GR's New Terms of Service - Continued

The feedback thread at GR regarding the new terms of service is still going strong. I wanted to highlight a few comments by posters who don't understand that problem or are part of the problem, rather than the solution.

First, from Alicia, we have this caps-filled venom:

Alicia is wrong on several counts. The isolated instance of a handful of reviewers--not Alicia--having their personal, although not private, information posted happened almost two years ago. The information was up for a short period of time and then it was gone. Their "only real recourse" for this is not being taken away. Their "only real recourse" was to address the problem back at the time that it occurred with the people who posted the information. Alicia is also ignoring all the other authors who have been unjustly mobbed by bad reviews and nasty comments and shelving since then. The problem is far more wide-spread than one incident from almost two years ago.

From Debbie R., we have this comment:

Debbie also has it wrong. The people drawing attention to the random instances of authors being assholes to reviewers are the reviewers themselves. They do this by flocking to the scene of the alleged crime in droves, leaving nasty comments and reviews, mass shelving the authors books on awful shelves, and writing blog posts ad nauseam about it. If the reviewer who was insulted would simply go, "Eh, piss off, you idiot" and the rest of the reviewer mob didn't run around squawking like a bunch of chickens that had just been kicked, there would be no drama.

From Heather, we have this comment:

I am stunned that someone who has used Goodreads for five years and is a librarian can think of NO OTHER WAY to handle truly abusive comments from authors. Really? How about reporting the comments to the GR Powers-That-Be and ask that the people sending you the comments be disciplined, deleted, etc., in accordance with GR's TOS?


I think what it all comes down to is that a certain mob of reviewers wants to publicly punish and shame authors who don't conform to their often oddly draconian and unwritten rules of how they think authors should interact with the public. Dealing with the true problem authors (or reviewers) privately is not enough for them. In my opinion, dealing with the true problems privately is a better solution than allowing the open public warfare to continue.

GR's New Terms of Service

I'm a bit late to the table with this, but as many who frequent this blog know, Goodreads recently changed its Terms of Service regarding how criticism directed towards authors--as opposed to books--would be dealt with. As Kara, the Director of Customer Care at GR, states in the linked post:

We have had a policy of removing reviews that were created primarily to talk about author behavior from the community book page. Once removed, these reviews would remain on the member’s profile. Starting today, we will now delete these entirely from the site. We will also delete shelves and lists of books on Goodreads that are focused on author behavior.

Although the implementation of the change in TOS was handled badly, in my opinion (with deletion of reviews and shelves without prior notice to members), I think that the change was long overdue and will ultimately make GR a better and more welcoming place to discuss books. I have a few random thoughts:

Why Mommy and Daddy Can't Have Nice Things

I'm a U.S. citizen, and one of the founding principles of our country--as enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S .Constitution--is the concept of free speech. Although, the First Amendment only limits how the government can restrict speech, the ability to express our opinions freely is also more widely held and vital cultural value. A privately-owned web site, such as Good reads, has the right to restrict speech and dictate the tone of discussion on their site. I think that most people who are passionate about a subject--in this case books, reading, authors, etc.--see the value in having a place where discussion about that subject can be wide-ranging, i.e. with minimal restrictions. None of us particularly likes to be told we can't talk about certain issues or aspects of that subject. And to date, Goodreads has mostly allowed wide-ranging discussion to occur.

Wide-ranging discussions are all well and good, however, until some participants use--and I would argue abuse--the privilege by repeatedly getting nasty with other members. Not every discussion is going to be civil; there are always going to be disagreements--even heated ones--and yes, some insults are occasionally going to be flung around. That's normal. But what inhibits wide-ranging discussion is repeated nasty behavior and personal attacks either by individuals or *groups* of individuals who target other members, particularly for minor offenses that are treated as if the offender is the most EBILEST PERSON EVAH!!!. In such an atmosphere, the loudest voices shout down all the others. The others are disenfranchised from the discussion.

The nastiness and poo-flinging in some areas of Goodreads has steadily gotten worse over the last year. Sadly, even though the poo-flinging was confined to a couple of genres and/or publishing methods, it became incredibly intense and drew national attention via several news articles and blog posts. So what's a business to do when it reaches this point?

GR's answer, clearly, was to place additional restrictions on discussion in attempt to refocus on its mission (or what I understand to be its mission) of being a site where members could discuss books. Not attack authors. Not attack each other. Perhaps if more members had taken a step back and said, "Hey, am I really adding to the discussion by making rude and nasty comments and by piling onto other reviewers and authors along with 1294 of my bestest friends?", then wide-ranging relatively-restriction-free discussion could have continued.

Lest there be any confusion: I am NOT talking about critical reviews or discussions that focus on the book or even about reviews/discussions that discuss the author's viewpoints as relevant to the book. I am talking about the shelving and all the other drama.

