Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

If you have a suggestion for the group, tell us here.

Maybe tighten the polls a bit? Find a way to limit the number choices we have each month. Like this month there 9 choices, but only two are really in the race.

Maybe with less choices the polls would be a bit more competitive.

Or maybe run a second turn for the poll. I mean, if the first place do not reach a certain percentual of the votes you could run a second poll with the two better placed books. So you guarantee that the winner get a minimum of interest from the participants.

²Ñ²¹°ù³¦-´¡²Ô»å°ùé wrote: "Maybe tighten the polls a bit? Find a way to limit the number choices we have each month. Like this month there 9 choices, but only two are really in the race.

Maybe with less choices the polls w..."

Sorry, but I disagree with this. We had a similar debate about the polls last year in which a solution was found by adding the 'Side Reads' folder each month. This is because the popular choice is not always everyone's cup o' tea, and secondary polling just makes the system more complicated than it needs to be.

My suggestion would be to have the top 2 voted-for novels as our 'Books of the Month' instead of just 1. That would offer up a bit of choice through the discussion threads.

Donna Rae wrote: "...We had a similar debate about the polls last year in which a solution was found by adding the 'Side Reads' folder each month. ..."

Good point. The discussion would have been in June 2016 I guess since Jo created the Side-Reads topic 1Jul2016. I can't seem to find the discussion, though. If anyone remembers where it is, would you mind posting a link here so we can all read through it again?

Try this it's in a bit of a random place.
/topic/show/...

Thanks, Jo. That topic does seem to cover a lot of the arguments for & against run-off polls, number of nominations, & some other things. I haven't changed my opinions on any of it. I found the bits about 'original published date' somewhat ironic. I'd forgotten about that.

In #4, Denis suggested,
A future idea might be a rejudging, by the dedicated and wise Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ members, of Hugo year nominees. With hindsight, maybe the better novel might have attention aimed towards it. Just an idea.

What if we spent a cycle or two just voting on the Hugo Award winners by decade? Wikipedia has a list here:


There's nothing prior to the 1950s & they're a bit light. I don't know of any comprehensive awards or lists of 'the best SF books' prior to the 50s to work off of, though. Anyone else?

If you wanted older books somebody posted this before which is interesting....

which is good.

Donna Rae wrote: My suggestion would be to have the top 2 voted-for novels as our 'Books of the Month' instead of just 1. That would offer up a bit of choice through the discussion threads. This doesn't sound too bad.

What happens when there are ties? We read all of them?

Jim wrote: What if we spent a cycle or two just voting on the Hugo Award winners by decade? Wikipedia has a list here:
...

There's nothing prior to the 1950s & they're a bit light. I don't know of any comprehensive awards or lists of 'the best SF books' prior to the 50s to work off of, though. Anyone else?

Why not the Hugo winner and Nebula winner per decades? The only problem is that the Nebula starts in the 60s. The 50s could just be the Hugo alone and then in the 60s the Nebula winners could join in.

From the 50s to the 2010s, this way of functioning would last seven months which isn't a bad run. Two cycles would mean 14 months. It certainly would refresh the selection of books.

There could be a month were any sci-fi novel that was published prior to 1950 could be submitted instead of going with the Hugo/Nebula winners.

²Ñ²¹°ù³¦-´¡²Ô»å°ùé wrote: "What happens when there are ties? We read all of them?"

Yes, that sometimes happens. Another GR group that I read with employs this strategy and it seems to work fairly well. They choose the top 2 books per month. If there is a tie for first place, then those are the 2 books read. If the tie is for second place, then there are 3 books for that month: the first place book and the 2 runner-ups. I don't think they've yet encountered a situation whereby 3 or more books are tied for second place - if it happens, it's certainly not a frequent occurrence.

For the polls, one simple idea is to send a reminder a few days before the polls close encouraging people to vote, and remind them that they can click the link "change my vote" if their original choice isn't likely to win and they might want to back their second choice.

Ed wrote: "For the polls, one simple idea is to send a reminder a few days before the polls close encouraging people to vote, and remind them that they can click the link "change my vote" if their original ch..."

