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[7OO Tnega Terces]

TL;DR - New Audiobook Requesting Rule:
When deciding which genre sub-forum to search for an audiobook request, or to put said new request in, uses are NOT to just do whatever they heck they feel like, they must instead go to Amazon and see what genre it says the book belongs to and put the audiobook request in that genre sub-forum and nowhere else.  When deleting multiple requests, moderators should similarly use Amazon to decide which one stays and which one goes.



The forum search engine, who's whole purpose is to make sure that we don't double post stuff is not, in fact, actually capable of doing it's job.  This is because the forum search engine can't, in fact, search the entire forum, but only whatever sub-forum you're in.  Now, in an ideal world, everyone would just search Every Single Sub-Forum Every Single Time they wanted to request a new book to make sure that it hasn't already been requested somewhere, before randomly choosing whichever sub-forum they felt best to put their request in.  I leave it up to your own personal experience as to how likely that scenario is.

I didn't do this one, and got my request deleted, only to find the 'original request' in a completely absurd sub-forum!  So if you're about to say anything along the lines of  'reasonable minds can always', just stop!  I don't know what world your living in, but it's not reality, because I ASSURE YOU, reality is not populated solely by 'reasonable minds' (case in point: can you even define what that is?!?)!  I'm NOT saying that people are crazy, just that we all have very different and unique views of the world that are not all 100% compatible.  Which is why having a search engine that isn't capable of searching through all of the sub-forums simultaneously is an actual problem rather than a trivial factoid.

Now, there are two solutions to this problem. The first is to fix the forum search engine so that it CAN in fact search the entire forum website and not just individual sub-forums.  I have ZERO idea how feasible that solution is, so I'm just going to assume that it isn't feasible at all!  Fortunately, there is a second, much easier solution!  It does require the cooperation of everyone making requests on the forums, but the moderators have already laid down the law in many other aspects on how people must make request if they want to do so, this would simply be another one of those rules.  This solution is to use some widely available and easily accessible third-party to act as the judge as to which sub-forum a book request belongs to.  Then, when one wants to make a request, they would first go to that site, find out what genre category the book belongs to, and then they would only have to search Just That One sub-forum, and add the request if it wasn't there already.  Similarly, when deleting multiple requests, moderators should that third-party site to decide which request stays and which request goes.

This can be implemented immediately, and it would make EVERYONE'S life, both you moderators and us uses, lives ten times easier!  As for what third party to use, I advise Amazon, since that's already where 90% of the audiobook links are coming from anyways!  Goodreads would be a more complete alternative, but they always list multiple genres (maybe just go with the first applicable one from the top?!?).  Also, do note that if you do choose Amazon, Audible is not an acceptable alternative, as it doesn't categorize books into the same genres as Amazon, so it would need to either be one or the other!  I advise using Amazon and not Audible, as Amazon sub-categorizes into things like Urban Fantasy, where Audible just stops at Fantasy.

Best of all, we users don't need to wait for moderator permission to start implementing this solution!  You users can make your life easier and stop wasting time on the broken search engine by just using Amazon as your third-party judge right now!  It's what I'm doing, and you should too!

[Dallis24F]

Sorry about that.
Search seems to be broken.
Sent a repair ticket.

Thanks for letting us know.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Sorry about that.
Search seems to be broken.
Sent a repair ticket.

Thanks for letting us know.

Wait...It Can Be Fixed?!?  I was sure it was going to be a flaw so deeply baked into the system it wasn't fixable!  Or at least, it would be too expensive to fix.  This is great news, thanks!!!

[Lieve]

As for what third party to use, I advise Amazon, since that's already where 90% of the audiobook links are coming from anyways!  Goodreads would be a more complete alternative, but they always list multiple genres (maybe just go with the first applicable one from the top?!?).  Also, do note that if you do choose Amazon, Audible is not an acceptable alternative, as it doesn't categorize books with the same genre as Amazon, so it would need to either be one or the other!  I advise using Amazon and not Audible, as Amazon sub-categorizes into things like Urban Fantasy, where Audible just stops at Fantasy.

Best of all, we users don't need to wait for moderator permission to start implementing this solution!  You users can make your life easier and stop wasting time on the broken search engine by just using Amazon as your third-party judge right now!  It's what I'm doing, and you should too!

Man, that would be wonderful if everyone followed this advice. However, it'll never happen, as many people simply don't care. The amount of threads we have to move, close, and merge with others are higher than you'd think. And we're no wizards who inherently know the genre just by the name of the book, so requests might be stuck in a wrong subforum, as you experienced. It's quite annoying for everyone involved.

Good suggestion though. I do hope more people start using amazon or goodreads+common sense.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Man, that would be wonderful if everyone followed this advice. However, it'll never happen, as many people simply don't care. The amount of threads we have to move, close, and merge with others are higher than you'd think. And we're no wizards who inherently know the genre just by the name of the book, so requests might be stuck in a wrong subforum, as you experienced. It's quite annoying for everyone involved.