I Don't Care Who Started It

The poo-flingers on the reviewers' side claim that some authors started the poo-flinging by criticizing reviews or reviewers. They claim that criticizing, not just a reviewer personally (which is wrong), but merely a reviewer's opinion constitutes an "attack" on a reviewer. That is, they claim that criticizing a piece of writing constitutes an attack on the writer. However, they then turn around and claim their own criticism of a book--an author's piece of writing--is not an "attack" on an author. This is logically inconsistent and one of the reasons that their self-righteousness fails on so many levels. For the record, criticizing a piece of writing or an opinion is not the same as criticizing the writer.

The poo-flingers on the reviewers' side also make mountains out of tiny little specks of dirt. Take for example, the whole Kiera Cass drama. An agent made an unkind and inappropriate comment on Twitter--which the author simply deflected and did not participate in--and that resulted in a months-long, thousands-of-comments-long hand-wringing woe-is-the-poor-reviewer thread in response to the review that sparked the agent's comment. A thread in which the author was repeatedly viciously "attacked" (personal criticism, not criticism directed at her writing) and then had her book placed on shelves with names that also personally "attacked" her by a large number of people.

The poo-flingers on the authors' side respond to critical reviews with both thoughtful responses (sometimes) and personal insults (sometimes) directed at the reviewer. They claim that critical, even snarky reviews, are bullying or that they are "fake". Thoughtful responses are fine with me, but the rest? Nope. Critical, snarky reviews--so long as they discuss the book--are not "fake" or bullying, and calling a reviewer names or suggesting that they didn't read the book correctly or are overly critical, is all out of line.

Both "sides" in this need to stop acting like five-year-olds. It doesn't matter who "started it"; both groups need to put on their big-girl panties and stop. Be adults. Stop with the nastiness, the insults, the personal attacks, the poo-flinging, and the group piling-onto people they don't like.

Reading Comprehension Problems on a Reading Site

Many poster on the comment thread conflate GR saying, "You can't say that on GR" to "You shouldn't say that anywhere." Logic fail.

Hypocrisy, They Name is ...

Reviewers in the feedback thread are going on and on about how GR is for reviewers not authors and how authors need to never ever comment on reviews or invade a a reviewer's "review space"...unless, of course, it's an author the reviewers like--Ilona Andrews or Stacia Kane, for example (who are all fine authors and we are not knocking them for talking to fans!). Or indie authors like Angie Horn, who led a lot of the poo-flinging against other indie authors and who has subsequently been banned from Goodreads. So it's not all authors that these reviewers want to "stay out of their review space", just the ones that don't agree with their reviews.

Thou Dost Protest Too Much

Of course, many of the comments on the thread come from some of the worst poo-flingers, who are upset at the new guidelines. There are also the random over-the-top ridiculous responses (you knew I couldn't end this post without a little bit of snark, right?):

User JLC claims that the new guidelines amount to harassment of members; this is laughable. At least he/she admits that he/she is not a lawyer.

User Leah makes a long post that (deliberately?) misconstrues or ignores part of Kara's posts. She says, in part:

Your new policy is also really vague and hypocritical. Does it apply to living authors only? What about deceased authors? You do realize the literary canon is pretty much full of racist, sexist, privileged Dead White Dudes, right? So can we no longer discuss Joseph Conrad's racism in context of Heart of Darkness? Or John Updike's sexism? How about T.S. Eliot and Roald Dahl's anti-Semitism? What about the fact that Walt Whitman faked his own reviews? And geez, you may as well delete Mein Kampf from the site right now, considering it's nigh-impossible to discuss it without referring to its author, aka The Worst Human Being Ever.

This comment was eventually reposted on her author blog, and it currently has 591 likes. The problem is that this a complete strawman argument as Kara's original post already dealt with this issue:

Some people are perhaps interpreting this as you can't discuss the author at all. This couldn't be further from the case. The author is a part of the book and can certainly be discussed in relation to the book. But it has to be in a way that's relevant to the book. Again, let's judge books based on what’s inside them.

User Nicole the Reading Ninja thinks that the U.S. Copyright Act can be used to force a web site to post writing. She also says:

but when an author is free to write anything they want in a book, why aren't we free to express ourselves when reviewing said content, even if it means mentioning the author.

But an author is not "free to write anything in a book". They have to abide by the rules of the company that printed or published the book. Likewise a reviewer posting on web site has to abide by the rules of that web site.

There are also posters claiming that if they can't have shelf names slamming authors, then instead of doing the adult thing like creating a shelf called, for example, "not-for-me" or "not-interested", they are going to one-star all the books they haven't read by authors they don't like, thereby giving disgruntled authors yet more (legitimate) ammunition in this fight. Yes, behaving like pouty children is really going to improve the atmosphere at Goodreads. *sigh*

Final Thoughts

I will probably update this as I consider the issue more or in response to comments on this blog. I am open to discussing this, and I don't delete comments unless they are blatant threats or solely name-calling.

GR Reviewer Ridley Gets Spanked

We went in search of other snark-worthy events on GR tonight and found this juicy tidbit. GR reviewer Ridley apparently posted a non-review of "The Vampire of Vigil's Sorrow" by Cassandra Duffy, only to find out shortly thereafter that GR had chosen to "hide" the review. (Note that if you are on Ridley's friends list you might be able to see the original review here. Our link above is to someone else's quote of it.)

