Idea for Book Discussions

[Brother Tyler]

There's something I've been considering for a while and I want to float it by the community for feedback.

 

Would it make things better/easier/cleaner in this forum if we created a two linked discussion topics for each book? The first topic would be for rating the book and the second topic would be general discussion of the book, including spoilers (everything would still have to be in spoiler tags, of course). We would then have an index at the top of the forum with the links to each of the discussions.

 

So if a member is looking for either of the two discussions, they simply have to go to the index and find the links instead of potentially having to scroll through pages and pages of forum discussions.

 

We would probably create a basic template where the first post of each topic would be the official information on the book, including cover art, etc.

 

This would allow us to have the discussions pre-release, such as the 36 page discussion about Spear of the Emperor, but members not desiring to see all of the speculation when they want to rate the book or discuss the events portrayed therein will later be able to go to the "pure" discussions about those subjects.

 

This wouldn't prevent other discussions (e.g., there's a topic about Ollanious Pius in the fiction, which covers several books).

 

Thoughts?

[Panzer]

That sounds like a great idea if people actually follow that separation.

[Marshal Rohr]

Sounds great to me. I know if it would help if I could post my opinions on how good a novel is separate from discussing the ideas of said novel. It seems like often critically discussing the narrative choices and their implications overshadows the fact people enjoyed a novel, which can cause cross-talk.

[Brother Tyler]

That sounds like a great idea if people actually follow that separation.

Well, I see the possibility of creating the topics in advance, so they'd follow a template, and hiding them until the book becomes available. So yes, that would be taking on some work for me.

 

And yes, there would be hiccups. I could see a lot of confusion, especially if/when the system is first put in place. With dedicated topics, though, if a member posted a narrative reply in the rating discussion, it would be easier to split the erroneous reply out and merge it into the appropriate topic.

 

I think part of the template would involve clear instructions (not that these would prevent all problems).

 

If a system like this were put in place, though, it would smooth things a bit. Most of the time, the problems will be from members who are new to the system and they'd quickly (hopefully) get the hang of things.

[Burni]

I like idea of there being a directory of book reviews - I would definitely use that to help me pick books to read.

 

I'd imagine it would need to be moderated a lot to keep the threads 'in their lanes' though.

 

Maybe have a link to each threads counterpart in the first post of each, as they are likely to get separated on the board display.

[BrotherAtrox]

Maybe mimic Good Reads format?

[Brother Tyler]

Maybe mimic Good Reads format?

Yes, Goodreads was a large part of the inspiration behind the idea.

[Xisor]

Hmm. What cultivates discussion?

 

*checks notes*

 

Rigid organisation!

 

It's very 40k, at least. ;)

 

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More productively: is there a problem that this is specifically trying to solve?

 

It may be worth stating that concern clearly and in full, and proceeding from there.

 

---

 

To take AoS's view on matters, Nagash also looks for a clean and tidy realm.

 

It is not renowned for spirited growth and discussion.

 

Haunted spirits, however...

[DarkChaplain]

My concern with this is that it just fractures things further. Many books don't even get discussed to begin with, or only weeks or months after release. It also doesn't mesh particularly well with "leaks", in the sense that Amazon lists books way ahead of time or authors confirm working on this or that in advance.

So in the end, we'd not only have announcement/reveal threads and discussion threads, but also rumors, or general topic x threads, like the one asking about Genestealer Cult novels. It muddies the waters more than I think is necessary, for minimum benefit.

 

Frankly, those incredibly lengthy pre-release speculation threads basically only happen (or get that long) with very specific authors, most notably AD-B. They also tend to devolve into the same tired arguments over and over (the Night of the Wolf springs to mind), which I'd rather see moderated on a case by case basis than having two threads on the topic down the line, where arguments from before will inevitably either get recycled or forgotten because, once the book is out, few people will bother checking the previous announcement thread anymore.

It's something to tackle when it happens, if it happens, and goes overboard, rather than for everything, always.

