As I was unfriending people on GR, I realized that it actually removes the relationship entirely. I had expected it to revert to “follower” status, sort of like when somebody sends a friend request that you don’t accept, and then people could make their own decision about unfollowing me.
I just wanted to mention it so nobody thinks I blocked them on GR or something. I don't think I've ever blocked anybody, ever, in my 31 years online. On the bright side, my Goodreads feed is now gloriously clean! :)
I no longer even try to get anything useful out of my goodreads updates/feed. It's like one huge book promotion with huge bookcovers and descriptions, sponsored shit, editorial content ... I skip the home page and go to group discussions; sporadically I'll check profile pages of real life friends and the few friends on goodreads that don't cross post elsewhere.
It's extremely rare I'll post anything to the goodreads feed unless an automatic book status posted from my ereader or a "I'm finished" -- I haven't reviewed there in forever. I track my reading for a month or so just to export a backup in case booklikes tanks. Then wipe those books (I keep a few much older reads on a favorites shelf for book comparisons in case groups I might want to join use).
I've gotten better at tracking books and cross-posting reviews to Librarything (not very active there, not even in groups although some look promising. LibraryThing and Libib are unlikely to see different content than what I post on booklikes; both, however, let me backup my book data (and I'm hanging in on libib because of promised social features and current privacy options where if wanted I can go "dark" without losing any book data whatsoever).
I don’t like the GR feed nearly as well as this one, but it did get more tolerable when I set it to show only book updates. The 2nd post is almost always some sort of ad, but I barely notice them anymore because it’s always in the same place. The book covers and synopsis info really, really annoyed me when GR changed the format, but my eyes are now so used to reading the top part and then skipping to the next entry that I don't notice that anymore either. It also really helps to follow a smaller group of people.
I actually still enjoy LT the most of the three sites I use right now. Maintaining a reading journal in a group format has worked really well for me, and I've grown to appreciate the absence of some of the “bloggy” stuff that sometimes makes it feel to me like a numbers game rather than genuine interaction. It’s just a non-pressure format where people can comment and carry on discussions whenever they have something to say. I do wish we could comment on reviews there, though.
Loathe, loathe, loathe that abortion they call the "new and improved Home page" over there. Used to be there multiple times a day, and now I never go there if I can help it, as it's so useless. And annoyingly so.
I'm only on BL, FYI, so you don't have to unfollow me anywhere. You can unfollow me on BL, if you want, but you don't have to if you're just avoiding duplicates!
Yes, I was mostly just looking at my friend list on GR to find people I knew I was also following over here and to get rid of duplicates. I don’t plan to unfollow you. :)
I mostly blog for myself, or that's a main reason. So it's cool if, like you said, you figure we don't have anything in common.
I also figured just stating that I'm not there lets you - and anyone else interested - know that I'm only here, in case they also want to get rid of duplicates.
I'm sure I'm being paranoid duplicating my book stuff on so many sites (booklikes is absolutely my favorite, most active, most social but has zero backup protection).
But, you never know when a trusted community will start failing, shutting down, have current PTB suddenly start censoring or have new goals for the site, or be sold to someone who will destroy ...
Before I joined GR (my first book site), I had recently started maintaining an Access database with my book info, similar to the way a lot of people use Calibre. When I started writing reviews on GR, I kept a copy of them in the database, and I still consider it to be my primary source of data. I like having a source of data that is completely offline. It lacks the advantage of all the crowd-sourced data, but I have a limited amount of data that I really care about and I like that nobody can touch it.
I just wanted to mention it so nobody thinks I blocked them on GR or something. I don't think I've ever blocked anybody, ever, in my 31 years online. On the bright side, my Goodreads feed is now gloriously clean! :)
It's extremely rare I'll post anything to the goodreads feed unless an automatic book status posted from my ereader or a "I'm finished" -- I haven't reviewed there in forever. I track my reading for a month or so just to export a backup in case booklikes tanks. Then wipe those books (I keep a few much older reads on a favorites shelf for book comparisons in case groups I might want to join use).
I've gotten better at tracking books and cross-posting reviews to Librarything (not very active there, not even in groups although some look promising. LibraryThing and Libib are unlikely to see different content than what I post on booklikes; both, however, let me backup my book data (and I'm hanging in on libib because of promised social features and current privacy options where if wanted I can go "dark" without losing any book data whatsoever).
I actually still enjoy LT the most of the three sites I use right now. Maintaining a reading journal in a group format has worked really well for me, and I've grown to appreciate the absence of some of the “bloggy” stuff that sometimes makes it feel to me like a numbers game rather than genuine interaction. It’s just a non-pressure format where people can comment and carry on discussions whenever they have something to say. I do wish we could comment on reviews there, though.
I also figured just stating that I'm not there lets you - and anyone else interested - know that I'm only here, in case they also want to get rid of duplicates.
But, you never know when a trusted community will start failing, shutting down, have current PTB suddenly start censoring or have new goals for the site, or be sold to someone who will destroy ...