Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion
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Goodreads' new (Sept. 2013) review/shelf policy
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Personally, I don't judge a book by it's author's behavior, however, I do believe this is a slippery slope. Once censorship begins, what's to stop them from deleting any negative reviews? Since amazon is in the business of selling books, I believe this is the ultimate goal.
Werner, thank you for posting this informatation. I didn't know about the "badly-behaving authors". Whatever happened to the idea that people (including authors) should have to deal with the consequences of their actions?Actually, I don't care much about an author's private life-activities (within reason). But if an author's actions are related to the stifling of negative reviews about their books, that's different. No one should be allowed to stifle a negative review pertaining to the book itself.
This reminds me of the time someone told me that I shouldn't listen to a certain singer's recordings if that singer uses drugs or flaunts legalities. I had always enjoyed listening to the singer but after that, my enjoyment was decreased, in spite of the fact that I had liking the singing.
Authors and entertainers have to realize that their income (marketability) can be affected by bad publicity, whether they like it or not. That's life.
PS-Werner, thanks for the links too. They are very helpful.
I just found the following post by Kara, a GR employee who is Director of Customer Care:"And finally, we welcome all opinions about a book, whether it sucked or was the best thing you’ve read all year. It wouldn’t make sense to delete reviews simply for being critical of the book."
FROM: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Well, THAT'S good news!
I try not to know much about most authors or actors because I prefer to judge them just on their art, which is generally a production of many people, not just them.
That's a good idea, Jim.
IMO, the main reason their policy change on reviews & shelf names came under so much fire is that they didn't issue a proper statement to their users, but let it trickle out of Feedback, filtered by innuendo & inflammatory words like 'censorship'. I think they had the rules in place & could have handled it all much better than they did, but I don't disagree with what they did, even though one of my reviews was up for deletion.
Jackie, I'm going to take exception to your opinion on 2 points:First, censorship is a loaded word. There are many abridgements to freedom of expression & this is a private site, not covered by public law. Furthermore, it's a free site which means we aren't customers but products, so we have no rights save what they extend to us & they need to balance the tone of the site. They bent too far for freedom of expression & then bounced back too far the other way without properly informing us.
Still, a shelf with the name 'author-is-a-pedophile' showed up in public searches & that shouldn't be allowed, especially when it was made up by a disgruntled reviewer. It's libel.
OTOH, they took it so far as to delete shelves named 'due-to-author' which is ambivalent. I disagree with that completely, but it's pretty obvious that they've grown far too fast for their staff to keep up with, so they're taking broad strokes. That ticked me off enough that I created a new shelf called 'do-not-read' & it seems to have passed the new rules.
As for reviews, they've always had a policy that reviews should deal primarily with the book, NOT with the author & I agree with that. If it deals primarily with the author & got flagged, they would pull it from the community reviews. They took this further to say they would delete it with 2 days notice, then goofed & deleted a bunch without notice. That added a fair bit of fuel to the righteous fires.
They gave me 2 days on the one review that I had flagged. I turned it into a story, then deleted the review & put a link to the story in my review. Problem solved for me. My blank review is still there along with the link & comments that make it clear what happened. Again, I passed the censors, so I don't have a lot of sympathy for anyone crying, "Censorship!". I think it's nonproductive & not really true.
Second, Werner & you implied that this policy change came from Amazon. I don't know if it is true or not, but it adds flames to the fires that started up with the Amazon buy-out. As far as I know, they've never changed the running of Shelfari or GR, so I don't understand those sour grapes. Otis & Elizabeth started a great site & sold it, likely for enough to set them up for life. That's the American Dream. Congrats to them. If it's a bit tough on us, oh well.
Look at my ratings for this year - over 95% of the books I read were OK or better. A measly 10% were just OK & only about 20% of them (rough guesstimate) were re-reads. Most of those were last read over a decade ago, some several. I never could have picked out that many good books without the help of my friends here on GR.
Sure, GR has its flaws, but for the price, I'd say it's a hell of a deal!
;-)
From the article at the Huffington Post (which Werner provided the link for above), it seems like the Goodreads author in question brought a lot of the trouble on herself when she "challenged a Goodreads member who had given her book a two-star rating."See the article at: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/09/goodr...
(Search for the words in quotes above.)
At this point, I genuinely don't believe Goodreads or Amazon have a goal of eliminating negative reviews; I think they realize that would destroy the credibility of the site(s) as a review source. Of course, modern Big Business isn't lacking in stupidity, and they may prove me wrong; but right now I'm still optimistic.Jim, I understand where you're coming from, and even agree with many of your points. Yes, even with the policy change (which probably will never directly affect me) Goodreads remains a unique and wonderful place to share opinions about books, discover new reads, etc. And I agree that free speech is not an absolute right. (For instance, a false accusation of pedophilia is not only uncivil but libelous; Goodreads did exactly right to delete it, and the accuser should face legal consequences.) Goodreads' Terms of Use (to which we all agreed in good faith!) already laid down very solid and enforceable rules for civil speech, which I support completely. It is also a fact that past enforcement of those rules has been lamentably lacking, which has allowed a lot of troll behavior to mar the site. Personally, I would have no problem with tougher enforcement of the rules. So far, however, I haven't seen any attempt along that line.