The non-review read as follows:

"When it comes to book bloggers/review websites, I think anyone who posts a scathing rant review of a book without receiving a giant paycheck as compensation are just bitter twats who should probably find a hobby that doesn’t involve tearing down artists who actually contribute something to the world."

You don't say...

The part in quotation marks is taken from Cassandra Duffy's first response to a blog post at the San Francisco Book Review called "Bad Reviews Suck...And Why I Don't Care" by Rachel Carsman Thompson. In subsequent conversations with other posters, Cassandra explains and softens her stance, but anyone following the GR reviewer mobs lately can see how her original post is like jumping into a piranha-infested lake after being mauled by a crocodile and while towing a piece of raw zebra meat. It's gonna bring the biters. Ridley was one of those biters.

Cassandra said, in part, in response to another poster:

Really? From what I’ve seen all over on Goodreads from them would qualify as deplorable behavior. Calling Katharine, who I assume is the lady who started the website, an alcoholic child abuser and black balling any author who says anything they don’t like.

Cassandra was, we're inferring, referring to discussion on Ridley's now-hidden review and didn't understand that commenters were actually making fun of the STGRB site, not making fun of Kat. From there the conversation goes like this:

Ridley: I’m only going to point out that the “Kat” we reference was one of the blogger/reviewers targeted by STGRB and we were alluding to that site’s smearing of her character wherein they accused her of being an alcoholic neglecting her children. You’re clearly reading above your pay grade here.

Cassandra: Why don’t you explain what any of that had to do with the book of mine you were posting it on?

Ridley: “Why don’t you explain what any of that had to do with the book of mine you were posting it on?”

What do you care about what a “bitter ***” like me does? Aren’t you busy in your little “intellectualism world” buying cars or something?

You seem awful preoccupied with impugning our honor for someone who proclaims to not care what angry reviewers have to say.

Cassandra: So in other words, you can’t explain why you’re posting non-reviews on books you haven’t read attacking the author personally?

Crickets chirping.... Go, Cassandra!

OK, so back to GR where the bitching is going on in the Feedback forum. Ridley has started the topic with:

Why has my review of The Vampires of Vigil's Sorrow been hidden from view? What was the problem with it? We can't have discussions about books we've shelved anymore?

There is some non-heated discussion of reviewing the author vs. reviewing the book. Then Patrick, the Community Manager, posts a general explanation of why reviews get hidden and says to Ridley:

Ridley, in this particular example, your review was hidden because it is not a review of the book, but rather of the author. One of the points in our guidelines will be "review the book and not the author." If you want to post something about the author's conduct or behavior, that's fine, and we certainly aren't going to delete those reviews, but they will not be shown on the book page. Your friends and followers will be able to read them, just like they always have, but the book page is and always has been for reviews of the book.

Go, Patrick! Ridley proceeds to whine:

To be fair, I'm reacting to the author's *words* and not her personally. I'm also not calling her names or anything else verboten by the TOS. I could see if I was spamming all of the author's books with 1-star ratings or otherwise gaming the system, but I'm not. I've shelved her book, and my friends and I discussed why in the comments.

So what's the problem? Surely you can find a way to allow readers to freely discuss books and the authors who write them that preserves the integrity of your star rating and review system. In light of the website stalking me and other GR users you must understand why we need to be able to discuss these sorts of things.

and whine:

Can't you just de-prioritize them below reviews with a rating? Why hide them entirely? Why isn't an author a legitimate discussion topic?

and whine:

I find it stifling. Authors should be fair game for discussion. Books aren't written or read in a vacuum.

Why not just leave the "reviews" on the book page and trust users to decide for themselves if the info has value? Why make that decision for them?

Kat Kennedy actually says something sensible (yes, yes, we know, we almost fainted with shock and spilled our lovely and rather expensive California pinot noir):

Honestly, I keep a DNR shelf to remind myself of which authors I don't want to read - and why. But I think it is perfectly reasonable for this to not show up on the book page.

No matter how much of an asshole an author is - and believe me, i know they can be, it is still reasonable that the BOOK page reflect the book. Book page is for reviews - good or bad. That's understandable.

Invasion of the body snatchers? Or just a brain transplant? Who knows... Ridley sulks and deliberately misses the point:

Kim wrote: "When looking at books to read I don't care one bit about the author, just the book." Then do what I do with image/gif reviews: skip them and instead read reviews in a style you do like.

Oh, Ridley. Attacking the author is not a "style of review"; it's ass-hattery. It's being a fucktard. If you want to criticize the author, find a more appropriate venue--like your own blog or Twitter--and have at. And yes, by all means, skip the reviews that are written in a style you don't like. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. And she sulks some more:

I guess we've just been reminded that authors and publishers pay the advertising bills, and not readers. Noted.

How much longer until she looks like the adult version of her avatar--minus the bird, of course? And then her  brain starts spinning:

How exactly do you plan to enforce this? All we have to do is mention the book in the review to get around this. How will you judge when a review has enough about the book to stay on the book page? How will you judge veracity?

