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1stephmo
Okay, I know this has been brought up before, but only vaguely. But here's the basic gist of lists.
Lists can fill in the gaps where Awards & Honors and Series simply cannot fit the bill. Want to list the Books reviewed in the Polysyllabic Spree? Maybe you were a Gillmore Girls fan and you want to read everything on Rory's bookcase. Maybe you want to read everything made into a movie. Maybe you want to read Harold Bloom's Cannon.
Or - maybe you've been following this thread on LT - the BBC Meme.
Which is really why I'm here not only to revisit lists, but to ask for some super-dooper pony functionality with lists.
While I think the BBC thread is great, there are some issues. #1 being that it's a list of 100 books, so everyone that copies it potentially copies 100 lines of text, plus their explanation of how many they've read and whatever other formatting they might have done. While it looks like a conversation, my impression is that folks are probably not reading every post all that carefully. They're likely listing their own post and moving on - sorta social, but not exactly.
In a list function with full ponies, I'd love it if we could do the following:
1. Create the list and advertise it.
2. Have folks adopt the list and "work" it.
3. Let folks be able to show their progress on the list easily.
4. Let others see quite easily which books on a list are most read/currently being read/being discussed.
5. Let you have a list meme on your profile.
I know, I know - can we visualize this? Can we rip off something else and make it better - make it more LibraryThing? Why YES!
If anyone here is at ListsofBests - or has seen it - I'm suggesting ripping of parts of it and adopting the best parts and dumping the not-so-good parts.
Here's one of their sample lists - Books mentioned in Matlida. A nice, short list.
Stuff to steal:
- Creation of the list. You'll notice that there's one contributor. In some cases, there are multiple contributors who will correct titles, add titles to partially complete lists or those that like things arranged in certain orders. There are comments allowed on all lists as well - sometimes they get a little snippy like who does the BBC think they are not to put 1984 on the all-time best list - it's a crap list!, but that's about it.
- Adoption of the list. You can see all the users with one click that have adopted the list on the right-hand side. The down-side of their system is that it takes you to all of their lists that they've adopted. Some folks adopt everything. But if you find the list on their list of lists, you can see how far they were on the list. I'd prefer that you could hover over their name and see something like (47% - click to see comparison).
When I talk about working the list - when you're loogged into list of bests and you notice that you've read/watched/consumed something, you merely click on the item. From there, you can simply indicate "I have consumed this" and then you have the option to indicate the following - a date of consumption and then whether it was worth consuming or not. PONY TIME - I'd love it if we could mark books "read" for lists. And then we could be encouraged (but not required) to fill in starred ratings and/or (again, not required) reading dates. But the ability to mark a book read kind of hinges on the working the list part. This is how you decide how done with the book you are...of course, it could encourage you to write a review as well. =P
- One last thing to sort of steal from ListsofBests - view. When you view a list, you get a visual clue that shows you whether you've consumed, are consuming or haven't consumed something. It also shows if you've marked it as worth/not worth consuming. Basically, consumed items have a green background, items currently being consumed have a green background and the words "WORTH CONSUMING" and "NOT WORTH CONSUMING" appear on consumed items if you indicated either. If we could either highlight or checkmark the books we've read and display stars if we used them, that would be totally PONY. :)
If we could do the side-by-side comparisons to another person that would be even spiffier.
LibraryThing Enhancements over Lists
Most of this would be in the Memes section, but also linkable if folks wanted to share it in a thread like the BBC one.
- Sharing progress. If folks could easily grab their percentage complete, that would be awesome. Imagine the BBC thread where folks could say, I'm 22% done - and that's 22 books because I can do math!
- Site statistics available on the LIST master page. So you're looking at the list and you know you're 22% done, but how's everyone on the site that adopted the list? What if that could be calculated easily - and we knew that the top-read book on the list was Animal Farm by 77% of list adopters and that only 2% of list adopters had read Germinal? It might help for some group reads. :)
- Mini Homepage-type stuffs on lists. So one could see quickly discussions/currently reading/wishlist stuff on books that are related to that list right away. Plus, if there's a dedicated group on LT, that group should be able to add a link.
- Profile stats - these lists should be displayable under memes or right on your profile. Because they're fun.
Oh, I should mention that the existence of an Honor & Award or Series doesn't eliminate a list creation. After all, some folks may want to read all the Booker Prize winners - and show their progress on that list.
