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The New *Reviews* Section

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Dave B

Guest
Hey Darren

[snip]
The reviews index is currently being re-written. We are working on a new review system which will have many more features and a new rating system (similar to Amazon). The project should be complete by the end of August.
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Sounds pretty good :) For the benefit of myself and any other Newbies could you give some info on what you intend the new *Reviews* section to cover. e.g. will it be members' reviews or an index of links to other reviews, will we be able to add to or comment on the reviews etc

TIA, Dave B.
 
The new reviews area is going to be based around the concept of a "virtual library". Visitors will be able to browse by author or by category of book.

New books and categories can be suggested by anyone whether a member or not.

Members of The Book Forum will be able to write a review of any book in the library. There will be a star rating system similar to the one Amazon uses. There will also be links to purchase the book at amazon, and a link to either start or join a discussion in the forums (fiction or non-fiction depending on the book).
Each member can only review a particular book once, but each book can have several reviews.

There should be a way to compare books in a category to see which ones receive the highest ratings etc...

There won't be links to other book-review sites. These are already in our links directory.

I haven't finalised what other info about the book will be there. The cover image will be there. As books often have different covers in different countries I'll be using the UK hardback cover whenever possible.

The software is still in beta development so that's why there's a bit of a wait.

A couple of things that would be useful to know when designing the interface:-

What types of things would you want to see rated?
At the moment there is just an overall rating, but I can add any other rating criteria if you want.

What type of book info would people be interested in?
Publisher, edition, hardback or paperback, ISBN etc?

Thanks.

Darren.
 
The reviews will be stored in "The Library" and each book can have a discussion in the forums, whether it's been reviewed or not.
 
Darren Lewis said:
What type of book info would people be interested in?
Publisher, edition, hardback or paperback, ISBN etc?
Click to expand...

I was thinking maybe there should be a section for alternate titles as well. The original title obviously, but maybe also all the "foreign" titles as well. (Like Camus and Tolstoy only have translated titles listed, and there's no mention of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone instead of the Philosopher's.) These fora have a pretty diverse clientele from all over the world, and having these titles up as well (a bit like the "Also Known As" part of IMDb) would be a nice thing for some. English is the lingua franca here, but I don't think everybody on these boards reads everything in English, so sometimes it's nice to have something to go by if you want to look something up. (If I can't find the original text, I'll try to find a translation, but it's not always easy if you don't know the translated title.)

Also, doesn't a book sometimes have multiple ISBN's?

Just something I was thinking about.
 
"Also known as" is a good idea Lies. The Library is scheduled for an overhall after the summer so I should be able to add that.
 
OK. Will members be able to add (or suggest to the editor in charge) alternate titles as well?
 
lies said:
OK. Will members be able to add (or suggest to the editor in charge) alternate titles as well?
Click to expand...
Yes, I'll be working on an "errors and updates" form where info can be submitted.

An example of how things might develop.
 
Looks really good, Darren!

I'll try to add more books myself, or can I just e-mail you a list?

---edit---

Also, I noticed that Coraline is entered twice into the db. Once as children's fiction and once as ordinary fiction. Is it possible to link those two entries, because each one has a review?
 
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