial connections. You need to go further in the direction of easy-access book discussion, whether via dedicated book forums or review comments or both. It's still a big leap from thumbing a review to leaving a profile comment, and profile comments also focus on two users to the exclusion of others.

Plus, your current proposal excludes half of the connections. There should be a page showing reviews thumbed by the user, and this should possibly even be converted into a feed for "followers". If lorax consistently recommends good reviews, give me an easy way to see them.

>155 lorax: Thanks for that clarification, lorax. Yeah, I think Tim is approaching this in entirely the wrong way. But I'd still like to see names of thumbers.

assuming that you share Tim's motivations

Actually, I am unsure if you understand my motivations, as you mischaracterize them. My point about "trivial connections," is not that I want connections to be trivial, but that slight connections are ramps to real connections.

Let me explain it again. If the only possible response to a review is to find the user's profile page and leave them an unsolicited prose comment mentioning their review somehow, you have created a feature that allows potentially powerful connection, but one that few will use and, because the connection is so direct and powerful, may be unwelcome to the reviewer.

"Trivial" connections, such as proposed, are a good thing, as they bridge the distance between people. They establish a connection which has little baggage attatched to it. Nobody feel obliged, but a door has been opened. That is how healthy social interaction is best fostered.

Your argument is akin to being against parties and chance meetings--trivial relationships, if you please--because the only thing you're interested in is deep, personal, one-on-one friendship. If that's how you see the world, you won't get those deep friendships. But that is, unfortunately, the world LT creates around reviews--one where the only possible social encounter is a deeper one few will undertake and not all welcome.

Sometimes "trivial" is in fact the best road to meaningful.

I don't actually think that reviews should be encouraged: they should be given out sparingly to preserve their value.

don't waste time on this frippery when you could be fixing bugs and completing half-finished projects

No. I've been working on bugs for quite some time. The site must also move forward, with better features and new ones. (For what it's worth, I find that the more time I spend on it--and I have done little else since the system debuted--and the more I fix, the angrier people seem about the ones you haven't gotten to yet.)

Also, when someone posts information like this, people will be flagging literally hundreds of "reviews" at once, whereas no one is likely to be "thumbing" hundreds.

So, if I counted only distinct users, you would agree my statistics worked, right?

My point about "trivial connections," is not that I want connections to be trivial, but that slight connections are ramps to real connections.

I know you probably haven't seen my most recent post yet, but I still want to re-emphasize that you're missing the middle ground between the trivial and the very direct. Review comments would fill that gap. General book discussion forums would also be very helpful.

For what it's worth, I find that the more time I spend on it--and I have done little else since the system debuted--and the more I fix, the angrier people seem about the ones you haven't gotten to yet.

I've been very happy to see bugs getting fixed. The bug situation is certainly way better than it was a month ago. I think it's most satisfying when you fix a few bugs each day, so there's a sense of continuous progress being made. When there's a gap of several days without bug fixes, then it's a bit discouraging.

So I don't think you should choose between bug fixes and features. Even as you move on to new features (which I'm very excited about), continue spending an hour or two each day fixing bugs. Eventually the backlog should be under control, and then the time spent on bugs can decrease even further.

I think it's probably dead. I'll go fix some bugs. I'm out of this conversation for a day or two, for that and because I am off to explore trivial connections. I'm hosting a bobbing-for-donuts thing at my son's school.

I voted no to this poll in message 1. I give a great deal of "thumbs up" to left, right, religious, and atheist views that I don't at all agree with. I do so because I found their position interesting or provocative. I use 'thumbs up' to say please review again, I want to consider what you say on other things. If I wanted to get into a conversation over the book or the review I would send the reviewer a private comment or I would review the book myself. I very rarely do either. Please allow us to opt out of this.

Joe

There's no reason for it to be dead. People oppose the motivation more than the feature itself, and to a certain extent the motivation doesn't even matter. With 73 in favour to 45 opposed, this seems like something you should do. Especially because, in the admittedly slim data in #142 and #143, 70% of those opposed just think it's a waste of time but not actually a bad thing.

The higher numbers in favour easily negate the argument that it's a waste of development time. So (extrapolating from other data) you're left with the 13 or 14 people who actually think it will make the site worse. These shouldn't be the ones making the decision for the 73 people who want it.

#163 bobbing-for-donuts

Whatever happened to apples? Or even the correct spelling of doughnuts.

Also when I read message 105 I immediately started thinking about highlighting reviews on a per-tag basis. Which you then went and mentioned in the very next message.

Personally I think recent and hot reviews on a tag page would be a welcome addition to the system (and I don't think that there will be many who disagree). I think many reviews will get greater visibility, and there may well be more thumbing due to that. As a change it fits into what I see as LT's philosophy very comfortably, doesn't require any opt-in/out nonsense, and shouldn't be that much work.

Sometimes a certain book can dominate the reviews and I expect this to be even more so on a per-tag basis. I'm not sure what to do about that.

You can also count me amongst those who support the recent bug fixing spree. As a developer I know how dispiriting it can be and how few people actually thank you for it. So I am going to echo _Zoe_'s thanks and suggestion that you don't spend all your time fixing bugs - you will be brain-dead within weeks.

I like the idea of increasing thumbs, because I think that for most people, it makes them happy and eager to write more reviews, better reviews, interesting reviews. That only helps the site.

I love the idea of increasing 'ramps' to social connections.

I'm not convinced that names on thumbs is going to do either, but I also doubt it will be a detriment.

That said, some things I think /might/ help these two aspects that would be interesting to see, some of which others have already suggested:

- Develop more ways to explore reviews - I loved Tim's idea of doing it by tags.

- Notify users when they have received a thumb on a review. Unless you compulsively check your reviews page - /and/ remember what the last status of all your reviews was - how on earth are you going to even discover that some named someone has thumbed a review?

- As previously suggested, let us sort by most recently thumbed on our review page, or highlight this permanently in some other way.

- Make reviews on the work page easier to browse. It's come up before, but I would love to see the ability to sort by rating as well as by date and thumbs. I often want to see both low and high rated reviews in order to determine whether the things people love or the things people hate are more convincing to me.

- Consider whether there is something about the UI that could make thumbs a bit more noticeable. I don't think there is any need for (in fact, I would dislike seeing) a complicated 'many options' choice or adding wording, despite the fact that I do see reviews as useful. But I do think that the thumbs are small, easy to miss, not where your eye usually goes. I wonder if a change in position, perhaps to the top, or in size, or in color to solid green, with a different way (maybe a check) to indicate that /you/ have thumbed it, or a broader space that triggers the mouseover (number as well as thumb) might help people understand that there is a feature here to be used.

And then there are the larger issues:

- The work page is frankly horrible to use. I love reviews, and yet still I often I don't bother to read them because it is such a scroll to get to them, and LT doesn't remember my 'customization' of a work page for longer than a week or two. I got tired of re-doing it. It's a feature that is broken for practical use. I have often wished things would stay put, and I've also wished for anchored navigation to jump down the page - my internet connection, even on broadband, tends to be slow enough that I resist loading that full 'reviews' page because it means waiting, again. I can't help but think that I am not the only person for whom this issue is a barrier to really reading reviews as much as I otherwise might.

