Lists, stage 2 (Part II)

The link to the lists is here

I started a new forum to discuss particular lists (until we get some kind of comment/forum feature in Lists). I hope this hasn't already been done. I couldn't find anything.

My current peeve is that the "You might be interested in" section includes a number of lists that I have participated in, including Favorite Books and Favourite 19th century fiction, which hold the first two slots. Worse still, it includes lists that I actually started -- such as my Best Nonfiction about Tudor England which holds the third slot.

2> Yes, that bugs me, too. I think most of the "you might be interested in" are ones I've participated in, but I voted up/down a lot of lists last week.

Having a look at the Favorite Books and Favourite 19th century fiction list above I realised I would realy like a filter somewhere to show books "I own"/"don't own"/"All"

>4 oszymandias:

Yes, me too

I've been playing with the Lists feature today and I like it very much. I think I may finally be able to give up Lists of Bests, which I hate. There's just one thing that I wish. I wish my lists were more prominent or that I had them all on one page, so that I could easily access them.

Also, is there a way to see from a book's page which lists it's on?

7> No, but that's something that Tim was talking about adding.

>1 aulsmith:

Thanks for that, aulsmith. Just joined.

The main Lists page should have a "hot" section that combines active and recent.

Commentary:

I think it foolish to have both a series set listed and the individual books of the series in lists.

Example: Best Fantasy Novels
Contains: Harry Potter (books 1-7 boxed set) and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Is there anyway to adjust it so that the same book isn't listed twice like this?

It's yet another place I wish took contained in/by into account.

Which one would you get rid of, though?

#13 by @_Zoe_> Aye, there's the rub. I don't think there is one single good answer. I think the best first step is to just not allow one entry to be contained in OR by another. Possibly yet another option you can turn off if you want to on the list, but on by default.

And to answer the next question, I think it's something that should probably be tested on adding a book, only. Going back and changing a contained in/by shouldn't try to go scan all lists and modify them based on the new state.

#13, 14

It depends on the list. I think that series should also be taken into account.

Best Series - You can list just the first book or the box set, but not both.

Best Novel - Then an individual novel is required, rather than a set. If you like the set, list each book. Allow people to point out that book 2 is horrible thought book 1 and 3 are great. (jim butcher as my example of this.

I'm not sure where to post this question, but can books mentioned in lists be linked on the work page to the list somehow? As in a category of the lists, so people can see a list they might find interesting? I only just discovered these lists through the forum design change and had absolutely no idea they existed before.

I don't think that's currently possible, but agree something like that would be nice.

I still think lists are undercooked. Reading the original discussion a few of us (who hardly ever agree) had a couple of years ago - see http://www.librarything.com/topic/112336 - a number of the use cases remain poorly served (or even not at all) by the current implementation.

Just curious why/how lists in which I participate are added to "My Lists?" I have added items to my own version of two lists which do not appear under My Lists. It seems there is an update delay on this, perhaps? Also, I see modules for recent and active lists; is there one for My Lists which I am missing? Never mind, there it is! My first question remains though....?

Could someone explain how 'scores' are calculated for books on a list?

I found a sample list where only one person has participated, and ranked 10 books: https://www.librarything.com/list/9755/all/Top-10-Teen-Fiction

So it looks like a first-place ranking is worth 4, second-place is 3.36, 3rd is 3.04, 4th is 2.83, 5th is 2.68, 6th is 2.56, 7th is 2.46, 8th is 2.38, 9th is 2.31, and 10th is 2.25.

Then for each book it adds together the scores for each individual person who has it on their list, based on their ranking.

>20 RuMuse: There are two different scoring systems depending on how the list owner sets it up. The easiest is one point per vote. However, that's not the default, so you don't see that as much. The other system gives 4 points to the book you have first on your personal list. The score then lowers as you go down your list. At some point it stops lowering the score and just gives the same number of points to all the rest of your books. (It's at around the 15th to 20th book, Zoe figured out the exact number at some point)

In the "4 point" scoring, any thumbs down is a fixed amount subtracted from the total score. I don't know the exact amount. It's something like .5.

In the "1 point" scoring, I think one thumb down is one point off.

Recently I started participating in a list - http://www.librarything.com/list/1025/all/Books-Read-in-2014 - and it occurs to me that I really wish adding to a list was something we could do from either catalog (like we can with collections) or the edit your book page or both. For me, it might encourage me to participate in more lists. Like the Books Read in 2014 list - we only have 39 people using it, but it could be a lot more. What can be done to make this feature more fun and visible?

I'd also like a way to see the new books added. Right now I sort by date, but I can't tell what day the books were added and I don't know that it's accurate.

When the list is bumped up on a list you follow or participate in, assuming you have it showing on the home page, the new books should be at the bottom of the title list at right on the list's main page. Easy way to check what's already there. You can recognize what you've already seen before?

Add to list when editing a book sounds accessible, giving a tick box next to each option. And ability to hide the function if wanted. Or make separate section on book work?

>25 Collectorator: Me, too. I just ignore 'em.

I've found lists extremely useful when people are looking for a book title/author and the only thing they know is a specific topic. I couldn't care less about the 'scores' and 'thumbs down' stuff, don't find it useful.

Lists still feel very half arsed and incomplete... Worthless...

>21 _Zoe_: and >22 aulsmith:: thank you for the explanations.

I have difficulty assigning stars to my books. Ranking them (or a subset of them) numerically would be impossible (and a worthless exercise).

The simpler system (one point per vote) strikes me as slightly more useful as a measure of popularity.

>29 RuMuse: "Useful" depends on the purpose of the list. If the purpose is ranking in order of what people feel are the "best" in a category, then non-weighted votes wouldn't do much. If the purpose is to collect "worthwhile" titles in a category, then non-weighted would be more beneficial.