Three months ago, I blogged and there was much discussion about changing international mooches so that they cost 3 points, and the book sender received 3 points.

At the time, I agreed to wait 3 months before making the change. It's been 3 months now, and so mooches now cost 3 points, and those 3 points go to the book sender.

Previously, an international book cost 2 points to mooch, but 3 points went to the book sender This was a policy meant to provide an incentive to international mooching, though it did have an inflationary effect. If you want to read more about the thinking behind the change, you can read about it here: http://blog.bookmooch.com/m/thread/bookmooch_blog/42

Note that this change only effects mooches from this point forward and has no impact on the past. This change also has no effect on how mooch ratios are calculated.

-john

BTW - not pulling my inventory, just don't expect anyone to mooch it now.But I hope to be proven wrong.

Update: April 21 - Thanks to the EIGHT people who mooched from me since I posted this,yesterday, pluss the new friend! I admit being wrong and very glad for it, as I love book Mooch.

I will still mooch from international sources assuming they are willing to send to the USA.

Also, (even the 2nd class) shipping from here is so expensive that I end up just spending all my money on this instead of giving some & getting some.

I'm sure, John, that you spent some time during those three months thinking about other ways to resolve the inflation problem. Surely you didn't just leave the discussion at the point it was three months ago. Already in these comments we see two people pulling their inventories -- and people pulling inventories is pretty much never good for BookMooch.

Would you be willing to share any of the thinking you did? Three months of brainstorming and listening to the community about alternate suggestions seems like it could come up with a lot of ideas. None of them solved the inflation problem without alienating international moochers?

This change won't really have an effect on American or British moochers, who form the majority of the BookMooch membership. I will miss the international aspect, though.

John, will you please give us the results of how this changes BookMooch? You did say that this was a trial period, and so I'm sure you're tracking the results closely. Is this something you are willing to share with the membership? I would also be interested in seeing if and how the other recent changes have altered things.

True, I don't have a million of books listed right now and most of the ones I'm currently offering are Finnish editions. So far I've had no trouble getting them moving, most of the moochers have been non-Finns, but I'm still very doubtful about the whole 3 for 3 system and how it would work in the future.. It just feel like majority beating the minority once again.

Without the extra point incentive, it will be cheaper now for me to dispose of the old books and buy new ones at bookdepository, than mooching second hand copies though BM. In the unlikely case somebody is still willing to send abroad, of course - it's more and more often now that you have "no" as a reply when you ask. And this has nothing to see with the so called book inflation, this is just the economic crisis!

I still hope that this will be just a test period, and the old rules 3:2 be back soon. Otherwise I'm afraid BM will become soon a US-only website.

I'll try to explain with an example:

to send just one pb to the US from my country (Italy), the fee is 10 euros, that is 14-15 US dollars. If the pb is thick, it will cost 14 euros, that is 21 US dollars.
( This is the reason many people living in my country try to send out more than one book in the same package btw - usually, 2-3 can fit in in the "bulk" delivery at a 21 dollars cost ).

But for simplicity, let's assume I'm shipping just one slim book: postage = 10 euros.

If now I send a pb in the US, I spend:
- the value of a 2nd hand pb ( 3 US dollars maybe? )
- postage 10 euros = 14 US dollars
Total: 17 dollars

and I get 3 points for this.

I can use these 3 points to get one 2nd hand pb,that is a 3 dollars value.

Therefore, I spend a value of 17 dollars to get an object whose value is 3 dollars. Nonsense.

If I spend only two points instead of three to get one book - as it was until yesterday - things are slightly better. It means that I can get one and a half book ( 4.5 US dollars ) by spending "only" 17 dollars.

Now, nobody in my country is any longer able to afford shipping a single book to the US, so all this is quite theoretical, but the advantage is (proportionally) the same for multiple mooches as well. It means, in other words, that the extra points in the old 3:2 ratio allowed a certain compensation of the huge int'l delivery cost.

John's reply to this remark has been in the past, "you can always use the 3 points coming from an int'l mooch to get 3 books in your country".
My comment: this is possibile in the US, not elsewhere. I would LOVE to get 3 books in my country, if I just could; unfortunately we are too few and there's lack of choice - no English books, for instance. I have 1000+ books in my wishlist now, and NONE is available in my country.

Hope this clarifies.

