So, where do we go from here?

Hello. With the exodus from BL over the last few days, I was wondering if anyone who has moved here onto LT would be interested in setting up a group to share updates, quotes, anything at all that we would usually see on the BL dash. Or whether anyone had any thoughts on how to use the functionalities that LT has to create something like an area to hang out an catch up over here on LT and keep in touch?

I would love that. I need to spend some time figuring out the mechanics of groups here.

>2 ManWithAnAgenda: I have had a look around ... yes mostly the Green Dragon Pub because I love the idea of a virtual pub....and it seems that discussions are mostly text-based, but in principle, it should be possible to replicate something similar to groups on GR.

I'm still learning how LT works, too, tho.

I'm glad somebody has an idea of what's going on,frankly I'm at a loss.But I think it's a great idea.

>4 chalton: I'm sure we can figure something out. It will be different, but it seems that other people on LT manage to have discussions and posts etc.

Hi all! I'm pretty lost over here! I haven't had a chance to try out YouKneek's lessons on navigating LT.

Charrlygirl: There are lessons?

Hey, it’s great to see you all over here. :)

>7 chalton: I think Char is referring to some directions I gave for how to follow threads in groups here on LT. That post is on GR here (post #43), and was a follow up to this post (post #32) where I was ranting and raving about the virtues of LT. ;) I haven’t given any actual lessons on the whole site or anything like that, but I’d be happy to answer questions if you have any that I know the answer to.

If you’d like an example of the reading journal concept I was talking about in the above links, my latest thread is here. But there are all sorts of different formats people use if you look at some other threads, ranging from super simple to complicated. Some people post more personal stuff than book stuff in their threads, and some people never post personal stuff. Pretty much anything goes.

Thanks YouKneeK:)
On another note,Charrlygirl is Char?

>9 chalton: Yep, you can tell from her LT profile. The profile pic is a pretty good clue, but the “Hello, I’m Char!” in the “About me” section really drives the point home. ;)

Hi. I've come across this FAQ & Help page which may also explain a few things: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/Help_and_FAQ

>10 YouKneeK:
Yeah,right after I asked the question I went to the profile and yes,felt stupid afterwards.:)

>12 chalton: LOL, I think it can be easily excused by yesterday only having been your second day on the site! And you've picked up on the > post # thing too... very impressive for day 3. ;)

Some of you might find this post helpful if you get involved in the groups more. http://www.librarything.com/topic/177029

It’s a list of how to display and format things in your posts. A lot of it is the usual HTML tags that you may already be familiar with, but LT has a couple things that GR doesn't. You can do both bullet-pointed and numbered lists here, which you can’t do on GR. I don’t use them often, but I really like having them when I want them and get annoyed when I can’t do them on GR. There’s also a very, very simplistic method for putting a poll in a post that other people can then vote on. Your only response options are always “yes”, “no”, and “undecided” so it’s pretty limited, but I once used it to have people vote on the next book I read in a certain genre by assigning each answer to one of three books.

>14 YouKneeK: Brilliant. Thank you. I have just starred that discussion, too. That looks like a really useful thread.

I've spent some time this morning fiddling with Touchstones and testing how to add them to comments as and easy reference/link to books and authors. It's a bit fiddly but seems to work once I figured out to click on "(others)" for more choices of books/authors to link to.

>15 BrokenTune: You’ve definitely found the key to making touchstones work properly with the “(others)” link. I don’t know what logic it uses to choose its initial link, and for me it seems to usually get it right on the first try, but sometimes I wonder why on earth it chose what it chose. They do add a lot of convenience, though.

>16 YouKneeK: They do. It's going to take a lot more practice do figure them out, tho. In the comment I posted in a group this morning, it may now seem like I am reading a French edition (tho for some reason the book description is in German) when it is the UK edition I have but couldn't find the Touchstone for it. Lol. Learning this is all part of the fun.

I'd love to stay in touch with Booklikers in the future. If we can try to continue a bit like we used to, it would be great.

>18 Ilirwen: That would be a great idea,we have to stick together wherever we go.I feel like on BL we've become a tight knit community.

I have some homework to do! Thanks YouKneek :)

Hi.
So, with a little bit of research, it looks to me like social interaction here on LT is through groups and by adding discussions to groups. Other members can follow those discussions by "starring" them. The homepage has a "Talk" section that provides different filters. One of the filters is "Starred" which let you follow all of the updates in discussions that you've starred. (You can add comments to the discussions just like adding comments here.)

In a way, this is not so different from the Group feature on Goodreads.

I've started a discussion thread for my own bookish and non-bookish updates in The Green Dragon group: https://www.librarything.com/topic/322705

If anyone else has also started discussion threads here to use for reading updates, please post a link so I can make sure to "star" them and see them in the "Talk" section of my homepage/dash.

:)

I'm finding both GR and LT much clunkier than BL. I find it very hard to keep up with the conversations. I get a daily digest from GR which eventually I will get the hang of, maybe and with LT, I have to remember to stop in here. Neither choice is as fully satisfying as was the BL set up of blogs, following and dashboard. It was well thought out and quite conducive to community building.

However, one thing that has survived from BL is our community leaders -- our Board of Selectmen, the leaders of the pack -- and that bodes well for moving the community to new venue. Kind of like what happened when they moved cities along the Yangtze to higher ground when they built the Three Gorges Dam. They built the new city, moved millions of residents and then flooded the abandoned cities.

Following each other's blogs is another hurdle. Not all of them are available as RSS feeds, so hard for each of to gather them all in one place (like our inboxes).

Much to think about.

>24 Peregrinations: Both are much clunkier. And while the email notification on GR is ok, it doesn't tell you all that is going on in GR. I.e. I find that I miss new message threads because there is no notification mechanism for them. So, I keep hitting the "Discussions" tab at the top and try to see if any discussions have been added to groups I am in - then I make sure to subscribe to the notifications for each thread. It's cumbersome. It's a pain. But for the time being, it is the best I can do.

On LT, I am finding things a bit easier, as I get to see all of the discussions with recent activity and I can "star" and filter (see my comment #21 above). I like it.

Blogs, are cumbersome, tho. WP blogs are fine for me as I also have a WP blog and can easily see notifications and comment etc. Non-WP blogs are tricky - I can see Blogger posts in my WP reader, but I can only comment from my personal laptop - and only when I am signed into the right Google account - otherwise I will not get any notifications of responses. It's a real pain.

This month was end of booklikes for me (I was "Debbie's Spurts" at HTTP://donealrice.booklikes.com). I really wanted to hang in there. To be honest, fictfact dying hurt me worse because booklikes' ending wasn't a surprise.

I'm happy to join you guys in whatever you do on LibraryThing.

I've barely started a Wordpress blog when this plague hit and I haven't had much motivation. Now that booklikes is dead, guess I better resurrect it. I'm https://spurtsblog.wordpress.com/

I've managed up until this year to mirror my reading status and reviews on booklikes to LibraryThing and to Libib just in case. But I sure lost a lot of other content unless can get back in long enough to rescue.

Libib has pretty much no social but it's a place to at least catalog my books in case LT dies or sells to amazon. Has excellent data import and export for backup. It does keep saying will be adding social features (and does let you review). I'm http://spurts.libib.com/ there

On Goodreads I had been tracking my currently reading but not making any reviews (because I pretty much only was active in a couple of groups) -- and I still don't have the heart to try reviewing on Goodreads again or trusting them with my book shelves. I'll be more diligent about keeping my book tracking there up to date and likely share some statuses in addition to group activities. I'm https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6282458 on goodreads.