- If we're trying to build ramps to connections, Zoe's points in 159 (just after the poll) are excellent ones. While there is a lot of painful controversy around comments on reviews, there does /not/ seem to be controversy around the idea of getting discussion about particular books in a format that is easy to find and engage in. I realize that development time wise, names on thumbs are probably much simpler than book forums, or supertouchstones, or tagging threads with a book. But if you really want to encourage social connections via a book and thoughts about a book, this is, in my opinion, the place to do it.

I usually don't thumb reviews I've read, so this feature wouldn't affect me. I'm just not that interested in it.

I voted no. The more Facebookish and Twitterish LT gets, the less likely I am to participate.

Everyone comes here for different reasons. I've met some wonderful people here who I now consider my friends ("friends" in the true sense, not the Facebook sense of "I know someone who knows someone that you know" or "you like something I posted so now we are friends"). I've also had some very interesting book discussions, and I have written a lot of reviews, some of which have been thumbed or named "Hot Reviews," some of which haven't been. I've thumbed reviews that I've found interesting and/or "helpful" (sorry, but yes, helpful) in deciding whether or not I want to read a book--which has nothing to do with where/how I obtain it. (And a "helpful" review may also be interesting and inspire me to send a PM to the reviewer.)

Sometimes I learn about those reviews from group threads; sometimes I find them by going to the page of a book that has been "Recommended" or that I've learned about elsewhere. Sometimes I find them as "Hot Reviews," but much of the time, those seem to be either classics that I've already read, super-popular books like the Twilight series, or books in specialized genres that I'm not likely to read . . . all of which reflects, I think, that these thumbs up come predominantly from people who participate in a particular group (which I guess is what you want) or people who have already read and enjoyed or hated a book, depending on the tenor of the review. As to whether they've actually read the review, I'll trust that they have.

I'm sure there are reviews on LT for books that I might enjoy but haven't heard of, and I will never see them appear as "Hot Picks" for the reasons I just stated. That, and the fact that I expect a review to do more than tell me a book's plot, undoubtedly affects the number of thumbs I've given. Will putting names with thumbs encourage me to read more reviews and thumb more? Definitely not.

If I am less active than others on LT, it's for good reasons, like having to work and then bringing work home every night and every weekend. (And I don't mean to imply that other LTers aren't in the same boat yet still find time to be more active; we all choose how we spend what free time we have.) I also admit that I have a Facebook account that I rarely use and that I would never consider joining Twitter, because I find the number of posts and notices overwhelming and often annoying. I'd rather get emails or phone calls from real friends than have to sort through hundreds of tweets and wall posts from people I barely know telling me where they are at the moment or what they had for lunch. All of which, I'm sure, makes me "antisocial"--or perhaps it's just that that LT isn't where I belong.

In the end, I don't think it will really matter to me if names appear with thumbs or not, although I suspect I'll not be thumbing as much--even though I will still be reading plenty of reviews.

I'd be in favor of some kind of semi-random review link, as described by others above. Of course, for me, that would be more "helpful" than "social."

Let me add that I ALWAYS flag inappropriate reviews, but I don't thumb every review that I read, which may account for the ratio of flags to thumbs.

ETA: No complaints about bugs here, but I probably use fewer of the advanced features than others do.

(For what it's worth, I find that the more time I spend on it--and I have done little else since the system debuted--and the more I fix, the angrier people seem about the ones you haven't gotten to yet.)

Really. I've noticed a lot of appreciative comments in Bug Collectors and not a lot anger. There have been cases where fixing bugs causes other bugs but I think most people know that's going to happen occasionally. In any case, I wanted to express my appreciation for the effort spent on bugs.

Tim, I think you're over-sensitive to anger. When people are angry about one aspect of something, you assume that they're rejecting the whole feature.

Remember when you introduced the new homepage, and everyone was angry, so you thought they didn't like the feature? But the anger had nothing to do with that; it was all about your attempt to take away the Profile tab.

Remember when you introduced the Currently Reading checkboxes, with a connection to the Date fields? And there was some initial outcry about that connection. But instead of adding an option to disable the date connection, you scrapped the whole feature?

You need to pay more attention to the details and not be overwhelmed by the general sense of anger. Think about what people are actually saying and make modifications as necessary. Don't be so quick to scrap a whole idea.

In the specific case of Bug Collectors, the anger that I've seen has mainly been centred around your approach that red bugs deserve attention while blue bugs are relatively unimportant. This is easily rectified; just devote a bit more of your bug-squashing time to the blue bugs. People are happy with the bug progress overall.(Yup, I put two parts in a single yes/no poll. So sue me.)

I've thumbed reviews that I've found interesting and/or "helpful" (sorry, but yes, helpful)

This is a perfect demonstration of going after what I said while completely agreeing with it. If you found "helpful" a sufficient term to explain all your thumbing you would have said "helpful." But you didn't say that. You said "interesting and/or helpful." The term "helpful" does NOT sufficiently cover what the thumb can mean. That was my unpopular point.

Tim, I think you're over-sensitive to anger

Yes, probably. But I also make rational calculations. This is a losing proposition for me. Thank you all for your kind words.

At first I voted yes because I thought Tim's intentions were good, but after reading the discussion and thinking a bit I have changed it to no since I don't believe the method suffices. Brightcopy kind of spoke my mind: "To me, reviews that are just about social networking rather than primarily trying to glean the good reviews from the crap ones (yeah, there are plenty of those) isn't really all that appealing."

Just like some of the previous posters I think the issue is how to make us read more reviews and interact with them. And think I belong to one of the groups that Tim would like to activate. I don't read a lot of reviews because they are mostly crap (sorry, but I have high standards), and since I am not already a fan of LT reviews I don't click through profiles to read the reviews made by specific people. Furthermore the thumbs haven't, in my opinion, managed to guarantee that well written and interesting content floats to the top.

So now, what would make me read and thumb reviews? To reach the goal of activating me, you would probably have to give me a personal hot review stream that can help me automatically filter out the things I don't give a shit about. Filtering by tags is good, but not at all enough. Things that could contribute to the stream would be:

1. Giving wishlisted books priority (use this collection for my review stream check box?) so that I would be reminded (and get additional info on whether to get it or to remove it from my list) of my wishlisted books.

2. The ability to follow/favorite a reviewer. If I were a review freak I would already click through people's reviews, but that kind of people are already active, are they not? And since the amount of crap puts me of I don't care at all.

3. Filtering by/prioritizing books that are recommended for me in some way.

Ideally the review stream would let me read reviews of books that I am or might be interested in reading. If I read a review by member A that I like I won't sift through their reviews because there is no reason for me to believe that A usually will review books that I might have an interest in. (And how would I find them in the list anyway.) If I have a stream that will automatically rank the reviews written by my favorite reviewers A,B and C and order them by a combination of how interesting LT think the book would be for me (as measured by different recommendations) and thumbs up I would probably read more reviews, and do more thumbing. Then add hot reviews, heavily thumbed reviews or new reviews written by non-favorite reviewers but with some kind of relationship to my interests or reading habits (recs. would be my thing, other people would like tags or subjects more) to the stream and I might find new favorite reviewers. Step by step I might get dragged into the world of LT reviews. Which means, more thumbs.