@ Jonathan

imho this will be a *quick* death of the int'l side of the site.

I'll definitely be more selective about what books I request internationally... which then turns me into one of those evil people that receives more books than I sent (never mind the massive cost I racked up being an angel) due to mooching more domestically.

All in all, I see this having the opposite of the desired effect. It's a shame, there are much better ways to fix the existing problems on the site.

I am afraid that the change will hurt international mooching, but as it makes international mooching more expensive, not international sending, I couldn't see the logic in pulling your inventory because of it. I guess I'm just worried that people's reactions to the change will end up being what hurts BM, more than the change itself.

bookmooch can't be in the business of subsidizing postage. if used book are too expensive to mail then they're just not going to move. perhaps another system needs to be created but i simply don't see how bookmooch can work if the price of postage exceeds the price of a new book.

I don't really see what everyone is complaining about. I know we are all allowed a ratio of up to 2:1 (2 books received for every 1 sent out), but morally, surely each member should try to keep their ratios closer to 1:1 in terms of fairness. So anyone currently abusing Bookmooch is likely to be lost, making Bookmooch a better place.

All it means really is that it will be harder for members to amass points, so the only ones I can see suffering are the Bookmooch Charities which rely on point donations from others.

So will everyone please stop complaining and moaning at John, he's only trying to make Bookmooch a better place and I think he should be applauded for his efforts!

I've spent almost 20 dollars on sending 1 book not only within Canada but within my own province. So for 20 dollars I recieved 1 point. Also in the past I have sent a box to a member in the US for about the same price. In the box there was 13 books, becasue it was a charity I smooched back 2 points per book keeping only the "extra" point. I got 13 points for sending to the charity and only 1 for sending within my country. Yes I could use that to attempt to mooch 13 books from within Canada but I would probably get one of two messages when requesting the book from a fellow Canadian: "I'm sorry that book is too heavy to send within Canada" or "If mooching within Canada you must mooch 2 or more books." Now they are willing to send but I must mooch another book, what happens if that book was the only one I wanted? Now I have to choose a book I don't want from their invintory, spend a precious point and then relist it hoping someone else will mooch it from me.

If I then place that book into my invintory and several Americans have it in their invintory as an American moocher who are you most likely to mooch from? The member that you have to spend 3 points to get it from or the memeber you can mooch it from for 1 point? This change isn't going to help international mooching especially for Canadians.

There are a few of us who are making use of the meet and mooches here in the GTA but many of the books on my WL are not books that my friends have. And there are only so many times we can share books with one another before we no longer have any books the others may be intrested in.

I really can't see myself spending 3 points for a book that I can go to the local thrift shop and buy for 2 dollars. I most likely won't be mooching internationally during this point increase unless I have to have a specific book.

I will keep my invintory up and will continue to send internationally but I don't expect many requests to do so. I hope that this doesn't kill bookmooch, but I do not see this helping international sending.

If I was in a country that wasn't so lucky (and wasn't Canada with its high internal postage), I would make a serious effort to recruit other people in my country who read books in my languages to bookmooch.

There are times when the cost of sending a book is greater than the cost of buying the same book second hand. To get around this, I limit the number I send in any one month - but that rarely happens.

A few hours ago, a "my country only" newbie outside the USA put up two books I'd genuinely like to mooch. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. First, I'd have to find an angel, which is getting more difficult. (I can't even go into the effect on angels.) Then it would cost six points instead of four. Then if I wanted to smooch someone for being lovely (affirmative!) it would be seven points total for me. The thing is, even if I didn't smooch a point I could still get those used books brand new on Amazon for basically the same amount of money, and it wouldn't take several months to get them, either. Ta-da! Two international mooches prevented.

@Rebel Sun - I think some people are surprised because they'd forgotten about it, given that John hadn't said anything for a few months. A week's notice would have gone a long way, especially since we've had newbies since then who might not have seen the initial blog post.

My wishlist is therefore no longer a list of books I'll definately mooch if they become available but a list of books I'll mooch if it is domestically available or hard enough to find that I'll consider £4.50 a decent price. The 'save-for-later' list therefore is now pretty redundant if wishlists aren't used as they used to be.

No idea how this idea was supposed to encourage international mooching, it just puts people off as it is instantly more expensive at a time when most peoples budgets are already suffering.
If many of us will be mooching less internationally due to the cost then clearly it'll be harder to send abroad too.