I mean, just looking back at how often the Guilliman Primarchs novel gets brought up in Primarchs novel discussions, and how often the same arguments are brought up and discussed, often with little to no relation to the actual thread's subject, I don't think scattering discussion further is going to do much for the relatively small active community we have here on the BL forums. Of course, novels and their topics are linked within the setting, but often the discussion goes a tad overboard and gets lost somewhere.

 

What I would be very much in favor of is properly titled (and maybe even tagged?) threads on novels. One per novel, whichever is made first is kept as the standard thread for that book. Titles should include a series prefix (if applicable), the title and author. Searching specific novels has been a pain in the past, and this might remedy that at least. We also had multiple Heralds of the Siege threads in quick succession, which, in the future, might be merged into the "default" thread. If a user doesn't create the thread on his/her own, I'd definitely like to see a mod making it over the release weekend to hopefully facilitate interest and discussion, even if the title itself may be otherwise overlooked.

Heck, I might even consider it valuable to make a week or month's biggest releases stickies for the BL forum, to keep them at the top of the list.

 

So basically, I'd vote for more cleanup work in general and getting threads into a more easily identifiable state (by adding relevant info or correcting typos), cycling stickies for big novels or the upcoming Advent Calendar, or even a separate monthly Upcoming Releases thread when BL updates the Coming Soon section, rather than splitting threads up in pre/post release discussions.

 

That all being said, I'm a big fan of thread templates (I pushed them myself heavily on a forum I was moderating a few years back, and thankfully they caught on for as long as I was around) and the Index idea is fantastic, especially if it'd include the release dates as well. Strikes me as a valuable resource in general.

[Brother Tyler]

... is there a problem that this is specifically trying to solve?

 

It may be worth stating that concern clearly and in full, and proceeding from there.

There are several problems, all stemming from the fact that this forum has no real structure other than being about Black Library fiction.

 

Finding a topic about a book/story can be ponderous, relying on manual searching (i.e., scrolling through pages until you find a related discussion) or using the search function. Both of those can be very hit-or-miss, depending on topic titles, archived topics, and even the existence of topics. Often, too, there are multiple discussions about the same book. Sometimes (new) members wander in and create a topic about a book that has been discussed on pages 26 and 43 (hypothetical - don't bother looking). And topics herein aren't just about the books themselves, which complicates searching even further.

 

The pre-release discussions often include lots of speculation and other unrelated posts that, once the book is released, are no longer relevant and then become noise that has to be sifted through in order to get to the relevant discussion. While these don't happen with every book, they happen often enough that they matter.

 

Then we have the difference between reviews of books (discussions that might help people to decide whether or not they want to buy the book) and the discussions of the lore that is in the books (which might also help people to decide, but is much more likely to merely be discussion fodder).

 

So the purpose of the idea is two-fold:

• Make it easier for members to find the discussion(s) they want about a book
• Distinguish between the two main types of discussions about books

So instead of having to scroll through page after page of forum to find a discussion, or entering text into the search engine in hopes of getting efficient and effective results, all a member has to do is go to the index and click the links. The index might even have multiple organizations, much like the various tabulae. So you might search by author, by setting, by subject, or by book name (or anything else we can think of).

 

It's funny that one member complains that the concept promotes "rigid organisation" while another complains that the concept "fractures things further." Those are two opposite outcomes - mutually exclusive.

 

In truth, the concept is intended to do neither extreme, instead pulling towards what is hopefully a balanced middle ground. It's intended to apply a basic structure and organization while also allowing for discussion that is outside of the basic structure and organization. The concept is neither "rigid" nor does it "fracture" things. Yes, there will likely be many of the discussions that don't see much life. But their existence will help others to know that the books in question don't get discussed much, and they'll provide a starting point for discussion on the books (promoting discussion).

 

Yes, better use of tagging would greatly improve things, both in this forum and site-wide. This concept would extensively employ tags, including tags for the book name, author name(s), series name (e.g., Devastation of Baal), etc.

 

Overall, the intent is to provide a resource for finding relevant discussions much more easily.

[bluntblade]

I like this idea :)

[Xisor]

It is rigid because it is one size fits all.

