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Hack/Script Request

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Coolsteph

Hack/Script Request

Lead

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Jan 20 13 2:23 PM

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As an avid reader, I find the utility of Goodreads (a book recommendation website) appealing.

Unfortunately, Goodreads has some arbitrary limits on its usefulness.

On Goodreads, books can be organized onto 'shelves'; recommendations for specific shelves are based on the books on each shelves. For example, if you have read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and put it on your 'Action-Adventure Fantasy Children's Book' shelf, Goodreads will show The Lightning Thief as a recommendation for your 'Action-Adventure Fantasy Children's Book' shelf. (I don't know much about the technical details behind its recommendation process.) Goodreads vaguely explains why a particular book was recommended by showing read books in a "Because You Added" section, revealed by hovering the cursor over a particular book cover. (In Cover mode, anyway.)

Goodreads claims book recommendations become more accurate the more books you rate. However, I have rated 96 books, and Goodreads has recommended a book I couldn't finish (due to its boring style) once and has recommended books of that despicable paranormal-romance-with-a-pretty-photorealistic-teenage-girl-on-the-cover genre to me multiple times.

Goodreads puts recommendation-of-similar-books priority to books the user has given high ratings. However, this apparently causes some themes of individual books to be overrepresented, thus causing a mismatch in relevance. For example, both The Mark of Athena and The Savage Fortress, which I rated highly, are action-adventure books with magic and mythological themes, which both incidentally contain some kissing. Apparently the kissing caused romantic-fantasy books (which I am not interested in) to be labelled as similar to those books.
Goodreads also has a limit for how many recommendations are on each shelf---50.

I want to modify the recommendation shelf capacity and the 'Because You Added' capacity. (Specifically---as an arbitrary number---I would like to change the recommendation shelf capacity to 70 and the 'Because You Added' capacity to seven) I would also like a way of highlighting books which have a consistent match with my interests, as indicated by having seven books in the 'Because You Added' section. That way, aberrant not-consistent-with-my-interests features of the books I read can be 'rounded out' in the results.

No, no Greasemonkey Script (in the Goodreads tag, anyway) seems likely to help.

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Cacapulse

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Posts: 1460

Jan 20 13 5:22 PM

Pokémon Factory Worker

I don't think this is the website to ask for... this. (You know? A Pokemon site?? Why???)

Also I don't think you can fix that latter issue with a script because it sounds like it's a core function of the site.

Visit the IRC channel so you can ask for feedback even before you post!

Coolsteph

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Jan 20 13 6:10 PM

I thought about asking Poryhedron the code expert himself, but I figured he would be busy and I would be a parasite squeezing out his resources if I asked.

In addition, I don't like becoming members of forums I do not intend to be active on.

People---including you----have helped me when I asked about free security software. (http://pfsuggestionsboard.yuku.com/reply/67646/Seeking-reccomendations-free-antivirus-software-protection)

Cacapulse

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Posts: 1460

Jan 20 13 6:25 PM

Pokémon Factory Worker

Knowing good programs is very different from knowing a programming language.

Visit the IRC channel so you can ask for feedback even before you post!

magemaster529

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 725

Jan 20 13 7:51 PM

I'm confused as to what you're asking. Are you asking to add a script to a website? Unless the website has a section in the 'Settings" for this, you won't be able to make the edits your asking without taking it up with the Webmaster/ company that owns it.

Coolsteph

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Jan 20 13 8:29 PM

I don't intend to add a script to the website itself. In the vein of Greasemonkey scripts, I only intend to add a script that will alter how it operates for me, not anyone else. Hacking how it displays and functions for only me would, I expect, accomplish the same thing.

Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 3 13 6:14 AM

I don't understand what you want. How will any client-side script alter results for you?
The "recommended for you" books are most likely based on what other people have read- if many others have read Book A and Book B, you will likely be recommended Book B if you read Book A. Tags, reading level, and genres probably play roles as well, but a large part of the recommendation algorithm must compare your books to others'. The kissing example that you mentioned must be a result of other teenagers liking books that involve kissing, and not a computer algorithm (I don't think there exists one that can detect romance). So, without access to the website's full database, I don't think that getting more relevant recommendations are possible.

