The Sword and Laser discussion
Goodreads changes to the review policy
Ugh. That's actually pretty terrible news.
Why would anyone want shelves of books NOT to read? Do you really have that much trouble remembering who the jerks are? And why such a desperate need to spew more anger when an author behaves badly? Isn't it enough to report the problem and then go on with your day? Spiteful personal attacks look just as bad as the behavior that they respond to.
I use Goodreads reviews to find out if the BOOK is good, I don't want to read a bunch of trolling, and I don't really care about anyone's personal problems with an author. The same goes for an author's responses to reviews good or bad - there are personal messages that can be sent privately for all that.
Keep the crap out of the reviews.
My problem is more with the fact that they are deleting reviews and shelves without first notifying "ALL MEMBERS" of the policy change and without first giving "THE POLICY OFFENDERS" a chance to change or fix the problem. Goodreads is not Amazon reviews and I have come to expect that my reviews and statements posted here are not deleted or removed without a notification of WHY!
Another thing is...in this group we've had a discussion about the political views of authors and a lot was said about OSC, does that mean that because of the new policy our discussions will be the next to be removed. The GR staff is giving no real answers as to how far reaching this policy will end up being. Right now, today, groups aren't being affected, but that doesn't mean tomorrow they won't be.
Michele wrote: " Why would anyone want shelves of books NOT to read? Do you really have that much trouble remembering who the jerks are? "
I went through almost 300 books last year. I'll probably hit close to that this year too. So yeah, remembering the name of Schmucky McSpammerson, the spammy/idiotic author I'd rather avoid, months later can be a bit difficult.
Shelving that author as a reminder seemed like a good idea, and better than one starring it without reading. After all, they're my shelves. And we've been told repeatedly we can shelve how we see fit. Besides, who really pays attention to shelves? I never notice others shelves.
But now, with this policy change which has yet to be detailed, I guess I can just one star those books so I won't bother with them again.
Or give up entirely on Self-pubs.
Either/or.
I went through almost 300 books last year. I'll probably hit close to that this year too. So yeah, remembering the name of Schmucky McSpammerson, the spammy/idiotic author I'd rather avoid, months later can be a bit difficult.
Shelving that author as a reminder seemed like a good idea, and better than one starring it without reading. After all, they're my shelves. And we've been told repeatedly we can shelve how we see fit. Besides, who really pays attention to shelves? I never notice others shelves.
But now, with this policy change which has yet to be detailed, I guess I can just one star those books so I won't bother with them again.
Or give up entirely on Self-pubs.
Either/or.
I really don't have a problem with the change after reading a story on Zite about the disgusting behavior of some Goodreads members. The article put Goodreads in a bad light and I wondered if it would deter people from joining the site. People who have to make shelf categories that includes death or rape threats towards the author have some serious issues that I don't think need to be shared with the rest of us. Another issue brought up in the article was how people will give negative reviews for books that haven't even been made available to the public yet. One future author decided to not publish her book after negative comments and threats from the Goodreads community. I don't have a problem with negative comments, but I do get bothered when people take them too far and attack the author in a very personal way.
If you're talking about the Laura Pippa thing, that turned out to be complete bull. The author backtracked her story a few times then quit altogether.
Had to go back and look it up. Name was Lauren Howard. I thought it was odd how somebody would give up after something like that when some authors go through dozens of reject letters from publishers and keep going.So it's my understanding that book reviews are only being deleted if they contain negavtive references to the author. Since we are here to review BOOKS and not judge people it makes sense.
What a weird way to celebrate Banned Books Week.
Gary wrote: "What a weird way to celebrate Banned Books Week."That's for sure.
I hadn't heard of Lauren Howard. I certainly agree with this quote from the following article."But a bad review is not the same as a threat or intimidation, and frankly even a run-of-the-mill pan based on an unread book is plain dishonest."
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/21/debut...
There's a lot of terrible reviews out there by people who state they didn't even read the book. It makes me appreciate people who put real time and effort into their reviews. Mine aren't anything special but at least I've read the book.
