Revisiting Collections

There's been a lot of discussion about this in various threads lately, so I thought it might be worth consolidating it.

Do Collections do what you want them to do? What improvements should/could be made?

I hope you don't mind, Zoe, but I posted a couple more narrowly focused follow-ons to your first poll, to get around the limitatations of the yes/no/undecided system. (I mean, if collections do 90% of what I'd want them to do, how do I answer the first poll?)

Ideally I'd like to be able to use collections to filter any page that displays data from my (or another user's) catalog (e.g. statistics, memes, clouds, gallery, etc.) Also on an in-catalog compare of two libraries I'd like to be able to filter the list by both user's collections. Lastly, I'd like to be able to switch the currently available recommendations and connections settings immediately rather than after some undefined wait to recalculate.

But apparently the current collections system wasn't designed to do these kind of things and it would probably require a total rewrite. So I'm not holding my breath.

One specific issue that's come up lately is that the Use for Recommendations and Connections checkboxes only work one way, which Tim says is unfixable. I'm not sure what more there is to say about this--should there be some fundamental changes to the Collections structure?

Of course I don't mind extra polls; thanks for helping clarify the issue.

In the recent discussion of wishlist separation, the conclusion seemed to be that Collections were more or less a lost cause and we should pin all our hopes on Lists. Or at least, that's what I got out of it.

The polls are too simplistic to really vote on but I voted yes & no respectively. By and large, yes, Collections do exactly what I want and I would hate for them to undergo any major revision which changes much about them as they would become something that did not do what I want. However, that glosses over a big point. The one hole in Collections for me is that they need proper separation of the wishlist collection. I have had to disable any links to recently added books (such as on Twitter) because there's no way to separate wishlist adds from real additions. Wishlist books shouldn't integrate in any way with your 'real' catalogue. This collection should be more like a list. It's a 'hypothetical' collection not a real one & purple checkmates just aren't enough. But if anything else gets changed on Collections, they would be reduced in usefulness for me.

What I'd most like is for some collectiosn to be completely isolated. Wishlist for example. Any book that appears in such an "isolated" collection only appears in the catalogue, it doesn't appear on any connections to anyone at all, ever, or recommendations, or anything.

Ideally I'd like the ability to set collections as isolated or not - but I'd be happy with 1 or two default isolates (rubbish books would be another contender).

I'm not sure how to handle books that appear in more than 1 collection though. But it should be intuative, and currently it isn't.

lorax posted after my #11. hers are better polls. Less biased by personal viewpoints.

Pretty much like klarusu said. So I voted no on #2 because I could vote yes on #4.

>13 klarusu: Hey, you're the one who's always complaining about too many polls. I'd always be happy to add more to reflect nuances better.

The answer to 2 is yes and no, though I voted no.
The answer to 3 is I'm not sure, because I don't know what could count as significant.

For me, what could be improved or developed:
* 2-way use for connections needed
* more explanation of use for recommendations, since it's not immediately clear whether it excludes the book entirely
* book or collection privacy - realizing that this doesn't need to be done through collections per se. One of my main reasons for wanting collections, though, was to be able to have a wishlist that I didn't show to other people and that wasn't part of my library. I don't think I was alone there. So that demand remains unsupplied.
* A better way of working with and organizing collections, ideally on a separate page, not a light box.
* More leveraging of collections to separate statistics and other areas of the site; ability to look at collection-specific statistics, to mark a collection as default for statistics purposes, and/or to exclude certain collections from statistics.
* Ability to exclude certain collections from recently added module and feeds
* Better way to view by collections within the catalog, so that the only options aren't "view 1 and only 1 collection" or "view all your collections jumbled up together." I don't mind the option of jumbled up together, but I'd prefer a default for All Collections that listed books in each collection separately (so a list of all books tagged X would be listed on the page under the headings Collection1, then Collection 2, etc.).
* A default "Read" collection (especially if that could be used - through checkmarks or otherwise - to track reading status on various pages: series, awards, a future list feature, etc.

What I like about collections:
* ability to define my own.
* Easy way to mark and unmark currently reading.
* colored check-boxes, though I think this kind of disaggregation could be leveraged more.

