MobileRead February Book Club Vote

[JSWolf]

We need more votes for The Fault in Our Stars. It's a very good book. Well worth reading and it's not old and outed. It's modern and fresh.

The problem as I see it is that we have too many old stale, boks nominated and then voted on. Can we for once (well, more than once would be good) have something chosen that's a modern book? I would hope so as the constant voting for these old stake books is getting ridiculous.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The problem as I see it is that we have too many old stale, boks nominated and then voted on. Can we for once (well, more than once would be good) have something chosen that's a modern book? I would hope so as the constant voting for these old stake books is getting ridiculous.

My guess is that some people would prefer to not have to purchase a book for the bookclub, and so nominate/vote on freebies, which are likely out of copyright and therefore as you say, old. Perhaps when we revise the monthly bookclub selection criteria we could agree on some sort of compromise. I agree with Jon, I would like to see variety.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

My guess is that some people would prefer to not have to purchase a book for the bookclub, and so nominate/vote on freebies, which are likely out of copyright and therefore as you say, old. Perhaps when we revise the monthly bookclub selection criteria we could agree on some sort of compromise. I agree with Jon, I would like to see variety.

That may be the perception, but it's not the reality. In 2014, only three of twelve selections were public domain and one was in Classics month and one was in Patricia Clark Library month, where it would be expected. The third was a Dickens Christmas novella in December and surely that can be forgiven. In any case, I hardly think 25% of the selections is overkill.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by issybird

That may be the perception, but it's not the reality. In 2014, only three of twelve selections were public domain and one was in Classics month and one was in Patricia Clark Library month, where it would be expected. The third was a Dickens Christmas novella in December and surely that can be forgiven. In any case, I hardly think 25% of the selections is overkill.

But in 2013, unless my quick count is wrong, 5 selections were public domain.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

But in 2013, unless my quick count is wrong, 5 selections were public domain.

That still means that two-thirds of the choices in the past two years were not public domain and you could argue on the basis of that that the trend is toward fewer. Moreover, if for statistical purposes you eliminated Classics and Patricia Clark months as being heavily weighted toward PD in any case, that would leave only one book out of ten in the last year and three the year before, or a mere 20%.

We know Jon doesn't like old books, but we don't have to drink the Kool-Aid he serves up, at least not without holding the glass up to the light first.

[HomeInMyShoes]

That's a faulty deduction Issybird.

Just because a month is not Classics and not PCML does not mean a Public Domain book would not be chosen. The numbers from the book club suggest at least one of the months would have been PD or at least a Classic (> 70 years old.)

Taking out Classics and PCML from 75 months of data, Public Domain was 16 of 66 months and Classic was 24 of 66 months. That will inevitably rise to 17/67 an 25/67 after this month. The book club has never needed extra help in choosing old books. The numbers tell us this.

I believe both sides are drinking Kool-Aid. I'd rather we read a book from an author we haven't tried yet or that's in a style we don't read much. It's why I didn't vote for Wharton. I enjoyed our previous Wharton selection. I would just rather read a new to me author. I might still read it, but it wasn't in my top five choices from the list.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

That's a faulty deduction Issybird.

Just because a month is not Classics and not PCML does not mean a Public Domain book would not be chosen. The numbers from the book club suggest at least one of the months would have been PD or at least a Classic (> 70 years old.)

Taking out Classics and PCML from 75 months of data, Public Domain was 16 of 66 months and Classic was 24 of 66 months. That will inevitably rise to 17/67 an 25/67 after this month. The book club has never needed extra help in choosing old books. The numbers tell us this.

Take them out or leave them in, just don't double-count. The numbers don't suggest anything except that in the former Classics and PCML months that PD would have shown up in the same proportion as other months.

Moreover, the membership in the book club has changed enormously over time as have options for getting books, and I'd argue that recent data have more predictive power than that of years ago.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by issybird

Take them out or leave them in, just don't double-count. The numbers don't suggest anything except that in the former Classics and PCML months that PD would have shown up in the same proportion as other months.