How will you have time to do this *and* figure out why the site crashes every other time a user does something?

We can see Ridley's next review now (PROFANITY WARNING):

This author is a piece of shit who doesn't respect the ground that we reviewers walk on. She had the fucking temerity to express an opinion that we don't FUCKING agree with, and I really really regret that I could only get 200 of my closest GR buddies to shelve her book as a bratty-author-to-avoid because, like fucking 1200 would have been much better. But I did get a lot of them to blog about her and Twitter about how shitty she is and just let everyone they know that you should avoid this author at all costs because I think she's a shitty meanie. [lather rinse repeat several times] Oh, and I hated the heroine's first name.

The discussion continues but Ridley appears to have bowed out at the time of this posting--probably plotting with her bird how best to get around Patrick's and GR's decision to clean up the book pages. We'll keep y'all updated.


Update (that was fast, wasn't it?): Ridley's review of this Cassandra Duffy book is equally non-book-related but hasn't been hidden yet. Some discussion under the review is entertaining.

GR Reviewer Hypocrisy

Back in January, before we took a hiatus from the craziness of GR, we wrote a post called Acceptable Author Behavior. We realize, because of a comment on that post, that we should give a specific example. We will also point of the hypocrisy of GR reviewer brigade.

Goodreads author and reviewer Lissa Bilyk has several books listed on Goodreads, including The Edge of Darkness.  The reviews on Lissa's book include:

---A five-star review by her boyfriend/fiance/possibly husband by now, Archer. Archer does not reveal his close personal connection with Lissa in the review. Archer is a frequent and vocal complainer about "bad author behavior". Hypocrisy, thy name is Archer.

---GR member Stephanie Sinclair, also of Cuddlebuggery Book Blog, of posts a three-star review. She at least posts a semi-critical review and mentions that Lissa is a GR friend of hers, but remember, according to the GR Reviewer Mantra: author's friends are not allowed to review them.

---GR member Kira, whom we have blogged about before, leaves a five-star review with the disclosure that she beta-read the book.

---Angela, another of Lissa's GR friends, leaves a four-star review.

And those are only the names we recognize as having connections to Lissa and the militant GR reviewer clique that we have mentioned before; there are yet more reviews we have not tracked down the source of.

We take from this that if the GR clique is hypocritically inconsistent. When Kiera Cass asks friends to merely like positive reviews, she was excoriated over 30 some pages of comments, yet when a friend/member of the GR clique has friends and family members write positive reviews, she is....nothing. Crickets chirping. It's not a problem.

Kat Kennedy Gets It Wrong

Yes, we're back and bringing more snark and reviewer bad behavior. We found today's snark on Goodreads, and even though it occurred in another place, it seemed like good fodder. (Note this was written some time ago but just recently posted, so if any of our links don't work, please let us know)

GR reviewer Kat Kennedy writes for a blog called Cuddlebuggery Book Blog. Back On April 2 of this year, Kat wrote a post that took pot shots at Rebecca Kennedy, author of "The Forever Girl". According to Kat, Rebecca "ever so inno­cently tweets [a] neg­a­tive review" on Amazon "which, sur­prise, sur­prise, means that Hamilton’s small fan­base heads over to attack the reviewer." Snotty tone? Yep. Ridiculous implication that the author is responsible for her fans actions? Yep. 

Kat continues, "On another review, the author and some of her fans try to reach out and try to explain where the reviewer is getting it wrong." However, there's one large problem with this statement: the author never told the reviewer she was "getting it wrong". In fact, Rebecca repeated several times that the review was just fine with her. So this statement is a blatant--and we would argue, deliberate--misrepresentation of the author's actions.

The self-righteous post continues with, "Hamil­ton later believes that peo­ple are pur­posely down­vot­ing pos­i­tive reviews and so does the pro­fes­sional, clear-headed response of…requesting peo­ple upvote the reviews?" and is followed by some Twitter screencaps. To answer Kat's question:

There is nothing unprofessional about an author

asking her fans to like positive reviews.

We don't know where Kat gets this asinine idea that an author can't ask people who like her reading to share their opinions by writing reviews and liking other reviews that share their opinion. But she's off in some odd only-readers-who-don't-like/know-authors-get-to-have-opinions left field. Again.

Next Kat brings up a review on Fangs for the Fantasy and claims that Rebecca tries to explain to them why they are "getting it wrong". But, oops, Kat forgets to mention that the "getting it wrong" refers to a discussion in the comments regarding use of the word "crazy" that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REVIEW. And frankly, the way Rebecca got lectured to, we're surprised that she managed to maintain as polite and considerate as she did. Please go read the comments for yourself if you don't believe us.

Kat says this leads to an argument--which is actually close to a correct characterization form Kat for once--and angry tweets. Note that both parties in the exchange said some heated things, however, and this STILL has nothing to do with the book or book review.