Basically, I was excited in the beginning and used collections to import a whole bunch of wishlist stuff, books I don't own, etc. I went private in anticipation of collections so I could play around with it while deciding how I wanted my catalog to look/be organized. I still use some collections -- currently reading, read, library books (in addition to Your Library, of course) -- from time to time, but less than I did at first. I've largely stopped using the wishlist collections (or any of the secondary wishlists I initially set up). But since no granular privacy option was ever developed, the fact that I imported all those wishlist books when collections launched has played a big part in keeping me from going public again. I'll have to do a massive clean up of my library, to delete lots of stuff, before going public again, because it doesn't seem granular privacy is coming any time soon. I've been tempted to use a second paid account for wishlist stuff, and to keep that one private, but that defeats the purpose a bit, since it's not easy to work across 2 accounts. But I really don't want (a) my wishlist to be public or (b) data from books in wishlist collections or non-owned collections to be polluting and confusing my statistics.

We could have a poll about it ;-))

I just re-read my last post and it makes it sound like I thought you did it on purpose. It wasn't meant to. I just meant personal views sometimes leak out into question wording. Sorry, typing on iPhone & brevity Doesn't always = clarity (even if it does mean I can type Zoë correctly ... nope, not tired of doing that yet).

I'm neutral on wishlist separation: I set up a separate account before Collections came out, and I haven't merged it fully into my main catalog, so it's really a non-issue for me.

But that absolutely does not mean that collections don't lack any big, important functionalities for me. I had been under the impression that I'd be able to filter my recommendations by collection. That has not been implemented, and it does not appear that it will be soon. While I may not be a programmer, it seems to me that it would not necessarily need to be coded from scratch: filtering by tag has long since been sufficiently de-bugged that at least some of its code could plausibly be adapted for collections.

I have said this should be done many times now, but I don't think I've heard The Staff say a word in reply.

</rant>
Edited for HTML

>17 klarusu: Thanks for clarifying. And I hope the diaeresis continues to entertain you for a long time to come! :D

I really frustrates me that Collections may be a "lost cause", that Tim seems to feel Collections does exactly what's intended and shouldn't be messed with.

The "Use for Recommendations and Connections checkboxes only work one way" is definitely frustrating, especially since it's been declared unfixable. It's a BUG, no matter what Tim says; It doesn't work how users expect it to work, given all the information we have about Collections, so it's either a bug or something that needs to be explained better to all users.

What really frustrated me when Collections came out, and I *know* a lot of people posted reacting the same way, is that Wishlists (and others, but Wishlist especially) cannot be completely separate from your other books. There are WAY too many places where Wishlist books appear when they really shouldn't. If Collections was such a damn big deal, and having separate Collections is supposed to be this wonderful way of separating books, then they should BE separate. They should not appear in Recently Added, or the "random books from (user's) library", etc etc. Or at least give us the OPTION to exclude them.

I think that, for a lot of people, Collections either does what they want it to do, or they've simply gotten used to the way it works and have found other ways to do the other stuff (like making a separate account for wishlist books).

I don't use Collections *because* of all the things we collectively thought it would do, way back when, and it was a big disappointment when it rolled out and all these things surprised us as being impossible. I understand that maybe Tim likes it the way it is, but the fact is that Collections doesn't really do squat if it doesn't REALLY separate books. That's my opinion, at least.

All of these threads seem to have very loud voices in favor of Wishlist separation, to the point where "Collections #&91;are#&93; more or less a lost cause". I really don't care that much. It would be nice to have the books that are wishlist items indicate as much (somebody suggested that Recently Added specifically say "x wishlisted this book" instead of "x added this book", and that would be neat). But as far as I'm concerned, if I'm interested enough to wishlist it it can be part of my library - I have books I've read that I strongly disliked, should they also not be part of my library? (some people would say yes). I don't use recommendations much, or spend much time surfing other people's libraries, so don't care that much.

OK, with that as background - there are a few things I would like that Collections don't (currently) offer, and some expansions on things it does offer. But for the most part, Collections does what I want from it. And now that it's in export, one of my major complaints is gone....

Things I want: granular privacy - Either a collection or book-by-book, there are a few things I'd like to go private; a default Read/Recently Read collection with functions attached similar to Currently Reading; collections connected to widgets.

Expansions - more of the sets you can get to through Stats/Collections; specifically, the set of "not in this collection or in that collection" (multiple inverse), and the set of "in this collection but not that collection" (inverse of one collection within another). I'm sure if I got those there would be others I'd want, but right now I'm regularly frustrated trying to find, say, the two books in my library that are not in either Cover Done or Working On. (brute force and awkwardness will do it, inverse one and look for not in the other). Oh, and one more thing - make searching work within collection inverses and overlaps. If I search for a tag or whatever, the collections manipulations go away - also frustrating!

