Goodreads Goes for Censorship

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Yeah, I remember wading through that mess when it was still fresh. God knows what prompted me to do it. I don't think there were a huge number of 1 star reviews, but it was inside the reviews in the comments section where everything was happening.

She queried, there was a retaliation, she tried to back down, someone threw in the "special snowflake" comment and the author got offended and it seemed to devolve from there. It was all pretty embarrassing, but apparently you can find this in several places at GR if you know where to look. I usually only find out about them here, and if I feel like watching a car crash for any reason, I can always go over and have a peek.

I don't think it was a case of a GR author bullying people, it looked more like someone who had let herself get cornered lashing out. I could almost see the distressed look on her face as I read some of her posts at the time.

But some of her retractions felt like she was trying to reinvent history so that she could just make it all go away. I do feel kind of sorry for her - it was a bit of a baptism of fire for a book that hadn't really been fully launched yet. And now, if the recent decisions are really related to that case, she's in a worse predicament. The whole situation has become immortalised and replayed. It must be her worst nightmare coming true.

Before, there was a relatively small swarm ready to blank her on the site - if she becomes the poster child of people's shelves getting deleted etc.. I think she should probably pick out a new nom de plume if she still wants to write. Painful lessons.

I found a website who had a screenshot of the beginning.

So what happened was: bad rating -> author asking the reviewer about the rating and giving herself a 5-star rating -> reviewer calling the author "speshul snowflake" -> someone suggesting to the reviewer to go and put his hand in a blender.

In the comment section the only aggression was from the author and her fans. The author's comments made it seem like she had been threatened with rape, and the blogs on her side insisted that there had actually been threats which had been removed in the meantime. There hadn't been. The author said so herself. She excused her aggression as PMS.

After the ordeal, after GR removed the one offensive shelf and the author-based reviews, the author wanted to change the cover of the book to change her name on the cover. She was told that even if she changes her profile name it will be changed back. She seem cheery when she made the cover change request. I don't know what made her change her mind about publishing, but it wasn't because of the comments on GR.

[Bob B]

Originally Posted by Seraphine

This is a deviation from the topic, but as it might (or might not, if it's my silly rural internet!) be a related side-effect - anybody noticed an inordinate amount of crashing and errors on GR these past couple of days?

Yes. Several times this past weekend I received the 'all lines are busy' type of message.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I found a website who had a screenshot of the beginning.

So what happened was: bad rating -> author asking the reviewer about the rating and giving herself a 5-star rating -> reviewer calling the author "speshul snowflake" -> someone suggesting to the reviewer to go and put his hand in a blender.

In the comment section the only aggression was from the author and her fans. The author's comments made it seem like she had been threatened with rape, and the blogs on her side insisted that there had actually been threats which had been removed in the meantime. There hadn't been. The author said so herself. She excused her aggression as PMS.

After the ordeal, after GR removed the one offensive shelf and the author-based reviews, the author wanted to change the cover of the book to change her name on the cover. She was told that even if she changes her profile name it will be changed back. She seem cheery when she made the cover change request. I don't know what made her change her mind about publishing, but it wasn't because of the comments on GR.

Don't see anything particularly interesting in that screenshot to indicate that the author was especially aggressive. I do remember the stupid comments from Derrick and Victoria though.

But I've already given my reaction to that thread. I see that my take on who was or was not aggressive is slightly different from yours. But as it was my take after reading the whole thing at the time, I don't see it as particularly invalid. I thought it was a perfect example of what I had mentioned some time ago in this thread about both sides of the equation being equally ridiculous.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by samhy

Sorry, I had friend request in mind but couldn't remember the wording
In the new guidelines, it's written

I've had some authors who were borderline spammers. Now I know that if it's going too far I can notify someone.

Don't hold your breath about notifying. The button doesn't exist (I've received a request yesterday and it has the same look than before: approve/ignore/block, that's all).

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Don't hold your breath about notifying. The button doesn't exist (I've received a request yesterday and it has the same look than before: approve/ignore/block, that's all).

