Interesting GoodReads content on FB inspires me to use GR account next year

I keep seeing nice posts summarizing people's reading for 2015: there's a count of the books read, with the average number of pages, and whether they met their reading goal for the year, and pictures of all the covers.

And I know LT hates anything to do with reading and has long been happy to cede that ground to GR, but it still makes me sad. I'd like to see this site advertised in my newsfeed instead.

Meanwhile I think I'll start maintaining my reading records in GR as well for 2016, because they always seem to be adding nice new reading-related features.

If GR is a better fit for you, then by all means use it.

I'll stay here because we have very active and lively reading threads and discussions in several groups I'm in. That's all I want, and what with all the cataloging features, etc., it makes it very easy for me to find any information I want on my books/reading as well as others. Besides, I've come to care about the people here and I wouldn't want to lose touch with any of them.

Edit: After reading the title of your thread again, I see this has to do with FB content. It seems to me the nature of the two sites, Goodreads and LT are different. I'm not sure what the GR nature is because I didn't care for the noise there enough to explore, but this is a cataloging site, which happens to have a social aspect to it. At least that is how I understand it. People who catalog books generally read them and occasionally enjoy talking about them, but love having all the specifics of cataloging them. That is why I chose this site over any others I've come across.

My FB feed doesn't have one post from any Goodreads people. Not sure why, most of my friends are either here or nowhere, some do participate on GR, but I guess not that aspect. I like sharing my reviews on FB, but aside from about three other LT friends, I am the only one in my set who does so.

I have a cousin (whom I am otherwise fond of) who shares her Goodreads reviews (such as they are) on FB. I'm grateful that FB gives me the ability to hide those posts, which I do, instantly. I'm more interested in her pictures of grandchildren, or vacations.

I prefer an intellectual life. I find it here, and not there. It seems rather the difference between a Library and Starbucks. I can make my own coffee, thanks.

I also find it sad that LT has and promotes such an elitist attitude.

Many of my Facebook friends are intellectuals. They hold PhDs and have devoted their whole lives to intellectual discovery. LT certainly surpasses them in snobbishness, but not in intelligent discourse.

There was a time when I would have said that LT appealed to a more intellectual crowd, but at this point LT has been so thoroughly eclipsed by GR that that's no longer the case. People of all types use GR rather than LT.

Anyway, many of the people I see posting from Goodreads are actually people I met on LT, who make regular use of both sites.

*sigh*

It was the elitist attitude here that has stopped many fellow BookCrossers from joining LT in the past. I gave up trying to convince them to come here instead of to GR.

Some of the reading features that GR uses would be great on LT. I've always (for years now!) wanted page counts and percentage of book(s) read. It can't be that difficult of a feature to create.

I also track books on Bookcrossing so I really don't want to use yet a third site.

*another sigh*

I don't think that acknowledging that this site has a different focus from GR or BC is "elitist". It's just different. No site can be all things to all people, and there is nothing wrong with that.

>6 lilithcat:
Exactly. I'm not moving to GR, because I want a cataloging site rather than a reading one. Many of my peers don't really share my taste in books, and I'm fine with that: I don't need to be told that they're reading something I wouldn't be interested in, and I won't inflict my reading on them.

I'm not moving to GR, because I want a cataloging site rather than a reading one.

Yes, this. I have no interest in # of pages or percentages of books read or being informed of what everyone else is reading or posting reviews on FB. So I'm happy with LT's features, and with the lovely people I've met here--the community aspect is just lively enough for me without descending into noise. (Is LT more for introverts and GR for extroverts?) It's a pity that you're not finding what you want or need here. But it doesn't make LT wrong--just wrong for you, perhaps.

I find it a little over the top to declare that LT hates reading, though.

>6 lilithcat: "I don't think that acknowledging that this site has a different focus from GR or BC is "elitist". It's just different."

That's not how comments like "I prefer an intellectual life so I'm not on GR" come across.

>9 saltmanz: Perhaps it did sound elitist, but it was me that said it. I've always found @lilithcat to be kind.

I made the comment above while drinking my first cup of coffee. I do tend to develop manners during the second cup. Let me rephrase a bit:

I don't participate in most of the social aspects of LT, unless you want to consider Spam Fighters! to be a social group (sometimes it is, in a narrow sort of way). GR seemed not to lend itself to my interests in the same way as LT has, and I admit that my interests are esoteric.

The line about LT not being about reading was probably what made me respond. I know some who collect books that they never read. I love my books, even the ones that I read with (not kidding here) white glove on, so as not to harm the fragile pages. There are some recent items that I would never have found had it not for LT (J. D. Beresford and The Wonder, for example), and I always welcome an introduction to such unique items.

GR may be just too large for someone like me. It doesn't mean it's bad, it's just not for me.

Being something of a confirmed |f| resister (early adopter, early deactivator), I think I can see the commonality of culture and/or function between |f| and GR that shows why I prefer LT to GR.

I wouldn't mind a few more reading features, though. I'd be especially interested in ones that exploit the "Currently Reading" default collection. Like the one that sadly went away, where the work page would show which users were "Currently Reading" that book.

I love LT for the -well- quietness it radiates (though I could do without the elitist/snappish posts), but I would also love the (really very, very nice!) overview of books-read-this-year some friends posted on FB. For me, having the overview itself would be enough. I don't need/want LT to post stuff on FB for me. I can do that just fine by myself. Would it be so hard to implement something like that?

I tried Goodreads ... briefly ... and it wasn't for me. It was just lousy for cataloguing and I wasn't looking to extend the 'social' past the groups and people on LT, which is a great fit for me.

That said, what drove me to try it was to see if I could use it for 'extras' rather than as an LT substitute. I'd love to see proper use made of the Currently Reading collection, I miss the feed-in to the work page that disappeared. I use external tickers to track page counts/progress but it would be lovely if there was some kind of embedded way of doing this.

That said, for me these are really minor things and I have work-arounds. I wouldn't want LT to begin a slow creep over to a Goodreads-type site. Bigger isn't necessarily better ...

I find it a little over the top to declare that LT hates reading, though.

Well, here's Tim's take on the matter:

The GoodReads system divides the world of books into "read," "currently reading" and "to read." It implies that books are about read-ness. Some people clearly want that. But I can safely say that many LT users do not. For my part, I think that's an impoverished way to see your books—the way people see books who aren't fundamentally book lovers, let alone collectors.

People who want to mark which books they've read "aren't fundamentally book lovers". That's a pretty extreme position.

I think Tim's statement here as being more about inclusivity--that there's a place in LT for collectors as well as readers, for a broader book universe. I don't see it as hating reading. But YMMV.

>15 Marissa_Doyle: I think Tim's statement here as being more about inclusivity

I agree with that.

One thing I do appreciate about LT is that it does corral book promoting pretty severely. Most social networking platforms are littlered with promotional stuff, so the lack of it here is refreshing.

Then too, the extensively options on the cataloging side has helped me to become far more intimately acquainted with my own library -- I feel like I "know" my books better for it, and that's something not really possible when your only option is to put your books on various "shelves."

