Date Stopped

I think this issue could use its own thread, since it's sort of difficult to follow the disjointed comments about it in several other threads.

In one of those threads, when someone said that they disliked Stopped, Tim challenged her to think of something better.

Ideas? Finished, Ended, Read, Closed?

I like finished. Because that's what I do. But I accept that not all readers finish all their books.

Surely however nearly all readers don't Stop reading nearly all of their books before they reach the end. So Stopped should go.

Start and Read doesn't quite work, but either Ended or Closed works fine for me. I think the slightly quirky Closed is a best.

Start and End?

...although I personally have no objection to Start and Stop. I really do like Start and Stop the best as it leaves the end date open to interpretation.

I think that the issue is that one field is being used to signify different things to different people and the ideas are not necessarily compatible (finishing a book is entirely different to abandoning a book). I get that this is what we're going to have to live with for the foreseeable future. Taking that into account, yes, I think 'Stopped' is silly but in the end I'd be in the 'Finished' camp because until we do have a way to signify that we've read a book (as opposed to 'Currently Reading' and 'To Read'), that's what I'm using the field for. I think knowing when you abandoned or put aside a book has limited value anyway - knowing when you finished it maybe more as it's a state change for that work from unread to read. That said, it's not going to change what that field signifies to me no matter what it's called and before long, I won't even notice the label. I'd say that if it's not going to generate a 'read' function for us in the near future, then just call it whatever and move on to talking about things that are likely to generate change.

As stated elsewhere, I like "finished". Matches with "started", and is less ambiguous than "stopped."

I'm totally down with the idea that people can use the date field for whatever they want. However, I'm willing to bet that almost everybody on here "finishes" more books than they "stop" (meaning "abandon without finishing"), and calling all of them the latter not only conflates two disparate types of books but also places the emphasis on the less-common occurrence.

I think it will end up affecting a Currently Reading function on our home pages fairly soon and for that purpose it doesn't matter why you stopped reading a book, so one field for it is ok.

I, too, kind of like the quirky "Opened" and "Closed".

As the person who spends half her day answering "how do I" emails, quirky isn't fun. It needs to be easy to understand.

#6 Ah, so it's about defining a dynamic state rather than focusing on a completed state? Then one field is OK. In which case, I like 'Opened' and 'Closed' but I don't know if it's intuitive enough for the majority of users?

>6 jjwilson61: I was hoping that they would eventually do more with the dates than just Currently Reading.

>8 ablachly: Good point!

Reposting my comment from the Bugs thread (http://www.librarything.com/topic/62606#1212585):

Please consider changing "Stopped" to just about anything else. "Stopped" is just . . . wrong. It sounds like a clogged up sink, or a friendly chat with a cop after going 50 in a 30 zone, or a minor medical condition calling for extra fiber.

I also don't really like "Open" and "Closed." Quirky is good in the right context, but it's probably not right here on the main catalog page - mainly for the reason Abby mentions in #8.

How about "Finished" or "Ended"? Both go with Started, both are far more indicative of how probably 90% of people use that field.

(finishing a book is entirely different to abandoning a book)

But being finished reading a book isn't the same thing as finishing the book! "Finished" works either way.

>12 Talbin: Please consider changing "Stopped" to just about anything else. "Stopped" is just . . . wrong.

My feelings exactly. To me, "Stopped" implies that some action has been truncated, which is most definitely not what I (and a large majority of the users) will use the field for. It is not intuitive in the slightest.

I vote for "Ended", it can refer to books finished or abandoned.

Also, "Read" (the original) can refer to all books, finished, abandoned or referenced (surely you read the book on the day you abandon it, yes?), if we're going to go into semantics on how "Stopped" can refer to finished books as well.

I'd be happy with anything other than "Stopped", please.

Edit: 13> But being finished reading a book isn't the same thing as finishing the book! "Finished" works either way.

Ditto.

>13 PaulFoley: Oh, good point!

I had voted for "finished" and "gave up", but that was too many choices, I guess. k4k

Abby, why do you keep receiving so much "How do I ..."-mails? Would a "How do I ..." Group perhaps help?

I'm for either "finished" or "ended", don't really mind that much as long as it's not "stopped"...

