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Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

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Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#431

Post by Guthur »

_kbh_ wrote: post #426
Guthur wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, so the russians are referring to Ukrainians as some dehumanising term as orc?

Yes? they refer to them in ways that says there people, culture and history don't even exist. Thats way more dehumanising than referring them as monsters because they continually act like monsters.

Sorry, they say they don't exist as human beings? that would be the dehumanising equivalent.

Nations, culture, history etc are ideas and perceptions that it's clear we don't all agree on.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#432

Post by berkes »

MrVandemar wrote: post #342
berkes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like the idea of relative ratings. But that also amplifies a problem that exists with any rating: recency bias, or any sort of time bias. I change over time. An album that I loved when I was 15 could get a 1/5 from me today. Or a book that I hated in my teens, may now be my favorite. It's complicated.

In which case the system would need to continually challenge you about your historical choices, perhaps based on recent choices and detecting possible paradoxes (you liked A more than B, and you liked B more than C, but you also liked C more than A).

Very good solution indeed!

Maybe also allow ratings to be a list over time rather than one, single data point. That'll make calculating an average more involved, but also more realistic.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#433

Post by Guthur »

_kbh_ wrote: post #425
Guthur wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really believe that's how it works? that russians can just choose not to be involved. Like the east Ukrainians can just choose to be autonomous?

> You really believe that's how it works? that russians can just choose not to be involved. Yes. The Russians chose to invade, they choose to continue to occupy Ukraine and they choose to both commit terrible war crimes and act like idiots. > Like the east Ukrainians can just choose to be autonomous? This is a false equivalency. Do you think it was wrong to call the Nazis monsters?, a Orc is merely a monster, calling…

How is it false equivalency, you seem to think that individuals can choose whatever they individually believe is right i.e. an individual in Russia can some how chose not to be involved in the ongoing conflict. And so if that is true it must be just as simple for someone within Ukraine to chose a different path and not be part of the country we call Ukraine.

Orc is non-human, it is dehumanizing. And I'm not sure we both agree what the Nazi ideology is. For me Nazi is someone who follows a race based ideology that aims to dehumanize or otherwise segegrate elements of humanity as being of a lower category.

Fake country and fake human is a false equivalency. Humans are living conscious beings of a category that we all belong to. Countries are a further category we've invented for...reasons. I've not seen evidence that the people in the area we call Russia have claimed that the humans in the area we call Ukraine are some how non-humans. But in contrast none of us are here denying that Ukriane openly refers to Russians as a non-human category.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#434

Post by _kbh_ »

Guthur wrote: post #431
_kbh_ wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? they refer to them in ways that says there people, culture and history don't even exist. Thats way more dehumanising than referring them as monsters because they continually act like monsters.

Sorry, they say they don't exist as human beings? that would be the dehumanising equivalent. Nations, culture, history etc are ideas and perceptions that it's clear we don't all agree on.

> Sorry, they say they don't exist as human beings? that would be the dehumanising equivalent.

No it wouldn't, no one said the Russians don't exist.

> Nations, culture, history etc are ideas and perceptions that it's clear we don't all agree on.

Yeah and it's way more dehumanising to say they don't exist then to call someone a monster for being a monster.

Do you think the Russian army should be invading Ukraine?.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#435

Post by ausp »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #49

For anime we have myanimelist.com, for (asian) dramas we have mydramalist.com; and both seems to work, for both tracking and for recommendations... but something like that for books does not exist . Goodreads acts as the tracker for me, but a recommendations engine it absolutely sucks. It has never recommended me a book ever, I have to rely on /r/fantasy to churn out new recommendations for me. In the age of AI and L…

May I suggest that you try TheStoryGraph? I've found it fills that need for me nicely and, as a bonus, offers an import service for Goodreads data - no need to start over.

The recommendation engine hasn't steered me wrong yet, and the roadmap/developer interaction and feedback are very good indeed.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#436

Post by _kbh_ »

Guthur wrote: post #433
_kbh_ wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You really believe that's how it works? that russians can just choose not to be involved. Yes. The Russians chose to invade, they choose to continue to occupy Ukraine and they choose to both commit terrible war crimes and act like idiots. > Like the east Ukrainians can just choose to be autonomous? This is a false equivalency. Do you think it was wrong to call the Nazis monsters?, a Orc is merely a monster, calling…

How is it false equivalency, you seem to think that individuals can choose whatever they individually believe is right i.e. an individual in Russia can some how chose not to be involved in the ongoing conflict. And so if that is true it must be just as simple for someone within Ukraine to chose a different path and not be part of the country we call Ukraine. Orc is non-human, it is dehumanizing. And I'm not sure we b…

> How is it false equivalency, you seem to think that individuals can choose whatever they individually believe is right i.e. an individual in Russia can some how chose not to be involved in the ongoing conflict.

Yes there is an always free will, regardless of the consequences.

"I was just following orders" as an excuse for doing terrible things didn't fly with the Nazis and it shouldn't fly now.

> Orc is non-human, it is dehumanizing. And I'm not sure we both agree what the Nazi ideology is. For me Nazi is someone who follows a race based ideology that aims to dehumanize or otherwise segegrate elements of humanity as being of a lower category.

Monsters are non-human, it is dehumanising.

Calling Nazi's monsters is dehumanising right?.

