Better recommendations: Display

Blog post: http://blog.librarything.com/main/2015/02/better-recommendations-display/

Example:



Let me know what you think.

Note: We know that the various changes to recommendations have broken some stuff on member recommendations (like "why"). Those are next on the list. We needed to get this out before we could make progress on anything else related to it.

I thought at first I wasn't seeing this, but it looks like it's just not on member recommendations yet?

You may have the module turned off on your home page and/or minimized on work pages.

What I meant was that I was still seeing the old display. But then I actually looked at the blog post and saw that it wasn't on member recommendation pages yet, which is what I think of when I think of "recommendations." Sorry.

Right. It's not on member recommendations yet. That's a very different kettle of fish. Next.

>1 timspalding: I liked the last incarnation where if you opened the voting on one work page it stayed open on all work pages until you closed it. Made it much more likely that I would vote. I'm personally not fond of covers but it looks snazzy.

Click the pencil to choose to have the voting stick.

Okay, I've hidden the covers, so now I can actually look at the quality of the recommendations.

>5 timspalding:

Oh, you don't need to tell me that "recommendations for your library as a whole" (using that construction to avoid confusion with "recommendations provided by members") is a different thing from "recommendations for this item." Remember I actually work on recommendation engines.

Correction. The voting isn't sticking.

>8 lorax:

Well, they're connected. We don't calculate member-to-books-to-members-to-books, or something. We aggregate all the recommendations for the works you have, and then do fancy stuff to it.

At present, the UI is totally different. We have to bit off things in pieces.

"We aggregate all the recommendations for the works you have, and then do fancy stuff to it."

That sounds very masonic.

How does the whole "limiting the number of times an author appears on a line" work if one uses the text only display? Are there lines (depending on my screen resolution?) under the hood, so to speak?

I like the covers.

Why is "recommended for you" not a separate module that we can move and hide independently? I go to the recommendations module to find other books of interest, not to assess whether I'll like the book that I'm currently looking at.

Didn't you say that it was not supposed to recommend earlier books in the same series? Curtsies and Conspiracies is recommending Etiquette and Espionage.

>11 AndreasJ:

Nice catch. Actually, yeah, we're presuming the cover view for that. It works out about right—6-8 is normal—and it doesn't cause any confusion when jumping between views.

Why is "recommended for you" not a separate module that we can move and hide independently? I go to the recommendations module to find other books of interest, not to assess whether I'll like the book that I'm currently looking at.

Yeah, I think most users will usually want it there, but it should be separately moveable. I'm a little concerned that, if people only see it rarely, they won't understand what it is when asked to move it. But anyway it should be moveable. That's work I don't want to do right now, given priorities, though.

>13 _Zoe_:

Ooh, nice catch. I'll take a look at this, and why it's working for HP and not this.

It looks good on a big screen, but it's not comfortably readable on an iPad. Single-column was much better. (With covers you only get four in a row, and the titles under them are truncated to uselessness.)

But anyway it should be moveable. That's work I don't want to do right now, given priorities, though.

Thanks. Now what we need is an RSI tracker like the bug tracker, so that it will be remembered at some future date ;)

>15 thorold:

It was double-column before, though. Shall we single-column it if it's too narrow?

Will be back soon. Gotta go make dinner!

Sort of a side question, but will you be using this cover with title and author display elsewhere on the site? It would be nice for currently reading on the profile pages, for example.

Not seeing the Lists on the Work page anymore. Actually, it does show up when I restore to the default order, but not when I try to reorder the modules.

Also, gray checkmarks are showing on cover display but not when you go to list view. Blue and green checkmarks are showing on both views.

ETA I really like the cover display, very nice.

ETAA But I'm glad we can still switch back to the old top 10 view, since the number of covers changes depending on the device I'm using and the size of my browser window.

>17 timspalding:
I think single-column would work better on narrow screens. When most title/author pairs run onto a second or third line, it gets hard to scan down the list. I suppose the other thing to try might be to distinguish the author names from the titles typographically.

