I don't trust GoodReads

[haertig]

Few things are more humorous than books that haven't been written yet getting thousands of reviews. But reading people defend the existence of those reviews is.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by haertig

But reading people defend the existence of those reviews is.

No doubt. Who did that?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No doubt. Who did that?

Reviewers of Wen Spencer's Harbinger which was delayed for years while she posted occasional snippets of the work in progress mostly on Patreon. I commented on the number of reviews of the book and was dumped on by a few idiots. Reviewing a book based on snippets, most of which did not make it into the final version in a recognizable form, evidently was, to them, an entirely legitimate way to keep up interest during the 8 years from Wood Sprites to Harbinger. Even worse, Harbinger ends in a cliff hanger and the great Ghu alone knows how long, if ever, before the next book is going to be released.

[Paperbackstash]

Goodreads Librarians have nothing to do with the policies of the site with allowing reviews and ratings early.

Goodreads tries to explain their system here for allowing this, mainly due to ARC's and not wanting to over-police it
https://www.goodreads.com/review/guidelines

Pre-publication reviews. Many of our members receive advance copies of books to review, either through Goodreads giveaways or another source. We have no way of knowing the exact date that review copies are available. As such, each book is eligible to be reviewed as soon as it appears on the site.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Paperbackstash

Goodreads Librarians have nothing to do with the policies of the site with allowing reviews and ratings early.

Goodreads tries to explain their system here for allowing this, mainly due to ARC's and not wanting to over-police it
https://www.goodreads.com/review/guidelines

Pre-publication reviews. Many of our members receive advance copies of books to review, either through Goodreads giveaways or another source. We have no way of knowing the exact date that review copies are available. As such, each book is eligible to be reviewed as soon as it appears on the site.

Again, no one is blaming the GR Librarians (who are volunteers) for anything. We all know they have extremely limited power within the site and can not set policy.

GR's stance on ARCs is somewhat humorous as they also have no way to know if a reviewer actually has access to an ARC or not. And, if I've read others here correctly, users can submit books to be on the site. So the clause of "each book is eligible to be reviewed as soon as it appears on the site" is essentially "As soon as anyone who wants to review this book submits it to GR they can review it".

Which, to me, is pretty much putting the inmates in charge of the asylum. The Librarians at GR should probably consider jumping ship, if all the above is accurate, to another service which at least attempts to prevent fraudulent reviews.

[Quoth]

The policy of allowing ANY review before release is just wrong.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

And, if I've read others here correctly, users can submit books to be on the site.

This is not correct. Only Librarians can add a book, not any user. Users can place a request in the Librarians group for a book add if they wish.

There's nothing wrong with adding and reviewing a not-yet-published book that isn't in the database yet - I did exactly that a couple of weeks ago for an ARC I read.

If you're someone puting stock in completely random reviews/ratings on a social media site, maybe just... don't do that? GR filters reviews by your GR friends to the top. They're the ones I pay attention to. You choose what to look at.

This is like complaining about other people being allowed to have opinions about movies on Facebook or Twitter.

[Paperbackstash]

Non-Librarians were able to add brand new books in the Goodreads database, but they could not edit, merge editions, etc. This was changed in June 2022 to only Librarians. Some may not be aware of the change yet.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by meeera

This is like complaining about other people being allowed to have opinions about movies on Facebook or Twitter.

No, because those are not book or movie sites and you are the product.
They are mostly cesspits and there is little moderation.

IMDB is for movies. Co-incidentally now broken and also owned by Amazon. Goodreads is no longer fit for purpose.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by meeera

This is like complaining about other people being allowed to have opinions about movies on Facebook or Twitter.

So you would have no objections to seeing reviews of movies that have not even started production yet? You would give 5 star ratings to reviews of Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon? Or perhaps reviews of Werner Herzog's The Conquest of Mexico? Or a movie that won't be entering production until 2024 with a review that goes on about how great the performances and special effects were?

What kind of opinion can you have of books that are not available even as ARCs?

[MGlitch]

Sites like GR are built explicitly for books, unlike FB which is generalized.

And it’s been (being generous) 4 months of only librarians being able to add a book vs years of anyone being able to. I’d say the damage is done and it’s not likely to be fixed without intervention from Amazon.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DNSB

What kind of opinion can you have of books that are not available even as ARCs?

Me? None. Someone other than me? Meh. Don't care if, how, or where they express their opinions of fetal (or imaginary) books. I don't read rando book reviews--on Goodreads or anywhere.

[issybird]

I dunno; I’m going to go contrarian here. If the basic philosophy of GR is that members adapt it to be most useful to them, I can see why people would review unreleased books and even give them five stars. Then they’ll float to the top of their lists and it’s a way of keeping tabs on them. In addition, it’s a way of touching base with people with similar interests. I can also see that in the ordinary course of events, once a book has been released and the member reads it, a review and its rating will be adjusted to reflect that. It’s the books that never happen that cause these kerfuffles and what’s the percentage in the grand scheme?

All of that said, I admit that the reviews that are most helpful to me are the two-star reviews; if I’m looking, it’s already because I expect to like a book and I want to see reviews that dislike it for reasons that resonate with me. Ergo, I’m not at all likely to care about stellar reviews from people I don’t know; the only stellar reviews that interest me are by those with similar tastes who are my friends.

Essentially, I don’t care. Have at it, people who are holding their breath and surely must have turned blue by now waiting on a book announced a decade ago. You do your Goodreads and I’ll do mine.

[j.p.s]

^ All that is fine, but reviews of books that haven't even been started?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Everybody wants to blame Goodreads for lack of oversight. But Goodreads doesn't have staff to do this. This is the domain of Goodreads Librarians (volunteers). This is where you can request changes and corrections to the catalog:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show...brarians-group

There are two solutions that may work. One is to only allow any sort of reviews if the person has put in their library that they have read the book.

The other is to not allow any reviews until at least 3 weeks after it's been published.

The first solution is for before the book is published.