I wouldn't want anything I've made deleted, but hey, you get what you pay for.
This is very upsetting. I want to say more, but everything I'm thinking is coming from frustration. Eliminating all dissimilar thought would leave the world with one human, if that.
Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think there has been any change to the policy regarding threatening behavior. That already could be addressed as part of the old policy, and it hasn't changed.The actual change is that they are extending the deletion policy to include reviews that are "focused on author behavior." These reviews are now going to be deleted from the site entirely rather than only made part of the reviewer's profile. They will also delete shelves that have a similar purpose.
Last, they want authors to respond by flagging such reviews rather than trying to refute them. I didn't see anything about those responses getting deleted, however, if an author goes that way rather than flagging a review.
Now, we'll have to see how stringent that kind of thing is. "Focused on author behavior" is more than a little slippery.... They surely haven't thought that one out entirely. What if the review is "I met this author at the XYZ Bookshow. He was so nice!" Even if it went on to gush for 50+ words, not a lot of review quality there. Flag for deletion? Probably not. What about something like "This guy refused to sign my book even though I waited in line for three hours! Totally uncool, man. He signed the book of the chick ahead of me and the one behind me. Pig!" I don't think that's an unwarranted thing to say either, but would--it seems to me--fall afoul of this policy.
The title of the bookshelf they gave as an example, "author-is-a-jerk" also seems like an over-reach. Sometimes authors are jerks, and it's not unreasonable for people to note that fact. I could see (though I'd argue they still should not) ban something like "author-is-a-rapist" or "author-must-die" as examples of things that might constitute libel and/or a threat, but "jerk" is pretty mild.
I could give a fig about the policy. If you think things need to be changed so be it. You do so by sending everyone - all your members that says "effective today yada yada yada"What I think is rather cowardly was how they did this transition. Drop the bomb on Friday afternoon after you delete peoples stuff, why not make an announcement and give people a chance to save their stuff?
As I write this I still have not seen an annoucement.
Anyway Otis has made it quite clear this site is for marketing..."We’re in the business of helping authors and publishers market their books to readers. And that’s where we make our money..."
(view spoiler)
Personally I am done with library edits and finding people's book covers and all that other free work.
This is fine. No one cares if you feel the author's a jerk - review the book. Reviews that rant about the author aren't book reviews and that's what Goodreads reviews should be about... the book. Want to rant at or about the author? Go setup your own blog. What, you won't have the same traffic...? Too bad. Same with shelf names... Someone above said:
"So yeah, remembering the name of Schmucky McSpammerson, the spammy/idiotic author I'd rather avoid, months later can be a bit difficult"
And you know what? You can still put authors like that on a shelf, you just can't name it "Asshole Authors" or something. Name it "Not for me" or something that's not pejorative. Imagine that, you have to act like you're part of a community.
Everything I just typed goes double for authors. Don't like the 1 star review? Too bad, some people will hate your work just like others love it. That's part of publishing, get used to it.
Now, if they extended this policy to the group discussions, then I'm going to blast them. The second you host discussions you allow people to express a wide variety of views. Whereas it's easy to argue that book reviews should be focused on the book, that argument doesn't fly in the forums. So... we'll see.
Gary - are you serious? You don't think author-is-a-rapist is over the line? Do you even comprehend that this site is highly indexed in Google and things like that can do real damage to someone. Seriously, Gary, none of your negative examples would have anything at all to do with the book. They're all about the author and that's simply not appropriate content for a review of a book.
What's so hard about this? "Book Review" - doesn't the name clearly state what it should be? A review... of a book. Not a free-form place to write whatever you want.
People... REVEW THE DAMN BOOK. Tell us what you thought of it, why you loved it, hated it, loved X and hated Y or whatever. But if you, for some bizarre reason feel the need to harass, defame or stalk an author do that on your own blog. Better yet, think twice about the fact that life is short, people are fallible and move past it.
Rick wrote: "Gary - are you serious? You don't think author-is-a-rapist is over the line?"Please take a second and have a look at what I wrote again.
