Apply *Ignore User* Option to eBook Uploads?

[Billi]

Thank you very much, Doctor Ooh, for this post! And thank you crutledge for all your efforts!

I appreciate all the fine uploads of "high literature", all the nice versions of the classics we have here very much but I'm glad we have these other books here too (and people are able to find it all at one place and don't have to search additionally at Project Gutenberg or archive.org or the respective German sites.)
Another topic it is if the new forum software will offer a better search function.

Kenny posted this quote yesterday, I find it quite fitting:

Originally Posted by kennyc

"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."
— William Faulkner

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

Since the most prolific up-loader is a quality up-loader I fail to see your reasoning.

His books may be formally acceptable, but a nicely formatted ebook isn't neceassarily also a quality ebook. Since I'm curious what other MR readers think, I"ll create a poll to find out whether other MR members think that the number of uploads should be voluntarily limited.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

His books may be formally acceptable, but a nicely formatted ebook isn't neceassarily also a quality ebook.

True, but since neither of us have read each book, who are we to pre-judge the authors on the quality of their work? The construction and presentation of the ebooks from this up-loader are excellent.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Billi

I appreciate all the fine uploads of "high literature", all the nice versions of the classics we have here very much but I'm glad we have these other books here too (and people are able to find it all at one place and don't have to search additionally at Project Gutenberg or archive.org or the respective German sites.). . . .Kenny posted this quote yesterday, I find it quite fitting:

This is the second time you've confused a complaint about the quality and frequency of the uploads with the kind of writing which is being uploaded. You've constructed a straw man -- again.

This will also be the second time I've had to point out that you're attributing motives to me and to people who have supported my idea which none of us have said that we possess.

Do us all the favor of addressing the ideas of your opponents and not the unstated motives you choose to attribute to them.

Characterizing the call for more democratic representation as elitism -- and then drawing conclusions about the characters of people who disagree with you on the basis of that characterization -- is not exactly fair.

Additionally, two moderators (who shall remain unnamed) have mentioned they think the exact same activity we've complained about is unfair to other uploaders. In my experience, said moderators do not privilege one kind of writing over another. They are simply aware the library is being flooded with uploads.

And they are not alone. Other book creators have complained to me as well.

So you see, while you're mulling over your own impressions of what's being said, and investing ideas intended to be constructive with bizarre elitist motives, I've actually been listening to the concerns of other people in this forum.

You might want to try it sometime.

I'd also request that you not name, expose to controversy or otherwise single out any one particular uploader -- even the one you're trying to defend. We've kept people's names out of this conversation so far out of respect for individual Mobile Read members. It would be unfair not to continue to be respectful.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

True, but since neither of us have read each book, who are we to pre-judge the authors on the quality of their work? The construction and presentation of the ebooks from this up-loader are excellent.

Doitsu's talking about the level of proofreading and editing, not the "authors" or "the quality of their work."

So, for that matter, am I -- to the extent I'm not also talking about aspects of the formatting itself.

No one's putting down the kind of writing which is being uploaded. We're talking about frequency and care of the uploads as opposed to that of the majority of uploaders.

Besides which, adding a functioning ToC -- which is apparently your idea of a formatting litmus test -- is the sort of thing that's done to public domain books sold on Amazon routinely, books that most of us try not to buy because they're lazily done. We have uploaders who exert a great deal more care than that.

What's a concern is not the amount of content in the library but the representation of individual uploaders in the daily feed and recently uploaded lists.

We have uploaders who put more care into their work than any ebook creator I've seen in professional publishing. We have one uploader who's so good at what he does that I'm trying to find a way to convince a university publisher to allow me to use him.

We have real book designers and artists in this community -- it doesn't matter what kinds of books they choose to upload.

You seem to be unclear as to people's reasons for posting on this thread and the aspects of the uploading which are being discussed. That's the reason I haven't responded to your longer post yet:-- I'm giving you a moment to cool off.

And again -- references to "this uploader" or any specific person are uncalled for. We're discussing the frequency and quality of the uploads, not the ultimate worth of individuals. If you respect the uploader you've been mentioning as much as you say, then you'll take pains to keep them out of this conversation. We're not here to criticize, vilify or argue the merits of any mobile read member.

[tubemonkey]

How about limiting each uploader to one thread per forum similar to the way it's done in the Deals forum for "affiliate link" offers? All works they upload would be confined to that thread. To keep thread size manageable, a new thread could be started each month. That way, infrequent uploaders won't drop off the front page so quickly.

[DaleDe]

I do not believe that the uploading should be limited artificially which is why I suggested that a method be developed to filter any user. That suggestion was made simply to keep the peace. Filtering a certain user would be a useful feature in several forums.

Dale

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

This is the second time you've confused a complaint about the quality and frequency of the uploads with the kind of writing which is being uploaded. You've constructed a straw man -- again.

I haven't. I was referring to the very first sentence of this thread:

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Checking eBook uploads can be misleading because certain people upload an insane amount of pulp every day in multiple formats.

This will also be the second time I've had to point out that you're attributing motives to me and to people who have supported my idea which none of us have said that we possess.
Characterizing the call for more democratic representation as elitism -- and then drawing conclusions about the characters of people who disagree with you on the basis of that characterization -- is not exactly fair.

