Updated CoverGuess and Contest

We've revamped CoverGuess, our fun, collaborative cover-tagging game. We've made it faster, and changed some rules. Very soon we'll be releasing a cool new feature based on it. (Hint: You'll be able to search with it.) And we’re giving out prizes to LibraryThing members who play.

Check it out: https://www.librarything.com/coverguess



Since 2010 LibraryThing has been running CoverGuess, a fun game inspired by Google's ImageLabeler, in which members describe a series of book covers with as many tags as they like. The goal is to describe the covers in the same way as other members, with points awarded for each tag that matches up with another member’s tag.

Now we’re launching a new and improved version of the game! We’re asking members to concentrate on the eight most relevant tags (you can add more, but you won’t receive points for the extra tags), and to avoid using simple color tags. You can use colors with other elements—”blue horse” or “green field”—but avoid tags like “red” or “yellow.” (We're going to get covers' predominant colors another way, so we don't want you to have to waste your time labeling them.)

Scoring has changed slightly. You get multiple points for multi-word tags that match up. For example, matching “green field” will get you two times the usual points, while matching “bird in cage” will get three times the usual points.

In the thirteen years we’ve been running CoverGuess, LibraryThing members have added more than 3.2 million tags to book covers, and we’re very pleased to say that we now have an amazing use for this data, in the form of our new AI Search, and a forthcoming feature that will involve searching for books by cover.

CoverGuess Contest: We’re running a month-long contest to celebrate the launch of the new CoverGuess! We’ll be keeping score from May 12th–June 12th, with prizes going to the top ten players, as well as ten other randomly selected participants. The top player will receive an extra grand prize as well.

We’ve got a selection of stickers, coasters, tote bags, stamps, t-shirts and CueCats (more details to come) to give away, so come check it out here, and start tagging: https://www.librarything.com/coverguess

The annoying choices of do I use American terminology so I get more matches, or call things by their proper names. Aeroplane. Multicolour.

(yes, the answer is use both, if I notice in time)

After filling out cover guess for "Dark Ages America" and describing the smoking statue of liberty, noticed everyone else described a peep hole, had to blow it way up to check for that peephole, may in the torch, lol. Is it supposed to work that way as covers change?

https://www.librarything.com/work/397901/covers

>2 Aquila: Neither dialect's spelling variation is proper but both are correct. Hope this helps.

>4 rosalita: Well done on spotting my facetious remark!

How odd! I have never heard of this game in all the years I have been here! Where has it been hiding?

>6 krazy4katz: More > Games and Community Projects > Cover Guess

We're going to search on exact matches, but also doing some wizardry involving synonyms, so plane, aeroplane and so forth are all good. You might not get points, but aren't the points the friends we made along the way?

>5 Aquila: We'll done, you!

Time sink!

Good grief, the state of some of these images!

>10 lilithcat: Many time sinks!

>11 justjim: It helps to open the work page in a new tab, then look for a user-uploaded version of the cover for better resolution & larger image (when you click Info).

If a tag I enter doesn't have a match, is it stored anyway for the image description? (regardless of the score and the contest)

I've had a weird generic cover come up a couple of times.

>14 amanda4242:

Yeah. Sorry. I'll try to screen those out.

I've updated it somewhat to favor more recent, popular titles, so you're likely to see books you know.

You'll notice your scores have suddenly jumped. Indeed, they are four times what they were. This brings your score in line with your "matches." A match is worth a point, two matches is worth two, etc. I've increased the bonus for tagging a new cover to 5. (It was four before, but, because everything was divided by four, just one.)

Honestly, I'm not sure why I used to show all scores divided by four. I think this is simpler, even if the numbers are now scary high.

I've also made it so that your own scores update almost immediately. This is much better. Unfortunately, since we're unable to recalculate EVERYONE'S scores, you may find yourself getting ahead of someone who's playing now, only to see them jump up every five minutes or so. Devious.

I had not realised just how many book covers have Big Ben on them (yes I know Big Ben is rightly the bell, not the clock tower). Three times as many as I've tagged Eiffel Tower, and always a nicely reliable double pointer.

JUST nosed over you this hour, Aquila! :)

>19 Aquila: Yet nobody tagged the Palace of the Parliament.

>21 prosfilaes: Nobody tagged pale blue dot either :) I thought that was iconic

Cover guess appears to be broken. I'm just getting a bunch of numbers.