I don't like "ended" or "read." Sometimes people stop reading a book for now - such as an omnibus. Those terms don't work in that sense, while "finished" or "stopped" do.

17> Not if the question is "How do I read groups"?

17>

There is the FAQ group, and lots of people ask basic questions in either Bug Collectors (couched as "This is broken" when it's really just "I don't know how to do this"), Recommend Site Improvements (couched as "hey you should add this feature" (which has existed forever)), or Site Talk.

Maybe it helps take the load off Abby, maybe it doesn't, but I doubt another group would help -- some people just have enough of a sense of entitlement that they'll immediately seek individual help rather than trying to figure something out on their own, looking for documentation, or asking in a designated forum.

>20 lorax: Tangential to the original discussion, but I think the other problem is that the boards aren't actually particularly friendly to newcomers, emailing someone assures a polite, non-snarky response, especially when asking 'stupid' questions. This is not to discount the plenty of friendly helpful answers people recieve, but to point out that the atmosphere is not universally kind, and it may not just be a 'sense of entitlement'. Plus the Help/FAQ isn't greatly up-to-date, for instance under "How do I change my username or password?" it says: "Change is easy. If you want to change your password or username, go to changesomething." And that changesomething links to a page where it says the function is disabled.

As to the original discussion, I like 'finished'. It sort of implies 'completed' but is just open-ended enough that people who haven't completed the book could still fill it out.

I'll narrow myself down - "Finished" is my vote. PaulFoley makes a good point in #13.

Hmm, I had thought End or Ended was more neutral than Finished. But I prefer Finished anyway.

>23 _Zoe_: I like 'Finished' or 'Ended' too, with 'Finished' being the top choice. Stopped seems a little temporary, not clearly final like finished or ended.

To address the stopped/finished/ended due to abandonment vs complete...why can't this just be notated in the comments or private comments section?

Tim has actually said that they want to add something with data as to what the Stopped date applies to - completed, abandoned, lost in a fire...Which would be neat. But would work just as well if it were called Finished, or Ended. Finished with?

If I have to choose one, I'll choose Finished.

I vote Finished.

I think it makes the most sense - and it's fairly intuitive. I mean, you can finish a steak, right? Finish it by eating half, finish it by taking a single bite or finish the whole thing and wish there was more!

I know that a group really wanted more precise options, like being able to say "I abandoned this!" or "I've set this aside for later" or "I've finished the whole thing," but I think this is where comments and/or reviews are there for further editorializing.

Well, to be fair the extra info wasn't wanted just for the hell of it. The hope was that better data could be used in better ways. So if a meme were created for how long it took to finish a book, the data would be a lot better if those who abandoned the book without finishing were excluded. It would also be interesting to know which books are abandoned the most often.

ETA: Just dumping this info in the comment field wouldn't allow this kind of thing.

I think it's also just the inconsistency of having check boxes for 'Currently Reading' and 'To Read' and nothing for 'Read'. Having specificity of dates would enable pulling down of much more data. To be fair, I find the comments section of limited usefulness for this kind of thing because of a total inability to synthesise any en-masse data from your library - I can usually remember what I did with a specific book, what I want to see is how stats line up across my library as a whole. Also pulling down site-wide data like 'most abandoned' would be great eventually.

I vote for 'finished' too - hate 'stopped' as it immediately implies (to me) some sort of negative action; or a negative response to reading the book.

I also vote very strongly for a 'read' button to go with the 'to read' and 'currently reading' ones I obsessively fill out now- even knowing I can do absolutely nothing with them at the moment. I would love to tick a 'read' button for all the books I added initially, and that I read years ago, so maybe some time in the future I can actually quantify how many of each I have through a simple tick box.

edited to fix my typos

As to those that want an additional "read" button, you can check "finished" and put in something along the lines of "college" or "long time ago" or "forgot when" instead of actual dates. Or you can leave the dates blank. Tim has made that clear.

I believe in everything that I've read lately, Tim's message seems to have been that he wants to keep this feature as streamlined as possible so it doesn't go the way of the original check box feature. This is going to be a straightforward disposition with a date feature (with allowances for multiple instances per book). The only argument left is the semantics of the last label for those that abandon books rather than actually finish them.