Please, could you show me where I have attributing motives to you or drawn any conclusions of characters of people?

To my mind we have a democratic representation: no book in itself is discriminated, they appear all one after one according to their upload time. And of course the name of the most busiest uploader is seen more often on the page. Every other solution would lead to some kind of discrimination.

I see your problem but the solution can't be to restrict the number of uploads but to better manage the amount of uploads. Maybe it would be possible (if helpful) to implement an additional column with the number of downloads, maybe the search function could be improved if we would make better use of the keywords option and tag every upload, maybe Alex will introduce a whole new database for the books sometimes (as it was hinted in some threads) ...

Additionally, two moderators (who shall remain unnamed) have mentioned they think the exact same activity we've complained about is unfair to other uploaders.

I thought so. Otherwise this thread would have been handled otherwise.

I'd also request that you not name, expose to controversy or otherwise single out any one particular uploader -- even the one you're trying to defend. We've kept people's names out of this conversation so far out of respect for individual Mobile Read members. It would be unfair not to continue to be respectful.

Isn't this a little bit hypocritical? The only reason why I entered this thread for a second time (at the first time I really wanted to help you, okay, I guess I failed, but then Doitsu presented a solution to your problem and this thread could have come to an end) was that I felt that crutledge was treated highly unfair and disrespectful, to put it mildly. Judging from your other contributions on this forum I believe you that this was not your intention, but this is nevertheless how your posts arrived here.

[AnemicOak]

Harry has said they are revamping the MR Library in the upcoming upgrades to the forum. Perhaps that will help for the folks that see this as a problem.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

We have uploaders who put more care into their work than any ebook creator I've seen in professional publishing. We have one uploader who's so good at what he does that I'm trying to find a way to convince a university publisher to allow me to use him.

Not going to add to the debate as I only noticed that recent uploads function as a result of this thread, but if you've got people you want to recommend, feel free. I like having those names when I look for public domain works in our library.

I don't think it would be unethical to highlight contributors that you'd recommend would it?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I don't think it would be unethical to highlight contributors that you'd recommend would it?

I wouldn't think so. HarryT's done some nice stuff (Austen, Dickens, Doyle, ect.) and I've like the "complete works" edition's that pynch has done too.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I do not believe that the uploading should be limited artificially which is why I suggested that a method be developed to filter any user. That suggestion was made simply to keep the peace. Filtering a certain user would be a useful feature in several forums.

I agree.

We'll have to see how the new software handles things.

[frquixote]

Just my two cents on this discussion...

I've been a member here at MobileRead for a long time, though I tend to be very low profile unless someone is attacked

I don't have the skills (or time) necessary to build an ebook, let alone a quality ebook (from a technical perspective), so I appreciate the efforts of each and every person who works to build up the Patricia Clark Memorial Library. Through their efforts I have been introduced to many authors I might not have ever read. Some I enjoyed, some not so much, but not one cost me anything beyond my own time and, in most cases, the technical quality was excellent. Regardless, I know that the effort to build an ebook takes more time than it takes me to read one, so I appreciate the efforts that made each ebook possible.

It strikes me as an interesting bit of irony that the library on MobileRead is named after one of its most prodigious contributors, but now major contributors are being attacked because they are making "too many" books. I remember that each of Patricia's books were greeted with thanks, even those that were of limited interest. She gave of herself and we all benefited and appreciated her hard work. Maybe everyone needs to read the Dedication to remind themselves of why the library exists.

For these reasons I am hard-pressed to understand the basic unkindness that denigrates the hard work of the individuals who pour themselves into the effort of saving books for reading electronically, even those books that some may find to be of little worth. To those who want to determine what (and how much) gets added to the library and by whom, may I remind you that you speak only for yourselves. It takes just a couple of minutes to look past those additions you are not interested in, but if you get your way you may be denying the rest of us the opportunity to sample all those little known authors with your self-centeredness.

[GrannyGrump]

Whew! Things are getting a little heated here, and I think folks are posting at cross-purposes, discussing "apples and oranges", as it were. I do not believe any denigration was intended, and hope things calm down before it does happen intentionally!

I do understand that MobileRead was designed as a forum, not a book depository, and this surely must make a lot of difference to how things are handled at dedicated online libraries.

I wonder if a key question might be "how does MobileRead make books discoverable and accessible to the users?"

Do the majority of downloaders get their new book fix from info from RSS feed? (I can't subscribe from my work computer, my only internet connection, so don't know what is shown in the feed.)

Do they get it from the five "Latest Ebooks" display on the home page?

Do they get it by browsing the first page in the forum for their preferred format (Do they go the extra mile and browse page 2?)

How many downloaders actually use the search engine unless they are seeking a specific title/author/subject? And how would one use the search engine to find new (as opposed to old) uploads?

Suggestion -- Maybe there could be a counter posted on the home page together with the "five latest" -- "We have xxxx new titles uploaded in the last xx hours -- check your favorite format for new titles!"
thus, making a high number of uploads a bragging point

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I wouldn't think so. HarryT's done some nice stuff (Austen, Dickens, Doyle, ect.) and I've like the "complete works" edition's that pynch has done too.

Agreed. If there's a HarryT version, that's the version I choose.