Recently there was kind of a discussion, with one user being a bit mean towards the other regarding the latter posting a link to Amazon.

While I do not agree with how they brought the discussion, I think it would be great to read everyone’s opinion about what should be link, and if linking to specific websites should be forbidden.

For example, we have Open Library, BookWyrm, Inventaire, etc, if you only want to link to a book’s information, and while it is harder to find a replacement to a web site where you can buy books, users can always search for it if they want.

What are your thoughts?

  • Personally, I think that one can post links to Amazon or other closed systems from time to time, especially when it comes to books. Yes, Lemmy is OpenSource and here are also many present who condemn Google, Amazon, Facebook, … because of tracking, work ethics, privacy issues, etc. Still, it is the case that some authors and self publisher may not know better or even have no idea about systems outside Amazon. In addition, one should also consider that Amazon, for example, as evil as such companies may be, can be a stepping stone to more reach for aspiring authors.

    If one doesn’t like something, one doesn’t have to comment on it, give it a bad rating or even start a riot. One can also ignore it and let the new things to those who don’t have an extremist aversion to something.

    Just my 2 cent.

  • BookWyrm is a secondary source, so I don’t think it’s a good idea. Personally, I’d link to:

    • The book’s website, if there is (which usually just links to amazon)
    • Wikipedia page
    • OpenLibrary

    As for where to buy books, I’ve recently heard of Libreture, which have DRM-free books (see other DRM-free book source), though its database might be lacking because it’s rather new.

    • What do you mean that it’s a secondary source? It crawls data from Inventaire and OL but it also has it’s own database, for example there are books that are present there but not in OL and I think at some point OL will start crawling data from BW, too.

      Wikipedia doesn’t have a lot of information on books if they are not super well known ones, so I don’t think that’s a good idea, but it can work sometimes.

      Having links to Libreture and the other DRM-free options would be awesome, too, maybe we could create a thread with some recommendations and link it to the sidebar.

      • for example there are books that are present there but not in and I think at some point OL will start crawling data from BW, too.

        I thought it only takes book from OpenLibrary, because the last time I checked the only way to add a book was to add it on OpenLibrary. Maybe I just couldn’t find where to add it directly to BW and/or it has developed much since then.

  •  qsu   ( @qsu@fapsi.be ) 
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    3 years ago

    users can always search for it if they want.

    Fwiw, this is super difficult for books in my experience.

    Definitely better to encourage linking up an amazon than have a proliferation of content on this community where one can’t figure out (now or in the future) exactly what the post was really about.

    • How is it hard to find them, though? If you look by ISBN you have a unique and precise ID to search for them, the only case where this could not help is if the book is a bit niche and does not show up on Amazon but on some more local place, probably where it was edited.

  • What’s wrong with Amazon links? Is this sub solely for free/pirated books? Recommendations are for the content, how you choose to obtain it should be up to the reader?

    Just trying to understand the “rules” of this sub.

    • No, I think this was because people were doing stuff like “Hey look at this book how nice” and it was an amazon link, which sure fine if you want to buy it but IMO it’s more important to link to OpenLibrary, BookWyrm or GoodReads and then to something like that. It was never established as a rule, though.