I would like to see more of the catalog info in Talk, though, and a way to access it better for finding good discussion. The "Your Books" options aren't so useful if you have a large library. It would be nice to have talk filtered by your collections or something, so you could see who else was talking about books you were currently reading or planning to read.

>15 Marissa_Doyle: It's not at all inclusive to say that one group's view of books is impoverished and that those people are fundamentally not book lovers.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. :)

FWIW, I think the GR year-end summary features are good. I do wish we had them.

LibraryThing needs better reading and reading-tracking features, that's certain. I'm have some good hopes that we'll have more bandwidth to work on them once TinyCat finally gets out in January. We've had a number of false starts with reading-tracking features. Nothing has hit the spot.

Even so, there is some method to the madness--that we've been focusing on making LibraryThing the best at what it's best at, not what it falls show on. We can't compete against GR on what it's best at. While reading-tracking isn't "social" per se, they are in synergy with each other. And social not something LibraryThing is going to beat GR at. There's nothing more futile than trying to do the same thing as another social site, but with a smaller user base, far fewer resources, etc.

To me, the big differentiator is "cataloging," broadly defined, and the various ways that this focus impacts the "feel" of the site (e.g., attitude toward promotion, data-heavy interface, etc.). That's why we've moved forward on TinyCat, and why the LT app focused strongly on cataloging—if you try to use their app to catalog, you'll see what I mean.

I'd like us to do more here—to include, not exclude. But we grow from being the best site to catalog, while they grow from being more of "FB for readers."

>14 _Zoe_:

FWIW, you're taking that out of context. As I said "for my part," that's how I see dividing the world into "read" and "unread," as against the default system LT currently has. Default systems are by nature both irrelevant—if you can add your own tags, for whatever—and important—they set the most common use. In general, LT models the world of books differently from GR. I find the LT way more in line with how many users think. But of course it's a self-selecting thing at this point too.

We aren't going to get a new reading system next week. But if members really want, we can make reading style collections default collections too. I just worry that the two systems don't go make sense together.

One thing that's unclear to me—are reading tracking and challenge tracking the same thing, at root?

>20 timspalding:
Well, I see challenge tracking as being competitive with oneself, whereas reading tracking is -- simply that! I think it's a personal preference.

I'm happy here. I don't do Facebook so I don't recognize any social loss. Also there are more groups here than I could ever manage.

I really have no idea what this person is talking about.

I'm glad to hear that you're still thinking about reading-tracking features and that you like the year-end summaries.

For the record, I don't see why reading-tracking is intrinsically more social than it is catalogue-related. It's a record of information about your books.

But I do think that even a site with a focus other than "social" would benefit from a certain amount of free social media advertising. I'd like to have more opportunity to show people about LibraryThing.

I've always thought that the default collections should focus on positive information ("Owned" and "Read"), which might be overlapping, rather than trying to separate books into discrete groups like "Owned but unread". Other groupings could be derived from that. But I know there's realistically no chance of the defaults ever changing.

In an ideal world, I think challenge tracking (and also list-completion tracking) would have to be separate from reading tracking, but with optional (opt-out) linkages in both directions. So I could fill in my reading information and have that autopopulate my challenge records, but I could also modify the challenge records afterwards to exclude short stories or whatever without losing the actual reading information.

I greatly value the cataloging here at LT, possibly because I do similar work professionally. Now that I know that way, I can't do it more casually again.

I'd also love to have an end of year reading summary. I manually create one with a calculator for pages and Your Books sorted by Finish date. I think last year I also exported my catalog and used Excel formulas to create Title by Author list. And then a screenshot of covers for visual interest.


It's not the first nor the last time that "automagical" computing fails to do all it can do--especially basics like math--to meet my particular need. Like the complex system we have at work where I input a lot of data and then have to beg for export from the sole programmer to compile my own reports.

One lovely example of a summary is Letterboxd. Having kept a "diary" of films watched during the year, it produces average ratings, total films, and the spread of genres and actors. Perhaps like GR, this site is focused on watching and reviewing films. To keep track of DVD/BD I own I actually use http://www.collectorz.com/ (and don't bother with their limited "viewing" tools).

The year in review for all of Letterboxd (2014): http://letterboxd.com/2014/. An example of one user: http://letterboxd.com/karl/year/2014/

>23 _Zoe_:

If I Own it, I Read it.

>19 timspalding: Please please please do not add more default collections! The only ones that should be default unchangeable afaic should be "your library" "currently reading" and "wishlist" since they have specific functions tied to them. Otherwise, it should be up to everyone if they want any of the other collections. Deactivating them and having empty ones sitting around is just pointless.

I also don't see how page tracking is social. I track my pages on a calendar or agenda (since we have no option to do so here), that is most decidedly not social!

And, while yes, "competing" with another site for the things "they do best" may be futile, it's also stupid not to have the features people would like to use just because they happen to be found on another site also. Like Zoe, I used to keep a GR acct for the tracking purposes because that wasn't here -- wouldn't it make more sense to give us ALL the good things we want to use rather than making people feel the need to use multiple sites for the same general purpose because they're not getting what they need out of just one? I would use GR for that stuff still except I feel no need to hand Amazon the data for everything I read; I wiped my account clear when it was announced they had bought it.

I'll agree, the GR year summary is one of the things I miss, but not quite enough to maintain two sites.

It was fun to see how many books, average rating, number of pages read all presented in a nice neat, visual package. And it put this year into context with other years. I know that most of that information is in LT, it's getting it out that's the less easy part.

I create collections for each year I read and then use the statistics page to figure out how many pages I read, etc. Works for me.

>20 timspalding: One thing that's unclear to me—are reading tracking and challenge tracking the same thing, at root?

I understand these to be distinct but with some overlap:

Reading tracking is focused on tracking progress through an individual work, so page numbers attached to multiple (open-ended) dates. Supports various metrics such as avg pages a day, and roll up to summarise across separate works, e.g. # works per year, # pages per year.

Challenge tracking is focused on tracking completion of works by a set point, e.g. 50 Books in 2015. This might also support similar metrics like avg pages a day or # works a year, but strictly speaking could be tracked with just an end date and a flag indicating whether a work was completed or not. A more robust approach would allow participants to identify works targeted but which may not end up having been completed (identify list of works to be read at the onset, then identify the subset completed by the end date).

But I imagine there's many different ways of participating in a challenge which may resemble more closely what I think of as reading tracking.

>29 elenchus:

Reading tracking is focused on tracking progress through an individual work . . .

Really? When I hear someone say they're tracking their reading, I assume they mean "I'm keeping track of which books I've read", not dates or numbers of pages.

