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[Bookpossum]

Discussion of nominating and voting has brought to mind another issue. There would be a problem getting books fully nominated if we all of us nominated two or even three books. My normal method is to nominate one book and second/third two others.

If there are very few nominations it’s fair enough for an individual to add a second book to the list, and of course not all books nominated are going to be fully supported and go on the list for voting. But if every nomination is to have at least a good chance of going forward to the voting stage, putting up more than one book does mean that another member needs to use his/her three votes to support others rather than putting up a nomination also.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Oh, I think we all have our no-go areas! Having said that, I’m prepared to have a go at the winner as long as I can get it for a reasonable price, or preferably borrow it from the library.

So I do think we need to continue with the price limit, within reason, to help the show keep on the road.

I haven't missed a book yet. As with you, I'm always willing to give something a try even if it doesn't seem my thing, although I wouldn't spend a lot of money on any selection. I can be surprised both ways; sometimes I don't care for a book I expected to like and sometimes I enjoy something much more than I expected.

Part of the fun of the club is to read something I might not have read, new horizons and all that. Part of it is that just knowing that I'm going to be discussing the book makes a difference in how I read it. I go more slowly, I take notes, I think about it more. Part of it is the insight other members bring, which adds to my enjoyment. Part of it is that I like to talk about books.

[Bookpossum]

Issybird put in her comment while I was doing my last one. I can only second what she says. Surely the whole point of a book club is to discuss the book chosen.

ETA We have to stop doing this! To clarify, this is about post number 345.

[CRussel]

Even though I've had a couple of books that simply didn't work for me, I've at least tried to read all of them. As for discussion? That's the whole point to having a book club. And even when I don't have time because of WORK and LIFE, I still try to at least follow along. This month is a perfect example -- I read the book, and actually quite enjoyed it. But by the time we got to the discussion, I was in the middle of our first, pre-release release, of our initial product at work. And when you're in a very small startup, there's no one else to jump in. It's meant that I couldn't effectively participate this month. I'm saddened by that, and feel more than a little guilty. But by the same token, I see no point in having a club at all if it's just a vanity voting contest. If you want that, go throw up a survey thread and have at it.

I think there's some merit in examining our nomination process, however. As Bookpossum points out, if everyone were to nominate more than one book, the process would get more than a little problematic. I'm almost thinking we need at least one more ticket. This would allow folks a bit more flexibility in choosing to nominate additional books, or allow them to have an extra second/third.

[Catlady]

Speaking of nominations, I've been mentally grousing about the process for a while. I'd like to see it tweaked--perhaps everyone gets two nominations and two seconds/thirds. Or even three of each.

[Bookpossum]

Interesting suggestion CRussel. I can see how this would give each of us a bit more flexibility. On the other hand, it could add to the confusion.

Let's say 10 people each nominated two books, and seconded or thirded two other books. If all the same books were fully nominated, we would still at best only have 10 books fully nominated and 10 not. But we might finish up with only five or so books fully nominated and a whole lot with one nomination plus a second.

Of course if 10 people each nominated one book and seconded/thirded three others, we would have more than enough votes to go round.

Mathematics was never my strong point, so please correct me if I'm wrong!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Interesting suggestion CRussel. I can see how this would give each of us a bit more flexibility. On the other hand, it could add to the confusion.

I don't think it changes the amount of confusion. It's simply adding one more ticket to the three we currently get. How you use them is entirely up to you. Want to nominate four books? Well, go ahead, but I doubt that's going to work out for you getting them all into the voting, and could actually hurt your chances by diluting the pool. Or, not inspired by this month's theme? Or too busy to figure out books you want to nominate? Great, you've got four seconds you can use. Or something in between those two extremes. Really, it doesn't change the complexity at all.

However, Catlady, I'd be opposed to having specific types of tickets. In the long run, I think that would increase complexity and reduce flexibility. And if we go with four tickets, you can divide them up as 2 and 2 if you wish. Your choice.

[gmw]

I think three tickets seems to be working quite well. We leave behind remarkably few nominations, and I think the pressure to be at least a little choosy is a good thing for the process.

And if we really wanted every nomination to get into the vote why bother with the second/third process? We'd just add nominations to a voting list. The way it stands now the vote gets limited to books with at least some level of interest by 3 or more members, and I think that's a good thing (even when my nomination gets left behind as a result ... ). And we get to be polite about some nominations we really don't like: "sorry, I ran out of tickets", rather than "I might have 2 tickets left but I'm not going anywhere near that!"


I have done two nominations a couple of times, but I generally agree, Bookpossum, that using too many tickets for nominations rather than second/third puts the onus on others to provide the second/third which is not particularly fair. But I don't think we need a rule change because it doesn't seem to have been a big problem. ETA: but probably a more of a problem as participation falls off.