Then Kat writes: "But this is all fine because, as Hamil­ton explains in her own words below, she wasn’t argu­ing with the review or reviewer, she was argu­ing with the per­son!  Never mind that the entire dis­cus­sion over the term “crazy” began with Hamil­ton cor­rect­ing the reviewer over their opin­ion of her rep­re­sen­ta­tion of minor­ity groups…"

No, Kat, that Rebecca was NOT arguing over the book review or the opinions expressed in the review, but about the site owner's personal bad reaction to her use of a word in a comment--so her statement is correct. The italicizing simply shows that Kat doesn't understand that distinction. And Rebecca did not correct the commenter's opinion, but rather she clarified how she (Rebecca) meant the word. Big difference and to say otherwise is mischaracterizing the conversation.

Kat's blog post continues, and we'll pick up the dissection of its errors in a subsequent post. But would you want to read book reviews by someone who continually either doesn't read something correctly or reads correctly but misrepresents something? Not sure we would.

 

Reviewer Wendy Darling - Part 2

[Edited July 20, 2012 to add: If you are joining us here because of links from StoptheGRBullies, Goodreads, or the Huffington Post, please read today's post.]

We're back. We couldn't stay away from the train wreck. 505 comments because someone called someone else a bitch on the Internet.

We do feel a bit bad at this point about including Wendy's name in the titles of these posts as she is one of the more clear-headed thinkers on these threads.

Reviewer Lucy - who has a private profile so we can't see what else she has been up to - wins the award for the most pretentious and self-righteous post of the thread:

The agent was not the only one who acted inappropriately and behaved unprofessionally. It's wrong to shift all the blame to her when the author was ALSO trying to screw with the rankings on an independent book review site. Absolving her of guilt like it never happened sends the message that this is acceptable behavior. Screwing with the rankings of the reviews because your publisher couldn't buy you the top slot is pathetic. It's sad that this author, Leigh Fallon, and apparently you too can't understand what's intrinsically wrong with scamming a system for a leg up at readers and reviewers' expenses. 

Keira didn't call a reviewer a bitch. She didn't correct her agent or ask her agent to delete that tweet the moment she saw it. She let it pass. The only thing she did was not say it herself. I won't be throwing her a parade anytime soon. 

We really needed a LOLcat for this. We'll have to dissect this bit of tripe in another post.

Wendy herself tries to shut down any disagreement, although we find this sad rather than laughable:

What also irritates the shit out of me over stuff like this are the fellow GoodReads users and bloggers who are always kissing ass and feel the need to weigh in on other people's reviews, policies, etc. You have a right to disagree with anything I say, but talking about someone publicly is always in bad taste. 

Reviewer Anna gets a failing grade in logic:

By publicly calling you a bitch this agent is essentially calling any reader who doesn't love this book a bitch.

Others express their sympathy for all that Wendy is going through and how it's so terrible that she's being attacked. /eyeroll

Everyone in this thread needs to grow the fuck up.

Getting called a bitch is not being OMG!!!!ATTACKED or BULLIED or some other over-the-top personal slight. Geez. It was rude, yes, but a mature adult would GET OVER IT.
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Crap, we're going to have stop reading that thread again.

Reviewer Wendy Darling Joins the Fray

[Edited July 20, 2012 to add: If you are joining us here because of links from StoptheGRBullies, Goodreads, or the Huffington Post, please read today's post.]

We had hoped that perhaps we could enjoy GR this morning without more whinging, but unfortunately that was not to be. Yet another reviewer and her cronies are upset that someone was mean to her on the Internet.

Today's reviewer is Wendy Darling. She posted a one-star review of The Selection by Kiera Cass. The review seemed well-written to us. We haven't read the book, so we can't say whether we agree with it or not.

Let's start with the most clear case of over-reacting: the one on Wendy's blog (which her review on GR links to). An anonymous commenter writes, "You gave such a bad review for a book you didn't even read all the way though??? Well, I did read the entire book and it was absolutely, positively, wonderful!!!!" Wendy's first response is polite, and she's blase about it in the comments thread on the GR version of the review. We applaud that.

The anonymous commenter continues with, "I thoroughly enjoyed this book and await for the next one with anticipation. But, like you say, I'm entitled to my opinion and you to yours. I do hope that people don't dismiss a good read based only on your opinion though, it was well worth the read. Are you an Author?" Pretty obvious where this silliness is headed, yes? One red herring complaint from some over-sensitive authors is that someone gave a book a bad review because they are jealous competing authors. 

Wendy gets snippy in return, "...it's very hard to have a conversation with someone who seems to be very insistent upon making sure her opinion is known on someone else's review. ...". While we acknowledge that Anonymous was being stupid, Wendy's response seems to indicate that she is not open to discussion of her reviews.which is a hair's breadth away from the lately-cropped-up attitude on GR that anyone who questions a reviewer's review is either an author or a troll. And that's the attitude that has us so annoyed.

Anonymous can't leave well enough alone and has a final parting shot, "... I'm going away now and not coming back because I'm having a hard time having a conversation with someone who is a Disney Character." Commeter Cillian decides to feed the troll (remember this name; she'll most likely be the subject of a future post). Then another anonymous commenter then jumps to the conclusion that the first anonymous is really the author and that those silly comments constitute bullying. This comment is even more offensive to us. As we've said many times before, really bullying is serious and calling a couple of silly comments on a blog post "bullying" trivializes it.