>23 amanda4242:, same, I just submitted a bug report

>20 timspalding: Yeah, I'd gone to bed!

>23 amanda4242: Highfiving you for that use of "uncanny valley", I typed it not expecting the match!

Ok, that's at least the second book with a burning feather on the cover. What does a burning feather signify? What message are you trying to send when you put a burning feather on the cover of a book?

"You should not use colors as tags" is all very well, but that's an orange, not a colour.

>15 timspalding: Gotten the generic cover twice today, both on movies.

>27 Aquila: What does a burning feather signify?

Awful smell?

>27 Aquila: loss of innocence, failure to fly, fallen grace... Depends on the story I guess.

Ah, yes. Icarus = technological hubris, perhaps?

The smoke from burning feathers was formerly used as an alternative to smelling salts to revive swooning ladies. Swooning gentlemen as well, I guess, but less often admitted in writing.

I like the Icarus symbology.

I have also determined that burning swords outnumber burning feathers.

I'm getting a decent number of generic covers this evening.

>35 lemontwist: I've gotten several today, too. They've all been for movies.

>35 lemontwist: >36 amanda4242: Noted this to the developers. I'm not seeing any so far, this morning, at least.

Are you still seeing a bunch?

>35 lemontwist:

Thanks for the heads up. Just skip them. There's little we can do to stop them at present. When we re-vivified CoverGuess we switched cover providers, from LT's usual sources (Amazon plus member covers) to ProQuest/Bowker. Both have their problems—if it wasn't this cover, we'd have complaints about blank covers, was Amazon sometimes yanks covers and we have no way of knowing when. But PQ covers are better for us in the long term, because we can actually hold, analyze and control them in full. We're still wrapping our arms around them, however, so we can't always know when a cover isn't there.

I am very disappointed that I am the only one who tagged this cover "snakes on a plane" Python Crash Course

I'd be interested to hear what phrases people find themselves using over and over. For me:

anthropomorphized animals
woman from behind
man from behind
holding hands
cartoon style

Also, has anyone noticed how many YA novels use the cartoon style with the characters wearing backpacks? I feel like the backpacks are the visual clue: HEY! THESE ARE STUDENTS! THESE ARE TEENAGERS! HEY HEY HEY!

I'm so sick of trees, clouds and stars
Way more women wear pearls on book covers than in real life.
Dresses are almost always red, occasionally they are green or yellow.
We should get extra points every time we type silhouette correctly.

I use "from behind" by itself.
I should probably start using "anthropomorphised animals"
"holding hands" is a good one, also "back to back"
Water tower means either small town or NYC.
Eiffel tower is usually paired with a woman, seen from behind, on a balcony/at a window; if it's during wwii there will also be fighter planes, and then she's more likely to be in the street, possibly clutching the hand of an orphaned child.
And an absolute epidemic of facelessness - cut off above the mouth, face turned away from the camera, something covering eyes. I've been using headless, but it's really just part of the head.

text only
upside down

>41 Aquila: This game is really highlighting the lack of imagination in cover design. If I see one more cover with a person standing in front of a window or door I'm going to scream!

>42 amanda4242: Putting me off reading any of them.

OK, I just got to use "anthropomorphic potato"

>6 krazy4katz: Ditto.

I keep trying it for a few minutes, doing five or six tags per cover, and always behind someone doing a single tag, so I quit and hope to come back behind someone more verbose.

Yeah, I was getting long stretches of things everyone has passed on, it's disheartening.

>41 Aquila: Yes!!!

I'm personally tired of the lone cowboy-type man in a field, from behind, with either a horse or some mountains in the distance.

Last hours many difficult to describe covers showed up.

Worst part is scrolling past any images anywhere on the internet, my brains starts trying to describe them.

>50 Aquila: Recognize that and not only on the internet...

The endless guessing game of "is it a crow or is it a raven?"

>52 Aquila: Or whether it's a raven or a writing-desk ...

And there's so many women running around in the great outdoors in very fancy dresses.

And why is the weather so foggy everywhere?

Or mysterious looking women in leather jackets or a cloak holding at least two swords or daggers or guns.

>50 Aquila: I thought I was the only one doing that.

It often seems a bit like a Rorschach test. Other people saw what? I didn't see that. Are they crazy? Am I?

Or have they actually read the book?

I just got 17 matches on William Shakespeare's Star Wars! Good for two word phrases!

>58 Aquila: It's supposed to be based on cover alone, disregarding content.

