BTRIPP (btripp) wrote,
BTRIPP
btripp

(sigh)

I know that I'm a "stat freak", and I know that I'm "over-competitive" and all ... but it bugs the HECK of out me when I see my LibraryThing numbers slipping. Right now it looks like (the figures in the "Zeitgeist" haven't updated since my most recent addition) I'm tied at the #100 slot for "most prolific reviewers", which is down considerably from where I had been. What just kills me is that "reviews" like "Recommended." or "Wonderful book." or "A good read." (to take a few examples from LT users just ahead of me on the list!) count as reviews as much as my 500-word postings do! It sometimes makes me want to plow through my SciFi bookcase and do shit like "pretty cover" or "cool title" or "bad condition" in the damn review field just to jerk these other "reviewers" around.

I suppose that if there is one thing I hate about LibraryThing it's the ability of people to do things which I consider dishonest or unethical and have them stand on the same footing as my efforts. For instance, there are users there who log in their wishlists as part of their library! These are books they don't own, they haven't read, and yet "have" them in L.T. ... now I don't mind somebody doing visualization magick, but don't fuck up the stats with it, OK? Morons who do one-word "reviews" debase the work of the many users who DO put forth the effort of writing something (and I don't even mind seeing a cogent one-paragraph synopsis) about a book. For Gods' sakes, there's a Comment field right there that if you want to put in "Good.", knock yourself out, just don't pretend that it qualifies as a "Review"!

Frankly, I just had a dust-up last week over on the LT Google Group over the "honesty" of adding stuff you haven't read to your library. Hell, I could go to a swap meet or something and buy a couple of thousand dime paperbacks and double the size of my library ... but would it MEAN anything (aside from creating even more of a fire hazard in here)? No! I mean, come on ... in an institutional library, you list everything because you're expecting folks to come and use it ... a personal library should be more like one's "intellectual resume", not a list of stuff you simply no longer have to shop for! Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Obviously, this is the point where my obsessive-compulsive stuff crosses with my other neuroses and creates a monster ... but it bugs the shit out of me if I end up thinking about this stuff.


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