Audiobooks discussion

Warm greetings! As a new member of the Audiobooks group, I have a very general question. This is not a criticism, just a question of curiosity.

Why do all the discussions appear on one large discussion board?

Many of the other GR groups have various "topic" boards such as a group read section, a "shelving" section, a fiction section, etc. which aid in quickly locating posts related to a topic area.

Again, I'm just curious about the board organization here.

I appreciate your feedback and look forward to more interactions with fellow audio listeners.

I agree that it feels overwhelming to have over 300 threads under one topic (General Discussion). Maybe the moderator could move those which have been inactive for over a year into a separate archive thread?

Leslie --

Moderators here cannot "move" anything, sorry. However, what I'd like to do is let this thread build up some suggestions, so that we can re-organize things some in the near future.

John - new folders can be set up and threads moved between them - I do it all the times in my various other groups that I mod

John - I don't know anything about group admin but I do know that moderators in other group can (and do) move pre-existing threads to different topics. For example, moving promotions/give-aways out of general discussion to a "promotions" topic happens in Cozy Mysteries.

No suggestions yet but I do want to say that I am grateful to John for encouraging links to the title of a book as opposed to the cover. I didn't understand how valuable this was until I began accessing GR via my phone more frequently. In many other groups, I am lost when a poster links to a book because they may chose to link to the cover and all I can see is a little green box.
Thanks John!

I shall look into moving threads; the last time I had looked into that, it seemed "moving" wasn't possible for anything.
No problem, Ali-ef ... at another forum where I'm active, I have to renmind myself that I'm not a mod, so not my place to start after folks about that - LOL.

I really, really appreciate the book title links!!! Thank you, John.

What I do not understand is why people who know the group rules require links, refuse to use them!

Sorry for jumping in late on this conversation. I had a crazy weekend with family in Newtown, CT and the horrible event that transpired there. That school would have been the one that my nieces and nephews would have attended but instead go to Catholic school. Unfortunately, some of the neighborhood kids did attend and there was one family that my brother-in-law's family did know that suffered a loss. Like everyone, my thoughts and prayers are with Newtown and those who suffered a loss.

Regarding this topic, the set up for the discussion topics simply evolved over time. This group was started over 5 years ago and was the 596th group on Goodreads which now has nearly 87,000 groups. Therefore, between the age and the activeness of this group, this could be quite an undertaking.

I'm not certain how to move threads but it is something I will look into in 2013. If it can be done, John and I will do so as time permits. If I need to find I topic of discussion, I have been using the search function and would recommend that as a work around.

Happy Holidays to All

Grumpus/John - if you click on the edit link that shows next to a thread title - then you can lock threads/ set as a priority - there is also the option to move the thread - you should see a pull-down menu with the various folders in the group

it is a bit time consuming - I just did it for one of my other groups, but not hard

Thanks, Dee - not exactly sure how we'd use that, but great to know how it's done.

basically if you wanted to keep threads without deleting them (which you can also do) - you can make an archive folder and move them there

my group locks threads after certain stuff is finished; and prioritize for challenges etc

In terms of possible category classifications - are your humble moderators pretty much the only folks here who listen to nonfiction?

John wrote: "In terms of possible category classifications - are your humble narrators pretty much the only folks here who listen to nonfiction?"

I listen to non-fiction not as much as you but still do listen!

i do occasionally - but not all that often

I like non-fiction!

It's hard for me to recommend categories because I find that I gain by reading every topic, but I might exclude a category such as Non-Fiction because that's not a genre I prefer. But that might mean I miss out on a good recommendation or discussion. I kind of like the broad discussion of our monthly threads, as long as they are there I'll be happy. Although... mysteries in audio might be a nice category ;)

I like non-fiction as well, but I don't know that we necessarily need a separate folder for it. I think our monthly reads thread is plenty for that. I do think we should archive the closed threads though to clean up the viewing area. When I first joined the group the multiple hundred threads was a little overwhelming, until I realized that quite a number of them were closed. I wouldn't delete the old threads about what people have listened to, because that's what this whole group is about, but maybe delete past-dated promotions, etc that are no longer relevant.

Many of us listen to series, so if we do have genre folders, I'd want to see those discussed by author in those cases. Unless folks really want it, I'm leery of folder discussions of narrators.
Frankly, I'm all in favor of "archiving" older threads, but we don't have group reads, and no "contests" (yet), so haven't thought the kinds of things mentioned by Krista really apply here to a significant degree. I don't mind if Person A mentions being ambivalent about the Joe Schmoe series, Person B replies that she was, too, and gave up after the second one, and several months later Person C brings that up again, with Person B re-chiming-in. I'm not sure I, personally, want to see hundreds of specific threads.