>30 lilithcat: I'm using an app now that I turn on when I start reading, off when I stop, and tell it what page I stopped on. Which is nice, and is keeping track of what I read, but I wish it could do more. I'm also using a list here on LT with just the books I've read for the year, as the app doesn't split things up by year (and I only found it a couple months ago),

I'd really like to be able to look at reports of certain periods (year, month, past 30 days, etc), or reports of genre, author, publisher, and the like. I'd love to be able to sort by most pages, longest reading time, on and on. If LT did do something like this, I'd also like to see aggregated site wide statistics. Imagine an official list that incremented a work by 1 each time someone added something (or removed something) from their currently reading collection. We'd be able to see what the most read book on LibraryThing is by year. We'd be able to see if the "One Book, One LibraryThing" get more of us reading the same book than just what we manage to do on our own.

At its most basic I think that tracking reading is merely tracking what books you've read. There's just so much more data that can be gleaned if you've got the tools for it, which I love looking at. And this is where I think that LibraryThing could set itself apart from GoodReads when it comes to something like tracking reading. LibraryThing does great when it comes to data and statistics.

>31 bestem: I don't want my reading automatically added to site wide statistics. I would stop using Currently reading if it did that, and move my finishing dates to tags.

Since I don't use either GoodReads or Facebook, what they do is not interesting to me.

>31 bestem:

Well that type of reading tracking (last page on) doesn't work for a whole load of books - namely reference works.

Aggregated stats - well it obviously will only pick those stats up from people who use the feature. I know I wouldn't use it. Mainly because it is irrelevant to me - a book only takes a day or two, and I often stop one and start another immediately without breaking to update a tracking app.

I do track what I read, but not stuff like what page and so on. I know Zoe is really keen on this and so are some others but it will only produce a lot of data, great or not, if people use it. I imagine Tim knows how much the current tracking facility is being used (or if not he will probably do a query sometime soon) - both heavy users of the system, and those who have tried it a couple of times and no longer use it.

I use tags for what I've read each year. The rest of my statistics are personalized and I like them on an excel file in the order my brain processes them best. Now and then I go to the statistics page here for fun.

It is mildly amusing to see other people who are reading what I'm reading at the moment, but I would rarely follow up on it unless perhaps I already had a relationship with them here.

In the Green Dragon Pub we have reading threads for each member wishing to participate. These fulfill all my curiosity and social reading wishes. Each person designs their thread the way they want it. Some just list books, others thoughts on what they've read, others statistics. Love the individuality of it. Other folks think the reading threads may have taken over the pub, who knows?

I think some people are confused about how front and center the social aspects of Goodreads are. Yes, you can see what other people are reading and what comments they've made and so forth, but only if you want. The front page when you log in lets you look at that, if you want, called "updates" or "discussions", which is groups you belong to and what topics are being discussed in them, much like the "groups and posts" topics hear. The discussions page is all I ever look at. I could care less about the updates and I never have to look at it unless I go searching for it.

I enter and track my books both here and on GR and it doesn't cause me any particular consternation. The tracking feature on GR is much better and easier to use quite simply. I'm very glad that Tim added the start and finished dates with a drop-down menu on the book editing page. Reading tracking means both reading progress (which I use sparingly) and tracking what you've read in a year. The thing that GR does very well is it puts your currently reading books (and progress) right on the front page, along with a progress bar if you've set a reading goal. The nice feature is it has an "I'm finished" button right there when you are done that takes you to a popup to change the status of the book, rate it if you like and move it to different bookshelves. LibraryThing doesn't do pop-ups, and I wouldn't ask for that, but what would be nice would be a link in a module I could put on the front page that displays my currently reading and then takes me directly to the book edit page when I'm done.

I know some of these things can be teased out of statistics here, but that's not really the point. It's just much easier on GR. It's the difference between wanting cake mix and someone asking you, what, you don't have chickens? You just wait for them to lay eggs, take the wheat crop in and grind it into flour....

>35 tottman: I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the whole 'but only if you want to'. That was how it used to be. But now, if you have any books at all in your account you get so many freakin' GR.com spawned things it drives me crazy. (My guess is that at sometime in the future there will also be ads right in your feed as well).

In my opinion GR is good for some things, but it's not what it used to be. It used to be better, now it's worse. LT on the other hand, only always seems to get better, at least how I use it it does. (And, I'm one of the ones who uses it to keep track of stuff read, not just stuff owned too).

Personally I look at the two sites this way. GR is a night club. LT is a library. Neither is a bad place to be, I just prefer to mostly stay out of night clubs unless I have to go to one, while I love libraries.

For the record, I don't see why reading-tracking is intrinsically more social than it is catalogue-related. It's a record of information about your books.

No, not intrinsically. But it gets much of its force from the social—sharing what you're reading, following what other people are reading, and these sum-up reports.

The main thing we're missing here is page tracking—there's no way to do it on LT. It is, of course, the main thing I see on social media—all those "I'm 21% done with…" posts.

But I do think that even a site with a focus other than "social" would benefit from a certain amount of free social media advertising. I'd like to have more opportunity to show people about LibraryThing.

Also true. It's a question of stress and focus. Instead of an app, we could have doubled down on some unfinished reading-tracking features. But we had to choose.

In an ideal world, I think challenge tracking (and also list-completion tracking) would have to be separate from reading tracking, but with optional (opt-out) linkages in both directions. So I could fill in my reading information and have that autopopulate my challenge records, but I could also modify the challenge records afterwards to exclude short stories or whatever without losing the actual reading information.

I agree with you, but I think that, if I followed this, it would be another complexity rabbit hole, like trying to "track" multiple start and stop read dates. Sometimes a simple answer is better, both to program and maintain effectively, and for users.

It's been very interesting to see the comments on this thread. I'm not sure I would ever keep track of what I've read in such detail, but then, I'm often reading something I've read before. Multiple times, in some cases.

I review things as I think about it, but only in specific cases. If there are no other reviews, and I believe it will be helpful to someone, I'll add a review, trying very hard to say *why* something should be read without spoiling it for others. I seldom read reviews, unless it's something I've already read.

I studiously remove all the dimension things from books I add, considering it to be unimportant (to me). I noted, when I first joined, how often it was incorrect, and decided removing it was easier than fixing it. I'm unwilling to spend my time with a measuring stick (although I admit to doing it, at first).

Libraries are one of the best uses of my tax dollars, and I love them. I don't check books out, though, because of the rule about having to return them. Years ago, a librarian gave me an ancient (even then) copy of Black Beauty, which was being replaced with a new copy. She ruined me forever. Yes, I still have it, although I've not entered that particular copy on LT.

>35 tottman: what would be nice would be a link in a module I could put on the front page that displays my currently reading and then takes me directly to the book edit page when I'm done.

I routinely click "Currently Reading" in the Collections module on my homepage to get the Currently Reading collection catalog, and then I change a book's collection there and/or click edit to get to the book edit page. It seems a lot like what you're describing, to the point where I wonder what you want that's different.

>39 paradoxosalpha: If you're wondering what I'm talking about, just go to GR and see how it's displayed there.

I only use a bookmark to track my reading—very old school, I know—and I don't really care what anyone else is reading or that they have finished 21%. I suppose that's partly because I am very non-competitive. It all seems a bit OCD to me.

