Loving the cat pic. And yeah, I also said I'd stick around until the site is no more but after the response last night, I just don't have it in me. Every day this site had been down/unusable over the past week, I've felt miserable, and that is not acceptable. It's time to move on. It's really sad, tho.
And the Groups on LT are not too horrible once one figures out how to use them.
Re LT: Yes, that's what I'm figuring, too. Besides, let's face it, the site is the only one that has been around as consistently and stably as Goodreads, and it can't have done that *solely* on the strength of its library features.
I think we've all felt miserable about BL for way too long now. It's time to end that, if nothing else -- and this, unfortunately, means moving on. I'd give everything if it wasn't so, but to me, too, last night's message was literally the final straw.
I'll stop by there eventually ... :) (Though right now, it's "burrowing down with the backing up operation" time -- the quicker I get the remaining bits done, the better.)
True. Thankfully, the WP cross-posting has helped over the last few years, and I remember doing a lot of salvage work when BL was so on the blink that I started the WP blog. But, yeah, trying to deal with the book shelves etc. ... I'll be having a real dram before I'll tackle that.
Can't blame you! I created backups for my library via Excel and Calibre back in 2016, when BL was on the point of crashing for the first time, and I'm glad I've kept them up. They were immensely helpful when I imported my book data into LT ... my shelves (or "collections") still needed manual tweaking, but I'm almost done with that, and everything else is going to be on top anyway.
In fact, I'm probably going to replace any book covers currently sourced via BL in the Wordpress cross post versions of my reviews by covers sourced from LT. They are, by and large, of a better quality anyway, and let's face it, BL has become so slow that by extension it's now also taking forever for book cover images to load (ditto other images currently still hosted via BL).
As you noted, I'm located in pretty much all the spaces you are even though I may not use them all to the same extent, and I'm open to trying pretty much any of them for the buddy read, so I guess it's up to onnurtilraun to choose a spot. We should also actually choose a book.
I remember I got partway through my old BL posts for reviews and so on on Wordpress, but I'm finding Wordpress to not be as intuitive as I remember it being for drafting posts and editing so I'm not sure whether it's worth struggling through the remainder. :(
I'm so far refusing to use WP's "new and improved" editor -- I bookmarked the dashboard page from way back when I signed up, and I'll continue using that as long as I possibly can. But, yeah, WP editing sometimes drives me up the wall, too; even though most of it is down to me not actively having used the site for a while ... I notice things tend to work better once I start remembering what is what.
And, umm, yes. We do need to pick a book for that buddy read ... :D
I finally figured it out! I was used to editing things from the Admin page and could have sworn there was an easier way to edit the categories and tags and so on for everything that came through automatically from BL! And there is, through the Admin page. Gah!
About the book, it seemed like onnurtilraun was tilting us towards either Leon or the railroad strike one, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer.
As I said on Onnurtilraun's post, I'll leave the choice of the book to you -- I want to read all of them eventually anyway! :)
Re: WP, I don't know how long the old admin dashboard is still going to be in existence, but as long as it is, I'm going to use it ... Somehow, "new and improved" almost always seems to translate into "new but worse" and "why did you have to do this anyway?" to me.
Well I don't see another way to bulk edit tags and so on for posts, so... I can see some possibilities for the block editing but it's also not really something I can see myself using. The worst part was that when I used the newer editor (but still in classic mode?) the post attributes didn't automatically appear and so I ended up posting without setting categories and tags. It was so weird.
Although we'll undoubtedly post updates at WP (not sure how long BL will hang in), I'm creating a discussion thread for the buddy read on GR. Sometimes I think I'd prefer to start with Leon and sometimes I think I'd prefer to start with Les bois de dieu and leave Leon till later. I'll probably end up ordering copies at the same time (I struggled so much with the Le Floch that I'm going to try print next) so it won't matter much unless the mail is slow.
Re: Bulk editing, have you figured out how the option "edit" in the "bulk actions" drop-down menu on the --wp-admin/edit.php admin sub-page works? (For your blog, it should be https://tannatreads.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php -- mine is https://themisathena.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php .) Because I haven't ... I can see how checking off posts and selecting "move to trash" might work as a bulk action (ditto on the "tags" and "categories" admin pages, respectively), but not actually editing. So, yes, to the extent that the block editor allows for that, that would be one use I'd have for it. But like with you, that would be about it.
Maybe hold off on that GR thread until we have word from Onnurtilraun whether GR is an acceptable option? Call me a pessimist, but I have a feeling it might not be for all three of us.
ETA: Never mind about the thread ... we'll just have to see. And thanks for capturing ALL our current options there! :)
Well I created the thread but we don't have to use it. I partly wanted a list of the titles we had been considering saved somewhere that isn't buried under a post, but I suppose I should just create a WP page.
I haven't really tried to bulk edit...but you might be right about the blocks?
Yes, I just saw that we cross-posted. Anyway, thanks for creating the thread! :)
WP continues to be a voyage of discovery. I just wish they wouldn't fiddle with the site while I'm still in the process of learning / remembering how it works! :D
4 years ago
I hope to see you sometimes on GR, Thenis-Athena. That seems to be where I'm the most comfortable. And I do love the cat meme.
I cannot deal with this anymore either. As much as I loved this place, it pains me to see that they don´t care about any of us.
However, I´m on Goodreads (but only in two groups, simply because I hate the rest of this site) and on Librarything. I still have to check out the groups on Librarything and how they work.
I understand - I've been brooding about the state of things too long. I'll see you in group discussions on Goodreads and LT and build up a folder of blogs to follow once I'm through backing the rest of my content up.
