FREE / BARGAIN genre threads

[tamborine]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Pretty sure it was a dig at how many military history type books get posted in that thread. Of course there's nothing stopping other types of non-fiction (there is/was a separate cookbooks thread) from being posted. I personally have no real interest in say self-help books so I'm unlikely to run across deals for them and post them.

Yeah, it was just my feeble attempt at sarcasm without the /s.

I'm interested in science, medical, and non-military historical non-fiction, but there's hardly ever any posted in the thread. Not that it's anyone's fault - it just seems that books in those categories are hardly ever free or heavily discounted. If the day ever comes where I find a good one on my own, I'll definitely post it!

[Dngrsone]

I'm interested in science and math, particularly the history of numbers and such.

I get no discount love

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I guess in this case I don't either (although I can't really get myself bothered about it or anything) it just seems unnecessary. It's not like the genre threads were hard to find or the forum was overwhelmed by other posts. The genre threads are very active so can almost always be found on the first or sometimes second page of the forum. I guess I think of stickies as something for special threads that you need everyone to see, like rules or FAQ threads, making a large number of the daily active threads kind of negates that, but what do I know.

I agree with you. My beef is the exclusion of audiobooks. It's like almost everyone else has been invited to the party in the grand ballroom, but the audiobooks have been relegated to the basement.

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I agree with you. My beef is the exclusion of audiobooks. It's like almost everyone else has been invited to the party in the grand ballroom, but the audiobooks have been relegated to the basement.

Why don't you just ask the moderators to sticky the audiobooks as well? You have legitimate reason to do so.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

At the moment one can block seeing another member's posts, but not block seeing any threads they create, so one can't readily block out that which doesn't interest them.

However, you can ignore individual threads, but unless they are seeing a lot of activity there's not much point, they'll sink down the page over time anyway. I used the ignore thread option last year when there were 15+ Baen bundle threads drowning out everything else in the Deals forum because they were all active at the same time due to a change in the availability of the bundles.

Originally Posted by murg

Is there any reason why the FREE / BARGAIN genre threads are monthly?

Generally the freeness of the entries is short (a day or two), so jumping to the end of the thread is all that is necessary to get the current ones (mostly). For the others, jump back a few pages...

I agree. Since the monthly threads are stickied, I don't see any reason for new threads each month, continuous threads will work and require less housekeeping by the moderators.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by Manabi

It was becoming quite annoying to find the genre threads among all the individual deal posts. While the stickies may not be the perfect solution, it's better than things were before and I was quite happy to see it happen. This is the mods trying to keep both sets of people happy, those who like wading through bunches of individual threads to find what they want, and those who prefer to stick to the genre threads. (And the number of threads has greatly increased, I had to go down four pages to find July's threads, but only two more to find June's. This is nearly all due to ATDrake's threads, if others follow his lead, it'll turn into chaos fast.)

It's brand new, so it's unlikely to be perfect yet. (I also pointed out the comics thread to Dr. Drib since it's getting regular updates since a new member joined in July and started posting deals in it regularly.) I'm sure they'll sort out some of the other popular threads as well. Right now it looks like they started with the ones that already had Free/Bargain or Free & Bargain in their titles. Audiobooks is just "Current Audiobook Specials" so you can see how they might have missed it, and the comics thread is just "Comics".

I found the ones that I was interested in my SUBSCRIBING to the thread. That took care of finding the Genre threads. I rather see that instead of Stickies. In fact, I think it goes against what a stickie should really be.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by ScalyFreak

Subscribe to it, and then go to your profile and access the thread from there. I've been doing that with the one genre thread I follow for a couple of years now, and the only reason I noticed it's a sticky is because someone posted about it in the thread in question.

The forum has tools that makes it very easy for us to monitor threads we are interested in. Why not use them and save ourselves the frustration you're describing?

+1
My thoughts exactly!!!!

[issybird]

Originally Posted by jersysman

In fact, I think it goes against what a stickie should really be.

Yep. Too many stickies are the same as no stickies at all, for one thing. They'll never catch your eye and if you have to go looking for one, well, why not look in the main body of the forum.

And more importantly from an administrative point of view, stickies should be reserved for help for newbies before they go off the deep end and for news, information and warnings to the membership in general, as an alert to a policy change or other news of high and/or immediate importance.

