We’ve revamped CoverGuess, our 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 for covers by what’s on them.) And we’re giving out prizes to LibraryThing members who play.

CoverGuess is a LibraryThing institution. Starting in 2010, we invited members to describe book covers, racking up points for matching other members. In 13 years members have added more than 3.2 million tags to book covers! 

Now we’re launching a new and improved version of the game, to get it ready for a new search interface, with some new rules:

• Eight tags. As searchers are likely to focus on the most significant elements, we’re asking members to focus on the eight most relevant tags. (You can add more, but you won’t receive points for them.)
• Omit bare colors. And we’re asking members to avoid bare color tags, like “blue” or “red.” You are still encouraged to use colors when describing things on the cover, such “blue horse” or “yellow flower.” (We’re going to get covers’ predominant colors another way, so we don’t want you to have to waste your time labeling them.)
• Multi-Word Bonus. Scoring has changed slightly. You now get a bonus for multi-word tags. For example, matching “green field” is worth 2x points, and matching “bird in cage” is worth 3x.

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

Questions? Come join the conversation on Talk.