How much are same-author books supposed to be suppressed? And does it consider books with multiple authors? I notice that The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson recommends two other books by Sanderson, and also two more books written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. That seems like a bit much for the first four recommendations.

Also, I think there's too much repetition among other authors as well. Looking at the first 21 recommendations for The Alloy of Law, there are only six different authors represented (seven if you count Robert Jordan separately, but it's only the co-written books that appear).

>24 _Zoe_: Agreed - While OSC's Gate Thief is an excellent rec for the Mistborn series, Alcatraz is a crappy one, and Card's Pathfinder, while also {author} repetitive, would be a better rec.

Didn't you say that it was not supposed to recommend earlier books in the same series? Curtsies and Conspiracies is recommending Etiquette and Espionage.

Thanks. So, it WAS injuring that book—lowering its score by 30%. But that wasn't enough. I've changed it so that the process is more detailed. It looks at the series order, the series length, the date of the books in the series and an algorithmic measure of fiction/non-fiction-ness. Anyway, long story short, it's gone now.

Not seeing the Lists on the Work page anymore. Actually, it does show up when I restore to the default order, but not when I try to reorder the modules.

Ugh. Okay, I'll ask Ammar what's going on. He just revamped the format here, and I must have done something wrong when I moved the recommendations above the lists by default.

Also, gray checkmarks are showing on cover display but not when you go to list view. Blue and green checkmarks are showing on both views.

Okay, I'll look at it.

I think single-column would work better on narrow screens.

Will do in a sec.

How much are same-author books supposed to be suppressed? And does it consider books with multiple authors? I notice that The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson recommends two other books by Sanderson, and also two more books written by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. That seems like a bit much for the first four recommendations.

So, it's two per line, unless it runs out and gets desperate. But it only looks at the one lead author. Considering main (but not lead) authors would be a good addition, albeit fiddly for me.

I think single-column would work better on narrow screens.

Okay, what do you think now? It's now doing one or two columns depending on space. Is the break-point right?

>27 timspalding:
Thanks! - unfortunately I don't have the iPad around to test just now, but it's quite readable on an iPhone in landscape orientation. Changing window size on the desktop and reloading, the breakpoint looks roughly right: most title/author combinations are coming out on a single line.

I used the recommendations for The shape of water as my test book (it happens to be the most recent book I added): it turns out that 15 out of the 30 entries in "combined recommendations" are from the the same author. Possibly that's just a pathological case - prolific author in a genre (Eurocrime) that doesn't have any consistent collecting pattern to it?

Before I could collapse this section. Now I can't. Don't need this section. Why can't I collapse it like I used to?

I am noticing more films in the top few recommendations now. See A Clockwork Orange for an example. Or The Shining. I don't really like this but I'm not sure how to push them down the list. Maybe we should consider Stanley Kubrick as much of an author as Stephen King and Anthony Burgess?

Pencil-thingy still not keeping voting display open in later works.

>31 sturlington:

The pony:

Implement that damn format that's been 90% finished for months, and allow users to specify what format-types they want to exclude. Music, movies, perfumes, etc.

The less-ponyesque:

Use the relationships field (which they're already doing for contains/contained in) to downweight "is an adaptation of" (which is what's used here) as well.

>33 lorax: Do we have to have films in the "is an adaptation of" box? Aren't film adaptations already entered in the CK? The less-ponyesque solution would probably work but at the risk of down-weighting other more interesting adaptations, if there are such a thing.

>34 sturlington:

Yeah, I'm hesitant, but since we know that other types of relationships are already used that would be easy to implement. I think film may be in CK but not linked to works.

You could also kludge it by downweighting things with "film" in square brackets in the title, but that gets really fiddly when there's a Right Way To Do It, admittedly one that relies on an awesome new feature that isn't released yet (though Tim promised it "soon" six months ago or so, after it accidentally got pushed.)

>35 lorax: The definition in the help for "is an adaption of" is: Use for cases where Work B is an adaptation of Work A in a different format or for a different audience and the two examples are both for plays, but there's nothing to say that a different format might be for a picture book or a pop-up book.