By the way, I voted yes on Zoes poll (ETA: not the one about anger), but I think it is useless. Most people wont be aware of that kind of behavior, and the explicit phrase in the question makes it even more worthless. I can however not deny the fact that I have thumbed up reviews because it has pained me to see what crap (!) had received most thumbs when number two or three was really intelligent and thoughtful. That is a social behavior, the previous thumbs made me do it, and it was all served up by the fact that the book(s) was/were popular. (If I had answered Zoe's question and not the actual statement it was meant to measure I would obviously have voted no.) Following a link from a group in talk to thumb a review is not that different either. It's part of a social context and a conversation.

173> Well, then, maybe the term to use is "interesting" ("X number of readers found this review interesting"), which likely implies "helpful" for those of us who read reviews to help decide whether or not to read a book.

ETA: I agree with you that a reader can give a review a thumbs up for many reasons. What, then, is its purpose, if the reviewer doesn't know the reason? I know that you probably hope that adding names will encourage more discussion between reader and reviewer, but I think that will be rare. It's just an easy way to applaud without having to make contact or much effort, names or no names.

175> Yes on interesting. You already have interesting libraries. Maybe interesting could be LT's catch-word in the way that like is to Facebook.

I am only one member, probably atypical, but here is my behavior:
-Almost always when I see a "review" that's not one, I flag it. I easily flag ten times as many reviews as I thumb.
-If I'm reading a list of reviews for one book, and one stands out as more helpful/interesting/thoughtful to those who haven't yet read the book and are deciding if it's worth the time, I thumb the "outstanding" review. I sort reviews by thumbs on works pages, and this helps people like me.
-If I read reviews on a work page and there are few enough that they are easily read, I typically don't thumb even though one review might be better than the others.
-If I read a review that captures a book in an exceptional way, I thumb it. This is a rarely met subjective standard.

My thumbing behavior isn't consistent; it's situational. Realistically, I'm not going to make it consistent for a certain quality level, because that would mean picking a rule that leads to more clicking, and I don't want to bother with lots of clicking, frankly.

I don't review every book I read, and I don't read as much as I used to. Further, I don't read as carefully as I used to, which leads to my writing fewer reviews. Maybe half of my motivation for reviewing is to capture my personal response to a book, the other half to be "helpful" to others considering whether to read a book.

Only 16 of 86 reviews I've written have received a thumb, and I'm OK with that. My most recent review, for an ER book, is the only one on the page thumbed, and that does feel nice. What really feels nice, though, is the fact that my most thumbed review is not a super-popular book. It was one that I found particularly moving, which led me to a better (more passionate and more eloquent) review than normal for me on LT. Realistically, how many people are going to read reviews for Critique of religion and philosophy? It felt nice to get three thumbs from a limited pool. If I saw names, I might respect a thumb from certain members more than others, particularly if I knew a member didn't thumb much or was particularly well-read, so I can see the usefulness of names on thumbs. But I'll say I'm not particularly interested in starting discussions even with those whose reading lists or posts I find interesting. I like to come and go on LT without obligation to maintain relationships, a reflection of me being on the anti-social side, I guess. I encourage ways for those who do want relationships here to forge them, though.

So I'm genuinely undecided here. I do think that the identity of a thumber is useful information, but I also understand the fear that LT will become more cliquish if thumb names are added, and I understand that those who might not want interaction may thumb less. I don't think a change would impact my behavior in any way.

If I saw the same person consistently thumb up my reviews, I might make the effort to send them a message to connect up, for whatever reason it turned out they liked my reviews. I might be able to find out why people consider some of my reviews better than others, and I can do more of that.

Can't do that without categories of thumbs and/or names so that I can ask unless folks take it upon themselves to contact me. Which they don't.

Review thumbs 160k; Review flags 90k

That's a sick social feature.

Not at all. People will accidentally or deliberately post hundreds of non-reviews or review spam. Dedicated flaggers can flag hundreds of non-reviews in a session; nobody's doing that for thumbs. (By the way, I assume you aren't counting green flags, or red/blue flags that have been countered by a green flag, in that number?)

I'd prefer to say that a review is "recommended" rather than "interesting", because I think the latter favours things like the punted-in-the-vagina Twilight review. Interesting? Sure, vicious attacks on the readers who liked a book are interesting, like train wrecks. Recommended? No.But I also make rational calculations. This is a losing proposition for me.

Look at it this way: if you just went ahead and implemented the feature, with no further discussion of motivation, how many people would care enough to go on complaining about it? The proposal itself is really innocuous; it's the greater implications that generated a lot of heat. And the fact still remains that more people are in favour than against. If it won't take too long to implement it and you think it will improve the site, you should just go ahead and do it.

Just for the heck of it, I took at look my 237 reviews (I've actually written 238, but the one I wrote this morning isn't showing up) to see how many have been thumbed. I didn't count, but it appears to be less than half. Which one got the most thumbs up? Not surprisingly, Twilight, with 35--twice as many as the next ranked per thumbs. Which proves my point that people thumb a book that you've posted about in a group, it gets a Hot Review, and other people who (in this case) hated the book jump on the bandwagon. Of course, I think that's exactly what Tim is looking for, but I don't really consider that "socializing" (even if Facebook does). I doubt that I persuaded anyone who was already interested in the book to avoid it. And would I have contacted any of those thumbers if I knew their names? Probably not, because I have nothing more to say about the book and would prefer to discuss books that I did enjoy or find interesting.

ETA: Zoe, I would be fine with "Recommended"--although I think you'd find reviews recommended for the same reason that you've rejected "Interesting"--both mean different things to different people. And if naming thumbs is supposed to create a community, I don't see anything wrong with people "socializing" to discuss a book that they didn't like. I've gone to read reviews of books that I'm curious about by people who seem to have tastes similar to mine, and I appreciate their truthfulness.

ETA: typos.

160>

Thanks for expanding on your thinking. I still disagree, because I don't think reviews should be primarily about creating connections between individuals, but between individuals and books, but I'm glad to see that you don't envision the connections as ending with a thumbs-up. It's not that I'm against trivial connections per se; it's that I don't see reviews as intended to create any form of connections between individuals, and that this seems like a step in the direction of moving LibraryThing away from a book-oriented site to a social networking site for people who read, which isn't a direction I like.

No. I've been working on bugs for quite some time. The site must also move forward, with better features and new ones. (For what it's worth, I find that the more time I spend on it--and I have done little else since the system debuted--and the more I fix, the angrier people seem about the ones you haven't gotten to yet.)

I agree you need to do feature development as well, I just don't think this is the right one to focus on. (And I'm overjoyed about the bug-fixing you've done, and haven't seen any anger. Frustration, maybe, but less so than before.)

I think it's worth saying something about what I perceive as the real value of this proposed feature, rather than focusing on how it's not valuable.

As Tim says, there's some value in casual social interactions. But I don't see this in the sense of "I thumbed this review casually". Instead, I imagine that as I go about reading reviews, I'll check the names of the other people who thumbed the ones I like. At the most basic level, this will form a general fuzzy sense of community as I see the same names recurring again and again. I might go further and investigate the profiles of these people. Eventually I might even communicate with them. But that isn't important. The important thing is just the sense that "hey, there are real people out there behind the thumbs. There's a community here, not just abstract numbers".

Leaving everything else aside, I think there's some value in that.

The proposal itself is really innocuous; it's the greater implications that generated a lot of heat.

Agreed. Remember, I initially said "I don't see a downside"; it was once Tim started to explain that he wanted reviews to be more about person-to-person connections and less about person-to-book connections that I was turned off on the idea. Who knows, maybe he'll implement it and not get what he wants out of the deal. :-)

Oh, and I also think "Recommended" leaves more room for interpretation on the part of the thumber, which I think Tim is in favour of.