Lists can fill in the gaps where Awards & Honors and Series simply cannot fit the bill. Want to list the Books reviewed in the Polysyllabic Spree? Maybe you were a Gillmore Girls fan and you want to read everything on Rory's bookcase. Maybe you want to read everything made into a movie. Maybe you want to read Harold Bloom's Cannon.
Or - maybe you've been following this thread on LT - the BBC Meme.
Which is really why I'm here not only to revisit lists, but to ask for some super-dooper pony functionality with lists.
While I think the BBC thread is great, there are some issues. #1 being that it's a list of 100 books, so everyone that copies it potentially copies 100 lines of text, plus their explanation of how many they've read and whatever other formatting they might have done. While it looks like a conversation, my impression is that folks are probably not reading every post all that carefully. They're likely listing their own post and moving on - sorta social, but not exactly.
In a list function with full ponies, I'd love it if we could do the following:
1. Create the list and advertise it.
2. Have folks adopt the list and "work" it.
3. Let folks be able to show their progress on the list easily.
4. Let others see quite easily which books on a list are most read/currently being read/being discussed.
5. Let you have a list meme on your profile.
I know, I know - can we visualize this? Can we rip off something else and make it better - make it more LibraryThing? Why YES!
If anyone here is at ListsofBests - or has seen it - I'm suggesting ripping of parts of it and adopting the best parts and dumping the not-so-good parts.
Here's one of their sample lists - Books mentioned in Matlida. A nice, short list.
Stuff to steal:
- Creation of the list. You'll notice that there's one contributor. In some cases, there are multiple contributors who will correct titles, add titles to partially complete lists or those that like things arranged in certain orders. There are comments allowed on all lists as well - sometimes they get a little snippy like who does the BBC think they are not to put 1984 on the all-time best list - it's a crap list!, but that's about it.
- Adoption of the list. You can see all the users with one click that have adopted the list on the right-hand side. The down-side of their system is that it takes you to all of their lists that they've adopted. Some folks adopt everything. But if you find the list on their list of lists, you can see how far they were on the list. I'd prefer that you could hover over their name and see something like (47% - click to see comparison).
When I talk about working the list - when you're loogged into list of bests and you notice that you've read/watched/consumed something, you merely click on the item. From there, you can simply indicate "I have consumed this" and then you have the option to indicate the following - a date of consumption and then whether it was worth consuming or not. PONY TIME - I'd love it if we could mark books "read" for lists. And then we could be encouraged (but not required) to fill in starred ratings and/or (again, not required) reading dates. But the ability to mark a book read kind of hinges on the working the list part. This is how you decide how done with the book you are...of course, it could encourage you to write a review as well. =P
- One last thing to sort of steal from ListsofBests - view. When you view a list, you get a visual clue that shows you whether you've consumed, are consuming or haven't consumed something. It also shows if you've marked it as worth/not worth consuming. Basically, consumed items have a green background, items currently being consumed have a green background and the words "WORTH CONSUMING" and "NOT WORTH CONSUMING" appear on consumed items if you indicated either. If we could either highlight or checkmark the books we've read and display stars if we used them, that would be totally PONY. :)
If we could do the side-by-side comparisons to another person that would be even spiffier.
LibraryThing Enhancements over Lists
Most of this would be in the Memes section, but also linkable if folks wanted to share it in a thread like the BBC one.
- Sharing progress. If folks could easily grab their percentage complete, that would be awesome. Imagine the BBC thread where folks could say, I'm 22% done - and that's 22 books because I can do math!
- Site statistics available on the LIST master page. So you're looking at the list and you know you're 22% done, but how's everyone on the site that adopted the list? What if that could be calculated easily - and we knew that the top-read book on the list was Animal Farm by 77% of list adopters and that only 2% of list adopters had read Germinal? It might help for some group reads. :)
- Mini Homepage-type stuffs on lists. So one could see quickly discussions/currently reading/wishlist stuff on books that are related to that list right away. Plus, if there's a dedicated group on LT, that group should be able to add a link.
- Profile stats - these lists should be displayable under memes or right on your profile. Because they're fun.
Oh, I should mention that the existence of an Honor & Award or Series doesn't eliminate a list creation. After all, some folks may want to read all the Booker Prize winners - and show their progress on that list.
2rsterling
I strongly second this pony request. I'd love to be able to do, on LibraryThing, something like what ListsofBests.com does (but better, because we have works and aren't based on Amazon).
5_Zoe_
Yes, yes, yes.