Gary... I did"...I could see (though I'd argue they still should not) ban something like "author-is-a-rapist" or "author-must-die" as examples of things that might constitute libel and/or a threat..."
Note the bold text. That reads to me that, while it would make you uncomfortable, you'd leave it.
And again.... what does a rant about an author have to do with telling others about the book?
I just have zero issues with this. As far as I can see they're insisting that reviews be about the book and that shelf names not be pejorative. Those are both pretty easy, baseline things. People are free to berate authors on their own site, they just don't get to take advantage of Goodreads' popularity in their reviews.
OK, just to make this clear. I would understand goodreads deciding to ban a shelf like "author-is-a-rapist" as too provocative. They shouldn't do it, because it remains relevant to a discussion about books, and arbitrarily deleting something because it contains an offensive word is a bad idea. Don't think so? Well, there's this:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
And this:
"William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies 'tried to rape girl a 15-year-old girl'"
The details are important, so here's the full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...
And this:
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2010/...
You may disagree, but I think it's reasonable for a person to have a shelf on Goodreads into which s/he put books by those authors based on the statements from the men themselves, or the content of their work, especially as they wrote books about children or young women.
I, personally, would not say that what Golding was describing is the modern concept of rape, but that's not for me to decide for everyone else. Nor do I think Nabokov was an actual molester. When it comes to Polanski... I'm much less confident.
That said, I could see--though I would disagree with--a decision by the Goodreads staff to ban such a shelf name as it could be used more as a libel than something informative.
In any case, I don't think the issue is as simple as it appears at first blush.
Gary - you're raising an edge case where it's establishing fact that the statement being made in the shelf name is true. As you well know, this isn't the case in the vast majority of names like this... it's about readers seeking to belittle, harass and damage an author using a large, highly trafficked site. I can't support that. Also, you're simply wrong when you say "...they shouldn't do it, because it remains relevant to a discussion about books..." unless the book is an autobiography of a rapist. But if it's, say, epic fantasy or a space opera story that shelf name has zero to do with the book.
It feels like you're willfully ignoring what's been happening here - that readers are using reviews as platforms from which to attack authors. I don't see that as defensible (nor do I see the reverse, authors attacking reader as OK).
There are more reasons why someone might want to use that shelf name in a Goodreads account. What about writers that feature such content regularly and the user wants to note that suspicion? What if the reader finds the male protagonists "rapey" or the author's comments about his/er work "rapey" or otherwise wants to categorize the person in a casual (though, admittedly vulgar) way. These are not decisions that I care to make for other people, and I would argue against such a policy.But we're already sidetracked. The point that those examples were meant to address is that the current policy is to delete shelves with a title as inoffensive as "author-is-a-jerk" not things more clearly objectionable. That's incredibly mild. I could call my grandmother a jerk and she'd not get mad about it.
Welp. Rick and his condescension have spoken. Guess you told me.
By the way, according to Kara, its not the names of the shelves that matter. Its the content:
" We don’t comment publicly on individual cases, but in general, what we do is look at a shelf and see how it is used in context. In any case where we have decided to remove that shelf, we are confident that the shelf was being used in a way to review author behavior."
Shelf named ”taa" was deleted not because it was objectionable in and of itself, but because of what books were on the shelf.
So, for banned books week, there are books we're banned from shelving together. Nice.
By the way, according to Kara, its not the names of the shelves that matter. Its the content:
" We don’t comment publicly on individual cases, but in general, what we do is look at a shelf and see how it is used in context. In any case where we have decided to remove that shelf, we are confident that the shelf was being used in a way to review author behavior."
Shelf named ”taa" was deleted not because it was objectionable in and of itself, but because of what books were on the shelf.
So, for banned books week, there are books we're banned from shelving together. Nice.
Ala wrote: "Shelf named ”taa" was deleted not because it was objectionable in and of itself, but because of what books were on the shelf."OK, I guess I'm all kinds of silly and ignorant on this one, but what books would go into a shelf named "taa" that would indicate it was unacceptable?