What we're seeing with the new policy is something totally different: a crackdown on factual content that's NOT libelous, abusive, threatening, etc., and carried out as an end run around the Terms of Use instead of as an open change to them. You're right that "they didn't issue a proper statement to their users," but the reason for that, IMO, is not incompetence or miscalculation, but a recognition that the new policy will not stand much scrutiny. :-(
Mind you, I've never stated as a fact that the policy change came from Amazon, only that it's generally believed to have (which is true). I suspect it did, but that doesn't prove it did. In any case, Amazon undoubtedly knows about the policy change by now, and has chosen to let it stand. But it's true that trying to finger-point responsibility isn't the real issue; the merits of the new policy itself should be the issue. Even if Mother Teresa appeared to Otis in a dream and gave him the new policy, I still think it's a poor idea. :-)
I don't think they do either, Werner. When thoughtful reviews aren't safe, it will be time to leave. We're not there yet. I agree with you that GR went from one extreme to the other in their rules & had no need of new ones. What I don't know anything about is the "...crackdown on factual content that's NOT libelous, abusive, threatening, etc.,..." If you've provided examples of this before, my apologies, but I don't recall them & don't know of any first hand, save for the shelf names. I've written some pretty scathing reviews & except for one, none have been flagged. That one deserved it & I still got around the new rules with it.
On the Amazon thing, that's why I said 'implied'.
Jim, some time ago, another Goodreader (Ceridwen) did a detailed reconstruction and analysis of the deleted reviews by the original 21 people who were affected, as best she could piece together the data. (That wasn't easy, as the reviews themselves were gone, and some of the reviewers had left Goodreads.) I've read part of this, but don't recall much in the way of exact details; and I didn't write down the link and can't trace where I found it. But I've messaged Ceridwen for the URL for it, and will pass that on when I get it. (The fact that she's dealing with the original deletions is particularly helpful, because these are all reviews that preceded the controversy, not protest "reviews" that are simply platforms to rail at the new policy with no reference to the book or author. Those are not legitimate reviews, and should be deleted, IMO.)Kara's announcement of the new policy refers to the deletion of reviews that "are created primarily to talk about [or, in another sentence, "focused on"] the author." That language is very broad, but it clearly seems to me (and to many others who have read it) to include in its scope factual information about the author, of the kinds I offered examples of in message 1. But I don't have in hand any specific confirmed examples of reviews of this sort that have actually been deleted. (Perhaps Goodreads doesn't intend to press the new policy that far, but they've so far been very reluctant to provide any public details on how they interpret this.) Your comment is constructive and helpful, though, in encouraging us to focus on the specifics of how this is actually being implemented. That is, indeed, the crux of the issue.
Jim (and all), I've finally obtained the link to that analysis; it's a post on Ceridwen's blog, and the link is: http://soapboxing.net/2013/10/by-the-... . This analyzes, altogether, 388 reviews from the 13 reviewers she was eventually able to contact. Many of the reviews were very terse, with just observations like "not for me." Most were unrated, because the reviewer hadn't read the book (there is no requirement on Goodreads to have read a book before reviewing or rating it, positively or negatively); all of the reviewers who assigned a rating had read at least part of the book. Also, in many cases the review box was blank; the person had just listed the book on his/her shelves, but the listing was deleted because people had made comments beneath it that referred to author behavior. :-(I haven't read the whole blog post yet (it's lengthy), but Ceridwen's data does confirm that there are cases where reviews were deleted that mentioned authors' felony convictions for child pornography, etc., doxing of negative reviewers by authors, author-initiated campaigns to artificially tamper with Goodreads or Amazon rankings, and so forth. Another big area that Goodreads targeted was mention that a particular book was "P2P," that is, first published online as fan fiction, but pulled from the Net to publish as a book, often with light editing or name changes. (Fifty Shades of Grey is the best known example, but ironically no reviews of that book were deleted.) IMO, all of these are examples of legitimate review content that clearly does not violate the Terms of Use, and I would say that in at least the vast majority of cases, Goodreads was out of line in deleting them. I don't know if they're still deleting material in that irresponsible a fashion, but the fact that they did it at all reflects badly on them.
Thanks, Werner. I did read the entire blog. So all of this is based on the initial 21 who weren't supposed to have been deleted without prior notice, but were. Yeah, that was a BAD move which they acknowledged. If I'd been one of them, I'd be mad as hell, too. At least they're getting them back now.I think they went after flagged reviews. Without a flag, they probably won't find it any time soon. Interesting because I created a shelf called "Do-not-read" with short reviews for 2 books. One is focused on the author, as you know. The other is simply based on another review of the book which I pasted in there. I have another book by that author on my 'to-read' list, though.
I'll see how it plays out. Ceridwen certainly did a great job of painting the picture well. Such thoughtful analysis is perfect for making Otis & company think. Her use of his own words was masterful.
Yes, I've told her we all owe her a debt of gratitude for her hard work on this!