Plus some people might well be interested in getting film recommendations for a book they liked.

>36 jjwilson61: *shrug* It's a minor annoyance to me, I'm willing to live with it.

Yeah, I was just speculating on ways to push films down, should Tim decide that's desirable. (I happen to think it would be, too, but my views on listing them here are well-known.) Honestly I think unless they're going for the full pony of letting users choose whether or not to see films and basing it on the format rather than the "adaptation" identification it's not worth it.

I am noticing more films in the top few recommendations now. See A Clockwork Orange for an example. Or The Shining. I don't really like this but I'm not sure how to push them down the list. Maybe we should consider Stanley Kubrick as much of an author as Stephen King and Anthony Burgess?

Only one movie there, though. (The other recs are not good, but that's another story.)

Overall, I'm okay with movies in the recommendations. But others are not, clearly. More opinions?

Pencil-thingy still not keeping voting display open in later works.

We're working on it.

>39 timspalding:

I would really hate seeing movies in the recommendations. It gives the lie to "Oh, people can do whatever they want with their catalog and it won't affect anyone else." If you want to prevent people from downvoting them with extreme prejudice - which is unfair to people who DO want to see them, since if you're going to recommend films for A Clockwork Orange the film of the same title would be the one to recommend - you may want to consider how people can prevent themselves from seeing them across the board. (See the pony mentioned upthread.)

I don't want to see any! I want to collapse that box like I used to, no matter whether movies are in or out.

>39 timspalding: Overall, I'm okay with movies in the recommendations. But others are not, clearly. More opinions?

I'd be happiest if I never saw a movie in a LT rec.

(Similarly for perfumes, bobcats, ex-boyfriends, and other non-booky things people may chose to catalogue; but I doubt that's an issue in practice.)

>43 Collectorator:

See above. We're working on it. (Specifically Ammar is.)

I've mostly ignored (in the sense of reading, but not commenting on) this thread, since I just don't use any of the various forms of Recommendations here on LT. However, on the vague chance that I might someday, I'd like to put in that I'd be perfectly happy to not see movies mixed in with books. Please.

I find it annoying enough when they show up as suggestions for book covers. Yet one more NO vote for films showing up in recommendation lists.

Movies in recommendations make me really unhappy. I like books, I like movies, but the notion of one of these art forms forming the basis for recommendations in the other -- no, just no.

Okay, I'll figure out what to do. Would people be very unhappy to see them in a separate section on the recommendation page?

That feels right to me. Keep them segmented.

Except that, for now, movies will recommend both books and movies.

No movies...personally, I'd rather not see any movies on LT. IMHO they are a totally different beast even though they are quite frequently adapted from books.

Idea - why doesn't someone start a MovieThing? I've seen other web sites that help to catalog movies, but nothing as great as LT!!

On the work page for The assassin's blade by Sarah j. maas I am recommended 2 books in the series I own.

The recommendations on the work pages don't exclude books that you have, instead it marks them with a check mark. It's the overall recommendations on your Recommendations page where it excludes books that you have already cataloged.

Oaky, movies are now removed from recommendations, unless the work is itself a work. They are put on the recommendations page, at the bottom, under movies.

See https://www.librarything.com/work/113/recommendations/86097198
Or https://www.librarything.com/work/318000/recommendations showing movies in general and at end.

Example:


This only works if the work has been identified as a movie. So there needs to be a way to specify it, if it isn't already guessing it.

>49 rretzler:, there is a sort of LT clone for movies, created by one of our members: Take 11.

>52 timspalding: Thanks for separating out the movies. Any progress on the issues I reported in >20 sturlington: and >21 sturlington:?

>52 timspalding: Wow, that's great!

>48 Collectorator: I think the pencil-thingy I've been talking about is related to your concern.

I would like recommendations for books when looking at a movie.
I would probably prefer not to have ones for movies when looking at a book.

But I would not mind seeing the movie based on the book in the recommendations.

But I would not mind seeing the movie based on the book in the recommendations.