Having read the thread (up to #179), I'd like to "thumb" #174 for the suggestions offered and the statement about the poll in #159 (on which I also voted yes, even though I disagree with the "prefer" and "conversation" terminology; I do, however, on occasion seek out popular books on which I have an opinion to see whether I can help right some injustice).

I'm not against the option of names on thumbs (with the option of anonymity also) as such. I agree with _Zoe_ (and I hope I'm paraphrasing this right) that if you're going to do this, one of the most valuable things you can do with it is to provide a way for people to easily get at reviews thumbed by people who thumb good reviews. And I think this is almost as basic as having a way for people to see all of their own thumbed reviews - both the ones written by them and thumbed by others, and the ones written by others and thumbed by them - which I don't think we have at the moment. (Perhaps these two functions could even be integrated somehow, but you'd have to take into account whether and when people wanted their thumbing behaviour to be public/private.)

I voted "no" on whether names on thumbs would make me thumb more. It wouldn't make me thumb less, either. I might thumb anonymously, all the time or some of the time. I wouldn't mind thumbing more, but as things are I often don't know where to begin.

186> If I understand it correctly, you're either in or out as far as having your name appear on thumbs; you can't have your name appear with some thumbs and remain anonymous on others.

Tim says it's dead in the face of too much opposition. I disagree and think that there are a lot of good suggestions in this thread. Also, I don't think the opposition to the idea in general is so strong that the whole thing should automatically be forgotten.

I think it's worth talking about this idea for what it reveals about LT culture, something that should inform development of any new feature, not just this one.

187: Oh. Well in that case I don't know, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

> 165

People oppose the motivation more than the feature itself,

If, as I understand it, the motivation is to increase the number of thumbs, I don't oppose that. I just don't think that this proposal will accomplish that.

>189 SchanleyMedia: The problem is that Tim is really bad at reading these sorts of discussions. What's he's taken from this is that "The hat(r)ed generated by talking about social features wins again". I don't think this is the correct conclusion.

(Speaking of bugs, I've been trying all day to post a review, but it disappears when I hit the Save button. I've tried many times, have opened new windows, shut down and started up again, etc. Maybe it's b/c Tim is tinkering with the site; hopefully, I haven't gotten blacklisted!)

I agree with _Zoe_ (and I hope I'm paraphrasing this right) that if you're going to do this, one of the most valuable things you can do with it is to provide a way for people to easily get at reviews thumbed by people who thumb good reviews.

Yup, that's a good paraphrase of what I've been saying.

> 180

It's not a good substitute, because "recommended" implies that you are recommending it to someone else, while "helpful/interesting" may be directed at another person, or for one's own benefit.

There's that damn social interaction issue rearing its head again!

@192

I think the proper, and typical LT thing to do, is to rethink the idea and repost it as a new RSI (ETA: possibly sometime in a distant future). Admittedly it will take 18 months instead of a week for it to get implemented, but the result might be better.

I agree with you that it is probably not about hating the social aspects. I would rather say that the problem lies in that the intentions and the methods are not properly matched.

>195 lilithcat: Hmm... other ideas? I really don't like "interesting", because a review might be relatively boring but still contain a lot of valuable information.

192> I've said what I think about all this, but in the end, the majority should rule. (Of course, the majority is the majority of posters on this thread; I am not a "regular" in this group and only put in my two cents after clicking a link on another thread.) If I don't like a feature, I just won't use it; if things get too messy here for me, I'll just move on.

But I don't see anything wrong with continuing the discussion and, especially, the suggestions.

195: Just add solipsism: "Recommended to those like me / those in situations (including moods, dilemmas, etc.) like mine." Or "I would recommend this to myself."

197> I'm not overly fond of these suggestions, but how about "Worth Reading" or "Take a Look"?

>196 auntSteelbreaker: The thing is, I wouldn't make any changes to the basic proposal as stated in the OP. I would add extra related features, but they could be suggested separately. What do you think should be changed?

What about "appreciated"?

in the end, the majority should rule

How strong should the majority be? The original vote is still showing a majority in favour, but Tim decided to shelve the feature anyway.

I agree with #189.

In terms of understanding statistics, Tim's data of 10:1 reviews to 1 thumb seems about perfect to me. I very much doubt it will ever get notably higher - Sturgeon's Law and all that.

202 : I was about to say that I liked "like", though it might be hard to translate, and that the near-synonym, "appreciate", sounded a bit un-LT to me. Then again, we do have "currently", which Tim once eloquently argued against but which is, I think, better than "now", connotation-wise.

Forget interested or helpful, just thumbed is enough - let it mean what you want it to mean. "liked" has the same affect.

Tim - you could have done something similar to facebook's like site-wide. We could like reviews, talk posts, books, authors, libraries, blog posts, etc. Then LT friends see what others find interesting and good information spreads (with all the noise, of course)

Then thumbs stay as they are.

I doubt you want to implement this...but would like to hear your thoughts/reasoning.

Since when, Tim, are "proposals probably dead" despite having a majority in favor of the proposition? This isn't the California Legislature attempting to pass a state budget in need of a two-thirds affirmative vote, is it?

I'll be fine with your decision either way, but I'm mildly annoyed that when the Gloria Allred-type nitpicking and overly-analytical naysayers come out of the wood works with their louder, more verbose, screeching posts pummeling the possible tangential and semantic side effects that might arise -- which is as far removed from your original proposal as Planet X is from Earth -- you seem to cave to their obsessively pedantic and librarianish/programmerish uptight twaddle and let them sway you from implementing what's simply a tweak to the site. Why? For fear that you'll alienate them and they'll leave? Are you kidding? Where else will they get to bicker over such microcosmic minutia, if not here in LibraryThing?

Go Nike and just do it already.

@Zoe/201

Since what Tim wants is more thumbs it doesn't really make sense to only make the names public. So I think that adding extra related features makes sense. For people who don't participate that much in the reviewers social circles only showing the names might feel like just making the lives of those circles more convenient without adding anything to LT. (I've seen more or less the same discussion on a community for unpublished writers. If you want to be in the hot stream you need to make friends. And if you don't care about the socializing around reviews, that might provoke you.) But if this feature is released together with other features, as a package that people could believe would fulfill Tim's idea, maybe the resistance would decrease. I think what Tim wants is a pony, even though he didn't realize it himself.

As i said in #174 i would like a personal review stream centered around books that I should find interesting (that is: included in my recommendations). Tag based searching/sorting/filtering is good. I also would like to follow/favorite reviewers. The value in being able to follow good thumbers is great for people who already really like exploring others libraries and reviews, but for me it would make more sense to let it influence my review stream.

Put short, if LT told me "these reviews might be of interest for you" I would read them, use more thumbs (especially if I knew that my thumb would make my review stream more accurate) and hopefully find interesting reviewers to follow. As for now, I get dizzy from seeing all the boring or poorly written (from my point of view) reviews.

194>

I certainly agree that that's a worthy goal. If it was Tim's goal with this feature, I'd be behind it 100%. (Where, of course, "good" is entirely a personal determination.)

I actually don't think Like and Appreciate are the same at all, nor is Like the same as a thumb.