Good suggestion though. I do hope more people start using amazon or goodreads+common sense.

Well, fixing the search engine would certainly help, both with users finding already existing requests, and even more so with you guys finding duplicate requests!  As for reducing your own workload (beyond the search engine fix, of course), I've got two suggestions:

1.) You need to be more ruthless in enforcing the rules, as in breaking them needs to have meaningful (i.e. painful) consequences.  You said that people don't care, I submit to you that no one cares because they have no reason to, So Give Them A Reason To Care!  It will make a WORLD of difference, I promise you!  I suggest a deletion of the incorrectly posted request, along with increasingly lengthy lockouts on making posts within the request forums.  You might be let off with a warning the first few times, but after that, every infraction bans you from making new requests for longer and longer periods of time.

Now, you may not want to have permanent punishments, and that's fine.  You could even reward good behavior by moving the user back down the ban scale.  So, say you have a consequences pyramid of 2 warnings, 1 week ban, 1 month ban, 6 months ban, and 1 year ban.  If someone makes it all the way to the 1 month ban, but after that ban is up doesn't violate the request rules for an additional 6 months, they get dropped down one level of the consequences pyramid, so next time the ban will only last one month, rather than the 6 months it should have been, since that's the next ban period after 1 month.  If they don't do anything for another month, they get dropped down so their next infraction will only last for a week, if they do commit one, and they only need to keep their noses clean for another week to get rid of even that ban time and be back to just a warning.  How long it takes to reset a warning is up to you (I suggest at least a week, probably two).

2.) You need to use more bots!  Seriously, what are you guys doing?!?  It's not as if this is something super complicated (to a computer, at least) like image recognition!  It should be trivial to have a bot combing all the forums for duplicate title requests (which would require a WORKING search engine ;P ), or even improperly filled ones (there is not a rule among the posting rules that I can think of that would be too difficult for a bot to at least identify, if not outright fix)!  At worst, you should have it set up to just give you a list of dupes and you tell it which one should stay and absorb the others (or if they both need to be moved to a different  proper genre sub-forum).  The whole purpose of having computers is that THEY can do all the tedious tasks for us, leaving only those things that need human ingenuity or compassion for us to take care of!

In fact, having a bot spot check a request before it is actually submitted to the request forums would be a great way to help those of honest techo-illiteracy (or whatever) fix their request so that they're always submitted correctly and you have next to nothing to do on within the request forums.

Bots rule, you're absolutely crazy to not be using them!!!

[Gweilo]

TL;DR - New Audiobook Requesting Rule:
When deciding which genre sub-forum to search for an audiobook request, or to put said new request in, uses are NOT to just do whatever they heck they feel like, they must instead go to Amazon and see what genre it says the book belongs to and put the audiobook request in that genre sub-forum and nowhere else.  When deleting multiple requests, moderators should similarly use Amazon to decide which one stays and which one goes.

Nice idea, but no one will do this.

The forum search engine, who's whole purpose is to make sure that we don't double post stuff is not, in fact, actually capable of doing it's job.  This is because the forum search engine can't, in fact, search the entire forum, but only whatever sub-forum you're in.

Yes. This "feature" is known. So before doing a search, click "Forum home" to go to the top level and then search will cover the entire forum.
Which is why it is explained in the Rules and Guidelines:

Second: check if there is an existing request thread.
Go to the "Forum Home" and search. If there is a unsatisfied request, you may bump it (add a "Me too!", etc.). If the request has been archived -- i.e., put in "Fulfilled" or "Unfulfilled" -- you should start a new request.

1.) You need to be more ruthless in enforcing the rules, as in breaking them needs to have meaningful (i.e. painful) consequences.  You said that people don't care, I submit to you that no one cares because they have no reason to, So Give Them A Reason To Care!

Ha. You don't know how much hate I get when I tell someone they can't bump 20 threads 3 times a day. And that is no exaggeration; people did that and thought it was their God given right.

For most infractions we just give a warning and that works.
If they repeat, we give them a short posting ban. If they are jerks, a longer and ultimately permanent ban.

As for the genres, the main issue I guess is books that are legitimately in several genres: paranormal romance, e.g.
Normally, we treat "Romance" as a modifier and the setting as the primary genre (Paranormal, Historical, etc). Just "Romance" as such is generally modern day, real world more or less.

Also, Amazon's genres don't match our own exactly, so there would still be confusion, not mention the multiple genres.
We do have people who think multiple genres mean they can post a copy of their request in every possible forum.

Bots rule, you're absolutely crazy to not be using them!!!

Let me call our programming staff and put a Tiger Team on it.

