I don't trust GoodReads

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by meeera

By random users? I might think that's weird, but I'd ignore it, not insist that the site moderators remove it. People gotta people, and it's up to me whether I read it or not.

So you wouldn’t miss it if it was gone but don’t want it to be removed because people gotta people. An argument which sounds a lot like “boys will be boys”.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

So you wouldn’t miss it if it was gone but don’t want it to be removed because people gotta people. An argument which sounds a lot like “boys will be boys”.

Not even slightly. I just don't think that social media sites should be in the business of micro-policing whether or not they think people throwing media reviews/responses on their feed have watched the movie or read the book. It would be entirely impractical, impossibly resource-hungry, and 100% inevitably would misfire and delete valid, truthful reviews if anyone was foolish enough to attempt it.

They can't even delete Nazis, and you want them to hire on an enormous department to try to figure out whether Billy from Toledo has genuinely seen the new Spider-man movie yet? That's just wildly bizarre. You're in la-la-land.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Oh please it’s already evident that Amazon owns GR. This suggestion just makes it clear to others if someone owns a book.

No, it doesn't. It makes it clear to others whether someone has bought a book from Amazon with that same user account. They may have bought from Kobo, Smashwords, their partner may have bought it from Amazon and they share a Kindle, bought from the author direct, have an e-ARC from Netgalley or edelweiss, borrowed a library book, bought a paper book, been given a secondhand book, etc etc etc.

I can't even figure out why anyone here _cares_ that someone has commented on Goodreads on a book that hasn't been written or published yet. Can you not see by the publication date whether it's out in the world or not? Can you not just choose to ignore the reviews/comments that you think are inauthentic for that reason? They're not harming you by existing.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Oh please it’s already evident that Amazon owns GR. This suggestion just makes it clear to others if someone owns a book. I’d suggest GR do the same with other vendors but I doubt Amazon is going to be interested in opening that door.

You missed my point entirely or else deliberately overlooked it.

The “sheep from the goats” comment referred to prioritizing ownership over borrowing as a more legitimate way of reading; it’s the affluence aspect of this that chaps my hide. Nice to see you double down on it.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by meeera

No, it doesn't. It makes it clear to others whether someone has bought a book from Amazon with that same user account. They may have bought from Kobo, Smashwords, their partner may have bought it from Amazon and they share a Kindle, bought from the author direct, have an e-ARC from Netgalley or edelweiss, borrowed a library book, bought a paper book, been given a secondhand book, etc etc etc.

Explain to us how a person owning a book via amazon and that fact being denoted on GR makes it unclear that they own the book.

Yes there are other vendors, but I didn’t exclude them for the sake of excluding them. It’s just unlikely that GR/Amazon would allow the linking of various accounts.

Anyway the suggestion does what I said it does, unless you can show that having purchased a book from Amazon creates a wholly unique transaction in which the buyer exchanges funds for nothing at all.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

Explain to us how a person owning a book via amazon and that fact being denoted on GR makes it unclear that they own the book. .

It does not differentiate those who own the book from those who don't, and it does not differentiate those who have read the book from those who haven't. What is the utility?

If you want that function, go read Amazon reviews. There, I fixed your problem.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by meeera

Not even slightly. I just don't think that social media sites should be in the business of micro-policing whether or not they think people throwing media reviews/responses on their feed have watched the movie or read the book. It would be entirely impractical, impossibly resource-hungry, and 100% inevitably would misfire and delete valid, truthful reviews if anyone was foolish enough to attempt it.

They can't even delete Nazis, and you want them to hire on an enormous department to try to figure out whether Billy from Toledo has genuinely seen the new Spider-man movie yet? That's just wildly bizarre. You're in la-la-land.

Rather easy to determine if someone has read or seen a book/movie which hasn’t been written or made yet. Being as they don’t exist.

And no one has said they should hire on whole departments.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by meeera

It does not differentiate those who own the book from those who don't, and it does not differentiate those who have read the book from those who haven't. What is the utility?

If you want that function, go read Amazon reviews. There, I fixed your problem.

Sorry purchases from amazon still function the same way as purchases elsewhere function.

If you think otherwise you’re the one in lala land.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by issybird

You missed my point entirely or else deliberately overlooked it.

