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Thank you for clarifying, Austin. Based on what was said here, I wasn't sure.Kudos to Goodreads for handling this quickly and seriously.
Dusti, it looks as though yes, her Librarian privileges have been revoked. This is a good thing, as she very specifically broke the rules. It would still be nice to get an apology.That said, I've never seen Evelyn apologize for anything in the many years that I've known her, so I really, really doubt that an apology is forthcoming from her. This is probably because she isn't actually sorry at all, and will continue to behave in the same way on other sites where she won't get caught.
Evelyn, if you're reading this, nothing would make me happier than being proved wrong. Please show me that you're sorry for more than just getting caught.
Alessandra wrote:"Librarians are only permitted to delete books which are grossly miscategorized from lists. If it is not a list they originated themselves, there is a sometimes etiquette of posting a notice about it in the comments below the thread asking if it should be done, or if the book is really on the wrong list, a note that one has deleted it. While librarians have the power to simply delete books from lists, anyone who does so without the strongest of reasons will generally have librarian privileges revoked."
and
"Ms. Kriete delete five times the number of books Rora did. She decided without any discussion or notice to destroy the list entirely, which is completely against GoodReads' policies, rather than let it continue with fourteen books deleted. She erased the votes and book recommendations of 167 people."
Have librarian privileges been revoked?
Oh, it was also just brought to my attention that the majority of the books deleted by Rora were books that you helped promote, Evelyn, many of which were written in whole or part by G.D. Falksen.I'm not sure what you did to upset Rora, whoever that is, but now it makes sense why all the others had to be deleted in order to make the list "fair".
All the deleted books have a number, which is the Goodreads reference number for that book. Anyone can look them up, and I encourage everyone to do just that, in case they still think that this deletion was mistakenly in the interest of fairness, or was in any way an accident.
Again, I think an apology is necessary.
When I discovered last Sunday evening that this list had had all of its books removed except for Ms. Kriete's votes, I did what one is supposed to do.I did not touch the page or do anything rash.
I went to Goodreads Feedback and started a thread about it, alerting people and asking what had happened.
The Goodreads staff is not always available, but the readers of Feedback keep on top of things, and I knew the matter could be discussed among the community and people could help work out what had happened and what to do.
I did not take it upon myself to fix the problem as I saw it. I talked to people and listened to them.
The situation was made worse by the silence about what had happened. There was no comment or explanation of any kind on this list. We could only speculate what had happened and why.
Someone else started a thread in the Librarians' Forum to talk about it, since the librarians are responsible for keeping things orderly.
A great deal of information came out fairly quickly, given a sense of urgency by the drastic nature of what was happening. The member linked to in Ms. Kriete's post, who had made almost fifteen-hundred deletions of books in the previous week, came to light, ironically because of the attention given to Ms. Kriete's deletions.
Librarians are only permitted to delete books which are grossly miscategorized from lists. If it is not a list they originated themselves, there is a sometimes etiquette of posting a notice about it in the comments below the thread asking if it should be done, or if the book is really on the wrong list, a note that one has deleted it. While librarians have the power to simply delete books from lists, anyone who does so without the strongest of reasons will generally have librarian privileges revoked.
As an example of how these discussions go, there is an ongoing discussion right now on this thread about whether books with thousands of ratings can properly be called "unknown, hidden," but notice that no one has deleted any books yet.
Even list originators may not remove books from lists unless they do not fit the stated terms of the list. Lists do not "belong" to the people who start them, and sometimes they can go in quite different directions than the originator intended. The originator cannot simply close up the list once it is out there.
This list may have been damaged by the actions of the original deleter, mentioned in Ms. Kriete's post, but the damage Ms. Kriete caused was far worse. As someone said in the librarians' thread:
"She [member Rora] edited the Steampunk list on June 30th - eight days ago, she made 14 deletions from the Steampunk list.
The most recent librarian to edit the list [member Evelyn Kriete] deleted 74 books and left the list with only books she herself voted on."
Ms. Kriete delete five times the number of books Rora did. She decided without any discussion or notice to destroy the list entirely, which is completely against GoodReads' policies, rather than let it continue with fourteen books deleted. She erased the votes and book recommendations of 167 people.
Then she replaced this list with one of her own. Examination of the Google cache of the page before Ms. Kriete's edits shows that she added some books not previously on the list, including her life partner's book in the number one spot, which under the circumstances does not look well.
I can understand her being upset at Rora's actions.