Like: To find pleasant or attractive; enjoy.
Appreciate: To recognize the quality, significance, or magnitude of

To me, "like" implies more agreement with the viewpoint of the review. I don't really *like* it when someone says negative things about a book I enjoy. But I might appreciate that they've raised some valid points.

Likewise, I would thumb reviews that I disagreed with, but I'd find it harder to say that I "liked" them.

>206 dchaikin: So would you change the hover text to "1 member thumbed this review", or would you get rid of it entirely?

>207 absurdeist: I love this. In fact, it's worth repeating in its entirely.

Since when, Tim, are "proposals probably dead" despite having a majority in favor of the proposition? This isn't the California Legislature attempting to pass a state budget in need of a two-thirds affirmative vote, is it?

I'll be fine with your decision either way, but I'm mildly annoyed that when the Gloria Allred-type nitpicking and overly-analytical naysayers come out of the wood works with their louder, more verbose, screeching posts pummeling the possible tangential and semantic side effects that might arise -- which is as far removed from your original proposal as Planet X is from Earth -- you seem to cave to their obsessively pedantic and librarianish/programmerish uptight twaddle and let them sway you from implementing what's simply a tweak to the site. Why? For fear that you'll alienate them and they'll leave? Are you kidding? Where else will they get to bicker over such microcosmic minutia, if not here in LibraryThing?

Go Nike and just do it already.

> 202

"As the author of Book X, I really appreciated that you reviewed my book."

>208 auntSteelbreaker: I guess my issue is, does the motivation matter? If a majority of people are in favour of the proposal, for whatever reason, shouldn't it be implemented even if it seems unlikely to achieve the goal for which it was initially proposed?

I also would like to follow/favorite reviewers

You can do this already, by adding them to a connections list. Then you can go to Connection News and see the recent reviews written by that subset of people. Of course, it could be made more accessible. If Tim were really daring, he could create a default Connections category called something like Good Reviewers, and then take into account how many people were following a reviewer when choosing reviews that people were likely to appreciate to show in their review feeds (which I do think are a good idea).

>212 lilithcat: So you're supporting helpful/interesting? But of course the author found it helpful that someone reviewed their book.

#210 Zoe - oh, like come on, like means whatever you want it mean - it's like some vague positive meaning that doesn't really do well with a word definition, if you like. (I'm just being silly, I don't actually have a strong opinion)

I would zap the hover text :)

208> Put short, if LT told me "these reviews might be of interest for you" I would read them, use more thumbs (especially if I knew that my thumb would make my review stream more accurate) and hopefully find interesting reviewers to follow.

Replying to you, since you're the most recent to mention it. But I agree that a way to favorite reviews/reviewers could be interesting, and it'd be nice to just follow the reviews. Connection News isn't always the easiest way to see new reviews, depending on how many people you have on your interesting library/private watch lists.

This thread is getting long. I started a new one to talk about reviews exploration, since I think it's a good idea that would be a good addition to the site.

> 213

If a majority of people are in favour of the proposal, for whatever reason, shouldn't it be implemented even if it seems unlikely to achieve the goal for which it was initially proposed?

No. Time and resources are not infinite. If you have a specific goal in mind, it doesn't make sense to spend those time and resources on something that won't accomplish that goal.

@213

I didn't think about that. But it's not the key for my review reading though. The most important part is what books I find reviews about. If reviewer A writes great reviews but only a small percentage is of any interest to me, it's just not gonna be worth it. Since there are a lot of reviews out there we need better way to find the suitable ones.

I agree that since the majority has voted yes it is wrong to kill the idea. If the majority isn't considered big enough the question should be how to change people's minds through improving the idea, not dropping the idea completely.

If you have a specific goal in mind, it doesn't make sense to spend those time and resources on something that won't accomplish that goal.

Oh, silly me. I thought satisfying the majority of users was also a worthwhile aim.

> 219

Oh, silly me. I thought satisfying the majority of users was also a worthwhile aim.

Setting aside the question of whether "the majority of people responding to this thread" equates to "the majority of users", satisfying them is not, in and of itself, a worthwhile aim. If it were, we'd all be that little girl on the pony.

The question isn't "what should be done to satisfy people?" Satisfy in what context? This site has a particular purpose (or purposes), and changes/improvements in site features should be made with those purposes in mind.

And, again, one must prioritize. If creating a feature that is of minimal benefit, other than that it's a pony people want, means not improving or creating a feature that will greatly enhance the purposes of the site (Other Authors issues come to mind), then, yes, it is silly to satisfy them.

The question isn't "what should be done to satisfy people?" Satisfy in what context? This site has a particular purpose (or purposes), and changes/improvements in site features should be made with those purposes in mind.

Fair enough, but I would argue the converse too: the things that people want should at least partially guide the purpose of the site. There shouldn't be a big distinction between the things that satisfy people and the things that align with the purpose of the site. If there is, then a broader discussion is required to attempt to address this disconnect, even if it ultimately just results in a declaration from Tim that he's overruling the users' preferences and choosing the direction of the site himself.

Personally, I think this site has the potential to be about so much more than just maintaining personal catalogues, despite that being the initial purpose. I appreciate Tim's comment that "LibraryThing works best when it uses the books to create the social." The problem is that "creating the social" is a lot harder to define than "creating a better catalogue". There's some reason a lot of people want to see names attached to thumbs; for one thing, it serves some general social purpose, even if that's not easily measured as something like "an increase in the number of thumbs".

Returning to the specifics, I do think that names on thumbs could be an important part of an overall scheme to increase interest in reviews, which would naturally lead to more thumbs overall. Names on thumbs just aren't sufficient on their own. But that doesn't mean they don't have a valuable role to play.

I'm not sure how I got here from my initial response to #222, but thanks for the thought-provoking post, lilithcat.

re. 189:

Absolutely! While I don't have a strong opinion either way, I find the group discussion and dynamic fascinating.

On a side note - I wonder how often friends or relatives have referenced this song in conversations with Tim?

I swear to Yahweh, beardo, I nearly quoted those lyrics in my post above. Can't prove it, of course, but I thought it! Brilliant minds.

That song is perfect advice for Tim.

I'm not saying "helpful" is the best word. I just wish people would stop acting like I'm the Anti-Christ for suggesting LibraryThing use the wording that LibraryThing already uses...

Here's a new thread for revisiting the issue from scratch, since I think a lot of the problems here were with the presentation of the idea and since a reasonable number of people think it's still worth considering the idea.

226> Don't fret, people don't treat you like the anti-Christ because of that suggestion.

OK, this is going to start out sounding tangential, but it's connected to Tim's original purpose, honest! I remember when I first watched Tim give his presentation about LT online (TED? YouTube?). I was surprised about how little I knew about/utilized the information/statistics that was available to me on LT that he was so excited about. At the same time, I noticed how little he talked about how people's participation in groups--which takes up most of my time on LT (multiple hours on many days) and the main reason I value LT so much. Of course, he has a much bigger picture to think about--this is his business, after all--but I decided even if he were just a member of LT, he would still probably use LT very differently than I would. It appeared that he was more excited about statistics and looking at one's library a multitude of ways; while right now I'm heavy into social interaction.

So, here's my point. Tim's got a much bigger picture of LT than I do. I'm assuming that for statistical/business reasons, Tim would like to see more thumbs of reviews. Or maybe he wants to just see more reviews, IDK. I could be way off-base, but it appears that Tim sees a problem (or an opportunity for making some particular aspect of the site work better), comes up with a possible solution, then asks us to vote on it: Yes/No. But, of course, people are going to have questions and concerns, and look at/discuss the change from their own point of view--which seems to upset Tim more than it should (imo).

