Harry Potter Review Contest: 50 winners
We already have a Harry Potter Book Pile photo contest (one entry shown on the right). Well, how about a review contest too? The deal:
- Five reviewers get a $50 gift certificate to Amazon, Abebooks, Booksense or any independent bookseller.
- Fifty get a free membership (for them or as a gift), a handy CueCat barcode scanner, for entering more of their books, and eternal glory.
- We end it Monday, August 6.
- We're going to use the new review-rating feature. As many know, this only allows "thumbs-up" ratings.
Liam Weasley, with Scabbers
- The five reviews with the most thumbs-ups will win the bigger prize.
- The rest will be randomly picked from all members who both wrote a review and voted for others' reviews.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.* We're going to have anti-abuse measures in place, and we think the top five will be clean.** The interest level will be very high. After all, the Harry Potter group on LibraryThing has seen some 11,532 messages.
Have fun tonight. Me? I'm watching over the littlest Weasley, while my wife and niece party with the wizards.
*If we get a lot of sock-puppet votes, we may make the top-five part of the contest only count votes from established members.
**But I won't be reading the reviews myself. I am stuck in book five, recently restarted. Arg.
Labels: contest, harry potter, labelled for your delectation, ocelot, reviews
posted by Tim at 10:21 PM
18 Comments:
Book 5 was a struggle for me also. I purchased a copy the day it was released -- a copy that I finally donated to the Cambridge Public Library book sale, after trying several times to finish reading it. Then, I purchased a second copy a year ago and finished reading it (at last) this past Memorial Day. It was a challenge, but it was worth it. When you make it to Book 7, be sure to read the dedication.
I never got past the third book. The fourth sat on my shelf for ages, and I just recently passed it on unread.
The third is my favorite so far, and my wife's too—she's read all six, and is bravely making her way through seven now. Four was also good. I gather than five is a slog for many. For me, my disposable reading time crashed when I started LibraryThing. So, basically, I have only one person to blame for not reading more—you guys.
I find the "Happening Now" script on the front page strangely addicting.
Wow. I devoured the first six Harry Potter. Must just be me...
Got seven now, but am mildly surprised that it is only up to 1500 at 9:45 PM EDT the day of purchase...
I'm enjoying book 7...200 pages to go. I think I'll finish it tomorrow though.
I only just read the first 6 over spring break in March of this year. I thought it might take me until July.
It didn't. They sucked me in while my graduate research sat untouched.
Also, I've noticed that you haven't put labels on your posts lately. I like labels. ;)
I started to read Book 1 but found it was so poorly written, I gave up there and then. Have not read any since. The hype is just as off-putting as there are hundreds of books for children/adolescents that are more engaging, intelligent and better written. And I don't mean Lord of the Rings! Philip Pullman, anyone?
How can you judge how engaging, intelligent and well-written a book is if you don't finish reading it? Not to mention that it's a series, and the style gets richer and deeper as the series goes on. You don't have to like it, but you can't meaningfully criticize it without having read it.
I'd also say that when you have such a massively popular series, good criticism has to be informed by why it was popular. Books that so many people have loved always have something to them, even if that something is not something you would appreciate.
Ironically, I gave up reading Philip Pullman for roughly the same reasons anonymous gave up reading Harry Potter. I own and love all seven Harry Potter books, but I gave up less than 100 pages into the first of Pullman's series...
To each their own!
Here I was, feeling guilty for neglecting my duties while pursuing the Great Harry Potter Series Re-Read of 2007 before tackling book #7 (which just arrived today--getting the UK edition was worth the extra wait)... Now I can call it "research" for your contest!
Out of curiosity, will there be any method of balancing amount of exposure? I imagine reviews that are already up will statistically get more thumbs up than reviews that are posted on the 6th. Reviews per day, or something?
Sorry. Christopher is working on having different sorts, which will change the dynamic.
T
Right after I submitted my review, all the reviews disappeared from the book page! Did I break it?
Hmm.. seems to be affecting all reviews on the site. Maybe Tim is making those changes he mentioned...
Hmm.. looks as though I might have been right, because I now see the option to sort by votes. Actually, I wish you hadn't added that during the contest. I'm sorry I can't put my hands on a relevant citation right now, but the experimental evidence I've read suggests that presenting the results that way can result in path-dependence in the voting. Far better, IMHO, would be to randomize which reviews appear on the first page of results.
BTW, thanks for the motivation to write a review while the book was still fresh in my mind. :)
Christopher here.
I thought that I would post a link to the LT discussion that highlights the changes made to review listings. It's probably a better place to voice your ideas about the changes because there will be more interaction.
RSI Group: Review Listing Changes
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So, when will winners be announced?
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