>40 tottman: If you're wondering what I'm talking about, just go to GR and see how it's displayed there.

When I "go to GR," I don't see anything like that. I'm not a registered GR user, how could I? If you mean "just go sign up for GR, give them some of your reading info, and see how they present it back to you," I'll take a pass, thanks. I was curious, but not that curious.

LT lets me do all the tracking I want already, but If others feel a need for more features then they should be considered for developing.

I'd really like to be able to look at reports of certain periods (year, month, past 30 days, etc), or reports of genre, author, publisher, and the like. I'd love to be able to sort by most pages, longest reading time, on and on. If LT did do something like this, I'd also like to see aggregated site wide statistics. Imagine an official list that incremented a work by 1 each time someone added something (or removed something) from their currently reading collection. We'd be able to see what the most read book on LibraryThing is by year. We'd be able to see if the "One Book, One LibraryThing" get more of us reading the same book than just what we manage to do on our own.

I agree with all of this.

No, not intrinsically. But it gets much of its force from the social—sharing what you're reading, following what other people are reading, and these sum-up reports.

The main thing we're missing here is page tracking—there's no way to do it on LT. It is, of course, the main thing I see on social media—all those "I'm 21% done with…" posts.

I actually think page tracking would be one of the more useless additions (it would exclude short books that people finish in a single sitting), and that the force of reading-tracking from an LT perspective wouldn't be about the individual sharing, but about the aggregation of data—basically everything bestem described above.

In an ideal world, I think challenge tracking (and also list-completion tracking) would have to be separate from reading tracking, but with optional (opt-out) linkages in both directions. So I could fill in my reading information and have that autopopulate my challenge records, but I could also modify the challenge records afterwards to exclude short stories or whatever without losing the actual reading information.

I agree with you, but I think that, if I followed this, it would be another complexity rabbit hole, like trying to "track" multiple start and stop read dates. Sometimes a simple answer is better, both to program and maintain effectively, and for users.

I don't particularly have a problem with LT combining them (I'd rather get something than nothing), but would there be any way to deal with challenges to read books of a certain type (books by woman authors, books set in different countries, etc.)? LT has some of that information and could automate some of it, but I think there might come a point where people want to specify whether a book that they read fit a certain category. But again, I'd prefer a minimal version of the feature to nothing.

>1 _Zoe_: Referring back to the main idea of seeing GoodReads posts on social media, maybe we (the LibraryThing users, not necessarily The Powers That Be) could challenge ourselves to post more from LT to social media in 2016? Those Facebook posts from GoodReads don't post themselves, after all.

>45 norabelle414: I do try to do that Nora but there aren't as many options when sharing content from my feed to FB, and more times than not it never actually shows up over there. Mind you, I don't share a tremendous amount from GR – mostly just a rating and/or review when I've finished a book.

>32 MarthaJeanne: I imagine if they were to implement such a thing, that they'd be able to make it opt-out. I am curious about why you wouldn't want to add to aggregate stats, although if you choose not to answer that's fine. The books in your catalogue are already added to aggregate statistics. Saying 5 people read book A, and 3 people read book B, and 2 people read book C, without saying anything about the people who read them, seems innocuous to me. I understand that some people don't think it is, but I'm at a loss as to why.

>33 andyl: Reading tracking can be implemented in many ways. "I read through page 256 of this book." "I read 25% of this book." "I read a short story in this book." "I read some of this book." "I read all of this book."

When I update my list here, I do it in batches, once a month or so. The only reason I'm so great about tracking on the app on my phone is because I'm also reading on my phone. Add in an optional "on X day" and an optional "over Y time period" and it could be updated en masse whenever an individual chooses to do so.

I don't use the current feature, because it doesn't do anything for me. Even if all it did was add to a site-wide list, I think I'd use it. Maybe not as much as I use the app, but once a month I could add a bevy of books to the collection, and take them out when I add the new books the following month.

If it did more for me, I'd use it much more.

>34 MrsLee: I'm really curious in my particular data more than I am in what others are reading. I just think it would also be interesting to see data of the site as a group.

I know that it took me 3 weeks to read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 10, and 5 days to read it 3 years later. I know I read mostly kids horror when I was in middle school (Bruce Coville, Goosebumps, etc), and mystery books at the beginning of high school. I know what book turned me onto fantasy when I was in high school (Magician, by Feist), but that's all I know for sure about my reading habits from before. I imagine being able to go back and watch how what I read changed over time, how I veered towards one author, then another. That's why I want to find an easy way to track things now. Both for me, and for any kids I may one day have.

I suppose I don't have a horse in this race because I can't see why I would want to be entering all that data. I have a hard enough time remembering to fill in start and finish dates.

One greyhound I do have in the race though, is that I find the "21% done with" postings (which I see on Facebook and Twitter) to be baffling. Why would anyone else care? But hey, if someone wants to share that info I'm not saying they shouldn't.

BTW, how does it work? Do you have to go to the website or an app every time you want to record something? That would be way too disruptive to read-flow for me. (My reading flow: look at the time, scold myself, stick in a bookmark, turn off the light!)

I suppose it also makes a difference that I'm in my mid-sixties, so starting now to track changes over time doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Too much data lost already.

Also, a huge part of my library is reference volumes that I might never read from cover to cover, but will refer to anywhere from once to regularly. As was said above, how would you data-record that?

I can see that many people love this level of tracking and feel very passionate about it. But for site-wide stats, you're not going to get a full view anyway, only stats from people who feel it's important to do the tracking. Which may be fewer users than you think.

>50 PhaedraB: So the way the app I'm using now works if I add a book (and make sure the page numbers are accurate). Whenever I start reading I go to the app on my phone and select the book from the list of currently reading books (for me, just the one book), and then start reading. It brings up something that counts the minutes, and at the bottom has a button that says "done".

I then switch apps if I'm reading on my phone, or just put my phone aside if I'm reading on my Nook or a paper book, and read like normal. I don't stop the app unless I'm done with reading for at least 5 minutes. If I'm just getting off the bus and will start reading again once I'm off, or ordering lunch, I just turn off the screen and put my phone in my pocket. When I'm done reading I look at what page I'm on and go over to the app (still open) and hit done, and it asks me what page I finished on. If it took me more than a combined 30 seconds starting and stopping each session, I'd be surprised. If it was difficult or time consuming, I wouldn't bother.

If LT implemented something on the website that was actually worth my while to use, I'd probably do it the same way. I'd have LT open in a browser and start the reading session, start reading, go back to the browser to finish the session at the end.

I am 47 56ths through my current book.

Also 75% done with packet of artificial cheese-flavoured wheat-based snacks, and 18mls of the way through a glass of white wine.

I thought that everyone would like to know.

P.S. My socks have a quarter of a day's wear left in them.

My take on this discussion is do you want to read books or talk about reading books? My view is that the second option cuts into the available time for the first option. That's one reason why I've never joined any local book clubs (apart from the books being discussed generally are of little interest to me).

