Advanced Japanese Book Club (Now reading: 本陣殺人事件)

[NicoleRauch]

@yukinet

The scores are only ordinal so it doesn’t make sense to take the average.

Sorry but I can’t follow you here… Of course the average does not need to match one of the scores (why would it anyway?), it rather conveys information on the overall distribution of opinions, and that’s what I’d like to capture. An example: The median of [1, 1, 1] is the same as the median of [1, 1, 5], namely 1, so it totally swallows the information that there was one person who thought the book is super-hard. Using the average calculation you get 1 vs. 2.33 which reflects this distribution of votes much better in my opinion.

Why do you think the average doesn’t make sense?

@yukinet

if you take the median the result is one of the poll questions not a fraction

Not necessarily; the median of [1, 2] would still be 1.5, no?

[Belthazar]

You should use the average of the mode and the median.

[NicoleRauch]

@Belthazar

You should use the average of the mode and the median.

I… think I’m good, thank you

Besides, the mode of [1, 1, 5] would also be 1, so nothing to be gained here imho…

[anon9067898]

@NicoleRauch

Not necessarily; the median of [1, 2] would still be 1.5, no?

the median of [1,2] is any number between 1 and 2. ( you could say between minimal and moderate effort)

@NicoleRauch

?), it rather conveys information on the overall distribution of opinions

So does the median. for most distribution that have a median and mean, AFAIK, you can use the median to describe what the mean was describing.

@NicoleRauch

Using the average calculation you get 1 vs. 2.33 which reflects this distribution of votes much better in my opinion.

on the other hand the mean is more prone to noise. with 3 sample you don’t really have a lot of confidence in your decision.

the methodological problem starts when you assign the “ordinal data” numerical equivalences, why isn’t the numbers [2,4,6,8,10] or [2,3,6,8,10]? why is one set of number better than the other. when you do this transformation from “hardness” domain to real number domain, you become able to add and subtract them, something you couldn’t do before, so you’re adding addition ordinal data. something that you couldn’t do that with the original. is [1, 5] the same as [2,4] or [3]? the answer depends on the choice of the numerical equivalence

But honestly it’s more of personal opinion since people are aware of the 1 to 5 scale.(sorry for the long rant)

Calculate mean of ordinal variable

MeasuringU: Can You Take the Mean of Ordinal Data?

[NicoleRauch]

@Naphthalene

I don’t mind at all if you can take care of the poll! It would help a lot indeed.

Sure thing!

---

In other words, if y’all haven’t voted on the difficulty of the books nominated so far, now is the time

[NicoleRauch]

As promised, here is the poll for the next book

Please vote for up to five books. The nominations are linked in the original post. The difficulty ratings are from Dec 4th, 2020.

• Fast: 86―エイティシックス― (2.63)
• Fast: アウト (OUT) 上 (2.40)
• Fast: くま クマ 熊 ベアー (2.00)
• Fast: クォンタムデビルサーガ アバタールチューナーⅠ (2.60)
• Fast: 狼と香辛料 (2.67)
• Fast: マスカレード・ホテル (1.89)
• Fast: 容疑者Xの献身 (2.33)
• Fast: 風の谷のナウシカ (3.13)
• Fast: 海辺のカフカ (上) (2.33)
• Fast: 騎士団長殺し 第１部 (2.33)
• Fast: すべてがFになる (2.25)
• Fast: 化物語(上) (2.80)
• Hard: 薮の中・将軍 (3.60)
• Hard: 檸檬 (3.56)
• Hard: 風立ちぬ (3.00)
• Hard: 午後の曳航 (3.00)
• Hard: 人間失格 (3.14)

[Belerith]

Such an easy vote!

[Naphthalene]

Yes, at this point I might just randomly click 5 times and go with that…

[icefang97]

I’m suprise right now 人間失格 is winning. I was thinking maybe everyone would found it too hard are not interested. It’s still anybody’s game though

[NicoleRauch]

I’m also surprised! I had expected to win Spice and Wulf this time around for sure, but it’s only #4 atm…

Maybe people are getting the hang of the classic books by now XD

[Belerith]

Its cameo in a manga we read on here influenced at least my decision. And since it’s a new addition, the example pages for this are much fresher in my mind than the other books.

I’m also trying not to pick up any long series right now, which is why I didn’t vote for spice and wolf.

There’s clearly too many interesting books in this club, I don’t think I can be disappointed by the results.