If this wasn't what you were talking about, I'm sorry. Your writing was a bit convoluted, no offense. Could you clarify a bit?
I agree with Cacapulse that modifying the number of displayed results might be impossible, but I am not an expert on web programming.

Edit: If you are an avid reader, have you considered something that has slightly more depth than an action-adventure children's book?

Last Edited By: Tenochtitlan Feb 3 13 6:16 AM. Edited 1 times.

magemaster529

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 725

Feb 3 13 6:36 AM

I've looked at Greasemonkey and the scripts are powered by javascript so it's not impossible. Writing a code to (In lack of a better word) "Overpower" the original is a bit harder. It's best if you just deal with Goodreads.

A reader might want to read the Harry Potter series which has depth and is an action-adventure children's book.

http://minecraftservicer.blogspot.com/

Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 3 13 6:54 AM

"Override" might be a better word, and should not be so difficult. I think most scripts that change the function of a website would require some sort of overriding. But then, maybe using Greasemonkey scripts is possible.

And, by "more depth", I don't mean something that a nine year old could read. Coolsteph is certainly looking for something more in depth. He claims to despise the "paranormal-romance-with-a-pretty-photorealistic-teenage-girl-on-the-cover genre," although why Percy Jackson is any better is beyond me. Maybe something by an old economist would be better suited for him- they both seem to share a knack for writing convoluted sentences.

Coolsteph

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Feb 3 13 8:00 AM

Tenochtitlan wrote:
"Override" might be a better word, and should not be so difficult. I think most scripts that change the function of a website would require some sort of overriding. But then, maybe using Greasemonkey scripts is possible.

And, by "more depth", I don't mean something that a nine year old could read. Coolsteph is certainly looking for something more in depth. He claims to despise the "paranormal-romance-with-a-pretty-photorealistic-teenage-girl-on-the-cover genre," although why Percy Jackson is any better is beyond me. Maybe something by an old economist would be better suited for him- they both seem to share a knack for writing convoluted sentences.

I appreciate the clarification. Yes, I do want to override the Goodreads selection limit. Can you help?

(I think you're the ninth person to mistake me for a male.)

A reader might want to read the Harry Potter series which has depth and is an action-adventure children's book.

And, by "more depth", I don't mean something that a nine year old could read. Coolsteph is certainly looking for something more in depth. He claims to despise the "paranormal-romance-with-a-pretty-photorealistic-teenage-girl-on-the-cover genre," although why Percy Jackson is any better is beyond me.

I have read the Harry Potter series. I have read many fantasy series.

I don't understand what you mean by "depth." I read the His Dark Materials series, Dragonsdawn, and Joust (though I didn't like Dragonsdawn or Joust) before I was even a teenager, so I may have had an unusually precocious taste. I doubt this topic is about the question of 'depth.' I occasionally do read below my level.

If it helps in understanding my preferences, here's my Goodreads booklist:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/14138531?shelf=read

Last Edited By: Coolsteph Feb 3 13 8:15 AM. Edited 3 times.

magemaster529

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 725

Feb 3 13 10:14 AM

Well Coolsteph, your profile picture doesn't help, and when looking at your name it looks like CoolSteve.

http://minecraftservicer.blogspot.com/

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Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 3 13 4:37 PM

Depth, as in, not anything teenager fantasy. You seem to like Greek mythology. Why not go straight to the source and check out the Iliad or the Odyssey?

Coolsteph

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Feb 3 13 8:15 PM

It's not just the themes of books that makes me like them. I like dragons and the concept of dragon riders, which I why I read Joust and Dragonsdawn. However, I didn't like them because of the writing style, Romantic Plot Tumors, focus on trivial, mundane, uninteresting matters, and an inability to "get to the good part." The Illiad or the Odyssey, despite their themes, are likely to be unclear in style and cluttered. Therefore, I am not interested in reading them.

As for "teenager fantasy"---I sometimes do read those. By this, I mean the few books on the YA shelves that aren't somehow linked to romance, or "children's" books that are long and complex.