Agreed. I am starting to think it was a bunch of hoopla. I have been watching a drama unfold on Plagiarism on a certain book on GR the reviews are well some are attacking the author and GR is doing NOTHING about it. One of them I reported because the reviewer threaten harm but after 4 days it's still there. Amazon needs to hire some people to take care of these because GR is obviously under staff or they really don't care about the new guidelines.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Agreed. I am starting to think it was a bunch of hoopla. I have been watching a drama unfold on Plagiarism on a certain book on GR the reviews are well some are attacking the author and GR is doing NOTHING about it. One of them I reported because the reviewer threaten harm but after 4 days it's still there. Amazon needs to hire some people to take care of these because GR is obviously under staff or they really don't care about the new guidelines.

I think they don't care about previous o new guidelines unless it has public exposure (like this blog about STGB people talk about). It's not really a problem for me, because I don't review, I have a hard skin and a very high threshold for annoyance with this kind of things. I only, really, care about lies, and I'm seeing some of them in goodreads.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I think they don't care about previous o new guidelines unless it has public exposure (like this blog about STGB people talk about). It's not really a problem for me, because I don't review, I have a hard skin and a very high threshold for annoyance with this kind of things. I only, really, care about lies, and I'm seeing some of them in goodreads.

I am starting to believe it. Although this was on several popular blogs they seem to be allowing a free for all bash on an author who possibly plagiarized a fanfic. She removed herself till she can get legal help but the fanfic people continue their witch hunt. Nothing has changed at GR that I can see other than a mass exodus of former reviewers some good, some bad.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Don't see anything particularly interesting in that screenshot to indicate that the author was especially aggressive. I do remember the stupid comments from Derrick and Victoria though.

But I've already given my reaction to that thread. I see that my take on who was or was not aggressive is slightly different from yours. But as it was my take after reading the whole thing at the time, I don't see it as particularly invalid. I thought it was a perfect example of what I had mentioned some time ago in this thread about both sides of the equation being equally ridiculous.

This screenshot wasn't to show the author being aggressive, that happened later and I previously showed the way the author responded. But your take on the story was that the author tried to back down before the "speshul snowflake" comment, which the screenshot shows it simply isn't true.

This is the way the story got distorted. Questioning received rating -> retaliation -> author backing down -> "speshul snowflake" comment is not the same as questioning received rating -> "speshul snowflake" comment.

You remember Victoria's comments and you are probably not the only one, but at least this first one got deleted because it was threatening, and people remembered the situation as vicious threats against the author being deleted instead of vicious threats against the reviewer being deleted.

[caleb72]

My take, in particular, from the story was that the author was cornered, back-pedalling furiously and lashing out at the other comments taunting her. That I hold to - not that she wasn't a fool. I get the impression that you think I'm saying that one side was right and one side was wrong, but what I'm actually saying is that both sides looked pretty equally stupid. Even that small snippet you posted was a pretty good indication of where that thread was going. I just think that in this case, it's the author who's ended up actually damaging herself - mainly through her own poor judgement, while everyone else could just feel sated after another feeding frenzy.

The whole press thing a bit later seems no less disastrous than the review saga in the first place. I think it was probably about this time, when she'd let her sense of victimisation misconstrue what was happening to her and she realised that what she had imagined hadn't really been, that she just wanted the whole thing to go away as soon as possible. Fat chance of that now.

But in those positions, people sometimes over-dramatise what they see. I think she probably did feel threatened, but wasn't actually threatened by anyone. Much like you see Victoria's "blender" remark as a vicious threat, when I see it as a childish insult, variations of which I encountered floating around school yards in the 80s without much threat attached to it at all.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Agreed. I am starting to think it was a bunch of hoopla. I have been watching a drama unfold on Plagiarism on a certain book on GR the reviews are well some are attacking the author and GR is doing NOTHING about it. One of them I reported because the reviewer threaten harm but after 4 days it's still there. Amazon needs to hire some people to take care of these because GR is obviously under staff or they really don't care about the new guidelines.