That sounds like a good idea.

As I've mentioned in the Nov 2017 Nomination topic, we're breaking up the 11 nominations into 2 groups & plan to read 2 books. We'll still have the side-reads, too.

In an attempt to get more people to join in, we were thinking that any time we got 8 or more nominations we might do this. That & how we'll break them up isn't written in stone, so we'd like some feedback on what you think of the idea.

Sounds good. That way people can choose to read either book or both.

I like Marc-Andre's proposal (message 2 above). It could eliminate the chance of getting an outlier lemon in the top spot. I mean, picture this: we have 17 books nominated, 16 are fairly regular science fiction books, one is some nutty book with no words, just pictures, and a slogan like "Make science fiction great again." People laugh at first, but then a solid 25% vote for the joke of a bad book and the other 15 books get about 5% each. The lousy book wins and we're stuck with reading it for a month or 48.

This all changes under Marc-Andre's proposal. After the first election, two books emerge for the runoff: 1) Make Science Fiction Great Again by Donald Canard, and 2) Dune by Frank Herbert. Dune wins by a 65-35 landslide in the one on one and we all get to read a worthwhile science fiction book.

You don't think breaking the many nominations into 2 groups will have the same effect, Dan?

I hate to limit nominations because then it becomes a first come, first served. Wouldn't that make people fire off nominations from the hip?

I'm also not keen on a run-off poll. I'm in another group that started doing this & it doesn't seem to have increased participation, just seems to get the best known book elected each time. More people vote, but less seem to discuss.

I was trying to be slightly more facetious than serious with my not at all well disguised analogy, but yes, if I were the moderator of this group (which I am not, you are, and I think you are doing a great job) I'd have unlimited nominations and do a runoff of the top two every month for the emergence of a single winner. That way if you have five time travel books and one cyberpunk book, the cyberpunk book with thirty votes doesn't emerge the winner over the five time travel books with an average of fifteen votes each. The time travel book should win the one vs one for the book the most people will want to read.

If you do as you're proposing and just make more books of the month, you still don't get the lemon of the field out (thus failing to avoid the Donald disaster result). Also, I've seen groups cave to "popular demand" and go the way of having more and more books of the month. Let's say this group gets up to four or five books of the month, invariably one or two will be virtually ignored and the other two or three get fewer comments, especially of substance. The invariable result is the group's effort gets watered down and people start to lose interest in all the books of the month.

If you think nine nominations are too many (I don't; I'd be perfectly cool with seventeen nominations) one way to winnow the field down a bit that I have seen work in another group is to require every nomination to have a second before it can be put on the ballot. However, I must warn you that you may think doing this would winnow a field of nine to something like four or five, experience shows it actually winnows it to eight, maybe seven in the best of months. That's because for every book someone thinks is promising, someone else does too, and they generally will second a nomination. Still, requiring a second to nominations is one idea to try to limit the candidate field.

A final suggestion to limit the number of nominations is to just close the topic once you have the desired number of candidates. The people who are most active in the group tend to be the one whose nomination will make the cut because they're checking their Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ account more often than the less frequent participants do.

For a group this size I see nothing at all wrong with having two books of the month, but I think those two books should be divided into two categories. The name of the group is "The Evolution of Science Fiction." Shouldn't at least one of the books of the month have something to do with the name? If not, what distinguishes this group from any other science fiction group?

You could name one of the categories for book of the month "Classic" and limit nominations to publication year 1800-1976. I choose 1976 because after approximately that year we no longer have science fiction periods, but simply genres. The other book of the month could be called "Modern" and chosen from those books with a publication year of 1977 or later. If you don't like publication year, you could divide by another category, say 1) stand alone book, 2) book in a series. Or 1) book written by female author, 2) book written by male author, Or 1) hard science fiction, 2) soft science fiction, etc.

Thank you both for the thoughts & the compliment, Dan. We try & we'll definitely keep these in mind, although we probably won't make many changes until we see how the current rules play out for a bit. There was also some interest in doing Nebula/Hugo award books that we haven't tried yet. Remembering thoughts like these that can take a while to implement them is why having them in a topic like this is so important.