LT could easily implement "Read" functionality by adding a pre-defined collection with that name.
LT could easily implement "Read" functionality by adding a pre-defined collection with that name.
6countrylife
Standing to applaud! Wonderful interpretation of Lists! If we could vote, you'd have mine!
7infiniteletters
This would be great.
9monarchi
Yes yes yes yes yes:)
I love this idea.
Between this and book-to-bookstore linkages, my Librarything experience would be complete.
I love this idea.
Between this and book-to-bookstore linkages, my Librarything experience would be complete.
10fannyprice
I'm seconding (or 11thing, as the case may be) this idea. I loved Lists of Bests, but didn't really want to hang out on the site so much after a while. I would rather do the same thing here on LT.
12VisibleGhost
I like it. LT should implement Lists in the next 12 hours.
13justjim
>12 VisibleGhost: Don't be silly, it'll take two weeks.
14VisibleGhost
Har!
15plekter
Best idea since collections! And facebook app! Love lists! Yeah!
If librarything had more money, they could just hire someone to make the facebook app and then make the list thing...but thats another story...
If librarything had more money, they could just hire someone to make the facebook app and then make the list thing...but thats another story...
16klarusu
Yeah, count me in on the 'Yes please' brigade for a list feature. I don't like the idea of lists being a communal feature where people can adopt them and work on them but the ability to create personal lists would be great and to meme them on profile would be great (yes, I made up a verb and I'm unapologetic about it).
17klarusu
Besides, Tim & Chris have had far too long a holiday since collections ... time for some sleepless nights ;-)
19lquilter
... I listed some of the earlier discussions on the Lists (recommended feature) page on the LT wiki.
God I would love lists.
God I would love lists.
20klarusu
I was thinking about this last night (yes, I am aware I should get out more) and I think that it's too strong to say that I'm against the public/adopting side of lists. I can see where this would be useful. I think that I'd just like to have both public lists and the ability to create your own private list (which probably has no relevance to others and could therefore be hidden in some way - I'm not touchy about privacy but just see no relevance for the site as a whole in, for example, in my list of books in the spare room).
Can my pony have big purple rosette attached?
Can my pony have big purple rosette attached?
21infiniteletters
20: list of books in the spare room = collection
22_Zoe_
I think it would be nice if we could compare our progress on a list without officially "adopting" it. If, say, someone has a list of books they've read in 2009, I might want to see when percentage of that I've also read without having my name connected to it. I'm not really familiar with ListofBests, so I don't know if the feature is already assumed to work this way.
Also, can someone who has adopted a list then modify it for their own purposes? I'd prefer it if there were an option to prevent that, so that the list was fixed as the creator intended it.
Also, can someone who has adopted a list then modify it for their own purposes? I'd prefer it if there were an option to prevent that, so that the list was fixed as the creator intended it.
23countrylife
Me, too, on the private lists or option for no modification (a la 20/klarusu and 22/_Zoe_).
24stephmo
>22 _Zoe_:
On ListofBests, if you want to see how you've done on a list without adopting it, this is where marking things as "consumed" comes into play.
Let's say I'm working on BBC's Big Read - true story - and I've read Jane Eyre - true story.
I've read Jane Eyre for every single list no matter whether I've adopted the list or not. Meaning that if I look at Jane Eyre, I can see that it appears on all sorts of lists - including one's I'm not working like MLA's 30 Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die. But I can look at that list and immediately see that I've not only consumed Jane Eyre, but a few others. And I can mark those as consumed as well - all without ever adopting the list. (It's also a way to say, "gee, I only have to consume 3 more of these to complete this list, so I'll adopt it!"
As far as modifications go, ListsofBests has two basic tiers - personal and public (which they break into definitive and awards lists). If you create a personal list, it will say "Stephmo's List of Books in Matilda" instead of "Books in Matilda" and is only editable by the person who made the list. However, anyone can still adopt and work the list. For awards/definitive lists, they generally trust the community to do the right thing (much like we do with CK) to work from the original list and keep the right materials on the lists.
ETA - Although, on the subject of private lists, I'm sort of with infiniteletters - that's a private collection. If you don't want anyone to adopt it and you don't want anyone to see your progress and it's only for you - well, that's probably best represented as a small sub-collection and not a list. I really envisioned lists as something to share with the entire site - and to be adopted by others.
On ListofBests, if you want to see how you've done on a list without adopting it, this is where marking things as "consumed" comes into play.
