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Goodreads has no incentive to be good

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Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#31

Post by prepend »

seventhson wrote: post #14
a_bonobo wrote: post #3

It's the same with IMDB, isn't it? Toxic subgroups and communities 1-star bombing movies that haven't even come out yet. The wikipage on review bombing doesn't even list Goodreads but has many examples from IMDB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_bomb#Films,_television_... So what could Goodreads do differently? It's true that the owners do as little as possible with the site, but that also means that overall the…

Require reviews to show a substantial understanding of what the book was about? That means moderation which is always dangerous but probably better than the alternative.

If this worked I would like it, but I think it’s impossible to automate and validate. So I only imagine an implementation being worse than nothing as mods tried to arbitrarily approve items.

I think this would make people who like specific books be willing to spend time moderating and they would reject negative reviews so everything would be 5 stars.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#33

Post by mhb »

myth_drannon wrote: post #29
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.

There are two recommendations systems in Goodreads. One is the official, I agree it is completely broken. The other is "Readers also enjoyed" section on each book page and this one is very good.

It doesn't seem so good and I can't imagine it's using anything sophisticated to make recommendations. What would be great is if it copied Netflix's Cinematch of yore and did SVD on a giant matrix of what you're liked/disliked and what others who have read the same books have liked/disliked.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#35

Post by OldManRyan »

veave wrote: post #27
hospitalJail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I was so frustrated at how bad the book Atomic Habits was, (in comparison to Power of Habit). It felt like some 20 year old was explaining how to life a good life with all the experience 20 year olds have. Lots of idealistic ways to organize things. Lots of mental gymnastics to supposedly make you more productive. I did like the 'improve yourself 1% a day', but I did that with a spin bike and quickly got…

>Meanwhile Power of Habit was more like a pop-science book with the goal of teaching you brain science and apply it. I'd pay 50k-100k for that book, it has been revolutionary. I'm off all drugs, I can quit social media whenever I want(I'm only back because of LLMs), I quit video games, I made my evenings productive instead of hedonistic. Is it that good?

Not the person you are responding to but I also believe Power of Habit is better than Atomic Habits.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#36

Post by dhbradshaw »

hospitalJail wrote: post #22
dgb23 wrote: post #5

One of the good things about sites like Goodreads is that they are a great source for long winded rants. I'm someone who likes reading a good rant or complaint. I'm not sure why that is but I find them very entertaining.

Good point. I was so frustrated at how bad the book Atomic Habits was, (in comparison to Power of Habit). It felt like some 20 year old was explaining how to life a good life with all the experience 20 year olds have. Lots of idealistic ways to organize things. Lots of mental gymnastics to supposedly make you more productive. I did like the 'improve yourself 1% a day', but I did that with a spin bike and quickly got…

Who is the author of Power of Habit?

(Looks like there are a few different books you could be referring to.)

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#37

Post by mhb »

I'll mention https://shepherd.com/ which has an interesting feature:

8,000+ authors have shared five of their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood. We make it easy to find the books they recommend through a book you already love, an author you adore, or a Wikipedia topic that interests you.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#38

Post by jszymborski »

selykg wrote: post #4

Typical plug anytime Goodreads is mentioned that Storygraph is trying to do similar and being actively developed. https://thestorygraph.com I still use Goodreads because it gives me notifications of new releases, but, aside from that Storygraph does the job well.

There is also BookWyrm if you're into the fediverse/activitypub.

https://joinbookwyrm.com/

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#39

Post by hospitalJail »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #36
hospitalJail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I was so frustrated at how bad the book Atomic Habits was, (in comparison to Power of Habit). It felt like some 20 year old was explaining how to life a good life with all the experience 20 year olds have. Lots of idealistic ways to organize things. Lots of mental gymnastics to supposedly make you more productive. I did like the 'improve yourself 1% a day', but I did that with a spin bike and quickly got…

Who is the author of Power of Habit? (Looks like there are a few different books you could be referring to.)

Charles Duhigg

Couldn't recommend it enough. I can make my life robotic if I want, and still be happy. Its mind boggling.

(Admittedly, you have to turn it into a habit, which means like ~3 days of 'suck', but after that its automatic)

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#40

Post by comboy »

me_me_me wrote: post #17
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 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.

GPT4 is so far the best book recommendation system I've found. It did work better back when it was slow though.
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