@Sonia: If people still want to mooch internationally from me, I'll still send. <--- Well, that's the question, really. You might still be willing to mooch from them, but are they still willing to mooch from you? Given local factors the extra point still balances out okay for you, but for a lot of people that's not the case, which means your pool of potential moochers just shrank.

What we all need is MORE people with MORE books so we have a better chance of getting what we want locally (except for Canadians who seem to need international mooching because their internal post is so wildly expensive?)

I did all what I could to support BM, I devoted several articles to BM in my blog, I talked about it with all my friends, but you can only bring a horse to the water (this is the English expression for it, right? apologies if I did it wrong but English is not my first language ). In our little European countries BM members will be few, because our countries *are* little, it cannot be helped.

Personally I think that if in the whole US there are "only" 15,800 BM members, having 700 BM members in Italy is a HUGE success. Our little, faraway country is now the 4th nation in terms of BM members after the US, the UK and Canada, and this is just great! But in absolute figures 700 people are not enough to have a strong basis for national mooches, and it will never be.

So penalizing the int'l aspect of BM by removing all incentives to int'l mooching will make people stopping sending abroad, because mooching from abroad is no longer economically sustainable. So why to send, if you cannot afford to receive?

I am now set to "ask first". To this day, no one has ever asked. I guarantee you I will send to Canada if you can wait a few days for me to make it to the post office. I say "ask first" because some days I have a little extra for postage, and some days I don't. I really hope I can change my situation soon.

On a side note, for those of you who are in Canada and any other country where the postage within your country is prohibitive...has anyone asked John if it's feasible to program BM to treat those types of transactions as "international"? Perhaps treat US to Canada as "domestic"? Perhaps redefining the mooch zones may help make the system more fair. I think it's appalling how much it costs to mail within Canada, but maybe John can do something about how BM sees that?

Just a suggestion.

Bookmooch points are currency and I would never spend more money on an item if it was easily available for less and the same goes for bookmooch points!

i'm sorry but im pulling out.i don't think this was one of the best ideas bookmooch has had.its not worth it anymore. :'(

Why pull out? Why not just wait and see>? It does you no harm to leave your books and see if they still get mooched.

There are a /lot/ of people out there with /lots/ of points who will not baulk at mooching internationally.

It's a defeatist attitude to remove your inventory because of this, a self-defeating act.

r

To the question "why would someone mooch from me for 3 points, when the book is available domestically for 1 point" - moochers have probably already been preferring domestic mooches, haven't they? I mean, why would they have spent even 2 points if they could have mooched it for one?

And as far as people being willing to *send* internationally, they will get the same deal as always: send a book, get 3 points, so what difference will it make to senders?

I don't see this making as dramatic a difference as people think. Folks who are short on points might be less inclined to mooch internationally. But on the bright side, addressing inflation will gradually lead to more people putting up more inventory, which will be great for all of us.

As for me, the change will cause me to be quite picky about which books I request internationally, although I think I've only mooched two books from other countries so far, one of which I probably wouldn't have if I had realized it was coming from overseas.

As for sending, 10% of the books I've sent out were from overseas. My account is set to "ask me" but the only time I've refused an international mooch was the one time I literally did not have enough money to mail the book to the necessary location and did not expect to have enough money in the coming weeks.

2) I don't understand the furious kvetching about equalizing the giving and receiving points for international mooches. After all, domestic mooches are 1 to 1, so what's the problem with 3 for 3?
As the Americans (at least in some of the books I read) say: "Chill out!"

I'm just glancing at what some of the messages are saying about Canadian members, and not liking what I'm seeing one bit. I don't want to take part in an "Us" vs "Them" kind of discourse. I just want to take this opportunity to give you my personal feedback.

I was really gung-ho about BookMooch when I joined a couple of years ago, because it fit with my ideals of easy international exchanges and of encouraging and supporting an alternate form of economy involving trading and bartering on an individual basis. However, as you've already heard many times, our shipping costs are so high in Canada—to ship internationally is very expensive, to ship within the country is downright ruinous—that until recently, it still made some kind of sense to use the international option, where the trade-off with extra points more or less evened things out for me. I asked my moochers to be patient as could only send out a small amount of books every month, and loved the personal exchanges and easygoing attitude of most people I dealt with. I must say however, I've often been disappointed with the fact that an overwhelming majority of US residents refuse to ship internationally, invoking high postage costs, and the fact that moocher anywhere in the world who refuse to ship outside their countries often have no compunction about mooching internationally.

