Read/reading/unread owned/wanted !

Continuing discussion from here : www.listal.com/groups/viewthread/978/

This discussion applies to all areas not just books

Currently we have 3 list types : owned, wanted, read (which really means read but not owned or wanted)

and 3 statuses : read/unread/reading

I really want to simplify this and avoid confusion, maybe there should be :

Read : All books you have read
Want to read : Books you want to read sometime but not necessarily own
Owned : Books that are owned (can include books on the read list)

Maybe the other lists : Book wanted (to own) and books currently reading should be part of the custom lists system? Since these can easily be rearranged and added to.

Another idea (I prefer this) :

Get rid of item statuses (and read list) , keep the owned/wanted lists and then add another link for rated items. Add official 'Currently reading' custom list (I can convert everyones existing 'reading' status to create this list)

Owned (342)
Wanted (32)

Rated (112)
(this could be rated and read for books already added to a read list)

Rated items could also include books not from Owned or wanted, just anything you have rated.

In the profile there can be links to edit your 'top 3' which would be a favorites list and a link to edit your currently reading.

I like this idea.

For movies, maybe have it like this?

Watched
Want to Watch

and replace (not interested) with Rated

There's a lot of movies I want to rate, but I dont really want them on either list, to keep my list manageable. Example, say I've seen a bit of a film on TV or started to watch it and shut if off, like, um, Bad Boys II. I want to warn myself, so i never forget, that its a crap film with 1 rating, but I really dont want it on either Watched or Want to Watch list. If it resides in my (rated) movies, that would be fine with me.

Can I also make a suggestion? Its nice how 'Favorite books' or 'Favorite films', etc, adds your icon to the movie or book's profile, but having to make a custom list, and manually add that movie, well, it's a bit of chore.

Perhaps if on each item's page, have a link 'Add this to my ..... favorite list', with .... being either movie, dvd, book, etc. if you already have a custom list, it adds that movie to it. if you don't, it create that custom list for you, and adds the movie to it.

one more comment, DVDs, books and games all have OWNED and WANTED. they both fit on their own line. but for movies, WATCHED and WANT TO WATCH are there, and WANT TO WATCH is spread across two lines because its fairly wordy. Any way to re-word it?

maybe:

WATCHED (633)
WANTED (244)

or

WATCHED (633)
TO WATCH (244)

or

VIEWED (633)
TO VIEW (244)

or

WATCHED (633)
WANNA SEE (244) ;)


just some thoughts.

perhaps the 'wanted' one is best, mostly because on the movie profile pages, some of the others would be confusing: 'watched to watch' or 'viewed to view'

one more comment, DVDs, books and games all have OWNED and WANTED. they both fit on their own line. but for movies, WATCHED and WANT TO WATCH are there, and WANT TO WATCH is spread across two lines because its fairly wordy. Any way to re-word it?

In which view ? In the listing page it says :

512 Have watched
10 Want to see

In the search page it says :

512 Watched, 10 Want to

There's a lot of movies I want to rate, but I dont really want them on either list, to keep my list manageable. Example, say I've seen a bit of a film on TV or started to watch it and shut if off, like, um, Bad Boys II. I want to warn myself, so i never forget, that its a crap film with 1 rating, but I really dont want it on either Watched or Want to Watch list. If it resides in my (rated) movies, that would be fine with me.

If you've rated a movie then you must of seen it (or some of it) so it makes sense to be in the watched list, although I can see an argument for keeping low rated movies out of the main list. In that case it's easy to add a link to high rated movies only e.g. :

http://bwde.listal.com/owned/movies/1/?rating=6

You would still need the not interested list though to indicate films you have not seen and never want to see.

But if you want to make all the categories consistent, why not add 'rated' category for movies, so you can rate them, but not add them to your list? It can be done, and it was do-able before with ability to add any film to the (not interested) pile. And the (not interested) category is a lame duck at present. Its always there, accessible to users, but is only used for the recommendations system, which is not very often used.

About that first question, its in the Movie Overview page, in the left brown box, under Overview, View All, Watched, Want to Watch, Not interested. The "Want to Watch' takes up two lines there.

I mentioned this in the other thread, but I think reforming the sections is a great idea. I think the only necessary sections are "Watched" and "Want to watch" (same with "Read" and "Want to read," etc.). I don't think owning a book matters- people who read in school, use libraries, etc. might not want to own any books, or might have read 30 books but don't own any of them. But for rating things, what seems important to me is whether or not they've read the books, or what books they want to read. Owning seems kind of useless to include.

If you still want three sections, a "Currently watching/reading/playing" section might be good, instead of having the three options within each list. I think it's understood that a movie in your watched list you've seen, and a movie in your want to watch list you haven't seen. So get rid of those three mini-options and just make a "Current" section.

I think owned books is an essential, for me anyway. If I forget I have something and want to check it would be pretty annoying if I couldn't search for it. To me thats like not seeing what DVDs I own and just being able to look at the ones I've watched.

I don't really have any suggestions here. Just as long as I can find what books I own, have read, and want is good for me (in books that is).

I like the book section, set up as it is now. I would be upset if it changed too much :(

I need my owned and read lists seperate because they are each quite large and often contain very different books.

I may have read and given away or borrowed it, so I don't own it but would like to keep track of it and it's rating.

I own many books that I have not read yet and I like that they are in a seperate list.

Maybe then the three options I suggested (Read/reading/want to read), with an "own"/"don't own" check option (to replace the current "read/reading/unread" checklist)?

A whole reading section? That might be a little pointless for many people as some only read one at a time or not that many.

Owned, wanted, and read but not owned is quite a good system, and is a good way of keeping track of everything.

Maybe you could make it so that books could be on the list of Owned and read or Owned or Want to Read at the same time.

So it would be like this.

Read: Books you have Read
Want to Read: Books that you want to read.
Owned: Books that you own.(could be checked along with Read or Wanted so if you checked Owned and Read it would mean you own the book and have read it. However if you Check Owned and want to read it would mean you own it but haven't read it yet.)

So the list would be like

Read: 520
Want to Read: 700
Owned: 320

3 years and 3 months since you started this thread and still no conclusion? heheh, this seems to be pretty tricky.

I so much like Tom's first idea.. and i think it should be something like:

About ownership: nothing, own it, or want to own it
About status: nothing, read, reading, want to read

That's pretty much all. All 12 combinations make sense and take into account all cases. Having "Own", "Want to own", "Reading", "Read" and "Want to read" automatic lists would be awesome

I'm gonna bump this since my suggestion relates to it. I don't really mind the current structure of lists and statuses, but what IS confusing is the way the status doesn't even appear unless you're looking in the list view.

I would find it really useful if we could see (as well as select) the status when viewing the actual book page. For one thing would it make it much easier to set this status...right now you either have to put the book in a list and then go to the list view, or click the "edit my info" option (which again won't appear until put the book in a list and refresh the page).

But also this would make the option of setting a status much more noticeable. I guarantee most people don't even realize it is an option, and anyone who uses it recognized it after viewing the list view. If the status was shown (and editable) from any view (like the "Mark as" and rating option) it would really increase the ease of use.