>53 Maddz: Yes, this exactly.

>53 Maddz:

I don't know. Although I do it once in a while, talking about unfinished reading seems to have little value, unless to encourage someone else to sync up their reading with my own. Talking about recently completed reading, the way a book club usually does, can be very helpful, opening up new perspectives on the text, and allowing me to get more out of the effort that I put into reading it in the first place.

>1 _Zoe_: If you are going to go to all of the trouble for that kind of data entry why not take the extra step and spend some time learning a bit more about statistical analysis and really make it interesting - take the time to go beyond simple averages and percentages and move on to characterize the distributions of whatever it is that you are averaging (median, mode, standard deviation) and then use these statistics to test for significant differences in pages read as a function of things like text type, reader age, reader gender, etc. In order to do this, of course, you will have to do additional reading in order to gain an understanding of things like t-tests, ANOVA, linear regression...and if you do that (and find it interesting) you might want to consider a career in statistics.... :-).

Some good books along this line are:

Statistical Methods by Snedecor and Cochran
Applied Regression Analysis by Draper and Smith
and
Regression Analysis by Example by Chatterjee and Price

Even though I am a statistician who really enjoys his work, when it comes to books and personal reading statistics, I'm in the camp of >50 PhaedraB: , >52 MrAndrew:, and >53 Maddz: ... all I do with respect to reading tracking is put "NR" in the tag field to identify the books I own but haven't read.

My wife wanted me to record her reading on LT. I told her to use the gr app.

Personally I simply don't like GR, because I see it as just one more marketing tool. But, unlike you, I'm not interested in keeping track of reading dates and such. What ever works best for you.

The fact that I have an academic background, and want to catalogue my books as I see fit makes me elitist? The mere fact of having had higher education is a bad thing? Wow.

Nah, it's the air of superiority sometimes being perceived in certain comments that I can also sense that's triggering people. It's not necessary.

I tried GR and was frustrated that what they cataloged wasn't my exact edition. So I stayed here. Others have different goals. Let's all just leave it as that?

Good plan.

I'm just reeling with the news that LibraryThing hates reading.

I think I'll have to join MrAndrew in having a glass of wine while I ponder the repercussions of this information in my own life.

>56 alco261: Thanks for those recommendations. I actually would like to learn more about statistics at some point, though the effort involved really isn't comparable to the effort of entering completion dates for books read ;)

>58 Nicole_VanK: The fact that I have an academic background, and want to catalogue my books as I see fit makes me elitist? The mere fact of having had higher education is a bad thing? Wow.

I have no idea what this is responding to.

>61 RidgewayGirl: Well, it *does* emphasize the ownership of books over the reading of books. Otherwise we'd be able to add works to our libraries without caring what edition they are.

I think it is at least as important to get the editions of books I don't own. After all, the books I own I can easily check, but ones I borrowed or read and discarded, I need to be able to look up to see whether I read the edition that was revised in 2012 or the original.

>63 jjwilson61: Huh. I add library and borrowed books to my personal library all the time, as "read but unowned." And, yes, I do care about the edition that I read, but I guess that's unreasonable?

>65 RidgewayGirl: Yup, "read but unowned". You'll notice that even when talking about reading, the primary distinction that LT makes is whether you own the book or not. There's no default collection for all the books you've read; reading only matters insofar as it might give you a reason to catalogue a book that you don't own.

>66 _Zoe_: I've never felt this way. I enter every book I read, and tag things 'library' or 'from Les' if it's borrowed. All in one collection, which is my default. I think it just depends on who you're hanging around with how friendly that feels. Use LT for how you want to.

'To read' is also a default collection.

Plus... you can make any collection you want and they're no different than the default ones...

>44 _Zoe_: ...would there be any way to deal with challenges to read books of a certain type (books by woman authors, books set in different countries, etc.)? LT has some of that information and could automate some of it, but I think there might come a point where people want to specify whether a book that they read fit a certain category.

I think it would be really interesting to see an end-of-year roundup with this sort of sitewide statistic based on what we put in our Currently Reading collections, and with the option to expand the lists to see what titles fit each category, with numbers beside them indicating how many people read a title that year. I know (at least several of) the pieces for this exist, but have no idea what it would take for them to work together.

I don't use GR because I don't care for the layout and find it difficult to navigate in the ways I would like. I'm more of a web thinker, and find their browsing to be more linear. There isn't any information about a title there that I can't find more easily here (probably in large part because of how familiar I am with LT, but that counts in its favor, as I don't need to learn a new process). I also don't find the reviews to be as useful for recommendations, and I trust LT reviewers to either indicate spoilers or not to include them. Again, this is a very specific-to-me preference and reason for it, but those add up.

As to the social aspect of reading, in the same way that I will subscribe to comments on a blog post, which isn't something I'm likely to remember to go check of my own volition, I've always wished for the option to receive notifications on specific Talk threads. Yes I know I can star them, but I may not navigate out of my catalog for a few days, after which point the convo has "expired," as is the nature of the social media beast. While I don't love the frequent GR updates in my FB feed, it does serve as a personal rec from a trusted source, and I'd like a prompt of that sort for, for example, the readers I follow in the 75 Book Challenge group (with a Wishlist Add button while we're at it - my stable of ponies is vast).

>66 _Zoe_:
Hi Zoe. I don't understand what you find missing, although of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't use Goodreads if you find it better for your purposes (sorry for the double negative!). Does it matter what the default collections are when you can make any collection you want? This is what puzzles me. You don't have to add library books as "unowned" if you don't want to. I thought the point of that is rather benign — to know whether you have it at home or got it somewhere else in case you want to reread it. That's not elitist or against reading, is it?

I told myself I wouldn't get drawn into this conversation because it appears to be about a personal preference, but…here I am!

Happy New Year too.

k4k

>66 _Zoe_: Yes, "owned" is important to me, because I have a large collection of books I use for research purposes, and I really need to know what I own so that I don't go buying second copies of books that I've forgotten are already on my shelves. Which, ahem, I did several times before joining LT and cataloguing my research collection.

And I think it's important to remember that this IS a cataloguing site at heart, so of course ownership is going to be a central feature.

>71 krazy4katz: One of the issues is how the default collections can be used to produce aggregate data. As >70 kgriffith: was just saying, it might be interesting to see some site-wide data about what people read in a given year. So she suggested doing that using the "Currently Reading" collection, because in the absence of a basic "Read" collection that seems like the best approximation—but it excludes any books that were read in a single sitting. Aggregation could also be done using the Date Finished data, but LT doesn't really encourage people to use that field; it doesn't appear in any of the default display styles.

Happy new year!

>72 Marissa_Doyle: I never claimed that ownership was unimportant; I said upthread that I'd like to see default collections for both "owned" and "read".

Well, I put books in my library when I have read them, and in wish-list when I want to read them. I don't distinguish between owned and unowned books-- because I think I am basically an anarchist at heart. It works for me. But I think everyone here does things a little bit different, and the fun thing about the site is it allows for that.