TA, tried to follow the link you gave for LT but it just comes up telling me "Error. This user doesn't exist." Am I the only who got that? I looked for the BL FB, followed the link you gave and I only see posts from March and earlier? What am I doing wrong?
The BL comment on Facebook that I quoted at the beginning of my post is not (even) a proper "announcement" in its own right -- it's just a tiny response to someone's (very justified) question whether BL is still "alive", under the announcement from back in January that BL was up and running again. If you click on "see all comments" under that announcement, you should get to it. The specific comment to which BL responded is by someone named Grzegorz Brzęczeszczykiewicz and reads:
"Serwers are very slow or down again. I can't connect at all. Could you please make them alive? Are you alive?"
To which someone from BL first responded that they're looking into it, and a while later they followed up with the answer that I quoted. (I actually used the full -- very long -- URL of that specific comment of theirs in creating the TinyURL link, but Facebook apparently doesn't let browsers call up anything beyond the actual FB page being linked as such, so I assume that is why you see only the page itself and have to go looking for the rest yourself.)
That's been another annoyance lately.... That BL won't even make a new post on their FB site and instead only replies in comment threads is just one more sign of their neglect and not showing any evidence that they care.
4 years ago
Thank you! I have sent you and a few others a friend request on LT and I found the comment on FB. All very sad.
@Mirkat: I guess it's par for the course that they're just plonking statements like that into an ongoing discussion, instead of being upfront about it -- though compared to the functionality of the site, it's small fry, by and large.
@Peregrinations: Thanks for the friend request on LT; accepted and following you there now! And, yes. VERY sad indeed.
It sucks, but I guess that at some point this move would have become inevitable, given how little care the admins are putting into this.
This weekend I'll update my Goodread account, set up a Wordpress blog and start move posts there (and possibly a LibraryThing account too); when I'll be done, I'll write a post with all links.
I did get a notification, but frankly the only reason I saw it is because I'm currently accessing my BL account every so often while sprucing up my new blog (themisathena.info -- edited via WP, so yo can follow via the WP Reader). I doubt they're doing anything about BL, though. After the experience of the last couple of years (especially last year, of course), I'd say one swallow does not yet make a summer ...
And the Groups on LT are not too horrible once one figures out how to use them.
I think we've all felt miserable about BL for way too long now. It's time to end that, if nothing else -- and this, unfortunately, means moving on. I'd give everything if it wasn't so, but to me, too, last night's message was literally the final straw.
See you for a dram at The Green Dragon? ;)
In fact, I'm probably going to replace any book covers currently sourced via BL in the Wordpress cross post versions of my reviews by covers sourced from LT. They are, by and large, of a better quality anyway, and let's face it, BL has become so slow that by extension it's now also taking forever for book cover images to load (ditto other images currently still hosted via BL).
I remember I got partway through my old BL posts for reviews and so on on Wordpress, but I'm finding Wordpress to not be as intuitive as I remember it being for drafting posts and editing so I'm not sure whether it's worth struggling through the remainder. :(
And, umm, yes. We do need to pick a book for that buddy read ... :D
About the book, it seemed like onnurtilraun was tilting us towards either Leon or the railroad strike one, but I'm not sure which I'd prefer.
Re: WP, I don't know how long the old admin dashboard is still going to be in existence, but as long as it is, I'm going to use it ... Somehow, "new and improved" almost always seems to translate into "new but worse" and "why did you have to do this anyway?" to me.
Although we'll undoubtedly post updates at WP (not sure how long BL will hang in), I'm creating a discussion thread for the buddy read on GR. Sometimes I think I'd prefer to start with Leon and sometimes I think I'd prefer to start with Les bois de dieu and leave Leon till later. I'll probably end up ordering copies at the same time (I struggled so much with the Le Floch that I'm going to try print next) so it won't matter much unless the mail is slow.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21590067-buddy-read-french-buddy-read
Maybe hold off on that GR thread until we have word from Onnurtilraun whether GR is an acceptable option? Call me a pessimist, but I have a feeling it might not be for all three of us.
ETA: Never mind about the thread ... we'll just have to see. And thanks for capturing ALL our current options there! :)
I haven't really tried to bulk edit...but you might be right about the blocks?
WP continues to be a voyage of discovery. I just wish they wouldn't fiddle with the site while I'm still in the process of learning / remembering how it works! :D
However, I´m on Goodreads (but only in two groups, simply because I hate the rest of this site) and on Librarything. I still have to check out the groups on Librarything and how they work.
https://www.librarything.com/profile/Themis-Athena
The BL comment on Facebook that I quoted at the beginning of my post is not (even) a proper "announcement" in its own right -- it's just a tiny response to someone's (very justified) question whether BL is still "alive", under the announcement from back in January that BL was up and running again. If you click on "see all comments" under that announcement, you should get to it. The specific comment to which BL responded is by someone named Grzegorz Brzęczeszczykiewicz and reads:
"Serwers are very slow or down again. I can't connect at all. Could you please make them alive? Are you alive?"
To which someone from BL first responded that they're looking into it, and a while later they followed up with the answer that I quoted. (I actually used the full -- very long -- URL of that specific comment of theirs in creating the TinyURL link, but Facebook apparently doesn't let browsers call up anything beyond the actual FB page being linked as such, so I assume that is why you see only the page itself and have to go looking for the rest yourself.)
@Peregrinations: Thanks for the friend request on LT; accepted and following you there now! And, yes. VERY sad indeed.
This weekend I'll update my Goodread account, set up a Wordpress blog and start move posts there (and possibly a LibraryThing account too); when I'll be done, I'll write a post with all links.
( https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/190036-the-outpost -- the thread is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/21590067-buddy-read-french-buddy-read )