Quote:
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
The problem is that people on the internet often reward one another for thinking alike. This can create the illusion that any sort of consensus is right.
Most of us understand that a physical lynch mob is a bad thing. What some of us do not understand is that banding together to hound a person we dislike until they become unemployed or unhinged is merely another kind of lynch mob.
I'm always amazed at the people who rejoice on Yelp whenever a small business owner whose attitude they dislike goes under. If you don't care for a waiter or restaurant manager, then why not go elsewhere? Why try to destroy the livelihood of everyone involved with that restaurant because one of its employees annoyed you once? The punishment is absurdly disproportionate to the crime.
It's the same with authors, isn't it? If they don't connect with you, why not find different authors and let that person who annoyed you connect with someone else? Why keep a public list of of the ones you hate, hoping to build a consensus? A well-written review which reads the work closely and finds it wanting is condemnation enough.
Of course, I can understand how anyone would be upset losing shelves they'd spent seven years building. The total erasure of anything seems sad. If only sites had the time to keep copies the work they deleted massively.
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Hurrah! Love this post - so karma to you.
I don't actually agree 100% with the Goodreads action and I think it is a bit much to make a pretty drastic change in policy like this that has such an immediate impact on users' personal cataloguing (a primary purpose of the site - at least for me).
However, I agree completely with your point.
EDIT: Hmmm - must have given you karma recently because it's not letting me give you more. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.