Sorry, we have zero resources and there are a million things that could work better here. It is not due to lack of imagination, it is how this site was set up and the fact that we are volunteers with limited power and the admin are a mysterious business in an unknown country with a limited budget who fix things when they are broken, eventually, but that's about all.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Nice idea, but no one will do this.

Well, what about the second half, the moderators using someone like Amazon to decide who goes and who stays?

Yes. So before doing a search, click "Forum home" to go to the top level and then search will cover the entire forum.

This is mentioned in the Rules and Guidelines:

Second: check if there is an existing request thread.

Go to the "Forum Home" and search. If there is a unsatisfied request, you may bump it (add a "Me too!", etc.). If the request has been archived -- i.e., put in "Fulfilled" or "Unfulfilled" -- you should start a new request.

Huh...has that always been there, because I don't remember that specific line back when I first read the rules several years ago (yes, yes, I "should" have checked up on them to see if anythings changed, but be reasonable!)...  My bad!  And I'm glad that works, though it would be nice if it also worked just within the 'requests' sub-forums, so that you don't wind up with a bunch of other random 'non-request posts' popping up too.  Still, this does cover the basic necessity of searching everywhere well enough!

 

Also, Why Aren't You Guys Using Bots To Police Duplicate and Badly Filed Requests?!?  I mean, you need moderators to watch how people talk and stuff, but to just make sure a form was filled out correctly?!?  That's Bot Work!!!

[Gweilo]

Huh...has that always been there, because I don't remember that specific line back when I first read the rules several years ago (yes, yes, I "should" have checked up on them to see if anythings changed, but be reasonable!)

Been there at least a year.

Guidelines are updated as issues arise.

Also, Why Aren't You Guys Using Bots To Police Duplicate and Badly Filed Requests?!?  I mean, you need moderators to watch how people talk and stuff, but to just make sure a form was filled out correctly?!?  That's Bot Work!!!

I added this above before I saw your new post:

Sorry, we have zero resources and there are a million things that could work better here. It is not due to lack of imagination, it is how this site was set up and the fact that we are volunteers with limited power and the admin are a mysterious business in an unknown country with a limited budget who fix things when they are broken, eventually, but that's about all.


However, we did get the "request form" a while ago after some nagging.

That at least reminds people to include a link and read the rules. Hardly anyone does read the rules, as shown by your response above.

99% of my messages are to tell people to just read and follow the damn rules.

[Gweilo]

And I'm glad that works, though it would be nice if it also worked just within the 'requests' sub-forums, so that you don't wind up with a bunch of other random 'non-request posts' popping up too. 

If that's an issue, go to the top level of the requests:
and search there, it will then only search request subforums.

But it's pretty rare for a title to turn up more than once elsewhere and hardly worth worrying about.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

And I'm glad that works, though it would be nice if it also worked just within the 'requests' sub-forums, so that you don't wind up with a bunch of other random 'non-request posts' popping up too. 

If that's an issue, go to the top level of the requests:
and search there, it will then only search request subforums.

That does NOT work, that's why I wrote this post in the first place (I even double checked just now in case it had suddenly been fixed, no dice)!  Try it yourself, search for a request you know exists at the very top of all the forums and then just at the top of the requests sub-forum.  The first one will give you the money, second search will return nothing (it was because the latter didn't work that I never tried the former, after all, if one didn't work, why would the other?).

But it's pretty rare for a title to turn up more than once elsewhere and hardly worth worrying about.

Tell that to your mod friend Lieve:

Man, that would be wonderful if everyone followed this advice. However, it'll never happen, as many people simply don't care. The amount of threads we have to move, close, and merge with others are higher than you'd think. And we're no wizards who inherently know the genre just by the name of the book, so requests might be stuck in a wrong subforum, as you experienced. It's quite annoying for everyone involved.

Good suggestion though. I do hope more people start using amazon or goodreads+common sense.

[Lieve]

Just a side note: I'm not a "mod friend". I'm just a person helping out in the requests section, to keep things a bit more tidy in there.

I suppose OVERALL in the entirety of the forum's existence, it might not be worth mentioning how few things need to be merged or moved to the right subforum. I can't speak to that, but it happens somewhat frequently in current times from what I, and others, have noticed.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Just a side note: I'm not a "mod friend". I'm just a person helping out in the requests section, to keep things a bit more tidy in there.

I suppose OVERALL in the entirety of the forum's existence, it might not be worth mentioning how few things need to be merged or moved to the right subforum. I can't speak to that, but it happens somewhat frequently in current times from what I, and others, have noticed.

Sorry if you didn't like "mod friend", would "coworker" have been better?  And I wouldn't be surprised if more people, stuck at home more over the last year, had made more requests!  And I would further caution against any optimism of things going back to 'exactly' as they were before, too!

[Gweilo]

If that's an issue, go to the top level of the requests:
and search there, it will then only search request subforums.

