Fantasy Buddy Reads discussion

Please read through the rules first and ask for clarifications/questions in this thread. :)

1. 10 month season, starting on January 1st and ending on October 31st.

2. *NEW UPDATE FOR 2022* Books started in the previous year may be counted if you finish them after January 1st. We will trust that you will not take advantage of this and start a bunch of books in December just so you can add them right on January 1st.

3. When adding the page count, you may use any of the top 5 English versions unless you're actually reading the non-English version. The rationale is there were some 300K word count books counting less than a third of that size. It's imperfect, but unless we had a word count for every book out there, there isn't a better way.

4. Point system:

Audio: 1:1*
Read: 1.25/1 = 5/4
Graphic 1/4

For example, an audiobook with 300 pages will be worth 3.0 points. A 300-page e/print book will be 3.8 points. A 300-page graphic novel will be 0.8 points.

*For books listed on Goodreads with only Audio format (no page count available) - 30 pages/hr, or a page every 2 minutes is the average book narration rate at 1x speed
Example: 8-hour book - 240 pages

BR: 1/3 bonus
For Buddy Reads points to count, you can start reading the book one week before the BR start date or join in within 2 weeks after the start date. These bonus points are to encourage discussion, so you may only get the BR bonus if you participate in the discussion, not just simply reading at the same time.

Challenge: 1/10 bonus
For challenge points to count, you can use any challenge that you have a tracker set up in this group.

A spreadsheet to input and track points will be posted after teams are announced.

5. New people joining need to have a 100 post minimum in this group. This is to ensure you will not disappear shortly after signing up.

6. For people signing up later than the initial draft, once you are added to the challenge, you may include points starting from the day you signed up for the challenge. If you started a book a few days before signing up for the challenge and are still reading when you sign up, you may also include those books.

Announcements will be posted whenever necessary.

Note: Old threads will be archived to avoid confusion. You can still find them in the Archives [General].

Hello, newbie here. I was wondering if there is some way to count your posts (for the 100) on Goodreads other than manually going through and counting? I'm guessing I have around 80 right now, but I'm not sure.

Also, not quite sure how to join a team once I am eligible, or how keeping points works. For example: is it you read 5 books and get 4 points? Or get 5 points for reading 4 books? And do those add to the 3 points for doing a BR or stand in for it? And where does the page count thing work into it? Who/how/where do we keep track of points? Is there a newbie version of the rules to read?

I just joined the community in November and joined a few BRs (so much fun to be able to talk about books!), but there is still a lot about Goodreads Discussions in general and how things work here that I don't have down 100%, and I would appreciate any tips or advice.

Thank you for your time!

With the points system, could you elaborate a bit further on it for newer members whom are interested in someday joining this?

Like do you receive only a single point for each book read regardless of book length?

Nirkatze wrote: "Hello, newbie here. I was wondering if there is some way to count your posts (for the 100) on Goodreads other than manually going through and counting? I'm guessing I have around 80 right now, but ..."

Hey Niratze. If you hover over your name on one of your comments, your comment count will come up. You're currently at 90 comments.

For calculating points, we have a spreadsheet that Iain will set up. :)

Julian Viso wrote: "With the points system, could you elaborate a bit further on it for newer members whom are interested in someday joining this?

Like do you receive only a single point for each book read regardless..."

The points are based on pqge count of the book. For example, a 700-page book would be 7.0 points. However, we noticed that people who did mainly audiobooks were getting way more points, so we give more points if it is not audio. We also give bonus points if it is a buddy read or part of a challenge you have set up in the group. You don't have to worry about calculating anything though because it's all on a spreadsheet.

Let me know if you have more questions!

Jenna, thank you so much! That is very helpful.

A few last questions--How are the teams set up? Do folks need to find people to team with, or are they assigned?

Also, will competitors input information into the spreadsheet, or do they post it somewhere for moderators to input? Basically, how do we report our reads?

Thank you again for your time! I'm looking forward to hitting 100 and signing up!

The spreadsheet link will be shared in the 2022 scoresheet thread when it’s 90% ready… you can see the 2020/2021 sheets in old scoresheet threads, linked in post 1…

Competitors fill out their own sheets… trust system that nobody gets deletey or cheaty… if you notice any bugs, and don’t know how to fix, report in the scoresheet thread and I’ll fix when I have time…

Teams are assigned/chosen by mods… first year it was a draft… but they try to keep the teams even and competitive, based on previous year results or the signup estimates for new players…

Here’s the 2021 sheet to get an idea without having to dig around… https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

You’ll probably want to tab around to see simpler sheets… mine had a ton of customizations…

Timelord Iain wrote: "Here’s the 2021 sheet to get an idea without having to dig around…"

Thank you so much! That really helps with the idea of what we're getting into.

