2015 Reading Challenge [Closed] discussion

Thank you to everyone who was able to vote in the poll for "short" suggestions!

The consensus from the group seems to be a preference towards ending the short suggestion polls, allowing users to choose a preferred length from general topics. So we will allow the winning topics from this poll into the final list and then devote the remaining polls to general suggestions.

On that note, here is the list of winning "short" topics:
- A classic book with less than 200 pages
- A novella from your favorite genre
- A "between the numbers" book of a series (0.5, 1,5, 2.5, etc.)
- A fairytale from a culture other than your own
- A short story from a well-known author

The results were pretty close for the top 5 and I figured that this would allow 6 topics geared towards "catching up" (short suggestions + Reader's Choice), allowing for one every other month.

Voting for the 5th mini-poll will continue until Wednesday at 8:00am EST so don't forget to vote!

decent winners. I'm the most excited about the "between the numbers" choice.

I also really liked that one :) A lot of the series that I read have these types of books but I never take the time to actually read them.

I think that's what I like about short suggestions :) It forces me to read the formats I would usually skip over.

I like the winners! I'm a bit concerned about the between the numbers though. So far I've read all "missing pieces" books for all my series. I love the idea of it, but am now kicking myself for reading a bunch of them at the end of last year :/ I'm hoping that one of my upcoming series will have something for me :)

Same for me Manda, I read the half while I read the series or just after so I won't miss something interesting. As I've new several series in my To-read, it won't be too complicated to find a book to read.

It's going to be hard for me as well with the between category. But I too have a lot of series I want to read, hopefully one of them will have something like that.

If we keep having close calls between the fourth and fifth most liked topics, maybe we can just have one fewer poll (as long as we have 4 close calls to replace a full poll). I just really don't want to have to sort through a massive poll and the end and decide on the top 52 choices. I think if that happens there will be way too many options for people to deal with at once and there will be too many different responses to decide on a final list.

I think we should include all 5 of the themes from this poll just because it makes sense to have a total of 6 themes that allow users to catch up. It's just easier to space out 6 themes (Reader's choice + the 5 from this poll) than it would 5. The other polls have resulted in only one extra theme but we can see where we're at in a few months.

I personally like the idea of doing one final poll where people choose the themes they don't want included. I just think it would be nice to have them all together since so far we've been voting in batches.

I'm open to others' thoughts though :)

I think if we have any left over topics (more than the 52) we should just have people select the (insert number of excess topics here) that they dislike the most and we could always stick those in the misc folder in the event that someone just hates a chosen topic that much!

I prefer the extra poll, but if more prefer Peter's idea, I'm okay with that, too.

I like Brittany's idea of the disliked topics, it changes the way we vote for once and it would be quicker to complete the poll!

The extra poll is a good idea in theory, but execution of it is not going to work. 52+ choices to select from, even if you're selecting fewer choices by choosing the ones you don't like, is just too much choice. There will be too many different results, and very little consistency. If you have 100 people take a poll that size, you will likely have 100 very different answers with only a few of the topics being selected by multiple people. The result will end up being so varied that a topic is booted off our list just because a very low number of people chose it, but everyone else's votes were split among the other topics. Basically, topics will be deselected even if a majority of people like them but a minority don't and they all selected it. The results will not be representative of the list people want.

Personally, I'm not a fan of choosing 5 topics even if they are close. I think it should only be the top 4 because then it works out with the number of polls we have planned. If you want to include the "close call" topics, they should be what makes up the final poll. Keep the top 4 from every poll and make a running list of all the topics that are 5th and maybe even 6th place if they are close. The last poll selects the 4 most liked topics that almost made it in a previous poll.

If people really want to take the 5th place topic because of close results, I think the number of polls should be reduced by one. That way we have 12 polls, 8 with 4 results and 4 with 5, which ends up being 52 topics.

That's just my opinion, but it's based off basic stats knowledge. A massive poll at the end will not work, and I think the final list, if chosen this way, will end up disappointing a lot of people.

I agree with Peter about keeping only the top 4 and including the "close call" topics for the final poll. I am also concerned about too many options splitting the votes. "Scattershot support is no support at all." (Think Republican primary 2016.)

For the moment, I'd prefer to keep all the winners and decrease the number of polls, than voting for a final list. If we had more people who vote, selecting the most disliked/liked topics could have work well, but I agree with Peter, 100-200 votes for 52 won't give good results.

I'm fine with less polls.

Ok, I can make note of the ones that are extras and then when it comes time for the 12th poll, we can decide if we want to suspend the final poll, ditch the extras, or make a poll out of them.

It's hard to decide now since we don't know how many extras we will have or what they will be :)

Laura, I really appreciate all you do to make things work here! I just joined this group at the end of June, and I'm really enjoying it.

The challenge has really gotten me back into reading and has acted has a major distraction to the stresses of grad school. It's always great to hear that other people are enjoying it also!

Agreed, Laura, your effort is very much appreciated! It's one thing for myself and others to sit here and make suggestions, but you're the one who is actually taking all the ideas brought up here and implementing them into the group's list making process.

I appreciate the ideas though :) I'm really awful at making decisions....

I am really confused about "between the numbers book of a series". I don't usually read series, so I have no idea how to choose this one... I've tried to read some series but haven't found something I like. Writing is usually so bad ... :( Also, I don´t like fantasy or sci-fi but series usually tend to be from these genres ...

Some members have discussed creating a "Random" folder where they can swap some of the weeks with they're own choices. So if they don't like a category then they can pick a different one.

Since we did 30 suggestions for the "short" weeks then you could always pick a different one and use the "Random" folder. You don't even have to do a short topic :)

Thanks! :)

A book written by several authors (two or more)

Vanessa wrote: "A book written by several authors (two or more)"


Vanessa, what are you making a suggestion for?

Brittany, I think she's talking about books with multiple authors or anthologies.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan
The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black
Rogues by George R.R. Martin, Gillian Flynn, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss and others

She also posted the suggestion in the 11th mini-poll so we're good :)

Oh good. I like the idea. *fingers crossed*