John wrote: "Many of us listen to series, so if we do have genre folders, I'd want to see those discussed by author in those cases. Unless folks really want it, I'm leery of folder discussions of narrators.
Fr..."

Our group seems to gravitate to the monthly general thread even when a more specific thread is available. I remember a thread on PNR and YA fantasy that had a short life even though a number of people mention them in the monthly threads. It might be a good practice for us to mention the genre when a book is first mentioned, for those who care, but not necessarily separate the topics. I've found a number of good reads (hey, good name for a web site) through our general thread that I wouldn't have even looked twice at otherwise.

I think the monthly reads thread works well, which is why I'm not inclined to start making major changes just for the sake of doing so.

I guess about 10% or less of my reading is non-fiction but I do like to hear about NF books. I'm listening to "Indian Givers" by Jack Weatherford at the moment. He connects the Incan/Spanish silver mines in the Andes to modern corporations and capitalism. Not a cheerful book but extremely interesting.
I'm not sure but I think the author narrates, quite well.
Sorry about the lack of links. If my teenage great grandson visits from far away I'll have him show me how to do it.

Margaret, I don't think it's a problem having NO link.

For me, it only trouble when people don't mention the name of the book at all and instead just link to the cover image - which I can't see on a phone/tablet. Then, on my phone, I just see "I really loved x-little green box-x. It was the best book ever."

Of course, that's my take and I stand prepared to be corrected.

@Ali-ef -- people who do that drive me crazy!! I have complained about it in one of my other groups to no effect, so I have pretty much given up reading those threads. So I second your thanks to John for keeping the line here!

Margaret, I can show you how to do a link. See the words "add book/author" above the box where you write a comment? Click on that. Then you can either click on "book" or "author". If you have clicked on book, type in the book's title. And click on "Search". You get a list of books. Click on "Add" to the right of the book that is the correct one! The box will close and the book link will be added to your comment.

This is a wonderful device because using this "add key" you can look at several sites at the same time. Play around with it. It is great. Also, if you use a link, other people find exactly the book you mean, and they do not have to retype the title. Think of all the time you are saving others. the total time expended is decreased, so it is efficient. And simple for the person adding the link! It is a kind thing to do!

I probably read as much non-fiction as fiction. (ETA: Yes, I just counted 2012 and fewer than half are fiction.)

You might consider deputizing someone (i.e., make that person a mod temporarily) with the time and interest to move threads into general folders (such as "monthly threads" or "monthly threads 2010" or "narrators and production," etc.).

Thanks, Osho - I have the time to sort that stuff out, I just didn't know anything could be moved until now!

Thank you, Chrissie, for that information about the links. I don't have time today but will give it a try on Thursday, which looks promising.

John wrote: "In terms of possible category classifications - are your humble narrators pretty much the only folks here who listen to nonfiction?"

One of my current reading goals is to increase my consumption of nonfiction books, so hope to continue to see those mentioned in the monthly reading thread.

I think too many different threads would make it a very convoluted and confusing process to try to find new authors/titles, especially as I read many different genres, and series.

I just noticed a typo in my original message, should read "your humble moderators" (NOT narrators).

I read/listen to nonfiction and I think it would be nice to be able to search a specific thread. My humble wish.

Noted. Any re-organization wouldn't be until next year though, we haven't begun discussing any possibilities at all yet.

John wrote: "In terms of possible category classifications - are your humble moderators pretty much the only folks here who listen to nonfiction?"

I do, yes, when the books I want to read are made available in audio format, which is rare. :(

I listen to nonfiction, mainly biography, history and science. Travel narratives as well. So, please don't neglect nonfiction in any revamp of he page.

I rarely post because of the book-link thing. There is just no easy way to link from my phone, which is how I access GoodReads. (For that matter the mobile apparently does not allow format choice when adding books. It just shows a single format record.)

Debra -

You've explained why you can't always link, so please feel free to participate, putting titles in quotes, bold, etc. instead - anything to set them off so they don't get lost in (run into) the text.

the goodreads app really needs to be worked on - I just go to the full-text website, vice the mobile version so that I can put in links etc

Debra - Just to expand on what John said a bit. I use the mobile app quite a bit so have learned a few tricks:

to put something in bold, type (without the quote marks) " before the text and "<"/b> after the text
to put something in italics, do the same thing replacing the b with an i
to put in a link, type (again without the quote marks) "[book":name of book"]

oops, looks like my first example didn't have enough quote marks to fool the editor... to start bold type "<"b">

B in sideways carets immediately before the text and slashB in carets immediately after; for italics use the letter "i" instead.