Of course, this has been my interpretation of the threads.

#21 Kira, Well Said. And very apt. I would also add that newbies may be afraid to click and press what they don't understand in case it does something momentous.

I guess I don't really care what the label is on the column, I know what I use it for, and what I mean by it. So I can live with whatever is decided.

I did however, expect from the talk on the other threads, that there was going to be something new and fancy happening with the dates in the catalog. It was going to be tied to the Currently Reading function. Has that gone away, or is it waiting for collections, because the functionality of the dates is still the same ?

In fact, I thought the new toolpad was supposed to have something to do with the manipulation of the dates ? Instead, it seems to have taken away an important feature, and of course is too small, too faint and lacks color contrast.

A late entry -- I kinda like Begun and Done.

Then again, I don't use those fields.

I dislike Ended – it restricts the date to those books I actually got the the end of.
Stopped is much more broadly applicable, but I agree with Talbin's comments in 12...it's got fairly ugly connotations.

Maybe Picked Up / Set Down?

In the end, though, I'm much more interested in functionality than in labels. Call it whatever you want, as long as it works:)

31> Yeah, there's more date stuff coming, but it doesn't look like it was rolled out with the new catalog view. It may even wait until after Collections, depending on how entwined the code is (for the same reason that the catalog view preceded Collections - one set of bugs at a time, please!). Not sure though. I don't think there's been anything specific said about timing on the date stuff, it may just be part of Collections.

Just adding one more call for the replacement of "Stopped" with "Finished".

I might vote for "picked up/set down". It's a little quirky, sure, but maybe it's a better fit than started/stopped or started/finished, and less definite (when you set a book down, it could be finished or unfinished).

That sounds like you're supposed to add another set of dates every time you read a few pages then take a break.

That occurred to me as well, but this is LT, where there really is not much "supposed to". Maybe there are people who would want to do that.

ETA: I considered suggesting something like "Take off the shelf" and "Return to the shelf" but I couldn't come up with a more concise way to put it.

I love "Begun" and "Done."

39:

Then "Begone" would be the abandoned/quit field we can't have.

i'm all for "finished", rather than "stopped". i agree that it just feels more concise. i would probably say "i finished that book yesterday" or "i'm finished with that terrible book and won't read another page" much more than "i stopped reading, because i had reached the ended."

it would be really fantastic to have a way to mark books that i didn't finish reading. i don't rate books i give up on, so it would be handy to see how many users abandoned a book. especially with those books that have a massive cult following, therefore having really high ratings but also a high frequency of abandonment.

I believe in everything that I've read lately, Tim's message seems to have been that he wants to keep this feature as streamlined as possible so it doesn't go the way of the original check box feature. This is going to be a straightforward disposition with a date feature (with allowances for multiple instances per book).

They have said that they eventually intend to do other things with the CR data, though. At the very least, I think it will be easy to display Currently Reading books on the profile, and the reading timeline will probably get a bit of official development time eventually.

So, we're thinking ahead to other little features that can eventually be added. These future features could be made a lot better if the "date finished" data could be clarified. (Honestly, I don't think any of this should have been necessary; all of the complication was created when Chris decided that he wanted to use the Date Read field for something other than Date Read. The developers are the ones who weren't satisfied with simplicity.)

Anyway, it does make logical sense to have a pre-defined "Read" collection to go along with Currently Reading and TBR. This wouldn't create any complications in itself; it would just be one more collection, and doesn't even have to be connected with the dates.

But then future features, like a list of which books take the longest time to read, could check whether books with a Finished date were in the Read collection in order to get better data.

in order to get better data

This is a false statement. We're not required to give this information at any time, and the idea that we'd deliberately junk up a feature with an endless array of what a small group of people found "fascinating" sounds very un-data-like.

I can make up anything about a book - finished on a bus, made me happy, smelled like eggs, used a dollar bill as a bookmark, pretended George Clooney was reading it to me in my head, wanted to light it on fire - well, isn't all of that "data" in some form?