No idea. You'd have to ask GR and wait for a canned response.
Ala wrote: "No idea. You'd have to ask GR and wait for a canned response."Ah, OK. That's a relief.
I thought TAA must mean somethin' to all ya'll whippersnappers or sumpin' and I'sa tarnin' hinta grammpah.
I still don't understand how it is an issue that a site for book reviews wants to remove reviews that don't talk about the book. If you want to troll an author because you don't agree with their life choices, go troll them somewhere else. The only thing more ridiculous than a criticism of an author's life in a book review is those people giving a book 5 stars before it's even been released!
Jason wrote: "I still don't understand how it is an issue that a site for book reviews wants to remove reviews that don't talk about the book. If you want to troll an author because you don't agree with their life choices, go troll them somewhere else."The POV that sometimes (routinely?) gets expressed is that books exist as their own little creatures. The author doesn't matter at all; only the book itself is relevant.
The other side of that (rather unrealistic) ideal is that talking about the author is perfectly relevant to talking about a book. If that person has views or has had experiences that might have influenced their work, then that's worthwhile information.
What's more, many people want to be informed about the people who develop their books in the same way they want to know about the people who produce their food, sew their clothes, and produce anything else they consume.
So, the argument that is bothering people around here is that this policy would appear to threaten the reviews of those who want to discuss the authors as much or more as the books they produce for either of the last two general reasons... or for whatever other reasons they might come up with on their own.
@Gary: that information about the author would be permissible because it relates to the book. Goodreads is banning reviews that discuss the author without reference to the book. There is obviously a difference.That being said, if I were Goodreads, I would not have enacted this policy. GR is, however, a private entity that can do what it wants and does not owe us anything, including the ability to write whatever reviews we want.
Gary wrote: "Jason wrote: "I still don't understand how it is an issue that a site for book reviews wants to remove reviews that don't talk about the book. If you want to troll an author because you don't agree..."I understand that the author's bias undoubtabley influences their work, but as Baelor pointed out, if what is in the book has nothing to do with the author's behavior, why should reviewers get to lamb-baste them?
For example, if an author writes a book with weak female characters and has a history of writing things or saying things that are misogynistic, that is relevant. I know one of the popular authors to bash regarding politics right now is Card and I understand why the bashing is taking place, but since he does not portray homosexual characters (at least none that I have read and can remember off the top of my head), then that is not relevant to the review of the book. You could possibly make mention of the lack of homosexual representation in his writing, but you would then have to equally take about 80% of writers to task for that as well.
There's a little weasel language in the policy. It says things like "predominantly about an author’s behavior and not about the book" which is open to interpretation. How much does "predominantly" mean?In general, I think the Goodreads folks aren't making a substantial change in terms of what most users actually do... but they want to wag a finger a bit at both the so-called "bullies" and the writers who apparently don't have the maturity or the reading skills to fully grasp what some of the reviewers were saying.
This is, after all, their sandbox. Kind of dickish to get up and announce it... but if they want to take their ball and head home that's up to them.
Of course, in doing so it is the reviewers' content that is being threatened with deletion, not the writers, so that seems like a bit of a cop out. A few authors have, apparently, behaved very badly, making some wild, unsubstantiated claims. Personally, I've had nothing but positive experiences with anyone who contacted me through this site, including a few authors. It's tough to put one's heart and soul into something and the put it out into the world. Believe me, I get that. But almost instant responses are part and parcel of the process now, and blaming the actual consumers seems like a bad strategy.
The big problem, as Dawn noted above, is they deleted some folks' content without any warning. That's a punk move by any standard.
Overall, though, I'm going to back off a bit, take a look at a few other options out there, and see how they go about enacting their new policies, and I hope they will back off of their current changes a bit. Everybody is allowed to make mistakes... but they should learn from them rather than double down on the error, so we'll see.
