Improve Members Like Me (Because it currently sucks)
What I want:
I would like to be able to see the people who have the most books in common with me. Just a query that shows the top ten or so people with whom I have the most books in common. I joined this site because a lot of my friends don't read and I wanted a place where I could meet new people like myself and discuss books we've read or want to read.
What it is:
What Shelfari currently has is a Members Like You tab that only shows members who have books on their shelf that matches the last book I've added, or so it seems. These results turn up members with whom I only have one or two books in common. Like, who hasn't read HP? I don't want a result set that's just random HP readers. The Books In Common self on member's pages is probably the most helpful, but that requires us to search through tons of pages to find these people.
How to make it better:
These are some ways in which Shelfari can make this feature a billion times better. It seems quite taxing to run this query for every person, every time they log on. One way of advertising it would be to have a section of our profile designated to displaying the top 3 people we share books in common with. Store the results of this query, and only update it whenever someone adds a new book to their self. That way, only active members get active updates.
If you really want to get fancy:
Shelfari should build an advanced search tool. This tool would allow for custom queries. The need for this would be to filter out spam. ie. People who add every book under the sun, just to be the most active on Shelfari. This advanced query would allow members to specify on what shelves to match.
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Example: People with the most (books I've read) in common. Allows you to discuss the common books you've read with another member.
Example: People with the most (books I plan to read) in common. Allows you to coordinate the reading of these books, and possibly form a book club.
Example: People with the most (favorite books) in common. This really allows you to find people with whom you have common interest.
Example: People who own books you plan to read, or people who've read books you plan to read
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This advanced query could also filter results by member's location or rating. Members should be allowed to customize this search to return a set number of results. I think this would be a very popular feature and would help promote social networking.
~Tiff~ started this discussion 3 weeks ago (edited). ( )
