NOTICE!
SuggestedReading·com is a public ALPHA site. Nothing is guaranteed to
work, no accounts or agreements are final, and any interaction you
have with this site is only for testing and development and may not be
saved. Cookie and IP
information may be publicly exposed in the process of testing. This notice
supercedes ALL other text on SuggestedReading·com.
If you enjoy testing the site and write some suggested readings (book
reccommendations), please SAVE THEM to resubmit when the site is stable.
Thank you
for visiting!
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- What is SuggestedReading·com?
- Basically what the name implies. A site where users make and
discuss reading recommendations. It is also an Amazon.com Associate
meta-site. More about that below.
- What is a suggested reading?
- A suggested reading (or a readme for short) is a user post
recommending a specific book to other users and visitors.
Registered users
can
suggest readings
and comment on others.
- Why aren't they just called reviews?
- Because reviews can be good or bad. We only want readmes.
This is not a site to bash books, even ones that deserve it. It's a
site to recommend to others ones you've enjoyed or were important to
you.
- What should I write in a readme?
- It is up to you. The more creative and interesting you can be, the
more positive votes you'll probably get for it.
- Is there anything I can't post?
- Yes, but pretty much only one thing.
Reviews you've submitted elsewhere or didn't write. Often, though not
here, when you submit a review online your are giving the rights to
the site. Meaning the review is no longer yours at all. You cannot
post things you didn't write or don't own.
- Can I suggest a book that was already suggested?
- Yes, but if you don't write a good readme or you post something
that was just posted, other users might down vote you for it.
- This is a discussion site as well as a recommendation site. Part
of the point of making a suggested reading is what you write about it.
So doing one for a book that's already been done might be a good idea.
One user's suggestion for a book might turn people off, another might
make them reconsider. Registered users can also vote on
suggestions.
- What is prestige?
- Users can vote on each readme and comment. If they give it good
votes, its prestige rises. If they give it bad votes, it sinks.
Privacy and user information
- What is your privacy policy?
- Read our privacy policy.
- How do I change my registered username, password, email and preferences?
-
See the user information page.
- What are your terms of service?
- Read the terms of service.
ISBN
- What is an ISBN?
- International Standard Book Number. Most professional publications
in the world have one. Find out more about
them.
- Why do you ask for the ISBN instead of the book title on the
suggested reading form?
- So that we can avoid having recommendations for Grate
Expectations and David Coperfield with one P. ISBNs being
perfectly regular and checksummed makes
them very difficult to get wrong (or invent false books). It also lets
us use Amazon.com's webservices to get additional book details and
provide shopping links.
- How do I find a book's ISBN?
- We have a lookup form so you
can find them. It gives you a button to auto-fill the ISBN on the
suggest reading form.
- They are also printed on a book's publication information page with
the copyright and they are included in the bar code of most all new books.
Since ASINs correspond to ISBNs for books, you can look up ISBNs via
Amazon.com's book search. The book's
detail page will list an ASIN; it's the same thing.
- What is an ASIN?
- The Amazon.com Standard
Identification Number. For the purpose of
books, it is interchangeable with the ISBN.
- Which ISBN do I use for multiple editions of one book?
- Whichever you want. Eventually, not right now, we will have all the
editions tied so it won't matter which you pick. For now, just pick
whichever you prefer, whether it's paperback, hardback, reprint, etc.
- Why do you link Amazon.com instead of a non-commercial
resource like isbn.nu?
- SuggestedReading·com is an Amazon.com
Associate and Web Services user.
- What does being an Amazon.com Associate mean?
- We link items to them for SuggestedReading·com as well as the users
who post here and are also Associates. Associates earn a referral fee
when purchases are made via a click-through from this site. You can read more about it at Amazon.com.
- How can I get Associate referrals via SuggestedReading·com?
- Apply to be an Associate with
Amazon.com. It's free. Once you
have an Associate ID, just add it to your user account on your
preferences page.
- So, you're just out to make money?
- No. We're trying to create a fun, deep, timely, and long-term
resource for readers. We are dedicated to improving the site over time
and adding features like book club listings, writers' resources, and
more. If we can make money along the way, we can afford more staff,
faster webservers, better service, et cetera. By being an Amazon.com
Associate meta-site we are trying to add value for users too.
- Do your users make money?
- There is no guarantee of it. Every user that is already an
Amazon.com Associate can register their
Associate ID. Every book link in a suggested reading gets an
Associate ID. The forumla for deciding which ID gets used is
complicated and varies depending on who has linked the book. The user
who wrote the suggested reading is not guaranteed to have their
Associate tag served.
- How do you choose which Associate ID to put in shopping links?
- SuggestedReading·com is picked 10% of the time. 90% of the time, users
who have posted the book are picked, as long as their suggestions have
positive prestige.
- What if there is no review with positive prestige?
- We serve the 90% to one of our favorite charitable Associates.
These include [no one yet, we haven't got a list of organizations that
are also Associates—if you know one, please let us know].
- How do I go up levels?
- Gain experience and interact with the site. You can get experience
by posting readmes, voting, making comments, and just showing up. You
can lose experience by doing things like commenting on your own readme.
- Why do negative votes count more strongly than positive votes?
- Online forum users tend toward generosity. Negative votes are
weighted more heavily to compensate.
- I have plenty of experience points, why aren't I going up levels?
- Experience can be gained (and lost) in may ways and it's not the
only requirement for levels. You also have to post readmes and
participate in discussions. Check the level
table to see more about it.
- Why isn't my vote worth what I expect?
- SuggestedReading·com is a meritocracy not a democracy. The more you do
here, the more your votes count. We believe it's only fair that a user
who contributes to the site for an extended time has more say on the
site than a user signing in for the first time.
- What other services do you offer?
- Book club listings. We'll have an
RSS/XML feed for book of the day soon. If you have suggestions for
other services, please let us know!