Moreover, the membership in the book club has changed enormously over time as have options for getting books, and I'd argue that recent data have more predictive power than that of years ago.

Yes, but you suggested that they wouldn't have shown up at all which is the fault I pointed out and suggested that the real number was somewhere between ten and nine and not an absolute ten. I believe as before we're talking the same point in a slightly different manner. I've always appreciated your thoughts on the clubs.

I am interpreting the numbers as telling me the book club would continue to nominate old books and vote in old books fairly regularly. You can disagree with that, but I have many examples (25% of the time) that suggest the book club has done so in the past and if the trend (in one year) you see suggests otherwise then we should rethink categories with respect to the membership. Participation and membership do change, I think that's normal and healthy. The unfortunate trend I do see in the bookclub is a decrease in participation. Only 23 voters for romance this year? It's the most popular genre out there and previous years had 104, 89, 48, 63, and 27 voters. that is a drop and a significant one. I'm back from a challenge hiatus for the last couple of years and I'll continue challenging the club to evolve and nominate and hopefully read authors we haven't touched.

For the record, I would remove all age-based options from the categories. There would be no Classics, but there would also be no Modern or Contemporary as well. I would keep PCML. It is a large part of MobileRead and we should celebrate that.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Participation and membership do change, I think that's normal and healthy. The unfortunate trend I do see in the bookclub is a decrease in participation. Only 23 voters for romance this year? It's the most popular genre out there and previous years had 104, 89, 48, 63, and 27 voters. that is a drop and a significant one. I'm back from a challenge hiatus for the last couple of years and I'll continue challenging the club to evolve and nominate and hopefully read authors we haven't touched.

For the record, I would remove all age-based options from the categories. There would be no Classics, but there would also be no Modern or Contemporary as well. I would keep PCML. It is a large part of MobileRead and we should celebrate that.

WT Sharpe has started a thread about changing categories for 2016 which I really hope goes forward. As you noted, the year over year number of votes has been dropping and not just for Romance, which I know is popular overall but not necessarily at MR judging by the "What are you reading" thread. I know I don't care for Romance and haven't voted although I do follow the threads. Hopefully a new set of categories will help bring in a few more people.

I do wonder how many people are lurking and not participating vocally. I know I don't vote if I don't think I will read a selection and don't always comment even if I do depending on how it goes.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I've moved my response to the 2016 Categories discussion because I am way off topic now.

[sun surfer]

Most things in this club are voted on - as in every single category now in use (we had a poll to decide each category), plus all winning book selections. I know it's frustrating to some that older or more literary books often win here. I do think free factors in sometimes, and yes, I also think crossover from the lit club factors in. It will be a little long and it’s been a long time coming (I’ve had these thoughts for years now), but I’ll just lay my feelings on the matter all out on the table here, as now seems as good a time as any to do so:

I think it all has to do with the fact that this forum is off on its own so there's not many drive-by (or click-by, heh) votes (though those kinds of voters might not actually read any winners anyway and so may not be ideal to want more of) while alternately, since this club exists in the same forum as the lit club, it's inevitable that some lit club members do keep track of this club and vote in it, leading to more literary results. It should be noted though that some lit club regulars such as myself started off in this general club, so I don't feel we're infiltrating this club at all but rather we're just among the ones who have stuck around as other voters in this club have slowly dwindled over the years. Heh, I still remember a time when I first started here that the club seemed at least half made up of sci-fi/fantasy devotees (and we still have a healthy group of members that really like sci-fi/fantasy here). Anyone remember Hal Spacejock winning (and in a non-sci-fi month)? We didn’t have too much of an inordinate amount of winners in sci-fi/fantasy, but at that time we’d get nominations from that genre in almost every single month despite the real category. We even had to institute the six-month rule because a very small number of members (since it only takes three to get a nomination to the vote) kept voting in the same sci-fi/fantasy book over and over again month after month despite whatever the category was.