 

It fractures, because it literally splits the discussions into two (or more) pieces.

 

Otherwise, I at least understand the problem. For that, I'm content.

 

It does raise two further questions:

1- is this time well spent? (how often are the indices used, how much effort does it take to maintain and enforce them?)

 

2- will it have unintended consequences? You (BT) dismiss the pre-release speculation as noise, I would contend it is the principal activity many hereabouts enjoy - the figure and not the ground - so in reducing noise, you will be obliterating one of the things I and others enjoy.

 

Caveat: Though I enjoy contrarianism, but that is categorically not what I'm about here. Moderator activity in the name of 'organising' and 'keeping things on very narrow, strict (some might say: rigid) topic' has been seen to entirely kill off discussions on innumerable forum over the years.

 

I don't object to organising, in general. But I am conscious of the fact that overbearing or unintuitive, effort-intensive rules have 'depressing' effects on discussions.

 

Of course, if the forum is to be strictly an archive of reviews and isolated but topic-related opinions, then you may also consider tagging this section of the forum with the word ARCHIVE.

 

We would be epistolaries no more.

 

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Consider: might it be more congenial and more effective an effort to cultivate the pleasant use of spoiler tags, and tags in general?

 

If there's an existing bit of lots of pre-release chat, I'd totally support starting a second thread for post-release. (Especially if we're going to tolerate people being crap with spoiler tags.)

 

But that's hardly necessary 9/10 times. (And so this sort of rule would get in the way of easy chitchat.)

[Knockagh]

I like it as it is to be honest. I wouldn’t want a plethora of additional threads.

I use this forum to get opinions on books, mostly new or relatively new releases. I come here rather than good reads or other forums because everyone is a like minded Warhammer obsessive (nut job) whose opinions I value and everyone is pretty mannerly in their discussions.

Im also conscious that over complication sometimes leaves things unnecessarily convoluted and unwieldy.

[Panzer]

It is rigid because it is one size fits all.

 

It fractures, because it literally splits the discussions into two (or more) pieces.

 

 

It doesn't split the discussion at all tho. The discussion is in one thread and the rating in another.

[Knockagh]

 

 

It is rigid because it is one size fits all.

 

It fractures, because it literally splits the discussions into two (or more) pieces.

 

It doesn't split the discussion at all tho. The discussion is in one thread and the rating in another.

In theory it might not but in practice it would.

[Panzer]

 

 

It is rigid because it is one size fits all.

 

It fractures, because it literally splits the discussions into two (or more) pieces.

It doesn't split the discussion at all tho. The discussion is in one thread and the rating in another.

In theory it might not but in practice it would.

 

 

That is yet to be seen considering it's just a theoretical construct so far.

[Sandlemad]

I agree with Xizor and can see any review-based non-discussion subforum quickly becoming a ghost town. I've seen it happen on other forums and feels like an unnecessary fragmentation on what is already a relatively low-traffic part of the B&C.

 

That said I agree with Rohr that discussion of BL books as books - which needn't be a crude static goodreads "this character is such a badass, 5/5" format - does get overshadowed in by what you might call 'lore discussions' but splitting the two out (and then splitting it further, i.e. 'talk about this book goes in this thread and this thread only') doesn't seem like it would help at all. I don't see the problem as being crosstalk so much as just less of an appetite for the former.

 

I don't see any real value in segregating these two types of discussions of books. I strongly suspect we'd simply end up with a handful of active-ish general interest threads and page after page of threads consisting of a title and a post saying 'Anyone else read this?'

[Panzer]

Dunno I definitely see Brother Tylers point. If I want to see what people think about a book I don't really want to read through 10 pages of discussion and potential spoilers to find the "rating" posts inbetween.

[Xisor]

SfPanzer: you're essentially reinventing the wheel at that point, aren't you?

 

Amazon reviews, Goodreads, etc etc all do that far more comprehensively and optimally than PHP forums would allow.

 

Anything else looks likely to be a strange compromise.