>59 lorax: But sometimes having read the book helps interpret what is depicted on the cover.

>59 lorax: Yes, but if you've read the book you're more likely to notice and recognise elements on the cover. Just like if you've seen Star Wars you're more likely to label things on those covers "tie fighter" "light saber" and "darth vader" than "space ship" "glowing sword" and "android in cloak".

That's reasonable. I guess Star Wars for me is in the realm of "general knowledge". I wouldn't put a character name, for instance, though I will put the subject of a biography if I recognize them.

I wouldn't normally put a character name, but I do seem to have some exceptions, including Darth Vader, Superman and muppets.

I've had the same record come through three times today:

https://www.librarything.com/work/9726954

It shows a blank/empty cover image, but when you open the record, the cover appears. If I try to describe that cover (old man, torn paper, buildings), the submission seems to go through, but when the next cover comes up, the old one doesn't come up on the right. Instead the page acts like I've just 'arrived'.

I hope that makes sense. Also, I've had to fight the urge to put commas between every word in this post.

EDIT: that same record has appeared 4 more times. Always the same book.

I had that happen once today - blank cover came up, I put blank and it never appeared on the right.

>Also, I've had to fight the urge to put commas between every word in this post.
LOL, yep, we're all going slowly crazy.

Current favorite tag because I keep actually matching with it "lion rampant"

>64 murderbydeath: Yeah, I'm now getting that blank cover nonstop, I've opened a bug:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/351025

>67 Aquila: me too

High five to EMS_24 , we just matched on a 4 word phrase "brain made of flowers"

That's nice!!! I was wondering whether I would be the only one who saw a brain in that 'bouquet'
high five back, five fingers up, hand, palm,

#64 I see 'inserted: 100' above, is there a limit to the amount of coverguesses you can insert in a row, or during a certain period?

At this moment I am not getting any images, just blank squares. I can link through to the book, but of course then I'm not sure which cover I'm supposed to tag. I have the problem on both PC and phone, and it worked a few days ago.
Anyone else with this problem?

There's a link to the bug report in >67 Aquila: above.

>73 Aquila: Yes, timspalding and ccatalfo are currently working on the cover loading issues! Please hold. (Official bug report is at https://www.librarything.com/topic/351025.)

I only can do 'the giver', next book is again 'the giver'.
I refreshed, I got an empty box again. I see others have seen the cover by their logical tags, each time a different book.

Yes, I was too quick saying it was fixed. We're still working on it.

>78 axel: Logged in with the wrong account, timspalding? ;)

It's fixed. Thanks :)

Ummm... just got the page of code that appeared last week, but underneath it, I have the normal page, with a blank image in the box AND another cover underneath it with the question: Do any of these have the same elements?

Anyone else seeing this? Clicking submit to skip it, worked and now I have the normal cover guess layout. Might have just been a glitch ...

Sorry. Our fault. Should be good now.

is it preferred to enter a single rather than a plural form of a word? I was saying things like "horses" and "flowers" a lot yesterday and then everyone else had just said "horse" or "flower" so it didn't match.

>83 KallieGrace: I use whatever makes sense for that cover - if there is 1 horse, I use "horse", if there are more than the one, I use "horses".

>84 AnnieMod: Same. And sometimes I get it wrong, especially since I can't see the whole cover and the tag entry line at the same time.

Often there's one large one and then some smaller ones hidden in the border/trees/background.

Sigh. Tried to cover my bases on a kid's book with three dinosaurs on the cover:

dinosaurs, t. rex, tyrannosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, sauropod, brontosaurus, apatosaurus

and lamented I couldn't fit in diplodocus, which looked like a better match for the sauropod but I thought would be less familiar.

Matched only on "dinosaurs".

I've used t-rex, velociraptor and triceratops on various books. Still annoyed that everyone had called the lemurs on a John Cleese book monkeys.

Aquila (#87):

I'm still annoyed about people misidentifying a frigatebird as a seagull years ago on the first round of CoverGuess! Especially because they all got points for being wrong in the same way and I got nothing.

>88 lorax: I know what you mean: I got no points for a sea lion because everyone else tagged it a seal.

>89 amanda4242: >88 lorax:

Sometimes it is not just about being right but about how other people see the cover and its images. While annoying, that is part of the game as well - if 99 out of 100 people would call it a seagull or a seal, that's how these people will remember and eventually search for. So having the words there is better than not having them - even if they are wrong.

