Trying to organise books people have mentioned

[Guest realmayo]

I’ve found lots of ideas about what to read from the “what are you reading” topic that Skylee started in 2004 now has 46 pages. I hope that topic continues just as it is, nice and relaxed.

 

But the downside there is it’s not exactly in list format …. so that’s kind of what I’m going to try to do.  I’m not really sure of the best format so I’ll kind of work that out as I go along.

 

Ideally there’d be (i) a list of authors and maybe an indication of difficulty, (ii) a description of the books of each writer and if necessary (iii) a link to a page where people have already discussed the books in more detail, or to a new page if people want to start such a discussion.

 

I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but I’ll start a new topic. Hopefully it'll be as collaborative as possible but that may mean asking Roddy to change things around at some point.

 

Perhaps we can keep this topic for discussion of what to include. Meanwhile on the main topic, it’ll be a list at the top and then one ‘reply’ per writer.

 

 

 

 

[Mati1]

Great idea!

Once the post for an author has been created the list should link to it.

Not sure about the collaboration, since only an admin (moderator?) is allowed to do everything. If you are willing to keep the list thread updated people can post their entries, additions, ideas and so on in here for you to move it over. Eh, that's probably what you've been thinking of.

Don't go through the monster thread all alone, share the fun with others!

[Mati1]

If you let others add authors on the list thread you'll get a problem when you want to expand the posts, no?

[Guest realmayo]

Just now, Mati1 said:

If you let others add authors on the list thread you'll get a problem when you want to expand the posts, no

 

Good point. Hmmm.

[Mati1]

I forgot to ask about graded readers

[Guest realmayo]

Personally I like seeing stuff about graded readers in the main "what are you reading" thread because, after all, they're what people are reading. I think I'd prefer to keep them off here though. But isn't there a dedicated topic on graded readers. If not, Roddy always likes to point out that it's free to start new topics.

[roddy]

Character already has an excellent index of graded readers. I think it'd be preferable to keep graded reader stuff separate as it's a very different audience. 

 

Realmayo, you should be able to edit, split, hide and unhide posts in the Art & Lit forum now - can you see new edit and options menu under every post?

[Guest realmayo]

Oooh indeed, quite a thrill!

 

Thanks, that'll make everything a lot easier.

[Guest realmayo]

I'm thinking I should have double checked with say @renzhe and @Geiko before quoting them potentially out of context in the other thread: please let me know if you'd like your comments from perhaps some time ago to be changed or replaced.

[Lu]

Very good idea! I'd like to add something about Sanmao (not yet though, busy with other stuff at the moment, but I will) and also about Ba Jin's 春, but how would you like me to do that? PM you? Post it here for you to copy or quote? Basically the thread is a wiki with only one editor.

[Guest realmayo]

7 minutes ago, Lu said:

Basically the thread is a wiki with only one editor.

I know! I don't want to be the gatekeeper, with all that that implies. And PM-ing me "submissions" makes it feel like I'm some kind of commissioning editor or something. I guess post it here and I'll copy it into the pre-existing post? I'd hope for authors not yet included, people would feel free to add their own post as a reply in that other topic if they wished, as long as they're not going to mind me potentially adding to their post in the future if someone else comes along with, say, another book they've read by that same author.

 

Ideally all I'm really aiming for is an easily scrollable list of writers with basic info about them and those books of theirs that people here have read, and then links to other topics if they already exist, or a link to a specific post in the main "what are you reading" topic if someone has written something there. Basically listing and signposting what exists elsewhere rather than trying to give the final or 'authoritative' word on anything. If people want to give a writer their own topic then I think it'd be cool if they started a new topic and I can add a link.

[roddy]

I can maybe come up with some arrangement if you decide what you want to do - can anyone edit any post or is it a small group of people?

[Guest realmayo]

I don't know, my first thought is anyone.

What do you think?

Does the forums have a wiki function?

[roddy]

Not as such, but I can do forum-specific permissions, so I could have one forum where all members have edit privileges for all posts (I warn you, at some point some enthusiastic young lad will come across and paste in megabytes of text from douban). I'm not keen on a proliferation of sub-forums though, and probably my preference would be to have a small group of folk with those privileges, then we can keep it in one forum. I don't want to give edit privileges to all members over any wide scale.

[Guest realmayo]

Then please do allow some people to have the edit privileges.

 

In which case I'll outline how I see that whole topic working, although I don't have a particularly fixed idea.

 

I think one post per author. Not trying to write a comprehensive bibliography. But instead mention those books which forum members have mentioned in other topics. If fuller or more detailed discussions exist elsewhere, link to them. If someone thinks an author or a book merits more discussion and hopes to get replies on that topic from others, then start a new topic on that subject and link to.

 

Where there's the odd bit of feedback on a book, I've pasted it in. Where it's more detailed, I've linked instead.

 

I was motivated to put this together because I have previously trawled through the "what are you reading" thread in search of things to read. But the last thing I want to do is replace that thread. I wouldn't want someone to think about posting in there and then think they're somehow obliged to copy that content over here too, then decide that's all a bit of a chore, and end up not even posting in the "what are you reading" thread after all.

 

As long as I'm still tracking the "what are you reading" thread, in search of suggestions of what to read, I'll update now and again when certain writers or books are mentioned, maybe if other members have a particular interest in a writer they might find themselves doing the same such writers are concerned. But I'm less concerned about being comprehensive and more about just achieving a certain amount of organisation.

 

Very happy to hear any potentially better ways of doing it.

[murrayjames]

realmayo,

 

Re: 余华‘s 《十个词汇里的中国》

 

I noticed the book currently has no description. So I gathered some quotes from the linked book discussion thread:

 

gato:
I am reading this now. Elegantly written and autobiographical. Often very moving.

michaelS:
I've recently finished this (in English - the edition is beautifully set and the translation is excellent). All round a very interesting book. He explains why critics and readers often think of his books as easy to read, which is something I've seen people on here often comment on.

roddy:
Finished the Chinese version a few days back. As Gato said, it can be quite moving, thinking specifically of the bits in 差距 where he remembers catching a farm kid for selling oil ration tickets.

[Guest realmayo]

Thanks added (well, two of them ).

I'd quite like to remove references to forum members' names, partly because the process of choosing just a couple of illustrative remarks out of several is pretty arbitrary. But at the same time, pinching what people have written without attribution is not very polite.

[laurenth]

Maybe those two threads would fit into the book list:

• Reading Gu Long's "流星•蝴蝶•剑"
• Reading 鬼吹灯 - pulpy supernatural fiction

 

[Guest realmayo]

They would! Feel free to put them in, and I'll add the author names to the first post.

 

(Just because they're your topics, don't be modest about adding them  )

[murrayjames]

realmayo said:

I'd quite like to remove references to forum members' names, partly because the process of choosing just a couple of illustrative remarks out of several is pretty arbitrary. But at the same time, pinching what people have written without attribution is not very polite.

 

One way around this is to name all contributors in the first post of the thread. Individual entries can go unattributed.