Yeah, that's my feeling too--that having a single movie recommendation (A Clockwork Orange for A Clockwork Orange) is good. But I think I'm in the minority here.

I would like recommendations for books when looking at a movie.

You get both. I could try to make it more mixed, but I'm going to leave it for now. Movie recommendations are not a focus, and programming takes time away from other things that could be programmed.

There is an enormous amount of recs for other Sue Grafton books here: https://www.librarything.com/work/10174/recommendations/40548185 but perhaps that's not much to do about?

>58 anglemark: Yeah, I think two per line may still be too much, for the other authors as well. In the first 21 recommendations for that work, I see 6 Sue Grafton, 6 Sara Paretsky, and 6 Janet Evanovich. That's not super helpful.

There is an enormous amount of recs for other Sue Grafton books here: https://www.librarything.com/work/10174/recommendations/40548185 but perhaps that's not much to do about?

At present only the first section, LibraryThing Combined Recommendations, has the two-per-line principle. I don't really want to do it to the others--some, especially the tags, are often 90% one author, so it would really look odd if that was put into place.

But I don't know.

>58 anglemark: anglemark: Yeah, I think two per line may still be too much, for the other authors as well. In the first 21 recommendations for that work, I see 6 Sue Grafton, 6 Sara Paretsky, and 6 Janet Evanovich. That's not super helpful.

Are the others that are there actually good, though? They're very low done, rank-wise.

>52 timspalding:

This only works if the work has been identified as a movie. So there needs to be a way to specify it, if it isn't already guessing it.


Ahem.

Yes, I know. It's complicated.

Okay, the open/close is now available for the work section.

Actually, I spoke too soon. It doens't stick right. Ammar's looking at it.

Okay, "Why?" is now working again.

Hi,

Here's 'Mrs Obscurity' again (from this bug http://www.librarything.com/topic/179383; thanks for the new badge by the way :-). Could we have the numbers (expected ... found ...) back in the 'people with this book also have' sections of the recommendations page?

>20 sturlington: that was quite a good catch. It had to do with resetting the defaults(from our end). Anyways, you should have 'Lists' back even if you reorder you sections.

On an unrelated note, the opening/closing of the 'LibraryThing Recommendations' section is currently not persisting. Im going to work on it Monday and hope to have it working then.

>68 stortemelk: Thanks for letting us know, I was about to mention it!

So far I rarely used recommendatins. The reason:

I am using the German site of LT. So far and in the new style all recommendations are using english titles and covers. This is not only a thing of language. It is also a thing of style of the covers. Publishers and genres use different "styles" in different countries.

For me is this kind of information a big point in choosing books to read.

That makes it quite hard to recognise recommended books shown in american/english mode.

I would like it much more, if recommendations would use the titles and covers of the language from the site I am using LT.
If I have got a book in my library I would prefer the cover of my selection.

I suspect this is something about my catalog, but automatic recommendations from Library Thing just don't work for me. On the home page the modules tick away but never fill, and on the recommendations page the script loads, but the page returned is always blank.

It's not the size of it, because ours isn't much smaller and we have no problems.

Ah. In that case i'll look at the bug reports and see if others have the same problem.

You're good, SBL.

Recommended for You is looking strange. The top bar is missing, though the name is there.

Recommended for You now looks like a normal module, except it still doesn't seem to be movable or closable.

Yeah, Ammar is readying a fix.

>78 timspalding: Thanks.

I've been finding the new style of recommendations interesting (it's interesting to see a new selection of books), but I also liked the old ones. The old ones seem to still be available under the recommendation tab, but that version still seems to have the problem of dropping certain numbers (I've never clicked the no thanks button, so that's not where they're disappearing to), and the dashboard version didn't seem to have that problem. Would it be possible to have both lists available on the dashboard?

Noticed that the gray checkmarks still aren't showing up in list view.

>71 birder4106:

In post 71 I have made a remark about recommendations in sight of a german speaking user of LT.
In never got a reply or an answer.