That does NOT work, that's why I wrote this post in the first place

OK, you're right. I was assuming it worked logically, a mistake.

Still, searching for an author or title at the top level will always work, and the very few hits you get in non-request forums are rarely a problem. You can see which forum they are in in the results.

[Dallis24F]

Book Search has been updated:
When Requesting an Audiobook... https://audiobookbay.lu/forum/index.php?board=8.0
The search will now search all categories.
Please try it and give feed back.
 

[7OO Tnega Terces]

That works, thanks!  Though what about my category suggestion?  I just tested the search using "The Boneless Dungeon" and got back two results.  One is in the correct category, according to Amazon, but is a request for only book 1, while the other is a request for books 1 & 2, but is in the wrong category, according to Amazon (and I do agree with its genre assessment).  Which one will take precedent?  Who gets merged with whom?!?

[Lieve]

Which one will take precedent?  Who gets merged with whom?!?

The way the forum handles merging is that whatever thread is made first will remain as the first part of the merged thread. Any other parameter doesn't factor in.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

The way the forum handles merging is that whatever thread is made first will remain as the first part of the merged thread. Any other parameter doesn't factor in.

Okay, well, the request for books 1 & 2 came second, so it will get merged into the request for just book 1?  If so, will the former request get changed to books 1 & 2, or will the latter get book 1 stripped from it and become just a request for book 2?!?

[Lieve]

That's what pretty much sucks about the merging system. It just creates extra work for the moderator in cases like this.

Fortunately in this case, the request for books 1 and 2 were done incorrectly (missing links to each individual book), so I removed it instead of merging it. Normally I might just have merged it in, assuming it had come after the correct request, but I would have had to merge it in, then change the title of the OP, and find the links myself on audible, and put them in the OP. But hey, this worked out much better for everyone involved. Well, almost everyone..

[LoganB]

Not to be a that person and all, but categories on Amazon aren't always correct. I know authors that put books in categories that books have no right to be in so they have more chance of selling and also to get get higher in the ranks of those categories.
I've even spoke to several authors about this in the past (when reviewing their books/ beta reading etc) and most of them say they do it mostly on purpose as Amazon doesn't check things like this unless reported.

So using Amazon to decide which category a request should go, isn't always straight forward or correct.

[Lieve]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious too in some cases. But again, using both goodreads and amazon AND common sense, it generally makes for a pretty good zeroing in on what genre it is.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Not to be a that person and all, but categories on Amazon aren't always correct. I know authors that put books in categories that books have no right to be in so they have more chance of selling and also to get get higher in the ranks of those categories.
I've even spoke to several authors about this in the past (when reviewing their books/ beta reading etc) and most of them say they do it mostly on purpose as Amazon doesn't check things like this unless reported.

So using Amazon to decide which category a request should go, isn't always straight forward or correct.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious too in some cases. But again, using both goodreads and amazon AND common sense, it generally makes for a pretty good zeroing in on what genre it is.

Nothings perfect, but in this case that doesn't actually matter!  The main point is to have a centralized authority that everyone can use quickly and easily to determines where a book goes.  Even if it was totally random, being able to know where exactly to look (when there wasn't an easy way to do so before the search engine was fixed) would save time and simplify things.  Now for us users it no longer matters that much, it would just be for you moderators if you wanted to change your merging rules for determining who goes and who stays.

[Gweilo]

Which forum a request goes in isn't terribly important.
There is just a division into several popular genres which fit in with most users' preferences.
Just to make each genre more manageable.
Requests are ephemeral, when filled they all go to the same "fulfilled" forum. Which category the torrent goes in is up to the uploader, and that is a crap shoot. So I don't think it's worth worrying a lot over. Just search the  whole forum to see if it's already requested.

We get requests for more forums, but that would lead to more duplication, the same book in different forums. We already get enough of that.

Merging two threads adds the newer request to the older, under the older subject and subforum.
But I will look at those and override if it seems the newer request is more correct.
If there are requests for single books and a series, they may be merged, giving the thread the "series" subject.

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Book Search has been updated:
When Requesting an Audiobook... https://audiobookbay.lu/forum/index.php?board=8.0
The search will now search all categories.
Please try it and give feed back.
 

Aaaand now it's broken again!  I wanted to request a new audiobook ("Dungeon Heart"), so I did a search at the "Request Forum" level and got no hits.  Since I "knew" that the search engine was working properly now, I assumed that meant that there were no requests, and so started a new one.  Only, there was a request already posted in 'Epic Fantasy'!  Sorry about that, @Gweilo, but it's really all the search engine's fault!!!

[Dallis24F]

Thanks for letting us know. 

[7OO Tnega Terces]

Thanks for letting us know. 

Not a problem, I'm sure this is as frustrating for you as it is for me!  Nothing worse than a job you already fixed acting up again!!!  You have my sympathies!