 

And it's not that I disagree with the principle of wanting to cross-reference ratings with, say, forumites. (Though even that, I fear, is of limited or deceptive value. I see the attraction, but I'm wary of how useful it would be.)

 

E.g. you might know that my preferences are diametrically opposed to yours, say - like everything I hate, you know you coincidentally [or spitefully! :D] love. I know I've a few good friends who we are reliably opposed on almost every piece of media - they love what I hate and vice versa!

 

Navigating rules (organisational rules) is hassle. For most people it's usually neither here nor there, but over time it's also a question of endurance.

 

But, as said, this is also theoretical.

 

Rather than speculate on it as *rules*, perhaps it would be useful to forge ahead and try a fail-fast approach?

 

That is: try it.

 

E.g. Try a purely discussion-free, review only thread starting now. The last big book released was The Emperor's Spears, so put forth a thread that does precisely what Brother Tyler is proposing - moderate anything that isn't purely a post-read rating. No discussion. (Reviews that are rebuttals or cross reference, perhaps - but no more than one post per forumite [err, user].)

 

Mods could do as they please with it, but as Brother Tyler might be the OP, he also has some personal authority over it.

 

If the fashion is successful, great!

 

But *enforcing* that (fashion police) still seems unlikely to have the desire effect.

 

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Tl;dr try it on a small scale. See if it works and check for unintended effects. But at least that's an observable, and not speculative.

 

Otherwise,if you want to see what people thing, without any other detail, you're going to have difficulty sifting from natural language and the course of human discussion.

 

As said: discussion threads are suited to epistolarians, not archivists.

 

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Addendum: I'd be intrigued to look at *more* technical and intricate schemes, e.g. An extension of the forum PHP to accommodate this thread's idea in a subtle/mechanical way, not on a human-level that requires specific enforcement of house rules. I've not gut or instinctive feeling on how it would be done, but I am certain there is an intriguing possibility inside that.

[Sandlemad]

Emperor's Spears probably would be a decent one for a test run, if that's where we're going. The current 36 page thread has consisted of worthwhile and interesting discussion for the two years it's been active - I mean, it's not N&R so there's not need to shut it down and there's always been stuff to discuss - but if folks want a no-discussion parallel thread on a book that probably the majority of the BL forum regulars will read either now or in a few months, it's a solid test case for how effective this policy could be.

[Knockagh]

The emperors spears thread in fairness has deviated even from a BL discussion to painting and gaming interests. Not that I dislike threads wandering a little, in fact it’s a good thing (as long as it’s not too much). But a single thread encompassing the whole of the books subject is what I like to dip in and out of.

[Cactus]

For various reasons I drifted away from B&C and Black Library for a bit and have recently been catching up on the Horus Heresy. Being ten books behind I didn't want to jump back into every online discussion for fear of spoilers so I sought out the specific topics after I read each novel. I would have loved it if every pre-release speculation topic had been given the Emperor's mercy on the book's release. I won't link to them but the discussions of The Crimson King and Ruinstorm are particularly bad.

[aa.logan]

I would have loved it if every pre-release speculation topic had been given the Emperor's mercy on the book's release. I won't link to them but the discussions of The Crimson King and Ruinstorm are particularly bad.

Yes, this. But also not.

 

To take the Devastation of Baal thread as an example- that contained some of the best discussion I’ve read on any forum, but also some really *really* bad. The problem is, so much of it stemmed from the same ‘review’, and if you cut the thread, is the risk then that there will be one thread of ‘reviews’, which don’t really interact with each other and the chance for great discussion withers away? What is the distinction between the two? If someone raises a good point in a review (the recruitment practices of a chapter, for example) where would discussion of that then take place?

[Panzer]

You can always reference specific reviews for discussions in the discussion thread then. Quoting from other threads is a thing you know. ^^

[aa.logan]

You can always reference specific reviews for discussions in the discussion thread then. Quoting from other threads is a thing you know. ^^

But surely that further muddies the waters? Doesn’t putting the review back in the discussion thread defeat the object of separating them in the first place?