Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

(I totally agree with Iain, btw)

Empress Virginie wrote: "(I totally agree with Iain, btw)"

Me too :)

No clue if this has been suggested, but can the Book Club books carry a bigger bonus? Like the same as an old Buddy Read?

Arkadeb wrote: "No clue if this has been suggested, but can the Book Club books carry a bigger bonus? Like the same as an old Buddy Read?"

Yea... I thought Book Club books should be worth more to promote reading the monthly polled book more... I think I mentioned that last year...

::noted::

Are we going with the same groups?
No offense, just asking.

No, the Mods are going to do a draft at the end of the year. Mixin it up. :)

All the math in the last few posts is going to give me nightmares.

I'm drafting all the people who hate math and posting algorithm problems for daily homework. :)

Im excited for the draft, even though Im turning out to be middle of the range. I read a lot of comics, but really rip through them, so I agree wih the rules.

Dont think I will do any challenges next year. Except imcomplete series because that really helped me complete/advance series this year!

So, are non-audiobooks going to be 125% points or 133% points... you guys said you decided to make reading a book a bonus instead of listening being a penalty, but you never clarified, or updated the initial rules post...

I ask, because Rob and Virginie are hard at work making a fresh spreadsheet for 2019, in preparation for the draft, and they need to get the formulas all finalized before they start duplicating...

Timelord Iain wrote: "So, are non-audiobooks going to be 125% points or 133% points... you guys said you decided to make reading a book a bonus instead of listening being a penalty, but you never clarified, or updated t..."

125%. 133% I believe was only suggested by Sean.

Scott wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "So, are non-audiobooks going to be 125% points or 133% points... you guys said you decided to make reading a book a bonus instead of listening being a penalty, but you never c..."

Followup question... is this going to affect graphic novel points, since people read them, not listen to them?... should graphic novels be 25% x 125% = 31.25% points now?

Timelord Iain wrote: "So, are non-audiobooks going to be 125% points or 133% points... you guys said you decided to make reading a book a bonus instead of listening being a penalty, but you never clarified, or updated t..."

I missed that decision! I'm so happy, I physically read most of my books so it would be nice to get a bonus.

Timelord Iain wrote: "Followup question... is this going to affect graphic novel points, since people read them, not listen to them?... should graphic novels be 25% x 125% = 31.25% points now?"

Wondering the same thing, although I recently learned there are "graphic-audio books" (not sure what it is :O)

I thought about making a graphics audio joke... graphics audio is a company that makes audiobooks that sound like movies... they have an in-house stable of narrators who give each character unique voices and use music and sound effects to make you feel like you're "watching a movie in your mind"... I listened to the Golgotha Graphics Audiobook, because it was the only option, and it's the only one I've forced myself through... I find it distracting, and impossible to listen to in a single earbud, it's a very stereo experience... only other book I tried and returned was Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians...

Example: if the scene is in a old-timey bar, you'll hear bar music, clinking glasses, etc... the problem is that the sound effects can make it hard to hear the actual book.. you can find some samples on youtube...

I'd say no change to graphic novel points.

Just remembered there was talk about keeping the monthly book club book at the old 50% bonus points to incentivize it... was a decision ever made on that?

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Just remembered there was talk about keeping the monthly book club book at the old 50% bonus points to incentivize it... was a decision ever made on that?"

Yes please - this - need to finalize the spreadsheet so we can start creating templates :)

We went a little overboard, creating an example to get final confirmation on the formulas, but here it is:



With this and the final ruling on Book Club Books, we should have all the formula questions resolved, once and for all...

EDIT: If you viewed this in the past 6 minutes, already, there was an error in the descriptions of options 3 & 4, so I flipped them and reposted...

I'm going to wait for other mods to comment on this...Niki and Scott know more about what is going on with all the percentages for the challenge.

Niki Hawkes wrote: "I'd say no change to graphic novel points."

Agreed.

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "."



I believe what we had agree to was:

Books read (not listened to): X1.25 (page count)
Buddy reads: were .5 bonus are now .25
Challenges: were .25 bonus are now .1
Graphics are still half the page count.