Until fairly recently, I was still hanging on and using BM because it fit with my personal ethics overall; among other things, I liked knowing that I could send my ever-so-gently used books to good homes around the world; I also liked dealing with individuals rather than corporations. This even though purchasing new or used books worked out to a very similar expense, usually with less investment of time with this latter option.

To my great chagrin, with the new international point policy, using BookMooch is no longer viable for me. If I were in a financial position to donate a larger portion of my income to causes I believe in, I'd gladly keep using BM regularly, but that is not the case. With the current situation as it is, between our recent increase in postage fees and the new policy here at BM, it now makes more sense on many levels for me to purchase inexpensive books and donate them locally. Of course, there's still a worthy component to that option, though of course the international trading aspect would no longer apply.

I may occasionally keep using BM to send a few books to friends now and then to enable me to perhaps find rare or out of print books (if I have any luck in that direction), but other than that, it saddens me to say I must bow out.

I wish you the best of luck with your endeavours.

i.

i'm an english speaker in japan and there aren't that many books available as "domestic" mooches here. certainly not many of the more unusual wishlist items i've listed and have had listed for years. it's ok, i still mooch internationally, but i am running into more and more self-righteousness about the fact that i don't send internationally. the reason i don't is because when i did, almost all my inventory got mooched immediately by people in the US, which meant that more english-language books got shipped OUT of japan, leaving even fewer for the minority of english speakers here in japan. i have a lot of points right now although i'm wondering how my ratio will fare over the longterm with the changes in that system as well

i do occasionally ship abroad when approached by somebody who's been looking for a relatively rare or academic book, of course. now, this change means that the majority of my mooches will cost me more, and i'll have to send out three books here to get one back. that just doesn't make sense for me.

i'm not in this for the savings. i am lucky in that postage in japan is pretty reasonable, for domestic and for surface mail (yes, we still have surface mail!). and i am also lucky that i have a stable income and can afford it. i'm in book mooch because i like the idea that a mooched book has a longer life and won't go in the trash pile. i like the little joys i can get from the kindness of strangers and the little notes i sometimes get with my mooched books. i like getting things from around the world and seeing my books go to other english speakers here who are starved for books in their own language. it's those good feelings i hope will continue.

so the changes recently that smack of economics just make me sad. i thought the point was we all do what we are able to do; i am lucky enough to be able to do a lot. others who aren't, can't, but they can get angel mooches. it seemed like such a fair system. almost marxist.

A major advantage of BookMooch over PaperBack Swap in the US was the international community. I am sad that the participation from non-US members may be impacted (especially from all the posts so far on this) - I still am mooching internationally (well, I now live in Australia, so most of the books available are from outside my country), but that's because I have "spare" points - maybe that's what it's come to - i.e. to push those with many points to use them, and one can use them faster by mooching internationally. But the new international mooch system now favours the "rich" (i.e. those rich in points are more likely to be less affected, and thus will continue to mooch internationally) - thus I think that BookMooch is becoming more capitalist (in response to what Julia in Japan said about the old system being almost marxist!)

I would definitely like to hear the results of this later, as I'm sure you're closely monitoring (thank you for always meticulously doing this!). Like others, I am hoping and praying that this "trial period" proves to be a mistake, because I do feel like it's a bad thing. But your call is the important one, as always.

I would definitely love to see US/Canadian mooches made 2:2, if 3:3 is otherwise going to stay. That would probably be fair and accurate, and make it easier for requestors in both countries. Perhaps that would encourage more US folks to request from Canadians (which would sure help them collect affordable credits), and it would definitely make it easier for Canadians who request primarily from people in the United States.

Again, thank you, and I appreciate everything you do. I hope this proves a bad thing, but I'd like to hear the results, whatever they say to you. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAYMJnO9LBQ

I just spent 3 points mooching from Finland, now I need to find some more books to give away as I have 3.9 points left. See, it's working already!

I have tried to explain the reasons behind these refusals in my previous post (it's just my interpretation of course - time will tell if it's correct).

The "cost for point" with this change has just increased for all int'l mooches, so that now mooching from other countries is no longer economically convenient for a good number of us.