I have never done good reads, so really can't compare, but I think this is better for me.

I'm fine with the focus on ownership - it's the main reason I use LT and if all social aspects were disabled tomorrow (it's hypothetical ... please don't get any crazy ideas! ;-) ), then I would still use LT regularly for that (although, obviously, I would miss you all :-) ) - it's why I joined in the first place. I don't think ownership focus and reading data 'perks' are mutually exclusive though. I don't think it's necessarily a war between social interaction about reading or more isolated personal cataloguing - there's room for both and some of the features I'd like, while they may be social for some, are ones I just want for myself. I like counting down pages on tickers, I like reading summaries, but I don't necessarily need to share them on FB or elsewhere (not that it bothers me if others do). One of the things I hated about Goodreads (there are quite a few things but this stood out), is that it automatically vomited a whole swathe of content to my FB feed (before I worked out where to go to disable posting) ... I'm sure none of my friends were interested in the fact that I read another 20 pages of my latest book. I also hate the fact that other people's activity is forced on you as what seems like a primary focus, especially on the app. While I'm happy to be in charge of navigating to a place where I can see what site-wide users are doing should I choose to, on Goodreads it feels like that's the main focus. I hate the lack of control of the environment that I receive information in. I feel like the LT I use is 'mine' and much more controllable. I feel very much that people take precedence over books on Goodreads but for me, much as I love you all, the books take precedence over 'people'.

>74 _Zoe_: Isn't "owned" just another way of saying "your library"? That is already a default collection.

I guess I don't fully understand why you think LibraryThing hates anything to do with reading. You dislike the lack of bells and whistles? I would like to agree, but I'd really rather just read a book than worry that the "your library" collection is not your preferred wording. And I don't understand why you're not spending your time on goodreads, since it fulfills you in a way LibraryThing doesn't. Do you need this site to do the same things that other site does? Why not just use both sites, or the one you prefer?

>73 _Zoe_: I see. Well, Date Started is in one of the defaults. That could be used instead. Either way there is going to be slippage across the year. Anyway, not everyone fills in those dates. Date added could be used since it is automatically filled in. Of course people who first join and are cataloging everything at once would make this inaccurate. On LT it seems as though there is more emphasis on allowing users to opt in to aggregate data rather than opt out, so it is never going to be as accurate as a site that simply quantifies everything. In a way though, a requirement to opt out of aggregate data collection reminds me of The Circle — just to bring this back to books. ;-)

>78 krazy4katz:

Dates added could be used. Of course people who first join and are cataloging everything at once would make this inaccurate.

Not to mention those of us who haunt book sales, come home with piles of books, catalog them immediately, but are lucky if we read those books before next year's book sale.

>77 RidgewayGirl: I'd say "Your Library" is only 90-95% equivalent to "Owned". There was someone just a couple of posts up saying that they use Your Library for something else, and the initial claim when Collections were released was that people could interpret Your Library however they saw fit. The ambiguity is significant enough that I wouldn't attempt to draw any broader conclusions about ownership based on that collection.

I should say more precisely that LT hates reading TRACKING: keeping records of books read, etc. Any features related to reading tracking have always been the lowest priority (to such an extent that data loss might go unaddressed for months) and are generally hidden away.

I would prefer not to maintain accounts at multiple different sites for the same basic purpose.

>78 krazy4katz: I'd be quite happy to see statistics derived from both Date Started and Date Finished.

Which features require users to opt-in for data aggregation? I thought most of the Zeitgeist stuff was on by default, and in many cases doesn't even offer an opt-out.

>80 _Zoe_: Yep, for me for example, 'Your Library' is just for physically owned paper books. I maintain separate collections for eBooks & Audiobooks. That's the LT plus for me, that I can interpret all these things as I want to to define my online book environment. I really, really, really wish that 'Currently Reading', reading dates etc. actually did something other than acting as a simple log for myself. I'd be much more likely to be a bit more diligent in filling them in if they did.

>80 _Zoe_: Well, that's a completely different thing. Your initial comment was really emotionally charged and misleading. I guess if it was an opt-in type thing, and LT wanted to use their resources to do so, tracking is fine. It's not fine when it's just done to one's own reading without one's own conscious permission. Are you suggesting you'd like LT to watch everyone and track their reading? I track my own reading, which is ridiculously simple, but only for my own amusement. I'd be unhappy to find that a company has been using it, even for the entertainment of it's clients, without my permission.

But, in my opinion, it's a waste of time. Those who want to track their own reading do so, and knowing what everyone else does is pleasantly nosy, but beside the point.

>81 _Zoe_: I guess I was thinking of lists — and the fact that you don't have to fill in date read. I forgot about Zeitgeist! Ahhh… The Circle!!!! It's here!!!!

>79 lilithcat: Point taken.

>83 RidgewayGirl: I guess if it was an opt-in type thing, and LT wanted to use their resources to do so, tracking is fine. It's not fine when it's just done to one's own reading without one's own conscious permission. Are you suggesting you'd like LT to watch everyone and track their reading?

I have no idea what you're talking about here. LT only has the reading tracking data that users enter, and I'm not suggesting that they install cameras in our homes. I'm talking about the features available on the site for tracking reading, how prominent and user-friendly those features are, and what's done with the data after users enter it.

>84 krazy4katz: Ah, lists! Another sadly abandoned feature in need of development.

>85 _Zoe_: That's too bad that you feel that way. I know you campaigned hard for lists. I think they're great! I guess since I don't visit other social sites I don't have a basis for feeling unhappy about them.

I don't think it is that LT (or Tim) hates reading tracking it is just that there is a hundred and one things people are clamouring for (and some of them contradictory).

Are more people going to be interested in reading tracking than a mobile app, or TinyCat, or tracking lending? I don't think so; the dev resources went into the latter three areas.

What about rehashing Lists to make them work a bit more like what we both want or better support for short work or better support for non-books. Or fixing all those nasty bugs that have been around for months and months. Or improved Common Knowledge browsing and discovery. Well none of those have been done either.

Every decision to make a change, to create a new feature, is a decision that means someone else doesn't get what they want. There are only a limited supply of ponies. Of course those features and changes which more strongly align with Tim's thoughts, or those where there is a strong proponent for the change from LT staff, are more likely to get the green light.

My personal thoughts are those features that play to LT's strengths, that help distinguish it from its main rival(s), are the ones that should get the attention.

>87 andyl:

There are only a limited supply of ponies.

Oh, yeah?

> 82 Yep, for me for example, 'Your Library' is just for physically owned paper books. I maintain separate collections for eBooks & Audiobooks.

I do the same, except I don't do audiobooks, but I never thought of it as doing anything other than using "Your library" as "Owned". If the collection's been called that I'd probably still not put e-books in it.

>89 AndreasJ: I don't really think of myself as 'owning' an eBook at all, I guess. More that I have a right to access it.

>90 klarusu: That's a good way to describe it.