In the great mythological ODBC driver of the Great Ether, I'm sure it exists, but we have no connectivity to such a thing. So, yes, we'd have to build it - but building the "fascinating" 0/1 data piece for a subjective piece of data (which would become 0/1/2 for not abandoned/abandoned/picked up after abandoned since I'm sure that last piece would become a sub-fascinating piece - which may lead to the dreaded 0/1/2/3...extrapolate appropriately).

And while I realize that the argument is, "well, we're just talking abandoned books!" My counter-argument is that abandoned isn't the only piece of fascinating "data" out there. And it isn't even data - it's just a question. A question that's better answered through sampling - tag sampling of "unfinished" already tells you that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is the book you're looking for.

Edit - fixed touchstone

>43 stephmo: I'm not sure what your argument is. I don't think everyone would use a Read collection, and I don't think people would use it just to improve the data for others. But I do think plenty of people would use that collection; you can see requests for it in this very thread. The fact that it would provide better data is incidental.

My counter-argument is that abandoned isn't the only piece of fascinating "data" out there.

This does nothing to refute the initial argument. You're claiming that because we can't perfectly capture every nuance of the data, we therefore can't improve the data at all? That just doesn't follow.

tag sampling of "unfinished" already tells you that Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is the book you're looking for.

I wasn't looking for the most-abandoned book, I was looking for the book that takes the longest time to read. Tags don't work for that.

You're claiming that because we can't perfectly capture every nuance of the data, we therefore can't improve the data at all? That just doesn't follow.

My point is that we're not capturing data at this point. We're, at best, sampling from folks that are interested in inputting additional information with an interface that will have additional options. Additional options often means less data collected (I've seen this in Pareto analysis after Pareto analysis).

You want another truth about "longest book to read?" Now you're messing with social behaviors. Here's what will happen to this data:

Bridget Jones's Diary. Average Read: 2.6 Days. You took 5 Days!

- Some individuals may cease giving up parts of data all together if it appears competitive in any way. So there may no longer be a start date, only a finish date.
- People who don't care about personal precision but may be competitive will edit their catalogs so that they're at least average. So the 5 days will seem really long and they'll decide to shave some days.
- Folks will start requesting a start/stop feature because they were reading 4 other books while reading this book and stating that it took them 5 days to read this book is unfair.
- Precision, data-loving individuals will want privacy features for start/stop times only because they won't want to advertise these times to others.

So, with groups of liars, others wanting "more precise" data and others taking themselves out of the equation, what happens to your data? It's no longer an accurate sample by any means. I doubt that anyone at LT is going to dumping data at some point to do structured analysis to see if there's some sort of pattern by user, book, date or popularity to see if there are quantifiable ways of flattening the numbers just to get something "more precise" since any such analysis would take a considerable chunk of time for little payout.

You can say this won't happen, but let's face it, when individuals were able to see the recommendations that your catalog produced there was a huge push to have those made private.

Zoe, for what it's worth, I believe you're sincere. And while something like "longest time to read" does sound interesting, it's also fundamentally judgmental. The memes we have now aren't - and the ones that are (talk statistics) are completely hidden from public view. There is a certain culture Tim seems to cultivate.

EDIT - needed it.

I don't really care about the statistical analysis primarily - I just want to know how many books - of the ones I own or have catalogued - that I have read, I still have to read - and for the one I tick as 'currently reading' to automatically show on my profile/home page...without me actually counting them regularly.

All the other stuff comes a vast second...

add: that is one of the main reasons I had for putting all my books into a catalogue. Plus I would also be interested in the number I didn't finish - I would just like to know my reading numbers easily.

You can say this won't happen, but let's face it, when individuals were able to see the recommendations that your catalog produced there was a huge push to have those made private.

As I recall, one person made a huge stink about it.

Maybe you're right, and people are a lot crazier and more paranoid than I'd given them credit for. Personally, I can't imagine putting false data in my catalogue just to impress random people on the internet, and it didn't occur to me that that was even a possibility.

But I still think there's demand for a Read collection, regardless of what it's used for. Many, many people have requested it.

Also, it would be possible to have lists like "books that take the longest time to read" without introducing any competitive aspect. The average reading time for individual books doesn't even have to be revealed, if it's really such a huge issue. And I certainly don't think we should display anything like "User X's average book completion time" on the public statistics page.