But:

If you only mooch nationally, there's no need to send internationally! You can go on by sending to your country only, since the "cost for point" is cheaper (this is not true for Canada, as many said, but it's true all through Europe, to a higher or lower extent).

By switching your account to "domestic only", chances of having one's books mooched will decrease of course, esp. in case of English books in not-English-speaking countries (this includes most European countries).

So as a result in the coming weeks/months many people living in these countries will be spending all the points they have left, and pull out their inventories from BM to look for different trading/selling solutions (which btw is the medium-term intention of many people I know).

I snapped and bought some books from Amazon. Even the international moochers couldn't help shorten my wishlist. :(

As I understand it, the reason for the points change was because points inflation was causing people's inventories to become stale, am I right? The resultant points spending spree since the announcement must have gone a fair way to cleaning out a lot of this backlog I'd imagine?? I've certainly send out a number of books that I'd had for a while.

So, my suggestion would be to have an annual 3 month amnesty, during which, we return to the 2:3 ratio and give international Moochers a chance to snap up 'bargains' and for inventories to get a bit of a spring clean.

Would anyone support this idea??

It's just economics. For most European users, sending within Europe & countries that fall within the same postal range is cheaper than sending further way.

With international mooches now costlier in points, many will deal with it by lowering the limit they are willing to spend per point. Because in many cases the local pool of users and books makes mooching only locally NOT AN OPTION like it is for you folks in the US.

Now who's the ignorant one ?

I am willing to send to Canada because it's not bad. Not that I have anything good on my shelf at this time. I changed my status to ask first. I have access to a postage machine now and played with it today. I put a good sized tradesized book on it and picked random countries to send it to get a postage cost. (I was alone and bored at work today). I would probably do Canada for 2pts/book-unless it was a really heavy book. Anywhere else and it would just depend on my finances at the time. When I joined a couple of years ago I had a husband and our combined income made us quite comfortable. Now I'm a single mother who has to limit her expenses on what is basically a hobby.

The pt increase won't affect me much because I rare mooched internation anyway. Most of the books I want are easy enough to find in the US that even paying 2 pts for them was too much. Unless it was something I had been waiting along time for or hard to find. And I would pay 3 pts for those.

@DubaiReader - That is an idea I could definitely get behind! I've been trying to figure out what I can do to help make mooching from me less expensive, but it's slightly more complex than it was a few weeks ago in terms of giving both sides of the transaction a fair deal.

There really are books for which I would have no problem paying three points, and I've essentially done so in the past due to smooching people. However, even on my wishlist there aren't a ton of "three point" books, and I often don't mooch from my wishlist anyway. One thing I like about BookMooch is the ability to try a book you're not really sure about. For me, most of those books are a good deal for one point and were often an okay deal for two, but three points is a bit much when someone just wants to test the waters.

I love bookmooch just for what it is and the joy I get from sharing something I love with someone else who will love it just as much. I know sending books can be expensive, I've experienced that just as well as everyone else. Personally I've always found that sending books internationally is worth it just in itself. There is something joyful to me about sharing my love with someone across the world who I would never have been able to connect with normally.

I figure whether I'm spending points or dollars I will be getting something I will love and cherish. Because I love what bookmooch offers I would much rather spend those 3 points on an international mooch than spend the cash on the same book. Also the same goes for sending books internationally. I would much rather spend my money to share my book with someone who'll love it like I did then go out and buy new book. I can always turn someone down if I really can't afford it and until I can no longer afford it, I will continue to share my books with anyone who shows an interest.

but just look at a sample of the first 12 countries listed:
Browse members by country
Albania: 1 people
Algeria: 2 people
Argentina: 42 people
Australia: 594 people
Austria: 63 people
Azerbaijan: 1 people
Belgium: 88 people
Bosnia and Herzegowina: 1 people
Brazil: 217 people
Brunei Darussalam: 1 people
Bulgaria: 3 people
Canada: 851 people

Canada is not nearly so member-poor as the majority of countries! The sole reason BM is getting flack about this is because John is trying to address the lack of inventory being added whilst most long-term moochers have so many points to 'spend'. See my answer to Garrettt.

@Deborah Bertsch - something else I would like to see brought in - lower international mooch cost for countries with very small BM numbers - perhaps under 50 members international mooches should only cost 2 points?

