As the "official" BookLikes group has been swamped by unchecked waves of spam, I've decided to create a replacement group for us to address the issues that we'd otherwise post in the "official" group:

BookLikes Admin Issues

Since it's member-managed, it of course won't cause any issues to actually be fixed.  But let's face it, with BL admin AWOL, that's not happening anyway -- and this will at least give us a new place to discuss issues and voice grievances.

Most importantly, being a member-administered group, this will be a group where we will be able to keep out the spammers.

In light of this, it would be helpful if there were several other administrators besides me, so if you're interested, please let me know.

My hope is that we'll eventually be able to dry out the playing field that the spammers have found in the "official" group.  There hardly seems any point for any of us to remain in that group but for the few threads that remain useful to us, and ultimately it makes more sense to me to move those threads to a new group that we ourselves can control and leave the "official" group behind once and for all.  That way, we'd not only remove thread views from the spammers own statistics -- we'd also be spared seeing their threads in our notifications and at the top of our own dashboards.  I don't think this will entirely get rid of the spammers (nor does removing them from our "friends" lists, after all), but at least it will be one more way of making BL at least a bit less welcoming to them.

To get us started, I've replicated the five most important ongoing threads from the "official" group in the new group:

* Questions

* Bug Reports

* Spammer Reports

* Feature Requests

* BL Members' Non-BookLikes Blog URLs

If you want to add any further threads, feel free to do so -- just please keep it to threads that are of interest to the community as a whole.

Happy blogging all and have a great weekend!

Following up on BrokenTune's post regarding the "Find New BookLikes Blogs to Follow" group -- and while it can't be emphasized enough that to find more active bloggers you may want to follow, the best method is to actively participate in discussions on blog posts and check out the other participants in those discussions -- BookLikes' active discussion groups may also provide some guidance and inspiration.

So, here's a run down of the groups that, to my knowledge, are currently active on BookLikes (even if their members' discussions, too, tend to occur via blog posts and their comments sections, see above):

Find New Booklikes Blogs To Follow

As BrokenTune explained, specifically dedicated to finding new people to interact on Booklikes.

There are various threads where people can introduce themselves (for active reviewer bloggers, authors on BL, etc.), but the one thread you will want to follow by all means and even if you don't ever look at any of the other threads (or, for that matter, any other groups) is Shout-out for Newbies and "Underfollowed" (but Active) Blogs -- the one thread where everybody is invited to share new blogs they have discovered and want to see roped more firmly into the community.

Booklikes Bookish Bingo Club

The Flat Book Society

Created to read and discuss what would generally be called 'popular' science titles; one book every other month, beginning in January of every year.

The group votes on a fresh list of submissions every two months, once the book for the next group read has been selected. The group's "overflow nomination list"  is here:
http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/840/the-flat-book-society-nominated-books

Current (= May 2019) selection: Penny Le Couteur & Jay Burreson: Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History

Pymalong Club

The Agathytes

The Detection Club

A group to discuss and read classic crime fiction written and published between 1900 and 1970; modeled on the original Detection Club founded in the 1930s by the leading lights of the world of Golden Age mysteries, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Anthony Berkeley.

 

There is currently no group read, but a few of us are -- very leisurely, and each at their own pace -- slowly but surely working our way through a Detection Club bingo card, inspired by two books by the current (real) Detection Club president and chief archivist, Martin Edwards, about the club's history; The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books and The Golden Age of Murder.  BL club members also spontaneously come together for Golden Age mystery-related buddy reads.

 

 

Discworld

Terry Pratchett. Granny Weatherwax. Sam Vimes. Angua. DEATH. And the rest of the gang.

 

Group reads of the Discworld novels in publication order, every two months.  Next read: Sourcery -- beginning on June 1.

 

 

TOR Monthly Free eBook

Group / buddy reads of the free ebooks published monthly at https://ebookclub.tor.com/

 

 

 

YA BOOK CLUB

Monthly (?) discussion of YA books selected by group members.

 

(I'm not a member of the last two groups -- maybe someone who is can supplement a bit more information?)

 

 

I wonder if I should start up a book recommendations book - with a discussion being "I'm looking for something like etc. etc." - or should these be handled on an individual basis in blog posts? Or should they just take place in genre discussion groups?

I started Alpha Betas at GR for writers who wanted someone to beta their work for free, and since BL has been awesome enough to start discussion groups, I could do that here now. Or should I wait until they expand their group function?