And everyone believes it - no one thinks they're asking for fluff or something that will be rarely used. They believe in their heart of hearts that this will become something of utter amazement that will revolutionize the way things work.

I think you're overstating my enthusiasm. I don't think this would be the most amazing thing ever. I think it would be easy to add a pre-defined Read collection, which is something some people want anyway, and I think it could have certain other benefits.

I don't think that everyone would use this collection. That doesn't matter. With more than 600 000 members on LT, a tiny percentage of users can still generate interesting data.

Also, the key word here is interesting. I don't care if LT tells me the average reading time for Bridget Jones' Diary is 5 days when it's actually 6, because some people are lying. I think the comparative data would still have some value (of course, you could argue that some books are more likely to be lied about than others, but again, I really don't care). This isn't a life-and-death situation; it's a fun list on a website. The fact that something isn't entirely accurate doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.

edit: and, of course, the fact that accuracy isn't critical doesn't mean that no effort should be made at accuracy.

45:

- Precision, data-loving individuals will want privacy features for start/stop times only because they won't want to advertise these times to others.

Here's one.

Well, either that (together with a Private Collection feature), or an un-privacy feature on reviews.

>49 235711: This isn't about the changes, though; I wasn't suggesting anything worse than what we have now.

Personally, I like finished for the reason that I either "finish" a book or am "finished" with a book.

As anyone thought that maybe we could get an extra star (maybe red) in the rating box that signifies abandoned?

>51 cyderry: As anyone thought that maybe we could get an extra star (maybe red) in the rating box that signifies abandoned?

How about red outlining on all the stars? (i.e. hollow red stars)

>51 cyderry:, 52

ohhhh!!! that sounds wonderful. i prefer the hollow red stars, since i wouldn't want to add anything else that would take up space. the drawback would be that it would be pretty confusing for new users...

I don't think putting abandoned in with stars makes much sense since you can abandon a good book (just not be in the mood to read it or something) and you can finish a book you would like to give a negative style rating to. However I don't object to some separate way to flag a book as abandoned, it seems like a good idea in terms of interesting data.

It's not always about "abondoning" a book. Sometimes you just stop reading a book for a few days or few weeks and want to keep track of that so that it doesn't look like it took you 3 months to read that book. It really took you 1 week spread out over 4 installments. So "stopped" fits that situation perfectly.

This becomes more important when we implement features that use this data....like a reading timeline.

Well, technically that's not tormenting since I already have a (semi-)working timeline available for you. If you don't know what I'm talking about then maybe you need better informants. Or pay them more.

*standing in the metaphorical LT alleyway, wearing my trench coat*

psst! hey you.... got information?

(does anyone know what chris is alluding to and if so will they share?)

eta: did my own sherlocking... figured it out

55> Granted that one may do this, but does one realize that one is doing this in time to put accurate stopping times down? I certainly don't remember when I last picked up my current example.

Granted that one may do this, but does one realize that one is doing this in time to put accurate stopping times down?

Exactly. I put a book down expecting to pick it up again the next day, and suddenly it's been two weeks.

And how is this feature going to distinguish between one interrupted read and separate rereads?

I also think it's sort of pointless to pretend that a book read over a month actually only took three days, with a break in the middle. If a book isn't interesting enough to hold my attention so that I read it straight through without stopping in the middle for other books, then that should be reflected in the reading time.

So "stopped" fits that situation perfectly.

You seem to keep missing the point that that field has another use currently, one that many people intend to keep using it for. Sure, there will be some people who manage to record every time they put down a book, but most people are still only going to record the completion date. And "stopped" really doesn't work well for that.

I did care about this but I stopped about 30 messages ago. Seriously, it doesn't matter what it's called as long as the functionality is there. As long as I can continue using it to reflect the date I finished reading something, I don't give a fig about whether or not people also use it to record when they put a book down and pick it up again. Call the field 'Arnold' for all I care, we can even have a naming ceremony.....

55> Has anyone actually said that they would use the field that way? It seems incredible to me that more than a handful would.

Hey, I argued against that use. Just doing my job.