The “sheep from the goats” comment referred to prioritizing ownership over borrowing as a more legitimate way of reading; it’s the affluence aspect of this that chaps my hide. Nice to see you double down on it.

No I got it, nice of you to entirely gloss over text you quoted though.

Doubting Amazons willingness to open GR to other vendors (which include libraries as they are still distributing books) isn’t the same as saying it’s a good thing for them to do this.

As to the rest, short of mind probes it’s unlikely we’d be able to verify if someone read a book. But ownership (temporary, via whatever source etc) does lend some credibility to the claim of having read a book.

Unless you want to claim someone can have read something without ever having some representation of the text or audio in whatever format ever in your possession or that of someone in proximity to you.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Why not, if it’s useful to the person posting the review?

Perhaps if we stopped thinking of it as a review but more as commentary it would be helpful.

I think of it as rubbish as it has nothing to do with how the book is as most people posting have no clue.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

But ownership (temporary, via whatever source etc) does lend some credibility to the claim of having read a book.

And if you want to read reviews on a site that provides a 'verified' tag on reviews of people who have bought that book from Amazon, you can. Why are you being so doltishly insistent that other sites must also follow this exact model? If you don't like the way GR does things, don't go there.

And again (and again, and again, because I'm no longer hopeful that you'll get this), while a 'verified' tag does confirm that that person bought that book from Amazon, the LACK of a 'verified' tag DOES NOT MEAN THEY DO NOT HAVE THE BOOK. Predictive value positive is somewhat reasonable. Predictive value negative is zero.

I don't know why you're obsessing about this idea of GR somehow "granting access" to other vendors. It's obvious that that's a complete non-starter for about a zillion reasons (one main one being that it would need to be the other way around, other sites granting unworkably complex access to entire databases and somehow user-matching also, out of the goodness of their hearts), so why keep talking about it?

Going back to the heart of this thread, my response to "I don't trust Goodreads" is "OK".

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

How exactly could Goodreads verify that a person’s read a book? Unless you’re suggesting mandatory linking of Amazon and Goodreads accounts, which would at best only verify that a book’s been bought at Amazon and would exclude buying a book anywhere else. That’s kooky talk; the review itself tells whether or not a book’s been read.

But if the person has to mark the book as read and then be able to review, that means a date can be posted as in verified reader on some date. This marked as read would be before it's published. Hopefully most of the commenters would not do this and stop commenting when they've not read the book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Goodreads does not see it as a problem, as they have stated in the past when this has been brought up. They have been asked before this same question, but don't intend to change it as they are wanting members to rate/review as they see fit.

You cannot accurately rate/review a book you've not read. That s impossible.

I've read plenty of reviews saying something like...

"I was looking forward to this book, but it was not as good as I expected it to be."

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

With books, it's iffy - I have rated and reviewed a lot of books I haven't owned since before having a Goodreads account - I moved several reviews over from my book blog when trying to collect all in one spot. Even if they would only allow owned books somehow, I'd hate that since it would mean I couldn't rate/review books currently owned.

And the verified purchase is useful on Amazon to a degree - but some of that was due to giveaways and fake reviews on the site, I think. Most of the physical objects I buy on Amazon aren't bought on my personal account unless they offer a payment plan like the 5 monthly payments for Oasis, etc., but I prefer to review on my personal account (if I review at all), so it doesn't always mean not owned that way either.

People can have reviews on loaned and borrowed devices and books too that are just as accurate, so there'd by no point for any of this to be verified.

If anything, I find Amazon too picky and restrictive, very rarely review books on there anymore.

I don't see a need to see a book having to be owned. But it should either be marked Read or DNF before it can be reviewed. But you should not be able to add a book and then mark it finished right after that. At least 24 hours should be the minimum time.

But if it's not yet written, then it should not be in the system.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But you should not be able to add a book and then mark it finished right after that. At least 24 hours should be the minimum time.

Again with the pointless, ignorant micro-management urges. Why on earth would they build this delay in?

I can read some novels in 3-6 hours. Novellas less than that. Graphic novels and picture books, less again. And I don't always mark a novel as Currently Reading immediately on picking it up. I'm sure I'm not remotely unique in any of this.