I view this policy as the start of something larger than just "attack reviews". The arbitary deletion of reviews and shelves without proper notice or opportunity to correct the issue (coincidently on the same week as Banned Books Week) just reeks of big business censorship. I don't mind it if there is a well defined and well advertised policy. This is a private site and the owners (amazon) can govern as they see fit. The overall issue is that my wife and I got onto this site to begin with because it was the first site that was truly for the reader. If I choose to write a negative review of a book, that is MY OPINION! If I call an author a windbag because they wrote a 1000+ page novel, that is not author bashing, that is my opinion. If I create a shelf labeled "Hot Air" and fill it with books having over 1000+ pages, once again its not author bashing. I say this because I have seen many professional reviewers say those terms about authors in their reviews. Having this policy enacted the way it was feels like this site is no longer about the reader, and is more towards being a site that is pandering to authors.
Jason wrote: "I understand that the author's bias undoubtabley influences their work, but as Baelor pointed out, if what is in the book has nothing to do with the author's behavior, why should reviewers get to lamb-baste them?"I'd say for two reasons. First, as I mentioned before, some folks are concerned about the politics, past or associations of a writer, and don't want to contribute to that person's financial success in the same way they avoid buying clothes made with sweatshop labor, try to eat organically raised food or whatever other thing they might think important.
Personally, I think there's a big gray area in there that people can make a personal choice about, but in certain cases, I don't think it's gray at all. Some guys are definitely villainous scum who have written books, and we shouldn't support someone like that with our entertainment dollars when there are other obvious and easy choices that can be made.
I think the majority of the time that people make the argument that the book and the author's views, actions or past are not related they are dead wrong. It just doesn't work that way in my experience. Writing does, sometimes, come from some strange, mystical place that seems to flow through you like some external force, but a lot of the time it's like working your way through a kind of mental maze, and that's all about how the clockwork of your brain works right down to the last tick.
So, the other thing is that some writers may have had experiences or done things that are directly related to their work. The aforementioned article about Golding, for example. That's a big deal, particularly when you bear in mind the nature of the man's work. The clockwork of that man's brain is very relevant. Nabokov too, as he was a synesthete and, though it's hard to grasp how exactly--because we can't see the words as he did, when you read him, you can just tell somehow that it had a big impact on his prose.
I'm a big fan of Richard Wagner's music, but he wrote a particularly horrible anti-Semitic diatribe during a lull in his career and a generation after he died, his music was held up by Hitler himself as an example of the Nazi ideal in the arts. Now, I don't think we can lay the Nazis at Wagner's doorstep, but it's important to know that kind of thing. It makes us better readers at the very least.
The purpose of reviews is to help people find new things to read, right? Or maybe to enrich a past reading experience or encourage a reread. It's clear that some people include personal information about an author in their choice, so isn't that information a valid part of the book review process?
I don't have a problem with the new policy I think it was rolled out badly. But personally when I look for reviews its to get a better idea of the authors style, the quality of the work or the content. If a review covers some of the meaning behind the authors work then it could be interesting to read. What I don't want to see and find disgusting and offensive is three page long rants attacking the author for being a lesbian, or because they want automatic weapons out of walmart, or just because they didn't sign your book at comic con. That's not a review that's just trolling and venting.
This is Goodreads (Amazon)'s sandbox and they let us all play in it. They should be allowed to set their own rules to keep mean-spirited people from shitting in it.Obviously, there are people here who cannot keep their objections to an author under reasonable control. If certain people hadn't adopted the "this is the interwebs where I can be offensive and nasty without consequenses" way of dealing with authors and reviews, none of this would be necessary.
Blame the trolls for fouling what should be a fair and welcoming place to discuss books, not the people who are left trying to deal with all the negativity.
**I'm going to use Carlos's post above as an example, please dont take it personally though, it was just easier than trying to find another since I can't do much searching on my tablet.**I wonder if people are unaware of the inherent negativity in their choice of words sometimes. To me, calling someone a "windbag" definitely connotes negativity toward the author where something like "wordy" does not. Even "doorstoppers" is more descriptive, if you're basing it on number of pages.
