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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > goodreads.com - great tool for readers

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

There's going to be a lot of splash over because everyone posts their Goodreads at the beginning of the year over at the 52 books this year thread, but I always like having new friends. So add me!

http://www.goodreads.com/areyoustillthere

I have a question but just say you're a goon, it's just to filter out spammy authors.

AreYouStillThere fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Mar 18, 2012

# ¿ Jan 29, 2012 02:28

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:04

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

tabris posted:

Here's mine. I had an absurdly large amount of books read last year, but I highly doubt I'll get anywhere close to that this year, for a lot of reasons.

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4100763-adrian

I simply had to go look after you said that. C'mon, 806 is not humanly possible!

# ¿ Jan 29, 2012 20:10

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

Conduit for Sale! posted:

Goodreads makes me mad. Not because horrible idiots give great books bad reviews, but because then their friends say in the comments, "Thanks for the review, now I'll know to avoid that terrible book!"

Which then inevitably leads to this hypothetical exchange:

Random person: "Oh, [classic novel]? I haven't read it, but I was thinking about it."
Friend of reviewer who hasn't read the book: "I just overheard you talking about [classic novel]. It's horrible, don't bother."
Random person: "Wow, thanks for saving me the trouble! I'll just watch the Kardashians instead."

I guarantee this has happened at least 6 million times.

It's the main thing that bugs me about Goodreads too. I'm reading Lolita right now and was perusing the reviews, and this exact scenario happened a few times in just the 3 reviews that I read. It's extremely prevalent in the Young Adult paranormal romance crowd but that's probably because it really is inundated with terrible books.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2012 03:15

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

prolecat posted:

My profile: http://www.goodreads.com/prolecat

And Lolita is terrible, not because of the subject matter or anything, but the writing style is just poo poo. At least that's how I felt about it a few years ago. Might give it another chance at some point.

Please give it another chance. It's an amazing novel.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2012 21:29

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

Poutling posted:

On a slight tangent, I came across this blog post about some crazy drama on goodreads:

http://cuddlebuggery.blogspot.com/2012/01/first-five-days-on-goodreads.html

apparently there are some authors that also use goodreads that are starting to react badly to negative reviews of their novels. Now other readers are reacting and voting down books just because of the author's reaction.

When you have an author that you like and then you come across them on the internet and realize that they are a total fuckwad, does that make you like their novels any less or are you objectively able to separate the novel from the writer?

Yeah I've been following this since it all started at the beginning of January. I have a book blog and I made a post that was all "what does being a reviewer mean?" and I talked about how I negatively reviewed this one book...and the author showed up. Gasp! But he was totally awesome and was all "I appreciate negative reviews, carry on old sport" and it makes me want to read the rest of his novels even if I hated the first one. It was a very positive experience. As opposed to all this crazy drama in the young adult romance crowd, which are books I wouldn't normally read anyway but now I REALLY won't read any of them if the authors have been extra rude to reviewers.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2012 09:51

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

At the top of the update feed there's a little down arrow. "Friend and people I'm following >" It might not have all the options you're looking for but maybe you can narrow it down a little bit.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2012 08:36

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

OgreNoah posted:

Here's my profile, I'd welcome friends because like none of my facebook friends have joined (none of them read books I guess?) http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3662964-noah-posthuma

I have the same problem. I have this tendency to buy multiple copies of a books once I think OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING. Like once I finished Infinite Jest, I promptly purchased three copies, one to lend, two to give. Has anyone I've lent/given it to read it yet? Of course not! None of my friends read as much as I do and that's why I love TBB so much! :iia:

Undeclared Eggplant posted:

The "Books" option does almost exactly what I want, thanks!

No problem!

# ¿ Feb 5, 2012 09:02

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

I've discovered my latest guilty pleasure: finding the meanest reviewers on Goodreads and laughing at the trolls that come out of the woodwork. It's really amazing the things some people say.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 12:08

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

kittentits posted:

I joined both groups to be on the safe side. Added some people from the first page on random, then decided to just post my own information here and discover more of you as I go. Here's my profile.

I'm currently trying to delve deeper into the fantasy and sci-fi genres (inspired by this little gem), while picking up some stuff here and there that I've either always wanted to read or recently been recommended. I just got my Kindle, so I'm in a phase where I want to read every book I find, yet I'm magically incapable of finishing any of them. This post should help motivate me, though. Read on!

That chart is great! I really need to catch up on some of the recent sci fi/fantasy that I missed.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2012 00:05

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

flymonkey posted:

Here's me. Feel free to add! Right now I'm just adding books I've read based on what I remember reading. I'm pretty bad at rating stuff, though...I feel like I give out too many 3s.

