Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I just noticed your new announcement that we can now mark a new book/new edition request as completed and tried this out.

I noticed that the title of the request-thread does not get the addition 'Done' or 'Completed', but that the topic is instantly moved to the [Closed] Added Books/Editions folder.

How does the requester/topic starter know that this is the place where he/she should now look in order to see if his/her request has been fulfilled and where to find the newly-added bookpage?

I just hope that the original poster has turned on notifications for their thread (or have their Lib Group comments page open), so they know there has been a reply.

This also counts for threads that have not been moved elsewhere. Posts in the Adding New Books & Editions folder in particular are quickly pushed off the first and even the second page by newer requests.

Emmy wrote: "I just noticed your new announcement that we can now mark a new book/new edition request as completed and tried this out."

Hi Emmy. We require Librarians to post a comment before being able to mark a request as done. So the member should receive a notification of the comment if they have those turned on. I believe that would be the usual way a member becomes aware of their request being complete. As lethe mentions, the huge number of requests in that folder would already make it difficult to monitor a request via subject.

Another note re: this update: I just tested it, and while the topic did go directly to the [Closed] folder, the thread page still shows that it's in the Add New Books folder:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Not sure if this will eventually catch up or if it's something for the developers to look at.

Liralen wrote: "Another note re: this update: I just tested it, and while the topic did go directly to the [Closed] folder, the thread page still shows that it's in the Add New Books folder:

https://www.goodreads..."

That has to do with the bug reported here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

As you can see, this actual thread was posted in Questions but also shows Adding New Books as the folder at the top of the page.

Jaclyn is already aware :)

Aha! Thanks, lethe.

Fingers crossed that the wrinkles can be ironed out quickly and this can be expanded to other folders! It looks super promising.

I agree that this is a major improvement!

Liralen wrote: "Aha! Thanks, lethe.

Fingers crossed that the wrinkles can be ironed out quickly and this can be expanded to other folders! It looks super promising."

I thought for a moment I found the reason for all threads showing as being in the Adding New Books folder, but I opened up a test thread in Questions, replied to it and marked as Done, and it hadn't moved to the Closed folder. So apparently it does only work in the actual Adding New Books folder (for now).

Corinne wrote: "*hat tip* to staff for working to implement this. incredible."

Yeah, but as usual they didn't do proper testing and it's screwed up. Just like all the Bot problems.

And, frankly, it's interesting that this is their priority rather than the Bot problems.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "And, frankly, it's interesting that this is their priority rather than the Bot problems."

Someone in another group suggested that this might have been an easier fix than the MadBot problems (but still it went wrong).

Jaclyn, I am wondering whether this implementation could be limited to the Lib Group only? Now people in other groups, who may never even have heard of the Lib Group*, will see that ticky box and wonder what it is for (not to mention that their posts suddenly seem to appear in an Adding New Books & Editions folder which is non-existent in their group).

*ETA I didn't think of the fact that only librarians can see the ticky box. Still, not everyone with librarian status frequents the Lib Group.

lethe wrote: "Jaclyn, I am wondering whether this implementation could be limited to the Lib Group only? Now people in other groups, who may never even have heard of the Lib Group, will see that ticky box "

Oh, no, this is awful. Simply awful. It's not just a bug, it's another example of crappy programming. Simply, simply, awful. I was against this to start with. Can you now see why?

I do not want this to appear in my challenge group. Ever. Under no circumstances. And it does.

Please, please, please, Jaclyn. Can the programmers remove this functionality entirely?

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Oh, no, this is awful. Simply awful."

I just amended my previous post and said I had forgotten that only librarians can see the ticky box. Still, not all librarians are familiar with the Lib Group.

lethe wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I just amended my previous post and said I had forgotten that only librarians can see the ticky box. Still, not all librarians are familiar with the Lib Group.
"

Yes, some of the members of my Challenge group are librarians. What if they accidentally tick the box?

Do. not. allow. people to change the title of a thread that they didn't create. Period.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Yes, some of the members of my Challenge group are librarians. What if they accidentally tick the box?"

It won't work if they are trying to do it in another group.

Emily wrote: "t won't work if they are trying to do it in another group."

Really? It changes the title of the thread.

I would think that once they correct the issue of every thread (in every group) appearing as though it is in the Adding New Books & Editions folder, that the Mark as Done tickbox won't show in other groups since it's supposed to be limited to the one folder in the Librarian Group.

It's concerning that threads in all groups, not just Librarians Group, now have Adding New Books & Editions thread title and it is active link.

L J wrote: "It's concerning that threads in all groups, not just Librarians Group, now have Adding New Books & Editions thread title and it is active link."

And it cannot be undone.

That Testy McTesterson should be excused from work. He does a crappy job.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Emily wrote: "t won't work if they are trying to do it in another group."

Really? It changes the title of the thread."

No, it doesn't. In other groups it doesn't work at all.

Even in other folders in the Lib Group it doesn't work (but that may change if the implementation is considered successful).

lethe wrote: "No, it doesn't. In other groups it doesn't work at all.."

But it does. I tested it in my secret group. It changes the thread and links to the librarian group. And it cannot be undone.