Authors do need to grow a thick skin where it comes to criticism, but it is possible to express dislike of a story without implying personal dislike of the author.
Is it simply easier to say the AUTHOR was a windbag, which is not constructive at all, instead of stating that the STORY was repetitive, or dwelt overlong on details not needed to forward the story, or too many plotlines going nowhere?
I find myself ignoring or avoiding most reviews now because so many of them are useless. "I loved it, it was super duper!" or "Boring crap, I hated it, author sucks" do not tell me anything useful or helpful. Also these sorts of reviews don't help an author to improve in any way.
It just seems to me that people nowadays don't give a damn about anything other than shouting their opinions at as many people as they can. That is their right, but it is also my right to think those opinions are stupid and a waste of my time, if there is no actual thought behind them.
10 or 15 years ago the majority of readers had no idea about what an author was like in person and could just happily choose books without caring. And authors were not subjected to the huge amounts of crap being slung around without care, also they could not instantly respond to such things, giving them time to cool off before responding with angry rants. The dark side of the internet is showing us just how nasty people can be when there are no consequences.
We have freedom to choose, but some don't acknowledge the responsibilty that any choice made has an effect. You make a nasty comment, you accept the responsibility for dealing with the backlash. And then many others are also affected - now we all are going to have to be more careful about what we do here on Goodreads, because some people chose to be hateful, causing the moderators to react.
Here is the challenge with the policy as stated. There is an author who stated fans should buy the book the week it came out to improve ratings. This is a big enough author - who tells their fans that. So I stuck that conversation in my review..technically this has nothing to do with the book but it affects how I choose to spend my money.Likewise if we are deleting books with author problems. Why are we not also deleting books that have ratings prior to the book coming out? http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87...
The last question for me is who is your review for? Is it for you and your friends? Is your bookshelf your own? If I want to name my list shitty authors why can't I? Two or three years ago clearly no one cared because the site was about the reader. Many authors would participate in discussions about a book or in the forum with pseudo names and it was great. Did we have bashing I am so sure heck we had really bad pirating issues but who cared you ignored the silly ones.
Today we have a marketing site to increase the sale of books. The side product is this is a space where you can come and talk about the book.
Thoughts:1. The implementation of the policy was poor at best. If they wanted to create a controversy and the appearance of corporate meddling this was the best way to go about it.
2. There are people who seriously went overboard with their "reviews" and anti-author campaigns. There are also authors who brought every bit of it onto their own heads. I'm not very sympathetic to either.
3. Reviews should be primarily about the actual text of the book. However, discussing an author's political, social and ethical views and actions in your reviews should not only be allowed it should be encouraged. Disconnecting art from its creator is just a weird thing to do, no matter what Neil Gaiman has to say on the subject. It's like disconnecting yourself from reality. (This doesn't mean you're not allowed to like something from someone who's morally objectionable, just that you should be aware of it and choose your course of action according to your own conscience.)
4. That being said, I fully agree with Michele's post about responsibility. It can't hurt to think a bit about tone and word choice when reviewing someone's work (especially relatively unknown and new authors.) There is no reason to get mean and spiteful just because you didn't like someone's book. The flippant, condescending nature of a lot of negative reviews on Goodreads (and other places) is something that really bothers me. You can write a negative review that clearly demonstrates your problems with the book without being an asshole about it.
5. You don't review books you haven't read PERIOD.
6. Overall I think a blanket policy like they introduced is just dumb and unnecessary. Shelves and reviews containing offensive language or wild accusations were already covered under the old policy.
7. Concerning this site being a merketing tool: a review dissuading me from buying a book doesn't mean a lost sale, it just means a *different* sale. I think that goes for most people on this site. I have a certain amount of money I spend on books, if a book I was interested in falls through because it gets panned in reviews/the author turns out to eat babies, it will just open up space in the budget for the next book on the list. One author's/publisher's loss is another's gain.
LouiseI totally agree about the arc but this book in question has almost 900 ratings. This seems highly inappropriate.