Let's say I'm working on BBC's Big Read - true story - and I've read Jane Eyre - true story.
I've read Jane Eyre for every single list no matter whether I've adopted the list or not. Meaning that if I look at Jane Eyre, I can see that it appears on all sorts of lists - including one's I'm not working like MLA's 30 Books Every Adult Should Read Before They Die. But I can look at that list and immediately see that I've not only consumed Jane Eyre, but a few others. And I can mark those as consumed as well - all without ever adopting the list. (It's also a way to say, "gee, I only have to consume 3 more of these to complete this list, so I'll adopt it!"
As far as modifications go, ListsofBests has two basic tiers - personal and public (which they break into definitive and awards lists). If you create a personal list, it will say "Stephmo's List of Books in Matilda" instead of "Books in Matilda" and is only editable by the person who made the list. However, anyone can still adopt and work the list. For awards/definitive lists, they generally trust the community to do the right thing (much like we do with CK) to work from the original list and keep the right materials on the lists.
ETA - Although, on the subject of private lists, I'm sort of with infiniteletters - that's a private collection. If you don't want anyone to adopt it and you don't want anyone to see your progress and it's only for you - well, that's probably best represented as a small sub-collection and not a list. I really envisioned lists as something to share with the entire site - and to be adopted by others.
25lquilter
What would be nice would be if you could attach a mark to a collection -- green checkmarks for "Your library", purple checkmarks for "wishlist", empty outline checkmarks for "owned but unread", asterisks for "my special secret collection". Then when you looked at a list have it automatically display the relevant marks.
26klarusu
#21, not necessarily if I don't choose to use collections that way, which I don't. There's absolutely no way I'd use that as a collection. Collections have nothing to do with physical location. Besides this was just an extreme example. The fact is, if lists are to be of any interest, you have to be able to make private lists of your own without being forced into sharing them otherwise it's just another way of dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side. I'm not saying don't have public lists, just that this should be a two layer thing so people can collaborate and publicly work through '1001 Books' or otherwise but I should be able to set up my own, private '1001 Books' list without being forced to share it.
27klarusu
Besides, books in the spare room is a perfectly valid list if I want to chart my progress reading through the books in that particular bookcase ... or are we only allowed to make certain lists relevant to publicly published lists ... in which case, not much point to the feature. I can just tick off the books on the list on paper.
28klarusu
#24, I really envisioned lists as something to share with the entire site - and to be adopted by others.
This gets to the heart of it really then. If this is the case, then lists are something that is solely being designed for the 'social' users which will discount a cross section of people who don't primarily use LT in a social fashion. There are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to share everything on this site but who should also be included in the design of a feature. I'm not dissing the public side of lists but I can't see why a feature like this couldn't encompass both.
This gets to the heart of it really then. If this is the case, then lists are something that is solely being designed for the 'social' users which will discount a cross section of people who don't primarily use LT in a social fashion. There are a lot of people who don't necessarily want to share everything on this site but who should also be included in the design of a feature. I'm not dissing the public side of lists but I can't see why a feature like this couldn't encompass both.
29stephmo
>28 klarusu: But what do you really want then? Because you don't want 90% of the original proposal. It's highly social and is built around sharing.
Frankly, if you want private lists no one on LT can see and that will allow you to chart your progress, http://www.listsofbests.com/ is already waiting for you. You can create Books in My Spare Room as a list even.
In the proposal, if you have a sequestered list, you won't have sharing, the ability to compare, the ability to adopt the list, memes (in fact, private lists likely put these at risk), seeing which books are most read on a list (it's just you - it's either read or not), and a mini-page of site-wide stats on the list that represents those that adopted the list (since it's just you) showing who's currently reading, who's discussing it and other relevant info.
You just have a checklist. And that's available on listsofbests.
Frankly, if you want private lists no one on LT can see and that will allow you to chart your progress, http://www.listsofbests.com/ is already waiting for you. You can create Books in My Spare Room as a list even.
In the proposal, if you have a sequestered list, you won't have sharing, the ability to compare, the ability to adopt the list, memes (in fact, private lists likely put these at risk), seeing which books are most read on a list (it's just you - it's either read or not), and a mini-page of site-wide stats on the list that represents those that adopted the list (since it's just you) showing who's currently reading, who's discussing it and other relevant info.
You just have a checklist. And that's available on listsofbests.
30jjwilson61
But if private lists are just a subset of the full lists functionality then it doesn't sound like it should be too hard to provide. So why not do it?
