Okay, this is probably something really simple that I should have figured out on my own, but how does one go about rating the books in our reading list and writing reviews for them? Do you have to go to Amazon and do it there or is there an interface in this forum?

Thanks

Russ - don't forget to read the book, first :lol:

Well, the ones I review I've read first, :) the others are sort of a Christmas list of things I intend to read and my wife can come on here and figure out which books she wants to get me for Christmas and birthdays etc. Is everyone else only putting on books that they've read? :blush:

Hmm sounds like a good system... perhaps one that I should emulate... it may be that my book list here is about to get shortened a bit...

Exactly. I think it's probably helped my work a bit to have a better understanding of the overall period and gear that I'm working to.

My list is all books I own. Ones I've actually read (or read recently enough to remember if they were any good) get rated and reviewed. The rest will get rated and reviewed when I have time to read them.

I think the reading lists are most useful as tools for book buyers looking to purchase specific items. So I would think you wouldn't add a book until you've at least purchased it. Knowing how many of our members have purchased a particular item and seeing any rating or reviews they may have posted has already helped me make purchases. To think that its popularity is based more on people's wishlists than on actual purchases and reviews limits its value to me.

Nathan obviously would be the best choice to answer this.

When I made the bookstore tool, I chose the name "reading list" carefully so that it could be used in a number of ways. I avoided calling it a "recommended reading list" or a "wishlist" for example.

Many people will add books that they intend to purchase to their reading lists. This would serve as a "wishlist" functionality. These items would, of course, remain unrated and without a review. Seeing books in people's lists that are unrated and without a review may spur us to ask questions about the title or find the same item in other people's lists and fuel some research about that book.

Items that the member decides to rate and review are likely amongst his own library, or at least have had a chance to have been read by the member. Ratings and reviews serve us all as a guide to expanding our own libraries.

I don't know: I tried to build it to be flexible and hoped each member would find something about it that could be potentially useful to them.

Cool, I will probably leave it as is then... I do however need to work a little harder at making those reviews a little more useful... I'll see what I can do.

Dear Nathan,

Is there any way to rate a book without having it on your list? Having a book on your reading list is a recommendation of sorts (look, this book is on 20 people's reading lists, it must be good!). There are books that I might like to comment on, but wouldn't want to recommend, even obliquely.

Cheers
Stephen

I've been thinking of Stephen's comments, above, for the last several weeks. My last post, above, asked for some suggestions on how to improve this but I didn't get any, so I tabled the issue and moved on.

Then Bill Grandy and I were discussing it and we came up with the idea to be able to optionally mark items in book lists as "RECOMMENDED" or "Not Recommended" to make it obvious to everyone. While I think the system was pretty clear before, with its ability to give zero to five stars and a text description, I have to completely agree that many people simply don't read and it certainly can't hurt to be able to add a big tag that makes it abundantly clear!

A new feature I just added, too, is the ability to mark an item as being on your "WISH LIST" so that it's also clear that you do not yet own the title but want it.

Check out my own reading list for an example ofhow these marked items appear. You're all welcome to go edit your lists and add thee to your listed titles should you wish.


I've tried to make the system flexible and usable in multiple ways. I want it to be a list of books that you all can use to communicate with others, whether it be to suggest to others that they read them, suggest that they avoid them, or suggest that they buy them for you.

Cheers.