One theory I've heard about this change in policy and deletion of people's shelves and reviews is to help pave the way for reviews to be cross-posted onto Amazon.I think one of the largest issues with this is the lack of transparency.
1. The change in the policy was not announced very well. It reminds me of some of Facebook's sneaky little changes in privacy.
2. They deleted people's reviews and shelves without notifying them before to allow them to save, export, etc.
3. They are telling readers one thing and authors another. There are quite a few pictures being circulated with what now appears for authors viewing their books. It'd be nice as a reader to know what's going on to help educate decisions.
4. There is a ton of gray area concerning 'author behavior'. It's been said in this thread before, that it's vague to where they get rid of negative behavior but not positive, and where is that line? One reviewer had a shelf deleted that was simply titled, "due to author". Is that fair?
They could solve a lot by allowing private shelves. It is a suggestion that has been given to them for a long time and no action has been taken.
There are quite a few people leaving due to the poorly executed censorship for sites like booklikes.com. I just think it's indicative of Goodreads now being owned by Amazon and it is a sign of some future changes coming our way.
Jacy wrote: "Another thing is...in this group we've had a discussion about the political views of authors and a lot was said about OSC, does that mean that because of the new policy our discussions will be the ..."Probably. It sounds like the people who scream "WE CAN ONLY SAY GOOD THINGS ABOUT...STUFF!!!" are winning. It will of course be the end of Goodreads as a discussion forum.
Michele wrote: "Obviously, there are people here who cannot keep their objections to an author under reasonable control."Please explain how having a shelf called "homophobic asshats" is unreasonable?
On the issue of reviewing books before they are released, most of the arc reviews have a "received an arc for honest review" line attached to them. So when I see a review on a book that hasn't been released without the above statement, I'm automatically put off the book because it appears that the book in question is involved in some sort of scheme.I also take issue with rating books you haven't read. I don't like when I add a book to my tbr shelf and see a five star rating from the plethora of "want to read" people. It's just a form of fixing the system.
Apart from not notifying users, I see no problem with the changes. They look to enforce more legitimate connect which overall provides more useful information to the community on the value of reviews.
Jacy wrote: "I also take issue with rating books you haven't read."How much do you have to read before it becomes acceptable to rate a book? If I'm reading a history book and it has major factual errors in the first chapter, I feel that's more than sufficient to earn a one star review without bothering to finish.
Matthew wrote: "Apart from not notifying users, I see no problem with the changes. They look to enforce more legitimate connect which overall provides more useful information to the community on the value of reviews."
Some of us think knowing that an author is racist or homophobic is useful.
Problem: some authors have been abusive toward Goodreads members.Goodreads solution: ban members from complaining about abusive authors. [OK, so technically they let you complain secretly, to Goodreads, who then decide whether or not to do anything about it - and if they do nothing, there's nothing you can do about it because you're not allowed to talk about it - plus, of course, Goodreads can do nothing about abuse that happens outside GR, so the 'trust big brother, he'll sort it all out' option isn't really an alternative to free sharing of information].
Problem: when you review certain authors, you can expect to be abused, harrassed, stalked, have your personal information sprayed across the internet, have your children's school addresses posted up alongside messages asking people to teach you a lesson, and so forth.
Goodreads solution: ban reviewers from warning each other who not to review.
These two, together, are extremely troubling. Let's put this in very simple terms: When you conspire to prevent information about abuse from becoming public, you are yourself facilitating abuse. Goodreads is an abusive organisation, which facilitates and encourages the abuse of reviewers. And eventually this will come back to bite them in court. Just ask, say, Catholic bishops, or BBC executives, how comfortable it is when the public spotline is shone on this sort of "we'll do something about it but in exchange you can't say anything publically" approach to abuse.
The same can also be said about GR's refusal to do anything to discourage abusive authors from using GR to facilitate their abuse, so long as the abuse itself occurs off-site. Care homes spring to mind - it doesn't matter what the strange men do with the children, so long as it doesn't happen on the premises...