In other words, I think the current "problem" or "strength" (depending on your point of view) stems from the fact that we have a little secluded forum here that doesn't encourage the more casual members or new members so much and maybe even scares off some (but not all) potential new blood by its insularity. When I started, the book clubs were in the main reading recommendations forum. Threads would go pages and pages, sometimes 10, 20, or more, nominations would usually be over in a matter of days and polls could get over 50 and closer to 100 votes sometimes (I think there were a few months we even had over 100 votes). I don't think it's just the move to this forum that led to lower numbers; I also think the site itself has slowed a little from its heyday when ereaders were so new to most of us, so a move back there might not put us back to those kinds of numbers. But it's no coincidence that when we moved to this dedicated forum, participation fell (a lot) soon after.

I don't know if the “answer” (if we even need an answer) is moving the clubs back to a broader forum. I've mentioned it before and not got a great response, and perhaps it's for the best. I do think it would drum up at least a little more interest in the clubs, but maybe not much, and anyway maybe some members would rather not have too much of an influx of new or more casual members as we wouldn’t know how that would affect things. And the big thing is that it would be a big change and a lot of work for someone (a moderator/administrator/probablyTom) to do and it might not be worth it, plus I have a feeling some non-members wouldn’t like to see any book club threads back in the reading recommendation forum and its stickies again, even if we kept this book club forum as a vault and only put new monthly threads in the reading recommendations forum and moved older ones here each month. But, staying secluded in this forum, I tend to think we probably won’t ever see much increase in numbers again and should just strive for staying strong enough for a medium/small viable club, and that can be okay and good. The literary club also lost members in the move to this dedicated forum, but it levelled off and though it’s small (less than half the votes of this club many months) the lit club is doing well here and often has good, lengthy discussion threads.

Anyway, for us still here in this general club, we just have to make do with the group we have now, and unfortunately for those of you wanting newer or less literary books chosen more often, the group we have now seems to prefer the opposite many months (but certainly not all - we did just choose The Bat recently, for instance, and that is neither literary nor old). What we are getting is what we as a group want. For example, I’m hearing suggestions now about how we should try to make sure we get less public domain/free books, less literary books and less older books. Well, during our categories nominations when we went through month by month nominating and voting in new categories, I suggested two categories, I think multiple times, that never won a month - "contemporary" (so it would've ensured a new book would be chosen) and "not free" (so it would've ensured a book wouldn't be chosen because it's free). I'm fine with them not being chosen as categories as they were just two ideas among many good suggestions that people had, but the point is, the group as a whole had many chances to choose categories like these and chose not to.

So what we have now and what we are getting now IS what the group as a whole wants. I just think that people who prefer literary or older works tend to be less vocal overall and so that can distort the picture. Vote results tell the real story. But things do change year-to-year, whether subtley or drastically. If we change categories for 2016, any of you can suggest more defined categories, such as “Contemporary Sci-Fi” or “Non-Literary Fantasy”, or Non-Literary Contemporary”, etc. and see if you can drum up enough support for any of them be included. In my opinion, without this, in the current atmosphere here, we will almost always have many free/older/literary nominations each month. I do think I remember that someone tried something like it with Adventure last time in nominating “Pulp Adventure” or something similar, but it wasn’t voted in. I do understand the frustration some of you have since old or literary often wins here, and often edges out a newer or less literary choice by only a vote or two. I’m sure that can be annoying, and I might actually be for a month or two a year to be defined as non-literary and/or contemporary so that older or literary nominations are excluded at least a few months of the year for those of you who prefer that, but otherwise, as long as it fits the category at hand, since I do like old, stodgy, dusty, boring literary books, I will continue to nominate or support them as I please.

[JSWolf]

I would like a rule where once an author is a winner, no more books from that author can be nominated for an entire year. There are still plenty of choices.

[WT Sharpe]

If that's a reference to Edith Wharton, she hasn't had a book to win in this club since December 2012, although she did win in the Literary Club last year.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad. I'd like us to read different authors, but I'm only a robot.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

If that's a reference to Edith Wharton, she hasn't had a book to win in this club since December 2012, although she did win in the Literary Club last year.

Nominated several times in the Literary Club but I don't recall her winning.