I'm with Zoe, maybe Tim should just make changes that he thinks improve the site--then take the flak if people don't like it. Or, he can do what he did here--present an idea and ask for feedback, but maybe stay out of the conversation for awhile. Because he does sound immediately defensive (I probably would be too if I had spent a lot of time thinking about how to solve a problem and then got a lot of neg. reaction to it) which seems to lead to more of what he doesn't want, including questioning his motivations and/or underlying goals.

For example, I'm still confused about Tim's underlying goal. He's presenting statistics that indicate he wants more thumbs, yet his solution (personalizing thumbs) is presented as a way to create more connection between the reviewer and the thumber--which might or might not address what he seems to see as a problem. If so, instead of coming up with his own solution (and getting irate when people don't like it), maybe the discussion could be why Tim needs/wants more reviews thumbed, and ask LT-ers for ideas on how the site might go about encouraging this.

228> It's the horns, isn't it?

#207/211 -- . . . obsessively pedantic and librarianish/programmerish uptight twaddle . . .

*sigh* Why the hate for librarians and programmers? I feel as if I have been insulted before I even bother to post.

On-topic, I have voted "undecided" because, having read the whole thread, I am not convinced that having names attached to review thumbs would be either beneficial or detrimental to me, personally. I agree that it would be great if more people used this feature, I just don't know if adding names is the way to encourage that. It's certainly been an interesting discussion, though.

Now I'm going to go button my cardigan, adjust my reading glasses, and find someone to shush, along with all of the other stereotypically obsessive, uptight, and pedantic members of my chosen profession. Thanks for that, guys.

> 231

Yeah, god forbid that a site for cataloguing books should pander to those dreadful people whose profession it is to catalogue books. Oh, wait . . .

>231 foggidawn:: I know, I wish people could share their ideas and feelings (even feelings of frustration and/or anger without personal attacks). It really gets in the way of listening and learning from each other.

It's extra funny when you realize Tim programmed (and continues to program) large parts of the site. Down with librarians and programmers!

Anybody left?

I haven't voted on the poll in the OP message. Probably because I am not sure it if it would be a good or a bad thing for the site (or worth the time and effort of the developers). I have read the whole thread.

For my personal reaction I am leaning towards no, for the reason that it seems that LT would be forcing a social connection that I have not explicitly wanted or made (yes, I realize you can opt out - I am talking about the philosophy behind it).

If I wanted to have my reaction made public, I would have contacted the person, or said something in a thread.

I can't see if it would increase or even decrease the use of reviews - which is another issue. If it was implemented and most opted to remain anonymous, the status would remain the same.

I also have to wonder if the rating of books is looked on with such disdain and not used, why is the thumbing of reviews given so much more credence ?

I believe that thumbs are often about popularity and giving kudos so the act will be reciprocated within the group, not about the book or the review.

I also agree that helpful is not a bad thing to be, nor just about purchasing. For me, its about is this book worth my time, regardless of how I get the book.

I like the idea of filtering reviews through tags (paging Tag Watch ...), of better sorting, of personalizing what you want to see, of being able to follow reviews (specific books) or reviewers, of wish-listed books.

I think there is always room to improve, but that usually comes about following discussion, and time spent mulling what has been brought out in the discussion. Not sure why Tim, and others, seem to object to that - it seems to be one of the strengths of the site.

>231 foggidawn: Sorry, I didn't mean any offense to librarians or programmers. I just think this site has room for more than just cataloguing improvements, but those seem to be the only kind that can ever get approval.

#236

Sorry _Zoe_ but that is incorrect. I remember a time without any groups, without local, without a friends facility. Without any kind of FB or Twitter intergration (both added this year). Other social stuff has debuted this year like What groups are you connections in and member recommendations.

On the catalogue side things aren't as rosy as you portray either. We are still waiting on other authors for the books we entered prior to that feature (even if we can't auto-convert). Plus we could go into loads of features which most people feel would be a good idea which haven't been developed yet.

The situation may not be all you want but it isn't as lop-sided as you present it.

>237 andyl: Okay, he made some significant social improvements many years ago. I don't remember a time without Friends, so that must be really ancient. I think Groups were July/August 2006. Local is not a social improvement. The FB integration is far too little, too late.

I'll give you thumbing Member Recommendations, which is a useful and new social improvement (the feature itself is not new). But if Tim had decided to discuss the change before making it, I bet it would have ended up being cancelled too. Of course, any objections have now passed and we're left with a useful feature. It's too bad this can't happen more often.

Let me put it this way: when Tim introduces discussion of a cataloguing feature, that feature is likely to be implemented or at least deferred only because of technical difficulties. When Tim introduces discussion of a "social" feature, I think it's about 50/50 to be rejected outright. That's the most frustrating thing: it feels like the thought and effort that members put into discussing proposed features and coming up with solutions to various shortcomings are worthless to Tim; he almost always defers to the people who just want the whole idea to be scrapped, because that's the path of least resistance to him. It's extremely discouraging.

I've been thinking about why parts of this suggestion rubbed me the wrong way, and I think it's because of the idea that the social aspect would be about the thumber. People would thumb because they wanted to do something social. There would be names on thumbs because people specifically wanted their own name to be seen, etc.

I think this is backwards. The social should come from people looking at the names of other thumbers, while continuing to thumb as before, when they think a review deserves it. LT should be concerned with community-based social interactions ("Hey, there are real people around me, not just nameless thumbs") rather than narcissistic social interactions ("I'm declaring my opinion and I want everyone to see it!"). In practice it may be difficult to distinguish these two things. But it seemed like Tim's comments were focusing on the latter, and I think that's why some people who initially liked the idea ended up being turned off.

239>

I think you are absolutely right. When I first saw the proposal, I thought it would be about saying "hey, _Zoe_ keeps thumbing up interesting reviews. Maybe I should go check out her catalog", and I like that idea, but Tim seems to think of it as being able to say "I like this person's reviews and want to know more about the person, but I'm too shy to leave a profile comment. I'll just give their reviews a thumbs-up and see if they notice."

It's important to note that the exact same feature could still be worthwhile, and that as I noted somewhere around here (I don't remember if it was this thread or the other) it's still worth reconsidering, with different ancillary features and a different blog post. Not "make friends by giving thumbs-up", but "find interesting libraries by looking at what they thumb".

Current results of the polls in 220/221, posted without commentary:

"I would review more if thumbs had names attached":

Yes 2
No 42
Undecided 2

"I would review less if thumbs had names attached":

Yes 6
No 31
Undecided 7

> 235

also have to wonder if the rating of books is looked on with such disdain and not used, why is the thumbing of reviews given so much more credence ?


My guess is that it would force the "better" reviews to the top where they would more often be seen. I think that can be important for LTFL. A better quality of review on a book website is more important for libraries than sheer number of reviews.

I think there is always room to improve, but that usually comes about following discussion, and time spent mulling what has been brought out in the discussion. Not sure why Tim, and others, seem to object to that

Although some great ideas have been brought out in this discussion, it takes so much time to read through the discussions and pull out those ideas (although Zoe has been great at organizing that piece of it). It's simply wearying!

it's still worth reconsidering, with different ancillary features and a different blog post. Not "make friends by giving thumbs-up", but "find interesting libraries by looking at what they thumb".