Since you apparently don't want to look into my reading list, here's some of my favorite books.

The Savage Fortress, by Sarwhat Chadda
The Mark of Athena, by Rick Riordan
The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland
The Great Powers Outage by William Boniface

But how does listing my preferences help in making a script?

Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 3 13 10:15 PM

Wow, did you really just insult two of the greatest works of literature in history?

Reading isn't about "getting to the good part;" if you read like that and you expect to only read like that you might as well be watching television or playing games. Thinking for a second that the great descriptive lyrics of classical literature is "clutter" and is "trivial" is a gross misunderstanding of literature itself. Descriptions can tell far more about a character's actions and psyche than plot. Leo Tolstoy fills hundreds of pages with extremely detailed descriptions in Anna Karenina and War and Peace; I don't think that any part of any of his his brilliant works can be considered as clutter, but only that his work is extremely dense with valuable content.

When you admire a painting, you don't simply look at what the painting is of, but you must also look at the brush strokes and colors and every other technique that the artist uses. The same is for literature. When you read, you must reflect and ruminate. Simply flipping through and reading the plot will give only a superficial glance at the characters and events. It's perfectly fine for a casual reader to flip through a captivating novel for a juicy plot while fastening their seat belts and preparing for liftoff, but no one who claims to be an "avid reader" should make this type of mistake.

Edit: Added some formatting, so it may be easier to digest for our brilliant reader here.

And, of course, I do not mean to say that the straightforward style of most modern or post-modern works are bad. But, if you do not at all appreciate detailed descriptions, and you think that there is a significant literary difference between Twilight and Percy Jackson, you are not reading carefully enough.

Last Edited By: Tenochtitlan Feb 3 13 10:23 PM. Edited 1 times.

BonzaiRob

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Posts: 2646

Feb 4 13 2:43 AM

Pokémon Factory VIP

Reading is for enjoyment. Everyone has different tastes, so you don't have to quit reading ever or not have an opinion because you don't enjoy a Great Work of Literature.

Flarsable

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 8827

Feb 4 13 4:16 PM

Of Mice and Men is also a Great Work of Literature. It has only 107 pages and six chapters. Hell, Curley's wife isn't even named or described beyond the fact that she flirts with the other men. More importantly, being a great work of literature has never meant and never will mean that everybody likes it, or that everybody needs to. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and you have no right to try and enforce yours onto someone else.

Award for Extreme Patience
Always hotter than the competition. I got the award for Braving the Marquee of Doom!

Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 4 13 5:52 PM

As I said, Flarsable, literature need not have extremely detailed descriptions, such as Of Mice and Men, but that doesn't mean that detailed descriptions need not be appreciated. Of course not everyone needs to appreciate great works of literature, as I had mentioned as well, but someone who actually dismisses these descriptions as "clutter" while still calling herself as an "avid reader" is completely mistaken about the nature of literature.

Coolsteph

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 1553

Feb 4 13 7:37 PM

Can we stop talking about personal tastes and contradictions of description and return to the point of this topic: a script that will customize Goodreads further?

Cacapulse

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Posts: 1460

Feb 5 13 5:28 PM

Pokémon Factory Worker

Then I'll repeat myself. It's impossible for you to get help here. We specialize in making tiny fake pokedexes. You are asking for what seems to be pretty advanced scripting.

I don't even think the modifications you're asking for are possible unless you ask the web developers to change the site for you.

Happy?

Visit the IRC channel so you can ask for feedback even before you post!

magemaster529

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Suggestions Board Regular

Posts: 725

Feb 5 13 6:47 PM

It's possible, anythings possible with codes. And what she's asking is very possible. Sadly, for someone with the same level of experiance in coding (Which isn't a lot.) making a script to effect the recommendation shelf capacity would mean making a fake account just to see how they write their scripts.

http://minecraftservicer.blogspot.com/

Tenochtitlan

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Registered User

Posts: 19

Feb 7 13 8:29 AM

I don't think you have any idea of what you're talking about, magemaster. Cacapulse, care to delete this thread or sanction it as a discourse into worthwhile literature?

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