If she had brought them to the attention of the Librarians and the site admins and waited for comment and reply rather than taking it upon herself to act where she had no authority, if she had followed the site's guidelines, she would not have stirred any outrage. She might have even been considered the hero of the hour, since Rora's deletions appear to have been far more widespread and damaging than her own.
But she didn't. She overwrote the entire list.
Some sort of apology would seem to be called for.
Did anyone else notice that there was absolutely no apology whatsoever in Evelyn's response?Evelyn, whether you intended to do it on purpose or not, you violated the rules of this site by needlessly deleting all those extra books. I'm not entirely sure what possessed you to delete them all, since new books are added all the time and that doesn't make the list 'skewed' or 'inaccurate' (though what does make it skewed and inaccurate is using sock puppet accounts to give fake votes, but I digress...).
But at the very least, assuming that your explanation is true, I think you owe the members of this community an apology for mistakenly deleting their work.
Ok, let me clarify what happened on the list so everyone knows.I made this list back in November 2011 as a place for "holiday must haves", to help people get an idea of the steampunk books they could get as gifts for friends and family before the holiday rush. The idea was that anyone could post a book they felt was steampunk to the list, let the Goodreads community vote on them, and let that give viewers some idea of how popular a given book happens to be (which, as I understand it, is the point of the Goodreads lists).
Anyway, I checked Goodreads on Sunday when I received an email from a pal telling me that a bunch of books had disappeared from the list and the title had been changed. I checked and sure enough, a number of books had been removed by another librarian named "Rora" (who, the log tells me, not only deleted a ton of books from the list but also changed the title and purpose of the list, and all without explanation, warning, or even a simple "hey, I want to do this to your list"). As far as I can tell, Goodreads has no system for reversing drastic changes to lists like that, which meant that people's votes had been arbitrarily discounted and the list was suddenly skewed and inaccurate and I couldn't fix it. I tried to get ahold of Goodreads to see if the staff could/would fix the problem, but I didn't get a reply. So, because I made the list and felt responsible for its fairness and accuracy, I decided that the only fair solution was to clear the list and start it over from scratch (it wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best one available as it gave everyone an equal chance to get their votes back and go forward).
If the Goodreads staff can return the list to its original status, before Rora began arbitrarily deleting books from it, that would be fantastic. That's what I wanted in the first place. But it would not have been fair to either the authors who had their books deleted or to the fans who had their votes discounted if Rora's sabotage had been left in place.
For general reference, the librarian in question who sabotaged the list in the first place is, as I said, "Rora": http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/97...
The set of actions that started this entire incident are as follows:
First Rora changed the title and the meaning of the list:
"Rora updated a list
Jun 30, 2012 04:55pm (#38084964):
title: 'Steampunk Holiday Gift Must Haves' to 'Steampunk Must Haves'
description: 'Let this be your holiday gift guide for the must buy or must give steampunk books on the shelves now.' to 'Steampunk books that are so good you have to own them.'
On Jun 30, 2012 07:00pm Rora deleted a ton of books from the list, some of which had been on the list for more than half a year.
Rora updated a list:
11109846: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 05:00pm (#38085168)
Rora updated a list:
13034826: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 05:00pm (#38085163)
Rora updated a list:
12959873: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 05:00pm (#38085141)
Rora updated a list:
13589913: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:59pm (#38085131)
Rora updated a list:
13635472: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:59pm (#38085122)
Rora updated a list:
3330378: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:59pm (#38085112)
Rora updated a list:
8228039: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:58pm (#38085091)
Rora updated a list:
9452244: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:58pm (#38085085)
Rora updated a list:
8217098: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:58pm (#38085077)
Rora updated a list:
12603677: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:58pm (#38085063)
Rora updated a list:
9708869: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:57pm (#38085052)
Rora updated a list:
12315661: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:57pm (#38085038)
Rora updated a list:
10755107: book deleted
Jun 30, 2012 04:57pm (#38085036)
Rora updated a list:
12020927: book deleted
Anyway, that is why the remainder of the books were removed. But now go ahead and add or re-add your favorite steampunk books and get voting and have fun. ;-)
Sometimes changes to a list don't stick, because bits of Goodreads aren't working. I had one that didn't the first time I voted, but after I added it back it stayed.
Doc wrote: "Someone is still editing this list. Three of my books disappeared since yesterday.Doc"
D:3 I don't know what to say. The edits log for this list still doesn't show any new activity. Something is not right. Maybe you should email the site contact to ask about what's going on?
