New LT feature: Will you like it?

I found a really cool new feature on LT! I wondered how long it's existed but just saw a blog notice so it must be brand new. The new feature is on every book page between member recommendations and reviews called "Will you like it?"

I discovered it after writing a book review and thought it was kind of funny that LT was telling me if I would like Through the Looking Glass or not after I've finished reading it but it does work for books we've never read, too. (It says I will really love The Looking Glass Wars.)

So my question is this: Will you like or love the Harry Potter series? ;)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

My computer froze and had to be restarted when I tried to answer for myself - this is my second attempt at starting this thread - so I will edit or give a new post below with my own results.

SS: will probably like it
CoS: will probably like it
PoA: will probably like it
GoF: probably won't like
OotP: will probably like it
HBP: probably won't like it
DH: will probably like it

Hmm. Maybe it has some kinks to work out. I noticed it didn't say I would probably love any of them though I've given each of them five star ratings.

Other group favorites...
Pride and Prejudice -> will probably like it
Twilight -> will probably like it
Princess Bride -> will probably like

And more books yet...
Book of Lost Things -> will like it
Dewey -> won't like it
The Dark Hills Divide -> borderline of will love it
Fly by Night -> will love it
Inkheart -> will like it
Journal of Curious Letters -> will love it

I just read the blog entry. Tim says it's only okay right now. I do hope it will evolve or improve! This would be a fun and helpful feature. I know what I'm going to be checking the next few days.

(By the way, knitters, Tim discovered through this feature that he probably won't like knitting books. ;)

Well, it's neat!

With the first three Harry Potter books I got "will probably like it" with a very high certainity.
The feature said I won't like the last four books, also with high certainity.

Not quite right, because I love all seven Harry Potter books.

Hmmm....interesting. It thinks I'll "probably" like SS/PS, CoS, PoA and OotP and probably won't like GoF, HBP or DH. I'm going to have to read the blog entry.

How it works. In case you're interested, it works completely apart from our book-to-book recommendation system, or the system that aggregates those recommendations into member-specific lists of 1,000 recommended books. Instead, "Will you like it?" works directly from the data, examining the users who have a book and how their books relate to yours.

This explains the HP thing. Since the 7 books fall into the top 8 in the LT wide zeitgeist, there's going to be a huge variety of libraries surrounding them. I'd be surprised to find that many people (if any) are predicted to "love" HP because of that.

It doesn't seem to be very accurate, but it is nifty. It said the same for me as it did for Bib. But I love them all. What is it basing its rating off of? (Perhaps I should read the blog too.)

That's kinda interesting. Could be helpful for a book i'm not sure about

I just tested it out on two books Twilight and Deathly Hallows, and I'm not sure how well it works and how much I like it. It told me that I probably wouldn't like Twilight, even though I did. It also told me that I might enjoy Deathly Hallows, which I did/do.

Again, I say that it's less likely to work on "popular" books, because too many people who wouldn't normally have and young adult books, or fantasy books, will have Harry Potter in their libraries and the algorithm can't take that kind of popularity into account. I'd recommend trying it with more obscure books or books similar to HP or Twilight. For instance, how does it think you'll like Dead Until Dark, which is like Twilight for grownups.

Ha, it told me it was very certain that I would not like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (five stars in my library). Ditto on Middlesex (fours stars from me). Ah well, I guess I'm a surprising person. I tried a number of less common books, both fiction and nonfiction, and it is certainly less accurate on popular books. The accuracy didn't blow me away with the less common books either. Fun to play with though.

Now I keep clicking on touchstoned books just to check the "will you like it" feature. I finally found one for which it was right! It said I would love Inkdeath.

Tim gave a much more thorough explanation of how the thing calculates its answer here in post #51.

It says I will like Dead Until Dark and Inkdeath, which is good, because I had planned to read both this year anyways.

I've been following the thread. Thanks for linking it, lefty! :)

KIK. We must definitely remember it's not broken.

I think it's funny that LT is "very certain" that I will either "probably not like" or "probably like" everything in the HP series. I think "high certainty" of anything "probable" is quite amusing, actually.

It is very certain that I will "probably like" most of the HP books.
It thinks that I "will love" Inkdeath.

This is very cool, thanks Kerian!

LT seems to thinks that I will like the HP series less as it progresses, starting at a "probably like" with Philosopher's Stone and probably not liking Deathly Hallows. That's a reverse of the real trend.

I'm a bit flummoxed when it tells me that the
"certainty is very high" that i will probably like a book.

Probably certainly? Almost definitely maybe I think perhaps for sure?

Wait, i just proved that it doesn't work:

LibraryThing thinks you won't like Twilight (certainty: very high)

Edited to give up on touchstone.

You're welcome, MrA. I love this new feature!

This would be interesting to apply to our TBR piles before deciding what to read next. I almost wish it would say that I would love Brisingr instead of only saying that I will like it. A part of me wants to jump straight to the books it thinks I will love, nevermind that the system doesn't reach these conclusions for us as individuals. ;)

It guessed right that I probably wouldn't like The Bell Jar or The DaVinci Code while also right on that I would love The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte.

I think it would be great if we could see an entire list of books at once for each rating rather than see them individually. There are other parts of LT (the suggestions and recommendations) that basically do this for us, though, and probably more accurately.

I know what I'm going to be doing all day ;0. A good day for bed and a laptop. So far it is telling me that there aren't too many books I'll like.

It says that I will love Brisingr, but of course I still can't find it to finish it.

MrA, I think that just proves that it is probably likely to certainly work. Maybe.

This thing is like some people I know. You can't get a simple yes or no out of it. I found it amusing that it thought I probably won't like half of the HP series.

I keep on thinking of a fortuneteller when I use it.

andrew

LibraryThing thinks you probably won't like Things Not Seen (certainty: high)

>#19: should I be worried about that?

Come on, tell us your Twilight result.

Seems fun, but not overly accurate for me. Of course, I wonder if some of that is because I have a combined library with my husband, rather than having only my books...

I haven't looked through a lot of books with it, but it says that I will probably like Deathly Hallows with very high certainty. It at least got the Percy Jackson books right for me. It says that I will love The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse with very high certainty. The way the results come in seems a little hit-and-miss to me. I'll have fun playing with it, though!