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They have further hamstrung it recently by having it that non-moderators (or some euphemism for someone with such rights) can no longer add new books. I regula

They have further hamstrung it recently by having it that non-moderators (or some euphemism for someone with such rights) can no longer add new books. I regularly read weird stuff not in their system and adding this extra barrier is disastrous. I still use it...well, can I say I still use it if the last time I tried to add a book I couldn't? ... I just checked back - that was a month ago, and I even made a forum post about the book that it be added, but nope, book's not there...it seems nobody has even looked at the post. Sad times at goodreads. What a weird site. It's still charming in many ways.

rerx 3y ago
At least they integrated more automation so that many titles from Amazon's catalogs appear on Goodreads quite soon without manual work. So a lot of the recent stuff in the main languages at least often doesn't need to be added manually anymore. It's crazy how much Goodreads relies on unpaid "librarian" contributions to keep their data in check. One problem with allowing the general population to add titles to the database is that the chance of getting malformed entries that will require manual fix ups (from these volunteers) later on is pretty high. > I just checked back - that was a month ago, and I even made a forum post about the book that it be added, but nope, book's not there...it seems nobody has even looked at the post. Volunteer librarians + zero dev support means that, if you really want to see the addition, you should bump your post daily or so until by chance it catches the eye of somebody...
Frummy 3y ago
Yes that is the most painful thing on the entire platform. And supposedly the only reason it exists is because Amazon the owner doesn't want to deal with copyright issues of the photographs of the book covers. Antiquarian bookshops might have a lot of books that never have been categorised in this manner and to read mostly niche stuff and essentially being told nope you can't keep track of this read the 2023 best seller instead, kills culture.

rerx 3y ago

At least they integrated more automation so that many titles from Amazon's catalogs appear on Goodreads quite soon without manual work. So a lot of the recent stuff in the main languages at least often doesn't need to be added manually anymore. It's crazy how much Goodreads relies on unpaid "librarian" contributions to keep their data in check. One problem with allowing the general population to add titles to the database is that the chance of getting malformed entries that will require manual fix ups (from these volunteers) later on is pretty high. > I just checked back - that was a month ago, and I even made a forum post about the book that it be added, but nope, book's not there...it seems nobody has even looked at the post. Volunteer librarians + zero dev support means that, if you really want to see the addition, you should bump your post daily or so until by chance it catches the eye of somebody...

Frummy 3y ago

Yes that is the most painful thing on the entire platform. And supposedly the only reason it exists is because Amazon the owner doesn't want to deal with copyright issues of the photographs of the book covers. Antiquarian bookshops might have a lot of books that never have been categorised in this manner and to read mostly niche stuff and essentially being told nope you can't keep track of this read the 2023 best seller instead, kills culture.