I did the spreadsheet things as well (and so far I seem to be the only one completely out of whack 
).
Just in addition to the spreadsheet, I work shifts, so I may be working weekends anyway, it’s just unlikely on Sunday, so don’t worry about whether the time slot for the reading works for me. If I’m free when you’re reading (and awake I guess 
) I’ll join. If not, I won’t, not a problem 
I’ve pretty much decided to skip Haruhi at this point. I have too much other stuff going on that I’ve been neglecting, so reading a difficult book doesn’t make sense right now. If I had nothing else going on I could probably push through and read the book with some difficulty, but I really shouldn’t be spending that kind of time on it.
So far Konbini has been relatively straightforward, probably slightly easier than Kino actually. So I think I’ll stick to that for some light reading while focusing on other things. I do have a copy of Haruhi in English, so I’ll probably read it that way just so I can keep up with people talking about the story in the threads.
Y-you can always ask questions!
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Do not like 
but I understand
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I do not like and refuse to understand
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Oh man I’m tempted to jump to Konbini along with @StarLi and leave Haruhi for a time when my grammar is better.
The only thing that made Haruhi more appealing was the fact I know the source material (well, I watched the anime so much in HighSchool I know the first episode word for word and the Hare Hare Yukai off by heart), so I can kinda assume what’s being said, but in some parts, it’s been not so enjoyable.
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I guess we’ll have to be more careful in the future with rating nominations. 
Based on the feedback on a few members, this book is a little more difficult than let on from it’s difficulty rating. In fact, it was rated less difficult than Kino. If we can fine tune the process in some way to minimize the results from being skewed, that would be good. 
In any event, I feel bad that I’ve contributed to skewing the rating based on my vote in that poll. And that has made it a bit difficult for members to stick around for the first go round. The good news we still have readers participating in both groups. 
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The actual difficulty is more in line with what I had originally heard, as opposed to the sample pages which I remember feeling bearable. But perhaps I only partly read or skimmed them; I don’t really remember at this point. I’m not sure what we could do to fine tune the process though.
How is the difficulty for you so far?
How did we end up rating this as seeming easier than Kino? 
The writing style and vocabulary in that were pretty simple. I even thought it was for a younger audience based on that alone (until it got pretty dark/gory).
I have a feeling, and I’m guilty of this too, that people didn’t read enough of the samples to accurately rate them. There were so many that it would have taken longer than most people have time for to read 2-3 pages of all of them. Maybe we could also include the unique vocab stats from FloFlo if they’re available? And maybe change the rating guidelines/questions but I’m not sure how yet.
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It is quite difficult in that the sentences are quite difficult to parse. I have to look up words no matter what, so that’s not really an issue I’m focusing on, but the run on sentences do take some getting used to, especially compared to Kino and what little else I’ve read so far.
I’m still hopeful it’ll get easier as the chapters go on.
Now I’m curious what the rated difficulty was. Will have to check later when I’m on my computer.
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Maybe we simply need to adjust the speed and take it slower?
@Naphthalene @LucasDesu? Ramp it down to 10 pages a week from 15… at least for the first few weeks? (Then maybe pick up speed again as we - by we I mean those of you who are better/stronger readers/better with grammar - get used to the writing style?)
Either way… while I haven’t been reading much of it, I intend to stick to it for the Summer, at least.
I checked and it’s just that we have twice as many people voting on Kino than on Haruhi. Plus, a sizable part of those voting on Haruhi are advanced learners, definitely biasing the value.
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Yeah, I think a fair chunk of the members of the beginner’s bookclub voted on it here possibly as Kino almost was picked a few times in that club, so people from that club voted on it and voted on its difficulty, somewhat skewing the results a little.
I’d vote in favour of that.
Or maybe have a chapter every few weeks rather than reading a portion of a chapter, it’s a little awkward to read on ebook because of the cut off points, so I usually just aim to finish the chapter at around the same time the club is set to finish the chapter. If that makes sense.
But that’s totally just my own weirdness.
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I’m not sure either, but one thing that @Naphthalene brings up does make sense. The people who read and rated Kino aren’t the same people who read and rated Haruhi. Additionally, the ones who contributed the Haruhi difficulty poll aren’t all currently reading with us. I’m not sure if we are already doing this, but maybe we need to have a difficulty poll each time a book is nominated. That way we get a more accurate measurement based on the level of the available readers. That, but also encourage all those voting in the main poll to take the time rate all the nomination samples. I know I don’t read samples of any of the books that have unappealing descriptions.
I personally don’t have any problems reading Haruhi. But I don’t want to lose any more members due to the difficulty.
You make a good point. I also concede to being guilty of this. Perhaps having additional information might give more insight for those on the fence or unaware of the challenge they may be facing. The only problem I have with this approach is that some people equate word count with difficulty, which is simply not true all the time.
The only issue I have is that we’ve already lowered the pages per week from three a day to two a day. Getting people on board for a faster pace seemed to not work in the past. Besides, we’re already at 20 weeks with the other group ending earlier than us. So it’s certainly not a call I could make on my own.
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That could be possible to do it for a couple of weeks. Going to 10 pages instead of 15 for 3 weeks only increases the schedule by one week (so 21 total), which isn’t that big of a change anyway.
I do agree that we should ask more people though, so here goes:
- No change to schedule
- Next week is 10 pages long
- Next two weeks are 10 pages long
- Next three weeks are 10 pages long
- Next week is 15 pages long, but vote again
- Other
0
voters
The main reason for the “vote again” option is that I am thinking people may have gotten used to the style/pace by that time. Maybe I’m over optimistic, though.
Also @seanblue, would that change your decision to drop the book?
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My vote for “other” just means “I’m fine with all the options”
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I probably missed quite a bit, but I have finished this week’s part. Now that my book has arrived and I don’t need to read the 立ち読み on my phone, I’ll go over it and see how that goes. And if I get enough of it to ask questions. 
I voted for voting again, if only because next week コンビニ starts, and, well. Increases the workload of the people doing both. 
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Same, and with limited time that’s not going to change. I don’t think we can expect people to read the samples of books they’re not interested in. If we force them, they’ll either pick the “I don’t know” option or skew the results by arbitrarily picking one of the other options.
Floflo also has something about density, but @Raionus would have to clarify exactly what that means if we wanted to reference it. Also, some books aren’t on Floflo, so it won’t be consistently useful unless @Raionus suddenly starts added every single intermediate book club nomination. And at least one (魔法少女育成計画) doesn’t have an ebook, so it’ll likely never get added to Floflo.
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No, in this case I think it’s just above my level. Changing the pace for a few weeks won’t change the fact that I have other things I need to be focusing on (throughout the whole summer probably). I need to improve both my grammar and vocab before I would feel comfortable reading Haruhi again (part of my Japanese time this summer will be dedicated to grammar).
And I agree that slowing the pace beyond a couple weeks doesn’t make sense. It’s already taking 20 weeks, and we shouldn’t make it 30. The reason we allow longer books here than in the beginner book club is because of the faster pace.
My only recommendation is to not make the same mistake we did with 魔女の宅急便 in beginner book club. If you get halfway through and there’s only a few people left (especially if it’s after Konbini is done), treat it as a side book for those left to finish while another book is voted on for the whole group to read.
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This sounds like a sensible idea
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