northman wrote:
This edition is an important one because of the illustrations thus I think the attention here at the TCG was entirely appropriate.
Regarding reviews: people here write opinions about books all the time, but one of the things I like about this forum is that books are 'reviewed' here in the form of informed discussion. There is an exchange of knowledge and opinion over longer periods of time that I find far superior to a classical review. For me this is a place of knowledge not endorsement.
Except that besides forum regulars following these topics on an almost daily basis, almost no one is going to pore over 64 pages (as an example of this thread) of discussions to see what people think of a book.
And as to endorsements… the notion of it came up based on a misunderstanding of something I said regarding reviews.
Endorsements was never suggested before, and it isn’t being suggested now.
I think most people would know not to take a review as an endorsement. A review is not a new concept. :)
I think that a reviews section might be more trouble than it's worth, and we kind of already have that function here, as like Trotter said, anyone is free to come onto the site and read through what members have posted about a particular volume, and this site has been around so long now, that 99% of all Tolkien volumes have been written about somewhere on some thread. All one has to do to look up responses and opinions on a book is go to the search bar at the top right and put in the title and (depending) a whole mess of discussion threads will pop up about that book. And quite frankly, I disagree that almost no one is going to read through the discussion forum on a topic if they are interested, if they don't want to then frankly they must not care enough about it IMO. This concept that people who collect books don't like to read or research is baffling to me.
I would be wary of doing a system like "rotten tomatoes" does for films, because I don't really like the concept of a number rating to new release. It also moves more into the endorsing category which we should not do here. (This book gets a 9 out of 10) I just don't know how I feel about that.
I haven't seen any of the Admins and regulars (myself included) tell people to buy or not to buy this volume, we have all given our takes on it and all those takes are valid and we have a right to them.
I would be wary of doing a system like "rotten tomatoes" does for films, because I don't really like the concept of a number rating to new release. It also moves more into the endorsing category which we should not do here. (This book gets a 9 out of 10) I just don't know how I feel about that.
I haven't seen any of the Admins and regulars (myself included) tell people to buy or not to buy this volume, we have all given our takes on it and all those takes are valid and we have a right to them.
I’ll say this again one last time and then I’ll quit - I never mentioned endorsements, nor did I intended suggesting we should endorse anything. All I mentioned were reviews.
If nothing else, it has been enlightening to see who responded with what. Thanks to everyone who did.
If nothing else, it has been enlightening to see who responded with what. Thanks to everyone who did.
eorl wrote:
Except that besides forum regulars following these topics on an almost daily basis, almost no one is going to pore over 64 pages (as an example of this thread) of discussions to see what people think of a book.
Have to agree with that. My opinion would be one of a rather conservative person with little understanding or interest in how to reach a more general audience i suppose. Anyway dont take disagreement as more than disagreement...your idea never occured to me so i found it interesting to think about anyway.
eorl wrote:
I partly disagree that this place is trusted as just “a source for collector-related news”.
I would disagree with that too, which is why I never said it was "just" that (as you rather more than imply I did).
eorl wrote:
To me, it seems we are more than that, since the website name itself suggests a GUIDE.
Yes indeed, per the site's name, a GUIDE for the Tolkien Collector: "Tolkien Collector's Guide".
eorl wrote:
Also, I never said we are (or should be!) endorsers or guarantors of quality.
Nor did I attribute that to you. But this discussion is in a context in which one of the participants did indeed suggest that linking to retailer information for an edition of a book amounts to an endorsement of the book and its quality. That's what I was responding to with this particular part of my response.
eorl wrote:
a majority of people here received a flawed copy, and the posts reflect exactly that.
To be more precise: a majority of the handful of people who responded to a survey for information on the quality of the copies they received reported some sort of flaw. That is not at all the same as "a majority of people here".
I think this forum has done a very good job at surfacing the issues with this edition (trade and especially deluxe), and see no reason to change anything on account of this edition.
Aelfwine wrote:
eorl wrote:
a majority of people here received a flawed copy, and the posts reflect exactly that.
To be more precise: a majority of the handful of people who responded to a survey for information on the quality of the copies they received reported some sort of flaw. That is not at all the same as "a majority of people here".
I think this forum has done a very good job at surfacing the issues with this edition (trade and especially deluxe), and see no reason to change anything on account of this edition.
Whilst what you say is correct, it would be absolutely true to say "a good proportion of regular posters here received defective copies". It would be *remarkably* strange if regular posters had a high defect rate and the rest of the world didn't. Most of the regular posters answered the survey either way.
Equally, the subject has been done to death at this point.
For posterity, another defect/variation from a Facebook user - green pages in a copy of the Deluxe trade.
I was updating the TCG store this morning and came across this listing that I had mistakenly put in the "Forthcoming TV tie-in" shelf, but this appears to be a US edition of the HarperCollins deluxe volume that was released last year.
It's a tad bit cheaper, so not sure if it will have all the extras of the HC set.
It's a tad bit cheaper, so not sure if it will have all the extras of the HC set.
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