Scott wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "."



I believe what we had agree to was:

Books read (not listened to): X1.25 (page count)
Buddy reads: were .5 bonus are now .25
Challenges: were .25 bonus are now..."

So it's option 1 and the bonus points will be higher for physical books as well?

Sir Anni wrote: "So it's option 1 and the bonus points will be higher for physical books as well? "

So Option 3 lol :p

Virginie wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "So it's option 1 and the bonus points will be higher for physical books as well? "

So Option 3 lol :p"

Yes but you're giving .33 for the BRs there. I said .25 but my coffee hasn't fully hit so I can't remember which was agreed to.

Just to be certain:

- BR are a +33% bonus, not +25% (as indicated in the first comment of this thread)
- Graphic novels are x0.25 page count, like last year
- Books read (not listened) are x1.25 page count, which in turn increase the BR/Challenge bonus

Sorry, I don't mean to be difficult, just... I'd rather not change all my formulas and then realize I misunderstood you (and have to do it all over again xD)

Virginie wrote: "Just to be certain:
- BR are a +25% bonus, not +33% (as indicated in the first comment of this thread)
- Graphic novels are x0.25 page count, like last year
- Books read (not listened) are x1.25 pa..."

Sorry it's me not you. It was a taxing week at work and my brain just isn't up to snuff this morning. Yes exactly what you wrote above. I simply cannot keep shit straight this morning.

Oh yeah, it's quite early in the US right now. I feel you in the coffee not hitting you yet. I'm useless before my first teapot. Yes, not cup of tea, TEAPOT. I'm really not a morning person x)

Thanks for the answers.

Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participate in it, but nothing was decided in the end.

Virginie wrote: "Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participate in it, but nothing was decided in the end.

Tha..."

No extra bonus for those. Because of a lack of interest we were debating removing them and instead having Spotlight buddy read of the month where we would look at the BR with the most people saying they were in but again no bonus points.

Virginie wrote: "Sir Anni wrote: "So it's option 1 and the bonus points will be higher for physical books as well? "

So Option 3 lol :p"

Haha yes, that's what I meant to say!

Scott wrote: "Virginie wrote: "Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participate in it, but nothing was decided in the end.
..."

Oh that's sad :(

Scott wrote: "Virginie wrote: "Just to be certain:
- BR are a +25% bonus, not +33% (as indicated in the first comment of this thread)
- Graphic novels are x0.25 page count, like last year
- Books read (not liste..."

No worries... we had the sheet setup for 25% BR points, until I was re-reading the rules a few days ago (the day we made that graph) and noticed the rules said 1/3 not 1/4...

Scott wrote: "Virginie wrote: "Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participate in it, but nothing was decided in the end.
..."

That sounds interesting... as long as Malazan doesn't get the Spotlight every month, because so many people are planning on reading the series ;)

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Scott wrote: "Virginie wrote: "Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participate in it, but nothing was decide..."

As the schedule for the new read is bimonthly, there will be at least something else every other month :D

In other news, I say we resurrect my idea from last year, and somebody near the start of a Buddy Read thread lists the highest page count in the top 5 edititons (the 2019 ruling)... and if they remember (are a competition participant) include it in the "Mods Please Add This Buddy Read" request, and it can be listed in the first comment...

Ah, good times... I remember how that thread changed the entire 2018 ruleset :)

Sir Anni wrote: "Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "Scott wrote: "Virginie wrote: "Final question: do the monthly BRs (bookclub) get a higher bonus? There was talk about having a +50% bonus to push people to participat..."

Doesn't matter... the 2018 schedule is every 4-6 weeks, and runs thru 2020... our schedule is bimonthly, and probably runs through 2023, it's just not all scheduled yet... if our BR isn't occuring, one of theirs probably is... only thing that will be able to compete, is a highly anticipated new release, like when Oathbringer came out...

About the top 5 editions....

You get this by going to the book's page, clicking on "other editions" and it's the top 5 in that list right?

Narilka wrote: "About the top 5 editions....

You get this by going to the book's page, clicking on "other editions" and it's the top 5 in that list right?"

