• BookTalk.org News will soon go out via email in HTML format. The goal will be to keep people posted on our current book discussions and other relevant news items.
• Contest #2: "On The Importance of Reading" has started. Visit the Contests forum - the very top thread.
Please support our free community by making a credit card donation through our secure PayPal account. We appreciate and depend on the generosity of our members. Thank you!
I think the 10 post rule is a tiny speed bump. This limits the amount of transient visitors who participate in the voting but then don't bother to read the book or participate in the discussion.
10 posts isn't exactly a back breaking chore. You already have 5 posts. It's easy to start up a thread of something you'd like to talk about. Soon you'll have 10 posts!
The voting is also not a one day affair; it goes on for weeks and you always have the option of starting your own thread for a book you'd like to read and invite other people to read with you.
BT is an open community. No one has ever excluded me, even though I know that I sometimes rub folks the wrong way
I suggest starting a thread about your favorite book and giving your opinion on it.
Message boards, such as ours, gets tons of visitors on a regular basis. Like President Camacho explained, we cannot allow the opinions/votes of these people to influence the direction of our community. From experience most visitors never come back. This is not unique to BookTalk, but is how most humans surf the Internet. They find a site, look around briefly, and then surf on to the next site.
Our 10 post minimum is an attempt to get people to get involved on our forums. By the time you have made 10 posts you should understand how to create relpies to other threads, reply to comments people give to you, and generally navigate the forums. If you don't know how to do all of the above what are the chances that your vote will have any real meaning? You'll influence the book we read and then probably never make another post.
As far as the "Explore BookTalk!" contest goes, that contest serves a purpose of bettering BookTalk. It is not just about giving away random books to members. If that were the case I would flip a coin and start shipping books here and there. No, the goal of that contest is to get our existing members to tap into the available resources and features of the community. I don't think you realize how few 25 posts really is. If getting to 25 posts is a challenge you probably won't be around very much. Some members make 25 posts in a day or two...not that this level of activity is expected.
We have a pile of free books that is continuously growing. That pile is growing because authors and publishers are willing to send those books to us for free, to be given away as awards, based on the fact that we're a large and active book forum. They are not giving the books to us randomly. They give them because they want exposure for their books and feedback. Those authors and publishers would not be happy if we were giving the books away randomly or to people just passing through the community. (I know this. They have told me this repeatedly)
I'm happy to see so many people voting and planning to participate in this short story discussion. Let's leave this poll up for the weekend -- closing it on Sunday, May 18th.
I'm glad you folks have chosen short story collections for the coming month(s). I love short stories!
My 3 votes go to Exile And The Kingdom by Albert Camus. I checked out Camus and this book on Wikipedia and I'm curious to see what's all this existentialism and philosophical takes on his books is about.