Just to be clear, a lemon is a book that few discuss, right? It has nothing to do with the perceived merits of the book. Donald's book may be trash, but discussing trash can be fun & instructive. By the same token, the name of the group & its purpose is something that has to be kept in mind at all times or this does become just another SF group. I don't do it often enough. I think any book can say something on the subject if we try. There are a few obvious giants, but even the common sort are indicative.

I feel that we should keep rotating periods for a while, especially now that we've restructured the folders.

Getting books seconded is a well established practice on GR & some groups restrict it in various ways. A person can only second 1 book &/or propose 1. It's something to keep in mind & we discussed when we created the side-reads.

The size of a group always befuddles me. We have over 750 members but only a couple of dozen seem to comment or vote regularly. Only a few dozen have made more than a dozen comments & many have been members for years. That's not unusual, but I'm not sure how to deal with them & I think they often swing polls. That's based on what other moderators have told me, though. I've never gone through the voting on our polls to see who voted for what & who participated. That would be great data that I don't have the time to compile.

Jim, I am in various groups and we have the same problem in both of the classics groups I participate the most in. There was a situation in which I was the only person commenting on a book, and I didn't even vote for it.
I like your idea of time periods for choosing books. I try to make an extra effort to participate in the discussion if the book I voted for wins or in the side reads, if it doesn't.

Jim wrote: "Thank you both for the thoughts & the compliment, Dan. We try & we'll definitely keep these in mind, although we probably won't make many changes until we see how the current rules play out for a b..."

One thing you could do is only allow participants in the previous month's discussion to suggest a book for the following month. This would encourage participation. It would also reduce the number of books and guarantee the people who actually participate will probably be interested enough to read the selection.

I'm in a Science Fiction Meet-Up group. We take turns selecting books. To be eligible to select for a month's read you have to attend two consecutive meetings if you're a newbie. The selector picks three books and then we vote on them. That group has a couple hundred members and about 10-15 regular participants.

That's an interesting thought, David. Perhaps we could try that out on short story reads.

Jim wrote: "That's an interesting thought, David. Perhaps we could try that out on short story reads."

I like the idea! I think it would really ratchet up participation in the group. The main drawback to it is that lurkers and non-participants would have less say than they now do about the book that gets selected. Wouldn't that be awful?

Another big drawback is that it would mean changing the status quo and doing something no other group on GoodReads does. One thing I have noticed about GoodReads moderators is they eschew innovation. That's why, I suspect, all GoodReads groups (with only minor variations) are run the same way.

I think you forgot the /sarcasm tag at the end of your comment, Dan.
;)

I've seen a lot of different ways of running groups & most innovative ones seem to flop. The majority seem to like the same old format & they do like to lurk. Their right. Still, it doesn't hurt to try. It doesn't seem as if anyone is all that interested in reading short stories at this point.

Jim wrote: "I think you forgot the /sarcasm tag at the end of your comment, Dan.
;)

I've noticed good writers convey meaning with words instead of with gimmicks such as tags, italics, etc. I try to fool people regarding my abilities by emulating good writers.

Seriously, I see no possible downside to Jim's suggestion even if it actually rules me out for now due to nonparticipation. Most of the recent selections haven't interested me. If I find myself ruled out, I would feel incentivized to become not ruled out. Yes, I might read one of the selections and actually participate in the discussion of it.

In the meantime, I'll keep making suggestions and not participating if they keep losing. Just like most others here do. Oh the fun!

Jim wrote: "It doesn't seem as if anyone is all that interested in reading short stories at this point."

What short stories?

I'm not reading this month's selection. But now I feel incentivized to go to that discussion and post "I am not reading this" so that I will be considered a participant!

(In truth, I think I do have something to add to that conversation even without reading that book.)

I was asking for comments about reading short stories here:
/topic/show/...

I thought we could start reading some as a group. No one has commented on it, so I didn't think there was any interest.

I belong to another group called "Classics and the Western Canon". They have what they call a weighted vote.