This is the same plagiarism thing that sparked a while ago yeah? I'm not sure what I feel about that. I understand you can bring legal action against those who accuse you of it in a public place in a way that you can demonstrate harms your capacity to earn - as long as you can demonstrate that it's not true.

However, if there is truth in it, I'm not sure where you could go.

Were there really threats of harm? I get very suspicious of interpretations of threats these days. I do remember that there seemed to be a free-for-all calling out of the author once it came to light. For a while I started seeing references to it without even looking, but that was a while ago. I can't even remember who the author was.

Ah - drama drama drama. If I ever really did release a book (of which I'm perpetually doubtful), I wonder what crazy shenanigans would ensue. I'm usually very philosophical about these things - might be interesting to see how I personally respond to it. Perhaps I can use my curiosity as motivation.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by caleb72

My take, in particular, from the story was that the author was cornered, back-pedalling furiously and lashing out at the other comments taunting her. That I hold to - not that she wasn't a fool. I get the impression that you think I'm saying that one side was right and one side was wrong, but what I'm actually saying is that both sides looked pretty equally stupid. Even that small snippet you posted was a pretty good indication of where that thread was going. I just think that in this case, it's the author who's ended up actually damaging herself - mainly through her own poor judgement, while everyone else could just feel sated after another feeding frenzy.

The whole press thing a bit later seems no less disastrous than the review saga in the first place. I think it was probably about this time, when she'd let her sense of victimisation misconstrue what was happening to her and she realised that what she had imagined hadn't really been, that she just wanted the whole thing to go away as soon as possible. Fat chance of that now.

But in those positions, people sometimes over-dramatise what they see. I think she probably did feel threatened, but wasn't actually threatened by anyone. Much like you see Victoria's "blender" remark as a vicious threat, when I see it as a childish insult, variations of which I encountered floating around school yards in the 80s without much threat attached to it at all.

But your take on the story is based on a distorted reality. There was no cornering (there were 75 5-star ratings versus 4 1-star ratings) and the taunt came from the reviewer as a direct result of her questioning the rating.

Victoria's "blender" remark was worse than any of the shelf titles that the book was on. So if the "blender" remark is a childish insult why aren't the shelf titles childish insults as well?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by caleb72

This is the same plagiarism thing that sparked a while ago yeah? I'm not sure what I feel about that. I understand you can bring legal action against those who accuse you of it in a public place in a way that you can demonstrate harms your capacity to earn - as long as you can demonstrate that it's not true.

However, if there is truth in it, I'm not sure where you could go.

Were there really threats of harm? I get very suspicious of interpretations of threats these days. I do remember that there seemed to be a free-for-all calling out of the author once it came to light. For a while I started seeing references to it without even looking, but that was a while ago. I can't even remember who the author was.

Ah - drama drama drama. If I ever really did release a book (of which I'm perpetually doubtful), I wonder what crazy shenanigans would ensue. I'm usually very philosophical about these things - might be interesting to see how I personally respond to it. Perhaps I can use my curiosity as motivation.

There are thousands of us authors who experience little to no drama. Really. You might have to stop reviewing books though as that is sometimes what starts the drama (retaliation one stars, fan mobs, online sniping). In general, it's quite possible to avoid threads where things get out of hand. I've deleted comments from threads when it appears the thread is headed for lynch mobbery. Not that my comments were anything but innocuous, but I don't need to have my name on those threads, and it has nothing to do with me being an author. It's a bit like going to a party and people start snorting drugs in the bathroom. Do I want to stay around until things possibly get dangerous or the cops come so I can be dragged to jail or shall I just collect my belongings and head for safer ground?

There are a few threads on GR that get blown out of proportion. It takes GR staff (which really is incredibly small. It started as a family operation and isn't that much bigger now) a long time to filter through the NUMEROUS threads and complaints they get. Then they have to decide the best action to take. Even Amazon takes a while to review complaints on their forum and often they just delete the comment rather than really bother to understand it if it against the guidelines.