>90 AnnieMod: Yes, we know that's the game.

Yes, we're all aware. That doesn't mean it's not annoying that I spend half my time not on actual tagging but on choosing three different near-misses for a given thing to try to figure out how people will get it wrong.

Fur seals look very similar to sea lions, since they aren't true seals. So people from down under may be particularly bad at distinguishing them.

What annoys me most is losing a point to a misspelled word - either mine or theirs.

>94 murderbydeath: It's extra annoying when the misspelling is a name that's printed right on the cover.

Oh yeah, I make so many typos and see them the moment I hit enter! And missed commas!

>96 Aquila: Oh, those missed commas are the worst!

Echoing remorse over missed commas and misspelled words. I wish we could edit, but I get why we can't. I fell extra bad when I am the first to a book so the next person won't get a point if they spell it right.

This work:
https://www.librarything.com/work/30168970

keeps appearing on my cover guess page, and it's always a blank cover, but there are also images underneath with the "Do any of these have the same elements?" question, and more covers underneath (I'm assuming their covers).

The last time it happened, I clicked on one of the covers and it gave me a message about ... something, sorry, I forgot. This time, it just took me to the next cover and acted like that record didn't exist.

Has happened approximately 3-4 times so far.

>99 murderbydeath: I clicked one of the covers under a blank cover before and it says something like +3 points for selecting a new cover or something like that....so oops, I hope it was the right one!

Who knew there were so many books about religion.

I still find it frustrating that getting hits on a multi-word tag is so dependent on how people chose to phrase something.

Example: a cover with a girl and a boy hugging a tree.
I tagged (among others): tree hugging

Other people tagged:
hugging tree
tree huging
tree huggers
children hugging tree
tree-hugging
hugging a tree
boy and girl hugging tree
girl and boy hugging tree

So, for the same activity, nine tags. Not a single match among us although we all recognized that this was tree hugging.
It basically means it is not worth it to use multi-word tags.

>102 wester: yes!!

ETA: I know the exact cover, and I'm the person who hyphenated. Sorry!

>101 Aquila:

I sometimes do some combining/separating via the "go to a random author / work / user / ..." module. Ye gods, so many church libraries and works about religion!

>103 lemontwist: The problem is not that you hyphenated, the problem is that the system doesn't recognize all these tags as basically the same.

Aquila (#101):

Who knew there were so many books about religion.

LT is heavily used by church libraries - it makes sense as a tool for them size-wise. Probably the popularity spread either by word of mouth or by Tim deliberately reaching out to them as a target audience. So I suspect religiously themed books are more popular here than in the world at large.

CoverGuess has brought my cover flagging stats way up!!

*sigh* book called Turtle Diary with tortoises on the cover.

>108 Aquila: related, every time I see a _____ (I can't tell them apart), I tag both alligator and crocodile, because I don't know, and I know a lot of other folks don't know either

I refuse to tag chimpanzees as monkeys!

>109 lemontwist: Alligator starts with A, pointy letter, has a rounded snout.
Crocodile starts with C, rounded letter, has a long, narrow snout.
Crocodile's teeth show when its mouth is closed, only an alligator's top teeth show.

>111 Taphophile13: I will try that out but fear it will only confuse me even more! 🤣

>111 Taphophile13: Sometimes it's a cartoon generic crocodilian. Sometimes it's a reptilian alien. And I've had two books with caimans, thankfully labelled as such on the cover.

>110 Aquila:

That’s a case where the sloppy usage makes more biological sense than the purist one - evolutionarily, apes are a subgroup of monkeys - so I wish the purists would just give up.

>113 Aquila: I haven't spotted any caimans and I have no idea what shape their snout is. And frankly, if I can see their teeth, they are too close.

Getting to tag this cover just now made me very happy!

>116 Aquila: I have that one right now... watch me get zero matches

Aquila (#116):

That one would drive me crazy trying to guess which of the options other people chose to tag with to fit under the eight-tag matching limit. And whether they used bird, swallow, or barn swallow for that particular critter.

>118 lorax: "Oh, yeah, an African swallow, maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point,"

>114 AndreasJ: We can argue about whether apes are a subgroup of monkeys - at this point that comes down to what your personal feelings are about paraphyly (and about whether you, personally, are a fish) but this is a great example of why sticking to cladists' rules doesn't always work well. One purpose of coverguess is to find words that the average person who doesn't remember well might use, and by that classfication, apes are monkeys.

