The Pile-On

I've been noticing a peculiar phenomenon on review sites: the lower a book's rating, the more people flock to read and comment on the review.

For example, I was at Dear Author yesterday. The review of a novel rated "DNF" had already garnered quite a few comments. Recent and more benign posts received roughly from five to ten comments each. I've seen this at Reviews by Jessewave, too, sometimes to a startling degree.
"Authors Behaving Badly" articles invariably draw crowds -- usually with...