31stephmo
Because subsets include things like, "and I don't want anyone to know that I'm working on it!" which means that things like memes disappear and combining of lists disappears and calculating the number of books read in lists disappears.
Private and separate isn't easy as a piggy-back. Especially for some vague notion of some sort of privacy issue that apparently can only be covered by lists but not by listsofbests and definitely not by taking advantage of collections. It's a whole new infrastructure. If folks want private non-functioning lists with no social value, they can request those.
For anyone to imply that it's a simple on/off toggle is to ignore 99% of what's been said in development efforts along the way for the last 3 years. If we had private books or private collections, one could argue that it was easy - but we don't. And we don't have it not because Tim & Co. don't want to offer it - it's because it's very difficult to provide with all the nuance everyone wants and needs.
Private and separate isn't easy as a piggy-back. Especially for some vague notion of some sort of privacy issue that apparently can only be covered by lists but not by listsofbests and definitely not by taking advantage of collections. It's a whole new infrastructure. If folks want private non-functioning lists with no social value, they can request those.
For anyone to imply that it's a simple on/off toggle is to ignore 99% of what's been said in development efforts along the way for the last 3 years. If we had private books or private collections, one could argue that it was easy - but we don't. And we don't have it not because Tim & Co. don't want to offer it - it's because it's very difficult to provide with all the nuance everyone wants and needs.
32_Zoe_
>24 stephmo: Okay, so I think I'm happy with the proposal exactly as it stands!
On the subject of privacy: I've seen it said a lot of times that privacy has to be done either perfectly or not at all, and I'm not sure why. Making sure privacy is perfect seems to be very hard, so there's usually no privacy option at all (see Collections). Wouldn't a flawed privacy option be better than nothing? Anyway, I don't object in principle to private lists, certainly not if it can be done easily, but I don't think it's the main issue here.
The social aspect is the main reason I want lists. I don't think there's a problem with developing a purely social feature; personally, I'm happy with LT's handling of bibliographic data as it stands, but I don't object when people ask for improvements. LT is already by far the best cataloguing site, though, so I think there's something to be said for working a bit more on the social aspects.
I do have to say, I despise statements like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side." Because discounting the non-social users is bad, but it's okay to actively denigrate the social side of things? To me, this severely weakens your claim that we should take everyone into account when developing a feature; it seems like "everyone" really just means "non-social users".
On the subject of privacy: I've seen it said a lot of times that privacy has to be done either perfectly or not at all, and I'm not sure why. Making sure privacy is perfect seems to be very hard, so there's usually no privacy option at all (see Collections). Wouldn't a flawed privacy option be better than nothing? Anyway, I don't object in principle to private lists, certainly not if it can be done easily, but I don't think it's the main issue here.
The social aspect is the main reason I want lists. I don't think there's a problem with developing a purely social feature; personally, I'm happy with LT's handling of bibliographic data as it stands, but I don't object when people ask for improvements. LT is already by far the best cataloguing site, though, so I think there's something to be said for working a bit more on the social aspects.
I do have to say, I despise statements like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side." Because discounting the non-social users is bad, but it's okay to actively denigrate the social side of things? To me, this severely weakens your claim that we should take everyone into account when developing a feature; it seems like "everyone" really just means "non-social users".
33klarusu
#29, but I do want lists and not on 'List of Bests' because I want specific book lists that I can use as a complement to my catalogue here. Ultimately, any list is just a checklist - just because I don't want this incarnation of a list feature doesn't mean I don't want a list feature that can be used in conjunction with a catalogue here. Whether it's private or social, it's still a checklist. I think that most of the original post is great but just with the privacy option engrained in it too.
I don't think that the granular privacy issue that occurred with collections is the same issue that occurs with lists. I'm not saying you need to make the works private on lists, just that you should be able to create lists that are not public alongside the public ones. It's not about works and books as the collections issue was. It's about public and private checklists that in no way affect the visibility status of a work in the catalogue. Ideally, I'd like to be able to share my list with a specific subsection of users so that relevant lists can be semi-public but that really would be asking for the pony, and possibly the stable box as well.
I despise statements like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side." Because discounting the non-social users is bad, but it's okay to actively denigrate the social side of things? To me, this severely weakens your claim that we should take everyone into account when developing a feature; it seems like "everyone" really just means "non-social users".