(as long as it's not a Discworld book).

Yep, I tagged gorilla and monkey for the above book, someone else had used ape and monkey, which probably makes more sense as a dichotomy. (I also typoed gorilla, so no points no matter what).

>46 lorax: Have to agree, tagging behind someone who is doing just one tag per book, and often an idiosyncratic two word tag at that, is hard going.

And the tags on "The Ugly Duckling"...

>122 Aquila: yes... I gave up even trying yesterday. it was so demoralizing.

Ugh, and that person is at it again. I officially give up on CoverGuess. No point providing free labor to a game that isn't fun.

>105 wester: Where is AI when you need it?

That's all I'm getting today too, no points for guessing 8+ things behind someone who guess one. Can we get some points for guessing things if the full 8 tags haven't been met yet? That would feel better.

On the upside you are making the person coming behind you happy. *keeps tagging*

OTOH, if you're the first tagger, you get 5 points just for being first. So there's that.

ETA: Sometimes I have to enter more than eight tags, with the busiest covers. And sometimes only a few tags apply at all.

My favorite so far was something about probably not on a cell phone for a book about the Medici. I wish I had thought of that.

Is CoverThing broken today? I keep getting a blank white rectangle where the cover should be. I tried tagging it just to see if it was a glitch and it won't even register my tags (show me the previous cover with # of tags matched etc.) and just keeps bringing up an all white rectangle.

(I've tried both refreshing the page and signing out/signing back in several times and seem to get the same thing.)

Is CoverThing broken today? I keep getting a blank white rectangle where the cover should be. I tried tagging it just to see if it was a glitch and it won't even register my tags (show me the previous cover with # of tags matched etc.) and just keeps bringing up an all white rectangle.

(I've tried both refreshing the page and signing out/signing back in several times and seem to get the same thing.)

>131 JenniferRobb: Appears to be broken: https://www.librarything.com/topic/351025#n8163911

>28 Aquila: I had to use orange fruit to get it to accept it. LOL!

As someone mentioned above, I'm sad I've been here so many years and not known about this!

>131 JenniferRobb: I am also seeing a blank "cover" today (only the 2nd time I've decided I have time to play with this a bit).

Hi everyone! It looks like the issue with the blank covers has been resolved! Our apologies for the frustration this past weekend.

In light of the fact that players have lost a little time because of this problem, we're extending the CoverGuess game by a day. Initially, it was set to close today, but we have decided to close it tomorrow, at 12pm EDT.

Bug

My score in the CoverGuess Contest section is not updating. The last hour section changes, but my overall score for the contest is stuck at 28,018. Refreshing doesn't change it.

ETA: I've created a bug report.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/351462

>137 amanda4242: Was just coming over here to ask if anyone else noticed the same thing. Seems the hourly one updates, but not the contest scores.

Also, apologies to anyone who comes behind me and sees some very weird tags. Cold hands plus bad habit of hitting 'paste' and 'enter' without taking time to notice I've copied something else to the clipboard in between cover guesses. I'll do better.

High five to amanda4242 for my first four-word tag match for "great wall of china".

Sadly an earlier "inordinate fondness for beetles" on a cover with lots of them did not get a match. Maybe someone following me will get lucky.

>140 lorax: Hurrah!

I wonder if anyone has scored off of my "strategically placed hair" or "eyes without a face."

I envy your excellent phrasings, which I am missing. Hoping to use "inordinate fondness for beetles" soon!

A tad grumpy about someone being first (5 points!) and then skipping the images.

How did someone score over 17,000 points in an hour?!

>141 amanda4242: I smiled at your 'strategically placed hair'. When I saw the cover I thought: 'How can I describe this short and 'decent' " .. I couldn't succeed. Your line is funny and perfect!

Our CoverGuess contest has come to an end. Thank you to everyone who played! We hope you'll go on playing, just for the fun of it!

Our 20 winners, including the top 10 players and 10 randomly-selected players, are:

Aquila
amanda4242
JenniferRobb
murderbydeath
IvyGreene
lemontwist
InfoQuest
KallieGrace
papyri
perennialreader
Jjean7
Victinerary
KaskaskiaVic
Cloverlimes
Felagund
rarm
kgodey
unaluna
Heather_Colyer
rob_estee

Winners, I will be messaging you about your mailing addresses, so we can get your prizes sent out to you!