I did try recasting it in a different light, but the poll results there show that that's even less popular--possibly because the ancillary features would require extra development time? The number of voters is still pretty low, though, so I guess there's a chance that things could change.

Anyway, I'm going to try to bow out of the discussion for now, because I think I've most likely just wasted a lot of time.

> 238

when Tim introduces discussion of a cataloguing feature, that feature is likely to be implemented or at least deferred only because of technical difficulties. When Tim introduces discussion of a "social" feature, I think it's about 50/50 to be rejected outright.

Perhaps this is why. With my usual caveat that responses to a thread don't necessarily reflect the opinions of all users, it does seem that the most, while enjoying the social side of LT, place more importance on the cataloguing side.

To quote you up-thread: "I thought satisfying the majority of users was also a worthwhile aim." It seems that the "majority of users" find more satisfaction in cataloguing improvements than social features.

>244 lilithcat: and others.

I'm here strictly because I love books. I want to keep track of what I read, about when I read it, how I liked it, and to learn about books that, given my tastes, might appeal to me.

Cataloging, smataloging. Yes, I understand many members here are librarianish or data-driven in how they approach the site. That's fine.

I also think the vast majority of people like me, who aren't hard-over on the technical side of getting data 'right' don't hang out in these threads. One, they don't have the time. Two, maybe they get turned off by the animosity that sometimes crops up. Three, they just love books.

I don't understand the eagerness shown by some to block any change, especially when a change is easily ignored or not used.

Seriously, make the site easier to use (I find a lot of stuff annoying because compared to Goodreads, for example, adding a book takes resolve), more user-friendly,. and more helpful in discussing, reviewing, and finding new books. Give me options on what I use and what I don't.

I don't understand why more thumbs is necessarily a good thing. I have reviewed just over 10% of my books, and have received thumbs for roughly 15% of my reviews. That seems about right, considering that I write those reviews for my own use.

I thumb reviews that help me to decide whether I might like the book, but also reviews that are interesting to read, whether I have an interest in the book or not. As others have stated, I find far more spam reviews and non-reviews to flag than good reviews that deserve thumbs. I have found a few members who consistently write interesting reviews of books that might interest me, and I use Interesting Libraries to watch for new reviews from those members.

I am not at all interested in "hot" reviews. They seem to be predominantly for fiction (which doesn't interest me much), popular books (do we really need more reviews of Twilight or Harry Potter?), snarky reviews, and spam.

The majority opinion (among the few members commenting here, a tiny fraction of the total membership) leans toward showing the names. I am OK with that, as long as it is possible to opt out.

> 242

> 235

also have to wonder if the rating of books is looked on with such disdain and not used, why is the thumbing of reviews given so much more credence ?


My guess is that it would force the "better" reviews to the top where they would more often be seen. I think that can be important for LTFL. A better quality of review on a book website is more important for libraries than sheer number of reviews.

Yes I understand that it would, theoretically make the more thumbed reviews more visible, though people who sort reviews seem to think sorting needs work.

I don't believe that thumbs are given just for the quality or reaction of the review: Things we like because its by people we know.

But you have missed my point. It isn't about why Tim wants it, its about why saying one set of data have actual validity, and another similar set of data doesn't. I think its just wishful thinking, and an interest in one (thumbs) from Tim, and not in the other - in fact even disdain (ratings).

Tim says book ratings are useless, but somehow rating of reviews has value, meaning and merit.

My guess is that it would force the "better" reviews to the top where they would more often be seen.

But theoretically, books could be presented on the author page such that works with higher ratings appear on the top. But Tim doesn't want to do that because he doesn't think that ratings mean much of anything.

>245 majkia::
I'm here strictly because I love books ... Cataloging, smataloging. Yes, I understand many members here are librarianish or data-driven in how they approach the site. That's fine. I also think the vast majority of people like me, who aren't hard-over on the technical side of getting data 'right' don't hang out in these threads. One, they don't have the time. Two, maybe they get turned off by the animosity that sometimes crops up. Three, they just love books.

1. I'm in love with books.
2. Beacuse I love books, I beg, steal and borrow 'em.
3. Having hoarded a giant heap of books that I love, I need help to know where, what and which they are.
4. I'm here because LibraryThing provides the best possibilty for keeping track of where, what and which my beloved books are. If it didn't, I would not be here.
5. Because I love books, I value most of all the librarianish, data-driven, hard-over technical approach of LibraryThing. QED.

Got that out of the way? Ok, let's move on.

There's lot's of other parts of LT I value besides cataloging. I.e. reviews. LT reviews has got to be a main source for researching and acquiring new books, and I heartily recommend them to my friends. I also use "thumbs up" to help highlight especially worthwhile reviews.

I voted "no" to signing "thumbs", because I fear it might - might, not will - degrade the review function. We MIGHT end up with something like Facebook where you "like" seeing your friends are active online, you "like" their smart wording, their quick one-liners, you "like" being informed what your gang "like"... etc. In short, it MIGHT degrade the usefulness of a useful function. I'd not "like" to take that chance. I may be wrong, but I was asked for an opinion so I voted. As did many others, for whatever equally non-sinister motives.

Can we be friends now?

"We MIGHT end up with something like Facebook where you... "like" their smart wording, their quick one-liners, you "like" being informed what your gang "like"... etc. In short, it MIGHT degrade the usefulness of a useful function."

Sorry, how does liking smart wording and quick one-liners degrade the usefulness of thumbed reviews? Doesn't that mean witty reviews get more thumbs? Isn't that good? or at least not a change from the status quo where sarcastic reviews of popular books are overwhelmingly thumbed compared to others? And as to knowing what reviews 'your gang' liked, how is that bad? Maybe to some its more useful than knowing what reviews strangers you might hate liked. Building a sense of community isn't a necessary evil.

Maybe someday I'll understand this gut hatred of many for facebook-type features. But for now I just still don't get it. (Facebook now has groups! Oh no, let's get rid of groups here! I have this crazy picture in my mind that if FB ever introduced book cataloging, then users here would even turn against that.)

>250 Kira:

There's a lot of truth to what you say. I understand there are many who objected to my proposal on totally intelligent and well-reasoned grounds, but I wish I hadn't mentioned Facebook in the first paragraph too. I was trying to describe a feature quickly, but I fear that I also triggered fears.

For what it's worth, there's much I dislike about Facebook. My vision is unlike theirs. But they are also a laboratory of features, and, considering their successes--and failures--is important.

I think he's afraid that posts with zippy one-liners but don't otherwise say much about the book will still gather thumbs. But I'm not sure how adding names would make that worst.

251> I wish I hadn't mentioned Facebook in the first paragraph too. I was trying to describe a feature quickly, but I fear that I also triggered fears.

Believe me, I know what you mean. I regret having even mentioned "Do you find this review helpful". I think the followups were much more about emotional responses to amazon than about the actual reasoning behind it. But that's the way it is in places like this. You can never tell what innocuous thing you say will get latched on and beaten to death. I know I'm as guilty of it as the next person, too.

250> Triggering on on the keyword "Facebook", you missed the main point: "a useful function".

Reviews are useful. Thumbing is useful as is. If it works, don't mess with it. Tim invited a yes/no vote, he got it. Others speculated on the reason for what they perceived as evil, acrimonious, hateful no-votes. Now they got that too. Simple, but regrettably neither angry or hateful. We just like it as it is.