Is this due to my poor english writing?
Or is out there no interrest at this Point of view?

>82 birder4106: I think it is because this topic is not about Better recommendations in general, but about recent improvements to the recommendation system. Someone may have noted your comment, but it's better for this topic to stay on subject. People really want 'New Features' discussions to be just about the new feature.

Why don't you make a request in the Recommend Site Improvements Group?
https://www.librarything.com/groups/recommendsiteimprov
There it can get the attention it deserves.

I have to say that I hate the shelf displays, and this one won't stay changed. I have to change it everytime I look at recommendations on a work page, so I've closed it and won't see them at all.

How/Where can we change the number of displayed recommendations on a work page? Currently I'm getting a list 90 long, which is a lot of scrolling to get past if I'm just trying to get to the reviews... yes I could re-order the modules, but I don't want to see that many most of the time anyway.

>83 MarthaJeanne:
Thank you for your message.
I wont't make a new entry at RSI.

Most of the wishes stuck in the to-do-Pipeline.
In my opinion, existing things should work well first.

>84 MarthaJeanne:

To change it permanently, click on the pencil icon after you make the change.

I could make any change force a permanent change. Do we want that?

How/Where can we change the number of displayed recommendations on a work page? Currently I'm getting a list 90 long

Are you getting this when you come in? It should give you a smaller list (one line, or, I think, 20). Then it expands, in stages for covers or all at once. Are you getting everything when you come in?

I would like it much more, if recommendations would use the titles and covers of the language from the site I am using LT.

Well, it DOES prefer the language title, when it has it. It does not, as you say, prefer the appropriate language ISBN. I'm going to look at what it takes to do this.

>87 timspalding:

I could make any change force a permanent change. Do we want that?

Yes. It's tremendously non-intuitive not to have this sort of change stick - people generally either want covers or text, and a change should be respected, not changed as soon as you look away so that it's "Come on, I know you didn't mean it when you switched to text!"

>88 lorax: Agreed.

Although I'm not completely sure what constitutes "any change". Hopefully just the selections in the top right? Because I often click "show more", but that doesn't mean I want three rows of recommendations to be the default.

Right. Just the overall mode.

The change is now live. The pencil is gone forever. Change it by changing it.

I made one additional change--the "main" or " combined" recommendations module on the work and recommendations pages are controlled separately, so changing it from text to covers, or whatever, will not change it both places.

>90 timspalding: Thanks.

One thing I still find a bit awkward is the wording of "see complete recommendations", because what that actually means is "see all recommendation types". On more than one occasion, I've clicked "show more" and then "see complete recommendations", and was unpleasantly surprised to find that "complete recommendations" actually shows fewer recommendations of the type that I was trying to see (i.e., it reverts the three lines of recommendations to one line, but shows more recommendation categories). Obviously what I actually should have done is click "show all", but I think the wording could be improved to clarify the distinction between those two options.

>87 timspalding: as I come in, no option to collapse or expand.

But clicking about a bit, it seems that I have the voting option turned on. Turning that off and it behaves more sensibly.

I would like it much more, if recommendations would use the titles and covers of the language from the site I am using LT.

Okay. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/187877



But clicking about a bit, it seems that I have the voting option turned on. Turning that off and it behaves more sensibly.

Ah, yes. Voting behaves differently.

I do love this function!! For me this has now become my go to for finding new books.
I also love the voting feature.....

Thanks! :)

Is this cover/title/author display going to be used anywhere else, like for Currently Reading on the profile?

Yes. Is that the next thing we're working on? No.

If only there were some sort of RSI tracker, so that we'd know whether a given improvement was something that you planned to get to eventually....

>93 timspalding: and
https://www.librarything.com/topic/187877

Thank you Tim

But why does it hardly have an effect on recommendations at my "home"-page?
Most of the covers are still the english ones.

Yeah. I guess that uses different code. Unfortunately, for now, this has to take a back-seat to other projects. But it will be worked on, when I have the chance.

>100 timspalding:

Thank you for the answer.
I am looking foward.