Of course, reviewers shouldn't abuse authors, either. Clearly abusive messages should be removed (and authors should be free to discuss which reviewers they think are abusive) - but that's obviously not what has been happening.
Problem: Goodreads members have spent a great deal of time contributing free content to the site.
Goodreads solution: delete private content without warning or appeals process, or even requiring any complaint to be made. When people complain that this is against the TOS and all principles of equity, 'apologise', and lie through your teeth saying that the information has been deleted and cannot be restored. Because we're all morons, and will happily believe that a major IT company with massive databases keeps no backups and cannot retrieve information that it deleted from its main database copy a couple of hours ago.
Problem: some reviewers aren't being abusive!
Goodreads solution: delete reviews and bookshelves that aren't abusive, if GR believe that the reviewer was thinking abusive thoughts at the time. It truly beggars belief that GR have been going through and deleting inoffensive shelves simply because they believed that the reviewer was using them to keep note of author behaviour, even when that use wouldn't have been apparent to any other individual who saw the shelves. This means that nobody is safe, and there are no steps that individuals can take to protect themselves from arbitrary deletions by GR. It also hardly does a service the authors themselves, since now nobody can shelve their books at all (GR said that they can tell what a shelf is for by what is shelved on it - so if you like some authors that others dislike, your shelf will be judged abusive and deleted. Note also that GR have been deleting reviews and shelves they deem 'too positive', for fear that irony may be lurking therein).
Problem: users might not like these policies!
Goodreads solution: don't tell anybody about them! Don't make any general announcement that ordinary readers will be able to find. And then go around hunting down and deleting discussions of the policy and its consequences (eg deleting a thread about members who have left GR). As long as you keep everything to one 100-page thread, nobody will be willing to wade through it all to expose your bullshit.
Problem: users are angry
Goodreads solution: interact with members in a desultory, patronising, and grossly offensive manner, lying to people's faces in easily discernable ways, and ignoring questions and complaints you don't feel like answering. Oh, and blacklist members who complain, and vindictively delete their reviews and shelves.
Problem: authors are abusing members
Goodreads solution: well, we'll do something about that one of these days, but you know staff are overstretched (harrassing and punitively content-deleting reviewers, responding to new shelves within minutes even without them being flagged, at the weekend, while taking weeks, if ever, to deal with authors).
Problem: there is currently no equivalent to Goodreads
Solution: if GR continue acting like this, there will be.
Sean O'Hara wrote: "Jacy wrote: "I also take issue with rating books you haven't read."How much do you have to read before it becomes acceptable to rate a book? If I'm reading a history book and it has major factual..."
I stopped reading Goodkind a long time ago because his books are misogynist, his characters one-dimensional, and his writing a flabtastic exercise in not advancing the plot for 8-900 pages. Finding out last night that he's also a doucherocket of the highest order made me very happy. Thanks for that, Goodreads, but apparently that will never happen again, which makes me sad.
Books simply aren't separate from their authors. Get over it. Conversely, if a screechy religionist hypes a book, I'm likely not to read it because of its good review from that person as well. Reviews are used in all sorts of ways, not just to punish authors, laud reviewers or restrict readers/consumers from saying things about authors that either the authors don't want to hear (ummm, ALL crit) or Goodreads feels might alienate shareholders. Is Goodreads for readers or Amazon shareholders? If the latter, my participation will be dropping to zero.
Wastrel wrote: "Problem: some authors have been abusive toward Goodreads members.Goodreads solution: ban members from complaining about abusive authors. [OK, so technically they let you complain secretly, to Good..."
STANDING OVATION
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
The Outlaw Josey Wales (other topics)Mein Kampf (other topics)
The Communist Manifesto (other topics)
While I'm pretty sure none of my reviews fall into this new policy...overall, I'm not happy about it because it seems that the "even though Amazon bought us, Goodreads will stay the same" moto is now out the window and our reviews will be treated like amazon reviews. This could very well be a kiss of death!
Here's the official link...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...