Reply to post #1 (show post):
Once upon a time, Booklikes had active admins and mods who swatted the spam and scraped retail site API for book data to add to the catalog, and then they kind of dropped off the face of the planet. Some tech work still gets done on the back end, but there's no moderation anymore, and consequently we often have to add our own books and the site is drowning in spam.

The active user base has taken a bit of a nosedive in the past two or three years, but there are still a bunch of us out here. You can find a plethora of real live bloggers to follow in the comments of this post: http://oblue.booklikes.com/post/2069680/booklikes-active-poster

There are still some active (volunteer) site librarians who can help with book data if you need it.

Reply to post #1 (show post):
Hoo boy. Ultimately, obviously only you can make that decision. The BookLikes community -- I'm pretty sure I can speak for all of us there, even though I am in no way, shape or form an "official" spokesperson -- would love for you to stay, now that you've discovered this site -- which has a comparatively small, but very alive community, although due to the way the site is set up, I'm not surprised you haven't found it (yet).

You've pretty much nailed how the site must look to anyone signing up as a newbie right now, which is due to two main reasons:

* The way the site is designed, it is difficult / near-impossible to find active blogs you may want to follow, and
* The site founders / admin have, for undisclosed reasons, been AWOL for the better part of a year (or more), which inter alia means that nothing is being done officially about spam -- it's basically up to us to defend ourselves. (They do actively keep the site running, however.)

Let's tackle these in turn.

Community / Finding Blogs
Contrary to appearances, we actually do have a very committed community here.

The best way to find (active) people is to follow a lot of other (active) bloggers and check out the posts on which they comment -- because that is how most of the exchange, discussions, and community activities are happening here. This recent post was specifically designed for people to check in and confirm they're still active; you could do worse than to check out the blogs of those who responded there.

Another good place to find active blogs is to check out the members list of the BookLikes Bingo Group, which (as the name suggests) was originally created in connection with our annual Halloween Book Bingo, but has since become sort of the all-purpose social hub of the community. Though, mind you, even in connection with book-related games and other activities, most of our exchanges do NOT happen in the bingo group (or any other group, for that matter), but by way of blog posts and other people's comments on those posts.

And speaking of groups, this post lists those groups that are currently active on BookLikes. It's about a year old, so obviously the group reads listed there are no longer current, and in fact, we haven't picked any new group reads yet this year. But I'm pretty sure we'll pick new reads soon (and if you have any idea for any of the groups, we'd love to hear it).

To point to two individual BL members you'll definitely want to follow, they are the creator of the "active bloggers" post referenced above, Obsidian Blue and Moonlight Reader (aka currently Moonlight Snowfall): the joint hosts of our annual Halloween Book Bingo and other book-related games throughout the year. Most people on this site follow them and comment on their posts (at some point or other), so you'll meet a lot of people just by following their posts -- and you'll also be pretty sure not to miss out on any of the joint activities happening on this site.

Admin AWOL
This is, obviously, the site's biggest issue. First things first: It doesn't affect the running of the site as such, which we think has been outsourced (the site is in part owned by investment funds, in part by a Polish e-book publisher), and the people to whom the running of the site has been outsourced are obviously doing their job.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to also have been given the power to institute major things affecting the site infrastructure as such, which is, inter alia, why nothing is being done against spammers.

In fact, we have recently decided to replace this, the "official" BookLikes group -- where we can't prevent spammers from showing up (only BL admin as the creator of the group can do that) -- by another group: BookLikes Admin Issues, which is member-administrated, and where we thus can keep out spammers.

Book data imports are a separate matter: A few years ago, BookLikes (with its admin still very much active) signed a deal with Amazon that said they had to procure all their book data exclusively from Amazon. Amazon, at the time, had recently acquired Goodreads, so BookLikes was a (very small) competitor. In May 2018, the European data protection regulation entered into force ... and BookLikes (which is registered in Poland) stopped being provided with book data from Amazon.com. We can't prove there's a connection, but the timing -- and the response of many other American sites to Europeans trying to access their data ever since -- at least suggests that there might be. That said, we ARE still able to import books from Amazon.co.uk, albeit on an individual basis ... which would also suggest that Amazon.com (= Amazon U.S.) has been using the European regulation to basically breach its data stream contract with BookLikes without fear of retaliation. Again, this is conjecture, but absent any clear statement from either side, it's the best explanation we (the users) have at this point.

If you're interested in staying, I'll be happy to explain how to import books from Amazon.co.uk.

Also, we have one very tech-savvy member who last year put a great effort into accessing the various book publishers' data streams and mass-importing books that way. But, like all of us, she's a volunteer, so she only did it as and when she could.

Again, obviously ultimately it's your decision whether or not to stay -- but we'd love it if you did!

Reply to post #2 (show post):
Hah. I see you said it all so much better and shorter while I was still composing my post! :)

Reply to post #1 (show post):
I hope you stay on, Vee. You're absolutely right about the site's problems (though I have to admit that I like adding the books myself, as that way I can get listings to look the way I want them rather than relying on a machine-driven import with all its flaws), and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if at some point Booklikes goes the way of Shelfari, Leafmarks, and others. But until then we are a community of readers that, however small, probably never would have encountered each other without a site like this. That value is still there in spite of all the other issues, and it's one that's helped to make me a better reader.

I hope you stay, but get why a lot of people come here and leave. If you were looking at recent posts you would think it's just spam. I would look at Themis's suggestions above.

I have just gotten used to adding books that I am reading at this point because I tend to read a lot of ARCs and BL never has new releases. If I have an issue, I usually report it and the librarians get on it right away. The librarians are active users so that makes it nicer to see that there are still people here that want to keep the site running.

If Booklikes disappears, I hope someone will create a very similar site, that will keep working. There's nothing like this anywhere else on the web.

Reply to post #3 (show post):
@TA - I wouldn't say better and shorter so much as shorter and less informative. It was after midnight and I was too brain dead to articulate fully or even realize I didn't make the post address a hyperlink. ;D

@Vee - I applaud your "shelf life" pun about book sites, whether it was intentional or not. ;) We've all struggled to find permanent bookish homes. Lots of us came over from Goodreads, and I was also on Leafmarks until it shut down, and I basically use LibraryThing as a backup book catalog. I really love my BookLikes community, though, and I will be here until the site rides off into the sunset (or crashes and burns, which often seems more likely).

Reply to post #1 (show post):
@TA - Such a great post and as a newly returned member, those links will help me as well so thank you.

@Vee - I took a break from Booklikes, largely because my job got complicated and I worked A LOT but some of the reasons why Booklikes and my complicated job were mutually exclusive are exactly the ones you have highlighted. I would say that Booklikes is not always intuitive and it takes me more time to figure out how to do almost everything. Although between you and me, that's not always Booklikes fault...

More important than why I left is why I came back. There truly is nothing else like Booklikes out there. I'm active on Goodreads and I appreciate the ease of use of that site but it does not give me the close community feel that Booklikes does.

And the person whom TA mentioned in her post - the one that was scraping publisher sites to add to BL is still here! She's just been really really REALLY inundated by RL. And in the worst reading slump in recorded history. But, she will persist.