Personally, I currently and only ever intend to record the date I finish a book. "Finished" would get my vote, if there was a vote. (If I don't finish it, I'm happy for it not to be on the timeline)

>62 jjwilson61:
I do use it that way sometimes, but I don't see why "finished" doesn't work in that sense. As in, "I'm finished reading for now."

i agree with 64. i'm not overly concerned about the books i put down and then later come back to. it's the ones i abandon with no intention of picking up again. it would be nice to have a way to visually represent that in my catalog. my catalog gets used a lot when people are buying me gifts and want to see what i've rated things... if they could see that i hadn't finished a book (and didn't plan on it) that would be just as helpful as my ratings.

Possibly the tag "abandoned" or some such might do the same job? I use the tag "unfinished" for that.

For abandoned books I use stars elsewhere and will do on LT
(ex my profile)
1.. Could not finish
0.5 Trash - could not get past second chapter

Note that I am still going through adding ratings...

Hey, I argued against that use. Just doing my job.

Does this mean that any feature requested by at least one person will be implemented, no matter what the cost? I don't think that makes sense.

Will there be a way to distinguish between books that have been stopped multiple times in the course of one read, and books that have been read through multiple times?

No, just saying that I was told to do it that way.

Yes. Depending on how you use the feature. If you are on extended hiatus from a book you can leave the Currently Reading flag turned on. As long as you do that then it will track those start/stops as belonging to the same reading instance.

It's way more complicated than I would like it to be. I really don't think people are going to comprehend the features (they are powerful but not easily grasped).

It's way more complicated than I would like it to be. I really don't think people are going to comprehend the features (they are powerful but not easily grasped).

Yeah, I have to say I'm a bit concerned about this feature. I hope it doesn't end up worse off for all the complications and ultimately disappear like the checkboxes.

Will it be possible to remove a book from CR and delete the Stopped date that appears? I often put books down for a year or more, and I wouldn't want those to appear as Currently Reading, especially if it shows up on the profile or has other features attached. But I also wouldn't want them to look as if they were finished.

I'm in the middle of a 10-book omnibus. I read the first 5 books (one complete story arc), set it aside for a month, and am now reading the second set of 5. I didn't put a "Date Finished" in because I didn't finish the book, though I intended to (it sat on my nightstand waiting for me while I read 2 other books, also omnibus editions that I skipped between). I tag "currently reading" status, and simply removed the tag when I wasn't currently reading that book.

It would maybe be nice to have data that said I started the book 2/25, set it aside 3/16, picked it up again 4/16, and finally finished it 5/9. But as was brought up, how do you tell the difference between that scenario and two complete reads dated 2/25-3/16 and 4/16-5/9? That level of detail just starts making things far too complex, in my mind.

So basically: I don't care. :) I prefer the name "Finished" but the title won't change what I use the field for.

But as was brought up, how do you tell the difference between that scenario and two complete reads dated 2/25-3/16 and 4/16-5/9?

Well, Chris said that if you leave it in the Currently Reading collection the whole time, the site will know that it's one interrupted read rather than multiple reads.

I tag "currently reading" status, and simply removed the tag when I wasn't currently reading that book.

Your post made me think even more that Chris' explanation doesn't reflect how people would naturally tend to use Currently Reading: at least some people, when they've put a book aside for a prolonged period of time, will want to remove it from the CR collection.

So much of the discussion around LT changes revolves around vocabulary. I guess on a book-themed sight, that shouldn't be so surprising.

Well, I'll play, too. I like "Open" and "Closed." I think it fits well when describing books, but doesn't imply one of the two competing reasons why you might "Close" a book. We would, of course, need a special checkmark or perhaps a tag to indicate if you closed a book because a large bee landed on it, and you wanted to squash it before it stung you. Obviously without a way to indicate that, the "Closed" date becomes useless.

Failing that, I have no problem at all with "Stopped." I think it works best because it's a little more ambiguous. If the field is being used for more than one purpose. Even if you could say, "I'm finished with this book." I would not say that it justifies using "finished" to equal "no longer reading." From a grammatical sense, it doesn't work because you switched out your objects. "I started reading this book on Monday." "Reading" is what's "started." "As of Wednesday, I am finished with this book." "I" am what's "finished." Meanwhile "As of Wednesday, I have stopped reading this book." works fine and does not imply completion, nor does it exclude that option.

