More separation/distinction between ER and MG

Many members, especially newer members, seem to be confused about Early Reviewers and Member Giveaway, seeming to think of them as one and the same.

I think that part of the confusion comes in because of the way it shows up on our profile page (under Membership) with the Early Bird next to 'LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway'. That makes it come across to new members as one Thing. And it doesn't seem to help that there is no (that I know of) separate Group for Member Giveaway, so the comments that should pertain to that function end up in the ER group. People post there about their wins making no distinction between the two Things. They don't work the same - they shouldn't be treated AS the same.

They DO show up on the home page in distinct boxes. Perhaps it would help to have a separation on Profiles giving the Early Bird and the Squirrels each their own distinct line. And a new group specifically for MG. And have the appropriate group linked from the home page boxes.

I agree -- that's a good idea.

More separation would be a good idea. There are a lot of confused conversations as it stands.

v

Same here. More separation would be good. They're two different things, with different methods for choosing winners, and different expectations of recipients.

It's not just on the profile/home page that a greater distinction could be made. The Member Givaway page has the Early Reviewers logo/name on it, and at the bottom there is a link (which doesn't seem to do anything?) that says "Click here to see older batches of Early Reviewer books."

Oh, good catch. I say - change 'em all! ;)

Good points here -- with a couple of things that we need to fix (from message 5).

If someone wants to start a Member Giveaway group, please do! The whole program is meant to be as self-sustaining as possible, so we wouldn't add it to standing groups (as that indicates, to some degree, that a LT employee would be a presence).

When you sign up for either program, you're signing up for both, so there is some inherent overlap. The point about how it appears on your profile page is legit, though. We should at least add the squirrels.

I'm not even sure how to navigate to Member Giveaway without clicking through Early Reviewers.

The direct link for giveaways is http://www.librarything.com/er/giveaway/list

I agree that a couple of things would help:

- on the profile, if instead of "Early Reviewers / Member Giveaways" being one link, it was separated into two links, maybe with the squirrel next to the Member Giveaway part - so that they *look* like 2 separate things.

- on the homepage, if the Member Giveaways section went to the MG page, not to ER.

It might be a good idea to start a MG group, but I think it will take some time before the difference is fully understood, and some gentle nudging towards the MG group.

7> In my opinion, I think it should be a standing group. I don't interpret them as having a strong LT employee presence, given that the other groups include Author Chat, Book Talk, and Off-topic. I think one of the best ways to make the distinction between ER and MG is to have them listed near each other on the standing groups. "Ah, there's ER and there's MG. Clearly they are two different things."

It probably doesn't help that at the bottom of the "Member Giveaway" page there is a link that says, "Click here to see older batches of Early Reviewer books." There's certainly an implication there that they are the same, or one would expect it to read "older batches of Member Giveaway books".

>5 bluesalamanders:, 12 Mike did some fixin'.

Some more changes that might help:

Change the URL for the Member Giveaways so it doesn't say "ER".

Put prominently in bold face on the MG page that "These are not Early Reviewer books, LT has nothing to do with them, do not contact LT about missing books or unresponsive reviewers".

Change the membership so they're truly separate programs, or at least change the profile text so that it's obvious that they're separate.

Make it very clear in the text for MG winners (if it's not already) that these are not ER books, with language like that suggested above.

None of this SHOULD be necessary, of course, but it's increasingly obvious that it is.