Today we have naming of thumbs. Yesterday,
we had imported events. And tomorrow morning,
we shall have what to do after friending. But today,
today we have naming of thumbs. Japonica
glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
and today we have naming of thumbs.

with apologies to Henry Reed

#255 Bravo!

#254: I didn't miss the part about it being useful. I just don't understand your commentary about why thumb names would make it less so. You failed to respond to my entire second paragraph about usefulness and how thumbing up witty reviews is not a bad outcome, and could in fact provide useful info about who thumbed stuff.

Also, I generally think the philosophy that "If it works, don't mess with it." is ridiculous. Sometimes things aren't broken and you can still improve on them.

ETA: And I would add that thumbing reviews may already be seen as 'broken' due to lack of use. But I'll save that for a later post when I have more time...

@257 is the latest post in this thread to mention something that strikes me as important. If an objective is to increase the number of thumbs, what strategies do we have for doing that?
Is low usage to do with users not being aware of the feature (my opinion), or that the feature is not useful and needs enhancing (arguably the main thrust of this thread)?

258>

The third alternative is that most people are sparing with thumbs because they don't think most reviews are thumb-worthy. If you have many people giving out thumbs, but relatively few thumbs each, that suggests this might be the case. If you have only a few people giving out thumbs, but thumbing many reviews each, that suggests your "unawareness" explanation may be at work.

"If you have many people giving out thumbs, but relatively few thumbs each, that suggests this might be the case."

I give out thumbs -- but relatively few. The reason is just because I can't be bothered to thumb when it doesn't do much, not because I think most reviews don't deserve thumbs.

Hence why I think making thumbs be or do more is generally good. For instance, when thumbs were linked to a contest (Breaking Dawn) people (myself included) thumbed a lot more, as can be seen the relatively high number of thumbs on those book reviews. The fifth highest amount of thumbs on Eclipse is 3. On Breaking Dawn it's 30. This shows I think that people will thumb more if it's more meaningful to do so.

260>

Is having more thumbs a desirable goal in and of itself (I would say no), or only to the extent that it helps people find the better (by whatever standards) reviews?

To the extent it helps people find the better reviews. And also perhaps to the extent that having your reviews thumbed might feel nice and encourage more review-writing :)

I'm guessing lack of thumbs is mainly because too few users read any individual review.

There is probably a click factor, but the big thing the challenge/reading groups do is encourage users to read more reviews...and that is the biggest reason why those reviews get thumbs (again, my guess)

Anything Tim can do to highlight more reviews will result in more thumbs. So, if someone thumbs a review, and you get a notice that they did so...and you happen to know and like this user...there is a better chance you'll read the review. And then and only then is there a chance you will thumb the review.

I voted yes in the original poll. I don't care much about who thumbed my reviews, and I'm not bothered either way about my name being attached to thumbs. I really can't see how just having names attached will add to the total number of thumbs. If this feature leads to some way of tracking reviews I've thumbed, that will absolutely make me thumb more often.

#263: I agree that few thumbs is probably indicative that few people read reviews. But that needs more serious efforts to fix in my opinion, namely spoiler flags. I'm simply not going to read reviews here of books I haven't read without it, and despite the huge controversy the issue provokes, I'm positive I'm not the only one who feels that way. But since that seems to be a non-starter, at least thumbs doing more would encourage people like me to thumb more on the few reviews I do read.

{sarcasm} Hey maybe this is where I can use FB to my advantage! ;) People love to post anything on FB with no spoiler flags at all about the latest tv show or book they've finished! It's like anarchy -- You have to shut off FB after something new comes out or you will hear what happened! This makes people on FB the loud-mouthed people the rest of the internet world despises. We don't want to be like them and spoil the endings for things, do we? {/sarcasm}

But seriously, I think that's another reason why groups help. If you know and can trust the review writer not to spoil the ending, you are more likely to read reviews before having read the book. So getting to know the person in a group makes it 'safer' to read the review.

Of course, by mentioning all of this I've probably just set you all further against names via my radical position on spoiler flags and FB, but whatever.

Skimming through this thread, I've come to the realization that I'm just not the kind of guy who enjoys watching sausage being made....

But if we have the option to "thumb" a review, shouldn't we have the option to "finger" one as well?

I'm just not the kind of guy who enjoys watching sausage being made

Yeah. Sometimes it feels that way to me too. Except I can't get people to make sausage. They want chorizo.

> 267

LOL!!

268> And some demand that you spell it chourizo. And others need it to say chouriço but the cedilla turns into unprintable gunk because of the code page.

Here ya go
One review, no thumbs
Sausage
Have at it.

Mmmmmmmmmm . . . . sausage!

First off, I want everyone to realize have not read all 272 posts in this thread, so I have no idea what the consensus is. I do know this: Anything that makes LibraryThing more like Facebook gets an automatic and hopefully very loud NO from me. I hate Facebook and anything much like it.

The other thing that comes to mind is that the member names of the people giving a review thumbs up would just clutter the page; or there would need to be a separate page for that information...

I rarely thumb reviews, and when I do give a review thumbs up, I want to remain anonymous by default. I don't want to have to think about selecting whether or not to be anonymous. If this is implemented, I'll simply stop giving out ANY thumbs up. I don't thumb recommendations either, and for the same reason.

Like ari.joki, I am not all that social. From the number of my posts here on LT and other places, you might not think that's true... but there is this: On LT and on those other places I have assumed a name that's ummm semi-anonymous... very few know who I really am. I would not wish to be contacted because I thumb someone's review.

38.>>> If we could rate reviews kinda like we rate our books (1-5) instead of just thumbs up or down the feature might be more useful... but I would still want it to be anonymous.

34. >> My standards are similar to yours. I don't thumb a review because I agree with it. In fact, I think I've more often thumbed the reviews that state an opinion opposite to my own because they are well written and give valid reasons for the point of view... and in either direction, such a review deserves a thumb... or, if it were possible, even two thumbs.

Tim:

I would - if there were a way to differentiate merely good reviews from excellent ones - possibly consider thumbing merely good reviews. But, until and unless there is a way to differentiate, I will not thumb reviews I consider to be "merely good." Perhaps changing thumbs to a rating system similar to the way we rate our books would work to provide this differentiation.

Either way, I do not want my name attached and will stop using thumbs at all if the default is other than anonymous. And yeah, I did mention that a couple of times, but anonymity is important to some...

Until reading this thread I had not noticed that it was possible to sort reviews by number of thumbs up. I shall try that more often when there are large numbers of reviews. And I shall be curious about who is giving thumbs up and why. I think I am moderately in favour of being able to identify thumbers. But whether or not this change happens, the most useful thing to come out of this for me is being alerted to the sort option.

I haven't given out many thumbs to reviews because I see so few of them. I find 'hot reviews' useless. And when I'm looking for a new book to read I tend to avoid reviews because of spoilers. So the only reviews I really see are those that crop up when, say, I'm looking for a book that is part of a series and I see a review on a book I've already read in that series.

I'd certainly like to see reviews highlighted in some more useful manner, have them easier to find, and have a way to highlight reviews not because the books are so popular but rather via some other criteria.

I'd love it if we had a way to limit reviews we choose to see by our own interests. I'm currently reading fantasy so I'm not interested in reviews of say, autobiographies.