@Denise - a number of people suggested a continental/regional 2 point mooch, e.g. Europe, Asia, Africa, N. America, S. America be introduced. This would address some of the issues about 3-point postage and encourage mooches to be more local generally. John's suggested mooch-meets are also a way to address high local postage costs for many city dwellers.

@ Darcie - so good to see an attitude like yours from the US. I have had a run of refused requests from the US despite always sending everywhere far in excess of my mooches.

@Becca "there are much better ways to fix the existing problems on the site." Let's hear them then! We all need some inspiration.

@msaggie You do still get 1/10 point for each listing!

@Jonathan :-) I do wonder whether the Canadians here have realised how much they are repeating themselves.
@Garrettt Whilst most people have sympathy with high Canadian internal postage rates, it really is not down to Bookmooch or John and a bit counterproductive for Canadians to keep moaning about it as if he can!
A BM acquaintance in Laos regularly crossed into a neighbouring country as an alternative to paying extremely high postage from his own country. You would do better to start a Canadian forum to look at ways to pressurise your postal services to reduce local postage - after all it can't cost them more to send internal mail than external mail - and to come up with a series of moots or other ways to overcome this local problem.

@DubaiReader Love the idea but think 3 months might strain the BM inflationary rate. Why not one month? John could pick the month when least mooching normally takes place.

As Bill Bennett said "The idea of recycling books is brilliant."
Also "There are times when the cost of sending a book is greater than the cost of buying the same book second hand." This is true for books available everywhere.
I have always aspired to be as "green" as possible, from decades before it bacame fashionable, or even seen as essential. However many books are not available everywhere. I sent a huge Oxford English Dictionary to a moocher in Egypt because it was not obtainable there. For the postage I could have sent a dozen books elsewhere and if I factored my fuel costs to get to the PO in I might give it all up, but the pleasure of giving scarce or difficult to obtain books to people who really want them is what keeps me going.
Books that are easily obtainable in one's own country for a lower cost than the postage will be should really not be mooched thoughtlessly! John's point change will give us all a reason to consider this. As to the people who complain they can't spend their points - give a bunch to charities. It will make you feel better.

Everyone else, bemoaning Americans who don't send overseas. I've recently redone my entire shipping methods. Unless the book will cost more then 4 times the price of shipping domestically, I ship overseas. The way I see it, if it costs the price of shipping 3 books, thats fair! If not everyone thinks so... that's too bad.

I'm hoping my liberality will encourage others to be more open, as I was encouraged.

I'll still be mooching from overseas, even at 3 points.

Someone commented about not receiving replies to the 'ask first' - since they only show up as emails & not in an easy to notice way on bookmooch (I don't look at each book in inventory to look for reserves), just overactive spam filter could be preventing people from knowing that someone wants to mooch from them internationally, if they are on 'ask first'

I've been debating with myself if being 'ask first' and saying yes to 90% of international mooches...or just going 'will send' and turning down mooches for the overly large & heavy books is better. I feel bad rejecting mooches.

I'm not happy about the 3 points for international mooches & will likely give me some pause about making them - just being a little more selective.

As far as anyone can tell, accounts that are inactive/vacationed/on hold still receive wishlist emails. This has never been refuted by TPTB. This is a huge reason why people don't get the wishlist emails quickly enough, leading to complaints about people never getting the books they want, leading John to make irrational decisions instead of fixing the real problems.

I guess the main reason I don't get the fuss about the extra international point is that I often wound up giving the "bonus" points away anyway because I knew I could still get an international book if I wanted. Come to think of it, I actually gave away more than I took in.

But let's be real, the vast majority of vacationed accounts are due to failure to respond to a request, and they should not be getting wishlist notifications.

One of the root problems of the site is there is no differentiation between the two types of "vacations"

I think that one of the main points is that you cannot even put a value on the points here. Depending on the value of each book you offer or mooch and the shipping costs to each country you send books to, they can have different values. And if you mooch and send more than one book per month, you can't even tell if you got "your money's worth".