For people who have made between 0 and 100 posts, the votes are worth one vote.
For people who have made between 100-200 posts, the votes are worth two votes.
And for people who have have made 200+ posts, the votes are worth three votes.

I can see that it takes a bit of mucking about and sorting, but what it means is that the people actually take part in the discussions have more influence over which books win the poll. They have more chance of getting the book that they want to read, and not the book that some lurker votes for and never reads.

Cordelia wrote: "I belong to another group called "Classics and the Western Canon". They have what they call a weighted vote...."

That's an interesting way of counting votes, but would be a lot of work. I just glanced at the polls & we seem to get 30 - 40 votes each time. We'd have to record all the names & number of comments they made. That probably wouldn't be too hard since there's only 8 of us with over 100 votes. It's something to think about.

I'd certainly like to see more participation, but I also don't want to pressure people. I belong to several groups I haven't really participated in for years. I have diverse reading habits & seem to go through periods where I'll read almost anything in one genre & then very little for years. I still like to keep up with what others are reading, but contribute nothing.

I think it's important to keep in mind that those of us discussing this are a vocal minority. A glance at our membership page reveals that there are 789 people in the group. If sorted by number of comments
/group/10946...
the first page goes down to less than 20 comments. There are 27 pages of members. By page 8, the members haven't commented at all.

How do we get these members to want to participate?

Jim wrote: "Cordelia wrote: "I belong to another group called "Classics and the Western Canon". They have what they call a weighted vote...."

That's an interesting way of counting votes, but would be a lot of..."

You could toss them out. I know I belong to some groups that I dont participate in at all. I wouldn't be upset if they tossed me out of those ones.

I also belong to one with only 23 members. Every January they go through and toss out anyone who goes not participate.

Cordelia wrote: "I also belong to one with only 23 members. Every January they go through and toss out anyone who goes not participate."

I belong to a chatty group that does the same, but I don't even want to think how long it would take to delete 600 members nor do I think it would be fair to them. I don't think joining a group of this sort should require participation, do you? It's not as if they're hurting anything.

Jim wrote: "Cordelia wrote: "I also belong to one with only 23 members. Every January they go through and toss out anyone who goes not participate."

I belong to a chatty group that does the same, but I don't ..."

I know what you mean. I think probably you just let it sit. But I think that if you vote and the book you voted for wins, you should be required to participate. Even if it is just a line or two. Perhaps, I liked the book or didn't like it.

It is really annoying when people vote a book in and then nobody reads it.

Cordelia wrote: "I belong to another group called "Classics and the Western Canon". They have what they call a weighted vote.

For people who have made between 0 and 100 posts, the votes are worth one vote.
For peo..."

That could be pretty complicated. I was a regular participant in this group for quite a while, but have been away for like a year. So, my vote would likely be pretty heavily weighted if I voted, but the likelihood of my participation anytime soon is pretty low.

Jim wrote: "I don't think joining a group of this sort should require participation, do you? It's not as if they're hurting anything."
I think that is the case and we should leave it. The only thing I don't understand is people voting and not participating. Why bother and not just read the book you like?
Nice, this comment brings me one step closer to the top-commenters on the list. You watch your back, Gregg.

Cordelia wrote: "...But I think that if you vote and the book you voted for wins, you should be required to participate. Even if it is just a line or two. Perhaps, I liked the book or didn't like it.

It is really annoying when people vote a book in and then nobody reads it. "

Agreed. Anyone can go to on the polls link (right side) then click on the number of votes next to a book to see who voted for it. If you see an acquaintance who voted & isn't contributing, some light public heckling is allowed.
:)

I'm serious about light. I detest online bullying. Life comes up & I've certainly voted for books that I didn't have time for. Sometimes I just do not feeling like reading them by the time we get around to them. I'm a moody reader.

Heckle away...

I love participating in this group but I don't always have time to read the book selections. For instance, this fall I have been catching up on reading the last twenty years of C.J. Cherryh. Her Foreign series runs eighteen books alone and I had only read four of them.

I hope to read the selections down the road and find folks insights defining my future reads.