Crap Zoe, seriously. I said quite clearly that I wasn't dissing the social side and that I could see the point behind having socially connected lists but that if you make a feature, make it for everyone and provide a private option. I didn't in any way suggest that all lists should be private so it's obviously not just something I was proposing for non-social users. You're going to have to live with the fact that not everyone wants everything to be totally social but that's not, by default, a criticism of those who do want that. Just that if you can make one size fit all in a feature, why not.
I don't think that the granular privacy issue that occurred with collections is the same issue that occurs with lists. I'm not saying you need to make the works private on lists, just that you should be able to create lists that are not public alongside the public ones. It's not about works and books as the collections issue was. It's about public and private checklists that in no way affect the visibility status of a work in the catalogue. Ideally, I'd like to be able to share my list with a specific subsection of users so that relevant lists can be semi-public but that really would be asking for the pony, and possibly the stable box as well.
I despise statements like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side." Because discounting the non-social users is bad, but it's okay to actively denigrate the social side of things? To me, this severely weakens your claim that we should take everyone into account when developing a feature; it seems like "everyone" really just means "non-social users".
Crap Zoe, seriously. I said quite clearly that I wasn't dissing the social side and that I could see the point behind having socially connected lists but that if you make a feature, make it for everyone and provide a private option. I didn't in any way suggest that all lists should be private so it's obviously not just something I was proposing for non-social users. You're going to have to live with the fact that not everyone wants everything to be totally social but that's not, by default, a criticism of those who do want that. Just that if you can make one size fit all in a feature, why not.
34_Zoe_
>33 klarusu: And I said that I have nothing against private lists, if it's not too hard to implement.
I'm talking about the general attitude that phrases like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side" represents. Why use a word like "dragging"? Why is the situation presented as a contest between opposing "sides", rather than as a general expansion of different aspects of the site? Adding more social features doesn't detract from the non-social features.
And the Facebook analogy doesn't even make any sense here. Facebook has more granular privacy settings than any other site I know. So again, the word choice is just reflecting dismissal/denigration of anything social.
I'm talking about the general attitude that phrases like "dragging the site further onto the 'Facebook for books' side" represents. Why use a word like "dragging"? Why is the situation presented as a contest between opposing "sides", rather than as a general expansion of different aspects of the site? Adding more social features doesn't detract from the non-social features.
And the Facebook analogy doesn't even make any sense here. Facebook has more granular privacy settings than any other site I know. So again, the word choice is just reflecting dismissal/denigration of anything social.
35lquilter
Seems like a list could be marked (a) private, (b) publicly viewable, (c) publicly editable. Publicly viewable lists could be seen and/or interacted with by other users, but the list itself not edited.
36_Zoe_
>35 lquilter: Sounds good to me, though I think "viewable" might be a bit too weak a term for the sort of interaction that users could have with public, non-editable lists.
37VisibleGhost
35- That sounds workable.
I just did a search for the booker longlist 2009 on LT. In tags, only 8 of the 13 show up. If you click booker longlist 2009 in CK (from the Wolf Hall works page for example) it takes you to a Booker longlist page that isn't year specific. The only place I found the complete Booker Longlist 2009 on LT is in Talk. Searching Google for Booker Longlist 2009 does not bring up Librarything in the first page of results. The info can be found on blogs, news sites, other book sites, and other places but not easily found on LT. It would seem that having that list (and others) would be beneficial to LT traffic if they were easy to find on this site.
I just did a search for the booker longlist 2009 on LT. In tags, only 8 of the 13 show up. If you click booker longlist 2009 in CK (from the Wolf Hall works page for example) it takes you to a Booker longlist page that isn't year specific. The only place I found the complete Booker Longlist 2009 on LT is in Talk. Searching Google for Booker Longlist 2009 does not bring up Librarything in the first page of results. The info can be found on blogs, news sites, other book sites, and other places but not easily found on LT. It would seem that having that list (and others) would be beneficial to LT traffic if they were easy to find on this site.
38infiniteletters
37: And the Booker Longlist 2009 is a prime candidate for CK Awards.
39rsterling
37: I think I get the larger point you're trying to make (it might be nice to have a separate list just for the 2009 longlist, to check off), but I don't quite understand what your post is saying otherwise.
The Booker Prize Longlist page on CK is complete certainly for 2009 (all 13 longlisted books are there), and designates which year a book was on the long-list.
http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Booker%20Prize%20Longlist
True, searching "Booker Longlist 2009" on Google doesn't have LT in the top results, but neither does it have GoodReads or other similar sites; it's mostly news reports, but that's only to be expected since there are more of them and they're much higher traffic sites. (The same goes for searches of "Booker Longlist" or "Booker Prize Longlist.") But, if you search Google for "Booker Longlist 2009 librarything", "Booker Longlist librarything", or "Booker Prize Longlist librarything," the CK list pops right up, as do books tagged that way, and some relevant talk threads.