Back on the GR review, Wendy posts a link to a Twitter conversation between Kiera Cass and Elena Roth, who is later revealed to be Ms. Cass's agent. Ms. Roth is upset about the order in which reviews are posted on a book's GR page because (we think) that Wendy's was the first review.  Ms. Cass initially dismisses Ms. Roth's complaint. Ms. Roth goes on to call Wendy (assuming hers is the review in question) a bitch and says that she went in and "liked" the positive reviews. Ms. Cass says that she may also like the positives, then moves on another topic.


And the reviewer crowd goes wild! Highlights include:


Hannah Joy demonstrates remarkably hypocrisy, by calling Ms. Roth a "piece of shit" (in our opinion, this is worse than "bitch").


Julianna accuses Ms. Cass of calling Wendy a "bitch", even though Ms. Cass didn't.


Sharon thinks the author is immature...for what we're not sure.


Chelsea blames Ms. Cass for Ms. Roth's words. Sans also accuses the author of "asshattery" for comments that Ms. Roth - not the author! - made. So does Erika.


Reviewer The Holy Terror, one of the worst of the whingers, writes, "... it's really, really dumb of Cass to act like this." Like what? Ms. Cass wasn't the one throwing around the epithets.


Ace's comment is particularly repugnant for misusing the term "bullying".


Stephanie calls on of Ms. Cass's old blog posts tasteless because she (Ms. Cass) actually found some good humor in the early version of Wendy's review. Liking a review is tasteless?


And the comments continue. We can't continue to read and post because the exaggerations, lack of reading comprehension, and general nastiness on the part of many commenters is extremely tiring. 


A quick review of Twitter also shows that Jane Litte of DearAuthor has once again commented on this matter. She accuses Ms. Cass of trying to "jigger" the ratings and "down vote" a negative review. Sorry, Ms. Litte, GR doesn't allow you to "down vote". The most intellectually disturbing comment by Ms. Litte is where she implies that friends of Ms. Cass cannot possibly actually like a positive review of her book. You know what, people don't automatically lose their right to have an opinion simply because they know and like an author. Anti-free-speech much?

Reviewer Booker - GR's Newest Jackass

Reviewer Booker is GR's newest jackass. This troll account was created this month, and his (?) activity consists solely of posting personal attacks on author, Jamie McGuire. And other reviewers crowd goes wild with approval. Because personal attacks on authors are A-OK, but personal attacks on reviewers are a cardinal sin. Booker apparently also trolled Ms. McGuire's blog.

Reviewer Stephanie vs Leigh Fallon

Reviewer Stephanie wrote a scathing review of Leigh Fallon's Carrier of the Mark, which we found quite entertaining (we have no particular love for Twilight or Twilight clones).

The author is upset by this review and vents privately to a couple of friends in an email. Ouch, it's got some nasty insults in it, and maybe she was having a really bad day. Personally, we have learned over the years to never write anything in an email that you wouldn't to see the light of day...but that's another story. However, the author considered this private correspondence to a couple of friends. See her reply to Stephanie right below the text of that email in the link. What are friends for if not say stupid shit to that you would never ever repeat in public?

Unfortunately, the author's friends are not very good friends, and the email is forwarded to other people. One of those people sends a copy to Stephanie. Then Stephanie posts the private correspondence publicly on her status. We can understand that her feelings might be hurt - although see our post about writing scathing reviews means expecting backlash) - but the posting of private correspondence is not the solution.

The usual reviewer fan-girl flurry ensues. The general consensus seems to be that it was unprofessional for the author to vent in private as well as in public. For example:

This was unprofessional of her...  

This author's antics with regard to a negative review are immature, vindictive, puerile, unethical, and - most of all - unprofessional. Her publisher should know about this. Disgusting. She's now on my "never read" list. 

Authors ...  need to grow a thicker skin and come to the realisation that not every single person who reads their book is going to love it. Pathetic is a bloody understatement

Reviewer Adam Archer - yes, the one from our earlier post - chimes in. We're not quoting his drivel here.

Reviewer Kira also responds, still upset from her own brush with an upset author, and accuses the Leigh Fallon of bullying. Considering that Leigh is not the one who sent the email to Stephanie, this is clearly not author bullying. Using the word "bullying" is, in fact, trivializing real instances of bullying.

But let's look at the other thing that's got the review fan-girls stirred up. In the email, Leigh asks her friends to find others to up-vote the positive reviews on Amazon. This is seen as unethical:

You should MOST CERTAINLY do it, because that's definitely playing the system. Authors should NOT be getting their little minions to do this kind of shit.

I feel like reporting this to Amazon. She's screwing with the system. I can't help it if others felt the same way about her book! 

