Beyond Reality discussion

So I was way too busy to read books of the month, and kind of disappeared off the scene of Beyond Reality for a while, but I recall discussion of starting a goodreads group. Then today, I went to the Yahoo group, and it seems like it's been deserted! What happened? Have we switched here completely? I mean, I like goodreads way more than Yahoo anyway, so it's fine with me. I was just wondering, because I thought this one was just going to supplement the existing one. OK well there's my unorganized expression of confusion for the day. :) I hope to participate more in coming months, but with a to-read list that will take me at least a decade to get through, I'm not sure I'll be able to read books I wasn't planning to read already. :P

Hi Lianne,

Welcome back :) We tried to keep the Yahoo group going for a while after switching over to GoodReads, but all the discussion sort of naturally moved over to GR. I haven't deleted the Yahoo Group because I don't want to lose the archives of almost 10 years of messages there, but for all intents and purposes Beyond Reality is a GR group now. This really is a much better venue for book discussion, I think.

Stefan

There is an advantage to Yahoo's polling system, in that it can be set to accommodate multiple votes by one person, and it does keep track of who voted for what. But switching back and forth is very cumbersome.

Actually, if we didn't check the anonymous voting box here on Goodreads, we'd see a list to the right of each poll showing how each member voted. If members don't mind not being anonymous when registering their vote, we can change to that method in future (right Stefan? :).

But I agree that being able to vote for more than one choice, particularly before the run off polls was a nice way to narrow the selection.

We could stop making the polls anonymous, if no one has any objections. The polls were anonymous in the Yahoo group too - well, the moderators could see the names of who votes, and at GR we can't so it's truly anonymous here. I mainly did this because I wanted everyone to be comfortable voting when we had authors in the group.

Yes, it was nice being able to vote for more than one choice, but that's about the only advantage Yahoo had, I think. Aside from that, the format at GR works much better for book discussion.

I absolutely agree that the format here is more suitable. I only mentioned the voting thing because someone mentioned not too long ago that he might like to be able to refresh his memory as to his own previous votes. I also respect voters' desire for privacy, and am quite content either way.

We could vote on it! Hehe.

Althought it's been a disaster for my TBR shelf and wish-list, I think the GR format is so much more suited to our type of group. We've had much more member participation and livlier discussions since we moved across.

Beyond Reality is quickly becoming my favorite group here at GoodReads.

Group hug to all of you!

Sisimka - good idea. Although I don't know if that should be an anonymous vote or... Ow, my head.

Stefan wrote: "We could stop making the polls anonymous, if no one has any objections. "

This would help me because I can NEVER remember what my vote was, and when we rank the BOTMs, I usually am "Currently reading" or "Intending to read" and then can't recall if I ranked the book when I actually read it. So I vote for "not anonymous".

Kathi, you can click on "change your vote" in any poll you've voted in as long as it's still running. That way you can change from "currently reading" to whatever score you want to give it.

Unless anyone has significant objections (please post them here or PM me), we'll make the polls un-anonymous from now on. (I just realized I accidentally made the poll for the current Vorkosigan book un-anonymous, so I guess it's not a big deal...)

Well I'm glad to be back anyway. :) And I'm glad the group in on Goodreads now, which way more enjoyable to use than Yahoo.

Also, I'm perfectly fine with non-anonymous polls.

I think I may be the only one who prefers the Yahoo format. I much prefer everything coming to my email inbox. But I have adapted.

Renee wrote: "I think I may be the only one who prefers the Yahoo format. I much prefer everything coming to my email inbox. But I have adapted."

You can get every individual posts to all threads as they happen on your email inbox. You need to set it up on "edit membership"/"edit group discussion updates" on the right of the group home page.

I stopped getting them a couple of weeks ago and GR tells me it is my ISP. Has anybody have a problem with this?

I haven't had a problem with message delivery, but sometimes an ISP will block an address that sends too much email as potential spam.

My email set up is for new posts, but I don't get another email from the same thread until I've checked in with it.

No elen all that comes is a message to come to the group. I want the actual message its works much better for me with my slow internet. And the messages stop until I visit the thread