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Goodreads has no incentive to be good

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Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#171

Post by senko »

matricaria wrote: post #156
Paul_S wrote: post #10

Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. The recommendation system is a joke and is obviously used to promote nonsense instead of giving you personalised recommendations.

> Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. Why would you need a service to keep track on what you read? I have a text file with a list of book and some notes about every book. Works perfectly for me.

Why would you need a list at all?

If it's worth remembering, you'll remember you've read it, and if you want to refresh your memory what better than to reread?

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#173

Post by Sparkle-san »

Paul_S wrote: post #10

Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. The recommendation system is a joke and is obviously used to promote nonsense instead of giving you personalised recommendations.

I will add that goodreads is the best metadata source I've found for calibre in terms of accuracy and completeness.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#175

Post by pklausler »

ravenstine wrote: post #72

I anything actually good anymore? - Goodreads: Broken recommendation system, meh UI, review wars - Google Search: Pointless - Reddit: Overtly user-hostile, poor UX, tiktokified - YouTube: Mainstream, ad-riddled, tiktokified - Yelp: Cluttered-UI, favors jerks, hostile to businesses - Gmail: Oh yeah we're gonna delete your emails if you don't log in after a while - Netflix: Shrinking catalogue, worse quality shows - In…

Wandering Powell's and reading the handwritten staff recommendations on the shelves still works just fine for books.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#176

Post by scrum-treats »

AlbertCory wrote: post #160

> Goodreads Cares about Engagement It's not working for me. I have two books of my own, and still, I never go there. AFAIK Amazon acquisition didn't ruin Zappos. IMDb is more garbage than it was before, but I still use it. But Goodreads: nope, it was too close to what they already did on book selling, so they killed it. Slowly.

> AFAIK Amazon acquisition didn't ruin Zappos.

As someone who used Zappos a lot before Amazon acquisition, IMO the quality and selection decreased after Amazon takeover. Today, given the authentication issues across all Amazon services, I just don't go to Zappos anymore because I don't trust the products. Because Amazon. Additionally the UI is dated. Such a bummer.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#177

Post by the_af »

ip26 wrote: post #90
the_af wrote: post #30

I must be out of the loop: I never knew that Goodreads mattered at all. I don't know anybody who uses it. I understand fake reviews in Amazon are a problem: if I'm shopping there, I do look at the reviews, especially bad reviews to see if there is anything wrong with the product. I will disregard reviews that don't make sense and only pay attention to things that matter to me, but it's possible that I'll be influence…

It was supposed to be a review site that wasn’t trying to sell you books, ergo it would be more even-handed. I often read both Amazon and Goodreads reviews of a book; the perspective is usually different.

Interesting. However, I don't pick books based on review sites. I like reading reviews of books I've already read, a kind of "conversation" with another person across the globe. But as purchasing decisions? Nope.

(Same with movies, by the way. I don't remember ever avoiding a movie because it had bad reviews, who cares?).

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#178

Post by pklausler »

trabant00 wrote: post #24

People need to stop hoping for good crowd sourced reviews and ratings. Even if the platform would have the best interests it can't be done. Two simple reasons: 1. Ratings: you can not compress information down to 1 byte without losing almost all of it. I've been a professional game reviewer in another life. I used to give ratings because I was forced to by the site format. When I retired from that I looked back at te…

Here's a free idea for you budding entrepreneurs: allow the user of a review site to apply their own custom weights to reviewers. If you discover a reviewer with good taste, weight their reviews more highly. And also be able to incorporate their weightings of other reviewers into your own -- if A thinks highly of B, then that raises your default weighting of B.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#179

Post by me_me_me »

Brybry wrote: post #73
me_me_me wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble finding new authors or good books on there to the point that I stopped trying. I only use it for reading up reviews. I was kinda shocked reading through their top X list and finding absolute garbage, rated 8+. I wonder if they suffer from IMDB syndrome.

What I've found as a better metric of 'good' (at least for fiction) is the number of ratings, especially combined with star rating. If something has a high number of ratings it's popular enough that it's probably decent (at least if you're into that genre). Like a 4.38 rating w/ 2.7 million ratings (The Fellowship of the Ring) is a better bet compared to a 4.98 star with 150 ratings (random new book by unknown author…

I present you:

Ready Player One Ernest Cline 4.23 1,099,069 ratings 99,154 reviews

It joined club of handful of books that I just stopped reading and threw into trash. Yet its 4.23 as of writing!

There are different tastes and likes, but that book is so poorly written and has such barebones plot... I don't know how it is popular

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#180

Post by stepbeek »

Loughla wrote: post #159
matricaria wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. Why would you need a service to keep track on what you read? I have a text file with a list of book and some notes about every book. Works perfectly for me.

I'm learning now that this is even something that people keep track of. This next section isn't meant to be shitty: but what's the purpose of even keeping track of that? I've read hundreds, maybe thousands of books over my life and don't have a list of them anywhere, nor can I see a use for that.

I've been tempted to start foor gifts. Family buy me books for Xmas and having a big list of what i already own would make that easier.
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