Comments on: The GoodReads Bullying Drama

By: No Wasted Ink Writer’s Links | No Wasted Ink

No Wasted Ink Writer’s Links | No Wasted Ink — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:00:56 +0000

[...] The GoodReads Bullying Drama [...]

By: "Bully" Means Just What I Choose It To Mean, Neither More Nor Less | Popehat

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:22:32 +0000

[...] is overreach by cyber-bullies." Authors unhappy with negative reviews and criticism on a book site create a site labeling negative reviewers as "bullies" and posting their names and addresses and som… A school paper runs pro-and-con opinion columns about the right of gays to adopt; school district [...]

By: Weekly reader » Mauricio Luque

Weekly reader » Mauricio Luque — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 04:59:50 +0000

[...] The GoodReads Bullying Drama “In case you wanted to take a break from libraryland drama but wanted some other kind of related drama to occupy the space, there are things afoot in and around the literary social community, GoodReads. There’s a lot to sift through (especially as someone who is not familiar with the site, its social dynamic, or posting policies), but in doing my research into the matter over the weekend I found what I considered to be the best summary of the current state of drama.” — Andy W, Agnostic Maybe, 7/22/12 [...]

By: Mike the Librarian

Mike the Librarian — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:34:36 +0000

Aside from the obvious hypocrisy and bad taste, does this website not violate the anti-bullying laws that i thought were enacted after kids killed themselves over this sort of thing? Or was it wishful thinking that such a thing happened after all?

By: Danielle (@UberLibraryGirl)

Danielle (@UberLibraryGirl) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:43:27 +0000

Unlike commentators on sites Imdb, TMZ, etc, Goodreads’ commentators are not anonymous. It is a social network site that encourages one to reveal his/her first and last name, occupation, and state. The idea behind such openness is that there is no harm that can be acted upon by revealing one’s book taste. For authors to take the opportunity to target these reviewers is unethical and attack on freedom of speech.

I used this example on my Twitter account: I have the right to state E.L. James is a terrible writer. My choice of words and opinion is not an act of libel. In other words, if you do not like a review…that’s too bad.

By: Evan Banned

Evan Banned — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:32:56 +0000

Great article. A possible solution would be the Rotten Tomatoes model, where professional critics “scores” are aggregated while still allowing for user scores. This may hurt little known books with few to no reviews, it will be more democratic. Unfortunately, as the recent Dark Knight flame wars can show you, you can never stop people from voicing an ignorant opinion if you give them a forum. Even professional reviewers were dismantled in that debacle to the point where all comments had to be shelved.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:41:56 +0000

Maybe? Overall, a review of any kind is subjective; the site is passive in terms of how it treats these in favor of letting people voice their opinions. I think the mistake that the STGRB people are making here is disregarding the fact that people have their own bullshit detectors. They can see when a review is unfair and make their own assessment of a work. I’ve seen one star reviews on Amazon that are given when a package arrives late; it says nothing of the work and loads more about the people writing the review. In escalating, they are only bringing more attention to their negative reviews rather than ignoring or even learning from them.

By: Librarianry (@LibrarianRy)

Librarianry (@LibrarianRy) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:00:23 +0000

Thanks for the post, Andy. I didn’t know much about the situation until now, and the breakdown and list of suggested further readings has helped quite a bit. After reading much of it over (and shaking my head for a couple hours) I wonder how much of this could have been stopped if Goodreads comment policy was more authoritative? I’m against not having an open wall for discussion, but a firm policy stating what violates the policy and enforcing it might be the right thing in GR’s case. I assume that, even with a stronger policy, they don’t have a way to monitor all comments. Do you think attempting to enforce a stronger policy would have stopped this from getting out of hand?