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Status across multiple editions not shown
In Progress
J
junefishJun 29, 2022
This shows up in 3 ways (feel free to separate out into multiple posts if the implementation is very different):
- if you open an edition that you haven't read, it says "you've read another edition of this book." but if you've read two editions, they don't cross-link to each other.
- re-reads aren't tracked across editions (if you've read edition A and edition B, it doesn't list either under re-reads).
- tags and "owned" don't surface at all, so I've found myself accidentally buying an e-book for a book I already owned a physical copy of because I didn't manually check all the editions.
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I just wanted to chime in to say that whatever changes are made to make visibility and ease of use better for users when interacting with multiple editions, I really really hope the existing functionality that enables us to easily track different individual editions if we want is unaffected.
I know for most users only a single edition is important. But for audiobook readers (mentioned a couple of times already in this thread) and also those of us who read classics with multiple translations multiple edition tracking is vital.
I have for example 5 translations of Beowulf and 3 of the Iliad each by different translators, with different introductions, notes, and commentaries. The style and substance of the translation can be very different. I would want to review and rate each of them separately and I have very different things to say about each of them. Some of them are 5 star favourites, others were not so great and got lower ratings.
Storygraph's ability to easily track and review multiple editions separately is literally my no.1 favourite feature on the site. You need to follow some very obscure steps to do that on Goodreads and actually giving a star rating to more than one edition is against the terms of service there. And so seeing this as feature rather than a hack on Storygraph was a big reason I switched over to TSG.
I didn't get the impression from Nadia's comments that this functionality is going away, but I thought I would just highlight the importance of this for some of us just so this viewpoint is represented!
I think my request/comment falls under this same category, but please feel free to direct me elsewhere if not.
I've noticed that if I have a book in my "to-read pile" and then read a different edition of the same book, it's still on my to-read list.
For example: have a physical copy of a book I plan to read on my list, but then it becomes available as an audiobook via libby so I grab it because, ya know, it's knitting season. I still have to go and remove it from my to-read pile once I've finished it.
I've noticed that for challenges it doesn't matter if the format I added a book to the challenge is the same as the format I ended up reading it in, it'll still clear it out. So I was caught off guard when I saw some books I'd read were still in my to-read list.
hellafitz A way to fix that is to use the "switch to this edition" button, it'll take off the to-read from the physical book and switch it to the audiobook. I do this all the time in that same scenario when the audio comes up available on libby before the kindle edition or vice versa.
Removing this as an option eliminates the ability for those of us that want to read both the audio and physical books as separate items.
Nadia I've also noticed that if I read an edition I don't own, the edition I do own still shows up as "want to read". Is it possible to mark the book itself read but only include the stats of the book I actually read?
aleenala Mmm, it gets tricky because sometimes people do own and read different editions, etc. We will do better at warning when you when you interact with different editions, e.g. when you mark a different edition as 'currently reading' to one that you have on your 'to read'.
Nadia I feel people would still like to know if they read the book though! Sometimes I forget which books I read so this would make me accidentally make me reread a book I've read already.
aleenala Yes, that is going to happen. In fact, we already show when you've read another edition on the app.
Moving my comment here from another thread: When viewing another user's read books, you can see a comparison of their star rating and your star rating if you've both read the same book, but the comparison doesn't show up if you've read different editions of the same book. The UI indicates that you've read another edition, but doesn't show your rating. I'd love to be able to see both star ratings regardless of edition.
Related to this: when searching in your "Owned" books and filtering by "read" or "haven't read" if I haven't read the copy I own but have marked, say, the audio book as read, it still shows up as "unread" in my owned books. Maybe if there could be an extra filter that is like "all editions unread" vs "owned editions unread"?
It does say that I've read another edition of said book as you scroll through the list - but there's no way for me to filter those out and see the # of books I own that I haven't read at all in any form.
zerosiero Thank you for the note!
Maybe additional filters could be added to the Filter Editions menu on a book family page. Like a drop down menu similar to the languages field, but instead you can choose to view editions by tagged, read, to-read, owned, did not finish, or currently reading.
meggiemine Ooh, perhaps! At least filtering editions via ones you have a status against...then again, those should probably just show up first in the list. I think first step involves seeing relevant info on the current book pane/page!
2 Will be being solved relatively soon. Small point but we do track rereads across editions in the wrap-up.
What would you expect to see for 1?
3 is tricky and something we've been thinking about (and asking the community feedback on) for several months now. Part of the trickiness comes when we include books in different languages and/or different covers: users getting confused: "I don't own this book"/"I haven't tagged this book" — so we're figuring out a design for: "You own a different edition"/"Tags against another edition" without making the book pane cluttered (we're currently working on a redesign of the whole book pane to incorporate a whole swathe of UX improvements) or confusing everybody!
Nadia Is it possible to have just 1 entry for a book in StoryGraph and the edition type is like a tag or note the user puts in from their end? Perhaps youve already discussed this as there's a lot of clutter with all the version types showing up in searches etc :)
dj_zoo Different version types shouldn't be showing up in search! We're doing a lot of work internally and with our volunteer librarians to make sure this doesn't happen/happens only rarely. The product first launched without the concept of editions, but we've found that people really want to see their own covers and languages, etc., and like tracking different statuses, etc., against different editions. I'm sure we'll get to a great solution eventually, especially as we keep iterating on it!
Nadia - this would really help. I'm one of those who really like to see the cover of the book I read. I'm surprised how much act seems to matter to me, but it does.
dj_zoo I want to jump in and say that one of the reasons I prefer Storygraph over Goodreads is that I can review different editions separately. So making 1 book page for all editions and versions would definitely make me sad. Different editions can have different things that need to be reviewed. Mainly, an audiobook can deserve a completely different review than a print book due to the narration. An abridged version vs a full length, or an anniversary addition that has bonus material (American Gods and Verity spring to mind for this latter).
art_books_chemistry maybe there could be an option to see all read versions as one or separate
But still have them separate for reviews unless you tick to say same review against read versions