>69 DanieXJ: A major difference for non-default collections is that there's no colored checkmark distinction for non-default collections. Either it's in a collection that has a colored checkmark, or it gets a grey one. I would do a lot more with collections if they could have their own colored checkmarks too.

>92 bestem: Yes! Coloured check marks for personal collections would be AWESOME!

>93 klarusu: I made an RSI for it, ages ago. @Lorannen never said where it was on her list, so I don't think it ever made it on there.

>87 andyl: I think Tim and co will never know what the users want unless the users ask for it. The fact that we ask, and even point out other places that have a nice way to do it (or even a horrible way to do it) doesn't mean we don't realize that dev resources went to other stuff that is appreciated.

>92 bestem:, >93 klarusu: Yes! Coloured check marks for personal collections would be AWESOME!

Have you gone MAD! It took Tim years to change the main color of the site from brown to ....less brown!

Don't talk about introducing more colors! We'll never coax him back out from underneath the bed!!

LT is where it's at. I just went to Home>>Stats Memes>>Page, Dimensions, etc. and found out I read 616.85 Spaldings worth of pages in 2015. What other site could cough up that little pearl!? It also told me that my completed reading stack from last year would be taller than a giraffe, if stacked vertically. That's way more fun to share at a dinner party than the fact I'm 30% through my next read.

The "tracking progress" features on LT may be a tad clunky, but I simply customized "View Style D" for 'dates' and it calls up just the Acquired, Started, Logs, etc. - all I need when logging reading efforts. Pretty handy.

I also find the cataloging tools way more valuable than any other site's social features. I don't even miss the 'left-out-on-the-counter-for-two-days' salmon color anymore.

Happy New Year LT!

>87 andyl: I know there are all sorts of competing development priorities, but not all of the suppression of reading tracking is even related to feature development. Choosing the default collections wasn't a matter of development time, and the fact that not one of the five default display styles includes Date Finished is also not a matter of development time.

I do think it makes sense to play to LT's strengths to some extent, but not to such an extent that members turn to a competitor for some basic functionality.

>94 bestem: I'm not convinced that the list really matters anyway; direct appeals to Tim are probably still more effective.

>96 tottman: :-))

>80 _Zoe_: I should say more precisely that LT hates reading TRACKING

I agree with that. I will also add that I track my own reading not to share on Facebook but for my own knowledge.

I like reading tracking. I'd like to see aggregate currently reading (if we only had it). I'd like to see pages (and percentage) read if we only had it. I'd like to see the reading aggregates at the end of the year (if we only had it). I will not use GoodReads for this, but I hear what you're saying.

The way I track my own reading is by my own stats and through use of Bookcrossing. I am sorry that LT doesn't go far enough with reading tracking, but I am tired of rallying for changes here which don't appear.

>52 MrAndrew: Your post made me laugh, but even your ridicule did not lessen my desire for page tracking. :)

>52 MrAndrew: I simply adore you. :)

>101 kgriffith: I suspect 99.7856% of people on LT feel the same way and that number is rising exponentially.

>102 krazy4katz: And has been for years. :)

That would be an interesting feature, yes. But I just wish the usability issues on the site would be fixed.

>52 MrAndrew: But I am disappointed to learn that you have 'artificial cheese-flavoured wheat-based snacks' on Mercury, too. I had hoped that at least there you would have natural foods.

>98 _Zoe_:

Zoe, I wish you would give it a rest with the loaded language - "suppression of" seems pretty emotive to me. I don't think it helps your case at all.

>106 andyl: "Non-promotion of"?

There was a time when I thought a carefully-argued case might actually make a difference here. That idea died years ago. Presenting a reasonable argument accomplishes nothing; all that matters is whether a suggestion happens to catch Tim's interest at a convenient moment.

I saw one of those Goodreads summaries and thought "That's really cool, I wish LT did something like that".

I'd be happy with a way to filter my stats/memes by collection or tag. That would allow me to see my average rating or male/female author breakdown (etc) for just the past year - and would be useful for things other than tracking reading, too.

I go to "Your Books" then click on "Tags" click on my tag for r2015, then choose library style "B" which I have styled to include "Finished." There I see all the books I read in 2015, and I can click at the top of the column to order them from Jan. - Dec. This enabled me to double-check against the document I keep on my computer of my reading stats.

It doesn't seem unwieldy to me. Nor is it difficult. It is completely individualized, which is why I use this site and not any other. It seems to me that if the site was going to program a universal thing to track everyone's reading, it would lose some of the features which allow us to control our information. I would not care for that.

>52 MrAndrew: Oh, MrAndrew! You are wonderful! Never leave us.

I bet my left sock dies before yours do.

The only thing I use GoodReads for is looking at reviews of a book I'm curious about. It's easy to find a lot of detailed reviews on GoodReads. I don't dislike GR, I'm not familiar with it, I don't look down on anyone who uses it. I don't have time to use two different sites.

I've been with LT for many years and I'm happy with it. I don't know how to use a lot of the features on LT but that's okay. I can catalogue my books and read a few groups that I'm comfortable with, and, since I have difficulty actually reading whole books, the things I can do on LT keep me in touch with books and make me very happy.

Facebook is something I suffer through to keep track of family and friends and science things. LT is where I go for pleasure and a kind of fulfilment I haven't found anywhere else.

I use both LT and GR, LT because I like the social aspects (Talk, Santathing, etc.), GR because when you go to a book page, the blurb is right at the top of the page. If I want to check out a book, I go to GR, if I want to talk about it or get ideas on books, I go to LT (ok, and to a Dutch fantasy forum that I really like). I also track my reading on GR.

Both sites have their pros and cons, so I guess it's up to everyone to decide which sites to use and how.

deleted, too snarky

A couple of other things I like about the GR reading challenge feature: it provides a very easy way to see which books my friends have read this year, and it tells me how many books ahead or behind of schedule I am.

>114 _Zoe_: I'm glad you've found a reading site that suits you.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying two book-related sites at the same time, if all involved are consenting adults.

Can you imagine if LT said, well, GR shows book covers, and we don't want to duplicate any GR functionality, so we can't have covers here?

>115 RidgewayGirl: Honestly, it doesn't suit me at all to maintain records in two separate places for some relatively trivial features.

>117 _Zoe_: Then why do you? It's clear you greatly prefer one site over the other. You should go with it, especially if you don't like using two sites.

>118 RidgewayGirl: Sorry, you're not going to get rid of me that easily.

Why not?

>119 _Zoe_: Then stay if you like here better. I don't understand the conflict.

>119 _Zoe_: Sorry, you're not going to get rid of me that easily.

>120 Bookmarque: Why not?

Haha!

>121 RidgewayGirl: I think it's an artificial conflict that you created. Neither site has all the features that I want, so I'm not sure why you keep telling me that I should pick one and stop using the other. Yes, using two sites is annoying, but it would be even worse to give up on features that I like that are available on one and not the other.

How good is the other site about engaging its membership base and adding features upon request?