And not only that, but there is no log. If someone - anyone - were to accidentally mark a thread in *this* group, you'd have small chance of finding that thread nor of who did it.

This is the thread in my secret group where I maintained a list of authors I wanted to work on - authors who needed to be secondary authors. It was in my Librarian folder.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "This is the thread in my secret group where I maintained a list of authors I wanted to work on - authors who needed to be secondary authors. It was in my Librarian folder.

"

That is because every thread in every group now has that header. But it's not actually in that folder, it just appears to be. If you look at the folder structure in your group, the thread should still be in the right spot, it just looks like it's in the wrong spot when you open the thread.

Melanie wrote: "That is because every thread in every group now has that header. But it's not actually in that folder, it just appears to be."

It doesn't just appear to be. If you click the folder in the thread you are taken to this group and this location:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

This has effectively destroyed navigation in GR groups.

For me it is every thread in every group and none of them have the Mark as Done box checked.

Edit:

Here's an example of what I mean.

This is a challenge thread I'm in and when I go to the actual thread it looks like it's in the Librarian Group folder.



But when I go to the group itself and look in the Tower Teams folder, it's still in the correct folder (bottom of screenshot).

Melanie wrote: "For me it is every thread in every group and none of them have the Mark as Done box checked."

Same.

Melanie wrote: "For me it is every thread in every group and none of them have the Mark as Done box checked."

Yep. Sorry. My testing was as lousy as Testy McTesterson's.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Melanie wrote: "That is because every thread in every group now has that header. But it's not actually in that folder, it just appears to be."

It doesn't just appear to be. If you click the folder in the thread you are taken to this group and this location:"

This is true but if you go to the Group page and the Folder you're looking for, the thread is still there. So it's an error that shows up when you're in the thread itself but the threads haven't actually been moved.

Melanie wrote: "This is true but if you go to the Group page and the Folder you're looking for, the thread is still there. So it's an error that shows up when you're in the thread itself but the threads haven't actually been moved."

And one can do that. But that isn't the easiest way to navigate.

It's really hard to understand how they could have gone so wrong. The change in folder was supposed to go to

[Closed] Added Books/Editions
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

You'd think that would be the folder change across the site even though that isn't right anyway.

lethe wrote: "Jaclyn, I am wondering whether this implementation could be limited to the Lib Group only? Now people in other groups, who may never even have heard of the Lib Group*, will see that ticky box and wonder what it is for (not to mention that their posts suddenly seem to appear in an Adding New Books & Editions folder which is non-existent in their group)."

We're working on correcting the bug, and I'll add an update once it's fixed.

Thanks, Jaclyn.

We've released a fix - it'll take a few hours to reflect.

This looks to have been fixed in other groups.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "This looks to have been fixed in other groups."

And also in this group. And the ticky box only appears in threads in the Adding New Editions folder, so I'm happy.

lethe wrote: "And the ticky box only appears in threads in the Adding New Editions folder, so I'm happy."

Yes. I'll never have to see it, although I did fix one thread a bit ago to see if it worked. (It does)

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "lethe wrote: "And the ticky box only appears in threads in the Adding New Editions folder, so I'm happy."

Yes. I'll never have to see it"

LOL

I have a lot of problems with how the site works right now and the lack of communication between librarians/users and staff. But I love this new feature!
It for sure could have been implemented a bit better, but now when it's only possible in this group for librarians I think it is great. When done requests are moved it makes it much easier to get an overview and it actually feels like requests are getting done when I see the number of threads in the Closed folder grow.
Thanks staff!

It'd be great if staff could find a way to mass move over all the really old threads in the Adding New Books & Editions folder so it would be left with just the ones that actually need to be completed still. Although how they would find a way to determine the cutoff to move stuff over, I'm not sure.

Melanie wrote: "It'd be great if staff could find a way to mass move over all the really old threads in the Adding New Books & Editions folder so it would be left with just the ones that actually need to be comple..."

There are fewer tnan 50 with dates older than 2022.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Melanie wrote: "It'd be great if staff could find a way to mass move over all the really old threads in the Adding New Books & Editions folder so it would be left with just the ones that actually n..."

Ah ok, missed that. I just clicked on the last page and saw they were pretty old. I didn't think to click back a few pages.

But wow, that means there are so many requests still open.

Melanie wrote: "But wow, that means there are so many requests still open."

I was pretty shocked. But Goodreads decided this is the way they want it, more than 1500 requests in the last 10 days or so still outstanding.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Melanie wrote: "But wow, that means there are so many requests still open."

I was pretty shocked. But Goodreads decided this is the way they want it, more than 1500 requests in the last 10 days or..."

There were valid reasons why they stopped regular users from adding books, but as long as they let the bots continue their destruction of the database, I will not be adding books in this group anymore.

Melanie wrote: "It'd be great if staff could find a way to mass move over all the really old threads in the Adding New Books & Editions folder"

Hi Melanie! Yup, as Elizabeth noted, we moved a lot of the old threads to the archived folder, we also tried to identify completed request through keywords and moved those across. Hopefully that will help help Librarians when working in that folder.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll close this thread as it's beginning to move off topic. Please feel welcome to open another if you note any issues with the new feature.