I have books I've read that I strongly disliked, should they also not be part of my library?

I'd include it in my library if I had actually finished it, but I'd also like to keep a record of books I've abandoned, and they really shouldn't count for anything.

As for wishlist separation, I think it depends what people want use the wishlist for. If I'm absolutely resolved to buy the book, then sure, it could count as part of my library. But if I'm absolutely resolved to buy the book, then a) I'll remember it and b) I'll just buy it. I really want a "watch list" more than a wishlist, of books that I come across in conversation that seem worthy of further investigation, but that I'm not necessarily committed to reading.

That's kind of my point. If I'm interested in the book enough to watch for it, it's part of my library (for me, YMMDV - does, apparently).

I keep records of books I disliked mostly to keep myself from rebuying them. They sounded interesting enough to pick up and read, I need LT to tell me why I shouldn't grab them again. And yes, abandoned books are a pain. I started it, but it's not 'read'; most of them are library books, so not in Your Library; where the heck do I keep them? (Ephiphany - make a collection! I've got three or four, that's enough to make it worthwhile. Thanks, Zoë, for making me think about it. And that's why I like collections...)

Oh yeah - another improvement needed:
* include collections in export (along with all the other missing catalog data there...)

Never mind; I guess it's been implemented, from the other thread, though a bit buggy still.

23: The thing is, for some people (including me), wishlist isn't just "really interested, want want want!" or whatever. I add books to my wishlist that sound vaguely interesting, that I may want to look into more in the future, or that I might want to remember in *case* I'm ever interested enough to buy it. I have lots of books in my wishlist (noted by tags right now) that I may never read, and I really don't care if I do or not. It's just a way to keep track. For those books, I *don't* want them counted the same as my other books, because let's face it, *I* don't count them the same.

Yes. That's the point I'm trying to make. Most of the messages here and in the thread about lists have been people who really, really want wishlist separation. Which is fine. I was just trying to provide a voice for those who _don't_ care about it. I can see, if only vaguely, why you care - can you see why/how I don't? And my wishlist is similar (some going-to-buy, some should-check-out), but again, if I'm interested enough to write it down I don't mind if it appears in my library. I don't desperately want it to, but I don't mind if it does. Thanks for the poll, infiniteletters - just what's needed.

24> There's a bug in CSV, yes (though I don't know why). TD works fine - Collections appears between Stars and Your Tags, with the proper data in each field. Yay! So nice to have that. And so many tags I can get rid of now...

25: If they're that separate, why not just have another library for them? I have separate libraries for private books and for my vague "wishlist." The private books one is a pain, because I actually have the book and have to remember which library it's in. But the wishlist one isn't causing me any grief at all.

>27 jjmcgaffey: Yeah, I can certainly understand that it doesn't bother you. There are things that other people obsess over that I couldn't care less about, like cataloguing the proper edition of a book.

>28 aulsmith: It's inconvenient signing in and out of accounts or even switching between browsers. If I come across an interesting book and am looking at the work page, I don't want to go to another account and search for that book--especially when it's quick and easy to follow the direct link to Amazon and keep track of my wishlist there.

27> Actually, in the CSV the Tags and Collections columns are swapped.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/99551

30> The headers for the columns are swapped. Or the same thing a different way - the data for Tags is under Collections, the data for Collections is under the header Tags.

But TD doesn't have that problem, it exports fine.

Nested or sub-collections.

Some tweaking to make it more usable or editable.

-- A seperate page to edit collections.

-- The collections Your Library dropdown menu on the Your Books page gets cutoff at the bottom(bottom most items are unreachable) making collections uneditable from this page if you have a large number of collections.

Would like a privacy option at a collection or book level.

While we can have a free account for less than 200 books the best answer to wishlist separation is to have another account - 200 is probably big enough for most of us but, as Zoe says in #29, it is inconvenient to switch between accounts. Now, if only we had some sort of toggle to enable a jump between accounts with a single click..........

Right now you click "Sign Out" at the top of the page, and enter your usercode/password on the next screen. How much easier do you want it? It's not like LT knows that my accounts belong to the person (though I understand Tim can find out if he digs a little)

Lorax recently posted this on an different thread "Firefox add-on called CookieSwap that will let you do this, not just for LT but for any site with cookie-based logins."