As it is now, there could be a sticky called "Read this or you will be banned" and I easily might never see it in the morass of deal threads. Just as one example, I think the sticky about affiliate posts might never be seen by newbies now and that's a little hard on them. It was fine the way it was before, when it was as visible as a sticky should be and newbies overlooked it at their own peril.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by jersysman

I found the ones that I was interested in my SUBSCRIBING to the thread. That took care of finding the Genre threads. I rather see that instead of Stickies. In fact, I think it goes against what a stickie should really be.

Two issues with this: 1. Not everyone likes to do things the same way, I don't like to subscribe to threads, lots of others are the same way. Lots of people do. In fact this whole thing started because ATDrake started doing things differently (lots of individual threads) than had been the norm of late. And 2. The threads are monthly which means you have to go find them and resubscribe every month. The stickies are a lot more convenient for users (less so for the moderators, but being a moderator isn't always an easy job).

It looks to me like the mods are trying to find a solution that will make the most people happy, satisfying both camps in posting formats, without undue difficulty for either. Neither camp will be 100% satisfied, no matter what solution is used. Both camps will have to make some sacrifices.

Originally Posted by issybird

And more importantly from an administrative point of view, stickies should be reserved for help for newbies before they go off the deep end and for news, information and warnings to the membership in general, as an alert to a policy change or other news of high and/or immediate importance.

Well by that standard the long-running Kobo discount codes thread shouldn't be stickied either.

I'll also say having the genre threads stickied makes it easier for newbies to find stuff in the start. If the individual threads had managed to push the genre thread they were looking for down a page or two, they might not look far enough and decide there wasn't anything of interest to them here. This way they'll know for certain there is. (And yes, the missing threads should be up there too.)

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Well by that standard the long-running Kobo discount codes thread shouldn't be stickied either.

I'll also say having the genre threads stickied makes it easier for newbies to find stuff in the start. If the individual threads had managed to push the genre thread they were looking for down a page or two, they might not look far enough and decide there wasn't anything of interest to them here. This way they'll know for certain there is. (And yes, the missing threads should be up there too.)

I don't think there is any reason for the Kobo thread to be a sticky. It's another one that has frequent activity, so it would be prominent anyway.

Regarding the genre deals: Why not instead create one sticky with links to the different threads, along the lines of "Recommendations for Your Favorite Book Genre" in the Reading Recommendations section?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Regarding the genre deals: Why not instead create one sticky with links to the different threads, along the lines of "Recommendations for Your Favorite Book Genre" in the Reading Recommendations section?

I don't think the categories are broken down enough. We need more specificity

• FREE/BARGAIN - Monkey Sci-Fi Action Thriller Time Travel
• FREE/BARGAIN - YA Monkey Historical Fiction Napoleonic Wars Intrigue

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I don't think the categories are broken down enough. We need more specificity

• FREE/BARGAIN - Monkey Sci-Fi Action Thriller Time Travel
• FREE/BARGAIN - YA Monkey Historical Fiction Napoleonic Wars Intrigue

I want a section for Cat SF, Cat Cozies, Talking Cats, Cat Biographies ...

WHY do these threads need a FREE/BARGAIN designation anyway? They're in the Deals section, for gosh sakes! Duh.

[FizzyWater]

Originally Posted by Synamon

I agree. Since the monthly threads are stickied, I don't see any reason for new threads each month, continuous threads will work and require less housekeeping by the moderators.

I'm not sure, but I thought we had monthly threads because the deals tend to be short-lived and it might be less confusing for new or only occasional visitors to the threads. Our monkey friend keeps the top post of the audiobooks thread up-to-date, as another solution to short-term deals.

[jersysman]

[QUOTE=Manabi;2905869]Two issues with this: 1. Not everyone likes to do things the same way, I don't like to subscribe to threads, lots of others are the same way. Lots of people do. In fact this whole thing started because ATDrake started doing things differently (lots of individual threads) than had been the norm of late. And 2. The threads are monthly which means you have to go find them and resubscribe every month. The stickies are a lot more convenient for users (less so for the moderators, but being a moderator isn't always an easy job).

I'm not saying everyone wants to do things the same way. But being able to follow a thread is the reason for subscribing to a thread. That answers just about every question and reason to make a srickie. By the way, this will cut down on the relavance of a Stickie post. I really never noticed the posts by ATDrake because I had subscribed to the posts and didn't really notice all the individual posts.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

For example: Star Wars-- considered science fiction, despite a distinct lack of science. Dragonriders of Pern-- technically science fiction, though there be plenty of dragons, a staple of the fantasy genre.

Pern is science fiction and the dragons are genetically engineered.