We're going to apply some common sense here and disagree with knee-jerk reaction. The author didn't ask her friends to mark the negative reviews as unhelpful. That we would have (vehemently!) disapproved of because that's not what the useful yes/no buttons are supposed to be for on Amazon.  Unless of course the negative review was just a "this book sucks" because that's negative and useless. Lots of negative votes on a review can also affect a user's rank, so down-voting reviews that contain useful information but that you don't agree with is, frankly, petty.

However, the author instead asked people to mark the good reviews as helpful.  We know that's a fine distinction, but the author isn't asking her friends to criticize Stephanie or do anything to damage her ranking on Amazon. And to us the author's friends and family have just as much right as anyone else to find the positive reviews helpful as any other reader. They can't have an opinion just because they know the author? What if they've read the book and liked it? Don't they have the right to say so?

And of course in the backlash in all of this, reviewers have done just what we disapprove of an up-voted negative but clearly useless reviews so that they now appear above more detailed positive reviews. For example, these two reviews were posted after the GR brou-haha:

Another sad Twilight remake. Lord, when will this end? Alternatively, if you love Twilight and hate originality - you will LOVE this book! - Posted Jan 5, 2012

I don't read books where the author copies another book. This author to me is sloppy, way too many similarities to twilight. Very lazy! Don't waste your time with this one. If you wanna read it id suggest you just go reread twilight. - Posted Jan 6, 2012

And both of these now show as "more useful" than all of the positive reviews. Yup, who's screwing with the system now? Where is the condemnation from reviewers about these reviews being up-voted? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Too bad a great review had to get marred by the posting of private correspondence. Incidentally, look the email link again. The author apologized to Stephanie even though what Stephanie read was never meant for her to see. If we were the author, we'd be looking for better close personal friends, ones that know better than to forward emails around the Internet.

We won't be reading Carrier of the Mark, but we won't be burning the author in effigy either. We also hope Stephanie keeps writing awesome reviews.

Reviewer Kira and "Tempest" by Julie Cross

GoodReads reviewer Kira wrote a review of "Tempest" by Julie Cross based a a few sample pages offered as a free preview. One of the characters in the sample pages is portrayed as man-hating, and another character refers to the initial character as someone prone to "feminist" rants. Kira objects to what she sees a stereotypical depiction of feminists as man-hating and angry.

Hm...

The quoted text actually just implies that one man-hating girl identifies herself as a feminist. It never says or implies that all feminists share that same view. Without actually reading the rest of the book, Kira also asserts that the book, as a whole, misrepresents feminism:

The attitude to feminism that this book has is the same as the masses; that all feminists are angry, man-hating bitches with nothing better to do than to moan. Apparently we're all lesbians, too, because the only reason anyone would be a lesbian would be to escape men - it wouldn't simply be because they're naturally attracted to other women. Why, no! How preposterous!

I am also extremely insulted by this book's quite overt insinuation that because I am a feminist, I'm a misandrist.

[As an aside: Kira's entitled to her own opinion of it, but this is a bit silly IOO. If you haven't read the whole book, you can't know how the issue is ultimately dealt with. You can complain about the scenes that you did read, but any further speculation is just...guessing and frankly, we're not impressed by guessing.]

Dan Krokos, author of another book, pops in (big mistake!) and asks what is actually a very pertinent question: "What did you think of the rest of the book?"

Then the discussion goes off into how the text supports harmful stereotypes, confuses feminism and misandry, etc., by reviewers who, mostly, haven't read the book and can't speak reliably about how the book portrays feminism beyond this single scene.

Dan gets accused of trolling by another reviewer, even though he was not the only one to ask what Kira thought of the rest of the book.

Kira feels paranoid because OMGWTFBBQ authors might actually read her review. Later she accuses unnamed authors of stalking her. For reading and responding, I think, to publicly posted reviews. This is about where we flagged this thread for inclusion on this blog.

Another reviewer mentions that reading the entire book might be a good thing. The first bandwagoner to respond to him states, "The narrative supports the 'feminist = evil man hating shrew' stereotype through other characters, including Holly, and especially through the characterization of Lydia herself. She's a walking stereotype practically designed to legitimate it." This bandwagoner also states that she hasn't read the book either, just the few passages that others have posted. 


Julie Cross, the author of the book, jumps in and is very gracious. Kudos from us, Ms. Cross!


And this only on page 2. The entire response thread is 8 pages and almost 400 comments long. There's much talk of abuse via Twitter, never-ever-OMG-never reading certain authors again, author bashing, high-horse lecturing by reviewers, whinging, etc. Many reviewers tell Kira how sorry they are that, OMG, poor thing, someone said something bad on the Internet about her and/or her reviews, and at the same time saying bad things about authors/author's comments. A couple of other authors make gracious appearances (kudos to them as well!). Dan Krokos eventually apologizes for posting anything at all in response to the review.


Even though we've read a few linked up blog posts, we can't find any screenshots of Dan Krokos' Twitter posts that supposedly "bullied" Kira. Kira says that she does not have a Twitter account and thus could not have been contacted by Dan via Twitter. Cyber-bullying is a very real problem, and it bothers us to see that term misused here. Posting a few stupid comments about someone somewhere on the Internet is, well, stupid, but it's not bullying or harassment.


