Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Forums

@htaccess:  I really like the idea of doing some more lists based on our member data.  As Rhondak101 says, we've got over 1,400 members now and over 4,000 books so there's plenty of data to work with.  What do you all think of these:

List option 1:  WWEnd 100 Member Favorites - Simple list of the 100 books most often tagged as a favorite.  Maybe more folks would tag some favorites to see their faves move up the list.

List option 2:  WWEnd Top Rated Books - The books that have the most 10 ratings.  We'd have to look at the data to determine what the cutoff would be for a book to make the list.  Twenty 10 ratings?  50?  Whatever number gets us closest to around 100 books.   This list could be a little bit of added incentive to get folks to rate their books too.

Both lists would be "live" lists in that they would fluctuate as members tag their favorites or rate books a 10.  We'll update the lists every month or so.  Books on the bottom might drop off to be replaced by something else and there would liekly be a bit of movement at the top end too.

Thanks for bringing this idea back up!  We haven't looked at this in a long time and now's a great time to try this out.

DrNefario - 2012-02-07 3:02 AM If they're live lists, it's going to be difficult to try to complete them. (I need to set some favourites)

I thought about that and you're right of course.  It will be more difficult as the list will change but I suspect it will be relatively minor fluctuations overall.  Books will move up and down the list like a power ranking with a few dropping off the end to make way for new ones.  I doubt there will be much movement other than that.  It would take a lot of additional/changed ratings and favorite tagging to really affect the list drastically.

Of course that's all speculation.  It'll be interesting to see.  We talked about some different methods for making the lists this morning.  I'll post more info here when we figure it out.

It'll be a straight up calculation.  The books with the most favorites in the system regardless of where they fall for each individual.  Most people don't bother sorting their favorites list and the calcualtions would be enormous.

We'll need a tie breaker I guess.  Perhaps we'll use the overall rating?  Ideas?

@Engelbrecht:  I've got many books on my favorites list that I did not rank a 10 though I think by and large you're right that favorties will tend to be high in 10s overall.  Some of those books appealed to me despite their flaws.  Conversely, I've got some books I rated a 10 that are not on my favorites list.  I can appreciate that they're well written but I wouldn't want to read them again.  That's roughly how I determine a favorite.  Do I really want to read it again?

I think it'll be interesting to see how the 2 lists differ.  Might be the same books in a slightly different order but I'll bet there are lots of people who just love Harry Potter or some other book or series that they know is not the best but they love it anyway.  The Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of my guilty pleasure favorites!

@Rhondak101:  The whole rating thing can be problematic.  How do you rate a book you adored 20 years ago when you first read it when you know there is no way you'd like it if you read it now?  Nostalgia can really affect your ratings!  If you decide to rank it a bit higher for old times sake how does that compare to a book you read as an adult with a more critical eye?

I tend to rate a book based on my memory oh how I enjoyed it when I read it.  Which of course means I've got a lot of high ratings for books that I wouldn't be able to read today.  What to do?  Well, I find myself constantly tweaking my ratings.  Looking at each one individually they look OK but when I look at the "Books I've Read" list in My World I freak out seeing some books compared to others and I just have to rate one up or down to address the imballance which of course creates another imballance elsewhere.  It's kind of fun but also feels like the path to madness sometimes.

You should certainly start your rating project but be warned, it could drive you batty!