(P.S. As regards some earlier posts, I'm almost sorry to have referenced the vote count, but because of our rules - which I like - it does provide some rough measure of our participation levels. That was all I meant, it wasn't supposed to restart any discussion over the rule about who can vote.)

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

I think three tickets seems to be working quite well. We leave behind remarkably few nominations, and I think the pressure to be at least a little choosy is a good thing for the process.

And if we really wanted every nomination to get into the vote why bother with the second/third process? We'd just add nominations to a voting list. The way it stands now the vote gets limited to books with at least some level of interest by 3 or more members, and I think that's a good thing (even when my nomination gets left behind as a result ... ). And we get to be polite about some nominations we really don't like: "sorry, I ran out of tickets", rather than "I might have 2 tickets left but I'm not going anywhere near that!"


I have done two nominations a couple of times, but I generally agree, Bookpossum, that using too many tickets for nominations rather than second/third puts the onus on others to provide the second/third which is not particularly fair. But I don't think we need a rule change because it doesn't seem to have been a big problem. ETA: but probably a more of a problem as participation falls off.

[Bookpossum]

I agree too. I don’t think we need to legislate anything, but just hope that people will play fair.

[Dazrin]

I was coming up with this when gmw commented and said basically what I have below. I'm not going to change it though, so here's some data to back up what gmw was saying.

----------------

Some numbers to chew on.

Average books to vote from: 9.4
Average books not fully nominatead: 1.8 (16% of all books nominated)
Most books to choose from: 15 (Mar '18)
Minimum books to choose from: 6 (3x, Nov '18 - Jan '19)

Average nominators: 12.2
Most: 18 (Mar '18)
Minimum: 8 (Nov '18)

We've had 28 different people nominate books. 4 people have made a nomination every month! Another 4 people have only missed 1 or 2 months, and another 1 has nominated in more than 1/2 of the possible months for 9 total regulars. 8 people have only nominated in one month.

We've lost a few regulars since last summer (maybe we should ping them?), and we have a couple people who's participation has increased in the last couple months. But, overall, fewer people have "tested things out" in the nomination process recently which is why the number of options has dropped.

What does this mean?

To me, there isn't really a problem here. I think the ratio of books that aren't selected is reasonable. Probably even a bit low. There is not a single month where we didn't have enough nominations to get EVERY book nominated onto the vote. We just haven't used all the available nominations for various reasons. All an additional nomination would do is make it so that second/thirds don't matter since pretty much everything would go to the vote. Already over 5 out of 6 nominated books make it to the vote. Giving an additional second/third would only make this go up. In which case, why do we even need to second/third books? We could just as easily say "you can nominate 1 or 2 books that will be voted on" and not bother with the second/third process. I worry about where that would lead us. I think the possibility of a book not being selected helps us to make sure we nominated what we think are good books that the group will like and be able to discuss. Without that impetus would we get as many good selections?

That said, there are a couple people whose nominations are on the "not fully nominated" list more than others; one of whom has more than twice as many as any other one person. I can guess as to why but I can understand their frustration.

[Bookpossum]

This all makes excellent sense to me - thank you Dazrin. And I do agree that the requirement for books to be fully nominated to make it to the poll does help people to think about what may appeal to other members, and not just to him/herself.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by gmw

I think three tickets seems to be working quite well. We leave behind remarkably few nominations, and I think the pressure to be at least a little choosy is a good thing for the process.

And if we really wanted every nomination to get into the vote why bother with the second/third process? We'd just add nominations to a voting list. The way it stands now the vote gets limited to books with at least some level of interest by 3 or more members, and I think that's a good thing (even when my nomination gets left behind as a result ... ). And we get to be polite about some nominations we really don't like: "sorry, I ran out of tickets", rather than "I might have 2 tickets left but I'm not going anywhere near that!"

Originally Posted by Dazrin

That said, there are a couple people whose nominations are on the "not fully nominated" list more than others; one of whom has more than twice as many as any other one person. I can guess as to why but I can understand their frustration.

That would be me, I'm pretty confident in saying. What's your guess as to why? My belief is simply that no one particularly likes the books I like. As I've said before, that's disappointing, but it's not frustrating. I believe my record would be even more abysmal but for some "pity" thirds for my nominations, just to add to the slate. Which seems kind of pointless; my ego isn't that fragile.

[Bookpossum]

Well, you had a win with Alias Grace, so you certainly hit the mark there!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Catlady

That would be me, I'm pretty confident in saying. What's your guess as to why?

Sadly, yes, you were the "lucky" one.

I know personally we have much different tastes in books. I really like sci-fi for one. But I'm just one person so beyond that I don't really even have a guess. It hasn't seemed like your suggestions are unreasonable, just not to my taste in general. So, I really should have said "I can't even guess as to why..."

I will also say that only three people have had multiple selections actually selected. With 9 regular nominators, that is somewhat surprising, even though two haven't had selections yet. There have been 9 different people with selections, two of them haven't participated in a while.