[Aislin]

My first reaction was “Ohhh it’s so exciting it was nominated. No way I’m reading Dazai in the original, but it would be fun to read the threads”.
And now when it’s actually winning I’m starting to get tempted… I actually did read it twice already - novel version in Polish and Junji Ito’s manga adaptation in English (it basically has all the book stuff and Ito’s bonus add-ons). So by now I nearly know it by heart… And I did check the sample and I actually can follow more or less…
But I already stuffed my schedule full with other things…

It’s not even like it’s my favorite Dazai’s book, my favs are some of his short stories.
I mean, who wouldn’t want to read Judas/Jesus fanfiction?

[icefang97]

The poll switch. Now we have 容疑者Xの献身 in first by 3 votes. I’m glad because I wasn’t sure I was good enough or had time for 人間失格. I kinda secretly hoped it did not win but still wanted it to win. Weird eh! I wonder of many days left until the closure of the poll. I doubt it will change much since everyone seems to have already voted.

[NicoleRauch]

@icefang97

I wonder of many days left until the closure of the poll.

I was wondering about that myself… and hoping for a few more participants We had 27 and 24 participants in the previous polls. It’s a bit sad to see that more than a quarter of the voters dropped out. But maybe that’s just life

Alright then
@Azmo I wonder whether you are still interested in running the club for your nomination in case it wins? You have not participated in running the general book club recently, so maybe you’ve moved on by now? (which is totally fine, we just need to know for organizational reasons).

In case Azmo does not want to run the club for 容疑者X if it wins, would anybody else be interested in running it? This entails creating a home thread, coming up with a schedule, creating a new thread at the start of each week of reading, and running some polls at the end.

(If nobody would like to, that’s also fine, I don’t mind running it, but I thought it would be nice to have somebody else for a change…)

[seanblue]

@NicoleRauch

We had 27 and 24 participants in the previous polls. It’s a bit sad to see that more than a quarter of the voters dropped out.

I didn’t vote because nothing stood out and I have my own backlog of things to read.

@NicoleRauch

If nobody would like to, that’s also fine, I don’t mind running it, but I thought it would be nice to have somebody else for a change…

Translation: “SAVE ME!!”

[icefang97]

@seanblue

@NicoleRauch

We had 27 and 24 participants in the previous polls. It’s a bit sad to see that more than a quarter of the voters dropped out.

I didn’t vote because nothing stood out and I have my own backlog of things to read.

That was my theory. No interest or no time. I get that feeling. I mostly voted because of 人間失格.

@seanblue

Translation: “SAVE ME!!”

That seems accurate Can’t help you because I have no interest in 容疑者X and I already run the endless book club so…

Good luck

[Belerith]

I’m sorry I’ve just been profiting off of the hard work of book club thread creators… It’ll have to continue a bit longer until I’m not accessing the forums on my phone only anymore at least.

[NicoleRauch]

@seanblue

Translation: “SAVE ME!!”

Ahaha nice interpretation But not exactly true… I really like running book clubs! And it wouldn’t even increase the load because I‘m running Snow Country right now and the new club would be the replacement.
So I would be happy to run it but if somebody else wants to, then that’s also fine as I don‘t want to cling to it.
Also… I don’t know how to describe this… I sometimes feel that other people add more „soul“ to the clubs they are running? Like, in keeping the group together and engaged and stuff. I know I don’t do that, and so I wanted to open up the opportunity for somebody else to step up and run a club with more „soul“.

[Kyayna]

@NicoleRauch

We had 27 and 24 participants in the previous polls. It’s a bit sad to see that more than a quarter of the voters dropped out.

On my part, the reason I didn’t vote is simply because right now, life is super overwhelming, and so I’m not sure what I can commit to as far as reading goes. I didn’t want to vote, only to then not actually read with the group.
I may have time for one book club overall, but then I’ll just read whichever chosen book I’m most interested in, but even that is only if I have time, and that’s a big if.
So yeah, just didn’t want to skew the votes is all.

Fingers crossed you’ll have enough active participation though, be a shame for the Advanced club to fizzle out so early on really. Wish I could be more present at the moment, but we’ll see when all the other stuff calms down for me.

[NicoleRauch]

Aaaaand the winner is…

容疑者Xの献身

Thanks to everyone who replied to me! Of course I am aware that at the moment everything is really unpredictable, plus (especially at this level) people often follow their own reading paths, and so it’s just natural that people come and go. Maybe next time around then

For running the club, if nobody steps up within the next ~24 hours, I will run it.

When should we start reading the new pick? Usually we take a standard break of one week after a book is finished, which would mean we’ll start on January 23rd, 2021. What do you think about that?

• A one-week break is fine for me (i.e. start on January 23rd)
• I want to start later (please explain)