James

>124 Keeline: I'd imagine it's not good, as is always the case with larger sites. LT is getting to that point too, as evidenced by the relatively recent addition of a staff member to filter out member requests before the developers even consider them. These days, only the tiniest feature requests have any chance of being implemented here.

>125 _Zoe_: LT was very different in the early days. *sigh*

>126 SqueakyChu: Weren't we all.

>127 PhaedraB: Not me; I was born an old curmudgeon!

>128 bernsad:

Me too, but they tell me I'm a much more personable and positive curmudgeon these days.

>116 MrAndrew: Just dropping by to make known my ever-present appreciation for you. ;)

#125 by @_Zoe_>

Large and complex programming projects often benefit from having someone act as a project manager. Prioritization and management of limited resources is a key to success of any such enterprise. I would imagine that each feature request has to be considered for the time and effort required, the number of users who will benefit, and how it fits into the overall development roadmap and mission.

I, too, have features I'd like to see implemented. I can only put the ideas out there and make a case and hope that some others support it so that it will be seen as a worthy addition. Sometimes it works. Often it does not.

Many other projects and companies are even more of a brick wall. It is more the norm than the exception. With LT there's a chance to make your case and I find that a comfort.

James

It does seem that there was more of a chance to make your case in the old days though.

Leafmarks knocks the socks off Goodreads for challenge tracking in my humble opinion. Also better integrated 'shelf' & reading date functionality. So if LT could poach reading dates/shelf functionality and challenge tracking from Leafmarks and annual summaries from Goodreads, but not change anything we already have, that would be peachy ;-))

>133 klarusu: Ahhhh, does this mean I need to use yet another site?

I like the idea of LT stealing their functionality though :)

>125 _Zoe_:

The fact that LT even has a mechanism for general users to make requests, much less get feedback from developers, indicates that it's still well on the small-site end of the spectrum. Frankly, I'd rather have the developers work on development, rather than on sifting through Talk for feature requests - I view the role as "prioritizing" rather than "filtering out".

I do agree that development on the base site is at a standstill - the iPhone app took up a lot of time, as did TinyCat, and they're still working on the bugs with those. (And now on bugs with the Shelfari importer.) So for me the question is whether I like LT enough as it is to stay here, and I do.

>137 Collectorator: I feel just the same.

>137 Collectorator: Agreed!

>137 Collectorator: You said it, kid!

>137 Collectorator: Amen!! About the loving LT anyway. I like my data to be accurate but I am not really into the very fine details.

TL;DR
In 2006, profiling a site as cataloguing-first made it entirely logical to sort reading tracking features at the social-media of the scale, but things like yearly/monthly ranking and most-read listings are now basic functionality and their lack makes LT lag behind the trend.



An angle I haven't seen discussed in this thread is the change in user expectations over the past ten-odd years.

From the early days of 2006-ish on, LT and GR skewed cataloguing-first vs. social-media-first. I'm a good example of that: I'm with LT because I mainly want to catalogue and be left alone; I'll have my activities publicized to a profile feed on my terms (default:off), thank you very much, and my interaction on Talk is not primarily driven by my bookbuying or reading or reviewing habits or my cataloguing activities. This means that I am willing to put up with / ignore problems with (the lack of) site features that do not directly impact the cataloguing side of things. Reading tracking and end-of-year statistics are probably advanced features or neat extras to a cataloguing-first crowd.

I think that that's a fair characterisation of why many members here prefer LT over GR. Do correct me if I'm wrong.

But the world of cataloguing apps has changed in the intervening 10-ish years: many more apps for cataloguing, tagging and managing music, books, dvds, tv shows, comics, needlework, etc. are around, both as online services and offline catalogue software. The standards for what counts as basic functionality in a cataloguing app have gone up, I think, and things like movie viewing or reading tracking or music listening stats now no longer count as advanced or extra features, but ones that users expect as part of the out-of-the-box functionality. At the very least, a few basic statistics based on date viewed/read should be trivially easy to access: the act of listening to a track, watching an episode, or moving a book out of currently reading or into read is something the software can be expected to keep track of and make available to the user.

In other words, LT is lagging behind. I think that that's sad. But >19 timspalding: seems keen to add these features once development time becomes available. That makes me happy.

(Also, I think that LT's focus on providing functionality to libraries is partly to blame here: making library-wide reading/lending stats publicly available to users is not traditional library catalogue territory.)

I like LT and prefer it over its competitors (why is a subject for a different post), but if you consider reading tracking and end-of-year stats to be basic functionality, as is well within reason in 2016, I think it is entirely reasonable to request that LT offer it. Responding that "I/we don't need such a feature" or framing the discussion as a clash between competitors or as an issue of "EITHER we do cataloguing / reading OR we do reading tracking / talking about reading" is, I think, unhelpful and beside the point.

>142 Petroglyph: good post

>142 Petroglyph: Very well reasoned post.

>142 Petroglyph: I agree with the others about your post. Personally, I am not into social media. In fact, LT is my ONLY social medium! From that perspective I might be an outlier. That may change someday but there is more than enough for me here at the moment.

>145 krazy4katz: LT is my ONLY social medium

perhaps an outlier in the general world but I suspect more common on LT, certainly true of me.

There are a lot of features that I like here. In fact, I popped in today to get some recommendations because the recommendations at Goodreads are awful. I don't know why anyone or any program would think I would enjoy cowboy bride books, but that's probably the worst possible match for me, and it's what Goodreads had to offer today.

However, I no longer catalog books or track reading here. I don't need detailed cataloging. The three things I want to know are whether or not I have it, would like to have it, and liked it. Goodreads is very good at tracking these things without putting you though a lot of grief trying to get things just right. Books are entered and updated in seconds.

The thing I like most at Goodreads is the updates page. It's the first thing I see when I open Goodreads, and I get a glimpse of what my friends are reading, where they are in the books, and their thoughts so far. Some wonderful discussions start there. I've never paid any attention to the forums because the people I want to "talk" to are on the updates page.

So, I'll continue to use both sites, but I'll track my books at Goodreads.

Like many, I also use LT and GR. There are only two things that I like about GR - my friends use it (I like to keep up with what they are reading), and the year-end summary is very cool. Well, maybe three things - I also like the fact that it keeps track of my reading goal automatically; I'm in the 75er's group, and it's very annoying to have to update the ticker counter to keep track of my goal.

I do not like the home page on GR. I know that the updates can be customized somewhat, but not enough for my taste. The giveaways are a joke; I don't think anyone actually stands a chance of winning one when there are thousands of people requesting one book. I also hate the fact that there are many versions of the same book. I added a short story that I read just yesterday, and there were four different versions of it.

I've tried to get my friends who use GR to sign up for LT. A couple of them did but went back to using GR. I would much rather just use LT except for the features that I mentioned. I love everything else about LT - the cataloging is wonderful, the social aspect is better if you are in a group like the 75er's, the tagging and customization is great and as a bonus, I get to contribute in many different ways.

IMHO, if LT would add a year-end summary feature similar to that of GR and have an automatic counter to keep track of my reading goal, I think I would drop GR altogether.