Quote:
Originally Posted by nickdma
They vaguely answered me. I think the API statement is there as a KYA to give them a reason to ban an app for abuse, especially since they reference "spiders" in the reply. I think they could have used better wording, since any popular app in use by a sufficient number of users will exceed that threshold.
While I suspect a GoodReads plugin such as this would be popular with Calibre, and I suspect Calibre is popular, I find it hard to imagine it would appear on GoodRead's radar as abusive. If anything, it should bring additional traffic to their site, as users would still need to go there to SEE their shelves.
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I agree that provided the plugin does not end up "abusing" their API it would be in their interests to have more people coming to their website by the attraction of using it. As I have read in a number of forum posts it is not on Calibre's roadmap to incorporate social features directly (which is perfectly understandable, it has all but the kitchen sink in its feature list already). Having a hook to a website like GoodReads which is explicitly for this purpose should be a nice compromise.
If this feature was developed as an optional GUI plugin like others in this thread rather than coming with Calibre by default then the actual volume of user hits will be miniscule by comparison. I can't help but wonder if perhaps part of Kovid's previous investigation was looking into GoodReads as a metadata reader source, which would most definitely hit the volume issues.
So - sounds like it might be feasible to give it a try then. I have a few other plugins I am in the process of updating so won't look into it further for a few days but provided no-one else jumps in first I don't mind taking it on as a challenge. I could well end up bugging a few people like Kovid/chaley again for words of wisdom such as how to include a library in a plugin though
