I just posted my final post over at Booklikes. Been a good run over the last 3 1/2 years but it is apparent that the place has changed and not for the better.
I can be found at the following sites other than Booklikes:
WordPress – https://bookstooge.wordpress.com/
Librarything – https://www.librarything.com/profile/BookstoogeLT
Blogger – http://bookstooge.blogspot.com/
I am most social on WordPress, with non-review posts, etc. Librarything is for cataloguing and I am a member of the Green Dragon where I have a thread devoted to all things Bookstooge. Blogger is more of just a list of all books read and reviewed; without a “like” button I don’t spend much time there.
If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to have a backup site for all your reviews. Because you never know when….[you fill in the blank]
I’ve been putting this off for months, as things looked like they might turn around in January, but it has become evident that it is the same old, same old. Time to cut the cord. It is midnight now, I’m tired and had a run in with someone over there about politics, which all contributed to this (perceived) abrupt leaving. But I’ve been saying I’m going to leave for months and just haven’t. So today is the day, now is the time.
Shouldn’t see much of a change at all here at WordPress. Bookstooge out.
I’m also mulling things over. It’s a pathetic same state of affairs, but it’s difficult to cut the cord…
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Indeed it is a difficult thing. I am certainly not pushing for anyone else to pull up stakes. It had just reached critical mass for me…
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One problem though and a major one for me. Only BL has all of my reviews…
LM -> created by using my GR’s repository at the time. Unfortunately the pricks at GR deleted a whole bunch of reviews of mine. I exported my DB when LM went down. DB incomplete.
LT -> Used this to upload my DB repository from GR. DB incomplete.
GR -> Painstakingly tried to upload the reviews missing it. It’s a chore! DB incomplete.
BL -> No export function!!!! I’ve got to check all of my reviews and cross them with the GR and LT DB repositories to have LT and GR aligned with BL. Another chore!
I’m better off reading…
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Oy vey! That is a big problem!
So Blogspot doesn’t have them all either? Given your situation, I’m not sure what I’d do. At some point some things just aren’t worth the trouble.
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Sorry it never turned around for you over there. I pulled out when things first began taking a nosedive. Guess, I made the right decision after all.
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Thanks.
For me, I needed to stick around this long to make sure i had no regrets about leaving. If I’d had left sooner, I would be second guessing myself for a while. This way, I’m sure.
And you made the right decision for sure. It never recovered, just limped along…
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A few years ago I did try out Booklikes, but it did not seem to work for me and for what I wanted, so I left it for Blogger first and WordPress later, without a single backward glance. It seems that things dis not work out for quite a number of people…
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Sadly, it just didn’t have the sticking power or the personal attention of the site owners [for whatever reason].
I doubt it would have made as much of a splash as it did if they hadn’t capitalized on the censor debate and people leaving GR back in ’13. But then they just let things kind of roll downhill and never even tried to capture Shelfari or Leafmarks people. It really felt like it has been abandoned…
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Can’t say as though I have heard of Booklikes.
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It was/is a booksite that combined GR, Tumblr and Blogging all into one place. I loved it.
But then the creators abandoned it and it kind of just keeps running down. Plus, the spam accounts are just atrocious and are as numerous as the live people…
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Spam accounts are everywhere these days. The amount of spam bots I have had comment on my blog is more than I expected.
That’s a shame, as that sounds like a cool website.
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It was great and if you’re willing to put up with an abandoned site, it really combines blogging and book database perfectly.
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Your paranoia for losing all your reviews is fun to read. 😀 I mean, with the number of books you’ve read and reviewed, I can’t imagine how devastating the sudden disappearance of all your reviews would make you feel. Definitely hope such a thing will.. never.. happen…
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Thankfully, all my reviews are on blogger and wordpress. They’re just a mishmash of individual reviews, a month of reviews in one post and yearly lists.
Depending on how I count things, I’m just about at 3K for reviews. That is 17 years worth of data, even if the first couple of years are just title, author and date.
If I lost it all, I’d give up. I’d probably stop reviewing any books…
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Ah politics discussions on the internet, it’s a killer 😉 haha love that picture for losing reviews, but even the mention of it sends me into a spiral of panic (I mean I technically have copies of all my reviews, but still…)
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Until I can etch them into diamond slate, I will not be completely comfortable.
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hehehehe
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Interesting, I’ve never tried Booklikes! I just somehow found Goodreads years ago and started updating it more frequently last year when I started book blogging weekly on WordPress. Does Goodreads censor reviews?! 😬Not that I’ll be moving to Booklikes, after hearing about the problems you’re reporting, but hm…Right now the PC police are pretty active on GR, so I’m just curious if the website mods take sides in debates.
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GR very definitely censors reviews. Not automatically, but if someone flags your review, they’ll hide it at the drop of a hat. Basically, if you say anything in a review that doesn’t bear exactly on the book, phhhht, out that review goes.
Can’t comment on author behavior, shelves get deleted without warning and recently they’ve opted everyone into the emails once you write a review.
I just can’t stand being censored. I’ll obey my countries rules on plagarism, slander, etc. But anything beyond that? I’ll say what I bloody want to, about anything I bloody want to. And that is why I don’t use GR 🙂
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Ugh. I mean, companies have a right to do what they want, but I definitely give censorship the extreme side eye…I mean, we’re taking part in discussion, right? That’s why we’re writing reviews in the first place. Everyone needs to have their say or we risk suppressing truths. Bleh. Thanks for the warning…
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I use goodreads frequently, but I just star my books, rarely typing in any comments. I also occasionally use the ‘find other books like this’ feature.
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I tried that. But I’m just too “blabby” and can’t resist reviewing a book once I’ve read it. It’s a disease and I should get money from the government in compensation 😉
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’bout time. 😊
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It just felt like “giving up”. But the site is NOT getting better, so I’m just conserving my “social energy” for here at WP…
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I didn’t miss it one bit when I left. WordPress works much better for what I want to do anyway.
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