And hot dang, you do some serious magic with those sheets.

Nirkatze wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Here’s the 2021 sheet to get an idea without having to dig around…"

Thank you so much! That really helps with the idea of what we're getting into.

And hot dang, you do some ..."

Some people participate just for the sheet, they say... it kinda grew organically...

The first year, we thought we were gonna have to do hand math, and then Rob threw together the sheet the day before the competition to make things easier... me and Virginie started customizing our own sheets, Lundos came up with a bunch of cool team stats...

We grew that into some statistics sheets over the course of the year...

Year 2, me and Virginie (and Rob) fiddled around and cleaned everything up, with templates and team-based color schemes...

Year 3, Virginie got a bunch of complicated formulas running and some cool conditional formatting and sorting graphs and stuff...

Year 4 and soon-to-be-5, I kinda took over maintaining, full-time...

Year 2, I think we also tried implementing a Form that could be used to auto-fill people's sheets for them, but it restricted what you could customize, and nobody really used it, so we dropped that feature Year 3+...

It really is a great tool... I'm better at keeping my spreadsheet updated, than Goodreads... and I take requests for cool graphs and stuff to include on people's sheets (for the first few weeks of the year, anyway)... if/when you sign-up, you can make sheet customization requests over in the 2022 Google Sheets thread...

@Timeloard Ian

Wow! That is quite the history! Definitely looking forward to playing with those shiny shiny sheets.

CHECK RULE #2. NEW UPDATE FOR THIS YEAR. I will also post in a separate thread.

One more question!

If say, I'm in the Blood of Elves BR, and I pick up The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny to prepare for it, and start up a nice chat in the Blood of Elves thread about them, can I count the prequels as BRs, even though the thread isn't specifically for them?

Definitely not allowed, as nice as it might be for big readers... faster readers already benefit from more page points in general...

Thank you!

To mark something as a buddy read, does it have to be a buddy read within this group?

Yup. A BR in the group and following the BR rules.

So, let's say I joined a scheduled BR, read the book on time and everything, commented lots... and then no one else showed up. Votes on whether or not I can count it?

You can still count it. It's not your fault no one else showed up. It has happened to me a couple of times.

Thank you Tammie!

As long as you don't start setting up phantom BRs with people you know won't show (or who never agreed)... yea... it's happened before... (EDIT: BRs falling apart and one person still showing up has happened... not ghost Buddy Reads for points hounds)...

Goodness! That sounds horribly cutthroat.

Nirkatze wrote: "Goodness! That sounds horribly cutthroat."

Oh no... I meant your thing has happened before... not the other thing... guess I wasn't thinking how what I typed could be misinterpreted...

This competition is very much an honor system...

Nirkatze wrote: "So, let's say I joined a scheduled BR, read the book on time and everything, commented lots... and then no one else showed up. Votes on whether or not I can count it?"

Yes, definitely count it. Especially if it was Alta. I'm totally planning on commenting on your chapter marks once I'm able to pick that one up. I'm sorry we left you out on an island!

Niki Hawkes wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "So, let's say I joined a scheduled BR, read the book on time and everything, commented lots... and then no one else showed up. Votes on whether or not I can count it?"

Yes, defini..."

Nobody mentions the Vlad Taltos BR that disappeared sometime in March ;)

Timelord Iain wrote: "Niki Hawkes wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "So, let's say I joined a scheduled BR, read the book on time and everything, commented lots... and then no one else showed up. Votes on whether or not I can cou..."

::cricket::

I keep thinking about that one. And that's as far as I get. It's not like they take a lot of time and energy lol.

Niki Hawkes wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "So, let's say I joined a scheduled BR, read the book on time and everything, commented lots... and then no one else showed up. Votes on whether or not I can count it?"

Yes, defini..."

Yes, Alta! And yay! I'm so glad that you're still planning on joining eventually! I want to hear your thoughts! I don't ever take my notifications off a thread, so whenever!

Timelord Iain wrote: "Nobody mentions the Vlad Taltos BR that disappeared sometime in March ;)"

Always intended to read that...

Timelord Iain wrote: "Nobody mentions the Vlad Taltos BR that disappeared sometime in March ;)..."

I've thought about it occasionally, but I can wait until everyone else is ready to continue.