Personally, I'm gonna keep using this place like I did before: Sell most of my books on the internet or give them to friends and put the rest up here. Yes, I admit that I prefer to sell my books because it's quicker and easier because, with the service I sell them to, I get to send out 10 or more books at once. The main reason for me to even use services like that or Bookmooch is that I have limited space and every now and then I need to "get rid" of books. There's no really good way of doing so by giving them to a library or local charities here so I found other ways. Now, I could just throw books into the trash if I can't sell them but then I figured someone somewhere may want them so I put them up here. I don't even care if I get to mooch as many books or where I get them from. I keep mine in my inventory and if someone mooches from me, that's great. If they don't...well, that is fine with me, too. But I won't throw a fit about changes like this here. Honestly, if you see BM as a reliable source to quickly satisfy your need for a certain book, you're usually wrong anyway. Sometimes, it takes ages for a copy of a book on your wishlist to be listed. And sometimes books will spend months in your inventory before someone mooches them. But so what? What else will you do with them that will get you more money or more of the good feeling of making someone happy by sending them "that one stupid little ancient book"? :)

At the moment, as I believe I've said before, this change has actually made me more willing to send books I was 'hoarding' before. I may be spending a dollar more, per point per ratio per whatever, than if I bought it used, but I like not having to use my credit card online. I also come across books I never would have seen on here. When moochers offer a two for one deal? I feel obligated to check it out, and ultimately mooch.

And maybe for Canadians we can do the silly thing and mooch out of Canada and then ship back into Canada? :B

I am trying to cut down on my book intake so giving up points isn't a problem to me!

To avoid this situation, when I list a book that is too large or heavy to ship overseas, I put a note in the conditions that the book is too heavy to ship international. That keeps me from having to reject mooches.

Honestly I don't think is fair for people to try to compensate the faults in the "new system" by giving away their own points, ie money!

If people think that the "new system" is at fault, okay, let's prove it. Let's adopt the new rule as it is supposed to be, let's play the game as John asks us to play, no "special offers" or discounts for anybody besides the ones already in place before the change. Int'l mooches will probably be affected and then, at the end of the test period, we'll see what conclusions John drives out of the results.

If we all go on acting by good will, there's the risk John sees int'l mooches go on more or less like before, so that he will conclude everything is fine with the new rule.

There is no way that TPTB can separate these international mooches from those of continuing members, so any "results" that transpire after the three months are up will need to be interpreted with that in mind.

Oh, I agree, that will be an issue. I actually hadn't realized it, but that will /look/ like a burst of activity, but perhaps it can be localized? And I mean, John may be too busy to answer, but he and admins do read most things on this site, especially blog comments. Someone invloved with TPTB knows...

Also, I would assume unfinished mooches are not listed the same in statistics? Do we have someone interested in doing stastics about Bookmooch reading still or did we lose them.

(I love the fact that someone introduced TPTB as a way to speak of...
Cult TV FTW!)

But if it's the way this site must go, then I'll acquiesce.

I hope the BM bank is getting stronger after this ;p

Any news on regional mooch, John? I think Indonesian moochers like me could get books from Philippines or Australian moochers, vv.

Does anyone think this might help Peru, the Philippines, et c.?

postage prices have doubled in my country, and the new weight limits means the price has trippled for overseas mooches. Sending a pocket book overseas now costs twice to three times as much as buying it - so instead of mailing I might as well pay the moocher - but buying strangers books for nothing (since I cannot get anything for my points these days) is insane. Not sure how I can continue.

As for UK postage Lynn, surface mail is the same price to anywhere in the world from the U.K. for printed paper and packages. Surface mail to France takes about 2 weeks, the same as most of my US mail, to Australia and the Philippines normally about 4 months.: see
http://www2.royalmail.com/delivery/delivery-options-international/surface-mail/prices

The_BookMooch_Journal_Project site page about how journalling works: COLOR = BLUE> http://bookmoochjournals.com/about/

the Bookmooch Wiki entry on journalling:
The_BookMooch_Journal_Project

and BookMooch Journals forum:
BookMooch Journals

The forum is a good place to advertise the availability of journals. (It is also sensible to check that anyone requesting a journal from you understands what journalling involves. Journal owners spend a lot of time and effort on their journals and it is sad when they do not circulate freely. We'd love to see potential journallers in the forum! It is not a high traffic zone, you won't be overwhelmed with messages!

I do the same as you from my personal account but always check that the recipient's ratio will bear it first. It is worth warning new users of this fact, as many fall foul of it. There are a lot of generous moochers out there. Unfortunately when you give away points, you cannot also give away ratio.