(Edited to add "Google" to last sentence, for clarification.)
(Edited again to add: the lack of a good LT site-wide search is also a problem here. What we need, and I think the staff is aware of this, is a good unified search of LT pages.)
The Booker Prize Longlist page on CK is complete certainly for 2009 (all 13 longlisted books are there), and designates which year a book was on the long-list.
http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Booker%20Prize%20Longlist
True, searching "Booker Longlist 2009" on Google doesn't have LT in the top results, but neither does it have GoodReads or other similar sites; it's mostly news reports, but that's only to be expected since there are more of them and they're much higher traffic sites. (The same goes for searches of "Booker Longlist" or "Booker Prize Longlist.") But, if you search Google for "Booker Longlist 2009 librarything", "Booker Longlist librarything", or "Booker Prize Longlist librarything," the CK list pops right up, as do books tagged that way, and some relevant talk threads.
(Edited to add "Google" to last sentence, for clarification.)
(Edited again to add: the lack of a good LT site-wide search is also a problem here. What we need, and I think the staff is aware of this, is a good unified search of LT pages.)
40VisibleGhost
I clicked on the Booker Longlist 2009 from the Wolf Hall works page.
http://www.librarything.com/work/8023914
That is the link that took me to a non-specific year Booker list. It took me here.
http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Booker+Prize+Longlist
I guess I'm saying a user unfamiliar with LT and how it's organized is unlikely to end up in CK or Talk when searching the net for Booker Longlist 2009. It seems there's an opportunity to snag some traffic and climb search results pages from a Lists feature on LT. Could be that I'm wrong though.
If there ends up being a Lists feature on LT then a Lists searchbox on the Search page probably wouldn't hurt.
http://www.librarything.com/work/8023914
That is the link that took me to a non-specific year Booker list. It took me here.
http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Booker+Prize+Longlist
I guess I'm saying a user unfamiliar with LT and how it's organized is unlikely to end up in CK or Talk when searching the net for Booker Longlist 2009. It seems there's an opportunity to snag some traffic and climb search results pages from a Lists feature on LT. Could be that I'm wrong though.
If there ends up being a Lists feature on LT then a Lists searchbox on the Search page probably wouldn't hurt.
41countrylife
35/lquilter - Sounds good to me, too. I like options for private, personal and public lists.
42_Zoe_
I think it was in a different thread that we discussed how to mark books as Read for the purposes of lists. Reiterating here: I think the most efficient and flexible way to do this would be to add a default Read collection. Stephmo thinks otherwise, though I can't remember the exact arguments made.
43stephmo
>42 _Zoe_: Basically, I was looking at the way the list "read" works in AllConsuming. You don't have to have it on your list of items consumed (although you can) - you can just indicate that you've read it.
For people that may want to indicate that they've read childhood books or books from high school that are on lists, they may not want to add "read but unowned" collections just to utilize the list functionality.
For people that may want to indicate that they've read childhood books or books from high school that are on lists, they may not want to add "read but unowned" collections just to utilize the list functionality.
44_Zoe_
Ideally the List feature could work even from de-activated collections, so that it could be based on a behind-the-scenes Read collection without requiring that you actually display that collection on your profile.
I'm just thinking in terms of what's most convenient for both the programmers and the users. Collections have the huge benefit of already existing, and they have a really friendly UI as well. I'd hope that at the very least I could show reading status on lists based on a Read collection, even if there's another way of marking it as well.
I'm just thinking in terms of what's most convenient for both the programmers and the users. Collections have the huge benefit of already existing, and they have a really friendly UI as well. I'd hope that at the very least I could show reading status on lists based on a Read collection, even if there's another way of marking it as well.
45TheoClarke
The list functionality is very appealing to me. I am not sure why the idea of hidden/private lists causes any difficulties. If I make a list purely for my own private use nobody else loses anything (except the opportunity to see something that I am doing). If I make my list public then anyone can join in and, again, I see no losers. There would be complexities with someone wishing to participate privately in a public list but if they want a private version they can duplicate the public original.
46infiniteletters
It would be nice to keep track of books I don't like (at all, or not enough to keep) without it playing into ER statistics too.