This list does look funny since last Sunday's massacre. On my screen there are a lot of books with -1, -2, and -3 votes. Many of those still have positive scores (huh?). The last nine books all have a score of 0 and negative numbers of votes. I don't think that's supposed to happen -- books with no votes and a score of 0 are usually dropped from the list at the next refresh -- but maybe it's a side effect of the weirdness of last Sunday.
Part of the point of these lists is letting people discuss them openly and getting something of a community consensus. While books which obviously do not belong on a list may be removed, the general policy seems to be to let borderline books stay, and voters can vote on them or not as they choose. In that way, books the community considers less relevant drift to the bottom of the list.Bear in mind, however, that I'm just an ordinary member and don't know all the official site policies.
Emma wrote: "Doc wrote: "There are a number of books by authors from that time period on this list."Lovecraft wrote from 1917-1937. Not Victorian at all.
*shrug* It doesn't really make a difference to me, so..."
He was born in 1890, so technically he is a contemporary, although he didn't write until after Victoria died.
Eh. *shrug*
Doc
Doc wrote: "There are a number of books by authors from that time period on this list."Lovecraft wrote from 1917-1937. Not Victorian at all.
*shrug* It doesn't really make a difference to me, so I'll drop the subject here.
Emma wrote: "Maybe not the best time to ask this, since I found this list through the stuff about the deletions, but... What's The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft doing on this list? (Currently at #14)I admi..."
There are a number of books by authors from that time period on this list. Personally, I wouldn't consider them Steampunk. I consider them Victorian Fantasy. Basically what passed for science fiction in that time and eventually evolved into sci-fi.
There are different definitions of what fits into Steampunk. I don't know that it is worth arguing over it as it is easy enough to vote for the other books.
Doc
Maybe not the best time to ask this, since I found this list through the stuff about the deletions, but... What's The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft doing on this list? (Currently at #14)I admit I don't really know the genre that well, but nothing I've read by Lovecraft fits what I do know.
Err ... the Librarians edits log for this list doesn't include anything since the OP did this two days ago, so whatever happened, it was not done by an ordinary librarian.It is possible that the admins are personally attending to this list. I notice that the OP's librarian status has been removed and that her list has been pruned in a way normal members cannot do. Her #1, #4, and #6 books are gone. I recall her #1 book was "Blood in the Skies," which is the one written by her partner which has shown up all over steampunk lists with questionable voting patterns. As for the other two, I don't know, except I recall someone commenting that she had placed two of her own books on the list as well.
I suspect the OP has caused a lot of headaches for the admins, as well as upsetting a lot of members.
Someone is still mucking about with this list. I voted yesterday, and today my two top picks (both solid Steampunk books) have been deleted from the list.Doc
I am afraid I have been unclear.For some unknown reason the OP has completely overwritten this list with one of her own. This has irrevocably removed all votes of the 166 other people on this list, although as you noted the record *that* they voted remains. What was done is directly contrary to Goodreads policy.
There are currently two discussion threads about this:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...
Alessandra wrote: "I am surprised to see that the votes of all but one of the 167 voters on this list have been removed. This is an extraordinary action, and I look forward to a clear explanation of the remover's ra..."That is interesting. Especially since it still lists the people who voted in the past, even though their votes are gone.
Off to vote AGAIN.
Doc
I am surprised to see that the votes of all but one of the 167 voters on this list have been removed. This is an extraordinary action, and I look forward to a clear explanation of the remover's rationale.
Kara wrote: "Doc wrote: "How did Phoenix Rising fail to make this list?Doc"
There now.
=)"
Which I am glad to see. It's just after staring at it for a month on the Goodreads Choice Awards, I'm surprised it could be overlooked!
Doc
It's not been out long, so might be under the radar at the minute, but you could do worse than to check out Kultus.The perfect brutal, steam-powered stocking filler!
Thanks for including us on the "Holiday Must Have" list. This is our second Top Ten list, alongside Goodreads Choice Awards! Thanks, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!
Some of these are new to me, but I can think of a few others that should probably be there! Nevertheless, thanks for the list.
As someone who is newly into steampunk this list is perfect for me! LOL, I can by myself presents right? :))
flag as offensive (?)
I fear that we must simply be left with the understanding that Evelyn is, in fact, NOT sorry for her actions.
This is a shame.