# Looking for people to help test a fantasy book recommendation system
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 23, 2007, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059 "2007-12-23T22:22:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/1 "2007-12-23T22:22:48Z")
I’ve got a project that’s been kicking around my head for a while now, and I’ve decided to get a start on it. Especially since it seems to be tying in with some of the class work I’ve done.
Basically, I want to make a book recommendation system… _good_ recommendations, not that random stuff that Amazon often recommends. To make it work, though, I’m going to need some base data. I am looking for volunteers to rate books they’ve read off a list of fantasy books. As many people as possible for this, as more data will lead to better recommendations. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to rate the books. Right now it’s a short list.
I’ve just started with fantasy for now, because one genre should give me a sense of if this is truly feasible. If not, I’ll scrap the idea and let everyone know. If, however, it seems to work, I may need people to read a recommended book or two. But that’s far enough in the future that I’m not soliciting for that yet. (And I hear all the readers of SDMB let out a collective disappointed sigh, I know.)
Please e-mail me at book.recommendations at gmail dot com if you’d be willing to help me with this. Also, feel free to post here with ideas or suggestions. If nothing else, keeping this on the front page should help me to get more data!
Thanks so much, and thanks to SkipMagic for permission to start the thread.
---
### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2007, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/2 "2007-12-23T22:27:33Z")
You may want to go to [goodreads.com](http://goodreads.com) and post there as well.
---
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/3 "2007-12-24T02:44:35Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana]
You may want to go to [goodreads.com](http://goodreads.com) and post there as well.
[/QUOTE]
Excellent suggestion, thank you 🙂
---
### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/4 "2007-12-24T03:18:14Z")
Sounds like fun. I’m wondering if I’ve done it already though. Did you get some input from any Yahoo groups, like BookCrazy?
---
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/5 "2007-12-24T03:51:33Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
Sounds like fun. I’m wondering if I’ve done it already though. Did you get some input from any Yahoo groups, like BookCrazy?
[/QUOTE]
Nope, this is the first time I’ve tried soliciting ratings. Would you like to do mine too? _hint, hint_
---
### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/6 "2007-12-24T04:04:03Z")
I e-mailed you earlier, BTW.
---
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/7 "2007-12-24T04:06:26Z")
Ok, the email with the link and instructions will go out tonight. It’s 141 books, and there should be enough popular ones to get plenty of ratings.
---
### Author:  [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/8 "2007-12-24T04:26:33Z")
I just emailed you about this.
---
### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/9 "2007-12-24T04:50:08Z")
Do you mind giving an executive summary of how your recommendation system will work?
---
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/10 "2007-12-24T04:58:29Z")
Well for starters, it’s just going to be correlation calculations - how similar are Person A’s ratings to Person B’s ratings? Not close? How about Person C? When I’ve determined which people your ratings are closest to, I recommend to you things they’ve rated highly that you haven’t rated. If there’s somebody whose ratings are especially dissimilar, I’ll lower potential ratings for you if they rated it highly.
---
### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/11 "2007-12-24T11:29:18Z")
Can you not also do a multiple choice system?
I want a:
+single volume
- trilogy
+longer series
with:
+elves
+dwarfs
+wizards
+musclebound heroes
etc…
??
---
### Author:  [@Basandre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Basandre)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/12 "2007-12-24T14:00:45Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Can you not also do a multiple choice system?
I want a:
+single volume
- trilogy
+longer series
with:
+elves
+dwarfs
+wizards
+musclebound heroes
etc…
??
[/QUOTE]
Yep, that’s one of the things that I’ll add later, along with correlations for more things that just individual books. I have a number of ideas on what to base recommendations on, but the first step is getting data to do that with, and see if the basic recommendations work.
Thank you to everyone who has volunteered so far, and anyone else who is interested can still email me at the address in the OP to do some ratings.
---
### Author:  [@BlueKangaroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueKangaroo)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2007, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-people-to-help-test-a-fantasy-book-recommendation-system/431059/13 "2007-12-29T03:26:51Z")
Hey! I could do this! You and I even like some of the same books.
Off to e-mail.