Gregg wrote: "I love participating in this group but I don't always have time to read the book selections. For instance, this fall I have been catching up on reading the last twenty years of C.J. Cherryh. Her Foreign series runs eighteen books alone and I had only read four of them."

Just curious, how are you liking the series (without spoilers)? I read the first one and thought it was iffy. I plan to read the 2nd and 3rd to at least finish the first trilogy before deciding if I want to continue. A lot of people love these books and some say the first book is one of the weakest. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the quality and enjoyment of the series as it progresses.

I think you have to have a love of linguistics and "Orientalism" to dedicate yourself to these stories. However, Cherryh's style, suspense, dramatic action, and culture clash are at their best here. There Is also a non-Western even Postmodern sensibility in that there is not going to be narrative end or purpose in the series, rather like life it simply continues...

Late to the conversation again, but the other SFF group to which I belong has nominations and seconds. Books with the most seconds make it to the poll.

²Ñ²¹°ù³¦-´¡²Ô»å°ùé wrote: "Jim wrote: What if we spent a cycle or two just voting on the Hugo Award winners by decade? Wikipedia has a list here:
...

There's nothing prior to the 1950s &..."

Pre-1950s was the Golden Age of science fiction, an era that included Asimov and Bradbury as well as Clarke and Philip K. You might work off that list on Wikipedia. There's about 35 authors on there.

Captain wrote: "I'm new so I know my opinion means squat, but I would love a "best sci-fi no one else seems to have read." thing. I have been lucky at finding gems like this:
[bookcover:Planetfall Origins|37934006..."

Welcome & it's a good idea. It's pretty hard to know what others haven't read, especially in this group, though. Some of the members seem to have read some pretty esoteric stuff. We also have 'best of' topics that could cover it, but it would be nice to have them all in one place & should spur some conversation.

I created the new topic here:
/topic/show/...

Please post your book & let us know a little about it. If you've written a review, post the link so we can read it.

I'm new to the whole Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ thing, so I could be barking up the wrong tree, but I have two suggestions/questions.

Firstly, has Frankenstein been entered - many consider that the first science fiction book, myself included - or can I just assume that everyone's already read it?

Secondly, and I'm happy to remain silent on the subject for the future or for someone to shout 'shut up and go away!' at this, but are we allowed to enter our own books into the mix?

J Christopher wrote: "I'm new to the whole Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ thing, so I could be barking up the wrong tree, but I have two suggestions/questions...."

You need to look around the group a bit more. Both questions are easily answered if you do, but I'm guessing you don't realize that or how to do it.

You can check on what books we've read on our bookshelf. If you're using a computer with a browser, it's on the right side of the screen or click on this link:
/group/books...

Every month we nominate books based on a time period that's in the first message of the topic. We're currently nominating books in this topic:
/topic/show/...

I don't know how you're accessing GR. I've heard the mobile app isn't so hot, but have never used it. I use a browser. If you go to the home page of the group here:
/group/show/...
You should be able to look through all the topics. I suggest skimming as many as you can to get up to speed & find out what interests you.

Jim wrote: "J Christopher wrote: "I'm new to the whole Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ thing, so I could be barking up the wrong tree, but I have two suggestions/questions...."

You need to look around the group a bit more. Both qu..."

Thanks Jim. That's really helpful.

Captain, this topic is more for suggestions on how to make the group better or more interesting to its members. Book reviews should go in the topic during the appropriate time frame. In this case, since Christopher wrote it recently, the proper topic would be here:
/topic/show/...

If you'd move your comment there, I'd appreciate it. You'll find that Oleksandr & I have already been discussing it. I happen to agree with you. He doesn't.

If you have comments or suggestions about the new nomination & poll rules, please discuss them here.

I like the idea of run-offs, or second rounds, or whatever.

For the current two polls, while poll #1 has a clear likely winner, I'm unlikely to want to re-read it. While poll #2 has no clear likely winner, I'm happy to read or discuss almost any of them. But I can only vote for one.

Impossible to please everyone. No matter what wins, I'll be reading something! And I'll participate in conversations, even if not always the book-o-the-month.