> I've not seen evidence that the people in the area we call Russia have claimed that the humans in the area we call Ukraine are some how non-humans. But in contrast none of us are here denying that Ukriane openly refers to Russians as a non-human category.

It has happened plenty, from government officials.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-soldiers-monsters-se...

> Russian officials claimed on Monday that Ukrainian soldiers have been turned into "monsters" in "secret experiments" in biological laboratories in Ukraine funded by the United States government.

You didn't look very hard did you?.

You also never answered the question if you think Nazi's are monsters.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#437

Post by dendriti »

rtbathula wrote: post #261
crazygringo wrote: post #6

Goodreads wasn't "the future of book reviews", it was a good review site that might have innovated great new things or might not have at all. But regardless, Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire it -- it was incredibly anti-competitive. Amazon never wanted to do anything with Goodreads at all -- as demonstrated by the fact that it hasn't done anything. It was a purely defensive move to prevent anyone else…

"should never have been allowed to acquire it?" It's very funny the way you put it. Already government has too much power and you want further they take over the economy and do pulls and pushes. Free market means, freely allowing people to trade using persuasions — not government using its coercion. People also often forget other side of the picture. 1. Why don't they attack smaller companies who are ready to sell th…

The government is deeply involved in the "free market", like when it defends trademarks, copyrights, and contracts by force or threat of force.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#438

Post by cf141q5325 »

_kbh_ wrote: post #382
Guthur wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dehumanising is Dehumanising, nothing to do with my skin, I'm not Russian or Ukrainian.

> Dehumanising is Dehumanising, nothing to do with my skin, I'm not Russian or Ukrainian. Regardless of what your background is saying someone making light of fascists invaders is dehumanising requires you to have a super thin skin. If they didn’t want to be called orcs maybe they should stop acting like them.

Or maybe dehumanizing people is wrong no matter who does it. Just like Fascism. As long as its the same mechanisms at play, this is only a discussion about palpable degrees. Which when judged only by who does it always end on the worse part of the spectrum.

I believe its worth pointing out, that both Ukraine and Russia are using conscripts. As in innocent men that get murdered by their government for "reasons". So no, dehumanizing them is not acceptable. The cognitive dissonance necessary to justify this by citing fears of fascism is quite something.

It might also be worth pointing out, that this is lesser evil logic. Which if you recall is how we got fascism in Germany, by scaring people enough with the threat of the Bolsheviks.

edit: Also, just because OP is trolling doesnt mean that dehumanization is acceptable. Especially if that is the expectable reaction.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#439

Post by lisasays »

Guthur wrote: post #389
lisasays wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing different between how NSDAP whipped up a nation to go on a 6 year rampage across Europe than what's happening now. An excellent analogy, as applies to the current Russian state having dragged its population into a senseless, expansionist war against its southern neighbor (and erstwhile "brother" nation). And its skill at turning ordinary citizens into instruments of genocide.

Really, so the russians are referring to Ukrainians as some dehumanising term as orc?

The topic is entirely moot.

What is "dehumanizing" is the unprovoked war of racist, colonial aggression, enacted by the Russian Federation upon Ukraine - and conducted from the start with a policy of terror, directed at civilians. If you care at all about the subject, that is what you should be focusing on.

If a bunch of assholes came into your neighborhood, started raping people and shooting randomly at whoever was walking on the street - you wouldn't have the kindest words for them either.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#440

Post by smcin »

Qwertious wrote: post #419
smcin wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really because any acquisition is going to have a non-compete to prevent that obvious scenario. Goodreads' Otis Chandler in 2021 invested [0] in BookClub [1] ("building actionable learning cultures through books, for teams") . And Elizabeth Khuri [2] and Chandler both also invested in Looped [3] (a more engaged and interactive livestreaming event service for concerts, comedy and other entertainment) [0]: https://…

>Not really because any acquisition is going to have a non-compete to prevent that obvious scenario. This applies even without the non-competes - it takes time to set up a new company and gain marketshare, so even without non-competes the monopoly is successfully kicking the can down the road. And every extra year of monopoly is another years' worth of price-gouging profits, so repeatedly buying out competitors can b…

Sure, but if you combine the overall time and market-share advantage due to the non-compete, golden handcuffs/earn-out clauses and non-hireaway, the acquirer gets a big first-mover advantage.

I wondered why noone else had since tried to do a book discovery engine at an industrial-scale to compete with Amazon. Here's one 2019 list of book-discovery sites: "Broke By Books: 20 Great Book Websites for Finding What to Read Next" [0]

and here's one analysis [1] of the key things Goodreads added value for Amazon: Kindle integration (social, ratings), a storefront that lets them push Kindle as the preferred version for purchases (or else Audible, or Prime and Kindle Unlimited subscription programs), data that can be mined from user reviews and ratings to power ML for better recommendations, understanding users' book- and reading-habits, rich content to increase interaction and hold user attention...

I also wondered why the Goodreads cofounders hadn't gone and founded other companies, in other sectors.

But essentially Amazon dwarfed other online book retailers, then moved on to much bigger and more profitable sectors (Kindle, digital music, streaming, Alexa, AWS itself, and tons more).

[0]: https://brokebybooks.com/20-great-book-websites-for-finding-...

[1]: "Who owns Goodreads?" https://bookriot.com/who-owns-goodreads/

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