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Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

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Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#191

Post by lkbm »

vasanthk1125 wrote: post #144
lkbm wrote: post #62

DNF seems useful to me. The other deficiencies you mention don't matter much to me, though the Goodreads UI is bad. (Don't care if it looks old, but right-clicking on things often doesn't work because they're stupid JS link, and it's way too focused on being a social feed.) As far as features, the things I value about Goodreads / would like from replacements: * I can see what my friends have read and rated books. (I…

Thanks for the detailed comment! 1. Friends reviews on book is actually not that hard at all. We will implement it right after we get the friends and follow system working. 2. This one will take a decent number of users and ratings. We need a lot of data before we can make recommendations using ML. 3. Noted. 4. We will add that in the next few weeks. Filtering TBR seems to be a common request.

> 1. Friends reviews on book is actually not that hard at all. We will implement it right after we get the friends and follow system working.

I mean it's hard because you have to get my friends to join. Goodreads has the network effect going for it.

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#192

Post by saltcod »

vasanthk1125 wrote: post #2

Tech Stack Backend: Elixir & Phoenix Database: PostgreSQL with Supabase (originally CockroachDB, big mistake) Auth: Supabase Frontend: Next.js UI Components: shadcn GraphQL API: Absinthe Hosting: Fly.io (Phoenix) + Vercel (Next.js) Storage: Cloudflare R2 + CDN

Why Elixir & Phoenix and Next.js?

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#193

Post by kaushikt »

magicalhippo wrote: post #12

> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.

YouTube changed to thumbs up/down from 5-star rating system many years ago like Netflix. They learnt most people either give it 1 star or 5 stars. It’s also hard to understand the meaning of 2,3, and 4 stars in the context of a video.

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#194

Post by eviks »

magicalhippo wrote: post #12

> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.

No, that's meaningless precision. meaningful precision would be stars by category, not a generic overall assessment

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#195

Post by crossroadsguy »

vasanthk1125 wrote: post #40
chilipepperhott wrote: post #10

How does this compare to https://www.thestorygraph.com/ ?

StoryGraph has made it pretty clear they don’t want to be more social—you have to go into your settings and explicitly turn on friends and followers. They also de-emphasize reviews, hiding them under a button. There are no likes or comments on reviews, and they don’t have shelves like Goodreads. But to me, a big part of Goodreads is the community, library organization, and reviews, so I want to emphasize those on Kag…

I just had an account there. It might still be active. The way you have explained StoryGraph, it seems I must spend some more time checking it out. Seems really what I might be looking for.

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#196

Post by longdustytrail »

BeetleB wrote: post #114
magicalhippo wrote: post #12

> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.

> Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? I rate for myself, and not others. And for over 20 years I've used a 10 point system. 10 = Easily amongst my favorite 9 = Awesome, but not in all time favorites 8 = Really liked it, and would recommend 7 = Liked it, was worth my time, but not so much that I would happily recommend to others 6 = Liked it, but wasn't worth…

I agree with a lot of your top 5 so I’ll try to continue

5: I enjoyed sections of this book but as a whole I didn’t like it

4: had some cool ideas and there were moments when I got excited but the execution wasn’t there. Basically an amateur with a good idea

3: readable but unsatisfying. I finished it but was roasting it in my head the whole time

2: garbage. Bad story idea and bad writing. Nothing good to say except that it seemed like the author was trying

1: offensive. Celebrity cash grabs, polemics, etc. no artistic value whatsoever, author was not trying to write a good book. “Book” is just a format here

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#197

Post by d1sxeyes »

stevage wrote: post #172
latexr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed in general that 10 and even 5 is too much, and that 4 is a good compromise. Though personally I prefer thumbs up and thumbs down, plus a separate starring option. The first two signify “would I recommend this to anyone else” while the latter means “this has something interesting I’d like to revisit at a later date”. Something losing its star rating is par for the course, but the recommendation status is less l…

I informally often use a -1 to 2 scale. Bad, fine, good, great. The difference between 1 and 2 on a 5 point scale is not useful.

This is a great scale to use when you’ve got a group of people because it’s easy to teach without needing to do calibration: -1 is bad, not meeting expectations, 0 is “not good, but meets expectations”, 1 is “good, better than expectations” and 2 is outstanding.

It’s hard to come up with a nice visual for it though, you just have to use the numbers themselves (or rather ugly emojis)

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#198

Post by magicalhippo »

eviks wrote: post #194
magicalhippo wrote: post #12

> 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) Does one really get anything meaningful out of saying this was a 6-star book vs a 7-star book? Personally I think 4 levels is sufficient. Either it's rather bad, not bad but not good, good but not great or it's great. Anything beyond that will have to be written in words.

No, that's meaningless precision. meaningful precision would be stars by category, not a generic overall assessment

I don't feel it's entirely meaningless, but I do agree multidimensional rating would be more informative and better to guide others.

Re: Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative

#200

Post by n4r9 »

vasanthk1125 wrote: post #134
n4r9 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forums per book is a good start, but I find that the groups are a bigger draw in Goodreads. They have a more personal touch and allow you to discuss broader topics and get recommendations from accounts you know and trust. For example I'm in a group called "Evolution of science fiction" and have learnt a lot from joining in their monthly novel / short story reads.

Do users create and moderate the group themselves? It seems like a subreddit, but for book related topics?

Yep, each group has one or more moderators. Like Reddit I guess but no up/downvotes. There's some automated moderation as well - it doesn't let you post links (which is mad) and I read that at one point there was a censoring of mentions of Storygraph.
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