Reading Lists - Book Suggestions

Chris OConnor · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:55 pm Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

Mad

As you suggested I have moved the "Book Suggestions" forum into the "Book Discussions Forums" category. Also, I have renamed that forum to "Book Suggestions, Nominations & Polls," so it is even more obvious as to that forums purpose.

CSflim

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I have to say that I really like the new layout. Much more suited to a place called BookTalk!

I agree and thank you for the suggestions and feedback!

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Minor suggestions: "Book Archives" could probably be placed at the end of the "Book Discussion Forums" tab, rather than getting a tab all of its own.

Good point. Done. And The Academy was moved to General. Most of what takes place in that forum is the sharing of personal writing, so it doesn't really fit in the book discussion forums category.

CSflim

When you are making a post you should click on the "EZ Codes" button. HTML is not allowed on our boards, as there are too many risks to security.

Scrum

If someone wants to present a topic so that members can suggest books they can do so in any of the appropriate forums. Right now I'm trying to eliminate complexity from the board, so adding a new forum that wouldn't get much activity would be counter-productive.

Chris

MadArchitect · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 9:48 pm Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

Thanks, Chris. Looks much better. And I think having the book discussion threads at the top of the forum makes much more sense. I just hope it makes the next discussion more active than the current discussion.

Most of what takes place in that forum is the sharing of personal writing, so it doesn't really fit in the book discussion forums category.

Which is part of why I wish you'd consider making one more forum in the Book Discussion category for classic books. Lately, the classics thread has gotten pushed down by a lot of personal writing. Not that I dislike the personal writing, but I miss the classic book discussion thread.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 12:25 am Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

Mad

That might be a good idea. Perhaps another forum in the Book Discussions category for classics would work. This forum could also include the Bible, Koran, Origin of Species, and other such important texts.

And no, I'm not joking about the Origin of Species. Certain books wouldn't work for a quarterly reading as they're too difficult or massive.

But we would need this forum to get some traffic and I'm not sure it would. What do you think? Having a forum with only 10 posts per month is not worth it.

Chris

Chris OConnor · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:44 am Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

I need some time to think about where to go from here. Right now I'm thinking about what would benefit the community as a whole.

I spoke on the phone recently to Tara, a moderator, and we are under the impression that being a facilitator to numerous book discussions would NOT be in BookTalk's best interest.

We currently have no more than a dozen people that post on any given book discussion. Adding the Classics forum shouldn't detract much from the focus of the community, which is our main reading selection. But having another prominent forum for concurrent book discussions will fragment our members into smaller groups, which doesn't help us at all.

Part of what we offer is the community or friendship we all feel by interacting regularly with one another. Several ideas that we have been tossing around lately would be counter-productive in this regard.

1. By being a community that simply discusses all books we thin ourselves out too much. We would not have large discussions in our main book, which would mean we would not have anything to entice authors to come chat with us.

2. By offering a prominent forum for discussing any and all books, and then building a database of all suggested books, we would have little to no control over the quality of what is read. And WHAT we read and discuss is our entire image.

I'm thinking about the big picture right now. I really want to focus on educational and academic books. I'm getting nervous even thinking about anything else. Down the road we might branch out, but right now we are too damn small. We need the members working as a community towards some sort of common goal.

Our quarterly book discussions need to be our focus. It's what we sell to authors. I have visited a ton of book groups, and to be honest, they are a complete clusterfuck. They have a ton of forums for discussing every type of book, which works well for them, but they don't offer anything unique.

At BookTalk we offer personal chat sessions with the authors. To me and to most people I have chatted with this is big. By branching out and making this a community for discussing just about any book, we start attracting members that have absolutely no interest in our core mission. We become like everyone else.

I'm open to suggestions, but am pausing to do some thinking right now. I have been thinking about the "Classics" forum and do like this particular idea, but only because it shouldn't be a distraction.

And I have a vision for how that forum will operate. We want ONE thread created for each Classic. It needs to be organized. I'll move all the discussions about classic books from The Academy to this new Classics forum once it is created.

I have some other ideas for how to eliminate the troublesome sticky topics at the top of many forums.

Anyone have a good name for this classics forum? Keep in mind we want to discuss the Bible and all other scriptures, along with just about any famous book.

Chris

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 3/24/05 1:45 am

scrumfish · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:51 am Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

I would certainly post there. I have not read Origin of Species yet and would love to be able to ask questions about it when I do, as well as many of the other classics that I plan on reading someday.

The Academy used to be 3 forms, one for fiction, one for non-fiction and one for writing. Since I have nominated myself as the committee to try and get a longer main page, here is another suggestion: Why not put The Academy as a section in between Book Discussion Forums and General Forums and separate them again? I am really liking the changes, but as it is now I think it might be hard for a newcomer to find a place to talk about any books other than the group selections that are listed. Or maybe instead of those 3 forums plus one for classics, have one for writing, one for other books both fiction and non-fiction, and one for classics? If you do that I pledge to throw up posts on some of the list of books that I've been meaning to get around to posting about and tossing in something I've written myself. You could even put it below General Forums so Mad can reach his discussions quickly.

As just one little forum at the bottom of all the others I worry that The Academy might get lost.

scrumfish · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:02 pm Post subject: Re: Reading Lists

Sounds like good reasoning to me.


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