Yes... I've included a reminder as the first announcement on the Spreadsheet's main page...

This rule is a nice compromise between the original rule last year, and the quickly adjusted rule we lived with starting on January 2nd :)

I and some others went through the trouble of getting the highest page counts for every Buddy Read on the docket... and we found some really weird ways to get extra pages...

The Earth's Children series by Jean Auel, and a couple others, had Large Print Editions with crazy high page counts... Stormlight Archives books had editions listing 2000-4000 pages, because somebody was probably using some weird ebook page counter, etc... and in general, foreign language translations had higher pagecounts because words are longer in some languages...

In the end, it was decided that going through 5-10 pages (with popular books) for every book you read, was too time consuming, so it was decided to just live with what appears on the most popular edition that you get when pulling up the book page in a search...

But some books were penalized pretty hard for this, like Malazan, where the difference between the Hardcover and Mass Market Paperback could be 300 pages... it's never going to be 100% "fair" since there's no consistent resource that tells you how many words are in a book, but top 5 editions is a nice compromise between page counts and time spent searching...

Generally, I feel the impact will be felt most when reading tomes rather than short 300ish page books...

That sounds like a lot of work for extra pages. Guess I'm not enough of a min/maxer for that :)

Timelord Iain (Eeyawn) wrote: "That sounds interesting... as long as Malazan doesn't get the Spotlight every month, because so many people are planning on reading the series ;)..."

I think Malazan and Sanderson need to get excluded as they already get the spotlight by default. Something like The Poppy War the month everybody was reading it is much more interesting for a spotlight.

Someone taught me how to find highest edition without having to go through all the pages basically you typed in , space and then the first number you wanted.

I definitely think what you have planned makes more sense because sometimes I gained 300-400 pages that way.

So this year it's the highest page count out of the top 5 most popular editions.

Can we get a summary of the rules just before the competition starts, so it gets a bit clear?

Okay with regards to the competition bonuses - are those only for the official challenges like overflowing/incomplete series or do personal challenges also count if we list them beforehand/ modified versions of the official challenges?

Saar The Book owl wrote: "Can we get a summary of the rules just before the competition starts, so it gets a bit clear?"

- The competition starts January 1st and ends October 31st. Only books started and finished within that time frame can be counted.

- Each book read brings points to your team; those points are calculated based on the highest page count in the 5 most popular editions of the book, regardless of which edition you are reading. The only exception to that is if you're reading a translation, in which case you can use the page count of your edition.



- The points are the following:

• page points = multiplier * page count / 100
The 'multiplier' is 1.25 if the book was 'read', 1.00 if the book was listened to, and 0.25 if it's a graphic novel/manga/comic.

• buddy-read bonus = 1/3 of the page points
To get this bonus, you must start the book one week before the official buddy-read starting date at the earliest, and two weeks after at the latest. How long you take to read it, however, does not matter.

• challenge bonus = 1/10 of the page points
Only this group's challenges count, of course.

- You don't have to worry about calculating points, a shared Google spreadsheet will do that for you. You only have to enter the book in your scoresheet or via the form; we'll provide links soon.

I think that's all.

Modified versions of the challenges we are running are okay, as long as they keep the spirit of the challenge.

Virginie wrote: "You don't have to worry about calculating points, a shared Google spreadsheet will do that for you. You only have to enter the book in your scoresheet or via the form"

I'm definately releaved about this 😅

I have a question regarding the 5 most popular editions, am I only allowed to count editions written in the language I read the book in?

For example, if that would be the list:

1. Book (english) 300 pages

2. Book (english) 330 pages

3. Book (english) 300 pages

4. Book (spanish) 400 pages

5. Book (english) 320 pages

6. Book (english) 340 pages

If I read the english edition would I still be allowed to count the 400 pages of Book 4? Or do we count the first 5 books written in the language we've read the book in and I can choose Book 6 with 340 pages?

(Edit: And by books I mean different editions of the same book ;) )

I'm definitely going to have the same problem 😋
I'd stay stick with the language you're reading in. What do the mods think about this?