I have just reached my 200 limit on my wishlist.

Can anyone shed any light as to why this arbtrary number is? What benefit can limiting a users wishlist possibly have for anyone?

Thoughts?

Well my guess is that limiting the # allowed on the WL keeps people from wishing every book they think they might want sometime and making the WL lines even longer.  Because you know people would do that-put every WL book they come across on their WL and then declining them or letting them time out, making senders and other wishers wait. 

I've never had a problem with the WL being too short. I just put the overflow on my RL and then move them over when I have WL spots open.  I've got plenty on hand to read while I wait.

For years now they've been working on a new WL that would be unlimited and where you'd have to rank them in the order you want them.  But who knows when that's coming.

The WL used to be unlimited. I hear that there were plenty of people that had WLs that were in the THOUSANDS. Nobody is really wishing for thousands of books. They were picking and choosing amongst what was being offered.

It does make me edit my WL.  Which is a good thing.  I so dislike posting a WL book and having it roll over and over.  Messes up my plans of when I'm going to the PO.

For years now they've been working on a new WL that would be unlimited and where you'd have to rank them in the order you want them.  But who knows when that's coming.

That's the way WL are set up on SAD (swapadvd). Some people love it, some down right hate it. The problem with the ranking set up is you never know where you're going to be on the WL from one day to another. Example:

You have The Help on your WL. You have it ranked at #5 and you're in position #1. Four more people add The Help to their WL and all of the rank it in their #1 spot. Now because you didn't have it in your #1 spot before they did, you are pushed back to the #5 position.

If they gave a unlimited WL w/o ranking then new members would never get a chance to get any WL books. Many members would add whatever to their list JIC like Mary said. I like the way it's set up now. Yes I run out of room on my WL, but again like Mary, that's what my RL and my overflow tag are for :)

Having a limit helps the WLs move faster. As for why the number is 200, I am not sure.

Jolene, your explanation of how the potential new WL will work is potentially misleading.  The rank you give to The Help will determine how many points you accumulate per day on this ISBN/book. When a copy of The Help becomes available, the person with the most accumulated points gets offered the book first. It is rarely the case that users who add the book to the WL line after you will get the book with minimal wait.

Jolene, your explanation of how the potential new WL will work is potentially misleading.  The rank you give to The Help will determine how many points you accumulate per day on this ISBN/book. When a copy of The Help becomes available, the person with the most accumulated points gets offered the book first. It is rarely the case that users who add the book to the WL line after you will get the book with minimal wait.

 I was explaining how them unlimited WL work over on SAD as explained to me by the team themselves. There are many movies I have on my WL that have been there since they day I opened my account. I know for a fact that I was number 1 for two titles that I'm now in the 20's for. When I contacted TPTB about it, they said it was because I no longer had them ranked as high as the other members. However many days I had them on my WL did not effect my position on the list.

ETA I just read what i typed, and it sounds kind of snotty. I honestly didn't mean for it to sound that way. :)

Jolene, I didn't mean to suggest you sounded snotty.

Your moving back in the list is a reflection of the fact there are people who've ranked it higher than you have, but there isn't necessarily a one-to-one relationship between how many people ranked it #1 and your falling back however many spots in  ranking. Other factors are in play as well, such as how long you've had it on your WL and at what rank, how long others have it on their WL and at what rank, and how close in time everyone added it onto his respective WL.

From the Swap A DVD help docs:

This example shows that the most important factor is how long you have had a DVD on your Wish List before someone else Wish Lists it. Ranking them higher will help you get those you want the very most slightly faster.  Members with a long Wish List will see DVDs ranked lower moving more slowly than those DVDs they have ranked near the top.

lol Sophia, I meant my second post :) To me, I felt like my post read like I was a know it all

Ok I get what your saying now.

There are so many different printings of the same book, I wish selecting all "8" versions didn't count against you.  I would be better off with selecting 50 "book titles" if it included all printed versions.  I don't have many different actual titles on my wish list, but it looks like I have a long list.

Yeah that would be nice-if it was 200 unique titles allowed.  Most of the books I WL tend to only 1 or 2 versions but occassional I'll add one that has several. 

I agree, Brenda!  I have some books in different formats on my WL too.

I would be happier if the WL was set to like 250.  Maybe not unlimitted but a little bit larger than what it is currently set at.

I agree Brenda,

That would be my issue, My WL says 101 but by my own records I only looked for 45 books (admittedly that includes one set of poems that are in several books).

Given the snide comments about publishers changing ISBN numbers I've wondered if this is actually the best way to tag works in the DB anyways.  I've wondered what happens when 52 people have a book with a specific ISBN posted and then wherever they are getting the auto-download for the DB gets its info changes what that book means by the ISBN.  Are those 52 people now listed under a book they don't own, even though they posted correctly.  Not a problem or anything yet, just my mind at work.

I will note that it is obvious that things have changed over time so it needs to be considered.  Many of the non-ISBN books I posted have an ISBN that is 11 characters long.  Not sure what that is about, but it was consistent.

If an ISBN is on more than 1 binding (or even more than 1 title) of a book, PBS will keep whatever binding it originally had in its system.  They'll only change it if no one has the book listed, no one is wishing for it and it can be proven that it never existed in that binding.

Chris - an update to the database cannot change a binding type. Those can only be changed manually by the Team to ensure that situations like you've descibed do not occur.

They will change them even if the book is Wished ... they just changed one for me that was wrong, but hadn't been published yet (had over 300 wishers).

When the WL was unlimited, I had about 350-400 books on my WL, and I was one of those who were quite upset when the limit was imposed. But I weeded through it over the course of the several weeks they gave us to do so and got it down to 200. Now, I'm usually between 180-200 and have no problems doing so. It forces me to take a look at what books I *really* want, and only wishlist those.

As others have said, there were people who had literally thousands of books on their WL which is just silly. I believe there were some abuses by people who were in the book selling business adding anything and everything to their lists, so the limit cuts those abuses down. A PBS account is meant for one person, and even if you read a lot, 200 books on the wishlist should be plenty.

Cheryl

I have one book on my wishlist that has 17 different editions. That is 17 slots being taken up by one book. I absolutely agree that only unique titles should count toward the 200 book limit.

If there were a book I wanted badly enough to wishlist 17 different versions of it, I would just buy it!

Cheryl