47countrylife
Agree with you, infiniteletters/46. Further, I'd like to keep a list of authors whose books I don't want to fall into again. And I'd like the fact of their being on my 'Avoid this author' list to show up if I accidentally open up one of their Work pages. Because My LT is about my relationship with my books, I want it to carry on that relationship with a hated author just as it carries on the relationship with an owned book to the Work page.
49stephmo
On the lists "as deactivated collections" - here's my fear if this is a stated reason to have private lists - this could kill the feature.
Why? It's an easy way to skirt the 200-book limit. This is really where I wanted to have the public lists that could be adopted. If it became a pay-only feature (i.e. you can only make lists if you're a lifetime member), that could become disappointing to a large population of individuals. Especially if the usage of lists becomes as "ghost collections" and not as things to share or as something better for the 50, 75, 10x10 (whatever), State, TBR, Round the World, Difinitive List and other challenges.
The idea of lists is not to move books you don't like out of your library or to hide books you hate...well, that's a collection and something that should be another RSI - the collection as wholly private (or private books w/poweredit capability), or pushing Tim to really move on the "use for recommendations" code so that not only does it wholly work, but others looking at your library can see that you don't use that book for recommendations...
Why? It's an easy way to skirt the 200-book limit. This is really where I wanted to have the public lists that could be adopted. If it became a pay-only feature (i.e. you can only make lists if you're a lifetime member), that could become disappointing to a large population of individuals. Especially if the usage of lists becomes as "ghost collections" and not as things to share or as something better for the 50, 75, 10x10 (whatever), State, TBR, Round the World, Difinitive List and other challenges.
The idea of lists is not to move books you don't like out of your library or to hide books you hate...well, that's a collection and something that should be another RSI - the collection as wholly private (or private books w/poweredit capability), or pushing Tim to really move on the "use for recommendations" code so that not only does it wholly work, but others looking at your library can see that you don't use that book for recommendations...
50saltmanz
49> That's an interesting problem. I don't know how palatable a solution this would be, but...what if users could only add a book to a list if they've got it catalogued on LT?
51stephmo
>50 saltmanz: But then no one person could really make an entire list they were working - who could make the 1001 books before you die list?
Well, I suppose well-meaning individuals with paid accounts willing to make "list" collections could...but that's a ton of work.
Plus, I was sort of hoping that there would be some quick porting over from awards list with editing fuctions (so you could go year by year).
Well, I suppose well-meaning individuals with paid accounts willing to make "list" collections could...but that's a ton of work.
Plus, I was sort of hoping that there would be some quick porting over from awards list with editing fuctions (so you could go year by year).
52lquilter
Let's not borrow trouble. Yes, I imagine somebody sometime will decide it's better to just have their collection in a list rather than in individual book records, but, well, every feature is going to be re-purposed and misused by someone. I don't think we ought to worry too much about the possible abuses generally. We probably won't be able to predict the most creative anyway, and solutions will become more evident when the system and the abuses thereof are in place.
53infiniteletters
People already make works with titles of "all books by (this author)" or "11 books by (this author)".
59Thwaite
I wanted to voice my own list suggestion that is -to me- fairly simple (and may have been brought up by someone else already). This was probably blindingly obvious to everyone except me, but I didn't realize until a couple weeks ago that if I click on an award on a book's CK page, it would take me to a list of all the books given that award, and that books I own or read/unowned have different colored checkmarks next to them. I think this same function could easily be adapted to a list function, where if a book has been added to a list (1001 Books Before You Die, The Guardian's top 100 books, ALA's most frequently challenged books, Rory Gilmore Book Club*) LTers can add that info into CK the same way awards are. This plus a way to favorite lists (the same way we can favorite libraries) would accomplish a lot.
*These are all names of lists from Lists of Bests.
*These are all names of lists from Lists of Bests.
60r.orrison
Many of those lists are already being recorded as awards.
E.g. http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/1001%20Books%20You%20Must%20Read%20Before%...
(Oh, and the same clicking on CK works for characters and important places, and blurbers, and birthdates... everything on works and authors. That's very much part of the point, and the reason for the guidelines as to how things should be formatted.)
E.g. http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/1001%20Books%20You%20Must%20Read%20Before%...
(Oh, and the same clicking on CK works for characters and important places, and blurbers, and birthdates... everything on works and authors. That's very much part of the point, and the reason for the guidelines as to how things should be formatted.)
