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Goodreads has no incentive to be good

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Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#41

Post by veave »

OldManRyan wrote: post #35
veave wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Thanks. But I ask objectively, not in comparison to Atomic Habits. And, perhaps, if there's any book better than the two... feel free to comment.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#42

Post by izzydata »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #16

Bookwyrm is a great alternative I’ve been using. It’s built on activitypub so you can follow accounts from Mastodon or kbin or whatever, and can even spin up your own server if you want. https://joinbookwyrm.com/

I might join this. I've been pretty invested in trying out various federated websites.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#43

Post by unhammer »

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.

Weird signup captcha, it requires you to open devtools and remove `onpaste="return false;"` from their email field (either that or enter your email manually, typos and all)

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#44

Post by krono »

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 only use it to see if/where a book belongs to/in a series. No other aggregate-type website seems to provide this information in any usable fashion.

Used to use it for book release notifications too, but that broke some years ago for me and I've yet to receive a response to my support request from like 4 years ago.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#46

Post by jabroni_salad »

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.

That can be solved with better tiering and categories.

I like low budget horror. I like how rookie filmmakers are capable of bringing brand new ideas out of the aether without even realizing it. I like it when a cheap actor has a single moment of greatness for no discernable reason.

I'm not stupid enough to think that any of them stack up with The Greats but I still like the films and personally rate them highly. Most film nerds would probably not appreciate my toplist, but it's not my fault everyone sorts by All.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#47

Post by bodge5000 »

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…

I haven't read Power of Habit (maybe I should if its that different), but I have read Atomic Habits and I found it useful. Admittedly I didn't get past the 3rd chapter, I felt like at that point I knew what they were getting at and didn't need much more. Maybe I missed out on a lot, but what I got from those 3 chapters was enough (basically just the idea of doing something every day, even if its the literal bare minimum).

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#48

Post by GeoAtreides »

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.

It doesn't seem to be usable without log in: can't search books, reviews, can't do anything, so not very similar at all with Goodreads

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#49

Post by cafard »

hospitalJail wrote: post #19
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'm not sure why people like it so much. My aunt-in-law is high pressuring me to use it. I have my library listing all the books I checked out. I have a pdf/epub reader that has a history of the books I read(although a new phone will probably wipe that out). For a while, I was merely writing down my books in a dedicated notebook, but I realized that it didn't really matter, if a book was important, I remembered it. I…

I use a Google Sheet for the neighborhood book club list. It is handy for reference--did we read X, and if so, who picked it? The group has been going for something like 18 years, after which even the very good and the very bad can be forgotten.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#50

Post by slothtrop »

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.

To be fair to the rec system, I've tried several alternatives and the results are either worse or as mediocre.

The most useful aspects might be community-driven, but I find the web app so sluggish that I tend not to bother with it now.

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