Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Positives of the current situation:
People who want free MR books have to come here. Have to see comment threads, are exposed to the "similar threads" section underneath each post. Have an opportunity to participate in the discussions.
Negatives of bulk downloads:
More people who collect ebooks, esp. MR ebooks, without saying hi.
One of the goals of MR is to encourage discussion about ebooks. Distributing free, well-formatted ebooks came about because of that goal, and many people at MR, including those formatters, don't want want that ignored.
You *can* come to MR and download books and never join the conversations. And people are welcome to do that. But MR wasn't designed as a free ebook repository; "allow strangers to grab lots of books and go away without talking to anyone" is not one of the goals here.
It's not forbidden at all. Strangers (and anyone else) are very welcome to do that. You don't need a login ID to download the books, so anonymous strangers can even get books. But since that's not the *desired* state--since that's not what's *wanted*--which is ebook-related discussions--MR is not providing resources that would encourage an unwanted goal. Not even for the convenience of the regulars, who would happily stay & discuss even if "all the westerns" could be downloaded in one neat zip file.
For the regulars, it's a minor inconvenience. For ebook-collectors (hoarders?) it's more than that... but the site wasn't created to facilitate easy collecting of ebooks that aren't going to be read & discussed.
It would be worth making bulk downloadable sets if and only if there were a way to do so that doesn't detract from MR's goal of more ebook communication.
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You listed one positive... and all of those things would still be possible if a torrent were offered within an author thread.
Also if as i suspect more people would use the service then more people would get to have an oportunity to discuss things.
your negatives are little more than what seem incorrect assumptions.
you say
"One of the goals of MR is to encourage discussion about ebooks. Distributing free, well-formatted ebooks came about because of that goal, and many people at MR, including those formatters, don't want want that ignored."
And you imply if torrents were available this would somehow not happen! why would that be the case in fact more readers(my opinion that better functionality and ease = more users/readers) of the well formatted books would increase the people taking part in discussion of the ebooks wouldnt it?
you say that
"MR is not providing resources that would encourage an unwanted goal." But I strongly disagree that torrents for specific groupings would cause that to happen why would people suddenly stop posting there comments? again I am certain more users of the content means more commenters on the content.
"For the regulars, it's a minor inconvenience." I can only speak for myself but its an uneccesary inconveniance that means I - A read less MR books and -B comment on less MR books.
Direct evidence that the current system actually discourages comments and discussion seems to be being ignored in favour of an attitude it has to be said very very similiar to that of other content holders.
I wish this fear of somethin new or of giving your content consumer the ability to use your content in the way they want didnt exist at MR.
MR should be embracing the freedoms that the current technology gives us not hiding in the past.
and most of teh excuses do seem like unfounded excuses with no evidence to back up the claims.