Werner wrote: "Jim (and all), I've finally obtained the link to that analysis; it's a post on Ceridwen's blog, and the link is: http://soapboxing.net/2013/10/by-the-... ..."Thanks for the link, Werner! Ceridwen has quite a blog there!
Here's an interesting article on the policy mess with some updated info & good links.http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/how_a...
Good article, Jim; thanks for sharing the link!
Jim wrote: "Here's an interesting article on the policy mess with some updated info & good links. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/23/how_a... ... "Thanks for the link, Jim. I skimmed the long article very briefly. Laura Miller makes some good points. We have to remember that the companies have the bottom line as their ultimate goal. The loyal readers have a different goal. We're there, as far as the companies are concerned, as the audience to their ads and promotions. However, just as a play in a theater needs an audience, Goodreads needs its readers. They'd better keep a delicate balance.
PS-Did you see one of the comments under Laura Miller's article? It said:===================================================
"Good grief, not ANOTHER article on this non-issue. Trust me, Goodreads is in no danger of losing its passionate readers. None at all. You are STILL talking about immature reviewers and an isolated incident and that is not the norm on Goodreads. I have used Goodreads every day for years along with many other reader friends and Goodreads is still a terrific site for the avid reader. Please stop these silly articles about the coming Goodreads/Amazon Armageddon." (Comment by Merry4)
======================================================
Hope she's right.
Well, like Merry4, "I have used Goodreads every day for years [over 5 1/2 years, to be exact] along with many other reader friends;" and I certainly agree that "Goodreads is still a terrific site for the avid reader." It's perfectly possible to feel that way and still not support the new policy and its ham-handed implementation. :-( (Some of us value Goodreads deeply enough to take a stand against "an isolated incident" so that it doesn't become the "norm.") And characterizing all the critics of the new policy as "immature" won't hold water, IMO.
Werner, I got the impression that Merry4 didn't mean to say that the critics of the new policy are "immature". I thought she meant that the reviewers (who bad-mouthed the authors' private lives) were immature.
PS-Werner, I do think it's good to take a stand against censorship so that "it doesn't become the norm", as you say. We're dealing with a slippery-slope, I guess.
Thanks, Joy. I do recognize the need to hold reviewers to standards of civilized expression and conduct; but I just don't want that to be confused with giving authors a free pass for unethical behaviors that breach what readers and fellow members of an online community have a right to expect from them.In some quarters of the protest movement(s) here on Goodreads, immature behavior has been on display at times, IMO. Reviewers sometimes have been drawn into intense personal feuds that don't display a lot of maturity, either. And while "immature" may not be the best description for reviews that attack authors for aspects of their personal lives that have nothing to do with their writing, or for calls to boycott authors' books because of their political or religious beliefs ("censorious" and "bigoted" would fit better) those aren't the type of reviews I'd support or encourage. (As long as they don't actually violate the Terms of Use, however, I wouldn't favor banning them; the best remedy for ignorant and misguided speech is well-informed and constructive speech, not suppression.)
It occurs to me that while GR claims 20 million users, I'd be surprised if more than 10k or 20k were actually active. It's a very small place in a lot of ways & users tend to clump according to genres. The 20 odd that were affected likely had friends that made up a much larger percentage of the active user base than the numbers would suggest since 5 of them were top reviewers.
Werner wrote: "... the best remedy for ignorant and misguided speech is well-informed and constructive speech, not suppression."I agree, Werner. Set a good example and drown 'em out! :)
Jim wrote: "It occurs to me that while GR claims 20 million users, I'd be surprised if more than 10k or 20k were actually active. ..."As Mark Twain said: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
On Sept. 20, 2013, Goodreads announced (but only in the Goodreads Feedback group, not site-wide!) that their policy is now to delete any review that they see as being about the author rather than the book. The practical effect of this is to eliminate any reviews that call authors to account for bad behavior, such as threatening and cyber-stalking negative reviewers, plagiarism, use of sock puppets (one author had over 100 of these), bribing people to write five-star reviews, etc. Goodreads has also made it clear that they will delete reviews that have comments mentioning these things (on the grounds that the comments are being used to "circumvent" the new policy), and will delete any members shelves in his/her "My Books" section if they interpret them as being based on author behavior, even if that interpretation isn't suggested by the shelf title. They now say they will give people two days notice of content to be deleted if it was posted before the policy change, but content posted subsequently is subject to deletion without notice. (At the time the policy change was initially announced, at least 21 people had pre-existing content deleted without notice, though Goodreads subsequently apologized for that.)
This policy change is generally thought to have been dictated by Amazon, at the behest of a handful of BBAs ("badly-behaving authors"), and is designed to remove any reference to their bad conduct from any content that shows when a potential buyer clicks on the Goodreads record for a particular book. Many Goodreaders, myself included, consider this a very misguided policy that essentially protects and panders to bad (and sometimes illegal) behavior. A few links are given below for reference.
www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1499741-... . This is the thread where the announcement was made. It now has hundreds of posts, mostly hotly against the new policy.
www.salon.com/2013/10/09/goodreads_wh... . An objective and balanced account of the background of the controversy.
www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1533968-... . An initiative to open a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Goodreads management bout the member concerns. (So far, it's been totally ignored by Goodreads and Amazon.)