But, in the end, it's still an argument about vocabulary by people who already know how they're going to use the field. It won't really change anything. I'm just glad the field is going to be a little easier to use.

Zoe: Yes, I agree. I do worry that the feature will be lost because of the complexity. I've worked hard on it but it's been changed multiple times in order to ferret out new features within the feature and it no longer works the way I envisioned it to work.

The problem with it is that we're trying to make too many people happy and in doing so are going to make none of them happy. In my opinion it's design by committee gone awry because we have 650,000 people on this committee.

Anyway. I must have a bee in my bonnet today.

"As of Wednesday, I have stopped reading this book." works fine and does not imply completion, nor does it exclude that option.

Would you really say this about a book that you've completed? It makes sense grammatically, but I don't think it agrees with actual usage.

Here's a thread on LT where people are discussing whether they finish all the books they start. There's a distinction made between "finishing" and "stopping":

I finish all of them. I have only stopped 2 books.

Finished books aren't included among "stopped" books, at least in regular speech.

>75 conceptDawg: Would it be possible to release collections without CR? I do think it will ultimately be possible to satisfy most people about CR, but I haven't actually seen much discussion of what users want out of the feature, other than the discussion resulting from the failed checkboxes long ago. I really don't think it would be that difficult to reach some sort of consensus, though, if the discussion took place. But I'm not sure where the current form of CR came from, especially the part about intermediate dates. How did you initially envision that it would work?

76: Would you really say this about a book that you've completed? It makes sense grammatically, but I don't think it agrees with actual usage.

No, I probably would not say that, but I would also never used "finished" to apply to book that I had not reached the end of. So the question is: Would I prefer "stopped" being used in a slightly unorthodox, albeit correct way, or would I prefer "finished" being used in a way that seems completely wrong to me? Well, I prefer "stopped."

Also, while I agree with ConceptDog that the stated implementation may be a little too complex to be usable, the fact that the "Date Stopped/Finished" field in combination with the Currently Reading check might be used to track books that you had temporarily stopped reading makes me think that "Finished" would be even less appropriate. If I put a book aside for a few months and pick it up again, I clearly did not Finish it in either sense of the word.

I agree that "Stopped" does not imply completion, and I feel like that is why there's an objection, but we're allowing for using the field for books that were not completed, it makes sense to not imply completion.

I am late to this discussion, but I just want to say that I vote for "finished" as the moniker for the field being discussed.
Also, I agree that it would be interesting to see data about books most abandoned and average length of time to be read. I am in Zoe's camp on that, as it never would occur to me to falsify data in order to appear impressive to fellow LT denizens.
I carry a book in my purse that I usually only read in waiting rooms and when my husband is talking to people who are not me at the bar. I read ebooks during breaks at work. I am reading a book at home. So, I generally have at least three books going at any given time. The time it takes to read these books is skewed by the fact that I read them in different places and at different times. Whatever I'm reading at home takes much less time than whatever's in my purse and what I only have about 40 minutes per day to devote to at work.
I'm not sure how my erratic reading patterns would skew the results of such data, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who has such a system.

I agree that "Stopped" does not imply completion, and I feel like that is why there's an objection, but we're allowing for using the field for books that were not completed, it makes sense to not imply completion.

It's not that I think it should imply completion, it's that I think it shouldn't imply not-completion. I'd rather find a word that's more neutral, but Tim says (and I agree) that Closed is a bit too unintuitive.

So, lacking a better alternative, I'd go with the one that applies to the majority use of the field.

Chris, will the reading timeline work for books with only "Stopped" dates (as labeled points, rather than lines)??? I have 25 years of "Finished" dates, but no "Started" dates...

I honestly can't remember what I did for those items. I think that I automatically ended a book that is in the reading state for more than a month or two. But I don't think that I do anything with open end dates like that. It's been quite some time since I threw that code together so I can't remember.

I really hope that I can get back to that and make it a little nicer after we start getting some data in the new currently reading system.

If you want a field to hold the date a particular status - read, abandoned, started reading, etc - was first applied, then you need to also link it to the status. At present no such status attaches to the "Stopped" field - which means context is divorced from content.

Create a status radio button, then you can label the field "Date"... and it will be clear to everyone what the date means.