The middle of the road is the way to go. I end up giving more 4s than anything.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2012 23:15

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

I wish I had friends that had as many books as you guys. I'm the only reader in my family and my group of friends rarely touch books.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2012 13:52

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

There's a few - none of them are especially active though. Try this one.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2012 00:40

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

I've recently started using Shelfari as well, so I can post all the reviews I write in more locations. Man, Goodreads is SO much better. Shelfari reviews are robust if they are more than one sentence, and Amazon has so many rules (like you can't post links in your reviews). So glad Goodreads was the first one I found.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2012 23:23

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

This is a roundabout way of doing it but it might work. If you create an account on Shelfari, which is owned by Amazon, you can just click a button to import all your Amazon purchases. Then from Shelfari you might be able to make it into a more manageable URL or export it to a list to transfer to Goodreads. Worth a shot anyway.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2012 22:53

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

Poutling posted:

Someone posted this in one of the groups I'm part of on Goodreads:

http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/bullying-goodreads/

Apparently some anonymous authors have banded together to form a 'stop GR bullying' website and call out names of reviewers they feel are 'unfairly' bullying Goodreads authors. Thoughts?

I just found that today too. Very disturbing. They let us know the reviewers real names and locations in case...we want to band together and beat them? I don't know, it almost seems like an elaborate troll.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2012 21:59

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

Does anyone know how to look at things you've "liked"? I'm trying to find a book review I read a couple days ago but don't quite remember the name of it, and I can't find it again for the life of me. Maybe if anyone else here saw it go by because it was from a goon...it was something about conversations and Winnie-the-Pooh. I know, it's vague, but not enough to put in the identify a book thread.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2012 07:01

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

I'm not sure if this is it, but do you have the Goodreads to Facebook timeline set up? It's under Edit Profile > apps on Goodreads. There's a "connect to Facebook" option, maybe that's what is doing it?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2012 23:17

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

As a general rule, the Goodreads apps suck. They only let you do very limited things, and posting general status updates, looking at notifications, and anything besides just looking at books is not included in the functionality. I just go to the web site itself on my tablet and it works fine.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2013 21:39

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

UltimoDragonQuest posted:

40% owned by Abe Books, who is now owned by Amazon.

I didn't know that. So Amazon now owns every book tracking site? Shelfari is already dying a slow death thanks to their neglect, I hope that doesn't happen to Goodreads.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 06:48

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

Audible actively makes them money. Amazon already owns Shelfari, a service very similar to Goodreads, that they have completely ignored. They could have added in Kindle functionality years ago, but instead have just let it simmer and the community is slowly dying as everyone has jumped ship to Goodreads or LibraryThing. The only thing Shelfari has going for it is that it will input all of your Amazon purchases automatically into your bookshelves, but it's not like they've advertized that you could do that - the only way I knew about it is because I briefly investigated using Shelfari instead of Goodreads, but quickly backed out of it.

Obviously, Goodreads already has a very active and vocal community that Shelfari was never able to foster before it was bought by Amazon. Hopefully nothing but the owners will change, with additional functionality added and nothing removed.

Edit: Also just read this quote from the owner of Goodreads:

quote:

Can I ask what this means in terms of ownership of our reviews?

Our policies have not changed. You still have full control of your reviews, just like you always have.

So that's good.

AreYouStillThere fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Mar 29, 2013

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 08:42

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 15:04

AreYouStillThere: Jan 14, 2010; Well you're just going to have to get over that.

More Goodreads drama here.

It essentially boils down to - GR decided that talking negatively about authors in reviews was bad, as was making shelves like "due to author" or "author rear end in a top hat," that sort of thing. There was no warning or grace period, and people logged in on Friday with emails saying "2 shelves and 90 of your reviews were deleted today."

I know a lot of people like complaining, and "BUT MY FREE SPEECH ON THIS SITE I GIVE NO MONEY TO" :911:

but this really does seem pretty lovely. Lots of threats of mass exodus and blog starting. I know this is affecting a small, but vocal, portion of GR - mostly sassy YA reviewers who love GIFs - but one of my favorite reviewers asked an interesting question (paraphrasing), "What about Mein Kompf? Can we say Hitler was a dick? If that's okay because it's obvious, this slope doesn't get much more slippy."

AreYouStillThere fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Sep 22, 2013

# ¿ Sep 22, 2013 08:23

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > goodreads.com - great tool for readers