Edited to correct "Sign Out" and add lorax's comment

Or you stay logged into 2 language sites, such as English and Pirate.

>34 aulsmith: Yes, of course I know what I have to do now because that is what I do. What I would like is a one-click toggle. At the moment it's 25 - 28 keystrokes depending on direction.
Obviously I would have to define the target account(s) with password to set such a thing up.

>35 infiniteletters: Now that is a helpful response ;-)

ETA - ... or it would be if I could make it work :-(

#33-36:

Not a perfect solution either, but I use Chrome for one account and Firefox for the other if I want to maintain two separate accounts on any one website.

I don't really care about Wishlist seperation per se, but it can certainly be unnerving when a book that I threw on my wishlist two years ago because it was on my radar at the time suddenly shows up in a "You share this book with X!" list or something, because really, I don't.

I think ideally the best way to deal with this would be to be able to designate certain types of collections that drive site functionality; but with all of the different ways people use the site, agreeing on 3-4 predefined types and how they work might well prove to be impossible.

Other than that, my only wish is that Collections be more integrated into other aspects of the site. Showing up in RSS feeds or Facebook posts, for example, or better search functionality, etc.

Long story short: yeah, they mostly do what I want. :)

I am very happy with collections, especially the ability to define our own, with one glaring exception. Going one step beyond the wishlist separation issue, I would like to be able to separate ANY collection we want on a one by one basis. For me, this is because I don't use wishlist but have a self-defined collection of books I want to investigate further that I would like to separate completely. I can see that for others this could help solve the granular privacy question too.

The only thing more I want from collections is to be able to use them to filter my profile_reviews.php page. Either by marking a collection "do not show reviews for these" or by a sort toggle on the reviews page.

It didn't end up being very popular in the big poll list, but it's something I expected the do not use in recs/connex thing to do from the beginning, and I'm really tired of seeing Twilight reviews there, but I'd rather not lose my own review or acquired/reading date info for it.

As far as I'm concerned, collections do absolutely nothing that can't be achieved with tags. So in my view (for my purposes) this feature is a complete bomb.

From what others have posted about the desired "Lists" feature, that would work better for me: simply a means to list titles without affecting the numbers and stats of my library (including--very important--connections statistics), BUT having the connectivity to LT's work data, owner member lists etc.

I agree about having wishlist separate... until then I have a collection INVESTIGATE for those that I'm interested in but not sure about.

So a wishlist by any other name is not the same?

For me, "wishlist" implies books I definitely want to acquire/read, whereas my "books to investigate further" collection is of books I've heard about, mostly here on LT, that sound interesting but which I don't yet know enough about to decide whether I want to get them or not. So yes, there is a difference, to me at least. But in both cases I would like them to be separate from books I actually own.

I understand that distinction, but not using a list merely titled something other than wishlist as one.

Maybe we are talking at cross purposes. I am not using my "books to investigate further" collection as a wishlist (by my definition of wishlist), but I would like the ability to separate it (or any other self-defined collection) in the ways other people would like to separate the LT-defined wishlist collection.

no not you rebeccanyc, cyderry appears to be doing it this way, to what end, I don't know.

43/45: I use a collection called watchlist for that purpose.

When adding new books, I wish collections were check boxes. If I have a book in multiple collections, then I keep having to do the drop down thing multiple times..that's a pain. I also wish that 'wishlist' was separate. I go into the bookstore and bring up books I own, but you can't select or filter by collections, so my wishlist books show in my library...so I've had to delete my wishlist for now. Bummer. I love LT though! Almost to 1,000 !

50> Are you adding books on the Add Books page? There, the collections (on the left - one click to 'show all') _are_ checkboxes - makes it a lot easier to add one book to multiple collections. There's a trick to it though - you have to check the boxes (and add any tags you want) _before_ you search for the book (so if you're using the green plus, you don't get the chance to make those changes before the search).

And - you mean you can't select or filter on the mobile site (librarything.com/m)? Yes, that's annoying. That's half the reason I export my library and look at it in Excel and a mobile database, rather than using the mobile site (the other half is reducing data usage because I don't have an unlimited plan). Collections just recently got added to exports; hopefully they'll be added to the mobile site (or the mobile site will be reformatted to include things like that) soon.

The edit book page also has a checklist of collections.