There are a number of blogs that love to follow the excitement on GR and keep these "events" in the "news." That gives them legs way past the sometimes simple events they really are--and it invites more comments to the threads often by new "members" who just want to be a part of things or old members who tend to drift towards these things.

I'm all for it blowing over and people finding some new excitement.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

There are a number of blogs that love to follow the excitement on GR and keep these "events" in the "news." That gives them legs way past the sometimes simple events they really are--and it invites more comments to the threads often by new "members" who just want to be a part of things or old members who tend to drift towards these things.

I'm all for it blowing over and people finding some new excitement.

Hence my feeding frenzy remark earlier.

When you say you might need to stop writing reviews, you mean if I become an author? If so, I have thought about this. I would find it a bit unfortunate because quite a few people have given me feedback that they enjoy my reviews for which I'm grateful and pleasantly shocked.

I know I would have to limit the scope of my reviewing at least in Amazon because apparently even if I sold a crochet pattern there I would probably not be able to write a review on the newest fantasy novel. I wonder if that policy is going to leak into Goodreads over time.

I think regardless, I'd continue my review blog whether I'm able to sensibly post reviews elsewhere or not. If I become a writer, I'm no less a reader.

I don't have another recommendation for the club yet. I seem to be going through less indie fantasy books lately, but I think one is coming up.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Hence my feeding frenzy remark earlier.

When you say you might need to stop writing reviews, you mean if I become an author? If so, I have thought about this. I would find it a bit unfortunate because quite a few people have given me feedback that they enjoy my reviews for which I'm grateful and pleasantly shocked.


I don't have another recommendation for the club yet. I seem to be going through less indie fantasy books lately, but I think one is coming up.

Yes, that is what I meant. It would probably behoove you to be very careful about writing reviews. I still write them, but if I sniff even a whiff of an author who might cause trouble or rabid fans, I pretty much don't review. There's a book by a trad author that I have on my kindle and want to read, but apparently one of my buddies in a cozy group was nearly run off Amazon by fans because she posted a critical review of the latest book (which was actually a couple of books ago now). Well, EVERY time someone in the cozy group rec's the author it brings up the whole hoopla and story gets told again and so on. It's impossible to have a discussion about the series. Since many of the cozy group also hangs out at my blog, well, it's just better if I avoid the entire thing. I don't need the drama.

I haven't really changed my reviewing style and I enjoy reviewing, but I will check for drama before posting some reviews.

In all honesty, I believe Amazon's policy about the writing of reviews by authors was also done because of drama. They didn't go back and delete every review by an author. But where they sniffed out "cliques" of authors trading reviews or reviewing every indie book in sight with five stars...well, there you go. They catch some of them, but honestly people with years of reviewing various products, including books, probably don't have a lot to worry about.


You will get asked as an author to feature books or review books or what-have-you and for me, it is harder to turn down authors now that I am an author. I prefer to feature what I want, not necessarily what is offered to me. I very rarely accept review copies.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

But your take on the story is based on a distorted reality. There was no cornering (there were 75 5-star ratings versus 4 1-star ratings) and the taunt came from the reviewer as a direct result of her questioning the rating.

Victoria's "blender" remark was worse than any of the shelf titles that the book was on. So if the "blender" remark is a childish insult why aren't the shelf titles childish insults as well?

I mentioned a string of comments in a particular review. I'm not trying to assimilate all other known or unknown data like other ratings, shelf titles, media articles and PMS. I explained my reaction to what was going on in that review thread.

The review itself had pages of discussion. I'm not sure how much remains (if any). So I gave my reaction as a reader of that discussion and how the author seemed to be coping (or rather not) during that exchange. I then extrapolated what I thought her motivations might have been for her actions later and pondered the damage this has possibly done to her as an author. I'm not sure how that message is being lost. I'm not distorting anything in particular, except in the recognition that as time passes some details will not remain as clear.

I don't think I could possibly argue against some of the shelf names I've read being childish, but I must have missed the purpose for asking the question.