The whole debacle was tiring to read. Authors shouldn't jump into review threads to complain, period. But it is the height of hypocrisy to write aggressive and hostile reviews and then act surprised and outraged when you receive some hostility in return. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.


Talk about a tempest in a teapot.

(OK, enough cheesy sayings...)

Jane Litte vs Jamie McGuire on Twitter

This is not strictly a GoodReads folly, but we just recently read this entire exchange on Twitter and our respect went up for Jamie McGuire and down for Jane Litte of DearAuthor. We think we've got the entire exchange:

***

Jane: I'm posting my review on Sat of ur book & it contains everything that you seem to hate and despise in a review.

Jane: so if your google alert pops up with a link to a site called DearAuthor.com you probably don't want to read it.

Us: What was the point of this taunt?

Jamie: @jane_l promises to fry me in her upcoming review on Dear Author. And that's okay.

Us: FWIW, we would have interpreted Jane's comment the same way Jamie did.

Jane: I am not going to fry you at all but reading your blog post and tweets, I have committed every venal sin you hate act rvwrs.

Jane: My review was written last week before I even read your blog post or your tweets.

Jane: but I did mention my concern abt the portrayal; that the characters were in a potentially abusive relationship

Jane: I felt like it portrayed a very unhealthy relationship in a fairly positive light.

Jane: But I also said I liked it. I recommended it to other readers. I said your voice was strong and compelling.

Jane: But in light of what you've said about reviewers and reviews, shouldn't I be concerned?

Us: So Jane objects to Jamie responding to reviews and reviewers. Yet when
Jamie tries to disengage from Jane (a reviewer), Jane sends six more
tweets trying to start an argument.

Jamie: I've read your posts and I understand your viewpoint. I don't understand your anger, but you don't need me to.

Us: Jamie again tries to disengage from the conversation without arguing.

Jane: I have no anger toward you. It's a complete disappointment but it's not anger.

Jane: Just like your last glib tweet was a disappointment.

Us: So how does Jane want Jamie to respond? She's unprofessional
if she argues with reviewers and glib if she doesn't argue with them.

Jamie: I've read some disappointing things myself lately.

Jane: Let me be clear. My reviews about the book only. I don't "fry" any other and I take exception to the accusation that I would

Us: Then maybe NOT taunting the author would have been a better decision.

Jamie: So the warning about the Google alerts was meant as...?

Jane: You had interacted w me in the past. I wanted to give you heads up that my review contained all the things you hate. 


                                 Us: Pretty weak excuse.


                                                 ***


We do think that Jamie was wrong to criticize the reviewers personally in her blog post (see previous post), but we also remember what our Mom used to say: two wrongs don't make a right. 

Reviewer Sophia vs. Jamie McGuire

A reviewer who goes by Sophia wrote a review of Jamie McGuire's Beautiful Disaster. She doesn't like relationship portrayed in the book...or at least the first nine chapters of the book, because that is all the further she read. The review is quite hostile to the book and includes some digs at other reviewers liked the book:

No really, how can you read this?

It scares the shit out of me to see that some people are able to read such violence and yet remain flippant and oh-so-casual like it's no big deal. It makes me wonder, if they ever witness a real beat-up, would they react? Would they care?

And for those who pretendedly realized that it wasn't healthy, but yet managed to like the book anyway: why would you want to witness such a relationship? What's the pleasure in contemplating two people who never, ever realize how deep they've fallen into violence and abuse?

This review comes to the attention of the author who, rather ill-advisedly, makes a blog post that criticizes some reviewers and asks them not to"demean and disrespect [her] fans" who liked the book. The blog post would have been far better without her comments about the attitudes of reviewers who didn't like her book, but still, she has a valid point about the reviewer in question attacking her fans.

Of course, this blog post seen as WHOLLY INAPPROPRIATE AND UNPROFESSIONAL by scads of bandwagon-jumping reviewers on GR. Because authors are never ever supposed to react to reviews. Ever. Even if the review crosses the line from talking about the book to talking about the author and/or people who liked the book. For the record, we think the author should have left well enough alone, but the holier-than-thou attitude of some of the reviewers posting in that thread turned our stomach.

The author is later taunted via Twitter by a reviewer at - and owner of - a popular web site:

jane_l Jane L

@JamieMcGuire_ I'm posting my review on Sat of ur book & it contains everything that you seem to hate and despise in a review.

jane_l Jane L

@JamieMcGuire_ so if your google alert pops up with a link to a site called DearAuthor.com you probably don't want to read it.

Another blogger picks up the kerfuffle but says only that McGuire "abuses negative reviewers in blog" and leaves off the part about the blog asking reviewers not to abuse the author's fans.

Yeah, right. Look, folks. You can post nasty reviews that make unflattering comments about fans, other reviewers, etc., on the Internet all you want, but it's hypocritical to then get pissed off when the people you attacked - or their friends or supporters - get upset and respond. In other words: it's your right to be an asshole on the Internet, but it's also the right of others to call you on it.